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As I post this, there is a ITN hook about scientists affirming the asteroid theory of the dinosaurs' mass extinction. Is it really so newsworthy that scientists are affirming what is already (relatively) common knowledge? --LucasBrown 03:06, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
An abstract note (don't know whether it fully applies here): news reports on some theory are often treated as "already (relatively) common knowledge" before that theory is accepted and endorsed in the scientific world. Materialscientist (talk) 02:40, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My concern is that the "hook" barely imparts any information on what the paper does, ie. how does it affirm this? New evidence? Review of old evidence? Scientists banding together to generate consensus? It is unclear, and imparts little information. User A1 (talk) 13:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't that what the hook should do? To get one to read the article to find out? urban f o x 09:47, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I read the article and still don't know! It should be clearer as to what they have done, otherwise it is simply fanfare, rather than informative. User A1 (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would also like to add that just because 140 some scientists now declared it to be fact...dosn't really mean anything. I believe that it was an asteroid but the scientist's word is not fact. It is a power they gave themselves. DWood 00:12, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
"partially recognised Republic of Abkhazia"
Is this a precisely defined term? Because the only countries that recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia apart from Russia (which is obviously going to recognise its own attempt to establish new satellite provinces) are Venezuela, Nicaragua and Nauru, two of which are non-entities geopolitically, and all of which are thousands of miles away and have no business in that part of the world whatsoever. Except inasmuch as they gain political advantage by sucking up to the Kremlin.
So I would say 'barely recognised' or 'disputed'. "Partial" to me makes me think at least 20 - 30% of the world's states have recognised the place, not 2%. But perhaps "partially recognised" is a legal term that covers all countries recognised by more than one other state or something. In which case perhaps some more knowledgable editor can clarify. --86.181.239.136 (talk) 11:16, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the best way to describe the situation would be - The Republic of Abkhazia, a state with limited recognition, etc. Denisarona (talk) 17:15, 7 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The level of international recognition of Abkhazia isn't really terribly relevant to that hook anyway - even if Abkhazia was just a breakaway region with no international recognition at all, the news item would probably still be significant enough to make ITN. (On a related note, what happened to the guideline about deaths not making ITN unless they were very untimely/unexpected?) -Elmer Clark (talk) 12:57, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Jyoti Basu (95), Ted Kennedy (77) and so on, a politician dying at the age of 64 is very untimely/unexpected by comparison. :-) --candle•wicke 13:29, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The main difference between this guy and those two guys, is that those two guys were in their positions when they died. –HowardtheDuck 02:08, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think what we need to do is quit hedging on all these these entries. Say what you want to say. This entry could just as easily have read "Vladislav Ardzinba, the first President of the Republic of Abkhazia, dies in Moscow at the age of 64." If anyone wants to know what Abkhazia is, they can go to the article. Whether the entity was internationally recognized or not is irrelevant to the headline; he was the president of it. That's why his death is notable. If it was all just in his imagination, we wouldn't have put him on the front page to begin with.
Every time someone comes in here to pule about how such-and-such is not officially recognized, and so-and-so is disputing the results of an election, editors are falling over themselves to add weasel wording to the entry. It's gotten to the point where we're doing it preemptively at ITN/C, and we're still not getting it right. You can't please all of the people all of the time, so it's better to make sure it's factually correct, and direct the disputes about political correctness to the article talk pages.. KafzielComplaint Department 20:24, 8 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's why someone has questioned the entry - it didn't just read "Vladislav Ardzinba, the first President of the Republic of Abkhazia, dies in Moscow at the age of 64." - it gave extra information which led to the query. If its recognition is "irrelevant" to the headline, why include it in the first place?. Denisarona (talk) 06:51, 9 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
How did you make the actual editing box of the editing space have a red background? I had just been reading up on editnotices and was wondering whether it was possible to affect the shape or appearance of the actual editing box when I stumbled upon this. Is there a MediaWiki namespace page that dictates what editboxes look like? --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 15:36, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It looks white when I log out, so I guess you have to have the ability to edit the page to make it turn red. I think I know how they make it appear different ways to different people, but I still don't know how they affected its appearance in the first place. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 04:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Arctic.gnome, since you're an admin, you'll find that the edit box's background will turn light red whenever you try to edit a fully protected page. That is being handled by the "mw-textarea-protected" attribute of MediaWiki:Sysop.css, as an extra warning to admins who, for some reason, might fail to notice the editnotices that say that the page is in fact under full protection. And yes, as the name suggests, Sysop.css is an extra CSS page that is only active and visible to admins. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:25, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Your internets is in the post. Cheers. f o x(formerly garden) 11:10, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Kathryn Bigelow pic
How many more days is the pic of Kathryn Bigelow going to be posted for????? This is not encyclopeadiac news, is it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.236.227.67 (talk) 00:07, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Where's Lugo when you need him? –HowardtheDuck 00:34, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Please be encouraged to expand either Roman Catholic Diocese of San Pedro or San Solano (or both!) and nominate the expanded article(s) for DYK. We need a good excuse to re-use the Lugo pic on MainPage. :-) --PFHLai (talk) 04:40, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If you have an alternative picture suggestion, please post to WP:ITN/C. SpencerT♦Nominate! 03:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
ya its been 4+ days now... even i want a different picture lol. not that there is any other suitable one available. maybe we need to just put a story to get the picture changed :) -- Ashish-g55 14:04, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We do need a new pic but, as far as I can see, there isn't another one that can be used. Any suggestions are welcome, though. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 14:09, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No. If you want to change something you can mention it at WP:ERRORS. --candle•wicke 20:50, 12 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
what about me can i edit it plz i want to make it better —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.109.210.126 (talk) 02:26, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Candlewicke. Editing the main page is only available to Administrators. If you find an error, report it at WP:ERRORS. December21st2012FreakTalk to me at 02:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You might want to learn how spell first before attempting to edit anything.
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