From the front page of Wikipedia

I saw that too, and was also unaware of this type of burial before. However it reminded me of safety coffins, a type of coffin developed in the 19th century that would allow a person who was accidentally buried alive to signal the fact. Usually there was some kind of tube to the surface that would allow the interred person to ring a bell or activate some other type of signal. Wikipedia says that there is no record of such a coffin actually saving anyone’s life (although the statement is uncited).

What is Wikipedia’s obsession with fashion designer Alexander McQueen? Seems like every couple of months they mention something about one of his fashion collections. Considering the kabillion of data points Wikipedia has, seems strange he keeps appearing on the front page.

I noticed the multiple feature article on Alexander McQueen, and previously, multiple feature articles on Georgetown University. (There are probably other examples I didn’t pick up on.) My guess is that someone is writing and editing multiple articles on that subject and promoting them for feature article status.

Yes, that’s it. There’s no overall editorial direction. It’s an editor-driven process.

There is one editor who is interested in McQueen and she’s a very good researcher and writer. She has done a good job of writing an article about each show, and taking it through the multi-step process:

  • draft an article (no review);

  • DidYouKnow? (initial review, which gets it on the front page the first time);

  • Good Article (more detailed review);

  • Featured Article (which is the highest grade, reviewed by several different editors);

  • Today’s Featured Article on the front page, which is the final stage.

Because she’s good at all that process, her articles gets to the front page.

About two years ago, there was a similar pattern of lots of articles about Australian military guys from WWII on the front page. That was because there’s an Australian editor with a strong interest in Australian military history and he was doing a lot of articles.

A friend of mine asked why Wikipedia was so interested in Aussie military guys. I gave him the same answer.

And on today’s front page, we get information on a topic under discussion here last month:

Did you know … that Mar-a-Lago face is a plastic surgery trend popular in Donald Trump’s entourage?

Similarly, there’s an editor who’s interested in South American volcanoes and regularly gets featured articles on the front page. Today it’s a volcano called Licancabur (which sounds Arthurian, but apparently not. :grin: )