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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4

Continued discussion about WP:MUELLER (moved from project page)

  • (Special Counsel) An investigation does not deliver a report. Either "Special Counsel's office...delivers a report" or "investigation...concludes with a report". The phrasing in the article is: "The Special Counsel's office concluded its investigation and submitted the final report to ...". Jmar67 (talk) 12:36, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
     Fixed. --Jayron32 12:44, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    • This was much better than giving no information at all and hoping people will read the whole article. What was it changed back to the clickbait version? Natureium (talk) 14:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
      The discussion is at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#(Closed,_Reposted)_Special_Counsel_investigation_conclusion and after days and days of back and forth the current version (ALT 4) was arrived at as a compromise. The discussion has now been thankfully closed and IMHO there is nothing more to be said on the matter. This is not an error. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:21, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
      I don't think there is nothing more to be said on the matter is accurate when it could clearly be improved. Natureium (talk) 15:05, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    Indeed. Many people who report errors here would be unaware of such a discussion, and would be making good faith suggestions to improve the article. No one has changed anything to "clickbait". That accusation implies some sort of bad-faith action on the part of the several reports here at WP:ERRORS which were good faith corrections to the vague and hard to parse phrasing of the blurb. Wikipedia is not ever in its final form, and good-faith attempts to improve anything should not be derided as "clickbait". If the improvements made things worse in some grammatical or factual manner, please, by all means, point out how they did so. But to say "Some small group of people you don't know already talked about this, so you must be doing something wrong by asking for a change here" is rude and against AGF. Instead of doing that, explain the grammatical or factual error. --Jayron32 16:02, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    This page is for *errors*. Things that are wrong, either factually or grammatically. And in some cases things that don't conform to the rules of the section to which they pertain. Of course, people are welcome to their opinions and certainly I am in no way implying that the comments above are made in good faith. And it's true that sometimes *uncontroversial* content suggestions are made at ERRORS or ERRORS2 and taken on board forthwith. But ultimately, the place to discuss controversial content issues (rather than errors) relating to the individual sections of the main page is on the relevant talk pages for those projects. You may dismiss the ITN regulars as "some small group of people you don't know", but this hook was highly contentious, and the current text was a result of considerable compromise on all sides, so it's unreasonable for it to be changed on a whim because of a subjective suggestion on ERRORS that one or two people think is an improvement. Particularly when the thread relating to the hook has been closed and archived. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 17:16, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    If the original thread has been closed and archived, where should improvements to this be discussed? Natureium (talk) 17:24, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    I, too, am intrigued by the answer to this. Because claiming that anything at Wikipedia is in its final, perfect, and unimprovable state is antithetical to Wikipedia. --Jayron32 17:50, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

It seems like threads resulting in an ITN blurb should not be closed until the blurb has been removed from the MP. Jmar67 (talk) 19:29, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

You are certainly welcome to re-open it, but I assure you that to do so would be of utmost futility and any ensuing discussion would generate far more heat than light.--WaltCip (talk) 19:41, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
  • "Mueller delivers his report to the Attorney General": An editor recently made me aware of MOS:JOBTITLES. If my understanding of this guideline is correct (and I'm not claiming to be 100% sure it is), shouldn't "Attorney General" be lowercase? Joefromrandb (talk) 20:33, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Just as an observer: I expect the blurb to revert to its prior version, so this will be a moot question. However, this does not appear to be the generic use that MOS seems to require for lowercase. "Special Counsel" would also have to be lowercase for consistency. Jmar67 (talk) 22:29, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
  • @Stephen: Please self-revert. Not only are you technically wheel-warring on the main page, but you're using your admin permissions to unilaterally revise a compromise blurb that was implemented by a formal discussion. The blurb wording is anything but uncontentious, and you should not be unilaterally imposing contentious edits to fully-protected pages without a consensus. ~Swarm~ {talk} 20:51, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    No one here has given a reason that this version should not be used. Is there something wrong with this version? Natureium (talk) 20:59, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    No consensus for it. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:00, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    Consensus develops by someone suggesting something and others giving input on whether or not they think it’s a good idea. So far, we’ve seen people here saying why it’s a better idea, and no one giving any reasons why it’s not. Natureium (talk) 21:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    Perhaps you missed the 10KB of debate at ITNC. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:11, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    It shouldn’t surprise you that only a few people know what’s going on over at ITN. Since that discussion has been closed and archived, where do you suggest we decide whether this version is better? Natureium (talk) 21:17, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    If I'm honest, I suggest you go and do something else less boring instead. But otherwise, here (for the nth time) is the obviously the right venue. But you needed to be aware of the HUGE debate that happened at ITNC, as do others, so as not to short circuit the consensus already established for a NPOV and purely factual blurb, which has since been warred over, on the main page, for all readers to see. By the way, contrary to what Jayron said, I don't recall a single editor saying the answer to massive debate was "perfect". There just comes a point where return on bytes spouted is negligible. And that's what's happened here. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:25, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    Skimming that discussion, it doesn't look like there ever was a consensus for the shortened version. Natureium (talk) 21:45, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    Just as there has been no real consensus for any of the blurbs at all, indeed some might argue that there was no consensus to post this non-story at all! Next! The Rambling Man (talk) 21:47, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    Bongwarrior posted ALT4, there was general murmuring that it would do, everyone was happy, and the discussion was closed. Consensus or not, it seemed like a decent compromise. If only we'd known there were people who knew better about the matter than the previous contributors, just waiting here at ERRORS to come and change it again...  — Amakuru (talk) 21:55, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    This is going to need a shortcut, like WP:MUELLER, to cover this level of general malaise, right from the irrational early closure of the original discussion, through the three or four counter-nominations and six or more ALTs, to now this. Astonishing. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:00, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    Beyond ridiculous. Do WP:WHEEL and WP:CONSENSUS have no meaning any more?  — Amakuru (talk) 21:29, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
    Yes, if someone thinks a formal closure didn't properly assess consensus, and that we need a new closure, then they can WP:CLOSECHALLENGE it. But you don't just get to ignore a massive dispute that was resolved via compromise and formal close with an appeal to ERRORS, and Stephen actioning such an attempt as if it were an uncontentious edit request, and then edit/wheel warring over it, without engaging in the ongoing discussion here is nothing short of blatantly abusive. Still waiting on Stephen to be accountable for his actions, this is something where he needs to self-revert or it needs to go to Arbcom. ~Swarm~ {talk} 22:03, 28 March 2019 (UTC)
Holy fuck... It's about 10 entirely banal and uncontroversial words. Get over yourself. Chill the fuck out and let it go. It's not that big of a deal. --Jayron32 03:06, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Holy fuck, you’re right! Thanks for your measured words of wisdom, Jayron, truly. You’ve shown me the error of my ways, to the extent that I will not only take your sage advice to heart, but I will be sure to pass it along. The next time I witness an admin unilaterally action a contentious edit request to a fully protected page, overturning the result of an extensive and contentious discussion, in a situation where such an action has already been opposed by a different admin, but he decided to execute it anyway, without any comment in the relevant discussion, and then decides to wheel war when he gets reverted, and then goes radio silent, failing to respond to requests to be accountable, 11 hours later and counting...I will be sure to tell any concerned community members to “get over yourself”, and to “chill the fuck out and let it go”. I’m sure they’ll respond positively to that, both respecting the aggressive tone and language coming from an administrator speaking in defense of multiple, clear cut admin conduct violations, as well as the underlying sentiment that they should “let it go” due to the fact that I personally agree with the change—I don’t see how it’s controversial, so their concerns surely must be invalid. They really should just chill the fuck out and get over themselves. Who needs stupid whistleblowers anyway?! Yes, I’m absolutely sure that they’ll appreciate that response, and that it will do wonders to defuse the next situation of abusive admin conduct that springs up. Truly impressed by your oratorical refutation here, and I concede my point in its entirety. Thank you again, truly, for your sensible eloquence. Best regards, ~Swarm~ {talk} 06:27, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
The problem is that the animosity towards what was some rather bland and uncontroversial text is out of proportion to the actual words on the page. You're too married to the process and seem to be unconcerned with the results. Yes, there was a huge discussion at ITNC. But the blurb was objectively bad "It was bad, but we had a giant discussion beforehand, so we can't make it better" is hardly all that great of a defense, and yet that's all you got here. Some small tweaks made it better, and you freaked out. I'll note, by the way, that no one has criticized the actual words used in the improvements made since the initial posting. In other words, you are only focused on the process, and show no regard for the actual quality. --Jayron32 10:48, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
No, it was a disregard for consensus and once again using the main page as a sandbox which was what the whole point of pull was in the first place. And now we're back to sandboxing with more tweaks and twerks from multiple admins making personal preferential edits. Unsuitable. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:53, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
It was not a disregard for consensus, to say that implies that a consensus version is permanent and perfect as written and could never be improved, or that improvement of quality is secondary to being invariant to the consensus. Also, saying disregard means that the people who suggested the changes knew about the consensus and deliberately tried to override it in a bad-faith way. I see no evidence of that. Also also, thank you for confirming my main point, which is that you're showing idolatry for process over outcome: the process that gave us a specific bit of text is secondary to the quality of the text itself. You still have not said what is better about the text other than to keep referring back to the process that created it. --Jayron32 12:53, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
There you go again, quoting "perfect" which no-one but you has said, nor has anyone assumed or implied it. Consensus is how things work and admins are charged with basing their decisions on consensus, not ignoring a vast consensus to make minor adjustments, and then go on tinkering with the main page. If people didn't know about the consensus but subsequently did know about the consensus (which is now impossible to not know about) then I fail to see why we aren't back where consensus took us. This is really a poor reflection on several here including those who lost control of themselves in defence of the situation. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:59, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, but we change blurbs based on suggestions here all the time. All blurbs are posted by consensus, and suggestions for improvements appear at WP:ERRORS all the time, and we make them all the time. What you're implying is that there was some kind of "Superconsensus" for this one blurb that means it's special. You keep asking that this one blurb be treated differently than other blurbs. Can you explain why? There's never before this been a demand that a blurb, once posted, must not be improved upon. What is special about this one? --Jayron32 13:12, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
No, you're wrong, we don't change blurbs in this way all the time. Nor do we often pull a blurb to renegotiate its wording in extremis only to see it continually tinkered with later on while on the main page. Unseemly (and very likely a Arbcom-actionable course of events to include other admins defending what appears to most to be something quite indefensible). The Rambling Man (talk) 13:15, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
We frequently alter the wording of blurbs based on suggestions at WP:ERRORS. I can go find several dozen examples from the past few weeks with a modicum of effort. What do you mean we don't change blurbs in this way all the time? It's happened during this discussion to several other blurbs on the main page in the mean time. Someone comes and says "Hey, I think this needs fixing" and we fix it, and that's it. That's the exact process that made the changes to this blurb. It was literally exactly like every other change to an ITN blurb we've ever done. You're claiming that, somehow, it wasn't what happened this time. But it was. A suggestion for an improvement was made here at 14:12 27 March and enacted here at 02:13 28 March. I don't understand why that process was any different than all of the other times we fixed a blurb on the main page. What was different about it? --Jayron32 13:26, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
I think we're talking past each other now. You know exactly why this is different given the volumes of discussion, the pull, the attempts at a NPOV and factual hook which finally got consensus, which was posted then tinkered with time and again, and the various subsequent transgressions and admin club. The latter attempts weren't "fixing" anything, they implementing preference, once again, which was what the whole pull/rephrase/consensus activity was all about avoiding. But if nothing else, it's just shone a light on yet more uneven admin behaviour. I suspect you'll be given the opportunity to revisit all this once again once it ends up at Arbcom. For me, nothing else left to say here you'll be glad to know. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:34, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
I await your promised Arbcom filing with baited breath. --Jayron32 13:43, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Once again, you're putting words in people's mouths. I suggest you stop doing it immediately and re-read what was actually written. A bit more contrition wouldn't go amiss. The Rambling Man (talk) 13:45, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Arbcom is right there, in your post, dated 13:34, 29 March 2019. You used the word. I didn't put it in your mouth. --Jayron32 13:50, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm surprised at your lack of comprehension of what I said. I never promised to file an Arbcom case did I? So why did you make stuff up to claim that I did? I had hoped that admins would know better than to just simply make things up about what the rest of us say.
You said "once it ends up at Arbcom" Who, pray tell, is going to bring it to Arbcom then? You're quite literally the first person to bring up Arbcom in this whole discussion. I'm sorry I presumed that you would be the one to bring it up at Arbcom, but it was a reasonable assumption given that you brought it up. If you didn't intend for it to go to Arbcom, why mention it at all? --Jayron32 14:01, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Ooooops. You clearly haven't read this whole thread Jayron. Once you do, let me know and you can say sorry for making so much stuff up. (hint: use control+F (or command+F) to help you out, you might find it just around the point where you told another admin to "chill the fuck out", amongst other places....). The Rambling Man (talk) 14:04, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
You're right. Swarm brought it up a ways back. My mistake. Sorry about that. --Jayron32 14:06, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
I wasn't even literally the second person to bring it up either. D minus, must try harder. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:08, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right. I went down a rabbit hole of my own making. I apologize without equivocation for wasting your time with this, and for wasting the time of everyone else who has to read through it. --Jayron32 14:13, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

And the endless tinkering continues.... The Rambling Man (talk) 06:58, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

The gift which keeps on giving... The Rambling Man (talk) 07:20, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
So now we're back to a variant of the wording that caused the original complaint at the top of this thread... Whereby an inanimate investigation is reporting to someone's office. You can't make this stuff up.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:28, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
I'd revert back to the pre-Stephen revision, but I'm afraid of being desysopped for admin abuse. Apparently, if you have no fear of such consequence, you can get away with it. Btw, we're now over 12 hours since Stephen's wheel warring reversion to the main page, and, yes, we are still waiting for him to be accountable for it! I have been told to "chill the fuck out" and to "get over myself" in response to this concern. ~Swarm~ {talk} 08:07, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Indeed. WHEEL is AFAIK a bright line rule and some of us consider ourselves bound by it. There needs to be a self-revert.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:07, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
WP:GRENADE—or something similar—applies; they haven't edited since that last main page edit. What's the usual way of breaking the chain? ——SerialNumber54129 09:22, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Thanks everyone for keeping track of my voluntary contributions. There was consensus here that the blurb was too terse, and a suggestion was made to add to it, which I did. Then a semantic error was fixed. This is the common practice here at Errors that items are tweaked regardless of what was suggested at ITNC. Then Amakuru unilaterally undid those changes, so I changed it back. The tweaks continue, just as Swarm tweaked the blurb nine times in a row when it first went up. And there isn’t a problem with that. Stephen 09:38, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
I think some of the problem stems from the fact that there was a HUGE discussion over the blurb at ITNC after it had been pulled, and consensus was reached there on the new, shorter one, which then got tailored and tinkered with here back to one which wasn't backed by consensus, but by just a couple of complainants. I think Amakuru restored the version which had consensus at ITNC after the original had been pulled and the extensive discussion took place, and really it should be that one which stands. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:05, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
@Stephen: you say "there isn't a problem with that", but there is a problem with one part of what you have written. You say "Then Amakuru unilaterally undid those changes, so I changed it back", as if that's perfectly OK... yet at WP:WHEEL, it is written in bold text that "Do not repeat a reversed administrative action when you know that another administrator opposes it". For avoidance of doubt, I am another administrator and I oppose your change. As I'm sure you're aware, that's a bright line rule, and the policy page goes on to say "Wheel warring usually results in an immediate request for arbitration". None of us want that to happen, but you have to accept that what you did was wrong. Sure, you prefer the version you saved, and you think my change was "unilateral", but such issues are discussed on talk pages, not by simply redoing the controversial admin action all over again. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 11:10, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
There were suggestions made here at Errors to improve the item, that were then implemented and further tweaked for semantics, and then you unilaterally undid them without any discussion on any talk page. Stephen 11:25, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
My two cents: ERRORS should be for when there's clearly no problem with the consensus of the blurb and we're taking small tweaks: updating death tolls, fixing grammar, spelling, etc. If there was or remains questions of consensus on the blurb itself, that should be taken back to the ITNC entry (given that ERRORS should be brief "this needs fixing" "ok, fixed". Obviously here, we had two different conversations going between ITNC and ERRORS. As soon as that was apparent, the discussion at ERRORS should have been closed down and pointed to ITNC, which likely would have avoided all the template back-and-forth editing. --Masem (t) 13:33, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
The ITNC discussion had closed down before the blurb was tweaked. The closure of the ITNC discussion closed at 18:51, 27 March 2019, and the tweak to the blurb was made at 02:13, 28 March 2019. This discussion didn't even get started until 12:36, 28 March 2019. You're suggestion may be valid, but is irrelevant here. --Jayron32 13:42, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
The blurb was originally posted to T:ITN on March 25 [1], and subsequently edited with, pulled, reposted, and edited more and more, all while ITNC was opened. (this is part of what TRM is trying to point out, I think) Even though that discussion may have closed before the OP in this errors, given the complexity of the issue, the discussion should have been pointed back to ITNC, reopening that discussion or at least closing off part of it and discussing the wording problems. --Masem (t) 13:49, 29 March 2019 (UTC)
Fair enough. Still, it does seem like this was blown out of proportion. The suggested changes didn't seem all that controversial on the face; normally this wouldn't have even generated a discussion of this length. For any other blurb, this would have been uncontroversial. The person who made the suggestion to tweak the blurb did so in good faith, the text is not particularly problematic or confusing or incorrect, or controversial. All of the argument here is about process, not about the text. The text seems irrelevant to the controversy here, which seems the opposite of the Wikipedia ethos. --Jayron32 14:11, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Unwatching (but still here)

A lot of news and web content these days is generated by machines, with "no human in the loop", as they say. The amount of machine-generated text we're all exposed to is predicted to skyrocket in the 2020s. It appears to me that Wikipedia may already be negatively affected, and I want to spend some time studying the problem. So I'm going to have to cut back a bit on time I spend on TFA. I'll keep writing most of the blurbs, but not in cases where anyone else has beaten me to it (unless I'm specifically asked to write a blurb anyway). Please feel free to participate in the blurb reviews ... they happen on the talk pages of FAC nominations, soon after promotion. I'm sad to say that I'll be taking WP:ERRORS off my watchlist ... there are a lot of smart, funny people who hang out here and I've enjoyed my 4+ years here a lot. But I'm not going anywhere ... ping me if you need me. - Dank (push to talk) 21:50, 30 March 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:ERRORS listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wikipedia:ERRORS. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Joseph2302 (talk) 20:42, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Has been speedily kept. Hut 8.5 18:44, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to say some things here that Main Page people already know, but I want to write something that will make sense to people who don't keep up with Main Page issues. This is in response to an edit to yesterday's TFA blurb. First ... my mistake, sorry about that, I thought that the link was, and intended it to be, [[graphic adventure]], not [[graphic adventure game|graphic adventure]]. Both "graphic adventure" and "graphic adventure game" redirect to Adventure_game#Graphic_adventure. Roughly speaking, consensus on the Main Page and elsewhere has always been to avoid pipes like [[graphic adventure game|graphic adventure]] when the part before the pipe gets redirected. There have been valid, reasonable disagreements over whether to allow any redirects at TFA, piped or not. As of about two months ago, I've been following Main Page preferences on this (when I don't screw up) ... but only when the redirect is to a page, not to a section of a page. For instance, when FAC people write [[prioresses]], I'm changing that in the blurbs I write to [[prior|prioresses]]. I haven't had any complaints, and (even though it's not what FAC people do, and it may or may not be a MOS violation) I don't see the harm. Main Page people argue that they don't want to have to watch out for sneaky vandalism at the redirect page, and that's a good point. Another good point is that there may be readers out there who don't immediately recognize "prioresses", and that's true in general for redirects ... the page title is, or is supposed to be, the name that's most natural, or that most people will recognize, so providing this information in hovertext can be a good thing.

But some of the relevant arguments get reversed when the redirect is to a section of a page, such as Adventure_game#Graphic_adventure:

  • It's a more serious MOS violation. WP:NOTBROKEN says: "redirects to ... sections of articles ... should never be bypassed".
  • Instead of being slightly helpful, the hovertext usually becomes deceptive. Although the link will be displayed accurately for many readers at the bottom of the screen, the hovertext itself doesn't say "Adventure_game#Graphic_adventure", it says "Adventure game" ... so anyone who hovers but doesn't click is going to see text that isn't synonomous at all with what we're linking.
  • Redirects to pages don't change all that frequently ... where else could prioresses reasonably redirect to? ... but redirects to sections change a lot, such as when people decide that the section is better covered on a different page, or when people write new articles that cover the section in more depth.

My disclaimer of course is that this is just my understanding of the current state of the argument. I don't keep up with everything, and I could be completely wrong. But in my suggested blurbs, I'm going to keep writing [[graphic adventure]] instead of [[Adventure_game#Graphic_adventure]] as long as FAC people write it that way, until I see some kind of discussion that indicates that consensus has changed. - Dank (push to talk) 15:57, 9 May 2019 (UTC)

@Dank: thanks for your message on my talk page earlier, and the link to this discussion. I'll reply here. I think you make a lot of sense in your commentary above, and to be honest I did think earlier, as I was making the change, that it might not necessarily be the right thing to do. I assumed it was accepted wisdom to do that, but perhaps it is not. Another reason for avoiding putting the hardcoded section link as the pipe is that if in the future an article is written on the topic itself, the redirect should then point to the new page, not the old section that is no longer the main article. It would be useful to get more feedback from other users, but perhaps I will avoid "fixing" this sort of thing in the future. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 21:37, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Thanks much. - Dank (push to talk) 01:31, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
Redirects are okay but on the main page should be avoided. Pipes to redirects on the main page really should be avoided. Our readers don't need to understand NOTBROKEN etc, they just want to click on a link and not see "Redirected from ..." at the top of the page. The main page content is entirely transient and for the day it's relevant should be as "perfect" as it can be. That takes next-to-no effort to do so. The Rambling Man (talk) 22:04, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
And they won't see "Redirected from" if the redirect is to a section link ... they'll be looking at the relevant section. This is really far down my list of things to care about, but I'm not comfortable doing something I haven't seen any consensus for. I wouldn't object at all to a larger discussion ... but my guess is everyone will be happier if we just leave things the way they are. - Dank (push to talk) 23:19, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
Sure, whatever, my guess is that we'd be better off avoiding any redirects from the main page because our readers shouldn't be forced to understand what's happening. But then I suppose I spend too much time thinking about the experience our readers have than the infinitesimal efforts involved in making such improvements. The Rambling Man (talk) 06:31, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
TRM, you do marvelous work, and there's no one who works harder on the Main Page than you do. You know a lot about Main Page consensus. I can certainly relate to the feeling of trying to do something good for Wikipedia while battling against silly constraints. (And if any of this sounds pandering or insincere, ask around ... people we both know will tell you that it's not.) All I'm trying to do here is lessen the odds that any of us will get into trouble. TFA will have a redirect to a section of a page maybe two or three times a month. I've been watching the relevant redirect pages for vandalism on their Main Page day, and I'll keep doing that. If there are other concerns, I'll do whatever I can. If there have been other conversations on this topic, please point me to them so I can learn. Thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 13:22, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Today's FA?

This edit is only acceptable if you guys want to keep it that way from now on. The slow-edit-war needs to stop, because WP:ERRORS isn't archived, so the only way to find out what's happened in the TFA section is to do a search on the page history ... which will fail if we keep changing what we're searching for. (And ... haven't we referred to it as TFA for 15 years now? That's my recollection, but I don't care ... just stop messing with it.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:53, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

Vacation notice

I will be on vacation from June 22 to July 13. By the time I leave, I will have done the 2019 updates for all the relevant OTD subpages. I do plan on logging in during this time, Internet access and time permitting, but I will be unable to respond to most messages in a timely manner and unable to do anything more than the most basic edits, so I'm counting on the community of ERRORS regulars to cover for me. Thanks in advance. —howcheng {chat} 18:24, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

You're amazing, howcheng. Thanks for all you do and I hope you have a fantastic vacation. Killiondude (talk) 23:00, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

nbsp at TFA

For more than 4.5 years, we've been following FAC and omitting   (a non-breaking space, to avoid word wrap) from dates in TFA blurbs. Any thoughts on changing that? (nbsp's are fine in a variety of other contexts. Since everyone seems to have different rules on nbsp's, I don't get involved in adding them to "World War I", etc.) - Dank (push to talk) 15:27, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay, I've reverted the addition of nbsp's to dates a couple of times recently ... hopefully I won't have to keep doing that. - Dank (push to talk) 14:20, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Continued discussion: Quadrangles of Mars

On that basis, we have a flaw in that the statement gives no indication of this, thereby reading as a geographical bias and leaving people wondering, "What's remarkable about the fact it wasn't NASA, as opposed to that it wasn't ESA, or that it wasn't CNSA?"

What "data" are you talking about here? Do you mean that although USGS assembled the maps, NASA published them? Or that USGS assembled the maps from data received from NASA? Then the statement should acknowledge what involvement NASA did have, while still drawing primary attention to the main point. Examples:

I'm not overly familiar with how DYK works. Are DYK items reused over time, or is each one written, used once and then never seen again except in the archives? If the former, it's something to do before this one is used again. Otherwise, it's still something to learn for next time. — Smjg (talk) 10:47, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

@Smjg: articles are only ever listed at DYK once, I believe. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:50, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Continued discussion of PotD issues

I have started a thread at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day to discuss general issues relating to a few recent discussions here relating to PotD: Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day#Further discussion. Espresso Addict (talk) 03:42, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Moved to Talk:Main Page § Main Page balance
 – --- Coffeeandcrumbs 05:05, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

What is the point of ERRORS if it only meets with intransigence rather than a willingness to make corrections?

With relation to the Today's FA section here.

It was amply demonstrated, with a pdf from the organisation running the site, that the building in question is an exhibition hall, never referred to as a visitor centre. This was even acknowledged by the prime mover of the article as the correct text to put in the article. But rather than a quick change to the article "without a second thought, as a non-controversial minor improvement" there was a suggestion that it should be referred to multiple editors, precedence given to an informal use of a term in a magazine over the publication of the owner/managers of the site, attempts to tortuously stretch the meaning of words to maintain the status quo, and repeated deletions of the discussion before the day was out. All this while the article in question featured a photograph of the building in question with the words 'exhibition' and 'hall' in large block capitals above the door (and the phrase 'visitor centre' nowhere to be seen).

So what is the point of the ERRORS page if the response is only to defend, prevaricate and obfuscate, rather than to respond with corrections and improvements to the main page? Kevin McE (talk) 08:38, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

You made your point, others did not agree with you, and the consensus was to take no action. That's normal and the way things work on Wikipedia. I know it can seem frustrating when you think you're right, and I've been there too in other situations, but you have to be able to WP:DROPTHESTICK. As it is, you were lucky to escape without a block, as you reverted this page four times.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:50, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
But priority was being given to those who simply wanted to stick behind quod scripsi, scripsi, rather than actually look at the information provided. Nobody tried to defend the proposition that the building was called the visitor centre, but visitors to the Main Page were still being told that this sculpture was outside the visitor centre. There was no willingness here to admit error, so why do you even offer an "errors" page. My point was amply illustrated, but the power of the self selected clique holds sway, even though they were clearly arguing that black was white. What is the point of error reporting when this is the response?
As to my reverting the clearing of the page: Wikipedia is meant to be built on discussion, and arbitrary deletion of the discussion, when one issue had not been responded to at all, and a new source had been presented, is clearly not consistent with that. And it transpired that two further editors had something to say on the matter. So I in no way apologise for reverting those deletions, and the assumption of those making them that the discussion was done was proved mistaken. Kevin McE (talk) 09:08, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
  • That discussion does look like one person thought there was an error and everybody else disagreed. That doesn't mean ERRORS isn't functioning properly, it's how collaborative editing works, and there's little point in carrying the discussion on here. By the time a discussion gets to that point it should really be removed because it makes it less likely that other error reports will be seen and acted on. Hut 8.5 10:34, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
But even before there was any attempt to defend the status quo, there was a "Let's consult lots of people": stall and obfuscate rather than check whether it might be an error to correct.
And even when it was acknowledged by Usernameunique that that the sculpture was indeed hanging on an exhibition hall within the visitor centre (as is very obvious to anyone who takes the time to look at the references or photo) there was still an adherence to the erroneous text, with attempts to twist meaning. This is what I am raising today: Why is there such reluctance to change when evidence of error is clear? Kevin McE (talk) 12:10, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I think that's already been answered, there wasn't a consensus in favour of a change. It happens. Often. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 13:10, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

To repeat, I can't make a call on consensus for blurbs that I helped write, so my hands are tied in some individual cases. But in general ... I'm uncomfortable. What happened yesterday, and may happen again today judging from current comments, and may keep happening (if history repeats itself), is going to snowball. Quick recap: we managed to limp along for 4 years at ERRORS/TFA until the first quarter of this year, when we started doing blurb reviews immediately after each Featured Article was promoted. We don't ping people for these reviews, but they're generally posted on the FAC talk pages right after promotion, while the nominator, the reviewers, and others still have the page watchlisted. We get participation a little less than half the time, and I'm not claiming that these blurb reviews constitute Consensus with a capital "C" ... but experience has shown that the reason people don't always participate, usually, is that they're happy with the results. These reviews constitute a higher level of consensus than we had before at TFA, and that needs to be taken into account somehow. Personally, I can't see a good reason not to give the people who have in many cases spent months or years thinking about prose and other issues with an article at least 24 hours to respond if people have substantive questions, especially if digging into the sources might be required. (I'm not talking about quick, obvious fixes.) Even if we don't always do this, people should be able to ask for 24 hours if they think it might be needed. - Dank (push to talk) 13:49, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I think the above-mentioned process has improved things a fair bit, and certainly removes any excuse for someone to say they didn't have a chance to muck in and improve the blurb. IIRC the change was partly inspired by Kevin himself, who had been particularly active on ERRORS around Christmas last year, but has since been working in other areas. That's not to say that glaring errors can't be Brought up and fixed on the day of the TFA, if they're clear, but the one under discussion didn't fall under that category,so changes would have been better discussed a week or two in advance. Overall I don't think Dank can be faulted for holding back on making the change and seeking others' advice.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:00, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
The blurbs have been posted for weeks. Critiquing them early, if necessary, makes for a much smoother process and ensures that the article writers are in the loop if they want to be, which helps keep them happy. I believe that people are content, in general, with how TFA is run and giving everyone plenty of notice of things helps ensure that. I would ask that participants here help us out with that. There have been crises in the past over TFA, we've managed to avoid that in the recent past and would like to keep that going.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:10, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Compared to the prominent access to WP:ERRORS, these long-prepared blurbs are not well signposted. If there is serious intent for them to be reviewed, there should be appropriate invitation for people to see them in advance.
But regardless of that, WP:ERRORS exists, and invites people to bring errors to the attention of those with the opportunity to make corrections on the day in question. There is no excuse for those pointing out blatant errors of fact, as I did yesterday, to be treated as I was yesterday.
I recall trying to go through a batch in January, but there seemed to be no suitable plce to raise issues. IIRC I created a talk page with observations and tweaks on a number of extracts, but they were ignored. Thus the overwhelming impression that the attitude at TFA is "Don't rock the boat, we've written something and we will stand by it even when it is proven to be wrong."
Very disappointed that Dank has refused on his/her talk page to defend closing comments on yesterday's issue. Kevin McE (talk) 14:21, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I've been invited numerous times to review blurbs for both TFA and TFL weeks in advance of them being posted to the main page. I guess it works for major contributors, and everyone else just has to do the homework ahead of time. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 14:25, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I support what Wehwalt, Amakuru and TRM are saying ... but at the same time, we all know that any minute now, someone is going to say "Well that's not how ERRORS works, we don't have weeks, you'll have to do it our way". It's really frustrating that, after years of being respectful and building trust at ERRORS, we'd still be dealing with people who think that TFA and FAC people are trying to force anyone to do things our way. There are lots of brilliant people at ERRORs who do a fine job, and I'm not interested in any "solution" that doesn't work for them, for FAC writers and reviews, and everyone else (well, almost everyone). We came very close to a process that worked yesterday ... but IMO it wasn't optimal because we didn't have quite enough time for the people who had relevant information to present what they knew and to talk it out. - Dank (push to talk) 14:31, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Can I point out that I thoroughly resent the implication that I should have addressed the matter sooner. I addressed it as soon as I saw it. I had not been around the main page for months, happened to go there for other reasons yesterday, and seeing the FA about a place that I have visited a number of times, read it, noticed the error, and reported it. Is that not what WP:ERRORS is for?

Maybe my question at the top of the discussion should have been "What is the point of Today's FA at ERRORS if you are going to be resistant to changes less than two weeks in advance?" Kevin McE (talk) 16:27, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

I gather you know where to find the blurbs because you've asked in the past when the scheduling seemed to you to be running late. We are asking those who frequent WP:ERRORS to respect our efforts to get the blurbs settled as early as possible, if only so the FAC nominator isn't taken by surprise when they see something unexpected in the blurb when it's running. That in my view causes WP:ERRORS to run more efficiently as well.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:17, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I'm impressed that you remember in such detail what I might have asked several months ago: I certainly don't. Yeah, I have managed to navigate the not at all well signposted route to future TFAs, but that does not alter the fact that I was unaware of yesterday's blurb until yesterday. I admire the effort of those of you who are around here everyday, but I haven't been around this corner for many months. Therefore I cannot accept that my comments yesterday can be criticised for not having been made before yesterday, nor for being anything other than precisely what ERRORS invites readers of the Main Page to do. Kevin McE (talk) 19:13, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Kevin has now made suggestions on the talk pages of 4 TFAs coming up shortly, for the 25th through the 28th. For the time being, I'd prefer to simply give Kevin whatever he wants, within reason, while we're trying to get agreement on what I see as two critical issues ... so could I get some response to my first question, please? Can we agree that people can ask for 24 hours if a concern is raised about a TFA blurb that has a blurb review, and if the case can be made that input from the FAC nominator(s) and reviewers might be helpful? It doesn't seem like a big ask, but if we can't get this, everything else falls apart. I'm not going to invite those people to ERRORS if the result is going to be similar to what we saw yesterday. (The details of what happened aren't important; the point is that we had some very knowledgeable people show up in response to pings, they had useful things to say, their advice was ignored, and the thread was deleted with language that was somewhat dismissive.) - Dank (push to talk) 17:42, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
I do not expect you to "simply give Kevin what he wants"; that is an appallingly condescending approach. Please don't treat me as the problem here: I am trying, as are all others, to make Wikipedia better, more accurate, and more trusted as a seriously composed resource. I expect people to consider what I mention, as I would what anyone else mentions, and take it as a proposal that I consider to be better, but others may not agree. Of course, when it is a matter of simple fact, as was the case yesterday, I am not going to concede that opinion comes into it, and I will insist until the 23rd hour that it is better to be correct than wrong.
I do not see how your idea that people can ask for 24 hours is applicable given that ERRORS is the place that people are directed to from the Main Page when they read something there, as I did yesterday, that they know to be wrong. It is a venue for response to what is already posted.
I have no idea what you mean by "a TFA blurb that has a blurb review" Where does one find a list of which have, and which have not, had a review? Who reviews these, and where? It sounds like some hidden part of Wikipedia that the rest of us are kept unaware of, and, I'm sorry to say, reinforces the impression I had yesterday of an inner sanctum that the reader of MP cannot penetrate.
And although you say that the details of what happened yesterday are unimportant, I did ask you on your talk page to expand upon some of your comments in yesterday's discussion, and you said that you would do so here. So I invite you to do that, particularly with reference to questions 2 and 3. Kevin McE (talk) 18:53, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Blurb reviews, when they exist, are always found on the talk page of their FAC nomination page. All Featured Articles promoted on January 21 of this year and later had blurb reviews done at the time. Then we went back and did blurb reviews after the fact going back to the previous October 1, with roughly the same levels of participation. On the other stuff ... one thing at a time, please, it's not going to solve any problems if I start writing walls of text. - Dank (push to talk) 19:02, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Stay tuned, everyone, I just got a relevant email ... I'm going to be striking some of what I said above, after I get a reply. - Dank (push to talk) 19:14, 21 September 2019 (UTC)
Okay, it's not as bad as I thought. Floq and I are pretty far apart on several issues, but we're going to chat for a while next week. I'm optimistic that we'll be able to issue some kind of joint communique when we're done :) I'm striking just the "details" sentence above, but I also want to clarify: I'm not upset with Floq, at all, and I don't think what he did yesterday was out of line with standard operating procedure at ERRORS, at all. In the current environment, the standard operating procedure isn't working for me. That's what this thread is about (for me, at least). (As an aside, I know some people are expecting me to be more responsive to Kevin, but I really need some kind of resolution on my current question and on another question to follow before I can do that. No disrespect at all is intended ... this is just how Wikipedia works, in my experience. If you try to do 3 things at once, you bore people and you get nothing for your trouble.) - Dank (push to talk) 19:39, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Just noting that things have calmed down a bit. I also just realized that I left out two crucial details of my 24-proposal: 1. I had already been thinking for a while about suggesting a "Day after tomorrow's FA" subsection at ERRORS. I don't think we'd need to protect the blurbs for 3 days instead of 2 (but I don't really care). I was vaguely in favor before, but I'm now strongly in favor, because recent events have convinced me that in some cases we need to be able to ping the people who saw the blurb review to get their input, and it would be rude and counterproductive to ping them and not give them 24 hours to respond and discuss. But a 24-hold probably won't work well unless we get started roughly one day earlier looking for potential problems in blurbs. 2. I'm not asking to make the rules here. Under normal circumstances, a ping followed by a 24-hour hold would be relatively rare, and I'll be happy to respect any reasonable set of guidelines on when and when not to use it. - Dank (push to talk) 12:56, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

To be honest, the details of this discussion have gone over my head a bit here. What is the 24-hour proposal? And would it result in changes to what can and cannot be changed? Personally I don't think there are huge problems with the TFA process as it stands. The drama we saw on Friday was mostly down to Kevin's complete failure to get the message that there was no consensus for his change, and that it wasn't an unambiguous error, as he kept saying it was. That in itself shouldn't necessitate major changes - having Kevin and others look at the blurbs earlier (as it looks like they are now doing) is of course a good thing, but that option has always been there. My understanding of how things should work is this:
  • Blurbs are worked out by Dank in conjunction with article !owners in advance, if possible during the FAC itself.
  • Any interested party may contribute to this process at any time up to a day or two before the TFA runs.
  • Once it hits the main-page arena, it enters the period in which WP:ERRORS may be used to flag things up.
  • Obvious unambiguous errors and minor formatting issues should just be dealt with by any admin on hand, as we saw with the issues raised for yesterday.
  • More subjective changes should be subject to consensus on ERRORS, and where possible Dank and the article's contributors should be involved. I wouldn't make the latter a red line though, provided enough uninvolved WIkipedians support the consensus for a change. This determination would be made by an admin at the ERRORS page.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:44, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
  • I agree with just about everything you said, I'm generally happy with how TFA and ERRORS work (and work together), and I agree that we don't want to make any major changes just based on a few outlier events. But what I'm talking about now has been a little broken ever since we started doing blurb reviews ... recent events just highlighted the brokenness. Would it work for you to continue this discussion on your talk page or mine? It might get a little detailed and wonky. - Dank (push to talk) 14:54, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
  • The plan is to encourage ERRORS people to come up with a list of kinds of problems that most of us would consider serious enough to warrant getting feedback from the people who participated in creating and vetting the blurb after the FAC was promoted, including the reviewers who watchlisted the page, read the blurb, and said nothing. Intelligent people can disagree over what should go into that must-ping list; I think I've acted in good faith here for long enough for you to know that I'm not going to be part of anything that doesn't respect how ERRORS works. I had specific reasons for pinging FAC reviewers twice on Friday; two admins may or may not have disagreed with the wisdom of that; that's not a problem for me. Let's work together to figure out when we should ping people. But if we do ping people, we need to be serious about it: there has to be time (when they're not working or sleeping) for them to see it, show up, grab the sources when necessary, and discuss. If it's anything less than 24 hours, what people are going to take from that was that we were just going through the motions, aiming for the appearance of respectability, without actually wanting their input. That would make all of us, including me, look like asshats ... if it's really one of those things that requires input. Your neat division into pre- and post-ERRORS won't work, Amakuru, in those cases where someone raises an issue at ERRORS that requires feedback from the writers and reviewers. And what really makes us look like asshats here is that we, collectively, were the ones who were demanding that blurb-writing should become a more consensus-based process ... and FAC people came through, more than I even expected they would. If it's even possible to make the case (and some will make the case) that we are then ignoring the kind of input that we demanded in the first place ... not cool. - Dank (push to talk) 21:23, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
    @Dank: Thanks for this explanation, and apologies for not replying earlier... most of it looks sensible enough, but I will have a think and I will hopefully be able to give a reply to this tomorrow. All the best  — Amakuru (talk) 21:36, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Sorry, why can't we just link to where all the TFA blurbs will be in the next two weeks? The TL;dr from above is fine but we'll have to go over this again and again to appease the people that aren't actually involved in content creation and hence aren't aware of the norms of blurb preps and notifications. I honestly find it hard to believe that real issues can't be picked up sooner than the day they're on the main page, although I defaulted to reviewing OTD etc the day before because of the volatility. TFA had no such issues. We don't need a sermon to understand that TFA blurbs are created these days within days of promotion. We don't need a sermon to understand that main contributors are notified when "their" articles are about to feature. Finally, we don't need to get too worked up about ERRORS. Ironically Kevin makes good points about the lack of interest in fixing errors despite there being no consensus to do so yet I register errors a day in advance and still nothing gets done about them. Especially at the weekend. Apparently Wikipedia's main page on Saturday and Sunday is just a shit-fest. Ho-hum. Who cares? I do. And that's why I keep trying. But it all relies on those special volunteers with a mop. And most of them aren't looking at the main page. Especially at the weekend. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 21:38, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

We wouldn't be able to manage without you, TRM. It didn't feel like a sermon to me. - Dank (push to talk) 22:03, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
I think the summary really is to enable uninvolved users to see clearly where blurbs are written. Perhaps, for Kevin's benefit, we need some bold links to where to find the text which is invariably prepared way in advance of the main page appearance. I'm afraid I work simplistically here. The main gripe seems to be "why aren't we fixing errors on or about to go on the main page" and I completely empathise with that. Most of what goes onto the main page is average, at best. TFA is decent though, and Kevin's problem with that could be solved with more overt link to WHERE TO FIND THE TFA BLURBS FOR THE NEXT YEAR/MONTH/WEEK. So let's just fix that and put a link somewhere obvious so Kevin can find it. The rest of the Main Page is beyond hope and it should stay that way, just to keep us all busy. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 22:12, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
I know you know TRM but Kevin McE can find them at September 2019, October 2019, and November 2019 (work in progress). The very convenient link WP:TFAA shows this current month from which you can navigate to subsequent months. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 22:31, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
I have found it now thanks, and I have been reminded that I had found it for a while in December/January last.
What was started as a discussion about ERRORS has turned into a matter of medium term TFA scrutiny. Making that TFAA link more obvious, more advertised (where is it at the moment?) would help in the latter, as would the practice of notifying forthcoming TFA appearances on the article talk pages in a more prominent manner than the line on the infobox that seems to be the norm at the moment. I note the talk page message] that Wehwalt has put on the Chartwell page as an excellent idea that does not seem to be widespread (That Chartwell article is a particular concern to me, and I am at a loss as to how it got FA status. I am strongly minded to refer it to FA review: see its talk page).
But what of the former, the responsiveness of ERRORS? The same issue will arise for anyone finding something on the main page on the day that they know to be wrong: they will be told, "If you had told us this several days ago, we could have done something about it, but now we need to consult four other people, who might not be around Wikipedia at the moment." ERRORS is essentially the talk page of the Main Page, and will be visited from there, because of what appears there on the day. Anyone using any of the future sections of ERRORS are the cognoscenti, the "initiates" of the "self selected clique" that I rather ungraciously referred to higher up this thread, and that I may now have joined. But I would bet that the majority of those seeing ERRORS actually think they of themselves as looking at the talk page of MP, because they have seen something on MP they would want to talk about. Kevin McE (talk) 23:42, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
Kevin McE, Just as an aside, I did the notification to Talk:Chartwell as an experiment for various reasons. Our procedure to notify the FAC nominator(s) on their talk page goes back, I think, to before pinging and pinging to the article talk page seemed more efficient. Just to explain why the notification was done that way for this article. I am aware of and monitoring the discussion there.Wehwalt (talk) 00:12, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Floq and I are seeing eye-to-eye now. An apology: I wasn't thinking of how it looked to criticize him for closing those threads. I'm optimistic in general, but I guess we'll have to take it day-to-day. If no one objects by late tomorrow, I'll add the new Day-after-tomorrow's FA subsection. Floq (and others, I'm sure) reserve the right to make a call in cases where the answer seems clear. I reserve the right to ping people, and to complain if I think they're being shut out of the process. If people want to work on a ruleset for when to ping, please do that. If someone brings something up at WP:ERRORS on the day something is on the Main Page, and I feel a need to ping, I'll probably ping just the nominator(s), and give them a standard disclaimer that a decision could be made at any time. If anyone gets in the habit of bringing things up at WP:ERRORS that are already on the Main Page, when they could have brought things up two days earlier, I'll have a talk with them. TRM, I've added a link to WP:TFAA at the top of this page. Thoughts on any of this? - Dank (push to talk) 00:02, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Subsection is added. Note that we'll have to manually change "2019" on December 30, unless someone knows how to code it differently. - Dank (push to talk) 20:48, 25 September 2019 (UTC)
Okay, I may have fixed the coding on the year. - Dank (push to talk) 22:58, 25 September 2019 (UTC)

There's a proposal currently at WP:ERRORS (here's a permalink) to change "Sesquicentennial" to "{{shy|Sesqui|cent|ennial}}" in today's blurb, which would insert "soft hyphens". I don't recall off the top of my head what MOS says about this ... anyone know? - Dank (push to talk) 14:10, 26 September 2019 (UTC) Okay now I see it, at WP:MOS: "Use soft hyphens to mark locations where a word will be broken and hyphenated if necessary at the end of a line of text, usually in very long words or narrow spaces (such as captions, narrow table columns, or text adjacent to a very wide image) ... Use sparingly to avoid making wikitext difficult to read and edit." Thoughts on how that applies or doesn't apply here? - Dank (push to talk) 14:13, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

This is long word and a narrow space, and I'm proposing using it sparingly (i.e. only when problems are reported by a user). --Floquenbeam (talk) 14:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
I don't have an opinion on soft hyphens, per se (except, once again, to point out that the WMF's deficiencies sometimes interfere with productive editing. Also worth noting is TRM's point that the question may be moot on modern phones). Here's my concern: this is coming immediately after a discussion where we talked about how we might need to ping writers and reviewers more often to resolve comments at ERRORS. If we ping them to a serious discussion about something else, and then we've got 10 people arguing over where the non-breaking spaces and soft hyphens are supposed to go, that could derail productive discussion. I'll be watching to see if that happens. - Dank (push to talk) 14:53, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
I do not understand why we would need to ping 10 people to make a change that does not affect the wording or content or appearance of the article, except as a minor improvement for some small percentage of readers. --Floquenbeam (talk) 16:10, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
I added "about something else". Trends of the last few days are not good, and I'm less optimistic now, but it won't hurt anything to wait a bit and see how the trends play out. - Dank (push to talk) 18:40, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
This shouldn't be something we have to hand-code. It's a problem with the interface and needs fixing there so it works on all instances of "long words" in most browsers, most OSs and most screen settings. Hand-fixing this kind of thing is a waste of resource when real errors and real timely issues go ignored for hours, sometimes days. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 14:59, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
I'm not at all clear as to why this problem is considered to be related to the above.
But the response to it seems worryingly similar. It is an easy fix, the work of a few seconds. Why would those able to do so not show goodwill to readers, and give a good impression of Wikipedia, on its main page? What is the point of all the effort that people here go to to produce a good MP if there is no willingness to make a minor tweak such that the good content looks good?
And what impression does it give to the IP user who asked for a simple fix to make his experience, and that of others who might have similarly configured phones, if the response is a discussion spread across two pages and still unresolved 11 hours later? Kevin McE (talk) 16:20, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
One supposes that it's because this isn't a problem unique to this instance. Nor this word in this instance. Nor this aspect of the Main Page. Nor any Wikipedia article when viewed on the mobile version. Using a sticking plaster to fix a global issue is not the best approach. Wider discussion on how to fix it generally is far better than kneejerk reactions which set formatting precedents that should be completely unnecessary. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 18:47, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Using a sticking plaster, to solve a minor injury in a way that is quick and of no inconvenience to most, seems a much more sensible and respectful treatment than casting doubt upon the veracity of the injury and then proposing the matter as a review of the healthcare system. It is the sensible reaction of anyone with access to a first aid box, and actually achieves something. Kevin McE (talk) 19:20, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
I guess it depends if you're looking for a solution or just something to hide the symptoms. I think we all know what's best there. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 19:34, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
There are places, it has been some years since I've done it so I can't guide you, where apparent bugs can be reported. And I don't know that changing wouldn't make things worse for some editors.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:39, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Well this isn't strictly a bug, it's more of a feature request. There's nothing actually wrong or erroneous here, just a case of not being perfect for every single user with scores of different operating systems and dozens of different browsers operating on thousands of different platforms with a range of different Wikipedia skins. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 19:41, 26 September 2019 (UTC)


So it was left ignored. A simple request, made politely in a timely manner, was initally treated untrustingly, and subsequently as though it were some major policy affecting precedent. I really do not understand how anyone can believe that this is what the errors page is for. I repeat my questions of yesterday:

  • Why would those able to do so not show goodwill to readers, and give a good impression of Wikipedia, on its main page?
  • What is the point of all the effort that people here go to to produce a good MP if there is no willingness to make a minor tweak such that the good content looks good?
  • What impression does it give to the IP user who asked for a simple fix? Kevin McE (talk) 08:06, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
I think these were covered yesterday. In fact making a piecemeal fix may actually have made the experience worse for other readers. You don't just make a quick fix and roll it out, you conduct proper testing. And as noted, this is about an issue which is a combination of dozens of different browsers on dozens of different operating systems on thousands of different platforms on several different Wikipedia skins. A fix for one could easily be a break for another. So the hyperbole needs to reduce a little and if you really want to help "fix" this "problem", make a feature request at the appropriate venue to prevent the inelegant word wrap issue two readers out the 16+ million viewers reported yesterday. The Rambling Man (Staying alive since 2005!) 08:49, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

WT:TFA#Pipe-out parenthetical disambiguators

Just a pointer. - Dank (push to talk) 18:31, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

WT:TFA#Featured topics

Just a pointer. - Dank (push to talk) 20:01, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Okay, per that discussion (ish), Template:TFAFULL2 now produces, for instance, "{{TFAFULL2|Guy Fawkes|Gunpowder Plot}}". So, when there's a Featured Topic, TFA won't run an extra 2 lines. This should make it easier to balance the Main Page columns. There may be bots that need this template renamed to TFAFULL ... I've asked at Article Alerts. - Dank (push to talk) 02:55, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

Now at Template:TFAFULL. - Dank (push to talk) 02:01, 26 October 2019 (UTC)

WT:TFA#Blurb talk pages

Just a pointer. - Dank (push to talk) 14:24, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Recusals for December

Here's my recusal list so far for next month's TFAs: December 22, 25, 28, and 29. Wehwalt was the FAC nominator for the 22nd and 29th, and he likes to do his own (and does a fine job). Also, one of those is a TFA rerun, and I'm going to start recusing on reruns more often. I haven't fully developed my theory of when to recuse yet, but it's generally going to happen (apart from Wehwalt's TFAs) if I'm seeing or I expect arguments that might need broader discussion than they've gotten in the past. - Dank (push to talk) 19:44, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

I'll go ahead and recuse for November 25 and 26 as well. - Dank (push to talk) 20:15, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Do you need me to write any blurbs? Thanks for the kind words. The 22nd and 29th are done.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
Sure, if you like; the only one that hasn't been written yet is the 28th. - Dank (push to talk) 21:08, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
I'll work on it, though the fine arts are not my strong suit. No doubt Ceoil and Victoriaearle will have some edits. I pinged them to the blurb.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:58, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

December has been going well, thanks all. Heads up: I've got a long-overdue wikibreak coming up on the 28th that will run through January 21. Play nice while I'm gone. If issues come up at WP:ERRORS#Day-after-tomorrow's FA and you're not sure which way to go, consider pinging the FAC nominators and supporters for opinions. Best of the season to everyone! - Dank (push to talk) 15:05, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Answering a question: sorry for the confusion. Yes, I'm recused from Dec 28 until Jan 21. Nothing in January is on my watchlist. IIRC, blurbs had already been written for about two-thirds of the articles that were scheduled for January. - Dank (push to talk) 10:10, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Iran plane shoot-down discussions

Early in January several attempts at ERRORS to discuss improvements or updates to the Iran plane ITN blurb were redirected to ITN/C.

Discussions about improving or updating ITN blurbs have gone on at ERRORS for a long time, despite occasional police actions of the "not an error" sort. In my view, once a blurb has passed ITN/C, it's perfectly logical to post these discussions on the page readers/users reach by clicking on the Main Page 'talk' tab – which is ERRORS. Also, the discussions get greater exposure at ERRORS because ITN/C tends to be somewhat specialized, and it seems many neophyte or casual users don't know about it.
This is all about serving the reader with the best possible, collaboratively produced ITN summary (probably the most-read feature on the Main Page). – Sca (talk) 14:56, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

The notice that shows up when editing at ERRORS reads: Lengthy discussions should not take place here, and should be moved to a suitable location elsewhere. Regarding a couple of recent edits at ERRORS for ITN:
  • You duplicated a post for a blurb improvement that you already made at WP:ITNC. It's not an error, but that was left at ERRORS for the time being with a redirect notice to ITNC.[2]
  • You later made another post for another improvement (non-error) for the same blurb on ITNC, which was still ongoing. That ERRORS post was deleted.[3]
What would you have wanted to have happen differently?—Bagumba (talk) 17:51, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
For the discussion to take place solely at ERRORS, and not at ITN/C, for the reasons outlined above. (I thought I already made that clear.) – Sca (talk) 23:22, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

WT:TFA#Alternate TFA proposal

This is a current proposal to randomize TFA's appearance that's getting more traction than I thought it would. Thoughts are welcome, here or there. - Dank (push to talk) 14:12, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Another pointer: WT:FAC#TFA proposal. - Dank (push to talk) 19:12, 31 January 2020 (UTC)
The proposal seems to have died for now. In other news: March TFAs are being scheduled now. My only recusal for these is the 19th. The 16th is Wehwalt's; I'll be happy to help, but questions should go to him first. - Dank (push to talk) 20:17, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
Change of plans: WT:TFA#Sabbatical. Thanks, all, for your competence and dedication over the years. - Dank (push to talk) 18:21, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
Back from sabbatical. I've checked ERRORS and the TFA blurbs, and things went really well, thanks everyone. We're occasionally seeing problems at WP:TFAR (the requests page), and it would be great if Main Page regulars would check that page from time to time ... for instance, WP:Today's featured article/requests/Baby Driver. - Dank (push to talk) 15:36, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Order of ERRORS sections

This isn't a major problem, but currently the order of the sections here aren't aligned with the layout of the Main Page. The ERRORS sections are in the order TFA, ITN, OTD, DYK, POTD, TFL; while the Main Page is conventionally (left to right and then top to bottom) TFA, ITN, DYK, OTD, TFL, POTD. I believe that we should at least bring ERRORS in line with the Main Page, which would probably also allow for navigation that's a little more intuitive. Does anyone object to this? — RAVENPVFF · talk · 16:26, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

no objection —valereee (talk) 17:41, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
I never realized the order was off, but it makes sense to change it so it is consistent with the MP. Calidum 18:43, 16 July 2020 (UTC)
Seems sensible, unless there is a good reason for the current order that has been lost in the mists of time.-- P-K3 (talk) 15:05, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
Reordered as suggested; thanks. I've also made some minor formatting improvements at the same time. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 08:08, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

TFA blurbs with major changes

Just listing them here ... not my problem. It's common for minor mistakes to be introduced ... sometimes more than minor. We'll probably be fine if someone posts the links for discussion 2 days ahead of time at WP:Main Page/Errors#Day-after-tomorrow's FA. - Dank (push to talk) 16:22, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

  • WP:Today's featured article/October 3, 2020 (Striking; looks good now.)
  • WP:Today's featured article/October 9, 2020: two editors, lots of edits, lots of disagreement Striking here, because now it's at WP:ERRORS. - Dank (push to talk) 23:47, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
  • WP:Today's featured article/October 18, 2020‎‎: Ravenpuff identified a MOS:NUMERAL issue, but that edit took us over the blurb limit. I'll invite people to look at the issue on the 16th. - Dank (push to talk) 14:28, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
    Personally I think conforming to the MOS is much more important than going a few characters over the character limit. It's not like this was a deliberate attempt to game the system, and I don't see value in totally rewriting the blurb at this stage. Ravenpuff's changes should be reinstated and we move on under an exceptional case of WP:IAR. IMHO.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:11, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
    I get the sense that you think I did something wrong ... if so, sorry about that. Ravenpuff's edit was reasonable, but I thought it made sense to revert it pending discussion on maybe three points. "12" can be written as a numeral per MOS:NUMERAL, which suggests that the other numbers in the sentence can be numerals, too. (Ravenpuff's edit supports that logic, since he thought the linkage between the numbers was strong enough to rewrite "12" as "twelve"). There's also a reasonable argument that we shouldn't go well over the character limit without first talking about it. There's also an argument that whoever wrote the blurb (I'll look it up in a minute) should be consulted here, since going over the limit might mean that something they wrote gets tossed at the last minute. Discussion is probably warranted. - Dank (push to talk) 20:47, 10 October 2020 (UTC) It's Jim's blurb. - Dank (push to talk) 20:49, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
    Hi Dank, I was not intending to imply that you did anything wrong there and apologies if it seemed that way. I was merely giving my thoughts. And if the plan is to hold a discussion at ERRORS then I'll hopefully participate there as well, if I notice it in time. Just thought I'd give my two cents up front here as well, when I noticed this. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 20:57, 10 October 2020 (UTC)
    Sounds good ... I don't know the answers to these questions, and it would be helpful to know. - Dank (push to talk) 21:17, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm taking November off from writing blurbs, but almost all of them have been written already, and I'll be available here at WP:ERRORS. Thoughts are welcome, as always. - Dank (push to talk) 14:53, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

WT:TFA#Gog

Just a pointer to Gog's new job ... yes, another one. - Dank (push to talk) 22:18, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

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