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Visual redesign of the Main Page

The look of the Main Page has been static for a long time, and now looks dated. I think the information design is fine: it's just the styling I don't like. I've just made a copy of the Main Page, and made some minimal tweaks that just remove the pastel boxes and their borders: see User:Karada/Main page redesign. I can't see how removing these features detracts from the look of the page: if anything I think doing so improves it.

Given that the old look is now so tired that even simple hackery like this improves it, I think it's time to hold another competition to find an improved graphic design for the main page. Would anyone else be interested in this? -- Karada (talk) 09:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Looks unstructured now. Like a big wall of text. Sectioning is not immediately visible. Redesign just for the sake of redesign is not a good idea. This revision is a step backwards. --Dschwen 15:01, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Completely agree Karada. It looks very 1996 doesn't it? I loathe the pastel colours which are currently used, I think it makes it look unprofessional. You know what they say, people initially judge a book by its cover. In terms of graphic design ours is very dated. A new page design was proposed last year and after months upon months of arguing it ended up being a waste of time as nobody could agree fully on one design. Your version though is even blander.... I would at least recommend the light blue shader for the header currently uses for Vector around the sides. Have you see the French wiki main page. Much better I think. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 09:38, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

There was a huge main-page redesign project that fizzled because no one could decide on a design.

For example, I don't like your version because the columns become, visually, one giant mass of text. It's harder to read. Other people would probably argue in favor of it. APL (talk) 14:15, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

(My reply was to Karada, not Blofeld's reply. APL (talk) 14:48, 3 June 2010 (UTC))

Your redesign is easier on the eye, but harder to actually read and discern the different content. Ignoring the horrific blue gradients, the French have a great main page - the sidebar with an introduction to the encyclopedia, how to edit, and sister projects is a super super idea. — Pretzels ^Hii! 15:10, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree - a new design is very much needed, especially now with the change from monobook to vector. In order to avoid the problems last year, why not have a jury for the competition that will pick the best design - and the design will then be changed to that design, regardless of whether or not there's 100% agreement on it? Mike Peel (talk) 16:57, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The last attempt failed primarily because it was structured as a "competition." The previous attempt succeeded because it was structured as a collaboration (which led not to "100% agreement," but to strong consensus). The solution is to return to that method (the one on which wikis are based), not to appoint an elite panel. —David Levy 00:12, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Black text on a white page is a more professional and encyclopedic look. I like that. It needs borders between the sections, however, or it's a wall of text. The search box absolutely needs to go back to the left hand side. That was the least helpful change in the recent restructuring. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.42.76.202 (talk) 17:27, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

What makes it more helpful on the left side? --Dschwen 23:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The search box's position is a feature of the skin. (We just switched to a new default skin, which users not logged in cannot replace). It has nothing to do with the main page's design. —David Levy 00:12, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

I've no strong preference for the current design, but maybe a little colour would be nice? There are other things to consider, but they can be discussed further down the line if this gets there. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:31, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above comments. The main page is dated, drab and uninviting to new editors. It needs a complete overhaul. Should we start a new page for designs? Aiken ♫ 15:52, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I would recommend everyone who just wants to jump in start with Wikipedia talk:2008 main page redesign proposal/Archive 1, and work your way through the small novel's worth of text in the various archives. Despite input from many dozens of editors, it ultimately died a slow painful death because, while many editors wanted something "new", they all had entirely different aesthetics. I see the OP's proposal is to remove all color while an editor above suggests more color than the current design. The editor who started the 2008 proposal ignored the advice given on this page that if you want to change something major like the Main Page you need to be able to clearly articulate what the problem is that you're trying to solve and at least a few leading ideas of how you think it might be solved. Unfortunately, that editor took the approach of "everyone should submit a new idea and we'll find a solution for a problem we haven't yet identified" and started a totally unstructured effort that wasted a lot of people's time. See the bullet points at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Usability/Main Page for how the last successful redesign was about much more than making it more stylish, and it still took them 4 months and almost 1000 votes to get it implemented, back when the site had a much profile. If you want to restart the circus, at least set up a competition structure beforehand so you don't spend several months arguing about how to reject designs, because at that point entrants will think you're just trying to be mean to them in particular. - Banyan Tree 13:09, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

I've been wondering whether to say this or not. But hey since this discussion is still ongoing after so many days... I definitely don't think it helps to make comments like 'It looks very 1996' . Given that it was redesigned in 2006? it obviously seems very unlikely people then we're trying to give it a 1996 looks.

More importantly, those of us, like me, who were actually using the internet in 1996 would know the main page looks nothing like the WWW in 1996. Here are some pages from 1996 (I had problem with the Internet archive but they seemed to resolve after a while but all of these mostly worked for me). [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17].

As I said, those mostly work although for some of them the images didn't seem to be (from previous experience it's possible the images will work after a while), but some of them do appear to be showing a site which isn't the main one so I'll add a few from 1997 (and a few other things from then I came across) although depending on how late in 1997 it might not be entirely fair since the web was changing rapidly at the time [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25]. BTW, be warned some of these don't work well with modern versions of Java, at least for me.

However even with the 1997 pages let alone the 1996 ones, the current main page, no matter how 'outdated' it looks is vastly better then anything from that era. In fact the fact that the complaint about pastel colours and 1996 were made in almost the same breathe is even more ironic since anyone using the internet in 1996 and a quick look at those pages will atest that what was common at the time was either minimal use of colours and when you did have colours, bright and garish was the norm (The HappyPuppy archive is a good example of a not that uncommon type of site of the time).

Exaggerating to make a point doesn't work well when the exaggeration is so wildly off base. In fact I would question whether it makes sense at all in this case since even if it wasn't so wild, you could still alienate those who might feel the main page could do with a makeover but don't feel it's that outdated let alone those who are on the fence.

Nil Einne (talk) 09:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. There's nothing wrong with it. Leave it alone. And the proposed "update" is terrible: no visual structuring, as was already mentioned. Jason Quinn (talk) 17:30, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Plenty wrong with it, but I agree the new design is worse. Aiken ♫ 17:46, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

OMG Nil Einne. You should really stop taking yourself so seriously and get a sense of humour. LOL. Of course I was exaggerating, the front page does look very dated, pre 2006 in my view, maybe not literally "1996" but in terms of graphic design it looks very bland and unappealing. Thankyou though for providing so much nostalgia (and amusement).

Is it me though or have they slightly darkened the header and the frame of the pages in the margins? It makes it look better in my view, stands out more now. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 21:24, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

You weren't just 'exaggerating'. You were exaggerating beyond reason. The main page doesn't look remotely like something from 1996, not even close. When your comparisons are so ridiculous you greatly reduce your credibility. Why would anyone trust your judgement when it comes to re-designing the main page when you make comparisons which are on the face completely ridiculous? Why would anyone agree with you that the main page looks outdated if you are saying it looks like something it clearly doesn't? The first thing many people are going to think is that's a completely ridiculous example and then probably ignore whatever else you have to say. As others have said, defining the problem would help but while you may believe it's outdated, and you're entilted to that view, not everyone appears to agree and if the only comparison you have is it looks like it's from 1996 the number is going to be close to zero so it doesn't help the discussion at all. I do have a sense of humour but your comment was only funny in as much as how obviously completely nonsense it was to anyone who'd actually used the internet in 1996 and how it seems to be the typical case of someone making up complete silliness if they lack better a decent explaination for their view. This is mildly funny but as I've noted, doesn't help anything if you want to have a serious discussion about redesigning the main page. Nil Einne (talk) 03:18, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

How about we start by applying a slight gradient to the boxes to match the new theme and figure out a more permanent solution after. In the long run I think we should standardize the main page across all of the language wikis so that they all look pretty much the same. (There should still probably be individual banners or something though so you can quickly tell which language you're on.)--vgmddg (look | talk | do) 22:15, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

How do you propose we coordinate a design discussion across 271 languages? —David Levy 22:34, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

-I propose we start to coordinate the design as effective as possible. --63.226.104.225 (talk) 19:38, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I suppose one possibility could be to just look at all of the existing main pages and vote on the best one.--vgmddg (look | talk | do) 00:16, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

A 272-option (including the simple English Wikipedia) ballot?

In all likelihood, most users would simply vote for their Wikipedia's design (which obviously would favor the Wikipedias with the most users). Those caring enough to glance at some (let alone all) of the others wouldn't even be able to fully comprehend their contents. —David Levy 00:41, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Well first we would weed out the duplicates and the ones that are definitely bad, and maybe at the very end we would have around 2 or 3 pages for different writing directions. This is actually all part of a larger problem. I've decided to turn it into an essay at User:Vgmddg/Language Disconnect Rant --vgmddg (look | talk | do) 00:16, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Who gets to decide which ones "are definitely bad"? —David Levy 13:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm also not sure how we'd deal with the different sections different languages have (unless you're proposing each language have the same sections) which I suspect many of the languages are not going to like (since it's likely to primaril be the large wikipedias particularly en forcing them to have sections they may not want or have the content for and preventing them having ones they may feel are useful). Nil Einne (talk) 03:25, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Ancient Shoe

"The world's oldest known leather shoe, made approximately 5,500 years ago, is discovered in Armenia."

This shoe was in fact discovered in 2008. The news would be that a scientific article was published about it. The sentence should be changed accordingly, or something. 74.192.194.74 (talk) 08:12, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Done. --BorgQueen (talk) 08:16, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

It now reads that the discovery was made 5,500 years ago. :P  f o x  11:19, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Lol! Brings a new meaning to the term "old news"! Or is that "old shoes"? What a load of old cobblers! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 11:29, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

*groan*  f o x  12:01, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

This brings to mind the joke: Archaeologists discovered an ancient papyrus with jokes from ancient Egypt. But those were just old jokes... --Tone 13:42, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I hope ancient Egyptian school kids weren't making "your mom" jokes... TFOWR 10:48, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

DYK

... that the German submarine U-355 went missing on 4 April 1944 and was never heard from again?

Dozens, scores, maybe hundreds of WWII U-boats disappeared, etc. Many others had more interesting 'careers' — one wonders why we are highlighting U-355.

Sca (talk) 18:57, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

That would be because someone took the time to write an article on this particular one. Any article that is either newly created or had a recent, significant expansion from stub status can appear on DYK. See WP:DYK for more information.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:06, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

It is a fairly major expectation that the fact is interesting, though.  f o x  19:53, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

'44-4-4. That's an interesting date. '4' is the number of death in the Chinese language, btw. --70.31.13.42 (talk) 19:55, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

"Interesting" is a highly subjective criteria, too much so to be overly depended on for any kind of selection process. I've seen plenty of DYK hooks that I found far less interesting than this one. No surprise, given my personal interest in WWII and military history in general. Others, no doubt, feel differently. That's the nature of something so subjective.--Fyre2387 ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:04, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

For reference, the relevant section of WP:DYK says the hook should be 'punchy, catchy, and likely to draw the readers in'. I imply no judgement. Modest Genius ^talk 20:55, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for not bringing this up to me or Dawkeye (the writers) guys. And for the record, not that many U-boats did go missing. U-47 and U-355 are just one of a few dozen that were never heard from again. And as Fry said earlier, "Interesting" is a very personal characteristic. It's up to each individual as to weither or not it's "interesting".--White Shadows ^{stood on the edge} 21:10, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Note either there had been several DYKs about U-boats, or I was just imagining patterns. At least DYK makes you a prose update, unlike a certain Main page section... –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 01:59, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, there appear to be 385 other articles about WWII German U-boats / submarines. U-355 sank only one ship; presumably most or at least many of the others were more successful. Sca (talk) 16:25, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Eastern Greater Egret

Gday - I noticed this article on the front page that highlights how long its neck is - I took this image of what I assume is one of these guys a couple of years ago that I think illustrates its long neck very well! Not elongated in PS or anything... I just uploaded it but don't know how you'd get it on this front page? djambalawa (talk) 05:27, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Picture of the day#Guidelines. --70.31.13.42 (talk) 06:53, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Wait, which article? If it was in DYK, you're too late.  f o x  10:18, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

OTD

I would have expected to see the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany in On This Day today, June 17. Sca (talk) 19:13, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

It's in the rotation and was displayed in 2007 and 2008. After 00:00 (UTC), I'll add it for next year. —David Levy 19:23, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that this is not 100 percent guarantee. Again Sca, as stated on WP:OTD, "due to the fact that any given day of the year can have a great many moderate to great historically significance events, relative article quality along with the mix of topics already listed are often deciding factors in what gets posted on the 'On this day' section on the Main Page". If the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany article has one of the 'orange'- or 'red'-level article issue tags next year, it will be ineligible. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have mentioned that. Thanks, Zzyzx11. —David Levy 04:22, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we could include German Unity Day on October 3 this year? Sca (talk) 20:04, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's listed. —David Levy 20:08, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Can we please change today's featured article

It is pathetic by FA standards. Barely a GA. A quick look through the review, three years ago, reveals that it was passed in a similar manner to a GA. Please change the featured article to something that doesn't tarnish our reputation. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 19:18, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

That's not the way it's done and this isn't the right venue. User:Raul654 is responsible for the TFA and the FA process so you should take it up with him. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 19:20, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Nothing wrong with it. See Emma Watson for a GA class FA. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 13:31, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Featured article

The "Today's featured article" section has a small piece of the selected feature article, a "(more...)" link to the article, and a "Recently featured" list of past featured articles in the main page. There may be a problem: the "Recently featured" bit is not part of the article, but the text is the same. Perhaps it should use italics or a : to move it a little to the right, so that it doesn't get visually mixed MBelgrano (talk) 01:13, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

The long title of yesterday's article doesn't help things; I agree though—it should be aligned to the right, not the left. I thought it was, but today, apparently, it's not (at least not on my browser—zooming out reveals empty space to the left after the "Recently featured" line of text.) Airplaneman ✈ 04:25, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Airplaneman, there is nothing wrong with your browser; it's always been that way: ever since the the very first TFA's, the "Recently featured" line has been align to the left and the archive links has been align to the right. Zzyzx11 (talk) 04:46, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying—would it be better to align it to the right? Airplaneman ✈ 22:20, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Where is the World Cup today bring back the World Cup petition

where did you put it? it is still happenning and is the biggest thing in the entire of africa this year and for many years.yesterday it was the top of the site and now it is gone.thought a suicide bomb had blown it up! explaination needed.badly. the ice hockey and the rocket failure and the smelly old shoe are still there.come on! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.191.245 (talk) 12:44, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

There's a thread about this, above. TFOWR 13:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

The place to discuss this is WP:ITN/C. The problem was that, apparently, there was not enough update. --Tone 13:07, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

All hell will break loose when the 2010 NBA Finals ends. The discussion(s) at many different places is going to be epic. –Howard the Duck 14:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

2010 NBA Finals is an unbelievably unencyclopaedic article. I read it all the way through and it was only when I got to the categories at the very bottom of the page that I realised it was about basketball. The editors concerned make that wonderful assumption that everyone in the Anglophone world will know about their sport - and guess what guys, we don't! But I agree with the above comments - not to have the World Cup on the front page is a near-travesty. It's a worldwide, truly international (don't get me started on the World Series ...) sporting event, the biggest on the planet. 86.142.104.130 (talk) 16:18, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

For what's it worth, the 2010 World Cup now has a barely good enough prose update (prerequisite for any article on ITN section no matter how "a worldwide, truly international sporting event, the biggest on the planet" is). 112.203.151.71 (talk) 18:18, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

^would this be a signed-out User:Howard the Duck by any chance? Modest Genius ^talk 18:23, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes :O –Howard the Duck 18:26, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

And what a great update it is. I'm glad readers were forced to wait for that. Champagne all round. MickMacNee (talk) 18:43, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

If it's not the awesomest of updates I can see it going away... –Howard the Duck 19:09, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm 100% certain the World Cup Finals will make the front page. You really can't expect it to be on the front page for an entire month, can you? The NBA playoffs last over a month but you don't see daily updates on the main page, do you? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.239.182.31 (talk) 03:11, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I find it depressing that anyone would consider the "biggest thing in the entire of africa this year and for many years" to be a ball game. --Khajidha (talk) 15:50, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Depends on your definition of "big". It will certainly make more news than anything, and will undoubtedly be followed by the most people. Perhaps something for the future might be a little section on the main page giving the last few results. It could be used for both the World Cup and the Olympics - probably the only sporting events important enough for it. It needn't take up much space. Kombucha (talk) 23:11, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

The In the news section's purpose is to highlight articles created or substantially updated to reflect recent/current events. For the Olympics, we had regular summaries of the various competitions. Where are our World Cup match summaries? —David Levy 23:21, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Apparently the "prose updates" criterion is suspended for the World Cup. yay. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 16:56, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

• How about pipe-linking to 2010 FIFA World Cup schedule instead? Surely that's what people are interested in when it's "in the news". It's always being updated and has lots of wikilinks coming off to any of the relevent articles that a reader might also want to view. What do you think? Please take into account that the World Cup is the largest sporting event for many people over the world. Jolly Ω Janner 00:33, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

2010 FIFA World Cup schedule contains virtually no prose, let alone updated prose.

The World Cup unquestionably is "the largest sporting event for many people over the world," so why is no one at Wikipedia writing simple match summaries? —David Levy 00:44, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you'd expect a schedule to contain prose. I do not think that every part of the ITN needs to link directly to prose. Surely Wikipedia can be more versatile than that, as nearly every reader knows how wikilinks work. Also, the lack of match summaries is not due to the notability of the event, more that there are three games played every day. I could indeed write a match report for a game if I have some time tomorrow. If match summaries were written, this would greatly improve the informative side of linking the World Cup on the Main Page. Unfortunately, I, alone, cannot write them all, but I'll try to see if I can get some support for users to start writing them. I'm sure that with the amount of attention the games draw in, that people would do it. It's just that people aren't used to writing match summaries (yet). Jolly Ω Janner 00:52, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, there is no dispute regarding the event's notability.

Indeed, I wouldn't expect a page titled 2010 FIFA World Cup schedule to be anything more than that, and I don't propose that match summaries be written there. Presumably, the various group pages (such as 2010 FIFA World Cup Group A) would be the logical locations.

I agree that it would be sensible to link to a page containing links to the various pages of prose (rather than linking directly to the pages of prose), and I sincerely appreciate your ambition. —David Levy 01:10, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I did actually suggest linking to the 8 group articles since that's the best place you'd see updated prose. But there is no updated prose there either. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 03:56, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I've added some (admitadly–HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 18:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC), very poor) prose to 2010 FIFA World Cup Group E#Netherlands vs Japan. Jolly Ω Janner 16:11, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

It's better than nothing and it's good enough. If I were an admin I'd replace the link to the main 2010 WC article with the link to that section. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 17:20, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Which section? 2010 FIFA World Cup schedule or 2010 FIFA World Cup Group E#Netherlands vs Japan? Jolly Ω Janner 17:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

2010 FIFA World Cup Group E#Netherlands vs Japan, since that's the only game that has a prose update. But admins won't probably do that so... –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 18:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

If it became the norm to have matches updated with prose, would you rather it linked to the schedule instead? Jolly Ω Janner 18:41, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

If that has prose too why not. –HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 18:43, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

If anyone wants constant update on NBA Finals or World Cup, there's something called ESPN, for your information. --Jjeong12 (talk) 17:47, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Or "the internet" for people who are in the US and therefore don't GET ESPN. ;)  f o x 

Does "ESPN America" ring any bells? --Jjeong12 (talk) 18:45, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I had to look it up to discover that's the new name for NASN. So not really. Modest Genius ^talk 19:43, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

2010 Central Canada earthquake

The 2010 Central Canada earthquake should be listed in the News section. It received enough media coverage nationally and considerable coverage internationally. --Eelam StyleZ (talk) 00:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

As it says at the top of this page, please direct suggestions for the In The News section to WP:ITN/C; as it happens this has already been suggested and is currently under discussion. Modest Genius ^talk 00:29, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Peerage privilege

I noticed that this article is due to be featured on the main page within the next few days and the article is in a quite frankly poor condition. there are red links the article is reliant on just over thirty references, was promoted over 5 yrs ago with just two support votes and it just has a neglected vibe about it. I really do not think that it exemplifies the best of what wikipedia has to offer and should not be featured --Thanks, Hadseys 02:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

The only person who can stop the article being on the main page is Raul654 (talk · contribs) so you would have to ask him to change it. Having said that (a) there are only two redlinks in the article (one notable legal case, one Act of Parliament, both of which should have articles about them), and redlinks are permitted in FAs as much as elsewhere when appropriate (and these are); (b) the FA process doesn't measure quality based on the number of references but the reliability of the references, and I can't immediately see any inappropriate sources; (c) the article was reviewed in November 2007, with the editor who nominated it for review of its FA status delighted by the improvements as a result. If there are any specific improvements you feel ought to be made in the next few days, you can either make changes yourself, contact DrKiernan (talk · contribs) who has been active on the article since the time of the 2007 FAR, and / or note matters needing attention on the article's talk page. Finally, a reminder that a Featured Article review cannot be started when the article is on, or linked from, the main page (ie June 26 to June 29). Bencherlite ^Talk 06:51, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Without commenting on this article in particular, I just want to make the point that this type of complaint has come up before a few times, usually when the article goes up on the main page. Thank goodness someone has raised the question before it goes up in this case. We really should be more careful about TFA'ing old FA's without some sort of review to confirm current quality. I would support a delay in featuring this as TFA purely on the basis of the time since the last review (no disrespect to the article or its main authors). Zunaid 18:08, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

The article was recommended by the community at WP:TFA/R and approved by the Featured Article Director. I've read it, it seems appropriate. It might need a little work to pass 2010 FAC standards, but it's in pretty good shape. Why don't you go talk to the principal editors of the article?--Wehwalt (talk) 18:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict with Wehwalt) Well, the question has been raised above by Hadseys, but it's hardly a good challenge in this case. Hadseys complains about the presence of two redlinks (which is a bad point, and rather misunderstands the point of redlinks) and then counts the number of references as if that's a measure of quality: no complaint about their unreliability, or an obvious source missed out, for example. The comment about the article having "a neglected vibe about it" is unparticularised (so nobody can respond to it properly, as it's not clear what is meant), inaccurate (check the history for the changes since it was scheduled) and perhaps overlooks the fact that this isn't an area of knowledge where one would either expect major changes or significant new scholarship in a couple of years. It was nominated at the "Today's Featured Article" Request page and nobody there saw any major problems while it was open for comment. More generally, additional input at WP:TFAR is always welcome so that Raul can take into account comments on the standard of the articles proposed there. It is not unknown for articles to be improved significantly as a result of discussion there. Once again, there is no point in complaining here about this issue. Only Raul can pull Privilege of Peerage from the queue. If you want to make a Featured Article Review mandatory for all articles older than a certain date before they appear on the main page, then make that proposal somewhere else, not here. Bencherlite ^Talk 18:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I personally think the article is more than sufficient. Remember, we're talking about a historical subject that won't have oodles of google hits. It's short for an FA, but it's quality over quantity and the sourcing is appropriate for the subject. What would be acceptable sourcing for Jack sparrow wouldn't be for this and vice versa. That said, this is the wrong venue- this is where we discuss the Main Page, if someone feels the article is not of FA standard, WP:FAR is down the hall and to the left. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:46, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the article seems underreferenced, but considering that most articles coming out of FAC could benefit from additional work, this is not saying anything new. It seems like if there were a place to discuss the article's merit as a potential TFA, that would have been on the nomination page before Raul put it into rotation. It's not hard to read an article once the blurb is posted and comment accordingly—that, in fact, is what I thought we were supposed to do. That said, there is nothing wrong with working on the article now, if its problems leave you so inclined. After all, this is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, right? Otherwise, I agree with Bencherlite and HJ Mitchell—this really isn't the place to propose putting old articles through FAR before appearing on the Main Page. Jonyungk (talk) 21:41, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Longest tennis match records

Resolved

 – Courcelles WP:MOSDASHed to the rescue. TFOWR 13:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Please change the tennis scores format. They should be in endashes instead of hyphens, please refer to MOS:DASH and the tennis wikiproject. Thanks. Arteyu ? _{Blame it on me !} 16:18, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

• Done. Thanks. Courcelles (talk) 16:25, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
• Yeah, this is exactly what WP:ERRORS is for. ;)  f o x  16:26, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Mainpage credit for FA authors

I want to raise a serious proposal for giving mainpage credit to the primary contributors of featured articles. This has been mentioned from time to time in previous discussions (the ones I've found are here, here and here). The discussion has primarily been about removing picture credits since they go against our ideals of an anonymous, collaborative project, but I believe this is going about the problem in the wrong way. Instead of providing less credit, thereby removing a very valid incentive for major contributions, I think it would be more appropriate to expand what is already an established practice.

There are obviously different standards of how credit is given for texts and pictures in the mainstream media, but I seriously doubt that writers are routinely passed over for credit the way we do at English Wikipedia. In my experience a lot, if not most, FAs are written primarily by one or a few individuals who do just about all the research and contribute 99% of the actual content. Countless other editors make valuable contributions in the form of advice, constructive criticism and copyediting, but I can't imagine that spellchecking and pointing out factual errors would really be enough to consider all of them bona fide co-authors. I know I would never try to make such a claim just because I edited an FA mostly written by others and I have serious doubts that anyone who has helped out with reviewing or copyediting an FA would ever make such a claim. It would be akin to a professional copyeditor claiming authorship to an editorial or a novel they once proofread, or an academic peer reviewer demanding shared copyright to a dissertation.

To provide an actual example for discussion, I'm going to quite shamelessly propose an article that I have myself worked on. I updated the article on the 16th century warship Mary Rose about six months ago and I did so almost singlehandedly, research as well as prose. It's been tweaked excellently for grammar and prose by many other editors, and there's been some very good FAC reviewing, but I think I have a pretty solid claim as the primary contributor who made the article what it is today. I'm going to place a request that it be featured on July 19 in about a week or so, and I would very much like to have mainpage credit for all my hard work — the same credit that anyone who took a really good photo or retouched an old image has taken for granted since TFP was first introduced.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:44, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Your idea is a good one, but unlike pictures, articles will almost always have multiple authors. With a picture, you might have the original artist, plus someone restoring/touching up. With an article, you have the bulk of the text, but you have multiple copyeditors, spell-checkers, formatters etc. Every role is an important one, and brings on the question of how much work deserves credit. To me, it's too complex to be worth it. Aiken ♫ 17:50, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting giving credit to the authors on the main page itself, or via talk page templates (as happens for DYK, ITN etc)? If the former, I'm strongly opposed to doing so, because it opens a huge can of worms, marks a break from what's done on the articles themselves, and it's nigh-on impossible to set a threshold which an author is required to meet for credit. The latter seems a decent idea. Modest Genius ^talk 18:50, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I think that the improvement of the project should be sufficient incentive for editors to edit, rather than recognition - if recognition becomes the goal, then the project becomes a means for garnering recognition rather than it's own end. Or rather, I believe that editors should be recognized for their gracious efforts and contributions, but that it would be dangerous to institutionalize recognition. That said, I haven't made any significant contributions myself, so it may not be my place to say. I also understand that editing can be thankless work - so in any case I'll take this opportunity to thank any editors that happen to read this for their work. Thank you editors! Ennen (talk) 19:09, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Our main page serves as an introduction to Wikipedia. I can think of no surer way to confuse/mislead newcomers about how Wikipedia operates than to credit a featured article's "author" on the main page. —David Levy 19:23, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I have only written a handful of articles, and none of them have got anywhere near GA, let alone FA status, however I can only agree with User:Ennen. I cannot see how this suggestion would lead to new users contributing, and if users are contributing to get their name on the front page -- I cannot see how that is good either. The goal should be continually improving wikipedia, and recognition should come through walking past anywhere with a number of computers being used by the common man and seeing half of the computers being used to browse wikipedia. User A1 (talk) 19:42, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Most people do not want to have their names known. Even if they did, Wikipedia is about public knowledge not about recognition of its editors.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:37, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Except for credit being somewhat more complicated to determine for articles (though not half as complicated or mysterious as implied here), all of these arguments were brought up in complaints against the feature picture credits, and turned down. So why is it okay for one type of featured content to be credited, and doubly so, but not another? It's clearly not something that makes people lose sight of contributing to Wikipedia, despite being institutionalized for most of Wikipedias existence. If we're to maintain double standards of this sort, there should be a better motivation than what I'm seeing here. Claiming that there's some sort of conflict between being given credit and being altruistic seems to me as a mere straw man, since it's perfectly obvious that featured picture contributions aren't exactly dying out or that photographers are only contributing for purely selfish reasons. The biggest problem I see in this is that public credit for one type of work is taken for granted and actively defended while it is flat-out denied for others.

Peter ^Isotalo 04:58, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't object to the idea of dropping the credit from the featured picture section. But in my view, it's relatively harmless because each image generally is the work of one or two individuals (and there's nothing misleading about saying so).

Conversely, crediting a featured article to one or two authors would greatly impair our ability to convey to the site's visitors that our articles (including those articles) are collaborative, ongoing efforts in which they're welcome to take part, not finished products submitted by selected writers. —David Levy 05:14, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with David by the time an article becomes featured it has usually received contributions by many dozens of people. Listing one of two would make it appear that this is not a collaborative process while we do not have room to list them all.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:09, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Besides, don't all articles already carry attribution in the form of the "History" tab? --Khajidha (talk) 15:53, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

They're more of a legal-technical requirement than something that gives any recongizable attribution. It's normally difficult even for veteran users to determine authorship of a text and virtually impossible for anyone who isn't familiar with the system. For images, it's a matter of making one simple click and scrolling down to a simple form.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:54, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

For the "double standards" comment, it was recently discussed that the FP credit should be dropped (Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Picture of the day photo credits), and there were mixed feelings about this. I personally agree with the concept that there are double standards, but feel the cut should be in the other direction. As far as I am concerned things like "determining who the author is" is a technical problem, which needs to be addressed well in advance of the other question of "should we credit individuals"? I feel that no-one will get consensus on anything therein, and thus the status quo will propagate, which admittedly is currently "working" after a fashion. User A1 (talk) 17:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. There's certainly a double standard, but the best way to resolve it is to remove FP credit lines. To quote myself from the above-linked discussion: 'Images are not fundamentally different to other content, and should not be treated differently. [...] Author credits are unnecessary, inconsistent and counterproductive.' Modest Genius ^talk 17:45, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree and would support the removal of the credit from features images to decrease the double standard this presents.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 20:01, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Can we please not repeat this discussion again? Thanks. howcheng {chat} 01:53, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

This is a pretty new discussion, though. The suggestion is to make featured content editors equal rather in terms of credit rather than giving special treatment to image contributors. Since you're suggesting we don't discuss removing any existing mainpage credits, I assume you're also supporting that we don't uphold double standards.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:54, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't make myself clearer -- we started going down a "remove the credits from the POTD" path. That's what I wanted to cut off. howcheng {chat} 16:33, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Since it's a very good idea that keeps being independently proposed by a variety of people, I think it's a worthwhile discussion to have. Modest Genius ^talk 23:17, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Worthwhile or not, we just finished it with no consensus to remove them, as you should know, having participated in it yourself. howcheng {chat} 00:33, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that an image is fundamentally different from other content. An image is (in effect) a source, and should be cited as would any other source. --Khajidha (talk) 22:40, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

But if they're are truly a primary source, wouldn't pictures that weren't published elsewhere first (e.g. were taken/made specifically for Wikipedia) be in contravention of WP:Reliable Sources and WP:Original Research (specifically WP:Primary): "Primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care" (emphasis added)? -- 174.24.195.56 (talk) 14:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Quoth Wikipedia:No original research#Original images, "original images created by a Wikipedian are not considered original research, so long as they do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas or arguments, the core reason behind the NOR policy." —David Levy 23:29, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

If there was a desire to give "credit" to the users that did the "hard wok" and set them apart from the ones who did "soft work" (such as bots, reverting vandalism, adding templates or fixing ones without parameters, etc.), then such credits would belong at the article talk page. Or not even there (I'm not sure about the idea itself), but definitely not in the Main Page or other pages of a more general purpose. MBelgrano (talk) 14:04, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Arguing that images are of a fundamentally different nature than text appear to rely almost entirely on the idea that working with images is somehow more exclusive and "artistic" than writing and that the latter creates a copyright that is more permanent than that of text. I get the impression that copyediting here is presented as almost equal co-authorship while someone who crops an image, the graphic equivalent of correcting grammar, is treated as a mere technician. But at the same time, those who touch-up old photographs or artworks are given credit on par with original authors. All of this adds up to make a very odd situation that receives complaints regularly. I don't mind that we insist on collective self-denial concerning credit, but we should do so equally, especially if we consider that image editors already are easily identifiable. The relative luxury of mainpage credit should be for everyone, not just for the select few based on some semi-grandfathered tradition.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:28, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that substanial correcting of grammar and spelling or other such substanial copyediting is equivalent to cropping an image. It's closer to touching-up although depending on the level that can take hours. I would note as I've noted before even with taking into account cropping and other such things, the number of contributors to an image is usually an order of magnitude or more less then for articles. Nil Einne (talk) 10:36, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

The only thing that I have seen so far that gives some sort of "credit" to articles is putting {{Maintained}} on the talk page, but even that tag has a disclaimer referencing WP:OWN. Zzyzx11 (talk) 14:22, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I also agree with the "can of worms" argument, and one more thing: it would force the Featured Article Director to not only write the blurb for all articles that aren't at TFA/R, but also go into the history and try to decide who should be given "credit". More work for him, and for what? The whole thing is problematical.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:26, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

2010 Wimbledon: Mahut–Isner match

Resolved

 – The match finally ended, and it's on the Main Page now. It's even got a picture! My sympathies to the two players involved - great match, but you both deserve a rest. TFOWR 11:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be on the main page? Its a monumental event in tennis and sport and has broken many world records. Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 20:47, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Discussion is taking place at the "In the News" candidates page (the correct venue for such suggestions) and seems at present to be running in favour of adding it when the match is over. Bencherlite ^Talk 21:56, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Shouldnt mahouts picture also be there.. after all he made equal contribution.. it seems as if john did everything 67.154.172.34 (talk) 05:56, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Julia Gillard - New Australian Prime Minister - First Female Prime Minister

Resolved

 – WP:ITN/C love redheads. Australia's first female PM is on the Main Page. Kiwis everywhere bemoan the fact that K Rudd/K Road jokes are no longer funny. TFOWR 10:17, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Julia Gillard Has been announced as the new Prime Minister of Australia, replacing Kevin Rudd as of this morning (Thursday 24/6) and I think this should be listed on the front page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pottski (talk • contribs) 00:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

See ongoing discussion at WP:ITN/C. --174.93.81.231 (talk) 02:54, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I do not know if she is PM yet? Kevin Rudd simply steped down and she was elected unoposed.. Please fix it up. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/24/2935500.htm She has been swarn in.

Enlil Ninlil (talk) 03:27, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

She is PM, no doubt about it.Mod MMG (User Page) Reply on my talkpage. Do NOT click this link 03:48, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Editing/contributing to wikipedia

Resolved

 – Everyone: don't WP:BITE, WP:AGF. Raise problems with your colleagues. Be WP:CIVIL. And remember - IPs are editors, too, with as much right to edit as anyone else. TFOWR 11:35, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I have recently had some unpleasant experiences on Wikipedia with my posts being immediately deleted by so called experts. I have just found this article which supports what I'm saying:- http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10309840-71.html I think wikipedia needs to have a better policy with regards to editing as a select few are starting to dominate wiki editing and bully other users. PS. It would be ironic if this post gets deleted as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.102.158.15 (talk) 05:27, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

While I do note and appreciate the constructive edits you have made to Wikipedia, doing this near the start of your editing career and then reverting the revert is not going to make people respect you or try to help you out. Thingg^⊕⊗ 06:16, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

See my comment at Talk:Charlene Wittstock#Editing/contributing to wikipedia --Cybercobra (talk) 06:27, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

The report in that article draws some odd conclusions. Most new editors are likely to have their contributions reverted not because they're new, but because their contributions don't follow Wikipedia's policies. Parrot of Doom 11:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I actually added some comments which were totally legitimate and they were deleted anyway. I think the right thing to do is to contact the person and discuss their views before it's blatantly deleted without any comment.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.244.119.195 (talk • contribs)

...and, of course, another right thing to do is to raise the matter now with the editor who deleted your posts. TFOWR 12:56, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Michael Jackson pic

Resolved

 – Pizza-delivery MJ told to Beat it. New image not much of a thriller but it's the best we can do. It's Human Nature to complain about things like this. I'm now officially punned out. TFOWR 11:38, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Surely there's a better picture of Michael Jackson for the front page, right? Why not the one from his infobox? This one makes him look like a delivery guy. — Timneu22 · talk 11:41, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Haha. Yes, the cap should say "Pizza Hut"... Dr. Blofeld ^{White cat} 13:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

It really is brutal. I hope someone fixes it. — Timneu22 · talk 13:06, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I had a quick look earlier, and meant to post here at the time. Both images are free, and hosted on commons. So that's not the reason ;-) The infobox image was taken at the White House, though it isn't necessarily clear that that's the case. It does, however, also feature a white glove. Maybe it's due to size? The infobox image being quite "tall". TFOWR 13:53, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

If tallness is an issue, why not use File:Michaeljacksonthrilleralbum.jpg or something similar. Really, the current photo is just about the worst that could be used. There don't appear to be many square photos of him. — Timneu22 · talk 14:01, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I'm just speculating - I don't know that it is the image size that affected the choice. I would note, though, that File:Michaeljacksonthrilleralbum.jpg is not free and so there would be issues with as an image on the main page. I should know this, but how are TFA images decided? TFOWR 14:04, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

If the TFA is nominated through WP:TFAR, then discussion sometimes takes place about the image there; if it's selected directly by Raul, then he'll choose the image. Re Jackson, there was discussion about the image before Raul approved the nomination, and the view was that the current photo was the best of a bad bunch. Bencherlite ^Talk 14:11, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

A bad bunch indeed. Oh well. I tried. — Timneu22 · talk 14:13, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Cheers, Bencherlite - very useful. TFOWR 14:18, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe having such a shite image of him on the MP will encourage someone to donate a better one, but given the value tha they must have now, I wouldn't hold my breath. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:33, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

If anyone's keeping score, I agree that the picture is amateurville. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I've changed it, but the replacement is still shite. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:48, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, but it's waaaaaaaaaaay better than pizza-hut delivery Michael. — Timneu22 · talk 21:09, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Album covers are fair use and can't be used on the front page. Everard Proudfoot (talk) 20:33, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

King of Pop Page is Protected?

Resolved

 – Probably would have remained semi'd anyway; as it is, WP:NOPRO is no more, and TFAs can be protected just the same as any other article. TFOWR 11:40, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I though it was against wikipolicy to have the Feature Article of the day protected? Weaponbb7 (talk) 15:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

No longer. The new policy is to treat TFA the same as we would any other article. TFOWR 16:07, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Sad, I got my start on Wiki as an Anon-IP vandalizing the TFA Weaponbb7 (talk) 17:14, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

;-) I was never that bad, but I do have some skeletons in my closet... TFOWR 17:21, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Unprotecting Jackson's article would be madness. The pending changes protection didn't work when it wasn't on the Main Page so there'd be no way to make a constructive edit without getting an edit conflict with a vandal or a revert if it were unprotected while it was. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:38, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes works well when there are comparatively few edits (or reads - not really looked into that yet). PC1 would make editors' lives a misery at the MJ article... it's got to be semi. I'm a little sad about the passing of WP:NOPRO, but less sad than I thought I'd be... ;-) TFOWR 11:32, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

And even if we still had WP:NOPRO, this still probably would be semi'd anyway, as a case of WP:IAR. It would just be too much. Narutolovehinata5 ^{t c csd new} 11:34, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Accident on front page??

No offence to anyone but why is the Castelldefels train accident on the front page?? There are scores of accidents in a lot of countries everyday but are we to presume that the editors give greater weight-age to incidents in developed countries than in developing ones? User:katochnr 0815, 26 June 2010, GMT —Preceding undated comment added 08:16, 26 June 2010 (UTC).

I doubt there are very many train accidents with 13 fatalities - disasters with a significant number of deaths often make it onto the main page, provided Wikipedia has coverage of the disaster. Hut 8.5 09:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Accidents included in "In the News" on the main page this year from developing countries include 2010 Yanga train derailment (Republic of the Congo, 76 dead), Nigerian bus electrocutions (11 dead), 2010 Papua New Guinea bus crash (40+ dead) and 2010 Dhaka fire (117+). Bencherlite ^Talk 10:08, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Note: 2010 Yanga train derailment was featured just this week of course, and with 76 deaths and 745 injuries, was a lot more than 13 fatalities (which I agree is probably quite a small number of deaths by world standards). That derailment makes it onto a list of "The world's worst rail accidents" since 2002 (which features nothing from 2009 and the one entry from 2008 had less deaths). --can dle • wicke 03:16, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

As I noted in ITN errors above - the article is written in Commonwealth English and uses 'railway': the ITN blurb should read 'railway' rather than 'railroad'. 86.142.7.215 (talk) 11:11, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Fixed; there's no need to make the same point twice in two different places! Bencherlite ^Talk 11:20, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

"Resolved" Tags

Unresolved

 – And I will sez nuffing funny. TFOWR 16:02, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Has there been any consensus for the addition of the "Resolved" tags and light editorial banter editorial summary that's recently been added to this talk page's threads? - I'm a little concerned about third parties putting "Resolved" tags on threads started by others, especially when done systematically, as while the editor doing the tagging may think the matter "Resolved", the original poster may have a different opinion. Even if the article in question has left the Main Page, the root cause may still be worthy of discussion. Even if "Resolved" tags are called for, I'm concerned about the editorial summaries, due to the possibility that they may color (bias) interpretation of the discussion. I'm particularly concerned given the light tone with which the current summaries are being written. ("My sympathies to the two players involved" "WP:ITN/C love redheads." "Pizza-delivery MJ told to Beat it.") I'm of the personal opinion that the auto-archiving of stale threads is sufficient (though the frequency possibly could be increased) - which, BTW, will be delayed further by the edits to add "Resolved" tags. -- 174.24.195.56 (talk) 15:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I've been tagging obviously resolved issues here (and elsewhere) for a good while, though not that frequently. It's maybe more obvious right now because one of the "not that frequentlies [sic]" was yesterday. Editors are always free to un-resolve issues: replace a {{Resolved}} tag with {{tlx|Resolved}}, or replace it with an {{Unresolved}} tag. TFOWR 16:02, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I think we should be adding more resolved tags on issues that have been clearly answered. It prevents needless peripheral discussion, goodness knows there's too much of that that goes on on this page. Zunaid 20:07, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Marcel Alessandri and twelve Croix de guerre

Article about Marcel Alessandri shows that he received twelve Croix de guerre citations in WWI and not over the course of his forty-one year-long career. He also had 13th croix de guerre (des_théâtres_d'opérations_extérieures).

78.63.99.33 (talk) 15:00, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Better discussed on Talk: Marcel Alessandri? --192.75.165.28 (talk) 22:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Barnstar

Greetings, everyone at Main Page! I am here to inform you that a proposal has been made to modify your barnstar, here. You are invited to participate in the discussion! Thanks for taking time to read this notice. Kayau Voting IS evil 01:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I didn't even know that there was a Main Page barnstar! Modest Genius ^talk 21:29, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Macedonian in "Wikipedia Languages"

Since the Macedonian wikipedia also has over 40,000 articles, would it be possible to add it to the section "Wikipedia Languages"?Mactruth (talk) 02:39, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The 40,000-article minimum is not the only inclusion criterion. Please see Template talk:Wikipedialang#Macedonian Wikipedia. —David Levy 03:29, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Robert Byrd

Resolved

 – WP:ITNC is the place to debate ITN items. TFOWR 15:14, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

From "In the News": "Robert Byrd (pictured), the United States' longest-serving senator, dies at the age of 92." Is this really important news as far as the world is concerned? Kombucha (talk) 20:32, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

WP:ITNC decide stuff like this, and the consensus there was that it was important enough for ITN. There were a few voices of dissent, however. TFOWR 20:40, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Kombucha (talk) 21:01, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

He served for fifty-one years, I'd say that's pretty damn impressive wherever you are in the world. Zazaban (talk) 05:10, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps there could be a Wikipedia Book of Records to cover such things (I think Otto von Habsburg would qualify under oldest living (sometime) politician and royalty.) Jackiespeel (talk) 15:27, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

A "Wikipedia Book of Records" sounds like a really nice idea - but I know that Guinness sometimes has a lot of problems verifying those that claim to have a world record (one example being Robert Garside)... Mike Peel (talk) 19:50, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

For gods sakes, does every item for ITN have debated to death on this page? I'm Canadian and I think the news item on Byrd is totally fine. This is English Wikipedia, the US is the largest English-speaking nation, Byrd was a significant player in US politics. His passing is noteworthy. Deal with it. In the same ITN section as of today I can also read about the African common market, Hungary and Germany electing presidents, flooding in Romania, an economic deal between Taiwan and China, a new constitution for Kyrgyzstan, a Mexican state gubernatorial candidate being assassinated and the G20. Pretty damn varied if you ask me. freshacconci talktalk 15:07, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

No, it has to be debated to death on that page ;-) I agree, we should simply point people at WP:ITNC and close off off-topic threads. WHich I have done. TFOWR 15:14, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

To be fair, in this case once the OP was pointed at the right place he/she said thanks and didn't say anything more here. No one else really started to debate it either. While I too do find it annoying when people start OT discussions ultimately not everyone is going to read and understand the header. Nil Einne (talk) 13:25, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Perceived lack of variety of topics and perceived non-notability of entries are running topics on the talk page (possibly partly mutually exclusive).

Given the number of lists on WP some sort of 'WP list of records' would be creatable - OvH is probably one of the oldest living royals, Russia is the largest country etc, Jackiespeel (talk) 13:51, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

We have {{Records}}. Art LaPella (talk) 19:14, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

21st Mechanized Corps

The did you know front page intro for 21st Mechanized Corps states the 21st Mechanized Corps was disbanded for failing to defend Lithuania and Latvia from Germany. This sounds like the 21st MC was disbanded as a result of an inadequacy. The article merely states the 21st MC was disbanded due to the massive casualties suffered in the battles. Ozdaren (talk) 15:35, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

21th corps was no longer operational after counterattack near Solnscy, Novgorod. From Russian version of article. "Очевидно, что как организованное соединение корпус уже не существовал. 5 сентября 1941 года управление корпуса расформировано по Перечню (реально расформировано ещё в конце августа 1941 года)." Raw translation. "Corps no longer existed as operational unit. It was disbanded by 1941-09-05 decree (in reality disbanded by end of August)."

78.63.99.33 (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Better discussed at Talk:21st Mechanized Corps (Soviet Union). Not on the main page anymore. --174.89.157.191 (talk) 01:52, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Operation Loyton

It's difficult to see the choice of the eaten plastic explosive anecdote as anything but an attempt at ridiculing the French. Given that the man was a resistance fighter, and that at least 140 french civilians died, assumedly because nobody would disclose the whereabouts of the SAS, I find this very offensive to the memory of these people. I *am* French, but I don't think you need to be to find this shocking. Medoc92 (talk) 10:06, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Although I understand the position of your comment, after having read the hook in question, I can't say that I share your view. Personally, I find the fact rather interesting; not because of its sadistic overtones (although not French, I consider myself a francophile), but because of its unusualness, the very thing for which most Did You Know hooks are written. If you want to take it further, I think the more appropriate venue would be WP:ITN WP:DYK. Thanks. 79.67.129.23 (talk) 11:10, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

You mean WP:DYK, surely? - Dumelow (talk) 11:54, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Whoops. Corrected. 79.67.129.23 (talk) 12:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

2010 Wimbledon Championships

Resolved

 – per usual...meshach (talk) 01:38, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I was just wondering why this has yet to be put in the news section with the winners already determined to be of the singles Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams?BLUE_DOG^TN 20:25, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:ITN/C is the place to discuss. The problem is that there is not enough prose update at the moment in the article. --Tone 20:32, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Just as an observation, it says very clearly in the big box at the top of this page, and the one that appears when you edit it, that suggestions for news items do not belong here and links in both places to WP:ITN/C. Modest Genius ^talk 20:37, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I added to big fat red message a while back to the bottom of the editnotice, so perhaps we should just start summarily removing these threads. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 09:51, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

At the very least, once the OP has been directed to the correct location, we should be {{discussiontop}}ing the thread. If we delete the thread I'd feel obliged to (a) leave an direction in the edit summary, and (b) let the OP know where to go on their talkpage. I do like the idea of a Talk:Main Page without endless "wrong place" threads, however. TFOWR 10:15, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Well the bottom of the edit notice says in big red font "This is NOT the place to make suggestions for Main Page content. Please direct your suggestion one of the forums listed above or your post may be removed or ignored" and right above that is the list of venues. "Why isn't this on ITN" or "why is that on OTD" questions come up every day, and yet the question should be answered in one click. From now on I'm going to start removing these with an edit summary of "wrong venue, you want [wherever]". HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

But do you really think that someone who ignores the notices and sees that their post has been removed is going to think "Hey, where did my post go? I'd better check out the edit history and see if the user who deleted my post left a useful edit summary!" Or are they going to think "Hey, where did my post go? I'd better post again!" --Maxa megalon 2000 16:28, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, better to slap {{resolved}} on it and leave it to be archived. Modest Genius ^talk 19:23, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

To avoid making viewers think wikipedians circlejerk around NASA

Notice that Planck sent first images back about Big Bang --Leladax (talk) 21:07, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

What's your point? Are you suggesting an item for In The News? In which case there are multiple statements on this page saying the correct place for such suggestions is WP:ITN/C. If not, you should bring it up at Talk:Planck satellite. Modest Genius ^talk 00:34, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

If you are asking why ESA images don't appear on the main page, it is because they are not available under a free license as NASA images are. ESA images only allow educational/information use without getting special permission. Wikipedia requires free re-use licenses for images on the main page. Rmhermen (talk) 01:54, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

And I have written to multiple ESA employees over the years to try and get that changed, but they won't budge. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 12:34, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

You say that as if it's some sort of failing on ESA's part. They're quite entitled to choose whatever license they want, and I fully understand why they would want to hold on to a non-commercial one. Modest Genius ^talk 12:38, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Entitled sure, but its a shame non the less. Especially if you consider that basically the only reason they have chosen to go with a none commercial license, is to prevent misuse of the ESA name and other moral rights. I also presented to them multiple other options that they could consider (making available in lower resolution under a free license, just publishing 2 images per topic under a free license). These ideas were well received by almost all employees I wrote to, but basically they are stuck in their own bureaucracy and cannot get it changed (I was told by one person that it would require the agreement of all partner countries on one of their annual meetings). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 13:27, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

ESA bureaucracy can move very quickly when it wants to (I have direct experience of it). But if it's controversial or they want to bury it, they're very good at slowing things down as well. Personally I think Wikipedia should be allowed to use non-commercial licensed images when suitably tagged, but I realise I'm in a minority position. Might be quicker to get changed than the ESA T&Cs though... Modest Genius ^talk 20:58, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Error in Nuclear Accident list

There is a major error on the front page at the moment. There is a separate list elsewhere on wikipedia listing military nuclear accidents such as bad nuclear tests, crashed aircraft with nuclear weapons onboard and exploding or sinking nuclear naval vessels. So the blanket statement that there have been 99 nuclear accidents as of 2009 is incorrect because it only refers to civilian (and 1 military) accident.--Senor Freebie (talk) 23:55, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. The statement (on 99) is most certainly wrong and refers to specific type of accidents, but this DYK hook will be gone in 2 minutes, thus too late. Materialscientist (talk) 00:00, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Invasion of Sicily

The invasion of Sicily was in 1943, not 1944, as stated in On this day ...! Calistemon (talk) 00:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

These sort of errors tend to get fixed faster when they're reported to WP:ERRORS, which you can see above the main section of the talk page. I've listed this there already, but if you catch similar errors in the future, please add them there; they can get lost if they're added to the main talk page. — Gavia immer (talk) 00:50, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

He's right. For the record, fixed. Courcelles (talk) 00:52, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

No worries, will do next time. Quick work, nevertheless! Calistemon (talk) 02:24, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

The 3,333,333rd article

Antother important milestone... Which article was the 3,333,333rd article in English Wikipedia? --213.100.54.146 (talk) 23:15, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

What makes this an important milestone? Those who have more or less fingers than ten, or don't see coincidental patterns profound might disagree with you. ;) --Monotonehell 06:13, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah, but the milestones which we have celebrated (such as #1,000,000) would be just as arbitrary to those who do not have ten fingers . . . What makes any milestone meaningful? I might argue that 2²² = 4,194,304 is the next most meaningful mark, showing we've doubled our content twenty-two times since the first article was created. — Bob • (talk) • 11:39, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Except 22 is not a round binary number either. Under that logic, the next milestone would be 2^32, which is 4.3 billion. It might be a while until we reach that. Modest Genius ^talk 12:35, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Why shouldn't every doubling be meaningful? But I can already anticipate the rebuttal, and I believe this argument is essentially meaningless. — Bob • (talk) • 06:19, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm... all threes? Sounds pretty important to me. Shannon! talk 01:22, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

It's too bad we didn't save Cause and Effect for that honor. APL (talk) 04:44, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm slightly more interested in the 3,141,592^nd article. BlueRobe (talk) 23:18, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Beth yw'r tri a phedwar ar ddeg allan o gant erthygl wikipedia. 24.25.987.178

It's hard to tell, Wikipedia being such a dynamic thing --Monotonehell 18:46, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Dunno about the 3,333,333rd article but here's the 333,333,333rd edit to Wikipedia: [26] -- œ ^™ 08:55, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Independence Day

In the "On this day..." box, the links go to Independence Day, Argentina, and 1816. I believe one of them (maybe the first) should link to the actual article Argentine Declaration of Independence. - Anonymous User. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.252.6.211 (talk) 12:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

 Done. howcheng {chat} 20:39, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

'Apparently'

The TFA hook reads "the lower of the two added bands contains enamel Tudor roses on a diapered pointillé background; this was apparently added under Henry VIII." Apparently? Is that really an appropriate word to use? WackyWace ^{you talkin' to me?} 10:49, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I assume it means that it's widely thought but not certain, so I don;t see anything wrong with it here. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 10:58, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree. "Apparently" means "it appears to be XYZ, but we're not certain". BlueRobe (talk) 12:39, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Yagan's Burial

Resolved

 – This is a candidate for "In The News and should be discussed there. TFOWR 09:36, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

The following is a notable event for Australians and for indigenous peoples worldwide.

• After more than a century in British collections, the head of Noongar leader Yagan is ceremonially buried on the 177th anniversary of his last full day of freedom.(ABC) (Perth Now) (The West-Yahoo!-7)

I'd like to see it included on the "Main Page". Warmest Regards, :)—_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 09:23, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Raise it at WP:ITN/C, as this is a candidate (a good candidate, in my view) for ITN. TFOWR 09:36, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank U deeply. Warmest Regards, :)—_thecurran Speak your mind ^{my past} 09:50, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

It would've been better without a painting of a severed head. Rimush (talk) 20:43, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

That's Omar al-Bashir. His head, unfortunately, is still attached. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.42.95.107 (talk) 23:43, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

From the timestamp the Rimush is clearly referring to [27] which did have a photo of Yagan derived from File:Yagan.jpg (see [28]) Nil Einne (talk) 00:53, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Text almost unreadable with the default Vector theme.

I don't know who had the idea of reducing the font size here with the new Vector theme, which was designed with the first goal of usability. The text was perfect with the Monobook theme, as it used the default browser's font size.

It was OK to reduce the font in the left column or for the top tabs or in the page footer. But I really suggest that you revert this font size reduction for everyone.

The solution of zooming in is not a solution as it also zooms other things than text (notably images), and all the side bars.

Anyway, if you want to get readable texts with the Vector theme, add this in your vector.css file (the link is in your preferences):

div#bodyContent{line-height:1.2;font-size:1em;}

This will revert the very bad adjustments made in the default vector.css theme (which uses a line-height:1.5em, which does not work properly as line-height in 'em' are not inherited, and uses a font-size:0.8em that causes this very small text).

Thanks for our eyes ! And thanks also for reading other scripts than Latin.

Note: this message is on topic here, because the Main page is the first thing that visitors will see, using these too small fonts. and yes, this applies equally to all other pages on this wiki.

verdy_p (talk) 17:13, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

On the other hand, visitors without an account can't edit their vector.css and is rather unlikely to see your message in the 3 days it would have been on Talk:Main Page if I hadn't responded anyway, no one here is likely to edit the default vector.css particularly not based on some random comment at Talk:Main Page and the chance of anyone from the Usability Initiative who would be interested in bug reports seeing this is close to none (in fact far for wikipedians are going to see this then if posted to a more appropriate place). Nil Einne (talk) 01:00, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Total Solar Eclipse

Moved to WP:ERRORS —Preceding unsigned comment added by Howcheng (talk • contribs) 23:03, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Adding other language

Please add Bengali in in the main page. (just add bn:প্রধান পাতা) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaushikahmed (talk • contribs) 06:07, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The Bengali Wikipedia consists primarily of stubs and placeholders. We omit such Wikipedias from the list. —David Levy 13:33, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Add a "Nominate" link to T:ITN

Now that the link to the World Cup is gone, I suggest we add a link to WP:ITN/C to T:ITN, similar to the one that DYK has. We've been in fairly slow period lately (about one story a day) and adding a link to ITNC might encourage more participation (plus, it should stop users from posting here about ITN). I realize some people assume new users would view ITN as a pure newsticker, but we don't know if this will happen unless we actually add the link. The worst case scenario is that we'd simply remove a link to ITNC from T:ITN. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 08:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. That respondents would view the section as a news ticker isn't speculative; we already deal with that issue on a regular basis (and it isn't even entirely confined to "new" editors).
  Additionally, this proposal doesn't target the true bottleneck. The scarcity of updates stems not from a shortage of users to nominate items, but from a shortage of article updates/creations reflecting current/recent events.
  I would support the addition of a link to a newcomer-friendly page explaining the process (thereby alleviating the aforementioned confusion regarding the section's purpose, and then pointing readers to Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates) and encouraging appropriate article contributions (thereby addressing the underlying problem instead of a symptom). Simply dropping unprepared users at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates would generate a great deal of well-intentioned noise without solving anything. —David Levy 13:25, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with David that directing users straight to ITN/C would only serve to confuse. An explanatory newcomers-friendly page (perhaps WP:ITN, with a little updating) would be a better idea, but even then only as an experiment. As has been pointed out, the lack of nominations isn't a problem, it's the lack of updates. Having more nominations is not necessarily a good idea, since that will inevitably result in more suggestions which do not meet the criteria - we have enough of those as it is. And since the whole idea of the timer was to encourage 1-2 stories per day, having 'about one story per day' is pretty much bang on target. PS. probably a good idea to inform WT:ITN of this discussion. Modest Genius ^talk 13:38, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

By the way, the Main Page doesn't link to T:DYK, or to WP:DYK for that matter; the four links in the DYK section are T:TDYK, WP:YFA, and WP:DYKA. Nyttend (talk) 22:55, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

One per day is not that bad. --can dle • wicke 23:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Front page broken

Some sort of Wiki formatting on the front page is broken, as of this post. Just letting you know. elektrik SHOOS 04:49, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Not on my screen. Please be specific - those things are browser dependent. Materialscientist (talk) 04:55, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Elektrik Shoos may be referring to the edits of another admin who attempted to remove an image on ITN that was recently tagged for deletion, but since this admin appeared to be unfamiliar with editing ITN, it ended up breaking that Main Page section. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 05:05, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Purge your cache. Prodego ^talk 05:11, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Morally repressive era?

Isn't labeling two entire decades, which were pretty different from each other on almost all counts, both morally repressive, as the blurb on the featured article does, POV, insulting, inaccurate (even if you thing there was some "moral repression" during them, does that mean the both decades in total were morally repressive?), and stating opinion (uncited at that) as fact? That statement needs to be deleted or severely reworded. And please don't say you need to go to the page and edit it there, as that should have been removed before granting it featured article status in the first place. 67.176.85.226 (talk) 04:44, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, it is quite insulting, now that you mention it. It was removed from the article earlier as well (although I don't know when; it's just not there now). I removed it from the blurb on the Main Page. -- tariqabjotu 07:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Acceptable content about lesbian author?

OK, show's over. The original post was made in good faith, and most of the responses were also in good faith. I've closed this as everything that needs to be said has been said, and anything further is likely to prolong this unnecessarily. TFOWR 10:29, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I love Wikipedia, and have often referred my 9 yr old daughter to this website to come and look up information that she is curious about. However it really offends me when I see articles like this discussing altermative lifestyles here. That's fine if you want to have it on Wikipedia where you have to go and look for it, but don't paste it on the Main page. I'm not at the point yet where I'm ready to explain to her what this is, nor should most parents have to expose their kids to this. Yes, I understand that this is freedom of the press, and I'm not trying to take any political sides, just leave that out. Don't go down that road. Whoever is on the board of decision making for deciding what article should be featured should please next time take this into more consideration. In my opinion - this was a 'featured aritlce fail'. Ask yourselves, do you want your 5 or 6-year old kids to read about this? v/r Zul32 (talk) 18:44, 15 July 2010 (UTC) P.S. Sorry - forgot to login. OK, now it's updated. NOTE: If this discussion/message is to go in another page/area please feel free to move it there, but don't delete it. I've no objection to my younger relatives reading about lesbianism, no. I do, however, monitor their access to the Internet - there are plenty of things I wouldn't be happy with them seeing. Human sexuality, however, is not one of them. TFOWR 18:50, 15 July 2010 (UTC) The liberal bias of the front page is nothing new, and quite unlikely to change. I sympathize with not wanting to have sexuality waved in one's face, hetero, metro, or homo. But surely a nine-year old has heard about homosexuality. You can simply say, matter-of-factly, if she asks, that some women like women and they are called lesbians. No need to go into the physical mechanics. Acting as if it is a big deal just brings more attention to the subject. And, of course, you should be aware that Wikipedia is simply overrun with homosexuals, not that there's anything wrong with that.μηδείς (talk) 19:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Well, I haven't run this by my 6 year-old niece, but my 11 year-old niece did see the front page earlier. She knew already about lesbianism (some of her parents' friends are lesbians). The big surprise for said niece was that prejudice existed comparatively recently. To her lesbianism simply means "girls who have girlfriends, not boyfriends". That said, she was far more interested in the featured picture. TFOWR 19:16, 15 July 2010 (UTC) What personally offends your sensibilities is irrelevant to the placement of TFAs. Wikipedia will not assume the responsibility of parenting your children. And to answer your last question, the only thing I would regret in allowing my hypothetical children to view an article discussing "alternative lifestyles" is that they will invariably learn about the shameful bigotry that has afflicted it. Nufy8 (talk) 20:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Are you suggesting that mention of a lesbian is intrinsically sexual and therefore inappropriate for children? That's an ignorant attitude that will get harder and harder to maintain as whole generations of gays and lesbians feel no need to hide the fact that they have same-sex partners or even spouses. You cannot expect society to ignore five percent of the population. (By the way, by attempting to categorize lesbianism as intrinsically sexual or intrinsically inappropriate for children you are absolutely taking a "political side". Don't fool yourself.) APL (talk) 21:04, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Cut the sanctimonious crap. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Wikipedia is not a forum for advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment. This woman who actually has a child (the term "my hypothetical child" speaks volumes) expressed an opinion that articles about sexual matters not be chosen for the front page. This was not an attack on Lesbianism. Now we have the standard leftist pitchfork brigade on the march. I personally happen to enjoy homosexuality immensely. But as a private pursuit, not as a self-important, holier-than-thou, public crusade.μηδείς (talk) 21:29, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Is Glenn Beck in commercial break, you facist-fuck? ~DC Let's Vent 21:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC) (The above comment was redacted in good faith by howhcheng. I would prefer it not be. Personally, I take it as a compliment (except for the implication that I cannot type and watch a TV show at the same time) and think it is a perfect example of the sort of mentality I was speaking of.μηδείς (talk) 22:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC) One of the reasons comments like these are removed is to ensure that everyone understands they aren't acceptable. But I suppose that prior sentence would do just as well. Prodego talk 23:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Hey you, yeah you. Remember that Wikipedia does NOT tolerate personal attacks. I don't care how much you disagree with him. Cool down and no name calling. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 22:05, 15 July 2010 (UTC) To be clear, I did the redacting, not the attacking. howcheng {chat} 22:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC) No, she expressed an opinion on articles "discussing altermative lifestyles," and didn't even mention "sexual matters". -- Maxa megalon 2000 22:04, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Uh, "This woman who actually has a child" identifies as male. TFOWR 22:11, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Oops!μηδείς (talk) 22:26, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Uh, Medeis, That's the point. There's nothing sexual on the front page. Would Zul32 have made this complaint if, instead of a writer of lesbian novels, it was a writer of "pulp romance novels"? Just as sexy! But straighter. APL (talk) 22:16, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Actually, I take that back. There is mention of and a link to Human Female Sexuality, but still, that didn't seem to be the point of Zul32's argument. APL (talk) 22:21, 15 July 2010 (UTC) From my read of the blurb, I would guess her novels are probably less 'sexy' then quite a number of romance novels which are sometimes called female pornography Nil Einne (talk) 22:55, 15 July 2010 (UTC) As far as I can tell, Zul32 seems not to find the topic of alternative lifestyles (for which read alternate sexuality) tasteful. I have no problem with that. He is not advocating stoning homosexuals, outlawing sodomy, or deleting articles on sexuality from wikipedia. His (?) point seems to be that the front page, to which people bookmark, shouldn't feature articles likely to raise problematic issues for children. Would we, for instance, have an article that says "Santa Claus isn't real" on the cover? Now I don't necessarily agree with him - but I understand his point. I believe that there was an article on the Mohammed Cartoon Controversy on the front page. That didn't bother me. I suppose the greatest question is, how do those of us who oppose early sexualization of children deal with the issue? I think that one very appropriate way is simply not to make a huge issue of in front of children. I can remember as a preteen my father cursing under his breath when stories about gay marches came on the news in the seventies. I had already developed a crush on both the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman and I was uncomfortable and I knew that there was something I was missing. I find it unlikely that those who chose to promote the article on the very handsome Ann Bannon did so without being identity-politic motivations. This should all be able to be discussed civilly and with an assumption of good faith and without a moral chip on one's shoulder.μηδείς (talk) 22:51, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Santa Claus is currently a good article. If you were to work it to be a featured article, I'm pretty sure Raul654 would have no problem making it the 24th or 25th December TFA. On July 4th we had "The known history of the Grand Canyon area stretches back 10,500 years when the first evidence for human presence in the area started". Likely to be a problem for many Young Earth creationists and their children. On July 5 we had July 2009 Ürümqi riots, I think wikipedia may still be blocked in China and if not the main page was probably blocked that day but even so imagine the horror of the poor good (from the PRC government POV) Chinese parent on their kid reading that! Then on July 6 we had "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is an adventure module written by Gary Gygax (pictured) for the Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game", surely a problem for any parent worried about their children learning about such evil things [29] Nil Einne (talk) 22:55, 15 July 2010 (UTC) How do people "who oppose early sexualization" handle the concepts of "dating" and "marriage"? Those are arguably more sexual topics, but no one is suggesting that the Main Page be scrubbed of those topics. Surely it's impossible to raise a child without giving them at least a basic outline of those concepts? Why single out lesbianism? I'm not being intentionally disingenuous. I honestly can not think of a logical reason. APL (talk) 23:09, 15 July 2010 (UTC) The same question and same answer applies to why the article was nominated. μηδείς (talk) 23:17, 15 July 2010 (UTC) No it doesn't. Featured Articles are nominated on quality, not on subject matter. All kinds of crazy stuff gets put up here. So ... you don't have a logical answer then? I'm pressing this point, because without one this whole discussion is a pointless exercise. APL (talk) 23:21, 15 July 2010 (UTC) I am sure, Nil Einne, you understand the difference between taking a stand on a topic of controversy, and introducing to a child a controversial topic of which they were not aware. Barrier Peaks was a fun article, BTW.μηδείς (talk) 23:17, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Nil Einne doesn't seem to have mentioned taking a stand on a topic of controversy. APL (talk) 23:24, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Indeed. In fact, this is very clear in the D&D example, we didn't take what could be described as a stand on D&D in that article, it wasn't relevant (unless you count not mentioning how evil D&D is as taking a stand). However some parents obviously don't want their children to be aware of such evil things as D&D, just as some parents don't want their children to read that, shock/horror there are things older then 10000 years and some parents don't want their children to read such lies about what goes on in China (which even the parents probably haven't heard of let alone the children). Taking a stand has nothing to do with it, simply presenting such stuff and the 'poor' children to now become aware of something their parents have 'protected' them from. (I admit in reality in this modern world, many children particularly in the developed world with access to the internet would be aware of what I described, their parents would have just convinced them they were evil, wrong, all lies etc, but that's besides the point.) BTW speaking of the riots, if I were a parent of a young child I suspect I'd prefer my child read about the author then the riots, while not nearly as bad as many horrific events, riots with many deaths are hardly a pleasant thing and to some extent I'd prefer my child not to have to know too much about the horrible things humans do to each other (heck that blurb even had a video) until they've reached an appropriate age. I don't see any harm in my children being aware that yes, some girls like girls and some boys like boys. Nil Einne (talk) 02:45, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Getting back to the original point, if there are some things you would prefer your child not to be exposed to, you should supervise them whilst browsing. Personally I see nothing sexual or inappropriate about the TFA blurb or topic. Please be aware that your own moral standpoint may differ from those of others, so if you want to limit the information that your child has access to then you will need to do it yourself, not rely on websites (particularly those which are uncensored like Wikipedia) to do it for you. Oh and now we (entirely by coincidence) have a story about same-sex marriage in the top slot on ITN. Modest Genius talk 23:30, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Surely this doesn't have to be a sexual issue if you don't want it to be - as mentioned above, just state that some women fall in love with other women instead of men. Surely the fact that the novels were cheap erotica is far more likely to be difficult to discuss with a child. Children are exposed to the concepts of romance and marriage all the time, a simple acknowledgement that love doesn't just apply to male-female pairs is all that's required. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ ξ φ 23:38, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Is there any content-based policy on front page articles?μηδείς (talk) 23:42, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Each section of the main page maintains its own policy on content. For TFA, the main rules are 'must be a Featured Article' and 'must not have been selected as TFA before'; there are no (at least no written) restrictions on the subject. See WP:TFA for details. Modest Genius talk 23:45, 15 July 2010 (UTC) I don't believe so. ( I could be wrong.) Articles get added to the list of "Featured Articles" after a review of their quality. After that User:Raul654 chooses one each day from that list with an eye towards choosing diverse topics. (So that we don't get three video games in a row, for example.) I think he usually sets them up at least half a day ahead so people can point out problems. I suppose you could also use that interval to register your moral objections before the articles "go live" on the main page. I don't know how Raul responds to such objections. It might be worth asking him directly if you're interested. APL (talk) 23:55, 15 July 2010 (UTC) Raul does have a short personal "blacklist" of featured articles which will not make it to the main page, so theres probably no point in getting human-goat sexual intercourse up to FA standard just to see the fuss it would cause! Physchim62 (talk) 01:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC) See User:Raul654/Featured article thoughts and his more recent thoughts.--Chaser (talk) 02:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC) I think most sensible people would unequivocally support featuring an article about a renowned author without discriminating by her sexual orientation. The days when a shocked demeanor and "think of the children" could get people fired or otherwise discriminated against on this basis are, thankfully, receding into history; and declaring these people "unpersons" is altogether unacceptable in an unbiased public encyclopedia. I should further point out that if your 9-year-old delves deep into Wikipedia, she will find many curious things, some of which you will find far more objectionable than this. We invite people from all over the world to describe it as it is, in all its glory or all its squalor depending on how you see it. I am not suggesting by this that you should abandon any of your beliefs; but know that just as on a walk through the big city, you may need to be watchful and explain things as you go along - and in the end, it is her choice when she goes out into the larger world what she will become, and your ultimate duty as parent will be to support her wherever she goes, whatever she decides. Wnt (talk) 02:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Usual comment about having a 'general' WP front page and one where all the more colourful/very medical/military etc entries are given prominence (g). Wikipedia phenomena No 53 - every 4-6 weeks there will be an item on the main page which will annoyDisgusted of Tunbridge Wells and relatives thereof, or likely to cause much wailing and gnashing of teeth. A child old enough to use WP will encounter some of the 'peculiar topics' in the media/reference works generally - and sometimes a simplified explanation suffices. Jackiespeel (talk) 14:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC) For the record, I'm a male, not a female, which has nothing to do with my point, so just drop it. Next, there are several people posting on here that simply don't get my point, and I'm NOT (repeat NOT) bashing gay/lesbian lifestyles, I'm not trying to hide it or cover it up in any form/way at all. Moving on; if in fact as one person stated that 5% of the population is living an alternative lifestyle, then so what? That's a personal preference, I'm talking about putting up articles on TFA that specifically addresses this issue, there are hundreds of thousands of other articles in this wonderful Wikipedia website, and the group that approves TFA chooses this one?! This in my opinion is controversial material, and there should be a TFA rule that says this 'type' of article just won't be features regardless of quality of the article. Another person mentioned something about the likeliness of human-goat sexual intercourse probably won't make the TFA? Why not? If you're going to put articles about lesbian authors, where do we draw the line? How about snuff-films? Do I need to go on? Come on people, let’s all have this as an environment where everyone can go to it and enjoy the website. I just don't want questionable material exposed to my daughter. Yes, I do monitor what she reviews on the internet, and I'm very careful about content. However with it being the main page, she can read almost as fast as I can, and if an article such as this appears, then I can't be fast enough to click somewhere else off the main page as to keep/prevent her from reading that article. Enough said. Zul32 (talk) 15:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Another person mentioned something about the likeliness of human-goat sexual intercourse probably won't make the TFA? Why not? If you're going to put articles about lesbian authors, where do we draw the line? How about snuff-films? Do I need to go on? No, you've said plenty. And your criticism is as valid as a complaint that we display photographs of unveiled women on the main page. What's "controversial" and "questionable" to one individual/culture is entirely innocuous to the next, and I don't know what leads you to believe that your moral code should dictate our main page's content. You're entitled, of course, to set the standards under which your daughter is raised (and "keep/prevent her from reading" articles that you deem inappropriate). Just don't expect Wikipedia to assist you. (You might find Conservapedia more accommodating.) —David Levy 15:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Once again, the point is misunderstood. I could care less about Conservative Christian viewpoints so don't try to shove that agenda down my throat because that's not where I'm coming from. Lets just take the issue out of the main page all together. I'd really like to see TFA's on anything that's not questionable. How about Bicycle or facebook or Eiffel Tower or Cougar or whatever! Anything other than something that has to be questionable to the majority of the viewers? Again, there are thousands of articles to choose from so lets just not go down the gay/lesbian issue on the MAIN PAGE is all that I'm pointing out. v/r Zul32 (talk) 16:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC) What you fail to understand is that many people honestly do not understand what the problem is. Please explain it to us like we were a child from Mars. Would you be offended by the a writer of straight romance novels of equal sexiness? What about Marriage which includes in its second line "relationships, usually intimate and sexual"? What about Interracial marriage? APL (talk) 16:27, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Incidentally, a number of people find it offensive when corporations like Facebook make the front page. They feel that we're bombarded by too much advertisements in our society to who knows what effect on people, especially children, and that an advertisement intentional or otherwise is inappropriate for wikipedia. There's usually a complaint or two when that sort of thing is featured. APL (talk) 16:31, 16 July 2010 (UTC) For the record, the reason why human-goat sexual intercourse is unlikely to reach Featured status is simply that not much is written about it, and probably it isn't done much, so it would be hard to make a comprehensive article about the topic, even if a few examples from antiquity might be better researched. An article about snuff films could make it, but it would surely begin by explaining that the idea is an urban legend according to most reliable sources. Wikipedia doesn't exist in a vacuum - we do reflect society's prejudices, by virtue of what simply is not written about. What we don't do is amplify those prejudices by ignoring the views of the broad majority of literate people worldwide who see no problem with literary discussion of a famous lesbian author. Wnt (talk) 17:45, 18 July 2010 (UTC) Is there even a 'panel' of individuals that approve of the TFA, or is it just one person? Zul32 (talk) 16:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC) FAs are selected by discussion at WP:FAC. The FA on the main page is selected by Raul alone. Prodego talk 16:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC) In this case, I believe Raul made the decision. Articles can also be requested at WP:TFA/R. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC) I'm feeling that there is cabalism going on here, so I'm just not going to continue with the discussion. If others wish to contribute their comments feel free. Zul32 (talk) 16:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC) the complainer who started this thread said: "it really offends me when I see articles like this discussing altermative lifestyles here". from me to him: Please read WP:NOTCENSORED. It really offends me that you find discussion of lesbian lifestyle, my lifestyle, on the main page offensive. I wish I had been able to read about lesbianism when I was 9 - it would have saved me a lot of heartache in trying to work out who I was. So we can only stick to straight, non-sexuality-related topics? Wouldn't your daughter benefit from learning about the wonderful diversity in the world? 86.148.50.44 (talk) 17:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC) If you're going to put articles about lesbian authors, where do we draw the line? - That's my decision to make. I try to be reasonable when selecting articles so that, as someone mentioned above, we don't have a TFA about Human-goat sexual intercourse or snuff films. But David Levy's comment above (What's "controversial" and "questionable" to one individual/culture is entirely innocuous to the next) is well taken. I'm not going to use the least-common-denominator approach suggested above by Zul because there are lots of people out there with out-of-the-mainstream beliefs and ideas, and this approach would exclude a surprisingly large number of otherwise excellent articles. To take this specific complaint, I don't think lesbianism is particularly offensive, and I think the vast majority of our readers would agree with me on that. I don't have a problem with educating young people about alternate lifestyles, although I admit that is a controversial issue and there are lots of people who think otherwise. [30] [31] But this article isn't about teaching children about homosexuality - it's about one lesbian in particular, and I am not sympathetic to the desire to using "think of the children" in order to make otherwise innocuous things seem controversial. Raul654 (talk) 17:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC) There actually is an argument to be made that certain articles, like anal sex would simply be inappropriate for the front page, not because they deal with a topic which is evil per se, but with one that is simply age-inappropriate for certain readers. Zul32 obviously thought that this was one of those articles. But by describing it as an article about a lesbian author and couching it in terms of his personal discomfort, rather than an article which introduces a theme (lesbian sexuality) possibly age-inappropriate for certain readers, he weakened his argument. I certainly would not expect, for example, an article on Agnes Moorehead to be kept off the front page because she was a lesbian. But I certainly would expect there be some consideration before an article about the notoriously heterosexual Ron Jeremy being placed there. The only really arguable issue is explicit sexuality, and Baron's case as a writer of erotica is a barely even a borderline one. It's sad that some on both sides here have to talk in terms of oppression and cabals, but I suppose that's what happens when you let anyone with an internet connection edit wikipedia.μηδείς (talk) 18:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Hey guys, this thread is more precious than kittens, thanks. What a hoot. I wrote Bannon's article and to see any kind of protest about it about made my eyes pop out of my head. Primarily for the irony. So we have a woman who's been rigidly controlled by society for many decades, who finds out she's attracted to women, puts some of her theories in action, but stays married for 27 years because she was taught it's the thing women do, but she writes these book to get this energy out and express that part of her. All this happens in a period where gays get arrested for sitting on a bar stool and the fairly normal reaction to people finding out they're gay is suicide. And the only thing you can think of to impart a lesson here is "Don't look, Susie"? Why, apparently society has evolved far, far past the issues discussed in the article. Eh. Think of the children. Please do: that came from Ms. Bryant's crusade to Save Our Children, which I also wrote. Kittens!!! --Moni3 (talk) 19:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Yes, "rigidly controlled for decades." That's why her books could find no publisher, her manuscripts were burnt, her husband was lauded for strangling her in an honor killing, and to this day we do not know the name of this person buried in an unmarked grave. Talk about precious. You can't have your specialized institutional victim status and somehow overcome it too. If your point is that homosexuals are no more victims of society than anyone else, I agree. Bannon's story validates the moral superiority of Western Classical liberalism, committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets, and the American Constitution. (There's a slant for Zul32 to take.) μηδείς (talk) 20:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC) On a less related note, I do wish people would stop referring to the various different non-heterosexual sexual orientations as '(alternative) lifestyles', 'personal preferences' or 'a choice'. Who you feel attracted to is no more a conscious choice than the colour of your eyes or skin. Hence the ~40% of gay or bisexual teenagers who have seriously considered or attempted suicide, and the four times greater likelihood of attempting suicide among gay youths (source: Trevor Project). When did you choose to be straight? —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ ξ φ 23:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC) I eagerly await comments regarding the upcoming featured picture. Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?! —David Levy 23:59, 16 July 2010 (UTC) Personally, I think it's far less acceptable to bold-link to such as poor quality article as that POTD does, than selecting an article about perfectly normal human sexuality as TFA. Modest Genius talk 00:22, 17 July 2010 (UTC) Agreed. —David Levy 00:29, 17 July 2010 (UTC) Children old enough to read Wikipedia are also old enough to come across tabloid newspapers, popular journalism magazines etc where such things are displayed regularly in a far more salacious manner. And what about the main page of Conservapedia then? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.120.23.254 (talk) 20:54, 18 July 2010 (UTC) The only thing misunderstood is the ignorance of the OP. 86.141.242.215 (talk) 10:17, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

2010 Open

Discussion belongs at WP:ITN/C, not here. This page is for discussion of the entire Main Page only. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:12, 19 July 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Resolved  – Correct location for this discussion is WP:ITN/C, as is noted multiple times on this page. Modest Genius talk 23:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC) Why is Louis Oosthuizen 's British Open victory not notable enough to make the main page? It is a major, so should be considered the equivalent to a major in tennis etc. Dr. Blofeld White cat 19:37, 18 July 2010 (UTC) The relevant discussion is at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#2010 Open Championship, not here. Zzyzx11 (talk) 19:40, 18 July 2010 (UTC) There is a huge notice at the top of the page, and another one that appears when you hit 'edit', which both say that suggestions for stories should not be made here. The Toolbox also contains a link to 'suggestions'. The correct venue for these is WP:ITN/C. I'm marking this as resolved; please read these things before posting in future. Modest Genius talk 23:29, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Another article about Antarctic explorers?

Either I'm going crazy, or there have been a number of articles elevated to front page status dealing with Antarctic explorers or expeditions of some kind in the past year. Can someone more familiar with the front page and the featured articles in the past year confirm this? 99.180.87.32 (talk) 05:06, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Featured Antarctic exploration articles

From 2010: March 17, June 27, July 20
From 2009: January 9, April 7, September 23, December 3
From 2008: May 1, June 28

From Jan 1, 2008 through July 10, 2010: 9 out of 932 days, or about .965%
From Jan 1, 2009 through July 10, 2010: 7 out of 566 days, or about 1.236%
From Jan 1, 2010 through July 10, 2010: 3 out of 201 days, or about 1.492%

Since Jan 1, 2008, a period of 133 weeks, there's been about 1 Antarctic exploration article for every 15 weeks.

I only glanced over the articles, but it seems that they're all British expeditions/explorers, many times involving the same people (Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, etc.). As interesting as this subject may be to some, it seems absurd to focus on this small slice of history. Even if it can be argued that it's of interest to British readers, there are too many articles that are up to featured-article quality to justify a bias like this. Isn't it the purpose of the point system to weed out related articles so close to each other?

Note: I didn't count just anything related to Antarctica (e.g. endemic animal species) or anything slightly related (e.g. March 1, 2009). I also would be interested in the number of Antarctic exploration articles in "Did You Know..." and "On This Day..." from 2008-2010. And, of course, readers/editors should do similar research into closely-related articles from other subject areas that are featured on the front page too frequently.

137.99.115.95 (talk) 20:15, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I'll add that the latest two featured articles from this subject area (June 27, July 20) are not even a month apart. 137.99.115.95 (talk) 20:28, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

I would imagine that the reason there are so many FAs about these particular explorers and expeditions is because they're of interest to somebody or a small group of people who have sufficient skill and determination to write FAs. There have been a few recently, but I'm not sure there have been so many to make it a real issue. If it is, then keep an eye on WP:TFAR and the schedule and make comments on the nominations or, if your complaint is about an already schedule article, talk to User:Raul654 about it. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 20:53, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

First, to describe the 20 July TFA on Clements Markham as an article about Antarctic exploration is pushing it a bit. This was one aspect of his life, among others that are fully explored in the article; he was arguably Britain's leading geographer of the Victorian era. Another of the articles, Tom Crean on 17 March 2010, was I think chosen not so much for Tom's renown as an explorer but because TFA wanted an Irishman for St Patrick's Day. The FA pool is a skewed population, in which many subjects are over-represented and others largely ignored. Raul has to choose from this pool, so some topics may seem to get undue attention at TFA while others get none at all. But I can't take seriously the suggestion that Raul is in some way biased in favour of British explorers, based on a selection rate of less than 1% (and falling) over the past couple of years. Even conspiracy theorists might baulk at that idea. Brianboulton (talk) 09:42, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I see no reason to say biased, I can easily see how it might happen -- but I do admit that my immediate reaction upon seeing that article was, "Again?" - Tenebris —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.112.29.245 (talk) 00:38, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Addition of Signpost

{{Editprotected}} The Signpost, a community-written and community-edited newspaper, covering stories, events and reports related to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation sister projects, is a interesting part of the community at Wikipedia. 1,063 users subscribe by talkpage, including several IP addresses and a new issue is published each weel. I am proposing to recognize the role that the Signpost plays in reporting news "around town" by asking for the addition of a link (yes, just a link) in the main page. At the Other areas of Wikipedia section, there are several links to community news stuff, however, the Signpost is omitted. I've flagged this with {{editprotected}} to get some attention, but feel free to discuss this. —mono 04:20, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Just a link might be okay. Adding the full {{Signpost-subscription}} would obviously be too large.

The {editprotected} template should only be added when there is an exact change that should be made to a protected page (either because consensus can be pointed to, or the change is an obvious benefit). Admins randomly check Category:Wikipedia protected edit requests, and then one of them will turn up to make the edit. It is not meant to be used (and also wouldn't really work) for gathering mass-attention. HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:28, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

I would find a link extremely useful. Mono, in addition to the 1063 subscribers there are also people like me - non-subscribers who "steal copies from their neighbours" ;-) I don't subscribe because I usually see the Signpost being delivered to editors on my watchlist, and read "their copy". I frequently miss this, however. TFOWR 09:55, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Could there be a link to (Random page with a tag indicating improvement) - rather than having to 'hunt through lists'? Jackiespeel (talk) 14:59, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

1. See Magnus' "to do" tool: http://toolserver.org/~magnus/wikitodo.php?title=
2. That's really what the Wikipedia:Community portal is for. See sections 2 and 3. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:03, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Support link per TFOWR. I always forget about it. --can dle • wicke 20:14, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose the main page is aimed at our readers, the signpost is for editors. ~DC _{Let's Vent} 20:48, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
  • Heh, yeah, I'd oppose it on the Main Page, which I now realise Mono suggested. I'd support it here, on Talk:Main Page. TFOWR 20:57, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Seems like it would be rather redundant. {{Signpost-subscription}} is already transcluded from Wikipedia:News which is linked to on the Main Page. --Yair rand (talk) 01:38, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

We could link it at the bottom of ITN, possibly replacing one of the links that's already there. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 02:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. The Main Page is for readers, not editors (though the recent addition of the nominate link in the DYK box may have confused this point). It gets 4 million views a day, so 1000 Signpost subscribers is nothing, comparatively. The Signpost is two clicks away from the Main Page, and every other page on the wiki, through the Community portal link in the lefthand column, where it is prominently placed on the Main Page-equivalent aimed at the community. - Banyan Tree 03:16, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I added an example link at Wikipedia:Main Page/sandbox in the "Other areas"; please tell me what you think. It's possible to remove the italicized text as well. —mono 04:01, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

It's better than the idea above to put it 'above the fold' but, again, I don't see the target audience. You state the objective is "to recognize the role that the Signpost plays in reporting news." The Signpost is already regarded, as far as I can tell, as invaluable and the article writers already get a byline, so I'm not sure what additional recognition you think it would get. While the Signpost writers do a great job, I imagine that directing readers who know nothing about the community to articles on WikiProject development and such would result in general bafflement. I'm not impressed by the claim that we need to cater to editors who claim to be fans of the Signpost but can't be bothered to subscribe, watchlist the Signpost page, or occasionally click on the Community Portal link (found on every page) to see if there's a new edition. I imagine such editors wouldn't bother to scroll down on the Main Page either. - Banyan Tree 06:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose per the long standing 'Main Page is for readers, not editors' policy. A much better justification could be made for adding a link to the sidebar, say below Community Portal. Modest Genius ^talk 18:41, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose main page link - MP is for readers, not editors. I do, however, support Modest Genius's suggestion for the sidebar link - the interaction section seems to be an excellent place for it. --Lucas Brown 19:54, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I think that would be superfluous to the Community Portal link. The Community Portal includes a copy of the Signpost template near the top. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:33, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, I think that's a good idea. —mono 02:03, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Just a note that modifying MediaWiki:Sidebar is beyond the authority of a discussion here. It would probably require a discussion resulting in consensus at WP:VPP. - Banyan Tree 06:05, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. The Main Page is for providing readers with a jump-off point to various areas and articles of interest, not for boosting the egos of wikicrats (or "recognising the role they play" if you prefer). If you add one link to Signpost, it would open the floodgates; next someone would ask for a 'WikiProject of the Week' or an 'Editor of the Week', as I believe has been regularly proposed in the past; and the Wikipedia newspaper already has a permanent pride of place, there would no longer be any logical reason to deny them. --86.184.21.222 (talk) 07:16, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Support bigger presence on community portal As has been stated above, the Main Page is not really aimed for editors, but for readers. If there were news articles about the running of Wikipedia on the main page, this would confuse readers since many of the issues discussed and the terms used in the articles would be unfamiliar for them. I'm neutral on HJ Mitchell's suggestion that it be put at the bottom of ITN - I think this might just have the same effect, in giving readers the impression that it perhaps is Wikipedia's document of the day's international news, which it isn't. I think the best place for it is the Community Portal. This is where I personally (and I imagine many other editors do the same) convene to find things that need doing. It is, really, the Main Page for Wikipedians - and this is where the Signpost should go. Whilst it is already there, there are a lot of editors who don't know about or forget to read (as stated above) the Signpost, and so having a bigger presence than the small box at the side would be the best way to go. WackyWace ^{converse | contribs} 18:57, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

While I don't really understand what 'bigger presence' you want compared to the already fairly prominent transclusion at the top left of the Wikipedia:Community portal where it's rather big and seems rather hard to miss to me, wouldn't the place to discuss that be at Wikipedia talk:Community portal? Nil Einne (talk) 00:29, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

On this day

Resolved

 – WP:ERRORS is the place to go. TFOWR 13:38, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

1916 – World War I: Australian forces engaged the Germans at the Battle of Fromelles in France, described as "the worst 24 hours in Australia's entire history" since 5,533 Australian soldiers were eventually killed, wounded or taken prisoner in the failed operation. The use of the word "eventually" sounds as if this event was a long drawn-out operation. The event happened in the space of 24 hours. Amandajm (talk) 04:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

"Ultimately" or "finally" instead? 68.248.228.217 (talk) 05:50, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

The correct location for this discussion is WP:ERRORS, as is noted multiple times on this page. 79.67.148.247 (talk) 06:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

News: Love Parade Stampede

Resolved

 – Raise article errors at Talk:Love Parade stampede. TFOWR 13:39, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

According to the article a least 18 people were killed. The News states 17. Programmer101^Talk_{What I do} 01:28, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I expect number will change as story unfolds. This ref: "Love Parade stampede in Germany kills at least 18 - latimes.com". latimes.com. Retrieved 25 July 2010., has the number at 18.

I've added the ref to the Duisburg article. -- Marek.69 ^talk 01:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

On a procedural note, discrepancies in articles, even articles on the Main Page, should be discussed on the article's talk page, but we try to be conservative with casualty figures since it tends to take a while for officials to produce an official final figure (even in a G8 country, you can imagine what it's like for disasters in the developing world) and for that to be reflected in the media. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 01:54, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

According to latest German news, over 340 people were injured during the love parade panics. [32] --SimplyNewbee (talk) 22:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

News: Torch Lighting for 2010 Youth Olympic Games

Resolved

 – Suggest it at WP:ITN/C. TFOWR 13:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The torch lighting ceremony for the first Youth Olympic Games were held in Olympia last Friday. The Youth Olympics will be held in Singapore from the 14th-the 26th of August this year. Ja24896kin (talk) 13:31, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You'd need to suggest it at WP:ITN/C, the forum for discussing "In The News" candidates. TFOWR 13:34, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Galicia Day / National Day of Galicia

Resolved

 – Report it at WP:ERRORS. TFOWR 18:18, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Today, 25th of July, is Día Nacional de Galicia (National Day of Galicia) and so it figures in the such article. However, in this page, for some reason, it is reduced to Galicia Day. It should be changed according to the name of the article, I guess. Greetings. --Atobar (talk) 18:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

If you post the error at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors (WP:ERRORS) it should be fixed pretty quickly. TFOWR 18:18, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Loveparade Duisburg

Resolved

 – Errors to WP:ERRORS, but this isn't an error. TFOWR 21:46, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Till now, there are 20 people dead. 81.10.202.13 (talk) 21:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

If there was an error, you'd report it at WP:ERRORS. But the text currently reads: "at least 19 people are killed..." TFOWR 21:46, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia question

Is there any way to read deleted articles? Thank you very much. --200.95.132.17 (talk) 22:53, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Do a google search on the article name. Try http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com/w/index.php?title=Main_Page.μηδείς (talk) 22:58, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

There are two "official" places you can try: Requests for Undeletion or ask an administrator to give you a copy. Good luck! meshach (talk) 00:30, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

A third way would be to become an admin yourself. --174.89.158.237 (talk) 04:16, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, or a job at wikileaks.μηδείς (talk) 04:18, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Google updates fast enough nowadays that a deleted article may be gone in a few hours. Also you usually should be able to get an admin to give you a copy of a deleted article provided it wasn't deleted for copyvio or BLP reasons. Nil Einne (talk) 09:17, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Show logs button in the history log

Why is there no show logs button in the history log of the main page? Is it possible to have that button there instead of going to the history log of a different page and manually type in "Main Page"? /Hey Mid (contributions) 16:07, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

It is missing for the same reason the title is missing - they are hidden via css on the main page. Prodego ^talk 00:47, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, apparently the CSS code to remove the title of the Main Page also hides the show logs link and a few other things on the top of the page. Could someone who might know more about CSS tell if this can be fixed or not? Zzyzx11 (talk) 06:48, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Problem with today's FA

Resolved

I apologize if this is the wrong venue, but I don't know where else to place this. There is an immediate problem with today's featured article (No Line on the Horizon) due to a vandalistic edit by an anonymous IP. As can be seen in this summary, the IP removed a full section of the page and also some archived links in the references. Unfortunately, I cannot revert this because the archived links (backupurl.com) appear to have suddenly been put on the Spam blacklist for whatever reason. How can this be repaired? I am not at all familiar with the procedures and discussions regarding the blacklist, so I don't know what to do. As the principal writer of the article, I am quite concerned and upset that I can't repair this massive vandalism. Melicans (talk, contributions) 22:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Never mind; fixed it with the use of an alternate archiving source. Still annoying though. Melicans (talk, contributions) 22:18, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

No wonder that boat sank...

It must be 200 years old. ;) Kafziel ^{Complaint Department} 00:45, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Ha! That's the best laugh I've had at the Main Page for ages! Sheer coincidence that we's have 2 nautical items within hours of each other, but we don't have a picture of the new boat. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:54, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

(ec):The picture is for the second ITN hook, not the first. Yeah, thanks for the smile :-) Materialscientist (talk) 00:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

While we're all in a humorous mood - today's featured picture is peachy. I'll get me coat... TFOWR 12:55, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Another stupid video game making featured article status?

• Oh lordy, how about trying to ensure that the featured article is accessible to all, and does not feature technical language and jargon not intelligible to the non-techies among us? What on earth does "Microsoft Game Studios bundled Crackdown with an access code" mean? There are no bluelinks for either "bundled" or "access code" so I have no idea. We're not all 15 year old computer nerds, you know. 86.134.116.252 (talk) 17:25, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
  • By the way, I didn't add the original thread and comment: it was deleted by another editor as 'unecessary' wheras I think it's valid and should stay to generate discussion. 86.134.116.252 (talk) 17:26, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

The entire sentence is "Microsoft Game Studios bundled Crackdown with an access code to the multiplayer test version of the much-anticipated Halo 3 Beta." Given the context, I would think that it would be pretty clear that an "access code" is a code that lets you access something.--99.251.239.89 (talk) 17:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

We have had the 'is this FA too adult to appear on the Main Page' (but - the people who use such things as a starting point for discussions with children rarely comment), now the 'not another game discussion': is it time for the 'too many x-related entries on the Main Page' discussion - or is it some other 'usual topic's' turn? Jackiespeel (talk) 21:23, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I can understand the "Lesbian author - please think of the children!" argument (although I absolutely disagree with it), but the "too many video games" argument is silly: we have a limited pool of featured articles. The solution for editors concerned about "too many X articles" is to work to improve articles about Y or Z. A point made more eloquently than I could by other editors above.

Anyway... I much preferred the days when the complaints were about systemic bias: too many Australian articles, not enough Australian articles!

TFOWR 21:56, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

What's your problem with video games? :P Simon^KSK 22:45, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. Most video games are as ephemeral as Lou Bega. Featured articles on video games should be kept to a maximum of one per annum. This will leave more room for the most important content of wikipedia; articles about footballers, marxist claptrap, and little towns in Poland. μηδείς (talk) 23:41, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

If you check the archives you'll see that there has been one or two video games put up as FAs every month this year, giving us a ratio of around 1/30. Now are 1/30 of all possible candidates for FA status video game articles? If so, then people are spending way too much time working on them, as no one will really give a crap about most of them in a few years. If not, then the people picking FAs are heavily tilted toward gamers. Either way, just saying you should quit complaining and help pick articles misses the point as it's clear you'll be overwhelmed with pro video game article editors, unless of course they realize that articles about video games are not really that important, compared to the large amount of other possible topics. We have over 2 million articles. If only 1% of them are FA quality, that's 20,000 possible featured articles, so that's not a small sample to pick from, and it's large enough that we certainly don't have to have a video game article every month. I'm not saying never have a game article as FA, but once or twice a month seems a bit much doesn't it?67.176.85.226 (talk) 04:13, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I count 126 of the 2,951 featured articles in the video game category. So if your 1/30 calculation is correct (one or two a month would be closer to 1/20), then video game articles are being underrepresented on the front page. Of course, you've also severely overestimated the number of featured articles. --Maxa megalon 2000 04:25, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

How are they being underrepresented? And 2951/126=23.4. Should one out of 23.4 FA be about video games? How about other games, why are they being left out? Oh ya, gamers are stacking the system, I forgot.67.176.85.226 (talk) 05:42, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not advocating for unbalance among the FA articles that are selected, but the arguments presented by the above two posters seem disingenuous. The first commenter compares video games to "Lou Bega" - he qualifies the statement as "most," but the qualification seems pointless since the video games articles that are likely to be FA are inevitably going to be the most well known video articles, so the implication of the comparison is that no video game is more well known than "Lou Bega". The second poster remarks:

“ ...video games are not really that important, compared to the large amount of other possible topics. ”

Well DUH! Can you find ANY topic on Wikipedia that's "really important, compared to the large amount of other possible topics?" Of course you can't! No one topic is significantly more important than EVERY OTHER TOPIC on Wikipedia, so who cares?

So, lets look at something that's actually relevant. Do video games have common ground amongst people that are likely to visit or use Wikipedia? The answer, supported by evidence (this is only one example of evidence, it's not hard to find more), is unequivocally "yes." Many people in the US and around the world play video games. I think it will be difficult for people to find a topic on Wikipedia that can relate to as many people as video games can.

Just to reiterate, I'm not promoting video game articles on the front page. I'm merely pointing out that while it might not have important social, historical, scientific, etc. implications, it IS a topic that many people can share a common interest in, and thus deserves no LESS time than articles that may have important social, historical, scientific etc. implications. ialsoagree (talk) 04:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The operative word, ialsoagree, was ephemeral. You glossed over that. My Oxford defines it as "lasting for a very short time: fashions are ephemeral. from the Greek, 'lasting only a day.'" Other than Space Invaders, Pac Man, Asteroids, Sim City, and Grand Theft Auto, how many of the video games that one can think of will be remembered as long as Lou Bega? The proper criterion is not current popularity, but staying power. A rule that a game be at least twelve years old before it an article on it is featured would make some sense, would it not?μηδείς (talk) 04:56, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

That would make sense if the qualities of the subject of the article were relevant to feature article status. But it's the quality of the article that matters. Neither current popularity nor staying power are proper criteria. It's called "featured articles," not "featured article subjects." --Maxa megalon 2000 05:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Featured articles are chosen from among a list of candidates, they don't simply show up due to their quality. It doesn't trouble me that a video game might show up on the front page, if it is actually a classic. But something more than current ephemeral popularity should be a criterion. Otherwise what is supposed to be an encyclopedia becomes top 10 radio.μηδείς (talk) 05:27, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

This page might make for interesting reading: Wikipedia:Featured articles that haven't been on the Main Page. The pool of available FAs just doesn't lend itself to an ideal amount of variety. There's nothing available in the Chemistry and Philosophy categories, and only two articles available in the Health and Medicine category. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that things will change unless the demographics of Wikipedia contributors change significantly. Zagalejo^^^ 05:37, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Video Games are an emerging art form. It is difficult to predict which games will have staying power, and unfair to compare modern games to their simpler ancestors.

However, Even so, the number of games released previous to 1999 that have had lasting cultural impact to this day is much more substantial than you are implying. You've missed out 'Mario' and 'Pokemon' which introduced characters that became lasting cultural icons. You've also missed "Star Craft" which is played professionally in sold out arenas in some parts of the world. And that's only a fraction of what you've missed. APL (talk) 08:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

As APL points out, it's not a good idea to make "lasting popularity" a requirement for articles to get on the main page. You're walking into really arbitrary ground. What defines "popularity" or being a "classic?" How do we keep those requirements consistent between genres that might not have much in common? What about current events - should they NEVER be featured on the main page because they might not be considered important later? What about articles that don't really have any measurable amount of popularity? Should they also never be featured on the main page? Touchy ground that such a requirement would lead us down, to the point of some considering the main page biased against certain topics, perhaps. ialsoagree (talk) 01:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

No topic is more important than any other topic? Disingenuous means we're not making arguments we really believe in or are arguing from an ulterior motive, so I don't think you can say we're being that. More people in America drive cars than play video games, so shouldn't we have more car articles than video game articles as FA (we haven't), or any other kind of game in general Ialsoagree. You're right about the demographics though Zagalejo, and since that's not going to change soon the only solution to the problem is to get the editors who are biased toward video games to realize they have a problem and tone back the video game articles as FA. Judging by the comments here though, we've got a long way to go.67.176.85.226 (talk) 05:59, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Amazing that not Spinoza, nor Nietzsche, nor Zeno of Citium, nor Epicurus, nor Sartre, nor Kierkegaard, nor even Immanuel Kant has a good article. Ayn Rand at least has a good article. You would think at least three of these philosophers would be more important than John Madden NFL.μηδείς (talk) 06:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

You were recently arguing against the inclusion of an article about an author, your list of approved topics must be exceedingly narrow.

And that's one of the big problems with deciding this based on article 'importance'. Currently a sports star is up. Personally I can barely care about Baseball players and I like that sport. I don't think the cricket guy up now is very important at all. He's had no impact on my life and never will. I'm pretty certain that someone would disagree with me. What about religious figures? I'll grant that the Pope is a pretty important guy, but other than him, I tend to think of religious figures as somewhat unimportant compared to scientists, politicians, explorers, etc. I'm very certain that people would disagree with me on that. (As well they should! The problem is likely my lack of education on both sports history and religious history.)

So how would such things get resolved? When you're selecting only for variety, it's a job that one dedicated person can do. Everybody reasonably well agrees what 'variety' means given the constraints of the available pool of featured articles. However, If you're selecting for "importance" of subject matter, no one will agree. Suddenly you need a group of people, you need debates, you need votes, you need rules, you need bureaucracy. I'm not sure if that would just be a tremendous waste of time for otherwise good editors, or if it would just be a giant magnet for every wingnut with an agenda to push, but either way it would be a step down from the current system in my opinion. APL (talk) 08:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Those are what are called straw men and non-sequiturs, APL. First, I did not argue that that author should not be on the front page. I said that one could make an argument that articles which deal with sexuality per se shouldn't be made featured articles and that Zul32's argument shouldn't be shouted down. (It seems that perhaps I was giving Zul32 too much credit, in any case - And I am flattered if my arguments made a lasting impression on you.) As for video games, your objections are overblown. I didn't make an exclusive list of the only possible FA's, I provided a few examples of classics. Was my point unclear? Would it make sense for me to criticize you for the games you left out when you responded? And note well: your examples, Pokemon, Mario Brothers, and Star Craft, all fit the exact criterion I suggested; that a video game be twelve years old before it can be considered for the front page. Your example of the cricketer in the news is about a cricketer in the news, so you are just all over the place, aren't you? It is not necessary to throw the kitchen sink at every target. The argument is more subtle than simply whether we should or should not have articles about video games. The question is, are there no possible rational criteria involved in choosing which featured article goes on the front page? If there are no criteria, the we can simply do away with the FA editor, and simply queue up every featured article according to earliest date of creation. I don't hear you advocating that.μηδείς (talk) 14:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that the reason APL isn't advocating that is that it would make the problem even worse. You've stated above that you believe that a reasonable period between video game articles would be something like a year. If we switched to a first-come-first-served system, video games would appear FAR more often than that, and mildly more often than they currently do. Furthermore, without even the limited control provided by Raul654 in the order of appearance, clumps of articles on similar topics would begin to show up fairly quickly, and the problem would get worse as people figured out how to game the system by holding back nominations to occur all at once (as occasionally already happens in DYK), leading to "theme weeks". I don't even want to imagine the uproar we'd see if seven consecutive articles on, say, American Football teams were put on the front page. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 20:39, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Just wanted to point out, disingenuous doesn't necessarily mean "...we're not making arguments we really believe in or are arguing from an ulterior motive..." - it can also mean that the argument is not honest to all the issues of the topic, which is how I meant it. Your argument isn't honest to the different sides of the argument. It reflects on one side, that video games are a relatively unimportant topic among all the possible topics one could find on Wikipedia, and then it (your argument) draws the conclusion that "therefor video game articles should rarely if ever be on the front page." That seems like the definition of disingenuous to me. ialsoagree (talk) 01:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to complain that no-one has complained here about a cricket article being TFA. Wikipedia has gone to the dogs. I give up. Next thing I know, Poop deck won't be vandalised any more and "is gay" won't mean anything to anyone any more. --Dweller (talk) 15:05, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Certain topics fall into the category 'complained about as occurring too often whenever they appear anywhere on the Main Page' and I was being slightly tongue in cheek.

The point, as made above, is to try and develop 'articles in other categories' sufficiently for some of them to appear on the main page in whatever category and, if you dislike such things enough, develop the 'video games and sports front page.' Besides - the featured article is only up for 24 hours. Jackiespeel (talk) 15:44, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Oh, God, there is a Cricketer for the FA. I thought the complaint above was about Muttiah Muralitharan who was just in the news. I amend my statement. The most important content of wikipedia includes articles about footballers, marxist claptrap, and little towns in Poland and dead Cricketers.μηδείς (talk) 16:10, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Is anyone else here a little perturbed that some are proposing, as a solution, that we STOP editors from making well-developed video game articles? How about we encourage others to take what they do as an EXAMPLE and make other articles better quality? I have written a Featured list pertaining to video games, but I have also written good articles on historical subjects, ships, and intellectual property law; am I part of the problem then? Some of these arguments are absurd; shall we improve other articles to be as good as these video game article, or merely make sure that video game articles are all as crappy as some other subjects? Would you like a well-written Wikipedia, or one that makes you fell good about your "important" subjects? かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 18:03, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Whoever proposed that? No one ever said they be "stopped", I just proposed they broaden their horizons a little, or realize that whatever they find important doesn't deserve a FA or two about it every month. 67.176.85.226 (talk) 20:52, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

But - and this is the really important point that doesn't seem to be being appreciated - it's absolutely not a question of the FA folk (Raul, etc) broadening their horizons. The horizons are limited by the availability of articles. The solution is to broaden the available pool - and that means improving articles, not complaining about the editors who either do improve articles or do their best to choose the FA from a limited pool. TFOWR 21:26, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Aye, I'm a little perturbed. The solution to the problem is to work to improve articles that the original complainants are interested in. Insulting editors who do work to improve articles is not the solution. Scapler, thanks for your work improving articles. You are not part of the problem. TFOWR 18:08, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

The point I was making was that 'certain topics' (many sports, video games, passing mention of topics likely to invoke Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells remarks, two successive mentions of US-related topics) seem to generate much 'talk at a tangent' on this talk page; and as Karl Marx would say, had he been a wiki-contributor, don't complain but do something to promote your topics. And we all have pet topics that can be developed others think too obscure for mentioning on the main page (g). If the main page is too annoying at any particular moment, go via www.wikipedia.com Jackiespeel (talk) 18:39, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

No argument with you, Jackiespeel: my perturbation was caused by the original poster's statement: "Another stupid video game making featured article status? You can tell a lot of teenage nerds are running wiki these days". You're quite right - some topics do generate a lot of discussion. TFOWR 19:04, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Denial isn't just a river in Egypt I see. Leaving aside the issue of importance, we can easily test your claims that there are not enough FA candidates about non video game subjects. On the Wikipedia:Featured articles that haven't been on the Main Page list there are currently more non video game articles available then there are days in the next three years, so if another video game article pops up on the main page more than say once in the next six months we'll know for sure that the selecting process is stacked in favor of video game articles and that the claim that there needs to be more non video game articles worked on to improve their quality is a red herring. 67.176.85.226 (talk) 20:46, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm honestly curious. If another article on (to pick a section with a similar number of articles) biology occurred in the next six months, would the process be stacked in favour of biology articles? And please don't claim that this question is invalid because you view biology as important while video games are not. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 21:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

No, it's valid, but biology is a far larger subject that video games isn't it, which is in a larger category itself of games. However if there was an article once or twice a month on say different types of birds (ducks and geese one month, sparrows the next ect...) then wouldn't you say we were having too many articles on birds? And notice we have far more FA about video games than other kind of games, which would be like having lots of articles about birds but none or few about fish. 67.176.85.226 (talk) 23:40, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

And to take your suggestion to its conclusion, let's say that we follow the course you've laid out. Only six video game (VG) articles are featured in the next three years. The remaining ~1000 articles are taken from the remaining pool. People continue making featured-quality articles in the same VG/non-VG ratio during this time. But since all non-VG topics are draining out at a much higher rate than VG, what we're left with after a few years is a pool made up primarily of VG articles (not to mention a fairly irate crowd of people who had put work into creating high-quality VG articles in the hopes of getting them on the main page). What do you think would happen next? GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 21:53, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion has a nice ring to it.μηδείς (talk) 22:06, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Pithy statement, but you've just stepped from advocating that articles on video games should not appear on the Main Page to advocating that they shouldn't appear in Wikipedia at all. So, to expand on the argument in turn, what other categories of currently featured articles don't deserve a place in Wikipedia? GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 22:21, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Since I'm off to bed in a moment, I'll expand on why I ask the above question, in case I miss your reply. Above, you made the case that video games should not be featured for several years after their release to determine whether or not they are ephemeral. This is a defensible position, if not one I agree with. However, if video games are placed under this condition, so must *all* articles be, since we also can't know if the latest "current event" article will remain relevant twelve years hence. Again, it's defensible (just about) to suggest that should, say, 2010 Northumbria Police manhunt become featured, it not appear for several years in order to determine whether or not its effects have been lasting or ephemeral. However, when you extend your argument into declaring that due to their potentially ephemeral nature, articles on video games be deleted on sight until the twelfth anniversary of their release, the corollary is that we delete all articles on current events until twelve years after their passing. And I fail to see how the encyclopedia is improved if no-one can access information on events of current interest. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 23:32, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Explaining humor ruins it. Mine was a silly response to a silly conundrum, what to do once all the FA's except for those on video games run out. My position remains the same, if this is a serious problem, a reasonable solution would be to require that a game be 12 years old before its article could be featured on the front page. In case of another bout of Pac Man Fever, there would always be editorial prerogative.μηδείς (talk) 23:44, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Since we don't have to worry about that for THREE YEARS, let's address why NOW we are having too many video game articles shall we. Just wondering, how are FA quality determined. I notice there are NO articles in the math section, but I've read plenty of good math articles on here, and it's a little hard not to find even 1 math article up to par?

There are mathematics FAs; they've just all been featured on the main page already. Ask the Math WikiProject why they haven't nominated more. Or go ahead and work on them yourself and contribute some geatured articles. Melicans (talk, contributions) 23:47, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

A sleep deprived GeeJo wrote:

However, when you extend your argument into declaring that due to their potentially ephemeral nature, articles on video games be deleted on sight until the twelfth anniversary of their release, the corollary is that we delete all articles on current events until twelve years after their passing. And I fail to see how the encyclopedia is improved if no-one can access information on events of current interest.

I find your assumption, GeeJo, that I am actually advocating deleting all articles on subjects under twelve years old, so bizarre that I suspect you are actually a bad computer simulation of a person, and I hereby declare you to have failed the Turing Test - you can't fool me. μηδείς (talk) 23:53, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

This argument misses the real issue. There's fair evidence for Santa Claus, and maybe the Easter Bunny has been spotted on occasion, but does anyone really think that there's no paid editing going on to get video games promoted to featured ads? Wnt (talk) 00:15, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't. Head on over to the Video Game WikiProject and you will see that the only reason is that there are a lot of passionate people. What I do see here is that you are not assuming good faith, and are making wild accusations against a group of quality editors. As an aside, in my opinion, I have always loved that we have featured articles on somewhat less mainstream or "important" subjects like video games. While Encyclopedia Britannica has very good articles on the most well-known subjects, Wikipedia is unique in that for many video game articles, it is the best source ever compiled on them. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 01:03, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Honestly, I don't see why the plethora of video game FAs is so surprising. It's fairly well known that Wikipedia's editors tend to be younger, male and interested in computers and popular culture (see Wikipedia:Systemic bias). Dabomb87 (talk) 02:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

"It is fairly well known"? Nice. Weasel words and quoting a politically correct wikipedia essay as if it were actually a source for your statement. I assert, based on the same source, that the real problem is the over-representation of left-handed Scandinavian homosexuals. Not being left-handed, I should know. The coming backlash will be spectacular.μηδείς (talk) 03:18, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Well I am left-handed, and let me tell you, we all have just a little bit of the Scandinavian man-love in us, lol. かんぱい！ Scapler (talk) 14:02, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Most people accept that the 'lucky dip mixture of front page entries' will cover the range from 'of passing interest' to 'of negative interest', and there will be occasional mentions that cause annoyance (for whatever reasons). Even if several topic main pages were set up in parallel to the language ones ('adult, very medical, certain political topics and so on', 'sports, video games and other entertainment' etc) there would still be occasional 'escapes' of such material to the ordinary main page.

What would the WP equivalent of DoTW be? Jackiespeel (talk) 14:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

It always helps to examine the concrete evidence. Here is the actual list of the as yet unfeatured video game Featured Articles:

1080° Snowboarding · 4X · Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings · Age of Mythology · Arbiter (Halo) · Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare · Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow · Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow · Characters of Final Fantasy VIII · Chrono Cross · Conan (2007 video game) · Cortana · Development of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion · Devil May Cry (video game) · Devil May Cry 2 · Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening · Defense of the Ancients · The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind · Empires: Dawn of the Modern World · F-Zero GX · Final Fantasy · Final Fantasy Tactics · Final Fantasy VIII · Final Fantasy IX · Final Fantasy X-2 · Final Fantasy XI · Final Fantasy XII · Flood (Halo) · Golden Sun · Half-Life 2: Episode One · Half-Life 2: Lost Coast · Halo 2 · Halo 3 · Halo 3: ODST · Halo Wars · Ico · Kingdom Hearts (video game) · Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories · Kingdom Hearts II · The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages · The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker · Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy · The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II · Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games · Mario Power Tennis · Master Chief (Halo) · Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater · Metroid Prime · Metroid Prime 2: Echoes · Metroid Prime 3: Corruption · MissingNo. · Myst · Myst III: Exile · Myst IV: Revelation · Myst V: End of Ages · Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon · Ninja Gaiden (Nintendo Entertainment System) · PlayStation 3 · Populous: The Beginning · Radical Dreamers: Nusumenai Hōseki · Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War · Sacrifice (video game) · Sam & Max: Freelance Police · Shadow the Hedgehog (video game) · Silent Hill 4: The Room · The Simpsons Game · The Simpsons Hit & Run · StarCraft: Ghost · Star Wars: Episode I: Battle for Naboo · Super Columbine Massacre RPG! · System Shock · Turok: Dinosaur Hunter · Uru: Ages Beyond Myst · Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss · Voyage: Inspired by Jules Verne · Wipeout 3

I think that from reading these titles, it becomes quite obvious that asserting that they simply must go on the front page due to their mere numbers means we simply must have a large number of Featured Articles on items which, in thirty years, will be far less memorable than David Naughton and his hit song and TV series, Makin' It. I suggest that of the above list, Final Fantasy, and Myst are the only video game articles that call out to be on the front page.μηδείς (talk) 18:16, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, yes, we all know there are a lot of games on the FA list. The point is that applying judgment based on subject matter 'worthiness' is not the easily agreed on, process you seem to think.

Deploying a huge debate and voting rules system to make the judgment (Because that's what it would take.) would be a pointless waste for something as ephemeral as the main page. APL (talk) 18:36, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

( As a point of interest, when posting the above I hit an edit/conflict while μηδείς changed his list of game articles 'worthy' of the main page. Apparently Playstation 3 no longer makes the cut. APL (talk) 18:41, 27 July 2010 (UTC))

Yes, tricky of me, no? Mwahahahahaha!μηδείς (talk) 19:10, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

A small point, here, to make. Sacrifice (video game) may well be considered insignificant in a couple years (12 years after its release). If I've chosen a poor example, feel free to substitute any relatively obscure video game with a featured article about it. Regardless, as I browse through other FAs, I see names such as Rufus Wilmot Griswold popping up. Go read his article. Ever heard of him? He seems to have been notable mainly for failing to guess which poets would continue to be notable for generations to come. In other words, the average person today is likely to find him no more relevant today than they would find Sacrifice (which was a really fun game, fwiw). So... why would anyone get the impression that FAs have to be about timeless, enduring topics? To the editors who apparently do think that... stop whining and write articles about topics you think are important. Maybe you'll be more successful than Griswold at estimating notability. Maybe you won't. At least you'll get something accomplished either way... 74.232.78.113 (talk) 23:42, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

The above covers my sentiments as well. It doesn't bother me so much that people would like articles other than video games on the main page, it bothers me that they think video game articles need to meet extra requirements to be on the front page that they aren't also willing to apply to any other article. Why are we singling out video game articles for extra requirements? That's just agenda pushing. ialsoagree (talk) 01:17, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually I would argue quite a few of the games you have dismissed like Halo II, Halo III System Shock, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Defense of the Ancients & Sam & Max: Freelance Police, probably even Populous: The Beginning could easily be far more notable then Makin' It or David Naughton (actor) in 30 years. And frankly the suggestion by Wnt above that there's paid editing going on, when there's a far more obvious and logical explaination is just silly. And seriously who the heck is going to pay someone to edit/promote Sam & Max, Ultimate Underworld, System Shock, Turok, DOTA, Voyage: Inspired by Jules Verne etc anyway... Nil Einne (talk) 08:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, I certainly wasn't paid for promoting Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Halo Wars, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Myst, Riven, Myst III: Exile, Myst IV: Revelation, Myst V: End of Ages, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, Populous: The Beginning, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, Wipeout 3, Golden Sun or Defense of the Ancients or any I've missed. If Microsoft, Cyan, Blizzard or Sony want to pay me for my hard work, I'm fine with that, but my hobbies have no bearing on material gain (you mean, volunteers... volunteer?) I've done other articles that aren't games-related (natch, today's Edward Drinker Cope), so can we all decide next time this comes up here we link readers to previous discussions and boldly archive? Nothing will change by yammering here. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 15:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, if that isn't a blatantly POV call for censorship, I don't know what is.μηδείς (talk) 15:36, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's a blatantly POV call for censorship. I think it's a realistic response to address the tedium caused by dealing with WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. There are only so many times we can explain how to fix the "problem". Either complainants understand our responses and get involved with the FA processes, or they don't. I don't believe that we're going to find the "perfect response" that manages to explain the solution to the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT crowd: it's simplest all round if we just link to a prior attempt and move on. TFOWR 15:43, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Fuchs didn't just call for placing a link to prior discussion, he advocated archiving any current one as irrelevant. That's basically the typical anti-free speach "shout down your enemies" tactic of the hysterical PC campus left. This argument that we simply can't even discuss content standards for the FA's is disingenuous. If Fuchs can point out where the notion that one might institute a minimum age limit for a subject as one possible way of addressing a perceived imbalance in cultural articles has already been beaten to death, I would like to see him link to it. What could possibly be more counter to WP policy than the idea that alternative viewpoints should not even be discussed? Does he engage in this elsewhere? I am almost tempted to archive his comments to see how he likes it.μηδείς (talk) 16:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd certainly be in favour of archiving any current discussion as irrelevant to Talk:Main Page. It's probably worth discussing boilerplate text to advise complainants how to get involved in the FA process, and it's possibly worth discussing a generic response to your complaint (e.g. "Wikipedia talk:Featured articles is where you want to be") but beyond that... nah. Telling people that their complaint is off-topic here isn't censorship. TFOWR 16:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Holy cow, will you give it a rest already? Have you even considered that with this many voices telling you the same thing repeatedly, that there just might be the merest whiff of a possibility that you could be wrong? Seriously, haven't you even the FAQ? Don't think you've got this amazing insight that the rest of us haven't already heard hundreds of times before. So when Fuchs says point readers to archived discussions, I'm sure he only means we're really sick of repeating the same answers over and over again. Let's be clear: Featured Articles are chosen for their writing and research, not their subject matter. IIRC User:Raul654 has only banned two FAs from appearing on the Main Page: Wikipedia (which is no longer featured anyway) and Jenna Jameson. That's it. Everything else is fair game. If you have any issues with that, you take it up with Raul654, as he's the only person who schedules Main Page appearances. The rest of this discussion is just "sound and fury, signifying nothing". howcheng {chat} 16:20, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

How about using {{subst:User:Aylad/FA-message}} for brevity's (and Fuchs's) sake? (Appears below...)

Thank you for your input. Articles on Wikipedia achieve Featured Article status based on their quality, not their subject matter. Any article which achieves a high level of quality may be a Featured Article.

If you feel that there are "too many" Featured Articles about a specific subject, the solution is to help editors who are working to improve articles about other subjects. For example, if you believe that too many Featured Articles involve video games, consider helping improve articles related to history, biology, or the Olympiatoppen in order to have a greater variety of Featured Article topics.

Please remember that all editing done on Wikipedia is on a volunteer-only basis. No editors are reimbursed for time spent improving articles related to commercial products or any other subject matter. Thank you, and have a nice day.

Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 16:27, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

"The notion that one might institute a minimum age limit for a subject" is predicated entirely on the belief that a subject matter's importance is a criterion. As as been explained repeatedly (and you evidently refuse to accept), this is not the case.

You're welcome to propose that a subject matter's importance become a criterion, but that would be a fundamental change far beyond the scope of this discussion page. You essentially are urging the community to pretend that such considerations exist and impose an arbitrary application invented specifically to weed out articles whose subject area you've unilaterally deemed inferior. —David Levy 17:19, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Honestly... all this just because someone didn't think video games are important? Who is anyone to say video games aren't as important, if not more so, than films, or people, or novels? Why are video games so looked down upon compared to, say, every other topic on Wikipedia? I don't think it is our place to decide what is important enough to deserve inclusion/exclusion from the Main Page. Y2Kcrazyjoker4 (talk • contributions) 01:41, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Fine, then why, exactly, do we have an FA editor? If every article that reaches FA status deserves to be on the front page - they are two different things, so far as I understand - then why do we need an editor? If there are no standards, what is his purpose? (And why, exactly, should Jenna Jameson not be on the front page?) Is he some sort of magical grand poobah, a pontifex maximus, the Queen opening parliament, or something? I have nowhere said that articles on video games can't be well written enough to make featured article status. I have not said that video games cannot be important enough to merit front page placement. It remains a fact that if too many articles on ephemeral video games making the front page lowers the property value, then there is a way to deal with it. Regardless of how many people shriek at the prospect, or how many people do not understand that an if then statement is not a categorical imperative.μηδείς (talk) 03:30, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I think what people primarily object to is the antecedent in your if then. Having featured articles featured on the main page doesn't "lower the property value" of the... whatever you think it lowers the property value of. It's intended for featured articles to be listed there, what the featured article about isn't limited (except, as noted above). Thus, your singling out video games seems inappropriate, at least to me. ialsoagree (talk) 04:21, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

This is the first indication you've given that you only meant it theoretically. There was never any sense of "if"; from your very first post on this topic, your attitude was "articles on video games less than 12 years old don't deserve to be on the Main Page". Now you've changed your tune to imply, "We seem to be getting a lot of complaints about this, so maybe we can reduce the number of complaints by eliminating the ephemeral ones". As to why Raul654 is the "grand poobah" it's because he was so ratified to be and he's done a good enough job at it that there's no need for someone else to do it. howcheng {chat} 05:04, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there are too many vide game articles on the front page. They are basically culturekruft. I see three games worth mentioning and one game machine in the list above. Even keeping it down to one a month would be an improvement.

Given the IP user's objections, I suggested the criterion of having a video game be 12 years old (a semi-arbitrary number) before it can be considered for the front page as a solution for what some see as a problem. No one said it should be 10 years, or any other suggestion. They screamed that there are no criteria or that we were advocating that people not even be allowed to write such articles.

I fail to see how the fact that someone was elected for what appears to be a unnecessary position in any way validates the existence of the position.

Those who keep arguing that there should be no criteria for which FA gets on the front page other than its being an FA should be calling for getting rid of the position and going on a queue.μηδείς (talk) 05:51, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

No one other than you has deemed Raul's position unnecessary. He's responsible for scheduling the featured articles in a manner that provides as much variety as possible (given the limited pool), incorporates requests (e.g. slotting appearances to coincide with relevant dates) whenever feasible and avoids problematic timing (e.g. an article about a Neo-Nazi on International Holocaust Remembrance Day).

And you continue to assume that the inclusion of subjects that you regard as "ephemeral" is problematic. Isolated complaints (which we receive regarding practically everything) notwithstanding, there is no such consensus. —David Levy 07:20, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Hey, why stop at video games? How about similar restrictions on related articles on the following:

• Human culture: That includes video games.
• Cricket. Seriously a match ends after 3 days how stupid can that get.
• Association football. A match that ends in 0-0 is utterly stupid.
• American football: They hug 90% of the time. What the hell.
• Baseball. They throw up 90% of the time. That's gross.
• Pop music. Justin Bieber, U2, you name it.
• The French. Everyone hates them. Including French Canadians.
• Animals. They are lower life forms.
• Plants. See above.
• Biographies of living people. To prevent BLP violations.
• Religion. To appease the atheists.
• Atheism: To appease the religious
• And other stupid articles as they are nominated at WP:FAC.

–HTD (ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens.) 07:29, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Ah, so , David Levy, we see that there are criteria - just unwritten ones - and ones that don't apply to video games - and ones that a committee of the whole couldn't handle just as well? I am curious if we care about the sensitivities of Neo-Nazis or faithful Muslims as much as we do Jews? Or does that depend on the FA editor?

Either there are criteria or there aren't. Either they are published or they aren't. Do you prefer unwritten rules?

As for the Duck, when we get more than one article a month about "The French," send me a message. In the meanwhile, I refer you to non sequitur. μηδείς (talk) 07:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

1. The above discussion pertains primarily to the considerations (and lack thereof) behind the determination that a featured article qualifies to be spotlighted on the main page. It was plainly stated that Raul schedules them with variety in mind.

2. Unwritten? Have you viewed Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests?

3. Who said anything about an exemption for video games? As noted repeatedly, we simply have more featured articles in that subject area than we do in many others.

4. Indeed, a "committee of the whole" could not efficiently replace the position of featured article director. For this task, we require prompt, clear-cut decisions, not endless debate and argumentation.

5. I cited a random example. I've never known Raul to discriminate against people of any creed, race or nationality. —David Levy 08:38, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, Medeis, I think I see what you're getting at. Video games, which could never possibly have a noticeable impact on society, should be marginalized. They certainly should only appear on the Main Page when there is absolutely no other article to display. But, for the sake of cooperating with this strange people who insist that singling out video games is unfair, let's check upcoming FA requests and apply the same criteria to those articles.

Aha, I see that on August 6, William Hillcourt may appear on the main page. That's no good; everyone knows that he was concerned primarily with the U.S. -- and we have too much pro-U.S. bias already. Discard it. Aug 9 is good, being a culturally significant emblem that doesn't have much to do with America. Aug 15 must go -- it's another evil video game. Discard. Aug 21's Nafaanra Language and Sep 1's Fountain of Time need to be eliminated, since they have a direct impact on even fewer people than video games. Discard, discard. The Rheinmetall 120 mm gun clearly is unworthy to appear, since it is obviously a commercial interest. How much did those editors get paid by Rheinmetall-DeTec AG to promote their product, anyway? Shameful. Discard that one, too. What a waste of editors' time to write all this bunk that no one is interested in. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 13:55, 29 July 2010 (UTC) I know sarcasm doesn't translate well into text, but surely...

What #should# be allowed on the main page? So long as it as a whole manages to occasionally annoy everybody 'equally and impartially' it must be doing something right.

This section is now 53kb long. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.147.68 (talk) 14:37, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

It's an article, on Wikipedia, that will stay up for one day. Is it really that big of a deal? Just read the freaking article and move on or don't read the article and move on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.158.115.190 (talk) 13:28, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

As I said above - most people accept the 'main page lucky dip' for what it is, ranging from things they didn't know they wished to know about via 'so what' to 'why is anybody interested in #that#?' There are going to be occasional 'runs' on particular topics 'and no more bias than three sixes in a row when throwing dice.' Jackiespeel (talk) 21:25, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

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