Talk:Main Page/Archive 94

This is an archive of past discussions about Main Page. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 90

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Archive 92

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Hiding Mainpage's title

Does anybody know how wikipedia was programmed so that the main page doesn't feature "Main Page" as an opener? (Go to any other article on wikipedia and you'll see that article's name is the first thing in the article -- except for the Main Page)06:25, 1 March 2007 (UTC) 60.227.109.168 17:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Seems like all you need to do is add a magic word to the beginning of the article: "" should do it -- but this doesn't seem to work in older versions of the wiki software.

Hmmm..

Rfwoolf 17:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Scratch that. I've just tried the magic word "" on the sandbox and in my user and it doesn't seem to work. Rats. Rfwoolf 17:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Solution

Ahh, I've found a workaround (Note that there was a magic word that was included in the software that was supposed to do all this work but had too many bugs so it is no longer enabled/supported. What follows is the current workaround):

Basically you have to fiddle with this. You place it at the very top of your article:

{| style="position:absolute; top:0; width:100%; background:#F8FCFF; color:#888;" valign="middle"
|-
|
Type your replacement heading text here
|}
-just replace the color part with your desired colour, and
-replace "Type your replacement heading text here" with whatever content you want -- you can put a table there if you like, or a big heading using <big> or <h1> tags.

Problemo solved.

Rfwoolf 18:22, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Main Page Monobook.css stuff

In MediaWiki:Monobook.css, the following code is used to remove elements from the Main Page.

/* Don't display some stuff on the
main page */
body.page-Main_Page #lastmod,
body.page-Main_Page #siteSub,
body.page-Main_Page #contentSub,
body.page-Main_Page h1.firstHeading {
   display: none !important;
  }

My question is: where is this stuff documented? I can't find where "body.page-Main_Page" is defined, nor any documentation on it. The same with "h1.firstHeading". Does anyone know? The Transhumanist 17:54, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Dengue in South America

Sorry, I thought I saw some news about an epidemic in Paraguay. Where is it? --Aldo L 21:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

It was removed [1] because the article had not been updated much Nil Einne 23:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

But you could have given it some more time —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pozhan (talk • contribs)

Wikipedia News

Hello, do you guys have a Wikipedia News section on the main page? Today, the German Wikipedia reached 1000 excellent articles (simular to the English featured articles). I think this is worth mentioning! --Tantalos 12:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Announcements is one place to put it; you might also want to speak to the people who write the Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost and it can be included in next weeks' issue. Mentioning it on Wikipedia talk:Featured articles might attract the attention of anyone interefddfasdsted, too – Qxz 14:00, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Tantalos 17:06, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Embassy Link

Why don't we have a link to the English Wikipedia Embassy on the main page like the Italian Wikipedia has? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 22:09, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

The Embassy page seems quite inactive. Perhaps that was the reason. Or not many people knew about it (I sure didn't). Nishkid 64 00:22, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

They may not know about it because there are no links to it (I didn't know about it until I looked). Has it ever been mentioned don the main page? Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 01:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I kept wondering where our embassy was. Every other language seems to have one. This should really be linked more prominently.--Danaman5 03:59, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

If it seems reasonable, I will add the below line to {{WikipediaOther}}:

Embassy — For Wikipedia-related communication in languages other than English.

—Cuiviénen 05:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

No one's responded, so I've just gone ahead and done it. —Cuiviénen 16:11, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Why can't I edit this page?

Why not?72.184.201.3 03:29, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

What do you want to change? The Placebo Effect 03:31, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

You can't edit this page because it is the most visible page of Wikipedia. You can edit almost any page but if anyone could edit this page, it would be so buried in vandalism that we couldn't control it. It's protected from editing except for administrators. If you want to change something on the main page then suggest it here, if you just want to test out what things do, try the sandbox. James086 ^Talk 03:37, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Not just vandalism, but people fighting to have "their" content on the page. Can you image how horrible INT would be if people could just change it instead of complaining about it here? Koweja 04:04, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

News, DYK need an RSS feed

It's quite embarrassing that we do not offer any kind of RSS syndication of our newest content. Is something like this in the works? mstroeck 09:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

What's more embarrassing now? ;) Wikipedia:Syndication --Monotonehell 10:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

That link doesn't mention anything about In The News or Did You Know. --Cherry blossom tree 11:28, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

That's because they're templates, not RSS feeds. You can get a feed of changes made to the template, as you can with any page, but that's probably not what you want. I imagine you want a function that picks out the individual DYK entries, formats them nicely and makes a feed out of them. Well, if you want to write an extension for MediaWiki that does that, or a bot that does it, you're welcome to do so. If you actually want an RSS news feed, go and get one from a news service – Qxz 14:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Define "newest content". There are feeds of Special:Recentchanges and Special:Newpages, but both of those change much too fast and are too full of junk to be of any use for casual browsing. If you have some kind of algorithm that can pick out substantial new content from Recent Changes, we'd love to see it. If all you want is a feed of Did You Know, see my reply to Cherry blossom tree – Qxz 14:14, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

You might have read the heading of this section ;-) I was specifically talking about sections of the main page that are created by editors. DYK, In the News and Picture of the Day. mstroeck 16:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

MediaWiki isn't excessively XML-oriented, as far as I'm aware. This and This should alert you to updates for ITN and DYK. Here is a POTD feed, but it hasn't been updated recently. Gracenotes ^T § 17:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Conservopedia

Why doesn't Wikipedia have any article on Conservopedia: http://www.conservopedia.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.230.205.56 (talk • contribs) 20:33, 4 March 2007 (UTC).

Wikipedia relies on people like you to write articles. Start working! However, consider the possibility that the topic is not worth writing about. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Start anyway. Be bold. Someone will let you know if there is a problem. --74.14.23.202 21:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm guessing you meant Conservapedia, the article for which I remember being deleted, but it appears to have been dramatically improved since. --Maxamegalon2000 21:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that is the correct name of the article. I've created a redirect from Conservopedia as it's clear there's a chance people will misspell it – Qxz 22:34, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It was apparently never deleted. It has no deleted revisions. —Cuiviénen 05:12, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it was deleted six times. Presumably it has no deleted revisions because they were all restored again, or something (I don't really understand how deleted revisions work). Either that or you were looking at the misspelt version of the page. Read the deletion log to be certain of whether a page was deleted – Qxz 13:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Yep, it has no deleted revisions because the article was deleted, but circumstances changed, so the article was undeleted again. If an article is recreated, usually all its revisions will be visible in the history. Those that aren't may be copyright violations, nonsense, contain personally identifying information or similar. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

And the deletions seem proper. It had little noteablity in December 2006, only 6 Google hits supposedly. It was only in late February that it began to achieve significant notablity with a number prominent blogs and papers Nil Einne 20:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Shortest FA ever?

Today's Featured Article is three characters long. Is this the shortest ever? Borisblue 00:10, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

There's also Ido. Happy editing — S.D. 01:32, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Took a moment to work out that the OP meant the title of the FA, rather than its content. I *think* the shortest FA is still Hurricane Irene (2005), though that may have since been surpassed. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 04:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

If you want to break the record for shortest title, I had a quick look and one candidate which looks like it could do it is Ur. It already much more then a stub and it looks like it might survive under it's current title without being converted to a disambig (there's one at UR and it seems like this Ur may be clearly the most noteable/deserving of tht title) Nil Einne 20:34, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

A is a reasonably good article that won't have to be converted to a disambig. —Cuiviénen 23:42, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

And I thought New Radicals was short...Circeus 21:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Hurricane Irene (2005) is very short indeed. It is the shortest FA article I have ever seen. --Meno25 09:55, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

There seems to be some confusion as to what shortest means. The first few discussions were not about the FA article being the shortest, but the title being the shortest (e.g. Law is only three characters). Obviously no FA would be three characters.Tourskin.

Main_Page#Wikipedia languages

On Feb. 27th I recommended a new section to the Main Page's section "Wikipedia languages" with

More than 500,000 articles: Deutsch

It received the following answers:

There's absolutely no reason to create a category for only one language. —Cuiviénen 15:10, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed many time before BTW, check the archives Nil Einne 16:03, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

As I don't look into the English Wikipedia every day, I may be allowed to make some remarks today: Since when is the section "Wikipedia Languages" a "Category" of Wikipedia. It is a just section listing efforts in different languages, and if ONE (1) country exceeds 500,000 articles, that should by all means be worth to be included in this section (especially as the English Wikipedia seems to be so proud of having over 1 Million articles (about the quality of atomized lemmata to reach this number we should not talk at this point)). And it will not last long until the French also reaches this level. And "check the archives" was very helpfull, thank you for this prolific comment. --Wittkowsky 17:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

They don't mean a category as in a category:, but rather a visual seperation for the one project. Possibly when FR reaches 500K, we will consider a section. But more than likely, we will wait until at least three reach this pillar. -- Zanimum 18:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

"Category" is an English word as well as a Wikipedia term. I could have said "line" or "section" or "division", but the meaning is the same. In any case, as others ahve pointed out, there's no need for more arbitrary divisions that split the languages down into groups of one or two or three. The usefulness of divisions is primarily that they group like things together; having a divisions for only one thing defeats the purpose. —Cuiviénen 23:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Aesthetic reasons, mainly. A section with only two items doesn't look so good when the other sections have 6-11 items. Also simplicity is good, especially on such a visible page; better to have only four sections if we can help it. Perhaps when three or four Wikipedias have 500,000 articles, we can redefine the top sections as 500,000 and move the rest down to the 100,000 section, or something like that. That's still over a year off, though, so no need to worry about it at the moment – Qxz 18:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

There is absolutely no need for a new section for just one language. --Meno25 05:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure if your being sarcastic or serious in suggesting my comment was helpful. However I wanted to point out that the reason I mentioned it because it has in act been discussed many times before and the reasons we mention are always the same so IMHO, there isn't any real point discussing it again unless you have something new to discuss. It's resonably easy to find this in the archives as well as I did so myself in a about 2 or 3 minutes. Admittedly this was longer then I expected. I originally thought it would be easy to Google for it but I gave up after getting no where. However once I have up on that, it was fairly easy to find it by visiting each archive starting from the latest and searching for German. Once I did this, I found it in probably about 45 seconds (although this will depend on your internet connection and what wikipedia is being like). It was mentioned here Talk:Main Page/Archive 86 with pretty much the same responses. There are definitely a few more discussions but I didn't bother to search once I found one. On consideration, it's not IMHO resonable to expect people to find this if they are not aware. But once someone has mentioned it's been discussed before it's fairly easy to find it yourself in the archives and you'd probably find all the explaination you need there which IMHO is easier then waiting for other to explain it again but of course, people do is up to them. Nil Einne 09:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Klasies not oldest

See Omo remains. Fix this please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abelani (talk • contribs) 10:11, 7 March 2007

Fix it yourself! Be bold in updating pages! —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξ φ 12:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Time in the heading of this page

I've just noticed that this page has the time in the top right (alongside Talk:Main Page). I assume this is generated by the code

<div style="right:10px;display:none;" class="metadata topicon">'''{{CURRENTDATE}}'''</div>

Any reason why this is present, and if it's useful, why it isn't on other talk pages? MrBeast 16:10, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I presume it's for the same reason we mention this at the top "Note that the current date and time are in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which may not coincide with your local time zone. The next day's featured article of the day, picture of the day, and anniversaries update at midnight (00:00) according to UTC. The current time is 17:37 on March 7, 2007 (UTC).". People may not know this and may be confused as to why when they visit wikipedia 'the next day' they get the same stuff and why on this day still says 'yesterday'. Or alternatively they might visit wikipedia and wonder why it changed and why 'on this day' is tomorrow. As to why we have it twice, I guess it's useful to people not used to different time zones to have it in an easy to see location if they need to check and by having it twice we increase th chance someone is going to see it and hopefully realise we use UTC a different time zone Nil Einne 17:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The FP of Dwigth D. Eisenhower

_{moved to WP:ERRORS by ffm ^yes? 21:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)}

Essjay dismissed

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070307/ap_on_hi_te/wikipedia_credentials

So, are "essjay's" contributing articles in religion going to be altered given the news of his non-credentials? I can't help but wonder what harm he's caused followers of religions because of any authoritative statements he made, which were not allowed to be corrected because of his status on Wiki.Jlujan69 21:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I imagine that all of his work has been checked by people who know the subject at hand and any changes necessary will have been made days ago. There's no indication that Essjay's work in incorrect, indeed, nobody would have suspected he was 'faking' his credentials, such were the quality and accuracy of his contributions. -- Nick ^t 21:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

This discussion doesn't have anything to do with MainPage. Please feel free to discuss this further at the Village Pump instead. Thanks. --PFHLai 22:07, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Disclaimers

Would it be appropriate to put a warning on the Main Page? "BEWARE! All information in this encyclopedia, as well as some administrators, may be fraudulent." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.8.1.2 (talk) 06:00, March 8, 2007 (UTC)

No, it would not. The appropriate parts of that are already located at Wikipedia:Content disclaimer. ShadowHalo 06:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for the link. But how would a random user, on their first visit to Wikipedia, find this disclaimer? I've been lurking for months, and this is the first time I've seen the disclaimer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.8.1.2 (talk) 06:08, March 8, 2007 (UTC)

It's at the bottom of every page. --Maxamegalon2000 06:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Convienently hidden, like all disclaimers. Thanks, though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.8.1.2 (talk) 06:33, March 8, 2007 (UTC)

Well there is a reason for that. You can't really expect them to put a giant message at the top that says "STOP! Don't look! Read this first!" ShadowHalo 07:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it "hidden" either. It's there, in a prominently-coloured box, the same size as most other text on the page, and gives a fairly explicit message if clicked. Bazza 13:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Like the disclames on most sites. Also, if you don't like it, you can hide it with some user css. Or put it at the top of each page you view. ffm ^yes? 16:58, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

How could you achieve what the user wanted (put a big disclamer at the top of every page). I tried to do it myself but I know next to nothing about CSS :-P Nil Einne 17:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I managed to work out how to hide the disclamer. I also managed to work out how to move the disclaimer kind of. However I couldn't work out how to increase the size yet. Perhaps someone else can have a go.~~Also, altho it works in preview, even tho I saved it it doesn't show up now and it doesn't seem to be a caching issue. And my saved monobook seems to be a bit screwed.~~ (sorry was having probs and forgot to check again). Check it out here if you want User:Nil Einne/monobook.css to try and increase the font size Nil Einne 18:36, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

64.8.1.2, you might be interested in Wikipedia:Non-Wikipedia disclaimers. None of those entities have disclaimers on the scale that you suggest, even though most have been again and again been proven innacurate. And as I'm sure you've divined, fradulent users do not affect content, since Wikipedia is supposed to have an anti-elitist attitude. Gracenotes ^T § 17:49, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

What's with the Eurovision songs of late?

Is it just me, or does it seems that a lot of Eurovision songs have been in the did-you-know section? It might be exciting for some, but I believe there are much more interesting articles to be featured than that of the Eurovision festival. My two cents for today. --Soetermans 21:39, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Before anyone jumps in with a {{sofixit}}, which seems to be standard operating procedure when someone raises a complaint, I just figured I'd give an explanation for why this happens. Close to 90% of hooks appearing in DYK are self-nominations. And the people who self-nominate once are likely to do so again. Combined with the fact that people will tend to primarily write on only one or two topics, there are occasionally lots of hooks on the same subject appearing in a short space of time. Ideally, we'd have a team of people combing through Special:Newpages, resulting in a much more varied pool to pick from. It's not a huge problem, though – in a week or two there'll be a brand new "bias" to the articles appearing in DYK. Think of it as analogous to "clumping" in a random generator. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 21:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, blame it on BigHaz (talk · contribs · blocks · protections · deletions · page moves · rights · RfA). He's been writing all these Eurovision song articles. See [2]. :-D Nishkid 64 23:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It's actually not been so bad lately. There was a time when Eurovision came up more or less every DYK because so many Eurovision articles were being nominated. I'm not sure whether the tide of Eurovision articles has ebbed or whether the admins who update DYK have decided to dilute the number of Eurovision articles that make it to the Main Page, but it's not really too bad any more. —Cuiviénen 23:38, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

On the bright side, there are only so many Eurovision songs. -- tariqabjotu 00:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think this is a problem provided we don't end up with more then one or two in a single DYK Nil Einne 05:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

"Only so many" So far Bighaz has listed all the finalists, next they're intending to list all the songs from every year. This seems excessive when one article would probably do. --Monotonehell 06:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

(Advertisement: If you don't want to see Eurovision-related articles in the Main page everyday, tag your user page with {{User:Howard the Duck/Userbox/Anti-ESC}} --Howard the Duck 10:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC))

Advertisement: If you don't want to see Eurovision-related articles in the Main page everyday, write some articles on different subjects and submit them to DYK. That's the only constructive argument. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-06 14:12Z

With all of the debates on keeping the article count on (or off) the Main Page and having a now-screwed-up FA-count, that'll be sending a wrong message if you ask the "quality over quantity" people. --Howard the Duck 10:45, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Are you saying the Eurovision articles are of lesser quality? If not, what are you trying to say? — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-07 14:36Z

I'm trying to say that the quality over quantity people would rather improve existing articles rather create new ones, that's why they (doesn't include me, BTW) insist of removing the article count on the main page. --Howard the Duck 06:12, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Another advertisement. For those who want to know precisely what I'm doing, please see User:BigHaz/Eurovision. Therein you'll find why they get nominated. BigHaz - Schreit mich an 00:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Over representation of music groups in todays featured article

Does anyone else agree that bands are featured far to much in this? Tenacious D Fans (talk) 19:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

They are taken from the list of featured articles and the article is chosen by User:Raul654. Talk to him about that. ffm ^yes? 19:47, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Really ? Today's FA on the KLF is the first band at TFA this month. If you really think so, please help out by writing articles in other topics, and improving them to FA status. --PFHLai 21:00, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah! Something I didn't know, found interesting and was new!!

No, I seriously did not know that Assyrians in Finland lived mostly in that city. I forgot its name already. Well, I'm satisfied. But I wonder what they were doing there. Tourskin 06:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Go write an article on something you find fascinating. Stop criticizing the work of others at DYK. Thanks, Nishkid 64 18:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Woah, calm down! I am not criticizing others work. That was a great piece of info. You should stop criticizing other's criticism.Tourskin 02:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It was an easy mistake to make when so many of the posts here centre on misunderstandings of what DYK and ITN are for. Stop criticising other's criticism of criticism. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Tourskin, I saw what you've been saying about DYKs and how "boring" they appear to you. That's why I said what I said. Also, why do you need to make a whole new section at Talk:Main Page, when this really belongs at WT:DYK, if anything at all. Nishkid 64 23:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

For a new user, who has made a few petty contributions (contributions nonetheless), I have recieved quite some displeasure. I never used boring. Quote me on that for real if I said it. You can't stop me from criticizing other's work, or else wikipedia would be stagnant without people proposing changes. And perhaps someone could explain what the fuss is with discussing DYK here? I never knew that there was a WT:DYK. I do now.Tourskin 01:59, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Well you seemed to be suggesting that previous DYK were uninteresting and/or that they were details that everyone knew. So when you came back and said "lived mostly in that city. I forgot its name already. Well, I'm satisfied. But I wonder what they were doing there." especially with the part "I forgot its name already" it sounded a bit like you were being sarcastic, saying yes that's so interesting... not. Or alternatively saying finally something that's interesting after all that junk. Okay so you've now explained this was not your intention but given your previous criticism, I think people can be forgiven for thinking that you were trying to criticise DYK for being uninteresting rather then congratulate. Nil Einne 18:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

The issue here is not that criticism isn't welcome but we've already explained how DYK works and that although you may not find it interesting, other people probably did as it's difficult to define what interesting. After all, people must find the fact that celebrity X was seen holding hands with celebrity Y so celebrity Z the girl/boyfriend of celebrity Y obviously isn't happy; and meanwhile Prince William is going to marry, perhaps. Maybe. Possibly... Otherwise tabloids wouldn't sell so well and paparazzi wouldn't be rich. I'm not saying we should sink to the level of a tabloid but my point is that different people find different things interesting. So unless you can come up with a good explaination for why you think something isn't interesting to most readers, there seems little point in saying you don't find something interesting. Nil Einne 18:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Other then that, we only have limited DYKs so unless we suddenly we 5 times more then we use or whatever we're can't afford to be too choisy. As such, perhaps the best way to increase the number of 'interesting' DYK or at least reduce the number of 'uninteresting' to you DYKs is to write some articles and nominate them. BTW, as you'll find if you get used to wikipedia, nearly every page has a talk page and this is usually the best place to discuss details related to to that page (and by page here, this is including categories, images, policies, templates) Nil Einne 18:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

And the bad part of being choosy is... oh yeah, more work. And Wikipedians are more apt to expand Minor Characters in Dragonball Z than weed through 50 facts to find 5 interesting ones. Human nature... 71.202.20.91 23:18, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I had mentioned earlier, I was not criticizing the DYK fact about Assyrians. I'm an Assyrian myself. But I did have a few opinions on how to improve DYK. My comments have been answered, end of that. Its how discussion works.Tourskin 06:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Featured Article's picture

Could not a better picture be used on the main page. Instead of some crummy photo - that doesn't even feature the title character - we could instead use the screenshot of the opening title sequence, or the cast in makeup. Surely its still fair use oon the main page? --Kronecker 01:13, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The pictures in the Main Page must be free pictures. We can't use copyrighted pictures. --Meno25 01:22, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The only exception is when Today's Featured Article has absolutely, positively no free pictures. Unfortunately, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a free image, even if it is only one, and therefore that has priority to be put on the main page. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 01:27, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately?? Garion96 (talk) 08:51, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, becaues it is such an awful one, it is almost worse than no image at all, IMO. ffm ^yes? 16:31, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's that bad. The trouble is, such a small thumbnail of photos showing such a large number of people never works well. We could crop it but as Kronecker says, without the title character it's not clear what to crop. BTW, even if we didn't have this and the several other Buffy related pictures on commons, we do have a Sarah Michelle Gellar free photo, nothing to do with Buffy and indeed postdating the end but potentially it could be seen as connected enough to the show to replace whatever you may prefer Nil Einne 16:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean by cast in makeup but if you mean just a general photo of the cast in makeup, note that this probably won't qualify as fair use in any case IMHO. I don't think it's likely to be seen as unique enough compared to a free photo which may resonably replace it. Unless of course there was something particularly noteable about the use of makeup on the show. We do use in in show shots sometimes under fair use but along with the title sequence tends to be all that qualifies for fair use. Obviously as others have pointed out we don't use photos under fair use for the main page when we have free photos whatever the case Nil Einne 16:36, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Mention of tv networks in TFA

Hmmm, not sure the caption is doing much to combat WP:BIAS. I live in the UK, and Buffy first aired for me on channel 4, then on Sky One. Fair enough mentioning writers and production companies, as well as the success it bought them, but I'm not so sure about those who brought the show to the American masses. Perhaps I'm missing something? — Jack · talk · 01:47, Saturday, 10 March 2007

I would imagine it has to do with the American networks' influence on the show's budget and existence. I mean, if no British network wanted the show, it probably wouldn't affect the show's existence, but if no U S network wanted it, the show would be cancelled. Heh, I made this edit on my Wii. Awesome. --Maxamegalon2000 02:06, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Please stop Wii-ing on Wikipedia. ;) Or is it Wii-kipedia now? --Monotonehell 02:49, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Wiikipedia, the friii encyclopedia – Qxz 13:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Consider, Jack, that Buffy aired, like other successful shows, in something like 20 countries. We cannot list all of the networks that the show aired on in the caption, so we list just the network for which it was produced, the network it originally aired on, the network that made the decision on whether it would be canceled or renewed each year, which was WB (and later UPN) and not Channel 4. Andrew Levine 17:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Today's picture

How can I email today's picture to someone - can I email it? I think we should hacve that option, if possible.Tourskin 18:53, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

The easiest way would be to save the image to your computer and then email that file. As for adding the functionality, I guess the best place to propose that would be at the Village pump Koweja 19:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Turkish Wikipedia is over 50000 subject

Please change this. Becasue Turkish Wikipedia is over 50.000 subject. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.244.131.250 (talk) 07:28, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

Done. Tebrikler! Andrew Levine 08:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks:)--88.244.131.250 12:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Statistics are 6 months out of date

I went to have a look at the Wikipedia Statistics "Charts and Table" section, and I found that it has not been updated since October. Who updates it and how - I would be happy to assist, but I feel that someone should certainly be doing it. David Spart 11:08, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Time to re-activate Wikipedia:Statistics Department ? You may want to bring this up at Wikipedia talk:Statistics and the Village Pump. This has little to do with MainPage. You'll get a better response on those discussion pages than here. Hope this helps. --PFHLai 12:06, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Todays feature article

I think that the todays featured article should be blocked from editing by anyone except admins. This article is the focus of many vandalism attempts, and it would make it easier on everyone to just block it from editors. Smbarnzy 06:58, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Smbarnzy, don't take this personally, but this has been suggested many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many times. The answer is no, for the same reasons that we gave when this was suggested yesterday (look up five sections), and the day before, and the day before (and you get the idea). See WP:NOPRO Raul654 07:05, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

That gives me an idea for WP:COPRO... the content being DO NOT SUGGEST PROTECTION OF FEATURED ARTICLES ON THE FRONT PAGE. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξ φ 12:04, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, unless I'm mistaken, there's heavy discussion over semi-protecting the FA.Circeus 21:01, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I think enough people patrol the daily FAs that they should be pretty safe without protection. - Serious Cat 20:35, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Not the best juxtaposition

The first news item is about the capture of a Taliban official. The eye moves to the right and immediately lands on a photo of Abdoulaye Wade, recently reelected as president of Senegal. That news item is a significant number of lines down from the photo. The photo placement implies a connection between the Taliban and Wade, and that insinuation, whether intended or not, is inappropriate. Not all readers, skimming the page, will read that Wade is in fact president of Senegal. — Emiellaiendiay 08:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but that seems like farcical argument, at best. It doesn't imply anything, all it highlights is the inability of (what I presume to be a, a minute number of) users to read content before forming a connection. Would you even have made the same argument had the image been of a white man? RonaldDonald33 13:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Does your minute number of users include those who are not familiar with Wikipedia and its practice of using "(pictured)" on the main page to indicate which story corresponds to the picture? You know, those people who would be tricked by their common sense in figuring that a story and a picture positioned side by side correspond to one another? I think you should take his argument more seriously. Punctured Bicycle 14:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed many times before. There is a reason why we can't change the position of the photo (it screws up the layout for other pages) and there is a reason we can't change the photo (we don't have a suitable one that's free) so there is no real solution. In any case, would either of you be complaining if we had a picture of say Bush or Obama or Royal or Francis J. Harvey? Nil Einne 22:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

One solution I've heard is to caption the pictures, so one can see quickly that the picture is of Abdoulaye Wade, and not of Mullah Obaidullah Akhund. I forget what the reason given against it was, though. -- 22:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Captioning might be an idea but I assume there is a reason it won't work. I still think it isn't a major problem. And I still wonder whether editors aren't giving readers enough credit. I personally don't think the majority are that stupid and if they are, well tough IMHO :-P I mean seriously, it's not as if Abdoulaye Wade looks remotely like Mullah Obaidullah Akhund. He's Senagalese while Mullah Obaidullah Akhund is Afghani. Nor does Abdoulaye Wade look particularly like Mullah who belonged to the Taliban government. Nil Einne 17:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I also notice this problem often, so I don't think it is a matter of affecting a small number of people. Also, I can't imagine what race has to do with it. If the face is unfamiliar, the placement is ambiguous. I would very much like to know why captions are out. This sort of thing wouldn't fly in a newspaper front page, so why should it fly here? Hell, the fact that the photo is not (obviously) credited makes it look amateurish... but I digress --Lionelbrits 00:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps, to avoid confusion, use a picture of only the top news article? When you think about every news article at some point will be the newest and therefore at the top, next to the picture - so perhaps the picture should belong to the top article. Rather than change the position of the picture, change what the picture is. Tourskin.

Well as I explained,we often can't because there is no free photo to illustrate the top article. Nil Einne 17:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Whilst I can't really offer a solution as I'm not familiar enough with Wikipedia, I have found - and still do find - ...confusion when reading the news. The fact is that many - me included - don't read it properly and associate whatever picture there is with the nearest article. It has little to do with the race of the person - I'm pretty sure a while ago a picture of a plane or something was next to text about a person and I still did a double-take. It's not that I can't be bothered to read and take note of '(above)', it's that connections have already been made in my brain before I've read the full piece. Benedictwest 03:31, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I understand that the newest news items are added to the top of T:ITN to keep the events in order, but if false image association is as much of a problem as some people are claiming, another solution would just be to have the story on the top line be the newest one which has an available free image, followed by the remaining stories. timrem 23:33, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

That's been suggested before, along with a lot of other ideas. I and others have even gone as far as making mockups of what it might look like. But for some reason none of these ideas have gained enough consensus to be implemented. --Monotonehell 00:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Valentina Tereshkova

The first woman in space turns seventy today, but our Main Page is perfectly ignorant of the fact. Ditto about Gabriel García Márquez, who turns eighty. Please fix it. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure where that information would go. It certainly wouldn't go in the "In The News" section, being not particularly newsworthy or having an updated article. Unless the articles on these people are newly created, the information is ineligible for "Did You Know". And I think one would have a difficult time arguing that these birthdays are more important than any of the listings in "On This Day". --Maxamegalon2000 14:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't care less about Magellan being greeted by the people of Guam and about some obscure battle from the Mexican history. These events happened 486 and 171 years ago, respectively. Could you give us some particular reason what is so compelling about these dates? Both Tereshkova and Marquez are alive and well-known (outside the US at least), and there is little chance that these outstanding people will be alive in ten years. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

See March 6 for all the people with birthdays today. Can you give a reason for preferring events of the present over events of the past? — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-06 15:18Z

On 25 September I had to argue that Dmitri Shostakovich's 100th anniversary is notable enough to be mentioned on Main Page. Many American people seemed to be quite ignorant of who Shostakovich is. I'm sick of this attitude. It is your project, please run it as you think best. I have Russian Wikipedia to work in. Goodbye. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:35, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing notable about anyone's birthday, no matter how famous (unless their birthday becomes a national holiday somewhere). Marquez is extremely famous, and Tereshkova is somewhat famous, but neither's birthday is significant in the least. America-baiting ("outside the US, at least") does nothing to help your cause, either. —Cuiviénen 15:22, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no "cause" to care about and I find your aggressive response extremely disappointing. I would like to see some more wikilove on the main page talk, guys. Your opinions that some arbitrarily chosen events which happened 486 years ago are more "notable" than the 80th birthday of the most acclaimed of living authors and the 70th birthday of the first woman to leave the Earth remain... your opinions, and quite US-centric at that. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Please do not try to claim a desire for Wikilove while baiting. It doesn't get you anywhere. I'm not sure what, exactly, Magellan's voyage is supposed to have to do with Amerocentrism, nor do I understand your insistence that birthdays are important. Tereshkova, Marquez, these people were nothing at their birth, and what day they were born on had absolutely no impact on what their accomplishments were. The anniversary of Tereshkova's flight and of the publication of Cien años de soledad (or of one of Marquez's other works such as El amor en los tiempos del cólera, though those are less famous) are worthy of the Main Page (and are probably on the OTD list; I haven't checked), but their birthdays are not. —Cuiviénen 20:22, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

On the anniversary of her flight in space, we should definitely have a piece about it in On This Day. Mentioning their birthday makes little or no sense. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-06 15:37Z

Following your logic, Marquez will be mentioned on the day when Cien años de soledad was first published (or its first American edition, eh)? If you check the article, you will see that it happened 40 years ago. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:46, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with US-centrism, or any country for that matter. It has to do with the fact that we don't put birthdays on the main page. The event that is the birthday is of little importance; its the events that those individuals participated in that are important, and the dates for those events should be properly credited on the main page. Unless she flew in space on her birthday, there's no reason to mention her birthday on the main page. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-06 15:39Z

This is false. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:44, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

No it's not. Admins do all sorts of things that are not prescribed policy or guidelines. Just because it has happened once in the past doesn't make it possible in the future. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-06 15:56Z

Hello, Ghirla. Thank you for your suggestions. Honestly, I am not that big on birthdays. For me to post a birthday on MainPage, the birthday boy or girl must be really, really notable and it should be a centenary or some nice, big, round number like 250, 750, ... etc. I'm afraid Tereshkova's 70th birthday and Márquez's 80th birthday fall short on both fronts. If I am putting any birthdays on MainPage this year, it would be Leonhard Euler's 300th birthday on April 15. BTW, Tereshkova is scheduled to be on MainPage on June 16, the anniversary of her historic flight. --PFHLai 16:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Your response does make sense to me. On the other hand, Brian should finally learn to handle complaints in a constructive way, something which he has spectacularly failed to do after all these years in the project. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 17:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for sinking to the same level that would claim US-centrism is the reason that Megallan's voyage was selected for the main page, while Tereshkova's 70th birthday was not. I should have remained rational and reasonable. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-06 18:36Z

Sorry if I got into this discussion late, but rule #1 of WP:SA#Criteria for listing items on this set of pages does currently state that "births and deaths can only be used on centennials, etc." But as I mentioned to another user [3], I am not a big fan of listing any centennial of a birth or death since we might have to remove another entry that may have more international significance. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 04:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I think centennials etc. are proper when there are very major cultural events marking the anniversary, like with the Mozart 350th last year.--Pharos 05:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Define "very major". Some might assume that a 3-person cult-follower party is major... ~user:orngjce223 how am I typing? 21:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Common sense would suffice. There is no need to count heads or anything like that.... --PFHLai 22:11, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

How about Osama bin Laden's big 50 today? --74.13.131.119 18:38, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be any major celebrations for his birthday and I wonder if it he might prefer to use the Islamic calendar anyway Nil Einne 21:59, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

SA/OTD: US-centric

Moved from WP:ERRORS

I've often thought Wikipedia is very US-centric. Looks like these featured articles confirm that, given that every one of them relates to the US is some form or another.

Shame really. Fizzackerly 13:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions of anniversaries are always welcome. Please see Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries for details. Please also note that sometimes there are not that many qualifying items to choose from. For now, an item about Giuseppe Verdi, a noted composers of Italian opera, is added, displacing an U.S. item. Hope this helps. --PFHLai 18:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Your two options are to either sit back and scowl or write some articles. Which seems more productive? — BRIAN0918 • 2007-03-09 18:56Z

One might reflect about how most articles in the English language Wikipedia are written by Americans, who presumably know more about America than other countries, just as people in other countries know more about their own country than America, rather than accusing Wikipedia of being biased.John R S 23:05, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Count of FA on main page.

Hi, Can we have the total count of FA on main page?

6,632 Featured Articles as on today!!!

--Nirajrm ^{talk ||| sign plz!} 14:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You'd have to get that template protected first – Qxz 15:41, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, it use to be on the main page, but removed a couple of weeks ago due to technical reasons. I do not recall the specifics, but it seems that the bot updating the template had trouble when it was being transcluded on a cascading protected page such as the main page. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 15:43, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
- There may have been a problem like that I think, don't know if it was fixed but I think the main problem at the moment is the bot died and the person who created it didn't have a backup nor any time to fix or run the bot. Wait found it in the archives User:Jmax-bot and /Archive_92#FA count off Main Page. Nil Einne 20:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Archival

As User:Werdnabot is currently unavailable due to a malfuction, I've been bold, removed the Werdnabot stuff (wouldn't want them fighting) and put in a request to User:MiszaBot/Archive requests Nil Einne 21:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

It's done, all hail Misza! :-) Nil Einne 21:57, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Was it a bloodless coup, or has W.bot gone on "permanent vacation"? ;) Viva la revolucion! ;) --Monotonehell 00:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

minor formatting issues just below welcome to wiki

Hi. On very small screens or small windows it is evident that the text under the first box of the main page that is aligned to the left (reading "Overview · Editing · Questions · Help") is not level with the text aligned right (which reads "Contents · Categories · Featured content · A–Z index"). In the interest of standardisation, the text from "end portals" should read:

<!-- End Portals -->
{|style="width:100%;background:none;margin:-.8em 0 -.7em 0"
|style="font-size:95%;padding:10px 0;margin:0px;text-align:left;white-space:nowrap;color:#000"|
[[Wikipedia:About|Overview]] '''·'''  [[Wikipedia:Tutorial|Editing]] '''·''' [[Wikipedia:Questions|Questions]] '''·''' [[Help:Contents|Help]]

— Jack · talk · 01:15, Tuesday, 13 March 2007

Done. Look okay? Picaroon 02:33, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Very good, thanks :) — Jack · talk · 02:42, Tuesday, 13 March 2007

Today's Did You Know

Did you know that ethical dilemmas result from medical research scientists (pictured) working with animals and animal products, such as stem cells? ---- Um, no kidding? I would suggest that pretty much everyone knows this? Normally I look forward to the interesting tidbits of info in Did You Know, but this one seems kind of self-evident, does anyone agree? Sorry to nitpick, whoever writes these does a great job most of the time. Spebudmak 22:56, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course, I may be a little biased, you'll notice the "vegetarian" userbox on my userpage :) Spebudmak 22:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
- As a rule, DYK only features articles that have been recently expanded significantly from stub-like form. So we're saying "If you don't know this, check it out; if you do know it, see if you can learn anything else about it; hey, look at this article that we recently expanded because we're cool like that; if you want to help expand it further, by all means go ahead!" Gracenotes ^T § 23:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

An entry references medical research scientists regarding ethical issues in animal testing, but the former article contains no relevant information except a single reference to the latter. In addition the entry calls "stem cells" an "animal product", which is literally true but which confuses the point that the controversial kind of stem cells are human stem cells. The medical research scientists article is rather basic and in places debatable, but if some fact must be extracted from it for a Did You Know entry, I'd pick "Did you know... the average salary for biotechnology research scientists in the United States is $66,393." (although this is also a little off - the source does not include some specialties of "medical research scientists" from the article e.g. biochemists, and the article describes this as simply the salary for "research scientists" without qualification). Mike Serfas 23:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I've just rewritten that line on DYK. I hope it sounds more exciting now. Hope this helps. --PFHLai 00:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Look, it mentions toxic and dangerous things! Much better. Gracenotes ^T § 01:18, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Spebudmak 01:31, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

What a waste. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 05:05, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Lol. agreeable on that. Bigman17 05:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually I would argue a DYK on ethical issue facing scientists would be relevant since even if it should seem obvious scientist face ethical issues, a lot of people especially animal rights people seem to think scientists are cruel inhumane people who don't care about anything except their research when in reality ethical issues will always come up when animals are involved. But I agree, the stem cells wasn't the best example since the biggest controversies there are when it comes to humans (who are animals of course). Animal testing is a better example of an area where ethical issues play a greater role. Nil Einne 06:48, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Hello mans

Where is bosnian language here? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 85.92.237.133 (talk) 22:08, 15 March 2007 (UTC).

Did you mean the Bosnian language article, or the Bosnian Wikipedia? howcheng {chat} 22:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki links on the Main Page

A link to Cebuano wiki is shown on the Main Page of English wiki, and languages which are apparently much better, but have fewer articles than Cebuano are not. Is this not a reason to reconsider the criteria interwiki links appear on the Main Page? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.45.81.145 (talk) 05:42, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

Saying that a language is "much better" is inherently a subjective judgment which we won't get into. The number of articles is the litmus test we are applying. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 08:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I meant wikipedias on other languages, not languages itself. And I was questioning exactly the adequacy of the litmus test. Why not think about other litmus tests? Like, one abvious (I think) improvement (of the litmus test) would be to expel wikies with Depth less than 1. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.45.81.145 (talk) 11:25, 13 March 2007 (UTC).

No statistical measure of quality can be truly accurate. Counting articles at least has the virtue of being simple. --Cherry blossom tree 11:51, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Out of interest, what exactly is the depth of a wiki and how is it determined? Nil Einne 18:35, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It appears in a column on m:List of Wikipedias, and according to that page is calculated as "(Edits/Articles × Non-Articles/Articles)". Sounds like a statistical fudge to me – Qxz 19:23, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I have to say it doesn't look like a good indicator to me. For example, it ranks Bambara above Arabic, and Arabic has about ten times as many speakers. ShadowHalo 19:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It ranks activity, not "quality of the language" (and it also makes a note that the numbers are probably skewed for small Wikipedias). —Cuiviénen 20:07, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

What the heck is this about? It's obviously just a joke that someone's posted this crap here. Bigman17 21:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

That's true that No statistical measure of quality can be truly accurate. But at least remove Cebuano from the list. Even its own users admit that the quality of the wiki is unsatisfactory. They are not even campaigning for their wp to be included in the >10,000 articles list [4]. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.45.81.145 (talk) 13:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

The bottom line here is any measure, other than a simple statistic, would be very subjective and be wide open to endless debate over what is better. Using a simple metric draws a line that isn't open to bias, interpretation and debate. Editors of en.wikipedia aren't happy with the quality over quantity of its articles either. --Monotonehell 08:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Too much indian Biased

The Main page, in last few months have gone too Indian.Especially Today's Fa contains mostly Indian contents.Pl take a notice of this practice.Fa should be from all over the wikipedia not only related to single subject.User talk:Yousaf465

How'd we pull that off with all our US bias? Hoenstly, we should take pride: having so many different biases takes real work.

Jokes aside, Today's Featured Article will respect the articles that get to FA status. That will reflect the things people work on, which normally coincides with what they know about and/or are interested in. The best way to see articles on subjects you like is to work on improving those articles.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:26, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that these one are Rated FA but at least these should be chosen from a range of Fa ones.I would suggest on each date specify a article Fa from each of the different fields.And related to different regions of world e.g. in first week of certain month article related to Africa will do, in next week Fa from Europe might do.On certain date a article from science on other a article on arts and so on and so froth.User talk:Yousaf465 04:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, FAs are there to reward hard work and good work. It's an incentive system. There are 59 Indian FAs and 1 Pakistani FA. It's not the fault of the Indians that they have great users like User:Nichalp, User:Rama's Arrow, User:Idleguy, User:Deeptrivia, User:Dineshkannambadi, User:Venu62, User:Dwaipayanc, User:Hemanshu, User:Pamri etc, etc, who wrote all these great articles are Indians. In any case only 5% of current FAs are Indian. On a pure population term perhaps one would expect 20% Indian material and 2-2.5% Pakistani. It's not the fault of India or any Wikipedians that Pakistani users have not been producing FAs....or that the fact that if you look in the recent WP:POST editions, I've not seen news of Pakistani contributors writing great articles, but on the other hand that the likes of User:Siddiqui, User:Szhaider, User:Unre4L and User:Nadirali were banned for disrupting history articles. Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/India-Pakistan. Perhaps if they concentrated on work rather than battling it out, then there would be more Pakistani FAs. Boogaboohoo 05:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Note: This is User:Boogaboohoo's first edit. Gizza^Chat ^© 06:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia allows people to create accounts for dealing with controversial issues, and Boogaboohoo was possibly an IP that just registered for an account. Gracenotes ^T § 02:48, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Pl don't make everthing a conflict between Indo-Pakistan.I was just suggesteing to make it more diverse.User talk:Yousaf465

To be fair, the Indian Wikiproject is one of the most efficient projects around, many Indian articles are FA, GA or A-class, even those not rated are well-written. --Howard the Duck 06:16, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with that,but it doesn't mean every second Tya should be related to a certain project.It should be from different Projects there are hundreds of them.User talk:Yousaf465 06:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

There may be hundreds, but most aren't pumping out any FA's. Even still, the last Indian FA was three weeks ago. ShadowHalo 06:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

You are paranoid Yousaf. You are seeing Indians everywhere. A few weeks ago you said that DYK was promoting homosexuality. There is no way that there is going to be equal India main page content as Pakistan page content unless someone writes Pakistan content.Boogaboohoo 06:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, the FAs are chosen randomly from a list (although some ask their work to be posted at a certain date). If a Wikiproject has 0 FAs, it has no chance of its articles being added on the Main Page. --Howard the Duck 06:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Boog pl don't make it a Indo-Pakistan conflict.What link do indians have with my last post.Are all of them teaching homosexuality? nor I'm saying that Pakistani project's Fa should also be displayed what I'm saying is pl choose Fa article from different project e.g. wikiprioject geopraphy might have many of them.User talk:Yousaf465 06:39, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

And Turkey was just featured this month... I'm really not seeing how two Indian-related FA's three weeks apart from each other is choosing too much from the same WikiProject. ShadowHalo 07:00, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The human brain is constructed in such a way that one of its functions is to make order from chaos. As a result people see bias everywhere on Wikipedia. If they notice something that tweaks their ire they claim bias. Except for some systemic bias, which is a result of statistics not discrimination, most claims of bias can be show to be complete rubbish if we go back and count the number of inclusions over a 12 month period. There is a little reverse discrimination in the case of centricism as US, Australian and other editors are "over represented" due to Internet availability in those places, but generally the answer to any perceived bias is to stop expending energy complaining and GO DO SOME WORK. --Monotonehell 08:37, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

See Apophenia Raul654 02:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I should remind people, especially Boogaboohoo of WP:NPA and WP:AGF. Yousaf never made any mention of Pakistan Nil Einne 11:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The india paikistan problem isn't really relevant here is it? Storm talon 09:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC) 11:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Nil Einne and Stormalon were absolutely right I didn't mention anything about Pakistan.I was only saying that there is a large frequency comparatively large f. of India related articles on main page wikipedia is not a place to mention only content related to a single subject it should be from diverse fields.Mention some article related to japan other about Usa and next related to russia next something about any product's Fa which is used all over the world.So as to spread Knowledge about different things.User talk:Yousaf465

If you check Boogoboohoo's Special Contribs page, you will notice his first 2 edits are on this talk page. Since he has a profound knowledge of Wikipedia, he must have either been an anon before, or more likely a sock of a banned troll (User:Hkelkar?) To Yousuf, if you check the most recent two or three archives, you will notice someone complained about a high frequency of Australian related articles. Another day, someone said it was biased towards pop culture, such as TV shows and video games. Ideally, every country/topic should have an equal weighting but that can't happen if the articles are not up to the same standard. Gizza^Chat ^© 11:59, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

While I agree it was inappropriate to bring up Pakistan, I also agree with most others that I can't see any particular bias here. The last FA on India was about 3 weeks ago. The last one before that was slightly under 3 weeks before the last one, and even then that one was on an 19th century Indian Muslim Sir Syed Ahmed Khan Bahadur so I would argue that's only nominally an Indian topic as it is relevant to Pakistan and Bangladesh too... Admitedly we did have Indian Standard time slightly over a week before that but there have been no more since the start of 2007. 4 articles (one of them only nominally Indian) in nearly 3 months (can't say for sure since we haven't decided for all of March yet) is hardly terrible bias. And as other's have pointed out, if there are a lot of people working on India-related FAs, we would expect a greater level of coverage, there's nothing that can be done except trying to make a greater diversity of FAs available. Also given their population size, it's perhaps only fair. Nil Einne 12:07, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Meh, all this talk of biased FA's I garantee that if someone sat down and hand picked the next years worth of FA's it would still have some sort of pattern. Thats the way randomness works, it has to include clusters.
Ferdia O'Brien The Archiver And The Vandal Watchman 13:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree we should try to diversify the coverage of contents of wikipedia thus eliminating the question of "being Bias" thing.This will remove the misconception that do arises from this.The pop culture aurgment I think was correct as i also found a number of Pop culture article in the proposed list For January 2007.SO this should be diversified.User talk:Yousaf465

And that does happen. However if I were to give you 10 red apples and 2 green apples; then told you that you MUST eat one red apple, one green apple and one yellow apple a day; you would have problems wouldn't you? The point here, that has been made several times above, is people aren't producing as many (if any) alternate FAs to achieve this diversity. The only way this will change is if you and others start improving articles in areas you perceive to be under-represented. --Monotonehell 04:43, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes there is a massive Indian bias on Wikipedia. Look, there are 115 articles waiting to be on the main page. Out of that 12 of them are India-related! That's like 10%! Some of them are about Indian history that no-one knows about and that there is not much information about but the Indian editors still manage to dig up old books and write long and detailed articles about them and get them on the main page so that the whole world sees all this India-related stuff all the time and the rest of the world gets no mainpage-time. It's so biased!! 58.179.198.74 03:18, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this is the first time (or at least the first in awhile) I've seen someone complain about users improving the quality of articles. Note how 10% of the requests may be Indian, but we've only had four so far this year. That seems to show that Raul654 is doing a pretty good job. ShadowHalo 05:52, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Yousaf465, FAs are taken from different categories. Arts, geography, history , culture etc. Just because there happen to be India-related topics in those categories, doesn't mean we have to not feature them. The India-related workgroup produces at least 1 FA per month, so seeing one FA per month would be very consistent. Ideally the topics should be more regionally diverse, but to hit back at your points, would there be anyone to bring up topics to FA from other countries? =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Pakistanis need to improve their English and write better articles. Instead even the best Pakistani people on Wiki are interested in creating useless debates with script changes and trying to prove their political points on India-related articles instead of pursuing facts from neutral sources and improving their own articles.

Even a weaker and poorer country like Bangladesh has 7 featured articles out of which 4 are completely Bangladesh related(not related to both India and Bangladesh). Pakistan WP lists 5 featured articles out of which 4 are from pre-partition subcontinental history and therefore relate to both. Indo-Greek kingdom was written almost entirely by Indian authors yet they list it.Maquahuitl 08:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, I urge people to remember Wikipedia:Assume good faith and Wikipedia:No personal attacks. So far, Yousaf has never brought up Pakistan, other then to insist this is not an India-Pakistan issue whenever it is brought up. As such, it is highly inappropriate for editors to keep bringing up Pakistan in this discussion and especially for editors to attack Pakistani editors. Nil Einne 10:53, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Apologies for posting the views publicly. Sometimes there is no need to talk about inconspicuous truths. Maquahuitl 13:55, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

This section really needs a bullet. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 09:00, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

The only way to stop bias to create and improve other articles. --Howard the Duck 09:28, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

A very warm thanks to Nil Einne for his support of me on this issue he correctly say that I was not discussing Pakisatnin this regard.User talk:Yousaf465 13:23, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

This whole bias thing is getting old. And by old, I mean really annoying. Pacific Coast Highway ^{{Kiss me! • I'm irish!}} 14:14, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Cricket is an interesting sport but takes skill and talent, i dont think the discussion of cricket is necessary. Isn't there more important things that should be discussed for example global warming!

Actually, Global warming was the TFA on June 21, 2006.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 18:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not particularly sure why this is coming up now, but we don't discuss things on wikipedia other then how to improve wikipedia (and it's articles). We do have featured articles on a great variety of things including cricket and global warming. Nil Einne 01:47, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

No more cricket, Please!!

i am sure that england is biased towards cricket as when england won the cricket world cup, a competition not remotely cared about in most countries, especially america and other western european countries. the whole team recieved awards from the queen. however when liverpool won the europeaan champions league non of them recieved medals from the queen when it is the most prestigous sporting event in europe, and reveared throughout the world. and to do it in the manner in which they did was all the more impressive. however, the main reason i dnt favour cricket as much as other sports is because they are not athletes, they are like snooker players- skill but not athletisism, which is why i respact rugby, football, and other real sports far more than cricket.

When did England win the World Cup? Maquahuitl 04:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Cricket is an interesting sport but takes skill and talent, i dont think the discussion

I agree that Cricket does not demand too much of athletic abilities but that's because endurance is not a question in the game. However to compare cricket players with snooker players is idiocy. Cricket has its own fitness requirements. Maquahuitl 04:27, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Cricket is not the most "physical" of sports, but to argue it does not require athleticism is ridiculous. The average man plucked off the street to play in a Test match batting and bowling would end up exhausted and with concussion. 10:25, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

For the idiotic Americans, America is the world and what they don't see in America does not exist. Maquahuitl 04:29, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that there are quite a few articles (too many!) and references to cricket of late in the main page. Cricket is a sport popular in just a handful of countries...It looks like a bias to me, really. Perhaps what I am saying makes no sense, but it is my impression. vaceituno 00:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Can you "bowl" a ball at 100mph or 160kph without bending and then straightening your arm like a javelin thrower. An unfit player cannot preform to the levels that a fit player can perform; a lack of fitness will sap him over a long period in the field. Grumpygrumpy 00:33, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

This is no more a bias than if we had a main page article on the FIFA World Cup during that event. The Cricket World Cup is taking place as I type. Whilst certainly not popular in all countries, it is definitely an international competition and is, in fact, popular in most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations. Brown168 07:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of whether Cricket gets too many references, it deserves one today, the start of the world cup is an important event for the sport, and therefore hundreds of millions in South Asia and many elsewhere. Shane1

The articles that are chosen are Feature articles, which means we rate them as the absolute best on Wikipedia. It is not our fault that the cricket-editing Wikipedians want to write superb articles on what they enjoy. If you want other sports or other topics to dominate the main page, I suppose you should start contributing to some FAs or Did you knows! Gizza^Chat ^© 10:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

How did this end up here anyway? It's a new post but it's neither at the very top (which is wrong but people do it occasionally) nor at the very bottom. In any case, as others have pointed out Cricket World Cup is a featured article so there was never any reason not have it on the main page and this is a good time to have it so why not? It may reduce the demands to mentioning the opening in the world cup too. Nil Einne 18:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

That argument gives far greater justification for preventing baseball and American football articles from being featured on the Main Page. As it happens, this World Cup has a global audience estimated at 2 BILLION. Yes, we know that not many of them happen to live in America. There were >600,000 bums on seats at the 2003 event. That's a lot of people. --Dweller 19:04, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

There must be quite a few supporters in North America as Canada even have a team in the world cup this time! I agree with others though I have not noticed any cricket bias, there have been a few front page articles on it over the past year or so but considering it is one of the most popular worldwide sports, this isn't surprising and there hasn't been any more articles than on other sports of similar popularity (e.g. Soccer, Rugby & Hockey). Canderra 21:38, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

cricket must be given front page coverage. It the most popular sports and world cup ocurrs once in four year........

Cricket is a religion in these countries with billoins of followers..........

"There were >600,000 bums on seats at the 2003 event" Actually thats not a huge number for an international sports tournament, though the viewing figures (if they were known accurately) would be huge. In any case I haven't noticed any Cricket bias, though admittedly I am a fan. Perhaps Cricket is over represented relative to the global sport of football, but then we go back to the argument of whether English wikipedia is for native speakers (majority North American) or for anyone with a smidgin of English.

WP:CRIC carries a list of Cricket's 11 (current) Featured Articles and their appearances on the Main Page. Four have never appeared on the Main Page. Of the other seven, one was yesterday, the previous one was over a year ago and you have to go back to August 2005 for the one before that. (There was also a former FA that appeared in Feb '06) One or two per year (!) doesn't really seem excessive. Two per year is less than 0.6%. --Dweller 10:55, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't detect much of a bias towards cricket articles to be honest- these kind of debates crop up from time to time and seem to just be a natural aspect of the global Wikipedia family's workings....it may be easy however for American readers to not realise just quite how incredibly popular cricket is in e.g. India and Pakistan (=about 1/4 of the world's population, and a very significant anglophone audience) just as some non-American readers may underestimate the popularity of, for example, baseball and basketball in e.g. latin America/the Carib/Japan/Eastern Europe etc. This is the pre-eminent competition for one of the most popular sports on the planet (maybe #2 after football?)- not inherently inappropriate for the main page imho. But as always- if we want a greater diversity of articles, let's write more FAs. Badgerpatrol 11:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone argues basketball's popularity. We do feel that American Football (esp. during Superbowl) gets too much coverage on Wikipedia. 203.199.213.67 06:02, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

To all the people arguing that "such and such a sport is more popular than this and that other sport", please understand that a subject's popularity plays NO direct part in being featured in any of the sections on the main page. (In fact there could be something said for featuring things that people generally know little about, but may find that they are interested in.) For a subject to appear in Today's Featured Article, it must first be edited up to Featured Article quality, then be selected for inclusion. Popularity plays no part there. For an item to be listed in In The News, it need only be of international interest, be a subject in the News Media, have a substantial article in Wikipedia that has been updated with the current concerns and contain more background encyclopedic information than a reader would normally find in a newspaper. Again nothing to do with how many people follow a sport. Anyone thinking of having a running scoreboard in ITN can put that out of their mind. Only the final result of any one competition can be displayed at the conclusion of the competition. --Monotonehell 11:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it is worth mentioning that cricket is highly popular in former English colonies and those countries have high percentages of English speaking people. Since this is the English Wikipedia, topics relating to English based subjects are more likely to be written about and therefore, have a higher chance of becoming featured articles. S. Randall 14:11, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

In North America, March is notoriously dead sports-wise, outside of the College basketball finals there's not much going on. Football is over and Baseball hasn't started yet. Surely there's enough room to talk about Cricket. I won't pretend I understand any of it but it seems to be a cool sport. Besides, Wikipedia is a place of learning, it can't hurt to learn about Cricket. Saebhiar Adishatz 00:24, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

England has not won the Cricket World Cup, they have won the football in 1966 and the rugby in 2003.

Believe it or not, very few people care about Liverpool winning some cup. There are MILLIONS of cricket fans throughout the world, who can attend a local or international match without resorting to violence. Begimogik 15:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

To deal with your points in turn- a) perhaps very few people in overall terms as a percentage of the global population, but for a sporting event it would not surprise me at all if viewing figures for e.g. the Champion's League Final (is that what you're referring to with "...some cup"?) and the cricket world cup final were comparable (or even if the football was ahead); b) that obviously isn't of any relevence, but it is only fair to point out that cricket also has its share of crowd problems from time to time (not as great as those of football, but then we are dealing with a far, far smaller overall fanbase and a completely different sort of game) and can at times be quite charged (e.g. India v Pakistan etc.). Badgerpatrol 02:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Football is very popular world over. And many people worldwide actually do care for Liverpool (and that's why they resort to violence).Aniket ray 02:24, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

No true football fan "resorts" to violence under any circumstance. Invariably, the animalistic thugs who are associated with football violence know or care little or nothing about the game itself. For interest, it seems from this (not the greatest source, I grant you!) that the Champion's League Final gets about 3.5 times as many viewers as the cricket world cup final (and the Superbowl seemingly gets more than either). Badgerpatrol 02:34, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that football thugs aren't representative of the average fan and can't be called a true fan, the evidence to me suggests they do in fact know about the game and do in fact care about the game (or rather their teams). Yes they might be somewhat insane individuals but I think you're ignoring the evidence since the evidence to me suggests it isn't just mindless violence. Also I'm highly doubtful of the figures for the cricket world cup however. 20 million seems a rather low number to me. Especially since that final involved India, it wouldn't surprise me if the Indian audience itself exceeded 20 million. Audience statics in India are fairly difficult to work out I presume but the figure does seem on the low side to me Nil Einne 12:35, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to tick off the folks over at Conservapedia, I move that we move all of the Cricket-related articles over there. They'll just LOVE them! ;-) Dr. Cash 04:47, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Random Article within some Category?

I would love to be able to look at a random article in science/technology. Is there any way to do something like this? Vincecate 23:10, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, no! --Meno25 01:29, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

No no there is a way. I have already tried it out. Ill get back with the details Pozhan 09:05, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, you can click Special:Random until you get a science/technology article, or you can find an appropriate category page and click a link at random. Can't think of anything other than that – Qxz 13:41, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Now that you think of it, it would be nice when you click "random article", say a drop down list opened and you could click all articles or a particular section. -abynion08 11:57, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

it would be cool, but you would have to throw all of the millions(billions?) of articles into a category for each of them. 65.9.153.112 20:43, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't hurt to ask Werdna to make this possible. · AO ^Talk 17:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Or anyone at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). --199.71.174.100 23:00, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia functions

What is the most complicated function that Wikipedia can perform? Ahadland 21:16, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Creating an encyclopaedia? You'll have to be more specific. --Cherry blossom tree 01:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Like whats the most complicated formulae it can produce, or the most complicated infobox —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ahadland1234 (talk • contribs) 16:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

I still think my (removed) quine is better. 81.77.73.180 22:13, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

If you're talking about m:ParserFunctions, then... well, see that page for what they can do – Qxz 00:15, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion

I think someone should create a software using which we can easily create pages in a graphical interface. The software can resemble Microsoft Frontpage or any other web designing software. The software should then be able to convert the web page into a Wikipedia style page. You know it's difficult to use the editing interface currently offered. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.130.9.24 (talk) 15:02, 20 March 2007 (UTC).

That's why we have WikEd, but you will need to register for an account and add that to your WP:monobook. It isn't stable enough to be standard, and doesn't work with all browsers, so it is not the default. And this isn't the right place for this kind of stuff, anyway. This belongs in the village pump proposals. ffm ✎talk 15:53, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

6 Nations

I was wondering wether the 6 nations final (won by France) should be included in the news. It is by no means a minor sporting event, and the Superball was included. Matt. P 22:30, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

You might want to discuss this at Template talk:In the news where it is more appropriate. Alternatively, you can propose it yourself at Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates. I'd have to say tho, I'm not particularly sure this is of sufficient international interest for ITN, especially as there was nothing particularly suprising about the result. The Superbowl often seems to be mentioned but I personally feel it shouldn't. The RWC this year definitely should be mentioned. Nil Einne 01:56, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

What the fuck is the "6 nations final"? (And please stop editing my question. Wikipedia is not censored.) 89.120.193.125 20:56, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

89.120.193.125, please be civil. There's no need to use bad language in these discussions here. Use the F-word only when it's appropriate, like when screaming at vandals. --199.71.174.100 21:51, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Even then don't. It just encourages vandals. Wikipedia may not be censored but as you said let's be civil at all times. --Monotonehell 16:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

"...incivility is roughly defined as personally targeted behavior that causes an atmosphere of greater conflict and stress." My comment was neither personally targeted nor did it cause an atmosphere of greater conflict and stress (there was only an IP who decided to edit my question - and that was his only edit on Wikipedia). 89.120.193.125 16:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Try Six Nations Championship. Next time scroll to the box to your left, enter Six Nations (or 6 Nations, both work) and click "GO". You should end up at Six Nations from which you can go to Six Nations Championship. Alternatively, if you use www.google.com and search for "Six Nations" you should find useful results. Nil Einne 21:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Well its more important than the Superbowl but thats a discussion for another day, I am dissapointed it didn't make in the news, because i woukd make sure as hell the AFL Grandfinal or the Tri-nations final would get in. -- Librarianofages 21:32, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I was also extremely surprised the 6 nations result wasn't mentioned in the "in the news" section. Particularly as I've seen several other sporting events of less prominence mentioned. Canderra 21:25, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that so far no one has actually properly proposed the Six Nations final result for ITN as I suggested above. While I personally am not sure it should go up I'm just one person. If people feel so strongly it does then you should go ahead and read the guidelines and propose it. You won't know until you try. The criteria is here BTW Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page Nil Einne 21:39, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

No need to bother with WP:ITN/C. The Six Nations should stay off ITN because it's not the top level competition in the sport of rugby, unlike the SuperBowl (/NFL postseason play), the top level competition in American football. Wait till October for 2007 Rugby World Cup, people. --199.71.174.100 21:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Forget Six Nations. Why isn't Cricket World Cup in the news? 58.178.129.251 08:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Because nobody won yet, although the death of the Pakistan coach might be included. --Howard the Duck 11:43, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This issue should be discussed at WP:ITN/C. Not here. --74.14.18.212 15:53, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

What happened...

to the tips on where else a user might want to go for assistance besides this talk page? On February 15, for example, under the "Main Page and beyond" box, there was a link to Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia, a server status page, and the important bullet point (in bold) "If you have an opinion, comment, question or are looking for help regarding Wikipedia in general, find the place where your post will get the most attention here. Just that last link alone would be helpful, I think. --zenohockey 01:06, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

We decided to take all that crap out because it made this page look daunting and overly complicated. 89.120.193.125 11:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

And because people just ignored it anyway. We "connected" this page with WP:ERRORS, as a compromise over a merge poll. ffm ✎talk 20:15, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Tabs for ITN?

Would it technically be possible to have tabs for the ITN section, to satisfy readers with seperate World / North America / South America / Africa and the Middle East / Asia / Europe feeds? See the new homepage for USA Today, which features "Headlines" and "News notes". -- Zanimum 18:11, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

There's separate pages for the regions in the ITN "back end" Portal:Current events, but they are for the most part woefully neglected. So you'd see some tabs stagnate for weeks while others moved past too quickly to be noticed. --Monotonehell 18:21, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree that's a strong possibility, the neglect. But those pages are ultimately quite hidden, in my opinion at least, so there's little point in updating them for many people. I'm asking strictly about the technical aspects for now. Does the wiki software have the technical ability to do something like this? -- Zanimum 19:22, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

We could probably do it with CSS... ffm ✎talk 20:13, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Tabs are ridiculously difficult to use on wikis, along with several other complex CSS functions. For instance, a two tab system (tabs A and B) would require that when a user clicks to see B, B's display property would switch from none to block and A's display property would switch from block to none. (Actually the specific term block is unnecessary, if you simply clear the property (style.display='';) it will act just the same). This requires coding like onclick="document.getElementById('B').style.display='block';". From my experience, wikis deactivate coding like this, unless there is a provision somewhere for purposes like these. Zanimum, if you are seriously interested in creating some kind of tab system, I would suggest you do a trial somewhere deep within the encyclopedia instead of trying to get it here on the main page. There would be a lot of controversy getting it placed somewhere so highly visible because of browser compatibility and user confusion.. etc. One place where I've tried for quite a while to get a tabbed system working is {{Navigation tabs}}. If you look at the edit history, you'll see I've gotten quite frustrated trying out many approaches. -- drumguy8800 C T 05:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Would you mind if I advertised this code on the Village pump? -- Zanimum 14:30, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

There are the tabs at Wikipedia:Introduction and Wikipedia:Tutorial. This is not an endorsement of their use, I do not like the idea of additional tabs in our already densely-compacted interface. --Quiddity 20:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Do we have enough ITN candidates to fill up all those tabs? Maybe better for the Signpost? Or Wikipedia:Community Portal/Opentask, allowing the font size to be larger? --74.13.125.194 14:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Not currently, no, but I know we could stir up more interest. I mean, we could do a trial time, and see how it goes. -- Zanimum 20:01, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

A tab for the Signpost and the Open tasks would be nice... Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 20:03, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess we will just have to pray to the gods of CSS and wikisyntax (why isnt there an article about it!) to bless us with such great gifts. ffm ✎talk 01:20, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I would support this. BTW, the article's at "Wikitext" — Jack · talk · 01:27, Wednesday, 21 March 2007

IP Vandals

Is there anyway to stop anonymous IPs from at least editing the main pages? It seems like most of the good edits to these pages are performed by those who care to login. Just my $0.02. Thank you. --BlindEagle^talk 18:34, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It possibly seems that way because vandals stand out, but if you look more closely there's quite a number of very good contributions made by IPs and quite a number of vandals from newly created accounts. --Monotonehell 19:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Obligatory

Given today's featured article, I'll just go ahead and say it before someone else does - OMG WIKIPEDIA IS COMMUNISM!! (I can't help myself) Raul654 01:11, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I am sure there are thousands of Wikipedians on here now in 2007 who may not be familiar with the significance of that statement. And I bet that there are a few on RC right now that hope that it stays that way... :-) Zzyzx11 (Talk) 01:25, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Raul654, I have to say this is grossly irresponsible of you. You need to 'fess up with trying to further the communist agenda by intentionally selecting this article over Democracy (who cares that it's not technically a featured article). It's a conspiracy, I say. ShadowHalo 01:49, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Frankly I'm surprised the shit storm hasn't erupted yet. I don't have any feelings towards communism because I know nothing about it, but I know about the American paranoia towards it, and really I'm shocked we haven't gotten a real message about this yet. You'd think if people cared enough to complain about Torchic we'd have heard something about this by now. Dooms Day349 01:54, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't care less about politics either. But I agree, it seems many are simply paranoid about anything with the word communist in it. ShadowHalo makes a good point though that no-one would be saying anything if the FA of the day was Democracy related which would surely be just as political (that's if there was actually any evidence that this article of the day was politically motivated - which of course there isn't). It's an encyclopedia folks... Canderra 02:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Having the day's featured article isn't enough to remind people that Wikipedia is communism. I suggest that we get a vandalbot through WP:BRFA immediately in order to remind people of this important, but well-hidden, fact. We must use every means possible to tell people that polling is evil, and that after a couple of years of our two year plan, everything will belong to whomever it's supposed to belong to. (I'm more a "Wikipedia is an oligarchic pro-choice anarcho-syndicalist laissez-faire legislative body" guy myself.) Gracenotes' left sock 02:06, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

It has begun: [5]. 128.227.1.207 02:07, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The libertarian capitalist position: Communism is certainly practically bad, but there's nothing wrong with an article thereon being featured, just as there would be nothing wrong with featuring an article about Charles Manson. Simply because an artcle is featured does not mean the subject it is on is being celebrated or promoted. Allixpeeke 02:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I prefer to think that Wikipedia is much more republican than we think, with the exception we aren't elected representatives. But our functioning is very similar to it. And may [Insert applicable Being/Force/Philosophy here] help us all, now that the crap has begun. Dooms Day349 02:26, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't you mean Democratic? Republican implies Wikipedia has an elected president with executive powers over and above the council (unless your talking about the US political party). Canderra 02:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I was under the impression Republicanism meant having a republic, with representatives who deliberate things. If I'm correct, they're very similar. I just prefer saying Republic. But I mean that essentially we're a legislative branch that doesn't get elected and doesn't represent special interests. But the actual functioning is pretty legislative, and I wouldn't call it communism (if it were communism, every visitor and IP on Wikipedia would have an equal say and equal power, and we also wouldn't have admins.) Dooms Day349 02:32, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually neither republicanism or demoractic are the correct words in this case in themselves IMHO. Republic (nowadays anyway) just means there is an elected head of state rather then a monarch. Democractic is harder to define but you could have a direct demoracy for example. Representative democracy might be closer to what your thinking about but as you say there are no elections. Actually I would argue we are closer to some forms of communism. Oh and communism is generally not thought to be mutual exclusive with republic. Indeed, I don't think there is much doubt that countries like China & Vietnam are republics. (Just as constitutional monarchy is not exclusive to demoractic.) I guess when it comes to something like North Korea, some would argue they really monarchies or perhaps oligarchies. Nil Einne 05:29, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't "communism" -- not unless it is run by a ruthless, self-appointed "vanguard party" seeking unlimited state power and willing to kill absolutely anyone in its way. In theory, Wikipedia is a non-profit foundation independent of state control, which means that it is illegal under communism. And neither China and Vietnam are republics. They are oligarchical collectivist states. Neither is governed by constitutional principles at the top.

As it is, this article is absurdly biased and should never have made it to the main page. (Actually, the capitalist countries pretty much didn't care what the Trots did, so long as they didn't hurt anyone. They had no power, anyway, and spent most of their time splitting into smaller and smaller factions.)Scott Adler 11:04, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

1. That's not the definition of Communism, that's the definition of totalitarianism. There isn't a single communist run country on this planet. 2. We're way off the topic of this talk page now. ;) --Monotonehell 11:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Motion to make the next IP who vandalizes the FA of the day our Eternal President and close this discussion? ShadowHalo 11:42, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't want to continue this discussion other then to point out there is no requirement for a constitution (and therefore constitutional principles) to have a republic. A constutional republic obviously requires a constitution though. Also we we're talking about the way Wikipedia works in comparison to common forms of government, not whether it is controlled by any government or legal in any country Nil Einne 16:23, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, a few countries, like the UK (which in truth has been a republic, as the Greeks and the Romans understood it, for over 300 years), have unwritten constitutions, but their governing principles are well defined. An ad hoc system without a constitution or basic law isn't a republic, it's a mob. Actually, Wikipedia works very poorly "in comparison to" (try "when compared to") a government because it operates in semi-secrecy. Despite open comments, its intellectual climate is well known, and hundreds, if not thousands of controversial entries are controled by extremists. Otherwise how did this silly, badly written, entry get onto the Main Page?Scott Adler 21:00, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Uhh, the U.K. is a Constitutional Monarchy, not a republic and it does not have a constitution. It has a democratic system similar to the Roman and Greek systems you describe but that is because they also were similar types of (supposable representative, but that's all beside the point) democracies, not republics. A Republic refers specifically to the instance of a democratically elected sovereign, neither the U.K., ancient Rome or ancient Greece has/had such a system. The article got onto the main page through the open and well documented featured article selection process. See the Wikipedia:Today's featured article page for more information. Canderra 22:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Based on my previous comment, I just took a peak at RC, and I am a little surprised that nobody has really remembered the significance of that statement. A couple have come a bit close, but not exactly. And not to the degree and frequency like Torchic was. Of course, there are still a couple of hours left... Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
- [6]. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Now that Fourth International is off the main page, I am quite surprised that it was not heavily vandalised as Torchic was when it was the TFA back on December 23 and had to be semi-protected multiple times.[7] Therefore, I assume that a number of people either did not know or forgot that there use to be a long term vandal on here that used the statement "Wikipedia is Communism" as his signature trademark -- and thus, thankfully, there were no copycats to affect the article. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 00:36, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
- Because the article is not about or closely related to a specific country. For example, if Pakistan made it to the Main Page, plus the ITN headline, then the page would be branded as Pakistani-biased--Howard the Duck 06:54, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

"cite this article"

Why is "cite this article" in the sidebar toolbox on the main page? I know it is (for some reason) in the article namespace, but is there not a small fix available for this? It just seems embarrassing, especially after all the effort that has clearly gone into this page. — Jack · talk · 15:01, Thursday, 22 March 2007

{{editprotected}} A very good question, but it is not clear to me how to edit the source of this page to change the sidebar. So I will resolve the editprotected tag. You might want to raise this issue on WP:VP/T. CMummert · talk 05:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It is controlled by the PHP code that implements the skin. It can't be edited through the site interface, even by administrators. It would only be possible to remove the link with a change to the MediaWiki code or with site-wide or user JavaScript. Mike Dillon 05:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually sitewide CSS should work fine; no JavaScript required. Adding this line:

.page-Main_Page #t-cite {display: none}

to MediaWiki:Monobook.css should accomplish it. Make an {{editprotected}} request on MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css if you want it – Qxz 05:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for your help :) — Jack · talk · 06:25, Friday, 23 March 2007

I should have thought of that. Thanks for the reminder. Mike Dillon 06:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... I'm still seeing the "cite this article" link, even after clearing my browser cache and purging the page. Is caching to blame, or does the CSS I supplied not work? :( – Qxz 10:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not there for me after clearing my cache. Not sure what problem you're having, but the CSS is fine. Mike Dillon 14:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it's gone now. Must just have been a temporary thing – Qxz 00:35, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Languages

Now that German wikipedia has exceeded 500,000 articles and French is set to do so soon, does anyone agree that it's time to create an "over 500,000 articles" heading?--Humphrey20020 17:45, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

This has been suggested before here and here. The result was "It is a poor use of space to create a separate category for just one entry." The ascent of the French Wikipedia will change that, but still not enough to warrant the extra room. — Jack · talk · 17:58, Thursday, 22 March 2007

Edit conflict- Sorry we've been there before and the answer is no... /Archive 94#Main_Page#Wikipedia languages, /Archive 86#Wikipedia languages, /Archive 84#Germen Wiki, /Archive 83#German Wikipedia 500,000th entry. Nil Einne 18:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I was thinking that as well, but I guess we will need to wait for a few more languages to get up to speed --Assassimon 06:21, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Have to say it...

1,700,000 articles! Yay! --WikiSlasher 11:24, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, 1,690,000 of them are rubbish! Get back to work! – Qxz 11:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

But what work? Creating more 'rubbish' or improving and/or deleting the existing rubbish? Nil Einne 14:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Be a garbage man, throw the rubbish into a dirty pit (the deletion log)! --168.99.182.254 17:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Up to you. If you feel like creating more stuff, do something on Wikipedia:Articles requested for more than a year rather than just 'rubbish'; improving what's already there... pick a backlog, we've got dozens of them; deleting the existing rubbish... AfD or Special:Newpages – Qxz 00:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)