Wikipedia:Selected Articles on the Main Page

This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference.
Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump.

This page is now superseded by the new Main Page. See Wikipedia:Editing the main page.

The Selected Articles section on the Main Page has several purposes, all of which (we hope) support the central purpose of Wikipedia--making a great encyclopedia. The section links to entries of timely interest that are (and this is crucial) nonetheless encyclopedia articles, not news articles.

Wikipedia is not an online newspaper; but many Wikipedians are motivated to create and edit entries of timely interest, and because Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, it does a much better job with entries of timely interest (or recent events of historical importance) than a "dead tree" encyclopedia.

(A historical note: the section began with the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack entries put up within minutes of the attacks. The entries led to a massive infusion of interest in the project.)

Example

Selected Articles

In the news:	Uup - Super Bowl - Hutton Inquiry - Mydoom - Abdul Khan
Recent deaths:	Don Cholito - Jack Paar - Fanny Blankers-Koen - Helmut Newton
New articles:	Iron triangle - Laocoon - Habitat for Humanity - Pacific Gull
Featured articles:	Foundation Series - Rainbow - Copyright - Madonna - Free will
Anniversaries:	November 1 - Groundhog Day - Knights of Columbus - Candlemas - University of Jena - OED - Columbia disaster - Tet Offensive

Adding links

Anyone with sysop access can edit the Main Page and update the Selected Articles section. This may be the most glamorous reason to get sysop access, which is encouraged for regular Wikipedians.

Wikipedia talk:Selected Articles on the Main Page can be used to suggest links, though the criteria below should make the process relatively automatic.

Get a link added

This is a quick-and-dirty summary of the criteria listed below. To get an entry listed on the Main Page, make sure it's a good entry and it isn't already listed appropriately in Current events (for In the news:...), Recent deaths (for Recent deaths:...), Background articles for ongoing events (for Ongoing events:...), or a recent day page (for Historical anniversaries:..).

Criteria for inclusion on Main Page

The most important rule is to use good judgment. If an event of colossal and staggering importance happens, even if a great entry hasn't been written on it, then it would be reasonable to add a link. Most of the time, the following informal but rigorous criteria should help take care of the section.

These criteria are informal and malleable. They do not represent, as of the current writing (October 2002), a formal consensus on how to handle the section. They are little more than an attempt to organize current practice into some degree of objective standards. (See talk to get the back story.)

Current informal criteria for what gets put in the Selected Articles section on the Main Page:

All links appearing in section should first be included on corresponding news/deaths/events/anniversaries page
All links appearing in this section should go to non-stub entries (greater than 500 chars)
No more entries per line than can be seen on a computer monitor with standard resolution and font size without wrapping, for a total of no more than about 20 entries. See MainPage screenshot 800x600.jpg for an example.

Types of entries that are included

The links are separated into four categories:

In the news: these should be the five or six recent full entries that are linked from the Current events timeline. See below for an example. Criteria for listing on the Main Page:

be listed on the current events page
the current event needs to be important enough to warrant updating corresponding article
the article must be updated to reflect the new information (but remember: Wikipedia is not a news report)

Recent deaths: simply, famous people who have died within the last week or so that have updated articles written for the person.

be listed on the recent deaths page

New articles: selected from recent additions to Special:Newpages; should be non-stub and properly wikilinked articles, preferably good examples of new Wikipedia articles.

Featured articles: selected from Wikipedia:Featured articles on a rotating basis. Preferable each featured article should be from a different category.

Anniversaries: these entries are of historical events whose anniversary occurred within the last seven days from the current day of the year (there is no need to list items that are already listed on the day page already linked on the Main Page). The criteria for inclusion on the Main Page is rather subjective due to the fact that any given day of the year can have a great many historical anniversaries worthy of listing. So relative article quality along with the mix of topics already listed are often deciding factors. Removing lower quality items after a day or two (instead of the maximum of seven days) or items of less historical significance than other items listed, should also be done (if the event is the debut of a famous movie, then that should not stay listed as long as an article whose recent anniversary was the start of a major conflict). Criteria for inclusion on the Main Page:

the article needs to be listed in the Events: section of its corresponding day of the year article (see exception below)
the article needs to be of moderate to great historical significance (relative to the other historical events that occurred on or about the same day of the year).
the historical event needs to be important enough to be included in the article
the article needs to be updated to clearly state the event and the exact day it occurred (with the day and year linked).
the article must not be a stub and preferably it should be a relatively complete and well-formatted article.

It is customary to list anniversaries only the day after the current day, since, they will already be listed on the current day page. When that page falls off the Main Page at midnight and those articles -- hopefully -- have been updated, then a few good examples are listed under Anniversaries.

The logic behind this is that summarizing a list that is already directly linked does not encourage people to visit the current day page, which shows off our articles on historical events.

So, a combination of the "majorness" of the event, the mix of items already listed, along with the relative completeness of the article, are the criteria used, along with the requirement for appropriate "context". This way, we encourage people to update the articles, the reward being a possible Main Page listing a day or so later.

NOTE: Most of the time most items are pushed off the Main Page before seven days. Only really major events should stay that long.

Exceptions: Birth and death anniversaries can be listed if they mark a noteworthy year milestone (such as 100, 200, 300 etc years since the birth or death). Holidays listed in the Holidays section of a day page may also be listed. Unlike other 'Anniversary' listings, holidays should be listed just for that day. However, an appropriately updated non-holiday article associated with the holiday can be listed longer. For example, Columbus Day would only be listed on the day it is observed. But Christopher Columbus could be listed the next day and stay for several days.