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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"

Tomorrow's OTD

• 11 May - in bottom line pls tweak chron order of Zenna Henderson (d. 1983) JennyOz (talk) 07:38, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
  •  Done, thanks! Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:37, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(May 10, today)

Monday's FL

(May 13)

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.

Today's POTD

• Credit line: needs the word "credit" after "Painting". — RAVENPVFF · talk · 14:59, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

   Done – Schwede66 15:49, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

Main page general discussion

Featured Lists on the Main Page

Hello. I believe this has been brought up sometime before, but I'm not sure where. I'll make this a poll. No IP voting please. --Birdman1 ^{talk/contribs} 21:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Question: Should featured lists appear on the Main Page? If so, how (List of the day/week/month...)?

Support:

• Support. I don't think a little extra box on the Main Page would hurt anybody. Users work hard to get lists featured. Lists are an important organizational tool for Wikipedia. I think a "List of the week" would be nice, starting with newer lists. If the supply of new lists is exhausted, old lists can be used until new lists are created. --Birdman1 ^{talk/contribs} 21:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Conditional support — perhaps "featured list of the week" and "featured topic of the month"? — Deckiller 23:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

• But if a person doesn't read the list/topic in the first couple of days, I doubt tacking even more time will get them to look at it. ShadowHalo 00:48, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• The main reason I recommend week or month is so we don't run out of lists. — Deckiller 01:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• But leaving it for a week or month renders the section useless for readers, most of the time that is. ShadowHalo 01:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support Mainly because I'm working on a list ;) Majorly (hot!) 23:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support A Featured list of the day would work fine. There are 243 FLs currently and if they were featured, that number would surely increase at a rate higher than now. This is due to an incentive now possible to list editors.--Hamedog_Talk|^@ 00:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support for an FL once a week; to prevent staleness, on Monday would be the topmost part of the list, then on Tuesday the next part, up to Sunday when we reach the last part; if the list is very long it's OK if we don't reach the end of it. This is currently done on WP:FC with only the first part of the list displayed; if it can be displayed there I see absolutely no reason why we can't do it here. --Howard the Duck 03:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support - lists are just a type of article. Make the 'article of the day' a 'featured list' from time to time. Solves any problems of 'insufficient space' and 'not enough lists'. The fact that we have featured lists on the featured content page shows that they can be put into summary form. --CBD 11:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support I agree that would be a good idea, and it would help wikipedians contribute what they feel to wikipedia. --Katherine Kaiquser 00:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support But are there enough lists to rotate? Well, I guess people would be motivated to start working on them, so they would increase quickly. · AO ^Talk 17:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support The idea of a Featured List of the week is a good one, especially combined with the idea of breaking it into sections for each day to add variety. Having that will encourage the proliferation of high-quality lists. I think letting readers see some of our best lists is a service to them. ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 18:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support: It we a going to put them on for a week how about put diffrent parts of the list on each day. Buc 09:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support "List of the Day". Given the current number of FLs (246) and the rate they are bein added (~10-15/month), it will be at least year before any have to repeat. (See detailed workings under "some real discussion") Tompw (talk) 10:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support I like ONUnicorn's idea above. i believe that an extra box wouldn't be horrible. however, it would have to be done correctly. themcman1 (help me with my sig) 13:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
• Suujport From what I can tell, there are enough for this to work. ShadowHalo 23:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

But would it work if we did a featured list of the week/month? --Birdman1 ^{talk/contribs} 00:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support. There aren't nearly enough lists promoted each month to keep this up, unfortunately. —Cuiviénen 23:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

See above. --Birdman1 ^{talk/contribs} 00:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Definitely not. —Cuiviénen 14:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose I'm not sure why this is being done as a poll, but I see no major problems with this idea.
• Oppose I really think that a featured list of the day/week would be really interesting to the non-Wikipedians who frequent the Main Page.--Maxamegalon2000 02:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Oppose:

• Oppose. They all come in a different size and shape. Some are rather long. Some are tabulated and hard to squeeze onto MainPage. Where on MainPage do we put these FLs, anyway? I worry about layout problems on MainPage. --PFHLai 03:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC), 14:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose I appreciate the work that often goes into lists, but I still think that lists aren't content the same was images and prose are. They're just tools to make the user's life easier. No one would suggest a "featured template of the day", or some such. It seems like that putting things on the main page simply as a "reward" to the editors is something to be avoided. Also, why is this a poll, and why is it here? 69.95.50.15 14:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Please, no IP voting. Someone could vote twice. Please make an account. (If anyone opposes this comment, please reply.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Birdman1 (talk • contribs) 14:42, 2007 April 17 (UTC).

The IP is entitled to his/her opinion. And we should be discussing instead of voting. --PFHLai 15:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Please do not strikeout another use's comment. That should be used for self-retraction only. El_C 18:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

• I disgree. I think it's a great way to honor user(s) work. Buc 09:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose As much as a lot of hard work goes into lists, I don't think that the main page is the best place to feature it. Firstly I already think there are too many boxes on the main page and secondly I agree with 69.95.50.15 above, lists aren't quite the same as pictures and prose. LukeSurl 19:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

• Neutral - It's a really good idea. People work very hard on them, I why call them featured if you aren't going to recognize them for it. As of now, I don't think it'd work, because there isn't enough Featured list, however, maybe in the future, when more are featured class, we could have them on the main page.--theblueflamingo^Squawk 00:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral. I don't oppose them completely, but we have two serious issues in my opinion — lack of numbers of FLs and lack of space on the MainPage for a new section. I was thinking, though, maybe we could sneak in some "Bonus featured list"s when they're directly related to the FA of the day. This could just be one line: "Bonus featured list: List of Xes", at the bottom of the FA. These would only be featured on an occasional basis.--Pharos 03:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
• Neutral. As Pharos, I concur it's an excellent idea, but so far I see two issues; (1) lack of FL's. Long before there were as many features pictures, we used to show one picture per week, but I believe doing so today won't be a good idea due to traffic Wikipedia receives daily, and (2) inconstancy with the rest of the main page and others lists. We aren't able to show the entire list except only a fraction of it, which is neither encyclopedic nor attractive — not to mention some lists are built through tables. Perhaps someday. Michaelas¹⁰ 16:44, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

some real discussion

The oppose votes say that there are too few FLs and they are differently structured, but the remedy is to have an FL per week, and for every day, a new section displayed so that it'll not be that stale. Which brings me, lets cut the voting and do some real discussion so we can get over this. --Howard the Duck 16:33, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

I would be happy to begin a collaboration for FLs, such as starting a WikiProject. For now, I think that a weekly FL would be nice, and then we rotate a section everyday for seven days (as noted above). I'm going to propose the project to WP:COUNCIL (like WP:WPGA), but the "Today's featured list" should be discussed somewhere else.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 02:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

You can see the proposal here--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 21:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Several people have commented that there aren't enough lists for "list of the day" to work. There are currently 246 featured lists. Going by the Featured list log, new FLs are being added at rate of 10-15 month. Taking the lower figure (say 3 per day), plus the current total of 246 lists, it would take us 368 days to get through them all, before we had to repeat. (Over 368 days, 122 new FLs can be expected, plus the 246 exsisting: 122+246=368). So, it is not true to say we'd repeat ourselves in just 246 days - the actual figure is over a year.
Now, those are the facts. If you feel Main Page content should *never* be repeated, then that would be a reason to oppose. On the other hand, you may be happy with repeating less than once a year. Tompw (talk) 10:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

If we get a steady stream of 31 FLs a month, we can probably manage a TFL. That's why I'm proposing a WikiProject to WP:COUNCIL/P, so that we can have constant contributions to all existing lists.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 16:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Look of the Main Page

I like the current look of the main page. It's classy and elegant, and not at all flashy. However, some may consider it a bit boring (actually, so do I...). It's interesting to note that the English wikipedia is one of the simpler main pages, like the German and French main pages. However, some other languages, like the Indonesian are more colorful (and more friendly), and full of icons. The Italian Wikipedia is downright shiny. I read somewhere on this talk page that the main page is periodically revamped. When will this happen again? How can I get involved? I suppose it could be tedious and time-consuming, but probably a lot of fun. Thoughts? Goldfritter 09:37, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Use some of the Wikipedia:Main_Page_alternatives as your personal main page. ffm ✎talk 11:42, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow. That's a nice and simple way to put someone down. =/ . I don't want to customise my Wikipedia. I want to improve everyone's Wikipedia. I go back to my previous question: Is the main page going to get redone in the foreseeable future? Or should I leave it alone? Goldfritter 12:14, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It was redone a few months ago, so I don't see it being redone in the near future, may be in 2008. IMHO the Main Page is fine enough, I don't like flashly pages, since it distracts attention away from the content. --Howard the Duck 12:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

To Howard: thanks. To FireFoxMan: sorry - that was uncalled for. I realise that you're just trying to help. Goldfritter 13:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

"A few months ago" is actually "over a year ago" now. If there is enough support for it being redone, i could see it happening, but be warned that people only like incremental changes. —Cuiviénen 12:56, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

And thanks, again. Where would people go to show their support? To be honest, I think that we should wait a few more months, but if it could happen now, that would also be cool. Goldfritter 13:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

(reindent)Check out some of the links in Wikipedia:Main Page FAQ#Is there some way to make the Main Page look better? I'm certainly not going to reopen months of discussion over multiple options requiring six archives back when the user base was much smaller, but that's just me. As I recall, consensus opinion back then explicitly stated their distaste of Italian Wikipedia's design, so it may be worth checking out details before proposing it as a template. Cheers, - BanyanTree 19:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

The look of the Dutch Main page has recently changed: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoofdpagina. On its talk page a few alternatives are shown. Wiki-uk 09:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Gradient overload. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:32, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I hate it when TFAs get so long one day, and the other sections on the main page don't adjust accordingly to fit the screen. --74.13.127.204 07:23, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Main Page editable

A Wikipedia error occurred at approximately 8:00 PM (+10:30 GMT) resulting in the Main Page being editable. However, so many people were editing it that it was very much a "the quick and the dead" sort of thing. ThirdEchelon 10:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

So what exactly is being done about this? Marijuanarchy 10:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

How should I know, I'm just a lowly editor...? ThirdEchelon 10:16, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Basically, the account of an inactive admin was hijacked and compromised. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 14:51, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Or perhaps not... Corvus cornix 20:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

HEELLLPPPP!!!!! SOMEONE'S REPLACED THE ENTIRE MAIN PAGE! SOMEBODY PLEASE (pardon my language) DAMN HIM FOR ETERNITY! --Ryanasaurus0077 10:07, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow... Who unprotected the Main Page? All things considered I think maybe it wasn't the best idea... Piet | Talk 10:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

It's fixed now. --60.228.55.167 10:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Erm...

Where IS the main page? It says it doesn't exist... Michaelritchie200 10:08, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Rogue admin? :O Mgiganteus1 10:09, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Im suing for emotional distress.--293.xx.xxx.xx 10:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a main page, it just happens to only consist of one word; Niggermayor.

I think someone's taken over an old account and is mucking around. Maybe a admin account as well, which makes it worse... Sentinel75 10:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

What happened? I've never seen this. --zrulli 10:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

My guess - Your Wikipedia A Splode. 212.219.142.161 10:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Even Portal:Main_Page is shot... whoever did it (assuming it was someone and not software going wild) knew what they were doing. Utopianheaven 10:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

"how long can i keep this up" I like this guy :P(Mrutter 10:14, 19 April 2007 (UTC))

It's back, but the "edit this page" tag remains. This is what happens when you let people write stuff! Someone is always going to take advantage! Michaelritchie200 10:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Whats Wrong With you Guys?

Your so Up-Tight!Do you have anything better to do than stay on wikipedia all day.I get angry Talk edits telling me 'Discussion pages are for improving articles'.

• Wikipedian-... OMG OMG th is not a word!!! Ill just fix this.
• Wikipedian 2-Did you see that guy on the discussion page, there for Improving the article
• Wikipedian-Ill go fix it! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.108.187.136 (talk) 00:01, 24 April 2007 (UTC).

I think we are under attack

I hope the admins know about this

How do we tell them? Now back to normal but unprotected. Sentinel75 10:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Did Stephen Colbert tell his fans to vandalize Wikipedia again? --293.xx.xxx.xx 10:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

some one is messing about!!

All is fixed now. --60.228.55.167 10:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Admins!!

No admins around???? Are they asleep? Madhava 1947 (talk) 10:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry, I'll keep watch over the page and revert any vandals. Karrmann 10:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I just reverted it back to an unvandalised state. Meh. Idiot vandals. Darkmind1970 10:17, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I reported him to WP:AIV --zrulli 10:18, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

And David Levy saves the day!!!

good work man the attack was resolved in under 15 minutes thats nothing to be ashamed of

15 minutes seems incredibly long for the ******* main page... Piet | Talk 10:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason it took so long is because we don't have enough people who can respond to admins going crazy, because many people in the community feel that we "already have enough" b-crats and other similar positions. — Deckiller 10:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

So Who Watches the Watchmen? --293.xx.xxx.xx 10:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

The stewards watch the admins.--cj | talk 10:24, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Bureaucrats can't revoke the sysop bit. This required a steward. —David Levy 10:25, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah, that's right. Darr. — Deckiller 10:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I didn't fix the problem. Jon Harald Søby did. —David Levy 10:25, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Is it regular practice to desysop admin's accounts soon after they've left? Sentinel75 10:28, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Not necessarily unless they request it. Will (aka Wimt) 10:29, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Future policy suggestion, then... Sentinel75 10:30, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

It's been suggested (and rejected) in the past. The general consensus was that a current admin's account is equally likely (if not more likely) to be hijacked than an inactive admin's account is. —David Levy 10:36, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess this isn't really the place to discuss such a matter but I for one think we should at least encourage admins to voluntary put their adminship on hold (with the option to request it to be 'unheld' without a VFA). While it may be true that an active admin's account is more likely to be hijacked, it's obviously a fact that the more admin accounts, the more targets we have. If we reduce the number of available accounts, there will be fewer targets and since it doesn't cause any harm, why not? Obviously this won't stop this kind of thing as there are still other accounts and a more sneaky person might be able to con people into reinstating the adminship anyway. But the way I see it, if we reduce the risk by 1/10 it's well worth it. Nil Einne 11:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Demoting inactive admins and Wikipedia:Inactive administrators for some previously rejected proposals. Note that neither of these would have affected a user who left the previous month. - BanyanTree 00:57, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Link to the request.[1] ElinorD (talk) 10:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

So is there always a steward active? Is there a big red button somewhere to call them? Piet | Talk 10:32, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I couldn't find a Wikipedia page about Stewards, only Wikimedia. Are all Stewards cross-Wiki roles? How do we go about suggesting we need more Stewards? --Dweller 10:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

• Perhaps we should propose that b-crats be given the powers to remove adminship status. That would be a very controversial proposal. — Deckiller 10:35, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah the list of stewards is at meta:Stewards and they operate across Wikimedia. Will (aka Wimt) 10:37, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Jon was notified about the incident through IRC (it seemed like a pretty good excuse to compromise my wikivacation). There was a lot of consternation at #wikipedia and yelling about finding an admin or steward, but apparently all one needed to do was to join #wikimedia-stewards and state the problem there. Seems like that's the closest we have to a Big Red Button right now, so maybe it should be better advertised.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:14, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

(Edit conflict.) There is (or should be) always a steward or a developer online that could do emergency desysoppings like this. Go to #wikimedia-stewards, then write !steward, and someone should react within a few seconds. If they don't go to #wikimedia-tech and tell them about the problem. There is no need for more stewards at the present. Jon Harald Søby 11:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Just far the sake of the complete examination of the situation: given that there was a significant time gap betwen User:Robdurbar retiring from wikipedia and this burst of vandalism, is there any way in which we can tell if he did it? Has he been asked? Could his password have been compromised? Could his account have been hacked? If he ever wants to rejoin the project these are meaningful questions.--Anthony.bradbury 11:23, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

There has been a checkuser request made - that might give some clue. Will (aka Wimt) 11:25, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

He does mention that he can be contacted via the "Email this user" link on the side. Trouble is....would the reciever be the previous user or the vandal? --293.xx.xxx.xx 11:26, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Wait, so admins can unblock themselves?[2] I never knew that and doesn't that defeat the purpose of an admin being blocked for 3RR or another rule that gets them a short block. I'm guessing admins are under an honor system that they will not unblock themselves or face de-desyoping? 128.227.57.24 16:50, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Pretty much, "wheel warring" ie the repeated undoing of admin actions by two or more admins, is seriously frowned upon and has in some cases resulted in desysoping--VectorPotential^Talk 16:52, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi. Uh, anyone know what's going on [3]? Looks like an oversight removed one or more edits. Can someone explain, or has this been mentioned? Also, should there be a checkuser to determine who hacked it? Explanation, please? PS.me no time to read I have to go. – AstroHurricane001^{(Talk+Contribs+Ubx)(+sign here+How's my editing?)} 23:15, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

They were just lost in the deletions and undeletions of the page. They were only regularly deleted, not oversighted, and are back now. Prodego ^talk 04:16, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Archive 100

Out of interest, what are we going to do when the number of archives of the main page talk reaches 100? It will do so in a few weeks - do we expand the box, add a page or... what? —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 15:34, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Just expand the box to include 101 through 110--VectorPotential^Talk 16:53, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually if you look at the code for the box, it's already there. It just has to be uncommented or something Nil Einne 17:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I added the next line in after we were on archive 94 or so, IIRC. ffm ✎talk 00:51, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

What do you expect ? The same thing we did for the 1 000 000-th article ? :-) --74.14.18.233 11:10, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Party like it's 1999! Vanderdecken: don't worry the issue is at hand. But the question to ask is when will long be too long? When will the archive box outgrow this talk page? --Monotonehell 13:02, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess we will just have to archive the archives! We will just have to put a link to Archives 1-100 or 1-50 at the top, and the rest will stay like it is. ffm ✎talk 13:27, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

How about keeping it simple like what I've just done? Feel free to revert, I'm just being bold. --Monotonehell 09:32, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

YOUR BOLDNESS SHALL NOT BE TOLERATED... uh... personally, I like it with the archives showing, regardless of how long it is. We can always shrink the font size. Gracenotes^T § 21:58, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I continue to be bold *chest forward*! ;) I like it with them showing also, but we're talking long term here when the list becomes very large. I'm unsure if smaller font sizes are a good idea, depending on people's monitor/resolutions, but why not give it a try and see what you can do with it? (be bold yourself) --Monotonehell 10:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Instead of nano-fonts, perhaps we can use a mini-scrollbar. Just a thought. --PFHLai 20:58, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

This is Madness!

where is "Adolf Hitler is born" under "on this day" 65.1.27.111 04:50, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

We don't do birthdays on the WP front page (unless it's a nice round number, like Leonhard Euler's 300th last Sunday) Otherwise, all the birthdays we would have to put on would dominate "on this day". Borisblue 05:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

See April 20#Births. --74.14.18.233 11:04, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

According to the guidelines for selected anniversaries/"on this day", births and deaths can only be used on centennials, etc. Hitler is only 118 years old. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 11:12, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

Madness? THIS IS SPARTA!!!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by The monkeyhate (talk • contribs)

How did I know that would happen? It did take longer then I thought it would, though. --LuigiManiac 17:34, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Home Page Question

I was wondering if someone who had athority here could put somthing about how this is a reliable site on a page here becasue teachers say that this is not reliable. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Chessmaster3 (talk • contribs) 12:06, 20 April 2007 (UTC).

Your teacher has a point, if he or she is saying that you shouldn't cite it in papers. See Criticism of Wikipedia. - BanyanTree 12:45, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

And indeed, this is NOT a reliable site... It might refer to reliable sources, but this is NOT a reliable SITE. Oh my God! - irrªtiºnal 16:43, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

It's an encyclopedia. You shouldn't be citing encyclopedias at all. The Wikipedia is very helpful for giving you a general idea about a topic and for pointing towards reliable sources, though. The References section at the bottom of many articles is great. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:35, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Wikipedia is of course different to other 'pedias because it's not paper. The depth that Wikipedia goes into on many subjects, with individual articles on the early lives of historical figures, hundreds of elections, books, songs, concepts within concepts, famous sketches from TV shows, etc., not to mention the WikiProjects co-ordinating work on specialist subjects, makes the coverage seem anything but general in my view. --AdamSommerton 22:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Uhh, why does that mean that you should suddenly be citing it? It has a lot of depth, therefore it is reliable? I didn't say the coverage was general, I said it shouldn't be used as a reference. No teacher/professor/instructor above high school level would accept an encyclopedia as a source, and many high school ones won't either. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:13, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Anyone seen the vandalism in this guys contribs? Ironic :) 81.77.73.180 19:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Which guy?--74.13.127.204 07:14, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is no more unreliable, and probably less, than any other mass media outlet: television, newspapers, books, magazines, radio. Usually you get information from one person or group, but since Wikipedia is written by anyone it's more trustworthy, not less as some might think. That's my two cents anyway. --AdamSommerton 11:46, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

To play devil's advocate, a lot of the content in this encyclopedia is reliable. You just have to know how to use it and know that citing it may not be the best thing to do. Overall, though, it have good content that is for the most part, reliable, but should be taken as if it were actually not reliable. Be skeptical about what you read here! _└^Jared_┘^┌_talk^┐  12:06, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Supertunnel

Is there this article in ITN? Russian to US tunnel. [4] [5], cause it would be nice, request? premisson to create? It will be called TKM-World Link. -- Pseudoanonymous 02:24, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Ordinarily I'd suggest you make a suggestion at WP:ITN/C. But this one is a bit too much pie in the sky for now. There'd need to be a verifiable announcement from the authorities that it definitely was going ahead before it could be considered. Also the article has very little information. Not really ITN material. --Monotonehell 09:37, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion: Featured lists on the main page

There are nothing like enough yet to have them daily so how about weekly. They could go right under the featured image. Buc 17:04, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you join the discussion above before it is archived? Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 21:10, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Birthdays

Seeing the discussion thing above about Hitler's birthday, I wondered: could we perhaps have a separate page for birthdays, accessible from the Main Page? Say, a link to "Today's Birthdays" somewhere in the "On this day..." section, linking to a separate birthday page for each day in the year? I know it would be a significant task, and likely require a bit of arbitrary decisions on who deserves to be on such a page, but perhaps it could be constructed slowly, over the best part of the year, to relieve the workload somewhat. Nyttend 22:31, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure exactly what you have in mind. The very first bolded link shown on each "On this day" template already has a link to the date pages (e.g. April 21, April 22, etc). Are you suggesting that we split April 21#Births, April 22#Births , etc. to seperate pages? I would prefer to add {{birth date and age}} to each entry on those pages so it looks more like [6], [7] etc. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 22:41, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't aware of the births section on that page. However, I think it might well be a good idea to have a separate page for births, rather than making it a section of the other page. Nyttend 23:17, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

I suppose we could transclude all of the sections of each day page. Corvus cornix 23:59, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Splitting the bithday section date pages and linking them on the main page as "Today's Bithdays" sounds good. Buc 09:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Why not link to Deaths also? Or also to Events? Because they're all already covered in the date page. There's no reason to add births/deaths/events to the main page when they're already one click away. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-04-23 14:35Z

New coding format

Since the use of Parser Functions is now encouraged, I am requesting that the FA section's code be changed to: {{Wikipedia:Today's featured article/{{#time:F j, Y}}}} and the On this day section's code be changed to: {{Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/{{#time:F n}}}}. Thanks, ~ Magnus animum _{(aka Steptrip)} 22:51, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

The Main Page still uses the default magic word variables of the MediaWiki system: {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}}}, {{CURRENTDAY}}}, and {{CURRENTYEAR}}. If these were actual templates, I might agree with you. But AFAIK, they take either about the same, or even less, processing time. Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 23:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

OK. I seemed to see, everywhere I turned, the sentence "This template is depricated please use m:ParserFunctions instead, but I didn't know that the same rule applied for Magic Words. ~ Magnus animum _{(aka Steptrip)} 23:35, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Magic words beat ParserFunctions at any time. Usually, they're server variables, or variables declared in LocalSettings.php, so they do not have to pass through the parser, as ParserFunctions do. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 07:18, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Dhaka picture

the main page image for Dhaka has no source. it's from world66, a user generated site, but on that site, it has no authorship information, so our usage of it breaks the CC-BY license. bogdan 15:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

I have replaced it with Image:Dhakarushhour (54).JPG. the wub "?!" 15:53, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice catch, bogdan. Quick fixing, wub. Good job !  :-) --PFHLai 19:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Heh, I'm not used to editing the Main Page so was triple checking everything! Is it protected? Yep. Is it still protected? Yep. It's still protected right? ;-) And yes, thanks for pointing it out bogdan. the wub "?!" 22:48, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Commas or dots for numbers?

For the article count, why is it 1,750,344 and not 1.750.344? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 132.170.51.155 (talk) 21:52, 22 April 2007 (UTC).

The Manual of Style for Wikipedia tells us to use commas, as this follows the common practice in the English language. timrem 22:02, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

For more detail on why, see Decimal separator. —Cuiviénen 04:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Milestone

Congratulations, everyone, on having over 1¾ million articles! Keep up the good work; we're almost to 2 million! Does anyone know what article 1,750,000 was? 68.162.53.85 03:22, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

We don't keep track of these things...do we?--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 03:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

We used to. Maybe on the 2-millionth article... --Howard the Duck 07:07, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

While the number is large, and the quantity of subjects is something to behold. The fact that many of those articles are poor stubs, newspaper style reports or not near FA status is more of a concern. Quality over quantity! --Monotonehell 09:02, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeltsin

AP article states that Boris Yeltsin has died. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/obit_yeltsin;_ylt=An88RF.zxC.sVla5D_NcsFG79LQF —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.168.7.243 (talk • contribs) 14:03, 23 April 2007 (UTC).

As does his article, and the In The News section. Is something missing? – Gurch 14:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

199.168.7.243 probably wanted to suggest adding this news item to ITN at the same time when ITN was being updated with this by someone else. 199.168.7.243 should have posted the suggestion at WP:ITN/C. --199.71.174.100 23:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you know...

...that Julian Salomons was the only chief justice in New South Wales to resign before he was sworn into office? Yeah now I'm wondering how i can sleep tonight. --Fertuno 16:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I know Wikipedia is a global tool, but must there be a reference to cricket in every single day's "Did You Know" section? HiramShadraski 18:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

There is no requirement for a cricket article in every single DYK. However DYK, as with all things we feature on the main page are strongly dependent on what contributors contribute. In the case of DYKs in particlar, it is fairly common that we get a rush of newly created/improved articles in one particular topic when a contributor decides to work towards them. This happened a month or two ago with Eurovision songs for example. For balance reasons, there should generally not be more then one DYK on one particular topic per refresh. Therefore, when we get a load of nominations for one topic, you will usually see one for every DYK until it runs out. For some topics and areas, cricket, India, the US, Australia for example, there are a lot of contributors interested in these subjects so we tend to get a lot of DYKs in these areas anyway. Nil Einne 18:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I was being a little facetious, of course. It just seems like there's been quite a lot of cricket lately.... HiramShadraski 22:26, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

DYK Joseph Smith Jr.

I think it could be helpful pointing out that Joseph Smith Jr. was the founder of the Latter Saint Day movement. Right now it isn't explained who he is, only he had a prophecy before he died. --Soetermans 19:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Done. Next time, add it to the error reports above, which will get you faster service. howcheng {chat} 21:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)