Talk:Main Page

Main Page error reports

To report an error in content currently or imminently on the Main Page, use the appropriate section below.

• Where is the error? An exact quotation of the text in question helps.
• Offer a correction if possible.
• References are helpful, especially when reporting an obscure factual or grammatical error.
• Time zones. The Main Page runs on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, currently 19:06 on 17 May 2024) and is not adjusted to your local time zone.
• Can you resolve the problem yourself? If the error lies primarily in the content of an article linked from the Main Page, fix the problem there before reporting it here. Text on the Main Page generally defers to the articles with bolded links. Upcoming content on the Main Page is usually only protected from editing beginning 24 hours before its scheduled appearance. Before that period, you can be bold and fix any issues yourself.
• Do not use {{edit fully-protected}} on this page, which will not get a faster response. It is unnecessary, because this page is not protected, and causes display problems. (See the bottom of this revision for an example.)
• No chit-chat. Lengthy discussions should be moved to a suitable location elsewhere, such as the talk page of the relevant article or project.
• Respect other editors. Another user wrote the text you want changed, or reported an issue they see in something you wrote. Everyone's goal should be producing the best Main Page possible. The compressed time frame of the Main Page means sometimes action must be taken before there has been time for everyone to comment. Be civil to fellow users.
• Reports are removed when resolved. Once an error has been addressed, determined not to be an error, or the item has rotated off the Main Page, the report will be removed from this page. Check the revision history for a record of any discussion or action taken; no archives are kept.

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 "Did you know ..."

Current DYK

"... that the Golden State Valkyries are the first expansion franchise in the WNBA since 2008?"

• "Expansion franchise" is an Americanism and will not be familiar to most people who don't follow US sports. There is no article named that either, although Expansion team is linked about half way through the article. Also, isn't this whole article a bit WP:CRYSTAL? Black Kite (talk) 08:31, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

• I've linked it for the time being. We need to consider this a little more when reviewing nominations, though. Black Kite (talk) 08:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

As far as WP:CRYSTAL goes, that policy guides against collect[ing] unverifiable speculation, rumors, or presumptions but does not universally disallow articles about topics-in-development that are significantly covered and verifiable (e. g. the sentenceIt is appropriate to report discussion and arguments about the prospects for success of future proposals and projects or whether some development will occur, if discussion is properly referenced). I've looked over the list of five particularly egregious situations to avoid for WP:CRYSTAL, but I don't see how Golden State Valkyries fits any. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 08:48, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I'm not terribly convinced by either of these complaints, sorry BK... Re "expansion franchise", that is standard terminology in the world of US sport and this article is specifically about that subject. It's certainly a good call to link it, but per WP:TIES and other guidelines it's fine to write articles using a reasonable amount of game-specific jargon. I think this very point has come up at FAC before and it applies to association football articles I've written in the past too. If you have to cater for the lowest common denominator of understanding in every topic and explain every point in detail you're going to end up with badly written prose that doesn't serve the purpose of Wikipedia as well. As for CRYSTAL, it has been confirmed by the WNBA that this team has been added to the league, it's cited as such in reliable sources, and there is no undue speculation at all. If all articles on future events are to be banned, then things like Next United Kingdom general election and 2026 FIFA World Cup will have to go too... I don't think that's the intention of WP:CRYSTAL.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:29, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh no, there's nothing wrong with the article as such, I would say though that the hook says "they are" when it should probably be written in the future tense ("they will be"). I stand by the language issue, though - very few people outside North America are going to know what that term means (especially when it's not linked, and the article Expansion team isn't massively helpful as well). Black Kite (talk)

Courtesy pings @AirshipJungleman29, BeanieFan11, and Gonzo fan2007: Bruxton (talk) 13:38, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Would changing it to "expansion team" be better? BeanieFan11 (talk) 13:44, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

It's less an Americanism than it used to be because of the the use of the franchise model in cricket, such as the Indian Premier League, Pakistan Super League, Big Bash League, etc. I think there's a good chance more people understand it than lollipop lady, for example. Don't think anything needs fixing. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:46, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Errors in "On this day"

Today's OTD

• 17 May Top line item Sanja Matsuri is orange issue tagged (original research, added Feb 2024) - it is therefore ineligible per No 4 of WP:OTDRULES? JennyOz (talk) 08:07, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

• Removed. Apart from anything else, it's undersourced for an article appearing on the Main Page anyway. Black Kite (talk) 08:38, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

• 1954 In Brown v. Board of Education item, the link for landmark case would be better piped to List of landmark court decisions in the United States (on which Brown appears)? JennyOz (talk) 08:07, 16 May 2024 (UTC)

• I've just removed the link completely. It's pointless when everyone is just going to click on the bolded link anyway. Black Kite (talk) 08:38, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(May 17, today)

Monday's FL

(May 20)

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

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Consensus was reached to reject the idea of a new Main Page section. Storye book (talk) 10:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

---

Request for comments: Do we need a second box for hooks on the Main Page?

The issue to !vote on: Should we retain the existing DYK box as it stands on the Main Page, with its quirky hooks "interesting to a broad audience", but add a second box containing factual hooks for specialist articles?

Note: this issue to vote on is solely about whether we want a second box or not, and the discussion is about why we may or may not want a second box for WP's improvement. At this stage, it is not about logistics such as whether we have enough reviewers, or where the templates should be listed for review and prep, or Main Page overall design.

History: This issue was triggered by difficulties on Template:Did you know nominations/Talia Or (and previously many other similar difficulties on previous nomination templates). In the hope of resolving the difficulties which were stalling the progress of certain DYK nominations, a discussion and Rfc was opened at: Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Request for comment: The need to update Wikipedia:DYK#gen3. The difficulty was that some reviewers felt that DYK hooks should all have quirky or intriguing elements aimed at a "general audience" (however one defines that). But some nominators and reviewers felt that sometimes a factual hook was the only type suitable for a particular article, even if that article contained potential quirky-hook material. It has been impossible to reach a compromise, and that is why the idea of an extra hook box arose, and why the Rfc has been opened here. Please see the "Possible reasons for adding another hook box" section below, for more information. Storye book (talk) 13:49, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

!voting

(Please !vote Yes or No, for or against an extra hook box, or for Other if you have a more complex view. Please keep comments brief so that the voting can be seen clearly. There is a discussion section for your longer comments, below.)

• No - A longer explanation will be written below in the Discussion section. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:46, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No, let's not make the Main Page even more convoluted. Also see discussion. —Kusma (talk) 15:10, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No. I'm sure it's not beyond the wit of people to mix different types of hook. Bazza (talk) 15:21, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No - this sounds like putting very mundane information onto the main page. The idea of DYK is to get people to click the suitable article. We achieve no clicks on non-hooky items. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 15:25, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No - A second box would serve unclear purpose (especially if it were effectively just replicating the DYK process/format) and needlessly dichotomize content as either "serious" or "fun(ny)"/"hooky". —⁠Collin^{t c} 15:55, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No - I'm actually unbothered by "boring" or less quirky hooks mixed in with silly ones. If there's nothing funny to say about something, then it's quite okay to just state something important or interesting. --Jayron32 17:02, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No. If DYK wants to modify the types of blurbs it runs, that's fine with me and something to be discussed within the project. FWIW I don't like quirky blurbs, because they're often misleading or confusing. I would prefer all blurbs to be factual statements, expressed in terms understandable by non-expert readers. Whatever DYK blurbs are run, I don't see any benefit to separating them into two sections on the Main Page. That's an unnecessary complication which would only confuse readers and make more work for admins & DYK queue prep, for no discernable benefit. Modest Genius ^talk 17:38, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• No - blurbs should never be so bland they need to be shoveled into a separate section. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:54, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes - you nailed it. Therapyisgood (talk) 07:17, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• No - per Sarek of Vulcan's reasoning. It isn't that hard to find something interesting to say about an article. And if there really isn't anything better than the "singer sang song" level of comment, then don't bother taking it to DYK. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:40, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
• No - I agree with above "no" comments. I also believe that adding an extra box would just make the main page more confusing to readers who are not familiar with Wikipedia policy. I agree with Modest Genius that if the type of blurbs being run are an issue this is a discussion that should discussed within the DYK process. Also, what is "hooky" or interesting varies from reader-to-reader, and I have seen other editors like Modest Genius who dislike the quirky blurbs. Aoba47 (talk) 16:00, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
• No There's a wealth of good reasoning below, but at the end of the day I'm most sympathetic to it being not needed. The main page is the introduction point. Simplicity as a design choice is well attested in the web design world and it makes it easier to navigate the main page. --WhoIs 127.0.0.1 ping/loopback 12:39, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Possible reasons for adding another hook box

(Note: this is not about criticising the policy and contents of the existing hook box. It is about whether we should add another box for articles which are peer-reviewed in exactly the same manner, but with a different type of hook)

• Some specialist articles deserve factual hooks in specialist terminology which represent their contents or a main point of the article, such as "Scientist John Doe discovered Foo", or "This botanical species has been discovered to be related to that botanical species".
• Hook-examples like the above, in specialist terminology, are important features of specialist journals, and in the right place they can elicit great excitement from the readers of such journals. But those people read WP too; sometimes looking for a first-stop glance at a subject peripheral to their own, to see if widening their view can shed more light on their work. Serious newspapers and magazine journalists constantly check online (including WP) for developments in academic and other specialist fields. We do have another audience, besides whatever concept we may have of a "general audience".
• Our Main Page represents what we want the public face of WP to be. The current fun and quirky hook box represents our user-friendly side. But we do also have a serious academic side, and our articles do also serve specialist groups of readers such as those interested in baseball or railway systems.
• The existing featured-article box is fine for featured articles, but it does not serve the need for the public airing of our newest specialist articles, which we can be proud of, too, however obscure their terminology.
• "Specialist" can include any article whose special-interest hook is not designed to capture the casual browser. For example, Jargonese articles/hooks on baseball and computer games can be included, where only that terminology puts the point across precisely.
• Even if a new Our newest specialist articles (or however-named) box were to be added, specialist article nominations and their hooks could of course still be featured in the existing DYK box. This request for a second box is only for those articles for which a quirky hook is deemed inappropriate by the nominator.
• The additional hook box would not need to compromise space or cause slower uploading. It could be, for example, a scroll box. (The scroll box idea is just to suggest that an extra box could be done; how it is actually done is not at issue at this point). Storye book (talk) 13:49, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

• I just do not see the point of having two separate article sections on the Main Page, one for "quirky" hooks and another for specialist information. Any desire to promote specialist articles on Wikipedia already have their own avenues, mainly DYK, but theoretically even other Main Page sections such as TFA/ITN/OTD and so on. Such a section would feel very redundant to DYK, which was always intended to promote topics that may not necessarily be familiar to our general readership. In addition, the comments above imply that specialist topics such as baseball, railways, computer stuff, and so on can never be interesting to a broad audience. If there is a desire to promote specialist topics on Wikipedia, what's preventing an editor for simply writing a hook about that specialist topic that still appeals to a broad audience? A specialist topic doesn't need to limit its audience. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:46, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  You say, "the comments above imply that specialist topics such as baseball, railways, computer stuff, and so on can never be interesting to a broad audience". That is not the case, my friend. What I actually said was, "specialist article nominations and their hooks could of course still be featured in the existing DYK box. This request for a second box is only for those articles for which a quirky hook is deemed inappropriate by the nominator". Storye book (talk) 17:15, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

If a nominator does not want a hook that is interesting to a broad audience, and one is impossible, the nomination should be closed. A hook doesn't necessarily have to be quirky, but the rules currently state that a hook must be interesting to a broad audience. Barring a change relaxing or dropping that rule (and based on currents trends in the WT:DYK discussion, I frankly don't see a consensus for that happening anytime soon), a nomination can be rejected if no suitable hook is possible. If the nominator rejects all hook options, that's also a reason for closure since no consensus on a hook can be reached. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 18:09, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

That puts nominators of specialist articles with informational (non-quirky) hooks in a situation where they have nowhere to go. They have no compromise/re-write of guidelines to permit their hook, and they have no other place for their hook to be aired. So they have to close their nomination, or it gets closed anyway. That is why we are here, asking for another box. No-one wants the hassle of another Main Page box, including me. But there is nowhere else to go. Storye book (talk) 18:32, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

The solution is very simple: write a broadly interesting hook about a specialist topic. Editors have been able to do that for years no problem, so I don't see how it's impossible. I can understand if writing broadly interesting hooks about a field are impossible, but that's rarely the case. In most cases, a broadly appealing fact about a subject can be found if you know where to look. Even if one particular subject doesn't have a broadly appealing hook possible, that doesn't disqualify others in that field from having such hooks if it's possible. I don't see why there's an insistence on an "informational (non-quirky)" hook even when a broadly appealing hook is possible. For example, take the article Mami Kawada. Anime music is a very specialist topic and one that is niche. Yet the article was able to run on DYK with a non-specialist hook: ... that Mami Kawada's music career began after she was discovered by her music teacher? It didn't have a hook that went ... that Mami Kawada performed the opening themes to the anime Shakugan no Shana? because, despite being a specialist topic, a broad interest hook was still possible. Instead of insisting on a specialist hook, why not just simply follow existing guidelines and write a hook that is broadly appealing? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 18:56, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

While I agree with your general point, you picked a horrible example of a non-specialist hook. That hook should have been tossed in the trash. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:43, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

• Back in the day we had subject-specific portals that could have subject-specific and specialist DYKs. Specialist content should be targeted at specialists, not given to all random strangers. —Kusma (talk) 15:08, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Kusma:. You say "Specialist content should be targeted at specialists". How do you suggest that we do that, if not with hooks on the Main Page? Storye book (talk) 16:56, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Put them on a page where more of the readers are specialists. You may not get many readers, but those you get actually care. —Kusma (talk) 19:19, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

• @Bazza 7: You say, "I'm sure it's not beyond the wit of people to mix different types of hook". Do you mean that we could have two types of hook - quirky and factual - in he existing DYK box? Or do you mean that a single hook can contain quirkiness and factual information at the same time? Whichever is your meaning, I agree with your comment, and that is the type of compromise that we were looking for. We have been told that it's not going to happen. That is why we are here. Storye book (talk) 17:05, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  @Storye book I originally meant the former, but am happy to adopt your other interpetation of what I wrote as well! Thanks. Bazza (talk) 09:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• @Jayron32: You say, "I'm actually unbothered by "boring" or less quirky hooks mixed in with silly ones. If there's nothing funny to say about something, then it's quite okay to just state something important or interesting". You are, of course, right. However we have been told that such a compromise is out of the question. That is why we are here. Storye book (talk) 17:17, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • I'm not terribly sure what person told you that, but sometimes people are wrong. --Jayron32 17:22, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

    There have been several statements to the effect that a compromise is not going to happen, or about what would happen if there were a no-change decision. One, by Theleekycauldron, on the Talia Or nom template, said " It seems that a compromise on a hook that satisfies both the nominator and the consensus of current guidelines is not obtainable at the moment". (The context was that the nominator wanted a factual hook, and the guidelines were perceived to demand a hook "interesting to a broad audience" which was in turn perceived to mean a quirky or intriguing hook). There have been a few statements by other people in the same vein, some saying that if a hook cannot be made "interesting to a broad audience" as described above, then the nomination should be closed. There have been suggestions that in exceptional circumstances a nomination with a factual hook should be referred to IAR, but I don't know what that is. There is a page WP:IAR which is called "ignore all rules", but it contains no formal process. On a DYK nom page it would have no sway. Storye book (talk) 17:48, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

    Look, I don't know what to say. When I'm named Emperor of Wikipedia, I'll make sure all of the hooks, boring or quirky, get posted to DYK. Until that point comes, however, I'm not sure what I can do for you. --Jayron32 19:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

    Thank you, Jayron32. And thank you, everyone here, for voting as you have, so far, and for saying what you have said. This discussion - so far - has clarified for me what has happened with DYK and why we are here in this discussion today.

    Until this year, of course there had always been problems and brief spats on DYK templates, but on the whole it worked. Quirky and intriguing hooks aimed at the broad audience were passed, gave pleasure on the Main Page, and brought attention to new articles - all fine by all. And besides that, informational hooks were passed without tears or hostility, and achieved the same thing on the Main Page. It was like a sort of Paradise lost. Then a small group of reviewers took the guidelines literally and in narrow sense of "only quirky hooks will be passed, and nothing else", then they took issue with a small subset of nominators who wanted non-quirky, informational hooks for readers who may not be broad-audience-classified. Such nominations were the subject of a great deal of pressure to give in to the quirkiness requirement, and when nominators resisted, rejection was intimated. This caused a great deal of unhappiness on both sides. A formal discussion was raised, but all that did was to clarify to all that no compromise was going to happen, and that rejection from the DYK process was what our informational-hook nominators could expect.

    Before, the system worked. Now it is broken. Running away to create another Main Page Box is not going to work, because some comments by voters on this page suggest going back to the old pre Paradise-lost days, when we were permitted both sorts of hooks - but those days are gone.

    I am not permitted to close down any discussions, myself, as far as I am aware. But what I can do, is to stand up and say to those whose refusal to compromise is going to block the informational-hook nominators from the DYK process - please compromise. You no doubt have been doing your best for WP, but what you have actually done is to stall and antagonise many DYK templates this year, your actions have resulted in two Rfc discussions which have got nowhere, and while you sit triumphing in your castle of quirky-hookness, there are nominators out there who will be permanently left out of the chance to air their articles for the public. Who cares how many clicks an informational hook gets? What matters for some articles and some nominators, and ultimately WP in that case, is quality clicks, not only random browsing clicks by general-audience people who, faced with an article that they did not expect, may immediately close their browser window. I'm clearly not going to see a good result here, and neither are nominators of articles which certain reviewers have deemed good enough for WP but not good enough for hooks.

    In summary, there used to be inclusivity regarding both points of view in the DYK nom process. Now there is none, and one point of view is to be rejected from the system. I have tried and failed to regain that inclusivity by creating two Rfc's. For goodness' sake. All that is needed is to correct "interesting to a broad audience" to "interesting" in the DYK guidelines, and be a little more inclusive on DYK templates, and the problem is solved without any harm to WP. Storye book (talk) 21:38, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

    This is not a great summary of the situation. The broadness criteria has been asked for and implemented for much longer than this year. Quirkiness is not a requirement, and is only sought out for one of the eight hooks; even then sets are sometimes run without a quirky hook. DYK continues to work and function up to this very day, with the main issue being constant delays in prep building and in queue transferring, which points to an issue of there being too many hooks per current manpower rather than too few. CMD (talk) 04:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

    I was using "quirky" according to its dictionary definition; a quick google gives us "having or characterized by peculiar or unexpected traits or aspects", i.e. not necessarily silly. I take that definition to mean the aspect used in the "broad audience" hooks to grab a casual browser's attention. Yes the broadness criteria did work for a long time, as I have said above. Pity that didn't last. DYK is functioning well in general, but no longer working as to certain aspects of inclusivity, as I have explained. And arguments on DYK templates about inclusivity have often, at least temporarily, taken valuable promoters and prep builders away from their primary work. Storye book (talk) 10:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

    • I don't see how or why a hook can't be factual and broadly interesting to an audience at the same time. I mean, if a hook wasn't factual, it wouldn't have been allowed to run in the first place (hooks regularly get pulled for being inaccurate, for example). Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 17:59, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

      • Yes, of course the quirky/intriguing hooks have to be true. By factual, I meant as opposed to quirky. So long as they are true, it should be possible to make them either quirky/intriguing, or simply informational. If we could have a formal compromise, written into the guidelines, then we wouldn't need to be here, asking for a separate box. Storye book (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

• @Modest Genius: You say, "If DYK wants to modify the types of blurbs it runs, that's fine with me and something to be discussed within the project". You are, of course, right. However it has been discussed innumerable times on the DYK templates, and formally in the discussion linked above (see the History paragraph). And it has become clear that no compromise is going to happen. If you are a DYK nominator wanting a factual hook for your specialist article, then without such a compromise regarding the guidelines, you are going to have to withdraw your DYK nomination. That is the current situation. I don't want the hassle of an extra box any more than all the "no" voters above. I want a compromise so that we can have both wholly factual and wholly quirky/intriguing hooks in the same Main Page DYK box, as we have had for years. But it was made clear that it was not going to happen, which is why we are here. Storye book (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

  Why have you proposed something if you don't think it's a good idea? That seems like a WP:POINTy waste of time. Also, those linked discussions are very TLDR and lack a closing rationale, so I can't work out who (if anyone) has decided that hooks cannot be factual. Modest Genius ^talk 12:49, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Why did I start this Rfc? Please read the list of reasons above, headed "Possible reasons for adding another hook box". It's one of those things that you do because you have to, not because you want to. That's why. And I did say that I was considering doing this, in the other Rfc discussion, because I was worried that it might not be permissible. But I was given to understand that it was OK to do this. As for who, I'm uncomfortable naming names because everyone has a right to their opinion, but I suggest that you read through the other Rfc discussion, linked in the History paragraph, above. Storye book (talk) 13:56, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

• I know Story book means well, but I can't help thinking that what's being proposed is that we supplement the current "Did You Know?" section with a new "Why on Earth Would Anybody Care?" section. EEng 00:37, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
• It's a little confusing to me that we're using "quirky" to mean interesting. @Storye book and Jayron32: quirky has a narrowly and specifically defined meaning in DYK terminology: it refers to the silly hook, of which there is exactly one in every set, at the bottom. The bottom hook should be quirky; the first seven simply currently need to be broadly interesting. Template:Did you know nominations/Claudia Riner is interesting, but not quirky. The first hook proposed at Template:Did you know nominations/Pronunciation of GIF is quirky. They're not the same term. Could we please note that down? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 09:41, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you. I have explained my meaning above. Storye book (talk) 11:00, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion ended?

Thank you, everyone, for taking part. I believe that this discussion has now ended, and that the consensus is clear. I would like to get this discussion closed now, by removing the Rfc template above, by bringing in a closer to close it for us, or both (or of course anyone is welcome to close it down for me). I am writing my intention here so that if you have objections to the closure, you have the chance to say so. Thank you. Storye book (talk) 17:34, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Why is changing the Main page layout so difficult

I am aware that the Main page has been proposed for redesigned for centuries, but it looks like none of them has been adopted yet. What makes adopting a new Main page design so difficult, and how can we overcome them (just like updating the Vector skin)? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:21, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe because the page is fine, nothing broken, and readers and editors are used to it. Leaving things alone sometimes is the best remedy. Randy Kryn (talk) 08:03, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia's culture is against change for the sake of change or fixing things that are not broken. There isn't any consensus that the Main Page is currently broken, and any changes that would affect any of the content areas (DYK, ITN, TFA etc) would need buy-in from their supporting community. For any changes, you would need to convince a lot of people that change is needed and then go through a well-made RfC. —Kusma (talk) 17:13, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Nanook of the North

This is scheduled for the main page, Template:POTD/2022-12-20. I'd like to get this one exactly right, as it's an important documentary, but it also has staged scenes and is by white people. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 15:49, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

White people ... baaaaad! EEng 20:24, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

The point is the 1920s were hardly the high point of racial sensitivity. It's not the Inuit making a film about themselves. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 21:25, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, well, since Inuits making films about themselves don't seem to have been exactly thick on the ground, maybe a white guy doing the best he could by the standards of the day was a good thing, not something to pooh pooh. EEng 00:33, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I promised I'd give advance warning of anything potentially controversial. This film has a whole controversy section about depiction of the Inuit. It's my duty to mention it and summarise the controversy. If it doesn't prove controversial, great. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 05:30, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, that section sure needs some cleanup. For certain, the passage

it has been criticized for portraying Inuit as subhuman Arctic beings, without technology or culture, and situates them outside modern history. It was also criticized for comparing Inuit to animals. The film is considered to be an artifact of popular culture at the time and also a result of a historical fascination for Inuit performers in exhibitions, zoos, fairs, museums and early cinema.

needs to be attributed as (someone's -- whose?) opinion. I have seen the film at least three times (over several decades) and have no idea whence could come the idea that it portrays Inuits as subhuman. EEng 05:59, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Just a quick statement here: I'm the POTD co-ordinator; I'm not the arbitrator of article content, and unless it's a subject I know well, I'm not going to have any more insight than anyone else. All I can really tell you is that that paragraph has a source. I don't have access to it.

The goal of bringing it up here is to make sure, as much as is possible, that people get to edit the article and the blurb before it goes live, have their say, and to give people a chance to make any case there might be as to why it shouldn't run, because there's little point doing that when it already has. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600^th FP!} 07:58, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Well fancy not knowing everything about every subject! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:48, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

I've done a review and tidied a few things. Schwede66 20:08, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Moguera

This article about this fictional character needs to be added. Amtrak Guy (talk) 08:04, 21 November 2022 (UTC)