[CONSIDER] New possibilities for Featured Stories

[swirtSJW]

Description

#1318 describes a plan to remove the existing functionality for Featured Stories and Events, based on UX concerns and buggy behavior. VA direction is for Facilities team to envision a better process that meets the known needs of Editors for managing featuring, but only in the context of Stories. (No events.)

User stories

AS AN editor
I WANT TO
SO THAT

Problem space

1. Editors need to be able to curate what stories get Featured on Story List pages and VAMC System pages.
2. May need to backfill a story(s) if there are not any featured stories.
3. May or may not need parity with how events are featured (to reduce editorial strain).

Options for Featured stories

Option A: Entity Queue

Each system could maintain an Entity Queue of stories to feature

• Pros
  • Absolute control over what gets featured and in what order
  • Allows featuring stories that are more national or from other systems (💬 from @davidmpickett - Is this the only option that makes this a possibility? Couldn't Option D also allow for this? If we reverse the logic of Stories saying where they go and have Lists say what Stories they include then any list could pull in and feature any story?)
  • Could Feature other content types like a Campaign landing page
• Cons
  • ⚡ A new pattern for most of the editors (VAMC editors have not used Entity Queues before)

Option B: "Featurable" rather than Featured

Marking something as "Featureable" would cause it to show up in a rotation (random at time of content release?)

• Pros
  • Would not have the same story sitting on the page forever (appears more "fresh")
  • Less need for active cultivating.
• Cons
  • Trying to intentionally feature one, may require extra steps to unfeature others.
  • Carries on with the COPE model so that the story knows whether it is Featurable or not.

Option C: Enforce the currently described model of save one as Featured slot 1 and Featured slot 2

Use Allow-only-one field to restrict to the unique combination of list_page, featured and

• Pros
  • Would give absolute control of position
  • Would provide a message out of the box that would let them see and link to what story is currently blocking them from saving this as featured in a given spot.
• Cons
  • Editor would have click to go unfeature the current featured, in order to save the new featured.

Option C+: Same as C AND we add a modal of some kind to ask "Would you like to unfeature "

• Pros
  • Would make it easier to unfeature the blocking story.

Option D: Choose on the VAMC System page (and the List page?) what story to feature.

The System / story list page would be source of truth to control what it featured.

• Pros
  • ⭐ Editorially easiest and clearest intent to explain/understand.
• Cons
  • Removes the "featured" aspect from the COPE model. Instead of the story knowing it should be featured, the system must know it.
  • Would likely be a different pattern than Events, which need a different logic to account for expired events. (event curation is more complicated than this option would support)

Backfill Options

No matter how we determine what story(s) are featured, we need a way to path to determine what gets featured if nothing is featured

Backfill Option Z: Randomly select a story from the same system

Backfill Option Y: Randomly select a story from other "featurable" in the same VAMC System (see option B)

Backfill Option X: No backfill. Nothing featured, show nothing.

Backfill Option W: Most recent 1 or 2 stories (lowest nids) in the same VAMC System.

[swirtSJW]

This list is not exhaustive. I added what has been discussed in the past and some of the context. Please feel free to add more or refine the pros and cons.

[davidmpickett]

I added some emoji for things that stood out to me and added a question on Option A.

Options B+C don't seem particularly powerful / valuable to me. Option A and D seem to do the most to actually actually change the paradigm.