Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-09/Dispatches

Progress
Just a bit of encouragement from your designated "shepherd".... this looks like a marvellous start! Excellent. :) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:03, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Other heads to be added include "Addressing concerns" and the dreaded "If your topic is controversial..." :)  -- Laser brain   (talk)  02:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Good indeed, Laser. How do you feel about an image? I wonder whether we could insert an example of a main-page FA? TONY   (talk)  09:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. I'm terrible at images and graphics but I'll give it a go. -- Laser brain   (talk)  23:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

It's great to see this so advanced in such good time. FWIW I've added a section here should there be a need for more general FCDW discussion of the dispatch's progress. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 01:38, 1 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'll contribute more this week...I just changed jobs, am acclimating a new Cockatoo, and finishing up a project that's been on my workbench for far too long! Should have some spare time this week, though.--Mike - Μολὼν λαβέ 18:53, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

History
I'm going to post elsewhere to see if we can get some content or stats on:


 * 1) Average mainpage hits; how much traffic does the mainpage generate, and
 * 2) History of the mainpage relative to featured articles, what/when was the first mainpage featured article, etc.

Sandy Georgia (Talk) 21:51, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Regarding (1), monthly page view statistics are now available at http://stats.grok.se. For example here is the hit count for the Main Page in May, and here is the hit count for Elderly Instruments in the same month, where you can clearly see the jump on May 21, the day it was featured.


 * Regarding (2), according to the archives of WP:TFA, the first mainpage featured article was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart on 22 February, 2004. Dr pda (talk) 02:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * According to Wikipedia:History of Wikipedian processes and people, FA was created out of Brilliant prose in March 2004, though that page is sadly neglected. I don't know when Brilliant prose began but I think I read somewhere once that they also put selections on the Main Page. You'd have to ask one of the old-timers, since the page histories have been lost for this period. - BanyanTree 09:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
 * On the statistics, this is a pretty stark representation :) Daniel (talk) 03:53, 10 June 2008 (UTC)