Countdown:Featured articles

A featured article is of one The Countdown Wiki's finest articles. These are selected by the editors of The Countdown Wiki on this very page. A featured article could be a player, a game or a piece of terminology. The article should be of a certain length and preferably contain images and external links to make the article more readable.

List of featured articles

• Category:Featured articles and Countdown:Featured article archives give a full list of these.

Proposed featured articles

• If we need more articles for the main page, let's think of a bunch of them. I'd go for Julian Fell, Ben Wilson, Martin Gardner (vanity!), Conor Travers, Harvey Freeman etc. Mglovesfun 21:26, 8 April 2008 (BST)

Yeah, maybe we should have a Project of the Week and try to bring some of those articles up to full strength for future FAs. We'd have to pick the more recent players I suspect, because for a lot of the older one we don't have any more than the scores. Soo 22:31, 8 April 2008 (BST)

Yes I could start that project right now, we need to decide how often to change the featured article. One thing I noticed is that the <ref></ref> doesn't seem to work on here, or doesn't that matter? As for players with games, there's me, Ben and Conor that all have round details. I will think more about which players have round details as well, and of course series and CofCs are another good source of FA's. Mglovesfun 13:35, 9 April 2008 (BST)

• Graham Nash - there's now a photo and the articles a lot longer with more detail. Mglovesfun 17:25, 29 April 2008 (BST)

• Mark Tournoff is another possible one, although we nearly have enough for a year already. My next project will be to get the Paul Gallen article up to the same standard. Mglovesfun 15:35, 3 May 2008 (BST)

• Perhaps Stewart Holden? We need a June article, after all. Countdown Kid 11:32, 13 June 2009 (BST)

• I've done a lot of work to Series 60, which might well make it feature worthy. Also, I'm not particularly notable but I've savoured my vanity and given my contestant page a bit of a going over! As an aside, has anyone spotted my suggestion of a featured article symbol on Countdown talk:Featured articles? -- Crispy 13:26, 27 June 2009 (BST)

• It's only just over a week until the start of November, so its time to decide which article should next appear on the front page. I've crossed out those mentioned above which have already been featured, which leaves Martin Gardner, Harvey Freeman, Graham Nash, Mark Tournoff, Paul Gallen, Series 60 and, erm, Chris Philpot. Joking aside, which of these - if any - does the community back for featured status? It would also be nice to think ahead and see if we can have a vaguely Christmas themed FA next month. Thanks in advance, Chris 'Crispy' Philpot 19:36, 23 October 2009 (BST)

I vote for Mark Tournoff, because he is still very much involved in Countdown, and has just attended CoLei2, so it seems a good time to feature him. Vande 19:58, 23 October 2009 (BST)

I've given the copy on Mark Tournoff's page a bit of TLC, so this is feature ready for November. Any ideas for a Christmas special? -- Chris 'Crispy' Philpot 22:08, 24 October 2009 (BST)

• It's nearly time for our festive featured article - who or what should be on the front page in December? -- Chris 'Crispy' Philpot 19:19, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Christmas Philpot! -- Vande 19:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Am I sufficiently notable? How about Christmas Wills? -- Chris 'Crispy' Philpot 18:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, but is Chris Wills willing to dress up in a Santa Claus hat for a page of festive fun?
Anyway, it's no more than you deserve for reviving the front page articles in the first place! -- Vande 19:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Should I pose for a new photo in a Santa hat, then? On a related note of good humour, are there any other ways we could make the homepage a little more festive over September? -- Chris 'Crispy' Philpot 09:34, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

There seems to be tumbleweed blowing round here at the moment! Yeah, at least doing something fun and festive like that might generate some more interest in the Wiki again. I'll have a think about anything else, but you seem to have a pretty good imagination. Vande 11:10, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

• January 2010 It would probably make sense to have Christmas Davies as the featured article next month - as it is still officially Christmas into January, but more importantly because he has just won the latest series of Countdown. I have written a few words to start with, but they will need to be tidied up, and a lot more added if we are going to use it. --Vande 18:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems sensible, and topical. Drawoh 22:50, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• I think a Harvey Freeman page is required for the main page because he has won Series 33 . He also won Series 10 which is not as good as winning Series 33. Countdowner 20:13, 2 January 2010 (BST)

Harvey Freeman has been suggested a couple of times now, and his article contains an excellent amount of detail for a pre-2000s player. I think he's a real possibility for an upcoming month. Just to spice things up, other articles which have been passed over for promotion in the past include Martin Gardner, Graham Nash, Paul Gallen and Series 60. It's a little early in the month to be making decisions, but nonetheless are there any thoughts? -- Chris 'Crispy' Philpot 23:13, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

How to make a new proposal

Follow this edit link, or the one at the top of the page, and add your own suggestion. The name of the article should be placd between two square brackets to make a blue link (example: [[Jon O'Neill]]).

Future featured articles

When an article is featured, it is given a short write-up on the front page. This is not editable by ordinary users (the risk of vandalism to the front page is too high.) But we will post a draft here well in advance, so please feel free to edit that and who knows -- your words may appear on the front page!

Previous featured articles

See also : Countdown:Featured article archives

January 2010

Davies with the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy.

Chris Davies was the champion of Series 61. He was a musician and charity shop volunteer from Greasby in Merseyside, who on his first show impressed not only with his defeat of Scrabble player Ed Rossiter but also with his exceptionally fast Rubik's cube solutions. In his second game against Matt Shepherd he failed to secure a century, but words including PUEBLOS and TANDOORI gave him victory by 95 points to 46. This points difference was eclipsed the following day as Davies ran out the winner by a margin of 75 points, and just one day later Michael Jocelyn suffered an even worse fate as SEPTUPLE, ISOMERS and the conundrum IMISSBOYS saw Davies win with a scoreline of 113 – 37 in his favour - an even greater margin than the day before.

Having so far failed to find a nine-letter word in his heats, Davies found two in the first four rounds against Ross Mackenzie. However, Mackenzie found them both as well and was on Davies' tail throughout the game. The pressure helped Davies who secured victory through the words MALAPERT and the Darrenic PUPATED. After solving the conundrum CIRCUSHEN, Davies had amassed a score of 139, the second highest of all time. Further Darrens including RIBCAGE and RIVULETS, along with the nine-letter word SCLEROTIA, gave Davies victory in his sixth game against Jonathan Seal. Of note, in round two of this game Seal beat Davies, the first time he had failed to score in 51 consecutive rounds. Two further centuries helped Davies win his last two heat games against Marcus Bearpark and John Smoker respectively.

Davies returned for the finals as number two seed. Against fellow octochamp Steve Wood, the words RELLINOS and RANDOMISE assisted Davies in building a 43-point lead after just five rounds. He ran out the winner, setting up a semi-final against Innis Carson. After twelve rounds of this game only seven points separated the two players. In round 13, Carson beat Davies with SOLENOID, opening up a fifteen point lead with just two rounds to go. Carson missed the numbers target in round 14 whereas Davies found a perfect solution, but he still needed to solve the crucial conundrum EPITUSSLE to win. After 25.5 seconds he doubtfully offered SLEEPSUIT — and exclaimed "Oh my God!" as this was revealed to be correct. In the grand final Davies faced #1 seed Andrew Hulme, who often equalled but never bettered him. The words TETRODE, DIARISES and the conundrum ARTLEPOOL gave Davies the series by 117 points to 86. He remains an active member of the online Countdown community and is often seen on Apterous. (more...)

See also

• Countdown:Articles for improvement
• Countdown:Broken pages