You might be looking for the discussion about the Next Featured Page.
I think we need to have a conversation — perhaps resulting with a page describing some guidelines — about the purpose and design of the Featured Page. It is being used for events rather than featuring a page, and sometimes people don't think about how the Featured Page might make a mess of the Front Page.
Comments:
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2012-04-26 18:14:29 At least this one has a relevant page about a specific event. It's being used for blatant promotion of things, not far from the recent Co-Dependents Anonymous spam: "my cause is very important and should be very visible". I'm not opposed to pointing people at the Picnic Day entries on Picnic Day, but even then, it would be nicer to point people at pages like notable past Picnic Day events so that the wiki's body of information about the topic is presented.
It feels like it's being used as a banner ad. —JabberWokky
2012-04-26 18:14:29 I used to feel kinda frustrated by its usage for events rather than for, you know, featuring a page. But the featured page doesn't get updated as much as you'd expect, otherwise. Sometimes it stays stagnant for months. It might be valuable to let it take on whatever purpose it needs to, which will hopefully encourage a more dynamic front page. Maybe rename the section to "Community Spotlight" or something?
I do think it's perferable for it to refer to actual wiki pages whenever possible. But something like the KDVS fundraiser — which has appeared as the featured page every year since 2005 — I think is pretty reasonable. Maybe a light guideline that says that, if you feature something, it's got to have a page associated with it (even if it's a page for a one-time event). —PhilipNeustrom
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I keep thinking that, but then I look at Events and Davis Issues, which are pretty much the same thing. I think people are just grabbing the top spot. Note that there is already an Event for the same thing: the page reads (right now), the KDVS fundraiser, then the next section, which is Events, of which the first event is the KDVS fundraiser. As I say above, highlighting major town events, like Picnic Day or the KDVS fundraising drive makes sense... but I think it would be nicer to pair it in a way where the history of KDVS and information is presented in the context of the fundraiser... i.e., leveraging the information on the wiki during the appropriate time and then presenting it to people who might not know the history or interesting details about a town topic. I think that beats a single link just to the event information. -jw
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I agree. Well said. -SM
2012-04-26 19:00:15 Although I'll agree with Philip that the featured page has often been stagnant in the past, there have been a lot of important non-recurring Davis news items recently which deserve significant attention. I would personally have liked to have seen the Reynoso Report or the Davis Dozen pages featured for much longer, not only because they represent the continuation of issues which have garnered national interest, but also because they are very powerful and interesting to local residents, many of whom have not been playing close attention to the recent developments. —ScottMeehleib
2012-04-26 23:08:02 I should be clear — it wasn't KDVS Fundraiser in particular that I was objecting to (especially since I have seen that one go up year after year). I really did want to start a general discussion. The KDVS Fundraiser is simply the most recent, and not the worst, example of the problem that I see. Another recent and frequent example is the Davis People's Free School. I saw the original version of the Davis Dozen page in the same way. These are not the only examples, just the recent ones that spring to mind. (And just to be clear — these are all worthy causes, so that is not my issue either!)
In each of these cases, the following occurred:
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An event was featured, with a page not linked to at all or only in passing. Other gnomes had to go and clear things up in order to feature the page, although gnomes were careful to retain the event announcement.
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A mess was made of the page in various ways. Headers were used, which don't work on the front page. Or the entry was too long for the featured page. Or the image was messed up. More gnome cleanup.
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No discussion occurred on the Next Featured Page, and in most cases, the existing page was just summarily dumped, even if it hadn't been there very long.
I'm not seeing this as a situation where we need to bring down the hammer — again, that's not my point at all. Rather, I think this is an opportunity for discussion and ultimately provide a way to give guidelines to people so that these problems don't continually recur. As JW says, we already have an events calendar and and issues page. The uses I describe just seem a way to say, "look at mine! Mine is most important!". I also don't have a problem with including specific events as part of a featured page, but the emphasis should be on the page, not the issue, and again, this is something we could draw up some guidelines for. As it is, I think the weight of recent practice has led to a misunderstanding of the Featured Page that perpetuates itself. I think the idea of a Featured Page, highlighting some neat aspect of Davis, is exactly in the spirit of what the wiki is supposed to be about and I'd hate to lose that.
As for the Featured page not getting updated enough otherwise — yes, I have certainly seen that. However, I think that is part of a larger problem that we lack a critical mass of dedicated editors — and the reasons for that are beyond the scope of this discussion, I would say. —CovertProfessor
2012-04-27 14:48:20 I know I don't update it as often as I might out of a sense that I want to be polite and let others have a go at it. Which is silly, if others do the same. —JabberWokky
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On the contrary, I think reasonably frequent changes to Featured Pages that actually feature a page might inspire others. —CovertProfessor
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I really shouldn't post from my phone. I mean that if everybody is holding back out of politeness, it never gets updated. -jw
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Yes, I understood that. I was trying to say that not only can not-editing be silly and lead to stagnation if everyone is just being polite, but also, more editing might actually encourage others to have a go at it, or at least have a go at it in more appropriate ways. —cp
