Problem:
The Top Rated New Pages article should exist to give exposure to new talent. Having your article link on an easily-accessible list = more clicks. Naturally, articles that are being read are also being rated. This logically entails that any (good) RPC listed on TRNP receives a constant positive feedback loop for as long as it is featured. Being on the list -> more clicks -> more ratings -> higher on the list -> more clicks -> more ratings, etc.
There is nothing wrong with this system. The problem is that this list only tracks articles made within the period of that month, and once the month is over, the list is refreshed and the entries are removed. This means that articles made late in the month have less time to be featured, giving them a severe disadvantage over articles made earlier in the month. This is a completely arbitrary setback in the system, has no good reason to exist, and fortunately has a very simple solution:
Solution:
Change it from "Top Rated Articles This Month" to "Top Rated Articles of the last n Days." This will make it so that all articles have the potential to be featured on the TRNP list for n days after their creation, as opposed to only the remainder of the month (however long that may be). This also ensures that articles that are n days old will be automatically cycled out of the list to make room for new blood.
The formatting for this system is very simple. Simply change the "date="2018.07" tag in the ListPages module to "created_at="last n days", n being whatever number of days we decide is the most fair.
Like so:
[[module ListPages rating=">10" tags="rpc" order="rating desc" separate="false" created_at="last 14 days"]]
%%title_linked%% (+%%rating%%)
[[/module]]I believe that this will make the system a bit more of an equal playing field.
As for the actual number of days we should keep track of articles, I vote 14 (2 weeks). 30 days is a long time in Internet Time. This will also ensure the frequency of new featured articles for our perusal.