I see.
On a slightly unrelated note, why don't we have a "Featured Ship of the Moment" and/or a "Featured Code Addition of the Moment"?
Because the front page doesn't need to be cluttered up with ****. That and the average person browsing the wiki is going to care about playing the game, not modding the game. If they want to mod the game they'll already direct themselves to the appropriate section or ask questions on the forum.
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On another note, my two cents to all involved (or lurking),
Personally, I'm not a fan of "Featured Campaigns". As someone else said, the Wiki's not for advertising, it's for information correct? Anything that's "featured" is a promotion and therefore advertising. Why not instead of having "Featured Campaign of the Moment" just have "Campaign of the Moment".
What do I mean by this?
Have a random script, that draws from a list of all the campaign links and whenever someone visits the front page of the wiki they get a random campaign, aka a Campaign of the Moment (hereafter COTM). You can either restrict it to released campaigns or open it up to campaigns in progress.
Now obviously, this then hits on the core problem of the original post in that, most campaign pages on the Wiki are garbage. Meaning, they're barebones with only the minimal amount of information about the campaign. So one may also want to restrict the list of possible COTM to pages which meet a certain standard for content and information. Also each campaign will need the pic and blurb to fit in the box on the front page.
So what are the advantages?
1. Campaigns which are overlooked will appear on the front page
2. The random nature will mitigating or eliminate any perceived or actual problems of favourtism.
2. Reduced maintenance for the front page. The featured campaign never has to be changed, only the possible list of COTM (ie Add a new campaign to the shuffle when it's appropriate).
Anyone who wants a campaign to appear on the front page need only update the campaign's page of information, grab some screenshots, and create the pic+blurb for the box.
To reduce favourtism/subjectivity even more, one may also want to provide minimum requirements for what the campaign page has to have in order to be a possible COTM. A possible list may include
1. Title graphic (even rudimentary)
2. List of staff members
3. List of mods (ie new ships)
4. At least one screenshot
5. Basic information (number of missions, last known build compatibility, download links)
6. Some sort of introduction to the story and/or universe.
Then of course there is optional information such as:
7. Walkthroughs
8. User Comments
9. etcetera
I would shy away from a set style format (ie user created ships) as it restricts people who want to get fancy (ie Front Lines).
I just think it would be beneficial for all if everyone who visited the wiki had the opportunity to be introduced to a campaign they've never heard. Heck you could have someone visit the page, and get "Procryon Insurgency" and then the guy says "What? This campaign's awesome, but I've already played this". So then he goes to his browser, hit's "reload" and then blammo "Uncharted Territory" and in response "What's this? Never heard of it, looks cool!I better check it out" and so on . . .
That's my two cents. Take or leave it.
Oh, and as a disclaimer, YES, I do have a (partial) campaign Meditations on the Abyss and NO, I don't care if it ever hits the front page. This is not about promoting my work it's about diversifying the freespace experience for everyone in the community. And in turn, it's also about appreciating the work of all of this community's campaign contributors, regardless of whether they're praised or vilified, present or absent.
Give everyone's work a chance to shine (so long as wiki contributors put in the appropriate effort).
