Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors

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Errors in the summary of today's or tomorrow's featured article

TFA tomorrow

" The battle had little strategic impact, and the Japanese were unable to recapture Guadalcanal from Allied forces."

It was the first of a series of failures to resupply Japanese troops that lead to their abandoning the islands, that seems a very significant strategic impact. Literally nobody knows what the effect might have been if the Japanese forces had been successfully supplied, so ridiculous and unsustainable to say that this had little strategic impact. Kevin McE (talk) 07:54, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Errors in today's or tomorrow's On this day

OTD today

• "The crew of the overcrowded British slave ship Zong began killing 133 African slaves by dumping them into the sea to claim insurance."

According to the article, overcrowding was a cause of the earlier deaths of more than 62 people on the ship. Presumably overcrowding was by 29th Nov somewhat mitigated by this. The problem at that stage is described as shortage of water, which has reasons beyond overcrowding, as the article makes clear. Delete 'overcrowding'.

Claiming insurance is not claimed in the article to be the main reason for the murders: that was the preservation of drinking water for, the therefore the lives of, the others on board. Insurance simply meant that the choice was less costly (and maybe easier to make, but that would be speculation). However, 35 or 36 of the killings happened after prolonged rain which was cited as the reason that there were 420 gallons of water at the time of docking.

The article admits in a footnote to the opening sentence that the number is uncertain, and the numbers in the article do not in any permutation add to 133. I have raised this at the article's talk page, and changed the opening sentence to "more than 130". Suggest "The crew of the British slave ship Zong began killing more than 130 insured African slaves by dumping them into the sea, ostensibly to save drinking water." Kevin McE (talk) 21:19, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

The blurb is imperfect, and further suggestions are welcome, but I think it does a reasonable job of describing the motivations here. The article says they were murdered by being thrown overboard because, if they had simply not been given water and died of dehydration, the insurance company wouldn't have paid out. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:05, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Maybe "The British slave ship Zong, running low on water, began killing..."? --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:17, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I went with that for now; further improvement welcome. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:42, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

• "Oregon missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman along with about a dozen others were killed by members of the Cayuse and Umatilla tribes, sparking the Cayuse War."

Suggest parenthetical commas around the phrase 'along with about a dozen others'. However, the article is precise, stating (and naming) eleven others, so why the obfuscation here? Kevin McE (talk) 21:19, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Added the commas. Didn't change it to 11; the lead of the article says 11, but the text implies one other person may have been killed slightly later, so it doesn't seem bad to hide that uncertainty in "about a dozen". Leaving this up in case someone else disagrees. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:55, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

OTD tomorrow

• John Sentamu (pictured) was enthroned as Archbishop of York, becoming the first member of an ethnic minority to serve as an archbishop in the Church of England.

The claim does not seem to be present on the article. The Caucasian ethnic group that all previous incumbents shared is globally an ethnic minority. Kevin McE (talk) 08:09, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Errors in the current or next Did you know...

DYK current

• Today's first item is on iconic Holocaust photograph. The hooks reads that "...West German newspaper claimed that..." I think "claim" should be replaced by 'said', per WP:CLAIM. --Mhhossein ^talk 03:35, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

  WP:CLAIM is a good principle in general; here, it's clear that the "claim" is a false one, and this is something the article substantiates. As such, I think the current wording is okay. Vanamonde (talk) 03:43, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

  It is also a little misleading to say a "right-wing" newspaper claimed this. The article on the paper itself calls it "extreme right". And that should be reflected in the hook. It is not just a right-wing paper but a far-right extremist one. A rather large distinction. And in general, a nazi rag denying the holocaust... yeah, very surprising that... 91.248.65.42 (talk) 08:10, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

• We recently had a DYK photograph that spent all day on the Main Page with the laudatory description "famous", and now we have another one called "iconic". These are important documents of historical events, but why the peacock terms? Do we not pay attention to WP:WTW any more? To put it another way, what reliable sources call it "iconic"? 213.205.240.196 (talk) 08:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

DYK next

• "... that neuroscientist Yang Dan and her team discovered that activation of certain neurons in mice brains caused them to either enter dream state or eat more?" - while I can accept that brains can enter a dream state, I find it hard to accept that brains can eat more, or indeed anything. DuncanHill (talk) 01:06, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

"Them" refers to the mice in this context, obviously. To placate the pedantic, we could replace "them" with "the mice", at the cost of being repetitive. -Zanhe (talk) 03:32, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

It should refer to the mice, but it doesn't. Semantically, it now reads as though Ms Yang and her team were rendered either comatose or hungry by this research activity. "... that neuroscientist Yang Dan and her team discovered that mice either enter dream state or eat more in response to activation of certain brain neurons?" Good writing requires the subject of a sentence to be clear. Kevin McE (talk) 08:18, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I like Kevin's suggested wording. DuncanHill (talk) 10:15, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Kevin McE for the suggestion, that sounds much better than mine. Need an admin to change the hook now in the queue. -Zanhe (talk) 19:23, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I think "mice" should be "mouse". Noun adjuncts are "traditionally mostly singular ... but there is a recent trend towards more use of plural ones". Whatever the "recent trend", I think the singular is better here. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 19:41, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

'Mouse' would suggest that any individual mouse could present both behaviours (although presumably not simultaneously), 'mice' leaves open the possibility, without firmly opting for it, that some do one thing and others the other. Kevin McE (talk) 20:17, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I changed it to "the mice". ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:25, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about that "mice". I was referring to the one used as a noun adjunct in the current hook, in "mice brains". The original hook quoted above only has one "mice", which is why I didn't think I was being ambiguous. Kevin's suggested replacement hook avoids that construction. I wasn't commenting on that possible hook, hence my unindent. MANdARAX • XAЯAbИAM 20:57, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm: the person who suggested that withdrew his proposal in favour of mine: any reason for your choice? Kevin McE (talk) 20:31, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

To be honest, I thought the blurb was fine as is (no one on the planet would be confused by who "them" referred to). But if a change has to be made, there's consensus for Kevin's blurb, so  Done. Someone complaining "Eat more WHAT"?? in 3...2...1... --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:13, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Errors in today's or tomorrow's featured picture

POTD today

Miss Crane’s given name was Josephine, IMS; she was used as a model for a personification of the Slavs, i.e. Slavia. Qwirkle (talk) 21:48, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

 Done --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:44, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the current or next featured list

FL next

There is no continent called Australia/Oceania. If you are listing them by continent, even if only one nation has contributed to the continental total(which the descendants of Tony Wilding might want to challenge), then the name is Oceania. Changed in the article. (Last few words of the extract). Kevin McE (talk) 20:22, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Hadn't realised that the extract is not edit protected, so I have been bold. Leave this just as disclosure. Kevin McE (talk) 20:34, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Please report any such problems or suggestions for improvement at the General discussion section of Talk:Main Page.