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 cascading 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 Talk:Main Page 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. If the error is straightforward, such as a mispelling or obvious error of fact, post it to the errors notice at the top of the page. For more complicated discussion, such as about image choice or topical coverage, post to the general discussion section lower on the page. If you wish to start an indepth discussion particular to a specific section of the Main Page, it may be more appropriate to bring it to the relevant discussion page, such as Template talk:In the news. Please centralize discussion in one location. [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. The Main Page also contains one automatically updating number, {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} (1,728,083). 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 the articles listed on the Main Page are 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. The "In the news", "On this day", and "Did you know" sections have also been criticized for being bias toward one particular subject or region of the world.
[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 other language Wikipedia editions in alphabetical order? Where's my language?The other language lists on the main page only represent those that have more than 20,000 articles. There are simply too many others to list on the main page. The "complete list" links will take you to the complete listing of all active Wikipedia in order of number of articles. The languages listed at {{wikipedialang}} are alphabetized according to their Wikipedia domain name. This is the default ordering, per m:Interwiki sorting order. 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 28 February 2001, see the Internet Wayback Machine archive. For a range of choices, ranging from those past formats to designs created by users, see 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 basic issue 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. One suggested workaround is using your system's keyboard shortcut to place the focus in the search box. This is [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 meaning is mandated by the GNU Free Documentation License, under which contributions site-wide are submitted. This meaning is thus 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?It has been argued that Main Page should be at Wikipedia:Main Page, Portal:Main Page or some other similar location. The current location, being in the main namespace, might be expected to be a redirect to the article Home page. Main Page was created in the main namespace, and has continued there, mainly due to historical inertia. Several proposals in early 2007 to move the page failed due to rejection or lack of consensus. See the discussions in archives 87, 89 and 90. 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 Wikimedia Foundation 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, albeit in very limited circumstances. (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 25,000 articles. This is the newest template on the Main Page, consensus for its inclusion having been reached in October 2006. (See discussion.) [edit] Isn't the Main Page biased towards certain topics?Yes. Wikipedia has a systemic bias towards topics of interest to computer literate people from industrialized Anglophone countries, which is a result of this being a disproportionately large proportion of its editor base, compared to the world population. The Main Page reflects the bias of Wikipedia as a whole, though people tend to overlook biases that they share. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias for a more detailed description. Some examples of groups that have periodically accused the Main Page of blatant bias include Americans being amazed by the continuous stream of new articles on cricket, non-Americans being amazed at the claim that baseball is an international sport, non-Europeans being amazed that the Eurovision contest gets into ITN every year, non-geeks being amazed at the frequency of articles on computer and video games, 'encyclopedia conservatives' being amazed at the number of articles on pop culture and 'encyclopedia radicals' being amazed at the number of articles on frightfully dull people and events from long ago. The variety of accusations of bias that have been made on Talk:Main Page is nearly endless. Each Main Page template attempts to mitigate the effects of bias. The clearest example of this is on DYK, which normally works on a 'first nominated-first listed' basis. In cases where, for example, a prolific editor nominates four new articles on train lines in India, the organizers of the template will try to create a mixed template by pulling in newer submissions. However, as each template is largely autonomous in operation, there have been cases where over half of the templates include items relating to outer space or New Zealand. These inevitably invite accusations of bias, which are actually correct, but the bias is unnoticed most of the time. If you would like to help mitigate the systemic bias in Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias for more. [edit] See also
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