Wikipedia talk:Selected Articles on the Main Page

Wikipedia talk:Selected Articles on the Main Page/Archive 1

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Shouldnt Michael Jackson be on the main page as recent news?

Anniversaries

What is the reasoning behind not listing anniversaries of births and deaths under the "anniversaries" section? I think they should be listed when all events have been used up and there is nothing left to list. --Jiang 23:28, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Each day page should only contribute 3-4 events, so I don't see your point. --mav

Why only 3-4 events? Where was that set? I could only find 2 articles for Aug 31, so that is still below your specified range. --Jiang 00:38, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

That's because I haven't had time to update the articles of late - but I will start again for September. Only the most complete articles from the most important events are listed. The Historical anniversaries line is a summary, not a place to put everything that is updated. --mav

But what is specifically wrong about listing births/deaths? Sometimes, the bios of people born/died on a day will be more substantial than the events. --Jiang 06:07, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If we are to list each event once per year, we might as well list each important person once a year. This means we should either list births or deaths but not both. How about listing births for people who are alive and listing deaths for people who are dead? Or just listing births and not deaths unless it was an assasination? --Jiang 01:01, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

What are you talking about? We don't list all events on the Selected Articles section to begin with; just the most important ones that have good updated articles. The great majority of births and deaths are non-events and thus do not merit listing at all. We all are born and all die; so what? --mav

Although there is nothing much to being born, the accomplishments of whomever was born on a particular date makes it worth knowing. We don't celebrate MLK Day or President's Day for nothing. The anniversaries section must be updated as much as possible. If it is no longer the 1st, listing items that occured on that day is just misleading, since the page clearly indicates the current date. --Jiang 01:29, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

If a nation decides to officially celebrate a particular person's birthday, then when that is celebrated we should note that. MLK Jr was listed for this very reason and the article clearly indicated why (it stated the first time MLK Jr's birthday was celebrated). The first time something is officially celebrated is an event in history; thus it is listable. And it is not misleading to list older than the 1st; the day page is just another article that has relevant and timely historical evnents listed. There is no : indicating that the other items apply to the date. --mav 01:38, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It is implied when the current date is listed that the anniversaries pertain to that date. I don't see how this is not implied. With "Sept. 2" being a date and the others being events, it is distinctly set apart to show that somehow it is more important. This is how "anniversaries" work. Otherwise, we should change it to "Week of Sept 1..."

How do you determine what is important enough to list and what is not? Where are the guidlines? I see this as a continum and when we run out of things to list, we should list birthdays/deaths. --Jiang 01:47, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

The day link used to be under the word "Historical anniversaries" but people complained so it was moved. And finding out what is more important is hard and more art than science. For example Hitler did a lot of notable things, but I've only listed him on the Main Page a couple of times since I want to also cover other items. Same for Elvis and many others. Simply adding a few events a day will keep the two anniv lines very up-to-date. There is no point at all to replicate the day page on the Main Page; that is just silly. --mav 01:53, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I am not asking that we list more items than what already exists or create a new category. I am only suggesting that births/deaths be used as backup when there are not enough events for a particular day. How will the day page be replicated? I don't see your point. --Jiang 03:03, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Filling both lines in the anniv section of Selected Articles with events from a single day is essentially recreating the day page on the Main Page. This is not useful at all. Just select (hence the name of the section!) a few notable events per day that are updated and are pretty good. Give users a nice selection of different types of events from different recent day pages. I would even advise against adding events from the current day until the day is over since these events are already listed on the current day page. Back when I was the only person updating this section, events stayed listed for 3-5 days and never were duplicatated on the current day page. I treated the anniv list as a "best of" archive of past day's events. --mav

People should look at the main page and see events that occured on the same day. Events should at most last one day unless if they occured over the course of more than one day (such as a military battle). The whole point of listing an article is because it is an anniversary (American Heritage: The annually recurring date of a past event, especially one of historical, national, or personal importance). It is no longer an anniversary if it happened the day before. If people were expected to look up events clicking on the day link, what's the point of listing all the other articles? It defeats the whole purpose of having such links if they are not listed on the actual anniversary, and not listing it on the actual anniversary misleads people and leads them to believe we are slow on updating. --Jiang 03:24, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Same problem with Recent deaths and Current events. So what is your point? If the name is misleading then lets change the name. You however, are the first person to complain about this so I am confident that others are not so confused. Updating the anniv lines completely each day is a no starter anyway; nobody has time for that. Now I'm going to actually improve Wikipedia now by updating all the year and subject pages for each of the events listed on September 1. --mav

"Recent deaths" and "Current events" are in no way limited to one day. "Current" and "recent" are not words that expire after 24 hours. However, anniversaries only last for a single day.

Nobody? I have time for it...

If one person can make the rules, one person can change them. On the same note, you are the only one defending it. Any input from others? --Jiang 03:40, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

OK, some input from me. The short and sweet version is that I agree with Mav. Tannin 04:27, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

These rules have not been made up by just me either; they have been developed over time through interaction among different people (mostly on talk:Main Page). --mav

Which archive? --Jiang 04:45, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

All over the damn place - I don't have time to hunt them all down for you. I have actual work to do improving Wikipedia. --mav

Nope, I scanned and found nothing. You did, however, direct someone to this page in archive 8 and explained the current policy. How that policy was formulated is not evident. --Jiang 05:01, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't have time to argue or to check the archives and page histories of a bunch of different pages because I would rather work on improving Wikipedia. But the de facto standard is to do things as I and others have been doing. Only you want to change that. The guideline has been in place way before you started working on the anniv section and will be in place until a consensus is formed to change it. --mav

From User talk:Maveric149

I'm working on updating the events linked from October 14 right now. I'll add the best examples from that page as soon as I'm done. For now all October 15th events are already linked via the October 15 link on the Main Page. So they are much lower priority - no reason to summarize a page that is already linked. --mav 06:16, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

We discussed this before. I will repeat - it is no longer an "anniversary" if it happenened the day before. By listing "October 15" as the first item in the list, it is implied that the events occurred on October 15th. Otherwise, we could retitle it "weekly anniversaries" or "week of October 13th". The current setup implies that the list is meant to be a summary of the day's anniversaries, not a list of anniversaries past. --Jiang 06:31, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Actually, come to think of it, maybe getting rid of the current day will be a good idea, since it's not the same date everywhere. --`Jiang

Again, you are the only person who has a problem with this. Might as well apply the same logic to Current events - since they are no longer current the day after (yesterday's news). So although "Recent anniversaries" would be more explicit, it is too long. Any other word we can use other than "anniversaries" that isn't as long? I'm all ears. -- mav

You said the same before, here is my response again: ""Recent deaths" and "Current events" are in no way limited to one day. "Current" and "recent" are not words that expire after 24 hours. However, anniversaries only last for a single day [if the event itself only lasted a single day]."

--Jiang 06:44, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Fine. It's now "Week in history" --mav

Sorry for completely missing this discussion before and coming in a bit late, but I disagree with "week in history". It does not sound correct. "This week in history" would, but that would be too long. I think "anniversaries" makes sense even when it relating to a week, rather than just a day. Angela 05:44, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

I still disagree that listing past "anniversaries" of the same week "makes sense". However, I wouldn't be opposed to the label if mav would stop reverting my updates of actual anniversaries. Not sounding correct beats being factually wrong. --Jiang 06:54, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

"Week in history" was designed to make you happy. If you don't mind "Anniversaries" and the listing of events that did not happen this day, then I think that "Anniversaries" would a tad bit better than "Week in history" (esp. since events very rarely are listed more than 4 days). It isn't the greatest heading and should be replaced as soon as somebody thinks of something better. --mav 11:25, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

New Articles

How about putting Siegfried & Roy in the "in the news' section of the main page? Perhaps the subject of much joking, one can't deny the impact of a major injury to half of an act that brings in forty million dollars a year...

(Warning: self-serving material follows) Can we list Eric Berne in new articles. I threw this together when I wanted to refer someonne to wikipedia and found out we didn't have an article. Regardless, I'm fairly happy with it. ;)...Lou I 20:47, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Whoever runs the Main Page should consider adding Edgardo Mortara to the New Articles list. It's beautifully written. Michael Hardy 00:44, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)

It was created on Oct 23. Many hundreds of even newer articles have added since then. --mav 03:21, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)~

Perhaps it would be appropriate under "Beatiful prose" then? Wernher 01:43, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Suggestion for a new article: Richard Lewontin, a notable evolutionary biologist. Not as well known as Stephen Jay Gould, but at least as important. It was just created a few hours ago. I wrote it, so I'm biased, but it's a non-stub, properly wikified and all that. --Lexor 14:18, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

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Suggestion for recent deaths: Rie Mastenbroek. Jeronimo 12:05, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Done. - user:zanimum

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Suggestion for Main Page anniversary mention in a couple of days: Intel 4004, the world's first microprocessor, released on November 15 1971, i.e. 'celebrating' its 32nd anniversary this year). I have tried to edit the article into a presentable form. --Wernher 01:43, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wernher, in general, your best bet for making sure an article is listed on the Main page under Anniversaries is to make sure it is listed on the day page, in the case of Intel 4004, November 15 (it is). If so, it will most probably be included by a sysop. Keep in mind that it is customary to add the anniveraries after the date itself, ie, the 16th (see explanation in this article), so don't panic if you don't see it listed there when you first login today; it will probably be listed there this evening or tomorrow. -- Viajero 09:53, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)