Talk:Main Page

To report an error in content currently or imminently on the Main Page, use the appropriate section below.

• Where is the error? An exact quotation of the text in question helps.
• Offer a correction if possible.
• References are helpful, especially when reporting an obscure factual or grammatical error.
• Time zones. The Main Page runs on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, currently 17:14 on 8 September 2024) and is not adjusted to your local time zone.
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• Do not use {{edit fully-protected}} on this page, which will not get a faster response. It is unnecessary, because this page is not protected, and causes display problems. (See the bottom of this revision for an example.)
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Administrators: Clear all reports

Errors in the summary of the featured article

Please do not remove this invisible timestamp. See WT:ERRORS and WP:SUBSCRIBE. - Dank (push to talk) 01:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Today's FA

• "The Jersey Act was a 1913 regulation by the British Jockey Club..." but the article says "Nor was it promulgated by the Jockey Club, which had no authority over registration". DuncanHill (talk) 15:28, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
  • Yeah, the JC did the "passing" but the owners of the GSB actually put it in their book and rules... so ... welcome to the murky world of horse-racing! Technically the British JC couldn't impose a registration rule but because the GSB actually put it in ... it happened. The whole episode was pretty toothless, and in the end, it ended up backfiring and hurting British racing more than American racing. Ealdgyth (talk) 15:37, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
    • The blurb says it was a regulation by the Jockey Club, the article says it wasn't. Should a blurb directly contradict the article it is promoting? DuncanHill (talk) 18:00, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
      • The blurb says "The Jersey Act was a 1913 regulation by the British Jockey Club and the owners of the General Stud Book"
        The lead says "the Jockey Club and the owners of the General Stud Book passed a regulation".
        The body says "At a meeting of the Jockey Club ... proposed a resolution ... It passed unanimously in May,[13] and a new regulation was placed in the General Stud Book". I'm not seeing the contradiction here, but maybe I'm missing something. - SchroCat (talk) 18:17, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
        • It wasn't a Jockey Club regulation. A resolution is not a regulation. It was a Stud Book regulation. The Jockey Club had no authority over registration, and did not promulgate the Jersey Act. The regulation was by the owners of the Stud Book. The Jockey Club might have agreed with it, but it was not a Jockey Club regulation. It was not a regulation by the Jockey Club. DuncanHill (talk) 19:35, 7 September 2024 (UTC)
          • I read it as a combination of the JC and the stud book, which is what the blurb and the lead says. - SchroCat (talk) 19:43, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Errors in "Did you know ..."

Next-but-one DYK

• ... that Mary Jo West compared working in network TV news to learning that Santa Claus is human? we're really going to ruin Santa Claus for children in for the sake of a DYK? Obnoxious and disgusting. Therapyisgood (talk) 15:11, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

We did exactly that last month for Dead Pony and no-one whinged. Wikipedia is not censored.--Launchballer 15:35, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

 Not done as it’s not an Error. And I would suggest that children who believe in Santa Claus are too young to read anyway. Schwede66 16:17, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

So do you want the Santa Claus article to be censored as well? SL93 (talk) 17:11, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(September 13)

Monday's FL

(September 9, tomorrow)

Errors in the summary of the featured picture

Notice to administrators: When fixing POTD errors, please update the corresponding regular version (i.e. without "protected" in the page title) in addition to the Main Page version linked below.

General discussion

Experimenting

I've been experimenting with a shadowing template I created and decided to test it in my Main Page sandbox. Please check it out and give me feedback. ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 23:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. It doesn't work for Firefox. Darn I hate these differences. ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 23:06, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

It works fine in my Firefox, having said that I'm using Firefox 3b5. I took a look, its an interesting effect, might steal it for my userpage if you don't mind. Time to see if the masses like it now :). ☯Ferdia O'Brien ^(T)/_(C) 12:07, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't work for Firefox 2. So people won't like it. I'll try and fix it later some time and let you guys know. ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 14:29, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

What was supposed to happen anyway? I saw little gray boxes at the corners. FF 2.0 user. --Howard the Duck 16:16, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll screenshot it in a few minutes, thanks for the intel on my talk page btw Mistman123. ☯Ferdia O'Brien ^(T)/_(C) 16:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, it appears my work PC is being as useful as ever, so I'm going to have to extend that "in a few minutes" to in a few hours :( ☯Ferdia O'Brien ^(T)/_(C) 17:31, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I made a screenshot for those who have Firefox 2. I'll be trying to fix this later. Maybe after taxes. ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 18:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Well once they roll out FF3.0 there'll be no real need, FF like to make sure everyone is using the correct version. ☯Ferdia O'Brien ^(T)/_(C) 19:39, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

There is actually a significant number of people who use the older versions- see the lower table here. J Milburn (talk) 19:48, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted your opinions on how it looked. I don't think it should be implemented anytime soon anyway. I'm thinking of adding some image buttons and test some other stuff to make it look nice, although I really like the current, simple, nice colored main page. I don't envy any other Wikipedia main pages in other languages. Simple is nice. ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 20:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow... that's actually really nice. I don't think it's completely appropriate for the main page but it's an interesting bit of code, that you can actually get it to do that. Well done. I might nick it for my userpage too, when FF3.0 rolls out, and sod the people who deliberately click 'no' at the upgrade prompt. Just looking at the source... doesn't it add a hell of a lot of code to the page it's transcluded on though? Just for a few images/headers? Any way you could shrink that down a bit? —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 09:19, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

It looks great. I'd agree with this being on the Main Page once a stable version of Firefox 3 is released. The people using the older versions won't be hurt in any way, the only difference for them will be the little grey squares. Puchiko (Talk-email) 16:31, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't look correct in Konqueror 3.5.8 either -62.172.143.205 (talk) 19:08, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Yuck... I don't think it looks too good from the screenshot. Makes everything look too deep and complicated. -Tarthen Blazerken (talk) 08:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Well anyone interested in helping me fix it for other browsers, you can get/copy the code from {{User:Mistman123/Templates/Shadow}}. I don't have enough time to go through the code and test changes in all these different browsers, so any help is certainly welcome. When you get something working please let me know or post your code's link somewhere so I can check it out and possibly copy it back . ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 20:35, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Safari 3.1 doesn't display this alternate page at all nicely, inserting a small two-tone grey square on the bottom right of the box but no further. Bobo. 02:43, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Yep. The template's page has the Safari caveat too. You can help fix it though. ~RayLast ^«Talk!» 03:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Since Firefox 3.0 doesn't run on Linux using wine, I would say ":("--Jahilia (talk) 15:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I think it shall once Firefox 3.0 will be released. Right now, it's not Firefox 3.0 it's Firefox 3 Beta 5. Puchiko (Talk-email) 17:27, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Cannibal Holocaust

I wish to address this complain to those responsible with the daily featured article. I absolutely disagree with the display of this kind of materials on the main page. Keep in mind that censorship has nothing to do and does not harm liberty and democracy. Anybody shares my opinion? Planck (talk) 23:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Negative. crassic!^[talk] 23:39, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm amazed we had to wait so long for a complaint, to be honest. And, for the record, I don't agree with you, at all, and I doubt many here will. Wikipedia is not censored, no matter how much you believe censorship has to do with liberty or democracy. J Milburn (talk) 23:49, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I pretty much agree. I figured it would happen. crassic!^[talk] 00:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

You don't agree with me.. at all?! Well I guess Wikipedia has some policies about censure but I didn't read them yet. I mean I am quite sure a big porn picture would not be allowed on the front page.. even if it illustrates the subject. Right? so how about dropping the at all and explain why you think Cannibal Holocaust is tolerable on the main page. I totally agree with any kind of materials within articles but the front page is immediately accessible by anybody and if you think Cannibal Holocaust is right for children then don't even bother to reply.Planck (talk) 00:25, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but the main page (or any of wikipedia) is not intended to be accessed by children without parental supervision. I suggest you check out our Wikipedia:Content disclaimer if you are unsure about that. Also, I don't see any reason to presume a big porn picture wouldn't be allowed on the main page, if it was necessary to illustrate the subject and available under a free license. Since there are virtually no large porn pictures available under a free license, and since it is almost never necessary to use a big porn picture to illustrate any subject it seems a somewhat pointless discussion in any case... P.S. Having said all that, it looks like it's been decided Image:Michele Merkin 1.jpg isn't going on the main page for now despite being a FP and being up for TFP last year. Nil Einne (talk) 00:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

The concern wasn't that it was too risqué, but just that having a "cheesecakey" image as the POTD casts Wikipedia in a bad light. howcheng {chat} 04:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, the main page didn't even feature an image for Cannibal Holocaust, so I hardly think the analogy to a pornographic image is valid. Nufy8 (talk) 01:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It's probably worthwhile to keep in mind that in most forms of debate, the default option is the status quo - that is, the person who wants to effect a change is the one who needs to put forward the convincing case. (The whole "innocent until proven guilty" thing.) As the status quo is "Cannibal Holocaust is on the main page", it is up to you to convince others that Cannibal Holocaust is an inappropriate article to feature on the main page, rather than it being others' responsibility to "... explain why [they] think [something] is tolerable on the main page." (And while I agree with you that there is an unwritten understanding about what is main page material, "think of the children" isn't part of the current version.) -- 128.104.112.104 (talk) 02:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Pictures displaying nudity (and even child nudity) have featured on the main page before. Would you agree with not displaying material about the real Holocaust? I would say that that was far more disturbing and offensive than this film. J Milburn (talk) 17:25, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I thought the article was very interesting, and provoked some discussion amongst me and a friend. It's something I never could have thought about looking up, which I'm guessing is the point of an article of the day. Like others said, a provocative image might be of concern, but not the printed word. MMetro (talk) 08:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

People of Freedom

This is not the name of the alliance, but the name of Berlusconi party. In the alliance there are Lega Nord and Movimento per l'Autonomia, too. Paolotacchi (talk) 11:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed that's a mistake: the victory was not of Berlusconi alone, but also of Lega Nord, which was decisive for his victory. --Checco (talk) 13:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Pls bring this up at #Main Page error reports near the top of this talkpage. --74.14.21.22 (talk) 16:07, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

This was fixed a few hours ago. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 03:39, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Why is the article on the Battle of North Borneo shorter than the article on the 2008 Kids' Choice Awards?

Please tell me, oh Wikigods.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.19.13.168 (talk • contribs) 15:17, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Because no-one's yet written much in the Battle of North Borneo article. Feel free to rectify this at your leisure. :) GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 15:20, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Yup. Wikipedia's articles are written by volunteers, and those write what they're interested in. But you can make the difference, just hit the "edit this page" button on the top of the page and contribute! Puchiko (Talk-email) 15:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Feel free to write the article. In any case, this isn't what the main page is here for discussing. ffm 16:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd also like to add that length≠quality. The Kid's choice article is mostly a long list of nominees and winners, and the lead is terribly promotional and POV. Puchiko (Talk-email) 21:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Jessica Alba was involved in the Kids' Choice Awards. She did not participate in the Battle of North Borneo. One need not inquire further into why the former topic merits broader (or, at least, more pictorial) coverage (see also WP:HOTTIE). Joe 00:20, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, perhaps we can encourage more celebrities to take part in military actions. I for one would be ecstatic if Paris Hilton were to take it upon herself to walk into an erupting conflict in Somalia or the like. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 21:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Columbine

The Columbine Highschool massacre was today, and that's not worth on this day?? '''[[User:KC109|<span style="background:black;color:red">K</span>]][[User talk:KC109|<span style="background:black;color:red">C</span>]][[Special:Contributions/KC109|<span style="background:black;color:red">109</span>]]''' (talk) 03:25, 20 April 2008 (UTC).

Try again next year for the 10th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. The other 20th century events on the mainpage today are at the 30th and 40th anniversaries this year. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 03:38, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Wait, why does it have to be on the 10th anniversary and not the 9th? I've heard that birth/death dates of significant people are put on the main page on 100 year multiples, but nothing about other anniversaries. So Awesome (talk) 03:42, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

There are 5 slots. And we have to save some for other centuries. The 30th and the 40th anniversaries would be preferred over the 9th, I guess. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 03:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Ludlow massacre (94th anniversary this year) didn't make it, either. Maybe next year? --199.71.174.100 (talk) 03:58, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Celebrating 4/20 as a "holiday" on the front page

I didn't see anyone whining yet so I thought I would be the first. This is worse than the time Newtonmas was up on Dec 25 :/ So Awesome (talk) 03:40, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not for holidays specifically, it just happens to be on this day. And remember (if this is your point) that Wikipedia is not censored. weburiedoursecretsinthegarden 08:15, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Soawesome talking about censorship. I think they're pointing out that this 'holiday' is little more than an excuse to smoke cannabis. However, having said that, I'll take any excuse I can get...once a year is enough for me though....Happy 4/20! Antimatter--talk-- 20:44, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

New Section

Is the New Section tag in discussion pages new itself? Or have I never noticed it before. -24.149.198.53 (talk) 11:17, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

It's formerly known as the "+" sign beside "Edit this page." 119.95.17.214 (talk) 11:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

It got changed and changed back a few months ago too, if I remember correctly. I like the + personally. In any case, this isn't the place- if this discussion is to be continued, I reccomend the village pump. J Milburn (talk) 12:33, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

In fact, it happens that a discussion about this very issue is ongoing at VPP, viz. here. Joe 17:07, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

1820 "on this day"

"French physiologist Louis Pasteur (pictured) and physiologist Claude Bernard completed the first test on pasteurization." Surely it should be "French physiologists Louis Pasteur (pictured) and Claude Bernard completed the first test on pasteurization". the second "physiologist" is kind of unneeded. Ironholds (talk) 12:18, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that error out. You are likely to get a better response at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors instead, so I'll move it there for you :) Puchiko (Talk-email) 12:23, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks for the report. In future, WP:ERRORS would be better, but no harm done. J Milburn (talk) 12:29, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Standardisation of punctuation for anniversaries

Fellow editors. Two days ago, a discussion took place on WP:ERRORS about the punctuation of the top line of the Selected anniversaries section of the Main Page. It transpired during this discussion (see diff) that there is a general inconsistency with regards to the punctuation used in that line. On seeing one of the pages where several days' anniversaries can be viewed (more specifically, the page for April), it became perfectly clear that there is no standard, and that the usage of punctuation is completely haphazard and unregulated. Although the proper anniversaries are quite straight-forward, following the simple guidelines of the Anniversaries page and the Manual of Style, the top line (listing holidays and observances) is more complex. Either commas or semicolons are used as separators, and semicolons, full stops, or nothing at all can be found at the end of the line; one can find all of their combinations with relatively little effort. On the Main Page, it is unacceptable to still have such deficiencies, and even if this is not something obvious when one only sees an isolated version of the page, it becomes so when one starts comparing different versions thereof. For the sake of professionalism, clarity, and good style, I suggest adopting a specific style for the top line of the section.

Here follows my proposal, copied from the above linked to conversation in ERRORS (there's no reason to repeat myself if I still believe the same things, don't you think?):

First of all, I am more annoyed by the empty top lines, where there is a plain "April 5:". What is the colon for, if there are no festivals? If it is for the anniversaries, then there is a consistency problem, because when there are festivals, there is no colon for the anniversaries.

About the rest... Considering aesthetics alone, I should rather go with the guideline for captions: if there is no proper sentence, don't put a full stop. Full stops in festivals do seem a little redundant to me, and sometimes even unsightly, especially when there is just one festival (and the dot is almost lost next to the bold blue letters). For days without festivals, I'd leave the day without any punctuation at all. Generally speaking, I find no reason to show any connection (or separation) between the festivals and the anniversaries; they are distinct elements, both logically and visually.

Semicolons would remain as separators, but two or three festivals in the top line would still not make a complete sentence, so there would be no exceptions to the exclusion of full stops.

What is your opinion on this? Waltham, The Duke of 23:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there is some sort of standard, or at least there was one for the past couple of years: The holidays and observances line should end with a period. If you compare all 366 templates on Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/All, most of them follow this.

The reason that there was a hanging semi-colon on April 19 instead of a full stop was that it was accidentally hidden when the last holidays on the line was hidden.[1] As for the colon at the end of each date, even when there is no holidays or observances on some days, that practice has been followed since 2004 when it use to say "On April 19:", etc.[2] How about reverting to that?

Of course, I noticed there may be inconsistent formatting with the non-Gregorian Calender based holidays. Compare Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March 2 with Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March 20. What do you prefer? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:47, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Be that as it may, the style guidelines have been much refined since 2004; one will notice that there are hyphens in your second diff where today there are en dashes (a significant improvement). Consensus does change, and one should perhaps consider reviewing the practice based on the latest facts. Even if we disregard that unfortunate semicolon, the fact remains that many top lines have no punctuation mark in the end, which indicates an inconsistency; its presence means that the practice of using full stops is neither clear nor fully accepted, therefore there are grounds for a discussion to be held on the matter.

My arguments in favour of not using punctuation at the end are the following:

• The top line does not constitute a proper sentence, therefore it is neither particularly accurate and nor especially intuitive to use full stops. If you will look at the guideline on captions, you will see that full stops are discouraged when captions only comprise what is termed as "sentence fragments". This is what we have here: sentence fragments; in a way, there is already a precedent (and I am referring to a guideline which has been discussed extensively, and most regulars at MoS will recognise this—how much was the full stop in anniversaries discussed?).
• The full stop may look ugly, especially if the sentence fragment is very short and/or exclusively consists of a bolded phrase, which will make the full stop look strangely small; for an example, see April 22.
• Much like the line which succeeds the anniversaries (listing the day in question and the previous and following one), the top line does not have any particular visual or logical connection with the anniversaries. As the top line gives the day and a sentence fragment constituting a brief list of holidays and observances, while below it there is a bulleted list of years and complete sentences describing historical events in a past tense, the logical connection is quite feeble; the visual differences are also perceptible.

As I have shown, not only are there valid arguments for a discussion to begin on the subject, but that the current practice has multiple flaws, which could be better addressed with a different formatting.

Now, to address the rest of the points:

• No, I do not believe we should revert to the "On April 19:" format, as it does not really fit either with the format in which the holidays are written (they would have to be replaced by proper sentences, which are much longer and more awkward) or with the format of the list below.
• Although I had not given it much thought until now, I should say that my preferences lie with the March 20 specimen, as I find it important that the different holidays and observances should be well-separated. In the March 2 example, it is somewhat hard to apply the year to the entire string, and confusion should be avoided. Waltham, The Duke of 00:48, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I have to say that I agree entirely with the Duke's points. The main page needs an audit to ensure consistency in all respects, including punctuation and formatting. Hanging punctuation at the end of a stand-alone line is nowadays not standard (some would see it as sloppy). The cleaner the page looks to our visitors, the more authority it will carry. I encourage diligence in this respect. TONY (talk) 16:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

What's the difference between Culture and culture ?

What's the difference between Culture and culture ?

One has an uppercase beginning; the similarities: they both have nothing to do with the main page and should not be here. 79.66.118.148 (talk) 06:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It may be helpful if you link to or make a copy of what you're talking about. I don't see either on the main page at the moment Nil Einne (talk) 08:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I'd like to see more bacterial cultures on the main page. Maybe some yeast culture also. — Gavia immer (talk) 14:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

You can effect the content of the main page! Write an article about bacteria cultures, and nominate it for FA or DYK. Puchiko (Talk-email) 16:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

News

All the news is set in present sense, this makes reading it confusing. To be gramatically correct it should be in past tense. Can someone please fix this up.

This is in accordance to the ITN guidelines, see Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates and Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Style Nil Einne (talk) 08:21, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, if you want that changing, it would be best to bring it up there. J Milburn (talk) 13:16, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

The whole of main page not archived?

I see each section of the main page like FA, FP, DYK, ITN have there individual archives. But is the whole of main page not archived? DYK is updated every 6 hours. So for each day we should have minimum 4 versions of the main page. Is this done? --gppande «talk» 13:33, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

No, there is no archive of the main page as a whole. People often say "whate did the main page look like at [time] on [date]', but there is no way I know of of setting all the templates to show the whole page, short of manually recreating it by viewing the template page histories, and placing them in a 'main page' copied from the main page history. That said, I don't really see any point in archiving the whole main page. J Milburn (talk) 13:38, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

As you pointed out - people remember the main page as of "date" and "time". This is true for all people - I guess. Because, when a thing is 'dynamic' people remember the 'snapshots' they want. I think, this alone justifies why main page as whole should be archived. --gppande «talk» 15:56, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, there is no reason that the main page as a whole should be archived. It would take a lot of work for little benefit, and the sections are archived individually. ffm 16:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with pande in some extend. In my opinion the history of every page should generate the look of templates as they were at that given time. So the problem would be in MediaWiki, not at en.wiki. This actually exists at www.archive.org --Steinninn 16:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

If you think it's useful, make a bot that looks at the main page every 6 hours or so and transclude that somewhere, then recursively substs every template used on the subpages. Or go to Wikipedia:Bot requests and ask someone to make one for you, it shouldn't be too much effort. - Bobet 22:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

DYK

Shouldn't DYK fall under trivia? Trivia sections are disencouraged, aren't they? Me what do u want? _{Your Hancock Please} 14:13, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

If you think about it, everything is trivia. The FA is an extended version on one of the DYK's hooks. It's how information that's presented makes it not trivia. If information about one subject is presented in a bulleted form under one section that makes it trivial. --Howard the Duck 14:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

It's a bit of a stretch to call that "trivia." It's more like a miniature introduction, formatted to maximize interest.-Wafulz (talk) 16:07, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

{{editprotected}} In the section "Did you know..." under Sheenboro, Quebec there is a spacing error, "trading post onthe Ottawa River" - "onthe" is glueing together. --Rudolf Pohl (talk) 10:14, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This is likely to get a better and quicker response at WP:ERRORS, I'll copy it there for you. Thanks for the report. Puchiko (Talk-email) 10:22, 22 April 2008 (UTC)Oh, sorry already there. My bad. Puchiko (Talk-email) 10:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

There are waaaaay to many pop culture articles on the main page!

Com on guys, this is an encyclopaedia, and I believe that its main purpose should be to present 'knowledge.' For the past months I got tired of how many video games/albums/bands/comics and other entertainment-related articles. I would not mind it, but seriously, of the 2000+ FA articles there must be some that are way more informative than this. I would love to learn something when visiting wikipedia, not to find out about some popular [insert whatever objet or person]. Nergaal (talk) 20:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

We're volunteers. We write about what interests us- pop culture is of interest to more people than whatever you count as real topics. If you want to see 'better' content on the main page, the best thing to do is write it yourself. J Milburn (talk) 21:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Less than one-third of April's "Today's featured articles" that have been chosen so far are entertainment-related, and about one-fourth of March's have been entertainment-related. At what point to you define these articles as too numerous? Nufy8 (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

(ec) In any case, you're exaggerating a little- April so far, we have had 4 pop culture (video game, singer, band, film) two half pop culture (very famous author, very famous actress) 9 history, 4 science and 3 geography. Most of these things would have articles (or significant mentions) in traditional encyclopedias. J Milburn (talk) 21:07, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Time for you to start improving history articles to featured status so they can be on the main page! Chop chop! Grandmasterka 21:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. NEEDZ MAOR KATZ!! Ceiling Cat (talk) 21:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Lolcat article can has ? Joe 00:01, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia is not a blog! Therefore it should not present topics that are usually found in a blog, unless they are truly relevant. Having an article on the main page because "pop culture is of more interest to more people" is IMHO not worty of an encyclopedia.

Having a third of the articles as entertainment-related is huge IMHO. Pearl Jam, followed immediately by Thierry Henry is really unnnecessary. I actually happen to like them both, but I do not believe that they are worthy enough to be on the first page. I am not going to go through the history of the mainpage, but as far as I remember, for the past few weeks, when I entered on the mainpage I did not click on the FA of the day link since they mostly seemed that they would not helped me aquire anything else but pop culture references. Nobody visits wikipedia to learn of Henry.

For example, why hasn't Atom been on the mainpage yet???? Is is a less-worthy topic of an encyclopaedia than Thierry Henry? And really, do not suggest me to "start improving articles" so they can be on the main page since I have done that allready. Nergaal (talk) 00:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, most of the people complaining don't. If there were more people like you, we wouldn't have this issue. 128.227.109.14 (talk) 00:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the Atom talk page, the suggestion there is to push for it to be on the main page on Dec 10, when the Nobel Prize festivities are on. Bencherlite^Talk 00:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that while you should be congratulated for your hard work, you have only contributed 5 FAs. There are currently 2019 FAs and more if you count does which have been delisted. It's hardly our fault if other contributors don't share your view. BTW, before Pearl Jam we had Monarchy of the United Kingdom and then Reactive attachment disorder as you can clearly see from the main page itself. These are hardly pop culture articles by most definitions. Tomorrow we're having Vasa again, hardly a pop culture article. Indeed the only remotely pop culture article scheduled for this month from now on is Peter Jennings. And if you look at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 2008 the number of 'pop culture' FAs is not actually as many as you think. We have for example had Rotavirus and Ailanthus altissima this month. Indeed Thierry Henry is at best only losely Pop culture related. BTW, I think your perception of our readers might be somewhat flawed. One of the reasons why we have so many pop culture articles is because they are of interest to many of our contributors. However you'll likely find many of our readers are in fact quite similar to our conntributors so you will likely find that many of them are in fact visiting wikipedia to read about 'pop culture'. Whether this is good or bad is not really of any relevance. Now I personally do think we should give far greater emphasis to science and more 'serious' related stuff on the main page, but not everyone agrees and more importantly we can only work with what we have and as I've pointed out, despite your hard work you've only contributed 5 FAs which while an excellent achievement will be used up in 5 days. I don't think the backlog of science related FAs is really that large, indeed I'm quite sure the backlog of pop culture related FAs is a lot larger, especially if you start to include things like Thierry Henry in pop culture. Nil Einne (talk) 07:47, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you want us to do Nergaal. Non "pop culture" articles are difficult to write. They require more difficult sources (books and journals vs. news articles), and a degree of expertise, so there will naturally be less of them. It's already painfully difficult to get pop culture articles on the main page, since they're usually given the lowest priority, and they really don't appear that often. It's also a bit denigrating to have someone say "it's great that you spent weeks to bring the article on [famous actress] to FA status, but it'll never see the light of day because it's about pop culture." Is there anything in particular you're suggesting?-Wafulz (talk) 12:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

What? Thierry Henry is pop culture? --Howard the Duck 15:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Nobody visits wikipedia to learn of Henry. On the contrary, about 4,000 people do on a typical day. Oldelpaso (talk) 16:39, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I am so sick of this argument, Wikipedia is NOT a paper encyclopaedia, its NOT a traditional encyclopaedia, and its editors are NOT paid, we feature on the Main Page the featured articles that are available to us, just because some people have selective memory's, and completely exaggerate near non-existent trends in the featured articles that are on the Main Page, these facts do not change. ☯Ferdia O'Brien ^(T)/_(C) 17:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

pro-physics bias

I sense a pro-physics bias in today's main page. Good job. --24.106.44.158 (talk) 12:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

on a related note, isn't the criteria for birthday observances in OTD only limited to multiples of 100 years? Not to take anything away from Max Planck, or the pro-physics bias (which I have no problem with). There seem to be an awful lot of anniversaries/holidays for today, that's all...Antimatter--talk-- 17:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Homepage

I would like to put forth the idea that the Wikipedia homepage be slightly reorganized. By listing links to different languages in order of the number of articles published, it privileges a language's general popularity. If the links to each language were ordered by articles per capita (based on best estimates of each language's population size) Wikipedia would help promote even stronger multilingual editorial communities, overall diversity and the global nature of the system in general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Iwoj (talk • contribs) 17:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

How many times has this been brought up?? Maybe when the German wikipedia hits 1,000,000 this will be an issue, but until then IMHO they should be kept as-is. If multilingual people see a language they want to edit, they will edit it, regardless of how many articles it has. Besides, by the method suggested, small-population language groups will be ranked abnormally high, that is, languages that are unlikely to be well understood by the majority of wikipedians...and where would latin wikipedia fit in? Too many ins and outs. Antimatter--talk-- 17:24, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: hyperlinking headers on the main page

Sorry if this has been brought up before, but having looked for info on TFA earlier, I thought it would be useful if Today's Featured Article?, Did You Know?, etc etc were hyperlinked to the various pages about these sections. Making it easier to get 'into' Wikipedia (rather than merely browsing articles) can't be a bad thing, can it? MickO'Bants (talk) 17:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing you mean wikilinked, as opposed to hyperlinked, but correct me if I'm wrong. I don't know. The sections already have archive links, and archives are clear in their presentation as collections of past articles in the sections. It might be confusing to some if we wikilink the actual section name to the Wikipedia namespace page about it, giving them the impression that a Wikipedia article exists about it. Leebo ^T/C 17:42, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

A wikilink is a type of hyperlink - "A hyperlink is a reference or navigation element in a document to another section of the same document or to another document." -- 128.104.112.85 (talk) 18:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)