04 mirror: https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/forum/t-18101030/2025-preliminary-town-hall-responses
Hello there everyone! We deeply apologise for the delay on getting these answers ported over, a lot of other staff projects ended up taking priority for many members, and the Data Analysis team went through a lot of changes in membership as well. Data Analysis as a team is more solid again so we now have the responses ready for you all.
We don't know how often Town Halls will be held in future, but we would like for them to pop up again. We would also like to remind all members to remain civil in their questions, as we had to ignore some received bits of feedback that were particularly pointed/rude.
This is your chance to express thoughts and opinions on responses, so if there's any issues with the responses feel free to speak up now!
Discussion will last for a week.
Contests
Not really a complaint at all but it seems as though events have been handled really well this year. PDcon absolutely knocked it out of the park and it already appears as though Classiccon is a huge hit. I'm not sure the right term for the more "unofficial" events (e.g. draft swap, intcanoncon, Pridefest) but those have also knocked it out of the park and have been incredibly engaging. The event staff have been incredibly diligent, both across the wiki and on the discord. I also have to give props to them with how the overlap between Pridfest and Classiccon was handled, everything was done in a truly respectful manner and was a fantastic step up from the wrathcon stuff from last year. Community Outreach also did a really good job at promoting Pridefest and seem to be doing good to promote Classiccon right now.
Now that we're a little over halfway through the year, I feel pretty confident in saying that revealing the approximate dates of (official) contests is an improvement on the way things used to operate, if for no other reason than the fact it helps fight FOMO if you don't have the time/energy to take part in any particular contest. I hope the team decides to do that again next year!
Seconded, it's amazing to have a preview of what contests are gonna hit, especially when you have a very rigid schedule and want to plan ahead. Great idea for sure!
Just wanting to say you're doing an amazing job with contest lately. Hubs are beautiful, and themes are really cool. Congratulations for that! Keep up with the great work
Everyone with positive feedback for the contests team was so kind, thank you. We’ve been trying to improve scheduling transparency and are working on a calendar to make it even better in 2026, so it’s good to hear it’s already been making a difference.
My one "complaint" is that I would like to see the art side of the wiki involved a little more in these events. I was a little disappointed when the art component was removed from whatever Classiccon was going to be but Pridefest handled art really well. Granted I am almost entirely certain my itch for an art event will be satisfied with sciptember and art exchange and I have full faith the event teams will handle those well.
Gonna mirror cptsquid's comment a bit and say that I would really like to see a fully artwork themed contest. Maybe it could even be linked with a writing contest and we have artists submit their work for writers to pick from for creating articles to attach to the pieces. I think it could be a fun indirect collaboration effort. Really any art based contest I think could be a lot of fun.
While we're still debating the feasibility of art & writing contests, we will def take the demand for an art-exclusive contest into account.
I think the events on the wiki are great, and that making and regimenting the calendar for the events , along with making it more visible, would be able to help shine some light on these events. I think that just adding a link under "Contest Archives" to a page like "Upcoming Events", and putting a table there with the information, would be a great move.
A schedule page with a yearly calendar is currently in the works. It'll have its own page alongside a submission form for unofficial contests to be placed on the calendar, so as not to clutter the existing archives page.
Agree with Wynths, there should be a Contest Archive page a la the Canon Hub, Curated Lists, etc.
We already have a contest archive! You can find it here: Contest Archive
Perhaps more prep time for events? i sometimes will skip them if the writing time is particularly short.
Prep time depends on the type of contest at hand, so short prep times are usually intentional. If there’s general demand that our largest contests (like Kcons) should have longer prep times, we’ll totally consider it, but as of right now that doesn’t seem to be the case.
the anthology events were really cool. I appreciate the effort people put in to create unique events.
Thank you for the kind words, but we don’t run anthology! We’ll let them know you thought so :)
Please actually make Pride Fest last all month in the future. No interrupting it with a contest announcement ten days before the month ends, no saying "We're only doing features for half a month", none of that. The world's scary for queer folks right now and seeing an allegedly queer-friendly space take half-measures for the sake of an arbitrary schedule is disappointing.
Staff are currently working to make Pridefest an official event, so rest easy on that front! Additionally, June will now be dedicated exclusively to Pridefest, and no other official events will occur that month with the exception of five-year anniversaries. Staff discussion concluded that since we can't really move the anniversary date, five-year anniversaries will also occur in June.
Internet Outreach
I think it would be good to see Community Outreach post more regularly on the Wiki’s official social media pages. Right now, quite a few of the official pages haven’t seen activity in months, or only see infrequent posts, which is a shame because these spaces are great ways to reach people and get more eyes on the Wiki. As it currently stands, here are the stats:
Facebook: The last post was from January 23rd, and the second last post was from August 27th 2024.
Twitter: The last post was from June 22nd, promoting Classic Con, and the second last post was from November 2nd 2022.
TikTok: There aren’t any posts by the Wiki. Further, there are only 5 reposts and 6 videos in playlists, all of which seem to have been from around 2 to 3 years ago.
BlueSky: I want to compliment whoever is running this page, as it receives fairly frequent updates that include sharing art, different works, and recent happenings on the Wiki, such as contests. However, this social media page isn’t advertised with the others in the Wiki’s sidebar. At the very least, it should be added, perhaps as a replacement for Twitter if the Wiki wants to go that route.
Instagram: Once again, I want to compliment whoever has worked on the most recent posts on this page. They’ve gotten good engagement, and people are clearly enjoying the content being posted. However, posting on this page has been infrequent. They’ve been 4 posts over the last 2 weeks, followed by 1 in May, 2 in March, then 1 on August 27th 2024. Also, there hasn't been any posts regarding contests or other Wiki happenings. While I do like the current content being posted, and it's clearly working, I do think there should be a mix of fun posts and posts about news/events, rather than purely fun.
Reddit: This is by far the most active social media page the Wiki has. Full compliments to the team that keeps this page active and moderated. They’re doing a spectacular job.
I know from experience that maintaining a social media page is difficult. Creating and posting content, reading and replying to comments and keeping the page updated with new profile pictures, descriptions, etc is hard and time-consuming. I also don’t expect Wiki to post multiple times daily or to produce highly edited content that takes hours to produce.
But there should be more frequent posts, especially on platforms like Twitter and TikTok that have seen little or no activity. There are always new/old articles and art that can be posted and promoted, as well as important events like contests or town halls like this one. And with more activity comes new eyes that will make their way to the Wiki to read and perhaps contribute. At the very least, I think a few articles being promoted each week would be a great first step, and help get more eyes on the Wiki's socials and the Wiki itself.
The Internet Outreach subteam has been having consistency issues primarily due to a lack of personnel. As mentioned in your post, maintaining dedicated social media platforms with consistent activity is a multi-person endeavor, and IO has been seeking skilled individuals to recruit for a while. We hope in the future to continue expanding IO and ensuring its operations are entirely self-sufficient and (most importantly for volunteer work) fun.
To address specific platforms:
The Facebook was largely maintained by a singular member of staff. After they retired, it largely fell by the wayside, especially due to its relative lack of meaningful activity prior besides article highlights and announcements. IO is still looking to staff the Facebook.
The Instagram was largely mirroring the Facebook's posts for much of its lifetime. As of recently, a new staff member took up the Instagram as an individual platform, and they are responsible for the platform's revitalization. We are still seeking new users to staff the platform to prevent burnout.
The Twitter and the Bluesky mirror each other's posts. The Twitter has been posting just as frequently as the Bluesky.
The Reddit has thankfully avoided burnout by being a moderation position rather than content creation position.
The TikTok has suffered from several major issues that has prevented its revitalization, namely: 1. its content creators being removed from staff due to external factors, 2. difficulty in consistently producing shortform video content, and 3. conflicts between personal monetization and staff accounts being unmonetized. IO has continuously attempted to fix these issues, but there are many other problems that we have to address first.
We will continue to recruit personnel and work on solving the issues that prevent consistency. We apologize for this turbulent period.
Hi!, I feel like the community outreach team could probably be a bit more consistent with posting in other platforms such as tiktok or Instagram because while the posts there are good, they are quite rare, with weeks long pauses between posts, which I believe could be improved
You're absolutely correct in that regard; please see our comment above for further details.
A few years ago, the subreddit did a "No Nut November" event where discussion of articles above +500 was banned. Can something similar be done again, either on the subreddit or on the main site?
We will forward this suggestion to the Reddit Subteam as a potential event (or something similar) to do in the future!
Data Analysis
I wish staff would take the feedback they get from town halls as seriously as they take the feedback they get on their writing. It's genuinely disheartening to see basically nothing suggested in town halls actually get implemented or discussed further, with basically every response in the last three years being just a gigantic shrug. I'm not sure if staff's just out of touch, or if they genuinely do not care about the state of the site at this point.
Town Halls are a time when the community is better able to raise potential concerns or suggestions about how to better the wiki. While staff wants to provide this space, we focus on solutions that are appropriate for the wiki, based on countless factors and coordination between teams. While it may seem like staff doesn't do anything with these comments, we actively discuss them, and try to find solutions that work for all users.
Just wondering why this doesn't have a "Where can we follow up" entry like it did in previous years.
This was done to protect the identity of anonymous submitters; while 'where can we follow up' allowed for further communication, it also negated the concept of the submission being anonymous. To help users feel safe in giving anonymous feedback, that was removed for this year.
Critique Team
It isn't very easy to post your first article; you may not get greenlights right away, and may have to reach out to reviewers.
This is the system as intended. Greenlights are never guaranteed, and as our reviewers are all volunteers we do expect authors to contact them directly if they want feedback. You need to be ready to put in effort if you want your work to be successful! We will always have far, far more authors than there are reviewers, and you're not likely to make friends or see success if you see contacting them as an obstacle instead of an opportunity. Success lies in collaboration, it's how a community grows.
I don't think, as a rule, Crit Staff on 19cord (especially in writing-general) should be referencing their own works as "examples" when providing writing advice. It's not a good look, and there are hundreds of other articles that would work for just about any writing question.
Users tend to link the first article that comes to mind when offering examples, and it isn’t unusual for users to recall their own work before that of others. Likewise it's easier for an author to speak for authorial intent on their own work versus another, which often makes it easier to use as an example. They're able to speak with confidence as to why they made the writing decisions they did. Please remember that all users are encouraged to provide whatever examples they feel are relevant during writing discussions.
Curation
Would be cool to have additional page links at the bottom of certain SCPs that would lead to related tales, art, and MTF's. For example a link at the bottom of SCP-008 leading to Operation "Camp Granada".
While we support linking connected tales, art, and more, the body of an article is considered under the creative control of the original author — we absolutely encourage that connected stories crosslink to relevant pages, we do not have any current plans to make larger edits of that kind.
Disciplinary
There should be more transparency in regard to 05command. In particular, the Disciplinary Team is somewhat opaque, and has received criticism in the past for their handling of certain issues (such as when Metaphysician was banned), which I personally feel have not been adequately addressed.
We are constantly striving towards better transparency on the Disciplinary team, while also balancing what information we share. This is important, not only to protect users, but so that we can continue to operate effectively in keeping the wiki safe. In the past months, we have also prioritized better explaining aspects of our decisions publicly, and will continue to work towards better transparency in the future.
Deletions
I feel it was a mistake for staff to honor Kalinin's requests for deletion of his pre-2015 works. He was a toxic user for well over a decade, but his works had merit, and seeing them nuked from the site at the request of someone who should have been permanently banned for low-effort and hostile critique feels wrong.
Our previous rules required us to enable the deletion of the pages, which we largely agree was an unfavorable outcome. However, as was discussed and voted on between Jan-Feb of 2025 in the following threads:
- https://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-17018475/discussion-on-the-preservation-of-important-works
- https://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-17024639/discussion-preservation-of-important-works-pt-2
- https://05command.wikidot.com/forum/t-17029186/voting-deletion-self-responsibility-slug-reservation
Staff will no longer honor deletion requests on behalf of authors.
We will unlock pages that are locked to facilitate this if requested, but staff will no longer be honoring deletion requests; I.E.: if an author deletes their account and returns, staff will not be deleting the works they published under their old account(s) for them, but we will unlock new ones made on their current account (assuming they had to be locked for whatever reason) at the author's request. We will additionally not be stopping authors from deleting any of their own pages, should they choose to do so.
In short, staff-facilitated deletions are no longer an option moving forward outside of regular deletion procedures.
Tagging
I know it's not the site's fault, but like the tags have disappeared when I click on them, and the cache is fucked up per usual. Otherwise, everything is fine.-
Fairly regularly tags are changed by members of the team as new ones are introduced or incorrect or invalid tags are removed from articles. Are tags disappearing on articles, or within the tag navigation cloud you're brought to when clicking on a valid tag?
Navigation
A lot of questions regarding the front page were presented. They can be seen by opening the collapsible below:
The Front Page has been updated to expand on discoverability and further expound on important navigation landmarks. It is expected to be further iterated upon with further feedback and streamlining.
It would be nice if with the spotlighted pages there were links to the highest rated article in the last month, or the most recently posted article, or some kind of "highest rated in proportion to author's overall rating". This would help solve the problem of not getting eyes on lesser known works.
These are all things a reader could figure out for themselves, but having them readily accessible drives more attention that way.
These links are present on the front page, which also leads to dedicated pages such as Shortest Pages and Top Rated in the last Month.
"highest rated in proportion to author's overall rating" is currently not feasible or difficult to implement with regards to sitewide servicing.
Readers will always have a bias towards reading the new works of established popular authors first, but I think we can combat this by changing the Reader's Spotlight on the front page to prioritize first-time nominees. As in, smaller authors who haven't had a spotlight before. That way, we can give them 15 minutes of fame while also highlighting a hidden gem.
Also, the "Featured SCP" has often been one that was chosen by the same user that wrote that article. Perhaps that shouldn't be allowed?
The Reviewers' Spotlight is meant to be a reward for reviewers, not a chore, so I am hesitant to add strict requirements to what spotlighted reviewers are permitted to feature. I can recommend that reviewers prioritize spotlighting works by newer authors; ideally this would be accompanied by some resources to help reviewers efficiently find quality works by smaller-name writers.
I have no intention of disallowing self-features, especially in the cases of front-page features granted as prizes for winning contests and features granted for participation in the Critique Team mentorship flights.
Presently, the sidebar's UI design encourages users to start reading with Series I, which does not reflect the community's current culture or editorial standards. I think this probably contributes to the number of new users who post 2008-style articles, believing they are still in vogue.
I propose changing the "SCP by Series" module to descending order, with the latest series at the top and Series I at the bottom. This would provide some subtle encouragement for users to start with more modern articles. Additionally, if staff adds a sidebar link to the 001 Proposal landing page, it could improve visibility for those articles.
I'm not sure if I'm supposed to reply to posts on here, but I want to heartily second with the notion that the UI design encourages new users to look at Series I SCP's. As a newer author on the site, I was quickly discouraged by the amount of criticism I received that my ideas and writing were too "series I", because earlier series (1-3) is most of what I read before trying my hand at creating SCP's. I legitimately thought, as mentioned above, that I was supposed to start with series 1 by the site design.
I would also lightly recommend that canon hubs be pushed higher, as it is an effective form of tight-knit community building and could pull people into specific niches of the community faster.
This is partly addressed with the Front Page directly linking to the newest Series.
Your suggestion will be further discussed in tandem with future plans, as we approach and surpass Series 10.
I would love to see the sidebar re-worked.
As it is, the sidebar sits in an awkward area of not being comprehensive, but having too much stuff for a non-comprehensive resource.
It also has a lot of options that are not intuitive to people who do not have previous experience with the site, which makes things even worse.
I think the categories should be dropdown menus, so people aren't overwhelmed by the number of links. Each menu could also have a link along the lines of "what is a series?" or "what are non-article pages?"
Or if dropdowns aren't desired, then the headers could just link to other pages which provide the links and explain what they are.
Additionally, the sidebar is where people are going to check first for different things. If they don't find it on the sidebar, they might never check the drop down menus at the top right.
I am speaking from experience here, since I didn't realize there was a direct link to the guide hub until today.
Either the sidebar should be more clearly labeled as being just about discovering new articles, or more should be added to the sidebar, such as links to guides and other out of character pages.
Thank you for your time!
The sidebar is designed around being a quick navigation menu that's accessible everywhere, thus it contains most pertinent links in that regards.
Collapsible has previously been examined, but being collapsed lead to the risk of it being overlooked completely, especially at a glance.
With consideration to the site as a whole, the onboarding process for familiarizing links is being moved to the front page.
"Either the sidebar should be more clearly labeled as being just about discovering new articles, or more should be added to the sidebar, such as links to guides and other out of character pages."
This previously resulted in massive bloat, so we usually seek alternative layout solutions.
Does everyone else have a ton of bookmarks in a folder called 'scp' in their browser too? I wish there was a system to save/favorite pages, and a way to list pages you've rated already. Is there some alternative here I'm missing? I dont want to keep fighting to keep bookmarks organized ×o×
This feature is currently available with crom
a different complaint, minor one at that. i kinda wished the scp title shows up with the number. i felt like we are approaching to 5 digits very quickly. i think alot of users often mix up the numbers and imo it might be a little helpful for the title to show up? idk how much this helps and i wouldnt mind if this doesnt happen. just a minor suggestion ig
While technically possible, this would be highly impractical, as this would require staff to go and manually change the titles of over 9000 individual articles.
Adding onto this, I'd actually love if the SCP titles showed up in the Newest/Top Rated/Shortest feeds. I don't know how difficult it'd be to do, but I feel like seeing the title for the SCP you're going to read makes it easier to stick with you. Plus, some titles are really eye catching.
Without the implementation of the previous suggestion, this would likely slow down listpages significantly.
Tech
The wiki's behaving weirdly as far as HTTPS is concerned - I often get a "this site doesn't support HTTPS" page from Firefox when I open the wiki (as well as SCP-INT), but not all the time. It's been like that for years at this point.
It is possible you're using links with scp-wiki.net, which for technical reasons, is not https by itself, but redirect to scp-wiki.wikidot.com. Otherwise, https requests can sometimes be dropped/downgraded for unknown reasons, which a reload usually fixes.
This is only regarding the English site, as SCP-INT and some branches do not support https at time of writing.
Not sure if this is the case for anyone else, but the "click to scroll to footnotes" thing on footnotes has never worked for me, on PC, Mac or Android mobile. Is that a known bug?
As far as can be ascertained, Wikidot uses a jQuery version of scrollTo (as opposed to browser-native scrollTo API), which is long outdated and no longer works on Chrome and other browsers (but still works on Firefox, surprisingly.)
Reference: https://github.com/flesler/jquery.scrollTo/issues/164
Accesibility stuff for articles could be cool. Options for colorblind people, options for people who would prefer a dark page, or options for people who wants to read an article using the standard theme.
Could be a site-wide thing, could be components.
But specially accesibility stuff can be really cool to have here
Can we get a dark mode? Most of the time I'm here is when insomnia has struck, and opening the site is blinding.
Any sitewide functions and/or accessibility options are technically difficult to implement currently.
On the whole, Tech is working on improving overall accessibility for the site as part of our audit process.
Before I start I want to thank the staff for maintaining the wiki. Y’all are awesome
I’m curious about a specific technical thing.
When pages on the wiki are loaded they appear to load in several time. As in if hit my hotkey for the previous site I was on it will send me to one identical to my current one.
I have included a video demonstrating what I am talking about.
I’m curious about the technical reason for this occurring as it does not occur on the sandbox wiki, O5 Command, or The Backrooms wiki (which is also hosted on wiki dot).
Edit: Apologies if this is not the right place for this. I didn't see the other threads when I made this.
When browsing the wiki through the Safari browser on mobile, every page creates several “duplicates” in my history that results in having to press the back button far more times than should be required.
Staff has looked into this issue, and is narrowing down how it occurs on Safari. Investigation is ongoing at the moment.
Please stop approving new themes without the guarantee they're going to be widely used. Most of the themes on the site look ugly and reduce accessibility.
If any pages on the site are hard to read or otherwise possess accessibility issues, do report it to Technical Team to be addressed when possible.
"Ugly" is a subjective judgment and is beyond Technical Team purview.
"Hi, aspiring SCP author here (just waiting to turn 18 to participate). As cool as ACS and the new and unique page formats are, the device I read on can't process the graphics, so I am unable to enjoy most of the newer SCP articles (from about 4500 on, actually). Imo there should be a way to access the content without the graphical code and flashy formatting. I don't always have access to a computer, and I really would like to read more recent articles more often, to see what kind of writing style the community is looking for. Thanks!
More information is needed per your device's specification and browser version.
Most components and formatting on site are standard HTML and CSS, which should be performant on every relatively modern device and browsers.
In a pinch, your browser may have a reader mode that can be turned on, as there is no other available easy method for blocking a page's CSS.
Wikijump
I've looked at the Wikijump site, and there has been no update for a while… is the project dead?
So is Project Foundation just dead?
We are still actively contributing to Wikijump development. However due to circumstances we haven't been keeping up on putting out update blog posts - usually we only post when there are significant updates that we really wanted to talk about. But rest assured that features and improvements are still being made, just not posted on.
If Wikijump ever happens, please consider accessibility options such as changes in text size, being able to fully hide the sidebar and top bar on any theme, and high-contrast mode. A large portion of our userbase relies on content farms that do not represent the work of this site in order to 'read' what's on the wiki because of its lack of accessibility features, on top of other technical issues.
Yes, the overall improvement of the user experience is one of the important aspects we strive for in the Wikijump project. But the core functionality always comes before polishing, and in this stage of development we focus on having a basic site that is capable of importing data from Wikidot sites and displaying them correctly. We will work on the user experience improvements when we think the underlying features are ready.
Bright Works Project
Cancel this town hall until you're done dealing with Bright's bulslhit. Stop kicking the fucking can down the road.
The Bright Works Project is an asynchronous collaborative effort within staff that is unaffected by other ongoing staff efforts. Town Halls was not a factor in impacting progress within the Bright Works effort.
If you aren't going to do anything about Bright's works after literal years of discourse and months of public thumb-twiddling, just change the site's tagline to "Sexual Creeps and Pedophiles" because your failure to make any meaningful moves regarding his work is a tacit endorsement of them. Also unban Siddhartha.
Staff is actively continuing to work on the project, and is focused on ensuring that any solution is a permanent one, rather than a quick solution.
Article Discoverability
The Wiki overall does an awesome job at promoting a wide variety of works on the site, but there needs to be more done to promote the works of lesser-known authors.
Throughout my almost year on the Wiki, I have noticed that there tends to be a focus on promoting works by well-known authors. This makes sense, as well-known authors have a reputation for releasing high-quality work and have also gained the trust of readers over time as a result. Thus, when it comes to selecting promotion via things like front page features, their names and works are more likely to come up, and consequently be promoted in those spaces.
But I think this has had the unintended consequence of making it much harder for lesser-known authors to have their works seen, as the majority of promotion is taken up by works that have already been seen by a large chunk of users. Further still, it creates the false illusion of an ‘in club’ so to speak that tends to promote works from certain people. I want to say I don’t think such a thing exists, but consistently seeing the same names and works in the spotlight can certainly give that appearance to new users.
Before I continue, I want to say that not every work on the Wiki can or should be given something like a front page feature. There are thousands upon thousands of works on the Wiki, and promoting each one equally is impossible. Further, not every work by a lesser-known author is a hidden gem. Any promotion of a work should be done solely based on its quality, not because the author is newer or not as well-known or the opposite.
I also acknowledge that lesser-known authors do get promotion. I’ve seen many fantastic works be promoted via features or recommendations by other users that are from lesser-known authors or new authors. Promotion for any article is possible and happens frequently.
However, more could be done, and taking action on this issue would be of significant benefit to Wiki. Promoting a wider variety of works from a wider variety of authors exposes readers to works they might've otherwise missed. Further, it'll help to bring to light canons, GOIs, etc that might've not seen a contribution to them or a work using them for some time. That in turn could see them have more works contributed to or involving them.
While I have mentioned front page features frequently here, they aren't and shouldn't be the only method of promoting lesser-known authors. Curated lists, for example, could be a fantastic way for users to find a wide variety of works from a mixture of well-known and lesser-known authors. Another method is to promote the use of the random page feature. Currently, it's very hidden away, which is a shame because I think encouraging its usage and potentially having it become more prominent is an excellent way to have works seen.
Another option is via community outreach. The Wiki has a presence on sites like Reddit, Twitter and Facebook. It would be great to see more articles posted by the outreach team in these spaces. It will bring new/returning users to the site and help get some more eyes on a variety of works.
In sum, I'd like to see more promotion for lesser-known authors, as it's an area that I think needs improvement and that can only benefit Wiki in both the short and long term.
i'll second the suggestion about curated lists - having a list like "Plague Thinks These Articles Are Funny!" or "Queerious' Tale Den", would do a number for encouraging new users to both see and think about articles that the wiki in general thinks is good. it might be difficult to get people to attach their names to a list like that, but it could be worth a shot.
The long and short of it is that front page features are selected in one of three of the following ways, each one less common than the last; Crit flight selection, contest winner selection, and staff selection.
I'll explain each of them.
Crit flight selection is, as stated, the most common. For these we allow people who have completed a crit flight to promote whatever they want, which most of the time, ends up being an already popular article or something they or a friend wrote. In some instances, the leading moth/butterfly may select something as well, particularly if one pair already chose an scp to spotlight and their mentee already chose something.
The second method is contest winner selection. This only happens when there's contests and front page features are usually the reward for these. Again, people either show off their own work or a friend's work.
The last and least common is staff selection, which only happens twice a year if I recall correctly. This is when someone (usually zyn) selects all three spotlight articles because there was no contest and no crit flight.
So this only comes down to one controllable vector: the staff selects.
I would be lying if I said zyn has no bias because we are all human and all have biases but I think she strikes a good balance of new and old, unknown vs known, etc.
Plus its only (at least that I can recall) only twice a year that it happens
Miscellaneous
I think we should retain the design that makes it as difficult for people to become authors as possible. The continued health of the wiki is dependent on maintaining a large, active readerbase. More resources should be allocated to reader navigation, and aid in becoming an author should be downsized and authorship disincentivized.
It's not a zero-sum game. We want to make it easier to become an author and make navigation easier for readers. Suggestions for both goals are always welcome.
I would love for there to be a comprehensive Rules document for all the different rules (forums, discord, posting, self-promotion, etc.) and at least one staff member with the job of keeping the rules document up-to-date. It's so incredibly hard to integrate into this community when there are all these unwritten rules about when and where and how often you can do things
Staff has been working on adding a comprehensive set of links to the main site rules page to address the issue of rule discovery. (Attempts to create a single comprehensive mega-document haven't gone well, so we're trying a different approach.) If you have suggestions for additional pages that should be linked, or if you believe that certain de facto rules aren't adequately documented anywhere, please leave a comment in the discussion page for the Site Rules or chat with staff in #site17 on SkipIRC or #observer-discussion on Staffcord.
Semi-related, but the current "tags" system also contributes to the "in club" illusion, as the requirement for making a new tag about an SCP('s title) (eg "hard-to-destroy-reptile") include "must be referenced by multiple articles" & "must be referenced by multiple unique authors". This inherently favors older &/or more popular articles getting tags about them (further increasing their visibility), while newer articles have to hope that they use the right tags to hopefully attract a reader that can increase their visibility.
Tags are descriptive, not prescriptive - its purpose is to serve as a navigational tool to assist in categorization and underpinning discoverability, not as a "reward" or some such.
As Wikidot does not have a robust tagging system like AO3's, Tech's requirements exist to prevent bloat, and establish that a tag has, or will have varied uses in the future that can't be easily grouped otherwise (as seen with many character tags, both old and new.)
While there may exist perceptions of tags as an achievement (a la Goodhart's law), this is primarily a sociological component that Technical Team has no control over.