Talk:Main Page/Archive 84

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Archive 84


Contents

Wikipedia en español

Hi! The link to the Wikipedia in Spanish should be in "More than 100,000 articles" instead of "More than 20,000 articles". It has more than 170,000 articles. Thanks. --Kokoo 08:22, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Someone had mixed up Esperanto and Espanol. I've swiched the two, and both Wikipedia en español and Esperanto should now be listed in their right place. Thanks for spotting it! Shanes 10:29, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I placed my problem in the error page. I'm quite capable of navigating. Thanks. Kaenei 13:44, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Categories

How do you start a new category? xx

Just edit the page, and add supercategories to it. Ideally, every category should form part of a tree, so Category:Politicians from Turin would be categorised under Category:Natives of Turin and Category:Italian politicians, for example. In the future, you may find you get quicker/more helpful responses to such questions if you ask them on the Help Desk. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 16:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Today's FA

Today's Featured Article says "Igor Stravinsky was a Russian-born composer....." Was he not still a Russian when he died (despite working/living in several countries)? Would it be better to change it (and the main article) to read "Igor Stravinsky, émigré Russian composer.....?. Moriori 22:56, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

You know that there is a Wikiversity

well, i think it would be a good idea if there was also a primary school and secondary school addition. To you get my idea? (I'm calling it primary and secondary school by Australian terms)

Pece Kocovski 02:03, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

([DAV])

... It's only a name. 80.41.251.238 13:59, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
... See the Questions page on Wikiversity. 195.188.152.14 00:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

ALL LANGUAGE VERSIONS removed!!

why all versions of the "Main Page" have been removedall of a sudden?? Synchronicity I 17:51, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

The list in question did not contain anywhere near "all versions," and it's because of this misconception that it was removed. Please see #Provide a way to get to all the Wikipedias. —David Levy 17:57, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Quote of the Day

Why isn't there a QotD section on the front page? Didn't there use to be one?

Uhh I don't recall there ever being a QoTD section. Maybe you're thinking of WikiQuote? Nishkid64 00:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree; in the two years I’ve been here, I have never seen such a section. — Knowledge Seeker দ 00:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
This was proposed during the recent (months ago) makeover, but not adopted. -- 64.229.205.116 15:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

1,500,000 articles pretty soon

Wikipedia is getting close to having 1,500,000 articles! What do you think the 1,500,000th article will be? Voortle 18:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

We're 250 away. I'm going to F5 and look at the NewPages to see what it is. Nishkid64 18:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Scratch that idea. Most of the articles are speedy deleted, so it would be mighty hard to find which article will be #1,500,000. Nishkid64 18:55, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Something missing

I think I should just let you know that there is no longer a searching option on the main page. User:David Levy removed it here. Is it supposed to be missing?--TomI edit my userpage too much, 18:41, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

The searching menu item has been replaced with Contents as per previous discussions. There IS still a searching option in the side bar. Contents is a much more helpful list of ways of broseing WP content rather than a redundant seaching item. --Monotonehell 00:49, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Also note that I recently added a Wikipedia:Searching link to the search results page. —David Levy 04:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Banner?

Should we put up a main page banner for 1,500,000 articles? I was thinking something like this:

The English-language Wikipedia thanks its contributors for creating over 1,500,000 articles!

What do you think? (We don't have too long to decide :-) —Mets501 (talk) 20:20, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

As opposed to "The English-language Wikipedia thanks its contributors for their obsessive interest in television, music, movies, sports, anime, pokemon, and geography"? Dragons flight 20:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
What's wrong with that? Nach0king 12:08, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I like it, I would say go ahead. --WS 21:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Alright, so which was the 1.5 millionth article? --Xyzzyplugh 21:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
We just hit 1.5Mi; I put up the banner. Feel free to modify. AmiDaniel (talk) 21:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, I put up the duplicate banner. Thanks for removing it :-) --WS 21:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a problem :). Generally the main page isn't edited directly, but rather edited through templates. AmiDaniel (talk) 21:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
We're looking likely for Kfar Shmaryahu being 1.5m. haz (talk) e 21:24, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
It's not conclusive yet though--the contest seems to be between Kanab Ambersnail, Hotel Torni, and the one you mentioned. We won't know for sure for some time, so let's just try to stay calm :D. AmiDaniel (talk) 21:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
A 1-sentence-stub is the 1.5 millionth article? That's a great joke. --32X 21:32, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Articles are being deleted like crazy. The first "substantial" article created after 1.5m seems to be K. A. C. Creswell. haz (talk) e 21:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I would think the "winner" would be the 1.5 millionth, regardless of whether it's substantial or not. We can always make the hotel or mulusk article substantial, after all. --Xyzzyplugh 21:48, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Given that we delete about 1 article for every 3 that are created, it could easily be significantly earlier in the new pages log than one would otherwise expect from counting backward. Dragons flight 21:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
We should follow the example of the millionth article, which picked the millionth article created, whether or not articles before it were deleted or not. See this discussion--TomI edit my userpage too much, 22:24, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I like it, but the only problem is that whenever I see that color banner I think that I have a new message on my talk page :P. Koweja 22:34, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I saw either Alonzo_Jackson, Hotel Torni or some article I speedied called Gin-Song. Jaranda wat's sup 23:25, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm personally rooting for Kanab Ambersnail. --Czj 23:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that's the one with the most potential. -- Zanimum 18:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

It's somewhat interesting to note that shortly after hitting 1.5 million articles, the 6.5 million page mark was also passed. --Czj 23:26, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I was so sure I'd be the first to find #1,500,000. And then I just stopped F5'ing lol. Hotel Torni ftw. Nishkid64 00:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I really don't like the wording of this banner. Wikipedia is not separate from its contributors, so to say that "Wikipedia thanks its contributors" is a false disjunction. --Oldak Quill 00:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

I definitely agree. I've changed it. —Mets501 (talk) 00:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I changed it from "Thank you" to "Thanks". Thank you just doesn't sound right. Nishkid64 00:57, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

How can you tell what number a particular article was when it was created? Like, the 1,500,000th or the 1,500,001st, etc.? (And just for historical curiosity, what was our first ever article?) — BrianSmithson 01:11, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at Wikipedia:Wikipedia's oldest articles. --WikiSlasher 01:22, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

drug screen info needed

i need to get some information on the facts regarding drug screening for methamphedamine and the duration it can be detected in you system (blood & urine) thank you

This page is for discussing the Main Page, you may find that you get a more accurate answer in a shorter time if you ask this question at the Science Reference Desk. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 21:23, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
You are probably looking for methamphetamine. --WS 21:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I'd say they should be after drug rehabilitation... — ceejayoz talk 02:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Whats the difference between a pigment and a dye?

Please answer in 1 paragraph. (Its for my grade 9 science project and I need to know please. I will cite this page on my project (im not gonna plagiarize) :-) thanx. --Storkian 00:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Dye"

This is the wrong place for questions like that. We don't do your homework for you. --Majorly (Talk) 22:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Try the reference desk, where you can make questions like this.--201.212.138.202 02:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

1,500,000

Just wondering. Which article was th 1,500,000th article on the English Wikipedia? Simply south 23:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

See above... it's not certain yet, but it has been narrowed down to four or five possibilities. --Czj 23:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

GOOD JOB WIKIPEDIA!!!! 72.184.201.3 00:02, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

congrats,everyone!great job...im really happy to be a part of this as i think wikipedia will be hugh in the future.The Pink Panther 03:04, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

We are now at 15.0 Britannica Units. Bristow 07:33, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Who cares how many articles there are? It's quality articles we need, not tons of average ones. LuciferMorgan 18:34, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

WikiPuzzle Globe

Has anyone else noticed that occasionally an apostraphe appears on the Omega? Looks like this: 'Ω

Ω. No problems for me here. Nishkid64 01:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
No on the Globe icon in the very Top-Right corner of the page...
Oh, sorry. I have a personalized monobook, so I don't have that same Globe image. Anyway, I logged out, and it does appear that it looks like: 'Ω. I don't know what the point of this was, but I can tell you that the other symbols are quite strange as well. My only speculation is that it is a letter in some language (other than Greek.) Nishkid64 02:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Nope, it's Greek all right: an accented omega. It's very common, actually, but is usually in the lowercase form (ώ). —Mets501 (talk) 03:24, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
See Greek alphabet#Diacritics or Diacritics (Greek alphabet). Newyorkbrad 03:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
If I remember right from the ancient Greek I studied: each word staring with a vowel has an apostrophe called a "breathing mark". If it's curved to the left like a closing quotation mark it's a soft breathing mark and has no sound. Curved to the right like an opening quotation mark it's a hard breathing mark and sounds like the letter H at the beginning of the word. Also, the letter rho (ρ) at the beginning of a word always has a hard breathing mark. I can't quite see which direction the mark on the omega on the puzzle globe is going. I was going to say that "ho" is a form of the word "the" in ancient Greek, but I think it has to be spelled with omicron, not omega. Maybe it's a joke (the sound of laughter). --Coppertwig 13:00, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

?

is it just me or does the wikipuzzle globe have another piece on it so that it looks more complete?The Pink Panther 03:09, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the logo acts as a doomsday clock, counting the days until Jimbo launches his master plan to take over the world. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 06:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
It's just you. Sorry. The logo was last edited in June 2005. —Cuiviénen 20:08, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Germen Wiki

The German Wiki reached 500.000 articles two i want my pillow cos im tired:(ays ago. Shouldnt on the Main Page the chapter Wikipedia languages changed to reflect that?--Tresckow 03:28, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Please see German Wikipedia 500,000th entry. The bottom line is that it would be illogical to create a new tier for one Wikipedia. —David Levy 04:21, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
a new tier? i was more thinkinking of 500.000 german. its ahuge gap between more than 100.000 and 500.000 one would think--85.180.60.152 13:13, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
No, this is exactly what David Levy said. While 500k is a major achievement, until we have at least three others that have reached this level, it's fruitless to devote two whole lines of the main page to one project. End of story. -- Zanimum 18:32, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
When there was "50.000 or more articles", this statement was true. "100.000 or more articles" just seems to be like a logarithmic system. The start with at least 20.000 articles is only to keep a proper size since there are a lot Wikipediae with about 10.000 - 20.000 articles. Since the French Wikipedia will very soon reach the 400.000th article. That should be reflected as well. At the moment, the 100.000 is well enough.. It would make more sense mentioning at the start page that the largest 3 Wikipediae have reached new limits wihtin a few days. (And that from a guy who's mainly active at the German Wikipedia.) --32X 20:53, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The German Wikipedia put our 1,500,000 achievement on their main page, maybe we should put thier achievement on our main page??-- Coasttocoast 21:51, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I second that. --Jan.Smolik 12:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Oui. It's not really that much of something. But well... it would be returning the favor (which Americans forgot to do to France). Orngjce223 How am I typing?
America did return the favor to France: War of 1812, world war 1, world war 2, vietnam war. Need say more? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.6.230.65 (talk • contribs) 23:35, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

1,500,000

What was this article? Was there a reason it wasn't included, as Jordanhill Railway Station was?Freakin Duh.

See above. Noone happened to catch it at the right time, so it's a case of rounding to the nearest one that remains fairly stable at that figure. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 06:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


Can someone please remove the 1,500,000 tag. While I am very pleased that we have reached 1,500,000 articles do you realize how many are stubs? I doubt half of these qulaify as articles yet. But great work just remove the tag asapErnst Stavro Blofeld 12:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Please calm down your tone. The banner's only been up for a little over a day, and it will be coming down shortly. In the mean time, you can try reading one or two of our other great articles besides the main page :P. AmiDaniel (talk) 12:43, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Cool, doctored pictures

A new low I guess, an obviously Photoshopped image on the front page - a picture that's supposed to represent a real place. In an encyclopedia. Very nice. 68.231.49.252

Which one? — ceejayoz talk 04:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
The user is most likely referring to Image:Hills_south_west_of_Sanandaj_near_the_village_of_Kilaneh.jpg which at a glance might look photoshopped. JoshuaZ 04:05, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Duke Picture

This might be the wrong place for this, and I apologize if it is, but on the Featured Article I think it would be a lot better to have the Duke Chapel or at the very least the Emblem featured as the picture to go with the Featured Article for today rather than those science buildings.angie stevens 'shirley ' They're much more interesting to look at and represent Duke a lot better.

Suggestions: Image:Duke shield.PNG

Mientkiewicz5508 03:37, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

The third wouldn't work, as fair use images are prohibited while there's another option. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 09:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Not a bad idea, Mientkiewicz5508, but it's too late now. Next time, you may want leave a message on the talkpage of the FA template in question, or on The TFA director's usertalkpage. You may get a quicker response. --PFHLai 19:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Emperor Penguin

Why does the Emperor Penguin travel such distances as part of the mating instinct? Why don't they stay near the sea so they can obtain food instead of starving themselves and remain with their mates? 69.40.184.248 03:52, 26 November 2006 (UTC)RKimb@aol.com

This page is for discussion of the Main Page only; you can make your question at the Reference Desk. Good luck!--cloviz 04:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Duke Picture

Is it just me or did the Duke picture get messed up?

This is what it looks like for me:

Image:DukeFA.PNG

Nishkid64 17:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Looks fine to me. --Majorly (Talk) 17:13, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Hmmm...strange. What's even weirder is that this is only happening in Firefox. It appears perfectly normal in Internet Explorer. Also, the picture was normal yesterday when I last went on Wikipedia. Nishkid64 17:18, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
It works in my Firefox. Have you tried cleared your cache? --Majorly (Talk) 17:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I cleared my cache multiple times to no avail. I also went to the exact page for the FA, and the image looks the same (disfigured and all). Nishkid64 17:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Well that is weird. Have you checked the exact picture file? Otherwise, I'm all out of ideas :S --Majorly (Talk) 17:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, I did. What's even stranger is that when I click that disfigured image, I'm linked to the proper LevineScienceResearchCtr.jpg image, and it looks all normal. I have no clue what happened. Nishkid64 17:35, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Haha, this is crazy. It has now changed to the Wikipedia black "W" (except it's 10x as huge and is distorted). Nishkid64 18:24, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
[Insert Twilight Zone Music] Looks perfectly fine to me in my Firefox as well. -- tariqabjotu 18:26, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
It looks normal to me.--TomI edit my userpage too much, 18:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Looks pixelized in my Firefox window. Oh well. Could we please change the picture to something slightly more interesting? Like the Chapel perhaps? I mentioned this yesterday, but it hasn't been addressed yet. Boring science buildings aren't very representative of the University.

Mientkiewicz5508 20:10, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I see it fine in Firefox. Try clearing all your temporary Internet files, clearing your cache, and reloading. Prodego talk 20:12, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
This frequently happens to me on various websites - the images "replace" one another. Most of the time, a hard refresh (CTRL+F5) works for me, as well as clearing the cache. Kalani [talk] 02:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

IGN.COM's message board is among the most popular? If that's the case then...

If IGN.COM's message boards are among one of the most popular on the internet, then what IS the most popular? Do we even know? And if so, will we need to start up an article about it? Or the website that hosts it? Zabrak 17:27, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

According to internet forum the largest forum is 2channel (which as you can see we have a quite substantial article on). http://www.big-boards.com/ is a site that ranks internet forums by size, but it doesn't seem to include Japanese sites so 2channel is not listed. the wub "?!" 18:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Please be reminded that this talkpage is intended for discussions on topics related to MainPage only. --PFHLai 19:34, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia languages

The above 20 000 article group is not under alphabetical order. Could someone fix that? Thanks, --Vanka5 00:13, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. I'm not sure how Danish and Czech got to the wrong place. —Cuiviénen 00:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I really like the current selection of language links, both in the bottom section and the sidebar (+ the "complete list" link in sidebar). Good work, whoever all is responsible for the current incarnation of this much-discussed segment.. :) -Quiddity 03:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I second that Quiddity-statement. --Monotonehell 06:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Language links at the bottom of the main page

When you mouse over the links, it gives the two letter prefix that the link goes to (e.g. Français shows "fr:"). However, there are two problems with this:

  1. It is not user friendly--mousing over a name in a foreign language does not give the English language equivalent for someone who is curious as to what the language is (especially important for Arabic, etc). Instead, it gives a useless two letter abbreviation.
  2. Telugu bucks the trend, and instead of the two-letter abbreviation, gives the full name.

Either Telugu should be fixed, or all the mouseover texts should be changed. — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 02:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Good idea! Just wrap the language name in span tags, as I did here for French. That should get the English word for the language and the interwiki prefix on mouseover. —Mets501 (talk) 03:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
No, 'tis not difficult to do at all. Lemme give it a shot .. will be up in a minute. AmiDaniel (talk) 05:43, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Done Let me know if I screwed any up. AmiDaniel (talk) 06:03, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
You screwed up. LOL ... Shouldn't Catala be Catalan? Would you consider using non-breaking spaces on the two word languages so they don't break over a line?   Just a thought. Great job by the way. --Monotonehell 06:37, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
And done again :). AmiDaniel (talk) 07:25, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Exxxxcelent... :) --Monotonehell 07:49, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Sweet, good job =) — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 11:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


Quality/Quantity FA

As of late we have recognized that as a community, we need to focus more on quality than on quantity. Yet we continue to prominantly list the number of articles on EN (at the top, left-hand corner of the main page) while hiding the less-impressive total of Featured Articles. At the very least, we should list the two figures side by side. We're doing just fine in terms of numbers of articles but badly in terms of F.A.'s Let's stop patting ourselves on the back and start listing the number of F.A.'s on the front page. --Zantastik talk 23:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

This has been discussed before. See Talk:Main Page/Archive 79. Hope these help. Tennis DyNamiTe (sign in) 23:35, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I won't push it; community consensus is important, and furthermore, the main page really *is* for readers, not wikipedians. The former won't know anything about featured articles, but they will be impressed with how many articles we have. Still, of course, our focus as wikipedians needs to well-written articles (FA or not), not quantity. --Zantastik talk 01:45, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Collaborations on front page

Ten articles of high importance and unspectacular quality should be placed onto the front page each week. Maybe replace DYK, lawl. OK that was mean Rampart 01:01, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

See WP:AID. There are also lots of collaborative projects for specific WikiProjects. DYK rocks! (I think) Nishkid64 01:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
You're both right. Articles on DYK are typically around a Start class on the Article grading scheme - they're "solid", but not necessarily the best we have to offer. DYK rocks in that articles featured in the section seem to attract a lot of good contributions without the crapstorm that hits every Featured Article on the Main Page. It also works to greatly boost the enthusiasm of new editors who've had their work picked out of Special:Newpages (which is happening a lot more often recently). GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 01:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
True, but I'd just like to mention not all articles in DYK are start class. List of South America tropical cyclones was a list that I found in DYK that I nominated at WP:FLC. It ended up becoming featured unanimously. Tennis DyNamiTe (sign in) 02:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

News Picture

Any chance of a picture of Correa going up, someone who's just won an election, instead of Balkenende, who may well have lost his premiership in an election days ago?--Nema Fakei 12:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree but it'll help if you suggest this in a better place. As the info at the top suggests, you should start of here Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page before you end up here Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates Nil Einne 13:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

What the...

Eh, what happened to the Wiki logo? Who is that?

Note that this occurred around 1:25-1:30 AM EST. Wiki logo returned around 1:35 AM EST.

was that vandalism? --Darrendeng 10:44, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Link to Mediawiki among sister projects?

Any particular reason there isn't a link to (Wait! see below -- this isn't the link I meant) MediaWiki from the English Wikipedia Main Page, for example among Sister Projects? Is it because they don't want people going there unless they've been around long enough to find it somehow? --Coppertwig 12:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC) OK, I'm confused. That link wasn't what I meant. That was wikimedia/Meta-wiki. I meant MediaWiki -- the pages with a sunflower as the logo: MediaWiki. Wikipedia has Meta listed under Sister Projects, but not MediaWiki. How are people supposed to find MediaWiki? Or bugzilla? Maybe a link should be added. --Coppertwig 12:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

The link "...a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other projects:" gets you to the list of projects which then mentions Mediawiki at the end. Is that enough? --Monotonehell 14:54, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Reduction of links on the Main Page

I propose to reduce the number of links on the main page to put more emphasis on the important topics, and to make the text easier to read. So only the links that are bold at the moment should stay (as plain links). At the moment, the page is really a mess. --Nina 13:31, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little torn on this proposal. On one hand this is hypertext, on the other hand I agree it currently looks a little over linked. How do we decide what is "important" or not. I often click on links to get context for the main subject. --Monotonehell 14:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, things are over-linked compared to the rest of the Internet, but this shows how we cover every aspect of important topics. -- Zanimum 17:33, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
As long as the other links besides the bolded ones are relevant to the main links, they should remain. For example in taoday's FA (Jaws) 'Steven Spielberg' and 'Great White Shark' should remian linked, but perhaps 'Amity Island' should not be, as it is linked in the article itself as well. Only the most relevant parts deserve links. At least that's my two cents. Antimatter 21:48, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
But what if someone wants to learn about Amity Island, but thinks we don't have a seperate article on it, and gets discouraged, because they don't want to fish (no pun intended) through the article for little bits and pieces about the locale? -- Zanimum 22:06, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

If someone is looking for something, he/she will find it in wikipedia. If you show a featured article on the front page and want to show every relevant topic as well, you just spoil the message. Then you don't need the text- you could simply display a list of links. --Nina 22:55, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. When it is linked on the main page, that reduces data entry into the search box and makes it easier to browse for first time users, who are the ones you want to start reading the encyclopedia. Have you tried setting your options not to underline the links, and to merely leave them blue, but not underlined? Ancheta Wis 23:05, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


Please correct

The entry about the Japan Diet refers to the Reichstag as an institution, which is wrong here, it should point to the Reichstag building article. See "On this day"-box November29 1890

Next time, post any Main Page errors at WP:ERRORS. Nishkid64 00:06, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Wait, the Japanese Diet is a legislature and so was the Reichstag. There is no mistake. Nishkid64 00:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Professionalism and cutesieness

Today's DYK has "...was destroyed no fewer than four times between ..." . Is there any reason why this verbose phrasing is used instead of simply saying "...was destroyed four times between ..."? Or is Wikipedia trying to take a position on the significance of this event? MrVoluntarist 18:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's possible that they meant "no fewer, but perhaps more", though "at least" would have been more appropriate in that case. GreenReaper 18:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Fixed. Please consider using WP:ERRORS for fixes like this in future. :) GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 18:27, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. I did consider posting it in WP:ERRORS, but figured it wasn't appropriate for there since it's not so much an error, as a stylistic issue. MrVoluntarist 18:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Nah, Errors is the place to go if you want something small looked at/changed quickly. This page is for either proposing changes to the page itself, rather than an entry on one of its templates, or for large, potentially controversial complaints such as the eroticism/pornography debate above. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 20:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


Abbey bias!111one

<fun> This can't be a coincidence!! We've got two abbey artilces in DYK, Corcomroe Abbey and Marmoutier Abbey. Also, the FA is History of erotic depictions, and we all know how abbots and nuns and monks are depicted in certain movies ;) Todor→Bozhinov 18:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC) </fun>

We've received a disproportionate number of articles on churches and abbeys at DYK recently, oddly all by different contributors. I guess it's just an area Wikipedia is currently lacking in. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 20:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The joke aside, that may well be the case. I can tell you for sure there's a lot more to add about interesting Bulgarian Orthodox monasteries and churches, for example, because that's a sphere I'm interested in. And I'm personally fine with displaying abbey articles on the Main Page :) Todor→Bozhinov 21:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Well, if you create a referenced new article of a fairly decent length about a monastery or church that has at least one fact about it that might be interesting to a general audience, feel free to submit it to the DYK suggestions page. Around 60-90% of submissions are self-noms, so don't be shy :) GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 18:39, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Can't stop beating a dead horse can you? 75.72.36.148 07:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Complaint

Please can you explain why the catergorised search had been altered. Also, please check the User: AntiVandalBot because there have been a load of complaints about it's behaviour and has blocked 10 users reasonless. Yours sincerely Xersyd 16:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Comment Ignore. Trolling. Xersyd (talk · contribs) is a blatant vandal. Fan-1967 16:21, 1 December 2006 (UTC) -- (Now blocked. -- Fan-1967 16:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC))

I disagree. We should take this comment seriously The mission 11:42, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Given that Antivandalbot doesn't have the ability to block people, why exactly should we take anything else they claim seriously? GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 14:46, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Polonium

While the polonium poisoning themselves are still quite big news, the focus has now shifted from Litvinenko himself to Mario Scaramella and possibly Yegor Gaidar. Perhaps ITN could be rewriten to something like "Mario Scaramella, a contact of secret agent Alexander Litvinenko, has also tested positive for polonium." Laïka 20:54, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Austerlitz

Should we not have the spelling as Tsar instead of Czar Alexander I as that is the spelling of its Wikipedia page and is generally held as the correct usage BritBoy 18:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

General held to be correct - care to cite a source on that? I believe both are sufficiently common as to be correct. Raul654 18:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Doesn't matter. --Ineffable3000 21:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar#Etymology_and_spelling BritBoy is right, and Czar should be changed to Tsar, and has already been. Preston 21:20, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Erotic picture/article

NOT appropriate for the first page, please change it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.100.89.146 (talk • contribs) 02:13, 30 November 2006

Totally agree. Is someone asleep at the switch, or just tone-deaf?? While we don't want to bowlderize the encyclopedia, we need to keep the front page clean and above reproach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.207.128 (talk • contribs) 02:18, 30 November 2006
Wikipedia is not censored. --Madchester 02:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Is it our responsibility to decide for people what they should see? We're not forcing anyone to click on the thumbnail, and at its resolution, the thumbnail is illegible. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-11-30 03:12Z

I predict this featured article will see a record number of vandalisms. Carcharoth 03:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

As featured article go, it's actually receiving shockingly little vandalism. I think Bulbasaur was one of the most vandalized FAs of all time, and it got *WAY* more than this one has. Raul654 05:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Obviously all the vandals are looking at the pictures instead! :-) Carcharoth 05:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
What can vandals do, add "penis" to the article? --Maxamegalon2000 06:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

What the hell are you guys thinking?! User:Madchester, apparently you are used to having to say that. So bluntly put. Wikipedia has become a very public site. User:Brian0918, thats what porn is. Kids don't have to click the link, but apparently they are. The thumbnail should either be smaller, or not there at all. And if your right, that its too small to see, what stops them from just clicking to see what the picture is? The link to this article shouldn't be here. Sure, this is an encyclopedia, right? The article should stay, they have this in the encyclopedia books. But to put it on the front page, kids WILL see this. This maybe put on the news. Little extreme, right? But parents do go that far, good parents. This is indeed promoting it. Saying erotic art is ok. If that's ok, what about pornography? Kids might think that's a minor step, so they look at pornsites. Maybe that's not real enough, they'll try this with their friends. STDS, early pregnancy, etc. Take this article from the featured list, the front page. You'll slow the moral degredation in our country. -69.67.230.47 04:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

What stops kids from clicking on links that their parents might find inappropriate for them to be viewing? Hopefully, their own parents are stopping them. It's not our responsibility to decide for parents how their children should be raised. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-11-30 06:03Z
Wikipedia is an international project and can not follow national or religious intolerance. In my country children are expected to learn about sex and are free to look for information on the Internet. If you feel, that the Internet or Wikipedia should be censored, take the issue to your government. They can enforce censorship on the Internet or even build a Great Firewall of China around your country. Wikipedia is however not the place to enforce censorship. So please, do not bring your complaints here! -- Petri Krohn 08:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I think it is opposition to the general philosophy behind Wikipedia to intentionally hide behind ignorance in the context of controversial material. The FA is fine and should stay. [[User:Topher0128|Topher0128] ] 04:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It is one thing for Wikipedia to contain articles on erotic art and another thing to actually parade them on the front page. There are certainly enough qualified articles that we don't need to use pornographic or expletives-laden ones where any visitor is subjected to them. Is there any reason to showcase this particular article?? Madman 05:01, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It's a featured article, in the cycle of featured articles shown on the main page. Do you have objections to the factual accuracy or comprehensiveness of the article? These are the only valid objections. See WP:NOT for more details. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-11-30 06:05Z

Please understand the difference between a wall painting in ancient pompei and a DVD of Debbie Does Dallas. --Monotonehell 05:06, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Debbie Does Dallas is porn, if a sex scene was drawn on a wall would it still be porn or art? Would there be a difference then? -69.67.230.47 05:23, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
BOTH are porn. Please understand the differnece between an ANCIENT artifact and a lame porn flick made in the 70's. --Monotonehell 12:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Come on! You're stressing me out! I've been told that I would have gray hair at 20 at this rate. The war in the middle east, the politics in this country, porn being called art, I'm going to die at 20. Please, gain common sense! This is porn. It was 2000 years ago, but its porn. They considered it art, but they promoted sex with whoever. It's porn, it's porn, it's porn, no matter what. -69.67.230.47 05:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

You claim it's porn. Ok? Is there a copyright issue with the image? Is the article not comprehensive, or factually inaccurate? Do you have any valid objections? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-11-30 06:07Z
I think everyone who objects understands the difference. What we are concerned about is this appearing on the Main Page. There are some articles and images which should never appear on the front page. Madman 05:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
YES! This is one of them! Thank you! -69.67.230.47 05:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
What Wikipedia policy/guideline is your statement based on? Why didn't you complain about this article any time in the last week, when it has been waiting in the queue? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-11-30 06:07Z
I am not referring to any policy, but rather to a sense of proportion and decorum based on societal standards. For example, I would not include explicit images of:
  • Certain body parts,
  • Any sexual act, or
  • Detailed violent acts (e.g. a photo of a lynching).
Are there any images or any words that you would not place on the Main Page?? I would be interested in knowing. Madman 06:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The problem is that societal standards are different everywhere. As for my personal view, I'll examine each situation as it presents itself. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-11-30 07:22Z
In my society we call it art, place it is museums, and arrange school field trips to those same museums. You think it is bad for children to be exposed to this? Well, thank you for your opinion, but I think that most Wikipedians disagree with you. And yes, there are plenty of things that won't appear on the front page, because they lack serious educational/artistic value and wouldn't be in Wikipedia to begin with. Dragons flight 07:37, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
"There are plenty of things that won't appear on the front page, because they lack serious educational/artistic value". You mean, like an article on the Bulbasaur?? Madman 21:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm sure plenty of adults gained valuable insight into what their children were fixated on by reading that. As to inappropriate, basically any appearing in http://www.uncyclopedia.org/ would be examples of content unbecoming a real encyclopedia. Dragons flight 00:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
If you read WP:TFA, there is a list of Featured Articles which won't appear on the Main Page. Also, this article has been set up to be on the Main Page for about a week, providing plenty of time to present opposion before it ever made it here. Timrem 05:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't mind any FAs appearing on the Main Page, but this does make me curious about what articles are on the list of FAs that won't. I'd have bet dollars to donuts that this would have been one of them. --Maxamegalon2000 06:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is one of them, if it ever gets featured. I'm willing to bet the list is very short (on the order of just a couple), but I don't know why it isn't public. It should be. zafiroblue05 | Talk 07:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
You can ask Raul654 - I'm fairly sure it's not a secret even if it isn't on Wikipedia. I know there's one article which is too technical for the front page - though it meets all the critieria, understanding it requires too much background knowledge for it to be front-page, or something like that. Unfortunately I can't remember which. There certainly aren't any featured articles disallowed because a political grouping objects to them. --Sam Blanning(talk) 11:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The unacceptable FAs for the Main Page were Wikipedia-referencing ones. Wikipedia was once an FA (it is no longer), and it was on that list. There was considerable controversy about Bulbasaur going on the Main Page because it was known from the beginning that it would be vandalised constantly, but it went up.
The point that must be understood is that, if we refuse to have History of erotic depictions on the Main Page, then we also have to reopen all of the related debates such as at Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, which would be absurd. We do not censor Wikipedia for anyone's sensibilities, period, end of story. —Cuiviénen 13:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
So, you would put the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy on the front page, along with an image of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban? Madman 15:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, not in that case, since the image is copyrighted and copyrighted images are only put on the Main Page alongside featured articles if there is no other option. However, if the images were free and the article was featured, yes. In fact, I think we had them on the Main Page for a few days in ITN when it was big news. —Cuiviénen 17:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
What the problem is is that kids may be researching on school computers, perhaps with a teacher over their shoulder, and what will the school think of Wikipedia then? Just not right. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this caused some controversy in other areas of media. Even Uncyclopedia has a parody article of it already- [1] BMG2 01:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
If they think "My God! This site isn't safe for children!", then they're right, and we've never pretended otherwise. We've had plenty of controversial front page articles before, I doubt this one will attract any particular attention - Unencyclopedia is a parody of Wikipedia, so it's hardly a case of 'even Unencyclopedia has noticed it' - they're practically the first people we'd expect to do so. --Sam Blanning(talk) 02:07, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
If they think "My God! This site isn't safe for children!", then the school is most likely in Saudi Arabia!. There is nothing in the article History of erotic depictions that would make it unsuitable to use as educational material in schools. --Petri Krohn 09:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

War picture/article

NOT appropriate for the first page, please change it. Some kid might take a look at guys holding guns, and might think it's a minor step. Then tell their friends about it. Homicide, suicide, are all inexplicably linked to awful front page Wikipedia articles. Those kids might start to buy or steal guns, shoot each other while quail hunting, and then finally start leading armies of moral destruction. Take this article from the featured list, the front page. You'll slow the moral degradation in our country. falsedef 05:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

  • How dare you pose that argument! Clearly, murder and violence are preferable to pleasure and reproduction. ;) — BRIAN0918 • 2006-11-30 06:10Z
"Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point." WP:DISRUPT --Haizum 08:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Comments made on a talk page are not disruption (and are the reason why talk pages exist), and are neither intrusive nor change the content of articles or state of Wikipedia's content system WP:DISRUPT falsedef 09:03, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Unnecessary repetition is disruption - I guess I'm guilty too. It's either that or simple vandalism via spamming. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 11:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Theres no bad pics on the war page.

The Battle of Waterloo is not "bad", but naked people are? I think that violence is a far worse thing to portray and/or glorify than sex. 4.247.62.107 16:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Geographic picture/article

NOT appropriate for the first page, please change it. Some kid might take a look at mountains, and might think it's a minor step. Then tell their friends about it. Erosion, diagenesis, earthquakes , are all inexplicably linked to awful front page Wikipedia articles. Those kids might start to buy or steal rocks and survey equipment, dig holes, and then finally start leading armies of moral destruction. Take this article from the featured list, the front page. You'll slow the moral degradation in our country. falsedef 05:28, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

"Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point." WP:DISRUPT --Haizum 08:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Educational picture/article

NOT appropriate for the first page, please change it. Some kid might take a look at guys learning, and might think it's a minor step. Then tell their friends about it. Learning, free thought, empowerment, are all inexplicably linked to awful front page Wikipedia articles. Those kids might start to buy or steal books, and visit even more free thought websites. Take this article from the featured list, the front page. You'll slow the moral degradation in our country. falsedef 05:21, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

"Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point." WP:DISRUPT --Haizum 08:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Lack of common sense

OK, people here on Wikipedia have evidently completely lost the plot, and put ideology before rationality and common sense. What alternate Universe are you people living in to think that it will be acceptable in this world to have such an article as the main page FA? You may be diametrically opposed to excluding such articles from selection there, but who are you to not take account of your audience? It is not a matter of being asked to exclude content from the encyclopaedia. zoney ♣ talk 09:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Can somebody please translate the above comment into English? Andrew Levine 09:52, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
"Ew, naked people!" --Sam Blanning(talk) 10:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Zoney's point, and IMO a very valid one, is that even though these topics should be covered in an encyclopedia, there is really no need to have it on our welcome mat. We are used by schools and small children, and this just puts people off. --Abeg92contribsBoomer Sooners! 11:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
My point is also that it is arrogant and disconnected from the real world to just ignore the large numbers of readers who are what many here would call "prudes". It's not just a matter of "think of the children", or "this is porn", or such. It's a matter of social responsibility, *particularly* where the bias of the project is against those who would object to such content (i.e. I'm reasonably sure that most people contributing to Wikipedia, myself included, are "liberals"). It is childish and irresponsible to put such content on the front page when the likely objections are known in advance. This is not self-censorship (you are not deleting the article), it is merely exerting tolerance and respect for the views of a substantial section of society.
zoney ♣ talk 14:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Well said, Zoney. Most folks here seem to be proud that they are so "mature" that they can place such an article and image on the Main Page (not to mention make snide and sarcastic comments at those who would urge some restraint). I would instead suggest that it is more mature to have the ability to place such articles and images on the Main Page, but to take into account the sensibilities of the entire user population of Wikipedia and decide not to. Madman 15:40, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
As an analogy, would you ask a museum to move all nude figures into a storeroom whenever a class of children were due for a tour? GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 18:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course not, but I neither would I put a sculpture of a sex act on the street in front of the museum's main entrance with a banner saying "This way to erotic art". Madman 19:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
"it is merely exerting tolerance and respect for the views of a substantial section of society"...auh...why would hiding these pages from having occasional high priority status be any different? We are just here to build a good and complete encyclopedia. Any well sourced, informative, complete and moderatly long page can be featured and displayed. Just because a faction of American politics (mainly religions) and some people from some other regions, such as the Middle East, may have problems with it, does not mean we have to bottle it up. This site may be in English, but it is for the world. We don't have to be an encyclopedia for children either. Certainly nigh unanimous percieved "decency" is a factor in image use and page links, but if the sourcing/importance/quality are on the other side then that reason alone will not hold it back.Voice-of-All 23:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Bunch of Muppets

What muppets! FA on erotic art, how very bold of you! How risque! Thumb your nose up at the prudes!

I don't mean in any way to argue that "erotic art" cough*porn*cough shouldn't be in wikipedia - it certainly should. However the front page it not like other pages. Many schools have it set up as the home page on all their computers. Kids are major users of wikipedia, and many parents (right or wrong) wish to shield the kids from "erotic art". You see, all other pages you only get to because you choose to. The main page is a default page that takes 5% of all wikipedia traffic. This act has simply caused a small amount of needless damage to the popularity of wikipedia. Never mind. --User:Juicifer

Do you want to cite your sources for that last item? If people are put off by a well-written, comprehensive article on a legitimate academic topic, I'm not sure they'd be the type to benefit from Wikipedia in the first place. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 10:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
What arrogance. zoney ♣ talk 10:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
It is a remarkably fine and scholarly article on the history of erotic depictions. If the Venus of Willendorf, black figure pottery, wall paintings from Pompeii, Japanese shunga and 17th and 18th century prints cause you offence, look away and avoid museums and art galleries.
The thumbnail on the Main Page is stunningly effective at making it clear what is going on while showing nothing. An ancient example of the Hays Code - it would not be too difficult for one to even have her feet on the floor. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not censored for the protection of minors. There are children's encyclopaedias available which deliberately limit their subject areas which parents and teachers can use instead. Wikipedia is not one of them. --Sam Blanning(talk) 10:47, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
We have had main page featured articles illustrated with Nazi film posters and KKK activities, both of which I find far more disturbing than a 2000-year-old painting of two people doing what comes naturally. If we're going to make sure the main page is always totally inoffensive to everyone, we need to start getting fluffy bunny rabbits up to featured quality. -- AJR | Talk 14:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Well said. To be honest, IMHO Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 16, 2006, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 9, 2006, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 22, 2006 and Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 22, 2006 are more disturbing concepts and pictures for kids, or should be. Also, while Wikipedia:Today's featured article/June 5, 2006 is a medical concept and so shouldn't be disturbing to anyone really, the picture is likely to cause a greater amount of distress then the painting. Nil Einne 17:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
On behalf of Mr McGregor and all cultivators of vegetable gardens everywhere, I find your suggestion of featuring an article on those promiscuous carrot-eating pests you call "fluffy bunny rabbits" extremely offensive. --Sam Blanning(talk) 18:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

The End of Western Civilization

Wikipedia, through their promotion of filth and depraved pornographic smut, should be ashamed of itself. Kids have no idea what sex is, and if they happen to come to Wikipedia (because coming to wikipedia to learn things is the hip, cool thing every teen is doing to shock their parents these days) then upon seeing sexual depictions their eyes will fall out and they will be scarred for life. Kids should stay on wholesome things, like movies that involve an action hero killing Arabs, or eating at Taco Bell.

Now I'm not saying we should censor Wikipedia. Gracious no. I merely mean we should impose a strict set of moral standards so unsuitable subjects like faggots or Calvinism so they don't get discussed. --—Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.139.33.78 (talk • contribs) 11:48, 30 November 2006

Why is sex 'dirty'? I never understood why people thought that. Apart from me and 20,000 others (IVF!!!) how d'ya think you were made? *waves arms* Lady BlahDeBlah 11:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
You're saying that we should impose your strict moral standards. Sex is a totally natural and beautiful thing. Kids are going to learn about it sometime. You can't protect them anymore.
P.S. I hope you understand my message way back in the forties! codu (t/c) 12:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
That post is absurd, abstaining from making a personal attack, I'll say those comments were made by a Troll. Kyle sb 12:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The point where satirists are reviled as 'trolls' really will be the end of Western Civilisation, or at least democracy.
Anyway, even worse than kids' eyes falling out, they might get keratoconus. For those who weren't here in June, the choice of that article for the main page with this as the picture was the occasion for much "Children/teachers/frail womenfolk should not have to look at that" rhetoric. I noted at the time that those who believed that we should be considerate to the sensibility of certain readers seemed oddly unconsiderate of what people with the disease might feel like to have others going "oh my God, that's disgusting" at the sight of them in public. --Sam Blanning(talk) 13:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I have an inkling that 144.139's post is satirical. "...Kids should stay on wholesome things, like movies that involve an action hero killing Arabs, or eating at Taco Bell." --Monotonehell 12:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I also got that impression Rafy 13:46, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I'd rather my kids knew about porn than furry conventions, but whatever. Quarma 12:33, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

As for that inviting pink cloud within which stars are conceived and born... -- ALoan (Talk) 13:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
I was actually running around Midwest FurFest's disco with another fan's 2-year-old daughter the week before thanksgiving. She was having a whale of a time. That picture of the furry games? One of the things you don't see is a 9-year-old boy who was participating, and actually won one of the events. Kids love furry conventions, because they get to dance with wolves! GreenReaper 18:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
You mean a furry convention like Disneyland? ;) --Monotonehell 04:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

This obviously should not be an FA, since it doesn't meet the high quality of FA's we normally use here at Wikipedia. Wasn't there a Gwen Stefani song that could have been featured instead? Or a random performance by a third-rate comedian? ("Carrot Top's 2006 Performance at the Laff Riot Bar in El Guano, California" or something?) Or maybe a Pokemon? 69.175.141.106 14:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I have added a related comment at Wikipedia talk:Pornography#Erotica on main page. — Alan✉ 15:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I would rather have "young adults" lead in pages like this than "many" of the entries Uncyclopedia (and see my comments on this talk page a while back about "medical images" and the front page).

Perhaps there should be a "WikiYoungPersons front page" to deal with such matters - or "click here for non-vanilla version front page" (covering the more exotic articles).

There will always be some front pages which cause controversy.

(Anyone care to establish the "save the cyber trees - do not argue too much about such articles" group?) Jackiespeel 15:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I'll just remind to users,that wikipedia is not just in sweden or denmark,but also in pakistan and saudi arabia.So ignore the prudes,porn is good and children have a sexe too.We will not get hostage by medieval mentalities.--Pixel ;-) 16:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

It's quite obvious the remark was satirical. It appears to come from an Australia, so you do have to wonder :-P But given that Australian's don't have Taco Bell, it's fair to say it's satirical. Besides that, please don't like to articles like furry conventions, you just invite vandalism which has already occured... Nil Einne 17:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
The creator of that article (GreenReaper) was the one to submit it for consideration for DYK, so it's kinda odd to say we shouldn't feature it to spare them the work of keeping it clean of vandalism. It probably had the most vandalism I've seen hit an article on DYK, but it's nothing compared to what even the most innocuous FA goes through, and what vandalism there was was quickly reverted. It didn't receive that many improvements while it was on, but that's not overly surprising given it was already of a fairly good quality. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 16:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
The vandalism was no real problem. We've had to deal with worse on a daily basis at WikiFur. When you've had Tor-based scripts registering accounts and making 100 edits a minute, you learn to deal with such stuff. I'm 100% sure that far more people read the article and didn't vandalize it, which was the objective. :-) GreenReaper 07:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

If people are so concerned why do they not take part in nominating and voting for features articles rather than complain when those that they disapprove appear.82.153.153.125 21:53, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion - when an article is replaced because it is perceived as inappropriate for the front page, an article of the same category is substituted (and certain categories of topic do not have an associated picture on the front page.

As there are several reasons why "certain articles" might be deemed as inappropriate for the ordinary front page (could I add "accessing Wikipedia in a public library" as another), how difficult would it be to set up a parallel "non-vanilla article" entry point (ie equivalent to the Simple English page) which deals with such topics. Perhaps signing in required (to discourage vandalism) - but "you know what you are letting yourself in for." (Before anyone tells me so, I do accept that this idea probably involves a lot of work - I am just putting the idea as one solution for consideration) Jackiespeel 22:38, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Great idea! I would certainly accept this as an alternative way to keep a non-offensive (but still rock solid) face to the public. Madman 22:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
We could include any "inappropriate" or "offensive" material in the main page; when some conservative complains, we bash him mercilessly until he's red in anger and defenestrates his computer.--

cloviz 04:57, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion is to try and avoid the above scenario. (Would you like to develop the Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells page btw?)

There will always be some topics which will cause much heat and light and squabbling - some aspects of ordinary human life, certain medical topics, certain political/cultural topics, topics which might cause problems if accessed from libraries, schools and cultures which have a particular viewpoint. Probably #most# cultures or states (and persons within cultures in general) have some topics which are regarded as particularly sensitive but which are viewed with indifference elsewhere. I am suggesting a way of catering for such preferences, and also allowing others to look at things which be seen as sensitive.

The motto should be "don't complain - suggest a solution."

Inappropriate. Anyone here who says its not inappropriate lacks morality. There are damn kids on this site. Parents don't know that this site has this. Who cares about erotic pictures anyways? Its a sad disgusting reality of Human life. Why don't you put an article about axe murderers or history of criminals? Kids are far more use to that with Batman and other cartoons. The articles that are suppose to be put up as featured articles are supposed to be neutral. However, this article as a featured article is extremely offensive to many religions and to women. It is far from neutral. AND WHO CARES ABOUT EROTIC PICTURES (attack removed)
It's a sad disgusting reality of human life that you are still complaining about this article, which, no matter how much you complain won't be removed. By the way, please read WP:CIVIL and this. Thanks. --Majorly 23:53, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

It was amusing that in two or three of the above comments I couldn't work out if they were for the 'censor the main page' proposition or anti. The poster who wanted to add "accessing Wikipedia in a public library" might want to have a look at the books that libraries often provide as a side service to their computer pools. Several of them may actually contain the subject of the history of erotic depictions in art as well as illustrations. Next you'll be burning books (again). Evolve. --Monotonehell 12:22, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if someone said this, as I've only read a few comments. The comments relating to the concern for small children is invalid. Most kids know of sex by the time they're 10. Which leads me to think that most have googled it out of curiosity and so this probably isn't that big of a deal. Also most kids ages 6-9 wouldn't read for fun so that age group probably aren't regular users anyway. There's also a lot research out that basically says the sooner a kid experiences the shock of discovering sex the better.Mike92591 03:29, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Good grief! I can't believe how much fuss people are making about this! It's not as if we had anything truly explicit on the front page, just a cave-painting style picture. Even I wasn't offended by it, and I'm probably one of the most prudish, old-fashioned and easily scarred people around. It's not as if it was actual photographic porn, after all (I'll admit that I would be uneasy if that was put on the main page). It was just some very old artwork. Besides which, I can think of plenty of more offensive things - those Muhammad cartoons, for instance. The point is, it was a good encyclopaedic article, and therefore suitable featurable material. Wikipedia is not censored for minors - a policy I am not 100% supportive of, but am willing to accept because the alternative would basically destroy everything the site stands for: NPOV, worldwide view, encyclopaedic etc. The article is now longer on the main page, so I think now would be a good opportunity to end the discussion, right?
On a largely unrelated point, I don't know where you're getting your info Mike92591, but I found books entertaining before I could even read, and anyway, this is an encyclopaedia, not a novel. Good day all. RobbieG 14:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The main points probably are:

The front/main page serves, inter alia, to bring topics that they might not otherwise have considered to the attention of the viewer.

Some cultures are more conservative than others/prefer certain topics to remain in the private domain. Some people think that certain topics should not be brought to the attention of children before they reach the stage that they go looking for them (this might well include eg war-related topics). There are some topics - probably different for most cultures/countries/groups - which are found distasteful/likely to cause unpleasantness, some of which they are prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to (a vegetarian might accept a link to "how a carcass is jointed, an atheist to a religious page etc). In a library we choose which books to look at - and those put on display by the librarians tend to be the more anodyne ones. Many library computers have blocking policies (some of them slightly irrational) and the screens are visible to passers by. There is, probably, on these and other grounds, a level of courtesy in keeping the main page somewhat more anodyne rather than "more exotic." This is why I suggested that there could be a separately accessed "interesting article" page, where the viewer chooses to go. Those of us who are willing to be intrigued by such topics can then choose to do so and everybody is happy. (And there will be some topics which, while fairly tasteful in themselves, will generate long discussions on their acceptability.) Jackiespeel 17:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I've not even read most of the comments here, but I am disgusted by what I've seen. People, this is not a children's site. That is something you have to deal with. Wikipedia is not censored, for good reason. If this was some sort of children's reference site, and that picture was put up, bring on the protests, but you have to remember that their are adults here to, and not to mention people who don't think sex is a bad thing. Come on; face it, over 60 % of teenagers are looking at porn. What with television and the general American culture, pretty much everyone knows what's going on. If some 8 year old sees it, I doubt he'll even understand what it is. If he's mentally shattered, I blame the parents for not censoring their computer. It's a damn good article; just because the subject's "offensive" to some doesn't mean we can't recognize it as one of Wikipedia's best. DoomsDay349 22:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Why is there a picture of a woman's private part...

Why is a picture of a woman's private part in the "Did you know"? This is ridiculous. BhaiSaab talk 00:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Because it's called education. 58.178.23.191 00:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't see any such image. It was probably a case of vandalism that has been taken care off. Jeltz talk 01:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Unless you thought that Image:Elden Mountain, USGS.jpg resembles a women's "private part". --May the Force be with you! Shreshth91 08:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
If you really squint your eyes... Titoxd(?!?) 08:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
No, that wasn't it. The picture was there for 30-45 minutes and then I think some admin replaced it with text before that mountain picture came. BhaiSaab talk 21:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
The only change on the mountain update was to add another entry for length. There were three changes to the one before that, but two were just fiddling with the image caption, rather than the image itself, and the third was a grammar fix. Both images were deleted after being c-uploaded, but I can tell you from looking at the deleted versions that at no point were they replaced by an offensive image. There were also no replacements made over the Commons versions of the two images. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 14:58, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
There are so many reports of various pictures which no one else seems to have seen. Sometimes it may be the case a wikimedia and/or user computer bug causes the wrong image. Sometimes it may be vandalism which was quickly picked up so no one else saw it and the admin who fixed it didn't say anything. Some cases it may simply be people who are mistaken and/or trolling. Personally I suggest we ignore reports which don't at least include a screenshot (although that's easy to fake). I'm somewhat doubtful that a picture of a vagina could be on the main page for 30-45 minutes without anyone else noticing so I would suspect it was either my first suggestion or my last Nil Einne 08:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
30-45 minutes could have been caused by his web browser cache. It could have really been there but obviously not for that long. Jeltz talk 23:11, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
To me, if you say an image was there for 30-45 minutes it means it wasn't in the cache i.e. you've accounted for the cache. If I find something strange, I usually open a different browser to at least account for browser cache (it's easier then alternatives). This obviously doesn't account for ISP transparent proxies so I usually mention that I haven't accounted for them (I could tor but I don't bother) 14:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

fork wikipedia over fair use policy

I just want now how it's receaved the idea of forking because of some recent developments with the way fair use rule is interpreted.If your not awhare of the isue see thies three link's to make an opinion.--Pixel ;-) 22:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

All_images_with_no_fair_use_rationale All_replaceable_fair_use_images talk:Fair_use

This is the wrong place for posting this and I don't think that those links would help the uninitiated get any idea of the complex and problematic fair use. Jeltz talk 22:52, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
And you think ther's a good place too post this?--Pixel ;-) 23:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump is where you want to be. howcheng {chat} 03:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

"Plurality" in the news

first item

  • "The Socialist Party gains of Dutch elections, while Brodie Hayes Dalton (pictured) Christian Democrats retain their plurality"

is it plurality or popularity ?--Pixel ;-) 12:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Plurality. http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+plurality Rafy 13:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
ok--Pixel ;-) 18:02, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
Plurality means that its still the largest party. Its just the stupid article being too fancy. Why can't they make it simple and say "Christian Democrats remain the largest party"???
Plurality is a well understood English word with a specific meaning when it comes to elections. This is the normal English wikipedia, not the simple one. Do you suggest we give up on all words and just don't communicate? Nil Einne 11:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
It seems it is not well understood: I also would not have been sure of its meaning in this context. This might well be the "normal English" wikipedia, but that does not mean that informaiton should not be presented clearly. Bazza 13:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Anyone who don't understand the term should have clicked on the link on ITN at the time and read the Plurality article. This should be clear and concise enough. -- PFHLai 14:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
To be fair, that link was added by me after Pixel's comment was originally made, in response to a suggestion on Errors. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 18:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Well that's fine. But I'm of the opinion that if people don't understand a normal and fairly common English word with a specific meaning which accurately conveys the information, then it is their responsibility to find out what it means rather then complain to us that they don't understand. They're welcome to suggest we add a link which I would support but suggesting we don't use the word, IMHO is a bit silly, no offense intended to anyone. I'm sure there are a number of people, who don't know what therapeutic cloning is (Portal:Current events). However it doesn't mean we should say cloning for non-reproductive medical purposes instead. Similarly we say "pro-choice" rather then "supports a women's right to choose whether to have an abortion (and this is quite a significant issue since in countries where abortion is not a domestic issue like in Malaysia and Singapore for example, pro-choice is something many won't be familiar with). Obviously when we are talking about obscure words that are rarely used then that would be a very different matter but that's not the case for plurality. The issue is being concise, accurate and ensuring that we can resonably expect people to either understand, or be able to learn from the information provided. Adding wikilinks when necessary helps, but ignoring words just because some people don't understand them doesn't. Nil Einne 11:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

(undent) Nobody complained. Why are you being so high-handed about this? The original comment was is it plurality or popularity? — that's not a complaint. My comment also was that the use of the word in this case (as a technical election term) is not common — the subsequent linking of it would have helped at the time. You comment that the issue is being concise, accurate and ensuring that we can resonably expect people to either understand... — an observation reinforced above by the unsigned remark Why can't they make it simple and say "Christian Democrats remain the largest party"?. Bazza 15:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

And I quote "Its just the stupid article being too fancy." If this isn't a complaint, I don't know what is. IMHO, "Christian Democrats remain the largest party" is unnecessary when we have a clear, fairly common English word that accurately conveys the meaning that was properly used. As I've stated, I strongly support the idea of linking to the word plurality, however I very strongly disagree with the view that we shouldn't use the word plurality because an uncertain number of people don't understand it (and any uncertainty can be resolved by checking out the link). I don't think the we're trying to be fancy. Don't get me wrong, if we had originally said "Christian Democrats remain the largest party" then I wouldn't necessarily suggest we change it (undecided on this altho I do feel "Christian Democracts retain their plurality" flows better then "Christian Democrats remain the largest party"). Anyway, I won't discuss this here anymore. If there is anything else you wish to say, you're welcome to respond here but I won't read it. Go to my talk page if you wish to discuss it with me. Nil Einne 15:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Just wanted to add a bit of context. I myself didn't know exactly what plurality meant, although I was able to guess since I'd read the section before it used plurality. Nil Einne 15:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
 : 'the largest party' is imprecise and quite simply does not mean the same thing as plurality. sorry ^ but it does indeed mean something, indeed something that specifically applies to elections in a FPTP system. There is no other simple way of saying 'the party which got more votes than any other party, but did not attain a majority'. We arent in a pub, this is an encyclopedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.53.232.222 (talk • contribs) 08:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC).
The term plurality should be known to anyone who's been through college or an an advanced history course in secondary school. It's also used heavily to describe demographics. If anything, those of European countries should understand the word more than Americans, as the US is heavily biased to two party/candidate elections.falsedef 21:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Well I don't know the difference between obtaining the most votes & not being a majority and being the largest party - if you're the largest party (regardless if you're a majority), you obtained the most votes!!! Besides, Encyclopedias like Wikipedia which is used I believe by people who go to the pub should be made to be clear and precise. Its inaccuracy is not lost if you simplify the terms when you can. Einstein said that 'one should make things as simple as possible but not simpler'. Well turning plurality into "remains largest party"(and hence most votes owned by single party) makes it as simple as possible and not compromise meaning. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.6.230.65 (talk • contribs) 01:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC).
I didn't do an advanced history course in secondary school, but I did do a university degree a few years ago. I studied Physical Geography and can't remember the word "plurality" ever being used. falsedef seems to imply I'm not therefore qualified to read or comment on this. I understand, as do some other commentators here, its general meaning, but people above are saying it's got a specific meaning in this case. In which case it should have been linked to an article explaining that (as this is an encyclopedia). It wasn't when I read it, nor when the original poster asked the first question. Bazza 13:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
That's your own assumption. I never said who was qualified for anything, nor do I particularly care what words you know or don't know. My primary major is Computer Science, yet somehow, I've come across it quite a bit (including in my required social computing course). However, despite what major you have, you still should've known what plurality meant by the time you graduated college and had taken breadth courses (as social sciences and humanities are required for general education in most institutions). Did you somehow skip over any sort of political sciences, social sciences, anthropology, history, social ecology class and so forth, in high school and college? If you somehow missed the word, well, that's neither my fault, nor the editors who wrote "plurality" instead of some excess passage describing it. I'm sorry to everyone who had to look up words on their own. falsedef 00:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Other than what I have made public, you have no knowledge of what I studied, where, why or when. Do not be so arrogant as to lecture me on what words I should or should not have studied or learned. Nor assume that the education system in whatever part of the world you live is the same as, or better than, that in other places. Did you somehow skip over any sort of citizenship classes and so forth, in high school? Students here are obliged to take them to learn how to treat people with respect and acknowledge their abilities. Bazza 13:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I believe the point of all this is that encyclopedia content should be clear and understandable. Clearly plurailty is not well understood, though I myself might have taken a guess as to what it might mean. However, in encyclopedias, you don't guess. You understand. And please stop telling people what they should and shouldn't know by college graduation. We're here to learn. So make the learning clear i.e. provide a link explaining plurality or else replace with a word of greater common usage without compromising meaning. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.6.230.65 (talk) 03:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC).
If you were here to learn, you would've looked up the word yourself. If you had done that, you would've learned a valuable word on your own. If anything, you should be thanking the editor who wrote that headline for teaching you a well understood word in almost every social science field and other fields like statistics.
It should not be an editor's duty to feed you dumbed down text. As long as the context is clear and readable, then dumbing down the English language should not be an option. Somehow managing to skip the word "plurality" throughout your education does not mean the word is not well understood or somehow obscure; please, stop faulting the editors for using the word and take it upon yourselves to learn from it. I see words I don't understand all the time while reading -- important words that I should know or have forgotten. You know what I do when I see word I don't know? I don't post complaints about the word on the talk page. I don't ask for personal explanations. I look it up in the dictionary, or use the search box on the the Wikipedia main page. falsedef 05:11, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
As an added note, my posts are not directed at Pixel, who was simply asking for clarification. I do find most of this section to be unbelievable. I come to Wikipedia to get knowledge on topics I don't know, and I expect to find terms that I need I want to learn about. What confuses me is why plurality somehow came up on the hit list of words to strike from the main page. falsedef 05:26, 15 December 2006 (UTC)


Well excuse me! The point of language and communication is to communicate. As time passes by, some words are ejected from the English language, because they are infrequently used. All editors must be prepared to defend their editting and their use of words. If an editor uses words that causes such a lengthy discussion, then the main point behind language that is communication, is no longer there! Whats the point of using language that is not as well understood?
I understand that plurality is a more "sophisticated" word than saying the words "largest party", but the fact is the headlien was very short, so adding a little more is warranted in my opinion. Just a few more words; I don't want to clutter the main page either.
As for education, different people have had different educations. Some people have not had so many years as others because of age or other circumstances. So excuse our lack of knowledge, in History they barely touched politics in England at Gunnersbury school. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.6.230.65 (talk • contribs) 22:57, 2006 December 15 (UTC).
"The largest party" is a poor description. It could be an absolute majority, a supermajority, a simple majority or a plurality. Each carries a different level of power in making decisions, depending on the institution. Let's avoid the ambiguity. --PFHLai 23:31, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Consider the word 'majority'. 51% or more, basically. The word comes up a lot in US elections, with only two parties. But consider most of the rest of the world, where there are more than two parties in elections: The winning party doesn't necessarily need 51% to win. A winning party may win 40-30-30. In that case, the 40% is, and has been called, a plurality. I probably first heard it in student senate elections in elementary school.

Caution my fellow discussing people. Remains the largest party is a clear defining characteristic. The article originally stated that the Christian Democrats lost their majority but remained the largest party. There is no difference in meaning between being the largest party (without majority) and retaining plurality in this case. I understand that plurality can also include being a majority. That concludes that! If I am wrong in my definition, tell me so.

Number of FAs mentioned as well as total number of articles, please!

See also: Talk:Main Page/Archive 79
See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Discussion on whether to place a Featured Article count on the main page

I realise that this is not the first time this has been raised but... In the light of the recent 1.5million milestone, Jimbo's comments about quantity/quality, discussion on WP Weekly podcast, etc. Could we please get the number of Featured Articles and/or Good Articles listed on the front page alongside the total number of articles in English??? I'm not suggesting removing the count of the toal number of articles, just a small addition, so it would read something like:

Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. 1,513,706 articles in English, 1175 of which are Featured Articles.

Thanks for your consideration, Witty lama 00:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The people we'd want to impress with the FA-count are those new to Wikipedia. But such people aren't going to know why it would matter whether an article is Featured or not, or why or how it's decided that an article gets the status. So the only people it'd benefit to have the count up are experienced newbies, who are kind of difficult to find. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 01:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Why would we want to target only newbies? The number of FAs is a hundred above the last time I checked. I find that interesting. Besides which, there are certainly any number of items on the Main Page that have niche audiences, such as the two templates meant to direct readers to other languages. I would support adding an FA count for the reasons laid out by Wittylama. - BanyanTree 01:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I agree too! Wittylama is absolutely correct. Nishkid64 02:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
And I thought we should favor quality over quantity, so we are making more FAs than better FAs? How about including other "featured" content too? --Howard the Duck 03:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
What? An FA is quality. If we are making more FAs then we are making more quality. --Monotonehell 04:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. A greater quantity of quality is better than a greater quality of quantity. Whatever that means – Gurch 04:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
HA! That's an interesting way of putting it Gurch! Having a quantitative measure of of quality would not be the same as a measure that promotes quantity for its own sake. This would not decrease the quality level of FAs. Witty lama 04:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I support this idea, as long as I'm not the one who has to do it, and it doesn't interfere with the way WP:FA works (e.g, with the actual numbering scheme). Raul654 04:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
On a related note, this graph makes me very sad and anything that can be done to turn it around would be a welcome change. Raul654 04:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, the marginal rate of decrease is decreasing... which means we're starting to catch up. Perhaps an FA drive advertised on the Main Page would help... somehow? Titoxd(?!?) 08:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I'll support this if other "featured" content also gets to be mentioned, like there 167 FLs, 668 FPs, etc. --Howard the Duck 12:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
The German Wikipedia has lower standards for FAs/EAs than we do, though. Most particularly, they don't require inline citation. I'm currently translating the runner-up to the recent writing contest, Friedrich V. (Frederick V), and it does irritate me slightly that this 'best of the best' would still require major work to become a featured article here. I expect that the German Wikipedia is still better at quality than we are, but the gap isn't as big as it looks from that graph. --Sam Blanning(talk) 12:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

In reference to the main arguement of the previous airing of this idea (listed at Talk:Main Page/Archive 79) - that having a FA count would be either "self-congratulatory" or "editor centric" (as opposed to reader centric), I would argue that the total-article counter is both of these things already. Surely if we can justify having the total-count listed then we can justify having an indicator of quality as well. If the casual visitor does not know what "Featured Article" means then he need only click on the link to find out. It is a wiki afterall! Witty lama 04:40, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

We should think about what we want the main page for. If it's just to impress visitors, the current setup more or less works, and a FA counter inside the FA box (like replacing "more featured articles" with "all X featured articles" would be an improvement. If, OTOH, we want the main page to attract new contributors and channel them into doing useful work, we should resurrect the project box on the main page and list collaborations and open tasks. Zocky | picture popups 15:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of the "all X featured articles" rather than "more featured articles". Spebudmak 01:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Me too. Tennis DyNamiTe (sign in) 02:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Me three. Witty lama 06:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
FA-count inside the FA box? Briliant idea! Carcharoth 12:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
FWIW, I agree that this is a neat and unobtrusive way to get the number on the Main Page. The only down side I can see is that it makes it patently clear that less than 0.1% of articles are good enought to be "featured". -- ALoan (Talk) 16:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

(reindent)Given that identification of a problem or potential problem on the wiki tends to result in increased efforts to fix it, I see this is a positive. There seems to be pretty strong support for the idea of putting a count in the FA box in the discussion above. As an initial step, I have created {{FA number}}, which would have to be manually updated. I plugged the template into the {{TFAfooter}} markup to see what it would look like:

Archive – By email – All 2080 featured articles

I've asked Raul654 if there are any issues with updating {{FA number}} in how he organizes FA. Otherwise, I am ready to implement. - BanyanTree 19:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Late support, but I'd like to see this implimented. It makes much sense. -Monotonehell 15:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thankyou BanyanTree, that's great! So, are there any hoops that we should jump through to impliment this (such as a poll advertised on the community bulletin board at the Community Portal)?? Witty lama 15:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. Be bold and let's get this done. If anyone objects then we can have a debate and reach concensus on it. --Monotonehell 17:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

implemented

I've gone ahead and implemented Zocky's modification to Witty lama's proposal. Template:FA number has replaced occurrences of the number at WP:FA, allowing one stop updating. - BanyanTree 21:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
This new template created a whole 'nother article that has to be edited each time an FA is added or removed (FAC or FAR), and those processes are already labor intensive. Not pleased when these kinds of decisions are made without consulting those who must do the work, for example, at WP:FAR. Sandy (Talk) 01:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry you feel that way Sandy, in fact the issue of whether this would create extra work was raised by Raul654. The solution with the template is in fact the "cleanest" and least labour intensive manner of doing this. As BanyanTree says on at Raul654's user page here:
"It's definitely another page to add to the watchlist. However, it doesn't require any more edits than already used. For the counter idea to work without a template would require admins to watch for changes at WP:FA and then directly modify {{TFAfooter}}, but that seems to clearly add to the number of edits required, and duplicates effort. Given the benefit of one-stop updating allowing other users to transclude the number for use in other pages, and finally getting a counter on the Main Page, I would say that using a template would be much more elegant."
Does this address you concern? Witty lama 01:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
No, I'm not really happy with the idea. Raul adds the FAs, and a couple of editors remove the FARCs. Both processes involve quite a few steps, and it is an extra set of edits to go edit another article. I don't really see the benefit, I guess, in advertising on the main page that we have 1,000+ featured articles (especially since the number is so low). If Raul wants to try it, I guess we're stuck with the work, but I don't feel the extra work is worth the effort just for seeing the number on the main page. As it is, when FAs are added, all the work isn't getting done - I recently started adding the facfailed tag to the article talk pages, as no one had been updating the talk pages of failed FACs for almost a month. It's also too easy to forget that you have another article to edit, when it was all in the same place before. Sandy (Talk) 03:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to try it on a temporary basis and see if I like it. A technical solution (read: a bot) would be much appreciated, though. Raul654 03:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The only thing I can come up with is a bot that is able to edit a protected template solely for this purpose. It would read the number from WP:FA, and update the template at regular intervals. (The FA template would need to be protected for the same reason the other templates on the Main Page are.) Titoxd(?!?) 03:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
That is one way of doing it; another way would be for the bot to directly count the number of FAs. Raul654 03:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
That would be spectacular: it would lower our work, and lower the risk of errors. I had to count all the Former Featured Articles the other day, and found they were off by four. Sandy (Talk) 03:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Note - counting them should be almost trivial. It should be exactly equal to the number of dots (·'s) that appear after the first heading (==). Raul654 03:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Btw, Sandy - counting them isn't really all that difficult the way I do it. I copy the wikitext, and paste it into a spreadsheet (like MS Excel). Then delete all rows that don't have articles, and however many remain is the correct count. It usually takes me about 2-3 minutes (but I don't do it all that often). Raul654 03:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I also used Excel, but I had a lot to delete. Someone added some goofy tally lines to the Former article *sections*, so I also had to update all of those numbers, so it probably took me about ten minutes. Then I went over and checked the FAs, which was quicker, and they were right on. Sandy (Talk) 03:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
why not just count the number of articles in Category:Wikipedia featured articles with the bot. Gnangarra 03:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
The category itself says the number it includes is not accurate. Also, the category itself is far more likely to be messed up by someone accidentally categorizing a page that they shouldn't, and mistakes like this are almost impossible to count. Also, from a programmer's perspective, it's more difficult to scrape the contents of all the pages in that category than it is to scrape the wikitext of a single page. Raul654 03:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
And, we periodically come across pages that have added the star without earning it, or lost the star from the talk page, when they deserved it. The category isn't right. :-) Sandy (Talk) 03:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
But then, that's the way Mathbot works, so it isn't as hard anyways... Titoxd(?!?) 04:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If someone comes up with a bot to automate the process, I would be happy to co-nom at RFA. I assume that the bot could run on an unprotected template to prove that it is reliable in producing the numbers. This was a major issue at the last admin bot nom that I saw - people wouldn't seriously consider the bot for permission until it passed RFA and the RFA voters wouldn't approve a bot that lacked permission. - BanyanTree 03:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If we have a deadlock condition like that, I will be happy to approve the bot and set its flag once it proves it can work on an unprotected template. An RFA on the matter seems pretty silly, actually - for a bot account being run by someone who is already a sysop, I see no reason anything beyond a normal bot approval process should be needed for both the bot flag and for the sysop flag. Raul654 03:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
WP:BRFA would be the first place to go, IMO. First make sure the bot can do its job before opening hell loose... ;) Titoxd(?!?) 04:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure that anyone has actually volunteered to create the bot, so Wikipedia:Bot requests might be a necessary first step. I'm willing to start a request, but will wait a bit in case anyone here wants to volunteer to write the bot or one of the FA regulars, who may be more qualified to state what is needed, wants to start the request. - BanyanTree 04:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Request made at Wikipedia:Bot requests#featured article counter, based on what I understood of Raul and Sandy's discussion above. I've added my own idea for a vandal spoofing feature. Any thoughts on that or the idea in general are welcome there. - BanyanTree 13:47, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Are there any non-admins currently involved with maintaining WP:FARC? I know there have been in the past. This change makes adminship a requirement for that task. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:46, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, Sandy is not an admin. The two of us have discussed this on my talk and there is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#. He has thus far agreed, as I understand, to request an edit if he carries out a removal while we wait to see what happens with the bot. Someone has already responded to the bot request. - BanyanTree 01:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)