Talk:Main Page/Archive 27

This is an archive of past discussions about Main Page. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 20

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Archive 25

Mt. St. Helens

On the Mount St.Helens page, it states that "The USGS has been reporting through the media that a more major volcanic event is likely in the near future." However, on the main page, it says that scientists do NOT believe that a major eruption is likely. Which one is true? Or are both? Clarification, please!--24.98.101.53 02:49, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The article was marked with a current or ongoing event tag, indicating that information can change with events. As with any assessment, there is risk, but the easy answer would be both. USGS has closed the area, in any event. Ancheta Wis 12:50, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Shaker builders

In the blurb about the Shakers currently on the main page it says "One of the major attributes of the shakers was to build". Shouldn't Shakers be capitalised there again? Also, attributes really isn't the right word there. Maybe skills, or activities instead? Alternatively, not much would be lost from just losing that sentence. PMcM 12:44, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hmm... just realised how to edit that myself. Please ignore. :) PMcM 12:46, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

President of Ireland appointed?

In today's Main Page we are told that the current President of Ireland has just been re-appointed to her position. But isn't the President of Ireland elected rather than appointed? PittBill 18:09, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I suppose if they run unapposed the election is just a formality? That might be what it means. —siro χ o

Ok, somebody fixed it. Thanks! PittBill 13:53, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nobody fixed it. Mary McAleese was reappointed unopposed. Running for President (a mostly symbolic position in Ireland nothing like the power in the US) requires one to be nominated by four county councils, get 20 signatures of support from the members of the Oireachtas (like the house of commons) or be proposed by one of the political parties. No one managed to get any of these. The only possible contender in the race MEP Dana Rosemary Scallon wasn't able to secure any of these. Green Party TD Eamon Ryan decided to run was approved but then dropped out. TD Michael D Higgins wanted to run but his party didn't support him. The Labour party would have had to spend millions on a campaign against a very popular President which he would have been unlikely to defeat so are saving the money for the general election. Bobbyjoe

Featured Article Vandalism

Admins, the featured article History of Greenland is being butchered to pieces - can someone do a revert please? Enochlau 05:32, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've fixed it. But anyone can revert, not just admins. →Raul654 05:34, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Is there a quick way to revert to an older version (like a link) without manually editing the page and inserting the text back in? Enochlau 06:55, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version -- Cyrius|✎ 07:01, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Admins can rollback the previous edit using our quick-rollback link -- everyone else has to do it manually (IE, by going into the page history). →Raul654 07:09, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Just to clarify: nobody ever has to re-type the text, see the link Cyrius provided (: —siro χ o 08:44, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Today's News (10/4/04)

One of the articles in the News section states "The Supreme Court of the United States considers the constitutionality of the current sentencing system in relation to the Sixth Amendment. Ruling against the system could affect every ongoing criminal case in the country and allow convicts to demand shorter sentences." Could the person who put this in please tell us: what the is the name of the case (e.g., Grishnakh et al. v. White Hand Industries, Ltd) and what exactly is at issue? Furthermore, "current sentencing system" is a little vague; is this local, city, state, federal, or what? JHCC 18:47, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It is two cases, being heard together, United States v. Booker and United States v. Fanfan. The question is whether to apply Blakely v. Washington, decided by the Supreme Court in June, to the Federal sentencing guidelines. Blakely v. Washington decided that Washington State's sentencing guidelines were unconstitutional, violating the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury because they allow a judge to consider facts not determined by a jury to increase punishment beyond a statutory maximum for a crime. The general principle is that judges decide law, but juries determine facts; the application of this basic principle to state law became an issue four years ago in Apprendi v. New Jersey. - Nunh-huh 02:41, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

suggestion: control going to the search textbox

Hi folks, I have a suggestion. Wouldn't it be nice, if the cursor-focus goes to the search text-box when the wikipedia home page is loaded, just like google or many other sites?

A good useful dictionary, by the way.

sandeepsiroya@yahoo.com

Interwiki

Is there some reason not to have the standard set of interwiki links down the side in addition to the main list at the bottom? My "iwiki reflex" :-) is to go to the sidebar, not hunt through the size-sorted paragraphs. Stan 17:03, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Bwahahaha!

I mean really: Bwahahahahahahaha! "The HMCS Chicoutimi, a Canadian submarine (Canada has a submarine?), remains adrift without power, one day after an onboard fire crippled the ship. One member of the crew has died." That's not technically funny since it involves the death of a Canadian, and all Canadians rock; but "Canada has a submarine?" is kind of genius. (Note: According to our Canadian Forces Maritime Command, they actually have ~~four~~ three submarines.) And guess how many personnel staff the entire Canadian Navy? No really, guess...okay, I'll tell you: less than 9,000. I ♥ Canada.

This message brought to you by Jengod's campaign to instill more humor in Wikipedia; but I extend my condolences to the family of the lost sailor. (Seriously.)

jengod 01:59, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

For more, see Category:Humor. This also tells us that there are eleven times as many Wikipedians as Canadians of the naval persuasion. Ancheta Wis 00:33, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Please Add Toki Pona Language to main page...

they have over 100 articles http://tokipona.wikipedia.org/wiki/lipu_lawa

Done. -- Schnee 02:24, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sihanouk's picture

Sihanouk's story seems to be sliding down the page away from the picture, further every time I look. Kind of like a vertical Dorian Gray?? ;Bear 21:57, 2004 Oct 8 (UTC)

News

Actually Michael Badnorink was serving legal papers.

Queen Lili`uokalani page

Enjoyed your information but you have several things incorrect. Lydia Lili`u was her birth name; Her brother King David Kalakaua lengthened it to Lili`uokalani after he designated her heir. She did not write Aloha `Oe while in captivity; she wrote it as a love song in 1878. Please see my book: Aloha `Oe: The Song Heard Around the World published by Mutual Press for additional information. Thank you, Leslie Hayashi

Leslie, Wikipedia is a community wiki, which means that anyone can contibute. It is not, for instance, an encyclopedia in the sense of Encarta where a company puts it together. Many people from many nations have created this site. You are free to modify this yourself, however, there is no way for anyone without some familiarity with the subject to correct this, and if everyone such as yourself left errors here, there would be no way to deal with it all. You can leave such comments, if you don't want to correct it yourself, on the appropriate article's talk page. Thank You.

Mail fraud

Re: "Did You Know..." The Great Train Robbery is not a good example of mail fraud, since UK law has no such concept. "Stealing mail bags or postal packets or unlawfully taking away or opening mail bag" is an offence under the Theft Act 1968 S.1 and Post Office Act 1953 S.53 as amended, which is categorised by the Home Office as a "Money Laundering offences (not drugs)" offence. --Tagishsimon

I'm grateful for the change that has been made since my first hasty posting early this afternoon UK time. But it does not go far enough. At best, you might say ...that the Great Train Robbery of 1963 is the best-known example of "theft from the mails," what would be known in the US as mail fraud?. But that would be silly. Bottom line is, it is not a good idea to categorise an offence under one countries legal system, by the categories of offence of another country. Nor - for diverse reasons nowadays - is US-centricism much appreciated. Perhaps this did you know should be removed altogether? --Tagishsimon

Red Link

As of the writing of this comment, Finn Kydland, Nobel Prize winner, is a red link on the main page. This is not a good thing. Nelson Ricardo 14:31, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

This was fixed. Isn't there a policy about no red links on the Main Page? Nelson Ricardo 17:23, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know if it's an official policy, but when writing up the featured article summaries, I always take the red links out. →Raul654 17:26, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

I added that entry, I hope there is no policy against red links on the main page, as I feel they are not only part of the Wikipedia, but will even stimulate new and old users alike to start editing the page the link is pointing at. I have done it a few times now, and the red links always very quickly turn into a beautiful content-filled blue. -- Solitude 19:02, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

Interlanguage Links On Main Page

Why don't you put the litte box here that can be found, for example, on the German and French Main Pages. If this has been discussed before and the result of a deliberate decision, excuse me for being a newbie. Otherwise, please fix it fast, it helps.

--Wpopp 09:12, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Now you mention it, I'm wondering the same. It has probably been discussed and decided upon a long time ago, maybe some of the older members can enlighten us. -- Solitude 19:04, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

I'm wondering this too -- was it decided that the Interlanguage links were redundant with the "Wikipedia in other languages" section? I'd rather have them back, personally. Catherine | talk 17:29, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mount St. Helens

Needs to be added to the front door news. I've seen articles that news of the eruption has caused traffic spikes at major internet news sites, so there is obvious user interest. -- E2kk6n 22:54, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

Mount St. Helens has already been on the main page "In the News..." section. See the 17:05, Oct 1, 2004 revision. [[User:JoshG|Josh | Talk]] 23:47, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

see item #38 in the Table of Contents of this talk page. Ancheta Wisasdf

Suggestion on viewing article statistics of wikipedia.

I was wondering if it would be possible to able to see articles' ratings in some part of the main page(or any page). (if there is such a thing, where is it ? ) I believe the statistics web page is limited towards the statistics of users; but i guess for viewers it might be interested to see "the most edited" (and how much was edited) , "the most visited", (and which page had the longest active users / visitors) , and "the most translated". (or so and so...)

Just as an idea; but I don't know how one would do in coding. Hopefully it is possible. --Nerval 04:43, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There are already some similiar statistics available. See my userpage for auto-updating links to the webalizer and monthly-hits counters. →Raul654 04:48, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

in the news

burmese prime minister arrested - newsworthy info. Sam [Spade] 11:59, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

White background - white pics

If you are using images with a partly white border it is worth changing the cell/table colour to white - it will look much better - not sure how to do this - maybe someone will read this and oblige :-) ProjeX 12:49, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Page rendering problem (re: dates)

Ever since October 16th, the Main Page has been rendering as if it is October 16th for me. I've tried reloading the page, to no avail. When I go to "Today's Featured [blank]", though, I do see today's features. It's just on the main page that I am stuck on October 16th. (I'm using Safari 1.2.3, if that's any help.)

Thanks! --Girolamo Savonarola 14:34, 2004 Oct 19 (UTC)

Maria Teresa

Maria Teresa is a "she". Shouldn't it be 'her father', rather than 'his father'?

I couldn't find a way to edit the typo.

Should this kind of thing be reported here?

Fixed. →Raul654 01:19, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Sports

Is there any consensus about Sports in Current events? I cannot quite see why a Major League game should be among the most important news of the week. Nearly all teams come from one single country, and the game did not even decide the final... Get-back-world-respect 13:40, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Jackie O

The text says pictured right, but she's above. Filiocht 13:14, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

Template:WikipediaTOC

Why isn't Template:WikipediaTOC used? --Sgeo | Talk 20:23, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

I think it was to large to fit on the main page, which is now much more dynamic than earlier. Howevery, WikipediaTOC is linked to via the main page, and it is used on Main Page (table free), Main Page (text only), and Main Page (lite). ✏ Sverdrup 21:54, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It was replaced Template:Categorybrowsebar on the Main Page, which was chosen because it is more compact and could be placed more prominently. It is still in use elsewhere, such as Wikipedia:Browse by overview (the see "Article Overviews" link). [[User:Norm|Norm]] 22:18, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

New topic on da main page

For admins: How about to create new box on the main page like "Start these articles, please" and put there links to nonexistant articles right now.

User:Darwinek 10:25 (UTC)

No. The Main Page is for readers while the Wikipedia:Community Portal is for writers. --mav 17:09, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mark of Zorro

Isn't the entry on In the news a bit, well, POV? Filiocht 11:04, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

$fgvcvxcbvcxkjbckbnvcjkbnvxcjknbvcjkxnbvcxbvxcbxcv$

[[Image:[ --81.215.254.7 20:21, 18 August 2005 (UTC)---- <nowiki><math> == [['''Bu sitede yazilanlarin hepsi yalandir Ta amina koyim buranin Ne lan bu pustluk yeter bea biktik amina koyim biktik!''']] == </math></nowiki>]]]

--81.215.254.7 20:22, 18 August 2005 (UTC)ehuahueh :)) yalaninizi sikim ż

Did You Know

WARNING: This comment has been edited. If I may be allowed to ask a controversial question, could we delete / change the name of the 'Did you Know' section...

My rational is this; There are three responses one can give to a 'Did you Know' bulletpoint...

Wow - Thats really intersting, and I didn't know that! [~5 % of cases I find]
Yes, I did know, so what? [~ 20 % of cases]
No, I didn't know, but why should I care? [~75 % of the time!]

- The last especially applies when the topics and very US centric, like those of today.

It seems to me that a 'Did you Know' question is inevitable either mainstream enough that most people will know, or obscure enough that most people won't care... for example today (13:13, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)),

Did you know...

...that Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., the son of the 26th U.S. President, served as chairman of the board of the American Express Company and as Governor General of the Philippines, and led the U.S. 4th Infantry Division's landing at Utah Beach on D-Day?

No, I didn't even know there was a man called Teddy Roosvelt junior, should I?

...that the Müller-Thurgau hybrid grape is a 19th century cross between the Riesling and Chasselas?

No, but now I do... its quite interesting, but not hugely so.

...that the judges on the Maryland Court of Appeals, the supreme court of the U.S. state of Maryland, wear red robes, rather than the traditional black?

No, I didn't, but is that so remarkable? I lack the neccesary context to place that in an appropriate level of 'wow'ness

I wouldn't object to a section entitles something like 'Newest Facts' or 'Facts from New Articles', but the 'did you know' section I object to, as it is confrontational, seeming to indicate my ignorance of obscure trivia when I don't, and offers no great reward when I do. --NeilTarrant 13:14, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I do not agree with your percentages. For a lot of people learning new things is always interesting, this includes trivialities. It is not like we have limited room for these in our brain, some facts will stick in your brain forever, others you will have forgotten in a manner of minutes. I contest the notion that 'Did you Know' would in any way be confrontational, I for one am not that sensitive about my possible lack of knowledge. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 14:13, Oct 22, 2004 (UTC)

I phrased myself badly in my comments - what I mean to say is that I enjoy learning trivialities too, but the 'Did you know' format isn't the greatest - reminds me of a know-it-all, think Cliff Clavin from Cheers...

Yes, the "Did You Know" section looks like it's trying to be an "interesting trivia" section, but in fact it's supposed to be highlighting new articles. I don't think it does either job very well. You might want to comment at Template talk:Did_you_know. Gdr 16:42, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)

I believe that the Did you know... section should be renewed EVERY day, since wikipedians submit articles on a daily basis. Seeing an article about Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. (e.g.) for several days in a row is annoying and boring. KNewman 13:06, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

Breastfeeding

I hope nobody minds, but I suddenly recalled that breastfeeding is not exclusively a human phenomenon, so I edited the feature article of the day. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 13:30, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Can we please get rid of "some conditions"? That looks like a vague euphemism for "diseases". i would do it myself but I am getting lost in the text structure. Thanks. Kosebamse 18:10, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Article editing

I need to add a suggestion, but I don't know where, so I'd add it here.

Use Yahoo! Imagesearch to find images of people and post them in articles on Wikipedia. This is how I retrieved Herge's image and the website "Discover Tintin": http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?fr=ad-fp-wm-20041014-box&cs=bz&p=Herge

No, that's not a very good suggestion: Wikipedia is a free encyclopedia reliant on the GNU Free Documentation License. All material in the Wikipedia has to be licensed under this license; most material found on the internet is not compatible with this license, especially not if no copyright notice is found. So, for contributing images, we can almost only use Images that are created by Wikipedians; only the owners of the copyrights can license an image under the appropriate license. So, please, do not pick random images off the net. (I'm sure you understand that in the case of text, this is obvious) ✏ Sverdrup 22:37, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Public domain image resources for places to look for images that are compatible with the Wikipedia license. Gdr 16:21, 2004 Oct 24 (UTC)

Earthquake in Japan

Article at Chuetsu Earthquake (2004)

Cigarette Card

The article on cigarette cards is very informative. However, it misses out on an important aspect: Cigarette cards in Germany before and during WW 2 should be mentioned, especially those by the Reemtsma company (Cigaretten Bilderdienst Bahrenfeld). Several of these collections, distributed with millions of copies, played a substantial role in promoting the nazi regime.

so go to cigarette card and add what you know/can find out to the text, and if you dont know much note it on the talk page in case other people know anything else. The bellman 05:49, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sarah Michelle Gellar Confesses...

What the heck is this? Is this vandalizm? Pacian 21:43, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I was just writing up a question asking the same thing. It doesn't seem to be on today's Current Events, and even if it's, you know, real, it's less-than-self-explanatory. Lord Bob 21:46, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)

This was indeed the action of a vandal - they described it as a "test"; it was reverted within 10 minutes. [1] - IMSoP 23:02, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

My test had to take place on the Main Page, it was a test of the main page. I found a glitch earlier that took to the “View Source” for the main page when I typed in http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?Title=Template:In_the_news&action=edit and I thought that Template:In the news might be protected now. Also, I was testing how long it took for the so-called “vandalism”—It was not vandalism—to be reverted. 10 minutes. Not bad. Let's not make a big deal over this one-time thing. — El Chico! ^Talk 12:12, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Missing Explosives

Today, the main page's current event box had this for its lead story:

Nearly 380 tons of explosives are missing from an Iraqi site meant for Saddam Hussein's dismantled nuclear program but never secured by the U.S. military.

It took me less than 5 minutes of googling to find the opposite POV:

"An NBC News crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq. According to NBC News, the HMX and RDX explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived." [2]

So it is not accurate to assert that the explosives were "never secured", as the US Democratic Party and its liberal media allies complained.

Rather, the article should say that:

US Democrats blamed the army for "not securing" the explosives

AND THAT:

An NBC News report says that the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.

It's very cumbersome to fix Wikipedia's front page, so Raul or whoever maintains it, please fix this error.

--Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 12:44, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I tried "googling" on this to learn more about this other "POV" you claim exists, and it appears that you are only citing a rumor on a right-wing site called "Drudge Report". You'd have a much stronger case if you had an actual reference to an NBC news story. As it is, the most recent NBC story I could find, at MSNBC site, agrees with the main page article, and says nothing about the explosives already being gone when U.S. troops arrived. You'll probably have to do better than a rumor on the "Drudge Report" to convince anyone that this story is factually incorrect. --DV 13:18, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So then a rumor reported by the new york times and CBS is accurate? If you read the documents posted by the NYT and by CBS, they don't actually say when the weapons went missing, they just say they were notified of it recently.

[3] - well, it's not Drudge anyways... RADICALBENDER ★ 14:15, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC) (doesn't care, hates politics)

[4] It is becoming clear that the explosives were there. A news crew from KSTP TV, Minneapolis filmed them on April 18, 2003. Bush appointed arms inspector David Kay agrees that there is little question that they were there on that date, and that it is "inexcusable" that they were'nt put under guard from that point forward.

Suggestion: Main Page/Sandbox

I propose the creation of a Main Page/Sandbox, for users who are not sysops to propose their changes to the Main Page. Then, on Talk:Main Page/Sandbox, other users could give us some input on our proposals. This could be useful even for sysops, because it eliminates the need to vaguley describe the changes we'd want. The templates could be copied too, for example Main Page/Sandbox/Sandbox Selected Anniversaries and Main Page/Sandbox/In the news. If there are no objections, I'll implement this in a week or so, using the code from the real Main Page. — El Chico! ^Talk 13:35, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I tried on google to but never worked...

That is what Main Page/Temp is for. --mav 21:18, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Cassini spacecraft

The phrase "up to a 100 times better" is bad grammar. It should be "up to 100 times better" - but what does "100 times better" actually mean anyway? And where is this claim from? I'd suggest just something like "resulting in images better than any previously seen." would be better.

Lunar Eclipses are not expected

I think that the wording of the Selected anniversaries should read:

Total lunar eclipse visible from the Americas, Europe, Africa & Central Asia (2004)

as there is not any uncertainty as to whether an eclipse is going to happen--enceladus 06:38, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

so? it's still expected. It's just expected with a very high degree of certainty, and the actual visibility of the eclipse is actually uncertain. dab 07:35, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

?

There's a problem with the "classic skin" - when editing a page, the links menu on the right hand side overlaps with the editing box, meaning that an inch of what I'm writing on the right hand side is concealed. Can this be fixed? I could of course switch back to the standard skin, but I can't stand the unserifed font.

Also, when putting your signature under a comment, how do you insert the time and date without typing it out? Is there a shortcut for this?Palefire

you type ~~~~ dab 13:08, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

great, thanks. Is there some page listing all these commands? Palefire 15:35, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

it is in Help:Editing Ancheta Wis 10:40, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Franklin D Rosevelt

Main Page vandalism?

Uhm, how did this manage to happen???

File:Wikivandalism mainpage.JPG

Main page vandalism

Is this a potential security hole someone should look into? Suntiger 17:42, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That was User:10101 in one of his three acts of vandalism today. He did this by editing template:in the news, which is unprotected as a matter of principle and because most would-be vandals aren't knowledgeable enough (or patient enough to learn) about how the site works, and therefore would be unlikely to vandalise a template. It should be noted that none of the vandalism in question was up for much longer than three minutes before several vigilant editors fixed it. In addition, the offending user was quickly blocked for 24 hours. -- Hadal 17:57, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ah, I see. I guess it was pretty random chance that I hit it in the 3 mins it was up, then. Something to remember when I'm old and grey :) I would add it to BJAODN, but I don't want to glorify it, although I find it to be funny in some weird way. And by the way, did I mention I really like the efficiency of the admins here?Suntiger 18:02, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Just for the record - all the main page templates are unprotected and therefore susceptible to vandalism. I've been considering protecting the feature article template, although until now I have not done so (it is the most visible template, but much to my surprise, it gets very little vandalism). →Raul654 17:25, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe because the vandals go straight to the article? Filiocht 11:53, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)