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Request for comments: Do we need a second box for hooks on the Main Page?

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Consensus was reached to reject the idea of a new Main Page section. Storye book (talk) 10:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)


The issue to !vote on: Should we retain the existing DYK box as it stands on the Main Page, with its quirky hooks "interesting to a broad audience", but add a second box containing factual hooks for specialist articles?

Note: this issue to vote on is solely about whether we want a second box or not, and the discussion is about why we may or may not want a second box for WP's improvement. At this stage, it is not about logistics such as whether we have enough reviewers, or where the templates should be listed for review and prep, or Main Page overall design.

History: This issue was triggered by difficulties on Template:Did you know nominations/Talia Or (and previously many other similar difficulties on previous nomination templates). In the hope of resolving the difficulties which were stalling the progress of certain DYK nominations, a discussion and Rfc was opened at: Wikipedia talk:Did you know#Request for comment: The need to update Wikipedia:DYK#gen3. The difficulty was that some reviewers felt that DYK hooks should all have quirky or intriguing elements aimed at a "general audience" (however one defines that). But some nominators and reviewers felt that sometimes a factual hook was the only type suitable for a particular article, even if that article contained potential quirky-hook material. It has been impossible to reach a compromise, and that is why the idea of an extra hook box arose, and why the Rfc has been opened here. Please see the "Possible reasons for adding another hook box" section below, for more information. Storye book (talk) 13:49, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

!voting

(Please !vote Yes or No, for or against an extra hook box, or for Other if you have a more complex view. Please keep comments brief so that the voting can be seen clearly. There is a discussion section for your longer comments, below.)

  • No - A longer explanation will be written below in the Discussion section. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:46, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No, let's not make the Main Page even more convoluted. Also see discussion. —Kusma (talk) 15:10, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No. I'm sure it's not beyond the wit of people to mix different types of hook. Bazza (talk) 15:21, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No - this sounds like putting very mundane information onto the main page. The idea of DYK is to get people to click the suitable article. We achieve no clicks on non-hooky items. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 15:25, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No - A second box would serve unclear purpose (especially if it were effectively just replicating the DYK process/format) and needlessly dichotomize content as either "serious" or "fun(ny)"/"hooky". —⁠Collint c 15:55, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No - I'm actually unbothered by "boring" or less quirky hooks mixed in with silly ones. If there's nothing funny to say about something, then it's quite okay to just state something important or interesting. --Jayron32 17:02, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No. If DYK wants to modify the types of blurbs it runs, that's fine with me and something to be discussed within the project. FWIW I don't like quirky blurbs, because they're often misleading or confusing. I would prefer all blurbs to be factual statements, expressed in terms understandable by non-expert readers. Whatever DYK blurbs are run, I don't see any benefit to separating them into two sections on the Main Page. That's an unnecessary complication which would only confuse readers and make more work for admins & DYK queue prep, for no discernable benefit. Modest Genius talk 17:38, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No - blurbs should never be so bland they need to be shoveled into a separate section. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:54, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes - you nailed it. Therapyisgood (talk) 07:17, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No - per Sarek of Vulcan's reasoning. It isn't that hard to find something interesting to say about an article. And if there really isn't anything better than the "singer sang song" level of comment, then don't bother taking it to DYK. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:40, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No - I agree with above "no" comments. I also believe that adding an extra box would just make the main page more confusing to readers who are not familiar with Wikipedia policy. I agree with Modest Genius that if the type of blurbs being run are an issue this is a discussion that should discussed within the DYK process. Also, what is "hooky" or interesting varies from reader-to-reader, and I have seen other editors like Modest Genius who dislike the quirky blurbs. Aoba47 (talk) 16:00, 18 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No There's a wealth of good reasoning below, but at the end of the day I'm most sympathetic to it being not needed. The main page is the introduction point. Simplicity as a design choice is well attested in the web design world and it makes it easier to navigate the main page. --WhoIs 127.0.0.1 ping/loopback 12:39, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Possible reasons for adding another hook box

(Note: this is not about criticising the policy and contents of the existing hook box. It is about whether we should add another box for articles which are peer-reviewed in exactly the same manner, but with a different type of hook)

  • Some specialist articles deserve factual hooks in specialist terminology which represent their contents or a main point of the article, such as "Scientist John Doe discovered Foo", or "This botanical species has been discovered to be related to that botanical species".
  • Hook-examples like the above, in specialist terminology, are important features of specialist journals, and in the right place they can elicit great excitement from the readers of such journals. But those people read WP too; sometimes looking for a first-stop glance at a subject peripheral to their own, to see if widening their view can shed more light on their work. Serious newspapers and magazine journalists constantly check online (including WP) for developments in academic and other specialist fields. We do have another audience, besides whatever concept we may have of a "general audience".
  • Our Main Page represents what we want the public face of WP to be. The current fun and quirky hook box represents our user-friendly side. But we do also have a serious academic side, and our articles do also serve specialist groups of readers such as those interested in baseball or railway systems.
  • The existing featured-article box is fine for featured articles, but it does not serve the need for the public airing of our newest specialist articles, which we can be proud of, too, however obscure their terminology.
  • "Specialist" can include any article whose special-interest hook is not designed to capture the casual browser. For example, Jargonese articles/hooks on baseball and computer games can be included, where only that terminology puts the point across precisely.
  • Even if a new Our newest specialist articles (or however-named) box were to be added, specialist article nominations and their hooks could of course still be featured in the existing DYK box. This request for a second box is only for those articles for which a quirky hook is deemed inappropriate by the nominator.
  • The additional hook box would not need to compromise space or cause slower uploading. It could be, for example, a scroll box. (The scroll box idea is just to suggest that an extra box could be done; how it is actually done is not at issue at this point). Storye book (talk) 13:49, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

  • I just do not see the point of having two separate article sections on the Main Page, one for "quirky" hooks and another for specialist information. Any desire to promote specialist articles on Wikipedia already have their own avenues, mainly DYK, but theoretically even other Main Page sections such as TFA/ITN/OTD and so on. Such a section would feel very redundant to DYK, which was always intended to promote topics that may not necessarily be familiar to our general readership. In addition, the comments above imply that specialist topics such as baseball, railways, computer stuff, and so on can never be interesting to a broad audience. If there is a desire to promote specialist topics on Wikipedia, what's preventing an editor for simply writing a hook about that specialist topic that still appeals to a broad audience? A specialist topic doesn't need to limit its audience. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 14:46, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
    You say, "the comments above imply that specialist topics such as baseball, railways, computer stuff, and so on can never be interesting to a broad audience". That is not the case, my friend. What I actually said was, "specialist article nominations and their hooks could of course still be featured in the existing DYK box. This request for a second box is only for those articles for which a quirky hook is deemed inappropriate by the nominator". Storye book (talk) 17:15, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
If a nominator does not want a hook that is interesting to a broad audience, and one is impossible, the nomination should be closed. A hook doesn't necessarily have to be quirky, but the rules currently state that a hook must be interesting to a broad audience. Barring a change relaxing or dropping that rule (and based on currents trends in the WT:DYK discussion, I frankly don't see a consensus for that happening anytime soon), a nomination can be rejected if no suitable hook is possible. If the nominator rejects all hook options, that's also a reason for closure since no consensus on a hook can be reached. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 18:09, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
That puts nominators of specialist articles with informational (non-quirky) hooks in a situation where they have nowhere to go. They have no compromise/re-write of guidelines to permit their hook, and they have no other place for their hook to be aired. So they have to close their nomination, or it gets closed anyway. That is why we are here, asking for another box. No-one wants the hassle of another Main Page box, including me. But there is nowhere else to go. Storye book (talk) 18:32, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
The solution is very simple: write a broadly interesting hook about a specialist topic. Editors have been able to do that for years no problem, so I don't see how it's impossible. I can understand if writing broadly interesting hooks about a field are impossible, but that's rarely the case. In most cases, a broadly appealing fact about a subject can be found if you know where to look. Even if one particular subject doesn't have a broadly appealing hook possible, that doesn't disqualify others in that field from having such hooks if it's possible. I don't see why there's an insistence on an "informational (non-quirky)" hook even when a broadly appealing hook is possible. For example, take the article Mami Kawada. Anime music is a very specialist topic and one that is niche. Yet the article was able to run on DYK with a non-specialist hook: ... that Mami Kawada's music career began after she was discovered by her music teacher? It didn't have a hook that went ... that Mami Kawada performed the opening themes to the anime Shakugan no Shana? because, despite being a specialist topic, a broad interest hook was still possible. Instead of insisting on a specialist hook, why not just simply follow existing guidelines and write a hook that is broadly appealing? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 18:56, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
While I agree with your general point, you picked a horrible example of a non-specialist hook. That hook should have been tossed in the trash. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:43, 17 November 2022 (UTC)
  • Back in the day we had subject-specific portals that could have subject-specific and specialist DYKs. Specialist content should be targeted at specialists, not given to all random strangers. —Kusma (talk) 15:08, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
    @Kusma:. You say "Specialist content should be targeted at specialists". How do you suggest that we do that, if not with hooks on the Main Page? Storye book (talk) 16:56, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
    Put them on a page where more of the readers are specialists. You may not get many readers, but those you get actually care. —Kusma (talk) 19:19, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • @Bazza 7: You say, "I'm sure it's not beyond the wit of people to mix different types of hook". Do you mean that we could have two types of hook - quirky and factual - in he existing DYK box? Or do you mean that a single hook can contain quirkiness and factual information at the same time? Whichever is your meaning, I agree with your comment, and that is the type of compromise that we were looking for. We have been told that it's not going to happen. That is why we are here. Storye book (talk) 17:05, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
    @Storye book I originally meant the former, but am happy to adopt your other interpetation of what I wrote as well! Thanks. Bazza (talk) 09:13, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
  • @Jayron32: You say, "I'm actually unbothered by "boring" or less quirky hooks mixed in with silly ones. If there's nothing funny to say about something, then it's quite okay to just state something important or interesting". You are, of course, right. However we have been told that such a compromise is out of the question. That is why we are here. Storye book (talk) 17:17, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
    • I'm not terribly sure what person told you that, but sometimes people are wrong. --Jayron32 17:22, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
      There have been several statements to the effect that a compromise is not going to happen, or about what would happen if there were a no-change decision. One, by Theleekycauldron, on the Talia Or nom template, said " It seems that a compromise on a hook that satisfies both the nominator and the consensus of current guidelines is not obtainable at the moment". (The context was that the nominator wanted a factual hook, and the guidelines were perceived to demand a hook "interesting to a broad audience" which was in turn perceived to mean a quirky or intriguing hook). There have been a few statements by other people in the same vein, some saying that if a hook cannot be made "interesting to a broad audience" as described above, then the nomination should be closed. There have been suggestions that in exceptional circumstances a nomination with a factual hook should be referred to IAR, but I don't know what that is. There is a page WP:IAR which is called "ignore all rules", but it contains no formal process. On a DYK nom page it would have no sway. Storye book (talk) 17:48, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
      Look, I don't know what to say. When I'm named Emperor of Wikipedia, I'll make sure all of the hooks, boring or quirky, get posted to DYK. Until that point comes, however, I'm not sure what I can do for you. --Jayron32 19:23, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
      Thank you, Jayron32. And thank you, everyone here, for voting as you have, so far, and for saying what you have said. This discussion - so far - has clarified for me what has happened with DYK and why we are here in this discussion today.
      Until this year, of course there had always been problems and brief spats on DYK templates, but on the whole it worked. Quirky and intriguing hooks aimed at the broad audience were passed, gave pleasure on the Main Page, and brought attention to new articles - all fine by all. And besides that, informational hooks were passed without tears or hostility, and achieved the same thing on the Main Page. It was like a sort of Paradise lost. Then a small group of reviewers took the guidelines literally and in narrow sense of "only quirky hooks will be passed, and nothing else", then they took issue with a small subset of nominators who wanted non-quirky, informational hooks for readers who may not be broad-audience-classified. Such nominations were the subject of a great deal of pressure to give in to the quirkiness requirement, and when nominators resisted, rejection was intimated. This caused a great deal of unhappiness on both sides. A formal discussion was raised, but all that did was to clarify to all that no compromise was going to happen, and that rejection from the DYK process was what our informational-hook nominators could expect.
      Before, the system worked. Now it is broken. Running away to create another Main Page Box is not going to work, because some comments by voters on this page suggest going back to the old pre Paradise-lost days, when we were permitted both sorts of hooks - but those days are gone.
      I am not permitted to close down any discussions, myself, as far as I am aware. But what I can do, is to stand up and say to those whose refusal to compromise is going to block the informational-hook nominators from the DYK process - please compromise. You no doubt have been doing your best for WP, but what you have actually done is to stall and antagonise many DYK templates this year, your actions have resulted in two Rfc discussions which have got nowhere, and while you sit triumphing in your castle of quirky-hookness, there are nominators out there who will be permanently left out of the chance to air their articles for the public. Who cares how many clicks an informational hook gets? What matters for some articles and some nominators, and ultimately WP in that case, is quality clicks, not only random browsing clicks by general-audience people who, faced with an article that they did not expect, may immediately close their browser window. I'm clearly not going to see a good result here, and neither are nominators of articles which certain reviewers have deemed good enough for WP but not good enough for hooks.
      In summary, there used to be inclusivity regarding both points of view in the DYK nom process. Now there is none, and one point of view is to be rejected from the system. I have tried and failed to regain that inclusivity by creating two Rfc's. For goodness' sake. All that is needed is to correct "interesting to a broad audience" to "interesting" in the DYK guidelines, and be a little more inclusive on DYK templates, and the problem is solved without any harm to WP. Storye book (talk) 21:38, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
      This is not a great summary of the situation. The broadness criteria has been asked for and implemented for much longer than this year. Quirkiness is not a requirement, and is only sought out for one of the eight hooks; even then sets are sometimes run without a quirky hook. DYK continues to work and function up to this very day, with the main issue being constant delays in prep building and in queue transferring, which points to an issue of there being too many hooks per current manpower rather than too few. CMD (talk) 04:16, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
      I was using "quirky" according to its dictionary definition; a quick google gives us "having or characterized by peculiar or unexpected traits or aspects", i.e. not necessarily silly. I take that definition to mean the aspect used in the "broad audience" hooks to grab a casual browser's attention. Yes the broadness criteria did work for a long time, as I have said above. Pity that didn't last. DYK is functioning well in general, but no longer working as to certain aspects of inclusivity, as I have explained. And arguments on DYK templates about inclusivity have often, at least temporarily, taken valuable promoters and prep builders away from their primary work. Storye book (talk) 10:59, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
      • I don't see how or why a hook can't be factual and broadly interesting to an audience at the same time. I mean, if a hook wasn't factual, it wouldn't have been allowed to run in the first place (hooks regularly get pulled for being inaccurate, for example). Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 17:59, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
        • Yes, of course the quirky/intriguing hooks have to be true. By factual, I meant as opposed to quirky. So long as they are true, it should be possible to make them either quirky/intriguing, or simply informational. If we could have a formal compromise, written into the guidelines, then we wouldn't need to be here, asking for a separate box. Storye book (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
  • @Modest Genius: You say, "If DYK wants to modify the types of blurbs it runs, that's fine with me and something to be discussed within the project". You are, of course, right. However it has been discussed innumerable times on the DYK templates, and formally in the discussion linked above (see the History paragraph). And it has become clear that no compromise is going to happen. If you are a DYK nominator wanting a factual hook for your specialist article, then without such a compromise regarding the guidelines, you are going to have to withdraw your DYK nomination. That is the current situation. I don't want the hassle of an extra box any more than all the "no" voters above. I want a compromise so that we can have both wholly factual and wholly quirky/intriguing hooks in the same Main Page DYK box, as we have had for years. But it was made clear that it was not going to happen, which is why we are here. Storye book (talk) 18:18, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
    Why have you proposed something if you don't think it's a good idea? That seems like a WP:POINTy waste of time. Also, those linked discussions are very TLDR and lack a closing rationale, so I can't work out who (if anyone) has decided that hooks cannot be factual. Modest Genius talk 12:49, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
    Why did I start this Rfc? Please read the list of reasons above, headed "Possible reasons for adding another hook box". It's one of those things that you do because you have to, not because you want to. That's why. And I did say that I was considering doing this, in the other Rfc discussion, because I was worried that it might not be permissible. But I was given to understand that it was OK to do this. As for who, I'm uncomfortable naming names because everyone has a right to their opinion, but I suggest that you read through the other Rfc discussion, linked in the History paragraph, above. Storye book (talk) 13:56, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
  • I know Story book means well, but I can't help thinking that what's being proposed is that we supplement the current "Did You Know?" section with a new "Why on Earth Would Anybody Care?" section. EEng 00:37, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
  • It's a little confusing to me that we're using "quirky" to mean interesting. @Storye book and Jayron32: quirky has a narrowly and specifically defined meaning in DYK terminology: it refers to the silly hook, of which there is exactly one in every set, at the bottom. The bottom hook should be quirky; the first seven simply currently need to be broadly interesting. Template:Did you know nominations/Claudia Riner is interesting, but not quirky. The first hook proposed at Template:Did you know nominations/Pronunciation of GIF is quirky. They're not the same term. Could we please note that down? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 09:41, 16 November 2022 (UTC)
    Thank you. I have explained my meaning above. Storye book (talk) 11:00, 16 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion ended?

Thank you, everyone, for taking part. I believe that this discussion has now ended, and that the consensus is clear. I would like to get this discussion closed now, by removing the Rfc template above, by bringing in a closer to close it for us, or both (or of course anyone is welcome to close it down for me). I am writing my intention here so that if you have objections to the closure, you have the chance to say so. Thank you. Storye book (talk) 17:34, 20 November 2022 (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.

Why is changing the Main page layout so difficult

I am aware that the Main page has been proposed for redesigned for centuries, but it looks like none of them has been adopted yet. What makes adopting a new Main page design so difficult, and how can we overcome them (just like updating the Vector skin)? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:21, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe because the page is fine, nothing broken, and readers and editors are used to it. Leaving things alone sometimes is the best remedy. Randy Kryn (talk) 08:03, 19 November 2022 (UTC)
Wikipedia's culture is against change for the sake of change or fixing things that are not broken. There isn't any consensus that the Main Page is currently broken, and any changes that would affect any of the content areas (DYK, ITN, TFA etc) would need buy-in from their supporting community. For any changes, you would need to convince a lot of people that change is needed and then go through a well-made RfC. —Kusma (talk) 17:13, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
Say what? DYK was added only a couple years ago, with a bizarre requirement for "recent edits". Why is that relevant? Most of the items are interesting because they are relatively obscure, regardless of "recent edits". Also recency exacerbates poor vetting of the items, such as hooks that have been way off base -- look up the hook for Action bias back in September. Martindo (talk) 04:24, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
18 years, not a couple years. While I would agree with a more reader-oriented DYK, I know DYK people would say DYK exists to promote new article creation. Art LaPella (talk) 06:43, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
A different view : Wikipedia in Android on Chromebook
There was a change made in 2020 so that DYK and OTD appeared in the mobile view. This is the view used by the majority of our readers and so presumably that's what Martindo is talking about. The previous suppression of those sections seems to have happened in 2016 but I don't recall the exact details.
So significant changes are being made but some editors don't have the big picture. For example, there are other views available in the apps for Android and iOS. These don't have DYK for some reason but do have other sections like Top read and Random article. Top read is particularly interesting because it highlights the most popular articles of the day and these are often surprising. For example, Dusty Springfield mysteriously spiked into the top read a few days ago.
I've been using the iOS app on my phone but just tried the Android app now this Chromebook supports it. Note that the sections which are shown are customisable so you can tinker with them yourself. And the default view had five columns on this screen (right).
So, to get the full experience of change, get out of your filter bubble and try all the views.
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:29, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
No matter the experiences other formats provide, if DYK, for example, isn't on their screen, then they are not looking at the main page. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:08, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Sounds like a No True Scotsman fallacy more than a proof. Martindo (talk) 13:05, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Correct, if a True Scotsman were looking at Wikipedia's main page and it didn't have DYK on it, the True Scotsman would not be looking at Wikipedia's main page. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:44, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
People can reuse Wikipedia's content in any way that is compatible with the license, for example by via mobile apps or ad-carrying versions like Wikiwand. That doesn't mean we need to consider the experience of people using Wikipedia's content anywhere but on Wikipedia as anything other than (potentially) inspiration for how we want people to experience our content here. —Kusma (talk) 15:55, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not talking about third-party tools. The Android app shown above is an official Wikimedia product and changes are being made to it. See recent discussion, for example. Even if you just use the desktop browser view, there are continual changes. For example, there's the new Vector 2022 skin, which has a big effect on the look. And there's lots of tinkering at a low level. For example, see Balance. So, there's not a timeless, monolithic main page which never changes.

Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things pass and nothing stays, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river.

— Plato, Cratylus
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:30, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
The WMF mobile apps are so disconnected from the Wikipedia community's needs that I see no reason to view them differently from any non-WMF third party tool. —Kusma (talk) 09:58, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
The previous suppression of those sections seems to have happened in 2016 but I don't recall the exact details. Those were "removed" from mobile a long time ago in WMF's attempt to find the best content to display on the mobile main page when they first developed the mobile skin and support. They introduced technical debt to do it then. Subsequently, other software was developed in the stack to support better user control of styling, which permitted us to more fully control what's displayed. Which is basically the only reason we see this content now on the main page (and not because anyone actively asked for it back, per se). Izno (talk) 02:38, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
On second thought...maybe too much eggnog for me. If done right an unofficial camel mascot would work but probably not be popular, camels have their fans but not universal fans. Wikipedia does nicely adhere to the quote "A camel is a horse designed by a committee", and as long as people realize the amazing design ("design" not used in a "God" created it way - that would be Goddess) and functionality of a camel, but maybe making a mascot image of it would stretch the point. Unless Wikipedians in one of the countries which widely utilize camels would like to unofficially adopt a camel mascot. I've always liked camels when visiting them in zoos, and rode one once, but, unlike moose, I've never seen what a camel really looks like in the wild where its muscles would be fully developed (I felt the ground literally shake before looking up to see a natural giant muscle-bound moose run by). Randy Kryn (talk) 13:18, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Idea lab

I found the Vietnamese Wikipedia to be one of the most modern and usable Main page on Wikipedia. We can reuse a lot of the flat design, header, and even the task center for our new Main Page redesign. (See also the Main page redesign discussion there) However, some of the features are unsuitable here because of accessibility problems, such as using flexbox in IE 6, 7, 8, and 9. I'm going to mess around with the Vietnamese main page code a bit to make a demo for English here. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 00:46, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

You'll need to correct the fault which makes that page too wide for the browser window, regardless of that width. (Using Chrome Version 107.0.5304.107 (Official Build) (64-bit).) Bazza (talk) 14:14, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
The Vietnamese main page has an attractive look and their task centre is a good idea. What I notice is that they don't have an In the News section and have split DYK to replace it. DYK takes the place of ITN at top right and there's a new section of Good Articles underneath the FA section. As Storye book just proposed a similar split of DYK above, they should take a look at how they did it.
But they still bury the featured picture down at the bottom. I don't know why this is done when it seems so obvious that the featured picture should be at top right in the two-column view -- balancing the featured article and giving due prominence to a picture that is usually easy on the eye.
Andrew🐉(talk) 09:06, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
I think trying to resolve the whole world has been a predominant issue of previous main page discussions. Moving things around on the main page is one of those "no one will agree" kind of questions. Can't we just start by eliminating our rainbow colors? An RFC with a main page marked up more or less as it is today but with much less color I anticipate could gain consensus. Izno (talk) 02:35, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
MediaWiki no longer supports browsers older than IE11 and given how few pageviews we get in that regime, we don't either. In fact, flex box is used on the main page here today, in case you missed that. Izno (talk) 02:30, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion on WP:POTD template formatting

Moved from Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors § Errors in the summary of the featured picture
 –  — Amakuru (talk) 18:12, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I've done what you described above, which was missing from the original request - Dumelow (talk) 08:22, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
For context, the timeline is:
  1. Original request: Special:Diff/1124093224.
  2. Original fix: Special:Diff/1124093189
  3. Second request: Special:Diff/1124257325
  4. Second fix: Special:Diff/1124310153
—⁠andrybak (talk) 09:52, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
@Dumelow and Schwede66:, and for anyone else wondering what this is about, I think what this is all getting at (in a rather convoluted way) is that Dumelow, as you're probably already aware, you made an error when you copied the unprotected version to the protected version. That operation requires copying of the blurb and, if necessary, image/credit details etc, into the relevant positions on the protected template. It doesn't mean copying the entire Wikitext of the unprotected template, though, because they have a different format. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:07, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks Amakuru, I don't have much knowledge of POTD and will steer clear of fulfilling such request in the future. Can anyone explain why POTD is unique on the main page for having protected and unprotected versions of the template? It just seems to complicate things - Dumelow (talk) 17:37, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I’d be keen to learn about that, too. Here at Errors isn’t the right place. Post at Talk:Main Page? Schwede66 17:52, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I just want to say, Dumelow, although you didn't get it right, you also did nothing wrong. Please continue to fulfill error requests such as these. Mistakes happen. Very few people know these things. You are now one of them. It may an uncomfortable way to learn something but I am happy there is one more admin that understands how this works just a little bit better. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 19:39, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
@Dumelow: oh yes, indeed, fully echo C&C here - I didn't notice your "steer clear of fulfilling such request in the future" comment earlier. Please do continue to handle them, it's not really rocket science once you understand the basics!  — Amakuru (talk) 20:03, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Thirded! Schwede66 04:12, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
@Dumelow, Schwede66, Coffeeandcrumbs, and Ravenpuff: continuing the discussion here, per your suggestion. Regarding why the POTD process differs from that of other sections of the main page, I don't really know the full history... I suspect it was just a historical accident though, someone set it up that way and a bot was written to match, and that's how it stayed. Some of this was alluded to at Wikipedia_talk:Picture_of_the_day/Archive_8#Further_discussion as well. Certainly I'd be happy if someone wants to propose an alternative way of doing it. The best way would I think be something akin to TFA, where editors edit the actual template that will appear on the main page, and it simply becomes protected by default 24 hours before its run starts as a result of transclusion at WP:Main page/Tomorrow. The main things that would need to happen to make this a reality are: (1) amend the default template for creating POTDs so that it has a user-friendly version of the "main page" format rather than the {{POTD}} template currently used; (2) amend AnomieBOT so that instead of doing the copying and archiving it currently does, its only role is to insert the previous few days' POTDs into the template, much as FAC bot does for TFAs; and (3) edit the main page and the derived versions Tomorrow and Yesterday to transclude the new-look POTD templates. Plus anything else I haven't thought of yet!  — Amakuru (talk) 18:26, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Users who often know much about the history of WP settings include Stephen and xaosflux; I'd be keen to hear from them. Schwede66 19:01, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
I would also appreciate reform here; it is what has stopped me from attempting to support POTD using modern code under the hood, since otherwise the TemplateStyles will be copied onto many pages (an issue with the main page archives also as discussed somewhere or another). (The tables are a mess and it leaks into the main page styles directly to support small resolutions.) Izno (talk) 02:33, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia splash page English article count

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T323731

On the international splash page for Wikipedia, the English article count is off by an order of magnitude, having "657 000+ articles" presumably due to a missed zero in an update. (Would this be a message for here or Meta-Wiki's Main Page?) Dralwik|Have a Chat 01:57, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

This is a message for Phabricator. —⁠andrybak (talk) 02:32, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Well, it's not actually wrong, is it? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:41, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Since all other languages there have more updated article counts, this gives a false impression that the English language WP is way behind them. So an update for en WP there is warranted. Brandmeistertalk 18:03, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
How embarrassing that the Wikimedia Foundation with its staff of 550 and $160 million annual income can't correct such a straightforward and obvious error 2.5 days after it was reported - Dumelow (talk) 13:45, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
Solving the problem is blocked on updating a volunteer-maintained tool; it's also the day after US Thanksgiving, so I imagine a lot of people are on vacation. Vahurzpu (talk) 19:18, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
They could presumably just replace it with text that says "6,570,000+" while they work out what has gone wrong with the automatic update? Even if its slightly behind it would be better than the 657,000 that has been up for the past three days - Dumelow (talk) 23:33, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
There is nothing we, here on the English Wikipedia, can do about this. This also has nothing to do with Main Page. Anyone is welcome to write and submit a patch. — xaosflux Talk 23:43, 25 November 2022 (UTC)
@Vahurzpu: what makes you say that the tool is volunteer-maintained? Legoktm (talk) 04:48, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
@Legoktm: not looking too carefully and making a mistake. The "volunteer-maintained tool" I was referring to was pagecounts on Toolforge. Given that the source was hosted at https://github.com/MaxSem/pagecounts, I saw a Toolforge tool with source on a random personal GitHub, maintained by a user whose userpage didn't mention being an employee, and assumed it was volunteer-maintained. Looking more carefully, it appears that MaxSem used to work for the Foundation, and JDrewniak (WMF), who ended up actually fixing it this morning, is a current employee. Vahurzpu (talk) 06:21, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
It is weird that the code of this staff-maintained tool is stored on GitHub and not https://gerrit.wikimedia.org. —⁠andrybak (talk) 10:36, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

The Roaring Lion

Amakuru, what we all overlooked in our Errors discussion about this POTD candidate was that it had gone through three previous deletion discussions on Commons. Long story short, the conclusion for The Roaring Lion was that PD-US also applies because it had been on the cover of Life magazine in 1945, with copyright not having been renewed by the publisher. Hence, we can safely run it. Adam Cuerden, this POTD got pulled and if you've got an opening somewhere, please help yourself to this one. Schwede66 09:16, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

@Schwede66: OK, I guess so then. I've looked at those discussions and I have to say I can't really see what the justification is for keeping them. The "keep" !votes look like emotive "please don't delete this, it's very useful and unlikely anyone will challenge it" rather than actually grounded in the letter of Commons or Wikipedia policy on copyrights. But then again I'm no expert either, so perhaps those guys are right. At the very least, before any putative main-page run, it ought to have a licence note for the US put on the page, so it's clear under what interpretation they're saying it's valid. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:28, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm literally not seeing any sign of any of this. Which day was it? Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 13:28, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
That's because any trace of it had been nuked! Sorry, I did not realise that, Adam Cuerden. I've restored it to Template:POTD/2023-11-30. Schwede66 18:48, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
@Schwede66 and Amakuru: Did it actually run at all before being swapped out, and, if so, for how long? I feel that 24 hours on the main page is the minimum for a FP, so if it got swapped out partway through I'd like to rerun what it was swapped with. Presuming we're agreed it's fine, and it hasn't just run, I'll probably slot it in to the 9 December gap. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 21:02, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden: yes, it ran for almost half the day actually. I did the swap at 11:44, with what's now Template:POTD/2022-12-01, the red-bellied piranha, filling the remaining 12:16 of that day. The thing is, issues had been raised with the image the previous day and it was swapped over between the 30th and the 1st, but then nobody followed up, which I assume had been the intention, given the consensus at the time that the Churchill image wasn't satisfying PD-US. So if you want to give them both equal airtime on the second run day, then you can just flip those 11:44 and 12:16 values around. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 21:59, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
Little awkward, but should be doable. Not actually an admin, though, so might just put both in for February or so Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 23:20, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
Ok, here's what I suggest we do:
  • Adam, move The Roaring Lion template to when you want it to appear.
  • Once done, we'll move this discussion to the template's talk page.
  • We'll then move the Pygocentrus nattereri over the top of The Roaring Lion.
  • Once it's run for half a day on the chosen day, an admin reverts to The Roaring Lion.
  • We'll then copy The Roaring Lion to the unprotected version, too.
  • We can appoint an admin who will be online at the correct point in time (that won't be me; it'll be just after midnight when the revert needs to occur).
That way, both items will have had two half-days on the Main Page. In the archive, Pygocentrus nattereri appears as having run on 1 December 2022, and The Roaring Lion will show on the chosen day. We should probably leave notes on the talk pages of the archive versions that points to this discussion so that nobody is confused should they choose to look at the templates' histories. How does that sound? Schwede66 00:45, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Pretty good. Probably wise not to do it too soon, though, as it's not that odd to think someone might have viewed it before noon that day, after noon the one we choose. I guess there's another option, but I'm not sure it's a good one: We do have the tech to randomly show one of X images on the main page, randomly choosing one to show. But having such disparate images might just make it confusing. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 21:52, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
Oh, for the record, if this happens again, it's better to use an image that has already run, as I do feel more than a day is much better than less than a day. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 22:46, 3 December 2022 (UTC)
"Probably wise not to do it too soon" – so would 30 November 2023 be fine, Adam Cuerden? Could also run this exactly one month later as that's the anniversary of the 1941 photo shoot. Schwede66 02:26, 5 December 2022 (UTC)
Makes sense. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.3% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 16:24, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

Can we remove the outdated Wikipedia slogan "Anyone can edit"?

WP:SNOW The slogan isn't going anywhere --Jayron32 14:37, 8 December 2022 (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.

To the Wikipedia users and staff members, over the 20 years that Wikipedia has been around. I've noticed over the 20 years that there's been Wikipedia vandalism over the years and the title "Anyone can edit" is outdated, abused, misleading and taken advantage of. Can we change the slogan from "Anyone can edit" to "Users can edit"?

Unsigned visitors have sometimes been vandalizing Wikipedia articles as a prank and I want to protect the Wikipedia articles from unwanted vandalism. Also, we need to make it a requirement for people to log in their Wikipedia account to edit anything on all Wikipedia pages so we can better monitor the activities to make sure they are following the Wikipedia rules.

Let me know if you like my suggestion slogan "Users can edit" Because the current "Anyone can edit" slogan is now outdated and gives visitors the wrong idea that they can type in whatever fake words they want. Also, if you have a better slogan idea. Let me know, because we need to replace "Anyone can edit" slogan right away to prevent and discourage vandalism and misinformation to any Wikipedia articles. CrosswalkX (talk) 13:16, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

CrosswalkX As the slogan is not just for the Main Page, this is probably best discussed at the Village Pump. Requiring accounts to edit is a perennial proposal. 331dot (talk) 13:21, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
On the English WP, anyone can indeed edit, anonymously, if they like, and there are a significant number of beneficial IP edits. There is no requirement that anyone register an account. Edit filters and bots have gone a long way toward dealing with vandalism. That "anyone can edit" is a fundamental tenet of crowdsourcing, and a way of attracting new editors. You appear to be advocating for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist, or at least is not reflective of how the project works. The "anyone can edit" is more often abused by POV-[pushers with agendas, who wish to advance their own views. Most of those have accounts. Acroterion (talk) 13:24, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Exactly what you said Acroterion, that's why we need to change the outdated Slogan "Anyone can edit" Because there are POV pushers with agendas or pranksters, or unwanted unsigned users online who take advantage of Wikipedia and attack the Wikipedia pages and it's been happening too many times over the past 20 years, and I want the Wikipedia technicians to add online security like requiring people to be signed in Wikipedia to better protect Wikipedia articles.
Can we have an online Wikipedia staff meeting to discuss about changing the Slogan "Anyone can edit"? I want to present a new slogan for the Wikipedia company and team with these ideas "Members only can edit", or "Respectful users can edit", "Privileged users can edit", "Wikipedia Users can edit"
Also, I personally think there should be a requirement for all people and editors to sign in as Wikipedia members, then that way we can prevent most vandalism and track down who the Wikipedia users is on editing articles. This is not the 2000s anymore, this is the 2020s and it's time Wikipedia CEO and all the Wikipedia staff and user members to start having an online meeting and talking about making changes to Wikipedia including changing and replacing the outdated slogan "Anyone can edit" and in the future making it a requirement to require all users to login to edit Wikipedia articles so we can verify them and make sure they are not putting out fake information. And that they are editing correctly. Otherwise, we'll keep having the same problems we have now with POV pushers with agendas and pranksters targeting Wikipedia page articles. I'll make sure I talk to the correct contact staff members elsewhere about this issue. CrosswalkX (talk) 13:10, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
im against this, anyone including anon people too. ----modern_primat ඞඞඞ TALK 22:25, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
There is no staff of the kind you imagine, and nobody's going to do anything differently because a slogan has changed, or are so literal-minded to imagine that we accept abusive editors because of that. I don't think you understand the role of the community versus the WMF, or how the WMF operates. Wikipedia is not and never has been a free speech outlet - it's not owned by an autocratic billionaire. In any case, you're in the wrong place. Start a discussion at WP:VP if you want to pursue this, but not here. Acroterion (talk) 13:16, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
The Wikipedia slogan "Anyone can edit" is both historical and correct, and a discussion at WP:VP will get the same type of comments. Please understand that what the slogan does not say or imply is that anyone's edit will stay, or that once "anyone" edits the edit won't be reverted, the editor bounced as a vandal, or anything promising that the edit will survive. There is a world of differences between 'can' and 'permanent'. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:20, 7 December 2022 (UTC)
The slogan doesn't drive the site. We could change the slogan to "The Encyclopedia Only Cats Can Edit", but it wouldn't change the actual editing rules, or slow vandalism at all. ApLundell (talk) 01:44, 8 December 2022 (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.

Adding Extra Info That Is Not On Google

Please Only Include Information That Is On Google Not Information That Is Not On Google 2607:FEA8:41DF:BF00:714A:9572:D5B:98AC (talk) 22:48, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not limit itself to what is on Google. And not everything that is on Google can be used on Wikipedia. They are different approaches to organizing information. — jmcgnh(talk) (contribs) 22:52, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

Greetings! There some links about other main pages on the left below side of EnWiki Main page. But, in here main page of UzWiki doestn't exist. Why, Anyone knows? On Wikidata, all things are true when I checked it. Does anybody can help? Thanks. Salazarov (chat) 14:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

I see on Wikidata that there 327 entries for main pages. Of these, I get 47 displayed on the English WP main page. Clearly, that’s a selection of what is available. I don’t know how that selection is chosen, Salazarov. Schwede66 17:10, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
Hi Salazarov and Schwede66, the correct venue to request this is at: Template talk:Wikipedia languages. There is a quality threshold to meet as well as numerical, to exclude some of the wikis whose article count has been inflated by large numbers of short bot-generated articles - Dumelow (talk) 19:13, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
There are old discussions at Template talk:Wikipedia languages/Archive 6#Uzbek Wiki and Template talk:Wikipedia languages/Archive 7#Uzbek Wikipedia. PrimeHunter (talk) 00:46, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Revising main page colors

The colors as the main page currently stands looks really unorganized and illogical; it seems that they are grandfathered in from the early days. Maybe we should use the wikimedia color palette as our guide for the redesign? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:33, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

The colours are fine in my opinion; what about them is "illogical" in your view? TFA and DYK both highlight content, and are in green; ITN and OTD highlight events, and are in blue. This also lines up with the columns. Then TFP is stuck on the end and gets purple.
If we used the WMF colour palette, what would be more logical about that? It seems like a change from something very familiar to a significant percentage of Internet users without any particular reason. CharredShorthand (talk) 15:56, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
Well, I agree with that. Perhaps some things don't need to be changed after all. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 16:00, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

On This Day updates needed

I just noticed that Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January 6 had not been updated since the last 2022 posting. I've placed new items for the births/deaths. People can edit for that date or other future dates at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/January, or beyond. If a specific date's page is fully protected, feel free to make change suggestions at the errors section above.—Bagumba (talk) 08:25, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, good call thanks. Volunteers gratefully received. Anyone interested can have a look at WP:OTDRULES to gain an idea of things to check when looking for new material. In particular, that the article should be in a decent condition and the date of the event mentioned fully cited etc. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:57, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for ping Bagumba. When I had time I would to wait to see Howcheng's "update for x year" edit summary before checking upcoming OTD entries. Last August it appeared that Bumbubookworm had taken over as 'coordinator' in compiling new sets. But now neither user is creating the new sets (nor keeping the notes on each date's talk page up to date which summarises what was used/not used etc for that year). And now, sets are mostly repeats of the previous year's set (with Dumelow and others noting problems and fixing or replacing). Is that a correct summation of the state of play? Pinging @Bumbubookworm, Howcheng, Dumelow, Amakuru, and Ravenpuff: for comment. JennyOz (talk) 14:29, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
To be honest I don't think it's a terrible thing if the same set repeats a year later. Obviously some variety is nice, but it's not like running the same DYKs for several days or something, it's not that the ship won't run if nobody tinkers with it. And rather that than swap out hooks with good articles for those that don't meet OTDRULES, as I think has happened a few times. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 14:41, 11 January 2023 (UTC)
I'm grateful for the work people did in the past, but it's their WP:CHOICE if they choose not to continue. At the same time, even if they were still contributing, nobody WP:OWNs any page, so anyone can contribute, even more so now if few are looking to make updates. Certainly, to Amakuru's point, do promote pages that meet minimum OTD standards, and don't make changes merely for the sake of change. —Bagumba (talk) 15:05, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

"Painted Live Snakes"

Just an amusing wording to that DYK article about Isabel Cooper. I thought the blurb states that she applied paint to live snakes as she held them. Might need a slight tweak to avoid confusion. -- Veggies (talk) 23:22, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Today's Featured Article

This is an observation about how articles with "complex" titles (i.e. titles that cannot naturally be repeated verbatim in the lead sentence) are handled in the "Today's Featured Article" section.

For example, today's Featured Article is 1920–21 Burnley F.C. season.

For consistency, I propose:

  • The section header to say "From today's featured article: 1920–21 Burnley F.C. season"
  • Removal of the bold title in the opening sentence, and text to more closely follow that of the article

Benefits:

  • Exact article title would always appear on the Main Page, which gives greater clarity and is less surprising for the reader
  • More consistency between the Main Page text and the article text
  • No awkward re-phrasing of the title in the Main Page lead, which is in contravention of MOS:BOLDAVOID and MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD.

I appreciate that the Main Page is itself not an article, hence might be considered a special case in terms of MoS. Nevertheless, I believe the above suggestions would promote consistency and good editing standards. --Jameboy (talk) 02:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

This seems like an issue to discuss at WT:TFA. FWIW, I don't have a problem with the current style, and MOS does not apply to the Main Page, so would follow WP:NBDF. Making the title longer could have unindented consequences for layout, especially on mobile view. Modest Genius talk 13:06, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Difference cultural variables between United Strates and Hawaii

different cultural variables between United states and Hawaii 98.20.111.51 (talk) 04:27, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Isn't this a repeat? Have featured pictures looped around and I just never noticed before? ApLundell (talk) 19:08, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@ApLundell: I checked the article talk page and it ran as TFA on 7 September 2022. Jip Orlando (talk) 20:33, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
Aha. That's probably what I was thinking of. ApLundell (talk) 02:22, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
No wait! I'm not crazy. It was a repeat! It was also featured in September of 2014. Weird. ApLundell (talk) 02:29, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
It seems that the POTD in 2014 was File:Commercial-LBJ1964ElectionAdDaisyGirl.ogv, which was delisted in 2020 in favour of a higher resolution version File:Daisy (1964).webm. See Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/delist/Daisy. The new version then got its own place in the queue for POTD. I don't know if the POTD project considers such replacements to be new promotions, or if it was just a mistake. Eight years between POTDs seems sufficiently long that it doesn't matter, though being only four months since it ran as FA is more problematic - especially as the video was used as the lead image in the TFA blurb. Modest Genius talk 12:21, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
  • Replacements have historically been considered new promotions, as the image/file itself is new. This obviously makes sense for new photographs, but has also occurred for different digitizations of existing media. For example, File:Van Gogh - Starry Night - Google Art Project.jpg ran in 2013, six years after File:VanGogh-starry night ballance1.jpg. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:30, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
    Yeah, I think if someone has put the effort into restoring a historic photo, or producing a better resolution version or something, it's fair game to re-feature it. As for the proximity to a TFA, that's not something I was checking for when I scheduled this one. Might be something to bear in mind in future when the article linked is also an FA, and then consider pushing it back by a year or something.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:10, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
    Ideally, yes, but trying to keep track of TFA can be difficult, especially as it's a relatively rare event, and keeping track of.... well, if 4 months is an issue, that's basically 4 months either side, so 8 months of FAs? ...Probably a bit more than can be done with the resources we have. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 23:17, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Actor is Unisex

I would like to request that the words, actress and actresses should be changed to actor and actors, since the word, actor can also be referred to females. 4lepheus B4ron (talk) 19:20, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Are you proposing a change to Wikipedia policy, or does this relate to a specific item that is on the main page right now? --Jayron32 19:22, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
TFP mentions an "actress". See also Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_213#given_MOS:GNL,_why_do_we_still_continue_to_distinguish_between_"actor"_and_"actress"? for a somewhat recent discussion on this. I don't think TFP needs to be changed, as the terminology matches the article, categories (e.g. Category:American film actresses), etc. To talk about this in general @4lepheus B4ron - please first read through the prior discussions such as the one I linked above, then if you would like to you can take this up at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (where I do not expect it will be a trivial discussion). — xaosflux Talk 19:30, 24 January 2023 (UTC)
"Actor" is being used more frequently for females nowadays, but it's not like "authoress" where the feminised term is unheard of, or "stewardess" vs. "flight attendant" where it's very clearly being replaced. It's something that may change in future, but I don't think language usage is there yet. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 23:21, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
It's still a minority usage, as you say. Indeed, it's still rare enough that it surprises me a little when I see it, although I do know that The Guardian among others have made a point of doing it. I think there's also a point of view that actually adopting what was historically the male term as a blanket replacement for both male and female is almost more offensive than splitting the profession by gender in the first place. A bit like how using "he" as a generic pronoun when gender is unknown is definitely frowned-upon.  — Amakuru (talk) 23:29, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
True, although there's (arguably) a case for saying that -ess is merely a forced addition to the word, given how we've dropped "poetess", "authoress", "editress" and other now-stupid-sounding words invented to seperate females out from a generic term. But "actress" has a difference in that it.. survived. The "stewardess" -> "flight attendant" isn't necessarily a guide given that there were so few male flight attendants that "steward" was barely used, and thus "steward" was kind of splitting off in meaning to the older meaning of the word (someone who looks after something), kind of like "governess" and "governor" having very different meanings. But let's worry about that when "actress" fades from the lexicon more. It might well: it forms a somewhat awkward situation with mixed-gender groups or people of non-binary genders. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 00:06, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

CSS sheet for Main Page redirects

I've recently made User:Tamzin/main-page-redirect-checker.css, which other admins might want to take a look at. If there are redirects on the Main Page, then, for someone using this sheet, the welcome banner's background turns pink, as does the border around the affected section(s). Then, for maximum noticeability, the redirect itself/themselves turn a hideous yellow-on-purple that only the most oblivious admin could miss. This is all CSS, no JavaScript involved.

It can be installed by either:

  1. Adding 
    @import url('//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?action=raw&title=User:Tamzin/main-page-redirect-checker.css&ctype=text/css');
    to your common.css or skin.css
  2. Copying and pasting the contents to either of those pages, modifying as you see fit.

-- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (she|they|xe) 03:09, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Why doesn't the main page have a search box so that people can get into Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neelthakrebew (talk • contribs)

Well, the main page does have a search box (whether you are signed in or not). Right at the top of the screen. Schwede66 04:00, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. I eventually figured it out.The problem is that I usually use the Internet in reversed visual format, white type on a black background. It's much easier on my eyes .
In the old man page, the search box showed up in the white on black format. Now, those buttons are invisible in the white on black format. I wonder if this can be fixed. Neelthakrebew (talk) 05:32, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
@Neelthakrebew: Consider posting about this at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical), if it's not already among the many comments there. Regards. —Bagumba (talk) 06:40, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

The main page seems to have an incredible amount of white space all around the boxes, taking up quite a bit of room. Is this a problem with my settings or are other people seeing this? It is like the right 20% of my screen is now white/blank, and there is a large white space between the boxes and links on the left. Mattximus (talk) 01:16, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

That's the new standard. See Wikipedia:Vector 2022. CMD (talk) 02:03, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
I know we were asked for feedback and that there were negative responses (See Wikipedia:Vector 2022), but I am not sure how much of the negative response was incorporated. My problem was similar to Neelthakrebew 's: I couldn't find a search box, making the English Wikipedia useless unless I went to another skin. Finally, by chance (I think it was when I came back from another language or after I guessed correctly that the three dots were the access point to my login!), I saw the search box at the top. It seems at my standard resolution, the box disappears off the top of the screen. How many potential users are going to give up given this set-up? Kdammers (talk) 19:41, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
This is not specific to the Main Page, however in Vector-2022, the "search box" collapses down to a search icon (the magnifying glass icon) at resolutions under 1000px wide. Clicking on the icon should cause the box to open (where it expands over and removes the site logo while in use). — xaosflux Talk 00:13, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
That's not possible. Chiagozie Elobuike (talk) 13:28, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Toggle content width

I just spotted the toggle width button at the bottom right for widescreen PCs which is great but poorly visible, I think it ought to be at the top left where the Contents hide is. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:41, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Not exclusive to the main page, you'll have to bring that up at Wikipedia talk:Vector 2022. CMD (talk) 13:48, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries

Something needs to be done with this project. At the moment the anniversaries are not being updated from last year which leads to some of the moveable feasts and national days being scheduled for the wrong day. I do a pass every day of the proposed blurbs and list the errors above (usually non-compliance with the SA guidelines on citations) these are seldom actioned by anyone else; check the current listing and history for the past few months for examples. I only have limited free time at present and it frankly feels like a waste to spend it trying to bring WP:SA up to its own minimum standards, when I could be writing articles. At the moment I think it would actually be best just to drop it from the main page if no-one is interested in taking it on - Dumelow (talk) 10:22, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps if there's no appetite in updating moveable feasts, we can drop them from SA to alleviate WP:ERRORS. Other than, I occasionally swap some long-hanging anniversaries with newer ones for diversity and freshness. Brandmeistertalk 12:51, 6 February 2023 (UTC)
If you care and its a problem, you can just fix it yourself. Only the next several days SA files are actually protected, anyone (literally anyone) can go through starting three days hence and make any necessary corrections. If you have the admin bit, you can also edit the ones for the next several days as well and fix them. Wikipedia doesn't require prior approval to fix mistakes. Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries has instructions for getting involved. Caring that there is a problem is the most difficult step to overcome, and if you've already done that, the rest is a piece of cake. --Jayron32 13:31, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Azar Bigdeli year of birth error.

On the main page, Azar Bigdeli's year of birth is listed as 1802. But his birth year on his page is 1722. Can someone please fix this? SK071 (talk) 12:47, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

This looks like a mistake (diff) by User:Jayron32, as the year of birth got mixed up with Louisa Jane Hall — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:15, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
 Fixed - thanks for reporting — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:23, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
Sorry! Thanks for fixing it. @SK071: In the future, please report this in the "Main Page error reports" section above for faster processing. You can always use the shortcut WP:ERRORS as well. --Jayron32 13:24, 7 February 2023 (UTC)
Okay, I'll keep that in mind the next time. SK071 (talk) 13:32, 7 February 2023 (UTC)

Other Areas of Wikipedia

  • Full stops in the Other Areas of Wikipedia bullet points do not comport with MOS:BULLETS in that single-sentence bulleted statements should lack the full stop. Please remove all such terminal full stops in each bullet point today, and going forward. Cheers! {{u|WikiWikiWayne}} {Talk} 00:37, 8 February 2023 (UTC)
    Thanks for posting about this three times. As per the response at Errors (In the news), you are not correct in your assertion. Schwede66 03:21, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Chinese spy balloon

ITNC is the place for this, and it was already added. — xaosflux Talk 11:07, 8 February 2023 (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.

It seems like the spy balloon, taking headlines around the world, should be "in the news." It's me... Sallicio! 04:25, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

Here is the preferred place to discuss the balloon. Art LaPella (talk) 06:49, 5 February 2023 (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.

Log in

Forked discussion. — xaosflux Talk 11:06, 8 February 2023 (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.

Any particular reason for now hiding the 'Log in' page within the 'Create Account' link? Asking for a friend Ditto 'Contributions' 'Log out' etc, behind an inscrutable black humanoid silhouette? I have only so much time left JF42 (talk) 10:37, 8 February 2023 (UTC) JF42 (talk) 10:40, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

@JF42: see Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Why_is_the_"log_in"_button_hidden?. Short answer, the login button is coming back. — xaosflux Talk 11:06, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

Well, that is heartening. Thanks JF42 (talk) 11:44, 8 February 2023 (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.

V22 and the colored boxes

On the default line width, the Main Page doesn't look quite right IMO. The use of the colored boxes is awkward with how narrow they have to be. Let's assume for now that V22 remains the default, which means we would have to fix this (assuming other people agree with me). How would we go about making it look better for a shorter line width? Snowmanonahoe (talk) 14:47, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand the issue. What is V22 and what do you find awkward about the boxes? Modest Genius talk 15:10, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Modest Genius V22 is the new skin that, as of January 18, was made the default for most users who had not selected another skin in their preferences. Many people have strong opinions about it, and there is currently an RFC to get rid of it. I'm not sure what Snowmanonahoe finds awkward about the boxes when using that skin - other than the fact that the entire experience of using the skin is awkward. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:21, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Ah, OK. I'm still using Monobook. Modest Genius talk 17:44, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
Because of the pictures and then the boxes cutting the screen in half widthwise, all the lines are really short. If Vector 22 ends up being the default, I think the sections shouldn't be split vertically anymore. Snowmanonahoe (talk) 16:59, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
I don't quite understand what the concern is either. What are the lines being referred to here? --Paul_012 (talk) 04:09, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Oh wait, I think I get it now. Snowmanonahoe was probably referring to the narrower column width (the horizontal length of the lines of text being restricted). So especially with wide images, as in ITN right now, the top item ends up being quite cramped. The change isn't really pronounced to me, but I imagine would be quite jarring for those used to viewing on ultra-wide monitors. --Paul_012 (talk) 10:34, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Particular church

"The right rite and use to use." Someone's kinda reaching way down for cute! Uporządnicki (talk) 14:29, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

@Cielquiparle... BorgQueen (talk) 14:52, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
@Pbritti@Ravenpuff FYI re: your carefully thought out cuteness. Cielquiparle (talk) 17:32, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
Thank you! Credit also goes to an off-Wiki conversation with Maximilian775! ~ Pbritti (talk) 18:06, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I was gonna say, @Pbritti, I saw this on the mainpage today and thought "he better credit me" lmao Maximilian775 (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Urdu language on the main page

In urdu langue we have 50k+ article but we not found urdu langue in main page why ? ابوالحسن راجپوت (talk) 20:02, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

Hi ابوالحسن راجپوت, you'll need to post this at Template talk:Wikipedia languages. The addition of Urdu was last proposed in 2015, I am not sure why it was rejected at the time but not all Wikipedias over the article count are included, particularly those with large numbers of bot-generated or very short articles - Dumelow (talk) 14:11, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

distracting animation

The image in question. To see it in context, view main page on 17 Feb 2023.

The hurricane animation is very distracting; almost like an advertisement.

I would strongly urge the community to not turn Wikipedia's main page into some kind of Yahoo portal. Please keep it static. Yes, some kids may consider this "boring". I consider it a prerequisite for "informative". CapnZapp (talk) 06:29, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

In contrast I found the video fascinating. I do not believe that any static image, or even a series of them, could convey the phenomenon as clearly, so in this case the use of video is appropriate and informative. Not everything serious has to be boring! JMCHutchinson (talk) 08:26, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
Agree with CapnZapp. Readers don't need animated visuals to get the gist of articles that could just as well be illustrated by still photos or depictions. Main Page space is limited, and animated 'art' tends to draw the reader's eye away from other important content. In this instance, the vid looks pretty much like any other hurricane illustration. -- Sca (talk) 14:09, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
PS: Re "boring," our primary task here isn't entertainment. – Sca (talk) 14:09, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I agree; we should not be using animated images on the main page. BilledMammal (talk) 14:40, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I must make note that I have been found guilty of just sitting there and staring at the gif loop for at least two minutes yesterday. Not sure if that's a good thing-- but do what you will with that fact; it's quite attention grabbing. ~GoatLordServant(Talk) 14:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)
I don't think the animation is a problem. "almost like an advertisement" - er, no, an advertisement is chiefly distinguished by being an advertisement. This is nothing like an advertisement. It's illustrative. CharredShorthand.talk; 19:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I thought it was wonderful. So much of Wikipedia is static and lifeless that I found it very refreshing to see some movement on the main page. It grabbed my attention and encouraged me to find out what news item it referred to in a way that very little on the main page usually does. To put my serious hat on for a moment, I also agree with JMCHutchinson above that the video visualised the news item in a way that a static image couldn't, and it therefore also has Serious Encyclopedic Value. Sam Walton (talk) 22:40, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
I personally quite enjoyed the gif. If it is an issue, we could do a little toying to have the file play when hovered. two birds one stone, right? - MountainKemono (talk) 09:56, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm more concerned with its copyright status, which I've raised on the Commons talk page. --Paul_012 (talk) 04:05, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I didn't like it one bit. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:02, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
I loved the animation! It wasn't that much of a distraction for me since I'm not on the Main Page that often anyway. ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:53, 20 February 2023 (UTC)
  • I was just about to ask: shouldn't Wikipedia use a bit of color every once in a while? I've been seeing this exact white since I joined 20 years ago and I am not a kid (much as I wish I was again!) , and I've never seen it change. And yes, it is boring! Adding color sometimes could actually lead to an increase in readership. It doesn't even have to be a "cool" or "entertaining" color; a cream or burgundy background, for example, would still say respectability while at the same time making the page easier on the eye and more enjoyable for prospective future readers. I agree about the page being too small and whatnot but I'm just saying.. it's something maybe we should give it a thought or two. Antonio Colorfully panted nails Martin (aqui, por favor!) 00:06, february 21, 2023 (UTC)
  • I support such innovation. According to our article, moving pictures started to be used nearly 200 years ago in the phenakistiscope. People have therefore had plenty of time to get used to this technology and should not be shy about using it where appropriate.
If the animation seems too frantic then we should explore methods of moderating it. Perhaps it could default to run more slowly or perhaps the reader might be given controls to freeze or change the speed.
Our readers will be increasingly familiar with the standard icons used by streaming services for such options and so we might use those. The new Vector 2022 skin uses such icons for expanding and contracting the screen at bottom right, for example. See also WP:NOTPAPER.
Andrew🐉(talk) 15:23, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

belgian prtotests

theres big protests going on in belgium right now, why is it not under current events? i cant even seem to find a page on it. Cash713 (talk) 16:44, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Nominations for the "In The News" section occur at the page Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates, a decent quality article needs to exist to be posted. If one does not yet exist, you are invited to create it yourself. --Jayron32 17:05, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Do you mean the farmers protest [1]? If so, I'm not convinced that would meet WP:NEVENT, which is required to qualify for a Wikipedia article. Modest Genius talk 17:07, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

Things we have posted to OTD despite errors being highlighted two days in advance

I'm going to start keeping a record here as we are consistently failing the WP:SA guidelines - Dumelow (talk) 08:11, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

3 March
4 March
5 March

WP:OTD needs help

I'm hoping that this section will highlight that WP:OTD needs volunteers to help get it back on track. Without disparaging those who chip in at the moment there are simply not enough people involved and errors keep slipping through. Tasks that would help:

  • Check through upcoming lists (eg. at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March) and check that national days, festivals etc. are listed on the required date, as some of them are moveable
  • Rotate items that have been featured already for the past few years for freshness; the individual date pages have lists of eligible items but these could also use an update. Keeping an eye out for any upcoming 25, 50, 100-year anniversaries etc. would also be good
  • Rotate images for freshness, checking any replacements are freely and appropriately licensed at Commons
  • Check each item complies with the criteria listed WP:OTD, particularly that the date is stated in the boldlinked article and cited and that any facts mentioned are verifiable to a reliable source
  • Check that bold-linked articles meet key Wikipedia policies and are not yellow or orange-tagged for issues

OTD is a really interesting section on the Main Page but it is not being used to its full potential at the moment. I am trying to do what I can to whack-a-mole the errors that come through but I don't have time to do much of the above in advance. Is anyone willing to help out? If 2-3 people can help out it shouldn't take more than a modest individual effort to make a significant improvement to Main Page content - Dumelow (talk) 11:25, 5 March 2023 (UTC)

I'll try to pitch in as I can. Eddie891 Talk Work 03:01, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Thanks Eddie891, your fixes to tomorrow's items are much appreciated. Would be great to be able to be more proactive on this front - Dumelow (talk) 08:44, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Hello. Just letting you know, there is a sourcing on the death toll of BOAC Flight 911. You can find it here. Thank you for raising this! - MountainKemono (talk) 09:18, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
  • I'm trying to be as helpful as I can, but I tend to be inactive on the weekends. I apologize for not working harder at my volunteer, unpaid job. --Jayron32 17:07, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
Hi Jayron32, sorry I didn't mean to disparage those that currently help out, your hard work here addressing errors is much appreciated (at least by me!); I just wanted to highlight that OTD needs more volunteers. The more help we can get the fewer errors there will be and, hopefully, the more we can do to rejuvenate the section. I would love to be able to go through the next month or so ahead of time and switch in different articles, celebrate significant anniversaries etc. but just checking the upcoming day's items takes a significant amount of my Wikipedia time at present. I see Eddie891 is already helping out with the checking at WP:Errors; when I checked the 10 March set they had picked up the only error I found. If I get time later today I might perhaps take a look at 11 March to see if I can rotate some of the items - Dumelow (talk) 15:09, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Just as a bit of an update Eddie891's volunteering has really helped out. We're now co-ordinating checking of upcoming OTDs at Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries, we're more than 3 days ahead and are actively rotating the items to feature new content. Hopefully people will notice an improvement to the section in the near future. As always, any more help would be welcomed! - Dumelow (talk) 07:30, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Problematic image

File:Charcoal and chalk pastel sketch of Pania Newton by L Maule.jpg

I'm surprised that the people who run the Main Page and DYK let this slide without any discussion. What, exactly, is the source for this "charcoal and chalk pastel" drawing of Pania Newton because I can't find it. We've had an enormous discussion over at WP:NORN about hand-drawn as well as AI art of people—but, especially living people being highly questionable from a standpoint of original research and copyright derivative work. This is one of the reasons Wiki prefers photos of people and objects to drawings. Did the artist who made this have Ms. Newton as a model? Did they do the drawing based on copyrighted work(s)? Was it invented from memory? What's the source and was it OR? -- Veggies (talk) 04:32, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

First off, to me, drawings made by actual humans are nowhere near as problematic as AI art. At the very least, the person who made this charcoal and chalk pastel drawing (@Pakoire, courtesy ping) did it by herself. Also, speaking of which, she might know the answer to your question? LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 04:38, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
Looks like it was based on the photo in this article. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 06:32, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
Hi all - yes the image is a chalk pastel and charcoal drawing I created based on a photo. Sorry I have realised now this is a derivative work. Any future drawings I put in commons will not be derivative like this, or from CC works. Pakoire (talk) 18:31, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
  • I'm not familiar with this particular image but it seems consistent with the WMF-sponsored work being done at Unseen. One paradoxical issue seems to be that, if it's a good likeness, then it's challenged as derivative. If it's not a good likeness then it's challenged as inaccurate. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:08, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
    An excellent observation about how that half-baked idea has encouraged both amateurish doodles and copyright washing. It was really poorly thought out. -- Veggies (talk) 13:15, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

Please remove it. Derivative work, one can even see the right side of the original (but in some photoshopped version turning it into a "drawing") at the left side of the portrait. A strangely framed photo of a thoroughly unflattering version of a copyrighted photo. Fram (talk) 11:27, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

It has been removed by Black Kite. I will replace shortly with File:Lisette olivera 2022 2.jpg, which seems to be suitably licensed, once that file has been protected on Commons.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:14, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
My god. what a perfect example of the pitfalls of using user-drawn art to illustrate people. -- Veggies (talk) 12:17, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
There were three admins involved at DYK to get this onto the main page, and none of us picked up that there could be an issue with the image. I commented on the nomination but because I had previously contributed to the article (and I know both the article expander and the artist personally), I didn’t review the nomination. The review was done by another admin. And only admins can promote hooks to queue. Apologies for my part in it; the possibility that this could be a derivative work never occurred to me. Schwede66 18:28, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately image copyright can get quite dicey. I understand how admins could miss this, if they don't tend to deal with media. I am more concerned that the issue stayed on the MP for half the day.
As for Andrew's concerns: the issue is not that a true likeness was produced. The issue is that this likeness was created by essentially copying a non-free work in a different format. The somewhat changed background does not change the fact that the pose, framing, etc. are all directly from the copyrighted image. Had the subject sat for a portrait, there would be little chance of the image being flagged as a derivative work.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 22:55, 8 March 2023 (UTC

International Women's Day

The picture in question is for a set which was especially prepared for International Women's Day. Most of the other articles in that set don't have a free image or any image at all. DYK coordinators such as Cielquiparle will know more about this.

I browsed the main page this morning and noticed that DYK seemed to have such a theme. I confirmed this by looking at OTD, which has the relevant link. The Featured Article also seems to have been selected to support the theme. And ITN got lucky in that it happens to be showing an image of Kaja Kallas who was elected recently.

What was surprising was that the Featured Picture section doesn't seem to have got the memo. It showed a picture of a woman yesterday but today it's showing a picture of a bridge. This seems more problematic as its failure to follow the theme is jarring. @Amakuru: may be able to help with that.

Anyway, my point is that, as the page has mostly been composed around this theme, we should please coordinate and establish consensus before rushing to make changes.

Andrew🐉(talk) 09:50, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

@Andrew Davidson: I have been trying to prioritise some women bios in POTD during March, to coincide with Women's History Month. I didn't know there was a day as well as a month... This is quite tricky. I'm always happy to coordinate with people if I know what's going on, but if you wanted a theme wouldn't it have been better to tell people well in advance rather than waiting ten hours into the day, when it will not be straightforward to change? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:59, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
The theme is not my idea so I'm just deducing what's going on. I'm not sure how the main page handles other theme dates such as Christmas. Perhaps it's all done in a bottom-up way but it might help if there was a central calendar to give all the sections better advance notice. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:05, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
  • Unless it's changed from when I helped with POTD and TFA, "themes" tend to emerge organically, as each section is administered by its own people with relatively little communication. We'd normally see what the other sections had scheduled, just to avoid having (for example) two birds on the same day, but we wouldn't really coordinate for special dates (though we did take requests, and sometimes editors would request articles related to a theme). So, if Amakuru was unaware that March 8th is IWD, it makes sense that something would slip. As they've mentioned, they are scheduling thematically for Women's History Month.
As for having a centralized location... it feels like it would be nice in theory. As to how much people would actually use such a page...  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 10:33, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict) @Andrew Davidson: OK thanks, and yeah, there's generally no coordination between the sections. In fact, sometimes we find that different sections have scheduled the exact same thing, and that gets handled at ERRORS. Anyway, so that we remember this, I've created an entry for next year - Rosalind Goodrich Bates POTD - and another one for 2026 - Lilly Walleni POTD. I was going to do 2025 too, but there's an entry already there - for Jules Barbier's 200th birthday... we can debate whether having a man on IWD is a worse look than missing his centenary!  — Amakuru (talk) 10:36, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
I think the last time there was a joint effort was Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 July 21? Mostly it's organic, as we saw with the death of Elizabeth II (and subsequent complaints). CMD (talk) 10:38, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
(edit conflict) again! @Crisco 1492: you're right, I'm not sure that the "special occasions" come up often enough that a dedicated page would be particularly well trafficked. When we do it well, it creates a really nice effect, as we saw for example at Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 July 21, the anniversary of the moon landing. Most likely occasions like that can be handled with bespoke conversations right here at Talk:Main Page though, with notes on the pages of the individual projects if they want to get involved. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:41, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
Bridges are for women, too. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:26, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
Ha, I wonder if they had the Hayden Bridge in mind when they said that!  — Amakuru (talk) 20:20, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
That'd be weird. But as "they" came from B.C., not that weird. Abstract Cascadian concepts of shared heritage aside, though, I'm willing to bet about half of all bridgecrossers spanning the entirety of today's First World are (in fact) women. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:42, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
It turns out that the Hayden Bridge was preserved and is now owned by a non-profit which was founded and run by a woman -- Julie Bowers. The article mentions this but the main page does not. It would be nice to make more of this in the main page blurb. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:03, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
What's more, it now proudly serves Oregon's 4th congressional district alongside former state labour commissioner Val Hoyle. Any further work on that mighty American monument will come under the eagle eye of Christina Stephenson. In case it isn't obvious, Oregon is full of powerful women! InedibleHulk (talk) 00:39, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
As the TFA coordinator who selected today, we did not try to coordinate with any other project. There were three nominations for today, and this received the most support. All were nominated with an eye to today's observance. Wehwalt (talk) 21:30, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Holocaust in Greece

On what basis are we saying "The Holocaust hit Greece especially hard" ? What made it especially hard in Greece, compared to anywhere else? There is comparative data here [2] -Chumchum7 (talk) 16:25, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

It looks like there's a bit of a dispute over this sentence; it's been removed from the article lead but retained in the blurb. Mostly a stylistic issue though, I think. The claim itself seems to be based on the second sentence of the lead, one of the highest proportions [of deaths] in Europe, which is cited in the Aftermath section. Sojourner in the earth (talk) 17:05, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
Thank you, I didn't know about that dispute, which shows lack of WP:CONS. A quick fix is to remove the clause "The Holocaust hit Greece especially hard;" up to the semi-colon, leaving the rest of the sentence. In addition to the description being questionable (higher percentages and totals killed elsewhere), it feels morally inappropriate to say anyone is hit by mass murder, including the slaughter of women and children "especially" hard. We all are. Fancy making the change? -Chumchum7 (talk) 17:15, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
I don't think I can change anything, it's all protected. However, I've checked the sources, and I don't think there's a problem with factual accuracy.
Bowman 2009, p.1: [Greek Jewry's] percentage of loss during the Holocaust was exceeded only by that of Poland.
Antoniou & Moses 2018, p. 1: In 1945, only about 10,000 Jews remained [in Greece], representing a survival rate of about 13–17 percent, the lowest in the Balkans and among the lowest in Europe.
I've got no opinion on the moral question, but if you still think it should be changed, I suggest pinging an admin or maybe moving this thread to WP:ERRORS where it might get more eyes.—Sojourner in the earth (talk) 17:28, 15 March 2023 (UTC) (ETA: I've dropped a link to this discussion at the article talk page.) 17:37, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
It seems to me that "especially hard" is a subjective statement which should be avoided , as opposed to an objective comparison in terms of the quantitative death rate.
The issue should be resolved by reverting to the previous version prior to the last minute changes. (t · c) buidhe 20:42, 15 March 2023 (UTC)
I agree that it's unfair for the change to get through at last minute because the person making it happens to be an admin, and given the complaints here and at ERRORS, I've reverted it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:02, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Do I know this right that we don't show red links on the main page? I'm asking because Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 17, 2023 written by Jimfbleak contains a red link. I can't find anything about this in our guidance, though. Is my memory making this up? If I'm correct, we should amend Wikipedia:Red link as that's the logical depository for this rule. Schwede66 00:00, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm not aware of it being codified anywhere, but yes we avoid putting red links on the Main Page. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with having red links in articles, but the Main Page isn't an article, it's a way of directing incoming readers to articles. A red link defeats the purpose of that (as it would on a portal). Modest Genius talk 12:24, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
If the link is still red in four weeks, we should probably unlink it. —Kusma (talk) 12:44, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
Maybe this will spur someone to create William Marks Simpson in the next month! — xaosflux Talk 12:56, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Penrhyn Castle: Current "Did you know"

Isn't it worth adding "part funded from profits from the Slave Trade" to this item? The fakery is interesting, but has a context which seems quite important to mention. Jim Killock (talk) 14:33, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

On this day - Edward definitely not the first duke in English history

Resolved below. — xaosflux Talk 15:06, 17 March 2023 (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.

Edward the Black Prince was not the first duke in English history, since the first King of England, William the Conqueror, was Duke of Normandy. What the entry could legitimately say is that Edward was the first duke of an English dukedom (as opposed to a French one). Bermicourt (talk) 14:47, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi Bermicourt, I've changed this to "created Duke of Cornwall, the first English dukedom". Does that work for you? PS: You're better posting such reports at WP:ERRORS rather than here - Dumelow (talk) 14:59, 17 March 2023 (UTC)
Yes, at least that's correct. And thanks for the tip. :) Bermicourt (talk) 15:01, 17 March 2023 (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.

I have a question

Does this page follow WP:N? QarryMotter (talk) 19:59, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

QarryMotter This page is essentially made up of different pages. If you have a notability concern about some aspect of the Main Page, you should first seek out that specific section(such as In the news candidates). 331dot (talk) 20:04, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Can we change Putin's photo???

I really, really do not need to see putin's face every time I go to the Wikipedia main page. He is arguably the mose evil man since hitler and stalin. Can we maybe NOT NOT NOT see his face every time we go to the main page? Can some responsible adult in the room with the ability, to remove the photo or change it to something not so nausea-inducing?? Please?? Dr.gregory.retzlaff (talk) 17:33, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

We'll rotate it out when we have a new image to feature. The 2023 World Baseball Classic championship is tonight, so by tomorrow, we may be able to use a photo of Mike Trout or Shohei Ohtani. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:47, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
Dr.gregory.retzlaff Please see WP:NOSEE for options to suppress the display of images. 331dot (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Paintings of the same subject scheduled for TFA and PotD on 25 March

Following this recent discussion, I think it best to bring to people's attention that the topics currently scheduled for TFA (Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 25, 2023) and PotD (Template:POTD/2023-03-25) next Saturday are very closely related to each other: the Annunciation by Hans Memling for TFA, and the Annunciation by Jan van Eyck for PotD. This coincidence of choices has happened because 25 March is the Feast of the Annunciation. I don't think this is ideal because the text will be quite repetitious – the links oil painting, Early Netherlandish painting, Annunciation, Gabriel, Mary, mother of Jesus and Transfer of panel paintings would all be repeated. There are also some conspicuous differences in emphasis: "Early Netherlandish painter" for Memling but "Early Netherlandish master" for van Eyck, and Mary bearing "Jesus" in one but "the son of God" in the other. I think the PotD should be deferred, but could anyone advise on what to put in its place?

I would consider moving Template:POTD/2023-03-25 to 25 March 2024, but that would be only five days before Good Friday that year, which is being marked with another Renaissance painting, Correggio's Head of Christ (Template:POTD/2024-03-29). So I would suggest moving the Correggio forward to 12 July 2023 (the feast of Saint Veronica, which is still appropriate for that image). Ham II (talk) 20:26, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Five days interval between paintings doesn't seem too bad to me, so 25 March 2024 would be OK. Otherwise, push it out to 2025. It does seem like it should be on the Annunciation day though.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:33, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
@Amakuru: Apologies; it's actually four days later – the "24" in the year threw me off track. That is, three days in between one Renaissance painting of a religious subject and another. Would that still be acceptable? As "Recently featured" has three entries, the van Eyck would have disappeared from it when the Correggio's time comes round. Ham II (talk) 20:48, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ham II: yeah I think that's OK, let's do it. Fingers crossed nobody will complain!  — Amakuru (talk) 11:30, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
@Amakuru: Looks as if Wehwalt has bumped the Memling off Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 25, 2023 to make way for Jim Lovell on his 95th birthday. Even though this does solve our problem, it would be a shame to have to nominate the Memling at WP:TFAR a fourth time. I don't suppose Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 25, 2024 could be reserved for it? Ham II (talk) 19:31, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
We schedule spots in order, because we don't know what choices we will be faced with a year in advance, some nomination of greater merit may be made. But I've added it to WP:TFAP with a note, and so it won't be overlooked. Wehwalt (talk) 20:16, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
@Wehwalt: Ah, yes, I'd forgotten about WP:TFAP – thanks! Ham II (talk) 20:27, 20 March 2023 (UTC)
@Amakuru, Ham II, and Wehwalt: It's probably worth remarking that the Annunciation will be celebrated on April 8 in 2024 due to the vagaries of the liturgical calendar. So it might be worth featuring it on this date next year, or else postpone it again if we want to keep it on the usual March 25 date. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 21:26, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Amakuru, I see that you've moved tomorrow's PotD to 8 April 2024 per Ravenpuff's comment, but the conversation by then was about the scheduling of Annunciation (Memling) at TFA, not about tomorrow's PotD. Would you mind moving it back, perhaps switching the 25 March and 8 April PotDs around? The Feast of the Annunciation is still on 25 March this year, so I don't see any problem with having a PotD relating to it, so long as there isn't also a TFA relating to it as was originally the case. If the feast is celebrated on an unusual date next year (thanks for bringing that to my attention, Ravenpuff), that makes me lean towards postponing Annunciation (Memling)'s appearance at TFA until 2025. Ham II (talk) 08:51, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

@Amakuru: I've reverted the change of picture at Template:POTD/2023-03-25, moved the picture you'd chosen as a replacement to Template:POTD/2023-04-29, and blanked Template:POTD/2024-04-08. I hope this is OK. Ham II (talk) 14:11, 24 March 2023 (UTC)
@Ham II: thanks. I have copyedited a bit, because some of the text in that source was uncited. And also replaced the protected version of the POTD at Template:POTD protected/2023-03-25, since it is due to go out tomorrow. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 14:58, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Covenant School shooting

WP:ITNC for followup. — xaosflux Talk 19:59, 27 March 2023 (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.

Since this is a recent mass shooting in Nashville, can it be added as in the news since it has some decent coverage of it? RobloxUser4125 (talk) 19:51, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

RobloxUser4125 Please go to WP:ITNC to make a nomination(or participate in an existing discussion, if there is one). 331dot (talk) 19:56, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Alright, thank you. @331dot. RobloxUser4125 (talk) 19:57, 27 March 2023 (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.

International Transgender Day of Visibility is today

I think the International Transgender Day of Visibility should be included in today's Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/March 31; but I don't believe that is in error. It is, obviously, protected; so I'm bringing it up here to help in the efforts to countering systemic biases. — Mignof (talk | contribs) 15:31, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it's protected. The page that holds annual events is Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries and you could have slotted this into the relevant subpage yourself, Mignof. Protection kicks in just before it goes live. I've added it; it's got a few more hours to run. Schwede66 18:10, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
The OTD section (selected anniversaries) as a whole could use more dedicated participation, @Mignof: and anyone else interested. Except for when the particular day's section is already on the main page, the pages are not usually protected, and anyone is free to pitch in and help set up the pages for every day. No special tools or permissions are needed, just the ability to read articles and accurately apply the WP:OTD standards to select articles of appropriate quality. Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries has become the default page to coordinate the project, you'll see we're currently working on April dates, feel free to contribute as you see fit. Until now, it's mostly fallen on the shoulders of one dedicated Wikipedian (previously Howcheng, currently Dumelow), but they can always use extra help from anyone so inclined. --Jayron32 18:22, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Let's tilt the main page!

Simply add this to the top of the page for April Fools for a fun and not-too-disruptive prank


And then at the bottom add

We could also do it for one section. Text of POTD? Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 15:52, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

No thanks, see Wikipedia:Rules for Fools - we don't need pranks in encyclopedic content sections. — xaosflux Talk 15:56, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
Don't see anything against something like that that's merely a visual thing. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.2% of all FPs. Currently celebrating his 600th FP! 16:58, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
@Adam Cuerden I've been around long enough to remember jokes on the main page being Ruined for Life, unfortunately. It's not so much a "slippery slope", but more so "preventing history repeating itself." I dream of horses (Contribs) (Talk) 02:34, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

SS Atlantic disaster

Today is the 150th anniversary of the sinking of SS Atlantic (1870)‎‎. Which was one of the biggest shipping disasters of the 19th century, so quite notable. So this might be something for the on this day section, unfortunately the article isn't in the best of shape, (it's been raised on the project page) although I have made some improvements to it. I'll leave it to the editors here to decide whether to mention it or not. G-13114 (talk) 09:02, 1 April 2023 (UTC)

Referencing if not up to scratch, hence it’s not suitable for the Main Page as a bold font article. Schwede66 09:08, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
The requirements are listed at Wikipedia:Selected_anniversaries#Selected_anniversaries_criteria, an orange-level tag rules it out. I am always looking for new articles to add into the OTD mix, if you know of any more anniversaries coming up please do suggest them at Wikipedia talk:Selected anniversaries or add them directly to the relevant calendar page (they are not protected until a day before main page appearance) - Dumelow (talk) 11:53, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Continuous references to The Last of Us in the DYK section

The HBO series has appeared in the DYK at least nine times in the past two months (on 27/3, 22/3, 21/3, 12/3, 01/3, 28/2, 21/2, 14/2 and 25/1).

This seems to clash with the guidelines of "What DYK is not": "A means of advertising, or of promoting commercial or political causes. While it is fine to cover topics of commercial or political interest, DYK must not provide inappropriate advantage for such causes (e.g. during election campaigns or product launches)."

Am I missing something? Is it ok to promote ongoing shows on Wikipedia? Rizzardi (talk) 09:20, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

It's not promotion, it's simply linking to what is deemed encyclopedic coverage of episodes of the series you mention. For example, today's hook, "that a same-sex kiss scene in the seventh episode of The Last of Us was censored in some regions" doesn't promote the series in any way, it's simply an observation on society's reaction to it.
Now on whether such a volume of articles should exist at all - personally, my opinion is that having articles for every episode of a TV series is undue and that such pages shouldn't exist even if they ostensibly meet the notability guidelines, per the exemption at WP:NOPAGE. However, the community has a longstanding view that such episodes do warrant their own pages, so that's not a battle to be fought. Regarding the frequency of the hooks, I think that is something that should be considered by promoters - in particular, featuring hooks on the same topic on consecutive days should be avoided IMHO. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:29, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
DYK (like any other part of Wikipedia) is inseparably biased towards topics that have users interested in writing articles about them – in this case User:Rhain. While there isn't anything inappropriate per se about this, the fact that DYK has a large turnover of new articles (16 per day at present) means that it's quite likely for something like it to be noticed. I do agree with Amakuru that we can probably mitigate this by spacing similar articles out more, though. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 12:27, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Describing the existence of a thing is not the same as promoting it. This is a non-issue. --Jayron32 14:32, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
Describing once or twice the existence of a TV series is one thing, mentioning every single episode is "Next week on HBO..." Rizzardi (talk) 06:57, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Edit to clarify: I know that none of the hooks said "Watch this episode of The Last of Us!" - that would clearly be advertising, but nowadays marketing is less blatant and more oriented towards subtle concepts like repetition, defined as the process of repeating a message multiple times in order to increase brand awareness and consumer recall.
As a comparison, the recent TV series "Wednesday" had about the same amount of relevance, viewership and social interest, yet was mentioned exactly zero times on DYK. Rizzardi (talk) 09:20, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
As already mentioned, since its inception DYK has had runs of similar topics as editors have focused on particular areas. I know that I was personally responsible for runs of contemporary Indonesian authors, works of the literary canon, contemporary films, films of the Dutch East Indies (that was a run of at least 50), actresses and actors... when a Wikipedian is interested in writing articles on individual episodes of a series and then nominating each article for DYK, we will have a run of episode articles (the Wednesday example below is a non-starter, as no articles have been written on those yet - there's still the possibility it could happen). If we were still doing a rotation of three sets per day, it might not be as noticeable, but that ship sailed a long time ago.
I do agree that a bit more space between hooks may be warranted, but to imply that these hooks are meant to advertise or promote a series that was always going to be popular is a disservice to the Wikipedian(s) working on these articles.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 09:59, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
@Rizzardi, apparently no one who is a megafan of Wednesday nominates articles at DYK. I actually hate seeing all this popculture go past, but under current policy there is nothing wrong with an editor writing a new article for each week's new episode, submitting it, and having it run. Valereee (talk) 17:18, 28 March 2023 (UTC)
Imagine all of these repeating if they're made to GA level. Therapyisgood (talk) 07:26, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
Not possible per WP:DYKCRIT#1c. – Rhain ☔ (he/him) 07:31, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
Was misremembering this RFC, currently no consensus to re-run DYKs but that could change. Therapyisgood (talk) 03:21, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
The reason we include GAs/5x expansions isn't to give an article a second bite at the apple. I don't think consensus on that is going to change any time soon. There's was a more recent discussion about allowing an article that had been completely recreated (after a previous article that had appeared was deleted) to have a 'second' appearance. Valereee (talk) 10:29, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
I agree with the above concern that allowing for repetition of this sort makes DYK exploitable as a cheap advertising venue (even if by a fan, rather than through some sort of astroturfing effort). For this purpose, contemporary Indonesian authors are not comparable to a TV series that is fundamentally a single commercial product. BD2412 T 03:52, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
Same thing happens with Taylor Swift. How many times has she appeared at DYK/TFA? Valereee (talk) 10:29, 1 April 2023 (UTC)
"This happens to other people too" is a poor justification for continuing to do something if it's repetitive in a way that it's noticeable and monotonous, and it's also a bit disagreeable when the topic concerned is a live-running HBO TV series which makes Wikipedia's Main Page appear to be an advert board. That said, I tend to agree with the above rationales that the solution is not to forcibly withhold those articles from running continuously on DYK if they are high-enough quality. The problem is a systemic one that goes to the fact that enough editors are interested to write the articles and that enough (English) reliable sources exist to assist with said writing. Underrepresented topics are underrepresented specifically because neither of those two factors are in play for them. --⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:08, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
I wasn't justifying it. Just pointing out that it's happening a lot. I'd love to find a way to keep this neopopculture stuff from appearing so often. Valereee (talk) 14:41, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Where's Easter on the main page?

We're listing the Canadian "Vimy Ridge Day" but not Easter? BeanieFan11 (talk) 15:58, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

The Easter page is tagged for citations in too many places. Eddie891 Talk Work 16:06, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Really? We post articles on holidays lacking citations all the time. For example, an Islamic holiday, Eid al-Fitr, that we post about every year, has about 20 paragraphs needing citations (and from my count, Easter only has 11). BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:14, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Even Vimy Ridge Day is lacking citations. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:17, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
I count five at Eid, all of which are to a specific sentence (or one-sentence para). Most of Easter's 12 seem to be on entire paragraphs? Vimy Ridge Day has one cn. The solution here is go fix Easter. Valereee (talk) 16:23, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Let's see.
places needing citations for Eid

The prayer starts by doing "Niyyah" for the prayer, before the Takbir is said by the Imam and his followers. Next, the Takbirat al-Ihram is performed, by saying Allahu Akbar three times, raising hands to the ears and dropping them each time, except for the last when the hands are folded. The Imam then reads the Al-Fatihah, followed by another Surah. The congregation performs ruku and sujud as in other prayers. This completes the first rak'ah ...
Children gather in small choir groups in front of a home and sing. The song is intended to call on God to bless the youngest child of the family, to keep him or her healthy that the mother will remain happy. The more they sing, the more nuts and sweets they receive. The Qarqee'an tradition is intended to spread love, happiness and affection among adults and children Gargee'an ...
A day before Eid, Al-Aqsa Mosque is decorated with Eid decorations, minarets chant with takbeer, and the old markets are filled with children and women carrying trays of cakes towards bakeries ...
...kids receive gifts from parents and elderly relatives, usually money or even toys. They also invite close friends and relatives for the Eid dinner. After Eid dinner people love to sing and dance. In the city of Sfax, a special meal is consumed on the first day generally before noon, composed essentially of Chermoula and cured salted fish, typically Bacalao ...
Women and girls also put henna on each others' hands. In the following morning, Muslims go to their local mosque or Eidgah for Eid Namaz and give Eid zakat before returning home. Afterwards, children are given Eidi (cash gifts) and friends and relatives visit each others homes to eat and celebrate ...
In Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei, Eid is more commonly known as Hari Raya Aidilfitri (Jawi: هاري راي عيدالفطري), Hari Raya Idul Fitri, Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Fitrah or Hari Lebaran. Hari Raya means 'Celebration Day'.

It is customary for workers in the city to return to their home town to celebrate with their families and to ask forgiveness from parents, in-laws, and other elders. This is known in Malaysia as balik kampung (homecoming).


The night before Hari Raya is filled with the sounds of takbir in the mosques or musallahs. In many parts of Malaysia, especially in the rural areas, pelita or panjut or lampu colok (as known by Malay-Singaporeans) (oil lamps, similar to tiki torches) are lit up and placed outside and around homes, while tiki torches themselves are also a popular decoration for that holiday. Special dishes like ketupat, rendang, lemang (a type of glutinous rice cooked in bamboo) and Malay delicacies such as various kuih-muih are served during this day. It is common to greet people with "Salam Aidilfitri" or "Selamat Hari Raya" which means "Happy Eid". Muslims also greet one another with "maaf zahir dan batin", which means "Forgive my physical and emotional (wrongdoings)".


It is customary for Muslim-Malaysians to wear a traditional cultural clothing on Hari Raya. The Malay variant (worn in Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and Southern Thailand) is known as the Baju Melayu, shirt worn with a sarong known as kain samping or songket and a headwear known as songkok. Malaysian women's clothing is referred to as Baju Kurung and baju kebaya. It is a common practice however for the Malays in Singapore and Johor, Malaysia to refer to the baju kurung in reference to the type of outfit, worn by both men and women.


In Malaysia, especially in the major cities, people take turns to set aside a time for open house when they stay at home to receive and entertain neighbours, family and other visitors. It is common to see non-Muslims made welcome during Eid at these open houses. They also celebrate by lighting traditional bamboo cannon firecrackers known as meriam buluh, using kerosene in large hollow bamboo tubes or Chinese imported crackers. The traditional bamboo cannon, meriam buloh, and fireworks are notoriously loud and can be very dangerous to operator, bystander and even nearby buildings. These are usually bamboo tubes 5–10 cm (2.0–3.9 in) in diameter and 4–7 m (13–23 ft) long, filled with either: water and several hundred grams of calcium carbide, or heated kerosene, then ignited by match ...
There, they will conduct readings from the Quran and clean the tomb, reminiscent of the historic annual Chinese Qingming festival, in which people go to their ancestors' graves, sweep and clean the area, and make food offerings.[citation needed] ...
In Russia where 10 million Muslims reside,[citation needed] ...
Most mosques in the United kingdom hold special events after Eid prayer, including Islamic musical performances, brunch buffets, rides such bouncy castles and carousels.


New Eid tradition are born in internet era. As elsewhere, Muslims in the United Kingdom celebrate Eid by decorating houses, gift giving and Eid parties for kids. ...
In Houston, Texas, the annual prayers are offered at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, organised by the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH).[citation needed] In other states, with smaller Muslim populations, it is common that schools will remain open on Eid al-Fitr. ...
Most mosques in North America held special events after Eid prayer including Islamic musical performance, Brunch Buffets, rides such Bouncy, Carousel, Slide for kids.[citation needed]


New Eid traditions have been born in the Internet era. Some Muslim in North America now celebrating Eid with decorating houses, gift giving and Eid parties for kids.[citation needed] ...
In Argentina, Eid (Spanish: Fiesta del Fin del Ayuno) is officially a non-working holiday for Muslims. ...
Although the date of Eid al-Fitr is always the same in the Islamic calendar, the date in the Gregorian calendar falls approximately 11 days earlier each successive year, since the Islamic calendar is lunar and the Gregorian calendar is solar. Hence if the Eid falls in the first ten days of a Gregorian calendar year, there will be a second Eid in the last ten days of the same Gregorian calendar year, as happened in 2000 CE. The Gregorian date may vary between countries depending on the local visibility of the new moon. Some expatriate Muslim communities follow the dates as determined for their home country, while others follow the local dates of their country of residence. ...
Because the Hijri year differs by about 11 days from the AD year, Eid al Fitr can occur twice a year, in the year 1023, 1055, 1088, 1120, 1153, 1186, 1218, 1251, 1283, 1316, 1348, 1381, 1414, 1446, 1479, 1512, 1544, 1577, 1609, 1642, 1674, 1707, 1740, 1772, 1805, 1837, 1870, 1902, 1935, 1968, 2000, 2033, 2065, 2098, 2131, 2163, 2196, 2228, 2261 and 2293 (will continue to occur every 32 or 33 years).

places needing citations for Easter

and has been adopted by almost all Western Christians and by Western countries which celebrate national holidays at Easter. For the British Empire and colonies, a determination of the date of Easter Sunday using Golden Numbers and Sunday letters was defined by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 with its Annexe. This was designed to match exactly the Gregorian calculation.[citation needed]
The precise date of Easter has at times been a matter of contention. By the later 2nd century, it was widely accepted that the celebration of the holiday was a practice of the disciples and an undisputed tradition. The Quartodeciman controversy, the first of several Easter controversies, arose concerning the date on which the holiday should be celebrated.[citation needed]
According to the church historian Eusebius, the Quartodeciman Polycarp (bishop of Smyrna, by tradition a disciple of John the Apostle) debated the question with Anicetus (bishop of Rome). The Roman province of Asia was Quartodeciman, while the Roman and Alexandrian churches continued the fast until the Sunday following (the Sunday of Unleavened Bread), wishing to associate Easter with Sunday. Neither Polycarp nor Anicetus persuaded the other, but they did not consider the matter schismatic either, parting in peace and leaving the question unsettled.[citation needed]
Polycrates (c. 190), however, wrote to Victor defending the antiquity of Asian Quartodecimanism. Victor's attempted excommunication was apparently rescinded, and the two sides reconciled upon the intervention of bishop Irenaeus and others, who reminded Victor of the tolerant precedent of Anicetus.[citation needed]
Others, however, believed that the customary practice of consulting Jews should continue, even if the Jewish computations were in error.[citation needed]
Canons[78] and sermons[79] condemning the custom of computing Easter's date based on the Jewish calendar indicate that this custom (called "protopaschite" by historians) did not die out at once, but persisted for a time after the Council of Nicaea.[citation needed]
The Alexandrian rules were adopted in the West following the tables of Dionysius Exiguus in 525.[citation needed]
Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday and Good Friday respectively commemorate Jesus's entry in Jerusalem, the Last Supper and the crucifixion. Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday are sometimes referred to as the Easter Triduum (Latin for "Three Days"). Many churches begin celebrating Easter late in the evening of Holy Saturday at a service called the Easter Vigil.[citation needed]


The week beginning with Easter Sunday is called Easter Week or the Octave of Easter, and each day is prefaced with "Easter", e.g. Easter Monday (a public holiday in many countries), Easter Tuesday (a much less widespread public holiday), etc. Easter Saturday is therefore the Saturday after Easter Sunday. The day before Easter is properly called Holy Saturday. Eastertide, or Paschaltide, the season of Easter, begins on Easter Sunday and lasts until the day of Pentecost, seven weeks later.[citation needed]
In Eastern Christianity, the spiritual preparation for Easter/Pascha begins with Great Lent, which starts on Clean Monday and lasts for 40 continuous days (including Sundays). Great Lent ends on a Friday, and the next day is Lazarus Saturday. The Vespers which begins Lazarus Saturday officially brings Great Lent to a close, although the fast continues through the following week, i.e. Holy Week. After Lazarus Saturday comes Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and finally Easter/Pascha itself, and the fast is broken immediately after the Paschal Divine Liturgy.[citation needed]
In the Pentecostarion published by Apostoliki Diakonia of the Church of Greece, the Great Feast Pentecost is noted in the synaxarion portion of Matins to be the 8th Sunday of Pascha. However, the Paschal greeting of "Christ is risen!" is no longer exchanged among the faithful after the Apodosis of Pascha.[citation needed]
In countries where Christianity is a state religion, or those with large Christian populations, Easter is often a public holiday. As Easter always falls on a Sunday, many countries in the world also recognize Easter Monday as a public holiday. Some retail stores, shopping malls, and restaurants are closed on Easter Sunday. Good Friday, which occurs two days before Easter Sunday, is also a public holiday in many countries, as well as in 12 U.S. states. Even in states where Good Friday is not a holiday, many financial institutions, stock markets, and public schools are closed – the few banks that are normally open on regular Sundays are closed on Easter.[citation needed]
Music section...

That looks like more places in the Eid article than for Easter. BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:32, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
This is going to seem strange -- it actually does to me, too -- but it's actually the tags that are the issue, not the uncited assertions. I know, crazy, right? As I understand it, tags are interpreted as 'this needs a citation'. Material without inline citations that isn't tagged apparently isn't looked at the same way, especially for articles created before inline citations started being required. Mind blown? Valereee (talk) 16:37, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
Are you suggesting that if a long article is almost completely unreferenced, but no one has tagged it as such, it qualifies for the main page? BeanieFan11 (talk) 16:40, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
If it has a reference section but no inline citations, likely answer is yes? It's not a concern with DYK or FA, less of a concern with ITN because someone from that project will go in and tag as part of their due diligence during the nom, but in OTD, it likely happens. Valereee (talk) 16:43, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
People are welcome to edit what is posted by going to the respective day's page (Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries/April). If it's a few days before posting and has been fully protected, post any errors at WP:ERRORS. —Bagumba (talk) 15:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
I wouldn't expect to see Easter mentioned on the Saturday anyway. Good Friday and Easter Sunday are the major holidays for Christians, aren't they? Which gives about six and a half hours for someone to dig up some more refs for Easter. One book on Christianity would probably cover all the unsupported material. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 16:45, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

POTD presentation issue

An editor has raised issue with the presentation of pictures in the homepage at Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)/Archive 74#Today’s Featured Picture - Chinese scrolls. Today's POTD is horizontally long, but on mobile devices, where there is no scrollbar shown, there is no indication that it is long and has to be scrolled. Feel free to join the discussion there. Thanks! —CX Zoom[he/him] (let's talk • {C•X}) 12:13, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Putting a constantly present feature about environmental footprint/record of Wikipedia

Almost all large companies in the world have something about their environmental footprint on their site. Including digital like Youtube. It will be honorable for Wikipedia if it will put a feature about it in the main page, with link to a page with detailes.

Something like:

" Wikipedia is part of Wikimedia... Wikimedia is caring about Sustainability and stopping climate change... trying to lower its envirinmental impacts.. for this it is doing... The total emissions on 2022 were 2,955 metric ton of Co2... in this year pages in Wikipedia only included in WikiProject Climate Change has 346 millions views... for more information look here"

The link that I put is to a special page about environmental footprint of Wikimedia. It includes the report of 2022 from were I take the numbers.

Except that it will honore Wikipedia in my opinion it is necessary because even thaugh climate change is considered as the biggest threat I do not see much about it "in the news" in the main page. Different news outlets not so much neutral, silence it from their reasons, but I do not think Wikipedia should follow them.

I thought firstly to propose make climate change and sustainability constantly "ongoing" theme or propose constantly write articles for it if there are no others volonteers, but I think this will be hardly accepted. So that is how Wikipedia can constantly cover this issue in its main page without too much efforts. Alexander Sauda/אלכסנדר סעודה (talk) 14:05, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

This is probably best discussed at the Village Pump as it does not directly concern the Main Page. 331dot (talk) 15:16, 14 May 2023 (UTC)
I will post it at the Village Pump. As it is not dealing with adding to an existing section but about creating new, for any case I posted it here also.
For now it would probably be more appropriate to make a Environmental impact of Wikipedia page if there's enough coverage. Long term thats a cool idea though. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:03, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Ongoing

Is it time for the Sudan conflict and the Israeli judicial reform protests to get the boot from ITN "ongoing"? Not much is happening with either. —  AjaxSmack  12:01, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

If it is, this is not the correct venue to discuss it. You should do so at WP:ITNC, and nominate it for removal. --Jayron32 13:25, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Random article link no longer on Main Page

Has it moved to somewhere else? I find it useful. Thanks. BuzzWeiser196 (talk) 11:39, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Still there on my browser — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:35, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
If you are missing the whole sidebar then maybe you have to click a hamburger menu ☰ at the top left. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:43, 25 May 2023 (UTC)
If you are on mobile, you do have to use the hamburger, but it's in the interface page for the sidebar. Try ctrl-alt-X Zippybonzo | Talk (he|him) 17:30, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Error in "Did you know...?"

Moot, this has been off the main page for a few days now. Next time please report DYK errors to this page instead of here; you'll probably get a better response there. SkyWarrior 18:44, 25 May 2023 (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.

... that Aristotle's system of logic formed the foundation of logical thought in the Western world for more than 2,000 years until the advent of modern symbolic logic?

Modern symbolic logic wasn't much progress. The foundation of logic wrote Walther Brüning in his book Grundlagen der Strengen Logik. He identifies Syllogism as a special case. Can't hear this anymore... Its just the many people, who work on it, why there is output, not because it is beautiful. Maybe it is not wrong to claim it, that his book is not discussed much, but I am also a person of the Western world. 123qweasd (talk) 19:22, 21 May 2023 (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.

Protection template

Hi to whoever sees this, I just noticed that while the Main Page is protected with cascading protection, there is no template for it. Is this intentional, or should there be a protection template on it?

Thanks, The Troutinator (talk)

I believe it's deliberate, as it would be distracting to have a padlock icon here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:16, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
That makes sense. The Troutinator (talk) 03:10, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

the new featured article does not have an image

the article has an image but i cant see the image on the main page Sebbog13 (talk) 00:07, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Nonfree images like the one in that bio cannot be used on the main page. Only freely licensed images can be used. Masem (t) 00:20, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
ok Sebbog13 (talk) 03:31, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Template:POTD/2023-11-26

In the interest of noting potentially controversial content before it makes the main page, Ike and Tina Turner, on Tina Turner's next birthday. It's five months away, so we have plenty of time to get this right and/or move it to another day.

Ike was open about abusing Tina. As such, it kinda needs included. But it's a part of her and his story.

Things don't have to appear on the main page, but I do think we should have a good reason not to put them on, so I'd rather this be a discussion, not a mere Support-oppose style vote. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.4% of all FPs. 21:24, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Good on you for giving heaps of pre-warning, Adam. The text is from the lead of the target article. I cannot think of a good reason why we would not want to put this on the main page. If it's ok in the article, it should be ok on the main page, too. That's at least my view but no doubt this will cause some discussion. Let's hear what others think. Schwede66 05:04, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
It was brought up in the FPC that being clear about Ike's behaviour, to avoid glorifying a domestic abuser, was important. Ike Turner covered the incident more succinctly, so I swapped over to that article for part of the last paragraph. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.4% of all FPs. 16:57, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
I'm unfamiliar with the abuse situation, but as an outsider the blurb seems to be an excellent way of acknowledging the issue without making it the main focus. Quoting both participants is helpful, though I don't like the phrasing 'Ike himself said'. Perhaps 'In his autobiography, Ike stated' would work? Otherwise, I have no concern with running this on the MP. Modest Genius talk 16:30, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Also, 'In spite of their success' -> 'Although their musical partnership was successful', because the abuse was not a deliberate attempt to damage their musical success. Modest Genius talk 16:32, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
Sounds good to me. Updating. I don't like editorialising, so when both people basically agree it seems better to just quote, honestly. Probably gives a better understanding than anything we could say in encyclopedic voice in the same number of words anyway. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.5% of all FPs. 17:48, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi, the first three lines is

Welcome to Wikipedia,

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

6,673,371 articles in English

Here "English" has a wrong hyperlink, it is now linking to English language, but the correct hyperlink is English Wikipedia. Additionally, I think there is a missing «With» in the third line. Please correct that. Thanks, Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 15:38, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

The articles are written in the English language, as opposed to other Wikipedias where the articles are written in other languages. And where exactly do you want to insert that text? — xaosflux Talk 19:14, 23 June 2023 (UTC)
@Xaosflux First, there exists "Simple English Wikipedia" which is by itself an English language Wikipedia, but the cardinality of its article is not counted in this number. Second, although it seems unreasonable, there may exist an article in German Wikipedia that is written in English, this scenario is an ill-posed scenario, but nothing prevents it from this existence. Additionally, many articles are written in combination of two languages (i.e., English and German), for example in German Wikipedia a pseudocode may be written in English language. So "English" here means "English edition of Wikipedia", not "English language". Hooman Mallahzadeh (talk) 04:28, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
I disagree.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 06:37, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
I disagree as well. Schwede66 09:26, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
No changes needed. Cheers, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 11:57, 25 June 2023 (UTC)
No, it doesn't. The articles are "in English", that is, the language. You do not use the preposition "in" in the sense of "articles in the English Wikipedia" - since WP is an online resource, "at" or "on" are more commonly used. Cheers, W. Tell DCCXLVI (talk to me!/c) 04:49, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Switching out the content portals link in the Other areas of Wikipedia section

I'm not sure if I am in the right place to post this, but I think the content portals link in the other areas of Wikipedia section needs to go. The page doesn't give the best overview of other articles on Wikipedia. I think the vital articles are a much better choice since they are some of Wikipedia's most important articles. I like the way the articles are organized since they are individual articles rather than collections of articles like portals are. I also find it easier to navigate than the portals. I am hoping that I could bring it up here so that an admin can decide whether to implement or not and I hope they will consider my suggestions. Interstellarity (talk) 00:10, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Oh, that's a much bigger issue than just a wee discussion. By all means, let's start with a discussion first and see whether there is initial support. It would then have to go through a formal RfC. Schwede66 02:54, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
Hi @Schwede66 and thanks for getting back to me. I do have a few questions regarding how we could set this up. Where would the discussion need to be held? Would it be on this talk page? When we get to the RfC, where should we do it? If you can answer these questions, I'd be happy to get the ball rolling so that we can reach a consensus on whether this change would be beneficial for Wikipedia. Interstellarity (talk) 13:00, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
The best forum for this would be the Village Pump :3 F4U (they/it) 13:28, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

File:Sir_Winston_Churchill_-_19086236948.jpg

There was a discussion saying this was out of copyright in the U.S.; however I think it's pre-URAA date, since it would have gone out of copyright in Canada in 1992, and the URAA date for Canada is 1996. Am I missing something? Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.5% of all FPs. 19:24, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

  • From what I can tell, this should be out of copyright in both the country of origin and in the United States. It would not have been extended by the URAA, as you've noted, and Canada has some pretty clear blanket dates for PD photographs. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 20:57, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

UEFA Super Cup result

We have that "The Netball World Cup concludes, with Australia defeating England in the final" as a news item but nothing for Matchester City winning the UEFA Super Cup 2023 yesterday. Should we add this too? Nxavar (talk) 11:51, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Nxavar Postings to the In the news box are nominated at WP:ITNC. If you wish to nominate that article, please follow the instructions there. 331dot (talk) 11:57, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
Nominated! Nxavar (talk) 12:13, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Maybe this isn't really an issue worth fussing over, maybe this has already been discussed and reached a consensus, but...

Should an animated GIF really count as a "picture"? Isn't there a Today's Featured Media category that would fit something like an animated GIF better? miranda :3 18:34, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Where do I find Today's Featured Media category, miranda? Schwede66 20:30, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Whoops, I guess I misremembered. I knew that there was, at one point, a Today's Featured Sound category that is no longer used, and I must have misremembered seeing a Featured Media category that was used more recently for all forms of media on the project. My mistake. miranda :3 20:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Featured pictures encompasses gifs and full-length videos and films too, assuming they meet the criteria. I have no idea of the history and where this consensus came from, if indeed it came form anywhere, but at POTD we just work with the files the community has decided too promote. There is no other section on the main page for such material though, in any case.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:37, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
Frequently asked question Art LaPella (talk) 02:16, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Recent death not listed?

Dmitry Utkin is currently under recent deaths, but Yevgeny Prigozhin is not. I know we were holding off on the latter because the status of his death wasn't certain, but if we're certain enough to say Utkin's dead, seeing as they were on the same plane, is Prigozhin not also eligible to be under recent deaths? Is there something I'm missing? Maximus Pinpoint (talk) 15:42, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

This is best discussed at WP:ERRORS or WP:ITNC but Prigozhin was added to the blurb about the crash. 331dot (talk) 15:47, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
Yes, I believe this is usually the justification – if a death is mentioned in an ITN blurb it doesn't also feature in the recent-deaths list. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 15:59, 29 August 2023 (UTC)
I see! Thank you for clarifying, and I will ask in the proper places next time. Maximus Pinpoint (talk) 01:36, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Promotion

It's a cinch!

The ITN section has been running the same picture for 10 days now (right). It's not a good picture as it doesn't relate to the top story, wasn't taken at the event that it supposedly illustrates and doesn't show typical cricketing action. The subject isn't even wearing traditional cricket whites which was the actual dress code at that event. Instead, they are wearing a garish T-shirt with the word "Cinch" as the most prominent feature. Cinch is a brand name of Constellation Automotive Group as cinch is their website for selling used cars. So that's great marketing for their brand awareness but quite contrary to our policies such as WP:PROMO.

Going up!

ITN often runs such stale and promotional pictures for weeks at a time but fixing its internal processes is a perennial challenge and no reform is in sight. Other main page sections don't seem to have the same difficulty and, during those 10 days, the Featured Picture has been refreshing daily with a good variety of high quality pictures with a more encyclopedic and less promotional tone. You can see those pictures in the FP archive for August and a good example appears here.

To improve the look of the main page and better ensure an encyclopedic, non-promotional tone, I suggest that we promote the FP section to the top right slot on the main page which is currently occupied by ITN. ITN would be relegated to the lower position currently occupied by FP but would benefit from the full width given to that slot, so that it can expand on the number and size of its blurbs. For example, with more space available, ITN could provide short descriptions for the recent deaths, explaining who those people were.

So, how can we make this happen? Andrew🐉(talk) 10:08, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Bear in mind that some views of the main page do not have a "top right" slot: the page's coding is responsive. Bazza (talk) 10:22, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
The apps already have special features to stop ITN repeating every day. The mobile browser view lists the items in a single column but the FP comes at the bottom when it would be better nearer the top. If there's a better place to discuss the technical details, please advise. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:34, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
@Andrew Davidson I'm curious about what exactly you're referring to. I'm scrolling through the app right now and I can slide to see different images attached to individual ITN items. I wouldn't really say I pay enough attention to see if/how that changes on a daily basis. However, I have noticed that scrolling down the main page shows me previous FAs, different random articles, etc. Clovermoss🍀 (talk) 17:14, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
The top level of the app view shows each day's main page and you can scroll back through them. In these daily views of the main page, they don't keep repeating the ITN entries. They either show ITN once with a drill-down option to show the entries or they show it when there's a new item on that day. What's interesting for this incident is that they don't show the Cinch image for the Ashes item. Instead, they show the Ashes logo from the article. Andrew🐉(talk) 20:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
@Andrew Davidson: I was referring to the desktop version, in my browser on a laptop. Bazza (talk) 18:53, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Have you notified those at ITN of the existence of this discussion? You seem to be doing an end run here as you've been trying for years to change ITN. I certainly agree that there are problems but those who participate there get a say as much as you do. Furthermore it seems to be that for such a significant change to the Main Page you should start a much broader RFC. Note that attempts have been made for years to change the Main Page and that while one could get consensus for the general idea that the MP needs to be changed, the breakdown in consensus comes when specific changes are proposed. ITN itself is similar. 331dot (talk) 10:50, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
  • I initially planned to report the promotional problem at WP:ERRORS. But that's too ephemeral and the picture will be replaced eventually anyway. The proposition is more strategic and this seems to be the best place to discuss structural changes to the main page. Andrew🐉(talk) 16:34, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
Have you notified those at ITN of the existence of this discussion?
The answer to this is he waited a full two weeks to do so at Wikipedia talk:In the news/Candidates, so no, not really. Your end-run assumption could reasonably be assumed as correct. The Kip (talk) 19:01, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Lugo's Law

Fernando Lugo responds to his call!

Someone has posted this image per Lugo's Law. The persistence of this problem demonstrates its intractability. As ITN has been unable to fix this in over ten years, it should be switched with a section that does better. Andrew🐉(talk) 21:00, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

"Fix" implies there's something that's broken. Maybe it's not a problem that needs addressing at all. --Jayron32 21:36, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
You have proposed that for years and never gained consensus to do so. You of course are free to do that- just saying. Perhaps instead of proposing a wholesale, dramatic change, you start smaller with a smaller change. 331dot (talk) 16:57, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

There are two main criteria for ITN items: significance, and quality. I think in terms of quality, the criteria are about right. In terms of significance, I think the bar is set too high. The result of this situation is that ITN is often stale. I agree with Andrew that there is a problem, and I concur that it's worth having a discussion about it. My thoughts are only relevant for viewing WP via a computer / laptop, and not via the mobile app.

Do I think it's realistic to change how high the ITN bar is set? No, I don't believe that's easy to fix, if at all. There is a very similar problem at DYK, as Roy Smith reminds us of every now and then: there are more submissions coming in than the team of available DYK volunteers can comfortably deal with. There even is consensus, I believe, that the quality bar should be a tad higher to address that. There's just no easy way to implement that, as "quality" is hard to measure. And neither is significance easy to measure at ITN, even if there was agreement to lower the bar. If the staleness isn't easily resolved, then what other options are available to us? Andrew's suggestion of sliding ITN further down on the main page is something I do agree with. Web designers use the term "above the fold" and that's the concept that Andrew is talking about. What I don't agree with is the proposal to swap POTD with ITN. The main page is laid out in two columns and POTD utilises both columns, hence it's unsuitable for the 1-column slot that ITN occupies.

What I would do is to swap ITN with either DYK or OTD. If I had to make a call, I'd go for DYK as I assume that it would hold slightly higher importance with our readers than OTD. Schwede66 21:00, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I now think ITN should function more like RD somehow, with less wiggle room to object on importance grounds, but I haven't worked out how specifically enough to offer a proposal. 331dot (talk) 22:29, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
Good luck with that. I've been saying that for well over a decade, and all it has done for me is made me a pariah around ITN. Write up an RFC. I'll vote for it. But I wouldn't hold my breath that anyone else would. Playing cultural gatekeeper is what the ITN game is all about. No one wants to give up that power. --Jayron32 17:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
^ Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 17:47, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
I think the appetite for shutting down that blatantly subjective, policy-defying behaviour at ITN may be more substantial than you suspect, Jayron32. It's not been a space I have traditionally spent a lot of time in, but the last few times an RfC pulled me in there, I've been aghast at just how dominated by IDO/DONTLIKEIT informs the process and how unhinged the !votes have largerly become from any relevant content policy and community values broadly (and for that matter ITN's own supposed framework for keeping the decisions neutral and avoiding the cultural gatekeeping to which you allude).
The last two times I made a point of saying as much as a part of my feedback and discovered what seems to be a largely unvoiced but still very much present sentiment of frustration among some regulars there with the ownership and bias issues that dominant so much of the day-to-day. I suspect a lot more of the regulars are ready to realign procedure there with policy and broader project priorities than is immediately obvious. The fact that some of the worst / most aggresive offenders have been brought to ANI and faced topic bans from the space is additional evidence that patience for the most nationalistic of those culture warriors is wearing thin.
That said, the process really shouldn't require too much buy in by the same users who have so thoroughly lost sight of policy and community priorities. If framed properly (and the duration and seriousness of the subjective gatekeeping made obvious enough), and the discussion is held at VPP, I suspect it will not be all that difficult to finally wrangle the space into compliance with process that looks more appropriate for an en.Wikipedia content decision-making space. of course, it would also require more administrative oversight than the space has been getting for a very long while, as best I can tell--specifically from admins willing to take action (including by imposing blocks) for those who will not comply with the new standards once they have been reformed and clarified. Finding those may end up being the hardest part of the process. SnowRise let's rap 02:52, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
If framed properly (and the duration and seriousness of the subjective gatekeeping made obvious enough), and the discussion is held at VPP, I suspect it will not be all that difficult to finally wrangle the space into compliance with process that looks more appropriate for an en.Wikipedia content decision-making space. That has always been the main difficulty at ITN, which is "how do you fix it?" And in some cases, that's the wrong question to ask because of the overwhelming temptation to look for the simplest and least disruptive answer to things, as well as the occasionally recurrent belief that nothing is actually wrong. But your last point is spot on: what's definitely needed one way or another are widespread cultural changes, and I think the only way you can enforce that is through having more administrators present and actively willing to tamp down some of the gatekeeping behavior. After all, nobody at ITN/C is ever going to think of themselves as a gatekeeper; they will always point the finger at another person who might be a little more rude or crass than they are. Cheerio, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:01, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
Addendum: The cultural shift is a biggie because I have occasionally noticed administrators at ITN revert innocuous stuff by saying "that's not the way things are done around here" which to me is somewhat amusing given your point about the disconnect between ITN and the rest of Wikipedia. Cheerio, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 14:04, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
The 2 column layout is the worst design decision Wikipedia has ever made and should be abolished immediately. This would instantly and permanently do away with all issues of "main page balance". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 04:26, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
Good luck with that. --Jayron32 12:25, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
DYK is already more prominent than ITN on mobile, it'd be a net negative :) My stance is ITN should be replaced with a daily TFL -- the number of never-ran FLs is substantially higher than that of never-ran FAs, such that it would take multiple decades to get through the whole thing at current rates and that there's no real risk of running out on a daily. It would also make TFL...make sense, and give it comparable prominence to TFA. Vaticidalprophet 01:52, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
I like this idea. casualdejekyll 16:13, 19 August 2023 (UTC)
Seconded. Cheerio, ⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 12:58, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
When I checked Category:Featured lists that have not appeared on the main page my jaw dropped. (I picked it up.) I think this is a great idea! ayakanaa ( t · c ) 02:11, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
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