Help:Cover stories

Cover stories are articles that are randomly included on the main page.

Nomination
To nominate an article:
 * Place the template cover at the top of the article's talkpage.
 * Start a new section titled "Cover story (sticky)" (so that bots won't archive it)
 * List the reasons you think justify putting the article on the main page.

All nominated articles are automagically added to category:Cover story nominees.

You should probably give it a week. Polish up and check everything about the article in the meantime!

Approval
If and when an article is approved:
 * 1) Modify the talk page template to approved. If there is a "rated" template at the top of the page, change the level to 4 (e.g., ).
 * 2) Create a subpage of Template:Cover abstract, with an 800-1000 character abstract of the article.  It's nice to include a suitable picture in the abstract (preferably something from the article, sized to about 160px to make it fit), although it is not a requirement.  Make sure the abstract is well written before following the next steps!
 * 3) Edit coverstory and follow the directions.
 * 4) Change the article's "brain" template to gold to reflect its new status.
 * 5) Create an "edit notice" on a subpage of Template:Editnotices/page/ using the article's title (this can be done for any article, not just cover stories) by including cover editnotice on it.  This causes a mild warning ("This article is randomly featured on the Main Page. Please keep this in mind and be sure your edits are of the quality level that implies.") to come up when people edit the page.  Everyone ignores it.

All approved articles are automagically added to category:Cover story articles.

Abstract
Each cover story has an abstract that is saved at Template:Cover abstract/articlename. These are randomly displayed on the front page by Template:Coverstory.

The abstracts can all be seen here: