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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 103.6.159.67 (talk) at 14:19, 2 November 2015 (→The 12:27 articles: fix). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Two proposed messages

This is a combination of two messages proposed to be published once 5 million articles have been reached. The original two pieces are:

Spirit of Eagle (talk) 02:26, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Other languages

I think we should use the opportunity to highlight another aspect of "not done" : articles need to be translated into other languages in order to reach additional communities to those who need access to free knowledge. John Vandenberg (chat) 06:26, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not just that, but also other Wikimedia projects as well. MER-C 18:35, 12 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Feel free to add in language about this translation and to make any other edits you think will improve the page. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 17:42, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Another possibility

A (possibly simplified) version of the Wikipedia globe with '5 000 000' in different number systems replacing the letters: this can then be adapted for future million-points. Jackiespeel (talk) 16:15, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Making sure everyone knows...

About this: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/5 millionth article logo. Eman235/talk 02:13, 21 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Stop singling out individual people and articles

It's not the right thing to do - we have many valued contributors. The 10 millionth person to cross a bridge is NOT important. Samsara 17:19, 23 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I'd support putting a link to the article itself, but singling out any particular editor gives them undue importance. It also encourages competition to be the creator of the article, which I don't think is a very good reason to be creating articles in the first place.  DiscantX 02:38, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly believe that the 5 millionth article should be linked to in this message. The entire point of the upcoming logo change is to celebrate the creation of the 5 millionth article, so the identity of this article is pertinent information that should be included. As for the identity of the article creator, I honestly don’t see the harm. Yes, people will be jockeying to get the 5 millionth article, but I see this as a fun, harmless competition that’s good for community building (much like the Wikicup). I’m less adamant about the article creator getting named in this though, and would have no problem removing it if there is general consensus to do so. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 04:36, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
As the one who put that line in there, I don't entirely mind if someone wants to remove the username (though I still think it's a nice idea), but I think that linking to the article is important. FWIW, this letter's predecessor, WP:4MIL mentions both the 4-millionth article and its creator. --Jakob (talk) aka Jakec 11:11, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't make it right. Samsara 14:48, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If the five millionth article is on some non-notable subject, the creator of the article him/herself, or even an attack page, and the new page patroller who patrolled that page patrolled it anyway despite those issues, or it is sent to AfD or PRODded, it would be an embarrassment. Esquivalience t 16:51, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
If the article is speedily deleted, then it'll of course be the 5,000,001th article that is linked. --Jakob (talk) aka Jakec 16:53, 25 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This is somewhat discussed in the Millionth article FAQ. The counting system for articles is somewhat hazy as it is, given page mergers and deletions. If it's immediately deleted, was it ever really an article in the first place?  DiscantX 01:58, 26 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
How about we "play this one by ear"? If the 5,000,000th article is decent, let things stand. If it is speedily deleted, or otherwise kinda embarrassing, let's simply drop that info from the announcement. This page doesn't have to be publicised immediately upon 5 million right? --LukeSurl t c 15:30, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with LukeSurl's sentiment. If the article qualifies for deletion then we can go with the next article; this assumes that we're actually capable of identifying the 5 millionth article, which may be difficult. In case of ambiguity there may be multiple articles to mention, and/or we may decide to post a footnote with the details. --Pine✉ 20:07, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Won't the WMF make a press release saying what the "official" 5 millionth article is? And whatever the case, this is neither an argument for nor against including the username of the article creator: it's an argument around whether the article itself should be linked from this page. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 12:16, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmmm, hadn't thought about the logo. Personally not fussed either way about how prominently a single article is singled out or not. I tried to have up my sleeve a bunch of articles that could be GA or FA - the main purpose is to highlight how much there is to be written (i.e. that the 5000000th article could have this much detail highlighting what still can be added...you get what I mean). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:59, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Actually have been thinking about this - one way for someone to write is to do it in a stream-of-consciousness way...from Persoonia terminalis to Persoonia to Persoon...or Lawrie Johnson or the little village of Torrington (damn...I drove this way once...). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:11, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Millions, not thousands on editors on Wikipedia en.

Pine, there are over 125,000 active-editors on WP en. alone, and millions of registered-editors on en.

27M may be fat because of some deadwood but it's closer than "thousands".

"Thousands" really downplays the numbers.

Ping me back. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 05:38, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Checkingfax: let me see if I can get one of the Analytics folks to tell me how many unique accounts, including IPs, have made at least one edit to ENWP since the beginning of time. --Pine✉ 05:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Checkingfax: changed to "millions" per discussion on the Analytics mailing list. The discussion there leads me to think that getting more precise numbers is going to be difficult, and would involve considerable discussion and explanations which are more detailed than we should include in the community announcement. So I'm going to leave the description at "millions". --Pine✉ 18:44, 27 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Needs more of a celebratory intro

As it stands the message has one line that actually celebrates the accomplishment of 5 million articles ("The English Wikipedia community thanks the millions of anonymous and registered editors whose 796,651,464 edits over the past 14+ years to the English Wikipedia have made this remarkable accomplishment possible."), and the rest is information on how to start editing. I think the info on editing should stay, but we need to flesh out the celebratory paragraph(s) more. We could include more on previous achievements for example, or references to other milestones such as the millionth article, or give a brief History of Wikipedia and how that has led us to where we are. Doesn't need to be longer than a few sentences to a paragraph or two, but the initial focus of the message should be primarily celebratory, and then we should move on to how others can help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DiscantX (talk • contribs) 07:54, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@DiscantX: I added a bit of history, as well as the Wikipedia:Prime objective quote from Wales, to the intro. I generally agree that more could be said about why we're actually celebrating, and I think it could potentially be expanded further. Mz7 (talk) 21:41, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@DiscantX: @Mz7: I've added a history section. Please take a look and let me know what you think. --Pine✉ 22:20, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a way to mention how many edits we have without technically thanking vandals? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:22, 28 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That gets tricky. We can count the number of non-reverted edits, but even that won't catch all of the vandalism. I think it's understood by most people who are familiar with social media that there will be a certain amount of junk; hopefully the amount of good-faith content that endures is of a far greater quantity than the amount of junk that endures. --Pine✉ 02:03, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In this context, the counts of edits and registered users are irrelevant (and the latter is wildly misleading, given the enormous quantity of garbage accounts). This message's purpose is to explain the significance of the "5,000,000" number, not to impress readers with more big quantities (let alone those that are essentially meaningless). —David Levy 00:42, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's some pretty neat history. I've gone ahead and boldly separated what you wrote into two paragraphs, as it felt like too long to approach enthusiastically for me. Mz7 (talk) 02:37, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A brief history

I really think the page would look better without this section, or at least with the section trimmed down massively. This is a celebration for the English Wikipedia: mentioning Wikidata, de, VE, Commons copyright licenses (!) is tangential. My eyes glazed over and skipped past it, and I'm an established editor already. This section will bore too many people and obscure the overall message of the page, which is "How you can help". At most, I think the section should say:

Wikipedia officially launched on 15 January 2001 on a single computer server. In the first year of its existence, over 20,000 encyclopedia entries were created – a rate of over 1,500 articles per month. In March 2006, the English Wikipedia reached 1 million articles. In July 2012, we reached 4 million articles.
Today, the English Wikipedia gets 8 billion pageviews per month. We are the seventh-most popular website in the world. As well as the English Wikipedia, Wikipedia has 290 other language versions and a total of 36 million articles across all of these sites. The English Wikipedia is the first Wikipedia language to reach 5 million articles, and we did so on [date].

— Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 09:20, 29 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Page style

The new font yells at me on my laptop. Everything looks bold and the bold no longer pops out. I preferred the crisper oversized font we started out with. Can we switch back? Other than that, it's looking great. We should hit 5M tonight or tomorrow morning. Great job, folks. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 20:53, 31 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Press contacts section

Is there a reason {{•}} is used instead of {{flatlist}}? Eman235/talk 02:26, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I presume because the former contains a non-breaking space on the left side of the bullet while the latter doesn't. Opencooper (talk) 13:53, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thread for determining 5 millionth article

5000000
Another screenshot from 5,000,010th.
9 left, look at Sumo (book) - 4,999,991 article
and 16+, look at Sumo (book) and Persoonia terminalis

Since we are probably hitting it soon, this thread is to discuss how to determine the 5 millionth article. Some notes to help:

  • There is an annotated creation log that contains article count next to newest article.
  • Both Special:NewPagesFeed and Special:NewPages have a list of new pages
  • However...
    • Because of creations with simultaneous deletions, vandalism or patent nonsense, it may take some time for the results to stabilize and sort out a 5 millionth article.
    • It is perhaps more art then science in determining what the community deems the 5 millionth article

-- Fuzheado | Talk 11:47, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are the community 'choosing' the 5 millionth article? I assumed the WMF would say what the 'official' 5 millionth article was in a press release. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 11:51, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'd assume the WMF will use whichever article we decide on. It's going to be hard because presumably the 5 millionth will change when any article created before now is deleted as well as any which might fill the 5 millionth slot? Sam Walton (talk) 11:53, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Er, I'd think the WMF press release would mirror what we are saying and not the other way around. -- Fuzheado | Talk 12:00, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I have added this, hope it helps. Don't close the tab without saving the log and the NUMBEROFARTICLES value in top ;-). emijrp (talk) 12:07, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Someone has a bot/script chugging through a database of towns in Turkey, so that's very likely going to be our 5M. We'll see. -- Fuzheado | Talk 12:14, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This one Persoonia terminalis? File:English Wikipedia 5 million article log.png. emijrp (talk) 12:28, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

By my count, #5,000,000 was Church of St Andrew, Blagdon. —David Levy 12:32, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Going by this, if we assume that "5000008: Church of St Swithin, Bath" is accurate, counting back 8 places gives us the 5 millionth article of Olympus Zuiko Digital 11-22mm f/2.8-3.5. Not very catchy. Where did you two get those articles from? — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 12:33, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I've misunderstood how that tool works. Yep, Persoonia terminalis looks like #5,000,000. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 12:49, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've been watching the countdown and was waiting for the sprint finish. Dr. Blofeld seemed to start first with about 250 to go and had a stack of villages in Turkey. Then Casliber joined in soon with a stack of species. The two them were then slugging it out for most of the final straight with dominance shifting as their buffers surged and flushed. I had three articles prepared and was planning to snipe at the end, refreshing this page to judge the timing. I jumped in with 21 to go and it seemed that others had a similar idea as there was a big surge at the end. Figuring out the 5 millionth will be tricky - does the Wikimedia software not have an internal counter? Andrew D. (talk) 12:37, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Haha, honestly though I wasn't going for the 5 millionth article, I just wanted to display a positive outlook as we approached it. In fact it was only when you pinged me I realised we'd easily passed it! If I did get it it would be a bonus of course ;-)♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:41, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In IRC (#wikipedia-en) we are hypothesizing that Persoonia_terminalis is the 5M. Can you folks check the math? Or drop by IRC #wikipedia-en -- Fuzheado | Talk 12:39, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I miscounted by one. Upon further review, I'm getting Persoonia terminalis as #5,000,000 as well. —David Levy 12:43, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it's not hard to figure out at all and whatever was the newest article the first time it reached 5,000,000 is the winner. Unless that gets deleted quickly in which case the next one that doesn't get deleted quickly wins. There's at least 5 articles centered on what I think was 5 million that don't look embarrassing to WP like a porn star or something so we might be 5 for 5 in not having a difficult choice to make. It can't keep changing for years into the future when one of those original 5 million get merged or something. WP:millionth article FAQ Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 12:40, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also 100,000 500,000 and 1.5 and 2.5 million are known and not embarrassing so we're 9 for 9. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 12:47, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

9ec X 2) Surely it is a matter of aligning the log of new pages with deletions...oh and those pesky drafts.....and userfied articles...and....(I didn't even get a chance to fire off all the damn Eucalypts of New South Wales yet :P....damn)

I tried to pick articles I could get to FA status at some point...to sho the world that we could FAC the 5000000th....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:41, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]


Showing my math, going by [1] which showed Venezuela Municipal Museum at 4999994:

-- Fuzheado | Talk 12:42, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations Casliber!♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:45, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, thanks folks.... :)))). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:47, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations to all :-) emijrp (talk) 12:56, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's worth noting that both Dr. Blofeld and Casliber were busy with the mass creation of stubs (on villages in Turkey, and species of shrubs, respectively) three years ago as well, in the run up to the four millionth article. 223.227.116.203 (talk) 17:21, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Amazing!

I fortunately woke up just in time to watch the exponential growth start and to finish off the last draft. I've got to say, it was amazing to watch the exponential growth, especially in the last 30 or 40 articles. Things really picked up; looks like we were doing 2-3 per second. And in the second when it happened, it looks like 14 articles were created! Spectacular. --Jakob (talk) aka Jakec 13:03, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well done all. Now only if all the one-line articles created in those frenetic minutes could be expanded. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.192.184.248 (talk) 13:15, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As much as I love photography, I'm glad the 5M article was not a free ad for Tamron or Sigma lenses. :) -- Fuzheado | Talk 13:48, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Agree @Fuzheado: Must dust of my Tamron 80-210 & SLR film camera, which I haven't used since .... (can't remember!) 220 of Borg 15:08, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Five million articles is linked to from the main page, but it's not actually hugely noticeable. If we can't get the link from clicking on the logo to lead here, is there any other way of helping readers to find their way here? Maybe some redirects like 5,000,000 articles (or hatnotes from pages like 5 Million that already exist)? I'm not really sure many people will get to this page from {{Main page banner}}. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 13:23, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki:Sitenotice is shown in the top of all pages. Not sure if we should use it. emijrp (talk) 13:33, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would if it was my choice alone, but there's not really been any consensus to use it. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 13:38, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Glitch with the milestone template

Template:Million milestones has already been edited to reflect the five-millionth article, but the only milestone article talk pages where it shows up are the talks of Forced settlements in the Soviet Union and Beate Eriksen. It doesn't show up on the talks of the other milestone articles. TVShowFan122 (talk) 13:34, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Purging the talk pages fixes this. — Bilorv(talk)(c)(e) 13:39, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Vital articles

Is it really a good idea to direct new editors to our vital articles? These articles are usually larger in scope, require knowledge of what constitutes a reliable source, need a good grasp of writing from a neutral point-of-view, and are much more likely to be reverted on. I propose that we instead replace that link with a link to our stubs. Opencooper (talk) 14:05, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Press contacts

Are all of those affiliates listed at the bottom skilled at dealing with the press? Tony (talk) 14:10, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Logo duration

Is there a consensus somewhere as to how long the celebratory logo should stay? Sam Walton (talk) 15:45, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The WMF doesn't want us to keep it up for more than a day, I think, so I guess it would be 24 hours. --Jakob (talk) aka Jakec 15:48, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say it'd be a shame to have it only be up from Sunday morning (US time) to Monday morning. We should have it on for at least a whole weekday workday so people see it. I'd say we should keep it up until at least Tuesday noon (East coast US time). Let's not be too deferential to some notion of what the "proper" logo is, whatever that means. -- Fuzheado | Talk 22:15, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah given when its fallen extending it to a full working day seams reasonable.©Geni (talk) 22:50, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How was it done to show the logo on there? Seems this one does not reflect in File:Wiki.png. Shinjiman ⇔ ♨ 00:45, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Shinjiman: It's using a CSS property and not changing the PNG. See this section for more: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/5_millionth_article_logo#Implementation -- Fuzheado | Talk 01:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations!

Congratulation to you all from Italy! Great job, we're now ready for the next 5,000,000 articles! The English Wikipedia is a beacon of hope in this world of overflowing information and yet widespread ignorance, and a guiding light for each other Wikimedia project. Let's celebrate this November 1 the millions "saints" who donated part of their time, thus their very life, in the creation of this tool of freedom, and gave it to future generations. :-) --Phyrexian ɸ 17:51, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Whoooah~~!! Happy Hallowmas!! -- SzMithrandir (talk) 18:03, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulation form Russia! Keep the good work! --Slb nsk (talk) 18:10, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And congratulations also from Italy (again) :-) --Yiyi (Dimmi!) 19:11, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Félicitations, chers amis ! KiwiNeko14 (Meow) 19:33, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
My congratulations to the whole Wikipedia community that has given all their time and dedication to make this encyclopedia even better than ever before. What a great start to the beginning of another month! Tropicalkitty (talk) 19:54, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations form Cyprus. You are the best!! Xaris333 (talk) 20:22, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Warmest wishes from el-wikiedia --FocalPoint (talk) 20:31, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations from Norway as well! --Tarjeimo (talk) 23:52, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulation to you all from Cek, in the Quba Rayon of Azerbaijan! Great job, we're now ready for the next 5,000,000 articles! Keep the good work! --►Cekli829 05:04, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can't get the top video to play

Whether on Firefox, Chrome or Edge, the video just won't start, although on Chrome I can get the audio. Stevie is the man! Talk • Work 21:23, 1 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations and a request for something

Congrats on 5 million articles, everybody. We made it.

Now I know there's some "Congratulations on 5 million" barnstars going around. Are there any left for me, by any chance? I think I feel honored. ;) epic genius (talk) 03:17, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe Casliber will share some of those 20-ish barnstars he got :p --Jakob (talk) aka Jakec 03:28, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ooh, could I get one too? This is an amazing accomplishment and I kinda want it commemorated. Origamiteⓣⓒ 04:03, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, this accomplishment is cool and I want a special edition barnstar before they stop issuing them. Did they stop? I think they stop when the tally reaches 5,001,000 articles. (Completely facetious, BTW. ) epic genius (talk) 04:28, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've been using "Logo X" as a banner image. Example. Eman235/talk 05:02, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The 12:27 articles

All of the following pages were created at 12:27, 1 November 2015 (UTC), the minute that saw the creation of the 5 millionth article.

26 by Samsara

1 November 2015

7 by Rodw
6 by Dr. Blofeld

1 November 2015

6 by Casliber
4 by Jakec
NOTE:The following articles were created by copy-pasting content from userspace, the history of which has now been merged to the articles' history. As a result, these articles are no longer shown to have been created at 12:27.

1 November 2015

4 by Andrew Davidson

1 November 2015

2 by Emijrp

1 November 2015

103.6.159.67 (talk) 14:19, 2 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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