Listing off progress from 2012
This week, the Signpost's featured content section continues its recap of 2012 by looking at featured lists. We interviewed FLC directors Giants2008 and The Rambling Man as well as active reviewer and writer PresN.
Giants2008
Many high-quality lists came through the featured list process in 2012, and I had the opportunity to review many of them. My personal favorite among 2012's promotions is Boden Professor of Sanskrit, a unique list on a University of Oxford position. The list is not one of the longest to be promoted last year, but the research behind it is impeccable and the backstory behind the creation of the position is interesting even to those who know nothing about the Sanskrit language, like myself. In addition, the work on this list led directly to the creation of a spin-off article that achieved featured article status. Boden Professor of Sanskrit shows that featured lists can be every bit as well-researched as longer articles, and that lists can be more than just a bunch of data-filled tables.
The Rambling Man
We have a very diverse set of subjects nominated at WP:FLC, but in 2012, within the nearly 240 promotions, I found a pair of lists that were just a little bit "more" diverse than our usual fare. Firstly, the list of chronometers on HMS Beagle, nominated by Spinningspark in May was a really engaging piece of work combining nice prose, with useful tables, great images and gave prominence to a really niche subject matter. My second choice, nominated by a group of enthusiastic editors led by Serendipodous, is the timeline of the far future, successful in August on its third attempt at FLC, just going to show that you should "try, try and try again". Another really unusual but very welcome subject for our featured lists.
PresN
It was with great difficulty that I tried to narrow all of the Featured List promotions of the year down to a bare few, and in the end rather than just one I came up with four that I found particularly interesting in their subject matter and impressive in their construction. These are: List of Olympic medalists in art competitions, for capturing a realm of competition I think most people do not know existed; List of chronometers on HMS Beagle, for a fascinating deep dive into a niche area that was of great importance at the time; List of battlecruisers, as one of the capstones of the incredibly massive and long-running Operation Majestic Titan project; and my personal favorite for the year, Timeline of the far future, for the sheer scope of the far-flung events it covers.