Talk:Main Page/Archive 176

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DOMA/California Prop 8 struck down?

This seems pretty historic and noteworthy as current events go - front page mention? Challenger l (talk) 16:13, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Hard to argue with but discuss at WP:ITN/C please.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:16, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The discussion is at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#SCOTUS Decision on Defense of Marriage Act (for June 26). PrimeHunter (talk) 16:18, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Overlinked again... (moved from Errors per suggestion)

permalink to items

In ice hockey, the Chicago Blackhawks defeat the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup. – There are currently five links in the blurb. Fifteen words, of which nine are linked. Words not linked include three occurrences of the word "the", one "in", and the verb "to win". We all know there are no prizes for second place. I would suggest changing it to: "In ice hockey, the Chicago Blackhawks win in the 2013 Stanley Cup Finals". – much punchier, and draws the readers attention to the article on the victor and the match.

Similarly, Flooding in Alberta, Canada, results in at least three deaths and the evacuation of thousands. Instead of directly referring to the 2013 Alberta floods, and linking directly, an easter egg was created so that Alberta could also be linked. Facepalm -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 02:08, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

So just about every item is a diversionary link that is (I hope) already linked from the proper context within the ITN article, yes? It's as though we're telling visitors to the main page: "Go anywhere but the ITN we've painstakingly prepared and audited for main-page display ... anywhere else. Please. Tony (talk) 02:21, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

• I believe this discussion is general enough in scope that it would be better held either at In the News or on Talk:Main Page. Yngvadottir (talk) 02:29, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

KKK on the front page?

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...seriously? --85.210.103.168 (talk) 13:17, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

If you ignore it do you think it will go away?User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:28, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

It's not like they didn't exist. Should we pretend otherwise? 81.129.32.66 (talk) 13:30, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

We have, to my certain knowledge, had at least two Nazis as TFA. We are not a children's encyclopedia with all the naughty bits cut out.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

We had a racist atrocity as TFA last month and nobody complained about it. There's no obligation for an encyclopedia to cover only nice things. Hut 8.5 14:15, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Of course, another way of looking at this issue is that - as has been stated in this brief discussion, the front page has recently featured two Nazis, a leader of the KKK and a racist atrocity, and then to wonder if indeed this is a representative sample of the contents of the enyclopedia. If it's not - then one may indeed wonder why so many racists find their way onto the front page - and if it is, then it seems alarming that the encyclopedia is overwhelminly populated by articles about racists! Horatio Snickers (talk) 17:08, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

You are right. Unfortunately, this is sadly reflective of the contents. But then again, at least its not a hurricane.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:18, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

There are a few niche interests which represent a large percentage of the articles which make it to featured status, beginning with war. That speaks to the diligence of those with such interests, and is not a reflection on Wikipedia as a whole, other than highlighting the lack of editors willing to work to make featured articles in a broader range of subject matter.--Chimino (talk) 17:33, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I did not say recently. One of the articles I was thinking of was Albert Speer, which appeared in 2008, and I recall a Luftwaffe pilot since, but don't recall when or who. I think there's also been an admiral.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:12, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

TFA writer here: I went through a period where I read a lot about atrocities and assorted terrible things. So naturally that was what I wrote about then too. This led to the infamous Jesse Washington (NSFL) main page blowup as well. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:43, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Not Safe For... Littleones? Libraries? Lookingat? --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:02, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Life. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 18:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, NSFL at Urban Dictionary. It's the lesser-known sibling of NSFW, generally used for gore/death instead of nudity/sex. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:10, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

If only there were a website to Google such things. -- tariqabjotu 18:21, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

You mean like Google? Or like Urban Dictionary, which the comment just above you mentioned? TheOriginalSoni (talk) 19:12, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Whoosh. -- tariqabjotu 19:26, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not censored. Inclusion on the main page is not an endorsement of the covered subject, but simply serves to showcase the highest-quality content on Wikipedia's. LFaraone 15:18, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

• Here's a random thought: If someone doesn't like seeing articles about the KKK or genocide, I recommend that they try working on articles themselves. Maybe get Unicorn on the front page to outweigh massacres. GamerPro64 17:58, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I will personally buy a beer to anyone who gets Unicorn to FA status.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:04, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Relevant FA candidate. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:11, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I think I remember User:Montanabw saying something about unicorns once, but I can't remember if it was positive or negative. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 20:14, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

I know this discussion is closed, but for the record, I ain't touching either unicorns or Pink Ponies! LOL! :-) Montanabw^(talk) 20:54, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

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'Main page entries that cause much heat and light' are a regular phenomenon - but why does the article referred to above come up when doing a browser websearch on en.wikipedia.com? (ie going via the 'search' facility while checking emails). Surely a more recent main page should appear? Jackiespeel (talk) 09:13, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

@Montatanbw - My Lidl Pony already made the front page, I think. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:45, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

• Jackiespeel, they likely haven't updated their cache. When tempointeraktif.com went offline, I could still see its articles on Google for some two weeks. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:15, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Still there today on Yahoo.

'Persistence of text' and following 'changes to Wikipedia articles perculating through to articles elsewhere on the wev' can be an interesting subject of research. Jackiespeel (talk) 08:58, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• I don't doubt it could be. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:04, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Cricket

There seems to be a discrepancy between those who 'write' and those who read the main page. Perhaps we should vote to how much cricket we want to read about?

As I wrote on 30 May 2013, the Main Page of that day had an overrepresentation of cricket:

Cricket in TFA, ITN, and DYK on the same day Talk:Main_Page/Archive_175#Cricket

Rather than apophenia, I now believe that it has to do with a large supply of cricket-related topics that are proposed for Main-Page use. I came to this conclusion, based on reading other comments over the years of people surprised with the high occurence of cricket as a topic of the Main Page articles:

Why does a Cricket topic appear in every other did you know article? That is the only "sport" that ever appears in the did you know.

Talk:Main_Page/Archive_42#Cricket_anyone.3F

It seems moderately redundant to give the same 1933 cricket event two prime slots on the main page

Talk:Main_Page/Archive_94#No_more_cricket.2C_Please.21.21

It really seems to me that the front page features a disproportionally large number of articles relating to the game of cricket, people who play cricket, and things done by fans of cricket.

Talk:Main_Page/Archive_97#Too_Much_Cricket

It seems like every day there's some trivial bit of cricket-stuff in the DYK list and today there are two.

Talk:Main_Page/Archive_98#Cricket_on_the_DYK

I mean it's all jolly fun and all, but there is a whole lot more to the sporting world than cricket and cricket players, I don't have specifics but I seem to see cricket related articles every other day on the main page.

Talk:Main_Page/Archive_153#Bias_towards_cricket_in_Did_you_know_and_Featured_articles

cricket is way overrated in Wikipedia. Almost every week there's a piece of news in the front page about a cricketer

Talk:Main_Page/Archive_158#Cricket

It seems moderately redundant to give the same 1933 cricket event two prime slots on the main page.

Talk:Main_Page/Archive_173#Too_Much_Cricket

Dvh369 (talk) 15:33, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

• You do realize that a) several of these archives are more than five years old; b) we have existing DYKs, FAs, and FPs of other sports (do we even have a cricket FP?); and c) that you can improve articles like Ervin Johnson to push for the main page, right? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

  a) that's why I wrote over the years: it's an ongoing situation. b) correct, but less so and disproportionately to cricket imho. c) I do improve articles whenever I find omissions or mistakes, just not in sports; why stick to sports anyway? I don't want to push for the main page because i) I tend to not write complete articles, ii) I don't necessarily need to promote my own work, and iii) I don't think it's up to me to push things through, rather let it be up to the community (i.e. those way more active than I). My point being, I guess, that if this community enjoys cricket all the time, this should not dictate that cricket be overrepresented. There are 4,267,100 articles in English today, in this encyclopedia of everything. The readers are not merely cricket lovers. The diversity is practically endless. I would vote to convey that diversity slightly more. Dvh369 (talk) 08:17, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• There is one 100% effective way to fix this, all on your own, without having to force other people to stop improving articles about the sport of Cricket. See, all you have to do is improve articles about other topics and nominate those for the various main page sections, and then there will be proportionally less cricket articles. Win-win: people don't have to be asked to stop improving articles they are interested in (in this case cricket) and you get to see more articles on the main page about topics you are interested in! I don't see where that could go wrong... --Jayron32 02:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

  I'll tell you where it could go wrong: it relies on people being constructive. GRAPPLE X 02:56, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

  Are you claiming that the OP is not interested in constructing the encyclopedia? Because I never said that. Rather, I assumed that was their goal, which is why I made the suggestion. --Jayron32 03:00, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

  I understand the process, and also that I shouldn't complain (I don't) about people enthousiastic enough to contribute way more than I do. I'm simply putting my two cents in to have the nominators and voters consider the reading public and their interest. So thank you contributors and thank you for highlighting the multitude of Wikipedia articles; I hope that will be done even more. Dvh369 (talk) 08:17, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

  I think you shouldn't look at our FLs then... lots, lots, lots of cricket lists, from four or six editors. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:23, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

  Thanks for the advice, lol. Although I don't often find features lists on the main page. On a side note, you, as "one of the 1000 most active Wikipedians", are a perfect example of what I referred to as way more active than I. Nothing but respect for that! Dvh369 (talk) 12:54, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

By the way, I just read on the FAQ/Main_Page the folowing line: Specific examples of groups that have periodically accused the Main Page of blatant bias include Americans who are amazed by the continuous stream of new articles on cricket. ;-) For the record: I am not an American. Nevertheless, that text provides a useful explanation. The most constructive part is the concluding reference to the WikiProject Countering systemic bias. Dvh369 (talk) 12:54, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

• Countering systemic bias. Love it. But what happens when we end up with too many topics about a previously underrepresented area? A lot of editors couldn't shift gears immediately. Three years ago nobody would have said "Too much Indonesia". Now? 27 FAs and 11 FLs (and, to support your earlier point, many of them the work of a single editor). I doubt I could write an article on, say, Singapore half as well. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:11, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
• @Dvh369, please contribute to WP:TFA, WP:TFL, WP:DYK, WP:ITN and WP:FPC to prevent such abhorrent articles from appearing on the main page in the future! I think it's about time that someone nominated cricket for a move to cricket (sport), after all, crickets got here first didn't they? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:02, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Crickets annoyed by their over-exposure on the main page. And then being told they're not the primary topic.... The shame, the shame....

I do not see the need to ban creation of encyclopedic content about automobiles, children's magazines, towns in North Carolina, or Andrew Lloyd Webber productions. Censorship: It's Not Cricket. --Allen3 ^talk 17:56, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

You guys are hilarious! ;-) Also the picture caption is great. @The Rambling Man: thanks, will do. Dvh369 (talk) 12:58, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

• I think all sports events should be banned from the main page. There is nothing inherently news worthy about people winning or losing any particular sportsgame. Sports events become news worthy only if combined with something else that is extraordinary or has some kind of broader relevance such as an alien invasion during super bowl, or the president of a country executing the players on the national team after loosing. Stuff like that is notable. That some team or individual won some match in some sport isn't.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:19, 27 June 2013 (UTC)
  • Well that's pure nonsense (tm), unless you don't live in the real world. But your opinion counts! Please contribute to WP:TFA, WP:TFL, WP:DYK, WP:ITN and WP:FPC to prevent such abhorrent articles from appearing on the main page in the future! The Rambling Man (talk) 17:02, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

I have suggested before that there could be 'themed MPs' (so ones which give emphasis to American topics, animals, sports, 'non-work-safe' etc).

Alternatively - try and improve 'articles on any topics that are not US/animal/sport/other bone of contention flavoured' so they have a better chance of MP status. Jackiespeel (talk) 15:25, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Mating toads on the front page.

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...seriously? --85.210.101.91 (talk) 15:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Technically speaking they're just hugging; toads don't engage in actual intercourse. GRAPPLE X 15:51, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOT#CENSORED. As images go, this is pretty tame, anyway. LFaraone 15:53, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

And just as a side note, since this appears to be the same IP who posted above a few days ago: If all you have to say is "seriously?" keep it to yourself. One word arguments are pretty much useless, and as you can see are not taken ...seriously. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:27, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

Probably thinks s/he is being extremely clever and funny. 75.156.68.21 (talk) 04:08, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

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Visual

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There will be visual editor soon. Jiawhein (talk) 06:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

They're going straight from nothing to being the default for all users, and with virtually no notice? That's ambitious. An optional phase would have made far more sense. There had better be an option to turn it off... Modest Genius ^talk 13:02, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

It is optional at the moment, and there will be a way to turn it off. Hut 8.5 13:47, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

At present you can select to edit the page or edit the source of the page. If it stays like that it should be okay. — foxj 17:19, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

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Snowden

Okay, ITN is "not a news ticker." Still, it seems odd that Edward Snowden's travels (or lack thereof) don't make In the News. Sca (talk) 14:54, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Then why not suggest them at WP:ITN/C rather than here? GRAPPLE X 15:00, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, I updated the Snowden entry, but I give up on trying to jump the techie hurdles in the convoluted nomination form: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:ITN_candidate/doc#Syntax

Why do you have to be a geek to play the game? Sca (talk) 21:52, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

I've set up the nomination for you, although I have to be honest and say that I somewhat resent the idea that being able to do so qualifies me as a "geek".--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:49, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Geek isn't necessarily pejorative. Per Wiktionary: "An expert in a technical field, particularly one having to do with computers." Sca (talk) 14:41, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

"Complete list" in sidebar

Hi. I can't see the "Complete list" link in the sidebar using Opera 12 under Windows 8. I can see it using Google Chrome, though. Please fix this issue. --41.196.255.154 (talk) 15:36, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

It requires JavaScript. I see it in Opera 12.12 on Windows Vista, but it disappears if I disable JavaScript. Do you have JavaScript enabled in Opera? PrimeHunter (talk) 00:18, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Creatures on the main page

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(Mainly to start a new thread).

Two birds, some bats and a DNA-sequenced horse and nobody comments.

If there were one or two themed Main Page days a month (not necessarily obvious ones - so July might have things other than US and France) would there be fewer comments about April 1? Jackiespeel (talk) 15:26, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and you forgot to mention that the TFA is about a writer who's probably most famous work is a story about a guy who turns into a bug. --Tone 15:48, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

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Why was this closed? I like the idea of making themed main pages a more regular occurrence. I don't think it would even have to relate to the specific date; we could just pick a theme and run with it. Of course, articles picked would have to meet the normal criteria for each section. Actually, now that I think about it, an effort towards making something a "Main Page theme" could actually be a good way to motivate people to improve a subject area.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 17:32, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I assumed the post was an original attempt of a joke and I simply followed. Sure, I support the idea of having theme-oriented MP from time to time, apart from those days we do it already. We can play with TFA, OTD, TFP. ITN is a bit more tricky. But if we can manage something on a short notice, it's also possible. --Tone 17:37, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I was being humorous - and checklisting the 'long discussion' in the immediately previous section, a 'pseudo-grouping of objects', and the US and French national days.

'As a suggestion' in the same vein - using eg Library of Congress Classification/Dewey Decimal Classification to select topics for Main Page happenings - 'Wikiflashmobtheme'?

Allegedly habitable planets

Moved to WP:ERRORS. LFaraone 02:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

unAmerican!

Oh come on, no instant knee-jerk reactions to a United States defeat during the Revolutionary War being the featured article today? (tongue firmly in cheek) - Tenebris 01:38, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Meh. We lost the battle but won the war. Hot Stop talk-contribs 01:48, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry, someone went ahead and went there at WP:VPP#Featured Article for July 4th 2013. Beeblebrox (talk) 18:42, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions

The page notice tells me that there is a different place for suggestions. I have checked, and there is none. Where should I go? buffbills7701 — Preceding undated comment added 23:59, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). LFaraone 00:23, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! buffbills7701 01:39, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Let's remove this second, non-specific, prominent link to Wikinews

Main-page link ... the public "floods" in.

For better or worse, Wikinews has a prominent icon-based link at the bottom of our main page, along with other sister projects. But I have never understood why In the news has yet another link to the English WN's main page, smack in the mid-top-right of the main page—prime real-estate if you ask me.

Editors who work on ITN articles produce excellent material, thoroughly worthy of main-page exposure. Many people are engaged in quality control. Why do they put up with the public degrading of their professional standards by allowing a permanent link—as though rusted on—to a page that gives every sign of being a chaotic hobby page for a few outlying editors who lack any proper editorial oversight? One of the enduring problems of Wikinews is the low number of editors who want to work on it (six regulars, is it?); in a self-reinforcing way, the amateurish output reinforces the disincentive for other editors to join. This has been the case for years and looks unlikely to change. The WN main page is usually a mixture of (i) threadbare internationally significant stories cobbled together with much less care and skill than our ITN writers, and (ii) local trivia. It is the second that is particularly embarrassing in terms of the link in ITN.

Until a few minutes ago we were treated to this poorly written offering, highlighted ORIGINAL REPORT in red caps: Canberrans flood Cotter Dam on open day, with pics that make the headline seem disingenuous. The piece opens with "Thousands of Canberrans took a look at the new Cotter Dam on the Cotter River on open day on Sunday. The public was given limited access to the still-active construction site. Buses took viewers from the car park below to top of the dam wall. They ran every 15 minutes from 8:30 am to 4:00 pm." Gee-whizz. Not a mention of the dramatic change in prime-minister in Canberra three days ago. Just a construction site someone happened to visit and happy-snap somewhere in Canberra. Who cares?

The text—hardly the length for adequate coverage, which is often a problem in WN "stories"—shows significant problems in logic and repetition. These glitches alone make the page remarkably unworthy of exposure via en.WP's main page. For example, "is to ... is to ... is expected to ... is then to ... are to ... is expected to ...". We have "It is ... It is ...", and "The concrete was ... The concrete was ..." opening successive sentences. Other repetitions are hardly the stuff of writing we want to show off on our main page: "The dam replaces an old dam", "replanted to replace".

The only source provided goes to a web page of the local water authority that has been building the structure for four years—hardly reliable by itself. Wikinews seems to think it will be complete by September, although the source is a good deal less specific ("2013").

Some of the current stories seem OK (and of global interest and significance), but are fast becoming out of date. And there's a slow turnover rate, for a site that bills itself as news (whereas ITN is themed more specifically). It's typical to find howlers or underwhelming material on the WN main page. Last time I pointed out a glaring typo in a headline, no one bothered to fix it.

Our ITN people cover unfolding events so much better, with a good sense of judgement as to international significance. Why, then, do we retain this very prominent second link on our main page? Isn't one link in our sister-project section below sufficient? And it's not as though Wikinews has the courtesy to return the favour, once, let alone twice. Time to adjust, I think.

Finally, I should warn that WN people hate criticism of their site and usually respond with highly personalised insults and no substantive defence of the impoverished product. I have a cast-iron shield against that when professionalising WP is at stake: it doesn't hurt. Tony (talk) 08:31, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

It does seem redundant. It's featured prominently on the current events portal as well--shouldn't it have its own "Wikinews" page? And why is "News about Wikipedia" hidden on the current events portal, under the calendar? It turns out to be a link to the Signpost. Neotarf (talk) 09:27, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

• If we are even remotely considering actually doing this, then I think we need to have an RfC on this. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 10:48, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

• I think it's an excellent point, we should not be directing users looking for Wikipedia-grade content to Wikinews. It was a cool idea, but it flopped, mostly becuase there are dozens if not hundreds of other news websites out there that are actually put together by paid professionals and are just as free as it is. If we need an RFC to make this decision let's go ahead and have one. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:02, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
• Agree. The first link should be removed. The one in the section "Wikipedia's sister projects" is enough. Garion96 (talk) 19:26, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
• Let's just do this then, opening a formal RFC below. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:41, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
• You have concealed the fact that you failed (last 4 sections) to establish as an editor at English Wikinews, yourself, and have a conflict of interest here; other language editions of Wikinews have another atmosphere and quality, with the problems you cited being specific to the English edition; I don't think you are appreciating the opportunity of non-English users to open that Wikinews link and figure out how to switch to their own language. --Gryllida 21:33, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Uh, who concealed what? It appears you are speaking to me, but I have no clue what those remarks are supposed to mean. And as for non-English users, they would presumably be completely lost on the main page of the English Wikipedia anyway, so that doesn't really make sense either. Beeblebrox (talk) 23:55, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

No, not to you. Gryllida 00:23, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Gryllida's post edit:was indented (in the form of bullet points) at the OP and there are a bunch of posts from Tony in the linked discussion so the most, logical conclusion is they are speaking to the OP. Nil Einne (talk) 07:32, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

RFC

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Per the above thread, it is proposed that the link to Wikinews in the "In the News" section be removed. 20:01, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support For numerous reasons, including:

• We don't do this for any other sister project. Today's featured picture does not link to Commons, for example.
• Wikinews' coverage of events is spotty and unpredictable
• Readers may mistakenly think, because of this apparent favored status, that Wikinews is part of Wikipedia
• Frankly, Wikinews is often an emberassment. Of all the sister projects we could be directing our readers to, this is hardly the one most users would choose to highlight, so it seems silly to have it linked more than once on the main page.

• That being said, this should not be a discussion that is primarily about Wikinews itself, this is just a discussion of whether we should link to it twice on the main page when no other sister project gets such favored status. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:41, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• Support Mainly per Beeblebrox's points 2 and 4. Wikinews seems to not cover several very newsworthy items, while at the same time covering relatively insignificant topics. ITN on the other hands is a lot better at covering the news. No use linking it twice if it does not make sense from a utility Point of View for the main page. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 19:49, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose As an administrator on both English Wikipedia and Wikinews, I believe Wikinews does cover a lot of significant and important stories. Some stories will be inaccurate, and some stories will be given prominence that is perhaps unwarranted front page attention compared to their real-life importance—such is the nature of a project written and edited by unpaid volunteers. As Wikinews grows, we will lean away from always giving lead article spots to every story, just as Wikipedia shifted from having a relative free-for-all on the main page to slowly evolving a process of featured articles, "did you knows?" and so on.

  Regarding the utility of the link between the Wikipedia front page and Wikinews. This is simple: Wikinews publishes news. Not always as quickly as we'd like, not necessarily with the level of comprehensiveness we'd like, and sometimes with failings in quality. But it does provide news. If someone is reading the ITN section, they are probably interested in news and current affairs. They click through to Wikinews and they get... news and current affairs. It's relevant simply because of that fact.

  With the Wikipedia featured picture process, I wouldn't actually have a problem with a link through to the equivalent at Commons (featured pictures, quality images etc.). I think that increasing co-operation between Wikimedia projects helps raise all boats: often while writing Wikinews articles, I'll find and fix issues with Wikipedia, and occasionally sorting out Wikipedia issues nudges me into finding news sources that form the basis of Wikinews stories. After writing Wikinews stories, I have gone and added the sources I used to write the Wikinews story to the Wikipedia article. The original reporting often produces images which are uploaded to Commons and thus available for use in Wikipedia. From the Wikipedia side, we should encourage sister projects more: because they help serve our educational and free culture goals, and because they have the capacity to turn readers into editors. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:02, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

  • Well said, Tom :) --NaBUru38 (talk) 16:00, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Comment, thanks for coming to the defence of Wikinews, Tom. I just don't feel this RfC has been brought, or 'orchestrated', in good faith. But, I'm not going to vote on how Wikipedia organises its main page. --Brian McNeil /^talk 19:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

No, you're just going to make a completely unwarranted accusation of bad faith with no supporting evidence. Classy. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

• Read what I wrote. Not what you think I wrote. --Brian McNeil /^talk 20:12, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

And, perhaps avoid using an uncannily-familiar slur as an edit summary; one which I associate with the individual who gave you a lead-in to this RfC. I'm neutral, on how you lay out Wikipedia's main page. I'm also conscious of the long, long, history of discussion which led to the links being there in the first place.

Can't say I'm too-pleased to see hints that some would simply delete Wikinews links in Wikipedia articles as linkspam either.

There is an interesting discussion over on the Water Cooler where some Wikipedians want to use Wikinews as a resource. Sadly, in classic "documentation is for wimps" style, when we've spent years figuring out what works. --Brian McNeil /^talk 21:20, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

You're not really making a lot of sense with this remark. I don't know what dark conspiracy you imagine is responsible for this RFC when he genesis of it is easily viewable just above this thread. If you are trying to say something, go ahead and say it instead of dropping vague hints. Don't be all cryptic and then get upset when nobody knows what you mean because you haven't been clear. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:33, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm tired, very tired. I'd happily say "lack of historical knowledge", rather than let my 'reputation' on Wikipedia be twisted into "OMG! Kooky conspiracy theorist!" Assuming Good Faith means giving you that out; particularly when I cannot muster the determination to craft the appropriate search queries to confirm one way or the other to a standard Wikinews would accept. It does not devalue any comments on the motives of the individual who led you to put forward the RfC. --Brian McNeil /^talk 21:58, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Beeblebrox, what Brian McNeil would like to know, or rather what he assumes he knows, is if/that Tony1 put you up to starting this request for comment. I'm already well aware that he didn't, but there's not really many ways to conclusively demonstrate that. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 04:22, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter, Ed. Tony1 has failed to get English Wikinews closed; he then tried to get all of Wikinews closed. He wrote the 600-odd-word piece of – shall we say – 'yellow journalism' that prompted this RfC. Beeblebrox isn't someone I've a problem with, this RfC could-well have been put forward with the best of intentions; it is the fact that someone was bound to take the derogatory 'critique' of Wikinews – from an individual who is on a crusade to kill Wikinews – and do their dirty work for them.

I would expect Wikipedians to object to being manipulated in such a way, full stop. --Brian McNeil /^talk 06:46, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• Oh, I wish you would stop harping on about victimisation by Tony. As the de facto roi de WikiNews, what you need is a proper SWOT analysis on the project. The comments in this section are a pretty good starting point. If you did, you would find that the 'S' section looks thin if not totally bald. The 'W' and 'T' sections pretty colossal, and that the project lacks scale to chase the 'Os', but I digress. As to this request, there are no signs that the community is being manipulated as you insinuate, but voting strongly that WN should not have two slots on the Main Page. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 03:19, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

• Support I have often clicked that link inadvertently when i thought it might bring me to ITN. It serves no useful function.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:18, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support Agree with Beeblebrox reasons. The first link should be removed. The one in the section "Wikipedia's sister projects" is enough. Garion96 (talk) 21:21, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
• Neutral, mostly because WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not a newspaper apparently does not outweigh the urge to report, or Beeblebrox's emberassment [sic, warning, SP link] to use sister projects. - Amgine (talk) 21:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support I've never understood the link to Wikinews in that section. ITN is a completely separate process to Wikinews and they have no relation to each other. The news added to ITN also has no connection to any parallel articles made by Wikinews (which often doesn't even cover the material in ITN anyways). It just seems a way to shoehorn in a separate project that doesn't have to do with Wikipedia. ITN is specifically a Wikipedia process that highlights news while also highlighting the Wikipedia articles that contains the information on that news. So, in the end, it is about Wikipedia and its articles. It is not about Wikinews at all. Silverseren^C 23:06, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Forgive me if I've entirely missed the point, but why would you replace Wikinews with ITN on the home page? Wikinews, at the very least, is a Wiki project, whilst ITN is a broadcaster with (as far as I know) no clear link to Wikipedia? I think this should be looked into in greater depth, and if ITN is supplying any of the content for Wikipedia I would hope that it is independently verified. Horatio Snickers (talk) 20:01, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

• Support Mainly per nom's 1st and 3rd reason. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:53, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
• Support One link is enough. Also, there are prominent links to Wikinews at Portal:Current events, which is linked from the ITN section. So it will still be intuitive/convenient to get to Wikinews from ITN, and the main page will be slightly less cluttered. Braincricket (talk) 03:51, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support Per the nom's 3rd reason. Furthermore, the space taken up by the Wikinews link could be better used for things such as ongoing events. 65.95.190.140 (talk) 06:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose I haven't visited wikinews in a long time, and edited it even longer but I feel that the link is useful because wikipedia is not a newspaper and ITN despite the poor name isn't about the news so linking to our sister project which does cover the news is useful both to avoid either unfortunate misconception and to serve readers who are interested in the news rather than in updated encyclopaedic articles surrounding stuff recently in the news, as long as it exists, despite its flaws. Even in this discussion we have people who appear to think ITN is about covering news which highlights the problem. I have no objection to linking to other sister project where relevant although the only one I can see here would be TFP linking to commons. Having said that, we should also acknowledge each case is different, we link to wikitionary in articles or disambig pages a fair amount, and also sometimes to wikisource (occasionally as a repository for a source) and wikiquote. We link to wikinews occasionally as well, but we should reasonably expect even given equally comprehensive coverage that the links would be less because wikinews articles would only be highly relevant for a short time. Wikiversity is likely to be even less common. Commons is of course an even more nique case since we indirectly link to it all the time here and in articles s a lot of our media is hosted there. And getting to the key point here we do not do news on wikipedia whatever people may say here or elsewhere, despite the occasional odd thing like the posting of minute by minute updates of the travel of Edward Snowden to talk pages. On the other hand, we have no problems hosting media although often prefer to do it indirectly via commons when possible, and although we do not host non-encyclopaedic media, I don't think I've ever seen someone complaining about the lack of non-encycloapedic media on the main page. Nil Einne (talk) 07:39, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• "Frankly, Wikinews is often an emberassment." Embarrassment. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 08:29, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support removal. Wikipedia isn't a newspaper, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should be prominently linking to somewhere that is. There is no reason that Wikinews should be given a prominence that other sister projects are not, especially when there are legitimate concerns about its quality (upon which I have no particular opinion). There is also some merit in the claim that keeping the link may lead to some confusion about the relationship between Wikipedia and Wikinews. J Milburn (talk) 14:15, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support removal. My reasons are implicit in the thread immediately above. Thanks for running this RFC, Beeblebrox. Tony (talk) 14:25, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. The extra link is redundant. I would also support disentangling Wikinews from ITN at the current events portal. Neotarf (talk) 14:49, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• Comment If confusion between Wikipedia and Wikinews is a concern, the link to Wikinews doesn't matter nearly as much as the name In the news. Although Wikipedians trying to treat Wikinews as if it were Wikipedia has been historically the cause of various problems at Wikinews, the problem of immediate concern for Wikipedia would seem to be prospective contributors, and readers, mistaking encyclopedia articles for news articles.

Mistaking encyclopedia articles for news articles can, indeed, lead to those same people then trying to treat Wikinews as if it were Wikipedia. It is, in fairness, also an unfortunate side-effect of the size differential between Wikipedia and the other sisters, that Wikipedians often fail to realize that the functions being performed by other sisters entail different procedures than Wikipedians have chosen to adopt for their encyclopedic work. For example:

• The concept of neutrality is different as applied to news articles than as applied to encyclopedia articles. It's possible for an article to be neutral in the sense of either project yet non-neutral in the sense of the other.
• The concept of newsworthiness (on Wikinews) is quite different from the concept of notability (on Wikipedia); again, an article can satisfy either criterion without satisfying the other. This mismatch appears central to the preceding thread, from which this one was spawned.
• Article focus, and article organization, are different for news articles versus encyclopedia articles.
• The projects approach verifiability in dramatically different ways. Suffice to say that news and encyclopedic content have different time profiles: with an encyclopedia it matters whether you get it right in the long run, with news it matters whether you get it right the first time.

There are of course also social differences between the projects, but those don't seem to play directly into the problems of confusing either project for the other. --Pi zero (talk) 15:55, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

• We've had brainstormings for a better name of the section but noone has come out with anything that would really be an improvement. Regarding the link, I am in favour of removing it, I agree with several points alerady mentioned above. --Tone 16:43, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. If Wikinews was a useful website, I'd support keeping the link; it's certainly relevant ("click here for more news!"). But Wikinews is indeed an embarrassment ("click here for random ramblings!"), so kill it. SnowFire (talk) 18:54, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose and remove ITN instead (if I'd run Wiki). Wikinews is actually much better than ITN, which is beyond ridiculous in bias in favour of US stories sometimes (recent example, the SCOTUS ruling on DOMA, really?!), and the nomination progress is completely dominated by a handful of heavy-handed supremely biased regulars. Wikinews is a pretty balanced in and nice resource, while I fear ITN is beyond rescue. 82.0.112.151 (talk) 21:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

• I wonder what could happen if the Wikinews regulars come over to ITN and get around with working in the ITN atmosphere. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 23:43, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

• Support. One link that makes it clear it's a sister project is sufficient. The one under ITN makes it look like it's part of wikipedia. Richerman (talk) 22:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support Following that link almost always frustrates. Sometimes less is more. --ELEKHH^T 01:21, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. If news stories are what our readers are after, we could do better by linking to Google news. I can't fault identifying WN as a sister project, though.

  As an aside, WN links within our articles should be treated no more favourably than any other external link, though having said that, most of said links to Wikinews stories are only fit to be treated as linkspam – they offer a lot less coverage and a lot fewer sources than the WP article in which the link is embedded. -- Ohc ^¡digame!_{¿que pasa?} 01:52, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

• Neutral. Setting aside the disproportional criticism in the original request, which is not to the point, I don't mind the link being gone if the community so chooses to design main page. Gryllida 07:49, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Complaining that we don't link any other project misses the point. No other aspect of the main page is so devoted to something that is the raison d'être of another project. If even one person has gotten involved with wikinews in that time through that link, it's worth it. Daniel Case (talk) 14:17, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support I am sorry, but I have not seen Wikinews as up-to-date with current events like Wikipedia is. Turns out, news enter Wikipedia at a much faster rate than Wikinews (or is the article even created in the first place). Linking to Wikinews is just going to be a shame and embarrassment to our editing community here. --Hydriz (talk) 14:38, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose - all Wikimedia projects should be integrated. Removing the link would be doing the opposite. By the way, I support adding a similar like to Wikimedia Commons in the today's featured picture. --NaBUru38 (talk) 15:59, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support Links on main page should be to English Wikipedia articles or lists except in clearly demarcated sections. --regentspark (comment) 16:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support one link on the page is enough. And the arguments that retaining the link helps to integrate the projects or helps to turn readers into editors don't convince me: despite the presence of the extra link on WP's main page for many years, Wikinews is still a very small project with only a handful of committed editors doing their best to prevent it stopping completely. Bencherlite^Talk 19:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
• Suppport 82.*'s assertion that Wikinews is better than ITN because ITN has a bias towards the US is amusing, given the bias towards North America is far more extreme there. The North America portal's oldest stories only date back to last December. Some of the stories on the Africa portal, for example, are FOUR YEARS OLD. Then again, the NA portal is only more up to date because Wikinews chooses to feature earth shattering stories like who the Chicago bears picked in the seventh (!) round of the NFL Draft, or because noted Canadian Margret Thatcher died. As to the topic of this RFC, Wikinews was a good idea that failed. So long as the project exists, it deserves its link alongside our other sister projects. It is not, however, a project that warrants feature placement in the upper fold of the main page. Resolute 20:23, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support because of Beeblebrox's reasons 1 and 3. Reasons 2 and 4 are also valid points, but even if Wikinews was fast and complete with its news coverage, a link to it would be preferential. Binksternet (talk) 21:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. I wouldn't mind having the link if Wikinews didn't suck. Clearly some people disagree with me in that regard, but I think we should do as much as possible to support our sister projects; if there were convenient inline places to link to Wikisource, or Wikibooks, or what-have-you, I'd be all for it. (In fact, the cited example of a link to Commons along with the featured picture sounds like a great idea, if you ask me.) However, I see a fundamental difference between Wikinews and the rest of the projects: When another project lacks coverage of a certain important topic, that's not the end of the world; when Wikinews does, it is, as Beeblebrox says, an embarrassment. That's because while all of our projects have incredibly audacious goals ("all words in all languages", a free library of all redistributable texts, etc.), only Wikinews has a goal that, when failed (i.e. almost always), is immediately obvious to the average reader. There are still some books of the King James Bible that aren't on Wikisource... so Wikisource doesn't link to the KJV from its Main Page. Wikinews, however, is forced to have a Main Page whose omitted entries are glaringly obvious to anyone even moderately aware of current events. This essentially highlights the failure of the Wikinews concept. So time-sensitive a wiki simply does not work with such low participation. So, in short... more prominent links to other projects is great... but only to other projects that are actually worthy of the WMF brand. — PinkAmpers&^{(Je vous invite à me parler)} 13:32, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Case in point: they are two days behind ITN on the crisis in Egypt. Their current top story is about the gay pride parade in London. I hardly think a parade of any kind should be the top story on a news website for three days. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:17, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

Write the story and I'll be happy to review it... —Tom Morris (talk) 06:55, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Tom, no one's interested in writing a WN story on Egypt, because WN is a failed model; I'm not blaming anyone personally, I just think it's impossible for it to work satisfactorily; in effect, it tries to achieve an impossible task. ITN, by contrast, fits WP's encyclopedic aims very well and piggybacks on numerous and robust editorial resources. It aims for less grand a scheme and produces within its smaller frame something that captures readers and that we can be proud of. Tony (talk) 10:18, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• Neutral. The original post reads like a hostile, drama-filled rant. I don't understand why people care so much. Is it really that important whether Wikinews has bad grammar? Wikipedia itself is full of bad grammar, misspellings, homophobic vandalism, and half the articles seem to be about Pokemon or Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Wikipedia is just as embarrassing as anything else on the Internet. I'm strictly neutral on this topic. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 02:34, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. The link at the bottom is enough. Another one in such a prominent place is preferential. Rubersan the Red (talk) 07:09, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. This shouldn't really be controversial. Some WN folks seem to be going on the defensive, but this isn't an attack on WN at all: it's the revocation of an undeserved privilege that seems to have been assigned to WN over all our other sister projects. You don't see a link to Wikimedia Commons in the "Today's featured picture" template, for example. Rashmi Naidoo (talk) 17:29, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support per above Wizardman 22:15, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support I've often been disappointed when clicking on the link for Wikinews. It's an interesting idea, but I don't think it has worked. Space on the front page of Wikipedia is too valuable to link to something that is not very useful. SchreiberBike talk 23:12, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support Wikinews is listed with all the rest of the sister projects down at the bottom. Why should this one project get mentioned twice? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support I agree with all the proposer's reasons. Neljack (talk) 05:43, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support - if a Gay Pride march in London is the main news headline all week, this should be unlinked until a time when it can be more up-to-date. An optimist on the run!   10:15, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support removal. (1) It is misleading because the in the news items are not based on Wikinews content. Its relevance to the column is tangential at best. (2) It is biased because none of the other daily Main Page columns promotes a sister project. The static list farther down the page is entirely adequate for promoting all of the sister projects. More than that is just spam. ~ Ningauble (talk) 17:50, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
• Support. I actually used to be an administrator at Wikinews, and know that there's a few good editors there doing their best. However it hasn't been working, and the situation shows no signs of improving. The site is beset by personalities and processes which stifle collaboration. New stories are few and far between, and the main page regularly contains outdated information (e.g. right now "Egyptian military issues ultimatum to Morsi" - a story which is 5 days old and completely overtaken by events). Updating such stories is actually against Wikinews policy, instead users are expected to write a whole new article and wait for it to be formally reviewed - a review which in many cases never comes. I'm sorry to say it has reached the point where we are doing readers a disservice by linking it so prominently. the wub "?!" 19:45, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

RFC proposing an adjustment to the governance of featured-article forums

Community input is welcome here. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:01, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Today's featured story . . . a public service?

I know nothing about the process by which Today's Featured Article is selected, but I have to ask--is today's selection purely coincidental, or is designed to help clarify things for people unfamilar with the terminology in this story in today's news? If so, it kind of seems to be in bad taste, but, meh . . . HuskyHuskie (talk) 18:22, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

purely coincidental. GB fan 18:33, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

• Considering the article was scheduled almost two weeks ago, purely coincidental. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:31, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Indeed it was - and I must admit that the possibility of a link between the two would not even have occurred to me had it not been raised here. Bencherlite^Talk 14:51, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

#5 website source?

So, saw this year's donation drive ad, and just had to wonder, what is the basis of Wikipedia being the #5 website? Alexa lists it as #7: http://www.alexa.com/topsites

Even wikipedia it's self cites it at #6, based on outdated Alexa info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_popular_websites — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.206.3.38 (talk • contribs) 09:11, 9 July 2013‎ (UTC)

The ranking is based on data from comScore. Pcoombe (WMF) (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Lol, cherry-picking sources wikipedia seems to be.--85.211.117.11 (talk) 15:27, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Not really. comScore are a major provider of such analytics, used by many companies and organizations. They donated access to their data a few years ago, and the Wikimedia Foundation has consistently used it for measuring reach since then. m:User:Stu/comScore data on Wikimedia is a little old, but has good information. Pcoombe (WMF) (talk) 16:09, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

For what it is worth, Alexa data has about the same level of reliability as Nielsen ratings, for similar reasons. - Tenebris 04:15, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Wikinews link

What happened to the Wikinews link in the news section? I noticed that it's missing because I usually follow it to go to Wikinews after checking the Wikipedia main page. Ragettho (talk) 03:42, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

It was removed, per this RFC. - Evad37 (talk) 03:47, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Just scroll down to the sister-projects section there's a large icon with an adjacent link to en.WN. Tony (talk) 05:29, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

In the News

I find it perverse that in this section everything is about bad things, deaths, and tragedy all over the world except for England, where banalities such as Wimbledon are always there. It is clearly written with a British political bias.

I think the "in the News" should contain information about the Srebrenica genocide.--Ministar Nesigurnosti (talk) 12:44, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

All the current ITN items have been discussed and consensus reached for posting. The best (and only way) to propose and discuss any nomination is on the WP:ITN/C page. Anyone is welcome to nominate any item. See the information at the top of that page for more information. CaptRik (talk) 12:57, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, please realise that ITN posts items that are currently actually in the news. From a quick scan through the article you linked, I can't see and recent developments that are currently being reported. CaptRik (talk) 12:59, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

England is the land of green fields and fairies! Noooone bad happens here and ITN reflects that! No really, how did the OP come to a conclusion of "British political bias"? I can't see it! And Wimbledon, along with all the other Grand Slams in tennis are not "banal" in the realms of sport, is ITN/R and widely reported in sports media. Weird how these topics keep coming up on the main page. --Somchai Sun (talk) 15:18, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I believe User:Ministar Nesigurnosti is referring to OTD. I was planning to include that, but it's also the 70th anniversary of Massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia so it seemed too much to have two massacre items listed. —howcheng {chat} 15:47, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

In the News: Egypt

"More than fifty supporters of deposed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi are killed in clashes with the military in Cairo" and no Morsi supporters are killing anybody? TuckerResearch (talk) 19:05, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Did you read the article linked? The blurb is about a particular incident, and the story was that more than fifty Morsi supporters were killed there. That being said, now that the article includes an orange template citing issues with the main part of the article, a case could be made for its (temporary) removal. But the blurb is a reasonable, neutral summary of that particular event, the news story. -- tariqabjotu 01:23, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

200-word article on the main-page?

Including a 200-word article on the main-page? The topic is interesting, but the article doesn't show it enough respect. How low are our standards for main-page inclusion? Albacore (talk) 02:56, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:SOFIXIT. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 07:38, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• ITN? I don't think their minimum length criteria is codified yet. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:42, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
  • There is no minimum word requirement, as long as it is not classified a stub. Per WP:ITN#Criteria, "Candidates for ITN are evaluated on two main grounds: the quality of the updated content and the significance of the developments described in the updated content." Zzyzx11 (talk) 08:06, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Still, that article is definitely at the low end of length standards. The original article posted on this topic was Human-powered helicopter, which is notably longer. However, the link was switched over to AeroVelo Atlas when that new article was created. That being said, the former link still seems about as informative, if not more informative, than the latter article. I don't care enough to switch the link back though, and I'm not sure I should. -- tariqabjotu 08:43, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Tommorows TFA

Can we remove the note at the top about infobox merges? I don't think its appropriate for the TFA to have such links at the top of the article, I'm sure the article will survive without it for 24 hours? ★★RetroLord★★ 09:34, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• I think it's automatically transcluded from the template, so the only way to remove it would be to remove the infobox. That... Let's just say that is among the worst things you could do right now, considering the very clear division between pro/contra infobox people. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:42, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Couldn't we stop the debate/transclusion while its on the main page? It doesn't look to good, can't the debate wait until the content in question has finished representing wikipedia to the world? ★★RetroLord★★ 09:44, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• I don't think so... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 09:51, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

I think the best solution would be to noinclude the merge template at {{Infobox royalty}} while Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia is on the main page. This won't interfere with the merge discussion or remove the notice from the template itself, but it will prevent it from being displayed on the various articles for a day. --Bongwarrior (talk) 10:03, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• Facepalm Why didn't I think of that? Very good indeed. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 10:06, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

It has happened.

...A Gibraltar-based article is now TFA. Dear god, save us all. --85.211.117.11 (talk) 15:57, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• And to think we all thought December 21st, 2012 was going to be the end of days. GamerPro64 17:26, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Hey, be thankful it isn't Lugo. 75.156.68.21 (talk) 17:53, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Did someone call for Lugo?

Careful what you ask for, you might just get it. --Allen3 ^talk 18:09, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• All hail big L! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 21:59, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

For others to understand the context of this thread, see Gibraltarpedia#Controversy. Also see Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/History of Gibraltar for the TFA request and the related discussion. Erik (talk | contribs) 19:16, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• I have a strong feeling that most people who would care are already aware of the Gibraltarpedia "scandal". — Crisco 1492 (talk) 21:59, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• See also this image. Personally I think it's very concerning that Gibraltar has taken up a featured article main page slot that could have been used for an article about a battleship, hurricane or video game. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:05, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• Or a TV episode. X-Files, most likely. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• That spoof is beautiful. Note to whomever created it (Victuallers?): The recently featured articles are not about Gibraltar! For shame, how can we have a Gibraltarpedia without Gibraltar? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:08, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• I'm surprised it took so long for comment... 15 hours? Wow, the dramah's all migrated somewhere else. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:07, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

• Nah, Gibraltarpedia is SO yesterday. MichiganWolverinesSoftballPedia is where it's at now. Awien (talk) 23:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
  • Sigh, why can't we have "IndonesiaPedia" for a day, or "CanadaPedia"? Or even, dare I say it, "FinalFantasyPedia"? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:40, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

Some would contend that that last one is already half true. 75.156.68.21 (talk) 05:56, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• Hence "dare I say it". Now, a Legend of Dragoon-pedia would be fun. Individual articles on Rose/Lavitz fanfiction (or Dart/Lavitz...) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:59, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

I added elements of the main page known to have been compromised by marketing campaigns to my adblocker with en.wikipedia.org##DIV[id="mp-tfa"] and en.wikipedia.org##DIV[id="mp-dyk"]. Problem solved. Works on Square Enix spam too, even if they still have plausible deniability that it's just the work of obsessed fanbois. Kilopi (talk) 08:44, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• Until FFI reaches its 30 year anniversary and hits OTD... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:52, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Lugo! Lugo! Lugo! Lugo! Lugo! Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 07:38, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• YES! LUGOPEDIA! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:41, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• Lugopedia is here! PrimeHunter (talk) 00:36, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

• big smile... big smile. Love it, I had a good belly laugh there. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:41, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

They probably already exist on Wikia or other platforms.

Perhaps there could be 'an obscure field appearing on the main page' sweepstakes (with participants encouraged to develop the articles in the field). Jackiespeel (talk) 08:41, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• That they do does not mean they would have as much impact as a "Whatever"pedia. That's 70s Show-pedia, w.e. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:45, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

You know, it occurs to me...Gibraltar could be a truly awesome TFA for April Fool's day. That, or Fernando Lugo.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:14, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

• SPOILERS! GamerPro64 19:57, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
• What about Moresnet?

As another suggestion 'Wikipedia Main Page Bingo' - people get a list of 12 topics and the first to get some reference to all of them (or the most by a certain date) wins. (Improving articles to manipulate the end resuld does not count as cheating.) Jackiespeel (talk) 17:14, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• Sounds interesting. How general can these topics be? Something like "Death, video games, war, Indonesia etc." would be done in a few days, maximum. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:46, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

On the theoretical WMPB page there should be something similar to the random article link which selects 12 topics - a mixture of 'general', middling obscure, and a couple of stubs/'this article needs expanding.' Alternatively type in a term and get a list of12/24/36/48 (or 'easy, medium, difficult and fiendish') articles including a number needing care and attention. At least some articles are likely to be developed as a result. Jackiespeel (talk) 13:35, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Mobile main page lacks Did You Know, On This Day, and the featured picture sections

The wikipeida mobile main page lacks Did You Know, On This Day, and the featured picture section. Is there a reason for this?Maloof200 (talk) 13:56, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

• Likely because of the size of most mobile phones and to conserve bandwidth. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:03, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

We don't cut short articles for these reasons. But even if this is the actual reason, we can atleast provide a link at the bottom which will direct to current DYKs, OTDs, FLs and FPs. That way readers can go there and read if they wish to. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 04:19, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

• Some of the servers (API cluster) are currently under a DDoS attack. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Where is Gadgets ?. — Edokter (talk) — 14:06, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

• Discussion now raised at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Mobile_version.2C_Main_Page. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 07:12, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

DYK

...the Rotolactor (pictured) was the first invention for milking a large quantity of cows....

— That would be a large number of cows, not "quantity." Sca (talk) 14:22, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Both mean the same thing. SL93 (talk) 20:56, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Not quite: 'quantity' is usually continuous (though can also be discrete), whilst 'number' is always discrete. 'amount' is always continuous. Modest Genius ^talk 22:00, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

How dare Wikipedia be so ambiguous! --85.211.117.11 (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

To amuse (while it lasts) - a joke from a few years ago.

• 'I am worried about this mad cow disease,' said one cow to its companion. 'Aren't you Esmarelda?'
• 'I'm not worried - I'm a duck.'

Why not updating Wikipedia languages list?

Number of articles in wikipedias has changed and the list we have is out of date. --Zlobny (talk) 06:55, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Firstly, the correct place to raise this is Template talk:Wikipedia languages. Secondly, which languages are in the wrong categories and need to be moved? Modest Genius ^talk 10:52, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Trayvon Martin

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why isn't the Trayvon Martin verdict on the front page? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Boomer Patrol (talk • contribs) 11:47, 18 July 2013 (UTC) The discussion at WP:ITN/C has not generated consensus. Feel free to chime in there. OrganicsLRO 12:14, 18 July 2013 (UTC) Because thankfully the media circus surrounding that case is confined to the US. ★★RetroLord★★ 12:17, 18 July 2013 (UTC) Wow, that discussion is way beyond stupid. Nothing but media hype? What the hell is that based on? The Wikipedia page on the shooting is over 20,000 words long, and the article on the trial is well over 15,000. How can that be if those internet randoms are correct in their dismissal of this as something of little encyclopedica value? And Retrolord, you don't know what you're talking about. I live in the UK and I've been getting daily updates on this controversy on the national BBC news. Thankfully I was able to find the articles without them being on the main page, but no thanks to you apparently. It is unbelievable to me that Wikipedia can be so ignorant in how it chooses what is and is not important enough to display on the front page. Yup. Pretty unbelievable our main page isn't covered with Justin Bieber and other assorted media circuses such as this one. ★★RetroLord★★ 13:04, 18 July 2013 (UTC) I demand to know why the story of Justin Bieber urinating into a bucket at the back of a restaurant isn't on the front page. Seriously, that got godly coverage from Perez Hilton. Post it now. --85.211.117.11 (talk) 13:32, 18 July 2013 (UTC) No. And for future references, please use manners when speaking to other editors on Wikipedia, because time-wasting requests will be ignored - like this one shall be. —MelbourneStar☆talk 13:36, 18 July 2013 (UTC) Can the discussion move to Bieberwiki/Fan website? Rudeness + not signing in = automatically losing the argument. (What is the 'law' being referred to here?) Some of us are equally indifferent to Bieber, the offside rule, leg before wicket and the non-appearance of the infant.

Separatist propaganda

I see that according to whoever writes the stuff on the Main Page, Lac-Mégantic is only located in Quebec, and Canada is not mentioned.

Why are you using a tragedy to promote the Quebec separatist agenda? This is the kind of stuff that I unfortunately expect from the French Wikipedia (which has always had a terrible separatist POV-pushing problem), but I thought the English Wikipedia was somewhat better regarding this kind of stuff. 198.168.27.221 (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

Doubt that the editor who wrote the blurb has any interest in Quebec nationalism. It would be wise to assume good faith and not read into things too much. --Somchai Sun (talk) 20:07, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure it is written down anywhere, but geographic locations in the U.S. and Canada are disambiguated only by the U.S. states and Canadian provinces they are in, and don't usually include "Canada" or "U.S." in the descriptions. We have thousands of examples to choose from, none involving this, and it has nothing to to with Quebec Separatism. It's just sort of the way things are done. There's no need to see spooks here: there's no overt or covert attempt to make any political statement. --Jayron32 20:33, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

While that's the case for article titles, we've never had clear consensus on whether to follow the practice for ITN and this tends to be fairly controversial whenever it comes up. That said, the most common complain is US bias, not Quebec or whatever state separatism. Nil Einne (talk) 22:13, 10 July 2013 (UTC)

From my experience, U.S. is always listed after American entries, so the OP does sort of have a point. Hot Stop talk-contribs 01:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Well, I've been going through every addition which included U.S. or Canada place names. The previous one was the West, Texas fertilizer explosion, which does not mention U.S.: [1]. Before that one, it was the Newton, Connecticut school shooting. Again no "U.S.": [2]. The one before that was Hurricane Sandy's landfall, south of Atlantic City, New Jersey, again with no "U.S.": [3]. There were no more blurbs in the past year that have mentioned a U.S. or Canadian placename overtly, so I've stopped looking, but from this small sample, we've not, in the past year, every used a disambiguator other than state or province, when necessary. --Jayron32 02:12, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

From just a week ago "Nineteen firefighters are killed battling a wildfire in the U.S. state of Arizona." [4] Hot Stop talk-contribs 02:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

We're discussing the use of the phrasing "Locality, Division" not merely any mention of U.S. states or Canadian provinces. The OP is objecting about the formulation "Locality, Division" as opposed to "Locality, Country" or "Locality, Division, Country". Yes, we do call U.S. states U.S. states, but what we don't do is disambiguate localities by the country in these cases. At least, we've not done it once in the past year. And I don't have another 45-60 minutes to search item-by-item through July 2011-July 2012 for the year before that, but I don't ever remember using the "Locality, Division, Country" or "Locality, Country" for U.S. or Canadian placenames. I've you want to search and prove me wrong, be my guest. --Jayron32 02:25, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Okay, the same item was originally posted as "Yarnell, United States" [5] Hot Stop talk-contribs 02:35, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough. You can win today. --Jayron32 02:38, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I feel I should defend the Yarnell blurb, as I proposed it and tweaked it. See the full discussion here [6]. I don't propose much at ITN/C so wasn't thinking in terms of agreed policy but rather simply trying to write a neutral blurb that worked for the story. You'll see in the comments that ThaddeusB also picked up on my linking of the country name. CaptRik (talk) 07:23, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Not to unnecessarily prolong this discussion (which seems to be more about the notation of U.S. and Canadian localities than the "propaganda" noted by the original commenter), but it makes no sense for you use the text "Yarnell, United States" as indication that this is accepted in ITN. It's not, as you should have inferred by the fact that it was changed to "U.S. state of Arizona" (which you already mentioned previously). Having the precise placename (Yarnell) was probably over-specific, but the real problem, as hinted by my edit summary when modifying the blurb, is that we simply do not use [City], [Country] for little-known towns and cities in the United States and Canada.

No one refers to these small towns in the form of "Yarnell, United States". Part of that is because it provides no context; neither the average American nor the average non-American has heard of the town Yarnell, so we basically are just telling people the event took place in the United States (rendering "Yarnell" superfluous). But part of that is because there are so many city and town names that are repeated in other states. Yarnell is no exception, with three communities with the same name besides the one in Arizona; therefore, writing "Yarnell, United States" in this instance is clearly not acceptable.

Now, I don't know if this is a big problem in Canada as well, but my understanding is that this problem does exist there to some degree (even if not every city name, like Lac-Megantic, is actually repeated). Nevertheless, I've heard of London, Ontario, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, but I can't remember the last time I've heard London, Canada or Halifax, Canada; they're just not commonly said. (Note that we also have this same convention for cities in the UK: Birmingham, England, not Birmingham, UK.) When U.S. states are referenced on their own, we tend to go for the form "the U.S. state of Arizona", as "Arizona, USA" is uncommon and "Arizona, U.S." and "Arizona, United States" are rare. For Canadian provinces, my understanding is that "Alberta, Canada" is less strange, so that format seems to be placed on ITN unchallenged.

Of course, in articles, where we have the luxury of space, and where people prefer to get this geographic information out upfront, it is common to go with the full [City], [State/Province/Territory], [Country], but that is rare and discouraged in ITN and, it seems, elsewhere on the Main Page. -- tariqabjotu 09:08, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair to say the practice is discouraged on ITN. There's nothing in the guidelines and it has been done before and whenever the issue comes up, people go both ways as I said in my first response. The big question is whether it's necessary i.e. whether it's resonable to expect most people to recognise all states or provinces of the US and Canada when mentioned (as being in US and Canada). And if not, whether we should do it for some and if so which ones or for consistency we do it for all. Note that in previous discussion, I've never seen any good justification for excluding the country if it's accepted that a fair number of people will not recognise it. The amount of extra space taken is minimal and for those people saying we're providing even less context or clarification then we would by excluding the state or province. The case for articles is different since often the location of the state or province is obvious from the context of the article and if not, we can often find ways to mention it in a different way. Since we aim for brevity it's not always possible to word the item differently without making it wordy and there's rarely sufficient context to establish the place is in the US or Canada. I don't have much experience with the other sections (although I can't remember if all discussions have been only on ITN).But both TFA and TFP blurbls are closer to articles in terms of what we can manage. DYK has its own occasionally wider problems with wording. And the items are also changed often enough that I don't know if it's something people tend to notice. And as for SA/OTD, well the current one actually does have an item which is Missouri, US and it's been that way for a while [7]. In fact even a Californian item does the same thing in that version (another item with California does not but is about an American aviator) although no longer in the current version nor for New York in [8] however these are some of the states where there's the stonegest arguments it isn't necessary. BTW, related issues come up about whether it's necessary to list the country at all in some cases outside US/Canada (or the state in some US cases). Nil Einne (talk) 14:12, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

The best comparison would be June 21st's "75,000 people are evacuated from their homes during flooding in Calgary, Alberta, Canada", which would indicate the sortof OP has a point - but reading into it an "agenda" is definitely an overreaction. Any indication that User:Thryduulf (the nominator) is a Quebec nationalist? His user page does not load for me. Anyway, it seems likely that Quebec has more notability than other provinces, in the same way that most people don't need to be told where Catalonia is (whereas Asturias would probably need a mention of Spain for most people to place it) 64.201.173.145 (talk) 11:54, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

I have no opinions at all about Quebec nationalism. I'm British and have never even been to any part of Canada (based on Google maps distance tool, the closest I've been to Lac-Megantic is about 2500 miles when I visited the Grand Canyon in 1995). Whether to use "Lac-Megantic, Quebec", "Lac-Megantic, Canada" or "Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada" isn't something I actively thought of when nominating the item for in the news. I'm not familiar with naming conventions for either Canadian places or ITN items (this was only my second successful nomination, the first was the 2013 Stockholm riots where the blurb was tweaked from my nomination). I sincerely apologise if I've caused any offence, but I can assure you that it wasn't my intention at all. Thryduulf (talk) 12:49, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Did you know one can go to London, Paris, and Frankfort without even going to europe, or that Versailles is actually many different places scattered around North America? So, yeah, state/province names are kind of important. Beeblebrox (talk) 15:36, 13 July 2013 (UTC)

Your point? The European London, Paris and Frankfurt are the primary topic for each name. If presented without qualification, everyone will assume it's the European one. No problem. Only if it's another place with the same/a similar name does the state/province name absolutely have to be mentioned. Double sharp (talk) 11:07, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Outrageous US centrism on the main page again

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

The main page is edited like it was a local newspaper for the USA and not the main page of an international encyclopedia. The latest is the "on this day" item on an obscure member of parliament who never was in government or held any significant position, who drove his car off a bridge, in an incident very few people outside the USA have heard of. Would we have such an item for a Bulgarian, or Polish, or Chinese Member of Parliament who had a car accident in 1980? Now a bunch of US users will come and tell me that the guy was significant in the US, but the truth is he was not on the top 100 list of the country's most important politicians in his lifetime, and of very little importance from an international point of view. Josh Gorand (talk) 23:23, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Cool story, bro. Why on EARTH are you getting so worked up about an OTD nomination? There's a new OTD everyday, why care? And Ted Kennedy was a very well know political figure in the US (though no doubt boosted because of his rather famous brother) - also, I think it's pretty darn distasteful to rant about something tragic, no matter who it is or where it happened. --Somchai Sun (talk) 23:50, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Wow, I've lived in the US for my entire 39 years of life and I never knew we even had a Parliament. --Khajidha (talk) 23:51, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)x2 Reading the lead of Chappaquiddick incident, it is Ted Kennedy, who was a Senator for over 40 years and not an MP (US doesn't have a parliament), and the event may have influenced races for US President. Also, "member of parliament who never was in government" is contradictory, MPs are government. But I do agree that OTD doesn't always have the most influential events, but article quality is a big factor on inclusion. Chris857 (talk) 23:52, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Duh, a senate is a form of parliament. The international term is member of parliament. He was a member of parliament by international standards. It doesn't matter how long he was a member of parliament, he was not the President, not even a cabinet minister, not even a governor, did not have any significant international position, he only served in a parliament. Millions of people do that. We would not have posted the car accident of a Bulgarian member of parliament, so we should not post him. No, members of parliament are not in government (=cabinet), except when serving in both positions. He was never a member of the US government, neither as President or any other cabinet position. Josh Gorand (talk) 00:00, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

"We would not have posted the car accident of a Bulgarian member of parliament". Resolute 00:02, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

So when did we post news (or old news) about Bulgarian (or any non-US) members of parliament? Or obscure TV personalities? Local US news gets posted all the time. When exactly did similar non-US items get posted? Josh Gorand (talk) 00:04, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Your claim, your burden of proof. Please show me an article of similar quality involving a member of government being involved in a similar incident with similar consequences to the political direction of said country. When you can, then your claim may have merit. Resolute 00:32, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

No, a senate is a form of deliberative assembly. A parliament is also a form of deliberative assembly, but the two are not necessarily the same. As for your "cabinet minister" comment, we don't have those here either. And members of our legislature are not and cannot be members of the presidential cabinet (which is composed of Secretaries, not Ministers). And your "never was in government" comment doesn't apply either, as the US does not have "governments" in the parliamentary sense. --Khajidha (talk) 00:19, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

A senate is a parliament, the US senate is a parliament. Lots of parliaments have other words than parliament in their name. This is really very basic political science, and it's irrelevant whether you regard it as a parliament. He is a member of a parliament by international standards, he is not the country's head of state, head of government or a member of the country's government. We would never have posted a Bulgarian member of parliament's car accident. Josh Gorand (talk) 00:30, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be under the impression that the United States is run using the Westminster System. Several of your premises, such as him 'not being a member of government,' are gibberish in the United States. 75.156.68.21 (talk) 00:43, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• "Outrageous US centrism on the main page again" and yet yesterday there was a semi-obscure work of pre-Indonesian literature, a Swedish hockey player, and not one of the ITN stories (even now) are about the US. Sigh, always with the hyperbole. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:10, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

I would like to point out that most OTD articles are reasonable obscure, and this is not even the most obscure subject to be on there this week. The only reason this particular item provoked outrage seems to be that it happens to be about an American. (And there isn't really an 'international term' for the position - the US does not use the Westminster system for starters - and, even if it was, nobody would ever call a senator an MP. At any rate, the use of 'member of parliament' strikes me more as an obstinate refusal to use an American term rather than any attempt for correctness.) 75.156.68.21 (talk) 00:24, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. This really looks like someone intent on nothing else but picking a fight. Resolute 00:32, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a main page tradition almost on par with Lugo by now. :\ 75.156.68.21 (talk) 00:37, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Here: July 6 had an article on an accident that led to increased safety measures on British Rail, which is about on par in significance. (Maybe more, people died, but I doubt many people outside of the UK have heard of the event.) 75.156.68.21 (talk) 00:43, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

WP:POLITICIAN has an excellent description that fits US Senators, members of parliaments, and members of comparable bodies in other countries: "members or former members of a national, state or provincial legislature." Member of a national legislature encompasses all of them. Nyttend (talk) 02:28, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Um... "legislator" or "lawmaker"? Or even "solon"? –HTD 05:31, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Admit it!

The reason you all check DYK-OTD is to see if there are any Gibraltar-related articles featured! AHAHAHA. --85.211.117.11 (talk) 18:05, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• Damnit! He found us out. Shut down the program. They have become aware. GamerPro64 18:14, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Complete list of all US municipalities that officially went bankrupt ("Chapter 9 bankruptcies"?)

Moved to user's talk page. LFaraone 20:15, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Colombia National Day

It's more important the friend's day in Argentina! than the National Holiday in Colombia, when in 1810 Colombia begin the independence from spain!

What wikipage to link to? --198.91.172.139 (talk) 01:47, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Colombia is currently ineligible to appear because the article requires maintenance. —howcheng {chat} 02:30, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

MichiganWolverinesSoftballPedia

Those Wolverines certainly must have one cunning PR person to have got themselves into virtually every set of DYKs for, what, a week? More? Awien (talk) 14:17, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

DYK is prone to runs of various topics if a motivated editor or two expands a series of articles in rapid succession. I've done it with hockey players myself. We've seen runs of species articles, actors, geography, etc. Resolute 14:21, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

• We had Wolverines Football in POTD a week or two ago, and nobody commented. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:26, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Not trying to make a big deal of it, just that it was enough to be noticeable. Awien (talk) 14:59, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Ties in with the 'main page US centricism' discussion immediately above :) Jackiespeel (talk) 09:40, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

FRIEND'S/FRIENDS' - note placement of apostrophe

On the Main Page, it says "Friends'". The page to which it links says, "Friend's". Which is correct: FRIEND'S or FRIENDS' ?

Editors should note that this refers to the "On this day" entry for "Friends' Day in Argentina and other Latin American countries". I'd suggest that consistent use of "Friend's" in the article makes that the correct form. But I don't understand Spanish, so cannot check the sources. Anyone? HiLo48 (talk) 10:58, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Friends' Day would be Día de Los Amigos. However, the article says it is Día del Amigo. Therefore, it should be Friend's Day.--WaltCip (talk) 12:58, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

 Done Fixed. --Jayron32 14:01, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Day of the friend (friend's) - not, day of the friendS (friends')? CopperSquare 07:59, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 20 July 2013

Sea of Tranquillity : should be Sea of Tranquility Doprendek (talk) 22:06, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Done. This kind of request is meant to go to WP:ERRORS. Hut 8.5 23:02, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 21 July 2013

Could the separate article Belgian National Day be put on the page, rather than the simple "National Day" link, which just provides a list of national days, as at the moment? Many thanks! Brigade Piron (talk) 08:57, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

It seems that it is a stub so it can't be linked prominently (boldfaced) at the Main Page... –HTD 12:05, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Royalty on the main page

As there 'will be a lot of it about' - don't complain, it will pass in a few days. Jackiespeel (talk) 09:16, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

But it's an irresistible urge to complain... --WaltCip (talk) 16:59, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

If only Americans had royalty... –HTD 17:06, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

• The USA did overthrow a Monarchy. And no, the Kardashians don't count.--293.xx.xxx.xx (talk) 04:42, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm from New Zealand, actually; a Commonwealth nation.--WaltCip (talk) 17:19, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't referring to you, just the fact that royals+Americans would've been a lethal mix... –HTD 19:05, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a boy. Now the paparazzi can take down their ladders.--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 19:50, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

The Americans had royalty, right up to 1776! Mjroots (talk) 20:14, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Right up to 1963/68. 87.113.216.108 (talk) 20:49, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

And unsurprisingly, someone bitched about it a few sections up when a Kennedy appeared on the main page. Resolute 21:20, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Bah. The Kennedy family is much less significant that 19th century pre-Indonesian Chinese literature, because a person automatically loses ten significance points for being American and gains ten for being from an oppressed nation. (But seriously, there's been several items to do with Indonesia on the Main Page this week.)— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.28.82.250 (talk • contribs) 21:41, 22 July 2013‎

• And another tomorrow, in OTD. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:22, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

(reset) Trying to be ahead of the discussion - and I was including the Belgian monarchy in my comment (and will refer some of the replies to Emperor Norton). Jackiespeel (talk) 21:17, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Just for everyone's amusement, there's now a discussion ranting about UK royalty at WT:ITN#UK country bias and procedure, incidentally by the same person who insists that the US Senate is a parliament in itself. –HTD 13:53, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

To be honest, both countries get more coverage than they should, but the UK-bias is way odder because its much smaller. By sheer numbers, a certain US-tilt in the most polished articles is predictable and perfectly reasonable. But I quite often come on here and see two or three items somewhere relating to some obscure noble from 200 years ago or some British naval milestone, and I'm not sure how that happens to be.

• "Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, gives birth to a son, third in the line of succession to the thrones of the Commonwealth realms."
• "British cyclist Chris Froome wins the Tour de France."

A man rides 2,000 miles through some of the toughest terrain France has to offer, battling 219 of the finest cyclists in the world. After three weeks of pain and suffering, he achieves the unthinkable - a second consecutive yellow jersey victory for a British rider, and a first for an African rider, on the 100th running of one of the greatest sporting events on the planet.

A foetus squeezes itself through a fallopian tube. It gets three times as much space on the front page of Wikipedia. (I know it looks like twice as much above - only twice! - but the picture placing makes it three times on the front page at time of typing.)

For the record, I'm not in any way outraged or pissed off. I think it's hilarious. --81.152.113.134 (talk) 22:16, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

"A foetus squeezes itself through a fallopian tube." That would be news. AlexTiefling (talk) 22:55, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of this fascinating complication of the royal birth. It's probably going to be the first royal in the Guinness Book of World Records!

I knew my GCSE Biology was probably going to let me down. I was going to use a different part of the reproductive system but was afraid it would have misogynistic overtones :P --81.152.113.134 (talk) 07:16, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

The talk page tells us that ".. he hasn't done anything apart from come out of a famous woman's vagina" (at least as far as North Somerset is concerned). Surely, that's all the biological detail we need? But, I feel, even this achievement was probably bit of a cooperative enterprise. Martinevans123 (talk)

Hail Prince George! Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 17:42, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Gosh, a stroke of genius, followed by a hearty cheer, in very quick succession there. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:47, 24 July 2013 (UTC) .. but hastily pressed into abdication, alas.

The Duchess of York's offspring is of no relevance to the majority of users and it is suspicious that this would be posted a midst a media frenzy instigated by popular media. Also, there seems to be a lopsided amount of featured articles pertaining to primarily U.K. focused topics. As well written as they are, there are an inordinate amount of articles posted about "footballers", obscure English churches, English Clergy, British Politicians, etc... 74.33.25.132 (talk)

Prince is born, not duchess gives birth

The subject is the prince, not the Duchess. Now we have his name, the blurb should be the much simpler

"Prince George of Cambridge, third in line to the throne of the Commonwealth realms, is born to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge."

μηδείς (talk) 20:15, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, what's wrong with "Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, gives birth to a son, Prince George of Cambridge, third in the line of succession to the throne of the Commonwealth realms."? The Rambling Man (talk) 20:35, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

That makes it sound like a divine gift from God. -- tariqabjotu 20:57, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Shucks. And we thought Wikipedia wasn't a news channel. Does the name make him even more notable? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:33, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Should we change the ITN blurb? Gives birth to a son is redundant, given we know his name is prince george. ★★King•Retrolord★★ 08:05, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Given that Catherine is the one who actually did something, I feel that the blurb should be maintained as is. Of course, I also feel that the little wriggler should not have a page of his own as he hasn't done anything yet. In and of himself, he does not seem notable to me. His parents are notable, he isn't. --Khajidha (talk) 15:49, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Seeing double

DYK and OTD seem to be doubling up on Mussolini's fall. Sca (talk) 14:50, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Removed from DYK. —howcheng {chat} 17:12, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Good. One Duce was more than enough. Sca (talk) 23:12, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Royals

There are four items on the main page today relating to royals. What's up with that? 72.28.82.250 (talk) 17:21, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm guessing that it's due to the fact that there are four stories about royals to put on the frontpage. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 18:08, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Also, it's silly season, so there isn't much else to report. Modest Genius ^talk 18:11, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Lucky we have some fine-looking democratising pictorial balance. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:27, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but he looks suspiciously like David Cameron, so I smell funny business.

It's nothing to grumble about: the news items will likely get knocked off after some tragedies kill dozens of people. --Inops (talk) 00:10, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Metric / imperial conversion

A small annoyance I've been meaning for a while to bring to somebody's attention but haven't known whose, so I'll put it out here.

In English, adjectives don't show any agreement with the noun they modify, either in gender, or more particularly in number. We say "the hundred-yard dash" not "the hundred-yards dash", "a ten-foot pole" not "a ten-feet pole", "a ninety-seven-pound weakling" not "a ninety-seven-pounds weakling", and so on.

However, when people use the conversion tool to convert a measurement, the result is often the kind of thing we see in the caption of the upcoming Picture of the Day (the Black-headed Heron). Instead of the bird being described as having "a 150 centimetre (59 in) wingspan", which would be the normal formulation in English, what the conversion tool yields is "a 150 centimetres (59 in) wingspan" with its inappropriate plural "centimetres". Then it isn't possible to simply delete that "s", and the only way to get rid of it would presumably be to remove the automatic conversion and enter it manually.

So the question from a very non-technophile linguist is, is there any way of tweaking that tool? And if there is, would somebody do so? That would be good. Awien (talk) 12:48, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

The template in question is {{convert}} – you can make it display measurements in adjectival form by adding "|adj=on". I've made this change to tomorrow's POTD. DoctorKubla (talk) 13:02, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

OK, good to know. I took pen in hand and noted that on the paper cheat sheet that lives beside my computer. Thanks! Awien (talk) 13:19, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

(adds) But the Main Page version needs to be changed too - I can't because I'm not an admin. Awien (talk) 13:27, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Well spotted, Awien. Got the protected page too. (Mea culpa on the original mistake) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:33, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Te absolvo, Crisco. A very minor point, and a slip that would happen very easily.

Now what WP needs is to create the position of Typo Fixer to the Main Page (me), and allow me to fix Main Page typos . . . Awien (talk) 14:04, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Shame it comes with a mop. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:11, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
• WP:ERRORS or #Main Page error report. --69.157.46.84 (talk) 14:35, 26 July 2013 (UTC)
• Sorry Awien, I was filling that position already (although admittedly have tailed off recently due to RL commitments). No mop for me either. Modest Genius ^talk 15:46, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

An impressive record, Modest Genius! Maybe many gnomes make Main Page work?

As for that mop, if I were to be dragged handcuffed, fettered and gagged before Jimbo in person to be press-ganged into adminship, I would find a way to refuse. No, all I want is to be able to fix typos, pure and simple, and impossible. Oh, well. Awien (talk) 16:52, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• Well, there is one way, I think. Best way to do that is keep a couple pages in mind: keep an eye on Wikipedia:Main Page queue and Template:Did you know/Queue so you can catch mistakes before they are protected. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:59, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the thought, Crisco. Yes, I do do that, but sometimes between RL and timing, I get there too late. Oh, well! Awien (talk) 17:06, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

China earthquakes update

Not sure what the convention is for updating the main page, but per the article the numbers have changed. "As of 23:00 CST, 23 July 2013, the earthquakes have caused at least 95 deaths, and over 1000 people have been injured.[4]". Thanks. ceranthor 20:56, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

• WP:ERRORS or #Main Page error report, or WP:ITN/C. --69.157.46.84 (talk) 12:27, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and updated the numbers. Also, as an admin, you were free do that yourself - new listings require a discussion first, but non-controversial updates to existing items do not. Current main page ITN items are located at Template:In the news. --Bongwarrior (talk) 12:37, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I figured I could, but given how prone people are to make shitstorms out of anthills at this place, I figured it wasn't worth the risk. Good to know. ceranthor 17:37, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

renaming

Why on all wikis title page is a space of articles? It is much more logical to call it Wikipedia:Main Page 31.42.225.206 (talk) 05:36, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

• See this FAQ — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:06, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Correction please

Could someone please correct the wording "Thor's hero shrew, the first known sister species to the armored shrew, is discovered."? There can only ever be one sister species to a particular species, so "the first known" doesn't make sense. "the first known sister species" would be much better as "the sister species". Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:36, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

 Done, thanks for the note. For the future, this type of thing is better raised at WP:ERRORS; you won't always get a faster response, but the type of admins who typically fix things like this on the main page tend to hang out there, more than here. --Floquenbeam (talk) 20:33, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you! Biologists will sleep more easily tonight. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:36, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

Main page history request

Can someone tell me a little bit about the history of the main page. I would like to know the first dates that each section has run on the main page (and the last dates for any discontinued sections such as WP:TAFI).--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 12:07, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Main Page history, and the links in the section #Articles_appearing_on_the_Main_Page - Evad37 (talk) 12:28, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Hi Tony, not sure anyone has written anything, but the wayback archive is quite fun and quick! This is how it looked on 12 April 2006. Edgepedia (talk) 12:32, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Or look at the page history - there's only been 1000 edits between now and March 2004 - Evad37 (talk) 12:44, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 13:46, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

(reset) Will 'the Proverbial Someone' write the article/section of the article on WP? Jackiespeel (talk) 16:33, 29 July 2013 (UTC)

Uh, what? Modest Genius ^talk 20:23, 30 July 2013 (UTC)

TPS - a relative of 'the extremely productive writer anonymous': busy writing all the articles people want but never get round to doing themselves. In this case the desired article/section is on the history of the main page. Jackiespeel (talk) 16:08, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

That... still doesn't help much. What's TPS? Are you suggesting an FAQ entry? Modest Genius ^talk 19:06, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

I think that TPS means 'The Proverbial Someone' as in 'Someone should write an article on ...'. Jackiespeel is saying that people want something to exist but are not willing to create it themselves. FerdinandFrog (talk) 21:49, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

So nothing drastically has changed since 2006. Sad! :( §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 05:48, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Where is the article?

I was looking for a Wikipedia article about main pages, but it keeps redirecting me to the main page of Wikipedia! 2620:72:0:1108:1D89:1CC4:3B74:9039 (talk) 15:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

See Home page. It doesn't seeem important enough to make an ugly hatnote on the main page. See the opening paragraph of Help:Searching for ways to make a search instead of going directly to a page with the searched title. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:34, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Who picks the image of the DYK box?

I don't want to criticise anyone, but I find it strange that an image of a US post office has been chosen to be diplayed in the DYK box, whilst at Ponte Vella, a much more impressive picture could have be found? That choice would have illustrated the DYK fact about the "steepness" of the bridge quite nicely.--FoxyOrange (talk) 21:18, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I suggest you ask at WT:DYK. Modest Genius ^talk 21:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a little arbitrary, to be honest. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 22:09, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Adam is correct that the hook selected for the image slot is somewhat arbitrary and the person assembling the DYK has a fair amount of discretion. As the person who assembled the DYK set in question, I can tell you it was differences in the articles that was the primary determining factor. I tend to favor placing hooks for larger/better developed articles into the highly desired image slot on the theory that the extra work needed to create such articles should be rewarded. A quick and dirty metric for seeing the difference between that articles in question is comparing the size of each article's readable text (article size after things such as infoboxes, categories, images, and references are removed). The bridge article contains 1559 characters of readable prose, not much more the the minimum of 1500 required by DYK. The post office article in comparison contains 10973 characters of readable prose (more than 7x the size of the bridge article). A secondary factor is the bridge article was created by members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Rosblofnari. Members of this group tends to produce a fairly large number of DYK nominations with large/well developed articles and thus receives a fairly large number of DYK image slots (see the 00:00 31 July 2013 (UTC) update for the most recent example). As the group is regularly receiving images slots, I also try to "share the wealth" with other DYK nominators by more actively placing the group's smaller articles into non-image slots. --Allen3 ^talk 23:16, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the comprehensive explanation, which I very much appreciate.--FoxyOrange (talk) 18:06, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

Interesting explanation. Good to know. Awien (talk) 12:09, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Doctor Who

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

I love the show as much as the next guy, but I'm not really sure that anything to do with it can be significant enough to get into ITN. It's not really up there on my list of significant events on the world stage. 75.156.68.21 (talk) 01:18, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Join the "discussion" at WP:ITN/C — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:20, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

So one moment I look, the story is up on the front page. The next, it's gone. The next, it's back again, and so forth. What a huge embarrassment this is for Wikipedia! Some of the most unprofessional display I have ever seen. Either the "in the news" needs to be scrapped completely for its lack of coordination, or some admins need to have their bits removed.128.227.67.108 (talk) 12:31, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, there's a discussion at WP:AN. But I suspect you already knew that. Pedro :  Chat  12:36, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Just to make it abdundently obvious, the use of scare quotes in "discussion" above by Crisco 1492 was entirely apt. That was not so much a discussion, as a stream of lies, unfounded personal opinions, and general BS. The section clearly has absolutely nothing to do with what's "in The News", but neither is there any appreciable clue on display of what it's for. It seems you can just turn up there and say whatever you like, and someway, somehow, it gets listened too. Up to a point, because Jusdafax hates Doctor Who so much he declared it closed himself and demanded everyone should just move on, because apparently it's all too tiring for the Wikipedia peeps to deal in actual facts. Much easier just to engage in that special brand of nonsense, and then sweep it under the carpet, letting people like Jusdafax decide what is and isn't "deeply unencyclopedic and an embarrassment", whether he can prove that or not. Oh, and if you complain about it, it just gets censored. Makes Zimbabwe look like the model country, eh.DW meter (talk) 12:58, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"The Idolmaster"?

So, is The Idolmaster going to be the next Gibraltar/Lugo? I honestly would have never guessed that there was enough of an audience to have three separate DYKs in less than a week... Tupin (talk) 04:58, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

Never underestimate the collective power of rapid Japanophiles. They know no compromise. 75.156.68.21 (talk) 05:03, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Neither do rabid ones, but hopefully they take prisoners. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:08, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• Geez. What is with video game editors these days? Trying to be cool and upstage Gibraltar? The nerve. GamerPro64 18:22, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

• I've not been that active on Wikipedia of late, so haven't seen the other hooks. But the current hook, "...that it costs nearly US$170 to buy all three versions of the iOS video game The Idolmaster Shiny Festa, and that it would be cheaper to import the PlayStation Portable version?" is lame and should not have been greenlit. Import it where? Does that include taxes? Either way, it's very US-centric. The game was the first in the series to be localised in English, and the hook decides to focus on some pricing complaint. - hahnchen 01:36, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

And is also approaching subculture insider lingo. The only people who are even going to immediately understand the relevance of that information, or care, will be hardcore gamers. It's like having a DYK blurb on advanced mathematics and assuming the reader knows what a modular form or a quarternion is. 72.28.82.250 (talk) 19:16, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I highly doubt that this is an issue with video game editors. Nothing of this sort came up at WP:VG nor do I believe that if an idea like this was pitched there that it would have had any support.--70.49.82.207 (talk) 06:00, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

It's like having a DYK blurb on advanced mathematics and assuming the reader knows what a modular form or a quaternion is. Just for laughs, go to Wikipedia:Recent_additions_176 and scroll down about 2/3 of the way. And no, I don't know how I remember that. 75.44.36.116 (talk) 16:40, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

1st fem. coast to coast

Love the little feature on Alice Huyler Ramsey featured in OTD. What a cool story! (Is there a book about it?) This is the sort of thing WP can do well. Great choice. Sca (talk) 13:42, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

From the article, "in 1961 she wrote and published the story of her journey, Veil, Duster, and Tire Iron", which is available for sale at Amazon and likely other locations. —howcheng {chat} 16:28, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Boden Professor of Sanskrit election, 1860

What an absolutely great article! Such an apparently trivial, irrelevant topic as an election for an obscure university chair a hundred and fifty years ago - and it turns out to be an amazing window into a bygone time and place, bringing it to life as history all too often fails to do. One of the best ever. Awien (talk) 16:27, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree! 72.28.82.250 (talk) 18:08, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

(Blushes slightly) Thank you; I had fun writing it and was of course greatly assisted by comments received during the GA, PR and FA processes. The article was further improved during its time on the main page, which is good news! Bencherlite^Talk 17:12, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

A little generous, don't you think?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The Main Page blurb for Ranavalona I says:

Her European contemporaries generally condemned her policies and characterized her as a tyrant at best and insane at worst, characterizations that persisted in Western scholarly literature until the mid-1970s. Recent research has recast Ranavalona's actions as those of a queen attempting to expand her empire while protecting Malagasy sovereignty against the encroachment of European cultural and political influence.

Yet the text of that article mentions:

Due in large part to loss of life throughout the years of military campaigns, high death rates among fanompoana workers, and harsh traditions of justice under her rule, the population of Madagascar is estimated to have declined from around 5 million to 2.5 million between 1833 and 1839, and from 750,000 to 130,000 between 1829 and 1842 in Imerina,[12] contributing to a strongly unfavorable view of Ranavalona's rule in historical accounts.[13]

Between that and the mass executions and enslavements, it seems like a remarkably upbeat way to introduce someone who, if these facts are true, was surely a tyrant beyond Stalin. Wnt (talk) 17:42, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

That part of the main page blurb appears to have been paraphrased from Ranavalona_I#Legacy, with a number of sources attached to it163.160.107.179 (talk) 07:49, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

The blurb was based on the lead of the article, as usual. Complaints about the wording of the lead should be taken to the talk page of the article. As this article is no longer on the main page, there's little point in discussing this further. Bencherlite^Talk 08:48, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Spain spain spain

Three stories involving Spain in OTD? Sounds like a spite against the British over Gibraltar if you ask me! --85.210.101.50 (talk) 22:44, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like your life is going too well, and you need to invent non-existent problems to complain about... --Jayron32 23:00, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

{{lol}} +1 doktorb _words^deeds 08:20, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Troll the trolls I say. --188.29.164.225 (talk) 11:50, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree mostly. But I can imagine the outcry on this talk page if it were America. --86.159.81.150 (talk) 17:14, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Mobile main page

I have some thoughts about the mobile version of the main page, as seen at en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page - where is the best place to discuss them? Does it have a dedicated talk page? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:03, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

As it is generated by the MobileFrontend extension, the best place to discuss would be mw:Extension talk:MobileFrontend. — Edokter (talk) — 21:51, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

If this is about the mobile version of the Main Page, the best place would be this talk page itself.mw:Extension talk:MobileFrontend is dedicated for the "extension", not English Wikipedia's main page. --Glaisher [talk] 09:15, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

But we have no control over the modifications it makes to the Main Page, correct? It takes our existing wikitext and renders it, I don't think we have any control over that process (separately from the normal version). Modest Genius ^talk 10:21, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, all. The mw. page seems to be concerned wholly with technical issues. I'll raise a new sub-section, below, about my content-related concerns. Such discussions certainly belong on this wiki, not meta. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:24, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Mobile main page content

The en.Wikipedia mobile main page includes the day's featured article, and "In the news". It does not include "Did you know". "On this day", nor featured lists and images, nor any of the useful navigation aids such as "contents" or "help". I think these sections should be included. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:24, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea why the mobile site doesn't include those sections. There's nothing in the code of Main Page telling it to do so. As such, I don't think any changes here can affect that. Maybe it's hard coded? Modest Genius ^talk 15:09, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Paging Maryana - Maryana to the front desk... Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 15:11, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

Isn't the mobile site deliberately much cut-down to reduce bandwidth and page load times? 86.160.213.155 (talk) 01:29, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

@Modest Genius. The code at Main Page can be modified to modify the mobile version of the main page. You will be able to find selectors in the format "mp-...". Content within that will be found in the mobile version. --Glaisher [talk] 12:13, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

But e.g. the DYK section is enclosed in <div id="mp-dyk">, yet doesn't appear on the mobile version. Is this feature documented anywhere? Modest Genius ^talk 12:19, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

No idea about that. See mw:Mobile Gateway/Mobile homepage formatting#Step 2. I'm quite sure that the Main Page can be edited from here though. --Glaisher [talk] 12:42, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)/Archive 114#Mobile version, Main Page and mw:Mobile Gateway/Mobile homepage formatting. It appears it should be mf- to be included in the mobile main page. Maybe it would be better if mobile had a link to another page transcluding the full main page. See User:This, that and the other/transclude for an example. The mobile version of that [9] shows all sections. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:48, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and also for user experience reasons — simply put, there's not enough space to display everything that we currently show on the desktop main page on a tiny mobile screen.

As for sidebar navigation aids, erm, try visiting WP:Contents or WP:Help on a mobile phone, Andy. These pages were certainly not created with mobile readership in mind and look completely broken when viewed in mobile mode. Without a major overhaul of the boxes, tables, and inline styles that are used to create them, it's not clear to me how they could be useful for anyone. Maryana (WMF) (talk) 00:08, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

@Maryana (WMF): Thank you for getting back to us. Why could DYK etc not be "below the fold", or displayed as a link to a subpage? As for the formatting of "help" & "contents", why not create "mobile help" and "contents for mobile", and link to them? Replace "in the news" with a link to a sub-page, and you'd have more than enough room for links to the others mentioned. BTW, WP:Contents works fine on my mobile. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:25, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Per the above discussion, please change <div id="mp-dyk"> to <div id="mf-dyk">. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:59, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

It's not only "mp-dyk". There are at least 24 of them. PrimeHunter's idea about transcluding the whole page seems better for smartphones, tablets and the like. However, I doubt that it would make things any better for devices which use low bandwidth. --Glaisher [talk] 13:05, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Wait. This should really be properly discussed before any changes are made. Randomly turning on one particular section with no testing is a bad idea. Modest Genius ^talk 14:28, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit protected}} template. --Redrose64 (talk) 14:37, 13 August 2013 (UTC)

So, does anyone have any views, concerns or other comments? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:54, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes: at the very least you should a) establish consensus on which sections should be on the mobile Main Page, advertising the discussion in relevant places, b) try out the changes on Wikipedia:Main Page/sandbox, checking for any unintended consequences, c) arrange for some testing of speed, performance, rendering on different devices etc. and d) then think about making an {{editprotected}} request. You're talking about modifying one of the busiest pages on the entire internet, you can't just change things on a whim with no discussion or testing. Modest Genius ^talk 21:07, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Which would you consider "relevant places"? This is discussion, is it not? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:53, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

RFC and WP:CENT, perhaps? Resolute 01:00, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I think the mobile version is better without the additional content. I don't usually like sites where the mobile version is missing stuff, but in this case, the missing content isn't critical to the usability of the site, and would clutter and distract from what I'd guess most people are probably doing on the main page - search, in the news, and the featured article. (I wonder... has anyone ever done any analysis of the click patterns on the main page? What do people really use on it?) — RockMFR 03:53, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, a couple of years ago there was a one month trial of counting every click-through from the Main Page. It was part of the redesign project, but I can't find the link anywhere. Does anyone with better memory than me know where it is? Modest Genius ^talk 11:27, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

coulden the mw:Extension:MobileFrontend be updated to support a main page for mobile meaning there would be a main page for mobiles and a main page for desktop so you could make the main page different to the desktop and making the mobile main page user friendly 90.209.96.40 (talk) 17:22, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

It already does. Compare Main Page to the mobile Main Page. That's what we're discussing - which items should appear on the mobile version, and how to edit it. Modest Genius ^talk 17:26, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Temple of Venus

Can some one who knows, sort this out, ASAP?

it is on the Main Page today:

• "295 BC – The oldest known temple to Venus (Venus Anadyomene by Titian pictured), the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility, was dedicated."

The article give conflicting accounts of the first temple

1. 253 BC on the Esquiline Hill
2. 255 BC at the foot of the Aventine Hill, dedicated 19th August, not 15th (or whatever day of the month you happen to be on, on the other side of the planet.....

Neither ties up with the Main Page. Can someone check the facts and correct them, either on the main or in the article.

Also, given that there are numerous Ancient Roman depictions of Venus, both painted and sculptural) that might have some relevance to the article, the choice of a painting by the late Renaissance artist Titian, dating from about 1700 years later is, frankly, ridiculous! Any illustration needs to have relevance in context. This picture has no relevance whatsoever, not to the Roman Temple, and barely to the Roman deity, except that Titian needed to give the nude that he had painted a Mythological name of some sort, in order for it to be publicly acceptable and saleable.

Amandajm (talk) 04:36, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're quoting, but the Venus (mythology) article says The temple was dedicated on August 19 in the 295 BC during the Third Samnite War by Quintus Fabius Maximus Gurges. It is possible that both that article and the Main Page are correct. Sort of. If the date in the article (August 19) is the date in the Julian calendar, then that corresponds to August 15 in the Gregorian calendar. See Old Style and New Style dates#Differences between Julian and Gregorian dates and extrapolate back: there is no year 0 [nor a discrepancy between the two calendars there anyway], so the difference between the two calendars between 100 BC and 1 BC is still -2. Between 200 BC and 100 BC, it would be -3. Between 300 BC and 200 BC, it would be -4. Therefore, August 19, 295 BC (O.S.) is August 15, 295 BC (N.S.). That being said, I don't know how the calendar discrepancy is handled in the On This Day section and associated articles; I would think they'd just use the Julian date for the anniversary date. (Also, I have no idea if August 19 is using the Julian calendar anyway.) Pinging Howcheng... (P.S. Next time, report your error in WP:ERRORS, where you're more likely to receive a quick response.) -- tariqabjotu 05:26, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Holy crap, I added the date myself to the article based on the source and I still put it on the wrong OTD template. In 295 BC, as the Gregorian calendar didn't exist yet, we wouldn't be doing any calendar conversion. As for the image, File:Aphrodite Anadyomene from Pompeii cropped.jpg is of the wrong aspect ratio to work well on the Main Page and File:Ares e Afrodite.JPG isn't very good quality, so I went with something that looked good at that size. Anyway, I'll move the blurb to the correct date and we'll see it show up again 4 days. —howcheng {chat} 06:38, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Tariq, you are perfectly right! The only explanation that I can give for writing 255 for 295 is that I am dyslexic! But we still have the 253 problem! Amandajm (talk) 07:14, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I assume you mean 293? Yeah, the article seems to more clearly and elegantly state that the first temple came from 293 BC, rather than 295 BC. -- tariqabjotu 07:21, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Dates cited by the scholarship pretty much always refer to the Dionysian system (BC/AD). The generally accepted foundation is 295. And, btw, Amandajm's query on the article talk-page has helped clear up a couple more messes at the article. I agree that an authentically Roman image is preferable; on the other hand, we're unlikely to find one of Venus Obsequens, whose cult images may have differed significantly from those of later Roman Venuses. Haploidavey (talk) 09:35, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Egypt

The headline "Egypt declares a state of emergency as security forces kill hundreds of demonstrators supporting former president Mohamed Morsi." makes it sound as if the hundreds of people that were killed were just innocent protesters peacefully protesting(like the The Tiananmen Square Massacre), when in fact, that is not the case (http://www.pravmir.com/egypts-muslim-brotherhood-in-destructive-12-hour-rampage/), (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/08/15/muslim-brotherhood-vows-more-protests-after-day-of-bloodshed/), (http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/this_blood_is_on_the_hands_of_muslim_olptNuF89CVqLiPBzOu6OL).

It's factual and neutrally phrased. Go to the newspaper comment boards and argue there, rather than here, please.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:20, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

"http://www.pravmir.com/" hardly seems like a neutral, reliable source. --Somchai Sun (talk) 21:34, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

TFP blurb

I feel that TFP blurb should have description in two parts. One being about the subject of the picture; which we now are doing. But also some info about the picture should be added. For example for today's pic File:Vasily Perov - Портрет Ф.М.Достоевского - Google Art Project.jpg we should add the medium of painting, its size, where its now located, etc. Some key features of the picture, like lighting effect, a particular angel or some technical terminologies of photography which can be demonstrated through it should also be mentioned. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 20:21, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

I think a short summary would be a sensible suggestion. One short sentence at the end of each blurb with those sort of details would be a useful addition; it could go next to the current author identification. For your example image, it could read something like 'Oil painting on canvas, 99 by 80 cm (39 by 32 in)'. I don't think it should go into too much detail on techniques etc. as these are usually not that notable, and would be mentioned in the blurb already if they were. Modest Genius ^talk 21:16, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Could we also find room for a (say) "you can hep by uploading your pictures" link, too? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:45, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Fully support. An excellent idea. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:47, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Doable, but we already have image description pages that do the same thing. The image description page tells us what it is; the blurb tells us why we should care. That being said, how do you suppose we should have "some info about the picture" for photographs? Camera make? Don't think many would care. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:49, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

We could humanise it a little: "Today's picture was taken by Ashjay, a teacher from Mumbai. He's been contributing to Wikipedia for five years, and this is his second featured picture". That would enhance the "I could do that" response. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 00:02, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

@Crisco: It might not be always possible to put something for every image. But i guess our editors who are regular at FPC can try and put a certain image into some technical aspect. Easy way for non-expert editors would be to read the FPC to see if any reviewer has noted anything such. If not then its scratching one's head. For example for the File:Perth CBD from Mill Point.jpg that will appear on 27 Aug, maybe we can talk about Rule of thirds. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 03:42, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• My students would have enjoyed the look I just shot my monitor. POTD (and En-Wiki's FP) has always been focused on the encyclopedic nature of the images used, and not purely their technical aspects (many runners-up for POTY on Commons were shot down on EN-Wiki for a lack of encyclopedic value). As such, going off on a vector to discuss File:Perth CBD from Mill Point.jpg in relation to the rule of thirds (your example) would be against this tenet: the image is not used on-Wiki in such a fashion, and thus should not be shown on the main page in such a fashion. I agree that a bit about the image itself may be worth including, but as you can see from the Perth image, it has been worked into the blurb and not the credits at the bottom of the page. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 05:40, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I think adding 'human interest' is a bad idea - this is an encyclopaedia, not a social media site. Limit it to factual content of encyclopaedic interest please. Modest Genius ^talk 11:31, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Who said anything about becoming a "social media site"? It's not unencyclopedic to credit contributors, and the main page is our shop window; we can allow ourselves a little leeway to encourage and engender greater participation. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:43, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

Erm, there are several contributors who don't even want to give their real names for photo credits. I don't think a short biography would go over well, and it might turn some people off of contributing for fear of having their privacy violated. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:48, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

I didn't sugegst that we mandate it. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:52, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• That it would not be formally mandated does not mean that someone could not misinterpret such a shift as being one which they are expected to follow. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:25, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

"Humanising it" is a silly idea. Should we also have little biographies of those who have written featured articles? I'm all for more details about paintings (if they're significant in themselves, most of the blurb should be about the painting) but the photographs are not there because they're beautiful works of art, they're there because of what they show- a particular skyline, or a particular species of frog, a particular notable individual. That's what the blurb should focus on, that's what FP is all about. J Milburn (talk) 13:30, 15 August 2013 (UTC)

• +1 — Crisco 1492 (talk) 13:54, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
• The images we show here might not be used in the technical photography or painting concept articles that we write in blurbs. But its just a side note. The main content of the blurb will always remain, for example Perth. A subordinate mention at the end should be made about the rule of thirds. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 12:35, 17 August 2013 (UTC)
  • ... Really now? That's completely random. This is not a "rules of photography" website. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 12:41, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Fine! Sorry to have wasted your time. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 17:15, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Cute, furry mammal bias.

There are currently two prominently located images of cute, furry mammals on the main page. This must stop before someone gets a cuteness overload! Rreagan007 (talk) 06:00, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

You're right... and now when I see their pictures, I am only filled with RAGE. Thanks. :p –Prototime (talk · contribs) 06:08, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

If you hadn't said furry, I might have gotten confused. I like the FP myself.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 08:26, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Furry ==>>fury?--Wehwalt (talk) 11:11, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Don't panic. DYKs keep changing. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 11:37, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Aaaw! I’ve gone all warm and fuzzy inside. Guess I’ll just spend my time mooning over the furry cuties, and to h**l with fixing mangled spelling, tortured syntax, abused punctuation, and misbegotten neologisms! Gnome no more! I’ll be a pussy cat from here on in! Awien (talk) 16:31, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Do you really mean mooning? Modest Genius ^talk 17:27, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

I imagine Awien meant (as NOAD puts it) to "act in a dreamily infatuated manner: Timothy's mooning over her like a schoolboy." :-) Surprisingly, Wiktionary's mooning entry misses this sense of the word entirely currently. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:06, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

• I should think that mooning over animals can get you arrested. Of course, then you could moon over anything and everything, including the moon. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:12, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

And if you count the Bison featured picture, that would be three. Of course it's just a skeleton, so not furry any more - but it was furry once! --GRuban (talk) 17:36, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Well! I thought it was showing how manly we were by depicting those with hair on their chests, but that eliminates that possibility.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:54, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

[10] looks pretty evil to me. --Somchai Sun (talk) 21:31, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Four, if you counted Linnea Henriksson's DYK picture. -- 205.175.124.72 (talk) 00:50, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

• I think we should keep this mainpage.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:56, 16 August 2013 (UTC)
• MORE CUTE FURRY ANIMALS PLEASE!! 86.146.108.14 (talk) 01:47, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

On popular demand we have one more for you in DYK. Enjoy! §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 12:27, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

It shows very bad planning that the olate dogs were not put up until after the Koala had been taken down. Solution: Put the koala back up.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 20:25, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

The koala's on a eucalyptus break.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:30, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Picture need captions (or something)

I believe this has been discussed before, but I must point out again the silliness of the random juxtapositions of text items and unrelated pictures. Today we have a photograph of broken buildings in a modern street apparently illustrating the defeat of the Byzantine forces at the Gate of Trajan in 986. Why is this problem never fixed? 86.146.108.14 (talk) 01:46, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

This has been discussed extensively and the answer is because there is no good solution and there are not enough people who think this is a problem in the first place. —howcheng {chat} 04:12, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Specifically, see this FAQ entry. Modest Genius ^talk 11:27, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I do not buy the arguments against captioning. There is plenty of room for meaningful captions in small font. The pictures themselves should be bigger too. Often it is hard to even see what they depict. There is plenty of width on an ordinary monitor to do this, and mobile devices have a different layout anyway. 81.159.111.248 (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

86.146.108.14, it's time you upgrade to a wider computer monitor. --69.157.46.84 (talk) 11:46, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Don't understand. 81.159.111.248 (talk) 19:19, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

• Even if not captioned, we can arrange the image to be seen much closer to the entry that it is for. Today's last blurb is related to the image which is floating near the 1st blurb. Am talking about OTD. This problem comes only with OTD and ITN where 1st blurb is not necessarily using image. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 12:25, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

We've gone through this before. Because of varying monitor widths, you could very easily end up with the situation where the bottom edge of the image drops below the last line of text, thus leaving unsightly dead space. Various suggestions have been made, but in the end, there aren't enough people who think it's a problem. —howcheng {chat} 23:57, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I see! That dead space thing did not cross my mind. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 12:32, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

"... there are not enough people who think this is a problem in the first place."

Au contraire, mon ami! Sca (talk) 15:35, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

The simplest solution is simply to always place the illustrated item first, regardless of chronology. --Khajidha (talk) 19:23, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

Help WP:TAFI choose a format

Please help WP:TAFI choose its future main page format from among 6 proposed formats that are up for a vote.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/WP:FOUR/WP:CHICAGO/WP:WAWARD) 02:16, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

editing of user pages

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Can we the people have pages on Wikipedia? Why do you only have to be important to be on a Wikipedia page??— Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.35.21.226 (talk • contribs) 01:09, August 19, 2013 (UTC)

There are two possible meanings to what is meant by "have pages on Wikipedia". I will deal with each individually. The first meaning is for a person to have an article in the main namespace. Articles are part of our encyclopedic content and need to conform to our core content policies (i.e. Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not). These policies were set in place for a variety of reasons and help Wikipedia in its efforts to be a credible and useful source for information. For an article about a person to satisfy our core content policies requires multiple published sources about the individual to exist, a situation that typically requires a person to, in your words, "be important" in some manner. A summary of what is typically required to satisfy these policies is available at Wikipedia:Notability.

The second possible meaning of having a page refers to a user page. This does not require an individual to satisfy out notability guidelines because the information is not placed in the main (article) namespace. It does however require the individual to create an account. --Allen3 ^talk 01:56, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Is it permissible for a Wikipedia contributor to make their user page look like a Wikipedia article about themselves? Rreagan007 (talk) 05:47, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

It is conceivable that a user page could be organized to look like a Wikipedia article. As Wikipedia is neither a soapbox nor a web hosting service, there is an expectation that any such page have some tangible relation to the user's contribution to the project. This limitation generally prevents user pages that serve primarily a resumes or have no relation to Wikipedia. Information about what is and is not acceptable content for a user page is available at Wikipedia:User pages#What may I have in my user pages? and Wikipedia:User pages#What may I not have in my user pages?. --Allen3 ^talk 09:55, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

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Featured article milestone

The number of featured articles hit 4,000 a few days ago. Shouldn't there have been some kind of celebratory banner on the main page? Rreagan007 (talk) 05:53, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Ponies.

Never seen a featured picture on the front page of a Pony/Horse. I believe it is time for one. No neighs pls. 188.29.164.252 (talk) 12:45, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Close enough. —howcheng {chat} 15:57, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Have you tried here?--WaltCip (talk) 19:45, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

We've had lots of horses. In addition to Howcheng's image, we've had Template:POTD/2008-02-25, Template:POTD/2009-09-24, Template:POTD/2013-06-23, Template:POTD/2011-10-11, Wikipedia:Picture of the day/October 5, 2006 and Template:POTD/2007-09-03. We've got other FPs yet to appear on the MP which feature horses. Horses feature pretty heavily- we've also got a number of featured articles about horses, so they appear a lot on the MP for that reason. J Milburn (talk) 20:02, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Then we can be just like the rest of the internet! Zazaban (talk) 03:37, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Develop a herd of equine-related articles and at least one will trot onto the front page. Jackiespeel (talk) 09:35, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Neigh, the OP was referring to featured pictures. But aye, whinny gets around to it, Raul might even post one as a featured article. But enough horsing around for now.--98.180.52.220 (talk) 11:51, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

DYK

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All US/popular culture except one....♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:10, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Then it's all your fault for not creating and nominating content for DYK that has different emphases. You have literally no one to blame but yourself, unless you wish other Wikipedia users to stop making Wikipedia better in ways that meet their interests and skills. And you cannot possibly be asking for that, can you? --Jayron32 01:14, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't like your tone one bit. How is it entirely my fault? How is it even slightly my fault? I have nothing to do with contributing to DYK any longer. It is inevitable of course that the US and popular culture are popular for editorial interest, but we do have a wide range of articles posted at DYK and I think we can avoid it by ensuring that the queues don't have all US and popular culture articles at any one time.♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:31, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Erm, no, it's partially the fault of the people who prepared DYK preps as well. If at all possible, they should avoid having such runs. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:34, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• Give them more source material to work with then. You're allowed to do that, you know. --Jayron32 01:38, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• I find it quite ironic that you are saying this to two of the most prolific DYK writers, neither of whom have focused on the US. Let the people who actually know DYK comment, rather than just fall back on "so write articles". We both have: Dr. B. over 1000 and myself over 500. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 01:52, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• Hmm... I don't know. Given Dr. Blofeld knows so much about the DYK process, he should know this is not the best place for this complaint. These kinds of "too much X" threads on this talk page invariably (even if unintentionally) become magnets for unproductive accusations of bias. A "can you please be more careful" remark at WT:DYK would have been better. -- tariqabjotu 03:43, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm staying well away from DYK Tariq, and this is a main page issue is it not?♦ Dr. Blofeld 09:33, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

• Agree on both points (the post below proves your first point even more). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:59, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• P.S. I thought Prototime's comment (which s/he has now deleted) was directed at Jayron32 (at least based on indentation), not either one of you two. -- tariqabjotu 05:26, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• I read it as replying to Dr. B, which is patently obvious from my reply (which s/he has also deleted). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:03, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• My comment was defending Dr. Blofeld, who clearly is confronting systemic bias by pointing out an instance of it. I thought the intent of my comment was pretty obvious, but I removed it to avert a flame war and because, as Tariqabjotu pointed out, this isn't the appropriate forum to discuss bias in DYK. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 06:55, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

• Hence why including an explicit subject would have been a good idea, particularly as the threading was unclear. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:10, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

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Really picky formatting issue

Each of the main four boxes on the Main Page have a little footer with several links (eg. Archive – By email – More featured articles...). Each one has a small gap above it except for the DYK footer. This means that the footer is slightly cramped into the content. I know it's picky, but is there anyone who would like to take a look at it? violet/riga _^[talk] 18:26, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The footer is stuck in the last list item because DYK uses a template ({{*mp}}) that does not close the list items, leaving it for HTMLTidy to clean up. That is such poor coding... — Edokter (talk) — 19:35, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Urdu Wikipedia

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Please add urdu wikipedia link on main page of english wiki

http://ur.wikipedia.org/wiki/صفحہ_اول

The Urdu Wikipedia only has 25,000 articles and doesn't qualify. The current minimum article count is 50,000, with Wikipedias determined to consist primarily of stubs and placeholders omitted. Requests belong at Template talk:Wikipedia languages. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:33, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps we could find a way to include a line with a selection of actively-maintained, but low-volume, Wikipedias, in rotation (as a sort of "featured Wikipedias of the day")? That would give them some much-needed support and exposure (and at least partially address the systemic bias in only listing the biggest), without filling the main en- main page with a big list. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:43, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

How many people would scroll all the way down to the bottom of the main page, see a link to a Wikipedia in a "smaller" language, click on it, read the content, and then make useful edits? I think that the support and exposure that would occur would be negligible, unfortunately. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 13:51, 21 August 2013 (UTC).

Perhaps, not many. But more than do currently. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:50, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

I doubt it will be of any use. How much so ever you promote Japanese Wikipedia i won't go and see or edit it as i don't know the language. §§Dharmadhyaksha§§ {T/C} 03:40, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Georgian wikipedia link in the Wikipedia languages bar

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Georgian wiki has more than 50,000 articles for now and it should be included in the languages bar below.

Why isn't it there? georgianJORJADZE 04:31, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

The languages bar is for Wikipedias that aren't primarily stubs or placeholders. I had a quick look at random articles in the Georgian Wikipedia; 60% were stub-class or placeholders. For future reference, the place to ask these sorts of questions (or to propose languages for the list) is at Template talk:Wikipedia languages. matt (talk) 10:48, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

And also why isn't Georgian language in the languages bar on the left? Who should I ask to put it there? georgianJORJADZE 20:11, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

The bar on the left lists the same set of languages, with the same inclusion criteria. Please take this to the correct forum, which is Template talk:Wikipedia languages. Modest Genius ^talk 11:22, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Please note my comments, above abut giving some screen-space to smaller Wikipedias. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 23:48, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

So what do you want to say exactly? georgianJORJADZE 23:54, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

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No one is answering my request there. You are redirecting me there but no one is there for me to answer on my request on Georgian wiki. georgianJORJADZE 13:11, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Featured List as Featured Article

Just to comment that it is great to see a Featured List in the Featured Article section. It is good to see we are moving on from previous times. Simply south...... fighting ovens for just 7 years 10:48, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

South Park (season 13) is actually a Featured Article, not a Featured List. Nevertheless, we have had at least one FL appear in the box before. Modest Genius ^talk 11:27, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

According to WP:Today's featured article oddities, the only featured list to appear as a "featured article" in the TFA box was Moons of Saturn on 15th Jan 2011 to mark WP's 10th birthday. If FLs have run in the TFA box at other times, I'm unaware of it and would be interested in seeing a link to the archive in question. Bencherlite^Talk 12:59, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

That's the one I was thinking of, just couldn't remember the details! Modest Genius ^talk 13:19, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Please remove the Pricasso link on the main page DYK

This is likely the most controversial article on Wikipedia right now. User:Russavia is in the process of being de-bureaucrated for trolling Jimbo with this article. There is no way this would get through the DYK process if it had been brought to the attention of large numbers of Wikipedians. In short this is a pretty "good" example of what's wrong with Wikipedia/Commons governance. Please remove asap. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 00:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Is this what Wikipedia truly wants as its front end?--Jim in Georgia Contribs Talk 00:43, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I posted on the DYK talk page about me closing the nomination due to problems that were brought up, while also posting on the talk page about my closure after that. After excessive badgering to re-open the nomination, I did, which was posted on the DYK talk page by someone else. I then left anything to do with the nomination to others because I was frustrated that not many others were discussing it, leading to future acceptance and then promotion. I was also harassed by another editor about having it as an April Fools hook instead, which I ignored. SL93 (talk) 01:54, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Closed as rejected, then reopened in 2 minutes is rather bizarre. You do understand that Russiavia was indefinitely banned, essentially for trolling Jimbo by writing this article, and that he is being debureaucrated for related offenses now at Commons? Some admin should just stand up and remove it. Smallbones_(smalltalk) 02:18, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

A DYK reviewer does not need such knowledge in inner Wiki-politics. SL93 (talk) 02:21, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

As someone who has argued strongly against Russavia's behaviour, I think you are conflating two issues. The issue with Russavia is harassment using commissioned images designed to demean an opponent. The artist himself I think is likely an unfortunate character in that nonsense, but unless there is an argument that he is not notable, the DYK entry is valid. As far as being the most controversial article on Wikipedia right now, my watchlist suggests an article about a person who shares a last name with a couple NFL quarterbacks might be a teensy bit more divisive at the moment.  ;) Resolute 04:37, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

FA in On this day

Please remove Albert Bridage from on this day. Already in FA slot. --Redtigerxyz ^Talk 02:49, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Already dealt with in the Errors in today's or tomorrow's On this day... section above. Edgepedia (talk) 10:30, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

In the News crisis: Chelsea or Bradley?

Currently, the article title is Chelsea Manning. However, I think the whole Chelsea/Bradley dispute is going too far. Unfortunately, it is discussed in Talk:Chelsea Manning, WP:VPP, WP:ANI, WP:BLPN... where else? I don't know if this is forum shopping, but I no longer care, now that talk is everywhere. Nevermind the current title... what are we going to do about the main page? You have "Chelsea Manning (legally, Bradley Manning)", and the hiliarity has been already done. Shall we re-nominate "Chelsea Manning" again? If not, then we should call him Bradley, regardless of current title. Thoughts? --George Ho (talk) 05:14, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

This is already being discussing on this very page: see Talk:Main Page#Errors in In the news. We don't need yet another parallel discussion. At all. -- tariqabjotu 05:36, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Now that "parallel" section is blank. Perhaps we shall continue here? --George Ho (talk) 16:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I agree with George. Whatever happens with that article, we have a glaring error on the main page. Joefromrandb (talk) 17:22, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Well, as Tariqabjotu's link to that other discussion does not work, I'm also posting here. Note that this is not about the article itself, but only about the current ITN blurp. I think there should be a slight change in word order: "U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning (pictured, formerly Bradley Manning)" rather than the current "U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning, pictured)". To me, the current version reads as if Bradley and Chelsea were two different persons, with only Bradley being pictured. Notwithstanding the name/gender change, it's still the same person.--FoxyOrange (talk) 20:00, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I'll restore the discussion. It's obvious some are not content with this (although, to be honest, some faction is going to regardless be discontent with the situation), and I rather this not start from square one again. -- tariqabjotu 20:06, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Phase out {{*mp}}

I intend to phase out the use of {{*mp}}; it has outlived its purpose. It was introduced to fix a minor consmetic flaw in Firefox prior to version 3.0. Those versions have fallen below 0.01% use. It is a badly coded template that relies on Tidy to work correctly, but as shown above, it also creates problems and has the potential to fail if not used correctly. I would like to ask the several MP projects (DYK, ITN, OTD) to remove it from any master templates to ensure its transclusion count does not go up (most of the transclusions are from archives). At one point, the template will just output "*" to behave like a normal list item. — Edokter (talk) — 09:52, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. Try it out on the MP sandbox first. We don't want it to accidentally affect other browsers than just Firefox 1 and 2 - checking mobile browsers would also be a good idea. Modest Genius ^talk 11:26, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

The only significant change is the removal of a Firefox-specific CSS property, so there is no impact on non-Firefox < 3.0 browsers at all. But I will create the sandbox version of DYK, ITN and OTD momentarely. — Edokter (talk) — 12:09, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Sandbox now uses plain lists instead of {{*mp}}. Please test. Changes may stop working after midnight CET. — Edokter (talk) — 12:18, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Looks OK to me, on recent versions of Firefox (Linux and Windows). Could those with other browsers check? Of course it shouldn't make a difference, but you never know... Modest Genius ^talk 19:43, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

All 366 On this day templates (including the one for February 29 for leap year) would have to be modified (otherwise someone might restore them months later "for consistency" not knowing that we are phasing them out). If you notice on Template:In the news, a dummy parameter is being used to help mark the dates for each entry (e.g. {{*mp|August 23}}, so we are going to have to add alternate code to accommodate that, probably use a hidden comment instead. And are one or more bots still updating the Did you know section, and all the queues and prep areas? If so, are they programmed to add {{*mp}} automatically, and will just basically restore it again unless their bot code changes? Zzyzx11 (talk) 03:48, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Surely it would be fairly easy to just make a bot (with the proper rights) to replace {{*mp|whatever}} with "* <!--whatever -->" ? If it looks the same, I see no reason not to modify the archives (and presumably the bot can just look for pages which transclude the template) MChesterMC (talk) 09:22, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Can't we just make the template output a * ? That would solve the problem of backwards compatibility. OTD pages could be modified as I or someone else does the daily updates instead of doing all 366 at once. —howcheng {chat} 15:59, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

+1 — PublicAmpers&^{(main account • talk • block)} 21:41, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

That is the initial plan, but its use should also be discontinued to stop transclusion count. Then we can worry about a bot cleaning out the archives. — Edokter (talk) — 21:50, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

I have started the phase-out. Sellected Anniversaries (On this day) proves a bit difficult; I can't find any master templates. DYK is done (sans the archives. ITN has a problem: I can't put the date in HTML comments; that stops the dates form being generated. So I am in a bit of a pickle. — Edokter (talk) — 16:16, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

Since the generated dates were never used anyway (and alwys added by hand), problem is moot. — Edokter (talk) — 16:42, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

No, I do not think there is any master template for Selected Anniversaries/OTD. They were all created back in 2004 when the idea for master templates did not exist yet, and there apparently has not yet been a push to create one. Zzyzx11 (talk) 20:34, 24 August 2013 (UTC)