Forum:Featured Articles - Main Page
Calling all Rcmurphys: I've created Main Page Beta which uses date functions in MediaWiki to automatically include the featured article, and also drops down the featured article when the day rolls over to the next, meaning that we'd no longer need to bother moving the article to yesterday's featured article, and it'd also allow us to queue up articles for featuring in advance, which would certainly help cut down on the number of articles sat on VFH waiting to be featured. -- Prof. Olipro KUN (W)Anchor Op Bur. (Harass) 00:01, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- I like the idea here. It makes a whole lot of sense and also helps VFH stop being so cluttered (which is always annoying). Only caveat, once an article is queued, and another article surpasses it in number of votes, what would happen?-Sir Ljlego, GUN VFH FIYC WotM SG WHotM PWotM AotM EGAEDM ANotM + (Talk) 00:17, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Nothing, it doesn't particularly matter when something's featured, so long as it's featured. -- Prof. Olipro KUN (W)Anchor Op Bur. (Harass) 00:19, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Neato - when I have time I'll see if I can figure out the formatting. I probably wouldn't want to queue things too far in advance (maybe three days at the most), but it'll be helpful when I know beforehand that I'll be pressed for time. —rc (t) 01:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- I think queuing should be reserved for days when there is no featured article, the featured article was never actually voted on, Top10 featuring, etc. - days when the featured article doesn't come from VFH, and the system is uncharacteristically backed up. t o m p k i n s blah. ﺞوﻦ וףה ՃՄ ண்ஸ ފއހ วอฏม +տ trade websites 04:23, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Is it possible to leave out the "Recently featured" and "Archive - Vote for featured articles" bits from the Yesterday's Featured box when the featured article gets dropped down? —rc (t) 06:54, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
- There's also generally enough room below Yesterday's Featured Article for a The Day Before Yesterday's Featured Article, or perhaps a randomly chosen page from the Featured articles section of Uncyclopedia:Best of. Just a thought. Sir Modusoperandi Boinc! 01:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Hm, the second idea is rather appealing. Perhaps a "Year Ago Today" third feature or something? I might try to work something up (or since I'm lazy, if anybody else wants to do so, feel free :D). —rc (t) 01:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- This "Anniversary Featured Article" idea you propose is intriguing. I believe its inception would be a good thing. -- 01:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Agreed.-Sir Ljlego, GUN VFH FIYC WotM SG WHotM PWotM AotM EGAEDM ANotM + (Talk) 01:51, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Wow, that is a good idea. Definitely no more than three articles on the front page at one time though. We don't want to clutter it. Sir Cs1987 UOTM. t. c 02:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, and I'm not sure if I want it to be featured in the same way new articles are. I was thinking something shorter - maybe just a sentence or two sans image. —rc (t) 03:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Even just a bold link would probably suffice, but I do like the idea. t o m p k i n s blah. ﺞوﻦ וףה ՃՄ ண்ஸ ފއހ วอฏม +տ trade websites 04:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, and I'm not sure if I want it to be featured in the same way new articles are. I was thinking something shorter - maybe just a sentence or two sans image. —rc (t) 03:38, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Wow, that is a good idea. Definitely no more than three articles on the front page at one time though. We don't want to clutter it. Sir Cs1987 UOTM. t. c 02:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Agreed.-Sir Ljlego, GUN VFH FIYC WotM SG WHotM PWotM AotM EGAEDM ANotM + (Talk) 01:51, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- This "Anniversary Featured Article" idea you propose is intriguing. I believe its inception would be a good thing. -- 01:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Hm, the second idea is rather appealing. Perhaps a "Year Ago Today" third feature or something? I might try to work something up (or since I'm lazy, if anybody else wants to do so, feel free :D). —rc (t) 01:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I definitely dig the "Year Ago Today" idea!!!1 -- 04:36, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
I added a tentative "Featured a year ago today" template to Main Page Beta. It links to the featured version of the page. I can create FFA ("former featured article") templates for each one and have the template update automatically - by UTC time, but that doesn't bother me much. Now, one thing this will do for a while is actually list each article two days in a row, because until December last year I only updated every two days. Also I'm not sure what to do about times when new featured articles were put on hold - for example, when we re-featured the top 10 of 2006. We could just leave it empty, since leaving one article up for more than ten days would be kind of dumb, as would re-featuring those articles yet again.
Finally, if we really wanted to reach back in time, we could even link articles from two years ago as well. —rc (t) 04:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- If we can bug wikia to install the DPL extension (not to be confused with DPLforum), it should be possible to do all that automatically with the templates that already exist on the pages, and no changes except to the main page itself. Possibly. It would also definitely be possible to choose a random featured article to link to. And it can also do a whole lot more magic with the pages besides that. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 05:51, 08 Jun 2007
- So should I wait for this or go ahead with the Many Templates? —rc (t) 17:30, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- I dunno...I checked out the beta and it shows in the "today's featured article" an article that isn't a featured article. This confuses my brain but, since it's my UnNews story, warms the cockles of my heart. To recap: Brain, confused. Cockles, warm. Sir Modusoperandi Boinc! 17:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
- Apparently that extension is on the list of things to do at wikia, so it should be possible soon enough. It's also future proof, and so doesn't need any new templates to be created for it in the future for future featured articles, as long as the featured template continues using the same date format. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 11:39, 08 Jun 2007
- So should I wait for this or go ahead with the Many Templates? —rc (t) 17:30, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
You guys all rock. When I get around to retiring, I know that the place will be left in good hands. Not that I'm planning any time soon. And it's not like that happy occasion will severely decrease the amount of work I do here, as limited as it is at the moment. But good work all around! 06/8 23:44
Did anyone notice that ED has the "Featured article for today on individual pages so we wouldn't have to edit the Featured Article of the Now page" idea too? --Sir General Minister G5 FIYC UPotM [Y] #21 F@H KUN 07:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)