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Search field -- Active when the page loads!

When I come to the Home page, 99% of the time, I want to type something into the Search box/field, but it's not "active" with a blinking cursor. Frustrating.

Can the programmer of this page please make the Search field "active" when the Home page loads?

Thanks!

Misty MH (talk) 12:22, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

See this FAQ section for the reasoning and an easy workaround. -- John of Reading (talk) 12:32, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
FANTASTIC! I went to "My preferences", clicked on the Gadgets tab (button/link), check the box near the top that says "Focus the cursor in the search bar on loading the Main Page", saved the preference; and it works! :) Thank you! Misty MH (talk) 12:54, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikia

Someone please put Wikia as WIkipedia's sister project? It allows any content, except bad content. 98.237.178.131 (talk) 18:51, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia has many sister projects, of which Wikia is only one.Jasper Deng (talk) 18:58, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Except that Wikia is not a sister project of Wikipedia. It is an independent organization, and is not run through the Wikimedia Foundation, and has no connection to it. Some of the same people are involved in both projects, but there is no connection. Merely because I play softball for one team and basketball for another doesn't mean that my softball and basketball teams are related. Same deal here. --Jayron32 18:59, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

POTD: I just thought I'd point out...

No one noticed that the Picture of the Day hadn't changed for three hours. Three hours. Do people not get that far down on the Main Page? -- tariqabjotu 02:59, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually I noticed, but since only insiders could possibly notice that, I saw no point in being pushy about it. Art LaPella (talk) 18:38, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

"Did You Know" section (Nov. 28)

I was surprised to see this bit of trivia in the "Did You Know" section today:

"... that They Say I'm a Monkey! used leeches feeding to symbolize the rape of a child?"

Given that rape is such a traumatic event, I find it extremely worrying that this is in the open on the front page. The mere mention of rape poses a psychological danger for rape victims.

I can't edit the front page, and I'm not sure if it's possible to change these things, but if it is, could someone please replace this piece of trivia with something else? --DearPrudence (talk) 06:45, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Legend of Zelda Wind Waker

Why are there 5-6 featured articles on Nintendo games for every 1 featured article on something legitimate? I don't think video games should be allowed on the main page at all, unless they're very notable - last time I remember they even had an article about a minor glitch from a Pokemon game - yes, an article about a "glitch" It's obvious that 'Nintendo fans' are putting these here out of pure fandom. This is an insult to Wikipedia.--21:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.193.118.126 (talk)

We had to run an article on an emergency basis, as through accident no article had been selected for today. Out of fairness, we took the next article which had been requested to run, which was the video game. Yes, it is the second for November, but then there were none in October and we generally run about one a month. Thanks for your thoughts. There are those who share your views, but the majority thinks we should not penalize the hard work it takes to bring an article to FA.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:51, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
Wow, 21:34. Even factoring the delay, that took much longer than I expected. —David Levy 00:28, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I shall fall on my sword. When I have the time, that is.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
It was an emergency. The alternative would have been no featured article. Due to the other video game TFA earlier this month, Wind Waker never actually had a chance. But it was the only nomination, so up it went. If you want a TFA about something legitimate, nominate something legitimate. Fortunately, we now have a selection of articles to pull from in case such an emergency comes up again in the future—none of them video game related. Reach Out to the Truth 02:36, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Not to mention There were 2 or 3 video game related articles at TFA this month and none for the entire month of October. I have also been to WP:VG there and from what I heard there usually about one video game TFA a month (and many are not Nintendo Games) so unless the original poster believes that there is only one legitimate article every 5-6 months the compliant has no basis in reality. Also as far as I know there are no rules on Wikipedia saying that Video Games are not a legitimate topic--69.159.111.142 (talk) 05:32, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Complaints like this make me cry tears of blood and wonder why we have become so exclusive and so persnickety that we assume that no reader of Wikipedia is interested in anything but the classics.--WaltCip (talk) 16:23, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
Look, we did what we had to do under trying circumstances. None of us has ever selected a TFA, only Raul, who has done it since his confirmation as Featured Article Director in 2004 and also Dabomb recently. We stopped the bleeding and put in a way of making sure it doesn't happen next time. Please feel free to cut our pay.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:25, 27 November 2011 (UTC)
I don't think, I don't think... who cares what you want or not? If you don't like video games, then don't use Wikipedia at all, Mr. Anonymous. Better try to bring an article to featured status. This is not as easy as bitching on talk pages.--♫GoP♫TCN 14:02, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Tony Stewart / NASCAR

Tony Stewart has been in the "In the news" box for more than a week now, and everyone who has an interest in NASCAR knows that he won, so I suggest you remove that piece of info now. I would also like to remind you that Wikipedia is an international dictionary, not an American one. And vey few people outside the US care about NASCAR (I would even go as far as saying that hardly anyone outside the US gives a rat's arse about NASCAR...), so could we please have some real news now? Allan Akbar (talk) 16:10, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

'In the news' is presented in chronological order with the oldest at the bottom. When something new is posted the oldest item (in this case the NASCAR one) will be removed.
If you want to help in suggesting what should appear in 'In the news' you can do so at In the news/Candidates. FerdinandFrog (talk) 16:30, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
And additionally, you should participate in WP:ITNC if you feel that events like these should not appear, because, to be frank, you have no grounds to complain if you do not participate in the process. --WaltCip (talk) 18:12, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
I have to agree with Allan Akbar. Don't get me wrong, the Nascar Champion fully deserves to be on ITNR. But a routine sporting event was up for more than seven days, yet Gary Speed didn't make the cut at all. Sure, inconsistency happens, but my problem is that those two events overlapped, and that the week-old Nascar news was up for over a day after Speed's death. A better comparison here would be between Gary Speed, a recently prominent figure in a league every bit as big as the US majors and at the time a widely praised international manager, and Dan Wheldon, recently a prominent figure in the second biggest category of motorsport in the US and at the time a widely praised driver. —WFC— 22:39, 28 November 2011 (UTC)
Looking at ITN discussions since November 15, all those posted are either listed at ITNR, related to Egypt, "minority topics" (science and the first meeting of the "Gas Exporting Countries Forum", whatever that is), the apology on a Turkish massacre, and a laundry list of announcements: Aung San Suu Kyi's party re-registered, they'll found the Eurasian Union and IAEA's report on Iran's nuclear program. Obvious blatant snubs were the arrest of the former Philippine president and Occupy Wall Street. –HTD 04:34, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Could it perhaps be replaced with 2011 Grey Cup?--Wehwalt (talk) 18:47, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
There's close to nothing about what transpired during the game in the article so it's stuck at ITN/C purgatory. –HTD 18:53, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
(PS Ain't it cute, someone bitched about an event that "hardly anyone outside the US gives a rat's arse about", then we'd replace it with "hardly anyone outside Canada gives a rat's arse about". Where were the whiners when this made it to the "In the news" box? Teehee. –HTD 19:07, 29 November 2011 (UTC))
And people say FAC is unwelcoming!--Wehwalt (talk) 19:21, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Sums up my experience there, too :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:28, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Only DYK is friendly! Ooops it's as bad as the rest now. How's OTD doing? –HTD 19:32, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Jimbo thinks I'm German, you think I'm Canadian. Wait, can I get passports? Never hurts to have a spare ...--Wehwalt (talk) 19:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
If this is what the inner core of Wikipedia is like then God help us all... Allan Akbar (talk) 21:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

Where can I get information about donation statistics?

What pages will give me donation statistics information? Thanks. 128.232.228.81 (talk) 21:53, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

You might google "Wikimedia Foundation" and go from there.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:55, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
Great, especially helpful Wehwalt! Seriously, even this Google Search is useless. Not good communication, not good. 128.232.228.81 (talk) 22:31, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
There is no need to be snippy. We are all just people who just happen to be viewing the same talk page. This isn't a call center.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
See Meta:Fundraising 2011/Updates, meta:Fundraising 2011/Tech stats and resources, meta:Fundraising and links found through those pages such as meta:Fundraising 2011, meta:Fundraising 2010, Wikimedia Foundation Financial Reports and Wikimedia Foundation 2011-12 Annual Plan. For reasons unknown, Wikimedia Foundation Fundraiser Statistics and Wikimedia Foundation Contribution Statistics are currently disabled.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:40, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
I read that those last two were disabled due to getting high traffic from reddit that they were incapable of handling. See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-11-28/Technology report. Chris857 (talk) 23:22, 29 November 2011 (UTC)
They should be turned back on in a few days. Just need to rewrite some of the SQL queries. Kaldari (talk) 23:53, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

MP list section?

Just wondering...whatever happened to the list section? 01:29, 30 November 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rhodesisland (talk • contribs)

It's only on the Main Page on Mondays. Graham87 01:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Pluckers

Do you have a page telling about the company selling buffalo wings, Pluckers? 71.20.120.188 (talk) 23:16, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Donation page down

This is a disgrace. It has been down for too long! Asking for money but not even giving visibility on it. 128.232.240.239 (talk) 22:50, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

yes but she is still very beautiful at least — Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.206.48.221 (talk) 22:52, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Medal of Honor

It's not the "Congressional Medal of Honor", it's simply the Medal of Honor. It's a common mistake to make. 173.216.109.130 (talk) 00:50, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Already fixed, see WP:ERRORS. Materialscientist (talk) 00:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
If you will note, Medal of Honor states: "It is bestowed by the President, in the name of Congress". You can also search and find that the U.S. Government also refers to it as The Congressional Medal of Honor. Just pointing out an apparent error. Dusty777 (talk) 00:58, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
The original poster is correct. I remember the AP Stylebook making the same point when I worked in journalism. "Congressional" is not and never has been part of the name. Daniel Case (talk) 05:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Accreditation in file history

Re: File:Seaweed farming -Nusa Lembongan, Bali-16Aug2009 edit.jpg This image does not have a Wikilink back to the image on Commons from which this version was retouched and the edit history is incomplete, hence this article does not properly credit me in the edit history as having written the image description. I feel that it is entirely wrong and that this failure of attribution should not occur at any time and particularly, when this image is being shown on the main page. This image is currently protected from editing, because it is being sown on the main page, so I can not write in the link back to the original untouched image on Commons. Snowman (talk) 12:46, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

The image itself is on Commons and is protected there at present, so there's nothing that can be done by anyone here unless they happen to be an admin at Commons. I saw that you had left a note on Commons:File talk:Seaweed farming -Nusa Lembongan, Bali-16Aug2009 edit.jpg so I added an {{editprotected}} request for you there. BencherliteTalk 13:23, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
This appears on the image file "This image, which was originally posted to Flickr.com, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 11:36, 15 December 2009 (UTC) by Snowmanradio (talk). On that date it was licensed under the license below." However, I did not upload this re-touched version of the image, so this information is misleading. I did upload the untouched version from Flickr to Commons and this version should not be deleted. The edited file should link back to the original file. Why are these errors happening on the main page? Perhaps, if I was informed that some of my work was going to appear on the main page, then I could have make corrections prior to it appearing on the main page in a protected state with errors and failure of attribution? Snowman (talk) 16:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
<checks the talk page for the Commons image, sees that a Commons admin has replied to the edit request and then nominated the unretouched version for deletion> The image page now also says "Original upload and image description written by User:Snowmanradio", so you have the attribution you were after. Did you miss that? I'm not sure. In any case, your complaint is with Commons, not here: the wording of the Commons page (and any mistakes or omissions) is for them, not us. If you want to suggest a new rule that people who upload images to Commons by third parties should be notified if someone else subsequently makes an improved version of that image which is due to appear as the "Picture of the Day" on Wikipedia, by all means suggest it at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. BencherliteTalk 17:17, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
I think that your comments appears to underestimate the seriousness of this sort of problem in attribution. The terms of the Creative Commons licence are clear. No doubt that the mistake in the attribution here was accidental. I am glad that my very small contributions in the journey of this image to the main page seem to be useful. I am also putting a general case for the Wiki to get attribution correct and other file details correct, since a similar problem in the future could spark an allegation of plagiarism that could be serious. Most images used on the Wiki are on Commons. I think that people using Commons images on the main page should make sure that the image details are correct. Perhaps, there should be a specialist on images to advise on the suitability of images and the image details. Snowman (talk) 18:48, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
It may very well be a problem (I am not saying it is or it isn't, just allowing the possibility), and if so, then Commons is the place to raise your issue, since the problem is there and not here. There's nothing at en.wikipedia that can be done right now; if Commons deleted a file improperly, then a Commons admin needs to undelete it. If the image description page is wrong at Commons, it needs to be corrected at Commons. --Jayron32 18:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
How can this sort of problem on the en Wiki main be avoided in the future? I suggest that the people who write the main page could make sure that everything is order and that they should avoid using images from Commons that have problems. When images appear in FAs they are checked by image specialists for suitability and problems. Does this happen for the main page? Snowman (talk) 19:02, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
For TFP, these copyright and attribution issues should be assessed during the Featured Pictures process. For the other sections, this is harder, but I believe most admins who post images do at least check the copyright tags before they go up. If there's an oversight an a problem with an image which makes it to the Main Page, it should be reported at WP:ERRORS. Modest Genius talk 19:27, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Having participated in the FP many times, it seems to me that the main emphasis is on the quality of the image. Sometimes images with inadequate documentation get through the FP process, so I have tried to drive up documentation standards there only to find that a lot of photographers did not see it the same way as I do. I have even corrected a picture that was an FP, where the image description was about the wrong species of bird. Snowman (talk) 20:14, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
Good. FAC always includes an image review and a sourcing spot-check, maybe TFP should include this as a mandatory part of the criteria (if it isn't already). Modest Genius talk 21:30, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

ArbCom election reminder: voting closes soon

All editors are reminded that voting closes for ACE2011 in just over a day's time (Saturday 10 December at 23:59 UTC). To avoid last-minute technical logjams, editors are asked to vote at least an hour before the close, that is, by:

  • Saturday 15:00 (3 pm) on the west coast of North America;
  • Saturday 18:00 (6 pm) on the east coast of North America;
  • Saturday 23:00 (11 pm) in the UK and Ireland;
  • Sunday 01:00 (1 am) in South Africa;
  • Sunday 06:00 (7 am) on the west coast of Australia; and
  • Sunday 10:00 (10 am) on the east coast of Australia; and
  • Sunday 12:00 (12 noon) in New Zealand.

For the election coordinators. Tony (talk) 13:13, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

How is this related to the Main Page? Modest Genius talk 14:42, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
Tony, with respect, this is in the wrong place. You might have gotten away with maybe editing the geonotice? — Joseph Fox 16:00, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
With over 73,000 watchers, I don't think it's very surprising that someone would try to post a broad announcement here. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

We Already HAVE an On This Date Section

So we don't need the Featured Article to be it too. You want to be topical, put it where it belongs. It's pretty obnoxious. --71.13.132.179 (talk) 01:48, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

We do this a lot. You'll notice it's not in the OTD section. — Joseph Fox 03:40, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
You'll notice I already did notice, and am displeased. Every December 7th and every December 14th it's something to do with Pearl Harbor and the Expedition to the South Pole. Featured articles are good articles, not topical articles, that's what OTD is for. --66.188.139.35 (talk) 18:10, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Prevailing consensus would seem to disagree with you. Topical TFAs (and featured pictures, actually) have been common practice for years.--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 18:26, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
If an article only becomes Today's featured article once (see Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests) then it might as well be on a relevant date. I don't see any advantage of choosing an irrelevant date. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:39, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I thought perhaps the OP was including POTD in his/her rant, but that's easily proven false as well...

External links on the page

I noticed that we have an external link on the "Wikipedia's sister projects" section of our Main Page to wmf:Our projects. Isn't it a good idea to change it to an internal link?  Hazard-SJ  ±  02:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Template:Wikipedia's sister projects edited to make the change. Thanks. BencherliteTalk 08:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Thanks!  Hazard-SJ  ±  22:45, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

we're being shutdown!

guys the SOPA piracy law is back! apparantly we're going to be shut down like the italian wikipedia!! search wikipedia in google aand one of the news articles is about SOPA!--Lerdthenerd wiki defender 15:07, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

This is not related to the main page. Please go to the WP:VILLAGEPUMP if you want to chat. --69.157.46.38 (talk) 15:15, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
See User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 153#Request for Comment: SOPA and a strike and the recently created Wikipedia:SOPA initiative. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:23, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually this MIGHT be relevant to the front page since for God knows how long there might not be a front page. Kicking ourselves in the foot (or shooting ourselves in the foot actually), what a terrible form of protest! Obviously the specifics of the protest should be discussed here User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 153#Request for Comment: SOPA and a strike. Let's hope we can persuade the powers that be around here and the general opinion to have a "soft" blackout, i.e. links to the relevant articles should exist on the blank pages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.112.59.92 (talk) 16:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.9.139.251 (talk) 23:52, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

The subject is relevant to this talk page. The Main Page would presumably redirect to any it.wiki style statement. —WFC— 21:39, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

True at First Light

Any reason this has been protected? Is that standard now? Just curious. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:17, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

It's move-protected only, which is standard for TFA. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 14:24, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Ah, okay. I couldn't tell. Thanks. Truthkeeper (talk) 14:26, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

RE: "The United States formally declares an end to the Iraq War"

Is this headline accurate? The wording could be implied that the US had previously issued a formal Declaration of war against Iraq. The ceremony marked the official end of "Operation Iraqi Freedom". Perhaps a slightly more accurate term might be: "US officially marks the end of Military Occupation of Iraq", "US Military ceremony marks the official the official end of involvement in Iraq War and occupation", " Obviously both of these suggestions are verbally awkward and cumbersome. Perhaps just "US officially formally ends military occupation of Iraq".

I guess my point is that "formal" and "declaration" have specific diplomatic definitions, especially when attributed to a sovereign state that maintains membership in the UN. "Declaration" when used by a sovereign nation is a very acute and deliberate word: "Declaration of War", "Declaration of Human Rights", "Declaration of Independence" etc, and infers a measure of political urgency higher than "official announcement".

173.132.167.207 (talk) 15:02, 16 December 2011 (UTC)Moi

Declarations of war in international relations are essentially redundant, according to that article, and the US hasn't declared war against anyone since 1942. However plenty of military engagements since then have been referred to as "wars", including the Iraq War. I don't think there's any implication from the headline that a declaration of war was issued, and an alternative term such as "military occupation" would cause neutrality concerns (and may well be inaccurate given that the US stopped taking part in combat operations some time ago). Hut 8.5 15:20, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, good point. Personally, I keep arguing back and forth with myself if it is appropriately worded or not. I think I made a big deal over a non-issue, sorry.

173.132.167.207 (talk) 16:22, 16 December 2011 (UTC)Moi

Christopher Hitchens

Im not sure of the process, but it would be nice to mention his passing on the main page. Tks. Ceoil (talk) 00:10, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Try WP:ITN/C. --142.1.32.35 (talk) 00:31, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
 Done  Hazard-SJ  ㋡  22:59, 17 December 2011 (UTC)
And the pic works well. Is it a little more generously sized than most ITN pics? If so, that's good. BTW, POTD of the frog is lovely in larger size. Tony (talk) 10:25, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Sound Hazard. Yes the pic is well choosen, and I far prefer the (slightly) larger size. Keep on pushing Tony. Ceoil (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:49, 18 December 2011 (UTC).
The maximum dimensions (100px by 100px) are still the same, but I think the fact that they're recently been more square have made them appear larger. -- tariqabjotu 15:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Need to update Tropical Storm Washi ITN

Need to update Tropical Storm Washi ITN, it currently says more than 650, but the Philippines realsed a statement that around 1,000 have died.
  – HonorTheKing (talk) 06:16, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Is 1000 not more than 650? We should not change this number for a while to allow the estimates to become somewhat more stabilized. --Khajidha (talk) 15:40, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Kim Jong Il's Title Used in News Section

Highest Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comradely Love Kim Jong Il has many titles, why use Supreme Leader? Why not Dear Leader, who is a perfect incarnation of the appearance that a leader should have? Or Ever-Victorious, Iron-Willed Commander?

More seriously, why not just Dear Leader, his most commonly used title? Supreme Leader seems inappropriate here. 70.78.5.3 (talk) 13:30, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

"Kim Jong-il (born: Yuri Irsenovich Kim;[2] 16 February 1941/2 – 17 December 2011)[3] was the supreme leader of North Korea." — Joseph Fox 13:59, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Later on in the same article it quite clearly tells you "Supreme Leader" is his constitutional title (how "supreme" he was is of course up for debate...). — Joseph Fox 14:00, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Normally we would say 'President of X' or whatever, but his rather unique status makes that difficult. In such cases ITN defers to whatever is used in the article. If you feel this is incorrect, get it changed there (through discussion on the article talk page) first. Modest Genius talk 14:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

ITN

No discussion about ITN images is complete without me!

May I suggest that the passing of Vaclav Havel, who was admired by millions in his own country and abroad, is of greater moment than the demise of Kim Jong-il, about whom the opposite could be said? Consequently, I suggest today's ITN column be illustrated with a photo of the former, not the latter Sca (talk) 15:38, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Havel's photograph appeared immediately before (for about 12 ½ hours).
Please note that this isn't a memorial and has nothing to do with prestige. We seek variety and generally illustrate the newest item for which a suitable free image is available. —David Levy 15:57, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Understood. But they died almost simultaneously, and (in my view as a recovering journalist) Havel is more newsworthy. Consider the accolades from world leaders. Sca (talk) 16:19, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
The order is usually what dictates the picture displayed. I would disagree that Havel is much more newsworthy since he's been out of power for nearly two decades and his death won't have any political or diplomatic implications. Hut 8.5 16:31, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Havel helped bring about the demise of Communism in Europe and the end of the Cold War. He was an accomplished literary figure whose works have been translated into many langauges. In the long run, he's much more consequential than Kim. Sca (talk) 16:41, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

It would set a very bad precedent to change the way we do things based on POV, however widely held that POV is (I have a similar opinion on the men's respective legacies). At the end of the day they were both world leaders of countries of similar size, both claimed to have done significant things outside of politics, and they both had their picture featured on the front page of Wikipedia. As soon as the next story with a relevant image is nominated, Kim Jong-Il's portrait will be removed. —WFC— 16:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
What would be so very bad about it? I've often seen the same mug shot hang around on ITN for days after the event it illustrated occurred.
Secondly, I don't agree that Havel and Kim personally were "of similar consequence." North Korea is arguably of greater consequence in terms of power politics than the Czech Republic — i.e., it poses a threat to world peace — but it's not the countries that died, it's these two men, and as noted above Havel's legacy extends much farther than the Czech Republic. Havel was a citizen of the world. Kim, on the other hand, was a minor megalomaniac whose influence was confined to N. Korea.
Sca (talk) 16:58, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
You don't seem to be understanding. The relative importance of Kim and Havel is not the issue. We post a picture relevant to the top item (following the chronological listing) that has a suitable pic. Kevin McE (talk) 17:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
As mentioned, this rule or principle often has been violated or ignored on ITN. Sca (talk) 17:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Please cite specific examples. You probably are recalling instances in which we lacked suitable free images related to events more recent than the one illustrated. —David Levy 17:34, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Probably so, in most cases. Of course I understand the principle of timeliness. My view, however, is that for all practical purposes, these two events were virtually simultaneous. But technically, yes, Kim was later-breaking news. Sca (talk) 17:52, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
You may have noticed, the blurb for Kim is reporting the announcement of his death, and as such is listed as an event occurring today. Kevin McE (talk) 18:02, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

People sufficiently notable to justify being mentioned on the main page have the unfortunate habit of dying in groups. (This ties in with the minor argument for highlighting C S Lewis on 22 November 2013 and similar discussions.) Jackiespeel (talk) 17:47, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Sufficient to the day are the squabbles thereof. Sca (talk) 20:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

This is starting to become extremely unproductive. Havel's photo was on the Main page yesterday, the one of Kim Jong-Il today, tomorrow we'll probably feature a photo of some guy who won the election or something. Images rotate. That's it. --Tone 18:11, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I was making a generalisation and suggesting Wikipedia 'avoid the obvious' (given that there will be any number of texts, TV programs and conspiracy theories aired tying into the JFK anniversary.) Jackiespeel (talk) 17:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

ITN mug

Good morning, or afternoon, as the case may be.... Kim Jong-il's mug has been up there for four days now. This is reminiscent of jokes back in the '70s about Franco being "still dead."

Time for a change. For example, how about a bit re Medvedev's state of the nation address, with his mug? Here's some verbiage culled just now from VOA via GoogleNews:

Russian President Proposes Political Reform in National Speech
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev proposed new political reforms Thursday, following recent protests by thousands of demonstrators over allegations of election fraud.
During his last state of the nation address in Moscow, Medvedev said Russia needs a democracy that allows each citizen to participate in the political process, but without outside interference.
He has also proposed easing requirements on registration for political parties. He said he supports a proposal under consideration by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that allows direct election of governors pending the approval of candidates by the Kremlin.

Just a suggestion. In this example, the part about electing governors seems potentially significant. Sca (talk) 14:11, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

ITN items are proposed and discussed at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates. But please note that the section isn't a news ticker; there must be a boldface link leading to a Wikipedia article substantially updated to reflect the event. —David Levy 14:34, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Well he is right that the "mug" hasnt been changed for 4 days now... i highly doubt anyone is thinking ITN is news-ticker based on this speed... Perhaps a soyuz pic since thats up now. -- Ashish-g55 00:58, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

We currently have, under "In the news", for links saying "coordinated bombings", linking to different articles. We should avoid such ambiguity, and instead make the links both unique and meaningful in isolation, such as coordinated bombings in Damascus and coordinated bombings in Baghdad. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:30, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

This also bothers me - I think more specificity is important, not just for clarity, but because it gives a superficial impression of a worldwide terror campaign which inappropriately gives the impression of increased power and reach for those responsible. Part of the problem is that the article for the Nigerian bombing isn't really well developed - it doesn't link to Nigerian Sharia conflict, for example, though Boko Haram which it includes does - and so the obvious Wikilink for a broader context is missed. I think we should reevaluate the usefulness of posting multiple news entries about bombings if we're not ready to point the reader quickly and clearly toward articles about the broader political context. Wnt (talk) 01:27, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Out-of-date Shatner picture

The pic accompanying today's FA is from 2005, per the copyright info in the pic. The movie is from 1989, per the article. This might be reasonable if Shatner were actually the subject of the article, but as he's not, this just seems sloppy. Townlake (talk) 02:37, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Is there a more suitable image that you are aware of that is free use?--Wehwalt (talk) 02:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Is the "no fair use on Main Page" edict set in stone and cannot be changed at all? This is a regular Main Page greatest hits discussion topic. hbdragon88 (talk) 04:09, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
We have a free use File:Star Trek William Shatner.JPG, but that dates from 1969, and we might get complaints that it's also out of date by about 20 years. They closed the loophole back in 1977, so no luck with trying to use publicity stills around 1989. hbdragon88 (talk) 05:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
No picture would be better than an inappropriate picture. Shatner looked only vaguely like this pic when the article's subject was released. All I'm saying. Townlake (talk) 14:38, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I actually prefer the picture of him from 69. At least that picture is actually of Captain Kirk. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:28, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I've removed it. The photo didn't really represent the film. Having no picture is better than having that one. --KFP (contact - edits) 22:19, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Fyi, I read the article because I first saw Shatner's picture. I believe having one is better than none & it seems pointless to anticipate complaints until they come. Manytexts (talk) 06:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Bomb attack bias in the ITN

What are we gonna do about it?180.215.18.25 (talk) 02:42, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Ask those involved if they could temporarily stop bombing and organise a major football tournament or music event? Such things have happened before. —WFC— 02:45, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
.. and we substitute that for the bombing news ITN; and resolved. :-). Materialscientist (talk) 02:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

But seriously folks, I think a clip art picture a bomb would be better than File:Soyuz TMA-03M crew.jpg. These poor three individuals didn't have anything to do with these recent bombing incidents. I'm not sure why they need to be placed next to such news, with smiles on their faces... --MZMcBride (talk) 04:37, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd remove it right away. Some admin removed it right away when some smiling coach's face (probably March Madness related) was juxtaposed with a bombing news item. hbdragon88 (talk) 08:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
If you manage to find an image related to the COMPASS, I'll happily replace it. It's been an extremely slow week with news, seems most of the world is on vacations. --Tone 15:07, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Should be removed per WP:OVERLINK. --Z 03:17, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

WP:ERRORS, at the top of the page. — Joseph Fox 04:54, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
No, just more specificity needed. The only places English language is currently linked on the page (that I can find, at least) is in the "Welcome to Wikipedia" blurb at the top and "Wikipedia languages" at the bottom, neither of which is covered by ERRORS. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:48, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
... and neither of which is covered by wp:overlink, which refers a) to articles and b) to instances where "major .. languages" are not relevant to the topic at hand. A link to the very detailed page about the English language, its history and context in the main page blurb of the English language wikipedia is hardly overlinking, by any guideline or by common sense. Other than to those who think all there is to know about the English language is that it is "the language I speak". N-HH talk/edits 16:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

OTD article a mess

I'm referring to the 1066 Granada massacre article – there are two links that lead back to the same article (not just a specific section). It also seems that the article is very thin on detail, and there may be undue bias due to its WP:Coatracked with a largely irrelevant biography of Joseph ibn Naghrela. Why didn't the admins post the Battle of Hastings instead? ;-) --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:38, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Point of order: Its not In The News, its On This Day that you mean. Complaints for that section can be pointedly addressed at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries. One thing to note; as the Battle of Hastings occured on October 14, 1066 it would be a wholly unsuitable replacement for the Granada massacre, that actually occured on this day (December 30), in 1066. --Jayron32 04:42, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
I stand corrected, but the article is still a mess, IMHO, and perhaps ought not to have been selected. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree with your verdict on the article. It contains little on the actual event apart from some direct quotes taken from sources. Whilst I generally prefer to see some pre-19th century articles on OTD I have swapped it out for one regarding the abdication of King Michael I of Romania (which is in much better state) - Dumelow (talk) 17:17, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
As part of the process of selecting articles for inclusion in OTD, I don't read the articles in great detail—that would simply take too long (I'm checking at least 50 articles a day to do this). What I'm looking for is length and overall referencing, and making sure that the date in question is cited. As of this writing, there are no maintenance tags on the article, and thus nothing to call attention to the fact that perhaps it isn't suitable for inclusion. If someone can go and tag the article appropriately, then this sort of mistake might be prevented in the future. Thanks. howcheng {chat} 18:48, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Howcheng: I have no criticism for your work. You do a fantastic job at OTD and POTD and rarely get thanks for it, don't know how you find time for it! - Dumelow (talk) 10:14, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I thought Wikipedia (or even Wikimedia) didn't allow no-derivative or non-commercial licensed works. Why is File:Iron electrolytic and 1cm3 cube.jpg a featured picture then, when it shouldn't even be on the encyclopedia? Or do the other two free licenses cancel the ND-NC parts out... if so, that should probably be noted somewhere. Crisco 1492 (talk) 11:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

There's no cancelling out. However we only require one free licence. Contributors are free to licence images with additional licences if they desire, I don't see any reason why these have to be free. (It is very common for images to have multiple free licenses, even in this case we have 2 in addition to the insufficiently free CC licence.) End users are free to use one of the free licences, or they can use the insufficiently free licence if it better meets their purpose and they comply with it or as the image notes they can negotiate with the copyright holder if none of the licences meets their requirements. Perhaps the licence tag should note the licence can't be used as the sole licence for an image on wikipedia or the commons, however I don't really know if that matters since it isn't a template. End users do of course always have to check the invidual licence of images and make sure they comply with it, since we only require a free licence and the precise requirements between licences vary. Nil Einne (talk) 12:22, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
  • No offense to Alchemist, who does great work, but it seems inefficient to have three licenses, two of which allow derivative works and commercial uses and one that doesn't. It renders the ND-NC bit... questionable. Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
No you still misunderstand. If you want to use the image under GFDL you can. If you want to use the image under Free Art License, you can. If you want to use under CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 you can. What you can't do is (without further permission from the author) is use a derived image under the creative commons licence in a commercial work and then say it's okay because the image is also under the Free Art Licence or GFDL. That is not how licencing works. In particular, the GFDL requires the full text of the licence be published. This is generally considered a significant hinderence to the use of images in a number of works. The free art licence is less restrictive but even so, if you work is already under the CC-BY-ND-NC 3.0 or you plan to release it under that licence, it likely makes sense to simplify matters by keeping it all under that one licence rather then having different parts under different licences (although you will need to attribute the image). It isn't unheard of software developers will release software under both the GPL and a propietary licence. BTW if you are still confused I suggest you read Multi-licensing. In any case, since the image is clearly under a free licence and on commons and I doubt you'll achieve consensus here (and this is the wrong place anyway) to exclude commons images or reupload them simply because you don't like them having multiple licences, you'll need to discuss it there. Nil Einne (talk) 17:20, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
An example of that is: Telerik. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:36, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Overlinking in ITN

Could someone let me know why United States is linked, apparently in a pointless dilution of the link to the target article? Tony (talk) 12:16, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Delinked. Of course. --Tone 12:36, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Reverted. When this was last discussed, we settled on linking countries directly relevant to the events (e.g. one responsible for an act mentioned) and not linking countries whose involvement is peripheral (e.g. a person's birthplace or the location of a civilian rampage).
This is why "United States" and "Iran" are linked (while "French", "Belgium" and "South Africa" aren't). —David Levy 13:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Tony:
No one is demanding that you change your mind, but can you please stop periodically posting essentially the same question/comment (in a manner seemingly implying that the matter hasn't been addressed previously)? —David Levy 13:04, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Right, I forgot about that part. --Tone 13:17, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Tony's point is a good one. Consensus can change, and I see nothing wrong with Tony inquiring on the matter in good faith from time to time. Joefromrandb (talk) 16:43, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Consensus can be changed, but this doesn't mean you have to ask every month, particularly when you should know consensus is unlikely to be changed from a discussion solely arising on this page. Also Tony's answer was phrased in a manner asking a question they should have already know the answer to, not in the form of 'I believe our current consensus is wrong as I've explained before (it's not like Tony has a new point or new evidence) and want to attempt to reach a new consensus'. Nil Einne (talk) 17:55, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Exactly. It would be less objectionable if Tony were to simply reiterate his opposition to our linking practices. Instead, he seems to pretend that the matter has never been discussed, feigning bafflement as to why we do things this way. —David Levy 21:46, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Well ITN should obviously be removed from the front page as it doesn't achieve anything useful, but in the meantime we should stop over linking terms. The idea that someone might not know what the United States is who speaks English is ridiculous. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 18:56, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, under that logic, we might as well delete the whole United States article because, c'mon, everyone knows what the U.S. is. The point of linking to countries that are directly relevant to blurbs (or anywhere, for that matter) is to point people to articles with relevant information. Maybe someone will want to read something about U.S. history, politics, economy, or military after reading about the end of the Iraq War. Maybe not. I don't see why this is a big deal though. It might be a superfluous link, but how does it hurt, really? We've stopped linking to every country, but not linking to every country or linking to every country but those in the Anglosphere would be doing our readers a disservice. -- tariqabjotu 21:30, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
Agreed. As discussed in the past, the assumption that non-bold links serve solely to clarify unfamiliar/ambiguous terms is incorrect. —David Levy 21:46, 18 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the connection is legitimate. Obviously the United States article is useful and is well read but linking it isn't needed to clarify the blurb. Besides if they want to read the United States article after reading the bold linked one. I'm sure its linked from within that article, or they can use the search to find it. Its a well known fact that adding too many links is confusing to our readers who don't know which one to click on. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:14, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I don't think the connection is legitimate. Obviously the United States article is useful and is well read but linking it isn't needed to clarify the blurb.
You appear to have misread what I wrote. "As discussed in the past, the assumption that non-bold links serve solely to clarify unfamiliar/ambiguous terms is incorrect" (new emphasis).
Besides if they want to read the United States article after reading the bold linked one.
We make no such demand. Readers might prefer to first seek background information via related articles or not read the bold-linked articles at all.
I'm sure its linked from within that article, or they can use the search to find it.
Many visitors to the main page are unfamiliar with Wikipedia and lack the inclination to search for content whose existence is unknown to them.
All of this has been discussed repeatedly.
Its a well known fact that adding too many links is confusing to our readers who don't know which one to click on.
I don't think that anyone disputes that. And there's general agreement we've sometimes overlinked ITN items (which is why we've adjusted). —David Levy 22:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
If there is an issue with people searching for content from the front page, then we need to make the front page clearer and have less content. i.e. become more like Google rather than like Yahoo. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
You appear to have misunderstood. I'm referring to readers unfamiliar (or not fully familiar) with Wikipedia's basic nature, who lack an expectation of finding a United States article and therefore might not search for one.
As noted below, the main page serves as a gateway to Wikipedia. It's intended to illustrate the broad range of articles contained therein, not merely to showcase the ones linked in bold. —David Levy 23:34, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Russia's linked too. Why isn't anyone complaining about that? Hot Stop talk-contribs 00:40, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

That item was added after the discussion began (and then this happened).
However, Tony inexplicably neglected to complain about a comparable link to Iran that was present at the time. —David Levy 01:04, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I think it's about time we moved to unique linking within ITN blurbs to put this perpetual discussion of secondary relevance to bed. We routinely see blurbs like "[[Angela Merkel]] became [[Chancellor of Germany |Chancellor]] of [[Germany]] following the '''[[German federal election, 2009]]'''", instead of the target and functional "Angela Merkel became Chancellor of Germany following the German federal election, 2009". Sometimes, we have the same article linked twice viz: "Former French President [[Jacques Chirac]] receives a {{nowrap|two-year}} [[suspended sentence]] after being '''[[Jacques Chirac#Embezzlement trial|convicted]]''' of [[embezzlement]]."" We're arguing too much about peripheral definitions of "relevance" and perhaps losing sight of the primary subject. We don't need any contextual links nor links providing definitions. Getting rid of the other links is beneficial to focus attention on the real desired target. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 01:43, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you've made your opinion as clear as Tony has made his. As you know, most of the community disagrees with your belief that we should link solely to the "desired target".
Please note that we no longer use the "Chancellor of Germany" style; we instead include an unpiped "Chancellor of Germany" link. —David Levy 02:02, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
As to the unpiped "Chancellor of Germany" link, it's clearly a move in the right direction, but it's mere tinkering, IMHO. Do we have the Almighty to thank for that? ;-) The context (and the links) is always provided in the target article, and linking is superfluous. Linking one or both Chancellor and Germany is clearly an exercise in subjective judgement, while linking solely the target is the only way to achieve objectivity and consistency in linking of ITN blurbs. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:12, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
As you know, most of the community disagrees with your belief (and Tony's) that ITN's sole purpose is to funnel readers to "the target" (i.e. the bold-linked article). —David Levy 02:30, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
What is its purpose otherwise? There are a reasonable number of links inside the bold article to point to other articles of interest. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:14, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
The main page serves as a gateway to Wikipedia. All of its sections (except Wikipedia's sister projects), while focused on individual roles, share that common purpose.
We build the dynamic content around bold-linked articles (and the featured picture), but we don't seek to force readers down those specific paths. —David Levy 08:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
The internet is like water. It seeps everywhere. You can never "force" anyone to go down any particular path.
ITN/C is the forum that votes on whether any news item gets put on the MP. Admins routinely ignore the consensus versions of blurb in favour of over-wikilinked ones. The reason why Chancellor and Germany has now routinely become Chancellor of Germany is because a growing number of people don't see why such tangentially relevant links are needed. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:08, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Do you have anything new to add? If not, I'd say that the topic has been sufficiently rehashed for now. (See you guys next month!) —David Levy 09:33, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I thought I introduced something new. But if you say I have not, I must be going senile with dementia! Next month, I look forward a)to note that something has changed or b)to complain why nothing has changed, or c)to being trouted. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 11:14, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm curious as to how DL is determining that "most of the community" disagrees with Tony and Eraserhead and Ohconfucius and me. Joefromrandb (talk) 21:40, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
Remember the part about this being discussed numerous times? —David Levy 22:23, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
David, that doesn't mean that there is a strong consensus in favour of the status quo. Quite the opposite. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm quite certain that there isn't a strong consensus in favor of the status quo. In particular, there is significant disagreement regarding our treatment of countries (with preferences ranging from "link all" to "link none"). The current practice is a compromise reflecting areas in which opinions overlapped.
I referred to "most of the community [disagreeing]" in the context of two specific beliefs:
  • that we should include no links other than those in bold
  • that ITN exists solely to direct readers to those articles
—David Levy 23:34, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I used to think this was a bad idea, but I kinda like how Yahoo! does it on their pages, except for the chessy things they say to make you get interested. For example, on ITN, without the chessiness, it'll be:

  • North Korea announces the death of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il (pictured) (details).
  • Czech writer and first President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel dies at the age of 75 (details).
  • The FIFA Club World Cup concludes with FC Barcelona defeating Santos FC in the final. (details).

...and so forth (I got lazy on the other blurbs). It'll be very useful for DYKers who want to get high page view counts as that'll force the reader to go to the solely linked article if they're interested. Dunno how this'll work on TFA, TFL and TFP. –HTD 18:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Again, the main page doesn't exist to "force" readers to visit particular articles. Our primary goal is to serve them, not to stroke editors' egos.
In my opinion, the above format is monotonous and unappealing. It also would increase ITN's resemblance to a news ticker, which is the last thing that we should do. —David Levy 18:26, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
I know, but I kinda like it. It'll help to bring the readers to the "correct" article, sometimes I fancy a link other than the boldfaced one at the DYK section so it defeats the purpose.
There's also a style where the entire blurb is linked, although that means all blurbs should occupy one line, which is pretty much impossible on several ITN blurbs. An entirely-linked blurb should look like this:
Dunno which among the 3 (including the current system) is the most feasible. –HTD 18:45, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Again, the main page's purpose isn't to force readers to visit the "correct" articles. You've noted that you sometimes choose to follow links other than those appearing in bold. We seek to accommodate users with such a preference, not to thwart them.
Full-blurb links are visually overwhelming (in addition to the issues noted above).
All of this has been discussed previously. —David Levy 18:57, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, I do want to go to the "correct" article but the extra links sometimes prevent me from doing so. Is that good or bad? I dunno. If it's not the purpose to link to the "correct" articles, why boldface the "correct" article? Why link to the "correct" article at all?
The full-blurb links won't be overwhelming if they're either short or colored black.
Again, there are still other options, such as having a fully-linked headline and a lengthy summary below. This should work well for TFAs. And again, nothing should prevent us from discussing these options. –HTD 19:03, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


Well, I do want to go to the "correct" article but the extra links sometimes prevent me from doing so.
How so?
If it's not the purpose to link to the "correct" articles, why boldface the "correct" article? Why link to the "correct" article at all?
I said that linking to those articles isn't the sole purpose.
The bold links indicate a valid distinction (which varies depending on the section), but not one dictating that only such articles be viewed.
The full-blurb links won't be overwhelming if they're either short or colored black.
I strongly oppose the use of nonstandard coloration, which would be confusing and unintuitive. Also, you might be unaware (or might have forgotten) that some users have links underlined.
And again, nothing should prevent us from discussing these options.
Agreed. But it would be more constructive to acknowledge the previous discussions and address the opinions expressed therein. Otherwise, it seems as though you're ignoring people's feedback. Many editors, in turn, will simply ignore the discussion (rather than repeating themselves). —David Levy 19:32, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
How so?
Another link piques my interest.
I said that linking to those articles isn't the sole purpose.
The bold links indicate a valid distinction (which varies depending on the section), but not one dictating that only such articles be viewed.
If go to another link, that defeats the purpose of linking to the correct article, right?
I strongly oppose the use of nonstandard coloration, which would be confusing and unintuitive. Also, you might be unaware (or might have forgotten) that some users have links underlined.
Then force the links to be underlined on the Main Page. Or make the blurbs shorter.
Agreed. But it would be more constructive to acknowledge the previous discussions and address the opinions expressed therein. Otherwise, it seems as though you're ignoring people's feedback. Many editors, in turn, will simply ignore the discussion (rather than repeating themselves).
We acknowledge the previous discussions, without ignoring what was said before (which is basically "this is what we do"), and without repressing further discussion. Now let's continue this discussion. –HTD 02:12, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Another link piques my interest.
How is this a problem? We want readers to follow links that pique their interest.
You claimed that the non-bold links sometimes "prevent" you from following the bold ones. What you meant, apparently, is that you choose to follow non-bold links instead of bold links when you find the former more appealing. I see no problem.
If go to another link, that defeats the purpose of linking to the correct article, right?
No. There is no inherently "correct" article. The "correct" article is the one that the reader chooses to visit.
All of the links are included to provide the reader an opportunity to follow them. Some appear in bold. As noted above, this indicates a distinction (which varies depending on the section), but that distinction is not that these are the "correct" articles to view.
Then force the links to be underlined on the Main Page.
You appear to have misunderstood. I'm referring to a setting under which the links are underlined. Irrespective of the text color, that makes a link of this length visually overwhelming.
Or make the blurbs shorter.
How short? Can you provide an example?
We acknowledge the previous discussions, without ignoring what was said before (which is basically "this is what we do"), and without repressing further discussion. Now let's continue this discussion.
No, it's inaccurate to claim that what was said before amounted to "this is what we do". Specific proposals — such including no non-bold links and the linking entire blurb — have been discussed and rejected.
This is not to say that they can't be discussed again. But "Let's revisit this idea. Here's why I disagree with the past arguments against it." is a far more constructive approach than "Hey, how about this?" is. —David Levy 05:41, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
No. There is no inherently "correct" article. The "correct" article is the one that the reader chooses to visit.
No. Being essentially a news-driven feature of the MP, the "correct" article is what editors vote to put on it. When they voted in "Czech writer and first President of the Czech Republic Václav Havel dies at the age of 75", isn't it obvious they vote for 'Václav Havel' (why? err... because he died, duh!), and not 'President of the Czech Republic' nor the 'Czech Republic', nor whatever other articles the admins want to create links to? --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 08:33, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
I've acknowledged more than once (including in the message to which you replied) that the bold links carry distinctions. (In the case of ITN, they indicate articles substantially updated to reflect recent/current events.)
In the above discussion, the phrase "correct article" has been used to suggest that there's a "correct" article for readers to access (with the other articles being incorrect choices). This assertion contradicts longstanding consensus. We highlight certain articles (those linked in bold), but we don't seek to force readers down those paths or discourage them from clicking through to other articles (which aren't linked accidentally). —David Levy 10:13, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • The current subjective bias towards overlinking really needs to be rethought. HTD makes cogent suggestions as to the alternatives. It is apparent to me that the excessive linking is undesirable. It's equally obvious to me that admins like David seem to be anchored to systematic linking to give it dimension as "a window onto Wikipedia as a whole" that they frequently add links that are not the consensus version, or rewrite blurbs to be able to squeeze more links in. Either of the suggestions above by HTD would obviate that necessity of rewrite. Discussion would be on the merit of the item to be posted, and the exact wording without needing to consider the linking technicalities. It's a cleaner solution for all; no bolding will be henceforth necessary. Readers don't get distracted by extraneous information, and they will get a mixture of black and blue text only, and no more bolded blue text. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 02:54, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
The current subjective bias towards overlinking really needs to be rethought.
You're begging the question. —David Levy 05:41, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
No, I stated my premise after that opening sentence. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 07:34, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
You take for granted that overlinking regularity occurs on the main page. "It is apparent to me that the excessive linking is undesirable." is another example. Of course excessive linking is undesirable, but there's no consensus that our current main page linking is excessive. That's what you seek to establish.
"The current linking practices really need to be rethought." or "It is apparent to me that the present amount of linking is undesirable." would convey your opinion in a manner that makes sense and isn't presumptuous. —David Levy 08:24, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • David, rather than attacking me for noting a valuable link to a little-known, very focused article topic that a lot of readers will want to divert to with peaked curiosity (the United States—I've heard of that, but what exactly is it?), please take into account three relevant matters:
    1. Over the past four to five years, en.WP has progressively moderated the previous practice of linking just about anything lying about. That practice might have been intuitive in the opening years of wikis (I'd probably have done it myself), but we realised after a while that it dilutes the whole purpose of linking. Readers rely on us, as the experts and presenters, to display what we judge to be the most important links. Let's do some judging, then, for the sake of the readers.
    2. Nowhere is it more important to use wikilinking carefully than here on the main page, where the rationale for each entry is a hard-won, high-quality subject article, not a host of secondary link-targets that have not been audited as part of the main-page process, and that are almost always prominently displayed in the subject article. It doesn't make any sense to even try to divert readers away from the article we've picked over and worked on in one of the forums such as ITN. The whole point of ITN is news—an unfolding event, not the United States, or the UK, or China, or Australia.
    3. I'm struggling to see why the benchmark for wikilinking should be lower, as it currently is, rather than higher compared with that for WP articles themselves. Tony (talk) 11:48, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
David, rather than attacking me for noting a valuable link to a little-known, very focused article topic that a lot of readers will want to divert to with peaked curiosity (the United States—I've heard of that, but what exactly is it?), please take into account three relevant matters:
I'm not attacking you. I'm criticising your approach. Instead of directly expressing disagreement with our linking practices, you initiate these threads by acting as though the matter has never been discussed and you're baffled by a link's presence ("Could someone let me know why..."). You know perfectly well why: because there is no consensus that this constitutes "a pointless dilution of the link to the target article."
Readers rely on us, as the experts and presenters, to display what we judge to be the most important links. Let's do some judging, then, for the sake of the readers.
We do. You disagree with where we draw the line. But rather than simply saying so, you characterize any amount of linking beyond your preference as indiscriminately "linking everything in sight".
Nowhere is it more important to use wikilinking carefully than here on the main page, where the rationale for each entry is a hard-won, high-quality subject article, not a host of secondary link-targets that have not been audited as part of the main-page process, and that are almost always prominently displayed in the subject article.
1. We do take these articles' quality into account. For example, if "President of X" redirects to "List of Presidents of X" instead of leading to an article describing the office, we usually don't link to it.
2. Again, there is no consensus for the position that readers should be "funneled" to the bold-linked articles and expected to navigate from there to (or find via searching) the related articles currently linked from the blurbs.
It doesn't make any sense to even try to divert readers away from the article we've picked over and worked on in one of the forums such as ITN.
We don't. We clearly convey the distinction via bold links. No one is being "diverted". They're being given options (which aren't mutually exclusive).
The whole point of ITN is news—an unfolding event, not the United States, or the UK, or China, or Australia.
The section's primary purpose is to link to articles that have been substantially updated to reflect recent/current events. A secondary purpose (shared with most of the main page) is to serve as a gateway to the encyclopedia as a whole.
I'm struggling to see why the benchmark for wikilinking should be lower, as it currently is, rather than higher compared with that for WP articles themselves.
It isn't. —David Levy 13:11, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • "there is no consensus that this constitutes "a pointless dilution of the link to the target article." " Where is this "consensus" to overlink to a density that is orders of magnitude greater than that in our articles? If there was ever a discussion, it doesn't look as though your fort is holding now. I say the case is yours to make that the main page shouldn't follow the style guides that have developed over the years. "A secondary purpose (shared with most of the main page) is to serve as a gateway to the encyclopedia as a whole." That's your particular interpretation of a "motherhood" statement. Of course the main page is a gateway to the project, but gateway doesn't mean link farm, washed in blue to the extent that it becomes bumpy to read. There's a good reason we don't allow bolded links in articles: it's ugly; it looks unprofessional. The main page is way over-formatted—when one becomes so used to it every day, I suppose one becomes blind to this fact. If we're not going to have a wholesale redesign of the main page, the least we can do is to pare back this over-formatting and misplaced sense of the utility of linking such a high proportion of the words. Tony (talk) 13:25, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • PS: HDT, I'd rather have entire entries blue-linked as you show above than the speckledy spattered effect. But the point is, we need to get people clicking onto those painstakingly worked-up subject articles. This should be done with a single link, unless there's a good reason to do otherwise (OTD may be an exception). Tony (talk) 13:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Where is this "consensus" to overlink to a density that is orders of magnitude greater than that in our articles?
When did you stop beating your wife?
If there was ever a discussion, it doesn't look as though your fort is holding now.
"If there was ever a discussion"? Wow.
I, like others, have tired of your repetitive, hyperbolic "facts" and don't wish to rehash this debate for the umpteenth time. —David Levy 13:52, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
You might be tiring of defending your position, but that won't stop progress. I wish you would treat my posts at face value, with a little more dignity. I bother because I want to improve the main page, not through some love of argumentation. Tony (talk) 14:06, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Well OK, the dignified answer to "If there was ever a discussion", for instance, taking it at face value, would be to list the numberless past discussions on this subject. Nearly all of those discussions included you. Do you really want us to look up such a list? Art LaPella (talk) 15:02, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Numberless? That is some claim. The hyperbole doesn't advance the current situation. Fine, go ahead and look them up if you want. It won't change a thing. A few people are intent on dogged resistance to the smallest reforms on the main page. I'm surprised you're supporting them. Tony (talk) 15:18, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
Tony, I suspect that your posts are not taken at face value because of the manner in which you post here. In real life you may be a nice person but in this area you come across as an obnoxious narcissist.
You seem to take for granted that what you think is guaranteed to be right and that anyone who disagrees with you is being wilful and so worthy of your scorn And you show plenty of scorn, for example "You might be tiring of defending your position, but that won't stop progress" and "Numberless? That is some claim" when we all know that this was just a figure of speech.
Also you keep on raising this topic as if it is a new one when we all know it isn't and you raise loads of fallacious or unhelpful points. See the comments that David Levy makes at 13:11 & 13:52 (both 21 Dec). As another example "I say the case is yours to make that the main page shouldn't follow the style guides that have developed over the years". Firstly the default is the status quo. Secondly you cite as authority unnamed style guides. Thirdly those style guides may well not be appropriate. [As an aside I would almost guarantee that they are not appropriate because most are written by an organisation for use in their work in their country and the English Wikipedia has to cope with multiple versions of English.]
On the subject of linking.
It seems to me that there clearly is a consensus for the Main Page to be the way it is, at a minimum we have reached the current position after various changes and that must represent some sort of consensus. If you want to change things then you need to build a consensus for that change. A far as I can see the only people who agree with you are Ohconfucius & Howard. If there were loads of other people who agreed I would have expected some of them to post on the subject, even if they just said 'I agree with Tony'.
Personally I think that the level of linking on the Main Page is about right and the level in articles is too low.
Quite often on the Main Page I select one of the non-bold links rather than the bold one. The article that is bold may well be relatively specific and I am not very interested in the fine detail but am curious about the overall subject. In the current OTD, I don't care about the (bold) final of the (non-bold) FIFA Club World Cup but I am moderately interested in the structure of the competition.
I can get to the article that I want to read by going via one that I don't want to read, but who is actually helped by that?
In articles I relatively often find that I want to go to another article that is referenced but not linked because it was linked earlier on, for example the lead may link to a comparable or previous instance but later on that instance is just referenced. I mostly use Firefox and have an add-in that lets me look up a word or phrase in Wikipedia and I use that add-in quite a lot within Wikipedia, which seems ironic to me. FerdinandFrog (talk) 16:29, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
  • "Obnoxious" means I propose reforms with which you don't agree, I guess. That could be the only explanation for your personal attack. Tony (talk) 17:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
    Yes, that's a pretty good definition of "obnoxious". You propose reforms you know you're in the minority on. You propose reforms you know you're in the minority on because we had a discussion just one month prior that affirmed so. In stark contrast to the remarks of most others on Talk:Main Page, your complaint has been discussed time and time again -- perhaps more often than any other issue regarding ITN. And, time and time again, your position is shot down. Repeating your proposal isn't going to make it realized any faster, particularly when less radical versions of your idea have been dismissed. -- tariqabjotu 17:59, 21 December 2011 (UTC)
It is not clear who this is addressed to as it is not under an existing comment nor is there any other connection. On the basis that it is addressed to me I will reply.
The word is 'obnoxious' not 'Abnoxious'.
No it does not mean what you have said and I have no idea how you get that idea. It means that your posts have been rude to other commentators.
"your personal attack" - The most apposite response is "I wish you would treat my posts at face value, with a little more dignity". I said, "you may be a nice person but ... you come across as ..." and "You seem to take for granted ..." making it abundantly clear that I was commenting on your words and not on you.
To be even more precise, I was saying what impact your words had on me. Some of that may be my fault, however you should assume good faith and work towards using words and phraseology that is less likely to be construed in a negative manner. FerdinandFrog (talk) 18:16, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Is there a tongue twister about over-discussing over-linking on the over-viewed main page (where certain topics are over-represented)Jackiespeel (talk) 17:17, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Clearly, a lot of people on this thread agree with what I'm saying. Tony (talk) 04:31, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
In the interests of clarity could you please name, say, 10 people who have agreed with you. I can only think of two and I hardly think that two is "a lot of people". FerdinandFrog (talk) 13:21, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
For the record, as Tony and some others know, "overlinking" has been the topic of endless discussion in respect of WP as a whole on WT:LINK and elsewhere, and there are plenty of people who very definitely disagree with the overzealous delinking of the sort we see being pushed here now. Tony and others regularly make very definite assertions, as they seem to be here, that there is an objectively "right" way to link that "experts" can divine on behalf of the rest of us and/or that there is "consensus" in favour of their preferred standards; the first is obviously nonsense - and arrogant nonsense at that - and the second has never, ever been demonstrated by reference to any discussion, RfC or whatever. Presumably, because the evidence for said consensus does not exist, and it is only a very small number of fixated editors who are pushing that agenda to the extent that they are.
In addition, looking at the specific example, say, of United States at ITN, this strict interpretation flies way beyond the guidelines at wp:overlink, which are perfectly happy to see the US and other "well known" nations etc linked, if relevant to the topic at hand. The guidelines are explicit about that. There is no rule - and nor should there be - that says US should never be linked, whether in main articles or on the front page here; which, as noted, should act in part as a gateway for people coming here for the first time. Do most people in the world know what the US is? Sure. Do they nonetheless want to read the lengthy and detailed page we have looking at various aspects of that country? It would seem that they do, if we look at page view stats. Why would we want to make it more difficult for people to find that page and do that, on the front page of all places? I have no idea why we would be trying to actively prevent people going to certain pages, whether they were "distracted" there or not, based on the say-so of one or two editors. N-HH talk/edits 14:54, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
Talking of zealots ... Not never linked, but only when it is useful and relevant in the context. Show me one ITN in which it's that. Tony (talk) 02:38, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Considering MainPage as a portal or gateway to the rich contents of the encyclopedia, all the links are useful. --PFHLai (talk) 02:33, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
No, they're not- if that argument made any sense we'd just bluelink every single word and be done with it. You can showcase the content of the encyclopedia without overlinking by focusing on the particular links we want to highlight (usually bolded) and providing additional links where necessary to provide context. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:00, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
I did not say "All links are useful". I meant all the relevant links chosen by the editors of ITN etc. are useful as explained by Nikkimaria. --PFHLai (talk) 17:51, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

If Sue Gardner would take a pay cut of $100,000 ...

... we could also end the begging campaign today. Frankly, I and many others contributed the equivalent of several 10,000 quid/bucks to Wikipedia in terms of work hours (at a very modest salary). Why do I have to constantly be hassled about further monetary donations for people, who contributed much less than myself and many others to the assets of this project? Miffed: Fossa?! 01:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Because the Foundation handles 7.6 million dollars in hosting and operations alone, so that you, me and others are able to play around here after all. 3.2 millions worth of hardware to maintain the sites were installed last year - how do you think such projects can be handled without professional accounting and management? 200k is a high, but not an exceptional salary for leading management in an institution that handles 25+ million $ assets per year. --Gonzo.Lubitsch (talk) 01:57, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
That seems a reasonable salary. Somewhat on the low side.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:13, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Sure. Newt Gingrich is also a reasonable presidential candidate. I never disputed taht either. It makes little sense, but it's still "reasonable", i.e., quite ordinary. Fossa?! 02:18, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
If Wikimedia would be openly a for-profit business and its employees would create most of the wealth of this site, I'd agree. But Wikimedia is not playing in a league with amazon, ebay, or google (xcept for page hits), but the league includes Open Society Institute, amnesty international and Transparency International. What is more, unlike aforementioned organizations, almost all assets of Wikimedia are created by volunteers, for free. The organization just drains the profits. Fossa?! 02:18, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I'd be willing to bet a decrepit Buffalo nickel that each of those organizations you mention has a CEO that earns more than Sue.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:20, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I wouldn't bet against it. I never said that this problem was not ubiquitous to charities. As it happens, I do contribute more to Wikimedia than to OSF, so that's why I a know more about Wikimedia than those three organizations. Plus, OSF and ai, to whom I do give donations, produce some extra value with their employees. Wikipedia worked (sort of) well six years ago as well. Without an entourage of 100+ employees. I'd even reckon, it worked better. Fossa?! 02:30, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Subject to performance, I suspect $200k for the CEO of the WMF is in line with those of other large charities. For that money and given the nature of Wikimedia I would constantly scrutinise that performance, but subject to those checks and balances it is more or less the going rate. —WFC— 02:23, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I agree that it is a "in line", I'd even say below average considering the value of the website. But that's not my point: The expense is totally unnecessary: Wikimedia does not need a CEO, it worked quite well w/o a humongous organization of paid employees. Fossa?! 02:46, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
I was the first Wikimedia CFO and was an unpaid volunteer working part time. But that was back when a good fundraising drive that paid for the servers and hosting we needed pulled in less than what Sue makes in one year. We have grown way past the point where the foundation can be run with a staff consisting of unpaid and underpaid workers ; we need - and have - highly-skilled professionals that do this full time and do a lot more than just keep the website up. --mav (reviews needed) 03:20, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Fossa, you simply have no clue about the demands of modern website hosting and IT management. The notion you describe ("It worked without that before!") is exactly what ruins many technological startups, I have seen that happening frequently. 6 years are technological stone ages, the idea of running today's Wikipedia the way it was then is simply naive. 2005 five the Wikimedia had a budget of 750.000$ and was run with three paid jobs. Last year they spent 3.2 million on new hardware alone and budgeted 25 million total. With such (necessary) growth comes inevitable management, accounting, legal overhead that has to be covered. There is a reason why all organization including the ones you mention above have the (cost) structure they have and that is (largely) not just greedy managers. --Gonzo.Lubitsch (talk) 10:52, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Even if you want to debate whether or not Sue Gardner is value for money, suggesting that firing her would do anything about when we end the fundraising is highly flawed. I don't know if the fundraising has a specific target this time or it's just set to end at a certain date, but from [1], the cumulative total until day 44 is US$17,602,283.68. On day 44 we made 261,775.79. On day 43 we made 467,573.50. In fact if I counted correctly only on 11 days did we make less then 200k. In other words, at most firing her is going to result in one less day of fundraising needed and perhaps not even that, presuming firing her really has no effect on how wikipedia runs. Nil Einne (talk) 15:37, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
Wikimedia is a charity, which claims to support Wikipedia, which is mainly constructed by unpaid volunteers. Are you suggesting that the volunteers are not up to standards, but the paid staff is? Do we have to finance the authors and photographers as well, i.e. those, who create the main assets of this site (nobody goes to Wikipedia because of the beauty of it's servers or the innovative software solutions), because they were good enough in 2005, but fail to perform in 2011? The $3.2M invest this year is mainly for a new server park. But let's assume, Wikimedia would incur that as the annual overhead for servers. Let's further assume, another $2M would be needed to run that server park. Then still $25M-$5.2M=$19.8M. Where does that money go? Well, here I do not see mainly personnel, who operate servers, I see all sorts of people who are engaged in fancy stuff like "global development" or "community" -- including "head fundraiser" and "storyteller". All these are people living off donations made for unpaid volunteers. Fossa?! 00:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
Cutting Sue's salary by $100,000 wouldn't have her fired, Nil, I'm afraid. And the tone argument (“flamed”) does not convince me a bit. I singled out Sue, because, presumably as the CEO she earns the highest salary of the Wikimedia staff and therefore, I find it fair to take her as an example. That does not mean that the same argument would not apply to, say, Eric Möller. Fossa?! 00:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm sorry, I see no evidence that WMF's employees have sinecures and are not neccessary. Ball, court, yours.  :). --Wehwalt (talk) 01:04, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
As I believe I wrote already: Wikipedia worked equally well (or better) five years ago, when Wikimedia had much less staff. One of my theses: Editors are in decline not despite, but because of Wikimedia policies: I am certainly not the only one, who is unhappy of doing unpaid volunteer work, so that other people get their salaries, who on top take important policy decisions. Now: Of course, you can say that these are only my theses, but they are in line with standard social movement theory, for instance, the iron law of oligarchy. What are your experiences, theories, ideas, on which you base the Wikipedia would not work or work considerably worse without a staff of globally more than 100 employees (adding the chapter employees to it)? Moreover: Do you think it's a fair deal that Wikimedia staff gets a handsome salary (at least at the level of the CEO, I suppose, and I hope also in the lower echelons of the staff), while the main value of the site is created by unpaid volunteer work? Fossa?! 02:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)
And I also repeat my above statement. You have no clue how IT operations work and about the necessities of running a large scale website project. This experiences comes from working close to a decade in (IT) Project Management for start-ups and larger companies (100+ employees) by the way. You are talking from your theoretical ivory tower in a publicly funded institution. And of course it is fair that professionals who spent full-time work (and that more than 8 hours a day in such positions as Susan's) on the project and are held accountable for their results get paid and volunteers that simply edit here if and when they like mostly for their own amusement are not. The first is a job, the latter a hobby. --Gonzo.Lubitsch (talk) 10:32, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
It's a moot point whether you fire her or cut her salary in half. And besides, if you did fire her you'd reduce the amount by double anyway and even then it still doesn't work out as you suggested. In other words, either way it isn't going to make any significant difference to how much we need from fundraising which was your original but highly flawed thesis. It's highly questionable if wikipedia worked equally well or better five years ago on all counts since we were handling far fewer requests (and arguably with more server problems) and more server limitations (e.g. our search is still generally not as good as external engines but it's a lot better then it was and IIRC it wasn't possible with the old servers) and were making far less in the fundraising (you may argue we are wasting our funds but ultimately it's each individual donors choice, what we do with the money is made fairly clear). Even now, stuff like audio captchas still haven't been implemented and I've seen no evidence volunteers are refusing to do it because other people are being paid.
As for your new thesis, well as plenty people have pointed out, most charities operate in a similar fashion. In fact, I'm pretty sure the majority of large charities have several paid staff and a much larger number of volunteers who effectively do the bulk of the work (there are a lot more of them so it isn't surprising). So far, your only arguments appear to be 'these charities are crap too' with no explaination as to why all these charities operate in this fashion if it's such a flawed model and 'we worked as well 5 years ago' which ignores how different we are from five years ago. Also if you want to talk about staff cost, feel free to peruse the annual plan or financial reports which makes it clearly precisely how much is being or planned to be spent rather then using rather then using random examples of random people and then trying to later claim you wanted to include all people [2].
Nil Einne (talk) 13:57, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Improve Main Page Layout — Clarify portal links in upper-right hand corner of main page header

The addition of a header titled "Portals", above the portals listed in the upper-right hand section of the Main Page header, would be a significant improvement to the main page, as this would provide context that the links are for Wikipedia portals. As currently presented, they just state topics without specificity that they're portal links. Northamerica1000(talk) 14:10, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

There isn't sufficient space for that (without making the entire box taller).
When the layout was created, the consensus was that the bold "All portals" link sufficiently conveys this information. To grasp the concept, a newcomer must follow that link (or one of the others) anyway. He/she otherwise won't know what our "portals" are, so a "Portals" heading wouldn't accomplish much. —David Levy 17:54, 31 December 2011 (UTC)
What might work would be to move the bold 'All portals' link to the front, and rephrase it 'Portals:'. That wouldn't take up any more space, and all the existing links are preserved. But it isn't as clear that the bold link goes to a link of all the portals, rather than an explanation of what portals are. I'm agnostic on which is best. Modest Genius talk 17:57, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

"helped to"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MoonMan (talk • contribs) 00:22, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Today's (Monday 6th Jan 2012) featured article on Sarah Trimmer. In the middle section, about 13 lines down. "As a high church Anglican, she was intent on promoting the Established Church of Britain and on teaching young children and the poor the doctrines of Christianity."

It should say "... the established Church of England ...". There isn't a Church of Britain. This is entered correctly on the main page for this article. Not sure why anyone would get it wrong when creating a summary for the featured article. Huradon (talk) 17:28, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

I've fixed the summary (and a second inaccurate use of British in the article). It seems the article itself was originally in error - someone corrected the lead earlier today, but didn't update the front-page summary. Shimgray | talk | 20:13, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

A bit late with this now but in today's summary "established" should not be capitalised: it's just an adjective, not part of the name. E.g. in Church of England it appears uncapitalised in the first sentence.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 22:52, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Aah, I see the previous poster also spotted this, or at least got it right without mentioning it. Just fixed it in the article lead where it was also wrong.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 22:56, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Advertising Fundraisers

They are the biggest load of bullshit on the internet. 29 or whatever million dollars to keep a website with 500 servers and 40 staff? That is a bunch of bullshit as only a fraction of that would go to maintaining the servers and paying staff salaries (and I highly doubt that the average programmer on this website would be getting a yearly pay of any more then $100,000pa. I also bet that you don't disclose all of your donations either so I bet that more money would've been raised in the fundraising period then what was mentioned, considering the amount of time that those bullshit banners were being displayed for.

Also, wouldn't LESS servers and LESS staff require LESS money to maintain? So your petty argument of "But we’re the #5 most-popular site in the world --- we operate on a tiny fraction of the resources of any other top site. We will use your money carefully and well, I promise you." does not wash with me.

Yours sincerely, A very Angry Wikipedian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.219.90.102 (talk) 03:17, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

See an above thread for more discussion on this. I would add that complaining here achieves absolutely nothing. — Joseph Fox 07:11, 1 January 2012 (UTC)
Shortcut to the budget and spending plan: [3]. Slightly less than 50% of the $28 million goes to salary, recruitment, and benefits (lest we forget, the cost of health coverage in the US is incredibly high). howcheng {chat} 09:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

...and what time zone is the current banner referencing? When 2011 is over in said time zone, I'm sure the banner won't vanish, lest they miss out on more GOLDS from weirdo donators thinking they better donate-before-it's-too-late. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.172.152.74 (talk) 06:26, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

UTC, where it is now 7am. — Joseph Fox 07:06, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Rabble, rabble!

As someone who won't donate anyway, who is scornful and dismissive of wikipedia despite using it every day and who has no grasp whatsoever of what it costs to maintain a huge website, I'm disgusted that Wikipedia would try to raise money and dare to impair my web browsing experience with a shameless banner of people as ugly as myself. Horrible! Call the police and pass the ammunition, this is unforgivable. And they don't even remove the banner unless the goal of the fundraiser has been reached. Well, I don't know about those important WP types, but I always stop trying before I actually achieve anything. And WP is noncommercial anyway, so why are those people payed, they ought to write articles instead of playing around with servers and stuff.

Disproportionally disgusted, Tunbridge Wells 153.96.149.2 (talk) 07:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Sputter! Rage! And farts in your general direction! You'll never take us alive!
Rebelliously outraged,  Obsidi♠n Soul 08:02, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Seriously. Stop being a dick! The banners are bloody annoying, and were supposed to be gone by new year's. Just because you don't find them a serious problem, there are apparently many who do. Do you think your attitude is converting anybody to see the point of donating, or will it just piss us off even more? /81.170.148.21 (talk) 10:52, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
You can remove them by simply creating an account, going to preferences, gadgets, and ticking the 'Suppress display of the fundraiser banner' box. You'll never see them again, as long as you're logged in. Modest Genius talk 16:10, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
It's fine by me if someone doesn't like the fundraiser, mate. I just don't like the accusatory and derogatory tone of those increasingly childish outbursts. Maybe it's fashionable today to voice criticism like a talk radio host, but I find this style of discussion a bit weird...no, it's positively odd. 153.96.149.2 (talk) 11:50, 2 January 2012 (UTC)
Why is anyone surprised that the 'thanks' banners are running? This has been done I think over the last 5 years at least. For them to not appear would be surprising. Nil Einne (talk) 14:36, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

When will someone develop the WP version of Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and/or Ten things I hate about Wikiedia ? Jackiespeel (talk) 15:37, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Mobile main page?

Following a comment at WP:ERRORS, I've noticed that the main page currently ends at the bottom of the ITN section when viewed on the mobile site. It also cuts off the last three links in ITN ("recent deaths", etc.) So, two questions:

a) Are DYK/OTD meant to be displayed on the mobile main page? Has there been a deliberate decision one way or the other here?
b) What's stopping the end links in ITN displaying? There's a class="noprint" section which looks like it might be to blame, but this doesn't seem to have been altered in a long time.

Thanks all. Shimgray | talk | 19:42, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Particularly for a, see Talk:Main Page/Archive 159#en.m.wikipedia.org, Talk:Main Page/Archive 161#en.m.wikipedia.org part 2 and Talk:Main Page/Archive 163#Mobile Wikipedia. The simple answer is we don't have any real direct control over the mobile site and no one here seems to know why they made the decisions they did. Your best bet is to contact them directly. (We could probably convince them to change things if we have consensus but few seemed to care enough to make it an issue, so it remains the case your best bet is to contact them directly if you have suggestions.) This is probably best for b as well although it's possible someone here can work out what the issue is. They do have various methods of contact and seem to respond well to queries. Nil Einne (talk) 09:26, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

The portrait of Portia Simpson-Miller and brief of her victory in the Jamaican general election

Se os ve el plumero, el portrait de esta señora has been for almost a week in main page. You are descaradamente ideologically and politically biased. 81.60.184.130 (talk) 17:59, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes we are idealogically biased. We require free photos of which there are none for any of the more recent items. This shouldn't surprise you though. We advertise in every page that we are a free encylopaedia and do it twice on the main page. Nil Einne (talk) 18:17, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
The ideological bias accusation is silly, but this photo has been on the main page for about a week. I'm not sure any photo has ever been on the main page for so long. This seems really excessive. There's really no free photo of any kind that could illustrate any other recent news story? Rickterp (talk) 18:32, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
It's happened several times before. Lugo is probably the most famous but there have been other cases. This time of year also tends to have it more often since there tends to be less stuff for ITN. Heck just recently we had people complaining about Kim Jong-il Nil Einne (talk) 18:35, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
He's back
Did someone mention Lugo? Modest Genius talk 18:53, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
All hail Lugo! Lugnuts (talk) 07:38, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Sopa banner

I think we should place a black Stop SOPA banner across the top of the home page, and link it to Stop Online Piracy Act. Other than that change, the home page content should remain the same. This law threatens the viability of Wkipedia. We should do more to notify readers. Jehochman Talk 05:15, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Please forward your comments to Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Coordinated SOPA reaction in early 2012 RfC, where the Wikipedia community is discussing a proposed response to SOPA. A similar debate is also being held at Wikipedia:SOPA initiative. Thank you. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:28, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Corrections to make in the mobile Wikipedia main page

Hello,

In the mobile Wikipedia home page en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, I read “Today's Featured Article” and “In The News”. These are not proper nouns. Please smash This Ridiculous English-Newspaper-Style Capitalization Of Everything. In the Wikipedia Manual of Style, we have Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters which tells not to put Capital Letters Everywhere. Let's set a good example in the home page. In the normal Wikipedia home page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, the texts are correct : “Today's featured article” and “In the news”.

Thanks.

--Nnemo (talk) 02:31, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

It appears these were set in rev:94564 and can be changed at MediaWiki:Mobile-frontend-featured-article and MediaWiki:Mobile-frontend-news-items. I don't have a mobile device and don't know whether the capitals were chosen for a reason. On small screens it may be easier to read the headings with capitals, and then interested users might be able to zoom in on the below text. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:52, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
I really don't think these capital letters have such a reason of existence. ;-) But anyway, the capital letters take more space than the lowercase letters, so for small devices it is even more required to user small letters.
--Nnemo (talk) 08:49, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
 Done. Per WP:MOSHEAD, section headings are in sentence case, not title case. howcheng {chat} 09:43, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Thank you for your investigation ! MediaWiki:Mobile-frontend-featured-article and MediaWiki:Mobile-frontend-news-items can not be changed, they are locked.
--Nnemo (talk) 18:54, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
Protected pages can still be edited, they just require an administrator account on Wikipedia. Prodego talk 07:46, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
Several days later, I decided to verify that my changes worked, and yes indeed the capitalization is correct, although I suppose I can't say for sure that someone else didn't do something to it—I suppose I could test it by making another change then reloading the page, but I also don't know if caching is involved, either.. howcheng {chat} 22:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

"Please smash This Ridiculous English-Newspaper-Style Capitalization Of Everything."

I'm fairly sure that English newspapers don't capitalise everything – standard English newspaper practice is to capitalise only the first word of a headline, and proper nouns. American newspapers, on the other hand, do stick capital letters all over the place. 31.185.35.82 (talk) 16:33, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I've noticed that very often when news is posted, it's not the 1st story which the picture relates to.

Lets change this to alleviate confusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Panarchy (talk • contribs) 11:13, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Please see the entry in the FAQ about this. Modest Genius talk 11:21, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I've often thought that the knee jerk dismissal of people with this complaint by telling them essentially "we know, that's how we do it, if you don't like it tough" was not the right tactic. This complaint comes up repeatedly, so it is obviously something that should be given a great deal of thought. I've often thought that breaking the "In the news" section into two parts, the item with an image and all other items in chronological order, would alleviate the problem.--Khajidha (talk) 16:03, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
It *has* received a great amount of thought, particularly during the long-but-abortive main page redesign proposal a year or two ago. The major stumbling blocks were a) mobile sites and other transclusions, b) design and layout considerations and c) inertia. If someone has a *new* proposal on how to address these, please do make it. But rehashing the same arguments again and again is unproductive, and at the very least people need to be aware of why the status quo is the way it is, and what the previous stumbling-blocks were. Modest Genius talk 16:24, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
And how does treating the item with a picture as a special case (always going first) introduce any problems beyond those that already exist? --Khajidha (talk) 17:27, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
It's something we try to do, but there's not always a free image available for the first item. That's why Portia Simpson-Miller (and Fernando Lugo, of course) stayed up for days. howcheng {chat} 17:42, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
I think the OP is suggesting the item is kept at the top even if it's not chronological order. The general objection to this is there is already sufficient complaints about items receiving too much attention because they have a picture, to give them even more attention by keeping them at the top is unwanted by some. We got enough complaints when we tried bolding. Nil Einne (talk) 18:03, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
(outdent) It has always seemed a bit strange to me that many times, there would be a picture at the top of the news, and the item right next to it would have nothing to do with it. I think, therefore, that the complaints (as well as my own opinion) lean towards association of a picture with a particular story being more important than always having a picture at the top of the news. I think we may have fallen into the rut of "well, it's always been like that, so..."
Therefore, is there some way to "block out" stories such that the picture would stay with its story all the time? I don't know if these sorts of things require RFC input, but basically what I am asking is "is it absolutely essential to have a picture at the top of the news section at all times, or should pictures move with their associated stories?" MSJapan (talk) 19:36, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
My suggestion keeps the picture at the top AND associated with a particular story. As the section is not an actual news ticker, the objection that the item is not kept in chronological order seems less important to me. This is especially so as the rest of the items would stay in order. The addition of some symbol or line after the item with the picture should indicate that it is being treated somewhat specially. As for the objection that this puts undue emphasis on a story simply because it has a picture, I contend that that should spur contributors to find/make usable pictures for other stories.--Khajidha (talk) 13:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

On this day... Section

Hi. I was browsing through On this day... historical section and couldn't find "1991 - Soviet Union troops attack Lithuanian independence supporters in Vilnius, killing 14 people and wounding 1000.".

Well, given its historical importance, I truly let myself believe that it is far more important historical event than something like: "1968 – American singer Johnny Cash recorded his landmark album At Folsom Prison live at the Folsom State Prison in Folsom, California...

Since this day is even today marked as a great remembrance day with a large number of events in Lithuania, I'd deem "1991 - Soviet Union troops attack Lithuanian independence supporters in Vilnius, killing 14 people and wounding 1000." to be highly relevant in today's world and worth mention on wikipedia's main page. What do you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by RammyJuice (talk • contribs) 09:48, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

January Events (Lithuania) is currently ineligible to appear as a bold link in the "On this day" section because it is tagged with {{more footnotes}}. See point 8 of Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries#Criteria for listing items on this set of pages. BencherliteTalk 10:00, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia blackout protest

I recently received an E-Mail from Demand Progress encouraging users to donate to Wikipedia to mitigate losses from a complete server shutdown as a protest movement against SOPA/PIPA.

C'mon guys, really? Is Wikipedia intending to go on a full shutdown just to protest SOPA? If so, would this "Protest" extend to other Wikimedia sister sites?

You'd be better off redirecting to stopcensorship.org or some other anti-SOPA/PIPA website with a custom header telling people to visit wikipedia via it's IP address (As that's all what SOPA would really do, last I heard; Block domain names, not IP addresses.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.56.196.150 (talk) 04:15, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

See above Nil Einne (talk) 15:27, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I don't know who could have sent that email - but I wouldn't click on any links in it. Running the servers is an expense to Wikipedia, not a source of income anyway. All our income is from donations. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:03, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure the email was really sent by Demand Progress, see [4]. The pledges to donate appear to be more about encouraging us to participate in a blackout then anything to do with migating losses. Having said that, depending on how the blackout is implemented there may be some losses. If we really shutdown all sites including the WMF site, some people who were intending to donate on that day may never donate. On the other hand, I suspect simply blacking out will have a big effect on donations, both from those who like the action and decide to donate (or donate more) because of it (even without Demand Progress pledges this is likely to happen) and also from those who decide they dislike our actions and choose not to donate or donate less because of it. However it wouldn't surprise me if the amount of staff time and WMF resources spent already on the process is larger then any change in donations. In any case, I don't think any putative change in donations is a factor for most whether supporting or opposing actions by us. Nil Einne (talk) 18:16, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
Wait, what? We're actually going to blackout over this? Where can I register my opposition to such a stupid act? Modest Genius talk 16:35, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
There's an RFC here. Hut 8.5 16:51, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
I notice that there's now also a banner, although this doesn't mention anything about a blackout, so only users who click-through will learn that such idiotic action could be taken. Modest Genius talk 17:46, 15 January 2012 (UTC)
If you're against Wikipedia taking action, you go to the page to say so. If you're in favour of Wikipedia taking action, you go to the page to say so. The only people whose voices won't be heard are those who, with the notification rammed down their throats, still choose to shrug their shoulders. —WFC— 01:45, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Or had no idea what SOPA was or any appreciation of how serious the proposed action is. The banner means nothing to anyone who didn't already know what it was about. Modest Genius talk 21:42, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

To show its opposition to censorship and a law against free exchange of information, Wikipedia will censor itself. That's asinine. 24.27.31.170 (talk) 00:47, 17 January 2012 (UTC) Eric

As opposed to doing nothing and getting censored forever? That's more asinine.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 00:55, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Of course, one could engage in direct personal protest by not using the internet. That might accomplish a lot, too. Quite frankly, I'd suggest that in addition to this protest, which seems to be a done deal, that Wikipedia RIGHT NOW come to a decision as to whether it will actually obey this law if it passes. 24.27.31.170 (talk) 01:11, 17 January 2012 (UTC) Eric

It's "In less than", not "then." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.133.8.35 (talk) 01:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

This isn't good for Wikipedia. For it to take a political action like this undermines any pretense of neutrality. Wikipedia can claim to be neutral at this moment, despite the collection of biases that her users hold, whatever they maybe. Now, this pretense is over. 98.176.11.141 (talk) 01:21, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Jeez. What can precious neutrality do if the site itself is dead? Or have moved to umm... Iceland? :P -- Obsidi♠n Soul 02:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
WMF could solve this by reincorporating in another country, and move their primary servers over seas. It wouldn't be that expensive, especially as they could keep their offices in SanFran. This is a problem for WMF because WMF has chosen to make it a problem for WMF. --LauraHale (talk) 02:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
But by doing that they'd truly become a foreign company. An even more applicable target than if they stayed in the US. But of course, Wikipedia could preemptively block US IPs once abroad. No more problem. No more Wikipedia for Americans either.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 03:08, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
WMF is already a "foreign company" to most of us. Malleus Fatuorum 03:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Indeed. I did !vote for banner only for non-American users. But *shrugs* -- Obsidi♠n Soul 03:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia is already blocked in China, how would being blocked in the US be any different? Modest Genius talk 09:56, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

First, I really do not personally care whether or what form of protest English Wikipedia chooses to take. I do believe that Wikipedia, as a whole, represents some of the best that humanity has to offer, and that the sheer broadness of the current anti-piracy bill strikes at its core. (This comes from a person who does believe in the minimum wage and in fundamental corporate regulation in matters of human health and individual ability to pursue a livelihood without having it destroyed, with a real ability to back that regulation up.) Yet I am not gung-ho about this protest, simply because it won't affect the people who make the decisions or most of the electorate who votes for them. Be clear that this is a symbol, nothing more ... which is not to say that a symbol does not have value in itself.

On the other hand, the implied dominance of English Wikipedia worldwide or of the (United States based) Wikipedia corporation is -- shall we say, troubling? English Wikipedia and-or the corporation is even hinting at deciding the support of other Wikipedias, even with only a banner, on a global basis? Really? And that, after English Wikipedia *specifically* and *explicitly* refused to support -- even with a single line of text amid other lines of text -- exactly the same protest and reason for protest from Italian Wikipedia, on the basis that it was not "newsworthy enough"? Peoples, I know the concept of American empire is a matter of ongoing debate, but this kind of thing is its cultural substance. In addition, make no mistake -- the assumption that global Wikipedia support should be a natural thing draws from the same regulatory roots as the very anti-piracy bill itself. - Tenebris 16:36, 17 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.156.248 (talk)

discussion's SOPA: banner

I now this isn't the right place, but I don't now where I should write it.

In this day in Wikipedia in inglish user are discussing about SOPA initiative. In Wikipedia in italien there is a banner where is written:

<(used google translater)> A bill being debated in the Congress of the United States threatens Wikipedia. In the English language have been proposed some initiatives of protest. Join the discussion about it on Wikipedia in Italian </(used google translater)>

But in WP in English there isn't. I think is needed to put a banner with the aim of don't make the mistake which was done of the user of Wikipedia in Italian: someone will be angry because he/she didn't was warned about the protest (thinking "Wikipedia is an oligarchy") and maybe he/She isn't agree by the decision choice.

Greeting by Italy, It:Utente:Italo Stefano Moro

--Moro, il veneto (talk) 18:42, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi Stefano. There actually is a banner, but it only seems to appear when you view your watchlist or make an edit. You should see it at the top if you respond to this. --FormerIP (talk) 02:34, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, now i see it. --Moro, il veneto (talk) 21:01, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
Cool — Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.93.69.210 (talk) 22:19, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

OTD

The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia was not "one year earlier," it was six months earlier. Sca (talk) 23:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Probably meant to say "the previous year". --Khajidha (talk) 23:18, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

"less then"

Someone please fix the SOPA blackout banner, which currently says "less then 29 hours". Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.111.17.151 (talk) 01:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Global information freedom

I think global balckout is right position of Wikimedia foundation. Its not just problem for USA users, but its large problem for all internet users as well.

Polititions usually support worse anti-piracy law, but SOPA/PIPA its worse idea ever. If this law will be accepted in USA its can going to be a world problem. Anybody will be allowed to block any website!

Anybody who support information freedom should undestand that.

But you can also support it by the other way. Read and connect your computer to this projects:

Right now this projects need more programmers/webmasters and donations! But even you can't do that, just install software router, because each new user make them faster and more anonymous.

You just need to remember: information freedom its not just SOPA/PIPA, its thousands of other law and rules. This networks its future of internet freedom, because nobody can control them! Even RIAA/BSE/etc organisation cannot block real P2P network. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.160.40.36 (talk) 04:35, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Please take this here. — Joseph Fox 06:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Ridiculous

How in the world is globally blacking out en.wikipedia going to do ANYTHING?! Fine, so a lot of powers-that-be do not agree with SOPA. HOW exactly does that warrant a global blackout of the largest language of wikipedia?! That is going much, much too far. I thought people were more levelheaded than this. I'm starting to understand why wikipedia draws the criticism it does; criticism I never thought it deserved... until now. This is catagorically asinine. I hope more rational minds prevail in the remaining hours. Jersey John (talk) 04:46, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that a more 'levelheaded' and less emotional approach would be to explain your concern, rather than insulting the rationality of the community and labeling things you disagree with as 'asinine'. And I'm not sure, but this probably isn't the correct venue for this discussion. (e • nn • en!) 06:00, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I think this is wrong - people rely on Wikipedia. To take it down for an entire 24 hours is damaging to it's reputation. Toying with the users. People aren't even aware of what the dispute is. It seems to be unncecessary. Why punish the users? Can't Jimmy Wales make his point some other way (through media?) 86.156.139.52 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 09:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC).

Please take this here. — Joseph Fox 06:40, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

This is important and discussion should be on the front page - the direct you give is to a blog type (requires registration) - not comment type entry. You are taking the site down for an ENTIRE 24 HOURS stopping the service for that time - hugely damaging IMO. 86.156.139.52 (talk)

You can make your voice heard, without registration, at Wikipedia talk:SOPA initiative/Action. Hopefully it's not too late to get people to see sense.  An optimist on the run! 09:41, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Apologies for the incorrect link. Now altered. — Joseph Fox 10:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

PIPA

What is PIPA? 90.155.76.44 (talk) 10:48, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried PROTECT_IP_Act? The Reference Desk would be the better place to ask these kinds of questions in the future. Falconusp t c 11:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
Or someone could actually spell out and/or link the names in the site banner. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:12, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
The banner is as with all banners intended to be brief but also intended to direct interested parties to a single place they can find more info, which in this case is a letter. The letter gives the full names and provides links. Nil Einne (talk) 15:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Question

Will the other language areas of WP be accessible/up and running? Jackiespeel (talk) 13:10, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes. — Edokter (talk) — 13:15, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
It's up to each one individually, if I am not mistaken. Falconusp t c 13:16, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Kiribati?

Is the re-election of the President of Kiribati really that newsworthy? I suspect this is merely an advertising ploy by a Kiribati editor.Sean 2015 (talk) 21:32, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

National elections are always posted on ITN, not matter how small the nation. How do we know you're not just an anti-Kiribati editor trying to push a Gilbertophobic agenda? AdamSommerton (talk) 04:51, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

"Less than eight hours"

Shouldn't it be fewer than eight hours, since hours are countable? --147.9.68.178 (talk) 21:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

No, because hours are divisible into minutes, regardless of whether they are in the sentence. Fewer than five items, for example, is valid because the items cannot be further subdivided. 109.151.94.138 (talk) 21:51, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
What?!?! That has nothing to do with whether or not to use fewer. See, for example, wikipedia's article on the matter. Using your logic, the example given there ["there is fewer than one pound is flour..." is incorrect, since a pound is further divisible by ounces, which are divisible by all sorts of things (taking the example to it's extreme, even a molecule of flour is just the sum of atoms, which are just the sum of subatomic particles, etc.). Just change the banner to read "fewer." --72.83.92.126 (talk) 01:27, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
No, that isn't what's meant. "Fewer than x hours" would be correct if we were counting down in increments of hours. "Less than x hours" is correct because we mean "less time". (For example, 3.5 hours is "less than 4 hours".) —David Levy 02:16, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
Yup. When there's one hour to go, it's going to be "less than 1 hour", not "fewer than 1 hour". AdamSommerton (talk) 02:19, 18 January 2012 (UTC)
Invalid argument! If you take the allusion back to indivisible items, you don't say "fewer than one item" either. You say that there are "no items". Regardless of that, "less than" is correct for hours, because they are subdivisible, DieSwartzPunkt (talk) 08:39, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I think Fowler would be delighted that English grammar can still cause a ruction. One argument is that in this instance it's down to context and what is being measured is not the number of hours but the duration, and if you add the implied word 'time' into the sentence so it becomes either "fewer time that eight hours" or "less time than eight hours", the difference is emphasised. Are you measuring time or literally counting hours ('I have fewer that ten hours to go before I face the noose'?) but I'm not even sure that works except as a literary device. In the weight example given above, "there are fewer/is less than one pound of flour" it again becomes clearer if you add the implied 'weight'. In this case fewer only becomes appropriate if the flour is literally subdivided, such as "there are fewer than a hundred pounds of flour left on the shelf" when the reader already knows that the flour is in pound bags. Having said all that, others will no doubt disagree and I'm not 100% sure about it myself .... and I'm a native speaker (Fowler 2/e has a whole page on 'few' and whole page on 'less'). In the end go for what feels right and if you understand the meaning then the sentence has done its job. Now I'm off for our annual gerund hunt. Delverie (talk) 11:24, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Nick Drake

Why is he on twice in a row? That's rather unprecedented for tfa. Difficultly north (talk) 10:53, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

If you didn't notice, we were blacked-out for 24 hours. Seems reasonable enough to give it two days, so it's actually visible for the customary 24 hours. Modest Genius talk 10:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
(edit conflict_ See discussion at User talk:Raul654#TFA, TFP and SOPA. The short answer is that it would almost unprecedented for any TFA to have less than 24 hours on the main page; 5 hours on 1 day and 19 hours on another = 24. BencherliteTalk 10:56, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
Why is the main page picture his gravestone? Why not use a picture of the man himself? Should all main page deceased persons' pictures be their gravestones? Axl ¤ [Talk] 13:55, 19 January 2012 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:FAQ/Main_Page#Why_is_a_Main_Page_section_missing_an_illustrative_image.3F. If you have a better alternative that meets the (admittedly ridiculous) Main Page image rules, please suggest it. Modest Genius talk 14:01, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the answer would be to get some cartoonist/sketchers as WPists. Jackiespeel (talk) 15:36, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it is because he just wants all the attention he can get--Cheyenne (talk) 20:03, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

But having a few 'image creators and contributors' could solve the 'no free images' problem. Jackiespeel (talk) 15:42, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

No, it couldn't. Since the person in question is dead, any image they could create would be a derivative work of a non-free image (assuming it was an accurate representation), and would thus also be non-free. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:54, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
Surely it's possible to sketch a person without it being a derivative work of a particular, specific image?
I mean, I could probably sketch Elvis from memory, but he died before I was born. Who's copyright would I be violating? What would my sketch be derivative of?APL (talk) 00:59, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
APL, you are correct. If you make a sketch of a photo (e.g., Shepard Fairey's Barack Obama "Hope" poster), that's a derivative work, but you can surely use photos to make sure you draw the subject's face accurately without violating anyone's copyright. —howcheng {chat} 11:15, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
No, actually, you can't - see here. If you can draw the subject's face from memory, then fine, but in this particular case that seems unlikely. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:58, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
We're saying the same thing: if you make a drawing that's based on a photograph, that's a derivative work. But you can use several photographs for reference to make sure you are drawing the subject's face correctly, provided that your drawing doesn't actually look like any one of those photographs in particular. —howcheng {chat} 20:48, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
The link Nikkimaria provides links to here as an example. In that example consensus clearly supports that idea that it is possible to create public domain images of dead people even if no public domain image currently exists.
Which makes sense, since we do the same thing all the time with prose. Wikipedia editors routinely read one or more copyrighted source and then present the same information in a non-copyrighted way. APL (talk) 23:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Somehow I don't think anyone would mind their copyrighted image receiving screen time on our Main Page for a day. It's ideological bullcrap that it doesn't happen anymore. ResMar 15:24, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
We frequently display copyrighted images on the main page. (At the moment, only the image appearing in OTD isn't copyrighted.) Copyright holders desiring the exposure are welcome and encouraged to release their images under free licenses.
I agree that fair-use images should be permitted on the main page in limited circumstances, but "it's good for the owners" isn't the strongest argument. —David Levy 15:40, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Try telling your story about "ideological bullcrap" to Shepard Fairey and the Associated Press. —howcheng {chat} 20:49, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Fairey was making money off of it and he also lied about the source of the image. AP is pretty protective of their stuff, though, it took quite a bit to persuade them to allow us to use the images of the girl of Trang Bang and some other image (forgot which one it is), and even then they specifically disavowed our claim to fair use in the letter granting permission. Not to soapbox but I believe that society has become a bit too restrictive when it comes to reusing works (a.k.a Free Culture). hbdragon88 (talk) 04:37, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Resident Mario, some people would mind. Some people make their living selling photographs to major websites. The publicity of being on a major website for free would not help them if their source of income is being paid for being on major websites. (It's not always a good thing to get a reputation for being so desperate for publicity that you'll give stuff away for free.) APL (talk) 23:31, 21 January 2012 (UTC)
Oh man, I recall Jeffrey O. Gustafson facetiously submitting a drawing for George Washington (inventor) when it was set to become TFA on April Fool's Day 2007. Not that it lacked an image (we used an image of Washington's coffee), but it was just part of the absurdity of the weird-but-true story of an inventor named George Washington. hbdragon88 (talk) 19:15, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

But doesn't this feed into the PIPA-whatever debate?

How easy is it for a 'generic image' to be created from composite images? (See political cartoons in your favourite newspapers for what I mean). Trying to find a creative solution to the issue. Jackiespeel (talk) 23:21, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

why are not actuall events linked???

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_European_Men%27s_Handball_Championship

In the german wiki there are 3 links to actuall events like sports, elections, or at this time the 'Bundespräsident' (cause of the affair) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.245.86.23 (talk) 09:02, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Quote of the day?

What about to add a section in the main page with a "guote of the day" picked from wikiquote just like the italian wiki? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gilthanas91 (talk • contribs) 16:45, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't see why including one particular sister project's material on our main page (thereby essentially presenting non-Wikipedia content as though it's part of Wikipedia) is desirable.
What might make sense, as I've commented in the past, is a section containing rotating content from our sister projects in general, serving as a promotional tool that benefits all of them.
In fact, it appears that this is what the Italian Wikipedia is doing. The section in which a Wikiquote quotation appears is titled "Dagli altri progetti" ("From other projects") and also contains material from Commons, Wikinews and Wikisource. —David Levy 17:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
Isn't the picture of the day always from commons? (though I suppose the featured picture process takes place here, making that a moot point). We also have a fairly prominent link to wikinews in the ITN section. Hot StopUTC 00:50, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
As you note, the featured picture process is local (and based upon criteria specific to the English Wikipedia, including a requirement that images appear in English Wikipedia articles). The files are hosted at Commons to enable their availability to all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. Commons has a separate POTD process.
Our main page includes links to nine sister projects, which is very different from displaying their content.
The ITN section contains an additional link to Wikinews because readers commonly mistake ITN for a news ticker. In previous discussions, some have questioned whether the link actually increases confusion by appearing to label the section "Wikinews" (evidenced by some users' references to ITN by that name) or otherwise blurring the distinction between the two projects. —David Levy 11:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
If quotes are sourced from a copyrighted work, we have the burden of establishing fair use. Since we cannot have fair use material on the main page, I don't see this happening. — Edokter (talk) — 11:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
We could, however, include free quotations in a section containing rotating content from various sister projects. —David Levy 12:06, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Burns Night

Why isn't Burns Night in Scotland mention for today's date 25th January 2012. For us Scots, this is a day bigger than St Andrews' Day. I'm sorry if I've placed this complaint in the wrong section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.41.193.146 (talk) 21:49, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

The Burns supper article is ineligible because of maintenance issues (see Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries#Criteria for listing items on this set of pages #8) and thus was omitted. Later, someone suggested that we just link to Robert Burns directly, which I did, at about 22:35 UTC. —howcheng {chat} 00:19, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

MOTD

Hello, to everyone. I'm Dipankan001, and I'm from MOTD (Motto of the Day) Group. It's totally a voluntary group. I, on the behalf of MOTD, are requesting administrators to put this into the Main Page at the bottom- {{Motd Bold}}.

This produces

Today's motto...

Can anybody please do it? Dipankan In the woods? 12:17, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

News

Any reason why the lead news item (EU embargo on Iran) is not updated in the article it links to? 208.106.47.200 (talk) 23:54, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I was the one who initially updated the article. Since then, several other Wikipedians have contributed to it. Would you elaborate on what may be missing?--WaltCip (talk) 23:58, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Publicize featured content feeds?. Max Semenik (talk) 09:39, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Joe Paterno's death

Should we include Joe Paterno's death in the "In the News" section? Yes, he was under a dark cloud the last year of his tenure, but he's still arguably the greatest college football coach ever. His death is pretty significant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheCodeman4 (talk • contribs) 21:41, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Hi, this is currently being discussed at Wikipedia:In_the_news/Candidates#Death_of_Joe_Paterno, in case you would like to observe or take part. --Bongwarrior (talk) 21:47, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

It's too late now - it's old news. But I'd have to say it was far more important an event for the english wikipedia main page than Rushdie cancelling an engagement. Seriously? Pull your heads out guys. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.11.154.97 (talk) 14:44, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

To each his own. For example, I for one haven't the slightest idea who this Paterno chap was, bar the allegations last year. — Joseph Fox 16:15, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
And Etta James' death is still up there, but no mention of Paterno? Come on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.11.154.97 (talk) 16:18, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Horse racing in "Did you know?"

Is it just me or is there really a horse racing-related information in "Did you know" just about every day? I don't know, but this being the main page it seems to much of a niche subject to cover it all the time... 84.73.177.231 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:01, 28 January 2012 (UTC).

There are not enough horses "to cover it all the time..." DYK content depends on contribution from various Wikipedians. Related articles sometimes come in waves. We have more horses these days. We used to have lots of DYK articles on old churches in England, old houses in upstate New York, college football players, and local politicians in the US, .... Why don't you write up articles on topics you like and nominate them for DYK? With more varieties vying for the precious real estate on the main page, you may see the horses less frequently. --142.1.32.35 (talk) 21:12, 28 January 2012 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Did you know#Selection criteria. Variation is not a criterion. If many suitable horse racing-related articles are nominated in a period then many of them will be selected. The same goes for other topics. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:23, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I should have checked the criteria. However, I don't think many readers will do it. I did not mean offense, just interpret what I said as a hint that some readers might wonder. I think at least for readers variation would be a quite intuitive criterium. However, as 142.1.32.35 pointed out, I don't work here. I also have no idea how exactly you guys discuss things. Just do what you want. 84.73.177.231 (talk) 22:08, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Looking at it, it seems to be mostly the productivity of User:Tigerboy1966. Chris857 (talk) 21:44, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Poland/EU

I thought I might point out that the headline:

  • The European Union and 22 member nations sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, resulting in the resignation of the treaty's rapporteur and protests across Poland.

...has the same wikilink on resignation as the one prior. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 12:34, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it's considered OK because the second link is to a specific section of that article. See the nowiki'd version: The [[European Union]] and 22 member nations sign the '''[[Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement]]''', resulting in [[Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement#Rapporteur's resignation|the resignation]] of the treaty's rapporteur and protests across [[Poland]]. Jenks24 (talk) 12:38, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Begging your pardon - I merely rolled the mouse over the section and assumed the editor had "double-exposed" one article, we all do it sometimes accidentally but I now see it is a proper cross-reference. My apologies. Evlekis (Евлекис) (argue) 12:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
No worries, Evlekis. Jenks24 (talk) 12:59, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Fungus looks like a gorilla

The tiny pic of Cyathus. Better not to have at all? Tony (talk) 04:52, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Cropped as a quick fix. Materialscientist (talk) 05:13, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

ITN picture

Seeing Salman Rushdie's face up there for an entire week is starting to give me nightmares.--WaltCip (talk) 23:13, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

File:Salman Rushdie 2011 Shankbone cropped.JPG
Rushdie may break Lugo's record on ITN (if it hasn't done so already)
Can we change the image? I think it's about to break the Fernando Lugo record (if it hasn't done so already). Zzyzx11 (talk) 23:21, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
Except that Lugo was on twice, both for long stretches. —howcheng {chat} 01:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I was about to say, I don't think anything will be able to top Lugo for quite a long while.--WaltCip (talk) 01:25, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
It was up for less than four days -- not that long -- but I've changed it anyway. -- tariqabjotu 02:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

I think Lugo needs his own section on the main page. Raul654 (talk) 23:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Let me just say I wholeheartedly support this idea, as frivolous as it may be. We could do it for April 1st.--WaltCip (talk) 04:58, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Definitely! Top item for April Fools' ITN? Modest Genius talk 12:31, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
Ideally, we could get his article up to FA status in time for April Fools', find something to get him on ITN, and get some new content to put him in DYK. I don't know there is a good OTD subject... j3anders (talk) 18:34, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
This would be humorous only to tiny percentage of the main page's visitors. In recent years, we've agreed to confine inside jokes to editor-facing pages. —David Levy 18:44, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm sure we could come up with a humorous blurb that would amuse everyone. Modest Genius talk 09:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Fernando Lugo is still alive?--WaltCip (talk) 14:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Village pump discussion about Talk:Main Page

Watchers of this page might be interested in chiming in at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Indefinite semi-protection of Talk:Main Page. Jenks24 (talk) 14:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Foreign languages

Something's got weird with the foreign language tags, not only in the Main page but at Wikipedia on its whole — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.246.215.219 (talk) 20:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, it was just fixed at the other pages but it is still a problem ath the Main Page...--46.246.215.219 (talk) 20:02, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
FIXED!--46.246.215.219 (talk) 20:04, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Yep. Someone somewhere pressed the Big Red Button. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

What about ACTA?

I'm interested in your answers to the questions I posted at the link above.

I also have one that I'd like answered here...

How come the blurb about ACTA on the Main page is so vague?

It mentions nothing about its target: the Internet. Or its similarity to PIPA/SOPA. Or the public's concerns about its negotiations not being transparent enough nor their being closed to public debate. The Transhumanist 02:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Because it's in In the News and space is limited. Anybody wanting to find out more about this can click on the link, where it's discussed in detail in the article. Daniel Case (talk) 03:25, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia is electronic. Space is not limited. The Transhumanist 04:20, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
It is in this case, where we have only a fraction of the Main Page to fill. Curious visitors can click the link. — Joseph Fox 06:42, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Current Events/Egypt

I believe the tagline "More than 70 killed" should be changed to "Nearly 80..." it more accurately describes the total number of kills, which is 79. 74.190.83.54 (talk) 01:09, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

See #Errors in In the news above. --70.31.8.76 (talk) 08:53, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Calabria earthquake

"The first of five strong earthquakes hit the region of Calabria in present-day southern Italy." Was Calabria somewhere else in 1783? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.223.190.77 (talk) 11:51, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

As 'Italy as a state' did not exist until the second half of the 19th century the statement is correct. Jackiespeel (talk) 11:55, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

But Italy as a geographical area has been around for considerably longer, and Calabria is in the southern part of it. 87.115.38.213 (talk) 12:52, 5 February 2012 (UTC)
To avoid this dichotomy, I changed it to "Calabria on the Italian Peninsula" instead. —howcheng {chat} 17:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia practices NPOV?

Really? So the 2012 European Men's Handball Championship, whose existence is known but to a few paltry millions, is more noteworthy than the Super Bowl, an event watched by hundreds of millions of people. Y'all wouldn't be suffering from a mild case of Americaphobia, would ya? 98.82.34.127 (talk) 04:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Not a right venue - the entries are prepared at WP:ITN, and the Super Bowl entry is here. Materialscientist (talk) 04:40, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the link; I've posted over there. 98.82.34.127 (talk) 06:27, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

What the Dickens?

Nothing at all about Charlie on the main page today. Bit of a shame.--Rsm77 (talk) 00:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

If Charles Dickens were a featured article, it probably would have been scheduled to appear on the main page today. Unfortunately, it isn't; its 2006 nomination was unsuccessful. —David Levy 00:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Do you see "Bloomsbury" in DYK? ;-> --PFHLai (talk) 03:10, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Well done!

On the handling of the two potentially-controversial sections of the main page. The nude painting's text clearly states "naked human form is the dominant theme and is not intentionally erotic" and the South Park episode's text is clearly shown to focus on the reasons for, and the cultural impact of, the gratuitous nature of the content within that episode. Wikipedia is indeed not censored and it's a shame that the same cannot be said of general education in the overwhelming majority of the planet's countries. ŞůṜīΣĻ¹98¹Speak 09:37, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Request to be sensitive to ENGVAR issues on the main page

Of course this is a triviality compared to the sadness of the event itself, but I would request that the news segment on the violence in Egypt refer to an association football match, rather than just a "football" match. This is the accepted compromise for football (all codes) content on Wikipedia. --Trovatore (talk) 01:33, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I removed a piped link to Association football because this information is not directly relevant. (Which code of football was played before the deadly rioting broke out is an unimportant detail.)
I'm American, incidentally. —David Levy 01:46, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
The piped link doesn't address my concern in any case. I think it should say association football in the text. I agree it's unimportant compared to the event, but that isn't my point. --Trovatore (talk) 01:57, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
I considered switching to "association football", but because this term is unfamiliar to many, it requires a link to Association football. And the item is about deadly rioting (not the football match itself), so it seems inappropriate to include such a link (which has very little relevance).
My point is that it's unnecessary to specify which code of football was played. To comprehend the blurb, readers needn't possess this information (just as they needn't know which clubs participated or the name of the league to which they belong). —David Levy 02:22, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
That is true, but beside the point. The point is that the term football should not appear anywhere in Wikipedia without being glossed at some point in the page. --Trovatore (talk) 02:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Why? —David Levy 02:32, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Because there are contingents that want football to mean their preferred code by default. The use of the term association football is part of a compromise that prevents the establishment of such a default, which would violate the spirit of WP:ENGVAR. --Trovatore (talk) 02:44, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
We have an Association football article. We also have a Football article, which pertains to football in general. In this context, conveying "football in general" is sufficient. We aren't assigning the word "football" to a particular code, nor are we setting any sort of precedent to not specify the code when it actually matters. —David Levy 03:04, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
If it's not necessary to specify which type of football, why would it be necessary to specify what type of sporting event? Or that it was a sporting event rather than some other gathering? Why not just say simply "More than 70 people are killed in crowd violence in Port Said, Egypt."? My view is that if mentioning it was a football match specifically is deemed necessary, then the type of football match is relevant as well. -- 140.142.20.101 (talk) 18:41, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Mentioning "crowd violence" alone would leave readers wondering why a crowd was assembled.
"Sporting event" would convey sufficient context, but such wording would be highly unusual (in reference to a specific event) and would provide absolutely no benefit. The idea is to use normal English in a manner that focuses on the key details, not to deliberately introduce inexplicable vagueness. —David Levy 19:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
In that context, the football code is directly relevant (and I see nothing "obnoxious" about specifying it). —David Levy 19:16, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Nobody in the world habitually refers to the game as association football: although the word soccer is used in UK media, many UK football fans dislike the word because it is interpreted as an Americanism. Association football should no more be used in prose than any other formal but unused term: William Clinton anyone? Kevin McE (talk) 20:02, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
The phrase soccer of course is not an Americanism; it comes from Britain. The only thing that's American about it is using it as the official name of the sport rather than as an informal nickname. But I have no problem with avoiding soccer; what's unacceptable is the unmodified use of football at first reference, as though football were association football by default. The accepted compromise seems to be, call it association football at first reference and football thereafter (similarly American football at first reference and football thereafter). --Trovatore (talk) 21:24, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Again, we aren't treating association football as the default meaning of "football". (I'll remind you that I'm American.) We're simply mentioning "football" without elaboration/linking that's largely irrelevant to the blurb (which is about deadly rioting, not a football competition). The same wording would be equally appropriate if the tragedy had occurred in the United States, Canada, Australia or Ireland.
You've acknowledged that the football code is unimportant in this context. Your desire to specify "association football" seems to be based on principle, not on a concern that the current wording fails to convey essential information. —David Levy 22:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
I was responding to Kevin McE in the above post, not to you. I reluctantly acknowledge that your argument holds water for the specific instance in question. --Trovatore (talk) 22:40, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
Oh, whoops, I thought that you were still referring to the blurb. My apologies for the confusion. —David Levy 22:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
While we are making it clear: I was not describing soccer as an Americanism, but surmising the (irrational) reason that many English fans of the game dislike the term. I would uphold it as the most ENGVAR/VNE friendly name for the sport, although my natural inclination (apart from when talking to my nephews in Ireland) is to call it football. Kevin McE (talk) 00:12, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
The more rational objection to the use of soccer is that it is colloquial in British English and it is strange (from a British point if view) to read it in formal writing. ReadingOldBoy (talk) 13:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

On the other hand, is it irrelevant what code of football was played? Is there not some kind of association between association football and hooliganism? What if the riot had followed an American football game, a rugby game, a curling competition, a figure-skating event? How do we decide what's relevant? JIMp talk·cont 01:11, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

This is one of many aspects that can be covered in an in-depth encyclopedia article (provided that there are reliable sources). In the context of a one-sentence blurb, it isn't a fundamental detail. The ITN item is intended to convey the event's basic nature and direct readers to the article for more information, not to address its broader societal implications. —David Levy 02:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
You could use this logic to include the religion of the rioters. After all, isn't there "some kind of association" between Muslims and violence? 97.89.52.45 (talk) 23:52, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Unrelated comment: I think it's pretty obvious what code is being played if we're given the country, with the exceptions of Australia and Canada; if I read "football" in relation to the Super Bowl, I'd think of handegg. If I read "football" in relation to the FA Cup, I'd think of soccer. Sceptre (talk) 01:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

A The More You Know moment. (cue music) I had no idea that American football had even had the nickname "handegg," but it does, first reference dated to 1909, so says Wiktionary. hbdragon88 (talk) 07:18, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
Per Sceptre, we can safely assume that the "football" being played anywhere in the world other than in North America is "soccer". Only in a North American context would we need to worry about clarifying it. 86.176.214.88 (talk) 00:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC).
Your statement covers American football and Canadian football. Australian rules football and Gaelic football are commonly referred to as "football" too. —David Levy 00:38, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
What David said. Rugby league, rugby union, touch football, gridiron football in Australia are all football codes in Australia. The context of who uses what is dependent on a region in Australia and a person's background. (Association football in Australia is problematic as a term, because in several places the term actually means Australian rules football.) --LauraHale (talk) 00:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
OK, fair enough, there are some other places too. But the general gist of my point remains. In "almost every" country, "football" means "soccer". 86.176.214.88 (talk) 01:36, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
Among residents of countries in which the English language predominates (collectively), "football" is more likely to mean something other than "soccer". —David Levy 02:26, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
The "global" meaning of "football" is "soccer". There are local exceptions. 86.179.113.220 (talk) 02:39, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
When two-thirds of a language's native speakers use a word to mean something other than x, this hardly constitutes an "exception" within said language. —David Levy 22:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
When the term "football" is searched within Wikipedia it refers to a "genre" of sports, if you will, that involve the handling of the ball with feet i.e. kicking. In the "Football" article, the term is divided between different sports including but not limited to: American football, Australian rules football, and rugby. --talk 02:41, 7 February 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.166.128.73 (talk)
According to some sources, the name "football" was derived from the fact that the games were played on foot (i.e. not on horseback). —David Levy 22:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
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