Changes

In summary, The Breaking News articles are much more important than Brian realizes (because they ''can'' influence  <u>permanent mainspace article improvement and creation</u>), and therefore should receive points in a contest. --[[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]] 15:59, 26 November 2007 (EST)

In summary, The Breaking News articles are much more important than Brian realizes (because they ''can'' influence  <u>permanent mainspace article improvement and creation</u>), and therefore should receive points in a contest. --[[User:Crocoite|Crocoite]] 15:59, 26 November 2007 (EST)

::Crocoite, I don't doubt the importance of breaking news items and you are ceratinly the driving force behind them.  However, items on the main page are not accessible to ordinary editors.  For sure ordinary editors can suggest an item but it requires the active approval of a sysop for them to be posted, while a sysop can post their own item without any approval; this does not create a level playing-field for all competitors.  Furthermore, breaking news is a continuous process, I would hate to see a plethora of items suddenly overwhelm the front page just because a contest is being held, most of which would be skipped over.  Breaking news needs to be concise in order to have impact.  In my opinion the Main Page is currently overly long; while it could be improved with some design changes (a smaller font for example) there are simply too many items to fit on a normal computer screen without excessive scrolling. However, all that is not relevant to a the discussion of future competitions. I know that you might feel that this would deprive you of point scoring in a future contest, but to make the conditions fair for all competitors I think that Breaking News should be excluded in future comps.  Of course like any other competitor you would still be able to contribute to the editing and creation of other articles.  [[User:BrianCo|BrianCo]] 16:46, 26 November 2007 (EST)

::Crocoite, I don't doubt the importance of breaking news items and you are ceratinly the driving force behind them.  However, items on the main page are not accessible to ordinary editors.  For sure ordinary editors can suggest an item but it requires the active approval of a sysop for them to be posted, while a sysop can post their own item without any approval; this does not create a level playing-field for all competitors.  Furthermore, breaking news is a continuous process, I would hate to see a plethora of items suddenly overwhelm the front page just because a contest is being held, most of which would be skipped over.  Breaking news needs to be concise in order to have impact.  In my opinion the Main Page is currently overly long; while it could be improved with some design changes (a smaller font for example) there are simply too many items to fit on a normal computer screen without excessive scrolling. However, all that is not relevant to a the discussion of future competitions. I know that you might feel that this would deprive you of point scoring in a future contest, but to make the conditions fair for all competitors I think that Breaking News should be excluded in future comps.  Of course like any other competitor you would still be able to contribute to the editing and creation of other articles.  These are just my contributions to the debate which I would like the judges to consider. I'm sure Mr. Schlafly will use his wisdom to make the ultimate decision based on their recommendations. [[User:BrianCo|BrianCo]] 16:46, 26 November 2007 (EST)

==Objection==

==Objection==