Talk:Main Page

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Errors in the summary of the featured article

Please do not remove this invisible timestamp. See WT:ERRORS and WP:SUBSCRIBE. - Dank (push to talk) 01:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(January 10, today)

• There are several redirects that should be bypassed per WP:MPNOREDIRECT. Jay8g [V•T•E] 01:17, 10 January 2025 (UTC)

Monday's FL

(January 13)

Errors in the summary of the featured picture

Notice to administrators: When fixing POTD errors, please update the corresponding regular version (i.e. without "protected" in the page title) in addition to the Main Page version linked below.

General discussion

Nudity in Wikipedia

Sarcastic "omgnudity" post. Conversation related not enclosed.

dear madam (i refuse to speak to men in case they have no clothes either). there are naked men all over the wikipedia. this is an outrageous use of the word 'hole' and to work in 'treatment of buttocks', 'swimming naked' (more than one use) and 'boxers' means the wikipedia is going downhill very fast. a hidden link to skinny dipping is included as well which is a cheap and cynical way to encourage the disgusting removal of clothes by children who know no better. 'homoeroticism' is obviously pushing some sort of gay agenda or something what with all these pieces of genitalia flying around and buttocks wiggling across the screen but nobody thinks of children here anyway and i'm frightened they might grow up and think they are women or men or something. i will be urging my pupils to close the wikipedia today and pick up the bible instead. i've already wasted an entire week telling them to put down their computer games and films and now this monstrosity is put in a position before their eyes where they will obviously see it and develop a new addiction designed to annoy all good thinking people of this world. i will not be responsible for my actions when i leave the room if children start removing their clothes. i am fed up of the wikipedia's encouragement of this behaviour. i will not be renewing my wikipedia subscription as a result and am strongly considering learning spanish or french or german as i'm sure they don't have this filth on their wikipedias. i will never swim again now that i know men are carrying out this disgusting lewd act without covering their privates and looking at one anothers naked bits at the same time. yours sincerely, disgusted person in position of authority who has young children of their own. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.40.222.128 (talk) 00:37, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The Wikimedia Foundation's vision statement is: "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment."[1] While The Swimming Hole may deserve its Featured Article status, featuring it on the main page and including links to the articles on homoeroticism, depictions of nudity, etc. will undoubtedly counteract this vision. Let me explain. Wikipedia is not censored, which is good, but many readers of Wikipedia operate in censored environments, e.g. workplaces, schools, homes and even nations. Currently, most content filters block specific articles on Wikipedia. If the Main Page continues to feature near-pornographic content, however, it is likely that many users will find Wikipedia blocked altogether. At the very least, this will further lower Wikipedia's reputation.

If someone wants to read about "swimming naked" or "butts", they should be allowed to; Wikipedia is not censored. However, this type of content, which many readers may find offensive, should not be forced in front of anyone's face. Why should an elementary school student going to Wikipedia to look up Mahatma Ghandi's birthday be greeted by naked men and vocabulary such as "homoeroticism"? Just because Wikipedia is supposed to feature all human knowledge doesn't mean it should place in front of readers information that is offensive to them. After all, Wikipedia is written for its readers, not to achieve some abstract goal.

It is my opinion that overtly pornographic or "racist" Featured Articles should not be summarized on the Main Page. Thanks for reading my ramblings, if you got this far. 24.62.217.160 (talk) 02:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:NOTCENSORED. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:04, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The Main Page is obviously censored (or whatever word you want to use to describe the lack of outright porn or vomit). I'm told that it's not a contradiction because of some (invalid, in my opinion) Wikilawyering about the definition of an article; in any case, the Main Page does have a line whether we have crossed it this time or not, and whether or not you call it censoring. WP:CENSORMAIN Art LaPella (talk) 03:34, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This is not pornographical or adult at all. This describes a famous painting by a famous artist, Thomas Eakins, with comparisons to his other works. Depictions of nudity in art have been around since antiquity. This is art, not porn. This is not mass distributed to get people off. This is a work of art by one of the most influential American artists (sourced on the Eakins page). And for the "homoeroticism" part, its a literary term (see Homoeroticism). Does having this word on the main page mean we are promoting a gay agenda? No more than having "pathetic fallacy" would mean that we're trying to implement weather control. Its a literary and artistic term. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 03:21, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, who else eagerly awaits the day when a video game with homoerotic nudity is featured on the main page? Now that would make things interesting. Nufy8 (talk) 03:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Folks, I'm pretty sure this guy is joking. Calm down. --Lokentaren (talk) 03:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

You might take it as a joke, but it could be serious, especially the not having perfect English, and bible mention. Remember that views which you may find comical may be passionate, heart-felt values of others. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 04:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm doutbful the first post is serious. "Subscription"? "i will never swim again"? "outrageous use of the word 'hole'"? No a clearcut case of WP:DFTT IMHO Nil Einne (talk) 07:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

In that giant block of text at the top of this page that no-one ever reads, perhaps it would be prudent to add the following: "If you are here to make a joke, please note that the majority of Wikipedia editors are American, and most of them have Asperger's Syndrome. It is therefore likely that any comment involving irony, satire, bathos, etc will not be understood. Please direct your humourous observations to an audience more able to appreciate them, such as an arragement of potted plants." --86.170.64.57 (talk) 07:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Come come now, I'm American and I'm the one who pointed it out. Wikipedia is just the sort of community that carries its head too far up its own ass in patent paranoia. Lokentaren (talk) 09:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

The bigger issue perhaps is that we do get a whole load of legitimate complaints of this sort. It's pretty clear 86 wasn't serious if you read it carefully as I mentioned but 24 is a different and we don't know. Given that people do make such complaints and that presuming someone is trolling or joking without good evidence could easily be construed a violating of WP:AGF, it's not surprising people commonly accept such complaints as serious. Ultimately wikipedia is not really the sort of place for jokes. Nil Einne (talk) 20:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

And it should be Mahatma Gandhi not Ghandi.

Perhaps (as was pointed out on a previous occasion) there should be an occasional reminder that the url www.wikipedia.org exists to avoid all exposure to main page topics which might be deemed inappropriate (which, for all I know, might include the Offside Rule). Jackiespeel (talk) 15:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the problem here is not nudity but jargon. The term "homoerotic" is rather technical and has a somewhat disputable meaning (for example, is a Penthouse centerfold with two women really homoerotic?) Applying the term retroactively to a painting from the late 1800s is something of an anachronism, sourced to an "undergraduate journal". Perhaps plainer language would have been more accessible to readers. Wnt (talk) 19:34, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Today's featured article (October 16) update

Where did the discussion just vanish to?

There will always be the 'occasional article' which causes 'wailing and gnashing of teeth' on the grounds that it will upset the hypersensitive offspring of Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells and/or workplace/library 'inappropriate viewing filters' (which can be somewhat idiosyncratic). There are also a number of articles which are 'for various reasons' kept off the front page, however good they are as articles.

Collectively these will include certain topics mainly in a few categories (including, but not limited to adult, war, and medical). Unless there is fork of WP which leads on such topics, there is a case for providing a 'summary that is unlikely to cause offence' (leaving the terms that cause comment on the actual article) - equivalent to the links on April Fools day articles. Jackiespeel (talk) 13:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Reinstated. Sorry.  GARDEN  14:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Carrying on from the fact/fiction WP suggestion above - 'unsigned in' have a fairly vanilla FA and selection of entries in DYN and On This Day: but on signing in can have the WP equivalent of computer wallpaper - sports, games, history, technology... according to selection.

As far as I can see in 'any given 4-6 months' there will be at least one in each of the categories (a) 'Not being suitable for DoTW's children/workplace computers', (b) 'Why are we having a run of (insert theme here) articles' and (c) 'This is too trivial a subject to appear on the MP/be submitted for FA status.' (Any further suggestions?) Jackiespeel (talk) 15:03, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Every 4-6 months? This tripe is more frequent than that. J Milburn (talk) 15:10, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

You forgot my personal favorite, "how much did CompanyName, Inc. pay for this ad spot, anyway?" Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 15:33, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

8,000,000 wikibucks, which totally exist. BobAmnertiopsis∴_ChatMe! 16:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Collaborative currency... there's an idea. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 19:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

That was tried once (Wikipedia:WikiMoney)... - Dumelow (talk) 19:30, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

My favorites are the ones that complain about completely innocent but naughty-looking things. Like the word "titular". APL (talk) 20:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

niggardly is a perennial favourite in that category. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 22:48, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Phagocyte is my favourite. It was to do with it's pronounciation :) Yowuza yadderhouse |meh 13:23, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

(EC)That sort of complaint works best when directed at an Rwandan fair trade coffee run by people who've likely mostly never used the internet never heard of wikipedia and don't have any advertising budget to speak of, making only US$35k profit in 2003. Sadly that sort of stuff doesn't come up much Nil Einne (talk) 20:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I meant 'during every period of 4-6 months' there will be a certain number of FA articles etc which cause discussion on their appropriateness - and I know creating the non-vanilla versions would involve much work.

What would the the WP version of 'disgusted of Tunbridge Wells' be? (The equivalent of the woman who told Samuel Johnson that she was pleased there were no 'rude words' in his dictionary to which he made a acerbic remark about her having been looking for them.) Jackiespeel (talk) 15:45, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

What is truly enlightening about the response is that the article itself explains that such swimming scenes were accepted as normal in the Victorian era - not just butts, but the whole live human (and the professor with his undergraduates yet!). And of course the painting itself was accepted as fine art. Who would have thought that people today would be so much more prudish than during Victorian times...? Wnt (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

SIGH. It happened again. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 14:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Jenson Button: a suicide bomber from the Marshall Islands?

We really need to stop putting photos next to irrelevant captions.... How many times has this come up now? --MZMcBride (talk) 09:06, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually he is presidnet of the Marshall Islands. Either way I'm sure the picture was up before the caption, and I really don't understand why people can't read a few lines down to find out who the picture is of. Dark verdant (talk) 09:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Why should they be expected to? Is it unreasonable to suppose the picture is of the person mentioned nearest it when no obvious indication is given to the contrary? Peter jackson (talk) 10:51, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

It is a bit of a compromise between not having a picture (because some article don't have a suitable one) or moving old news to the top to be adjacent to the relevant image. Either way is not ideal. However OTD does the same (eg. this is clearly not Ferdinand I of Portugal) for what I suspect are the same reasons and there does not seem to be the same confusion - Dumelow (talk) 11:32, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

We really need to stop putting photos next to irrelevant captions.... How many times has this come up now? Oh, I would say this issue has come up occasionally for the past four or five years. There is even a whole section of Wikipedia:FAQ/Main Page devoted to it here. Again, its a combination of two issues: first, not always having a suitable picture for the top event. And second, because the Main Page templates are also transcluded on other pages, many people do not want to lower the image closer to relevant event (like on the French Wikipedia) since it may interfere with the formatting on those other pages. Of course, there have been proposals to bold "(pictured)", highlight the relevant event, and others, but so far there has been no consensus for an alternative. Cheers. Zzyzx11 (talk) 15:12, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Just thought of something - would it be possible to make two templates (or one template with an auto-magical "alignment=on/off" parameter) so that we can have the layout "everyone seems to expect" on the main page, but also allow the other users to have the alignment off in the transcluded contexts? -- 128.104.112.179 (talk) 18:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The French wikipedia situation is somewhat unclear to me. They were aligning pictures for a while. Then they seemed to stop, see Wikipedia talk:FAQ/Main Page#French Wikipedia image alignment. However from the current page Fr:Accueil (permanent link to template) and other examples [2] [3] it appears to me they are again albeit not perfectly Nil Einne (talk) 19:05, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

There was a brief period (as little as a couple of days?) where the word "Pictured" was bold. I liked that. I may have been the only one. APL (talk) 19:02, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Windows 7 in the News?

What on earth is the release of Windows 7 doing on the front In the News? Since when was the release of commercial products placed In the News? I didn't see OS X Snow Leopard there when that was released, nor when Cola Lime was released. 92.8.141.202 (talk) 12:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you feel that the release of Windows 7 is not major news? We have a heavily updated article, and this is going to be of interest to a large number of people in a wide variety of different countries. It seems like a great candidate for ITN- if other major releases were not featured in ITN, then perhaps they should have been. J Milburn (talk) 13:29, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I feel it can only be quantified as major news if in context we report other major product launches ITN; this seems too much like singling out a single product for no good reason. But in honesty I don't see a good reason why any product release should be on ITN. 92.8.141.202 (talk) 19:00, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I also think it's a little ridiculous. An OS upgrade is not news. 66.207.206.210 (talk) 14:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Many grouchy Vista users might disagree. Anyway, wasn't the announcement of Chrome OS featured ITN? Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 15:18, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

No it was not. And I'm sure more people drank Pepsi Crystal when it was released than people that used Windows 7, but it wasn't featured ITN. --190.247.131.132 (talk) 15:48, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected about Chrome OS. However, the statement about Crystal Pepsi is a non sequitur, since thousands of drinkers of earlier Pepsi products hadn't been clamoring for an upgrade while bemoaning their previous inability to drink anything except allegedly inferior and unpalatable Pepsi Free. There's also the rather embarrassing point that Crystal Pepsi's launch predated Wikipedia by about a decade. Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 16:25, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm waiting for the U.S. bias argument on this one. –Howard the Duck 17:29, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

And omigod, Microsoft are a US based company!?!!111oneone.  GARDEN  19:23, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

And according to Orly Taitz, so intricately entwined with support of Barack Obama that the judge in her Georgia case must recuse himself because he owns stock in Microsoft. I call political bias. Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 01:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you should have contributed to WP:ITN/C where it was discussed and consensus was broadly for it being posted? I'm fairly indifferent about it, myself, because the reaction has much more subdued than I remember the release of Windows '95 being. On the other hand, it's much more notable than other OSes, whether Snow Leopard, Ubuntu, Haiku, or MorphOS, simply due to its marketshare, so I find the "equal treatment" argument rather fallacious. -93.97.122.93 (talk) 19:40, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I should have, and would have had I realised it was there before the vote closed. But as it's no longer open, I feel it's better to voice my concern and (Hopefully) change the outcome, than to otherwise remain silent. It's not simply a matter of "equal treatment" with other operating systems, but other products, full stop. For example, I didn't see a news report when Intel launched the Allendale, although that was just as important and wide-spread a commercial release, if not more so. This seems somewhat like an unwarranted exception to the unspoken rule. 92.8.141.202 (talk) 20:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

"Perhaps you should have contributed to the discussion on this issue, which as always was held within a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard' (shortcut: WP:LFC/DLW-SOTDS'BOTL'). If you inexplicably chose not to take part in this discussion, that's your problem." --86.170.64.57 (talk) 23:41, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh my, LOL --BorgQueen (talk) 23:47, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

If we don't include major deaths because someone was old and likely to die soon anyway, why would we include the release of a major consumer product that most everyone knew was coming anyway? ^IIIV_IX (Talk) 21:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, we do feature deaths on ITN even if they were old and expected to die, as long as they meet our criteria. For example, Corazon Aquino, who died after one-year battle with cancer at the age of 76, was featured. --BorgQueen (talk) 00:02, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The release of Windows 7 is big news because it is a lot better than Vista, and includes bug fixes. December21st2012Freak ^chat 00:03, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

We seem to be losing sight of the fact. So far as I'm aware, and please correct me if I'm wrong, no other commercial release of a product has ever been displayed on the front ITN, including the Vista release; why is this a valid exception? 92.11.57.193 (talk) 11:01, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I searched briefly for a few notable international releases I could think of and quickly found Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows here. A new Windows release is given attention in a huge number of news media around the world, probably more than any other software release. I don't see a problem in bringing it to ITN without bringing other less notable releases. There must be lots of ITN items which have been unique for their type, with the number depending on how narrowly the type is defined. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Please vote to keep or remove Windows 7 from ITN here --Fixman^{Praise me} 15:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The "vote" is at WP:ITN/C now. Having read this: "For some reason, many people confuse the whole world with the United States and Western Europe." So, does that... count? –Howard the Duck 16:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

DYK

It's heartwarming to see Norway back in the DYK column — especially now in the afterglow of that country's No. 1 ranking in the United Nations Development Program's index of desirable countries in which to live (Oct. 4).

Sca (talk) 17:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Spelling error

Resolved

Please change "batttery" to "battery." Featured Article as it appears on the Main Page. --136.183.240.185 (talk) 00:53, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, thank you. In the future, please report main page errors at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. —David Levy 00:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Idea for the main Page!

At the top of the main page, there should be a content box saying "Create New Page". That would be really convenient and helpful, to me anyway. Talk to me here, Qwertyfish11 (talk) 14:30, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Probably not a good idea; see WP:IINFO and WP:NOTABILITY for some reasons why. 79.71.70.17 (talk) 16:04, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, probably not. Another idea is to feature a template of the day, like the cookie templete or the trout. It would be a good way to showcase some of the cool templates people have made, and it would be helpful ones, like a userbox, or a box issuing a citation, etc. Qwertyfish11 (talk) 16:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)