Talk:Main Page/Archive 98

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Archive 98


Contents

Offensive "Separatist" in Scottish news summary

"Following a first-ever election victory, the separatist Scottish National Party surpasses Labour to become the largest political party in the Scottish Parliament (pictured). Labour also suffers losses in elections to the Welsh Assembly and to local councils across Britain. "

Can we please change "separatist" to "pro-independence" please? "Separatist" is unbelievably POV, and downright offensive. It's not a suitable term. --MacRusgail 23:46, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed please change it ASAP. --Barryob Vigeur de dessus 00:11, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you, I hope more people will agree. If I used "annexationist" to describe supporters of the Union in Scotland, people wouldn't be happy, but this is more or less the same thing. --MacRusgail 00:20, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Why would the word "separatist" be "POV" or "offensive"? It links to Scottish independence. --74.13.126.166 01:44, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Because it is derogatory. --MacRusgail 19:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC) p.s. Could you imagine George Washington being called a "separatist"? It wouldn't be allowed on wikipedia.
It depends on context. If there's credible reference, such as a GB newspaper from the 1770s, sure. Why not? --74.13.129.187 21:08, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry, how on earth is "separatist" unbelievable POV? The SNP wants a Scottish state that is governed, erm, separately from the rest of the UK. Changing to "pro-independence" is akin to getting using pro-choice/pro-life distinctions when providing encyclopedic coverage of the abortion debate... a cuddlier-sounding word, what with the "pro" in there and all, maybe, but certainly no more accurate and far more politically tourqued. The Tom 01:56, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Because "separatist" is a derogatory term that demeans this political position. "Pro-independence" means that they support "independence", and is neutral like "Pro-Union" etc, it doesn't have the overtones of the abortion monikers because those use emotive names like "choice" or "life". --MacRusgail 19:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Derogatory!?!? No way!!!! This must be British/Scottish English. The word is used regularly in Canadian politics. Not derogatory at all here. --74.13.129.187 21:08, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
British definitely. The Chinese refer to the Tibetan independence movement as "splittist" which has the same kind of overtones. We all know how they got a hold of Tibet, in spite of the fact that they consider it an "integral part of China". --MacRusgail 22:19, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Huh? Does everyone know how England got a hold of Wales, obviously an integral part of the "United" "Kingdom"? Ditto for Scotland? And Ireland? --74.13.130.85 04:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
How on earth can "seperatist" be considered downright offensive? The SNP believes Scotland should be seperate from the UK. That is seperatism. Keep the news summary as it is. Matt7895 03:30, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I also find it odd that anyone would find the word "separatist" offensive. I've removed it from ITN, along with a few other words, because the line seems too long to me, not because it's "unbelievable POV" or anything. --PFHLai 06:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
"Separatist" to me (and I expect many other people, aside from MacRusgail and Barryob) has the sense of "rebel". It's what many people (including me!) use to describe Abu Sayyaf or Abkhazia, groups fighting against legitimate authorities to establish their own governments. As such, when we have a NPOV alternative, we should use it. Nyttend 13:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
That's a narrow view of what a "Separatist" is. There are violent militants, and there are civil politicians. Ask the SNP, or the Bloc Québécois in Canada, or those involved in the Velvet Divorce of Czechoslovakia. Separatism may mean many things. --74.14.20.134 14:50, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
"Separatist" is a term used by opponents of something. Like I say, it would be like calling those who support Scotland's Union with England "annexationists". If it said that, most of you would consider that POV, because it refers to the status quo. --MacRusgail 19:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
"Separatist" is a term abused by their opponents, but the word has probably been around long enough to mean different things in different places. If it's a bad word to use for UK news, then we should leave it out of ITN. --74.13.130.85 04:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
On the original point, should we change all instances of `terrorist' to `freedom fighter'? Rossheth 19:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
You are talking about violent folk. The SNP is a democratic party. Why is it that the status quo gets neutral language, but those who wish to make some kind of change get the loaded language? --MacRusgail 19:40, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Glad it has been changed - the word contains NPOV connotations. When reporting on this in the UK, by any of the news sources, the word separatist is not used - it is connotationally coloured, and hence why it is avoided. SFC9394 19:48, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Another wording issue in the UK item on ITN

For what it's worth, "surpasses" should be "passes." Doops | talk 05:39, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking of changing that to "supplants". Would this work ? --PFHLai 06:24, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, the real problem is that it's not a particularly 'real' point being made. Neither party has/had a majority; the SNP isn't "in power" at present nor will they necessarily be. All we're talking about is "which party has a plurality of seats." I would just reword the whole blurb to say something like "following the 2007 Scottish Parliament Elections, the SNP will hold a plurality in that body, the first time a party other than Labour has done so." -- this is at once clearer and subtler, I think. Doops | talk 16:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
To be continued on WP:ITN/C. --06:41, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

A possible error on the main page today

I see it still says "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit", despite the increasing use of semi-protection and protection on assorted article pages not just acutely in response to an immediate problem, but chronically. I know of several article pages that have not been in an "anyone can edit" state for months without remit.

To top it off, today I came across a talk page that was semiprotected. It is absolutely incorrect to ever protect a talk page!

I submit, therefore, that the "anyone can edit" phrase should be removed, since it isn't true any more. Alternatively, this tendency towards chronic protection can be stopped, and no more protection of talk pages occur.

Vandalism is of course a problem. But chronically protecting anything but the main page and stable templates isn't the answer; blocking vandals by IP is, and possibly adding a probationary status of some kind that kicks in before being blocked does (and is temporary if the bad behavior stops and remains absent long enough). Probationary status could block the editing of major, stable articles (the ones commonly chronically semiprotected now). It might also attach to newbies, but be removed by a history of good edits, only coming back if malicious edits are made. More good edits could remove it, with more being required the poorer your history. Blocking would still result from too many, malicious enough edits in too short a time period.

However, the use of protection in a chronic manner, save on the main page and templates, is not the answer, and makes this no longer "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.104.131.76 (talk) 14:36, 3 May 2007 (UTC).

"Probationary status could block the editing of major, stable articles (the ones commonly chronically semiprotected now). It might also attach to newbies, but be removed by a history of good edits, only coming back if malicious edits are made." How is that an improvement, or indeed different to, the current setup, whereby newbies are blocked from editing semi-protected articles? IPs are also blocked, but, given the movable nature of IPs, how would you know who was a newbie if they weren't logged in? Anyone can edit semi-protected articles if they take 2 minutes to create an account and wait 4 days without vandalising anything enough to get blocked. 217.43.138.193 15:03, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
The "anyone can edit" phrase is indeed correct. Anyone can become an admin, too. All you have to do is earn the trust of fellow wikipedians and go thru' an RfA. Anyone capable of editing but choose to vandalize will lose the privilege to edit. --74.14.17.57 16:09, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Do have some idle software developers that you haven't mentioned? We're still waiting for a universal wikimedia project login that I think was announced over a year ago. Not to speak of some type of stable versioning.
You're also about five years late in sounding the alarm. Page protection has existed for at least that long. If your complaint is about indefinitely semi-pro'ed articles, you can always request unprotection at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection, but many of those articles have depressing protection logs. From what I can tell, there are less than 1500 articles that are currently under some form of protection. Some of these are certainly overdue for unprotection, but before asking around about technical feasiblity, and drafting a policy proposal for consideration at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), you may want to consider if less than a tenth of one percent is a crisis level. The percentage of articles one can't edit falls to almost nothing if one can get through four days without a gross policy violation. - BanyanTree 16:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
You're missing the point. You have to do more than get through four days without a gross policy violation. You also have to register. It is being forced to register and memorize yet another login/password pair that I find objectionable, not having to wait four days. In other words, the problem is that non-logged-in users are treated as on permanent probation. Instead, a dynamic IP range should be treated as on probation only if it has (fairly recently) originated some vandalism, and a stable (non-dynamic) IP should be treated as "registered" with the IP as the username. This applies to semi-protection, as well as to starting new articles and uploading media. It should be possible to do these things without YAWLI (yet another website login) or this is really "the encyclopedia only registered members can edit". :P There's also currently no provision now (so far as I am aware) to slap a registered user with fresh probation for anything; only leave them alone, nag them on their user talk page, or block them.
If getting new accounts is easy, requiring registration for certain actions does not offer a significant barrier to misbehavior, and seems pointless. If on the other hand getting new accounts is difficult, tedious, slow, annoying, or requires divulging personal information, giving money, showing proof of identification, or presents some other serious hurdle to jump through, then requiring it for certain actions is an onerous burden that makes a mockery of Wikipedia's slogan. Either way, the current state of affairs has a problem.
You also failed to address the issue of talk pages now sometimes being protected, which simply shouldn't occur. By definition, only articles can be vandalized; anything added to talk pages is generally fair game. (Talk page blanking or deletion or gross editing of other peoples' contributions is another matter.) Furthermore, the problem of many templates (infoboxes particularly) being prime targets for vandalism but not being protected seems to keep going unacknowledged. Templates that are not expected to ever need to be changed in the future should be fully protected. Nothing else, save the main page stuff, should be, and semiprotection should be used sparingly and temporarily. If a page is frequently being vandalized, block the vandals, rather than stopping anonymous users from editing the page; the vandals will simply register, and anonymous users who can't be arsed to memorize YAWLI will say "screw it" and not FIX the vandalism that they encounter. I've already personally encountered vandalism a few times. I've fixed it when I could, but sometimes the page was semiprotected! (Most recent devandalization was at Prostate cancer staging) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.104.131.76 (talk) 19:17, 3 May 2007 (UTC).
Please move this discussion to somewhere more appropriate, such as Wikipedia talk:Protection policy or Wikipedia:Village pump (policy). Thanks. --Quiddity 20:11, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, take a look at this. Slow load. Prodego talk 20:15, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what talk page you're referring to but semi protection or protection of talk pages may be necessary to deal with copyright violations & BLP issues. Also it is possible to vandalise talk pages. Check out Wikipedia:Vandalism or Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. Contrary to what you seem to think, talk pages are not somewhere where anything goes. In any case, talk page protection is very, very rare. Also, one of the problems with your suggestion is a lot of vandals of 'popular' pages like GWB are likely to be one hit wonders. They're never going to come back (at least with the same IP) so blocking/probation won't actually reduce the amount of vandalism significantly. It will also increase the amount of admin work exponentially which is perhaps the biggest flaw by far in your probation suggestion. The better suggestion would be to request that people are able to request their IP be given 'special status' so they are the equivalent of registered users. But only if they can demonstrate sufficient history without major vandalism. Or let me put this a different way. People who we don't knwo by definition have to be on permanent probation because we don't know whether we can trust them. People who we know we can't trust are blocked... Finally, by definition "anyone can edit" includes limitations. For example, people without access to internet connections (or computers) can't edit. There are a lot of reasons why people don't have access to internet connections (and computers). However there is little reason why people can't register. The fact that people don't want to register for whatever reason is different from the inability to register. The fact that the vast majority of people who want to edit wikipedia can register means that these people can still edit. Indeed I would argue the fact that people need an internet connection to edit wikipedia is a far, far greater problem even if insolvable then the fact that people have to register. (Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for requiring registration simply that the limitation imposed by requiring registration doesn't actually affected the 'anyone can edit' bit as much as you seem to think). Finally I don't personally see why you need to use a different login and password for every single account you have on the internet. Obviously there is greater risks when you reuse login and passwords but in reality, most people would use one login and one password for most unimportant internet stuff. If it's compromised well then tough. Obviously admins have different considerations but for you bog standard editor, there is no real harm in re-using logins and passwords. Nil Einne 20:37, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
BTW, semiprotection is used because it works. It greatly reduces the amount of vandalism. Although it's true it's trivial to create an account, as I've already mentioned, many vandals are one hit wonders and don't come back. They're either to lazy to create an account or intimidated by it. So it's kind of pointless to suggest registration serves no purpose because it's so easy when in reality it works. Of course, we almost definitely also lose editors who don't want to register for whatever reason which is unfortunate but can't be helped. Ultimately, it's a balance and I don't see any evidence we've got the balance wrong. We still don't protect the featured article most of the time Nil Einne 20:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It's interesting at http://tools.wikimedia.de/~avatar/protected.php?wiki=en -- it appears that of all the major Wikipædias, only the Japanese has more protected articles than the English (the Spanish has more semi protected). 70.17.248.96 16:03, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Many of our "protected articles" aren't actually articles at all but empty pages that have been protected to stop people repeatedly creating an article there – Gurch 19:19, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
are these pages listed anywhere? (Mikey01 01:18, 7 May 2007 (UTC))

Anyone can edit this encylcopedia, just not all of it. Thats the misinterpretation at the very beginning of this discussion here, because anyone can edit it even if those edits are restricted to a few articles. ANYONE can edit this encyclopedia, no error here.Tourskin 05:32, the tenth of May in 2007 I edited the date so that archivebot will ignore this post and archive the thread. --Quiddity

You can always archive this manually. Why wait? --74.14.17.68 18:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Featured Lists on the Main Page

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

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

(For an example of how Featured Lists could be displayed on the Main Page, see Wikipedia:Featured content Tompw (talk) (review) 15:30, 24 April 2007 (UTC))


Support

  • Support. because giving the main portal more info should encourage users to actually use this feature. although i am worried about the lay out, the main page aready is a bit crowded, i think over time this will be resolved with some careful tweaking--Greg.loutsenko 22:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. I don't think a little extra box on the Main Page would hurt anybody. Users work hard to get lists featured. Lists are an important organizational tool for Wikipedia. I think a "List of the week" would be nice, starting with newer lists. If the supply of new lists is exhausted, old lists can be used until new lists are created. --Birdman1 talk/contribs 21:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Conditional support — perhaps "featured list of the week" and "featured topic of the month"? — Deckiller 23:43, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • But if a person doesn't read the list/topic in the first couple of days, I doubt tacking even more time will get them to look at it. ShadowHalo 00:48, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The main reason I recommend week or month is so we don't run out of lists. — Deckiller 01:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • But leaving it for a week or month renders the section useless for readers, most of the time that is. ShadowHalo 01:23, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Mainly because I'm working on a list ;) Majorly (hot!) 23:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support A Featured list of the day would work fine. There are 243 FLs currently and if they were featured, that number would surely increase at a rate higher than now. This is due to an incentive now possible to list editors.--HamedogTalk|@ 00:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support for an FL once a week; to prevent staleness, on Monday would be the topmost part of the list, then on Tuesday the next part, up to Sunday when we reach the last part; if the list is very long it's OK if we don't reach the end of it. This is currently done on WP:FC with only the first part of the list displayed; if it can be displayed there I see absolutely no reason why we can't do it here. --Howard the Duck 03:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support - lists are just a type of article. Make the 'article of the day' a 'featured list' from time to time. Solves any problems of 'insufficient space' and 'not enough lists'. The fact that we have featured lists on the featured content page shows that they can be put into summary form. --CBD 11:04, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I agree that would be a good idea, and it would help wikipedians contribute what they feel to wikipedia. --Katherine Kaiquser 00:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support But are there enough lists to rotate? Well, I guess people would be motivated to start working on them, so they would increase quickly. · AO Talk 17:38, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support The idea of a Featured List of the week is a good one, especially combined with the idea of breaking it into sections for each day to add variety. Having that will encourage the proliferation of high-quality lists. I think letting readers see some of our best lists is a service to them. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 18:27, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support: It we a going to put them on for a week how about put diffrent parts of the list on each day. Buc 09:38, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support "List of the Day". Given the current number of FLs (246) and the rate they are bein added (~10-15/month), it will be at least year before any have to repeat. (See detailed workings under "some real discussion") Tompw (talk) 10:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I like ONUnicorn's idea above. i believe that an extra box wouldn't be horrible. however, it would have to be done correctly. themcman1 (help me with my sig) 13:30, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Weak Support Could be a good feature but it should be a list of the week since there are not enough features lists to support a daily feature.
  • Support Good idea. --Umedard Talk 15:23, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I believe that every now and then it should be included in the space where the current 'article of the day' is. Todd661 08:15, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Nothing wrong with the idea. Sr13 (T|C) ER 08:24, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Why not, we have Featured-?-Of-The-Day everything else... --Valley2city₪‽ 20:29, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Fatured lists don't get enough attention. ¿SFGiДnts! ☺ ☻ 13:26, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support I never even knew lists could be featured until I was here for over 4 months. They deserve the same recognition as everything else. ~~ Gromreaper(Talk)/(Cont) 05:50, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support. Absolutely. Would have to be week since there aren't too many, but no real reason not to.--Wizardman 19:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Support Most of the featured lists read like an article to some extent anyway. I woudl also say that eventually once it has had time to grow and imporve we might want to include a featurede topic once a month. Dalf | Talk 22:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

  • Oppose From what I can tell, there aren't nearly enough featured lists for this to work. ShadowHalo 23:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
But would it work if we did a featured list of the week/month? --Birdman1 talk/contribs 00:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
Why would we want to? If a person wants to ready the list/topic, they'll read it within the first couple of days. Leaving it up for an entire week or month isn't going to get people to read it. ShadowHalo 00:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Not everyone views Wikipedia everyday. Buc 09:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. There aren't nearly enough lists promoted each month to keep this up, unfortunately. —Cuiviénen 23:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
See above. --Birdman1 talk/contribs 00:05, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Definitely not. —Cuiviénen 14:19, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose I'm not sure why this is being done as a poll, but I see one major problem with this idea. Articles can be summarized, pictures can be resized. How does one summarize a list? By putting it in list form, its about as summarized as it gets. Even if we use tiny font, lists like List of California birds and most other FLs will be extremely long. Mr.Z-mantalk¢
    • Sinces it already done on the Featured content page I don't think this would be a problem. Buc 09:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
      Also, in response to "reusing lists" there are currently 243 FLs, with one being nominated about every 2 days. If everyone of them passes, we would run out in less than 2 years (486 days). If only half pass, we would run out in less than a year (324 days). Doing it weekly would work, but that may start to seem stale after a while. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 00:30, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
We could just adapt the introduction from the featured lists, similar to what we do with featured articles. --Tntnnbltn 16:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose I really don't think that a featured list of the day/week would be all that interesting to the non-Wikipedians who frequent the Main Page. We already seem to do this at Wikipedia:Featured content, which is linked on the sidebar. Also, wouldn't adding something to the Main Page require a more substantial ordeal than a poll on this page? --Maxamegalon2000 02:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose. They all come in a different size and shape. Some are rather long. Some are tabulated and hard to squeeze onto MainPage. Where on MainPage do we put these FLs, anyway? I worry about layout problems on MainPage. --PFHLai 03:10, 16 April 2007 (UTC), 14:13, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose I appreciate the work that often goes into lists, but I still think that lists aren't content the same was images and prose are. They're just tools to make the user's life easier. No one would suggest a "featured template of the day", or some such. It seems like that putting things on the main page simply as a "reward" to the editors is something to be avoided. Also, why is this a poll, and why is it here? 69.95.50.15 14:18, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Please, no IP voting. Someone could vote twice. Please make an account. (If anyone opposes this comment, please reply.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Birdman1 (talk • contribs) 14:42, 2007 April 17 (UTC).
The IP is entitled to his/her opinion. And we should be discussing instead of voting. --PFHLai 15:48, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
Please do not strikeout another use's comment. That should be used for self-retraction only. El_C 18:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
  • I disgree. I think it's a great way to honor user(s) work. Buc 09:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose per 69.95.50.15 ~ Giggy! Talk 06:31, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Instead of opposing or voting in this poll, please do the discussion at #some real discussion, below. Thanks. --Howard the Duck 06:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose As much as a lot of hard work goes into lists, I don't think that the main page is the best place to feature it. Firstly I already think there are too many boxes on the main page and secondly I agree with 69.95.50.15 above, lists aren't quite the same as pictures and prose. LukeSurl 19:13, 19 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose It would make the main page far too cluttered, and lists have no real substance. --Oreo Priest 02:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
    • You are welcome to remove the lists on the FIFA World Cup page since they have no real substance, LOL. --Howard the Duck 06:54, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
      • Thank you, Howard the Duck for the condescending LOL. The list on that page is in support of an article. A list on its own has no substance.--Oreo Priest 03:08, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
        • You'll be surprised that FLs aren't just lists, LOL. --Howard the Duck 06:47, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
          • Right, and you can often count the number of prosaic sentences on a hand or two. ShadowHalo 23:25, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
            • Really? These FLs have leads the same length as FAs. Of course lists can have that much prose, try doing that on FPs, LOL. --Howard the Duck 08:53, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
              • Just looking at two random FL's, List of Australian Twenty20 International cricketers and List of Governors of Delaware both have very short leads compared to FAs. They're only one paragraph, where a decent FA has two, three, sometimes four paragraph long leads. Luckily with featured pictures, not as much text is necessary since the picture is the object of attention. ShadowHalo 14:40, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
                • Substance shouldn't be judged by the amount of prose but by the informational content. See the List of New Jersey birds - that's content. That's information. That's substance.
  • [outdent] I'm not saying that featured lists don't have substance. I'm saying many don't have enough prose to be suitable for the main page. ShadowHalo 22:57, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
    • They at least have enough prose to have a little tiny box on the MP. Does that count? lol--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 23:45, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
      • It would be silly to apply FA standards to FL, since they're structurally different, it's like asking for a 40kb worth of text caption in an FP, or a reference section in an FPOR. --Howard the Duck 08:17, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
        • I didn't say there needed to be 40kb of text. But there needs to be some amount of useful text, or there's no purpose in exhibiting the list. And List of Australian Twenty20 International cricketers has only a five-sentence lead, two of which are about how the list is organized. That's not nearly enough to produce a section on the Main Page. ShadowHalo 17:43, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
          • That's why we'd need a "Today's featured list" page to weed out questionable and controversial pages. However, most of the time, lists are subpages of an article, which means it would be written in a summary style, and not to mention Twenty20 cricket is a relatively new development which would explain why it is that short (which leads me to using text found at its parent article). BTW, I'm looking for that hurricane-related FA that's so short, it could be a featured stub. --Howard the Duck 12:43, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
            • If you mean Hurricane Irene (2005), that's hardly a featured stub. Even that has suitable prose for a Main Page box, unlike a large number of featured lists. ShadowHalo 15:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
              • You really don't get it, do you? Prose isn't what FLs supposed to be good at but the display of lists, like FPs featuring pics rather than captions, FSs lets you hear sounds, rather than read the explanation. If you'd want prose, go to FAs, if you'd want lists, go to FLs. Prose isn't the only thing that's important in this encyclopedia. Its like saying Kristen Dunst should act well to be nominated for an acting award for Spiderman 3 when the reason why people will watch the film is either due to the special effects or the kiss they'd perform. --Howard the Duck 03:03, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
  • [outdent] That's exactly what I'm saying. We want our featured lists to be quality lists. However, quality lists generally don't have any substantial prose. Including part of the list on the main page is a silly thing to do since it takes up so much space, and there often isn't enough usable prose to yield a separate box. ShadowHalo 23:18, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Our FP today doesn't have enough prose but it does get featured in the main page anyway. --Howard the Duck 10:15, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose Not enough of them, and one a week would be there too long. 1 a day gets old for me, but then again, I have a short attention span. Megalodon99 (Talk) 23:07, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Neutral

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

some real discussion

we shouldn't be voting, for goodness sakes, it's a matter of consensus

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

I would be happy to begin a collaboration for FLs, such as starting a WikiProject. For now, I think that a weekly FL would be nice, and then we rotate a section everyday for seven days (as noted above). I'm going to propose the project to WP:COUNCIL (like WP:WPGA), but the "Today's featured list" should be discussed somewhere else.--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 02:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
You can see the proposal here--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 21:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Several people have commented that there aren't enough lists for "list of the day" to work. There are currently 246 featured lists. Going by the Featured list log, new FLs are being added at rate of 10-15 month. Taking the lower figure (say 3 per day), plus the current total of 246 lists, it would take us 368 days to get through them all, before we had to repeat. (Over 368 days, 122 new FLs can be expected, plus the 246 exsisting: 122+246=368). So, it is not true to say we'd repeat ourselves in just 246 days - the actual figure is over a year.
Now, those are the facts. If you feel Main Page content should *never* be repeated, then that would be a reason to oppose. On the other hand, you may be happy with repeating less than once a year. Tompw (talk) 10:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
If we get a steady stream of 31 FLs a month, we can probably manage a TFL. That's why I'm proposing a WikiProject to WP:COUNCIL/P, so that we can have constant contributions to all existing lists.--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 16:55, 22 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmm... I've just discovered (which I'm surprised I hadn't noticed before) that one day a week the FP is a repeat. Perhaps if we were to do one FL a week, it could just replace the one day when the FP would have been a repeat.--Pharos 05:54, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
All lists should be categories anyway... *runs from torch and pitchfork wielding mob* ;) --Monotonehell 07:23, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
*grabs torch and pitchfork* But how can we display them in a suitable format if there are more than two variables involved? (Which brings me, do you people have ever seen a featured list? hehehe) --Howard the Duck 07:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
On a seperate, but related note, WikiProject Lists was just created. The Placebo Effect 23:27, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

The rate that featured lists are produced will go up, so, on top of the "over a year" already mentioned, we will have further lists, so much so that we would very rarely need to repeat, if ever. Having one a week gives more 'glory' to a featured list than a featured article, which isn't fair at all. Personally, my only objection to the whole thing is that then, what about featured topics, featured sounds and (when we get it, which we will) featured videos? J Milburn 19:13, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Look at WP:FC, how the different featured content appears there, roughly that's how they should look like at the Main page. A featured sounds box would show a little icon, with a short description to the sounds, etc. We might as well add a link to a Featured portal, at the upper right hand corner, too. --Howard the Duck 04:10, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

(I am not a mathematician) Averaging the last six months, featured lists are being added at a rate of 15 per month. Assuming no change in this rate (though it seems logical that the rate will actually rise with time), the total number of featured lists increase at a rate of f(x) = 15x + 252 per month. The average number of days per month is (averaged up by about .083) 30.5, which would mean that the total number of featured lists increases at a rate of f(x)=\frac{15}{30.5}x+252 Days increase at a rate of g(x) = x of course, so with no change in the rate of increase, there would be no repeat in featured lists for almost 500 days. The logical increase in the number of lists featured per day means that the time would probably be greater, likely even infinite, as the increase in featured articles has become (I think). In any case, 500 days gives us an ample amount of time before we would have to deal with a repeat situation, even if that rate did not increase. In other words, there are indeed enough featured lists to exhibit a new one every day, though I personally wouldn't be against one per week either. Atropos 23:25, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

One per day, then one per week once we get low. Remember that the number of lists will proabably increase exponetially because there would be a purpose to improving them (getting them on the front page). A lot of the lists are extremely interesting and you would only find them through very obsurce linking.--Dacium 01:46, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
As the author of two FLs myself, I would strongly support this. Concerns that there are too few FLs have been addressed above. Besides, what's the point of it being featured if it's tucked away into a dark corner at WP:FL with no strong link from the Main Page. Sure, it's exemplary work, but nobody's going to see it. --Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 12:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

If the above poll is to be of any use, it needs to be refactored. On April 24, an anon decided to rearrange some comments, turning opposes into supports, giving a false sense of the community opinion. A user reverted some of it, but missed some and the anon did even more afterward. If anyone wants to put the poll back together, that would be much appreciated. Mr.Z-mantalk¢ 03:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The poll doesn't matter anyway now. All of the things should be discussed at this section. --Howard the Duck 03:50, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
The poll was never binding, it matters as much as it ever did. Anyway, matter or not, isn't it misleading to have a tampered poll sitting around? It's natural for people to guage prevailing opinion by what they can take in at a glance before fully thinking about an issue. The majority of "oppose" comments were either removed outright, edited so that their supporting comments were stupid(!) or mysteriously changed to 'support' comments. Personally, I think that alone should say something about the consensus for this proposal. 24.2.176.64 05:39, 1 May 2007 (UTC) (P.S., I'm the IP that made an 'oppose' comment above. At least the editor who tampered with my comment had the decency to sign his name.)
Now that you've said it, I was going to restore it by reverting but it might remove newer discussions. --Howard the Duck 06:28, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Featured lists and portals (and sounds and topics) are most effectively promoted at Wikipedia:Featured content (3rd link in sidebar, and top-right of Main page). Lists get a large sample displayed, but using article-based <onlyinclude>s, so not adaptable for use here.

We used to have different Main page content in one of the sections on weekends. I'd endorse a proposal along those lines, for featured lists (displaying instead of DYK or FPic, on weekends or Sundays; so it would need to be a very condensed sample). But I feel that permanently adding something as large as the samples at Featured content would make the page too long, and make things like our sister projects even less likely to be seen (as attested by Ed in the bottom thread concerning wikinews). I object to anything that significantly enlarges the Main page design. --Quiddity 01:40, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather have FLs replace the DYKs since the DYKs are encouraged to inflate the article count without really improving other articles. For example, all of those Eurovision-related DYKs won't have a chance of expansion since most of them are rather forgotten after a few months; FLs on the other hand are superior in many ways over DYKs.
Also, if there should be a place to feature Wikipedia's very best work, it's not WP:FC but the Main Page itself. --Howard the Duck 08:00, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think lists scale well in terms of a summary. For articles you have the lead, for pictures you have a smaller version of the picture, but for lists there's little option other than to have the first few items in the list and then cut it off, which is jarring in comparison. Oldelpaso 17:49, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually a long list can be summarized; for example after the obligatory introduction, in List of Ashes series, the timeline diagram is enough to have a grasp of what happened; for FIFA World Cup hat-tricks, you can say "The Russian Oleg Salenko has 5 goals in one match - the most in history, followed by <list the people who had 4 goals>, while <number of people who had 3 goals> had three goals in a match, for a total of 48 instances." You can add info like who are the people that had 2 or more hat-tricks, etc. And you don't have to create a table for that. --Howard the Duck 13:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

What is the problem with having a longer main page? Atropos 01:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Map?

how can i find menu for view map? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.151.161.228 (talk • contribs) 05:59, 8 May 2007

What would you like to view a map of? --Monotonehell 07:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Or if you want to browse, try Commons:Category:Maps. --Quiddity 07:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Something wrong

I cant insert images!Whats wrong-TaylorLTD 22:19, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Only admins can insert images to the main page. --74.13.130.26 22:58, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Portals on the mainpage

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

I would be happy to begin a collaboration for FLs, such as starting a WikiProject. For now, I think that a weekly FL would be nice, and then we rotate a section everyday for seven days (as noted above). I'm going to propose the project to WP:COUNCIL (like WP:WPGA), but the "Today's featured list" should be discussed somewhere else.--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 02:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC) You can see the proposal here--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 21:27, 21 April 2007 (UTC) Several people have commented that there aren't enough lists for "list of the day" to work. There are currently 246 featured lists. Going by the Featured list log, new FLs are being added at rate of 10-15 month. Taking the lower figure (say 3 per day), plus the current total of 246 lists, it would take us 368 days to get through them all, before we had to repeat. (Over 368 days, 122 new FLs can be expected, plus the 246 exsisting: 122+246=368). So, it is not true to say we'd repeat ourselves in just 246 days - the actual figure is over a year. Now, those are the facts. If you feel Main Page content should *never* be repeated, then that would be a reason to oppose. On the other hand, you may be happy with repeating less than once a year. Tompw (talk) 10:17, 22 April 2007 (UTC)


So I'm proposing that they be added to the main page. At the mo' there are not nearly enough for them to be added every day, so I would suggest This week's featured portal instead. Another idea I had was that portals featured for a week on the main page should change their content every day during that week, rather than once a month or week or however often they currently update.

Here is my proposed way to fit them into the main page. This would of course replace the current Welcome to Wikpedia box on the top of the page:

Welcome to Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
2,412,000 articles in English

This week's featured portal
Portal:European Union
European Union
European Union Portal

Other portals:

What is a portal?

|} The biggest problem with this design is that the Welcome to Wikipedia box now has a lot of white space. I tried including the Overview...A–Z index inside that box, but it didn't end up looking very good. I am more than open (read: asking) for suggestions about how to remedy this problem. I expect my wikicode is also a bit messy.

So? Atropos 00:28, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I think a simple link like the one at the bottom would be sufficient:
Welcome to Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
2,412,000 articles in English
--Howard the Duck 04:22, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea, and the Howard the Duck's implementation of it. GracenotesT § 04:53, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

What I like about the first is that the one that'll show up would be random while mine would be fixed. If anyone can do a random FPOR on the second option it'll be great. --Howard the Duck 05:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
Eugh. That's exactly the opposite of what I'm looking for. Just another little line of text which attracts no attention. Further, mine is only random because I pulled from the Featured content page. Atropos 17:17, 29 April 2007 (UTC)
How about this one?
Welcome to Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
2,412,000 articles in English
Featured: Australia
If someone can only enclose the featured portal link within the portal box and use a scandalous color. --Howard the Duck 10:36, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

You might be better off promoting Wikipedia:Featured portals, and making that page more visible. Have a look at "what links here", for that, and see how widely linked it is. Carcharoth 00:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Could someone fix the indent here, please ? --PFHLai 05:10, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. howcheng {chat} 06:40, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for fixing this, Howcheng. --PFHLai 08:41, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
I like this proposal, but it may be better to have four columns, the last in the third being Philosophy, Religion, and Spirituality, and the fourth being Culture; Featured portal:Trains; and All Portals. -Oreo Priest 22:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

section edit break

That's not bad, but there's a rather annoying blank space underneath the header, occupied only by the featured portal's name, on the right. I think that we should have a specific portal featured. We don't merely have a link to WP:FA on the front page; we have a featured article. Why? For recognition, and to show off some of our best content people would not otherwise see. GracenotesT § 17:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

If someone can come up with a good layout, I'd support this. I'd even be prepared to see one of the main portals dropped (are they all featured?). And can someone fix the annoying location of the edit link for this section? Carcharoth 00:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
Only 3 of the 8 portals listed are featured. --Quiddity 01:45, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
How about a drop-down list of FPors? --Howard the Duck 13:11, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
I think a drop-down selection box would look ugly (in different ways in different browser/OSs) and inconsistent with the rest of the design.
As the only bolded link in the entire header, I think Portal:List of portals is more than sufficient.
There is also a large stability problem with many portals, where they get created, raised to good/featured status, and then left unmaintained for months on end.
I believe those 5 other portals on the Main page need to be raised to Featured status, before any other changes are seriously discussed. --Quiddity 17:27, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

About the Portals and Tables

I've got to put on one of DeBono's Six Thinking Hats (black) and say that the tables shown here are extremely hard to use and could use with some default templates that put some of the div, font, etc boilerplate code out of the way. Other than that how about pushing the portal list to the centre and putting the featured portal on the far right. That would rid of the whitespace problem... Merosonox 04:53, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's what it might look like

Welcome to Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
2,412,000 articles in English
Featured Portal Portal:Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver Portal
Overview · Editing · Questions · Help

Contents · Categories · Featured content · A–Z index


There are 6 proposed templates used here:

Merosonox 05:50, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
That breaks the page width at 800x600. --Quiddity 08:51, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I personally think that the picture is imapprotiate. It does not add much, really. GracenotesT § 20:35, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Although I'd agree, but adding pic is eye-catching. There must another way to direct a reader to the FPOR. --Howard the Duck 15:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
As the only bolded link in the entire header, I think All portals is sufficient. --Quiddity 18:06, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I think a picture is rather necessary. You're whole perspective, though: it should be a portal section, not just a part of the header section. Atropos 01:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)



Cricket on the DYK

Is there a lot of activity on the cricket-related pages these days? It seems like every day there's some trivial bit of cricket-stuff in the DYK list and today there are two. The current archive lists nine cricket-related factoids used over the last 200 or so bits. I don't have a problem with it, I'm just curious why the DYK box is now apparently divided equally into scientific, political, artistic and cricket-related points. ;-) Matt Deres 00:40, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

People work on what they want to work on. Right now, some people are expanding a lot of cricket articles, and these articles are being suggested for the Did you Know section. This work undoubtedly improves the encyclopedia and so can hardly be objected to – Gurch 02:26, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
At least this is better than the Eurovision we had before... --Howard the Duck 02:39, 6 May 2007 (UTC)
Speaking of which... ShadowHalo 02:17, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
At least it's not on DYK. :p --Howard the Duck 09:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I remember someone was complaining about this before. The next update had no cricket related items and nor did the next 6 or so updates. I was planning to count the updates until we next had something cricket related but got busy and ended up canning the idea. But my point is that that observer bias probably comes into play here. The trend that people think they see may not be as severe as they think. Remember that people even see patterns when something is completely random. Bear in mind too that as DYK is updated more then once a day, if you only visit the main page once a day or so, it could easily happen that you will see cricket related items 3-4 days in w row even though we may have only had them in like 4/15 updates or something Nil Einne 16:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
There is another today. As I specifically stated above, I'm not actually complaining about it, just wondering why it is like it is. I don't see that many soccer-related bits or baseball-related bits, for example. Matt Deres 01:50, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia works on volunteer editors, they edit what they wish. It's simply that there's currently a number of rabid cricket editors active who are improving and nominating cricket related articles for the main page. Recently there was a number of rabid Eurovision Song Contest editors who where doing the same there. See WP:BIAS. (nb. "rabid" used in the non-pejorative) --Monotonehell 05:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:CRIC tells me that the most recent 6 of the 13 cricket FAs have been completed in the last three months. As for cricket admins and DYK, rabid folks like ALoan (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) and Blnguyen (talk • contribs • blocks • protects • deletions • moves • rights) are known for being cricket tragics on Wikipedia. As well as that, Andrew nixon (talk · contribs), Evadb (talk · contribs), Vimalkalyan (talk · contribs) have had their articles posted. IllyTea 05:59, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Rabid? Shrug. New or greatly expanded articles only get on DYK if people (a) write them and (b) nominate them. Have you noticed the occasional series of Eurovision articles, US Navy landing craft, subjects relating to the Tagore family, Japanese painters, runestones, etc?
Since 1 May, the DYKs that I have written (or rewritten) that have made the Main Page are four cricketers, the only Andorran World Heritage Site, a South African doctor, a Church of England clergyman, and a judge. I have been writing up articles using published obituaries for a year or two now - it is not my fault that three prominent cricketers have died within a few days (and who could resist the fourth, John Elicius Benedict Bernard Placid Quirk Carrington Dwyer).
In April, I had two cricketers, an 18th century slave, an English country house, a Roman Catholic clergyman, a disappeared London market, a writer of early cookery books, a politician, a lawyer, and the brother of a prime minister (plus 18 articles by other people that I nominated).
Back in March was another three British politicians and one politician's wife, a German author, one cricketer and one cricket tour, a French tennis administrator, a Native American soldier, a Danish painter, a son of Mao Tse Tung, and a baronet (plus nominating 17 articles by other people).
Near the top of my lengthy "to do" list are several military officers, a baron, a gynaecologist, and a political activist. Slightly further down are all sorts of random stuff, and near the bottom are shedloads of stubby cricketer articles. -- ALoan (Talk) 22:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Recent admin account hijacking

Bottom line: make sure your password is hard to guess. --Monotonehell 01:25, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

The Main page seems to have been deleted

Where the main page go? Strange indeed, but I'm sure it'll be fixed. --黒雲 user:Qaddosh 01:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Aww, shucks...I liked the heading before, but oh well. I suppose the change makes sense. --黒雲 user:Qaddosh 03:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

What's going on?--69.92.235.188 01:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Hello there, I went to the main page and was told the article did not exist. I checked again and someone had written asking where it was... so where is it?... I tried to edit any vandalism but I did not see a history--Kirkoconnell 01:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure someone who knows what the hell they're doing will fix it, I just wanna know how this was allowed to happen. Cornell Rockey 01:37, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
See the deletion log. Doops | talk 01:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
What just happened, the page wasnt unprotected then vandalized because there was no history, it must have been actualy deleted... Urdna 01:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I found that although http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page did not work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MainPage (Minus the underscore) did. i tried to set up a redirect but I don't know if THAT is what fixed it or if it just got fixed. that was a weird issue. I hope to get a clear picture as to what caused it. I think it was a change in the template or something. But what do I know... --Kirkoconnell 01:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I did a little research (looked at the logs) and discovered the page was deleted by AndyZ and the edit summary was "my password is password" (the account has been blocked) and the page was reverted by AmiDaniel twice, after the first revert it was deleted by eagle 101, it was an admin messing around... Urdna 01:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

An admin account deleted the Main Page. This is the second time in recent weeks this has occurred. The account may have been compromised and will be desysopped momentarily I'm sure. -- tariqabjotu 01:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Everything seems to be OK now. Thanks - Sidar 01:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Has the account been desysopped yet? I know it's been blocked... ShadowHalo 01:49, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it has, [1]. —Centrx→talk • 01:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Phew, okay. I need to figure how IRC works now... ShadowHalo 01:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Although this time it seems likely the admin account was compromised rather then the other time where it was unclear. Hopefully there are no other admins with the password 'password' Nil Einne 07:13, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that was a dumb move. Isn't "password" the most commons password? Were it not so creepy, I'd suggest that we require admins have strong passwords. ShadowHalo 08:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, we could require everyone to have a strong password. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Can we have any1 check the database for admins or above with password as their password or will we have to do it manually (e.g try hacking every account :P)? Also is there a way to stop people posting their password on their user page?----User:Rock2e Talk - Contribs 14:17, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Actually it seems like the password wasn't 'password'. At least assuming the User:Jiang we're speaking to now is the real Jiang. BTW, for those not fllowing the issue on incidents, a password bruteforcer will be run later today on admin accounts Nil Einne 16:56, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Jiang's wasn't; but Andy7's might have been. Doops | talk 17:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
It was. 71.125.65.64 (User:AndyZ) 22:48, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
You're right, I wasn't following that well and didn't realise two accounts had already been compromised (now 3). Nil Einne 09:07, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Who the hell put encylopedia my ass on the page??????

Fix it asap.... (I dont know how...) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Armanalp (talk • contribs) 13:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

Do you mean the disgusting picture when you click on that story about disused train stations? That really wasn't good for me, I'm at school. Someone please fix it. How did something like that get on the main page? JordanZed 13:43, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
FUCK, That was NOT good for my eyes. How did they hack the top notification bar?! --Toussaint 13:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I tried to delete it from the newest articles list to see if that would take it out but it didn't work. There's got to be a proper way to report this besides the bottom of the talk page. P.S. Please keep the bad language to a minimum lol JordanZed 13:48, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
It was on the top of "my watchlist" page. Not cool at all. Any prognosis on how quickly this stuff gets resolved? InnocuousFox 13:54, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure, but I just emailed them about it so it should be fixed quickly, I hope. JordanZed 13:59, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Note: Above, members are talking about an admin account with the password "password" so maybe that's how this happened. JordanZed 14:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
See above, and the incident noticeboard for the issues involved. Admins are likely to be the first the notice this type of thing. The picture was in place for around 53 seconds, and the administrator was de-sysopped within minutes. No more ass on your page, sorry for the inconvenience... -- zzuuzz(talk) 14:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
So there's a real article/image there now? Good, it should be interesting. JordanZed 14:04, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Talk page deleted, same guy as before?

Someone just deleted the talk page and wrote "MY PASSWORD IS PASSWORD." I don't know if this is the same vandal as before or just a response from some idiot, but we should just keep an eye out. JordanZed 14:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC) My bad, I'll take this to the incident noticeboard.

From what I can tell, the talk page was not deleted. Rather someone removed the content. As the talk page is not protected, nor should it be, there is no way to guard against this other then to revert on sight. Nil Einne 16:30, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
I thought there are bots who revert every page on page blanks or no? —comment added by DarthRahn(u/t\c) 16:37, 7-May, 2007 year (UTC).
Yes but this was reverted by User:LuigiManiac within 1 minute Nil Einne 16:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

admin just went on rampage

User:Conscious just went on a rampage, deleting everything in sight. Luckily, he got quickly stopped. Just thought I'd break the news: this is the second time recently. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 18:19, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

lol well i noticed that... went to en.wikipedia.org and told me that there was no main page terrible.... why would someone with so many barnstars do that? Allhailthepowerofbauerforjackisback 18:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I just heard on his talk page, aparantly his password was hacked... But how can we be sure, especialy so soon after this? Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 18:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I suppose desysop means 'remove system operating power' or something like that. It was just a bit freaky to log on to wikipedia and not to have a front page. Thanks... Allhailthepowerofbauerforjackisback 18:34, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that'd be the third, not second in the past week. Jiang and AndyZ both were compromised. WP:ANI and Wikipedia:Security are trying to figure out what to do, and there's a bot checking admins' passwords so that we can take care of any weak passwords. ShadowHalo 18:38, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
wow, again deleted. There was 5 deletions on 7 May! How the hell(and why) they did that? —comment added by DarthRahn(u/t\c) 03:17, 8-May, 2007 year (UTC).

well see when i log in to wikipedia at the bottom of the login box it says warning this is unsecured link try logging in on our secure server. something like that. but when you go to link that is 'secure' my computer (windows xp) security pops up and says security certificates have something wrong with them and maybe someone will try to intercept data. anyone else have that problem?

Allhailthepowerofbauerforjackisback 18:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I have it. Rather than add a secure server, we should just make logins secure the whole time. That would work, wouldn't it? Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 18:57, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

That's because the SSL certificate authority isn't one of the "big guys" recognized by the browser (such as VeriSign). If you examine the cert, it's good. howcheng {chat} 19:02, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

User:Marine 69-71 just fell, too. We must act, and fast. Blood Red Sandman (Talk) (Contribs) 19:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Look guys, its not the end of the world, and as long as we manage to undelete it in a reasonable amount of time (and do it correctly not my botched up work) we are fine. The devs are working on cracking weak passes as we speak. —— Eagle101 Need help? 19:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. Our current problems aren't being cuased by an insecure login system, but by cracking of weak passwords. Martinp23 19:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
So, will users with weak passwords be notified? --Kimontalk 00:46, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
At the moment at least, they are only checking admin accounts. The passwords of those accounts were reset, so they will either automatically get an e-mail or will need to request an e-mail in the usual way from the log-in system. —Centrx→talk • 00:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank God my password is only 'sirsirbob330' --02:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

How did WP allow admins to have weak passwords - allowing easy access to edit such things as the Main Page? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.254.125.78 (talk) 11:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

Not any more. --76.64.76.169 20:38, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Over a year ago, I guess, the devs found that several admin accounts had no password. (Passwords were made mandatory for accounts soon after.) The funny thing is that no accounts had been compromised. O, for those days of innocent yore! - BanyanTree 23:23, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Little Girl

Not Sure If This Is In The Right Place But Hey, Here Goes, Should An Admin Post Something About The Little Girl Who Has Gone Missing in Portugal. Lukecarpenter169 19:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps You Should Try WP:ITN/C. (Sorry For Mocking You With The Capitalization :) howcheng {chat} 19:54, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
The odds are very good that the story is not a major international affair, so it won't get put on the Main Page (and probably also does not merit an article; people go missing all the time for either inane or unpleasant reasons). —Cuiviénen 21:32, 7 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, And Should I Try Wikinews? Lukecarpenter169 06:30, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Unless the event becomes notable for some reason then yes, Wikinews may be a more likely place for such a story. --Monotonehell 07:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Lukecarpenter169 14:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

This is very big news over in Europe.81.153.133.82 14:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you'd like to help update or create a news article on Wikinews in that case? Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a news service. If the event gains some kind of notability that warrants its own encyclopedia article I'm sure someone will add it. As it stands it's news not a subject of an encyclopedia. :) --Monotonehell 14:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Islamic terrorist plot foiled

I've made an article on this: Islamic terrorism plot at Fort Dix Army base. Please edit/rename the title as necessary. This should be on the main page after its improved, or perhaps its already in the process under a different name. thanks --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 16:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not Wikinews (n:MainPage), but an encyclopedia. Not every news story gets on MainPage. Please post to Portal: Current events first, expand the article, and then propose a headline at WP:ITN/C. Thanks. --PFHLai 16:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Oh ok, thanks. I'll do that. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 16:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The 2007 Fort Dix attack plot is now on ITN. --PFHLai 09:37, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Adolph Hitler moved to HITLAH!

Can someone please undo the move? --Kimontalk 01:32, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

It was quickly(!) reverted withing 10+ minutes.--Ed ¿Cómo estás? 01:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! So, how does one revert a move? The original page still exists and this prevents the move of the new page to go through. --Kimontalk 01:42, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Moving a page automatically creates a redirect from the former name. If there is no edit history to this redirect page besides its creation, any user can move the page back to the old name (even though it's not red). On the other hand, if there's any further history, it takes an admin to fix it. Doops | talk 01:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Apparently, there was history because the first thing I did was try moving it back and it failed. --Kimontalk 02:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Yes. An administrator has to do it. That article was in fact protected against moves until it was unprotected a couple of months back, for reasons I'm not entirely sure of. Articles that are visible enough to be permanently semi-protected should generaly be (fully) move-protected too – Gurch 02:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Which brings me to my next question. When trying to figure out how to get an admin's attention I got stumped. I was looking at the various administrative noticeboards but, none of them are for "getting an admin's attention to deal with something as soon as possible but, has nothing to do with dealing with other users". So, I figured that there must be a list somewhere of all the admins that are currently online, and then I can leave a message on their talk page. Nope, no such thing exists. My last thought was to post here and hope that someone would notice.
So, my question is: How do I get an admin's attention when it's not to report another user? --Kimontalk 14:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:AN (admin noticeboard) works. Wickethewok 15:56, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks. Now I'll know for next time. --Kimontalk 16:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Laughable hyperbole on the main page

Someone needs to fix where it says "perpetrate a massacre" in the News section. This kind of language is not encyclopedic. Also the front page needs to be unprotected or I need my privileges modified so I can make needed edits. Furthermore Wikipedia should not log me out while I'm trying to edit things. --Afed 16:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

1)Please post at the top section of this page. 2)Why? 3)Please file a detailed report of the issue you are having here. ffm ✎talk 16:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
You've been trolled. Check out the guy's user page. An obvious trouble-maker. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 162.90.96.17 (talk) 18:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Mistake in 'on this day'

'1671 - Thomas Blood (pictured) was caught trying to steal the British Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.'

In 1671 there was no such thing as 'the British Crown Jewels' - Great Britain did not exist as a country until the Acts of Union in 1707. Reading the first paragraph of the article would have been enough for whoever wrote today's OTD to notice that it was in fact the English crown jewels that were stolen. England != Great Britain, see British Isles (terminology). Cynical 19:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I've updated May 9 so it should be fixed for next year. To draw the attention of an administrator so as to get it fixed for this year (i.e. today), please post your request in the "error reports" at the top of this page. Cheers, Doops | talk 19:30, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Now fixed on MainPage, too. Thanks for pointing this out. Next time, please report errors at WP:ERRORS. Response is usually quicker there 'coz WP:ERRORS is on many admins' watchlist. Thanks. --PFHLai 21:49, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

BCE?

King Herods Tomb on the main page has BCE next to it. That is HIGHLY offensive, and I urge you to change it.-Signing is too much work —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.167.139.242 (talk) 20:03, May 8, 2007 (UTC)

If you're looking for a wiki encyclopedia that uses BC, I recommend Conservapedia. In the meantime, both BC and BCE are used here. ShadowHalo 20:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Just be consistent within any given article. (My 2¢). Freshacconci 20:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
That's the current guideline (see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Eras). Just like there's often no preference for American, British, etc. dialects, there's no preference for BC/AD or BCE/CE. Any given article should use the variant first added to the article and just be consistent within itself. ShadowHalo 20:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Except in articles related to Judaism. There's no Christ, so pls don't use BC/AD in those articles. --76.64.76.169 20:47, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
There's no Christ? I urge you to think carefully before making statements like that. DoomsDay349 20:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
In Judaism. --74.14.23.8 20:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Right on. There's a difference between saying "There's no Christ" and "There's no Christ in Judaism". One could be construed as an insult, the other is simple fact. DoomsDay349 21:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Sorry about my poor sentence structures. It should be "Except in articles related to Judaism, where there's no Christ, so pls don't use BC/AD in those articles." Or something like that. Glad that you understand. --74.14.23.8 21:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
It's all good. Now perhaps we should stop clogging the page.  :D DoomsDay349 21:10, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Okay. Nice chatting with you. Bye-bye. --74.14.23.8 21:12, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I thought there is a Christ in Judaism, s/he just hasn't arrived yet and it wasn't Jesus? Nil Einne 06:56, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Right. The Messiah is just expected, but not realised yet. In Judaism. --74.13.127.165 09:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

ZOMG. Cambyses II of Persia uses the religious POV "BC" rather than the more neutral BCE formed by academia. That is HIGHLY offensive, and I urge you to change it. Also I found a bunch of articles spelled with some ridiculous European form of English, that should be fixed too! Also Ivory Coast is misnamed Côte d'Ivoire!!! --Gmaxwell 20:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

My understanding of the policies in regards to BCE and CE and BC and AD dating systems is, since they are equivalent, either is acceptable. As a Christian myself I see no problem with it whatsoever, nor should anyone else. They each work the same way; it's a difference of mere letters. I strongly urge you to deal with it. (as far as I know, the same goes for the variant forms of English). DoomsDay349 20:23, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Herod I, who died in 4 BCE, was supposed to be reigning in Judea during Christ's time on Earth. BC (Before Christ) is probably not applicable. --76.64.76.169 20:34, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand how it's not applicable. BCE is equivalent to BC, CE is equivalent to AD. So really you could do either. DoomsDay349 20:37, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
They are used the same way, but the words meaning differently. BCE = Before Common Era, no mention of Christ. --76.64.76.169 20:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
They refer to the exact same dates. They are 100% interchangeable. Still not fully understanding what you're trying to say. DoomsDay349 20:44, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
Almost 100%. Not quite. --76.64.76.169 20:48, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
No, not really. There's no instance when you couldn't use either. CE and BCE are nothing more than neutral names for the same dates. 100 BC is 100 BCE, no matter what the context of an article. Same deal. DoomsDay349 20:51, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
The birth year of Jesus was miscalculated when the modern calendar was formulated; it almost certainly happened in the year 4 BC (or possibly in 5 BC), not in 1 AD. Therefore, we have the odd conundrum of Jesus being alive during the tail end of "Before Christ". —Cuiviénen 01:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. That's what I was trying to say. --74.13.127.165 09:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

this discussion belongs on Talk:Anno Domini, or if you have a problem with WP's approach to era labels, on Wikipedia talk:Eras. dab (𒁳) 20:51, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Whatever. Not especially worth my time anyhow. DoomsDay349 20:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
No problem. --74.14.23.8 21:15, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

BCE is not offensive, but absurd. It maintains the birth of Christ as the defining date for BCE/CE, but calls in Common Era and Before Common Era. That is historically accurate. I wish some people would not be so pc as to be concerned about offending someone by using the universally accepted BC/AD versus the historically dubious BCE/CE.- T. Aquinas

This page is for discussing matters relevant to the Main Page. If you have something to say about Wikipedia's use of the term, please go to Wikipedia talk:Eras; otherwise, I recommend a site such as Blogger. ShadowHalo 02:24, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
IMHO, this site is about fact & universal fact alone. Numerous cultures disagree with the presence of Christ & if we go placing BC on dates, it is as insensitive to those cultures as putting that there is no Christ. By putting BCE, scientists have made a neutral viewpoint which allows the fact to be presented, not some religious POV. Regardless of our beliefs, when we come on this site they should all be set aside & only universal fact should be used. Check out the Creationist debates going on at Wikiproject Dinosaurs & the Dinosaur article, as well as numerous other religion-fuelled arguments blazing around the place. Frankly, I'm getting sick & tired of fanatics making their unfounded claims on this site - as per above, take your ideas to Conservipedia. I may be religious, but I do know when to set aside my beliefs in the search of science. Thanks, 203.160.124.17 02:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
This debate has also appeared in the Herod article itself. My stance and belief is that whatever system is used, it should not be changed for any reason. If it says BCE, so be it. If it says BC, what difference does it make? Just leave all the dates alone this is a matter of Political correctness by a few individuals who go screaming THIS IS HIGHLY OFFENSIVE. Please, leave Wikipedia free from both Political correctness and religious extremist values, because we don't have space for this shit. Thats how strongly I feel about a few who capitalize OFFENSIVE to get their minority point across. Stop it now and look for some better edits to be made. If it says BC then the author of the article thought it was appropriate for that and if it say BCE then we must respect their wishes too.Tourskin 05:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I doubt that the BC/BCE debate has much to do with "religious extremists" - it's a long leap from a Christian wanting the removal of "E" in BCE to suicide bombers who have been coined by the media as religious extremists. I think you're overreacting a bit in that regard. No need to swear either though; it just shows you're at a lack for better words & gets any reasonable argument nowhere. 203.160.124.17 09:08, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
You have a worse argument still; that suicide bombers are the only extremists. Well its fundamentalist to say "ITS HIGHLY OFFENSIVCE" over an extra letter instead of just BC. I am a devout Catholic. But this is taking religion to the extreme by saying that BCE is highly offensive. I mean, come one people, God did not tell men when to set the date, it was calculated (incorrectly) by a monk ages ago, but after the death of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, I neither support nor do I object to either system, I simply believe that its wrong for a few to claim its offensive and capitalizing it. 160.227.129.254 19:20, 10 May 2007 (UTC)