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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)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(June 7, today)

Monday's FL

(June 10)

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

Featured sounds on the main page

Signature to disable archiving: ffm 15:15, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I believe it's time to move forwards with adding featured sounds to the main page. There are 98 featured sound files, representing 65 distinct compositions (symphonies and such can contain multiple files because of the various movements) Our statistics are reasonably good, with about a dozen per month in the last three months, and October looking good for a strong increase on that.

And, of course, the greater visibility can reasonably be presumed to attract more people to Featured sounds, increasing these numbers.

This will need some set-up time, of course, so I'd suggest that we start by putting in featured sounds in place of the weekend featured pictures in, say, November or December (I have discussed such a move with Howcheng) and plan on starting a daily run of featured sounds in the new year. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:40, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

What about "featured media" - which would basically be featured sound or video, rather than a picture? Garden. 16:26, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Garden. That sounds a great idea. J Milburn (talk) 16:56, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above editors—given the relative scarcity of featured sounds (which is not a comment on the quality of the selections, of course) and the scarcity of space on the Main Page, folding featured sounds into the current "featured image" selection and calling it "featured media" is probably the way to go. If this is done, the first sound selection needs to be chosen very carefully as a useful introduction to the concept, so I'd advise not going forward until you have a specific selection in mind for it. Of course, that's true even if it's not folded into the featured images, too. — Gavia immer (talk) 17:07, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

This seems rather appropriate to kick it off with - an extremely good quality recording of a song everyone already knows. Raul654 (talk) 17:22, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe, though, that Featured Pictures is already quite a bit behind. I wouldnt mind blending sounds with video, to take some of the load off FPs, but to add sounds permanently to FPs is just going to push things further and further behind. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 17:58, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I'll support a rename of "Featured Picture" to "Featured Media" and the inclusion of sounds, but only if one sound is chosen per composition (such as the first movement of la primavera) for now. ffm 23:13, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking that, as sounds don't take a lot of space, we could probably fit three or four in without too much trouble. That's enough for all but one multi-part sound, and, frankly, we could just take some samples from that one without much problem. In any case, the multi-part sounds are a distinct minority. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:13, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, that's a great idea. ffm 22:38, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

One problem with swapping a Featured Picture out with a Featured Sound is that the FPs currently have about a six-month backlog before appearing on the Main Page. Adding Sounds only increases that backlog. Additionally, there's a lot of technical template work to incorporate sounds, which may or may not be feasibly done. howcheng {chat} 17:03, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

A six-month backlog is a good problem to have, no? Has any thought been given to having two Featured Pictures each day? I wonder if the current stockpile would accommodate that. Then maybe, some days the second Featured Picture space could go to a Featured Sound, and we'd take out two birds with one stone.--Pharos (talk) 20:01, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

A bust of Ludwig van Beethoven taken from his death mask.

Template:Multi-listen start

Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101: manuscript sketch for movement IV.

I like the idea, if it could be implemented, and suggest it begin by pairing this featured sound with either of these featured pictures. (Note that Wikipedia has already done this once on 9/11/2008 when it ran George W. Bush's 9/11/2001 speech (a featured sound) in tandem with a featured picture of the World Trade Center wreckage). Howcheng, you are welcome to push back my featured pictures in the queue in order to mix in featured sounds. That would reduce about 1/3 of the backlog? Durova^Charge! 17:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I think sound-picture paring would work nicely, as right now a bit of space is wasted on the main page for one item. ffm 22:38, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Of course, we wouldn't always have such a neat pairing available. =) But yes, whenever possible. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 22:52, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

As I see it, there's a few ways to do this:

1. 1 Featured media, either FP or FS - this is probably impractical. Too big of an FP queue.
2. Two featured media every day: I'm a little uncomfortable with this, because it wouldn't really advertise the featured sound project very effectively (since the words "featured sound" would not appear, and it gives no firm schedule for featured sounds.
3. Featured picture + second FP Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday-Sunday / FS Monday Wednesday Friday - I kind of like this idea better, simply because, with a simple bit of extra code, featured sounds could be named in the title and links on the designated days. Three Featured sounds a week seems quite possible.
4. 1 or 2 Featured pictures + Featured sound every day: Perhaps in the future!

I would suggest that, whatever we do, that the new inclusion of featured sounds is worth a Wikimedia foundation press release, explicitly encouraging people to submit their sounds. Wikipedia can do sounds very well, which print encyclopedias can't, but we do need to make it known that Wikipedia welcomes and encourages such submissions, or we won't get 'em. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 23:54, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

• Support this excellent idea by Shoemaker's Holiday (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 11:18, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.196.241.102 (talk) 06:48, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

The four-month FP promotion rate is around 10.4/week, slightly less than as proposed above. I don't know how things are going over at FS, but what concerns me is that sometimes we have a lull where the rate drops below 7/week for a few consecutive weeks. Maybe a 10/4 partition?

And how thwould e main page look like when we have a panorama, especially at lower resolutions (800 x 600 in particular)? If I did POTD, I would run only one item those days. This would scuttle more than a few designs in the 2008 main page redesign proposal. MER-C 12:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Featured sounds could probably manage 4/week. Also, figure that some FPs (e.g. that collection of fractals) and multi-part FSes might reasonably take both partitions, and we should be fine, particularly if we set up the code to allow things like panoramas to take up both slots. We'll need to do the extra coding, of course, but if we have the will to move forwards, I don't think that's a huge problem. I'll start setting up a test system, based on the current featured pictures code, using default values to make it backwards compatible. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 14:34, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

That's a very optimistic number on Shoemaker's part. I suppose this deserves background: for nearly three years featured sounds languished with an average of fewer than one promotion every two months. A small core of people brought the process to life this summer and fall, but it really needs broader exposure to become sustainable. I would gladly sacrifice any and all of my FP work if that's what it takes to get a stable featured sound process. That would be in the best interests of the encyclopedia. Durova^Charge! 22:37, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

We've managed about 3/week for three months running. Presuming a bit more participation, 4 should be possible, particularly given the 60-odd sound backlog that will help fill in the gaps while we build things up. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 22:57, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't suppose there's any hope for the idea that WP shouldn't try to cram something into every last square inch of its mainpage? The Mozart example above reminds me of this.

While you may have a point about not trying to cram in too much (media overload), it's worth remembering that Google is a search engine and their main page is intended to be a way to access that search engine. Yahoo clearly consider their main page as a portal and similarly our main page is primarily intended to promote our content not to function as a search engine or be a way for people to access our articles (that is part of the purpose but not the primary purpose). You may want to go to Wikipedia:2008 main page redesign proposal where generally too much whitespace is frowned upon and voice your views Nil Einne (talk) 08:07, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, where does anyone mention Mozart? Durova^Charge! 22:31, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I meant Beethoven, of course. APL (talk) 01:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually we've been working on Mozart too... ;) Durova^Charge! 05:15, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

We're not cramming things into every square inch on the MP - we're just adding something else next to the FP, that won't take up any more space than a panorama. This would be a welcome addition to the project. Dendodge|Talk^Contribs 08:14, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

I fully support this idea; I trust you'll find a schedule that works. I'd also like to see a Featured List, Portal, or Topic a day.--HereToHelp ^{(talk to me)} 03:11, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

The main delay is going to be updating all the templates involved. I'm going to have to try and get a small task force together. At the moment, at 4/week, we can last about four and a half months even if we never promote another featured sound (currently 75 featured sounds), so I think that we should be fine. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:08, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

The name of the page

Why is the name of this page "Main Page" instead of "Main page". General article naming rule says that only the first letter of articles must be capital letter. Bekiroflaz (talk) 00:21, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

This is the Main Page. It's a proper noun, and proper nouns are capitalized. Grandmasterka 00:41, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

If we find main page proper, then "Village pump", "Recent changes" etc. are proper. Because they are not encyclopedia articles, they are special pages of Wikipedia, like "Main Page". Bekiroflaz (talk) 02:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect. It's called "Main Page" for the same reason that it's in the article namespace: because it was created in MediaWiki's default location before our naming conventions existed (and all attempts to establish consensus for a new title have failed). —David Levy 05:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I used "special" to emphasize that it was not an encyclopedia article. Certainly this page is in article namespace. But eventually the most important page on Wikipedia has an incorrect name according to Wikipedia article naming rules. And an inconsequence on the most important page could discourage some editors (like me). Bekiroflaz (talk) 12:28, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

If it's the most important, then, in practice, alternative rules will end up applying to it. I don't think there's any harm in the name being capitalised, as this isn't actually an article, and our naming guidelines have been written for articles. As David Levy has said, this is a hangover from back when the main page was first created. J Milburn (talk) 12:39, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

More importantly, I think this section title needs changing. J Milburn (talk) 12:40, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation problems

Just a wonder, what will happen if someone writes a notable book about Wikipedia, titled Main Page? Domthedude001 21:27, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

The article will be called: "Main Page (book)" - Richfife (talk) 22:28, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

This would work to a certain extent. One would use the search box to type in Main Page, but will be redirected to the Wikipedia Main Page, instead of the book. Perhaps Main Page should be taken out of the main space, and into the Wikipedia space, where it belongs. --Domthedude001 03:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Then they will fail the wikipedia-holic test. ffm 22:29, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I think we would have to seriously consider a very small disambiguation notice, or attempt to get around it in some way. For instance, if there was a book named Main Page, it would probably be subtitled "A Study into Wikipedia Subculture" or something. That way, we could just use the title and subtitle, as we already do on some other articles. J Milburn (talk) 22:37, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Unlike regular mainspace articles, this is the Main Page, and it shouldn't necessarily have a disambiguation page. Main Page (book) will do, but you will never know what someone means when they're typing Main Page in the search bar, unless you want to have the main page the way it is, and then have: This is the Main Page of Wikipedia. For other uses, see Main Page (disambiguation), which would make the Main Page of Wikipedia whack. However, a very small disambiguation notice maybe would work; the only problem would be where to put it, and if people looking for the book can see it, and people not interested can't. --Domthedude001 03:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

If someone announces that they are writing a book about Wikipedia titled Main Page, I suggest we indef hard-rangeblock his ISP until agrees to name it something else :-) J.delanoy^gabs_adds 22:43, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

On a more serious note, is there any way to make it so it will be a Copyright problem if they name it that? --Domthedude001 03:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

No. Titles are generally not copyrightable. The only way they could be 'sueable' is if the name conflicts with another book that would confuse readers into thinking it was the other book. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:57, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Master plan:

1. Write book, call it main page
2. Ask WMF to nicely place a WP:OFFICE action forbidding its being mentioned under the regexp /Main Page*./
3. Sue anybody else who tries to publish a book with this title.
4. ????
5. Profit!

ffm 23:03, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

---

Now en:Wikipedia:Main Page and en:Wikipedia:Main page redirect to en:Main Page. On other Wikipedias it's not that way. For example de:Wikipedia:Hauptseite, es:Wikipedia:Portada and fi:Wikipedia:Etusivu.

Rrupo (talk) 20:00, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

---

To prevent all disambig. problems whatsoever, is it possible that the Main Page can be in the mainspace, but has no title? The only article in Wikipedia with no title. It would prevent all disambiguation problems:

This would be the URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

This would be the edit URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=&action=edit

Talk URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:

Talk edit URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:

etc. etc.

When you hit the search bar without typing anything, it will take you in the main page.

The current Main Page article would redirect to homepage, which provides a link to the mainpage. Domthedude001 20:59, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That could probably work in theory, but why? If there was consensus to move the Main Page, I'm sure you'd find that there are better places to put it. Random89 16:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The reason to keep it unnamed is so it will never face disambiguation problems. eg: if it is renamed to Wikipedia:Main Page, someone could come out with a book with the exact same name (which will also result in a problem with an article being in the Wiki space). This potential problem should be resolved before it occurs. -Domthedude001 19:18, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Books beginning with Wikipedia: are normally have the colon changed for a dash, so it would be Wikipedia - Main Page. I think putting it in the project space would be the best plan. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 19:23, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Time Zone

Are we running off british time zone? cause i have no idea why we would be but it seems so —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.206.181.241 (talk • contribs) at 04:22, October 30, 2008

Yes. Wikipedia has contributors from all over the world, so we use UTC, which is four hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time. J.delanoy^gabs_adds 04:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, UTC (which wikipedia uses) is only the same as British time during the winter Modest Genius ^talk 02:51, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Typos in searches

Thank God. When searching and an incorrect spelling is entered, the software now suggests the correct spelling. Cheers to those repsonsible for the change. OSX (talk • contributions) 06:42, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as I'm aware it hasn't been (primarily?) a software problem for a long time. It's been a hardware issue (adding the feature would have added too much load to the servers). In any case, this has nothing to do with the main page Nil Einne (talk) 15:10, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I think he's referring to the drop-down in the search box, since URL-generating searches still don't even spot capitalisation errors. And yes, this isn't relevant to just the main page, although I'm not sure where this discussion should go (VP technical maybe?). Modest Genius ^talk 02:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah I know it doesn't belong here, but I din't know where to bring it up. What I am talking about is for example if you search for "Wikpedia" instead of "Wikipedia" ("i" character missing), the software now yeilds: "Did you mean: Wikipedia". OSX (talk • contributions) 07:59, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes I thought that's what you were referring to. Nil Einne (talk) 12:38, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Kudos to everyone who made this possible, I know I've been wanting this feature for more than 4 years now. Zidel333 (talk) 16:09, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Articles

What does it take to get an article up here on the main page? Does it have to be FA quality or a DYK article or can it be some article of B class quality aswell? Oh, and I also wonder: does anyone ever vandalise the main page? Because it protected...J.B. (talk) 10:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, all articles on the main page are FA. The DYKs I don't know about. Darrenhusted (talk) 10:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Depends on what article you talk about. Today's Featured article has to be an FA. See Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests for more information. Also, DYK needs to be a new article that is not a stub, or a stub article expanded by over fivefold over the past five days. ITN articles must cover the topic in question, that is, the topic should be updated. Does this help? Zithan (talk) 09:58, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That answers my first two questions, thanks for that. What about vandalism? Are there still admins vandalising the main page? Has it happened in the past (just curiousity)? J.B. (talk) 11:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It has happened. (That user was de-adminned about ten minutes later.) Hut 8.5 11:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Pretty strange though... how one would do all his best to become admin and then does something like that. I fail to understand his motives... J.B. (talk) 11:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The common reasons are 1) an admin account is compromised, e.g. because it has an insecure password (although I think measures have been implemented to make dictionary attacks more difficult so this may be less common now) 2) an admin account is left logged on and someone with (usually) legitimate access to the computer uses it 3) an admin decides to quit wikipedia for whatever reason and decides to go out with a 'bang'. In cases 1 and 2, the admins will usually get their adminship back once they have proven their identity and explained what actually happened Nil Einne (talk) 12:41, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

What happened to that guy, then? Was it reason 1 or 2, or was he going out with a bang (3)? BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 17:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

We don't know for sure but about a month before User talk:Robdurbar he said he was leaving. There was no contribs after until someone started fooling around [1]. This likely suggests it Robdurbar deciding to go out with a bang (whether it was him or he lent his account to someone else we don't know), although it's obviously still possible someone broke into his account. Nil Einne (talk) 19:46, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

This user has gone on several other rampages with admin sockpuppets - see Wikipedia:Requests for checkuser/Case/Robdurbar. Hut 8.5 07:34, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Tomorrow's TFA

Is it true that Tomorrow's (Nov 4th) TFA has yet to be chosen? Aren't these things done well in advance? Justice America (talk) 06:42, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

They are chosen no more than 2 weeks in advance, and no, I have not chosen it yet. Raul654 (talk) 06:44, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Sousa's Transit of Venus

I like it, but the music file is too big for the DYK box. Can we shrink it so as to be more aesthetically pleasing? Thanks. Zidel333 (talk) 07:28, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

mughal emperors

There is no such thing as a 'Mughal emperor', because emperors in India can only be inaugurated by Brahmin priests and an asvamedha. 192.87.123.159 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:41, 3 November 2008 (UTC).

That is not true. See Mughal emperor. --Joshua Issac (talk) 22:29, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

US election candidates on main page

After an extensive discussion at Wikipedia:Today's_featured_article/requests#November_4a that garnered the support of many Wikipedia contributors (myself included), the featured article director, Raul654 decided to run two featured articles for November 4, John McCain and Barack Obama. Any questions one might have about this may be in the linked discussion.--chaser - t 23:23, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

US centric bias

Just because the united states is holding a presidential election doesn't warrant having two featured articles, neither of which can be fully comprehensive as the results of the said election are unknown. How can an article about the next president ever be comprehensive, when his actions as present would be impossible to record until after their term had expired. This is quite frankly ridiculous

• I was going to say the exact same thing. If it has never been clear that Wikipedia is American biased then it should be now. NorthernThunder (talk) 00:09, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry. It's just... our election is more important than yours. Lol. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.98.157.155 (talk) 00:09, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

• What a surprise a comment like that is not signed. NorthernThunder (talk) 00:13, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
  • But does that make it factually incorrect in any way?