Talk:Main Page
See Wikipedia FAQ for general questions about Wikipedia; you can ask questions at Wikipedia chat. See talk:Wikipedia category schemes for general discussion of the category scheme on Wikipedia's Main Page. See below for more discussion of particular issues regarding the Main Page (e.g., whether to include a particular category on the page). Please add your additions at the bottom.
Why are there links to "Wikipedia in other languages" on the top of the page, *and* at the bottom of it? Looks quite redundant to me. Also, not all languages are represented in the group at the top of the page ... for example Swedish. -HBW
I've begun a revision of Egyptian language which is incomplete (but the previous version is still at the bottom) because I am an amateur person interested in Egyptology, and having a single paragraph on what is still the longest known recorded language is rather silly (in my opinion).
I've also fixed Marburg, Ebola Zaire and Ebola Sudan because I find Fourth Level Infectious diseases rather fascinating (although deadly).
When are the scheduled mainenance times for the server? I have been unable to access wikipedia frmo when I get home, 3:00PM EST, to 5:45PM EST every day now for the last week. What's up w/ the server?
I've just revised the pages relating to the Library of Congress classification and set up a number of sub-pages to show the sub-classes of each letter class. The term is properly a title used by the Library of Congress itself, and as such should have a capital "C" on "Classification" but I do not view that as a difference that is serious enough to merit a series of redirects. Admitedly, I was inconsistent myself until I came to the conclusion that it was a title. I am, however, redirecting from the term "catalog scheme" and would request that the main page be amended to reflect that. ---user:Eclecticology
The main page seems to have either been vandalised or is subject to some strange bug, as of 08 Feb 2002 13:18 GMT - Alex D. Baxter
Soemthing to do with cacheing: recent changes sometimes reports the wrong edit, too, which might be related. Reediting (no actual change) flushes the cache so we get the proper page, I think, - Malcolm Farmer
Hello? If anybody reads this, has anybody else realised that the home page is completely unprotected? Vandals, having read the bit at the bottom about 'this page is read-only because of vandalism', will probably see the 'edit right now' link and delete the whole front page. Can't someone read-only it??? - Mark Ryan
Don't worry too much about it, Mark. The home page has been unprotected for most of Wikipedia's existence. If someone vandalized it, we just restored it from the history two seconds later. It was only read-only for about a month. Anyway, Jimbo will protect it shortly, I suspect. --Stephen Gilbert
Can someone with admin access fix the accented chars in the list of international wikis? They presumably got broken during the time entities were fubar'd. Should be Català, Français, Portugês. --Brion Vibber
- Fixed. Home Page is unprotected, BTW. --Magnus Manske
- Really? Guess I figured that had already been fixed... In retrospect, I must have read the bit at the end about it being protected as an actual message from the software. Someone should probably make it true again. Anyway, thanks! --BV
Archived old talk to Old comments
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Mmm i had few subpages which really does not belong to any arrticle (like: more about me or literature). Since i see subpages are discouraged, where should i put them? Don't tell that onwhere and i should delete themm user:szopen (and i have to sign now with user:szopen what a !@#!@#
- I'm not sure about the subpage question, but you can sign by typing three ~ symbols back to back... I thought they were going to allow subpages on the user space, but I don't know what happened... --Chuck Smith
- What do you mean three ~ symbols? Could you explain a little better? --Luis Oliveira
- Three ~ symbols like this: ~ ~ ~ (without spaces)
- You can't use subpages anymore, but you sure as hell can create pages with titles that contain a "/" ;) --Magnus Manske
Parapsychology should be removed from the main page. It is far too controversial and too exotic to make sense in the first level of a directory. Let's use the space for something more important.
I have linked parapsychology from psychology and pseudoscience, and soon protoscience, to ensure that it is well-linked prior to removal from the front page.
New Topics has more or less been supplanted by the New Pages link on the right hand side, so we probably don't need that link any more --Malcolm Farmer
Front page has had a whole bunch of categories that belong there removed. Somebody with administrator priviliges should fix it.
I just did, and I'm not an administrator: it needs to be locked. Dreamyshade
Hmmm. I notice we invite people to upload a file on the front page. Is this wise? --Robert Merkel
- I don't think it is wise. We certainly don't want new users to wildly start uploading stuff before they have gotten a feeling for the place. I'll remove it. --AxelBoldt
Has someone made a comparison of number of new pages/ edits before and after the new software installation? I think it would be useful. --AstroNomer
I want to add the Slovene wikipedia link to the front page and also add that we now have over 25,000 articles, but I can't. --Chuck Smith
- Done. --Brion VIBBER 2002/03/26
To someone that can edited the Main Page, should the link to the 2002 Winter Olympic Games be removed since it ended a while ago? And should a link to Operation Anaconda be a good idea? - Peter Winnberg
We need more people with Main Page access for the aforementioned reasons...I'd consider opening it to registered users if possible. --The Cunctator
- I would still be a little more restrictive than that. Perhaps the requirement might be that the person has 1. Been registered for a reasonable predetermined, 2. Achieved a predetermined amount of contribution, and 3. Shown by the nature of his contibutions that he is not a vandal, nut-case or other seriously undesirable individual. The first two involve fairly objective criteria; the third may be a matter of some debate.
"We started in January 2001 and already have over 27,748 articles". Let me take a wild guess: at the time I read this, we had 27,749 articles?
Either name the exact number, or use a number that is easier to the eye when you give an estimate: "We [...] already have 27,748 articles" or "We [...] already have over 27,500 articles".--branko
I agree, the current wording is odd. --maveric149
Changed. the code said { { NUMBEROFARTICLES } } articles--without the spaces between the { {, so it's not something I could convert into an estimate. Koyaanis Qatsi, Sunday, March 31, 2002
Could somebody add a link to April Fool's Day on the front page? If somebody wants to pull a hoax as well, all well and good :) --Robert Merkel
Regarding the Serbo-Croatian Wikipedia, the part in brackets should probably read (srpski-hrvatski) Eclecticology
- Well, for that matter the Slovenian Wikipedia should be at http://sl.wikipedia.com (ess ell), not http://si.wikipedia.com (ess eye), which is the language code for Sinhalese. Brion VIBBER
- Yes, the guy who had wrongly started Slovene Wikipedia was me. I've read Peterlin's note and your answer about a mistake so I've decided to move all current articles from http://si.wikipedia.com to http://sl.wikipedia.com, so *.si would be loosen for Sinhalese language. Please correct after that a new link to Slovene Wikipedia in the main page. Would it be enough, Brion, to move that pages to a new adress or do I have to do something else? My apology. XJam [2002.06.03]] 1 Monday (0)
- All done. All pages beginning with si.wikipedia... can now be deleted. I left only the main page unblank just to inform readers that all had been moved to correct place. XJam [2002.06.03]] 1 Monday (1st ed)
The link "Technology Review" (almost at the end of the main page) does not work ("File not found") --Tobias Hövekamp
- I've removed it. If someone can find it's new location (if any), it was formerly " - MIT's Technology Review". Brion VIBBER, Thursday, April 11, 2002
- They just moved it, here: http://www.techreview.com/articles/heim090401.asp
Shouldn't the Hugo Chavez Coup be on the front page? Some might consider it at least as important as the Queen Mum's passing away.
- Add it to Current Events for now, and poke someone with a sysop password to modify the main page. -- April
Can we add, under "Culture", a category such as "Craftwork"? (I'd say Craft, but that's ambiguous with naval craft and the like.) There are things like metalwork and beadwork which deserve (I think) a top-level category of their own. -- April
- Sounds like a winner to me. Work it into existence with your fingers unless others disagree. Rgamble
- Hm. Which is better: "craftwork" or "handicraft"? It occurs to me that the latter has the implications of hand-crafting (i.e. simple tools), while the first could be ambiguous. -- April
- Well, Simon... errr... Google says that handicraft when combined with the two examples you gave (metals and beads) have about an order of magnitude more hits than craftwork. (Metal and handicraft = 31,700 hits; Metal and craftwork = 2040 hits; beads and handicraft = 2890; beads and craftwork = 435). I personally know the term craftwork more (draws an image of handcrafted items like you described) but seems like handicraft is the more generally used term. --Rgamble
- Hm. Which is better: "craftwork" or "handicraft"? It occurs to me that the latter has the implications of hand-crafting (i.e. simple tools), while the first could be ambiguous. -- April
On April 19th, a lot of extra unnecesary <p>'s were added, probably accidently. -- Eean
Isn't it time to move Winter Olympics 2002 off the main page? Vicki Rosenzweig
(diff) Main Page; 15:44 (4 changes) . . . The Cunctator [*Trying to update the cached version...?]
- Cunctator: could you please please PLEASE describe what exactly prompted you to resave the page here? Was it completely blank? Partially blank? "Describe the new page here."? An old version? Which old version? Were there any error messages? A possible fix for pages turning into "Describe the new page here." is in CVS, but it would be nice to know if that's the same problem you're fighting here or if there are more things to track down. Thanks! --Brion VIBBER, Monday, May 13, 2002
- Brion, the page was old (several weeks old). I saw the same thing yesterday a couple of times (that's why I repeatedly saved). I checked with SQL access: cur_text was ok, but the cached version was old. Under certain circumstances, the cached version is not updated, or even reverts to an old cache. 63.224.5.21, Monday, May 13, 2002
- Thanks! It's possible that under certain conditions, loading an old page version doesn't properly flip the "don't cache" switch, and thus the old version gets saved in the cache by mistake. I'll look into it... Yeah, that was the problem. Fix in CVS. Brion VIBBER, Monday, May 13, 2002
Toby Bartels said: "Anyone ever notice that the diffs here are useless? Since editing and saving with no changes helps a similar bug, let's see what it does here. (No change in this edit.)"
- Nope, that's a totally separate bug. Brion VIBBER, Monday, May 20, 2002
24.53.240.xxx has been adding dictionary.com links through As and Bs. I'm not in favor of this and would like to zap them. Does anyone disagree?
- Please do. Evil adds pop up when you click on the link and each article should already have a good definition so the link is useless to us. --maveric149, Friday, June 7, 2002
I'm just curious, a new user and haven't been able to find this addressed anywhere, why the name of the person who posted each article isn't on it somewhere, an e-mail link, user id, anything. I've been reading random pages, found a few typos I think should be corrected but am not sure which way, of the two ways the word is spelled, is the right one (they're "jargon" words). So don't want to make the change myself. Also, in one case, I'm just really curious who wrote the article in case I might know her/him. So how does one contact the writer, is that possible at all? --BetsyB, 6-11-02 9:40 p.m. CDT
- For many articles, there is no single author of an article to ask! But you may be able to track down the person who wrote the bit you're calling into question: you can see a list of who has made changes to an article by clicking the "Previous versions" or "History" link in the sidebar. Each change (going back several months -- older entries haven't yet been imported from an older version of the database) lists the time, the username of the editor (if logged in), and a brief description. (You can see exactly what changed in each edit by clicking the "diff" links.) Click on a username to get that person's personal page; if they don't list a way to contact them, you can write a message for them in their user talk page, and hopefully they'll read it.
- Often, though, the simplest thing would just be to write your question on the talk page for the article you're trying to correct -- that way, other people who might be more familiar with the topic are also likely to see your question if the original author is on vacation / no longer on wikipedia / sleeping with the fishes. --Brion VIBBER
I'm having a lot of trouble accessing the website. My browser will either say that wikipedia doesn't exist, or else I'll get here, and then in the middle of editing, the server seems to go away and I have to go Back several times before my posting takes. -- Zoe
Me too. And it was very slow when it did work. But that was 7/12/02. Today, 7/13, the site is running blazingly fast. David_spector
I would like to propose Tour de France/2002 as a link in current events and breaking news
Instead of deleting it, please move old talk to talk:Main Page/Archive 1 for, in nothing else, historical developement purposes. --maveric149, Wednesday, July 10, 2002
I think the use of double hyphens "--" to indicate a dash (punctuation) looks a bit clunky and unprofessional, as in the sentence:
...to work--with few exceptions, anyone can edit any article--copyedit...
I would prefer:
...to work - with few exceptions, anyone can edit any article - copyedit...
Or ideally:
...to work — with few exceptions, anyone can edit any article — copyedit...
which looks much better, though I'm not 100% sure it works in every browser/font. Could someone with access to the main page consider making this change? Enchanter
I sort-of agree, and I'd love to use real em dashes, but (1) I do think we have enough users of Netscape 4.X and other older browsers that — would be confusing (though after the new software is installed I'll be able to test that theory by looking at logs). And (2) as ugly as -- looks, frankly, I think - is worse. At least it's clear that--is, in fact, an em dash. And I'm old enough to remember the age of mechanical typewriters when we were all taught to use two hyphens to simulate a dash, so there's historical precedent for the way we're doing it now. Maybe the best option is to reword things to avoid the need of em dashes on the front page, and use real ones on interior pages. --LDC
I love the em dash, and I've been feeling guilty lately for putting them on pages when I'm not sure that they're readable by the vast majority of users — so (see, there's one now) I'd like to see the results of Lee's logs. But I will say that, if we stick with ASCII, then "--" is an ASCII em dash, while "-" is an ASCII en dash (or hyphen or minus sign, of course). That's the way I learned it, at least, and the way that I still write on Usenet. — Toby Bartels, (there's another one!) Wednesday, July 17, 2002
***Also, I'd like to add that I've scoured the world of Wikipedia recently and have found it impossible to find the pages which provided translators and information on learning new languages. When I look under the "Language" Thread, all that seems to come up is the philosophical and historical aspects of language, rather than actual translators or learning resources.*** -July 23, 2002
I'm a new anonymous contributor. I have a question about how much detail to put in an article. Is providing source code to an article mouse driver too much detail? Would it be appropriate to create a seperate article mouse driver source code for the code? Is this type of low-level information wanted? What about adding information to the bootstrap article about the format of a boot sector (bios parameter block structure, partition table and signature)? What types of information is desired? Also, what are the guidelines for creating new articles? I understand that this isn't a dictionary, but would it be appropriate to add an article for dynamic linking with a definition and examples? What about articles which compare things? Example: dynamic linking vs static linking. Thanks! — Anonymous
I don't work on the computer science articles, so I can't answer in too much detail. Generally speaking, an article like mouse driver source code isn't wrong (assuming that it doesn't conflict with the GFDL; there are some GFDL/GGPL compatibility problems), but it's probably a lower priority than a new article on an unexplained subject. (Somebody from the CS pages correct me if I'm wrong!) An article on dynamic linking that only defined the term would get us all upset, but what you're proposing sounds better. The important thing is to say something about an idea, not just a word. The article dynamic linking vs static linking is oddly named, but the content sounds great — in fact, it sounds like an excellent addition to the article dynamic linking! We can always spin the debate off to its own page later if dynamic linking gets too crowded. Just make sure to write about the issues from a neutral point of view. — Toby 03:33 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)
- As Toby said, adding information is in general not bad, though I think with source code you have to be careful. In Wikipedia, we usually don't include full sources of f.e. books or laws (there may still be some around, but these are being replaced), instead we simply link to it. I guess including source code of a specific mouse driver (assuming it is allowed under the GFDL) would be just the same. However, including source code as an example could be very useful. You can illustrate an algorithm by giving a short example. If many mouse drivers use a similar algorithm, or if it is useful for the article, sure, add code examples.
- As for the dynamic linking, I think there certainly could be an article about it, since it will not be in your average dictionary. A good definition, history of its use, maybe even a code example, it could all be included. Comparing it with static linking is also certainly wikipedia-material, though I would propose to include it in an article about linking in general. In that way, possible other linking methods (can't think of any, though) can easily be included in the article. In any way, you have to make a good division between the dynamic linking article and the article containing the comparison, since the latter will also need explanation about what dynamic linking is. If the two article become too much the same, I guess making dynamic linking a redirect to the other article would be the solution.
- In general, don't be afraid to do something wrong. Everybody does, but there are enough of us to (eventually) correct it. So just do what you think is best. Hope this helps! Jheijmans 03:48 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)
- Gotcha. So an article perhaps called "Library Linking (Computer Science)" containing the various types including comparisons between them would be best practice (with the understanding that if individual types of linking became too lengthy that the article would be split into seperate discussions and linked together)? I think I'll do that next then. Thanks! -Robert Lee
Maybe this is just silly, but: the title of Main Page is conform to the Wikipedia naming conventions; the P should be small (just like "Current events","Bug reports","Special pages", etc.). Jheijmans 07:22 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)
Well, the simple thing would be to create a redirect; that won't break anything, ¿will it?. Then the programmers can change the hard coded links at their leisure. — Toby 11:00 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)
- Main Page is right in my opinion: it's a proper noun -- there can be only one Main Page, but there can be lots of recent pages, watch lists, special pages, etc. etc. -- Anon.
The Main Page, current events, bug reports, special pages are not encyclopedia articles (as are all namespaced pages) and therefore wikipedia:naming conventions do not apply. --mav
Heres a suggested edit to welcome text on front page for discussion:
- Welcome to Wikipedia, a collaborative project to produce a complete encyclopedia from scratch. We started in January 2001 and already have 34691 articles. We want to make over 100,000 complete articles, so let's get to work! Anyone, including you, can edit any article, right now. You can copyedit, expand an article, write a little or write a lot. See the Wikipedia FAQ for information on how to edit pages and other questions.
In the Wiki spirit, feel free to edit the above suggestion with any improvements! The reasons I would like to see a change are:
- To emphasise that anyone can edit any article, right away, without logging in or anything else. The current 'with few exceptions' seems to detract from this message - it's not obvious to new readers what the 'exceptions' are and might well make them think that they have to be 'approved' in some way before they can edit an article.
- To get rid of the ugly '--' m-dashes which look like they were produced on an ancient typewriter.
Enchanter 17:25 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)
- OhKeeDoeKee. --mav 18:04 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)
I like the wording and agree with the intent but the front page on which that statement would rest is protected for practical reasons (although the front page is not an article per se so the wording might just work). I will put the new wording in after an hour or two and see if I get yelled at by the other sysops (which reminds me I should log a feature request to allow long-time non-sysop users the ability to edit protected pages -- there simply ain't enough of us to maintain the dozen or so protected pages and no reason why users like you shouldn't be able to edit them). --mav
- Mav - I would suggest not making the change to the main page yet. I envisaged leaving it for a few days or so so that people can reach a consensus on some good wording by discussing on the talk page. Enchanter
I don't mind if you change the wording, but I will very much mind if anyone goes on a crusade to change the dashes to HTML codes--so far as I'm concerned, the simpler the better. --KQ
- Agreed - we shouldn't start using the proper — while many browsers don't support it. Enchanter
- Heavens no! All I see in Konqueror is a blasted question mark instead of a dash. NOTE: MS Word does this conversion automatically for you so be careful not to edit wikipedia stuff in Word and paste it into an edit window -- it will look fine in IE but will be all screwed-up in many other browsers that don't speak the non-standards compliment language MS products do. --mav
Should the link to Israeli-Palestinian conflict be removed? It is very prominent at the top of the page, but since it has now been reduced to a stub it doesn't seem like a good advert for the project. GrahamN
- No, this is an ongoing issue that can affect the whole industrialized world if it goes completely out of control and we do need to say something about it. Somebody should take the highlights from the removed timeline, NPOV that and create a narrative for Israeli-Palestinian conflict article. --mav
- I see what you mean, but on the other hand there are any number of more appropriate sites that people will go to find out about this very significant conflict. I may be wrong but I didn't think the aim of Wikipedia was to become the "World's Premiery News Node", but to be a straightforward, but very good and very comprehensive, encyclopaedia. As a newcomer here, I hope you don't think I'm being too forward in saying this. GrahamN 19:02 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)
- All current events is a place to mention some news that pertains to either current or potential encyclopedia topics. That's it. We don't pretend to be a news service. --mav 19:11 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)
- I see what you mean, but on the other hand there are any number of more appropriate sites that people will go to find out about this very significant conflict. I may be wrong but I didn't think the aim of Wikipedia was to become the "World's Premiery News Node", but to be a straightforward, but very good and very comprehensive, encyclopaedia. As a newcomer here, I hope you don't think I'm being too forward in saying this. GrahamN 19:02 Jul 24, 2002 (PDT)