Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-01-02/Featured content

Ghosts of featured content past, present, and future

Two graphs of the featured content promoted this year, using the data in the table below. The line chart on the left shows the individual rates of promotion of each type of featured material, by month. The stacked bars on the right show the contribution of each featured-content forum towards the total number of new promotions, by month.

Legend

  Articles

  Lists

  Sounds

  Topics

  Portals

  Pictures

*Note: This does not include demoted content

Over the past year, 1,053 pieces of featured content were promoted. The most active of the featured content programs was featured article candidates, which promoted an average of 30 articles a month. This was followed by featured picture candidates (25 a month). Coming in third was featured list candidates (20 a month). Featured sound candidates, although the most active in April, died in mid-August; as such, it promoted an average of 11 sounds a month. Featured topic and featured portal candidates were a bit sluggish, each promoting fewer than 20 items over the year.

Despite this fairly large increase in the total amount of featured content, systemic bias continues, specifically a focus on the anglosphere. At featured article candidates, common topics include male political figures, ships, television episodes, and songs, generally from the US, Britain, and Australia. Featured list candidates has been dominated by discographies and sports rosters, also predominantly from the US and Britain. Featured picture candidates has seen many animal species, works of art by European and American artists, and similar subjects. Although there are some exceptions, the systemic bias pervades every featured content process. For comparison, numerous non-anglosphere topics, even on important figures such as Prime Ministers, remain stubs.

Aside from the promotion of featured content, another key development this year was the creation of today's featured list, where featured lists are shown on the main page, currently once a week on Mondays. The proposal was implemented 13 June after a formal proposal in early June. Several years in the making, this new section of the main page has shown 29 featured lists thus far, starting with List of signs and symptoms of diving disorders.

What does the future hold? Will the number of successful nominations continue to increase, or will other projects join featured sounds? Will systemic bias continue to run rampant? Will featured topics, portals, and sounds ever reach the main page? Will Jenna Jameson? Only time will tell.

And now, the Signpost is proud to present the last new featured content of 2011.