[gojomo]

And yet, moving to a design that highlights a 'main graphic', or bit of hand-crafted typography, could actually prompt that volunteer work when people notice it's missing.

Do you design for the worst-case, where you're lucky to get a little attention from overworked volunteers working outside their areas of competence? Or for a more hopeful case, where any gaps in the design will signal an opportunity for eager, precocious volunteers to do more?

I believe Wikipedia has had good success in the past with campaigns to fill in CC-licensed rich media, especially volunteer photographs, where they've been missing.

[tptacek]

This misses some of the point of the front page. "Featured Article" (FA) status is one of the most important incentive schemes on the site. It's a case where what's good for the front page is also good for the community. There's nothing intrinsically good about having a nifty icon for a story, and not every contributor working to lift some obscure article to FA status is going to have that resource available.