As many of you know from my previous blog post about changes to the front page, I am now using a new algorithm to figure out the most interesting content that people are liking for that day.

I am now going to be using parts of that algorithm to pick out featured stories. Featured stories will still be chosen by votes by the users but the most popular authors will no longer be part of the selection process. This should provide more exposure to less-known authors.

I know some of you may be wondering about why I didn't do that sooner. This is because the infrastructure for me to be able to do this did not exist before. Due to the creation of the new front page algorithm, the infrastructure exists now which I used to carry it over to the Featured Story process.

It's going to take a few weeks of testing though to be sure the algorithm works meaning I have to pay attention to what's being featured every weekend. It's not like I can just change the featured story 10 times today to test it! 

Note: Popularity of authors is judged by the system on a popularity algorithm different from the popular authors page. The popularity of authors used in featured story selection has nothing to do with that section.