New and improved! Wiki featured articles and did you know...

[Chris Philpot]

A quick heads-up for those of you who haven't checked out The Countdown Wiki for a while!

Two of the wiki's longest-standing features—the featured article and "Did you know..." boxes on the Main Page—have been refreshed with a year's worth of new and updated material. They'll tick over automatically at 1am.

For a long time, I have admired how Wikipedia's Main Page offers so many tidbits to engage the casual reader with topics they may not have considered of interest. I've tried to achieve a similar tone on our wiki, featuring tales from Countdown history that will hopefully grab the attention of new visitors whilst providing the occasional factoid that not even James Robinson knows. Much of the new DYK trivia is sourced (read, "shamelessly pinched") from the Ask Graeme thread on this very forum – many thanks to Mr Cole for providing such a cornucopia of material. Fingers crossed there is something for everyone.

Best of all, these areas of the Main Page are now automatically generated by two looping templates and require no user intervention beyond the actual writing of the article summaries. This can be done gradually throughout the year, or in a blitz when the current set of articles are showing their age. There should never again be broken links in these key areas of the Main Page (mea culpa).

I hope this makes delving into the wiki even more enjoyable. If you have any contributions for the Main Page, please let me know on the rebooted nomination pages for Featured articles and Did you know.

So what are you waiting for?

[Gavin Chipper]

Under "Did you know?" it says "...that, speaking statistically, a choice of 2 large in the numbers game offers the easiest solutions?" - is that right? I didn't think it was. And I still don't.

[Chris Philpot]

Under "Did you know?" it says "...that, speaking statistically, a choice of 2 large in the numbers game offers the easiest solutions?" - is that right? I didn't think it was. And I still don't.

From memory, this was based on some research which showed 2 large games could be solved perfectly most often but just poorly phrased upon transfer to the Main Page. It's one of the older DYK 'facts' which has been put out for pasture.

Anyway, the revitalised Main Page is now live, so check it out.

[Zarte Siempre]

Love the gag, although wasn't it Barry Norman that said that to Mikey Lear, not Barry Cryer?

[Chris Philpot]

Love the gag, although wasn't it Barry Norman that said that to Mikey Lear, not Barry Cryer?

Oops! Fixed now.

[Andy Platt]

Lol, nice work Chris. I like your sense of humour.

[Chris Philpot]

Cheers Andy! Hope it gave a few of you a laugh. Normal service has now resumed.

[Gavin Chipper]

I too liked the Harry Peters thing. For a minute I thought he was real! (I didn't.)