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)

Day-after-tomorrow's FA

Just reminding everyone of the discussion here regarding the TFA and POTD for 20 June both having to do with Jaws.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:37, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Errors with "In the news"

Minnesota shootings

Would the blurb read better reworded from passive to active voice? ... a gunman assassinates state representative Melissa Hortman (pictured) and [seriously] injures [wounds?] state senator John Hoffman. I don't know. As it stands, it feels like ...and state senator John Hoffman is injured doesn't follow on well from the previous: sounds like he could have fallen down the stairs in an unrelated incident. So, specify the agent of the _assassination_ and of the _injuries_. Moscow Mule (talk) 03:39, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

While the facts of the case seem to strongly indicate the one they captures is the sole suspect, we have to presume innocent until proven guilty, so it would be inappropriate to make that assertion in the active voice. Masem (t) 03:41, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, OK. Would BLP considerations would also preclude In related attacks in the US state of Minnesota,...? For "related", consider coordinated, connected... The current wording is still very odd, because there's no explicit connection between him and her. And an unqualified "injured" also fails to convey that (as the article just informed me) Hoffman took nine bullets, which sounds like a lot. Moscow Mule (talk) 04:06, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree with using passive voice here. May I recommend: In the US state of Minnesota, two state legislators are targeted in assassination attempts, with Melissa Hortman killed and John Hoffman injured. That doesn't make any implication that they were assassination attempts by the same individual, thus avoiding any BLP concerns (even though the same individual is currently charged with both). I do agree that the focus of the ITN blurb could be improved to focus on the assassination attempts as a whole, rather than on the gunman. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:10, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

For clarity, the reason this is ITN isn't because they died or were injured. The reason this is ITN is because it was a result of assassination attempts - and this needs to be called out in the blurb directly. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 04:11, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

That's it: the current blurb isn't telling the story. But keeping it succinct is where I'm hitting a brick wall. Spitballing: Targeted assassination attempts in the U.S. state of Minnesota kill one state legislator and leave another seriously injured? Lose the names; the caption to Hortman's photo could clarify that she was the fatality.

Or passive voice: A state legislator is killed and another seriously injured in targeted assassination attempts in the U.S. state of Minnesota Moscow Mule (talk) 04:39, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

As the two legislators are notable with their own pages, it seems that their names should remain. —Bagumba (talk) 11:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

So how about Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman is killed and state senator John Hoffmann seriously injured in targeted assassination attempts YFB ¿ 12:19, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

For reference, this is what is currently posted: In the US state of Minnesota, state representative Melissa Hortman (pictured) is assassinated and state senator John Hoffman is injured. The major change seems to be adding "seriously" before "injured". US should remain somewhere, as Minnesota is not universally known. —Bagumba (talk) 12:31, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not clear what "targeted" adds in this regard. Most victims of assassination are not randomly shot. Wehwalt (talk) 12:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Agree on 'targeted' - I was following Moscow Mule's language above but we could lose that word. I think the original point was the Hoffman's injury in the current wording is not directly tied to the assassination attempt part. Another go then: In Minnesota, USA, state representative Melissa Hortman is killed and state senator John Hoffman seriously injured in assassination attempts YFB ¿ 12:57, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Correct: "targeted" is superfluous. Mea culpa. Moscow Mule (talk) 14:53, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Support blurb proposal from bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez: In the US state of Minnesota, two state legislators are targeted in assassination attempts, with Melissa Hortman killed and John Hoffman injured. Natg 19 (talk) 18:58, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

@Natg 19: Wehwalt, Yummifruitbat, and Moscow Mule had concerns with "targeted" above. Your version does not have "seriously", while YFB's above does. —Bagumba (talk) 05:31, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

The issue with "targeted" was with its use as an adjective to qualify the assassination attempts ("superfluous"); as the main verb (per User:berchanhimez's suggestion) it's unobjectionable. And this, with a specific mention of attempted assassinations, is better than what we currently have. Deleting "state representative" and "state senator" saves a bit of space, and "seriously" can appear or not on the toss of a coin. Moscow Mule (talk) 15:14, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(June 20)

Monday's FL

(June 23)

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

Main page?

What is main about this page? Should it not be called the Front page or Cover page instead?--ProperFraction (talk) 00:37, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Not sure if "Front" and "Cover" are any better. The page is not in front of nor covering anything, besides what's inside your monitor. --199.71.174.100 (talk) 02:04, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

A load of electronic bits I think!--ProperFraction (talk) 16:57, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Front page would cause a lot of disambiguation issues with Frontpage, and wiki is not paper. ffm 19:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe "First Page"? --Howard the Duck 09:58, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Wasn't there some talk of moving it out of the WP:main namespace entirely? I can't find it under perenniel proposals. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Its never really been put forward as a serious proposal, but there has been many, many, short discussions on the topic, the three major ones that occured are in archives 87, 89 and 90.

All this is easily found in the information box at the top of the page btw :) ☯Ferdia O'Brien ^(T)/_(C) 14:51, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I dont really see whats so bad about "main page" anyway. It links too all the portals witch links to basically the whole encyclopedia--68.205.238.207 (talk) 23:16, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

As you are or should be well aware of the first page in any internet site is comainly refered to as the main page..a newspaper would be refered to as the front page...wikipedia is electronic not written in an ink based form...Ryan —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryncrndll (talk • contribs) 21:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

• I believe that the topic regarding the Main Page's name, or it's being in the article namespace, comes up often, and the discussions don't normally go anywhere. To be honest, and I think that this has been said before, changing the name or namespace of the Main Page would cause more trouble than it's really worth: for starters, we'd have countless Wikilinks to fix, and many external websites that link to the Main Page would have to update themselves accordingly. It's better off as it is. Acalamari 21:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia is currently moving the Main Page out of the article namespace (more precicely, several admins currently have an edit war about it). --Sven Eberhardt (talk) 08:22, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I use the german Wikipedia nearly every day, I haven't notice until I read it here :-) I'm glad we have some "brave" admins there who did this on the de.wikipedia.org. So for me it seems, that there are no problems at all doing this. Since there is a redirect from the old main page, I can't see that there will be problems with links to the old main page. And it's just a matter of time until the new main page name is used exclusivly by external sites. Anyway it does make a lot of sense moving the main page out of the article space. I hope the german decision will be an example for the english wikipedia! --Omit (talk) 20:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the previous response - the only other description I can consider would be "starting page" (since other suggestions have already been addressed), but then the rest of the site would have to be updated with any change, so, as Acalamari said, it's better to leave it as is. Allstargeneral (talk) 00:12, 2 July 2008 (UTC)Allstargeneral

Well I think 'Front Page' would be a lot better that main page. its mor descriptive--ProperFraction (talk) 00:47, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

How descriptive? It's not really in front of the rest of the wiki. Do you mean deceptive? --199.71.174.100 (talk) 02:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Deceptive , descriptive... who cares? Obvously not you!--ProperFraction (talk) 01:41, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps this discussion should be merged with the redesign proposal here as it might be a good idea to do both together. I'll make a section there about the renaming. Thanks, Genius101 Wizard (talk) 02:05, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Title page?? Awien (talk) 01:10, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia logo is not accessible route to Main Page without images

If you have images turned on, you can click on the logo and it takes you to the Main Page. If you have images turned off, there is nothing to indicate the presence of a valid navigation element. If you know it is there, you can use it but that does not seem right to me. What do others think? Lightmouse (talk) 21:12, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

IIRC, there's still a Main page link. ffm 21:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, the first link under "navigation." Hey, why aren't those headings capitalized? --Maxamegalon2000 21:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Um, good question... Modest Genius ^talk 23:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Aesthetics. If you don't like it, you can add (I think) .portlet h5 {text-transform:none;} to your user CSS file, which should restore normal capitalisation. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 23:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is not aesthetics. As I understand it, the navigation title should match the destination page title and I think that is the case in that list. And I further understand it that Wikipedia generally uses Sentence case for its pages. Thanks for pointing out where the 'Main Page' navigation can be seen. That gives me another question: should the image have an alt tag as per W3C guidelines for accessibility? Lightmouse (talk) 18:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I say it is aesthetics because the source code has it in upper case and it is then changed by CSS to be lower case. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 01:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

It does have an alt tag - it just doesn't appear when there aren't images (probably due to positioning). Ian¹³/t 19:21, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Featured template?

Just an idea to have templates featured on the main page to show the diversity of work that is done on Wikipedia. I don't know what the criteria would be, but as a person who does a lot of work on templates, they could be shown some small appreciation. - LA @ 09:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Before it goes live on the main page, perhaps the work might be mentioned in the community portal, first. There are probably dozens, if not hundreds of separate projects of the type and scale you mention. If the mentions of these projects start as a trickle, and then swell into a flood, your efforts might then be seen for what they are, which might then build support for their appearance on the main page. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 11:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't support it on the main page, as it is not very useful to the reader. ffm 12:18, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't support it on the main page, as it is not useful at all to the reader. — Gavia immer (talk) 13:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't support it on the main page, as it is not even understandable to the reader. —David Levy 13:56, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

{{oppose-because-not-for-readers}} -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 14:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

(but it may be a good idea for the Community portal.) -- Eugène van der Pijll (talk) 14:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Good thought. Might be worth a shot there. – Luna Santin (talk) 20:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Daily Kitten

I wouldn't support it on the main page, as it contains insuffecient cats. Suggest we create a daily kitten feature () instead. Ceiling Cat (talk) 16:50, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Support Kitten of the Day proposal. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 17:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Support with change - How about a main page subpage with all the funny features. :) -[[Ryan]] ^{(me) (talk)} 17:43, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Support I like the kitten idea, just hope we have enough kitten pictures! And oppose the template on the main page idea. Yamakiri ^T_C § 07-9-2008 • 18:20:42

Domestic cats breeding

Support Of course we have enough media for a featured kitten content. Like this one for instance:

Oh, no. Kitty porn! --Nricardo (talk) 04:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Support.  :) Raul654 (talk) 18:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: User:Raul654 is a sockpuppet of User:Ceiling Cat; this is a violation of WP:SOCK. howcheng {chat} 21:34, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Meow MessedCat 20:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Support - Mow. 86.144.151.47 (talk) 22:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Meow. Now it's just time to wait for Kitty and all the have cats shown up. EvilCat (talk) 09:50, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Try Portal:Cats.Geni 00:30, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Please don't stray out of topic. :-D (Support, by the way.) Waltham, The Duke of 17:59, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Please ensure the Main Page meets W3C guidelines: images and alt text

The Wikipedia logo should have a short text alternative according to W3C. Perhaps new designs should be assessed for accessibility. Lightmouse (talk) 22:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Talking about the logo... Can anyone tell me why the English version (and most national ones, from the looks of it) has a spiritus lenis on the left of the omega but the international portal's logo has an omega with no diacritical marks? Waltham, The Duke of 14:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The new logo was introduced at 23:42, 13 August 2007 135×155 (12 KB) Prodego (Talk | contribs | block) (Current logo, note minor differences, such as "N -> Ñ"). Not quite sure why - especially given the portal doesn't have it. Ian¹³/t 19:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

We are not in the minority... Out of the 50 Wikipedias listed in the Main Page (with more than 20,000 articles), these two symbols are present in the logos of 39, a majority of 78%. The exceptions are Arabic, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Lithuanian, Norwegian (both versions), Persian, Romanian, and Swedish (Romanian even has a different letter in the place of Ñ). This discrepancy does not make me happy... Perhaps we should take this to Meta. Waltham, The Duke of 20:20, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect TFA picture

I'm pretty sure the image for To Kill a Mockingbird isn't supposed to be Bush giving a Medal of Freedom. Can someone change it please? Paragon12321 (talk) 00:08, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

In the article the caption is "Harper Lee and President George W. Bush at the November 5, 2007 ceremony awarding Lee the Presidential Medal of Freedom for To Kill a Mockingbird" so it is probably correct.Geni 00:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing better to change it to, really. All pictures on the Main Page must be free images, so we can't put the cover of the book there. The medal of freedom image isn't ideal, but it's related to the subject, and it's better than nothing. --Bongwarrior (talk) 00:25, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

My bad. I didn't see that it was Harper Lee. Paragon12321 (talk) 00:28, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

For those wondering about this discussion note that the version at the time [1] had not been cropped so it wasn't that clear the image was intending to show Harper Lee Nil Einne (talk) 09:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Color attribute on first portal list

There's not a reason for the color attribute on the left-hand portal list, is there? --- RockMFR 14:19, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

to kill a mockingbird

Well someone has very badly vandalised this featured ]article - I can't even see the edit button to revert it. Parrot of Doom (talk) 23:00, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Template vandalism. Reverted, all templates protected through cascading protection. J Milburn (talk) 23:13, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Portal links in Main Page header

At featured portal candidates, both the nominations for featured portals and the lack of reviews for them seems to be becoming an increasing problem. After consultation between the other 'directors' of the featured portal co-ordination, it is believed that with more publicity, so to speak, it will help draw attention and bring much needed participation to the area. Thoughts? Rudget (logs) 13:17, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Better at Wikipedia:Community Portal? --74.13.130.112 (talk) 13:44, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking that, but then again, that doesn't get much attention either... Rudget (logs) 13:54, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the lack of attention tells you everything you need to know about the necessity for having featured portals? It seems hardly anyone even uses portals in the first place. Modest Genius ^talk 17:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, it probably doesn't help that over 20% of portals are already 'featured'. Compare to < 0.1% of articles. Modest Genius ^talk 17:17, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Portals account for collective knowledge. Articles talk about one subject solely. Rudget (logs) 17:18, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Main Page links to articles

Today's page featuring a link to conservatorship is a good example of Main Page links that point to articles that need cleanup, sources, etc ...(in this case, neutrality is the issue). I wonder if there shouldn't be a threshold that an article could reach before having a Main Page link. I really wanted to know about conservatorship, but I stopped reading after seeing the neutrality warning. Another thought would be a 3rd color (green) for links to articles needing improvement (complementing blue - article, and red - no article). Thoughts? NeWDaC (talk) 18:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

In "Did you know", "Selected anniversaries", and "In the news", it is the bolded links that lead to articles fulfilling certain quality requirements for the main page (I don't know about "Today's featured picture", but it may be so there as well). The rest of the links are given in order to clarify, explain, encourage browsing and exploration of the site, etc. I cannot see the benefit of discriminating between articles before a reader will even see them; after all, Wikipedia is still a project under construction and it is in its very nature that people will often pass from un(der)developed corners—not to mention that we rely on people's contributions towards the encyclopaedia's improvement. Why scare potential editors off certain articles, especially based on debatable criteria?

Besides, although the rationale behind using green for such links is sound, the colour choice is rather poor for this purpose, considering its normally positive connotations. Waltham, The Duke of 20:34, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I think the red/green thing would be too hard to implement, and is too editorially based- remember that we are for the reader first and foremost. The idea of removing poor links from the main page is a bad one, as The Duke explains above- if we're going to remove poor links from the main page, said articles will never get the attention they need, and the main page will end up being annoyingly uninformative, as the context that people need will not be provided. Furthermore, if we remove the links from the main page, why not remove them from featured articles under the same rationale? That would not be a good thing, as that would imply that related links are a bad thing. We're under construction, and always will be- it's silly to pretend otherwise. J Milburn (talk) 20:51, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality warnings and other tags decorate (disfigure?) many articles long and short. If we have to design a warning colour for their links it could create article segregation and article avoidance as well as link avoidance based on colour. I don't think this would be very productive. Dr.K. (talk) 21:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Not to mention the fact that there would have to be some arbitrary place we draw the line- I've seen featured articles that could use serious work and cleanup, but then I've seen awful (often legally questionable on various levels) articles that don't feature a single maintenance tag. J Milburn (talk) 21:22, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

A more significant problem is that the article has no relevant content whatsoever - it only addresses the term as it applies to individuals and sheds no light on what it means for a business. It should be delinked, for the same reason that the Main Page never links to a redlink. --86.131.67.16 (talk) 22:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Palpatine?

I am pretty sure that the main image for the TFA article isn't of Palpatine, but that of Ian McDiarmid. In fact the image currently in place isn't even one of the images featured in the Palpatine article. What's up? - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 04:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)