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 85 | ← | Archive 87 | Archive 88 | Archive 89 | Archive 90 | Archive 91 | → | Archive 95 |
I thought his contract was the biggest of all time? Just H 16:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
What's up with "possibly" the largest sports player contract to date? Is it or is it not the largest contract? Don't we have the firm statistics? Dooms Day349 04:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be simply "Los Angeles Galaxy" instead of "the Los Angeles Galaxy"? Similarly, you wouldn't say the Manchester United Football Club or the FC Barcelona. Dirtybutclean
Do anyone know the real millionth article. The one that we called the millionth is really the 999,999, because the main page is in the mainspace, but isn't an article, thus it was counted in the million milestone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TeckWiz ( talk • contribs) 18:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
(Indent reset) For information about the millionth article, see the Signpost story Millionth article. For information about the half-millionth article, see the Half-million articles story. For the system implemented to determine the 1,000,000th article, see this story "Millionth article preparations". If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 22:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Could Template:Main Page banner be edited to indicate that today is Wikipedia:Wikipedia Day? I can't tell if that's more or less notable than 1,500,000 articles (just another number, just another date); but it would be nice, to indicate this to the masses. Gracenotes T § 01:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Maybe an admin should put up a "Happy Wikipedia Day" notice at {{ Main Page banner}} -- TeckWiz Talk Contribs @ 20:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
...making it one of the most successful independent film in American movie history. should be films. 141.163.51.1 11:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
It states "Anemonefish are born as males and only become females if they rise to the top of the hierarchy?" but the article says they are born sexless and become males if they rise to the top. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.132.76.4 ( talk • contribs) 11:27, 2007 January 16 (UTC).
I introduce a wikilink inter-language between (en) and (haw) on the wiki-(haw) Main page.
Would you do the same therefore the hawaian main page would be linked on (and towards) every main page in any language thanks to the Thijs!bot
it's on haw:Ka papa kinohi so type [[haw:Ka papa kinohi]]
-- BETA-kwAn 13:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
There are four photos on the main page with the option to upload a new version. Suppose this was done. What if the image was something very, very wrong (may I remind you of the mutilated...erm...you know). Would this be possible? If so, can we stop it? Dooms Day349 06:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Any guesses as to when the first "front page topic to cause a long discussion as to why the topic was so chosen" will be? (Some articles will not normally be included, and some won't be "caught" on clicking random article - and there will always be a grey area of topics which cause debate. How easy would it be to set up "an opt in" program - though I cna see there would alost propmtly be an "opt me out of medical/political/contortionist etc categories" squawkfest. The point is that you know what you are letting yourself in for (and don't look at it in the library etc) Jackiespeel 18:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Some pages cause much discussion however "innocent" they are - I was just posing the theoretical question. My comment about the article in question was that it/the image was far more tasteful that some of the things in tabloid newspapers - and that people who "don't mind" more varied access can have it. Jackiespeel 16:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
In my opinion, "In the News" is too biased toward political events, and under-represents space,science, and other events. -- Ineffable3000 04:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there a way to havea background image on a table, I 've posted this in the new commers page and I don't think there is, but I don't want to risk there being a way and I ignore it. --Daniel()Folsom T| C| U 19:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Look under Talk:Main Page/Archive 87#Another type for extra info. Simply south 16:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so some people, as in the last move request, will say it will disrupt the encyclopaedia and such what. That is not looking at the long term, only at the short term. Change the software to hid "Redirect from Main Page", point en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ to Portal:Main page and same with the portal. Having the Main Page in article space is a violation of wikipedia policy.-- Hamedog Talk| @ 09:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Wait, can fair-use images be used in portals?
The Sky
May Be 11:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
My strong support has IMHO been sufficiently explained previously. I don't really with to get too deep into this but if there are any important questions about my previous points, please mention them at my talk page Nil Einne 11:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia has very few hard-and-fast rules. There's really no reason why the Main Page should not stay right where it is. Why break thousands of internal and external links? Redirecting just looks cheesy. -- Nelson Ricardo 13:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I wish people would stop taking this seriously. No, do not move the Main Page. There is no reason for it. If people are looking for information about home pages and they type "main page" into the search box and get back here, they're going to figure out pretty quickly that typing "home page" would be better. Home page is a poor article, and if someone's knows enough about the internet to use it, they know what a home page is. I can't imagine that article gets many visits, certainly not compared to the TWO MILLION per day that the Main Page gets. And all that's irrelevant anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page probably one of the most-linked-to pages on the entire Internet now, so if moved there would *have* to be a redirect to the new title. So the old name wouldn't be usable for anything – Gurch 15:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
The main page is the main page, whether its at Main Page, Portal:Main Page or User talk:Main Page on Wheels!, the same rules would apply to it regardless of its location in the wiki. There are some marginal benefits from a move to portal space as described by ais523 above. However, not one of those concerns matter to the readers. In fact, I think the main page should be at http://en.wikipedia.org and not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (most external links are probably targeted at the former). Likewise in an ideal world the title of the main page as seen in a browser window, should be "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" and not "Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". However as I understand things this would need the devs to change MediaWiki slightly, but at least that has value to the reader.-- Nilf anion ( talk) 16:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
This could also be Portal: Wikipedia. Simply south 16:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually I see no reason not to move it. Just because it's always been here doesn't imply that it always should be -- T- rex 16:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Even if the Main Page is moved (which is almost unthinkable), a Portal is clearly not the apropropriate way to do so. The main objection to the current location of the Main Page is that Wikipedia pages do not belong in the article space; a Portal does not resolve this objection. Another elephant in the room is an article about "Main Pages" which would clearly be a perpetual non-starter, doomed to be an inferior article, accessed mostly by people trying to find Wikipedia's main page, most of whose history would be composed of people arguing about how to add a link to the "real" Main Page in that article. The Main Page is the sole exception to the article space being inhabited only by articles, and not a particularly bad one. It is rootly deeply in Wikipedia's history and thus even this forum is insufficient to generate a consensus suitable for moving it. This should also be taking place on the mailing list, etc. Savidan 19:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
As I said in the last long debate that we just finished, the main page is part of the encyclopedia. It should remain in the mainspace. --- RockMFR 22:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
My only question about this whole thing is whats gonna happen if you move the main page Buford444
The only arguments against this are "tradition!" and that it'd be a burden, but arguing that it'd be a burden is making empirical claims without evidence. The precedent shows that it has in fact been done before and not been a problem, so why not do it here? Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 18:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone considered a move to Wikipedia:Main Page?-- Grand Slam 7 | Talk 20:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Portal:Main page would be a portal about homepages. Whatever name you move it to, there's going to be some oddity causing it to be totally absurd. Both Main page and Wikipedia:Community Portal, which should obviously be at Portal:Wikipedia or Portal:Wikipedia community, predate the portal namespace and have contentedly remained in their original location since the hazy mists. I'm not sure why there is such a sudden panic to move the page, but the rapid-fire nature of the recent requests suggest an attempt to exhaust, rather than convince, the clear consensus to continue as is, as illustrated by the most recent discussion. I don't see the problem that this is purporting to solve. The only real encyclopedic content argument, holding the opinion that the main namespace is the justification for Wikipedia and all the other namespaces are just support functions to keep the real work progressing, to be made is that main page should be a redirect to homepage, which is so problematic that it will probably never be implemented. I don't see the point in having a bot make thousands of disambiguation edits and devs tweak how to handle incoming requests for something that appears to be trivial at best, and that doesn't actually address the issue as it relates to the content. - Banyan Tree 23:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems that Nilfanion's suggestion of putting the "Main Page" at http://en.wikipedia.org/ makes the most sense. It just "redirects" (silently) to the current Main Page anyway. It is in all probability the most referenced external link into Wikipedia (or would that be http://www.wikipedia.org/?). -- Nelson Ricardo 11:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
You can't do this... Wikipedia pages don't actually "exist" as separate files. They're stored in the database and served up on request. All page requests are requests for the same page. Every page, including special ones, is just http://en.wikipedia.org/ with various parameters supplied. There is no page at "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page", it's just a shortcut which is converted into "http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Main_Page". en.wikipedia.org is already a redirect to the Main Page, but the page can't "be" there because it's not something that can be moved, without changing the path for all pages to something else – Gurch 20:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I checked with Brion, and he says that http://en.wikipedia.org/ is imposible, /wiki/Portal:Wikipedia is ok. But I'm still against moving at all. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 01:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with the "don't move it" crowd. This seems a good case to apply WP:IAR. — Quiddity 02:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I was asked for my opinion, and while of course this sort of thing is not directly the sort of thing that I consider Up To Me, I thought it interesting enough to want to weigh in about it. Certainly a hypertechnical reading of some "rules" would suggest that our current naming convention is "wrong". And of course the main page is not an encyclopedia article but really in fact a portal. And ideally it would not be in the article space. However, it always has been, it causes no serious trouble for anyone, and I see no particular reason to change. It is a historical artifact. Certainly arguing for internal consistency within the rules is not much of an argument. The real question is: are there compelling usability reasons to do something extremely disruptive against nearly 6 years of tradition?-- Jimbo Wales 13:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
The main argument here seems to be whether this move would be disruptive or not. I don't think there are compelling usability reasons to make the move; the move would only be a slight improvement. However, I don't think the move would be disruptive, so there's no reason not to do it. As this seems to be the issue, it's probably worth gathering statistics somehow on how disruptive a move is likely to be. -- ais523 16:41, 14 January 2007 ( U T C)
Why not put Main Page in Wikipedia space? - 137.222.10.57 17:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Why shouldnet it be at Portal:Main or Portal:Main Portal? FirefoxMan 17:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Why are we even talking about this? What's the big deal about it being at Main Page. I completely agree with Jimbo's (^) statement of opinion. I suggest everyone read it as well. Alex43223 Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C 18:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
People are complaining about all this work. What work? Moving the page would create a redirect to the new one. This means the [en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org] and everything would still go to the new page. What problems are there? -- TeckWiz Talk Contribs @ 22:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Taking the time to read the opinions regarding this move, and making this contribution here, have kept me from improving wikipedia in other ways. It seems that all of our time would be put to better use not arguing over what something is called when there seems to be no technical benefit, for the most part. But then I'm probably just wasting my time : ) 74.255.97.139 02:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
As for the 'how many redirects are there to the Main Page', here are all the backlinks to the Main Page in the article namespace (these should all be redirects or self-ref dabheaders if people have been obeying WP:ASR):
Some of these (MaIN PAGE, for instance) probably ought to be deleted, and some (Wikkipedia) probably ought to be retargeted (update: it was actually an article with an incorrect link -- ais523). In fact, as they're all cross-namespace redirects, it may be worth deleting nearly all of them; if people here favour that, I may as well put them up for RfD. (I don't expect many backlinks from other namespaces once the templates have been corrected.) Note that one of the links above was an attempt to link to an encyclopedia article (at least how I interpret it), and also note that the Main Page alternatives seem to be in article space (moving these, to Wikipedia- or Portal-space, will probably be less controversial). Before posting this, I looked through some of the more suspicious entries and corrected them if necessary; I haven't checked all of them. -- ais523 16:38, 15 January 2007 ( U T C)
How exactly are we going to come to a conclusion? Also, what are the available options? Simply south 18:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's another reason why the Main Page is in the wrong namespace: a new search engine called Wikiseek has been released ( http://www.wikiseek.com), searching only Wikipedia and websites linked from it. It's clever enough to avoid things outside article namespace (e.g. search for 'current events'), but it finds the Main Page first on a search for Main Page. So it's another example of an automated tool that's getting confused by the namespace; it would make more sense to fix this by moving the Main Page than to patch every tool ever created and that ever will be created. -- ais523 17:45, 19 January 2007 ( U T C)
This discussion is very confused as there is no clear course of action proposed. I suggest that the proponents of a move sit down and work out exactly what they are proposing. Then provide detailed arguments as to why they are proposing that particular action over all the other actions suggested above, while considering all the comments above. A lot of this discussion is at cross purposes. A vote will not resolve this at all. -- Monotonehell 06:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Personally i think it should be left alone, if it ain't broke don't fix it, we should find something that actually needs fixed Buford444
Main Page →
Portal:Main page — Not an article, is a portal, contradicts Wikipedia's policy. Only reason last one closed is because of WP:NOT (as in democracy) and the RM was flawed with confusion about whether it would be at Wikipedia:Main page or Portal:Main page. While this move is highly controversial, it needs to be done as to prevent contradiction to Wikipedia policy. This will not create hundreds of broken links - not many pages redirect to Main Page any way and bots can fix redirects over time.--
Hamedog
Talk|
@ 09:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
WP:NOT Wikipedia is not a democracy. Do not cast a "vote" please state an opinion and an argument. This debate will only be resolved by a consensus.
Bulk of discussion archived here
Okay we're still going around in circles. If someone who cares about this proposal wants to redact (without bias) the arguments into their salient points then you might have a (re)starting point. Otherwise this discussion is no consensus. -- Monotonehell 19:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't trust myself to represent both sides of the arguments without bias, so I'll summarize the arguments in favour, and let someone else give the arguments against. Note that I think even some of the arguments in favour aren't particularly strong, but I'll summarize them anyway. -- ais523 18:46, 19 January 2007 ( U T C)
So that's the case in favour; anyone care to set out the arguments against? -- ais523 18:46, 19 January 2007 ( U T C)
I have added some arguments against but I'm pretty sure I have missed a couple. Feel free to add. But remember that the list being shorter doesn't mean that the arguments have less weight. Jeltz talk 21:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
This argument is getting so long that a new page will have to be created soon so that browsers won't start crashing! Anyway, we've now heard the arguments for and against but what are we going to do? I agree with Jimbo Wales about what the real question is. The real question is: Are there compelling usability reasons to do something extremely disruptive against nearly 6 years of tradition? Personally, I think that the move to Portal:Main Page is a good idea. For the reason, we need to look at what a namespace is. A namespace separates the wiki into different sections as these pages have different purposes. So which namespace does the Main Page belong to? We need to know what each namespace is for. Here is a list of namespaces (excluding talk namespaces (the purposes for those are simple to work out), Special and Media):
Namespace | Reason |
---|---|
(main) | Articles |
User | Pages for the users |
Wikipedia | The running of Wikipedia as a project |
Image | For files |
MediaWiki | System messages |
Template | Pages that can be copied into other pages using a special code |
Help | For people who need help with editing |
Category | To sort pages |
Portal | Pages that are dedicated to show people other pages |
Looking at this, it seems that Main Page should become Portal:Main Page. Also, I think that some tools (such as those on the toolserver) require this. I haven't got any examples, but I will probably give one later. But does this answer Jimbo's question? The debate goes on. P.S. Thanks to Smurrayinchester for showing me how to do make tables here. P.P.S. Evidence of my support for this can be found at wikia:nwn. See, the page name is Neverwinter:Main Page. -- Leon ( talk) 01:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so the question that remains is, is the main page going to be moved to Portal:Main page, or will it stay as is? Simply south 12:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Nobody cares —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 147.188.225.245 ( talk) 09:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC).
Since people coming here to visit Wikipedia wont see "Portal:Main Page" on the actual page and only in the URL field I think it is ok. When they then use Wikipedia a bit it will make more sense to them than the current way. I'm not saying that the Main Page being an exception is hard to learn, but why not fix it so that people don't have to? If it is a portal I think it also would be easier to understand why it can be permanently protected while Wikipedia still being editable by anyone. Generally articles should not protected since that is contra productive to the evolution of Wikipedia, but a portal is a tool for navigation and doesn't necessarily have to be editable by anyone. Jeltz talk 20:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Wow, for the first time an IP summarized the opinions of all of us. Nobody cares. So can we just go back to not caring why the main page is in mainspace after it has been there for several years and is in most of the 701 other WMF wikis? Then we can all go work on Wikipedia:How to use process so that we can all follow a process about the correct way to following a process. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 22:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The "In the News Section" contains a grammatical error. "Defeat" in "Australia defeat England " should be plural. It should read "Australia defeats England". -- Geoffrey Gibson 01:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I still don't think it is correct. Groups of people are collective nouns and are considered singular. Ex: flock, herd, class, group.... all are singular collective nouns and a specified nation would fall into this category. Larry haven 01:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)lary haven
Why is this on every page, was it decided by the marketing department? I don't like it at all, it looks very unprofessional. People keep adding messages like that for promoting whatever, I completely hate it. Imagine a paper encyclopedia putting a message at the top of every page. And where is this discussed, I've never seen a discussion about it? Piet | Talk 11:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
So it's always been there? Gee, I only seem to have noticed today. Probably got out of bed on the wrong foot. Or has the size changed or anything? Pages suddenly looked different this morning. Piet | Talk 16:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Piet, if you want, you can get rid of it (if you don't like it). Just place the following code in
your Monobook css file:
#siteSub {
display: none;
}
...but the site tagline doesn't seem so bad to me. It means free as in freedom, and while Wikipedia is free as in beer (of course, I'd prefer Wikipedia), but they're not the same thing (
Gratis versus Libre).
Gracenotes
T § 22:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Is it just me - or are no images showing up for anyone right now?-- 69.143.167.110 23:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Simple question. M3tal H3ad 07:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I usually read the main page article, unless it is simething very strange (like the pokemon one a hile back(which i read anyway))-- Chickenfeed9 19:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I read the synopsis (and everything else on the main page) daily, and the full F.Article if I'm personally interested (about once a week). — Quiddity 21:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Firstly, I must say that I've been a Wikipedia user/reader/visitor for quite a while now, and like and appreciate the project very much.
My concern is with the general content of Wikipedia (non language-specific). Although officially called an Encyclopædia, I find it more and more difficult to believe that those very, very long articles about TV shows, large companies, etc, are encyclopædic content. Don't get me wrong, I have no objection to the information (that is usually very carefully and completely put together) being available. However, I am tempted to call for a an official separation of Academic content from the Generic - perhaps Wikipedia Academic that would collate content of strictly academic value.
I'd like to hear what others, especially admins & mods, have to say about this.
Sergeroz 09:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not Nupedia. -- Ezeu 15:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Where is the code that makes "Complete list" show up as an interwiki language link in the left margin of the Main Page, at the end of the language list? I can't seem to find it in the code or transcluded pages. Dovi 15:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be a good idea to have a "Collaboration of the Week" on the Main Page. This is a quick way to introduce visitors to collaborative editing and shows them how Wikipedia works. In addition, if there is a topic that grabs the readers' attention, we might gain a few good contributors to the project. Nominations for the Main Page could come from the various Wikiprojects which already organise CotW's amongst themselves. Zun aid © ® 07:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there a way to adjust an image height but not width? Daniel()Folsom T| C| U 01:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
100
px high |
database of Arabic Wikipedia and meta are closed for a long time. Why?
-- 196.202.53.248 12:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Barzan Ibrahim has been on the front page for like 3 days now. somebody please change the photo.
How is this noteworthy news compared to everything else that may have happened in the last 24 hours? A quick perusal at Reuters should give people a good overview of real news that's happened lately. A cynic my well comment that this is indicative of the pop culture road Wikipedia has headed down. Peter1968 14:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
In the Today's featured picture on pi, is the diagram accurate? It seems to suggest that pi = perimeter. __earth ( Talk) 11:41, 20 January 2007 (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 85 | ← | Archive 87 | Archive 88 | Archive 89 | Archive 90 | Archive 91 | → | Archive 95 |
I thought his contract was the biggest of all time? Just H 16:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
What's up with "possibly" the largest sports player contract to date? Is it or is it not the largest contract? Don't we have the firm statistics? Dooms Day349 04:57, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't it be simply "Los Angeles Galaxy" instead of "the Los Angeles Galaxy"? Similarly, you wouldn't say the Manchester United Football Club or the FC Barcelona. Dirtybutclean
Do anyone know the real millionth article. The one that we called the millionth is really the 999,999, because the main page is in the mainspace, but isn't an article, thus it was counted in the million milestone. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TeckWiz ( talk • contribs) 18:49, 14 January 2007 (UTC).
(Indent reset) For information about the millionth article, see the Signpost story Millionth article. For information about the half-millionth article, see the Half-million articles story. For the system implemented to determine the 1,000,000th article, see this story "Millionth article preparations". If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 22:34, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Could Template:Main Page banner be edited to indicate that today is Wikipedia:Wikipedia Day? I can't tell if that's more or less notable than 1,500,000 articles (just another number, just another date); but it would be nice, to indicate this to the masses. Gracenotes T § 01:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Maybe an admin should put up a "Happy Wikipedia Day" notice at {{ Main Page banner}} -- TeckWiz Talk Contribs @ 20:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
...making it one of the most successful independent film in American movie history. should be films. 141.163.51.1 11:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
It states "Anemonefish are born as males and only become females if they rise to the top of the hierarchy?" but the article says they are born sexless and become males if they rise to the top. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 205.132.76.4 ( talk • contribs) 11:27, 2007 January 16 (UTC).
I introduce a wikilink inter-language between (en) and (haw) on the wiki-(haw) Main page.
Would you do the same therefore the hawaian main page would be linked on (and towards) every main page in any language thanks to the Thijs!bot
it's on haw:Ka papa kinohi so type [[haw:Ka papa kinohi]]
-- BETA-kwAn 13:25, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
There are four photos on the main page with the option to upload a new version. Suppose this was done. What if the image was something very, very wrong (may I remind you of the mutilated...erm...you know). Would this be possible? If so, can we stop it? Dooms Day349 06:25, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Any guesses as to when the first "front page topic to cause a long discussion as to why the topic was so chosen" will be? (Some articles will not normally be included, and some won't be "caught" on clicking random article - and there will always be a grey area of topics which cause debate. How easy would it be to set up "an opt in" program - though I cna see there would alost propmtly be an "opt me out of medical/political/contortionist etc categories" squawkfest. The point is that you know what you are letting yourself in for (and don't look at it in the library etc) Jackiespeel 18:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Some pages cause much discussion however "innocent" they are - I was just posing the theoretical question. My comment about the article in question was that it/the image was far more tasteful that some of the things in tabloid newspapers - and that people who "don't mind" more varied access can have it. Jackiespeel 16:20, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
In my opinion, "In the News" is too biased toward political events, and under-represents space,science, and other events. -- Ineffable3000 04:29, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there a way to havea background image on a table, I 've posted this in the new commers page and I don't think there is, but I don't want to risk there being a way and I ignore it. --Daniel()Folsom T| C| U 19:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Look under Talk:Main Page/Archive 87#Another type for extra info. Simply south 16:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so some people, as in the last move request, will say it will disrupt the encyclopaedia and such what. That is not looking at the long term, only at the short term. Change the software to hid "Redirect from Main Page", point en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ to Portal:Main page and same with the portal. Having the Main Page in article space is a violation of wikipedia policy.-- Hamedog Talk| @ 09:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Wait, can fair-use images be used in portals?
The Sky
May Be 11:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
My strong support has IMHO been sufficiently explained previously. I don't really with to get too deep into this but if there are any important questions about my previous points, please mention them at my talk page Nil Einne 11:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia has very few hard-and-fast rules. There's really no reason why the Main Page should not stay right where it is. Why break thousands of internal and external links? Redirecting just looks cheesy. -- Nelson Ricardo 13:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I wish people would stop taking this seriously. No, do not move the Main Page. There is no reason for it. If people are looking for information about home pages and they type "main page" into the search box and get back here, they're going to figure out pretty quickly that typing "home page" would be better. Home page is a poor article, and if someone's knows enough about the internet to use it, they know what a home page is. I can't imagine that article gets many visits, certainly not compared to the TWO MILLION per day that the Main Page gets. And all that's irrelevant anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page probably one of the most-linked-to pages on the entire Internet now, so if moved there would *have* to be a redirect to the new title. So the old name wouldn't be usable for anything – Gurch 15:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
The main page is the main page, whether its at Main Page, Portal:Main Page or User talk:Main Page on Wheels!, the same rules would apply to it regardless of its location in the wiki. There are some marginal benefits from a move to portal space as described by ais523 above. However, not one of those concerns matter to the readers. In fact, I think the main page should be at http://en.wikipedia.org and not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page (most external links are probably targeted at the former). Likewise in an ideal world the title of the main page as seen in a browser window, should be "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" and not "Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia". However as I understand things this would need the devs to change MediaWiki slightly, but at least that has value to the reader.-- Nilf anion ( talk) 16:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
This could also be Portal: Wikipedia. Simply south 16:36, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually I see no reason not to move it. Just because it's always been here doesn't imply that it always should be -- T- rex 16:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Even if the Main Page is moved (which is almost unthinkable), a Portal is clearly not the apropropriate way to do so. The main objection to the current location of the Main Page is that Wikipedia pages do not belong in the article space; a Portal does not resolve this objection. Another elephant in the room is an article about "Main Pages" which would clearly be a perpetual non-starter, doomed to be an inferior article, accessed mostly by people trying to find Wikipedia's main page, most of whose history would be composed of people arguing about how to add a link to the "real" Main Page in that article. The Main Page is the sole exception to the article space being inhabited only by articles, and not a particularly bad one. It is rootly deeply in Wikipedia's history and thus even this forum is insufficient to generate a consensus suitable for moving it. This should also be taking place on the mailing list, etc. Savidan 19:46, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
As I said in the last long debate that we just finished, the main page is part of the encyclopedia. It should remain in the mainspace. --- RockMFR 22:20, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
My only question about this whole thing is whats gonna happen if you move the main page Buford444
The only arguments against this are "tradition!" and that it'd be a burden, but arguing that it'd be a burden is making empirical claims without evidence. The precedent shows that it has in fact been done before and not been a problem, so why not do it here? Night Gyr ( talk/ Oy) 18:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Has anyone considered a move to Wikipedia:Main Page?-- Grand Slam 7 | Talk 20:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Portal:Main page would be a portal about homepages. Whatever name you move it to, there's going to be some oddity causing it to be totally absurd. Both Main page and Wikipedia:Community Portal, which should obviously be at Portal:Wikipedia or Portal:Wikipedia community, predate the portal namespace and have contentedly remained in their original location since the hazy mists. I'm not sure why there is such a sudden panic to move the page, but the rapid-fire nature of the recent requests suggest an attempt to exhaust, rather than convince, the clear consensus to continue as is, as illustrated by the most recent discussion. I don't see the problem that this is purporting to solve. The only real encyclopedic content argument, holding the opinion that the main namespace is the justification for Wikipedia and all the other namespaces are just support functions to keep the real work progressing, to be made is that main page should be a redirect to homepage, which is so problematic that it will probably never be implemented. I don't see the point in having a bot make thousands of disambiguation edits and devs tweak how to handle incoming requests for something that appears to be trivial at best, and that doesn't actually address the issue as it relates to the content. - Banyan Tree 23:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems that Nilfanion's suggestion of putting the "Main Page" at http://en.wikipedia.org/ makes the most sense. It just "redirects" (silently) to the current Main Page anyway. It is in all probability the most referenced external link into Wikipedia (or would that be http://www.wikipedia.org/?). -- Nelson Ricardo 11:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
You can't do this... Wikipedia pages don't actually "exist" as separate files. They're stored in the database and served up on request. All page requests are requests for the same page. Every page, including special ones, is just http://en.wikipedia.org/ with various parameters supplied. There is no page at "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page", it's just a shortcut which is converted into "http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Main_Page". en.wikipedia.org is already a redirect to the Main Page, but the page can't "be" there because it's not something that can be moved, without changing the path for all pages to something else – Gurch 20:04, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I checked with Brion, and he says that http://en.wikipedia.org/ is imposible, /wiki/Portal:Wikipedia is ok. But I'm still against moving at all. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 01:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with the "don't move it" crowd. This seems a good case to apply WP:IAR. — Quiddity 02:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I was asked for my opinion, and while of course this sort of thing is not directly the sort of thing that I consider Up To Me, I thought it interesting enough to want to weigh in about it. Certainly a hypertechnical reading of some "rules" would suggest that our current naming convention is "wrong". And of course the main page is not an encyclopedia article but really in fact a portal. And ideally it would not be in the article space. However, it always has been, it causes no serious trouble for anyone, and I see no particular reason to change. It is a historical artifact. Certainly arguing for internal consistency within the rules is not much of an argument. The real question is: are there compelling usability reasons to do something extremely disruptive against nearly 6 years of tradition?-- Jimbo Wales 13:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
The main argument here seems to be whether this move would be disruptive or not. I don't think there are compelling usability reasons to make the move; the move would only be a slight improvement. However, I don't think the move would be disruptive, so there's no reason not to do it. As this seems to be the issue, it's probably worth gathering statistics somehow on how disruptive a move is likely to be. -- ais523 16:41, 14 January 2007 ( U T C)
Why not put Main Page in Wikipedia space? - 137.222.10.57 17:01, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Why shouldnet it be at Portal:Main or Portal:Main Portal? FirefoxMan 17:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Why are we even talking about this? What's the big deal about it being at Main Page. I completely agree with Jimbo's (^) statement of opinion. I suggest everyone read it as well. Alex43223 Talk | Contribs | E-mail | C 18:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
People are complaining about all this work. What work? Moving the page would create a redirect to the new one. This means the [en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org] and everything would still go to the new page. What problems are there? -- TeckWiz Talk Contribs @ 22:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Taking the time to read the opinions regarding this move, and making this contribution here, have kept me from improving wikipedia in other ways. It seems that all of our time would be put to better use not arguing over what something is called when there seems to be no technical benefit, for the most part. But then I'm probably just wasting my time : ) 74.255.97.139 02:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
As for the 'how many redirects are there to the Main Page', here are all the backlinks to the Main Page in the article namespace (these should all be redirects or self-ref dabheaders if people have been obeying WP:ASR):
Some of these (MaIN PAGE, for instance) probably ought to be deleted, and some (Wikkipedia) probably ought to be retargeted (update: it was actually an article with an incorrect link -- ais523). In fact, as they're all cross-namespace redirects, it may be worth deleting nearly all of them; if people here favour that, I may as well put them up for RfD. (I don't expect many backlinks from other namespaces once the templates have been corrected.) Note that one of the links above was an attempt to link to an encyclopedia article (at least how I interpret it), and also note that the Main Page alternatives seem to be in article space (moving these, to Wikipedia- or Portal-space, will probably be less controversial). Before posting this, I looked through some of the more suspicious entries and corrected them if necessary; I haven't checked all of them. -- ais523 16:38, 15 January 2007 ( U T C)
How exactly are we going to come to a conclusion? Also, what are the available options? Simply south 18:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's another reason why the Main Page is in the wrong namespace: a new search engine called Wikiseek has been released ( http://www.wikiseek.com), searching only Wikipedia and websites linked from it. It's clever enough to avoid things outside article namespace (e.g. search for 'current events'), but it finds the Main Page first on a search for Main Page. So it's another example of an automated tool that's getting confused by the namespace; it would make more sense to fix this by moving the Main Page than to patch every tool ever created and that ever will be created. -- ais523 17:45, 19 January 2007 ( U T C)
This discussion is very confused as there is no clear course of action proposed. I suggest that the proponents of a move sit down and work out exactly what they are proposing. Then provide detailed arguments as to why they are proposing that particular action over all the other actions suggested above, while considering all the comments above. A lot of this discussion is at cross purposes. A vote will not resolve this at all. -- Monotonehell 06:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Personally i think it should be left alone, if it ain't broke don't fix it, we should find something that actually needs fixed Buford444
Main Page →
Portal:Main page — Not an article, is a portal, contradicts Wikipedia's policy. Only reason last one closed is because of WP:NOT (as in democracy) and the RM was flawed with confusion about whether it would be at Wikipedia:Main page or Portal:Main page. While this move is highly controversial, it needs to be done as to prevent contradiction to Wikipedia policy. This will not create hundreds of broken links - not many pages redirect to Main Page any way and bots can fix redirects over time.--
Hamedog
Talk|
@ 09:21, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
WP:NOT Wikipedia is not a democracy. Do not cast a "vote" please state an opinion and an argument. This debate will only be resolved by a consensus.
Bulk of discussion archived here
Okay we're still going around in circles. If someone who cares about this proposal wants to redact (without bias) the arguments into their salient points then you might have a (re)starting point. Otherwise this discussion is no consensus. -- Monotonehell 19:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't trust myself to represent both sides of the arguments without bias, so I'll summarize the arguments in favour, and let someone else give the arguments against. Note that I think even some of the arguments in favour aren't particularly strong, but I'll summarize them anyway. -- ais523 18:46, 19 January 2007 ( U T C)
So that's the case in favour; anyone care to set out the arguments against? -- ais523 18:46, 19 January 2007 ( U T C)
I have added some arguments against but I'm pretty sure I have missed a couple. Feel free to add. But remember that the list being shorter doesn't mean that the arguments have less weight. Jeltz talk 21:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
This argument is getting so long that a new page will have to be created soon so that browsers won't start crashing! Anyway, we've now heard the arguments for and against but what are we going to do? I agree with Jimbo Wales about what the real question is. The real question is: Are there compelling usability reasons to do something extremely disruptive against nearly 6 years of tradition? Personally, I think that the move to Portal:Main Page is a good idea. For the reason, we need to look at what a namespace is. A namespace separates the wiki into different sections as these pages have different purposes. So which namespace does the Main Page belong to? We need to know what each namespace is for. Here is a list of namespaces (excluding talk namespaces (the purposes for those are simple to work out), Special and Media):
Namespace | Reason |
---|---|
(main) | Articles |
User | Pages for the users |
Wikipedia | The running of Wikipedia as a project |
Image | For files |
MediaWiki | System messages |
Template | Pages that can be copied into other pages using a special code |
Help | For people who need help with editing |
Category | To sort pages |
Portal | Pages that are dedicated to show people other pages |
Looking at this, it seems that Main Page should become Portal:Main Page. Also, I think that some tools (such as those on the toolserver) require this. I haven't got any examples, but I will probably give one later. But does this answer Jimbo's question? The debate goes on. P.S. Thanks to Smurrayinchester for showing me how to do make tables here. P.P.S. Evidence of my support for this can be found at wikia:nwn. See, the page name is Neverwinter:Main Page. -- Leon ( talk) 01:26, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, so the question that remains is, is the main page going to be moved to Portal:Main page, or will it stay as is? Simply south 12:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Nobody cares —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 147.188.225.245 ( talk) 09:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC).
Since people coming here to visit Wikipedia wont see "Portal:Main Page" on the actual page and only in the URL field I think it is ok. When they then use Wikipedia a bit it will make more sense to them than the current way. I'm not saying that the Main Page being an exception is hard to learn, but why not fix it so that people don't have to? If it is a portal I think it also would be easier to understand why it can be permanently protected while Wikipedia still being editable by anyone. Generally articles should not protected since that is contra productive to the evolution of Wikipedia, but a portal is a tool for navigation and doesn't necessarily have to be editable by anyone. Jeltz talk 20:50, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Wow, for the first time an IP summarized the opinions of all of us. Nobody cares. So can we just go back to not caring why the main page is in mainspace after it has been there for several years and is in most of the 701 other WMF wikis? Then we can all go work on Wikipedia:How to use process so that we can all follow a process about the correct way to following a process. - Royalguard11( Talk· Desk· Review Me!) 22:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
The "In the News Section" contains a grammatical error. "Defeat" in "Australia defeat England " should be plural. It should read "Australia defeats England". -- Geoffrey Gibson 01:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
I still don't think it is correct. Groups of people are collective nouns and are considered singular. Ex: flock, herd, class, group.... all are singular collective nouns and a specified nation would fall into this category. Larry haven 01:28, 17 January 2007 (UTC)lary haven
Why is this on every page, was it decided by the marketing department? I don't like it at all, it looks very unprofessional. People keep adding messages like that for promoting whatever, I completely hate it. Imagine a paper encyclopedia putting a message at the top of every page. And where is this discussed, I've never seen a discussion about it? Piet | Talk 11:24, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
So it's always been there? Gee, I only seem to have noticed today. Probably got out of bed on the wrong foot. Or has the size changed or anything? Pages suddenly looked different this morning. Piet | Talk 16:33, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Piet, if you want, you can get rid of it (if you don't like it). Just place the following code in
your Monobook css file:
#siteSub {
display: none;
}
...but the site tagline doesn't seem so bad to me. It means free as in freedom, and while Wikipedia is free as in beer (of course, I'd prefer Wikipedia), but they're not the same thing (
Gratis versus Libre).
Gracenotes
T § 22:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Is it just me - or are no images showing up for anyone right now?-- 69.143.167.110 23:04, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Simple question. M3tal H3ad 07:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I usually read the main page article, unless it is simething very strange (like the pokemon one a hile back(which i read anyway))-- Chickenfeed9 19:12, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I read the synopsis (and everything else on the main page) daily, and the full F.Article if I'm personally interested (about once a week). — Quiddity 21:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Firstly, I must say that I've been a Wikipedia user/reader/visitor for quite a while now, and like and appreciate the project very much.
My concern is with the general content of Wikipedia (non language-specific). Although officially called an Encyclopædia, I find it more and more difficult to believe that those very, very long articles about TV shows, large companies, etc, are encyclopædic content. Don't get me wrong, I have no objection to the information (that is usually very carefully and completely put together) being available. However, I am tempted to call for a an official separation of Academic content from the Generic - perhaps Wikipedia Academic that would collate content of strictly academic value.
I'd like to hear what others, especially admins & mods, have to say about this.
Sergeroz 09:17, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not Nupedia. -- Ezeu 15:31, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Where is the code that makes "Complete list" show up as an interwiki language link in the left margin of the Main Page, at the end of the language list? I can't seem to find it in the code or transcluded pages. Dovi 15:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
I think it would be a good idea to have a "Collaboration of the Week" on the Main Page. This is a quick way to introduce visitors to collaborative editing and shows them how Wikipedia works. In addition, if there is a topic that grabs the readers' attention, we might gain a few good contributors to the project. Nominations for the Main Page could come from the various Wikiprojects which already organise CotW's amongst themselves. Zun aid © ® 07:14, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
Is there a way to adjust an image height but not width? Daniel()Folsom T| C| U 01:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
100
px high |
database of Arabic Wikipedia and meta are closed for a long time. Why?
-- 196.202.53.248 12:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Barzan Ibrahim has been on the front page for like 3 days now. somebody please change the photo.
How is this noteworthy news compared to everything else that may have happened in the last 24 hours? A quick perusal at Reuters should give people a good overview of real news that's happened lately. A cynic my well comment that this is indicative of the pop culture road Wikipedia has headed down. Peter1968 14:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
In the Today's featured picture on pi, is the diagram accurate? It seems to suggest that pi = perimeter. __earth ( Talk) 11:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)