Talk:Main Page

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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)

Errors in "On this day"

Today's OTD

• File:Equus quagga quagga, coloured.jpg didn't we have a discussion last year or two about false colorization images? How did that turn out? Therapyisgood (talk) 00:41, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

• In this diff, @Ravenpuff: changed "(colourised example pictured)" to "(example pictured)". Z1720 (talk) 00:56, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(August 16)

Monday's FL

(August 19)

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

ok Help

on the back of the dollor bill it says "annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum"

and i looked it up and it translates to either

to nod, approve of a new order of the ages

or

to begin, undertake of a new order of the ages

now what does it mean i think i have an idea of what it means i was just lookin for your opion on this thanks

DJ831415

See Annuit Cœptis and Novus Ordo Seclorum. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

is mainpage all about india

i have been spied on for a mounth. i know because my fiels had been hacked.i have a virus in my fastest computer.tell me how to get rid of them at User talk:Ri0k2008 —Preceding comment was added at 20:22, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

i have visited mainpage after a span of 1 month but still the fa is about india or music or america.why can't you people pick out any other topic for fa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.77.8.14 (talk) 17:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I, for one, am outraged at the blatant Indian/melodic/American bias found throughout Wikipedia. Cigarette (talk) 17:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is so Indiocentric, melodiocentric, and Americacentric... I am outraged. Sbrools ^{(talk . contribs)} 17:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Blame the Indian wikiproject, they churn out FAs faster than Wikimedia's donations reach their target. --Howard the Duck 04:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

An article is only picked to be featured if it meets the criteria. If you or anyone else writes an article that meets that criteria, it can be nominated at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. If it passes, the article will go onto the main page.
In practice, this means that if you write an excellent article about snails, we will have a snail article on the main page. So get working on your favourite topics everybody!
However, the next few days should be to your liking. Tomorrow's FA is Religious debates over the Harry Potter series, a British literature topic. The day after that is William Bruce, who was a Scottish architect. Puchiko (Talk-email) 18:24, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey that's too Britcentric ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.0.114.165 (talk) 20:20, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks god there is some change.after all wiki contains lot of fa's form very diverse topics those can be used here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.77.8.14 (talk) 03:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually we don't have FAs from a diverse range of topics sadly Nil Einne (talk) 06:13, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it is true that due to systematic systemic bias some subjects such as math and philosophy are underrepresented, while others have lots of featured articles (media, music, war). If you take a look at Wikipedia:Featured articles that haven't been on the Main Page you'll see what I mean.
However, User:Raul654 attempts to topically balance the articles (so that there aren't six music articles on the main page in a single week). And remember, this is a wiki. If you write a good article about snails, a snail article will be on the main page. Puchiko (Talk-email) 13:35, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Puchiko means "systemic bias", not "systematic", btw. Tempshill (talk) 20:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I hate typos. Puchiko (Talk-email) 21:24, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

My point is that since we don't have enough FAs from a diverse range of topics, it's not surprising that we fairly rarely have core science articles and articles on China, Africa etc. The claim that many people keep making that we have FAs from a diverse range of topic ignores the systemic bias that exists. It's important that editors and readers understand this because it's ultimately up to editors to overcome this. Raul cannot invent stuff that doesn't exist and although he does a good job of balancing ultimately we just don't have enough FAs on some rather important subjects which is why you rarely see them. Also given that we are growing at a rate of more then one FA per day which is a good thing, editors should be aware that it is never guaranteed their article will make it to the main page. Personally I would hope most editors have reasons more then wanting to see the article on the main page such as making a very high quality article rather then simply wanting to see their article on the main page. Nil Einne (talk) 11:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Well said. Aside, I believe that lots of India FAs is a good thing, it means that we are finally overcoming the western developed country bias. Puchiko (Talk-email) 18:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

but thean you are falling other way there are too many india only articles.although east has large number of cultures.--User talk:Yousaf465 04:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Puchiko was intending to suggest we no longer had any systemic bias. He/she was simply saying that it's good we at least have a fair number of Indian FAs since at least then the Western country bias isn't so apparent which I agree with. Of course we still have a great systemic bias with very few featured articles from many parts of the developing world (outside of India and to some extent Malaysia and perhaps SA if you consider that part of the developing world)... Nil Einne (talk) 08:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this is relevant, but I've noticed that a lot of technical subjects get sabotaged by the large group of technical professionals who edit articles without realizing that Wikipedia's target audience is ordinary people. Good, encyclopedic articles are constantly replaced with terse, technical definitions and graduate-level literature surveys. Understandable descriptions are removed due to ludicrously anal-retentive complaints about them not being precise enough. Words with which normal people are familiar are replaced with more "correct" jargon words most people have never heard in their lives. This might be part of the reason technical subjects have a hard time getting here. I found that I don't have the stamina to out-argue these people. That was how I personally became disillusioned with Wikipedia. Xezlec (talk) 18:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

This is exactly the challenge Wiki poses, to all of us - to bridge the gap between the experts and the educated layfolk, in all fields. It souldn't be a reason for starting the war, though, - there is enough room on the servers for both the intro-level and the graduate-level (why not even the state-of-the-art level, as long as it has been reviewed somewhere?) Simple explanations shouldn't be removed unless they are misleading or wrong, according to an established source. Jargon should be avoided if possible, or at least explained. Xenonice (talk) 03:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

With regards to "In the News", why is "the New England Patriots defeat the New York Giants 38-35" of any notable significance to anyone outside of the USA? 122.105.240.66 (talk) 06:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I came here as a regular reader to ask a similar question. Why does Wikipedia so frequesntly highlight articles on sports which are rarely played outside the United States - such as baseball and American football? There were two today. Statistics or news about those sports are incredibly boring for the rest of the world who use Wikipedia. They tell us, "This is a US site, and the rest of you can go hang." Even if it is a US dominated site, its purpose is dissemination of knowledge. It would be good for many US citizens to learn a bit more about the big world outside, not more about their own little fishbowl. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.16.16.188 (talk) 14:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

It seems kind of butthurt to complain about American sports on the English wikipedia. There are ~300 million American English speakers to whom those sports could be considered relevant, and if we were to work out the numbers, it would probably make more sense to place American sports before any others, and if we deign to say we ought to remove all sports, well we are just being a bit ridiculous--they are news to a great deal of people! In addition, with regard to the specific incident, the football game in question was quite remarkable for a number of reasons ;-)

btw which sport is this ? baskball icehockey or rugby. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yousaf465 (talk • contribs) 08:43, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Basketball scores are usually closer to 100. Ice hockey scores are usually less than 5. Rugby (either kind) is not usually played in the US. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 (talk) 19:27, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Reasoning is given at Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates#December 30. Puchiko (Talk-email) 11:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

For the "haters", don't expect the admins will take this down unless it reaches the bottom. It has stayed for too long on the main page so the only chance for it to be taken down is by the ordinary means. --Howard the Duck 13:33, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

About references to American sports articles on Main Page.(1) Many (most?) US citizens do not follow sports such as baseball or American football. It is absurd to pretend that 300 million people in USA all demand references to articles on those sports on the Main Page. (2) These are minority sports on a world basis, rarely seen outside USA. (Everywhere outside USA, "football" means soccer.) If the Main Page of English Wikipedia reflected the numbers of English speakers, and their interests, baseball and American football would rarely appear. (3) There are a lot of English speaking countries outside USA - UK, Ireland, Canada, much of the Caribbean, Australia, New Zealand, Liberia, Ghana, and very many more. Add all the English speakers in India, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Pacific islands and so on. Now add all the people who speak English fluently as a second language, which includes a large proportion of the EU population and huge numbers worldwide. (4) There's a lot of us out here. And for us the English Wikipedia Main Page references to US sports are cryptic, irrelevant and boring. They tell us that Wikipedia is a US site for the USA - not for us.

Worth mentioning?

Just noticed in the paper, today is the Earth's perihelion- it is the closest to the sun it gets all year. Is this worth mentioning? J Milburn (talk) 17:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Well we don't currently have any events for OTD so it should be fine and the article seems decent enough. But it's getting a little late for this year, maybe next year Nil Einne (talk) 17:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I was going to add it now that the date is unprotected but someone already has so it should be there next year Nil Einne (talk) 11:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Oil price increase

It's not letting me edit the main page for some odd reason, so can someone change the link to Oil price increases since 2003 from Oil price increases of 2004-2008. Thanks! Cyclonenim (talk) 17:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Please see WP:ERRORS & WP:R2D. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 18:04, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Done ... I there's no real reason not to bypass the redirect. The item will probably be on the Main Page for a while. Graham87 02:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. CycloneNimrod (talk) 12:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Iowa Caucus

There seems to be a horrible case of vandalism on the Iowa Caucus page; an obscene picture is floating above the page. Somebody help. BirdValiant (talk) 23:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, it should be good now. BirdValiant (talk) 23:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Comments about the inclusion of the results on ITN moved to Template talk:In the news. violet/riga (t) 14:08, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Insects

Wikipedia's insect photographers must be highly commended for the astonishing string of high-quality insect photographs that have graced the Main Page so often within the past few days. Well done! 70.17.194.247 (talk) 03:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you on behalf of all, check out Wikipedia Commons[1] for a lot more. Ferdia O'Brien ^(T)/_(C) 03:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Man, I wonder how our insect photographers hold those cameras, being so tiny and all (except the praying mantises, but they're still small relative to the cameras). howcheng {chat} 03:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Compared to the problem of figureing out the copyright status of the resulting pics that was a farily minor problem.Geni 14:37, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

editing

why not let everyone change the main page!?!??!?!?!?!--Alex Vogt (talk) 08:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

because someone will replace it with "OMG! LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL" every 2 minutes or so. --Howard the Duck 09:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

That's an underestimate. Remember when Robdubar unprotected it? He did so at 10:04. After 28 revisions (some were reverts of vandalism, but most were vandalism), at 10:12, Deckiller restored the protection. Robdubar unprotected it again, and there were three more vandalism edits until 10:14. That's a lot of vandalism, and it's something we really don't want.
Furthermore, there's not really much to edit anyway, most of the stuff is transcluded. Puchiko (Talk-email) 14:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Well to be fair, a short term unprotection may not demonstrate what things will be like if we permanently unprotect the main page. It may be more (since not everyone may realise the main page is unprotected) or less (since people tend to get very 'excited' when they can do something they can't normally do especially when they know it's likely to be time-limited). And the transcluded argument only goes to a point since clear we can unprotected the ITN templates etc. But you're right that the level of vandalism, whatever it may be will not be pleasant and also vandalism aside can you imagine the edit wars of things like the Iowa caucas results, American football etc that will probably resulton places like ITN? Nil Einne (talk) 16:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The transclusion argument was more like-it's pretty useless to protect Main Page; if we want to make it open to editing, we should unprotect the templates.
Perhaps it's more reasonable to compare this to the protection of TFAs, those are never protected even though few of the IP edits are constructive. Still, I'm against unprotection, I simply can't see the potential benefits. Puchiko (Talk-email) 19:56, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not just vandalism that would be a problem. Well meaning editors that don't understand Main Page protocol, don't understand the relatively complex coding and who simply can't write so well would edit it, and that would not look good on the Main Page. Also, imagine the number of people who would be keen to add their own elements- their own pages to DYK, their own tiny piece of trivia to ITN, their own little made up holidays to SA. As everything would have to be discussed anyway (people would get tired of others being bold on the Main Page very quickly) and so there would actually be no advantage for everyone being able to edit it. Can anyone name one? I know I can't. J Milburn (talk) 12:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm definitely not advocating it but there are definitely some editors who are not currently admins or not yet admins yet will have a net positive effect, for example fixing errors etc without screwing things up, getting involved in edit wars or adding Britney Spears latest dramas to ITN. But you're right that the number of people who will inadvertently or purposely do damage will far outnumber them and it is therefore very unlikely there will be a net positive effect Nil Einne (talk) 12:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Said people will probably end up as admins in due course anyway, and I have no doubt would appreciate the fact that it is in the best interests of the encyclopedia for the Main Page to be edited only by admins. Back to the original poster- Alex Vogt, was there something in particular you wanted to do or change when you started this section? J Milburn (talk) 17:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Hate to ask, how is an NFL story worthy of being part of the ITN section? Timmah86 (talk) 03:50, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

High profile sports records are often shown on ITN. Try WP:ITN/C, Archive for December 2007. --74.13.127.147 (talk) 05:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Cascading parents

What on earth is the point of Main Page/1 thru Main Page/10? If they have a purpose it should be documented here... 86.146.134.249 (talk) 20:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a deterrent against vandalism. Please see Talk:Main Page/Archive 99#Cascading protection backup subpages & Talk:Main Page/Archive 102#Main page/1-10. Perhaps an explanation should be placed at the top of those subpages. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 21:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Protecting children when accessing the main page

Given that kids use this, do we need a reference to pornography on the main page?Andycjp (talk) 09:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOTCENSORED Nil Einne (talk) 11:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Children have a right to a childhood, uncontaminated by exposure to content that is inappropriate for them (cue some smart-ass; "Define inappropriate <smug grin/>"). Nobody is saying that adult material should not be on Wikipedia, simply that it should not be displayed in areas that are accessed unitentionally (ie, the main page). If you want to find out about adult stuff - search for it. If you think children should not be protected, you're perverted. --Oscar Bravo (talk) 08:44, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Why are you letting a small child use Wikipedia? Parents bear primary responsibility for protecting children, which would include monitoring or restricting internet use. Dragons flight (talk) 09:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

What reference are we talking about, here? – Luna Santin (talk) 09:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

If parents don't want their kids seeing certain things, then it's up to them to install the appropriate filtering software on their computers. We can't make pages for any specific age group with specific standards because of the sheer variety of people who use the site. - Koweja (talk) 09:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I would guess it was the DYK about Le Menage Moderne Du Madame Butterfly being "the earliest known hardcore pornographic film to depict bisexual and homosexual intercourse". Generally I agree with WP:NOTCENSORED but perhaps references to hardcore porn, however fleeting, are a little much for the front page. MorganaFiolett (talk) 09:25, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm

No picture for the Featured Article eh?  :) Jmlk17 10:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

We don't have a free image of the subject.Geni 11:20, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I hate the no-fair-use-images-on-the-main-page rule. If we are using the image to illustrate the subject in question, it falls under fair use. It doesn't matter if it is on the main page, it still qualifies as fair use. Puchiko (Talk-email) 12:00, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

that is legaly questionable.Geni 14:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Some previous discussion Art LaPella (talk) 18:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I can provide laws on that case if you wish. I am a lawyer, and a member of the CIC. Dreamafter ^⇔ 19:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Our fair use rules are more stringent than the law anyway. We are not looking to toe the line- we are looking to create a free encyclopedia. J Milburn (talk) 19:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

We could have used a plant or something. Tourskin (talk) 23:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Why was Christmas omitted on the 25th December but included on the 7th January for "On this day..."

I think that someone is playing silly games or is very anti-christian. Could someone sort this silly behavior out. We all know that the 25th is the celebrated day for the birth of Christ (because the actual day is not known). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.72.32.49 (talk) 07:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the 7th January is Christmas day for the Old Calendar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xicsies (talk • contribs) 08:24, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Christmas was also listed "On this day" on the 25th, Wikipedia:Selected_anniversaries/December 25. However, the main source of your confusion appears to be not knowing that the ~250 million members of the Eastern Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas on January 7th. Merry Christmas. Dragons flight (talk) 08:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)