Talk:Main Page

'The purpose of this page is to discuss the Main Page. See the Wikipedia FAQ for general questions about Wikipedia. You can also ask questions at the Village pump.

How to edit the main page. Before criticizing any content on the main page, remember that everything is editable. If you see a mistake in any of these sections, be bold and fix it. Comment on a new topic

• "Today's featured article" || "In the news" || "Did you know..." || "Browse Wikipedia by topic" || "Browse: bar"
• "Selected anniversaries ..." (section data is mainly in MediaWiki's Template namespace, but the top-level resides at Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries)
• "Wikipedia in other languages" section || "Sister Projects" section

STYLISTIC NOTE: Any item in bold type on the Main Page must be updated and listed on its corresponding subject area page before being listed on the Main Page. For example, a news item should first be listed on current events, then the article on the subject of that news item should be updated to reflect a current event, and then that item can be placed on Template:In the news.

Main Page cache purge - click this link when a change has been made to any of the templates displayed on the Main Page, to clear the Main Page's cache (located on the Wikimedia servers) so non-logged-in users can see the update. This may or may not force your browser's cache to expire. See Wikipedia:Reload to learn how to deal with that.

Please post screenshots of the current Main Page to Main Page/Screenshots for debugging design issues.

See TOC talk and the category schemes talk for general discussion of the category schemes on (or not on, as is currently the case) Wikipedia's Main Page.

---

Archived talk

Archives of older material from this talk page: Archives 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

The layout of the Main Page underwent a significant redesign, implemented on 23 Feb 2004. Talk archives 1-13 relate to the old design. Archives after this date: 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.

Talk pages specifically dealing with layout and design, or alternative designs for the Main Page:

• Main Page/Old - the old Main Page design.
• New Design | Temp | Temp2 | Temp3 | Temp5 (prev'ly Temp4)
• Temp6 | Temp10

Election Controversy: On the Front Page or Not?

The US Election Irregularities page has been popping on and off the front page for hours now. While I write this it's been removed. Is it going to go back up? What's going on? Personally, I think it deserves the coverage, it's a solid article.

I agree Pedant 04:16, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)

I second this --Howrealisreal 19:28, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree as well --Quintin3265 22:29, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC) - just because this controversy is not in the media doesn't mean it's not important. The article seems to present both points of view, and is by far the most authoritative source on the Internet at the moment.

Cour d'Assize

In France a criminal court for the worst crimes is a Cour d'"assise," not d'assize.

Fallujah

Are there not British troops in fallujah right now? Yes i'm afraid that there is and so far 1 has been killed and 4 wounded. cherryblack sorry

Protecting no-table version

Is it possible to do this? I can see that the no-table version of the main page could become an easy target for vandals.

Vandalism on the Main Page!

Someone change this quickly, please, it's incredibly embarrassing.

"This"? I see no vandalism. →Raul654 22:44, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Arafat's picture

Arafat is not "Boston Red Sox Logo"... --205.189.150.1 00:25, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hahaha, yeah, I just noticed that, I was just about to post this myself. - Bloodshedder 01:39, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fixed, after screenshotting and before logging in. Oops! (That page is publicly editable, BTW, which is why I, a lowly n00b, was able to fix it, though I wanted to leave it.) Suntiger 03:54, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Arafat suddenly looks like Dick Cheney today (November 13-14). There has GOT to be a way to anchor a picture next to the paragraph it applies to. C'mon, guys, this is simple in HTML; it ought to be doable here. ;Bear 02:11, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

Infinite monkeys

A special case of a prepositon is not a therom. Neither is the zero-one law a prepositon, even though it is obvious

...err, a Prepositon? Is that a sub-atomic particle? Or did you drop the 'i'?

it is a sub-atomic particle, whereas a therom is a text-heavy encrypted read-only memory storage device. So the original poster is correct.

Happy Halloween!

Happy late Halloween everyone! "Antonio Van Helsing Martin"

Test

Main Page Sandbox

It has been done. Templates are comming soon.

In the news

whats up w the font on the dixville story? Sam [Spade] 01:08, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Also, why does the main page report votes as 15 Bush/15 Kerry/1 Nader when Dixville Notch, New Hampshire gives it as 19-7-0? --Calair 06:33, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In the news

Hi guys, This morning a controversial dutch filmmaker(Theo van Gogh) has been murdered in Amsterdam. He was attacked by a man and a woman, and stabbed to death. The man has been arrested, still looking for the woman. See this article on cnn: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/11/02/netherlands.filmmaker.reut/index.html I don't know if it is important enough, thought I'd notify you guys

nice combination of jacques plante and clint benedict

What's up with the pro-John Kerry ASCII art? Is Wikipedia offering an endorsement, or was the main page HA><ORED? --Feitclub 13:13, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

Option number three, simple vandalism. Don't give the vandals more credit than they deserve. -- Cyrius|✎ 13:56, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WIKIPEDIA.INFO, isn't it about time?

Wikimedia already owns the domain name wikipedia.info; so isn't it about time to adopt it as the main domain for Wikipedia? It sounds more likely for a work like this; it's even almost a full sentence!! --Alif 18:05, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't think .info has any particular benefit over .org. People know .org's, if you said wikipedia.info to someone they probably wouldn't know what you were on about. My cynical mind tells me that .info's were invented so that everyone had to shell out more $ to keep all variations of their domain name registered. -- Chuq 23:04, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

...which is, in general, an idea that I *strongly* discourage in people; it's moronic in the extreme. In this particular case, however, with a completely made-up trademark like Wikipedia, I don't *oppose* it, I'm just not sure I think it's worth the money. I *don't* think it's a good idea on the "making life easier for Stupid People" front. And since anyone who registers one of them to use for some other purpose has a much higher -- though still non-zero -- chance of infringing (the mere presence of a website on a domain name which matches your trademark is not inherently infringing; infringement requires *action* -- though IANAL, I just play one on the 'net). I *do* recommend that The Powers That Be choose one as the actual domain name, and make all the others redirect, though; primarily for cookie sanity purposes. I'd also recommend DNSing ww. and wwww. and similarly redirecting.  :-) Baylink 20:37, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is the conspiracy-theory explanation :-). Originally .org was meant for not-for-prophit organisations. While this applies to Wikipedia in a way, .info is more specif about the site being a source of information. Eventually .info will become as known as the other domains. --Alif 17:07, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

maybe. maybe not. I for one have hardly come accross any sites using the "new" tlds that were even remotely worth visiting. ".info" smells of SEO and dotcom-bubble. dab 17:36, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If we don't get that domain, someone else will. Guaranteed. -- user:zanimum

Agree with Chuq. '.info' is, as of yet, non-standard. (Alif pointed out above that "Wikimedia already owns the domain name wikipedia.info.") --Nectarflowed 22:48, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

.info and .biz are generally associated in the public mind with spammers namestealers and other low life scum using them as the main domain for a site like wikipeida would be throwing away credibility

WIKIPEDIA moderators are vandalizing their own site?

Check out the discussion of the election results! FIX IT FOOLS!

WikiAtlas?

I'd posted this one before, but it didn't generate any feedback. So here I go again. Does anyone have an opinion on this one?

I love WikiPedia, I love the random page function.

but ... Is anyone else annoyed at how often small town entries come up? It seems pointless to have "Nuclear_winter" and "Dacula,_Georgia" [with it's pop. of 3,848] in the same place.

Is there a way to seperate all these geographic entries from the rest?

I would say that inclusion of Wallaceton,_Pennsylvania is certainly non-encyclopedic ... unless you can open the WorldBook set, [or Encarta] and find Brights_Grove,_Ontario in there.

This is Natasha and I would like to comment on what you have said about the content of the site and I would have you know that those small towns ARE very needed. I am in history 12 and you learn about some not so important places . and I have even grown up in some not so important places .. and I would be very dissapointed if they didnt come up.

If Wikipedia did nothing beyond what its rivals do, there'd be no reason for its existence.

I also like the 'random page' button, and I also find the small town entries dull... but this problem can easily be resolved by hitting the button again ;-) I honestly don't see what the problem is. --Calair 05:59, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the town entries are fine. The only time where they ever get in the way is the random page button, which is a toy, anyway. However, "WikiAtlas" is an excellent idea! I have been wondering for some time how we could standardise custom maps. When I want to draw a map to explain a point in a specific article, I have to search for a public domain map of the area in question on google, and then maybe remove labels in an editor before adding my own information, arrows or whatever. The Xerox Mapserver has been gone for several years, and I don't know of a similarly useful tool to produce basic maps (e.g., the map of Image:Kurgan map.png is based on a Xerox mapserver map). How about starting a WikiAtlas project that somehow links to all geographical WP articles? There is probably not enough CPU resources to generate maps dynamically, but if we had an application that could generate maps from vector data, we could still make a large collection of ready made maps, and illustrate the location of all these little town stubs. dab 07:32, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I also like the idea of a WikiAtlas. I've seen a number of out-of-copyright books that had some fine maps well worthy of scanning. (If only I could fix that darn yellowing...) -- RJH 23:34, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Would an atlas be a secondary indexing system, something like a streetmap with links to position-based wikipedia entries? If so, I think that's a great idea. To be done well it would HAVE to be outside the existing wiki structure because most of the necessary pieces (arbitrary zooming, scrolling and smoothly displaying text on mouseover to name a few) would be difficult or impossible in a WIKI medium.

For that matter, the timeline as exists is awkward. It would be great to have a timeline index that had the ability to show events side-by-side at any zoom level (for instance, the century view would show significant events that centurary, but wouldn't show things you expect to see at the "Year" level. Again, smooth scrolling and the ability to slightly zoom the area under the mouse would be pretty cool.

I'm fairly new, so if it's taboo to mention leaving the wiki environment, please forgive me.

BLK

c.f. meta:Wikiatlas, meta:Category:Wikimaps, meta:The first useful map. An atlas where users can zoom and pan interactively would be great, if very CPU-consuming. For the purposes of WP, however, we would primarily need an atlas that generates maps for the article (i.e. 'semantic WP' style, coordinates in a geographic article could automatically trigger the generation of a map to be served with the article). dab 11:13, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Automatic indexing

4) Wie heeft de Slag om Stalingrad gewonnen? Stalin wou Stalingrad voor geen goud verliezen. Hij liet alle mannen loopgraven en verdedigingslinies aanleggen. Toen de Duitsers de stad kwamen binnenvallen werd er om elk huis en elke muur gevochten. Alles werd meerdere malen door de Russen terug veroverd. Toen de Duitsers in de gaten kregen dat ze de stad niet konden in nemen gingen ze hem omsingelen om daardoor de Russen af te zwakken. Op 18 November 1942 waren de Duitsers het verste gekomen in Stalingrad en hadden het bijna helemaal ingenomen. Maar vanaf toen werden ze alleen nog maar terug gedrongen. De Russen kwamen toen van het Noorden aanvallen en Sloten daardoor het Duits 6e leger in. De Russen zorgden er voor dat de Duitsers geen versterking konden aanvoeren naar Stalingrad en konden het Duitse 6e leger verslagen. De Russen hebben de slag om Stalingrad dus gewonnen, vooral doordat de Duitsers de Russen ver onderschat hadden en dus geen stand konden houden.

Is my article automatically indexed under the respective category or I have to manually edit the category to add the article? --Sbenza 13:47, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If you add [[Category:Xxx|Article name]] at the bottom, the article is automatically indexed. For people articles you might want to use [[Category:Xxx|Surname, first name]]. Hope this helps. Generally, this kind of question should go on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous), by the way. Filiocht 13:58, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Featured article picture

Something's odd about the picture for the featured article at the moment, it's not very baroque at all. Lisiate 23:02, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fixed (not by me) Gwimpey 23:12, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks to however did so, I see the article has now changed anyway. Lisiate 00:24, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Lord Chancellor

The current featured article para begins: "The Lord Chancellor, is one of the most senior and important functionaries in the government of the United Kingdom." It could really do with losing that dreadful comma, please. :)

Oh and while I'm at it, the reference to "Tony Blair's ministry" does not, I think, work in UK English. Tony hasn't got a ministry! (No jokes please.) But I'd defer to the view of a person with some UK constitutional knowledge here. 82.35.17.203 00:59, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Link to low-bandwidth Main

There must be a link on the main page to some low-bandwidth-friendly version of the page; preferably no-tables and no-text (which can have links to the intermediate variants), for wireless users. Readding a link to the no-tables version, which is as close as we come to that ideal; it in turn has a prominent link to the text-only version (which has none of the first four sections at all). +sj+ 22:23, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

added your note to the Wikipedia:Technical FAQ , as a start for wireless users. Ancheta Wis 11:23, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Chinese Website

大家好，很高兴来到这个地方。不知有没有中文的网页？

慕名而来

在这里

• 繁
• 简

--Voidvector 08:29, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Google search

I want to ask if there is anyway to filter out those Wikipedia copy offs like BrainyEncyclopedia in a google search? --Voidvector 08:29, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

they are annoying! I usually repeat the search with a characteristic phrase of the WP article text excluded. dab 15:09, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Try using site:wikipedia.org search terms. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 18:46, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Buffalo, NY Public Libraries

I am posting this not as an act of vandalism, but to reach out to the Wiki community for assistance. The budget of Buffalo, New York is so poorly managed under the current leadership as to require cuts in the funding of the Buffalo Public Schools system and other publicly funded activities and organizations. Now, however, it is planned to close all of the public libraries in the city. Please, Wiki community, either make an "In the news" article about these recent developments or become active in some other fashion, but whatever is done, it must be done quickly. We've not much time.

Thank you, and good day.

I googled, and this is, in fact, true. →Raul654 20:30, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the verification Raul654. Now, once again, I ask of you all, please take action against this!

Intro paragraph

The intro paragraph ends with: "Learn how to edit pages, experiment in the sandbox, and visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article right now." Now, there are two ways to interpret this, either as these three clauses:

• Learn how to edit pages
• Experiment in the sandbox
• Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article right now

Or as these three clauses:

• Learn how to edit pages [to find out how you can edit any article right now]
• Experiment in the sandbox [to find out how you can edit any article right now]
• Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article right now

Either way, this is far from great prose. In the former set of three clauses, the last half of the third clause is redundant with the first clause. The latter set of three clauses is even worse, with the first clause being redundant with itself and the second clause of the set not making any sense at all. This is unfortunate, because I think the main page of Wikipedia should display some better prose.

Now, I would fix this myself, but I don't want to change the main page until I get the approval of other Wikipedians first. Basically, what we need is some sentence that has links to three places (Wikipedia:How to edit a page, Wikipedia:Sandbox, and Wikipedia:Community Portal) while avoiding the redundancy of having "edit a page/article" twice in the same sentence. Here's a tentative proposal for the fixed sentence:

"Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article, or experiment in the sandbox."

—Lowellian (talk)[[]] 07:36, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Since no one objected, I've made the change. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 05:09, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Unconfirmed news? REMOVE!!

Please remove "unconfirmed news" item. This is not a news agency or a blog website! Awolf002 15:32, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC) lol

From which source is this "report"? --ThomasK 15:46, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

This looks fishy -- there isn't even any article at the end of the link. And CNN isn't reporting anything about this. I think it's bogus. 23skidoo 16:22, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's why I ask. --ThomasK 16:26, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

It's been 3 hours at least and no media report on CNN or anywhere else I can find. I'd remove this myself but I don't know if regular users are allowed to. Yesterday about this time some hacker put a message up on the main page. Could this be another troublemaker? 23skidoo 18:43, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have just removed the rumour, WP should not report on rumours, but at least give the news time to settle. Note that any user, even anonymous users without accounts can edit the News section here: Template:In the news, for that matter, any page can and may be edited by any user (with a few exceptions, but in those cases there is no edit button). -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 18:50, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

ok, but how is this a rumour:

His death is being reported by some Palestinian sources, but explicitly denied by others.

that's just a simple fact: the Palestinians don't seem to be able to agree whether or not he is dead (we never did claim he was dead). dab 19:06, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It IS very shady language, and not suitable for our main page In the news section. The fact that they disagree whether he is dead, means it is just not known for a fact as of yet. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 14:24, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

This is becoming a trend, I guess. Two days ago Eequor added on a thing about a Bulgarian radiation leak, because someone "in Bulgaria" went onto Reference Desk and asked for safety tips for dealing with the situation. I'm worried for Wikinews. -- user:zanimum

Given the childish spat currently under way re Mordechai Vanunu, I think Wikinews is probably doomed to farce. Filiocht 15:36, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

let's be glad that Wikipedia:is not a newsticker ;o) dab 15:46, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe we need a Wikipedia:In the news is not a playpen page? Filiocht 15:53, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

featured articles repetition

Hello All

Weren't Japanese toilets a featured article 3 weeks ago? One might think someone had a fixation with this topic.

I noticed this also. Hyacinth 00:34, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually that is incorrect, check for yourself: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 2004. Note that it wasn't even a featured article until: 00:22, Oct 19, 2004 Raul654. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 14:29, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

It was on the main page. Someone must have changed it, because the accusiation is totally true. Frankly, I question Raul's judgement on choosing these things. Not only this, but he put an Australia veteran's memorial on November 9th, while two days after that is Rememberance/Veteran's Day. -- user:zanimum

The Japanese toilets article is relatively new article, and I remember it being on the Main page as well, but as I recall, that was in the Did you know section, where tidbits from new articles are listed. This makes perfect sense as it was a good article when it was just started and now it's featured it has appeared on Main again. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 21:27, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

To be exact, it is archived here: Wikipedia:Recent additions 16. On the selection of featured articles on main, they can not be changed at the last moment, as they are planned way ahead, take a look at the system here: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 2004. Of course you can always message Raul to suggest an article to feature on a certain date, suffice to say you can't please everyone, there are so many FA's, anniversaries, and so on, that would make great days to front an article, I think he's doing a great job. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 21:36, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

This article was on the main page under 'Did you Know' about 3 weeks ago. It became a featured article, and it is on the main page today because the author requested it. →Raul654 21:41, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

So it went for being brand new to being featured in three weeks??? -- user:zanimum

Sure, why not? See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates for the procedure.--Eloquence*

To echo Erik's statement - yes - if the author the time to fix objections raised on the FAC, there is nothing to stop a relatively new article from becoming a featured article quickly. Of course, I believe this is (by far) the fastest an article has ever become featured, but in principle there is nothing to prevent others from doing. →Raul654 04:15, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

International Shipping Containers?

Does anyone know anything about international shipping containers? sizes, classifications, capacity, regulations that sort of information.

curious... I've looked at different web sites in China and they say how stuff can be shipped... but I dont know what the containers sizes mean.

Left-handed child

Can anyone tell me definitively whether a child's parent has to be left-handed to be left handed? I have a child that seems to be preferring her left hand and neither parent is left handed.

There's a hereditary component to it, but there must be more than one gene involved. It's quite possible for a left-handed child to have both parent right-handed. Don't blame the milkman just yet.-gadfium 23:44, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm the left-handed child of two right-handed parents. My maternal uncle was left-handed at birth - also born to two right-handed parents. But he now writes with his right hand as he was beaten as school (in the UK) until he did. Don't fear, he's in his late 50s and as far as I'm aware they don't do that any more. Ah, the age of enlightenment. There you go, social history and genetics all in one go. (PauaShells, NZ)

the only medical geneticist i know who studies handedness, Fred Biddle at the University of Calgary, has genetic evidence (in the mouse) that handedness is not genetic, but the propensity towards developing a preferred hand is. --- NamfFohyr , 16 Nov 2004

International nuisance

Please route all responses to the Village Pump's tech section. The IP of 64.12.117.7 has appeared for users in Austria, Austria, Canada (5 of 13 provinces), Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States of America (10 states). That's 16 countries, not including Wales and Scotland. Why? MediaWiki apparently lacks in some major areas.

Although some have enjoyed this "New United Nations", or even "New World Order", since they can "talk to a whole bunch of people around the world", it really has been a complete turn off Wikipedia for others. Many are getting aggrevated, asking "what the hell is this about", and "why the fuck was this new message sent to me of all people", and yes, they linked to that article.

Although I know the developer have better things to be doing, this is getting silly. Personally, I like this international wall for graffiti of sorts, but many may just be leaving as soon as they get this page. -- user:zanimum

Main page link for "encyclopedia"

Could someone please link the word encyclopedia on the main page? Walden 01:09, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

If you click Wikipedia, it has a link to encyclopedia. I think that people decided that there would have been too many links in the first sentence and that it would have been tiring to the eye. You can actually edit the welcome template, which might get reverted, however. Ancheta Wis 07:13, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fallujah

This is not a new topic. I want to comment on your article about Fallujah. You are missing some important elements and I thought that your article about Fallujah was not truly unbiased. Basically, Fallujah is where all of Saddam's Baathist party members were living and under his rule they had the better life and that is the life that they are fighting to keep. They don't want to be like the rest of Iraq and they want to keep their power. They see that with the Americans and changes in Iraq that they will become a minority and with free elections will lose their power. Also, maybe you should have asked a US Marine about whether those women and children in Fallujah were holding guns when they were shot when you cite civilian deaths. Combatants have their guns removed after Marines killed them so hence everyone looks like a civilian to your view of the world. The Baathist party members also left their uniforms in the sand and wore regular street clothing so how can you tell what they were--civilian or Saddaam's army. Now, quote sources on info, too--not hearsay and as we all know the news sources from both sides are never right. My Marine son will tell you that in many of the battles last year in Iraq-- a woman with a mini van full of kids would drive right into the middle of a raging battle. In such a moment, it is easy for you here to say she was not an enemy combatant but my son will tell you when gunfire comes from the mini van and you are fired upon--they have engaged you and rules of warfare call her an enemy combatant. Now, whether she is a willing party is a whole other story since the women of Iraq have basically no power.

Red Link in In The News

There is a red link in In The News (linking to the ivory coasts air force). Isn't there some policy about red links on the first page? If there isn't, there should be. I'd change it myself but the In The News-template is blocked. Gkhan 15:54, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Côte d'Ivoire story: "Anti-French sentiment"

The "Anti-French sentiment" link (pipeline with "Anti-French violence") should be removed and made plain text. Currently. "Anti-French sentiment" redirects to "Anti-French sentiment in the United States". I think it's highly misleading to have a link in an African news story go to a US-specific article. Dale Arnett 16:04, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Where has simple: gone?

The main page of simple: and its talk page seem to have been redirected to en:. Does anybody know why this is and – if not intentional – how to fix it? --Eddi 17:36, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The main page seems to be back to simple:, but the talk page still redirects here. --Sum0 18:04, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The main page was still redirected here (that or it was revandalized after Sum0 checked). I hacked the URL a little to get there without redirect, and reverted away the redirects. I also left a note encouraging an admin there to protect the main page. Jwrosenzweig 22:53, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

formatting error

Did you know...

From Wikipedia's newest articles:

...that in the history of transportation in Los Angeles, the first California freeway "traffic jam" occurred on 1 January 1940?

the text of this suns across the image of a freeway. Sam [Spade] 17:52, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mention on main page Wikipedia is largest encyclopedia

When people first hear of Wikipedia, I think they are generally suspicious of an encyclopedia in which anybody can edit articles. The description on the front page should address this. I think we should make three changes to the main page. (1) Display a quote from a mainstream source such as the New York Times. (2) Display one of the [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trophy_box

awards] Wikipedia has won.  (3) Mention that Wikipedia is the world's largest encyclopedia.  I propose (with my changes in bold):

Welcome to Wikipedia, the world's largest encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a growing, free-content encyclopedia in many languages. In this English edition, started in January 2001, we are working on 393327 articles. Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article, or experiment in the sandbox.

I think this change introduces readers to why Wikipedia is important, not just another unofficial internet information repository. It also strongly defines Wikipedia as a progressive phenomenon, which I think is very psychologically powerful: 'good now, and getting better.'

When this topic was brought up on this page in May 2004, two points brought up were:

Size alone doesn't matter that much. I'm sure part of the contents of Wikipedia would be rejected flat out by any sensible editor of any established paper encyclopedia, just as we will do when we become serious about our printed edition. Even though I like to look in amazament at the weekly growth figures, I'm also a bit worried about all the emphasis that many Wikipedians put on number of articles, as if that is all that counts. Erik Zachte 23:25, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Saying we're the world's largest encyclopedia is useful for publicity purposes, but it's not as meaningful as quality, which we can't measure the same way. --Michael Snow 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I do agree that pointing out that the english wikipedia has more than 3 times the amount of articles than what appears to be the second largest english-language encyclopedia, the encyclopedia britannica, can be misrepresentative because the majority of EB's articles have significantly greater value in quality and credibility. However, 3x the amount of articles is very substantial, often makes the difference, and is a concrete achievement.

If we do include on the main page that Wikipedia is the world's largest encyclopedia, people visiting the main page will still automatically assume the articles are generally not as high quality as those of traditional encyclopedias, so I don't think the above concerns are obstacles to this change.--Nectarflowed 01:04, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If it's true, and if largest encyclopedia stops being a red link, I think this would be a useful addition. It might not be as meaningful as quality but it's still important and informative. Angela. 02:59, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

if at all, size comparisons should be done on the basis of MBs/words, not article count (do we have data on that?). Otherwise we just expose us to more ridicule that we're obsessed with counting our stubs, and making a press release every 100,000 or so ;) dab 07:09, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

By MBs/words do you mean we should be counting Megabytes or words instead of articles? By word count on the size comparisons page it appears that Wikipedia has 2 or 3 times the total word count of Encyclopedia Brittanica (the EB stats are inconsistent). So the proposed largest encyclopedia link could address both word count and article count, as well as a concise summary of the limitations of such a comparison (quality and credibility).

An IP wrote below "i'm wondering how credible this site is." This supports what I'm suggesting, that this should be addressed in the intro paragraph on the main page. --Nectarflowed 21:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I was not contesting we are the largest 'pedia. I'm just saying that our article count is misleading (look at a few 'random pages': they are (almost) all very short). word count is a good measure, although that still says nothing about quality and accuracy... dab 13:05, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hello!

I am interested (IN) this site

Wide screen Wikipedia

I am getting the chance to edit in a computer store on a 24"-diagonal LCD monitor, basically a personal wide-screen TV, 1920x1200 pixels, about 2.3 A-size pages, or about 2/3 of a C-size engineering drawing. The Main Page is awesome at this width. The .jpg files which I have previously downloaded show up beautifully at this width, what with the fast connection and all.

Can we get a picture? Sounds cool! - Ta bu shi da yu 04:38, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Eid ul-Fitr

There's a factual error on the front page. Actually, Eid ul-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, not the last day of Ramadan. Eid ul-Fitr falls on first Syawal, not on the 29th or the 30th of Ramadan (depending on the length of the month). __earth 01:25, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

It may also be worthy of note that there were two Eid ul-Fitrs this year: one marked by Saudi and the world (13 November); the other marked by ISNA and North America (14 November). Ostensibly, this was because ISNA felt they could not possibly sight the moon early enough for Eid to be on 13 November. My guess is that the author had a North American-centric view, but I would like to point out that ~ 90-95% or more of Muslims would have fasted and ended their fast with Saudi Arabia. 207.112.45.96 02:36, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To wiki or not to wiki...

I'm pretty new here, and am still learning the ropes, so I apologize if this has been answered elsewhere, BUT... I have a question.

When you are wikifying a document, do you generally only add wiki links to things that already have entries? If something SHOULD have an entry, but doesn't, do you not add a wiki link? This came up in an entry that I helped wikify, but included several wiki links to things that did not have entries, but probably should have. Someone else came in behind me and took them out.

I'm not personally affronted, just wondering what is the actual protocol. Thanks for any help. Katefan0 09:14, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

no, I do add "red" links to things that should have articles. They will appear as "requested". But if I have the time, I also create short stubs, so the links are no longer red. I realize that is not how everybody recommends it should be done, but I am not afraid of stubs that should be there. dab 15:38, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I concur. a red link often entices me to read up on and then write an article. If I recall, that's what got me started here, I think red links that are well-titled and worthwhile are a very good thing. I try to include at least one really good red link in any article I write. It's ok to go back and add the red links in if you think they are worthwhile. But if you really want an article to be written, you know what you have to do. Do it yourself.Pedant 04:27, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)

Commons

Should we have a link to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page on the main page? Wondering simply, -- Infrogmation 17:12, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good! I'm glad it's there now. -- Infrogmation 23:59, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

credibility

i'm wondering how credible this site is. I'm wondering how many people are actually attacking this site with intentional false information. I don't mean vandalism but sabotage. I have seen a study that suggests that many points of view can often narrow down to the correct point of view, but according to a recent article, the page on Alexander Hamilton has gone the opposite direction. If there really is a sabotage attempt, you may want to look for a nondestructive method of stopping it.

The credibility of Wikipedia compared to traditional encyclopedias is something that is discussed on this site and there is much to debate about. This debate won't be resolved any time soon, but should be noted that many news sources have written positively about wikipedia. You can see awards and news clippings on the wikimedia trophy page and a more complete listing of news clippings here.

Well, Wikipedia has no basis on any logic or scientific apporoach. That makes it possible to maintain and administrate information that can be contradictory to itself. NPOV is a try to cut senseless information, but it fails, because giving room to different ideas what is is not what is.

Highlights include:

• Top 10 reference sites (award) - The UK Daily Mirror, Oct. 17, 2003
• Top 100 Top Websites You Didn't Know You Couldn't Live Without (award)- PC Magazine, Apr. 20, 2004
• Web User Awards 2004. "Best Factual Website". Joint winner with BBCi News. From Web User, a UK Internet magazine.
• "One of the best reference resources on the Web..." (Andrew Kantor, USA Today.com, Mar. 26, 2004)
• "One of the most reliably useful sources of information around, on or off-line." (BBC News, Apr. 23, 2004)
• "Surprisingly Good", (The Economist, June 10, 2004)
• "...Wikipedia is clearly one of the Internet's top five information tools. No other free online resource -- none -- can give you such a quick and useful briefing on practically any subject you can think of.", (Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun Times, July 20, 2004)
• According to a Wall Street Journal article from February 2004, researchers have found that there are frequent instances of vandalism at Wikipedia, but that these are often quickly resolved:

"Recent research by a team from IBM found that most vandalism suffered by Wikipedia had been repaired within five minutes. 'We were surprised at how often we found vandalism, and then surprised again at how fast it was fixed,' says Martin Wattenberg, a researcher in the IBM TJ Watson Research Center, in Cambridge, Mass." [1]

• "The truth is that Wikipedia reveals what is normally hidden in an encyclopedia: the countless decisions that lie behind each entry. The only difference is that in Wikipedia, the decision-making never stops and the debates are often robust to say the least." the Guardian (UK)

--Nectarflowed 21:19, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The problem are newly created articles, as they have no-one watching them. Sure, obvious nonsense gets deleted, but subtle mistakes survive. It happened a couple of times that I created an article, accidentially containing false information. If I hadn't noticed and gone back to fix it, it would probably have remained there for a long time, because my article passed the superficial 'no-nonsense', and after that, nobody was watching it. I think, nay, know, there is a lot of false information in WP. I guess it will asymptotically improve over time, but I am afraid not asymptotically approaching 100%, but maybe 90% or 95%. WP will never be error-free.dab 14:48, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

But then again, neither will Encyclopedia Brittannica Gkhan 18:23, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Arab-Israeli conflict

"U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair reiterate calls for a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict."

"Two-state solution" redirects to "two state solution." This should be fixed. Mkilly 19:55, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Typo

Authorizing, in the Nixon calendar item. Baylink 01:21, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

On American topics, American English should be used (see the guidelines on US vs. UK English). If you still want to edit, go ahead --Eddi 20:30, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sorry: I wasn't clear. It was mispelt even for American english. And it appeared to be locked, or I *would* have fixed it myself. Baylink 21:18, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I should be sorry for not checking history. Stupid me. :) --Eddi 21:25, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ex-Britannica Editor Reviews Wikipedia

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/11/16/1319242.shtml?tid=95&tid=1 (somebody go fix Alexander Hamilton ;o) it was of course fixed before I even got there. dab 14:32, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Felix the cat Main page

Remove this scandalous image from the article felix the cat !!!!!!--ThomasK 16:39, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)==Felix the cat Main page ==

Remove this scandalous image from the article felix the cat !!!!!!--ThomasK 16:39, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Urgh, I was about to report that too. Who did that? --Frankie Roberto 16:42, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I tried to change the main page to point to Martika for a temporarily less offensive link but it didnt work. Pacian 16:43, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It does seem to have worked now... --Frankie Roberto 16:45, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can we get rid of the pornographic picture on the main page please? Perhaps the main page could be made uneditable, infact I thought it was already. I am viewing this in a university and could easily get into trouble for looking at porn. I also suggest that the community portal page be looked at. Kevo00 16:49, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I believe the main page is uneditable, but someone changed the picture in the article itself, so even if the main page cannot be editted, the articles within still can. It appears fixed now. Indigo 16:55, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It does not appear fixed to me. --68.57.8.167 18:26, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It is not fixed. ---NamfFohyr; 16 Nov, 2004; 18:55 UTC

I edited the template to contain no image, as a last-ditch effort. Better to risk no-cartoon than the current, offensive image! ---rmbh; 16 Nov, 2004; 20:32 (UTC)

Not only didn't my changes stick, I got blamed for vandalising the page! rmbh 23:28, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

• Please see "Image vandalism and protection" below

---

Hello everybody!!!This WIKIPEDIA is a very good innovation, it's a figata!!!Compliments to all who write something in this...cronological speculation(what for cronological speculation?...we don't know!) Bye bye by Vero&Fede Italy...Write soon!!! ^___^

Wikipedia.info redirection?

After reading the earlier discussion about the domain wikipedia.info, I visited the domain in question, and got a "wiki does not exist" message. When I go to wikipedia.com, I'm "redirected" to wikipedia.org. Why not with wikipedia.info? -- Adolph Wales 18:03, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Image vandalism and protection

Perhaps we ought to protect any images used on the main page for the duration of that use? That way first-time visitors won't be surprised with goatse images (or worse). —No-One Jones ^(m) 19:47, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• What 'e said. The vandals learn fast, I'm afraid; designing the WP to be user friendly makes it easy to master in a short period of time, which means that vandals don't have to work very hard to learn how to screw with us. Maybe (but only maybe) we should go back to having templates on the Main Page be admin-only; I'm not sure it was the image itself that was vandalized, although those are equally vulnerable. -Litefantastic 20:27, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, for obvious reasons the images are way more vulnerable because of the way they are implemented in MediaWiki. An admin only front page is the weak answer, I think textwise we're dealing with vandalism very quickly, and thanks to the large amount of editors working on it we have a very dynamic front page which is good, keeps things interesting, people putting goatse images on main should get a perm ban. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 20:44, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

Because the amount of vandalism of the featured article write up has increased dramatically recently, I am strongly leaning towards protecting them from now on. →Raul654 21:00, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

So you all know the discussion of this particular vandal is at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/November 16, 2004. -- user:zanimum

I had to turn off the 'In the News' template. I don't think that'll stop the vandalism, but it might get across the point that we're having problems to the people who can protect the pages. -Litefantastic 22:07, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Felix the Cat incident - The Ban

Originally started on Silsor's talk page, by Zanimum

I've extended the ban on 192.197.71.189 to indefinite, because a goatse.cx on the main page is beyond unacceptable. -- user:zanimum

It would probably be better if you shortened that IP block to something more in terms of weeks, since we have no way of knowing how many people use it to access Wikipedia or when it will change hands. Blocking anonymous vandals for a length of time is more useful as a temporary deterrent. silsor 18:49, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

We should try to track the anon's ISP and contact them, they might be able to track who was using the IP at the time, a willing ISP would be able to take action, especially if it's from a school or university. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 21:39, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

WHOIS turns up the following:

[Removed] (see below)

I would suspect the government of Canada looks down on their networks being used to post disgusting pornography on public websites. —No-One Jones ^(m) 21:44, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Can someone confirm what happened, I think this image was overwritten with the Goatse image: Image:Felix 1936.jpg, but it doesn't show any vandalism in the history, especially not at the time the complaints started raining in. Anyone know for sure what happened? If we're contacting the ISP we need to have an exact time to report, and we need to contact them ASAP. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 07:45, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Based on the upload log:

• 18:22, 16 Nov 2004 Palnatoke uploaded "Felix.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
• 18:20, 16 Nov 2004 Silsor uploaded "Felix.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
• 18:15, 16 Nov 2004 192.197.71.189 uploaded "Felix.jpg"
• 17:35, 16 Nov 2004 ALoan uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
• 17:35, 16 Nov 2004 ALoan uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
• 17:15, 16 Nov 2004 Dugnorth uploaded "Felix.jpg" (Felix the Cat)
• 17:02, 16 Nov 2004 Evil saltine uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
• 17:02, 16 Nov 2004 Evil saltine uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
• 16:46, 16 Nov 2004 Orpheus Machina uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
• 16:38, 16 Nov 2004 Aquatopia uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg" (Reverted to earlier revision)
• 16:31, 16 Nov 2004 192.197.71.189 uploaded "Felix_1936.jpg"

→Raul654 07:51, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

I have sent an extensive abuse report to the Internet support department of the ISP managing the anon's address. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 08:24, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Hopefully this particular user will be terminated, or at least warned, by the Canadian government agency s/he is with. In any case, there's no need for indefinite protection. Pakaran (ark a pan) 12:14, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The general contact address for [removed]. Any volunteers to contact? Actually, all employees of this and many other departments are listed online. One of the subcategories of [removed] likely names the culprit, whomever they are. -- user:zanimum

Folks - the IP was faked. This has been confirmed by the devs. Anyone who has written needs to consider writing again quick. And perhaps we need to think about only making such complaints through some sort of official channel -- sannse (talk) 21:41, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The IP concerned was faked. Anyone who contacted the registrant for the IP address 192.197.71.189 should withdraw their incorrect report. The IP actually responsible for uploading the image was 158.64.72.230 . That IP created an account called "192.197.71.189" to do the uploading. The IP and image links are as follows:

158.64.72.230 ( [2] not a known proxy)(whois): 83.99.48.97 ([3] not a known proxy) (whois

... work in progress... food has interrupted my research but this may be IPs who I've previously blocked for creating 40+ vandalism accounts. Jamesday 21:54, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dante Alighieri made me aware of the fact that the 192 anon has been framed, it is worrysome that it is so easy to emulate an anonymous user by using an IP as account name. Why not filter these out at account creation? I have immediately written a new mail to the internet support department explaining the situation. The reason I took action in the first place is because the vandalism already seemed to be disappearing in the Featured article of the day archive. Sending complaints for vandalism through a central organisation or person is a good idea, but that means there should be a policy and a way to actually build these complaints. As it is, WP:VIP is not suitable. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 21:56, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

Has someone brought this bug to a developer's attention? This seems to need fixing ASAP. -- The Anome 10:43, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

That bug was fixed two years ago already, but was recently reintroduced - and fixed again now according to Brion Vibber on the Village Pump. Strange that some vandals find the security holes so fast. andy 13:04, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

158.64.72.230: hal.lgl.lu — http://lgl.lu/ "Lycée de Garçons de Luxembourg". what an asshole (so to speak:) dab 11:07, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

why do we have the policy of not making public the IPs of edits by logged in users, btw? dab 12:50, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

RIPE gives this abuse contact for this network (158.64.0.0/16):

descr:        Reseau Teleinformatique de l'Education Nationale
descr:        Educational and research network for Luxembourg
person:       Theo Duhautpas
address:      Fondation RESTENA
address:      6, rue Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi
address:      L-1359 Luxembourg
phone:        +352 42 44 09
fax-no:       +352 42 24 73
e-mail:       theo.duhautpas <at> restena.lu

-- Karada 12:52, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

well, that's the national educational network operator. they will not be able to do much about a kid posting goatse from his school's library. If we address the school directly, they may be able to identify the offender, or if not, at least be motivated to threaten sanctions for computer abuse. dab 13:20, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Protect main page?

Is it time to protect all templates and all images used on the main page? The page was protected completely until relatively recently - so this wouldn't be unprecedented. This page is our public face, to have even temporary vandalism here is a big problem. We had emails of complaint to the Foundation today (or more specifically to Jimbo, who forwarded them to the support team). Vandalism is always a bad reflection on us - but on the main page it's intolerable. What do you think? -- sannse (talk) 18:07, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

For the record - in my capacity as featured article director, I've decided to start protecting the featured article template as a matter of course. However, that will *not* prevent the kind of image-upload vandalism that occured yesterday. The only way to do this is to (a) restrict image overwriting to administrators, or (b) protect all main page images for the duration they are on the main page. →Raul654 22:06, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)

I go for option (b). By the way, perhaps the Yes heading below should mention templates and images. I'll insert it now. --Eddi 01:35, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The page was protected completely in the past, yes, but we didn't have things which were regularly updated on the main page at that time. Until we get rid of the notion of having a featured article dictator, and eliminate "in the news" et. al. from the main page, I don't think it is appropriate to protect it. We're supposed to be a wiki. But whatever, I suspect I've already lost this fight. anthony 警告 19:20, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes: protect templates and images used on the main page

• Yes. Considering the number of main page lookups and its role as the outward face, I think minutes of unreverted vandalism may be far worse than hours of uncorrected typos or even factual errors. --Eddi 18:28 + 20:09, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Yes -- but there needs to be a clearly labeled line of notification to whomever can fix things which are broken, somehow. Baylink 18:32, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Yes. It was nice that any user could update the main page as necessary, but some vandals have caught on, and some, like 33451 and his numerous sockpuppets, seem to take a positive delight in vandalizing the main page. We can't have mud (or goatse pictures, or blather about AppleWorks hackers :) all over our public face. —No-One Jones ^(m) 20:41, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Yes, protect. [[User:Sam Spade|Vote Sam Spade for Arbiter!]] 22:03, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Yes. We've already been pseudo-protecting the main page, but that wasn't going to stop slightly more determined vandals; now let's make that protection a little more real. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 22:21, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)
• Yes. Filiocht 08:38, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
• Yes. the 'anyone can edit' doctrine is most useful for neglected articles. Stuff on the main page is well cared for anyway (of course, unprotect after it's not on the main page anymore). possibly, protect images only (impact of vandalised images can be much more severe than vandalised text/layout) dab 09:16, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Yes. Vandalism on the Main Page is unacceptable; there's no point protecting the Main Page itself while leaving the transcluded content open to vandalism. -- ChrisO 10:26, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Yes, but... we need some way for non-admin users to be able to contribute to these pages. Perhaps we should have a convention whereby "temp" or "pending" versions which can be altered by anyone, with admins acting as servants to the community by copying all but vandalistic content to the protected pages? -- The Anome 10:40, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
• Yes - it was just a matter of time till vandals grasp how templates work and how to abuse them to modify a protected page. andy 12:13, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Yes unfortunate, since we should be open, but sadly it has come to this Sayeth 21:17, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)
• Yes, alas, it must be done. The Main Page is the face of Wikipedia and must be pristine. Lord Bob 04:04, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

No: don't protect templates and images used on the main page

• No - the advantages of anyone being able to update it outweigh the disadvantages. However, there does need to be a clear way of being able to get people to fix vandalism like yesterday quickly... --Frankie Roberto 20:08, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

• No, certainly not! Vandalism of templates and images used on the main page typically gets reverted within minutes, and that's good enough. Ordinary users should be able to update things like "Did you know" and "In the news". —AlanBarrett 16:34, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• Not unless you get rid of "Did you know" and "In the news", and make the featured article chosen by consensus. anthony 警告 19:15, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • But if someone changes those images, they're smaller and less noticable. Not to say I'd want the old goat in those spot, just that it wouldn't be as scandalous. Plus, Raul's write-up for the featured should stand as is, because (though I hate that he has) he has the final say on which article goes up which day, and he usually does a pretty decently edited teaser for the article. There's no real reason to touch the whole thing. -- user:zanimum
    • The reason to touch the whole thing is that we are a wiki. No single person should be in charge of any page. We should only be protecting pages when we are legally required to (the GFDL license, Wikipedia:Copyrights). anthony 警告 03:44, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• No what's next, protecting popular pages? The reversion times for the main page are quick enough. I'd support some kind of temporary version system though. [[User:BrokenSegue|BrokenSegue]] 02:38, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• No We should not protect the main page!! We shouldn't give in to vandals!!! Gkhan 15:19, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)
• No. Most vandals are too stupid to know how to vandalize templates anyways :). Besides, when vandalism does occur on the main page templates, it's usually reverted quite fast (I, for one, keep all templates on my watchlist). Also agree with points made above. -[[User:Frazzydee|Frazzydee|✍]] 15:54, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• No. — Matt 04:15, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
• No. This gives vandals more credit than they should receive, it implies that this vandalism actually affects our main page considerably and that it is something we cannot easily undo. Both are not true, we have ways to revert quickly and the amount of people affected is thus negliable. It also turns our highly dynamic WIKI front page into a static conventional one. The only problem arises on images, the problem is in the caching, when you revert the image, the older version seems to keep "hanging around" in some way, therefore I think we should protect FP images ONLY. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 13:01, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Alternatives

• Could we not just have all images protected from reuploading, and just have a reupload process, that just like feature or deletion listings (but just like 2 days or something), and from there sysops can replace. -- user:zanimum
  • I suspect this would take a lot more work than a quick daily protect of images used on the main page. It would also discourage the improvement of images that happens regularly now, and encourage forking of images (which I dislike because it obscures the image history) -- sannse (talk) 22:19, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Agreed. Anyone who cannot upgrade an image because it is on the main page can just check back after 30 hours - or bug an active sysop by email/irc/etc, which still ends up being less bother for everyone. Pakaran (ark a pan) 18:27, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Anti-French Violence

I think linking the phrase "Anti-French Violence" in a lead sentence about the conflict in the Ivory coast to an article title "Anti-French Sentiment"

in the US is POV and silly.

Any help out here?

Wikipedia seems to be very interesting! I'm on a research for a suitable writing script for my language. I want ot combine chinese and japanese scripts with a tutorial in english. At this stage I have no clue whether Wikipedia will help me in my project!

Any help out here?

deebee

you can ask your question at the Wikipedia:Reference desk. Also, it might help if you told us, which is your language -- are we talking about a fictional language? Also, feel free to actually read the articles, Chinese script, Japanese_language#Writing_system. dab 14:14, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Request To Sysops

• Dear Sysops, can we put up a new section in the Wikipedia In Other Languages of a new section which says Wikipedias with 100,000 articles or more? Thanks, User:Chan Han Xiang

4E5

We just hit the 400,000-articles barrier, people! dab 15:57, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Iraq flag contains propaganda!

better remove this immediately!

• I'll elabourate on that. The image "Newiraqflag.gif" appears to be a gif animation. After a few seconds of displaying Iraq's flag, the message "Governer Adolph Bush did it only for the oil!" appears. (Also, the source of the image is not specified.)

File:Newiraqflag.gif

Falsifian 21:37, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

Again, this is why we need to protect images that go on the main page! —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 22:33, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

• It appears that this image was never modified, so protection wouldn't have done anything. The original version had the message. Maybe the solution is just to be very wary of gifs. (Are there any other common image formats that support animation?) --Falsifian 23:06, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)
  • I have removed the message from the image and replaced it. Tom- 01:06, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • it may be propaganda, but it sure is easier on the eyes than goatse (sorry:) dab 12:45, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Let's avoid animation! =b And no, there are not. -Fennec (はさばくのきつね) 06:15, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • My guess is that the image was modified. Until recently there was a security hole that allowed for images to be replaced without any record. It is believed to be fixed. -- Cyrius|✎ 14:44, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Quake "Did you know"

Minor quibble, but in this line:

...that development on Star Wars Quake lasted for six years, and is probably the most famous Quake mod to never be completed?

"Star Wars Quake" and "Quake" should both be italicized. I know that Wikipedia:Tutorial (Formatting) only specifies books and movie names, but lately most Wiki pages italicize game names as well for largely the same reasons (the whole "longer work" deal and all). --Shadow Hog 16:36, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fixed. Fredrik | talk 16:43, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. --Shadow Hog 18:10, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hiding Header

When I put the cursor over the "log in" area at the top right of the screen, it jumps under the logo on the top left. This makes it so you can't reach it in Wiktionary. This happens whether or not you are logged in. I have not checked the other Wikiplaces. Please fix this, someone.

Typo on main page.

Typo: "the Indus Civilization cvered ..." should be "covered".

Sorry about the blanking. I thought I was just editing a new comment. :(

I don't think that that was you. -- ABCD | Talk 02:02, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Featured article copyvio?

See Talk:Indus Valley Civilization; do we have a copyvio on our featured article? I'm unfamiliar with the history of this article and would rather have someone who's worked on the article take a look at it. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 20:54, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

this is appalling . the article was featured at a completely different stage, back in March. [4] It was nominated in January. See Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Featured_log/October_2003_to_April_2004#Indus_Valley_Civilization. There was no discussion at all. Nobody commented, and it was simply considered FA'd. Maybe our FA standards have changed? Maybe we need a FA patrol looking for deterioration of FAs? The person picking the FA of the day should at least do some checking of this kind. In any case, an article that has reached FA standard doesn't necessarily remain on FA standard on WP, this much is obvious. WP is doomed to "eternal vigilance". dab 22:08, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Charlie Dog Page removed

Sorry, there were false claims against the Chuck Jones cartoon dog character.

user 6:15 P.M.

Fixed. It was a blanking. In the future, you can check the history of the page, click on the previous edit to see what was there before, press edit, and then press save :). Or you can just ask somebody else to take care of it. Thanks for the alert. -[[User:Frazzydee|Frazzydee|✍]] 23:20, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I tried to fix the page as fast, but Jeff Schiller came in, has changed the pages about the dog away from the older version, I got blamed of ruining the article.

Wow! Vandalism!

Someone should probably remove it. Comrade Tassadar 06:29, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

how? I thought only the admins could edit the front page. --Jazz Remington 06:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)