Wikipedia:Main Page FAQ
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Main Page FAQThis is a list of Frequently Asked Questions about the Main Page of Wikipedia. [edit] Why am I not able to edit the Main Page?The Main Page and its templates are permanently protected and may only be edited by administrators. Images are protected for the period of time that they are on the Main Page. This protection was implemented as a result of repeated vandalism of the Main Page and keeps our welcome mat clean. If you see a problem, please mention it at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors so an administrator can fix it. [edit] How do I get something fixed on the Main Page?Post a notice to Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors and an administrator will fix it. Alternately, you can direct your comment to a specific section of the Main Page as described below. [edit] How are templates used on the Main Page?Almost all of the text seen on the Main page is from transcluded templates, which are also protected. The sections that are regularly updated are: Today's featured article, Selected anniversaries, In the news, Did you know, Picture of the day, Wikipedia in other languages and Interwikis. There is normally little reason for administrators to edit the Main Page directly. [edit] When is the Main Page updated? Why do you have the wrong date in Selected anniversaries?As an international community, Wikipedia is organized along Coordinated Universal Time, which roughly corresponds to Western European Time. Users in New Zealand thus have their "Wikipedia midnight" at local noon. [edit] Why is the Main Page not updating?Most probably, your web browser has cached an older version of the page and is not checking to see if there is an update. Try purging the cache to force your browser to get an update. If that doesn't seem to work, find out more about browser caching. [edit] I think that today's featured article is awful. What can be done about it?Various featured articles that have appeared on the Main Page have been criticized for being too trivial, too geeky, too obscure, too commercial or too political. Wikipedia:What is a featured article states the criteria to achieve featured article status as "well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral, and stable". It is possible for an article to meet these standards without appealing to many, or even most, readers. The most effective way to get more featured articles that you find interesting is to help write them. Constructive comments and editing assistance at Wikipedia:Peer review and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates are always appreciated. [edit] How can I get something fixed before it appears on the Main Page?
Sometimes items appearing on the Main Page require some copyediting. However, as there is a process to get much of the content to the Main Page, users have the opportunity to spot issues before they appear for the world to see. A page with those sections planned in advance is available at Main Page/Tomorrow. The various sections are:
[edit] Why aren't the languages of the other Wikipedia language editions in alphabetical order?The languages listed at {{wikipedialang}} are alphabetized according to their Wikipedia domain name. Simple English Wikipedia (simple:) therefore goes before Shqip/Albanian (sq:). Some editions have domain names after the English name for the language, such as Japanese Wikipedia, which is at ja: rather than at a domain named after "Nihongo". Attempts to standardize the order around either the English language name for the language or the language's name for itself have inevitably resulted in fierce arguments over if English speakers are language imperialists or if foreign language speakers should have a say on the ordering on English Wikipedia. The ordering has thus defaulted to domain names, which sidesteps the argument. [edit] Is there some way to make the Main Page look better?There are periodic attempts to revamp the look of the Main Page. A community effort in December 2004 to redesign the Main Page and key pages linked from it may be found here. In March 2006, a new design was implemented after several months of discussion and input from the community organized by the Usability WikiProject. For a look at the Main Page on 20 December 2001, see Nostalgia Wikipedia. For the Main Page in the format used through 2005 and the beginning of 2006, see Main Page alternative (Classic 2006). See a full list at Wikipedia:Main Page alternatives. [edit] Why doesn't the cursor appear in the search box, like with Google?This feature allowing users to start typing a search without clicking on the search box was previously requested at BugZilla: and the decision was against implementation. See Bug 1864: Cursor should be placed in the search box for the report and discussion. The issue basically is that readers expect to be able to scroll through the Main Page using arrow keys. However, if the cursor is in the search box, using the arrow keys will instead pop-up autotext. This is not an issue with the famous Google search screen because there is no need to scroll. Some suggested workarounds include using a keyboard shortcut (some systems allow Alt-F to place the cursor in the search box), or using a different page to carry out dedicated searches. Examples of the latter include a Google search tailored for Wikipedia, such as this one, or using www.wikipedia.org, which defaults to the English search mode and has the cursor in the search box. [edit] Why is the word "free" mistranslated in the names of other language editions?The Free Encyclopedia slogan is sometimes the cause of confusion because there are two distinct meanings to the word "free". One relates to "no cost" and the other is to "freedom". See Gratis versus Libre for more. Wikipedia is free to use without cost, but it is also free in the sense of having few restrictions on what may be modified or replicated elsewhere. The latter is considered more fundamental to the character of Wikipedia, so (for example) the Spanish-language Wikipedia has the slogan La enciclopedia libre, rather than La enciclopedia gratis. [edit] Is there an RSS feed?There are externally hosted feeds of today's featured article and featured picture, along with some other Wikipedia pages. See Wikipedia:Syndication. [edit] Why is Main Page in the main namespace?Main Page should arguably be at Wikipedia:Main Page rather than Main Page. The latter, being in the main namespace might be expected to be an article relating to generic home pages. Main Page was created in the main namespace, and has continued there, mainly due to historical inertia. The other major project-related page in the main namespace is the redirect Transwiki, which must exist for the procedure to move unencyclopedic articles to sister projects. [edit] Why is an article that is prominently linked from the Main Page missing?Visitors to the Main Page will occasionally notice a red link (like this one), presenting a "No page with that title exists" message when clicked. This is most common for the Featured Article or a bolded link in In the news. These high-profile articles attract the vandals with the worst manners and most spare time, and are thus being continuously scrubbed clean of vandalism. In cases of particularly icky vandalism, the kind that inspires flurries of angry emails about what awful people Wikipedia editors must be to allow such things to be accessible through the article history, administrators are authorized to delete those specific versions from the history. This process requires deletion of all of the revisions of the article and then selection of the versions not to be restored. Therefore, for the few minutes while the admin is ensuring that the versions they are undeleting are OK, the article will disappear from view. If you notice a redlinked article on the Main Page, please come back after a couple minutes; the article will most likely be restored and available for your viewing and editing pleasure. The small number of users with oversight rights have the further ability to delete specific revisions directly, without going through the process required of administrators. (Related Signpost article) [edit] Shouldn't the "Wikipedia languages" section be categorized differently?Possibly. The categorization scheme at {{Wikipedialang}} is the topic of periodic debate. When first created in February 2004 the template listed all of the foreign language Wikipedias. Over time a lower bound was set to limit the number of items and much discussion has revolved around the internal structure of the template, e.g. what numbers to use as cut-offs. Other suggested categorization schemes include a tag cloud or making two sections, one for the largest wikis and one for the wikis with the most number of speakers, regardless of the size of the wiki, to counter systemic bias. The template structure in periods of low dispute is a reflection of an equilibrium of editor opinion between those who feel that the section should include as many languages as possible, acknowledging as many benchmarks as possible, to those who feel that it should be as simple and succint as possible. Given that Wikipedias in other language are continually progressing towards new benchmarks, this balance also continually shifts towards new tipping points, at which time editors determine the new structure. If you wish to propose a change, an opinion informed by older discussion at Template talk:Wikipedialang and the archives of Talk:Main Page (a web search may be helpful) is likely to carry more weight. [edit] How are interwiki links in the left-hand column chosen?{{MainPageInterwikis}} includes only the interwiki links to languages with more than 20,000 articles. This is the newest template on the Main Page, consensus for its inclusion having been reached in October 2006. (See discussion.) [edit] See also
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