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Since the italian wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles, could you please update the list? Thank you. it:user:Blakwolf T 5 July 2005 10:22 (UTC)
It would be proper to end the section regarding Mr. Coopers remarks vis a vis Rove with the two words to him. i.e the first to reveal Valerie Plame's CIA connection to him, with the him being cooper. Otherwise it is somewhat misleading, as the timeline of Rove learning from Novak first and then telling Cooper would be correct. Saying first to reveal Ms. Plame's identity is somewhat misleading.
We haven't received any ITN suggestions since the 3rd and suddenly the DYK suggestions are drying up as well. Keep those ideas coming people. Having the same stuff on the main page every day would be very boring. - Mgm| (talk) July 6, 2005 10:12 (UTC)
Well for one, the motion in the European Union to enforce software patents as law, has been officially opposed. Victory for us! Does that qualify to be on the main page? I even rejoiced on it on the sandbox [3], and here are the sources! [4] [5] [6] [7] -- Natalinasmpf 6 July 2005 11:49 (UTC)
The main English page is UGLY. Get rid of that awful pink, my god. Make it look more like the Svenska page or something. Common. Aesthics, people.
Did CSS fall off the earth or something? What happened to the left bar and why is everything so ugly and unorganized? -- drumguy8800 23 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
Now that I'm a little bit more experienced with wikipedia, I'm also aware of its shortcomings, ie. anyone can go and create a network of pages full of lies and POV - giving themselves an air of credibility by indirectly using the reputation and professional presentation of wikipedia. Could we have a note somewhere on the page mentionning that the information available on this site is by no mean guaranteed to be accurate? Adidas 6 July 2005 15:46 (UTC)
Factual correction for pic of the day for July 17 of Canyon de Chelly - it's a National Monument, not a National Park.
I know this must have been asked before, but why isn't the Picture of the day featured on the Main Page? RMoloney 7 July 2005 00:07 (UTC)
I've created a demo page here -- User:Raul654/temp, where I replaced DYK with a slightly modified version of the featured pic template (located at User:Raul654/temp2). I'd like to hear what you guys think (feel free to tweak it). →Raul654 July 7, 2005 03:25 (UTC)
Picture of the day must be overhauled if the module is placed on the front page. We certainly can't present dull diagrams to all visitors - the selection process must look for the most eye catching material possible. lots of issues | leave me a message 7 July 2005 03:46 (UTC)
Note: Yes, I'm biased. I'd hate to see my work for DYK disappear. Instead of complaining it's badly maintained, people should help out. If I'm away over the weekend, sometimes no one did a thing. That should change. - Mgm| (talk) July 7, 2005 10:07 (UTC)
Someone needs to fix the front page's picture of David Helgard.
Three points: Selected anniversaries is of very limited interest. DYK is interesting and has motivational value. I was saddened that my new article was on DYK for only the bare minimum six hours allowed by the rules, and then days later DYK is gone (temporarily) from the main page, in part because there are not enough nominations. — Pekinensis 17:01, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to see the DYK back. The articles are sometimes good and sometimes bad, but there is value to it. I think we need to relax the 72 hours new article rule - most good articles are developed over time and restricting only 72 hours old articles for DYK maybe what's generating the low level of interest. Hfwd 04:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
There is tons of value to DYK. As stated before, that's one of my personal greatest motivations in creating new articles. I challenge myself to find topics that aren't already here, would be fun for me to write about (and hopefully fun to read), then challenge myself to make the article live up to my personal standards of "good enough for DYK", and finally see the amazing progress made in building on to these crazy topics. No matter how hard I try to find something encyclopedic enough for inclusion, but obscure enough to be fun, someone's got something great to add on the article, that I near even thought of or found. To me, it's like the most worthwhile game you can play with yourself on Wikipedia. -- user:zanimum
No official report has been provided yet. Such a heading is misleading. -- Psyk0 7 July 2005 10:57 (UTC)
I've said it before [ [8]], but no-one commented on the suggestion. Is there any way to get the text on the templates on the main page to wrap more closely around the pictures? If you have a bookmarks bar up, as I generally do, it looks like a mess. -- User:Jenmoa 7 July 2005 21:42 (UTC)
In the Did you know? section; the page text reads:
...that the French battleship France sunk after hitting an uncharted rock during a patrol of Quiberon Bay on August 26, 1922?
The past tense form 'sunk' is active voice. However, the passive voice form, 'sank', should have been used. The rock is what sank the boat; the boat did not sink the rock.— Kbolino July 7, 2005 23:25 (UTC)
The main page news story says: "The attacks come less than 24 hours after London's winning bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics." This should say 'fewer than 24 hours'. And they didn't come fewer than twenty four hours after the bid, they came fewer than twenty four hours after the bid succeeded. And it probably shouldn't be in the present tense as it happened yesterday. So a good re-wording would be: "The attacks came less than a day after London won its bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics." User:DavidFarmbrough (07:31 BST 08 Jul 2005)
Although the edit has now been made and passed into history, I think it's worth pointing out that my suggested amendment was more on the basis of clumsiness rather than 'correctness'. I think the 'less than 24 hours' will jar with a lot of readers, as it did with me. DavidFarmbrough 08:35 (BST) 11 Jul 2005
I wanted to tweak the In the news bit today that tried to precis the London bombing. But, I can't edit the page. User:Mgm advised me the page needed to be protected because of previous vandalism. Fine. So, delete from the Main Page,"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit".
Okay, so what was my intention? Well I wanted to change the following
Never mind. Moriori July 8, 2005 09:31 (UTC)
didnt find how to get an admin after reading about 10 help sides.
the help stuff is too complicated and unclear in the process how to handle vandalism
click on the history tab and choose the last good version. we're reverting vandalism as it comes, at the moment the Jihad article is back to normal again. dab (ᛏ) 8 July 2005 14:45 (UTC)
There's a picture - you'll notice it, I'm sure - that needs to be removed as it does not relate to the subject matter (to say the least).-- Nicsilo 8 July 2005 15:29 (UTC)
In an attempt to prevent this problem from occurring again, I created commons:Template:en main page to be placed on Commons images which appear on the English Wikipedia's main page. The relevant category is commons:Category:English Wikipedia main page images. I think that en: and Commons have enough administrators in common to make protecting these images a feasible task. — Dan | Talk 8 July 2005 16:02 (UTC)
Currently, this is very poorly worded. They expect that the death toll will rise above 50, but currently there are 49 people COMFIRMED dead. -- 66.222.152.169 8 July 2005 22:32 (UTC)
It's 9:30 in New York on july 9th, and I think its July 9th everywhere, so why does it still have july 8th??
Why don't you have the time of English speaking countries on the front page?
Can we show one of these two pics, please ? IMO, they look better than what is on the Main Page now.
Thanks. -- 64.229.229.159 9 July 2005 18:44 (UTC)
"Plaza" is a US usage and therefore not appropriate in an item about a London location.
Shouldn't the words "encyclopedia," "English," and "2001" be linked?
Is it just me or is the Wikipedia logo missing on the language selection page? -- Ixfd64 06:32, 2005 July 10 (UTC)
It's just you. -- cactuar12 18:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
I noticed today that the Tagalog Wikipedia, at [10], now has 1035 articles, so that list should be updated to include it now. -- Idont Havaname 20:24, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
The officially recognized birthday of the USMC is November 10. The related article does say that July 11 is the technically true date, but no one observes that fact as relevant. Bornyesterday 02:16, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
There is no mention of this selected anniversary in the Zheng He article. The word 'July' is not found at all. Can someone confirm the date, please ? Thanks. -- 64.229.206.179 04:32, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
From the current national geographic: "It was against this frenetic background that Admiral Zheng He received his sailing orders on July 11, 1405" I guess I should read the article and update our article. lots of issues | leave me a message 20:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
Why is there an image showing Scotland's place within the UK? The meeting is at Gleneagles because it is the UK's turn to chair the G8. Scotland, on the other hand, has no role except in that the British government is hosting it there. When the meeting was at Sea Island, was Georgia's place in the USA outlined? Or Alberta's place in Canada when it was held at Kananaskis? It should be replaced by a map of the UK, a picture related to the G8, or some of the recipients of the $50bn of extra aid pledged.BECAUSE SCOTLAND IS A COUNTRY - GEORGIA, ALBERTA ARE NOT Scotland is a province of the UK not a country. It is the UK holding the talks. Don't vent your puerile Scottish nationalism here when the context is clearly wrong in this instance.
It's incorrect to say $50 billion in aid will to Africa. The pledge was for overall aid to developing countries to rise $50 billion by 2010, of which $25 billion is earmarked for those in Africa. [11] -- Dhartung | Talk 21:43, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
dose global warming exist. the scientist of the united states are split evenly like a 50 50 kind of thing so get me real proff that it does or doesent exist if you find real info on it or have done a project on it before i need stuff for a debate in summer school send it to taraa16@iwon.com please i need help on this debate
The Did You Know? section is terminally boring. I apologise to the people who work on it, but really, it's just awful. Could you replace it with something interesting? Like maybe a picture from Wikipedia Commons, or maybe some sort of notices board? It seems like such a waste of space to leave it as it is.
I created this section last year primarily in order to encourage patrolling Special:Newpages and writing high quality articles from scratch. I believe it still does serve this purpose, but it might be a good idea to "repackage" it. The headline Did you know ...? suggests that the reader may find out something new about something they already know about, in practice, most of the factoids in DyK tend to be relatively obscure, and it's very difficult to establish sufficient context in the short summaries. The typical answer to many Dyk question seems to be: No, should I?
One way to repackage it would be to call it something like "Latest additions" (can't think of a catchy name right now, but then, none of the other sections has catchy titles), and to simply include one-line abstracts for the articles in question. This might be a more practical approach to highlighting high quality additions.
As for the idea of featuring a picture, the Wikimedia Commons Main Page is featuring a picture every day, at a much more adequate scale than we can afford on the English Wikipedia Main Page. While I wouldn't completely dismiss the idea, I really prefer having featured pictures given a certain amount of space - Template:Pic of the day is on many user pages, and may very well be sufficient.-- Eloquence * 01:20, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
Can you tell me where you received the statistics that scientists are 50/50 in relation to global warming debate?
Re: Regular contributors and/or administrators, please take part in this survey. [12]
Should this be on our MainPage ? The Community Portal may be more appropriate. -- 64.229.5.159 16:04, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
I like Wiki !!! Great!!
Just a little 'un, but I can't edit it myself - it should read an orphanage 'where' he came - not were he came. Also, the idea that a newborn baby 'came' to an orphanage is odd - 'where he was left' seems more correct to me. Thanks!
I think this is worth a mention on the front page. The longest strike in North American professional sports has finally ended, after 301 days and a lost season. -- Madchester 18:23, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
Considering that the lockout resulted in an economic loss of 2 billion US dollars, I think it's definitely worth a mention. What's with the admins removing the info? -- Madchester 20:15, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
OK, how's about we remove the annoying banner now? Nelson Ricardo 18:26, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
I hope this isn't a bad place to post this, but some sort of change was made to the front page that caused the boxes on the left, from navigation on down, to render at the bottom of the page rather than directly under the Wikipedia gif. This is true for all pages, not just the front page, actually, and means that if you use Opera and want to search, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom. I'm sure this is only an Opera-specific problem, but since it worked before, maybe someone can fix it so it renders properly?
Thanks.
Helen Merrill is referred to as "he" in the "Did you know?" section. Calsicol 16:49, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
On the news item refering to Leeds the second " Leeds" is not linked. Small I know, but I noticed it. Dom24 21:00, 14 July 2005 (GMT)
Yeah too many links make it look bad -- 70.29.1.197 03:34, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
"Khash is a traditional Armenian dish from the Shirak region which has cow's feet as it's main ingredient?"
The word "it's" should not have an apostrophe. Admin? Admin? Bueller?
Has there ever been a consideration to adding business on the main categories line of the front page. There is a nicely growing amount of information that falls under the general topic business from the companies list to explanation of many topics that are business related.
Interested parties can view the start of the Business Wikiportal on the Category:Business page. Ancheta Wis 19:57, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
Time to add it to the main page =) Doidimais Brasil 05:17, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
Someone probably noticed by now, but I've updated DYK to show today's FP because there was a lack of suggestions this morning. As noted, I plan on rotating FP (on weekends) and DYK (on weekdays) for awhile to see if it works. Hope you like it. - Mgm| (talk) 06:10, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
It would have been nice to have had a heads-up. Putting Featured Pictures up on the MainPage at weekends introduces issues of which FeaturedPictures to select and tracking it to avoid future repetition. Some coordination with the management of FeaturedPictures and the usual POTD is required. -- Solipsist 08:20, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
This web page is agood source of info.
is WP running paid ads now? Or how is that release ITN-worthy, or even more notable than the sports news we usually reject? We are hyping a commercial product here, it's as simple as that. dab (ᛏ) 11:12, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
Eh? I think any book thar has a first print of over 10m copies in one nation alone, and invigorates millions of young readers worldwide on a regular basis does genuinely deserve to appear on the front page of Wikipedia. I mean, selling 20m copies of one book isn't just acknowledging a successful commercial product, it's also acknowledging a huge cultural force too. Ben (ᛏ) 12:24, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm probably just not aware just how big the HP hype is. From what I can see, this is just one big marketing stunt, and the media are happy to oblige because they are short of sensations in summer. But if your opinion is that we are dealing with a cultural event here, I can certainly live with having it on ITN, no problem. I suppose we have a chance to be less cheap in this respect than the commercial media, but maybe I'm being too purist here, so no bother. As long as we don't have the item sitting on ITN for another two weeks with updates about records broken and what not. dab (ᛏ) 13:06, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
Hasn't it had enough time on the front page now though, considering 90 people died in Iraq yesterday-which is not on the front page. Deus Ex 20:33, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
The main page is now a bit of a mess, with reams of blank space below the "featured photo". Can we please have the "did you know" feature back to encourage the creation of new articles, which is what this site is supposed to be about? Showing off photos is far less important and informative. 82.35.34.11 03:21, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
You know those headings on the Main Page? The ones that link to "Geography, Culture," that sort of stuff?
Where is economics? I know some people abstain from that issue, but I think a lot of people would use it, and it is also THE critical part to the whole world.
After all, without the needs to trade, develop or build, why would any sort of culture or political system ever developed? Without economics and/or economic activity, there is reason for culture, or Math or Science. IF we, as a species, had never began any sort of economic activity, there would never have formed todays modern society.
But we did hunt, fish, and develop agriculture and trade. All of those are economic activities.
So what do you way? Create a link to economic centric articles?
Just floating the idea of small boxes on the side of articles listing cross-references by other articles. This would be an interesting way to direct readers through the encyclopedia. This kind of feature could be created automatically by search engines, kind of like how Amazon.com suggests other articles you may be interested in, but with less privacy concerns.
Jengod made some edits to this page,which I have reverted. The left column (the FA and selected anniversaries) is supposed to be 55% of the page width, and the right column (ITN and DYK/FP) is supposed to be 45% -- some change she made threw this off and it looked seroiusly out of whack. I'm not sure what did it (it could even be that the FP template she was using was wrong), so I reverted. →Raul654 04:27, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Is it okay to remove the blank space between the "Today's featured picture" line and the POTD box ? Maybe better to have this blank space above, as a separator from ITN. -- 199.71.174.100 06:42, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
jengod 06:45, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Caption for the image is wrong. When I roll over it, it says "Painted Bunting". Hayabusa future 12:34, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Just for the record, just prior to Pharos's revert, I was seeing the same problems. I'm seeing it with Firefox, on IE, using the classic skin. →Raul654 15:34, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Left side empty space opens up. It should be used for something. lots of issues | leave me a message 07:15, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Thanks to a long Featured Article today, the blank space is back, now on the right side. I have two new suggestions for ITN on the ITN Candidates' page to fill up the blank space. Thanks. -- 64.229.206.159 12:47, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
It really should be the sovereign rather than a sovereign, and of the United Kingdom instead of in. Could an admin who sees this please fix it. Enlightener 00:50, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps a better sentence might be:
I'll leave it up to you, thanks for sorting the problem out. Enlightener 01:08, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
I think pics used in the main page should have a short caption (eg, for today, "Karl Rove" or "Tojo Hideki". Some days I have no idea what article the picture refers to Borisblue 05:25, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Naw .... I enjoy the mystery.... which induces me to click and read more. -- 64.229.206.159 11:43, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
This verb seems a bit tabloid to me. Evertype 16:05, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
After killing at least seven people and prompting the evacuation of thousands, Hurricane Emily passes over the Yucatán and moves towards a second landfall in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Hurricanes don't kill people... -- Dara 23:21, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
Didn't the Main Page used to say:
Welcome to Wikipedia, a free-content encyclopedia in many languages that anyone can edit. In this English edition, started in January 2001, we are working on 6,841,587 articles. Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit an article, or experiment in the sandbox.
Right now the Sandbox, the most important page on Wikipedia (especially for newcomers), is hard to find! We should put a link to the Sandbox back on the Main Page so that this critical page is easier to find. DrZoidberg 18:35, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
This will probably need to be discussed later on at the Meta-Wiki pages (or the software-related discussion pages), but I have a new idea for a main page layout, or something possibly to be used elsewhere as well (sparingly, ie. in article series templates) - that is, to be able to make images the background part of a particular section, with borders.
Perhaps it will be like this, with a template perhaps for possibly unsightly code...{{bgimagetemplate|image=image.img|text, including other templates}}, or possibly split into two templates (for beginning it and ending it) - basically, making a piece of text bordered and within a certain size, and within that border, a background image. Possibly, the background image would be unaltered, but it could be manually (or perhaps automatically) be scaled down in saturation and luminosity for contrast purposes. This would be quite useful for the main page. You have all these dramatic articles, but only with thumbnails....the featured article perhaps, would be able thus to get one of it's best pictures to be put at the background of the "Featured article" section, and with the proper modifications to let the text be easily readable...(transparency might help here)...and can be used for other parts of the main page at will. This especially comes from seeing Image:German Troops In Warsaw.jpg being so highly dramatic, but being reduced to a mere thumbnail on the front page! Hence, my idea. -- Natalinasmpf 01:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
The thumbnail that sparked this could easily be made bigger without sacrificing too much room, even on small displays. The background idea to me sounds like a way of making an image even less visible. And it's also not really appropriate to stick images in the background when they actually matter (as opposed to just being decoration). There's quite a difference between having a thumbnail of marching stormtroopers and using it as a background, stylistically. That's without considering what this will do to color blind users and users with non-desktop browsers or settings that (sensibly?) ignore background images. Wrong solution to the problem, IMO. 81.58.51.131 11:52, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Today's featured article box in the Main Page (Polish September Campaign) isn't following the recommendations on date formatting, and thus, individual users' preferences aren't being applied. Although not mandatory, this feature is very welcome by some users like myself who have "non-conventional" date formatting preferences. Thanks.- Poli ( talk • contribs) 04:18, 2005 July 19 (UTC)
I dont think "Is a F***er" reflects too well on this site.
Maybe there ought to be a link to the Wikiportal page directly from the Main Page. It would be just as useful as the 8 Categories at the top or the "other schemes".-- Theodore Kloba 22:32, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
On the homepage it says that Canada legalized same-sex marriage "upon the consent of the acting head of state, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin". This is plain wrong! Beverley McLachlin is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, she is also a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, but she is NOT the acting head of state! The Canadian Head of State is Queen Elizabeth II, with the Governor General representing her. Chief Justice McLachlin was acting in behalf of the Governor General, but not as the Governor General who is sometimes refered to as the defacto head of state, but never the acting head of state. Please change this, it's very misleading! -- Mb1000 03:12, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Silly imperial formalities or not, if she is acting in place of the de facto head of state, she is the acting head of state. -- B. Phillips 15:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Well not really. Canada is a constitutional monarchy. The monarch, in this case Queen Elizabeth II, is head of state. The purpose of the Governor General is not to be head of state, but to represent the head of state, who is usually out of the country. This is quite different from actually being the head of state. So no, it's not just a "silly imperial formality", it actually means something. And yes, I'M PROUD TO BE CANADIAN & LONG LIVE THE BRITISH EMPIRE! -- Mb1000 01:33, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
It should mention that Beverley McLaughlin provided consent on behalf of the Queen of Canada. -- 24.77.35.110 03:39, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
EDIT Got beat to it.
I think it would nice to add a link to a "Wikipedia Quiz Game" link on the lower left of the main page. The link would lead to a page where instead of a "Random article" link, there would be a set of links that could produce random pages from selected categories (Science, Literature, Geography and so on).
The page produced by the player would be used as an answer to a question formulated by the quiz game player on the fly.
After some experience with this functionality, some assistance formulating a question related to the produced article could be given.
Shouldn't it be "a series of explosions HITS London?"
So we have another couple of days to go before the next weekend of swapping DYK for POTD. I'm suggesting that we change the Main Page, so that the bottom right quarter is changed to be the 'Second Feature' which alternates between DYK - weekdays and POTD - weekends. To allow for planning, the link to the second feature is changed to
which transcludes daily subpages similar to "Today's featured article".
I've put a sample at User:Solipsist/MainPageTemp. And to show how the next few days might pan out;
As an extra challenge, the Featured Picture for the 23rd is due to be User:Geocachernemesis's rather nice panorama of Wellington, NZ. If the panorama proves too difficult to layout, we might be able to use a sample of the full panorama such as just the port.
Note that I've also placed the section title in the subpage so that it can also alternate, although at the moment there seems to be an extra blank line in the layout. -- Solipsist 21:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I can say with over a year's expereince writing up the FA that very wide pics are very bad for the main page. As such, I suggest solipsist use a different picture for Saturday. Sunday's Art Nouveau write up, on the other hand, looks spectacular. →Raul654 22:38, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
It should be pointed out that this setup assumes that there will be one DYK per day. This has been the case over the last few days while I've been following it, but I know in the past it's been updated several times per day and in fact the guidline is only to not update it any more frequently than once every 6 hours. MacGyverMagic, what do you think?-- Pharos 00:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Following up on Raul654's comment on the problem with wide images: I guess the issue is with people who use narrow browser widths. What is the maximum image width that avoids too many problems?
I've changed Wikipedia:Today's second feature/July 23, 2005 to use a narrower detail from the full panorama. Not sure I'm totally happy with it though. -- Solipsist 22:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Wait... if today is the 22nd (or the 23rd, according to the user's time zone), why does the DyK for July 25 show up in the Main Page??? -- Titoxd 02:49, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
I put this in a related discussion above but I figure I should probably put it here too. I'm proposing, for several reasons including the change to featured pics on weekends, extending the DYK eligibility to 7 rather than 3 days. See the proposal and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Did you know.
I'd like to make a humble suggestion here -- why not have the featured pictures on weekdays, and did-you-know on weekends? That way, the articles that go on DYK can be polished up and expanded so as to be of high calibre. →Raul654 05:35, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
I've created Wikipedia talk:Today's second feature for better communication regarding this feature, and have copied the discussion over. violet/riga (t) 22:37, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
The bottom of the left margin (left-hand column) has gone unused. For the main page, it would make sense to list sister projects there instead of the very bottom of the page. This would make them more prominent--which in my opinion it should be. It took me a week after discovering them to figure out how to reach them directly. Davilla 05:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
A second series of terrorist attacks hits London. Thisn seems inaccurate to me, they were atempted terrorist attacks, but they failed the bombs didn't go off just the detornators (at least thats what seems to have happened), no body died. The 21 July 2005 London explosions artcle refers to "a series of four small explosions" rather then terrorist attacks. I prepose the headline be A Second terrorist attack on London fails or something like that.-- JK the unwise 08:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
If an attack is "successful" does that mean it is not an attack?
Why does Karl Rove get top billing where as a third day of terrorist activity in normally peaceful London is not even mentioned?
The DYK fact is not in the actual article. This is not what the policy with DYK says. Daniel Case 19:13, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
"Following yesterday's attempted bombing attempts, police in London shoot dead a suspected suicide bomber at Stockwell tube station."
That ain't quite right. :)
please can someone remove the allegations about Antonio_Martorell's whereabouts on 7/7 from the Did You Know section. This quasi-anecdote no longer exists in the article because it is profoundly non-notable. It makes no sense to keep it on the front page. -- 81.154.236.221 23:56, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
the abortive bombing attempts can no longer be said to have occured yesterday - in London it is the 23rd of July. Thursday was the 21st. I suggest
"Following the attempted bombings of July 21st, police in London shoot dead a suspected suicide bomber at Stockwell tube station."
you will notice I have restored 'shot' to 'shoot' in the above sentence. It is consistent with wikipedia's ITN style:
etc. -- 81.154.236.221 00:08, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Quote
I believe this statement is incorrect. Judges do not usually inact law - they interpret law and they definantly do not sign laws into being (that is the legislative branch's duty to make and sign laws into being). I believe it should be that Governor General Adrienne Clarkson signed the bill into law. -- ShaunMacPherson 05:39, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
A featured article is like our front door. It should represent our best effort at the art of encyclopedia making. It's the not the place to quibble. We have ample opportunity to do that at WP:RFC, WP:PR and, WP:FAC. So, how about a rule that makes a Featured article off-limits to editing, by blocking, for some respectable amount of time (say 1 or 2 days) after WP:FA. This might off-put the trolls that are inevitably attracted to the very prominent featured article just to embarrass our best efforts. Any thoughts on this? hydnjo talk 04:09, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
After reading all the above discussion related to replacing DYK with POTD, it seems like a number of users want DYK to stick around, but the problem seems to be that there isn't enough material available to keep DYK well stocked with good articles, and in addition, some users have expressed disinterest with selected anniversaries. So why not combine the two and give Picture of the day a permanent spot on the main page? I've set up an example of what the lower half of the main page might look like under this proposed layout. It would involve putting only 2-3 DYKs and 2-3 SAs on the main page instead of the 4-6 of each. Comments? -- Spangineer (háblame) 04:27, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
Loitzendorf is a small village on the highest mountain ( Jauerling) of the Wachau valley in Lower Austria.
Could someone remove the image of the 100 yuan bill from the top of "in the news"? It is an odd juxtaposition with the Sharm el-Sheikh bombing story. - Nat Kraus e 07:35, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Lance Armstrong is on his way to win his 7th consecutive Tour de France today, after three weeks of racing this July. This is a major, major moment in sporting history. Lance announced his retirement, and it's not likely anyone will win 7 straight again. How about a minor mention, eh?
Let's use a little care when shortening article leads for MPFA inclusion. "Unusually long length" -- urgh. This doesn't appear in any recent version of the actual article. If an article needs substantive changes/clarifications it shouldn't be an MPFA in the first place. Jgm 13:39, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
We could use more additions to the H5N1 page. How about putting it one the front page on the news section? There is a great Wikinews article. Russia found it's first case this week too. In fact I would bet the H5N1 news story will be the most important next to terrorism in the first half of the twenty first century. And our current article sucks! :) We need to draw some attention to it. See the Wikinews article: [17] 70.57.82.114 00:07, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
Can someone with sysop powers change "indentify" to "identify", please ? A link to the Metropolitan Police Service page would be nice, too. Thanks. -- 199.71.174.100 00:25, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
It seems to be policy to protect images on the main page - if so, could an admin reading this please protect Image:BleriotDI11G1.jpg? Not that it's been vandalised, but it's going to be there for a day... Shimgray 00:35, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
Ok, so stupid me, but I have to do this. Lets take this down to such a basic level that even I understand.
Respectfully, hydnjo talk 21:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
WP:FA protection
I find that old news is still there. the chinese currency news could be replaced by the quake in andamans. -- Idleguy 07:55, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
Can we have a less emotive word than "slain" in the news section reference to the Stockwell shooting? "Slain" is a loaded word which is likely to be inflammatory. It's not NPOV by any stretch of the imagination. The shooting was a tragic mistake but Wikipedia does not have to (and should not) fan the flames.
I agree. Was about to make this point myself but youve already said it. -- Timmywimmy 16:13, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
I created this page to make it easier for newcomers to know about the goings-on in wikipedia. This is through personal experience; as a newbie it took me 1 week to find the help desk, and I only found out what an FA was in about three months. I think it would be nice if we had a wikipedia:directory link from the main page, so newbies have a better grasp of the goings-on. And yes, it isn't a complete list, please feel free to add any locations of interest. Borisblue 13:13, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
The last "did you know that" lacks a question mark at the end. -- 67.65.113.154 00:53, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Lead item today says Blackface is a style of theatrical makeup that originated in the United States, used to affect the countenance of an iconic, racist, American archetype, that of the "darky". Who was actually being racist, the depictee, or the depictor? Seems like the latter to me, but the article infers the opposite. Moriori 01:43, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
The negative archetypes that comprised the stock characters of blackface minstrelsy played a seminal role...
should be "blackface minstrels" yes?
From
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861630335/minstrelsy.html:
min·strel·sy (plural min·strel·sies)
noun 1. minstrel's art: a minstrel's art or performance, or the profession of a minstrel
2. minstrels' poems and songs: the poems and songs written and performed by minstrels or by a particular minstrel
3. minstrel troupe: a troupe of medieval minstrels
Shouldn't the first sentence read ".... used to effect the countenance of ...."?
News entries on the main page and in Current Events are not linked. They are entered separately, and often main page entries do not appear in the current events. Idealy the main page entries should be the "most important" news entries from the current events, so there should be a way to link the 2 together so they are consistant. Elfguy 12:21, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
News blurb reads "...beginning the first U.S. spaceflight since the...". Should be "...beginning the first manned U.S. spaceflight since the..." or "...beginning the first U.S. spaceflight with a human crew since the..." -- agr 20:35, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Please remove the wikilink from Incompetence in the News blurb concerning Jean de Menezes. It doesn't link to what you think it does. Sheldrake 02:36, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
I highly object to the word "slain" on the front page - concerning ther shooting of Jean de Menezes. Please remove it. Jooler 07:51, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
Today is the anniversary of the end of the Korean war, I think it deserves to be in selected anniversaries.-- 204.138.115.3 15:37, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. 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 35 | ← | Archive 38 | Archive 39 | Archive 40 | Archive 41 | Archive 42 | → | Archive 45 |
Since the italian wikipedia has reached 50,000 articles, could you please update the list? Thank you. it:user:Blakwolf T 5 July 2005 10:22 (UTC)
It would be proper to end the section regarding Mr. Coopers remarks vis a vis Rove with the two words to him. i.e the first to reveal Valerie Plame's CIA connection to him, with the him being cooper. Otherwise it is somewhat misleading, as the timeline of Rove learning from Novak first and then telling Cooper would be correct. Saying first to reveal Ms. Plame's identity is somewhat misleading.
We haven't received any ITN suggestions since the 3rd and suddenly the DYK suggestions are drying up as well. Keep those ideas coming people. Having the same stuff on the main page every day would be very boring. - Mgm| (talk) July 6, 2005 10:12 (UTC)
Well for one, the motion in the European Union to enforce software patents as law, has been officially opposed. Victory for us! Does that qualify to be on the main page? I even rejoiced on it on the sandbox [3], and here are the sources! [4] [5] [6] [7] -- Natalinasmpf 6 July 2005 11:49 (UTC)
The main English page is UGLY. Get rid of that awful pink, my god. Make it look more like the Svenska page or something. Common. Aesthics, people.
Did CSS fall off the earth or something? What happened to the left bar and why is everything so ugly and unorganized? -- drumguy8800 23 July 2005 19:03 (UTC)
Now that I'm a little bit more experienced with wikipedia, I'm also aware of its shortcomings, ie. anyone can go and create a network of pages full of lies and POV - giving themselves an air of credibility by indirectly using the reputation and professional presentation of wikipedia. Could we have a note somewhere on the page mentionning that the information available on this site is by no mean guaranteed to be accurate? Adidas 6 July 2005 15:46 (UTC)
Factual correction for pic of the day for July 17 of Canyon de Chelly - it's a National Monument, not a National Park.
I know this must have been asked before, but why isn't the Picture of the day featured on the Main Page? RMoloney 7 July 2005 00:07 (UTC)
I've created a demo page here -- User:Raul654/temp, where I replaced DYK with a slightly modified version of the featured pic template (located at User:Raul654/temp2). I'd like to hear what you guys think (feel free to tweak it). →Raul654 July 7, 2005 03:25 (UTC)
Picture of the day must be overhauled if the module is placed on the front page. We certainly can't present dull diagrams to all visitors - the selection process must look for the most eye catching material possible. lots of issues | leave me a message 7 July 2005 03:46 (UTC)
Note: Yes, I'm biased. I'd hate to see my work for DYK disappear. Instead of complaining it's badly maintained, people should help out. If I'm away over the weekend, sometimes no one did a thing. That should change. - Mgm| (talk) July 7, 2005 10:07 (UTC)
Someone needs to fix the front page's picture of David Helgard.
Three points: Selected anniversaries is of very limited interest. DYK is interesting and has motivational value. I was saddened that my new article was on DYK for only the bare minimum six hours allowed by the rules, and then days later DYK is gone (temporarily) from the main page, in part because there are not enough nominations. — Pekinensis 17:01, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to see the DYK back. The articles are sometimes good and sometimes bad, but there is value to it. I think we need to relax the 72 hours new article rule - most good articles are developed over time and restricting only 72 hours old articles for DYK maybe what's generating the low level of interest. Hfwd 04:10, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
There is tons of value to DYK. As stated before, that's one of my personal greatest motivations in creating new articles. I challenge myself to find topics that aren't already here, would be fun for me to write about (and hopefully fun to read), then challenge myself to make the article live up to my personal standards of "good enough for DYK", and finally see the amazing progress made in building on to these crazy topics. No matter how hard I try to find something encyclopedic enough for inclusion, but obscure enough to be fun, someone's got something great to add on the article, that I near even thought of or found. To me, it's like the most worthwhile game you can play with yourself on Wikipedia. -- user:zanimum
No official report has been provided yet. Such a heading is misleading. -- Psyk0 7 July 2005 10:57 (UTC)
I've said it before [ [8]], but no-one commented on the suggestion. Is there any way to get the text on the templates on the main page to wrap more closely around the pictures? If you have a bookmarks bar up, as I generally do, it looks like a mess. -- User:Jenmoa 7 July 2005 21:42 (UTC)
In the Did you know? section; the page text reads:
...that the French battleship France sunk after hitting an uncharted rock during a patrol of Quiberon Bay on August 26, 1922?
The past tense form 'sunk' is active voice. However, the passive voice form, 'sank', should have been used. The rock is what sank the boat; the boat did not sink the rock.— Kbolino July 7, 2005 23:25 (UTC)
The main page news story says: "The attacks come less than 24 hours after London's winning bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics." This should say 'fewer than 24 hours'. And they didn't come fewer than twenty four hours after the bid, they came fewer than twenty four hours after the bid succeeded. And it probably shouldn't be in the present tense as it happened yesterday. So a good re-wording would be: "The attacks came less than a day after London won its bid to host the 2012 Summer Olympics." User:DavidFarmbrough (07:31 BST 08 Jul 2005)
Although the edit has now been made and passed into history, I think it's worth pointing out that my suggested amendment was more on the basis of clumsiness rather than 'correctness'. I think the 'less than 24 hours' will jar with a lot of readers, as it did with me. DavidFarmbrough 08:35 (BST) 11 Jul 2005
I wanted to tweak the In the news bit today that tried to precis the London bombing. But, I can't edit the page. User:Mgm advised me the page needed to be protected because of previous vandalism. Fine. So, delete from the Main Page,"Welcome to Wikipedia, the free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit".
Okay, so what was my intention? Well I wanted to change the following
Never mind. Moriori July 8, 2005 09:31 (UTC)
didnt find how to get an admin after reading about 10 help sides.
the help stuff is too complicated and unclear in the process how to handle vandalism
click on the history tab and choose the last good version. we're reverting vandalism as it comes, at the moment the Jihad article is back to normal again. dab (ᛏ) 8 July 2005 14:45 (UTC)
There's a picture - you'll notice it, I'm sure - that needs to be removed as it does not relate to the subject matter (to say the least).-- Nicsilo 8 July 2005 15:29 (UTC)
In an attempt to prevent this problem from occurring again, I created commons:Template:en main page to be placed on Commons images which appear on the English Wikipedia's main page. The relevant category is commons:Category:English Wikipedia main page images. I think that en: and Commons have enough administrators in common to make protecting these images a feasible task. — Dan | Talk 8 July 2005 16:02 (UTC)
Currently, this is very poorly worded. They expect that the death toll will rise above 50, but currently there are 49 people COMFIRMED dead. -- 66.222.152.169 8 July 2005 22:32 (UTC)
It's 9:30 in New York on july 9th, and I think its July 9th everywhere, so why does it still have july 8th??
Why don't you have the time of English speaking countries on the front page?
Can we show one of these two pics, please ? IMO, they look better than what is on the Main Page now.
Thanks. -- 64.229.229.159 9 July 2005 18:44 (UTC)
"Plaza" is a US usage and therefore not appropriate in an item about a London location.
Shouldn't the words "encyclopedia," "English," and "2001" be linked?
Is it just me or is the Wikipedia logo missing on the language selection page? -- Ixfd64 06:32, 2005 July 10 (UTC)
It's just you. -- cactuar12 18:47, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
I noticed today that the Tagalog Wikipedia, at [10], now has 1035 articles, so that list should be updated to include it now. -- Idont Havaname 20:24, 10 July 2005 (UTC)
The officially recognized birthday of the USMC is November 10. The related article does say that July 11 is the technically true date, but no one observes that fact as relevant. Bornyesterday 02:16, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
There is no mention of this selected anniversary in the Zheng He article. The word 'July' is not found at all. Can someone confirm the date, please ? Thanks. -- 64.229.206.179 04:32, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
From the current national geographic: "It was against this frenetic background that Admiral Zheng He received his sailing orders on July 11, 1405" I guess I should read the article and update our article. lots of issues | leave me a message 20:34, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
Why is there an image showing Scotland's place within the UK? The meeting is at Gleneagles because it is the UK's turn to chair the G8. Scotland, on the other hand, has no role except in that the British government is hosting it there. When the meeting was at Sea Island, was Georgia's place in the USA outlined? Or Alberta's place in Canada when it was held at Kananaskis? It should be replaced by a map of the UK, a picture related to the G8, or some of the recipients of the $50bn of extra aid pledged.BECAUSE SCOTLAND IS A COUNTRY - GEORGIA, ALBERTA ARE NOT Scotland is a province of the UK not a country. It is the UK holding the talks. Don't vent your puerile Scottish nationalism here when the context is clearly wrong in this instance.
It's incorrect to say $50 billion in aid will to Africa. The pledge was for overall aid to developing countries to rise $50 billion by 2010, of which $25 billion is earmarked for those in Africa. [11] -- Dhartung | Talk 21:43, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
dose global warming exist. the scientist of the united states are split evenly like a 50 50 kind of thing so get me real proff that it does or doesent exist if you find real info on it or have done a project on it before i need stuff for a debate in summer school send it to taraa16@iwon.com please i need help on this debate
The Did You Know? section is terminally boring. I apologise to the people who work on it, but really, it's just awful. Could you replace it with something interesting? Like maybe a picture from Wikipedia Commons, or maybe some sort of notices board? It seems like such a waste of space to leave it as it is.
I created this section last year primarily in order to encourage patrolling Special:Newpages and writing high quality articles from scratch. I believe it still does serve this purpose, but it might be a good idea to "repackage" it. The headline Did you know ...? suggests that the reader may find out something new about something they already know about, in practice, most of the factoids in DyK tend to be relatively obscure, and it's very difficult to establish sufficient context in the short summaries. The typical answer to many Dyk question seems to be: No, should I?
One way to repackage it would be to call it something like "Latest additions" (can't think of a catchy name right now, but then, none of the other sections has catchy titles), and to simply include one-line abstracts for the articles in question. This might be a more practical approach to highlighting high quality additions.
As for the idea of featuring a picture, the Wikimedia Commons Main Page is featuring a picture every day, at a much more adequate scale than we can afford on the English Wikipedia Main Page. While I wouldn't completely dismiss the idea, I really prefer having featured pictures given a certain amount of space - Template:Pic of the day is on many user pages, and may very well be sufficient.-- Eloquence * 01:20, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
Can you tell me where you received the statistics that scientists are 50/50 in relation to global warming debate?
Re: Regular contributors and/or administrators, please take part in this survey. [12]
Should this be on our MainPage ? The Community Portal may be more appropriate. -- 64.229.5.159 16:04, 12 July 2005 (UTC)
I like Wiki !!! Great!!
Just a little 'un, but I can't edit it myself - it should read an orphanage 'where' he came - not were he came. Also, the idea that a newborn baby 'came' to an orphanage is odd - 'where he was left' seems more correct to me. Thanks!
I think this is worth a mention on the front page. The longest strike in North American professional sports has finally ended, after 301 days and a lost season. -- Madchester 18:23, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
Considering that the lockout resulted in an economic loss of 2 billion US dollars, I think it's definitely worth a mention. What's with the admins removing the info? -- Madchester 20:15, July 15, 2005 (UTC)
OK, how's about we remove the annoying banner now? Nelson Ricardo 18:26, July 13, 2005 (UTC)
I hope this isn't a bad place to post this, but some sort of change was made to the front page that caused the boxes on the left, from navigation on down, to render at the bottom of the page rather than directly under the Wikipedia gif. This is true for all pages, not just the front page, actually, and means that if you use Opera and want to search, you have to scroll all the way to the bottom. I'm sure this is only an Opera-specific problem, but since it worked before, maybe someone can fix it so it renders properly?
Thanks.
Helen Merrill is referred to as "he" in the "Did you know?" section. Calsicol 16:49, 14 July 2005 (UTC)
On the news item refering to Leeds the second " Leeds" is not linked. Small I know, but I noticed it. Dom24 21:00, 14 July 2005 (GMT)
Yeah too many links make it look bad -- 70.29.1.197 03:34, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
"Khash is a traditional Armenian dish from the Shirak region which has cow's feet as it's main ingredient?"
The word "it's" should not have an apostrophe. Admin? Admin? Bueller?
Has there ever been a consideration to adding business on the main categories line of the front page. There is a nicely growing amount of information that falls under the general topic business from the companies list to explanation of many topics that are business related.
Interested parties can view the start of the Business Wikiportal on the Category:Business page. Ancheta Wis 19:57, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
Time to add it to the main page =) Doidimais Brasil 05:17, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
Someone probably noticed by now, but I've updated DYK to show today's FP because there was a lack of suggestions this morning. As noted, I plan on rotating FP (on weekends) and DYK (on weekdays) for awhile to see if it works. Hope you like it. - Mgm| (talk) 06:10, July 16, 2005 (UTC)
It would have been nice to have had a heads-up. Putting Featured Pictures up on the MainPage at weekends introduces issues of which FeaturedPictures to select and tracking it to avoid future repetition. Some coordination with the management of FeaturedPictures and the usual POTD is required. -- Solipsist 08:20, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
This web page is agood source of info.
is WP running paid ads now? Or how is that release ITN-worthy, or even more notable than the sports news we usually reject? We are hyping a commercial product here, it's as simple as that. dab (ᛏ) 11:12, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
Eh? I think any book thar has a first print of over 10m copies in one nation alone, and invigorates millions of young readers worldwide on a regular basis does genuinely deserve to appear on the front page of Wikipedia. I mean, selling 20m copies of one book isn't just acknowledging a successful commercial product, it's also acknowledging a huge cultural force too. Ben (ᛏ) 12:24, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
I'm probably just not aware just how big the HP hype is. From what I can see, this is just one big marketing stunt, and the media are happy to oblige because they are short of sensations in summer. But if your opinion is that we are dealing with a cultural event here, I can certainly live with having it on ITN, no problem. I suppose we have a chance to be less cheap in this respect than the commercial media, but maybe I'm being too purist here, so no bother. As long as we don't have the item sitting on ITN for another two weeks with updates about records broken and what not. dab (ᛏ) 13:06, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
Hasn't it had enough time on the front page now though, considering 90 people died in Iraq yesterday-which is not on the front page. Deus Ex 20:33, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
The main page is now a bit of a mess, with reams of blank space below the "featured photo". Can we please have the "did you know" feature back to encourage the creation of new articles, which is what this site is supposed to be about? Showing off photos is far less important and informative. 82.35.34.11 03:21, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
You know those headings on the Main Page? The ones that link to "Geography, Culture," that sort of stuff?
Where is economics? I know some people abstain from that issue, but I think a lot of people would use it, and it is also THE critical part to the whole world.
After all, without the needs to trade, develop or build, why would any sort of culture or political system ever developed? Without economics and/or economic activity, there is reason for culture, or Math or Science. IF we, as a species, had never began any sort of economic activity, there would never have formed todays modern society.
But we did hunt, fish, and develop agriculture and trade. All of those are economic activities.
So what do you way? Create a link to economic centric articles?
Just floating the idea of small boxes on the side of articles listing cross-references by other articles. This would be an interesting way to direct readers through the encyclopedia. This kind of feature could be created automatically by search engines, kind of like how Amazon.com suggests other articles you may be interested in, but with less privacy concerns.
Jengod made some edits to this page,which I have reverted. The left column (the FA and selected anniversaries) is supposed to be 55% of the page width, and the right column (ITN and DYK/FP) is supposed to be 45% -- some change she made threw this off and it looked seroiusly out of whack. I'm not sure what did it (it could even be that the FP template she was using was wrong), so I reverted. →Raul654 04:27, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Is it okay to remove the blank space between the "Today's featured picture" line and the POTD box ? Maybe better to have this blank space above, as a separator from ITN. -- 199.71.174.100 06:42, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
jengod 06:45, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Caption for the image is wrong. When I roll over it, it says "Painted Bunting". Hayabusa future 12:34, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Just for the record, just prior to Pharos's revert, I was seeing the same problems. I'm seeing it with Firefox, on IE, using the classic skin. →Raul654 15:34, July 17, 2005 (UTC)
Left side empty space opens up. It should be used for something. lots of issues | leave me a message 07:15, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
Thanks to a long Featured Article today, the blank space is back, now on the right side. I have two new suggestions for ITN on the ITN Candidates' page to fill up the blank space. Thanks. -- 64.229.206.159 12:47, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
It really should be the sovereign rather than a sovereign, and of the United Kingdom instead of in. Could an admin who sees this please fix it. Enlightener 00:50, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps a better sentence might be:
I'll leave it up to you, thanks for sorting the problem out. Enlightener 01:08, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
I think pics used in the main page should have a short caption (eg, for today, "Karl Rove" or "Tojo Hideki". Some days I have no idea what article the picture refers to Borisblue 05:25, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
Naw .... I enjoy the mystery.... which induces me to click and read more. -- 64.229.206.159 11:43, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
This verb seems a bit tabloid to me. Evertype 16:05, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
After killing at least seven people and prompting the evacuation of thousands, Hurricane Emily passes over the Yucatán and moves towards a second landfall in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. Hurricanes don't kill people... -- Dara 23:21, July 18, 2005 (UTC)
Didn't the Main Page used to say:
Welcome to Wikipedia, a free-content encyclopedia in many languages that anyone can edit. In this English edition, started in January 2001, we are working on 6,841,587 articles. Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit an article, or experiment in the sandbox.
Right now the Sandbox, the most important page on Wikipedia (especially for newcomers), is hard to find! We should put a link to the Sandbox back on the Main Page so that this critical page is easier to find. DrZoidberg 18:35, 18 July 2005 (UTC)
This will probably need to be discussed later on at the Meta-Wiki pages (or the software-related discussion pages), but I have a new idea for a main page layout, or something possibly to be used elsewhere as well (sparingly, ie. in article series templates) - that is, to be able to make images the background part of a particular section, with borders.
Perhaps it will be like this, with a template perhaps for possibly unsightly code...{{bgimagetemplate|image=image.img|text, including other templates}}, or possibly split into two templates (for beginning it and ending it) - basically, making a piece of text bordered and within a certain size, and within that border, a background image. Possibly, the background image would be unaltered, but it could be manually (or perhaps automatically) be scaled down in saturation and luminosity for contrast purposes. This would be quite useful for the main page. You have all these dramatic articles, but only with thumbnails....the featured article perhaps, would be able thus to get one of it's best pictures to be put at the background of the "Featured article" section, and with the proper modifications to let the text be easily readable...(transparency might help here)...and can be used for other parts of the main page at will. This especially comes from seeing Image:German Troops In Warsaw.jpg being so highly dramatic, but being reduced to a mere thumbnail on the front page! Hence, my idea. -- Natalinasmpf 01:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
The thumbnail that sparked this could easily be made bigger without sacrificing too much room, even on small displays. The background idea to me sounds like a way of making an image even less visible. And it's also not really appropriate to stick images in the background when they actually matter (as opposed to just being decoration). There's quite a difference between having a thumbnail of marching stormtroopers and using it as a background, stylistically. That's without considering what this will do to color blind users and users with non-desktop browsers or settings that (sensibly?) ignore background images. Wrong solution to the problem, IMO. 81.58.51.131 11:52, 19 July 2005 (UTC)
Today's featured article box in the Main Page (Polish September Campaign) isn't following the recommendations on date formatting, and thus, individual users' preferences aren't being applied. Although not mandatory, this feature is very welcome by some users like myself who have "non-conventional" date formatting preferences. Thanks.- Poli ( talk • contribs) 04:18, 2005 July 19 (UTC)
I dont think "Is a F***er" reflects too well on this site.
Maybe there ought to be a link to the Wikiportal page directly from the Main Page. It would be just as useful as the 8 Categories at the top or the "other schemes".-- Theodore Kloba 22:32, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
On the homepage it says that Canada legalized same-sex marriage "upon the consent of the acting head of state, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin". This is plain wrong! Beverley McLachlin is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, she is also a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, but she is NOT the acting head of state! The Canadian Head of State is Queen Elizabeth II, with the Governor General representing her. Chief Justice McLachlin was acting in behalf of the Governor General, but not as the Governor General who is sometimes refered to as the defacto head of state, but never the acting head of state. Please change this, it's very misleading! -- Mb1000 03:12, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Silly imperial formalities or not, if she is acting in place of the de facto head of state, she is the acting head of state. -- B. Phillips 15:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
Well not really. Canada is a constitutional monarchy. The monarch, in this case Queen Elizabeth II, is head of state. The purpose of the Governor General is not to be head of state, but to represent the head of state, who is usually out of the country. This is quite different from actually being the head of state. So no, it's not just a "silly imperial formality", it actually means something. And yes, I'M PROUD TO BE CANADIAN & LONG LIVE THE BRITISH EMPIRE! -- Mb1000 01:33, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
It should mention that Beverley McLaughlin provided consent on behalf of the Queen of Canada. -- 24.77.35.110 03:39, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
EDIT Got beat to it.
I think it would nice to add a link to a "Wikipedia Quiz Game" link on the lower left of the main page. The link would lead to a page where instead of a "Random article" link, there would be a set of links that could produce random pages from selected categories (Science, Literature, Geography and so on).
The page produced by the player would be used as an answer to a question formulated by the quiz game player on the fly.
After some experience with this functionality, some assistance formulating a question related to the produced article could be given.
Shouldn't it be "a series of explosions HITS London?"
So we have another couple of days to go before the next weekend of swapping DYK for POTD. I'm suggesting that we change the Main Page, so that the bottom right quarter is changed to be the 'Second Feature' which alternates between DYK - weekdays and POTD - weekends. To allow for planning, the link to the second feature is changed to
which transcludes daily subpages similar to "Today's featured article".
I've put a sample at User:Solipsist/MainPageTemp. And to show how the next few days might pan out;
As an extra challenge, the Featured Picture for the 23rd is due to be User:Geocachernemesis's rather nice panorama of Wellington, NZ. If the panorama proves too difficult to layout, we might be able to use a sample of the full panorama such as just the port.
Note that I've also placed the section title in the subpage so that it can also alternate, although at the moment there seems to be an extra blank line in the layout. -- Solipsist 21:00, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
I can say with over a year's expereince writing up the FA that very wide pics are very bad for the main page. As such, I suggest solipsist use a different picture for Saturday. Sunday's Art Nouveau write up, on the other hand, looks spectacular. →Raul654 22:38, July 21, 2005 (UTC)
It should be pointed out that this setup assumes that there will be one DYK per day. This has been the case over the last few days while I've been following it, but I know in the past it's been updated several times per day and in fact the guidline is only to not update it any more frequently than once every 6 hours. MacGyverMagic, what do you think?-- Pharos 00:09, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Following up on Raul654's comment on the problem with wide images: I guess the issue is with people who use narrow browser widths. What is the maximum image width that avoids too many problems?
I've changed Wikipedia:Today's second feature/July 23, 2005 to use a narrower detail from the full panorama. Not sure I'm totally happy with it though. -- Solipsist 22:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
Wait... if today is the 22nd (or the 23rd, according to the user's time zone), why does the DyK for July 25 show up in the Main Page??? -- Titoxd 02:49, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
I put this in a related discussion above but I figure I should probably put it here too. I'm proposing, for several reasons including the change to featured pics on weekends, extending the DYK eligibility to 7 rather than 3 days. See the proposal and discussion at Wikipedia talk:Did you know.
I'd like to make a humble suggestion here -- why not have the featured pictures on weekdays, and did-you-know on weekends? That way, the articles that go on DYK can be polished up and expanded so as to be of high calibre. →Raul654 05:35, July 23, 2005 (UTC)
I've created Wikipedia talk:Today's second feature for better communication regarding this feature, and have copied the discussion over. violet/riga (t) 22:37, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
The bottom of the left margin (left-hand column) has gone unused. For the main page, it would make sense to list sister projects there instead of the very bottom of the page. This would make them more prominent--which in my opinion it should be. It took me a week after discovering them to figure out how to reach them directly. Davilla 05:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
A second series of terrorist attacks hits London. Thisn seems inaccurate to me, they were atempted terrorist attacks, but they failed the bombs didn't go off just the detornators (at least thats what seems to have happened), no body died. The 21 July 2005 London explosions artcle refers to "a series of four small explosions" rather then terrorist attacks. I prepose the headline be A Second terrorist attack on London fails or something like that.-- JK the unwise 08:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
If an attack is "successful" does that mean it is not an attack?
Why does Karl Rove get top billing where as a third day of terrorist activity in normally peaceful London is not even mentioned?
The DYK fact is not in the actual article. This is not what the policy with DYK says. Daniel Case 19:13, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
"Following yesterday's attempted bombing attempts, police in London shoot dead a suspected suicide bomber at Stockwell tube station."
That ain't quite right. :)
please can someone remove the allegations about Antonio_Martorell's whereabouts on 7/7 from the Did You Know section. This quasi-anecdote no longer exists in the article because it is profoundly non-notable. It makes no sense to keep it on the front page. -- 81.154.236.221 23:56, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
the abortive bombing attempts can no longer be said to have occured yesterday - in London it is the 23rd of July. Thursday was the 21st. I suggest
"Following the attempted bombings of July 21st, police in London shoot dead a suspected suicide bomber at Stockwell tube station."
you will notice I have restored 'shot' to 'shoot' in the above sentence. It is consistent with wikipedia's ITN style:
etc. -- 81.154.236.221 00:08, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Quote
I believe this statement is incorrect. Judges do not usually inact law - they interpret law and they definantly do not sign laws into being (that is the legislative branch's duty to make and sign laws into being). I believe it should be that Governor General Adrienne Clarkson signed the bill into law. -- ShaunMacPherson 05:39, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
A featured article is like our front door. It should represent our best effort at the art of encyclopedia making. It's the not the place to quibble. We have ample opportunity to do that at WP:RFC, WP:PR and, WP:FAC. So, how about a rule that makes a Featured article off-limits to editing, by blocking, for some respectable amount of time (say 1 or 2 days) after WP:FA. This might off-put the trolls that are inevitably attracted to the very prominent featured article just to embarrass our best efforts. Any thoughts on this? hydnjo talk 04:09, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
After reading all the above discussion related to replacing DYK with POTD, it seems like a number of users want DYK to stick around, but the problem seems to be that there isn't enough material available to keep DYK well stocked with good articles, and in addition, some users have expressed disinterest with selected anniversaries. So why not combine the two and give Picture of the day a permanent spot on the main page? I've set up an example of what the lower half of the main page might look like under this proposed layout. It would involve putting only 2-3 DYKs and 2-3 SAs on the main page instead of the 4-6 of each. Comments? -- Spangineer (háblame) 04:27, July 24, 2005 (UTC)
Loitzendorf is a small village on the highest mountain ( Jauerling) of the Wachau valley in Lower Austria.
Could someone remove the image of the 100 yuan bill from the top of "in the news"? It is an odd juxtaposition with the Sharm el-Sheikh bombing story. - Nat Kraus e 07:35, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
Lance Armstrong is on his way to win his 7th consecutive Tour de France today, after three weeks of racing this July. This is a major, major moment in sporting history. Lance announced his retirement, and it's not likely anyone will win 7 straight again. How about a minor mention, eh?
Let's use a little care when shortening article leads for MPFA inclusion. "Unusually long length" -- urgh. This doesn't appear in any recent version of the actual article. If an article needs substantive changes/clarifications it shouldn't be an MPFA in the first place. Jgm 13:39, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
We could use more additions to the H5N1 page. How about putting it one the front page on the news section? There is a great Wikinews article. Russia found it's first case this week too. In fact I would bet the H5N1 news story will be the most important next to terrorism in the first half of the twenty first century. And our current article sucks! :) We need to draw some attention to it. See the Wikinews article: [17] 70.57.82.114 00:07, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
Can someone with sysop powers change "indentify" to "identify", please ? A link to the Metropolitan Police Service page would be nice, too. Thanks. -- 199.71.174.100 00:25, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
It seems to be policy to protect images on the main page - if so, could an admin reading this please protect Image:BleriotDI11G1.jpg? Not that it's been vandalised, but it's going to be there for a day... Shimgray 00:35, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
Ok, so stupid me, but I have to do this. Lets take this down to such a basic level that even I understand.
Respectfully, hydnjo talk 21:18, 24 July 2005 (UTC)
WP:FA protection
I find that old news is still there. the chinese currency news could be replaced by the quake in andamans. -- Idleguy 07:55, July 25, 2005 (UTC)
Can we have a less emotive word than "slain" in the news section reference to the Stockwell shooting? "Slain" is a loaded word which is likely to be inflammatory. It's not NPOV by any stretch of the imagination. The shooting was a tragic mistake but Wikipedia does not have to (and should not) fan the flames.
I agree. Was about to make this point myself but youve already said it. -- Timmywimmy 16:13, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
I created this page to make it easier for newcomers to know about the goings-on in wikipedia. This is through personal experience; as a newbie it took me 1 week to find the help desk, and I only found out what an FA was in about three months. I think it would be nice if we had a wikipedia:directory link from the main page, so newbies have a better grasp of the goings-on. And yes, it isn't a complete list, please feel free to add any locations of interest. Borisblue 13:13, 25 July 2005 (UTC)
The last "did you know that" lacks a question mark at the end. -- 67.65.113.154 00:53, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Lead item today says Blackface is a style of theatrical makeup that originated in the United States, used to affect the countenance of an iconic, racist, American archetype, that of the "darky". Who was actually being racist, the depictee, or the depictor? Seems like the latter to me, but the article infers the opposite. Moriori 01:43, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
The negative archetypes that comprised the stock characters of blackface minstrelsy played a seminal role...
should be "blackface minstrels" yes?
From
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861630335/minstrelsy.html:
min·strel·sy (plural min·strel·sies)
noun 1. minstrel's art: a minstrel's art or performance, or the profession of a minstrel
2. minstrels' poems and songs: the poems and songs written and performed by minstrels or by a particular minstrel
3. minstrel troupe: a troupe of medieval minstrels
Shouldn't the first sentence read ".... used to effect the countenance of ...."?
News entries on the main page and in Current Events are not linked. They are entered separately, and often main page entries do not appear in the current events. Idealy the main page entries should be the "most important" news entries from the current events, so there should be a way to link the 2 together so they are consistant. Elfguy 12:21, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
News blurb reads "...beginning the first U.S. spaceflight since the...". Should be "...beginning the first manned U.S. spaceflight since the..." or "...beginning the first U.S. spaceflight with a human crew since the..." -- agr 20:35, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
Please remove the wikilink from Incompetence in the News blurb concerning Jean de Menezes. It doesn't link to what you think it does. Sheldrake 02:36, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
I highly object to the word "slain" on the front page - concerning ther shooting of Jean de Menezes. Please remove it. Jooler 07:51, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
Today is the anniversary of the end of the Korean war, I think it deserves to be in selected anniversaries.-- 204.138.115.3 15:37, 27 July 2005 (UTC)