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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 with "In the news"

Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has announced his resignation but does not appear to have actually resigned yet. The BBC reports 'It was not immediately clear when the archbishop would leave his post but the process of finding a replacement is likely to take at least six months.' It may be best to remove the ITN segment until this is clarified. A.D.Hope (talk) 00:16, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

There's a discussion about this on the ITN candidate page. His resignation is the news story, there is always time in between. Secretlondon (talk) 17:40, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates Secretlondon (talk) 18:22, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the discussion can be here. Oppose pulling the blurb, but the wording for the resignation can be changed from "Justin Welby (pictured) resigns as a result" to "Justin Welby (pictured) announces his resignation as a result...." Natg 19 (talk) 19:23, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Errors in "Did you know ..."

Next DYK

• ... that the creator of the Barney & Friends theme song laughed when he found out that it was used in torture at Guantanamo Bay?

Two things here. The Gitmo playlist isn't actually a playlist, according to the article. Secondly, and more importantly, the hook makes the subject seem quite callous when the article it comes from explains that he found it ludicrous. [1] Secretlondon (talk) 19:20, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

• The article title is currently subject to a move discussion, which does not preclude inclusion on DYK. As for the phrasing... the full quote certainly seems to indicate that he felt the concept of music torture was ludicrous: "It seemed so ludicrous that something totally innocuous for children could threaten the mental state of an adult," he says. "I would rate the annoyance factor to be about equal with hearing my neighbour's leaf blower. It can set my teeth on edge, but it won't break me down and make me confess to crimes against humanity". It downplays that these songs were played on repeat, at high volumes, for captive listeners.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 21:47, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I will comment as the original writer of the hook that I was slightly more comfortable with the previous phrasing of the hook that didn't mention torture, but it does seem to be the consensus (Clive Stafford Smith included) that the music was used in torture. I don't think it violates any Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons guidelines, but I am open to changes to the hook. Based5290 :3 (talk) 22:49, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the OP that the wording is misleading in making the subject seem callous towards torture. This seems like a serious violation of our BLP principles. We could replace "laughed" to "considered it ludicrous". JMCHutchinson (talk) 10:08, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

• Changed per above.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 10:51, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  Good damage control. However, the WP article is currently missing mention of the "ludicrous" aspect.—Bagumba (talk) 11:18, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  Sentence now reads "Bob Singleton, the music director of Barney & Friends, laughed when learning of the theme song 'I Love You' being used by interrogators and argued that it was ludicrous to believe it could psychologically alter detainees." I think this is close enough to the hook? Based5290 :3 (talk) 17:20, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

In what sense was Bob Singleton "the creator" of the theme song? According to Barney & Friends the tune was an old, public domain, song This Old Man, and the words were by "homemaker Lee Bernstein for a children's book titled "Piggyback Songs"". DuncanHill (talk) 23:03, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

• He may have brought the two together; the article also mentions that Bernstein ended up pursuing a lawsuit. Would "music composer" be a better descriptor? — Chris Woodrich (talk) 23:31, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

That's the problem, we don't know how to describe him. Arranger maybe? He's not the composer if it's an old old tune. The "Piggyback Songs" book was made up of new words to old tunes, so it seems Bernstein brought the old tune and her new words together. Singleton is not mentioned in this report of the law suit. DuncanHill (talk) 00:31, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

• Wikia has him as music director. I've been looking for an RS that has the same thing.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:38, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

• Alright, his LA-times editorial (from which the "I Just Laughed" quote can also be derived) has "music director".  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Replaced with "... that the music producer of Barney & Friends laughed when he found out that its theme song was used in torture at Guantanamo Bay?" — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:54, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 01:41, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

We've still got the idea that he finds torture funny. Secretlondon (talk) 17:41, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Actually it's fine. It now says "considered it ludicrous" Secretlondon (talk) 17:41, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

• More Gitmo The WP article currently reads:

  Other music allegedly used included songs from AC/DC, Marilyn Manson, Rage Against the Machine, Britney Spears, the Bee Gees, Barney & Friends, and Sesame Street.

  But the hook doesn't convey that Barney was "allegedly" used. Not sure if it's the hook or the article that needs fixing.—Bagumba (talk) 11:28, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  Fixed. Article no longer uses "allegedly", since there seems to be a pretty good number of sources for all of them. Based5290 :3 (talk) 17:09, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

• ... that John Hawks was the first professionally trained architect to stay in the Thirteen Colonies?

  Why him (1731-1790, stayed in the Colonies from 1764 on) and not e.g. Peter Harrison (architect) (1716-1775, professionally trained 1743-1745, stayed in the Colonies from 1745 on)[2]? There's also someone like William Buckland (architect), perhaps others. Fram (talk) 11:40, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  The article says "Hawks was the first professionally-trained architect to practice in North Carolina, as well as the first to reside permanently in the Thirteen Colonies." That's a different claim! Secretlondon (talk) 17:01, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

• ... that the Kaunas Carillon stopped playing music for sixteen years (except for one day in 1941) due to the Soviet and German occupations of Lithuania?

  The Kaunas Carillon hook should not use parentheses.--Launchballer 16:38, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  How would you reword it? All the approved/suggested hooks have the bracketed phrase. Secretlondon (talk) 17:06, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I would move that clause to the front of hook and maybe replace "except for" with "with the exception of".--Launchballer 18:19, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

• With the exception of one day in 1941, the Kaunas Carillon stopped playing music for sixteen years

  This isn't really an error, no? Secretlondon (talk) 18:24, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

It's a violation of WP:DYK200, which says the hook "should also not contain parentheses – with the exception of the media marker – unless absolutely unavoidable". So yes, it's an error.--Launchballer 18:26, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done – Schwede66 18:40, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Next-but-one DYK

• Why "Kingdom of Bicycles" and not "自行车王国", but "məθkʷəy̓" and not "Muthkwey"? Americanist phonetic notation is not written in English or the Latin alphabet, although some parts resemble it, and is unintelligible for probably more people here than Mandarin (or Cantonese or whichever is used). We don't use "Цэцэйхэн" for Checheyigen either, even though that one as well has some recognisable characters. Fram (talk) 11:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  If this were about the title of the article, I would fully agree with you. However, given that this is a hook in DYK, and furthermore is the "quirky" hook as well, I'd be inclined not to say this is a hill to die on. Put it this way - there have been significantly more egregious liberties taken in the quirky slot over the years, that I'd be consider more worth fighting than this one...  — Amakuru (talk) 15:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  That's the attitude that just makes these issues go on and on and on though... There is nothing "quirky" about a hook being unreadable for most readers, and there seems to be no reason why this is done in this case and not in others (and it is a good thing it isn't done in other cases). Fram (talk) 16:59, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  More generally, the article itself does not meet accessibility standards (MOS:OTHERLANG) and MOS:FORITA. Making the hook and article accessible for all readers, instead of most, seems a rather good hill to die on to me. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:23, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

  Speaking of italics, {{lang}} doesn't automatically italicize Halkomelem-language text; AFAICT this is because it considers it to be written in a non-Latin script. If that's correct, then we need to transliterate it per MOS:NOTLATIN. Otherwise, it should be manually italicized. jlwoodwa (talk) 18:36, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Errors in "On this day"

Tomorrow's OTD

• 1969 – Apollo 12 (pictured) launches from the Kennedy Space Center, becoming the second crewed flight to land on the moon.

Pls change "launches" to past tense 'launched'. (And maybe change "becoming" to 'and became'?) JennyOz (talk) 03:57, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Pls add cap to "moon" per MOS:CELESTIALBODIES. JennyOz (talk) 03:57, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Already  Done per WP:OTDTENSE by A.N.Other. — Voice of Clam (talk) 09:39, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(November 15)

Monday's FL

(November 18)

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

"In the United States, the Democratic Party wins control of the Senate..."

Not true. They have won 48 out of 100 seats. The only thing they accomplished was preventing the Republicans from maintaining their majority, which is all they could do ever since the results of the regular elections. "Winning control" hasn't been on the table for them since then. A50E10AN500ER (talk) 13:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

A50E10AN500ER 48 Democrats plus 2 independents who caucus with them equals 50, plus Kamala Harris makes control- and that is how reliable sources report it. 331dot (talk) 13:28, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

How does Harris make control? Does she have an overriding vote? HiLo48 (talk) 23:15, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, she has the deciding vote in the event of a tie. Stephen 23:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining. HiLo48 (talk) 01:14, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Something I need to tell you

The CSD tag on talk was a test to see if a CSD tag can be placed on protected pages, it was not vandalism. --🔥LightningComplexFire🔥 13:53, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Rioters storming US Capitol

When I'm logged out, the page width causes the first ITN entry to appear thus:

Rioters supporting Donald Trump storm the United States Capitol (pictured),
disrupting certification of the presidential election and forcing Congress to evacuate.

And when I'm logged in, the page width is different (I use Monobook), so the entry appears thus:

Rioters supporting Donald Trump storm the United States Capitol (pictured), disrupting certification
of the presidential election and forcing Congress to evacuate.

To me, the first layout is mildly problematic: the second line is longer than the first, making it somewhat less clear where the first blurb ends and the second starts. Yes, I know there are bullets at the left end, but they're less distinctive than when the second line of the first blurb is clearly shorter than the first, as in when I'm logged in. (1) Is this perspective shared by others, or am I unusual? (2) If it's shared by others, is there any way that we could tweak something (maybe with CSS?) so that the first is longer than the second? If this were a permanent thing, I'd suggest that we place a nowrap around certain words so that they'd always appear together, regardless of browser settings, but obviously this would take a ton of time and testing to do manually every time, and the only other way I can envision to force this (tweaking wording of blurbs) would be ridiculous. Nyttend (talk) 13:20, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

@Nyttend: when you are logged out you are almost certainly viewing the page in vector (assuming you are using the web view) - so that is already going to be a big styling difference. This may also vary based on your resolution; we normally would only no wrap items that are very useful to keep together, like the units identifier with a number. Do you want a specific word on this specific blurb addressed - or just want to discuss this condition in general? — xaosflux ^Talk 14:48, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it's Vector. I'm mentioning this blurb only as an example; I really just want to discuss the condition in general. I only brought in nowrap to say "I know this wouldn't work". Nyttend (talk) 15:16, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

This is not fundamentally something we can or should control. Mobile display particularly is damaged by attempts to control where words wrap. --Izno (talk) 15:22, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

So then we can't tell the CSS to render the last line's length no more than a certain percentage of a previous line's length? Nyttend (talk) 15:41, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

No. Certain percentage of container for a specific arbitrary passage. Or start a new line with a paragraph or new list bullet would be ways. Both of which are content decisions and/or impact the total column length of course. All of it arbitrary at that point though. --Izno (talk) 16:48, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

What is "demesne"?

off the main page --Jayron32 15:05, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
In the "did you know" section about Rostellan, demesne should be WikiLinked! I had to look it up.Kokopelli7309 (talk) 03:03, 9 January 2021 (UTC) I don't know about you, but I knew the word "demesne" back in primary school.--WaltCip-(talk) 21:28, 10 January 2021 (UTC) Play some Crusader Kings II and you'll get it. ;) The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 21:41, 10 January 2021 (UTC) I never heard the word before. I'm an American. Its it a British word? Dream Focus 23:05, 10 January 2021 (UTC) It's certainly not common. Wikilinking would be sensible, AND polite. HiLo48 (talk) 23:12, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

The dinosaur and the British penny

off the main page --Jayron32 15:04, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm surprised to see, on the main page under Featured Article, a photograph of a dinosaur tooth, with a British penny for size. I know that happens in articles, but I know that it's specifically discouraged--with good reason. I myself have been to England several times--but now it's been a few years (and I've been to several other countries since then), and I'm trying to remember what the British penny looks like and how big it is. In addition to that, they've changed the size of the penny in my own lifetime. At least, they did so with decimalization; the old penny (pounds, shillings and pence) was about the size of the OLD, CLASSICAL U.S. silver dollar (NOT the current ones). Have they changed the penny since? I'm not even sure. I do know they've changed at least one coin SINCE decimalization. (The five new pence coin was originally the same size as the old shilling, since under the conversion they were mathematically equivalent, so they made the new coin to be interchangeable with the old; later they made a smaller 5 P.) And all this is really extraneous anyway, for someone who has never been there and never seen a British penny. Uporządnicki (talk) 12:16, 10 January 2021 (UTC),, Odd, the old British penny has not been UK currency for nearly fifty years! David J Johnson (talk) 13:12, 10 January 2021 (UTC) It's all pretty pointless given there's a scale on the diagram in any case. The British decimal penny might as well not be there. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 13:20, 10 January 2021 (UTC) Hmm! I see that in my own--uhm--zealousness? to jump on things, I completely overlooked that rather conspicuous detail. I see now that it is the current British penny (I did have to go and look it up--but then I'm fretting about the size of the coin, and not the size of the tooth). Point taken! But I do happen to be well over 50. (On the other hand, by the time I first set foot in Merry Olde England, as a young man, the shillings and the 240 pence to the pound WERE history--albeit recent history.) Uporządnicki (talk) 13:40, 10 January 2021 (UTC) You already have the metric system measurement there for the rest of the world, why not have an American penny so Americans can know the size? And doesn't America have the largest economy in the world anyway, so its penny would be more widely recognized? Dream Focus 14:04, 10 January 2021 (UTC) American penny?? C'mon, just ditch the penny altogether, the measurement is there, we don't need this divisive conversation on whose penny makes more sense. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!!!!) 15:03, 10 January 2021 (UTC) "The Dinosaur and the British Penny"? That sounds like some weird crossover between Batman and Encyclopedia Brown written by Agatha Christie..... and I now desperately want to read that book. --Khajidha (talk) 21:00, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Alt texts

I think, and this also concerns the future of the Main Page (MP), we should include alt texts in images to make it more accessible to those using screen readers. I believe there's a parameter for that on MP templates. GeraldWL 15:20, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@Gerald Waldo Luis: I'm seeing the alt text, for example we have the image File:Peter Badcoe c.1950's P00942.002.JPG and it includes img alt="Peter Badcoe, c. 1954" . Are you seeing something different? If so, are you using desktop view, mobile view, or mobile app? — xaosflux ^Talk 16:22, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Edit number 1,000,000,000 on English Wikipedia

In about 40 hours, two days before Wikipedia's 20th birthday on January 15, we'll reach edit number 1,000,000,000. (See Wikipedia:Time Between Edits#Projections for details.) I think that's a reason to celebrate! Are there any plans to post something to the main page? I'm not acquainted with the processes for this page... — Chrisahn (talk) 05:48, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Didn't we do something similar recently? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 08:40, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Last year we had a red banner underneath the Wikipedia globe logo to commemorate a certain number of articles created. ~ HAL333 14:50, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think this is as "reader centric" as the x'th article being available for main page inclusion; I wouldn't be too opposed to maybe a short duration watchlist notice of "Congratulations on revision X, EDITOR" with a link to somewhere discussing it (WP:VPM maybe?) — xaosflux ^Talk 16:26, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm thinking whatever we're doing to celebrate the anniversary, just mention "and recently received its billionth edit" or something? —valereee (talk) 18:01, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

@The ed17 and Ed Erhart (WMF): was WMF planning any CN banners for the birthday? — xaosflux ^Talk 19:49, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for pinging me! Tagging the community lead for the project Selsharbaty (WMF). Ed Erhart (WMF) (talk) 20:01, 11 January 2021 (UTC)