Talk:Main Page/Archive 170

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Archive 165

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Archive 168

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Discussion on image placement in ITN

There's a discussion going on here on how to properly place images in the Main page In The News feature. Feel free to comment over there if you have an opinion. --Jayron32 17:29, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Whatever happens there, it would look awkward if ITN has its pic not on the top while the rest of the panels are on top. DYKs are not affected on this (the lead blurb and the thumb are always connected), so only OTDs will be affected as there are instances where the thumb isn't connected to the first blurb (this is apparent when the first blurb doesn't have a relevant pic since it's the "oldest" blurb there). –H T D 17:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

There are different issues that affect OTD than affect ITN, so it would not be unreasonable for the two sections to decide to handle images differently. Which is not to say they would or wouldn't, but the current discussion is about ITN and ITN alone, for the time being. This is a situation which has been brewing for a long time, and comes up all the time both here at Talk:Main page and at Wikipedia talk:In the news, but to my knowledge, despite all the discussions and grumbling, there hasn't before been a formal discussion over the issue. It is a problem as evidenced by how often it comes up, but it's never been adequately dealt with, even if it doesn't need to be dealt with. We just don't know where the community lies on the issue. The discussion is going quite well, and the introductory reading raises some interesting issues which really don't apply to OTD that often (like BLP issues and other things). Please feel free to contribute to the discussion and offer your opinions. You are most welcome to. --Jayron32 18:11, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

There's one sole issue: that inability of the lead blurb to supply a thumbnail. Both OTD and ITN have this issue, but ITN's amplified because it's above the fold. I'm indifferent on how the "problem" is to be solved, but the folks at OTD have to be consulted first so that they can use whatever solution ITN comes up with, as it is also "useful" for them. –H T D 18:16, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

If you have concerns, whatever they may be, please particpate in the discussion. Issues noted here are fairly impotent. --Jayron32 18:18, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Or important, depending on your optimism/pessimism on the ability of the front page to adapt. Acroterion (talk) 18:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

No, I meant to say impotent. They are important, yes, but if left on this page and not mentioned in the actual discussion, they will not have any effect on the results of the discussion. Thus, they will be impotent. --Jayron32 18:25, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I tend to share your pessimism. Much on WP depends on knowing where to raise an issue, in what format, and for which audience, and it changes from week to week. Acroterion (talk) 19:03, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It's not pessimism, and it isn't Wikipedia. If I write a letter to the U.N. secretary general about a broken stoplight, it doesn't get fixed. Recognizing where to raise issues in an effective manner is an important skill in all walks of life, and it isn't arbitrary as you imply. There are right and wrong places to complain, and there are right and wrong ways to complain, and it's an easily learnable skill. Anyone can be taught how to properly effect change. It also isn't pessimism to reconize that there is a discussion going on which is specifically designated to fix the problem, and then to note that posting a contribution to that discussion somewhere else won't get noticed. That's not pessimistic, it's just common sense. Of course, this discussion is purely academic. HTD, long ago and immediately after being notified, made some good contributions to the discussion in question. Still, it's was worth noting that I wasn't being pessimistic about this. --Jayron32 19:13, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Discussion on "Recent Deaths" at ITN

Over at ITN there is a discussion about including a 1-2 line short list of recent deaths near the bottom of the ITN template. Please drop by and voice your opinion on the matter if you get the chance. Cheers, Zaldax (talk) 18:37, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Resurrect idea of orange fixit box

Some feedback seemed positive when I first raised this at Talk:Main_Page/Archive_165#An_idea_for_converting_readers_to_editors....3F, so I have proposed this at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Orange_fixit_box_on_mainpage. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:48, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Neil Armstrong

Should the death of Neil Armstrong be put into the "In the News" section? 89.240.116.232 (talk) 19:47, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Can we use an image where he looks into the text per MOS:IMAGELOCATION 188.29.77.142 (talk) 09:00, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe a cropped version of this one: File:Neil Armstrong.jpg? 109.153.196.253 (talk) 09:05, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe nobody here really cares. 86.166.18.87 (talk) 20:10, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

How do I turn off Jimbo Wales' money begging Ads

I have tried using Ad-Block Plus and it doesn't seem to work with these ads (it does work in all other sites I've browsed), and it is getting really annoying to see them all over the place, starting in the Main Page, even though when you X them they don't disappear when I go to another page. 189.215.203.123 (talk) 19:54, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Your question has been answered here: Wikipedia_talk:Spam#Jimbo_Wales_Spam. To other people though, has the 2012 fund-raiser started? I didn't think it had. SmartSE (talk) 20:52, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

The fundraising committee usually runs tests of ads to try and work out which would be the most effective, although I was under the impression these appear randomly so the OP should not have seen the ads continuously. But I could be mistaken. Also, while it has had problems in the past, I believe the X normally should disable them for a long time for anonymous editors, provided they aren't stopping pr deleting cookies or javascript (and of course presuming they use the same browser). If you are using adblock plus and other similar tools, I could imagine they are potentially misinterpreting the cookie used to disable the ad as a tracking cookie and stopping it. Nil Einne (talk) 03:16, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I haven't noticed them this year at all. Where are they? Discuss-Dubious (talk) 02:42, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Register and get a proper account and switch off the ads in your preferences. Or just don't visit this site. Either is fine. Lugnuts ^{And the horse} 08:32, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:Civil /81.170.148.21 (talk) 17:15, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Anon wanted a solution, I offered two. Thanks. Lugnuts ^{And the horse} 19:31, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

The IP asked how to turn off the ads, not how to not see them. The second part of your response was unhelpful. Considering there's a push to attract new editors to Wikipedia, advising people to not visit the site is hardly polite or in line with Wikipedia's goals. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 23:56, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Noscript. I am unregistered and using Noscript and AdBlock and don't see schiess. -208.19.12.83 (talk) 20:29, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

I used too many "ands" in that sentence too by the way. -208.19.12.83 (talk) 20:30, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Too many shells

I don't think we should have any more of these shell pictures featured on the front page, at least not for a long while. They are too samey. 86.183.2.108 (talk) 01:22, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

The Shell wiki [1] exists - and needs some development. Jackiespeel (talk) 09:10, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Misleading DYK hooks

I imagine someone will tell me that this is a discussion for WT:DYK, but given that DYK repeatedly approves these hooks, they've apparently decided this is okay.

On a somewhat frequent basis, DYK promotes hooks that are intentionally misleading, relying on a pun in the subject's name to suggest something silly that is not exactly the case. I'm not sure if this is for humor (probably), but often times these pun hooks are met with complaints that something is "wrong". In response, it's usually reworded to not be misleading.

Once again, we have one of these blurbs:

Did you know that in Gibraltar, a mole's elbow is a site of control for the harbour?

The concept here is obviously absurd. Only upon reading the article do you see what makes more sense: The mole is the North Mole (coming from an uncommon term for a jetty), rather than the animal of the same name. The elbow is not a body part, but a reference to a part of the North Mole that abruptly turns. The site of control is a reference to a control room in a lighthouse. Correct, sure, but the misdirection is quite obvious.

This here is actually not an egregious example, as it uses standard capitalization, and the terms "mole" and "elbow" are actually used in real life to refer to the features in question here. Nevertheless, I don't think these blurbs should be accepted outside April Fools' Day. DYK is the only Main Page section that thinks it's okay to apply the joke principle used on April 1 to content on other days of the year. Why? I don't know, but I think it needs to stop. -- tariqabjotu 00:55, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

What can I say except "agree"? Formerip (talk) 00:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I would have to disagree with this. I think that the idea behind this is to get the user to check out the article, as they might wonder why a mole's elbow is controlling a harbor. I do think that there has been a bit of creep over the years from them being witty only on April Fools, but I honestly see no harm being done. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 01:26, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

That's why it's called a hook. PumpkinSky talk 01:39, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, tariq. Hooks should attract readers because they outline an interesting or unusual detail of the target article, not trick them into reading the article because of deceptive wording. This isn't appropriate. – NULL ‹talk›
‹edits› 02:24, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This is a legitimate meaning of the word mole, and if the term did not have homonyms, it's not so odd of a wording it couldn't be the hook (it didn't strike me as odd). Looks reasonable then. —innotata 02:30, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I think it's fine. A mole by any other name... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:43, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Nah, DYK is fine. Don't we have something better to do than ruin the joy of others? --Jayron32 04:20, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
- The 'joy' of editors shouldn't hinder the clear transfer of information to the reader. Whether people get their jollies from writing misleading DYK blurbs isn't relevant, the question is more whether this kind of blurb is appropriate. – NULL ‹talk›
  ‹edits› 05:09, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

This hook is not misleading, and the statement "only upon reading the article do you see what makes more sense" is incorrect. I understood what the hook meant when I saw it on the main page, without needing to read the article. The reason for this is that the hook has context. Specifically, after reading the whole sentence, one sees that it is talking about a harbour. Moles (architecture) are a common feature of harbours, whereas moles (animal) are not. A mole is not a jetty, and nor is it an especially uncommon word - it's been in my vocabulary since I was eight years old. If Wikipedia has readers whose vocabulary is more limited, then their vocabulary will be broadened once they click through to the article. I don't like to see misleading hooks at DYK, but this is not a misleading hook. Get us an example of a misleading hook, then we can have a useful discussion. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 12:47, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
If the aim was to get people to understand the meaning of the blurb, it wouldn't have been written that way, plain and simple. Regardless of the fact that you knew this word from eight years old (congratulations), I'm still fairly confident that this doesn't fit under the set of common words in the English language. And for those who don't know the word, they're not left thinking "hmm... I don't understand this word, so let me look it up", they're left thinking the blurb meant one thing (albeit something ridiculous) when it ought to mean another. There are certainly other ways to reword this blurb that are much less awkward and convey the same information. But that wasn't done. Instead, it was intentionally worded this way for the sake of misdirection. The vast majority of blurbs on DYK involve no misdirection; they present facts that on their own draw readers in. If a fact is considered so plain that DYK must resort to misdirection to make it interesting, a different fact should be chosen. -- tariqabjotu 13:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
It seems we disagree about whether this hook was misleading or not. I suggest that you help out in reviewing DYK hooks at Template talk:Did you know so that in the future you can raise concerns in advance about hooks that appear to you to be misleading. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 14:56, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
Even the others supporting this hook have acknowledged the double meaning of the phrase "mole's elbow". You seem unwilling to do that -- apparently to support your suggestion that an eight-year-old should have been able to understand the blurb -- yet I'm sure you wouldn't have been happy if I just reworded the blurb (as I was about to do) to remove the questionable phrase. If your contribution here is simply denying the obvious, I don't really care about your advice on moving forward and I'm not sure you really have anything helpful to contribute. -- tariqabjotu 16:44, 24 August 2012 (UTC)
If there's a need to write material immediately understandable to that age group, then Simple English Wikipedia is the place to do it. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 17:57, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I fail to see a problem--standard capitalization, standard usage of all the terms and easily understandable once the cursor even hovers over the link, revealing the article's name, never mind once you click on the actual link and read the article. It seems to perfectly serve the purpose of a hook and is no where close to the kind of stuff featured on April Fool's Day. The whole point of Wikipedia, and DYK in particular, is to introduce people to new knowledge. If someone doesn't know about other usages of mole and elbow then they have the opportunity to learn something new and be better off for it. Sounds like a win-win situation. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 00:26, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Okay, well given that such misdirection is impossible to see, I'll be sure to just skip the discussion next time and just rearrange the words to remove the double meaning that apparently was not intended and that only a few people see. Oh, please, forget I ever brought this up. I thought we'd at least be able to begin at the starting point that there was a double meaning in "mole's elbow", but I guess that was too much to ask. -- tariqabjotu 03:25, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
If you mean that you intend to use your admin bit to edit through protection in order to make changes that seem important to you but for which there is no consensus, and that you're going to do so without discussion because this discussion didn't go the way you wanted, then I suggest that's not a great idea. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 06:44, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Let me repeat myself as it wasn't apparently clear: "If your contribution here is simply denying the obvious, I don't really care about your advice on moving forward". This discussion was a matter of courtesy. If you think someone would have cried admin abuse if I had reworded a blurb -- as I have done in the past, as I could have done this time, or as I may do in the future -- you're sorely mistaken. Someone may disagree and someone may even change it back, but rewording content on the Main Page in any section is within an admin's discretion and is done all the time without any prior discussion and without fanfare. There's consensus for very little here, except perhaps that this blurb was fine. In my opening comment, I stated this was not an egregious case and I recognized that (or else I would have changed the blurb and then maybe started a discussion). I fully anticipated some of the remarks saying that this blurb or the idea of blurbs that rely on double meanings are okay. And that's fine. But what I didn't anticipate is the kind of arrogant remarks, coming more from you than Agne to be honest, implying that I'm an idiot for even thinking that there was another possible reading. You're not acknowledging the double meaning and saying it's acceptable; you're denying that a double meaning exists. Of course, this is ludicrous, and quite plainly manufactured to emphasize your position that the blurb is fine. But if you're going to play that game, you can't actually expect me to heed to your position when another double meaning comes up. After all, if no double meaning exists, a modification to the blurb is just what happens on the Main Page on a daily basis, with nothing lost. -- tariqabjotu 12:26, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Uncontroversial editing through protection is fine. Doing it to make a WP:POINT - "I'll be sure to just skip the discussion next time and just rearrange the words to remove the double meaning that apparently was not intended" - is not. Quite frankly, I think you're taking it all a little too personally, and would do well to step back a bit and take a deep breath. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:18, 25 August 2012 (UTC)
Okay. Duly ignored. -- tariqabjotu 23:49, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

There is a double meaning, that cannot be disputed. The hook works because of this. If you say to the vast majority of people "mole's elbow" then they would think about the arm joint of a small mammal, and even those already familiar with the other meanings know that too. I must say that I do like hooks like this but only if they are the exception rather than the rule and as long as they are not too twisted out of context - save that for April Fool's. This one is borderline because it doesn't read very well ("a site of control"?) and I would not have been against it being changed. However, there have been some very good dual-meaning hooks and we should aim to keep them. violet/riga _^[talk] 12:38, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I like the double meaning hooks as well, for much the same reason as violetriga. I am actually more likely to click on a double-meaning link if I do not understand it, precisely because it leads to something I did not (previously) understand. If I thought I already understood it fully and was pressed for time (as who among us is not?), why would I click the link? (Oh, and mole-as-garden-animal is common among books and films aimed at eight-year-olds. Consider the main characters of The Wind in the Willows.) - Tenebris 21:46, 27 August 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.29.142 (talk)

POTD list hacked?

In the list of POTDs for the past few days on the Main Page, the name of the oldest one appears to have been hacked, despite being a protected template. See comment Template talk:POTD protected/2012-08-28. Cheers, Bahudhara (talk) 00:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I got this. I think it could have been from the base template (but dunno which one that is...) — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:55, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Death of Aboud Rogo

2,000 people rioting in Mombasa after the death of Aboud Rogo is not news. At least, not enough of news to be put on the main page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.11.154.97 (talk) 20:38, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Pls see WP:ITN/C. --142.1.32.35 (talk) 21:04, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I have a question

Does someone knows which is Wikipedia account that had most blocks ??? I want only to know --82.139.5.13 (talk) 12:14, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

If you want to know who's made the most blocks, it's at WP:ADMINSTATS, and the answer is always User:ProcseeBot, a bot with admin privileges that seeks out likely open proxies for blocking. It has made nearly half a million, more than ten times as many as User:Materialscientist, in second place and the leader among humans.

If you want to know which user has been blocked the most times, I don't think we keep that one. Daniel Case (talk) 14:00, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

This i wanted to say, who was blocked most times !!! --82.139.5.13 (talk) 14:22, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

And it probably wouldn't be a good idea to start, as such statistics would serve as trophies for vandals/trolls and the opposite for well-intentioned contributors (whose blocks might or might not have been justified). —David Levy 14:23, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

WP:BEANS could definitely apply meshach (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

No it won't. As of January this year the most blocked account was ThisIsaTest (talk · contribs), an account used by administrators for testing the block button. I doubt it has changed since. Hut 8.5 15:33, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

How can they be sure if the block works if the user won't ever edit? :P –H T D 17:49, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The account has one edit. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:13, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

1883 Eruption in "On this Date" 26 August 2012

Does it not seem a little odd and inaccurate to say "biggest explosion in human history" to discuss a geological event with the implication of it being measured against "human" achievements? It seems to me there should be a more accurate way of saying this. --ColonelHenry (talk) 15:22, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

I didn't interpret it as "being measured against "human" achievements" (after all, what would it be measured against? The Tsar Bomba?), but I see your point. Mabye: "biggest explosion in recorded history"? Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 17:54, 26 August 2012 (UTC) (Actually, that is what it's compared to) Mysterious Whisper (SHOUT) 17:58, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Well to me, they don't actually say the same thing. 'Human history' implies any time in the history of humans which is a fairly imprecise term, but would likely refer to after Anatomically modern humans, generally taken to be 200k years ago. 'Recorded history' implies after humas started to record stuff which was much, much later and varies significantly depending on culture. With things like volcanoes, we do have a fair idea of some stuff which happened before recorded history. But anyway, this is largely besides the point since neither appear to be accurate. Volcanic Explosivity Index suggests 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora was a larger explosion, and the article on that also suggests it was the largest in recorded history. But to somewhat illustrate my earlier points, I should mention the Minoan eruption was evidentally also larger then Krakatoa, but although after the earliest period of recorded history, we have no clear cut records of it (our article still calls it one of the largest in recorded history). Mount Mazama and Toba catastrophe theory were both before recorded history but I believe their relative size and timing is accepted enough to be clear that they were during a time after anatomically modern humans and larger then Krakatoa (Toba larger then all the rest mentioned) even if the link to a bottleneck is perhaps not universally accepted yet. And remember, for most of these eruptions, the size estimates primarily come not from records but from recent day analysis of various effects of the volcanic eruptions. Of course some may argue the so called human prehistory is not human history, but I think this is unclear enough that we should avoid the term 'human history' unless we really mean sometime before recorded history. If we mean recorded history, just say so. In this case, I suggest we change it to 'one of......recorded history' for some degree of clarity, even if the significance of 'recorded history' is unclear here. Nil Einne (talk) 19:26, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Also rediculous considering that there have been supernovas recorded in human history. Well, at least the evidence of the supernova arrived during human history, but that's why superlatives like this need to be avoided. Once you work all of the qualifiers in to make them accurate, it no longer becomes all that interesting as a superlative. --Jayron32 04:52, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Technically, since "history" only covers periods where there are written records, saying "human history" is redundant. And I agree, misleading. "Largest recorded explosion" would be the best, least controversial, way of stating it. 83.70.170.48 (talk) 08:38, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, "on earth" would be a needed qualification. We've certainly recorded larger explosions. See my note above on supernovas. See Crab Nebula for just one example; that explosion was much larger than any volcano. --Jayron32 15:42, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

And just as important, as I mentioned above it was not the largest recorded volcanic explosion. (As I also mentioned above, while that may be the technical definition of the term 'history' it's rather confusing particularly in this context and should be avoided.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:19, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

New number updates to the Wikipedia languages

The "More than 700,000 articles" should be changed to "More than 750,000 articles", as the Portuguese (smallest) passed the 750k mark (with possibility that some are stubs).
– HonorTheKing (talk) 17:03, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Of course, the number isn't wrong, as 750,000 is still more than 700,000. --Jayron32 17:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree that 750,000 just looks better. It's more of a "round number" and seems less contrived than 700k. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:12, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, we update a tier when this occurs. I've done so. —David Levy 19:45, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

It may be more esthetically pleasing, but as a side note, 700,000 is more of a round number than 750,000 because it has less non-zero digits. 750,000 is an order of magnitude more precise. --Jayron32 03:50, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, 750,000 subjectively "looks better" because it's 3/4 of a million (and commonly used in such contexts for that reason). It also matches the other two tiers ("50,000" and "150,000").

Of course, we perform such updates even when they make the number less aesthetically pleasing (e.g. when we went from "500,000" to "650,000"). Past discussions have shown that it's considered preferable for the number to accurately reflect the quantity of the tier's smallest Wikipedia, rounded down to the nearest 50,000. —David Levy 04:20, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

My guess is that once it hits 1,000,000 it will stop being updated as often. But only time will tell. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:37, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that your prediction will prove accurate. A desire to get the number closer to "1,000,000" probably plays a role in the current consensus. —David Levy 06:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

ITN

Looks a little dated. Rich Farmbrough, 20:17, 28 August 2012 (UTC).

Updated just now. --BorgQueen (talk) 20:18, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

Why no picture? Mjroots (talk) 07:53, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

See the section below, which was started after your post. Graham87 05:13, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Obligatory surprised-to-see-no-image-for-ITN post

Apparently a suggestion from Wikipedia talk:In the news#Dislocated ITN images is being tested. Thought some other people may, like me, have been surprised and looking here for explanation.

Also, is this the first time a photo showing a dead body's appeared as POTD? --115.67.98.13 (talk) 08:03, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

POTD has had dead bodies show up before, sometimes a little more gruesome than this, but there have only been a handful. —howcheng {chat} 13:22, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

It is worth noting that, of all of the options (including a status quo option) the option being tested had the most people choosing it as their 1st or 2nd choice; only 2 people stated they outright opposed the option, and only 2-3 put it as lower than their second choice (of the 8 options listed). Maybe this test run will generate some additional feedback. If anyone has anything they would like to contribute to the ongoing discussion, you may do so at WT:ITN. --Jayron32 13:43, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

That is a very selective reading of the !votes. Those who cast a "first and only" choice anywhere else can be assumed to believe that no other option merits any support, and so can be counted as opposed to this. Kevin McE (talk) 14:20, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

(ec)It's not really clear what option is being tested but the two options that could result in no image being shown had only one first choice vote between them. Anyway, it's been a very successful test but can we end it now? Formerip (talk) 14:23, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

There are three options that could result in no picture; D had nine first choice votes, E had one, and F had either one or two: one comment is ambiguous. Although on what basis the Paralympics is deemed to have no image available when there are two in the articl, I know not. Kevin McE (talk) 15:53, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe it's not that option that's being tested.

I missed option D. There are so damn many of them. Formerip (talk) 15:55, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Neither image depicts the actual event. In the context of the article, they illustrate the venue (which is covered there), but they're essentially irrelevant to the ITN blurb. —David Levy 17:54, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

I surprisingly liked how this looked. –H T D 13:48, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Look at all the whitespace under OTD! Maybe more things happened OTD when there aren't pictures ITN? 109.148.135.64 (talk) 14:13, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

While other sections are sometimes modified for balance, IMO that would be more trouble then it's worth. Makes more sense to just handle it internally on ITN. Nil Einne (talk) 15:47, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

ITN should bring back the last blurb that was removed so that OTD's header will align itself with DYK's. –H T D 15:51, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

BorgQueen restored an item at 15:32. On my end, this achieved approximate balance (with the right-hand column containing slightly more lines of text under some settings). People's setups (including display sizes, aspect ratios, resolutions, browsers, window sizes and text sizes) vary wildly, so the balance will never be perfect for everyone.

When the DYK and OTD headings come close to aligning (which also depends upon the user's settings), the page actually tends to look worse (because the alignment almost always is slightly off, which appears accidental). Conversely, when the headings are nowhere near alignment, it's obvious that this isn't our objective. —David Levy 17:54, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

What, exactly, are the criteria for "success" here? Were they made clear to all voters before the trial began? Or do we get to vote again? 20.133.0.13 (talk) 14:48, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

This isn't anything that formal. Retaining the image would have resulted in the type of situation that led to the recent complaints (a top blurb about a highly controversial person next to a photograph of someone else), so there probably would have been calls for the image's removal anyway. —David Levy 17:54, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

No World War II?

The "On this day" fails to mention that today (September, 1st) that Germany invaded Poland, starting the Second World war., and personally, I think that's kinda important. --Thedudefromneverland (talk) 20:17, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

As explained at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries and on each of the individual dates' pages, "the events listed on the main page are chosen based more on relative article quality and to maintain a mix of topics, not based solely on how important or significant their subjects are."

Nonetheless, an item about the Invasion of Poland appeared every year until 2012. As noted at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/September 1, the article currently is ineligible for inclusion (due to a maintenance tag in place since February). —David Levy 21:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Besides, Gleiwitz incident appeared on August 31 this year, so in the interest of topic diversity, Invasion of Poland would have taken a break anyway even if it had been eligible to appear. —howcheng {chat} 23:58, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Democracy Day in Tibet?

The article says "the anniversary of which is observed by the Tibetan exile community as Democracy Day", and Tibetan exile community does not equal to Tibet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.22.21.3 (talk) 01:13, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

We're a bit limited for space in that section, I think. — foxj 17:48, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

218.22.21.3 makes a valid point though—if anyone were to celebrate Democracy Day in Tibet, there's a very good chance they'd be shot. As it currently reads, the sentence is extremely misleading. Mogism (talk) 17:51, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Suggestions welcome. — foxj 18:47, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Spam

Reporting Spam: Someone's claimed today 'In the news section' - "In Mali, Islamist militants seize control of Douentza, ousting the local secular militia." Please don't label-ise militants as followers of Islam, coz Islam teaches PEACE! ME, I'm not a Muslim, but watched - My Name Is Khan. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.131.116.162 (talk) 14:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Because never do anything violent, ever. Hot Stop 15:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem you run into is the whole "No True Scotsman" thing. If you start slicing and dicing group membership definitions to surgically excise everyone who would reflect poorly on that group, the definition of the group becomes nebulous enough to be meaningless. - That said, the question of whether they count as "Islamist" is a good one. I think by objective criteria they do. As far as I can tell, they self-identify as Islamist, are fighting with the primary goal of instituting Sharia law in the area, and have been identified as "Islamist" in a number of reliable sources. At Wikipedia we attempt to avoid rendering judgement ourselves, and for the most part defer to the judgement of reliable sources and self-identification of participants. If you have reliable sources that cast doubt on the classification of the people in question as "Islamist militants", please bring them to the attention of the people editing the relevant articles. Finally, you should keep in mind that Islamist and Islamic are related but distinct concepts. -- 205.175.124.30 (talk) 19:02, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Recent riots in Northern Ireland would not be described as perpetrated by "Protestant militants". A point expressed too severely is still a point. And in this case, a relevant one in my opinion. 83.70.170.48 (talk) 15:37, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Associated Press currently calls them "Protestant extremists", so is that what you meant? Art LaPella (talk) 17:48, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Sources closer to the story call them "protesters" and "loyalists", labels they would call themselves. 83.70.170.48 (talk) 08:34, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Such generalisation is a form of weasel wording and sloppy journalism. Wikipedia should set higher standards especially on the main page. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 19:57, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not a pejorative term in the applied context, there are no discriminatory undertones. James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 9:35pm • 11:35, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Christ taught peace as well. I doubt it would be controversial to call people on the Crusades Christians and they instigated a lot of violence. If that they were Muslims were coincidental and not part of their main mission it would be inappropriate. For the Northern Ireland counter example - this is more mixed, sometimes their religious affiliation is mentioned, sometimes not - it is less clear cut (for example historically Catholic IRA supporters might socialize with English Protestants without problems, just not Irish Protestants, which suggests it became more localized than just a purely religious schism. --81.149.74.231 (talk) 10:50, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I think everyone, including the original poster, has missed the subtle difference between "Islamic militants" and "Islamist militants". We've called them the latter, not the former. The former ("Islamic") would be a descriptive tag and we could argue about whether it was closer to (silly examples follow) "Icelandic militants" (fine) or "fat militants" (not so fine). However, "Islamist", describes their cause, not their religion, and is entirely appropriate. --Dweller (talk) 20:37, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

TFL archives

I'm not sure how it could best be done, but is there any way a link to the TFL archives (currently Wikipedia:Today's featured list/September 2012) can be included on the main page for days when TFL doesn't appear? It would make finding it a lot easier for users who missed it on the Monday.Optimist on the run (talk) 06:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree. To be honest, I think a 'recently featured' link the the most recent three lists, much like we have on TFA would be a good idea. I'm not sure where best to put it, though, considering that the template doesn't appear six days of the week, and I'm not sure about leaving it up all that time. 31.53.44.76 (talk) 07:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

For the record, the lack of the three most recent lists this Monday was a result of human error. I'm going to look into the possibility of making the recently featured parameter manditory, so that if it does happen again someone will fix it.

The suggestion above is a good one, although I'm struggling to think where we could put the link. When TFL isn't running, the only plausible places that I can see are at the bottom of TFA (TFL's closest relative), or TFP (only two links at the bottom compared to three everywhere else), but I wouldn't want to encroach on either section. Even if the community liked one of those ideas, it would be a royal pain for the people that maintain those sections to remember to remove duplicate the link on Mondays and re-add on Tuesdays. —WFC— 04:49, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with Wikicode and what may or may not be feasible, but would it be possible to keep TFL (this week's featured list?) on the mainpage all week, but on all days save Monday collapse the template to just the title bar (TFL) and the three recent featured lists (but with the option to expand should a reader which to see the list)? Stops any encroachment then. 31.53.44.76 (talk) 12:34, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I like that idea, and it should be feasible to implement. If other users seem supportive, I'll see if I can produce a sandbox version to test it.Optimist on the run (talk) 17:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Can't say that I'm keen on the idea of stale content being on the Main Page for three or four days, even if it is collapsed. It would probably reduce the interest in TFL, as users get bored of seeing the same thing day in, day out. At least with ITN, stories evolve in the days after the main incident. —WFC— 15:45, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

nothing on the 2012 Quebec election and the shooting at the PQ victory rally?

I am very shocked and surprised that either has not made the top news on Wikipedia as both are big current events in Canada, and should been given more reconision than what they have by wikipedia and world news. So far only seen it covered by BBC News. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.180.155.198 (talk) 05:53, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

On the BBC, this isn't even the top Canada story. (That'd be the discovery of floating trunk containing a human torso.) The shooting only occurs as a brief mention in the story about the Quebec election. But in any case, if you want to nominate events for In The News, the page you want is thataway. For the record, we don't normally report on regional/territorial elections. AlexTiefling (talk) 11:01, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

For the record, the main story was not about the regional election. Unlike what sounds like a fair bit of the rest of the world, political shootings were unheard of in Canada -- until now. But I take your point about the nominating page. - Tenebris 13:25, 11 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.254.156.104 (talk)

Paralympics summary

Event is over, going to stop this debate now before it becomes just another US v World. — foxj 12:10, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I'm sure this has been addressed before, but i don't know where to search for the discussion... can you tell me why there was an "Olympic summary" link in the news box but there isn't for the paralympics? Thank you.

Walkabout86 (talk) 17:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

The Paralympics receive much less attention. See Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates/August 2012#Summer Paralympics sticky. PrimeHunter (talk) 20:46, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

great event at its best — Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.90.141.116 (talk) 05:07, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Apparently, the US channel gave the entire Paralympics 4 hours of highlights and 0 hours of live coverage. While I and maybe you may find that shocking, it seems that the love affair us Brits, for example, had with the Paralympics may not have been shared globally. WP:WORLDVIEW --Dweller (talk) 10:53, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

In the UK it's been been on multiple TV channels all day in the US almost nothing. But what about other countries? Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 11:04, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Plenty on TV coverage in Australia, live and otherwise, several hours every day. As someone close to disabled sport for many years, it's apparent that the US is not as well organised on this front as it could be. The US finished sixth on the medal table, behind China, Russia, GB, Ukraine and Australia. So, no the US apparently isn't very interested, but other countries are. We must not let the US lack of interest influence this global encyclopaedia. HiLo48 (talk) 11:17, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Like I said...

Discussion on this topic is now closed. Everyone is welcome to create, or improve, any relevant article to increase the pool available for selection at TFA, OTD and ITN. Bencherlite ^Talk 11:19, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The US would get mentioned today, and yet you ignored both the London and Indian massacres. I bet you're still gonna come back with something like "but we're not US Centric". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.20.36.39 (talk) 05:45, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Right, because idly complaining about things has changed injustice exactly zero times in history. So keep up the good work! Correcting the bias that does exist is not done this way. But, as long as you are interested in not fixing the bias problems at Wikipedia, you go right on complaining about it and doing nothing to fix it! --Jayron32 06:34, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It does seem similar to US coverage of Olympics opening ceremony, where NBC cut to an interview with Phelps during a terrorism memorial segment... and then a commentator complained about the lack of any memorial during the ceremony and called for a minutes silence (which cut to commercial)83.70.170.48 (talk) 08:59, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Ignoring all the nationalism and what-not, I'm curious if there has been a 11th of September front page that hasn't referenced the events in 2001? It is sort of hard to find out, I know it wasn't on ITN for a few years but that was because it was in either the Featured Article or Picture.--23230 ^talk 09:21, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Not on OTD last year. –H T D 09:35, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant OTD rather than ITN, obviously. From what I've found I think the answer is no, given it was FA in 2011, FP in 2010, FP in 2009, FA, and FP in 2008 and I think on OTD all the previous years. So a) no there has never been a year that hasn't referenced it but b) this year is actually the least coverage it's got for the past 5 years. Perhaps working up to nothing next year...--23230 ^talk 09:46, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Assuming it wasn't a featured article on its 10th anniversary, I retract earlier agreement. Not being featured OTD 2011 and not being featured article is pretty anti-biased.83.70.170.48 (talk) 09:40, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

But it was FA in 2011...--23230 ^talk 09:46, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not anybody's fault there are quality 9/11 content out there; we're not going to penalize readers by giving them crappy non-9/11 stuff. The only way non-WP:FC gets in is via DYK and OTD. The only way to get non-US items off the list is to find a historical article and improve it until it is suitable for OTD, which can be quite easy. They've already worked around this on the Kennedy assassination anniversary. –H T D 09:58, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

This isn't about not having 9/11, it's about also having 7/7 and similar notable terrorist events as OTD/ITN entrants. 83.70.170.48 (talk) 10:26, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

AFAIK, 7/7 has been in ITN when it happened. As for OTD, maybe it was on a crappy state last July 7. –H T D 11:08, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Tinfoil hat conspiracy theories. There's no bias here. If something isn't nominated for the front page then it doesn't go up, simple as that. If 9/11 got a mention because it gets more attention from editors here then that's called systemic bias and is no ones fault. It happens all the time. The OP, if it's the same one, made this argument on 7/7 yet didn't take the time or energy to try and understand why there was no mention of this particular anniversary, which was kindly explained to him/her by me and others. There's nothing wrong with mentioning such events on the front page, and that's never been claimed. --Τασουλα (talk) 10:37, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Overlinking in TFA

Can someone fix the overlinking in the blurb for todays TFA? It's something of a sea of blue links and yet the ones for North America and teeth are superfluous - is there likely to be anyone who doesn't know what either of those terms mean? Also there is a link to the abbreviation for million years ago even though it isn't used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Richerman (talk • contribs) 18:15, 2012 September 11 (UTC)

To suggest fixes in the blurb, please make use of WP:ERRORS. Thanks. --PFHLai (talk) 23:54, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

...where our crack team of admins will sort out the problem with the maximum of efficiency and minimum of drama [2]. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 07:55, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

By now this is yesterday's TFA. (I would really have been surprised if today's suffered from overlinking, with the author watching - whereas yesterdays's author left years ago.) You can look at the blurbs for TFAs to come if you click on "archive" under the current TFA - to fix things BEFORE they reach the Main page, - do it yourself, for maximum of efficiency and minimum of drama ;) --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

link to page logs missing

When viewing the revision history of the main page, the "View logs for this page" link is missing. It's present for all other pages. Does anyone know why this is? --Ixfd64 (talk) 18:27, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why it is missing but it can be seen here. You might want to ask at WP:VPT.130.91.93.243 (talk) 18:58, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Its an unfortunate side effect of the script that removes the page title from view. The link posted above will show the logs as normal, however.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:35, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Specifically it may be the inclusion of #contentSub in the list at MediaWiki:Vector.css. The html source of the main page history says

<div id="contentSub"><a href="/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Main+Page" title="Special:Log">View logs for this page</a></div>

, but for Main Page itself it only says <div id="contentSub"></div>. I'm not sure it would hurt to remove #contentSub from the list but I don't know enough. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:29, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

did you know?

The entry for Annie Lowrie Alexander describes her as a tar heel - could you add a link to this, I had no idea what it meant? Markb (talk) 08:14, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Seriously. Especially since the (rather bizarre) term doesn't even appear in the article. Rotcaeroib (talk) 15:41, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

A good question to ask at Talk: Annie Lowrie Alexander. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.1.32.35 (talk) 20:06, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Tar Heel. It's astoundingly specific and obscure the mainpage. 31.53.44.76 (talk) 22:25, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Moot now, as it's gone from the Main Page. — foxj 23:12, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Religious fanatics' protests and obscure films

The idiots protesting obviously have nothing to do with some obscure film. They haven't watched it. Films like that are being produced very often, but they never cause any protests if the fanatical priests aren't disseminating hatred among their flock. Fanatical islamic priests are the only cause of the protests. Please, remove the remark about the film from the news. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:F480:4:179:226:9EFF:FE7D:23CA (talk) 03:59, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The film, protests, and embassy attacks were, nonetheless, in the news, which is one of the primary criteria for an article being covered as part of the In The News section. --Jayron32 04:07, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

The attack on the Benghazi consulate was made by the same group that set off a bomb outside the building a few months earlier - before the film was an issue. Wnt (talk) 15:18, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

DYK

"that Banbhore is an ancient city in akistan ". Somebody forgot the "P"!!!♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:19, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, it was there ;> Br'er Rabbit (talk) 08:29, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Please report errors in the errors section of this page. The issue has been fixed. The Rambling Man (talk) 08:41, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Possible TFAs and discussions at the new-look WP:TFAR

As many (but not all) readers of this talk page will know, nominations for articles to appear as "Today's Featured Article" on the main page are discussed at WP:TFAR and all are welcome. What may not be known is that extra input is particularly welcome at present, because the requests page is trying out a new format of more available nomination slots, and it would be good to see if this helps increase the utility of the page. Discussion also sometimes takes place about whether particular articles should run with or without an image, and if so which; in particular at present there is a discussion at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests#Nonspecific date 4 about the image suggested for Lynching of Jesse Washington, which might be of interest to you. Thanks, Bencherlite ^Talk 19:14, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Link to image in question, which is now scheduled to run on September 25. Bencherlite ^Talk 11:37, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Charlie Hebdo title should be in italics

As the news section on Main carries an item about Charlie Hebdo, title of the paper should be in italics werldwayd (talk) 23:48, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Try following the instructions at the top of this page, or go directly to WP:ERRORS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.12.229 (talk) 02:28, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Oblig

A featured article for a video game that was never even released? Now I've seen everything! — RockMFR 02:11, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

There's also Good Articles on military projects that never happened and films that were never shot if you want more un-subjects. GRAPPLE X 02:18, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps 'non-events' should be a theme for a future April 1 event? Jackiespeel (talk) 17:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Gibraltar

Seems to be popping up in this section a disproportionate number of times. Is there a reason for this? Dtlloyd (talk) 11:17, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

See here and all will become clear. 188.28.250.105 (talk) 11:24, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Equal opportunities...

Please do feature less British and American obscurities, and please do feature more worldwide-related articles. Reading your frontpage everyday, I witness an excessive bias upon British countryside locales and American Midwest landmarks (churches, parishes, villages, bridges, wooden areas, some local celebrities). While that might be of interest to some, they are hardly worth being featured more than once or twice per year, let alone twice weekly. Please raise your objectives a little higher and feature more world-oriented articles of real cultural interest, I'm sure there's tons of them ready in the wings. Max Ventura, Italy.

. .3 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.207.232.125 (talk) 07:34, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't think people here would like more Japanese video games... –H T D 07:52, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Or video games from anywhere else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.12.229 (talk) 11:50, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Hey Max! Thanks for your comments. This is a known and recognized problem at Wikipedia. Part of the issue is that the volunteers who work here tend to come from English speaking countries, so the coverage of topics of interest to English-speaking countries tends to be greater than that of countries for whom English is not a first language. This is somewhat understandable, given that this is the English-language Wikipedia. But we are interested in improving our coverage of topics from other parts of the world, and you Max, are the best person in the world to provide this. That's because you have an interest in seeing better coverage of those topics. Ultimately, all of Wikipedia exists only because someone just like you was interested in something that wasn't here already. So, feel free to get working and helping us all make Wikipedia better! --Jayron32 13:01, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Nicely explained Jayron32. If there are more featured articles with a worldwide topic focus they would be on the front page. Regards, Sun Creator^(talk) 13:15, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Jayron, you so smart and pwetttyyy...um yeah, nicely explained indeed.... >__> I'd like to add that William McKinley following Oldham is a pretty diverse line-up! And what's wrong with Japanese video-games? -.- --Τασουλα (talk) 08:53, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm assuming the TFA today is exotic enough? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:43, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for replying.

@ Jayron: thanks for the offering but between nagging wife and demanding kid, 2 dogs and a job I have barely time to read WP, certainly not contribute... thanks though. I do contribute to articles, editing, restructuring them, correcting some, but only sparingly.

@ Crisco: interesting subject. Sept. 16 featured article was an Indonesian singer who had been already featured in the Did You Know section a couple months ago with the very same article (which i had read back then). I really must point out another major issue here. Indonesian contributors are really VERY active, excessively so if I may. I am sure there is a lot of things goin' on in Indonesia today as it'a a huge country and a very scattered one, with a booming economy, but excuse me, I don't see nearly as many articles or "Did you know" items relating to, say, Russia, Sweden, or let's see... Mozambique, Spain, Uruguay, Japan, the Vanuatus, and so on. The point is, I think your steady contributors are a bit stuck on the same rounds over and over. Like I said the other day, "english parishes, michigan bridges, new zealand forests..." ; add to that "indonesian pop artists". Oh and I'm sorry, I forgot this: there have beeen 5 (five!) filly-related "Did You Know" items in the last 10 days! I mean, seriously now! Historical horseracing? Max Ventura, Italy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.162.4.147 (talk) 18:47, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm? You started this with "featured", which I (and probably a few others) took as meaning TFA and perhaps POTD. Before 1740 Batavia massacre on 4 September, there had not been an Indonesia-related TFA for a couple years at least.

Regarding DYK, you don't need a plural there. Editor in the singular would be more precise. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 22:57, 17 September 2012 (UTC)

If you won't do the work to get material onto the front page, why are you complaining about those that do? Wikipedia doesn't have hired editors each with their own individual assigned topics, it uses volunteers who work on whatever interests them. Because of that some topics are better covered than others and the better articles get on the front page. Complaining about lack of balance isn't going to force people to work on things they aren't interested in. Balance comes when editors of varying backgrounds and diverse interests become more involved. --Khajidha (talk) 10:48, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Today 20 september: another filly is featured in the DYK. I'm sure everyone's cheering. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.191.62.86 (talk) 06:52, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm neither cheering nor complaining. If you don't like it, quit whinging about it and GET INVOLVED!!!--Khajidha (talk) 16:55, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The "get involved" line doesn't appear to work very well at the moment here, but there's a bbc article.. somewhere.., so the OP may have a point, if not the most articulate. Please stop replying with "get involved", when potentially valid concerns are made. Saying nothing is also a possibility (yes, I see my hypocrisy...). Perhaps DYK should introduce a cap to submissions, one per X months per editor, or some such crap. 46.115.53.165 (talk) 21:07, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

One per X months? Erm, you may need to learn a bit about the nomination side of DYK... — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Have you counted the number of articles about soccer players? politicians? mushrooms? old houses? songs? episodes of TV programmes? cantatas? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.12.229 (talk) 01:16, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

France

France must have become an obscure country now. No one is complaining about the "over"-linking on ITN..... --70.31.12.229 (talk) 10:59, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

We link when the story has something directly to do with the country and in this case it does. — foxj 12:51, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Possible vandalism?

Can anyone explain why "Day of Baltic Unity" directs to "Battle of Saule?" 72.94.107.27 (talk) 23:39, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The day is a commemoration of the battle; the article on the battle mentions that the date was chosen for this. GRAPPLE X 23:41, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Alas, there is no Day of Baltic Unity article, nor is the day listed in Public holidays in Latvia or Public holidays in Lithuania, so the battle article is the best one to list. —howcheng {chat} 01:43, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Penis Park on front page

not productive, and already moved off the main page of its own accord

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Really? ugh... I then go to Phallic architecture, it's basically pictures of anything that is in the shape of a stick is a dick... yeah yeah yeah don't start spamming "WP:NOCENSOR !!!" i know, perverts — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.114.111 (talk • contribs) 15:15, 22 September 2012‎

Anything which is cited as such in reliable sources, not everything.. The desire to perv at penis shaped architecture was about as far from the reason for creating it as you can get. Sheeks if wanting to perv at something was the purpose then I'd have created Island of 1000 titties.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:14, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I've already called my estate agent. GRAPPLE X 17:59, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I bet if it was my boobs on the front page you wouldn't be moaning. (So you know yet you still looked/complained? Sounds like you're the one with the issues here) --Τασουλα (talk) 18:32, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is pointless considering that the original post never suggested taking action about the content but is instead instead just moaning about it... I suggest we close this conversation before it devolves into more aimless moaning at one another. –Prototime (talk · contribs) 18:42, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Since this has already moved off the main page (not because of this complaint, but just because it was due to), I am closing this. --Jayron32 02:45, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Excellent FA

Just want give props people doing the FAs on a really great FA on the Lynching of Jesse Washington and I'm glad it featured on the main page. A grave but moving article.--Johnsemlak (talk) 13:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, it was hard to write, but I am glad that I did. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:18, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

ITN/R discussion

Following a debate about a specific nomination for WP:ITN, I have started Wikipedia talk:In the news/Recurring items#Remove All-Ireland Senior Football Championship doktorb _words^deeds 17:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia languages section

Why a few language names begin with a capital letter (Deutsch, Nederlands, Esperanto) while all the rest with a lower case letter? Shouldn't this be fixed? Also the more than # articles ranking seems arbitrary 750K, 150K, 50K...why not 250K, 500K and 1M then? --Itemirus (talk) 14:25, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The word "Deutsch", which means "German", is capitalized in the German language. The similar word "français" isn't capitalized in French. Similarly for other languages. The limits of 750K etc. are regularly adjusted upwards as Wikipedia grows. Otherwise, all the languages would gradually move to the top line. Art LaPella (talk) 14:39, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

That argument about capitalisation might make sense if the names appeared in a sentence, but they don't: it is a bulleted list. In bulleted lists, each item is grammatically independent. In the English language, names of mammal species are not treated as proper nouns, and are not capitalised in a sentence, however, in a bulleted list, they would usually have capitals. Kevin McE (talk) 18:18, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

The number groups are also adjusted to avoid having too small a group. For instance, there is only one language's Wikipedia (Chinese, if you must know) with more than 500k articles yet fewer than 750k. Lumping the 6 Wikipedias with 750k - 1M articles into the 500k list seems to make people think we are somehow slighting these languages by not putting them in their "proper" group but leaving a 500k "group" that only includes one member makes the list sloppier. Therefore, even though some might think we are slighting the Chinese wikipedia, that one is included in the 250k+ list. --Khajidha (talk) 17:14, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

While it may be formally correct, I feel that using capital letters just for a few languages is aesthetically unappealing --Itemirus (talk) 10:25, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Kevin - this is something that could only be fixed by changing the Mediawiki files themselves - that is, an admin couldn't sort them. This was also discussed only a month or so ago (and is likely in a recent archive). — foxj 10:29, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry: that is at most a minor obstruction. If there were a desire to change, it could be simply handled by using [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki Deutsch] which displays identically. That is no reason at all. Kevin McE (talk) 11:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Kevin is correct on this point. If deemed preferable, we could simply switch back to the type of manual coding used until June 2010. —David Levy 12:18, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

While David is correct it could be done in a different way, note that Kevin's suggestion Deutsch, is most definitely not ideal. As the example shows, it does not show up the same (the external link arrow is clearly visible) but more importantly, as a hard coded external link it forces the user to a specific variant of the site, the unsecure site, whereas with if it's done properly either as now or as David is suggesting, the wikimedia software is usually smart enough to direct the user to the variant most like what they're currently using (so if they're using the secure site, they will go to the secure Deutsch site). Nil Einne (talk) 09:34, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

We've gone through this issue before. The languages are spelled to the rules of each language, so capitalising them would only work in the English language. I can't see any issue with the capitalisation of words which wouldn't be capitalised in that language doktorb _words^deeds 10:41, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Is your contention that common nouns in all those languages are generally given lower case when presenting them in a bulleted list? I do not believe that to be the case, and would be intrigued to see your evidence. For my part, I would offer the es.wikipedia and fr.wikipedia versions of this very list in contradiction.

You are also insisting an extreme form of inconsistency: that words in the same line of text should be treated according to the rules of several languages.

You cannot apply sentence case to something that is not written in sentences. But to the extent that it is presented in a sentence, with an introduction to describes the list and a colon separating the two parts, that sentence is in English, so the only consistent approach would be to name the languages in English, and with respect for English grammar rules re the naming of languages. Which would probably better serve the readers of a page in English. Kevin McE (talk) 11:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

As discussed in the past, these links exist primarily for the benefit of the various languages' readers, so switching to their English names would be unhelpful. (If you were viewing the Korean Wikipedia's main page, which text would you find more useful: "영어" or "English"?) —David Levy 12:18, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

If I were reading the home page of Korean Wikipedia, I would probably already have at least some knowledge of Korean, or the information that it is a list of wikipedias grouped according to the number of articles would be lost on me. If not, suddenly seeing my native tongue in the middle of a set of characters that I cannot understand at all informs me of nothing. The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to inform the reader, not the random uncomprehending visitor: for the reader of en.wiki, it is informative to know what the other large wikipedias are. Those who are on the English wikipedia, unless by pure accident, are likely to be able to recognise the name of their own language in English, just as any English speaker who cannot at least recognise 영어 is unlikely to navigate their way to ko.wiki. Kevin McE (talk) 20:44, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

But as an encyclopedia, Wiki is here to inform and educate. I had no idea what the Korean word for "the Korean language" was until visiting here, and that's how it should be. What kind of project would we be if we "dumbed down" the language bar just for the benefit of English speakers? The language bar acts as a very clear indication that Wikipedia is a truly world-wide project, with gateways into the world through links in the languages of the world. I can't see how anything is improved, or how anyone is satisfied, if we chose to change francais into French. doktorb _words^deeds 20:57, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Q: "What kind of project would we be if we "dumbed down" the language bar just for the benefit of English speakers?"

A: One that caters to English speakers.

The main page of Wikipedia has no brief to teach other languages: its function is to inform (mainly English speaking) readers about Wikipedia, and, in that section, about Wikipedia projects in other languages. At present, it obfuscates that purpose. Using the English language in an English language encyclopaedia is not dumbing down: it is communicating clearly, the most basic requirement of an encyclopaedia.

And indeed, how does the main page tell you that 한국어 is Korean for Korean? At best, it tells you that it is the native word for a moderately widely spoken language.

For what it is worth, the Main Page of ko.wikipedia gives the name of the other wikis in both Korean and the language in question: at least 50% of the way to a much more sensible situation.

The relevant part of our Manual of Style obliges us to bear in mind the needs of page users with disabilities, but not those who do not speak English (yet alone those who do not even speak enough English to recognise the name of their language). How clearly are these non-English names for non-English languages rendered by speech synthesisers?

Using the list of other wiki main pages listed in the left margin of en.wiki's home page, where I can identify an equivalent list, 18 out of 23 non-English projects name the other languages in that project's "home" tongue, 4 of them uniquely, the remainder, like the Korean example mentioned already, in giving both languages. And of the other 5 that do use the various native languages alone, none of them are inconsistent as to whether the language names are capitalised or not in the way that en.wiki is.

The reason for them being in other languages keeps changing: that suggests to me that the reason has never been really rationalised. Kevin McE (talk) 21:09, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The reason for them being in other languages allows people to see very clearly that the links will take them to an article in that language. It would be a bit odd if the link wasn't in the language, it's there to direct and to inform. I know that accessibility directs us to look at inclusion, but that doesn't mean we have to turn en.wiki into Simple English, does it? We have accepted for years that an interwiki link respects the language of the project to which the link points. The Wikipedia LOGO respects the symbols of the international projects. The language bar would be devalued if it were entirely in English, it would represent the English project 'lording it' over the other projects. doktorb _words^deeds 21:48, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I see no reason to assume that using the English language is turning en.wiki into simple.wiki: it seems to me to be treating it as en.wiki.

The reader of en.wiki is likely to be able to interpret that links that are under a heading Wikipedia languages and given what they can easily recognise as the names of languages (easily recognised because they are in the language that the reader of the page can read) will be links to wikis in those languages. The sentence at the top of the list of languages ought to give them the clue if they have not gathered it already (and could be rephrased if the current formulation of that sentence is not clear enough). And what's more, if they choose to follow it out of curiosity, they will know what language they are looking at.

Your fear of being seen as taking a position of superiority strikes me as odd: do you really believe that users of other languages are offended by en.wiki using English?

None of your comments provides any reason not to do what more than 60% of other language's home pages do of showing both languages: if you really think that the main page of wiki ought to teach readers what the Korean for Korean, or the Serbian for Serbian, is, then you should be all in favour of that option. Kevin McE (talk) 22:06, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Q: "What kind of project would we be if we "dumbed down" the language bar just for the benefit of English speakers?" A: One that caters to English speakers.

The Wikipedia languages section primarily caters to readers of languages other than English (some of whom also read English, of course).

At present, it obfuscates that purpose.

The section's primary purpose always has been to assist readers of other languages.

Using the English language in an English language encyclopaedia is not dumbing down: it is communicating clearly, the most basic requirement of an encyclopaedia.

The section is intended to communicate clearly with readers of the languages listed.

And indeed, how does the main page tell you that 한국어 is Korean for Korean?

Hover.

For what it is worth, the Main Page of ko.wikipedia gives the name of the other wikis in both Korean and the language in question: at least 50% of the way to a much more sensible situation.

We previously used that format. It was deemed superfluous (because the links are of little value to persons other than the languages' readers) and abandoned to conserve space.

The relevant part of our Manual of Style obliges us to bear in mind the needs of page users with disabilities, but not those who do not speak English (yet alone those who do not even speak enough English to recognise the name of their language).

So...screw them?

How clearly are these non-English names for non-English languages rendered by speech synthesisers?

I don't know, but any problems would extend to every page containing interlanguage links.

I'll note that when we redesigned the main page in 2006, a blind editor kindly informed us of the issues present in his screen reader (a relatively old version of the software, as I recall), which were then addressed via code modifications.

The reason for them being in other languages keeps changing:

Because someone cited a side benefit?

that suggests to me that the reason has never been really rationalised.

It's been discussed quite thoroughly. If you don't wish to take my word for it, feel free to search the archives. —David Levy 22:51, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

If I were reading the home page of Korean Wikipedia, I would probably already have at least some knowledge of Korean, or the information that it is a list of wikipedias grouped according to the number of articles would be lost on me.

"At least some knowledge of Korean" doesn't guarantee comprehension of the word "영어".

But note that I deliberately wrote "viewing", not "reading". The English Wikipedia's main page is easily reached by persons with little or no understanding of written English.

If not, suddenly seeing my native tongue in the middle of a set of characters that I cannot understand at all informs me of nothing.

If you wanted to reach English content and saw an "English" link among the incomprehensible text, you wouldn't follow it?

The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to inform the reader, not the random uncomprehending visitor:

The Wikipedia languages section primarily serves readers of languages other than English (some of whom also read English, of course).

Those who are on the English wikipedia, unless by pure accident,

Some people arrive by pure accident. —David Levy 22:51, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

David, your habit of trying to analyse a discussion by treating individual clauses in isolation rarely does merit to the argument being presented. Largely because of the brevity such a format imposes, you come across as being argumentative, with no argument being put forward; and you make assertions with no substance behind them: I know well enough from other discussions that you are more than eloquent enough not to need to give such an impression. Who says that that section exists primarily for the users of other languages, and why should English language users not be served by it? Your dismissal of MoS comes across as irresponsible, and I suspect that most internet users, if finding themselves by some strange aberration on a page in a language so obscure to them that they would not even recognise the name of their own language, would simply close the page or employ the "back one page" button. Alt text is not available to all users, and one should not have to employ mouse movements around the page to guess what things in the wikipedia of your mother tongue mean. Kevin McE (talk) 23:32, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you dislike my style of reply. Feel free to ignore my messages (including this one).

Who says that that section exists primarily for the users of other languages,

...but if you're going to ignore them, please don't also respond to them.

"It's been discussed quite thoroughly. If you don't wish to take my word for it, feel free to search the archives."

In your view, if someone is unable to comprehend a language's native name/script, of what value is the underlying link to him/her?

and why should English language users not be served by it?

I've made no such claim.

Your dismissal of MoS comes across as irresponsible,

I've done no such thing.

I addressed your accessibility concern, which I take seriously. Apart from that, what do you expect? For the main page to be 100% consistent with the style conventions applied to articles?

and I suspect that most internet users, if finding themselves by some strange aberration

You've never arrived at a webpage written in a language that you couldn't read?

on a page in a language so obscure to them that they would not even recognise the name of their own language, would simply close the page or employ the "back one page" button.

Exactly. We don't want people to do that. We want to direct them to Wikipedias written in the languages that they read. —David Levy 00:54, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Are such users really likely to scroll all the way (3 page downs) to the bottom of a page of text that is sheer gobbledygook to them in the hopes of finding this one word they recognize? --Khajidha (talk) 13:28, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

That depends on whether they're familiar with the convention (common to many Wikipedias and other Wikimedia Foundation projects) of placing such a section at the bottom of the page. If they aren't, they might simply use the browser's search function.

Of course, the section is intended to serve the languages' readers in general, including those with varying degrees of English proficiency (most of whom aren't reaching the page accidentally). —David Levy 14:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

If they are familiar with that convention, wouldn't they already know how to get to their language's wikipedia? If they are not familiar with that convention, then why would they search for a word in their own language on this page? Wouldn't they simply navigate away? --Khajidha (talk) 14:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

If they are familiar with that convention, wouldn't they already know how to get to their language's wikipedia?

Probably.

If they are not familiar with that convention, then why would they search for a word in their own language on this page? Wouldn't they simply navigate away?

Possibly. It might depend on whether they're aware of the WMF projects' multilingual nature (i.e. that such a link is likely to exist).

But again, we've delved into an area outside a majority of the section's usage. I noted that "some people arrive by pure accident", but I'm not suggesting that this describes most users' experience. —David Levy 14:45, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

You've missed my point. Those that know to look for it don't need it while those that need it don't know to look for it. Who exactly is it there for? --Khajidha (talk) 17:29, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you reading my replies? —David Levy 19:55, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I'll give a perfect of example of why those interwiki links should be in the native script/language. As part of my work on Commons, I occasionally find that I need to do something with an image that's only used on a non-English Wikipedia. If that happens to be a language that uses a non-Latin script, there's no way I'm going to be able to easily find a matching article in English (I'd have to hover over each one to see the URL or alt text). —howcheng {chat} 01:38, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

Indeed they should be. I've done interwiki work as well, and it's immensely helpful to have language names displayed in their native form. Yes, English screen readers won't recognise most characters outside of Latin-1 (see point 2) and read them as question marks, but if they really want to read another language, they can just install another language version of their speech synthesiser, which is becoming increasingly straightforward these days. BTW, I'm the screen reader user mentioned above who pointed out an accessibility problem with the then-bnew Main Page design back in 2006. Graham87 07:00, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I note that changes have been made in the right direction regarding the capitalization of the names of the various languages so that we now have Français and Español for example. Interestingly, the same capitalization is reproduced in all the other language wikis on their main pages. But I'm intrigued to see we still have "norsk (bokmål)" and "‪norsk (nynorsk)" in lower case although there is no reason for this. Just search some Norwegian pages and you will see that capitalization in lists is the same as for other Scandinavian languages such as Dansk (Danish) and Svensk (Swedish). So this at least should be changed, if only in the interests of consistency. I suggest, by the way, "Norsk (bokmål)" and "Norsk (nynorsk)" rather than "Norsk (Bokmål)" and "Norsk (Nynorsk)". --Ipigott (talk) 14:52, 24 September 2012 (UTC)‬

I note that changes have been made in the right direction regarding the capitalization of the names of the various languages so that we now have Français and Español for example.

I assume that you're referring to the interlanguage links appearing in the sidebar, which are intended to appear with uppercase first letters.

But I'm intrigued to see we still have "norsk (bokmål)" and "‪norsk (nynorsk)" in lower case although there is no reason for this.

This is a known bug. —David Levy 15:02, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your rapid response, David, and for adding a query to 37705. You are completely right in your assumption. I did not specifically mention the precise subject as I thought that was how this whole discussion started. I had in any case noticed myself not too long ago that the languages (at least those in Latin and Cyrillic script) listed on the LHS of the main page varied between upper and lower case. As for the two Norwegian variants, I don't think it would matter too much if we had "Norsk" (Bokmål) and "Norsk" ((Nynorsk). Another option would be to list them as "Norsk" (the usual language of reference) and "Nynorsk". Fortunately they would continue to come together in the list anyway. --Ipigott (talk) 15:30, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

To be clear, the formatting is determined via the MediaWiki software; it isn't a decision made at Wikipedia. —David Levy 16:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

A P.S. to the above. Why not just provide a link to "Norsk" (the Bokmål wiki of course) as Nynorsk has less than 90,000 articles while Bokmål has over 350,000. --Ipigott (talk) 15:45, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

On what basis? We currently list Wikipedias containing 50,000 or more articles (provided that certain qualitative criteria are satisfied). And removing one of the two Norwegian Wikipedia links wouldn't address the capitalization problem. —David Levy 16:14, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Georgian does not seem to be included although it has more depth and generally seems to be more deserving than Nynorsk. I suggested simply using "Norsk" without "bokmål" as that is the standard language of Norway (and in fact covers both Bokmål and Riksmål as is explained on their main page). In the case of French and Spanish, we use just Español (rather than "Español (Castillano)") and Français although dialects such as Catalan, Gallego and Occitan are also included. Using just "Norsk" would also solve the capitalization problem as only one word would need to be listed. And if Nynorsk were to be listed too, it could simply be included as "Nynorsk" (just one word). Hope all this is now clear. --Ipigott (talk) 17:24, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Georgian does not seem to be included although it has more depth and generally seems to be more deserving than Nynorsk.

Please see Talk:Main Page/Archive 165#Put Georgian language wikipedia into More than 50,000 articles section!.

Using just "Norsk" would also solve the capitalization problem as only one word would need to be listed. And if Nynorsk were to be listed too, it could simply be included as "Nynorsk" (just one word).

Again, the formatting is determined via the MediaWiki software; it isn't a decision made at Wikipedia. —David Levy 19:55, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

David, I'm not sure if you saw the discussion earlier this year where this was raised. I would try and find it in the archives, but I'm meant to be on a wikibreak. Long story short, my view is that links in other languages (wherever they appear) should be provided in both languages. This is a simple accessibility requirement (linguistic accessibility), keeping the entirety of what is provided accessible to all, rather than saying 'this part of the page is for English readers, and this part of the page is for others'.

Hovering is a compromise solution, but it doesn't currently work on the main page, try it and you will see what I mean (the mouse-ups work on the 'Wikipedia languages' section on the main page, but not on the sidebar interwiki links). And hovering has its own accessibility issues, as not everyone can hover a mouse cursor. When hovering over the interwiki links on article pages, you get shown the name of the link in the language being linked to, but no indication (if you are a non-native speaker) what the language is. My basic objections to how interwiki links are currently handled on the Main Page and on articles is that it turns part of the page being viewed into a 'black box', that English-speaking readers are unable to understand.

Howcheng makes a very valid point that when he is working on non-English wikipedias, the links back here are helpful to find the English article. However, the converse also applies. When I'm reading an article on the English Wikipedia, sometimes I will want to see the article in another language (e.g. if I am reading about a historical French person that we have only a stub on, I might want to see if the French Wikipedia article has more details). The assumption is that I will need to know the name of that language in order to find the link (for French, I can do that, for other languages less so).

This is a prime example of a language barrier being erected, rather than broken down. The standard approach when you may have readers of both languages using links is to use both languages. Quite why Wikipedia elects not to do this, I've never understood. The argument tends to go "if you don't know the name of the language then there is no point you trying to read the article", which is an incredibly patronising argument (checking birth years for example, and other basic data such as name spellings, can be done with little language skills).

The other reason to have the interwiki links in both languages is to allow people to see which languages have corresponding articles (I'm aware this is an issue for interwiki links in general, not the main page, but bear with me). Currently, if you are interested in seeing what the other languages are, you have to open up a page that provides a translation, or know what fr and de and so on mean, or use a script that converts the links for you. To me, that is missing a trick. Having the English next to the native language will teach people what these links are, as opposed to incomprehension and moving on with a shrug of the shoulders (mentally saying 'it would be nice to try and work out what those links mean, but there is a language barrier there that has not been made accessible').

I've now looked up the previous discussion I was thinking of, which is at Talk:Main Page/Archive 169#Languages are not in English... Some of what I said there applies here as well. In particular, see the gadgets and scripts bit at the end, and pages such as User:Equazcion/SidebarTranslate (look at the image there to see the functionality provided), a gadget on the Portuguese wiki (not sure how to link to that), a mediawiki page at mw:Universal Language Selector, and the bit about interwiki links at Template:Wikipedia languages/core/doc. There are clearly enough technical possibilities around for something to be done to allow interwiki links to be accessible to both native language readers and the readers of the language the wiki is in, but it probably needs someone to pull it all together to allow a fully informed discussion. I may do that after my wikibreak, which I should return to now. At the very least (given the regularity with which this comes up), something should be added to the FAQ pointing people to the various gadgets and scripts that are available. Carcharoth (talk) 06:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC) On re-reading this, I see that I've talked mainly about the sidebar, not the languages section, apologies for that, but the point raised earlier about how the mouse-up works on the main page 'other languages' section, but not on the sidebar, is one that should be addressed, as should the one about a FAQ entry for this - I will try and do that when I get back, but if anyone else wants to do so in the meantime, that would be really good - Mediawiki:Sidebar and Wikipedia:Main Page FAQ I think are the locations. Carcharoth (talk) 07:04, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Long story short, my view is that links in other languages (wherever they appear) should be provided in both languages. This is a simple accessibility requirement (linguistic accessibility), keeping the entirety of what is provided accessible to all, rather than saying 'this part of the page is for English readers, and this part of the page is for others'.

But the interlanguage links do exist mainly for the benefit of the respective languages' readers.

Certainly, they receive some use by others (including me). But let's not pretend that this is their primary purpose.

Hovering is a compromise solution, but it doesn't currently work on the main page, try it and you will see what I mean (the mouse-ups work on the 'Wikipedia languages' section on the main page, but not on the sidebar interwiki links).

We were discussing the Wikipedia languages section (hence the section's title). The topic of the site's interlanguage sidebar links certainly is valid, but this isn't really the correct forum. A village pump thread probably would generate more participation.

The standard approach when you may have readers of both languages using links is to use both languages. Quite why Wikipedia elects not to do this, I've never understood.

Not long ago, a decision was made to collapse the interwiki links by default. A small percentage of users (irrespective of what languages they read) click on them, so they were deemed distracting clutter.

Only after considerable protest (in which I took part) was the change undone. So the idea of increasing the so-called "clutter" (for the benefit of a small subset of a small subset) seems unlikely to gain traction.

In the case of the Wikipedia languages section, a similar issue exists. I personally believe that we needn't worry much about the section's size (given its placement at the bottom of the page), but others disagree. If we hadn't conserved space by removing the languages' English names (when not hovering), we probably would have ended up removing additional languages instead. Some editors wanted to prune the section even more. —David Levy 03:56, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Toronto film guy has been staring at me for a week

Seriously. I just checked. It's been a fucking week. Is he the new Lugo? (o: --MZMcBride (talk) 01:18, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

I dunno, Lugo had better taste in eyewear. Sam Maguire and the Emmys are the top stories; perhaps an image to tie with either would break the chain here? GRAPPLE X 01:24, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

If I had a dime for every time someone on Wikipedia said "the new Lugo"...--WaltCip (talk) 01:28, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Please, PLEASE for the love of all that is decent and holy, remove the aged hipster's face from the main page. i really need to see something else. Skarphedinn (talk) 06:23, 26 September 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.109.49.160 (talk) 06:20, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Now here's an appropriate use of humor, and not taking things too seriously, on this talk page. — Mudwater^(Talk) 06:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

The Emmy Awards story is much newer. Maybe we could put in Homeland co-creator Howard Gordon in there for awhile, since he's the only Homeland or Modern Family creator to have a free image AFAIK. -LtNOWIS (talk) 19:39, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Please be encouraged to go out and do sth amazing and newsworthy, and have someone write about it. Then we can put your mugshot on ITN. Go for it! --PFHLai (talk) 02:15, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

If there is any picture you don't wish to see anymore on ITN, here's how to get it off:
- Find a story that is prominent in the news which you can get a free picture to illustrate
- Update an existing wikipedia article, or start a new article, using information from that news story.
- Nominate it at WP:ITN/C.
That will work every time if you get tired of looking at a picture. --Jayron32 02:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC)
I was thinking about working on an article that will place Roger Goodell's face on ITN, but I realized it won't pass there. –H T D 03:03, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Even easier solution: We have consensus to post an item about Harumafuji Kōhei (who has an image), but the article needs more of an update. Spencer^T♦C 06:27, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Please do not besmirch Lugo. Lugnuts ^{And the horse} 10:18, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed...Please get rid of that pic. its old news already! Surely there is something more topical to feature. Robvanvee (talk) 16:53, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

See note above. You, and you alone, can fix this problem by creating new content and nominating it at WP:ITNC. --Jayron32 18:12, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

His look is so smug. What's he compensating for? Anyway...lets get a nice, festively plump sumo wrestler up there now. --Τασουλα (talk) 18:35, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Point taken Jayron...thank god for Harumafuji Kōhei!!!! Robvanvee (talk) 06:49, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

William the Conqueror

Looks like a nice invasion fleet - luxury cruise liners for his army. I must have been off that particular history lesson! Lugnuts ^{And the horse} 13:42, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

What solution do you propose? —David Levy 14:12, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

There are unfortunately no real good images of William to use and none of the other blurbs have anything good either, so MS Estonia got the image. —howcheng {chat} 15:35, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Are there no suitable images from the Bayeux Tapestry? It ought to be in the public domain by now. 87.112.50.156 (talk) 17:38, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Like this one [3], for example. 87.112.50.156 (talk) 17:40, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Request for Comment -- Graphic, disturbing images on the main page

I have created a Request for Comment on the question of whether or not very graphic, disturbing images should be included on the main page of Wikipedia. It's at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 99#RfC: Graphic, disturbing images on the main page. Interested editors are encouraged to join the discussion there (and not here, so that the discussion is centralized in one place). — Mudwater^(Talk) 12:38, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Stop. Just, stop. ResMar 14:34, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

How can I complain against UNDP Bangladesh

I need some one please help me, I want to write about UNDP Bangladesh corruption's. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.234.198.31 (talk) 18:16, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Featured Article image

Am I the only one who thinks this image is a little too graphic for the main page? 132.162.114.207 (talk) 01:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Probably. These things are scheduled by community discussion (WP:TFAR if you'd like to join in in future), and while it was brought up as possibly "iffy" it was widely accepted as relevant to the article and educational in nature (that said, I do believe there are options to manually disable images if you'd like to avoid seeing it again). GRAPPLE X —Preceding undated comment added 01:10, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Yep. Help:Options to hide an image. GRAPPLE X 01:14, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

But the Main Page is the one page that you have to land on before making yourself an account so that you can filter content. Blakk and ekka 18:51, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Before I registered, this was the sole page I entered from and worked with, searching for articles right from the bar there. When I was at school and university, this was the page you landed on, not the main page. I'd be very surprised if I was the only case of this. Yes, it would be stupid to say the main page is not that trafficked, which is why I'm not saying it; but you don't have to land in through it. Users who don't want to risk seeing things on the main page that they disagree with have a simple option to land in without going to it at all, even if they don't want to register. Image hiding can be done through a browser as well, entirely negating any need for a buffer on this or any site. There are simple ways to avoid objectionable content without the idea that you "have to" see it first. GRAPPLE X 18:58, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, you are correct - you don't have to land on the main page in order to set up an account (though you can't do it from the top level domain page that you linked to). It is, however, by far the most viewed page and I'd guess that the majority of visitors wouldn't count pre-setting their browser load a particular page text-only as simple. Blakk and ekka 19:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

No, probably not. But it's not going to be swapped out. It's the most relevant image for the article, and its encyclopedic nature is hard to pass up. -- tariqabjotu 01:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that a lot of people will find this image disturbing, as do I, but I don't think it is "too graphic" for the main page. There are other images that are probably more graphic, this was chosen as a less disturbing one. This is an article about a disturbing topic, and the image helps educate people about the horror of the event. In a sense, we'd be doing a disservice if we make the history of lynching seem less objectionable than it really was. Mark Arsten (talk) 01:47, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

No, I definitely do not want my young grandchildren seeing this image. First time I have had to do this to a Wikipedia main page.-- Salazar45 (talk) 07:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Meh; I think it would do them a world of good; teach them what sort of barbarity earlier generations go up to. Break the cycle, as it were ;) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 07:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

So Salazar45, you don't want your grandchildren to see (and I mean see) the real story? The photograph is not just a random illustration. It's a critical part of the story. Without the photographs there would have been no story. (Have you read it?) HiLo48 (talk) 08:46, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I think that's kinda the idea. If one isn't disturbed by the image, you're probably beyond fucked. I would expect any decent person to be disturbed by it. That's the point of such an image. --Jayron32 02:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
That may be the point of the image, but it's not the point of our Main Page. Of course, I thought it was ridiculous to have an image of the finger on the Main Page but WP:NOTCENSORED fan girls prevail over commonsense daily. There is a difference between ensuring we do not suffer from censorship and being intentionally provocative simply because you can point to a policy that justifies the most underlying aspects of the behavior. --auburnpilot talk 03:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Is the main page not supposed to feature articles about bad things? Is only butterflies and sunshine supposed to be the subject of quality articles at Wikipedia? Can we not be proud of quality writing about articles of bad things? --Jayron32 03:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
In my experience, you are far too intelligent to pose such utterly stupid questions. At no point did I suggest any of those things, but we both know that. Or should I play the same game? Do you, Jayron, suggest we place pornographic videos on the Main Page with the videos on autoplay? Do you believe we should have images of people having their heads splattered against pavement prominently displayed on the Main Page? You support WP:NOTCENSORED, right? If Murder ends up on the main page, we obviously must have an image depicting a disturbing murder! That's the point! Murder is disturbing! Don't play dumb and I won't either. I don't particularly care enough to fight for the image of the lynching to be removed, but I will register my opinion whenever I see fit. --auburnpilot talk 05:04, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
"Muder" could easily be conveyed in an informative manner in a number of ways; my own personal take would be to use something from classical literature or Shakespeare (Hamlet/Macbeth particularly) to convey a famous murder without showing a graphic corpse. However, "the lynching of Jesse Washington" really isn't conveyed properly without actually depicting the lynching of Jesse Washington. I wouldn't support, for example, a frank depiction of a penis in a main page blurb for "anatomy" or "organ"; but I would if the article were "penis". It's a case of how informative the image is to the context at hand; this one is hugely relevant, but the same image would probably be out of the question if the article were simply "Lynching in the United States", in which case one which depicted a much less mutilated victim might be a more preferable approach as it would still convey a lynching. This image conveys this lynching, and it does so clearly and informatively; which is why it's important to consider an image's contextual relevance when invoking/decrying WP:NOTCENSORED. GRAPPLE X 05:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I would have said what GRAPPLE said, but much less intelligently. My answer to AuburnPilot is what GRAPPLE said. --Jayron32 13:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

As I recall, the "finger" image evidently was placed on the main page in the context of "we can get away with this, so let's do it" (which I don't condone). Conversely, the current TFA image was selected because it illustrates the subject in an encyclopedic manner. —David Levy 03:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
My opinion: The image is definitely too graphic and too disturbing to be on the main page. I appreciate that lynching is a very bad thing, and that Wikipedia is not censored, but images of this type, while appropriate within the article itself, do not belong on Wikipedia's main page. An analogy: Graphic and disturbing images may be included in books about serious subjects, but are not printed on the front cover of those books. — Mudwater^(Talk) 03:15, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
You mean books like these? —David Levy 03:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, but I still think images of this type should not be put on the main page. Providing readers with a positive experience when they come to the main page does not mean that Wikipedia is being censored -- whether those readers are children or adults. If readers click through to the article itself, they will see the historically important photograph of the awful act that was committed. As for editors such as myself commenting now, it's hardly surprising. The number of editors, and readers, who see the main page is huge, compared to the number of editors who participate in the earlier discussions. — Mudwater^(Talk) 12:47, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, but I still think images of this type should not be put on the main page. Providing readers with a positive experience when they come to the main page does not mean that Wikipedia is being censored -- whether those readers are children or adults.
We routinely illustrate TFA with a free image depicting the subject or an element thereof (assuming that one is available). As HiLo48 noted, in this instance, the image is especially significant. How, in your view, would removing it from the main page — on the basis that it's unpleasant — not constitute censorship? —David Levy 16:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I understand Wikipedia is not censored, but common people, that's just a bit too much. Why not change it to the image of the people gathering around the tree or something? (On a side note, it took may wayyy too long to figure out how to edit this thing. Man, it's been a while since the good old days...) All the best,--134.126.193.65 (talk) 03:18, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I have a much easier time understanding complaints from users who don't realize that Wikipedia isn't censored. These "I understand Wikipedia is not censored, but come on, we need to censor this" messages baffle me. —David Levy 03:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
And this is exactly why I left this place.-134.126.193.65 (talk) 15:18, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Then why are you still here? —David Levy 16:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Here comes the one eternal peanut gallery once again, come to pick apart yet another controversial image pick, and then fade away when it serves its time on the page and is replaced, accomplishing nothing. ResMar 03:41, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
The bottom line is that the article was discussed at WP:TFA/R, including the question of the image. This is the community process for determining many of the articles which appear on the main page. The article was then scheduled, following positive reaction of the community towards using the article on that date, and most were OK with the image. Admission was free: in other words, the involved people looked at it and considered the matter, and anyone was free to participate in that discussion. It is a disturbing article. It deserves a disturbing image.--Wehwalt (talk) 03:47, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, what he said. ^^^^ --Jayron32 03:49, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
What both of you've said; and Mark Arsten. The article is about a lynching; obvious picture is obvious. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 04:23, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
A few brief comments. Clearly there was consensus to include the image, but if (over the course of the day) consensus changes in the other direction, that should be respected as well. Another point is that including the image in the article and on the main page are two separate issues (I mention this because not everyone coming to such discussions realises this). Finally, there are cases where even encyclopedic images are not used (e.g. for relatively recent events where the deceased has living relatives, newspapers sometimes chose to publish pictures of the body only with permission of the family - this normally doesn't apply to encyclopedias which write on historical topics, but does apply to Wikipedia as it includes articles about more recent events than some encyclopedias would - here, historical distance from an event 96 years ago renders this aspect less relevant). It is always a balancing act. Where objections can reasonably been foreseen, a prepared summary of consensus and how it was reached (not just the discussion itself) should be available to be pointed at. One final point: I would hope, out of respect for the topic at hand, that those following this discussion help ensure that it doesn't become too fractious. Carcharoth (talk) 06:04, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
A discussion held beforehand includes a cross-section of Wikipedians with no particular bias other than a desire to participate in the FA process. Conversely, a discussion held when the blurb is live is invariably skewed toward persons with complaints (who are far more likely than others to come out of the woodwork to comment), with most disagreement confined to those watching the page. —David Levy 16:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
On the contrary don't you think it more likely that viewers of the main page are likely to be a more representative cross-section of Wikipedia users than that found in the FA process pages? If comments are skewed towards anything it's likely to be the opinion of the average user. Blakk and ekka 18:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
On the contrary don't you think it more likely that viewers of the main page are likely to be a more representative cross-section of Wikipedia users than that found in the FA process pages?
Of course. But very few will ever edit a page, let alone this one.
If comments are skewed towards anything it's likely to be the opinion of the average user.
No. Only those objecting to the material's presence are likely to seek out this talk page and comment. Why would someone who doesn't object (and doesn't see this discussion on a watchlist) be compelled to come here and tell us that? —David Levy 20:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

How many of the objectors have actually read the story and understood the significance of the photo? The fact that the incident was photographed is a critical part of the story. It was because the general public saw the pictures that the public view of lynching changed. Hiding such pictures now would remove a major part of the story, and perhaps make lynching seem less horrible than it really was. HiLo48 (talk) 06:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
My opinion. When the media discusses self-immolation, they almost always show Thich Quang Duc. The image is shocking, disturbing, visceral. It reminds us of the deepest and most horrific emotional charge which led to that protest. When we have an article about lynching, and a specific case, it's only natural and right that we have the image to remind us of the places we humans have walked along in the great and gruesome path of history that brings us into 2012. It's a shocking and disturbing image and it's only right that we record both the text and the imagery of such an event. This isn't just a case of "Wikipedia isn't censored", it's a reminder that, as an encylcopedia, all human life is here. It would be a dereliction of duty to remove or censor it. doktorb _words^deeds 07:36, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree, i think it is too graphic. It shouldn't be censored, it should just not be on the front page. Some children are at the age where reading wikipedia is very useful but seeing these images are not appropriate. Putting them in the linked article at least gives a better chance for some parental supervision. Rcclh (talk) 12:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I second that opinion. It's absolutely right that Wikipedia should deal with issues like this in an uncensored way in an article and I'm introducing my kids to subjects like this at their own pace. Putting images like this at the public gateway to Wikipedia, however, makes that in practise more difficult.

I agree. This was not a typical lynching, but a public torture "the executioners attempted to keep him alive to increase his suffering". Salazar45 (talk) 13:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

As the article says "Some people who witnessed the lynching recorded persistent nightmares and psychological trauma". The image causes a similar (though, of course, much smaller scale) trauma in unprepared younger readers (and I'm talking primarily about the under tens here) that ultimately makes it more difficult to explore the important issues contained in the article with them. Blakk and ekka 12:46, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should. Hot Stop (Edits) 13:10, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Just because we could give in to calls for censorship, doesn't mean we should. The photograph is vital to the story. Anyone who lets an under-10 surf the internet - or just Wikipedia - without supervision and forward planning, is taking a risk. I do not want people to be less shocked by the history of racial violence in the United States. Wikipedia is not a nanny, nor a censor. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not saying it should be censored, i'm saying it shouldn't be on the front page, and i'm not saying children should use wikipedia without supervision, i'm saying putting it in the article gives parents a better chance of supervision. Rcclh (talk) 13:36, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia WAS the home page on all of our computers, no longer. Salazar45 (talk) 14:22, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

If you were under the mistaken impression that Wikipedia is "family-friendly", it's good that you've realized your error. —David Levy 16:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting my mistaken impression. I have been contributing financially annually to the wrong site. Salazar45 (talk) 17:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The wrong nonprofit organization, actually. —David Levy 17:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Evasive. The main page is not "Wikipedia." Playboy magazine may be in stores frequented by children. Playboy magazine does not show full frontal nudity its cover. Saying that the image was chosen by consensus is misleading. While the "consensus" may be open to anyone, I suspect its population is dominated by wiki-nerds. A consensus of people who may wish to push the envelope of "how can we be controversial today?" is not representative of the public visiting Wikipedia. If you were under the mistaken impression that Wikipedia should be immune to criticism for being boorish, you have yet to realize your error. - Ac44ck (talk) 06:27, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Evasive.

No evasion intended. Salazar45 was under the impression that setting "Wikipedia [as] the home page on all of [the household's] computers" wouldn't expose his/her young grandchildren to content that he/she considers inappropriate. For better or worse, this belief was incorrect.

The main page is not "Wikipedia."

Indeed, it's a particular portion thereof. And like Wikipedia as a whole, it contains material that some people find objectionable.

Of course, it's reasonable to argue that certain content shouldn't appear. I'm referring to our current practices.

Playboy magazine may be in stores frequented by children. Playboy magazine does not show full frontal nudity its cover.

Right, the cover features only family-friendly photographs like this one.

Such imagery is highly offensive to members of some cultures. You've cited it as an example because it doesn't cross your line — the same standard that you wish to impose on Wikipedia's main page.

And what happens when unsupervised children are permitted to pick up the magazine?

Saying that the image was chosen by consensus is misleading. While the "consensus" may be open to anyone, I suspect its population is dominated by wiki-nerds.

In other words, your approach is to decline participating in the process and label those who do participate with pejoratives.

A consensus of people who may wish to push the envelope of "how can we be controversial today?" is not representative of the public visiting Wikipedia.

Do you believe that the lynching photograph was selected with such a goal in mind? If so, on what do you base this assertion? As discussed above, it's extraordinarily relevant to the topic.

On a previous occasion, a photograph of a gesture widely regarded as obscene apparently was selected specifically to push the envelope, and I've condemned this decision.

If you were under the mistaken impression that Wikipedia should be immune to criticism for being boorish, you have yet to realize your error.

When did I suggest that Wikipedia should be immune to criticism of any kind? I'm simply addressing it. —David Levy 15:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

No evasion intended. Salazar45 was under the impression that setting "Wikipedia [as] the home page on all of [the household's] computers" wouldn't expose his/her young grandchildren to content that he/she considers inappropriate. For better or worse, this belief was incorrect.

And yet, it was evasive. It is reasonable to expect that a site not overrun by teenagers and/or boors would be more prudent about what was put on the main page.

Indeed, it's a particular portion thereof. And like Wikipedia as a whole, it contains material that some people find objectionable.

Irrelevant to what I said. "You can't judge a book by its cover." Unless its an in-your-face main page of Wikipedia flaunting its "we will not be censored" mantra.

Of course, it's reasonable to argue that certain content shouldn't appear. I'm referring to our current practices.

Non sequitor with "we will not be censored."

Right, the cover features only family-friendly photographs like this one.

Your example did not falsify what I said. It has no full frontal nudity.

Such imagery is highly offensive to members of some cultures. You've cited it as an example because it doesn't cross your line — the same standard that you wish to impose on Wikipedia's main page.

I cited the example because it is accurate.

And what happens when unsupervised children are permitted to pick up the magazine?

Irrelevant to a discussion of what is on the cover, or the main page.

In other words, your approach is to decline participating in the process and label those who do participate with pejoratives.

In my own words, I find little value in the idea of having TFA. That people feel compelled to change it every day seems like a waste of time. I don't wish to participate in the waste of time. The main page takes too long to load. The logo takes too long to load. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a collection of fluff. Spew enough fluff for long enough, and offending someone is guaranteed. Check out Google's home page. Not flashy or made "fresh" daily, but it is effective for the reason I go there. Some people would think "wiki-nerd" is a compliment. Are you insulting them?

Do you believe that the lynching photograph was selected with such a goal in mind? If so, on what do you base this assertion? As discussed above, it's extraordinarily relevant to the topic.

They ignored the caution posted in the discussion. Why was that? Oh, right ... "we will not be censored" is the Prime Directive.

On a previous occasion, a photograph of a gesture widely regarded as obscene apparently was selected specifically to push the envelope, and I've condemned this decision.

On what basis? It's okay for you to condemn things you don't like? How nice to be more equal than others.

When did I suggest that Wikipedia should be immune to criticism of any kind? I'm simply addressing it.

"Addressing" how? As I see it, you are trying to discount it. - Ac44ck (talk) 01:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

And yet, it was evasive.

No, it wasn't. Salazar45 complained about content to which he/she doesn't wish to expose his/her grandchildren. I didn't ignore the criticism, downplay it, or attempt to divert attention elsewhere. I openly acknowledged that his/her concern is valid; for better or worse (and you obviously believe the latter), Wikipedia — including the main page — does contain such material. How am I being "evasive" by plainly stating this?

It is reasonable to expect that a site not overrun by teenagers and/or boors would be more prudent about what was put on the main page.

And "prudent" = "in accordance with your personal/cultural standards".

Irrelevant to what I said.

You took issue with the fact that I referred to "Wikipedia" (as Salazar45 did) instead of to "the main page". The distinction is irrelevant to what I said.

You believe that the main page should be treated a certain way. You're entitled to your opinion, but it obviously isn't treated that way currently (hence this discussion).

"You can't judge a book by its cover."

You mean books like these?

Unless its an in-your-face main page of Wikipedia flaunting its "we will not be censored" mantra.

Again, the image in question appeared because of its encyclopedic value, not to "flaunt".

Your example did not falsify what I said.

It wasn't intended to.

It has no full frontal nudity.

Right. And in your view, that makes it appropriate for open display among children. Conversely, others believe that women who pose for photographs like this one deserve to be stoned to death.

You regard your personal/cultural standards as correct and believe that Wikipedia should adhere to them.

Irrelevant to a discussion of what is on the cover, or the main page.

No, the analogy itself is poor. It might be difficult to prevent a child from seeing a magazine cover in a store. Conversely, a supervised child can view Main Page (and any other part of the site) only if the person in charge permits it.

In my own words, I find little value in the idea of having TFA.

And you're welcome to propose its elimination.

That people feel compelled to change it every day seems like a waste of time.

And you're welcome to invest your time elsewhere.

Check out Google's home page. Not flashy or made "fresh" daily, but it is effective for the reason I go there.

Google isn't an encyclopedia, so I would hope that you go there for a very different reason.

Some people would think "wiki-nerd" is a compliment.

You obviously didn't use the term in such a context.

They ignored the caution posted in the discussion.

Criticism with which you agree didn't prevail. This isn't a point of contention.

I inquired as to the basis of your assertion that this decision stemmed from a "wish to push the envelope of 'how can we be controversial today?'". You seem to believe that no other motive is possible.

Why was that?

Because according to Wikipedia's longstanding standards, "it upsets me" isn't a valid reason to suppress material.

Oh, right ... "we will not be censored" is the Prime Directive.

No, the prime directive is to propagate encyclopedic information (including that which some people find objectionable).

On what basis?

I've already explained the basis. In the earlier instance, an image evidently was selected to provoke controversy. Do you honestly not recognize the distinction (irrespective of whether you agree that I'm correct in drawing it)?

It's okay for you to condemn things you don't like? How nice to be more equal than others.

When did I suggest that it isn't okay for others to express their opinions? Is that how you interpret my disagreement?

"Addressing" how? As I see it, you are trying to discount it.

I suppose that this answers my question. —David Levy 03:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

@Salazar45; see http://offbeatempire.com/2011/08/flouncing ;) And “home page” is so IE-speak. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:14, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

"Home page" is the term used in Firefox Preferences General Startup. Back to the Briar Patch Rabbit Salazar45 (talk) 23:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The term originates in IE's prefs. Which socker are you, btw? ;) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:47, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Just because we can do something, doesn't mean we should.

As noted above, this is not such an instance.

On an earlier occasion, editors of DYK went out of their way to include a photograph of a gesture widely considered obscene. They could have illustrated a different item without reducing the section's encyclopedic value, but they deliberately selected an image that they knew would offend many people.

If today's featured article were Photography, the image would be inappropriate. But it isn't. It's Lynching of Jesse Washington. We include the photograph not "because we can", but because it illustrates the subject in an encyclopedic manner. As HiLo48 noted, it's even more significant than most TFA images are. —David Levy 16:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't see that anybody in this discussion is objecting to the use of the photograph in the article or the use of such material in Wikipedia generally - the objection is to its use on the main page (and if you browse the mobile site it's extremely prominent). It's an extremely good article, well worthy of FA, but the Main Page is a special case and should be subject to the guidelines set out in WP:CENSORMAIN. Blakk and ekka 18:36, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm referring to our standard use of images on the main page. If anything, this one fits our criteria better than most. —David Levy 20:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It shouldn't be censored, it should just not be on the front page.

Translation: "It shouldn't be censored, it should just be censored." —David Levy 16:38, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Putting this image on the front page is the right thing to do. But that doesn't mean it is the smart thing to do. --Awe689 (talk) 13:15, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

That sounds awfully profound, but I'm not sure what position you're arguing for, or why. AlexTiefling (talk) 13:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

FYI: a link to the TFAR discussion where consensus (albeit it on a smaller turnout than today) was in favour of the image; and a link to the (now-archived) neutral message I left on this talk-page about this very issue; for some of the time that message was up, the image was on display on this talk page (until I had second thoughts about its appropriateness here). Do I at least get half a cookie for correctly predicting a week ago that there would be "comments and complaints if the picture runs on the main page"? Bencherlite ^Talk 13:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

The horror, the horror. Lugnuts ^{And the horse} 13:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Bencher. NOTCENSORED and the Main Page, which you link to, is also interesting. Blakk and ekka 13:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Good decision; people need to see this. Especially the people who don't want to see it. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 14:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Or, alternatively, freedom of choice; re "not censored", availability for he who seeks ≠ forcing same upon one who does not; with something profoundly disturbing (not a hand gesture or a penis) some people erect defence mechanisms (eg avoidance until they are ready); causing shock/anguish is no great achievement, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 16:05, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Some people seem to have the mistaken idea that forcing people to see unpleasant things is good for them. This is patronising and wrong. 86.129.16.19 (talk) 16:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
- And some people seem to have the mistaken idea that things they don't want to see should be removed so that nobody else can see them, either. 69.62.243.48 (talk) 22:56, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I have to add my voice to those who think this image should not be on the main page. Yes, the tragedy of lynchings should not be hidden or suppressed, and yes freedom of speech is an important principle. But an image like this can be traumatising, especially for those too young to understand the context of this photograph. 94.192.38.84 (talk) 16:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Frankly, I think some people are a little too touchy. When I first saw the image (without knowing the topic), it looked like the charred remains of an effigy. I doubt any kids' first reactions to seeing that image would be to turn pale and have nightmares. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 17:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It's totally inappropriate to have an image of a charred corpse on the main page. Settings don't matter, because the vast majority of visitors don't have accounts and wouldn't know how to change them if they did. I have no problem with seeing it myself, but unlike most people I'm capable of empathizing with people who do not wish to view a corpse. I guess Wikipedia is "not censored" though, right? The image is already in the article and those who wish to read about an infamous lynching can expect to see such images. On the other hand, someone who comes to the main page to see what's "in the news", or just because they always use it as a starting point for searches, have no option but to see it. People should not be forced to view what amounts to an Ogrish/rotten shock image just because they navigated to the en-wiki main page. Get it off of there and leave it on the article where it belongs. And hearing people who say it's no big deal just reinforces my belief that the internet has created a generation of sociopaths who have grown up viewing hardcore violence and porn containing violence and debasement and so are numb to everything. Great society we've created here. - Balph Eubank ✉ 18:18, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I feel obligated to point out the fallacy of accusing "the internet generation" of being sociopaths for not hiding away an image taken in and of an event that took place nearly 100 years ago. Are you really saying that society has gone downhill and as evidence of this we now post images of human immolation on an informational website rather than merely immolating humans and photographing their charred remains for postcards? - OldManNeptune ⚓ 19:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

@Balph Eubank I respect your opinion, but I take exception to your allegation that I am a sociopath. Please keep WP:NPA in mind. Mark Arsten (talk) 19:16, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

@Mark Arsten, you're not a sociapath. In fact, given your contributions to the article I'd say that you were the opposite of a sociopath (whatever that is, I'm afraid I'm not sure). I'd value your opinion on how best to introduce this important subject to a (British) seven year old who'd gone to Wikipedia to look up information on giraffes, which is what I've been doing today. Kids need to learn about the world and the mistakes of history but hitting them in the face with a picture like the one currently on the main page is not (I now find) the easiest way of doing it. Blakk and ekka 19:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I guess the opposite would be an empathetic person. That's a good question you raise though. Have you tried the Simple English Wikipedia? That might be more suitable. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Does the simple encyclopaedia have a different front page policy? It's certainly a better resource for beginning readers, though the lynching article has similarly challenging illustrations for the under tens. Blakk and ekka 20:34, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't believe it does have different policies; it just tends to be somewhat easier to get to grips with as it's written in simpler language (though primarily for those with English as a second language, rather than for children, so it will still feature content meant for adults). In all fairness, this is a website that I wouldn't feel comfortable letting a child in my stewardship browse unattended. When I was little my dad had copies of several print encyclopaedias, which were "off limits" for us young ones; looking back this is obviously because of the frank content they feature on topics such as lynching, the holocaust, warfare, et al; something that this and every other encyclopaedia is going to feature. I think the best way to make sure your seven-year-old doesn't get exposed to content you're uncomfortable with is to make sure you have http://www.wikipedia.org bookmarked so that you can readily visit the mostly-blank "home" page, and supervise their browsing from there. Even if this particular images wasn't on the main page, clicking on the "read more" link would still present it; and the "random article" button to the side can just as easily point towards fisting, footjob, pearl necklace (sexuality) etc as it could towards Botanic railway station. You should still make sure there's a stern level of supervision involved when letting a child browse a website containing graphic content, as this one does. If you're using Chrome as a browser, it's also surprisingly quick to turn images off entirely before letting a child surf, and to turn them back on again afterwards. Chrome's "settings" option (click the spanner, it's about 3/4 the way down) have a search bar, just type "images" in and it'll point you towards the "privacy" settings which have a one-button "do not show images" toggle you can make quick use of in order to gain some peace of mind. GRAPPLE X 20:52, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm not not planning on trying to prevent my kids being exposed to any challenging material on the Internet as that would be impossible and not, in the long run, even desirable. You're right in that it's comparatively easy to prevent Chromium and other browsers from loading images, though this would have made the giraffe article rather less useful. I think what I may have to do is keep a bit of an eye on WP:TFAR so I'll be forewarned for when Fisting is coming down the pipe (if that's not an unfortunate turn of phrase) as an FA, then I can make sure I turn off image loading in good time. Blakk and ekka 21:55, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) My comment about sociopaths was not directed at specific names, but if you feel like assuming responsibility then be my guest. My statement stands. If anyone has a problem with it, then report me to AN/I and have me blocked. As for the comment regarding photos of immolation versus actually burning people, that's the real logical fallacy. I could also mention the usual things about straw men and red herrings, but clearly the "censorship" mob have spoken and feel they can represent the millions of people who visit this site daily. Never let something like trying to be a neutral, objective encylopedia get in the way of telling everyone the WP:TRUTH or a good old fashioned soapboxing. - Balph Eubank ✉ 20:45, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, "neutral, objective" treatment of a highly disturbing subject is going to be disturbing, there's no way around that. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

No straw man is needed. Your own quote: "my belief [is] that the internet has created a generation of sociopaths who have grown up viewing hardcore violence and porn containing violence and debasement and so are numb to everything. Great society we've created here." Does this or does this not pretty explicitly imply that in the past this would have been intolerable? I merely point out that in the past, this photographic material was apparently considered amusing and worthy of postcards, so your argument that the internet is somehow responsible for whatever sociopathy you see is clearly false. I'm not falling for a weak retort that "nuh uh you're fallacious." If you feel that this image (or others like it) should not go up, then by all means join the discussions prior to posting and make your voice hear. Complaining about a consensus reached that meets Wikipedia's stated policies after not participating in the discussion accomplishes nothing. - OldManNeptune ⚓ 21:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Your entire argument is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what I said. You decry the time when society found it amusing to publish photos of lynchings. Much has changed since that time and I can safely say that today, a picture of a charred corpse would not be published for amusement. Yet somehow, now, you're arguing that those same photos should be published once again because "everyone needs to know what happened"? As I've repeated twice now, the image is in the article already, it did not need to also be on the main page. By publishing it there you take away people's ability to choose. You're either a crusader or someone titillated by photos of charred corpses. My statement regarding the wonderful "internet generation" stands. Everything is so much better now, with cliques of perverts, crusaders and fools determining who views what. Your arguments about joining main page content discussions is absurd. Should everyone monitor that page in the event someone wants to post photos of corpses on the main page? How about sexual acts or genitalia? I also find it telling that people are apparently pleased to post photos of extreme violent acts on the main page, but if someone suggested a penis, that would be shut down immediately. How very American. The criticisms I've read of this website online are more and more real every day to me. If the WMF is truly concerned with the loss of editors, maybe they should take a long hard look at the people making these kinds of decisions. - Balph Eubank ✉ 16:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Truly, you find it absurd to suggest that if you are not satisfied with the main page, that you join in discussions in a timely manner? And if WMF did, to stipulate, "take a long hard look at the people making these kinds of decisions," what will be done? Remove them to be replaced with who? You don't seem to be volunteering. Apparently there is no burden so great that someone else cannot bear it, no wrong so grievous that someone else cannot be responsible for it. - 68.94.152.9 (talk) 22:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Who says TFA is necessary? Why should it be my burden to join the discussion on a feature I think is superfluous? Why do you think it would be necessary to replace people who have been choosing TFA? Maybe it is an idea whose time has passed. How many people surf to the main page with the question, "What did some self-appointed committee choose for TFA?" Do you have numbers for your answer? - 71.179.117.235 (talk) 18:28, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

You've missed the point. Whether the main page contains TFA or something else takes its place, someone has to determine what material appears. If you don't wish to participate in the various processes, that's your prerogative. —David Levy 15:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I have not missed the point, I have rejected it. The assumption is that TFA is necessary and those who don't participate in its selection should not complain if others don't do it "right." I reject the notion that the main page needs to be as fluid as others seem to assume it must be. Google apparently disagrees. Their home page looks quite the same from day to day. Maybe the self-righteous TFA committee should tell Google they are doing it wrong. - Ac44ck (talk) 01:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

You're wrong about Google. They frequently display Google Doodles. Maybe you personally haven't found them offensive yet, but you'd better watch out. HiLo48 (talk) 01:52, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I am not wrong about Google. I know about Google Doodles. It is one thing they change occasionally. They don't feel compelled to mix up their main page every day. They don't invite me to participate in their site. They don't make me look stupid by association if they make a faux pas for which the media skewers them. The probably have a committee committed to political correctness. Quite the opposite of the hubris in a "we will not be censored" attitude. - Ac44ck (talk) 02:51, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

They don't invite me to participate in their site.

Please see Wiki.

The probably have a committee committed to political correctness.

Quite possibly. After all, Google is a profit-making organization with no fundamental principle of neutrality. So it can cater to the sensibilities of a majority (on a geographic basis, if desired) at the expense of the less profitable minority. —David Levy 03:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I have not missed the point, I have rejected it.

You're still missing it.

The assumption is that TFA is necessary and those who don't participate in its selection should not complain if others don't do it "right."

The message to which you replied (assuming that you're 71.179.117.235) contains no mention of TFA. 68.94.152.9 referred to "the main page" in general.

If you believe that TFA is unnecessary, you're welcome to propose its elimination.

I reject the notion that the main page needs to be as fluid as others seem to assume it must be. Google apparently disagrees. Their home page looks quite the same from day to day. Maybe the self-righteous TFA committee should tell Google they are doing it wrong.

Is Google an encyclopedia now? —David Levy 03:16, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, yes… image should be removed from the main page (in just under 5 hours;) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 19:14, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I find the image highly graphic and unsuitable for the main page. A lot of children and minors use Wikipedia and even some adults will find it nauseous. Wikipedia should not be censored, but by putting highly graphic content on the main page, people who are not looking for this kind of content are forced to encounter it. And please add more international content, not just content from the US and UK. 64.189.101.117 (talk) 22:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
- Won't somebody please think of the children? 69.62.243.48 (talk) 22:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Can somebody (ANYBODY, actually) tell me precisely what harm will befall a child who sees that pic? I would WANT my kids to see it, if I had any of the relevant age. Fairy tales of the past contained some pretty shocking imagery, verbal and drawn. Have humans gone soft? Oh, and I'd like reliable sources for any claims about harm to children please. HiLo48 (talk) 23:07, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
Hansel and Gretel, for example ;) Br'er Rabbit (talk) 00:47, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

"I would WANT my kids to see it, if I had any of the relevant age. " - Perhaps you would also bring your children at the actual event? Seriously, you should really think about what you say. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 10:01, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
I am absolutely horrified at the graphic display of vegetables on the front page. Carnivores use Wikipedia too, you know, and many of them will inevitably be disgusted at being foisted with the shocking, insensitive image of lettuce in the produce section of a market.--WaltCip (talk) 01:14, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, lettuce have something fairer! GRAPPLE X 01:15, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
It's all a vegan plot. Think of Baba Yaga. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 01:24, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

After reviewing this talk page section, here are a few thoughts about this discussion. These thoughts are general and not directed at any editors in particular. (1) There is not a consensus that the use of graphic and disturbing images on the main page is appropriate. On the contrary, many editors think it is not. (2) In general, the work of those who contribute regularly to WP:TFAR is a valuable addition to Wikipedia, especially since the main page is the "front door" to Wikipedia for millions of readers worldwide. At the same time, those editors do not own the main page, and in some cases might serve the project better by taking into consideration the feedback of other editors. (3) While it's often good to have a sense of humor, and not take things too seriously, it's also good to be respectful of the opinions of others, and refrain from mocking or taunting them, especially when they're upset about something. — Mudwater^(Talk) 06:16, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

There most certainly is a consensus to run such images on the main page; it's been done for years and every time about a half dozen show up here complaining about it, but the wiki goes on; thousands didn't show up here and are not fussed. This happens mebbe every month or two and images don't get yanked. WP is not censored, after all. Key to keeping this place afloat is knowing who to ignore. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 07:11, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Your assertion that there is a consensus does not make it true. A rational review of the discussion here demonstrates that there is not a consensus to run the chosen image on the main page. What is the evidence for your claimed consensus? A few posts in the TFAR discussion is not sufficient. Nor is "we did it before" a valid argument. - Ac44ck (talk) 18:06, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

As discussed above, only those objecting to the image's display were likely to seek out this talk page and comment. Why would someone who didn't object (and didn't see this discussion on a watchlist) have come here to tell us that?

And it's important to keep in mind that Wikipedia isn't a democracy. Its content is intended to reflect our fundamental principle of neutrality, not the moral standards held by a majority of the site's readers or by those who voice their opinions the loudest. For input to carry weight, it must be consistent with our policies and guidelines. Feedback along the lines of "This upsets me, so it should be removed." is not. —David Levy 15:34, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

You said before, "But very few will ever edit a page, let alone this one." By your own admission, few people inclined to object would actually do so here. And a significant fraction of those commenting here are not part of a supposed "consensus." Wikipedia's policies and guidelines are sacrosanct because ...? Sounds like a religious position. Hardly NPOV. - Ac44ck (talk) 01:30, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

You said before, "But very few will ever edit a page, let alone this one." By your own admission, few people inclined to object would actually do so here.

Right. And among those not inclined to object, virtually none (apart from regular editors responding to comments on a page that they monitor) would express that view here.

And a significant fraction of those commenting here are not part of a supposed "consensus."

As discussed above, only readers with complaints had any reason to seek out this talk page and comment on the image.

And again, Wikipedia is not a democracy; consensus isn't based upon what "fraction" of users like or dislike something. —David Levy 03:37, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Moar than a quarter million views… Br'er Rabbit (talk) 08:11, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Presumably knowing who to ignore is also key to thinking that there is a consensus. — Mudwater^(Talk) 13:06, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, no. This community, by RfC last January, gave exclusive responsibility for selecting the TFA and image, among other things, to User:Raul654, who is now inactive for well over a month following a brush with ArbCom regarding the improper use of his administrative tools. Assuming that his apparent departure leaves authority to be exercised, it is in the hands of his TFA delegate, User:Dabomb87. While there is considerable pushback in the TFA/R community to reclaim that authority, if you want to be technical about it, you should probably address the matter at User talk:Dabomb87, on whom the mantle appears to have fallen for the time being. I'm not sure any other venue is germane, assuming there is no point in posting on Raul's talk page (he is likely unaware of the controversy). Dabomb87 logs in every few days to schedule. I'm sure he would answer an inquiry within several days.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:43, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Raul's position never included unilateral authority to determine the TFA blurb's precise wording or the accompanying image (which other administrators frequently adjust in accordance with consensus). —David Levy 17:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

乌拉跨氪

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Hello, there was no advertising word in the articles (Le Siècle, Corps of Mines, ...) in Chinese version, they were the translation of English or French versions. Why he (乌拉跨氪) deleted partially the articles (lists of members, admission conditions, references, ... and each time the "excellence" was mentionned)? Why he prohibits the author? Why nobody else can verify the articles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.117.157.164 (talk) 17:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

This is being dealt with at Wikipedia:Help desk. No need for a duplicate post. If anyone wishes to respond, respond there. --Jayron32 18:28, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Richard III

'Under the circumstances' his birthday could have been mentioned. Jackiespeel (talk) 08:43, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Forgive my ignorance, but what circumstances would those be? We only list birthdays on OTD on centennials. But happy 550th birthday, Richard! —howcheng {chat} 16:08, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

560th, actually. Ghmyrtle (talk) 16:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I assume it's because his remains might have been found under a car park recently [4] Hut 8.5 16:10, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

(after ec) I think the circumstances in question are that his long-lost mortal remains may have been found buried under a car park in Leicester last month. The BBC has a news story today in which the local MP calls for a state funeral if the king's identity is confirmed. He didn't get one at the time because he was the defeated enemy of the new king, Henry Tudor, who avoided having Richard buried with full honours at London or York, for fear of creating a focus for anti-Tudor sentiment. (Amazingly, they've been able to find someone whose mother was a direct matrilineal descendant of Richard's mother, Cecily Neville - allowing for mtDNA testing.) Personally, I'll be calling for the story to go into ITN if the tests come back positive. They're expected in December. AlexTiefling (talk) 16:13, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That NCP overdue fine should be quite hefty by then. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:17, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Wonder why he didn't make it to ITN. —howcheng {chat} 16:36, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Because it hasn't been confirmed yet. The discovery of a few remains is interesting, but it's not the same as the successful outcome of the search. AlexTiefling (talk) 16:55, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

A "few remains"!? we might not all look that good after 560 years, you know... Martinevans123 (talk) 17:42, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

If they agree it's his remains, archaeologists will be able to confirm that Richard didn't "look that good" even on a good hair day. --Dweller (talk) 16:18, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

His birthday was mentioned on the German Wiki main page. Even if a decade-round figure date and 'not quite decided' there was a case for a mention even if just on the talk page (and not one of the 'usual topics of discussion for the talk page'). Jackiespeel (talk) 17:18, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Welcome to Weatherpedia

Forget the image filter. I want a hurricane filter! Kaldari (talk) 02:40, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Fox news update!: Once again a hurricane has cast a gloomy shadow over the main page.... BallroomBlitzkriegBebop (talk) 20:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

unwikified FA blurb

Is this something we're experimenting with for the next few days? If so I vote oppose. Daniel Case (talk) 02:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I suspected that it was unintentional and went ahead and re-wikified it, but tomorrow's blurb has no links either... --Bongwarrior (talk) 02:13, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Not unintentional. I was asked to copy-edit a few of these TFAs, some of which are riven with links. No one has audited those articles for policy compliance, especially plagiarism and copyvio, but quality more generally. Is someone volunteering to thoroughly check them if they're to be directly exposed on the main page? A few of the links were trivial anyway, and should not appear even in the article. But most importantly, the TFA is named for good reason: it's a featured article, which has gone through a laborious, difficult process to get its star, and that process is the reason it gets exposure in the best spot of the main page. Why discourage people from clicking on the link to it, by peppering links to tons of other articles that are not FAs. Those links are in the article itself, in much better context. I do hope people are not trying to degrade the linking system here by spraying links throughout a text that has a very specific function, quite different from the lead of the actual FA to which it refers. Tony (talk) 02:54, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Was this discussed somewhere, or is this strictly your personal preference? --Bongwarrior (talk) 03:26, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Your personal preference, and that of Daniel Case? Tony (talk) 03:41, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

That doesn't answer my question. Am I to understand that there was no discussion, and you were merely acting on a personal whim? --Bongwarrior (talk) 03:51, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Again, were you acting on a personal whim? I presume that since you flung in a whole lot links, you expect to divert a proportion of readers away from the target featured article. Can you confirm this? And second, can you confirm that those link-targets you've inserted have been checked through for compliance and quality, since they're now in a privileged position top-left of the main page for 24 hours. We wouldn't be happy finding copyvios, factual errors, plagiarism or close paraphrasing, or substandard prose in them, would we. You've already informed me that you're not prepared to do that, even though you've inserted those links. It doesn't add up. Tony (talk) 04:02, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

You know full well that the burden of building consensus rests with those seeking changes, not those wanting to maintain the status quo. Quit being evasive. --Bongwarrior (talk) 04:11, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not talking about consensus for your personal preferences (I believe it doesn't exist). But what seems plain as day is that you're unwilling to put the work into auditing articles you want to expose by linking them right at the top of the main page. You can't have it both ways. Which is it to be? Tony (talk) 04:14, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

It's going to be this way: I'm not going to relink the three other upcoming TFA blurbs that you have delinked, because frankly I don't care, although someone probably should before they go live because it gives the main page an inconsistent appearance. If you would like to keep unlinking everything, your next stop is here. --Bongwarrior (talk) 04:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Uneven? How? I'm genuinely interested. And I'm wondering whether your main concern is visual ("appearance"). The matter certainly needs discussing. Now, "It's going to be this way" sounds fairly aggressive. No matter. I was going to put it to you and anyone else who wants to continue the practice of replicating the links in the leads of the actual FAs:

intend to divert readers away from the targeted FA; and
are willing to ensure—either personally or systemically—that the articles those links target have been properly audited for main-page exposure, just as the FA itself has been.

Oh great, now that Tony want another arguement we'll have three pointless and long discussions on the main page. Joy. 86.138.171.81 (talk) 05:35, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

These two assumptions, I think, are the default, unless you have something to add to them (I'm keen to know whether there's a misunderstanding on my part). BTW, the title you chose seems to be biassed: wikification involves more than just internal linking acccording to the guidelines; and the continued presence of the key links—to today's FA (twice if you count "more ...", which is a good link indeed), to yesterday's FA, and to the FA achives for the month—appear to be at loggerheads with the notion of "unwikified".

This is a discussion worth having (again). Thanks for your participation. Tony (talk) 05:29, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

As it is right this instant, I'm fine with it; but there's no way things like "Loop" should have been left unlinked; that's not something anyone outside of Chicago is ever going to understand. Leaving things like that unlinked isn't just an aesthetic thing, it's deliberately introducing obtuse language. A lower amount of links in the FA blurb than the article itself is perfectly fine but none at all is rarely going to work. GRAPPLE X 05:50, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

No, you're completely missing the point. Items can be highly technical in a TFA ... obscure, unknown; but why link them from TFA, which is not a WP article: it's a main-page blurb based on the opening of the actual article. The whole point of TFA is to give prominence to the featured article. Loop is one click away IN the featured article, a few seconds from its top. I'm surprised this is still the subject of misconception. "Loop" is not the FA; it has not been audited ad infinitum as the FA has. If someone desperately wants to look at the article on "Loop" (unlikely, but possible on rare instances), let them do so from the full context of the article itself. Tony (talk) 09:41, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe I'm missing the point; being able to hover over a link to see where it points allows for things to be piped for better prose, without the need for contextual asides. It allows the TFA blurb to stay focussed on the subject of the article without needing to waste precious words explaining, for example, what or where the Chicago Loop is; if there's absolutely no help offered with that either through direct prose or a link, then why even mention it at all in the blurb, rather than just saying the building is in plain and simple Chicago? If you want to focus on the subject at the expense of other links then a further streamlining of the blurb to iron out any jargon would be more than useful—say for instance the next plain text TFA blurb is on Chromatophore (I'm aware it already has been). I'd hope that terms seen in the lead like "organelle" or "neural crest" are either rephrased a bit more layman-friendly, or given a link that can be quickly visited to explain what they are. Either option works but going with neither presents a stumbling block for readers, who I'd say are likely to then look this stuff up by searching for it anyway if they're still trying to read the article. Focussing on the subject alone shouldn't mean it's only 100% legible to people "in the know" in that field without consulting a dictionary or manually searching for terms. GRAPPLE X 14:39, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

They can click through to those pages after they've navigated to the TFA itself. I agree with Tony, the TFA section exists to direct your attention to one particular article. People shouldn't be reading the blurb for the entire story, it's just a blurb. If you have questions about it, click through and you should find the answers in the full article (including links to less familiar words).--Khajidha (talk) 20:24, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I second what Grapple X said and would like to add a thing or two: a lack of links makes the article unsightly and unseemly among other sections with appropriately placed links all around it. On top of that, I think it's our job to allow people more and easier access to more information, not less. I have no idea who Odet de Foix was, nor what the circumstances of the Italian War of 1521–1526 were, but it took me significantly more time to find out without the links than it would have with them. One of the main reasons Wikipedia is great is because of the inline links. Without them, the current TFA looks more like a paper encyclopedia entry; old, dry, and difficult to navigate through. BobAmnertiopsis ∴_ChatMe! 00:20, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I guess I (and possibly Tony, though I can't claim to speak for him) have a totally different idea of how the main page should work. I find that the linkless blurb highlighted the over linking throughout the rest of the page. I see all the items on this page as being teasers to draw you into the relevant article where you will find all the information and all the other links. Thus they don't need all those extra links, that's what the main target articles are for. --Khajidha (talk) 12:54, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Erm, yeah... that looks terrible. Prospero Colonna? Arcimboldi Villa Bicocca? I can't make heads or tails of some of these things. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:46, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Why fix a one day problem and ignore the permanent ones?

On a related note, Tony mentioned above they were copy-editing the blurbs. A quick check shows they did indeed do some copyediting to the blurbs. But as seems very common in general with fixes concentrating on the main page, they've ignored where these issues originated i.e. the article. I understand that the main page is a highly visible page but still, I've never understood this extreme concentration on the main page, where most issues are only going to be seen for a day or more (ITN) or less (DYK). To some extent this is worse with factual errors where potentially such an error could mislead people for weeks or months but only be on the main page for 6 hours or so in the case of DYK. But even with copyediting, I don't see any good reason to show off our writing skills for our blurbs when people visiting the articles find they aren't as good.... To be air, not everyone understands how our processes work so may not appreciate errors occuring on the main page often come from articles. Or they may not understand, that fixing errors on the main page often does not lead to the fixes being repeated in the article so they should fix the issues they (usually) can first in the articles, as the error section tells them to. But Tony has been around on wikipedia and the main page talk page for long enough that they must know that blurbs are often minor rewrites of the article WP:LEDE from the time of the blurb and a quick check would have confirmed that e.g. the wording they changed in the "Say Say Say" blurb was from the LEDE. And I can't see any good reason why the wording changes were ideal in the blurb but not the article. I.E. I presume a conscious decision was made to just change the wording in the blurbs but not the articles. So can Tony or someone else explain to me why fixing the main page issues but ignoring the same issues in were they originated from, in the articles, is a good idea? To be clear, I'm not suggesting it's necessary to copyedit the entire article if you want to copyedit the blurb, just that if you do want to copyedit the blurb, I don't see why you shouldn't also copyedit the necessary parts of the article if the problems originated from and remain there. Nil Einne (talk) 14:58, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

A comment about "fixes concentrating on the main page" (not about Tony or overlinking): Experimenting with stats.grok.se shows that "issues [that] are only going to be seen for a day" as the Featured Article, will be seen as much for that day (actually two days) as for a couple years without Main Page exposure. And that statistic is for the Featured Article itself. We can only guess how many people read the blurb without clicking the article. But we do know how many people load the Main Page where the blurb is visible: 7–8 million per day, which is a couple hundred times a typical featured article on its day. And we do know that almost everyone reading the article on its day must have seen the blurb first, otherwise the article wouldn't spike. We insiders know that the purpose of the blurb is to introduce the article, but readers don't know that; the blurb is just something to read. It has a bold link, but most readers probably don't know or care what that means either. So we may presume the blurb is read much more often in a day than the article is read for many years to come. Perhaps a lifetime. Wikipedia may not exist in its present form by then. Art LaPella (talk) 16:54, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually I usually only read a sentence or two before clicking through to the article. I rarely read the blurb in the entirety. I'm not saying I'm the same as an average user by any means, but the idea that anyone reading the article must have read the blurb seems lacking of any real evidence at best. The spike could easily be because of prominent main page exposure as much as anything, IIRC DYK and ITN stuff gets similar spikes.

And as you said, we can only guess how many people read the blurb without clicking the article, the fact is a large percentage of main page visitors likely do not read much of anything. (As a history of complaints have shown, many people simply use the main page for searching, even though there are better places for that.) And of course, it depends significantly on the article. To give an obvious example, the spike of when Michael Jackson was TFA was dwarfed by the spike of when he died.

And I don't understand what you mean by 'actually two days'. TFA blurbs only appear for one UTC day. While there is yesterday's main page, the number of people visiting that is small. Similarly screwed up caches could exposure the blurb for more or less then a day, but the number of people that affects is likely small, and more importantly ultimately it will average out. The fact that the spike in FA reads continues usually for 3 days after the TFA (while the FA continues to be linked via the archive) doesn't show that many people are continuing to read the blurb for those days after TFA. If anything it suggests the main page linking itself is sufficient. Considering as I said the limited use of common ways to see the previous blurbs, the vast majority of people reading the FA in those extra days have very likely not read the blurb, but will potentially read the LEDE.

In other words, I don't see any reason 'we may presume the blurb is read much more often in a day than the article is read for many years to come', you seem to be assuming stuff with insufficient evidence. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the number of people is definitely larger.. But since one is ultimately our core content, which will remain until some modifies it, and which will be served in a variety of ways including outside wikipedia (potentially even after wikipedia itself dies) for a long time, I don't see a good reason to give such a high level concentration on the main page to the extent we ignore our core content. Even if the other is our first public face. Or to put it a different way while I'm fine with people trying to fix the main page, they should also fix our articles. Particularly since in most cases they can do it themselves unlike with the main page where they may need an admin's help and if they think the articles don't matter their priorities seem out of wack. (Somewhat OT but even more so in cases like DYK where by the time someone fixes the error, it may only be 1 or 2 hours left where the correction will show.)

Nil Einne (talk) 16:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S. To give another random example which I accidentally came across. Chrisye got 23k hits when it was TFA [5], it got 4k hits in June 2012 helped by a spike in 2012-06-29 [6], the cause of which I don't know (nothing in the article's talk page or SA/OTD [7] offer much clue). If you add that to extra hits the days after TFA (I think I looked in to the time frame of the stats once but can't recall of what I found, it's possible/likely? some of the day after TFA stats belong in the TFA one but it can't be that many), we're not far from not that far from the number of hits on TFA day. Of course these numbers are quite small, it's easily possible the number of people reading the blurb dwarfed them but I think it still demonstrates the point it's easily possible people may come to the article in numbers for some reason. (I acknowledge the spike here predated the TFA so fixing the article when fixing the blurb wouldn't have helped them, but that's beside the point. In any case as I explained above there's little guarantee those who went to the TFA even when the blurb was present read that much, if any, of the blurb. In fact as in the MJ case, it's not helped by the fact this was an anniversary so people may have came here from elsewhere.) Nil Einne (talk) 16:58, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Chrisye has had occasional spikes based on the (somewhat frequent) DYKs on his albums and films. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 07:10, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

I didn't think about someone who would read one sentence of the blurb and then click the main article, but why would a typical reader (not an editor, and not a Main Page editor) do that? Would he know the bolded link was featured, and why would he care what some bureaucracy considers "featured"? Authentic Science Fiction got as many hits on its day as the previous 32 months, and 1740 Batavia massacre got more hits than its entire history since May 2010. But after compiling more statistics, I have to agree that two years is too high. Just under one year is about the median. I can't explain the "two days" either; the Chrisye graph is more typical. I still think it's obvious that the one-day spike in viewing can only come from people reading the blurb (at least some of the blurb, and it's hard to imagine a typical reader doing that); random events also occur, but they average out. Excluding anniversaries, which aren't typical, and probably not significant except for something well-known like September 11. And whatever the true statistics may be, it's how often our work is read that counts, not how long it sits on some disk drive. Art LaPella (talk) 18:27, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

P.S. I asked my wife if she knew how to find Wikipedia's Featured Article. She said she clicks Wikipedia in her favorites, and it just comes up (~~confusing the Featured Article with the Main Page~~ no, she was thinking of the blurb coming with the Main Page). So I showed her the Main Page, and asked again. She confidently pointed to the blurb, naturally enough, since it is entitled "Today's Featured Article". She said "Is that right?" I said "No." Her next guess was to click the words "Today's Featured Article". Hence my unproven assumption that it must be far more common to read the blurb than to click the featured article link. Art LaPella (talk) 18:39, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Nil Einne, blurbs are deliberately different from leads (see Raul's list of ?four differences between the two genres). Those differences resonate with my central point that people here seem to be treating the main-page blurbs as the lead of a WP article. It is not that for one moment. And we have someone called "Neelix" bombing the blurbs I'd fixed just a few hours ago, leaving extremely cogent edit-summary justifications such as:

"Restored valuable links that correspond with links on the article itself" [Um ... there's not meant to be a one-to-one correspondence ... they're different genres, with quite different purposes]

"These are valuable links that should not be removed in order to direct users to the main article" [why not? tell that to those hard-working editors at the FA forum]

You'd think someone stomping through relinking a sea of diluted blue links for the TFA blurb—apparently in pursuit of personal preferances unstated—would offer more logical and more reasoned excuses. Tony (talk) 09:18, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not saying that blurbs are the same thing, simply that they are similar, and one usually derives from the other therefore if changes are introduced in the blurb, it needs to be considered whether those some changes should be introduced in the LEDE. If you already did this, can you explain why the wording changes you made for "Say Say Say" were ideal for the blurb but not the article lede? To be clear, I'm not referring to the link issue at all, hence why I never referred to it and I started a subthread. The link stuff can be dealt with in the main thread so I don't see any reason to discuss it here. Nil Einne (talk) 16:24, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

More on the TFA blurb–article lead difference

At a guess, copy-edits made to the blurb were suitable for the article lead. I don't have time to copy-edit entire FAs that are on the queue—it's not my role—but I do care if sub-professional language appears directly on the main page. I'm expecting that someone else, like the queue organiser(s) or the guardian editors for the FA, care enough to improve what they should have already improved in the article when a blurb is copy-edited.

Now, since there seems to be confusion about the different roles of the TFA blurb and the FA lead, let's look at the some of the differences Raul has noted for TFA blurbs:

a blurb is made into a single paragraph, no matter how the lead is paragraphed;
the days and months should be omitted from the dates of birth and death, leaving only years;
alternative names should generally be omitted;
there are tighter length restrictions ("if the lead is longer than the blurb should be, it has to be selectively edited").

I say again that linking in the main-page blurb should also be consistent with the different functions of blurb and article lead—not blindly cut and pasted in from the article lead. Tony (talk) 10:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

I acknowledge the distinction between a blurb and an article lead, and one of those is that we should be more selective on what we link on the Main Page. But the bottom line is that a term that the majority of non-expert adults wouldn't understand should always be wikilinked on first occurance, whether on the Main Page or not. For instance, on the Monadnock Building's blurb (1 October), I don't think "Chicago" needed to be linked (although place names are admittedly somewhat of a red rag to a bull), but "Loop community area" probably needed something. Most people would be able to take an educated guess at what a "window bay" is, even if they didn't know the precise definition, but the majority probably wouldn't be able to decipher "cornice". —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 06:56, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

So your intention is to minimise the likelihood that visitors will single-click to the actual FA to read the article proper, and from there to click on a link to some term a reader doesn't immediately understand"? I thought the point of the TFA was to get people to visit the FA, and the point of links in the lead of the FA was to make available, in full context, links to technical or little-known items. This seems to defy the different function of a TFA blurb. Tony (talk) 07:20, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

My intention is avoid annoying the majority of people whose understanding of the blurb might have been compromised by not understanding two or three terms. If I can't even understand the blurb, I'm less likely to delve into the full article, not more.

Look, I'm largely agreeing with you: 80% of the links in the typical TFA or TFL blurb don't need to be there, and the same goes for around half of ITN and OTD links. But if you take it too far, and remove links to terms that the vast majority of readers and editors would want the option of clicking on, this will inevitably happen. By removing links to relatively obscure terms such as cornice, there's a danger of preventing the very thing that you are trying to achieve. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 16:17, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

<sigh> But the link to cornice is right at the top of the article. If anything, I'm more inclined to go to the article to follow up my curiosity if there's something I don't understand, but I'd like to think people will go to the FA first before choosing to follow up other things. Again, any links in the blurb will inevitably siphon off potential visitors to the actual topic article, which is the proper place for linking elsewhere, from the full context. Linking practice should match the function of special pages, shouldn't it, when different from that of normal WP articles, shouldn't it? Tony (talk) 12:40, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

I very much agree with Tony, the Main Page in general is overlinked, while the Featured Article should have minimal links at most. As for a lack of links being visually inconsistent with the rest of the Main Page, form should follow function, period.

I also think there’s a good case to be made for avoiding excessive jargon in the blurb, “Westphalian Sovereignty” in yesterday’s FA being a case in point. In my opinion, a much simpler statement along the lines of “changing concepts of the right to autonomy” would be vastly preferable. Frankly, I have come to suspect that certain terms are being shoehorned into articles not because they are genuinely necessary, but simply in order to create an opening for starting an article or linking to an extremely obscure one. Comprehensible clarity should always trump unnecessary jargon. This would of course also reduce the urge to link unusual terms.

And a small practical suggestion: I would strongly urge changing the wording of the link to the article itself from “More” to “Read the full article here”. Awien (talk) 18:11, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Mark me as fully behind everything Awien says here. In fact, I would go further and state that each item on the main page should have one and only one link. Period. That link should take me to the article that prompted the item's inclusion on the main page, where all these other things should already be linked. --Khajidha (talk) 20:49, 8 October 2012 (UTC)