Talk:Main Page: Difference between revisions

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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)

Today's FA

• Emma Noether (1882 – 1935) was a German mathematician who made important contributions to abstract algebra.
  • The article says "(23 March 1882 – 14 April 1935)". Why did you add only the year of birth and death? Why not just add the exact date of birth and exact date of death as mentioned in the article? Migfab008 (talk) 00:28, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

     Not done. The TFA blurb is a condensed summary of the article, written to be concise and succinct for the small space available on the main page. As such it does not need to include her precise birth and death dates, they add nothing in understanding who she was and the years are perfectly sufficient. The only usual excepsion to this is if it's a date-specific entry on the anniversary of the subject's birth or death. Under those circumstances we'd usually include the exact dates.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:55, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

• "Born to a Jewish family in Erlangen; her work in Germany, principally at Göttingen University came at a time when women were largely excluded from academia there." -- Grammatically, the semicolon should be a comma, because the first clause is not an independent sentence.

Emmy Noether (1882 – 1935) > Emmy Noether (1882–1935) MOS:ENDASH, Spicemix (talk) 09:15, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

True. It is also missing a comma after Göttingen University. The sentence should be written as: Born to a Jewish family in Erlangen, her work in Germany, principally at Göttingen University, came at a time when women were largely excluded from academia there. TurboSuperA+_(connect) 09:45, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

 Fixed both. Courtesy ping to @TFA coordinators , hopefully again this is uncontroversial.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:55, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Errors with "In the news"

In the United States, state representative Melissa Hortman is assassinated, and state senator John Hoffman is injured in Minnesota. The placement of the comma before "and" seems to suggest that only Hoffman's attack occurred in Minnesota, while Hortman's occurred in an unspecified location (i.e., it could be read as "In the United States, state representative Melissa Hortman is assassinated. State senator John Hoffman is injured in Minnesota."), when both attacks occurred in Minnesota. I don't think the comma is needed. — Anonymous 16:34, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Is it permitted to put "In Minnesota, United States, state..."? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:38, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Howabout "In the U.S. state of Minnesota..."? Moscow Mule (talk) 16:40, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Looks fine. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:58, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

For now I've changed it to this:

In the United States, Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman is assassinated and state senator John Hoffman is injured by a suspected gunman.

but discussion can continue to keep optimizing. - Fuzheado | Talk 17:17, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

"suspected gunman"? It's known that there was a gunman. There's got to be a better way to phrase this. Perhaps, "with the shooter still at large" or "with the alleged shooter still at large"? Abductive (reasoning) 18:42, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure that wholly addresses the issue, as Minnesota is still grammatically associated only with Hortman. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:02, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

In the United States, Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman (pictured) is assassinated and state senator John Hoffman is injured by the same suspect.

The inclusion of by the same suspect at the end would seem to require an "allegedly" somewhere. But we know the shootings happened, and is the main focus, so should the "suspect" portion just be removed?—Bagumba (talk) 01:05, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

'Perpetrator'? You cannot say categorically that something was done by a 'suspect'. This has become common, but it is not what 'suspect' means. Srnec (talk) 01:23, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

The only thing we can state in wikivoice is who was shot and who died. The other stuff is unproven and cannot be on the mainpage. -Ad Orientem (talk) 02:38, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

The use of the word 'suspect' in this context is a clear and unambiguous violation of WP:BLP policy. There is, as of now, only one individual named in sources (and in our articles) as a suspect. The presumption of innocence is core to WP:BLP. Suspects are suspected, until convicted. We don't get to say they did it until then. Not ever. Never. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:42, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

(1) "Suspect" does not imply guilt! But that's why it makes no sense here. The current wording says that the suspect did it! (2) "by the same perpetrator" would not accuse any named or identifiable individual. Saying that the same person shot them both does not mean that the named suspect is that person. Srnec (talk) 03:33, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Is it definitive that it's the same perpetrator, or just suspected? —Bagumba (talk) 06:17, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Removed "by the same suspect". Appears too kludgy to make its inclusion right. —Bagumba (talk) 04:00, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

So this could have happened anywhere in the US? There will be no defining locality? Martinevans123 (talk) 09:09, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not a great hook as it stands. I would probably go with "In the US state of Minnesota, state representative...", that way the location and the state which she represented is rolled into one, albeit at the cost of duplicating the word state. Also, the last part of the hook is kind of incomplete now. "State senator John Hoffman is injured" does not include any clue as to the fact that he was attacked, it sounds rather mundane as phrased, like he just fell over and broke his arm or something.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:43, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

I could live with "In the US state of Minnesota" with state repeating, as otherwise one could argue what state is Hoffman from. —Bagumba (talk) 12:10, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

This would seem to address the concern raised by the OP. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:12, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Changed to "In the US state of Minnesota ..." Hasn't been opposition since suggested yesterday. —Bagumba (talk) 12:18, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Also, the last part of the hook is kind of incomplete now It's not from the most recent change though. The blurb seems to have never mentioned guns or the nature of the injuries. Seems like the wording has been a struggle from the start. People are welcome to suggest specific wordings. —Bagumba (talk) 12:14, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Errors in "Did you know ..."

Current DYK

• that "The Interstellar Song Contest" featured the return of a Doctor Who character last seen more than 40 years earlier?

  "Dimensions in Time" was in 1993. jnestorius^(talk) 09:20, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

  It seems from the article and source that the intention was to reference her last "canonical" appearance (if Doctor Who can even be said to have an established canon), but clearly that nuance was not included in the hook. I've added the detail of her appearance in 1993 to the article and amended the hook to say 30 instead of 40. I guess this is still a reasonable length of time so probably still meets WP:DYKINT, but either way the actual error is hopefully resolved by this.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:31, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Next DYK

• ... that Eileen Niedfield, one of the first five women in her medical school's pathology program, graduated with the highest score in the United States? I think two thins are mixed up here. She graduated after 4 years, and in a test during her second year (sophomore year), she got the highest scores in the US.[1] The source doesn't seem to say that when she graduated after 4 years, she received the highest scores in the US though. She also wasn't "one of the first five women in the pathology program", she was one of the first five to graduate as Doctor of Medicine: the high scores after two years were in a specific pathology test. Pull and back to the drawing board with this one may be best, as there is too much wrong for a quick fix IMO. Fram (talk) 09:39, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(June 20)

Monday's FL

(June 16, today)

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

Why is the main page limited to only 50 language links

Now that even 2010 Vector has a language link dropdown menu, I don't think there's a need to limit the amount of language links to 50. Every other page on Wikipedia lets the language links come from Wikidata. --Minilammas (talk) 10:45, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

This isn't a 50-article limit, it's an English Wikipedia main page policy to only include interlanguage links via {{Main Page interwikis}} that meet the qualification standards at {{Wikipedia languages}}. However, I agree with your proposal. Vector 2022's interlanguage link display isn't the cluttered sidebar of yesteryear, and instead now defaults to a "search for a language" box that readers might find useful. Implementation would require removal of the {{Main Page interwikis}} template and {{noexternallanglinks}} magic word:

−

</div><noinclude>{{Main Page interwikis}}{{noexternallanglinks}}{{#if:{{Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow}}||}}</noinclude>__NOTOC____NOEDITSECTION__

+

</div><noinclude>{{#if:{{Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow}}||}}</noinclude>__NOTOC____NOEDITSECTION__

As examples, the Dutch, Finnish, and French main pages use this implementation and it seems to work fine. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 04:38, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Yea, by "limited to 50" I meant that as in "limited to 50 [that the community has chosen]. I saw from the wikitext that the language links are manually determined. --Minilammas (talk) 18:52, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

Fully-protected edit request: Interlanguage links

Given the lack of opposition to Minilammas's proposal, I'd like to request an administrator make the above edit. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 21:48, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I object to this. The community has deliberately chosen to include certain projects and exclude other ones, not just because there's limited space to include them but as an expression of their merit - we're not linking to wikis overrun with bot-created stubs for example. I would think those same choices should be respected here, rather than simply displaying every single one. And "proposal has been uncontested for 3 days" is a really weak grounds for requesting an edit to the main page anyway; I would think this requires broader discussion. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 01:03, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

This isn't about displaying the languages, that's done by {{Wikipedia languages}}. This proposed change would only permit users manually searching in the language box for specific languages as can be done for every other page on the encyclopedia. Regarding the complaint of the low participation, this page generally gets almost no comments. Despite being watched by over 100,000 editors, the last edit request (adding active editors to the head, a much more visible and substantive edit) only got two participants. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 02:08, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood the proposal. It's about the interwiki links in the dropdown box. --Minilammas (talk) 15:05, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

@Minilammas: Given the low participation on this page I think your best bet here would be to either open an RFC or bring {{Main Page interwikis}} to TfD. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 15:28, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't really have the time or motivation to start an RfC about this, especially as my home wiki is the Finnish Wikipedia, and I am not too familiar with how to conduct a proper RfC here, as I only edit here every so often. --Minilammas (talk) 15:37, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

RFC: Remove interlanguage link restriction from main page

On behalf of Minilammas in the above discussion I'd like to propose an RFC on removing the main page's restriction on interlanguage links. This would permit readers to use the language dropdown menu's search box to find Wikipedias in any language. Note that this proposal does not affect the links advertised in the Wikipedia languages section of the main page, which will continue to be handled by {{Wikipedia languages}}.

Editors are encouraged to visit the main page of the Finnish Wikipedia for an example of this implementation. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 18:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Notified: Template talk:Main Page interwikis#Vector 2022. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 18:37, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Discussion (interlanguage links)

• Support as proposer. I don't think allowing the dropdown box to appear constitutes "advertising" the less-well-established language editions; {{Wikipedia languages}} does that job and is far more prominent and includes an encouragement to visit them. I think we are doing our readers a disservice in hiding the existence of these other projects, as the dropdown's search feature allows readers to type in their preferred language and find a project written for them. Our article on Earth, for instance, advertises that it exists in 312 other languages and we're fine with readers of the article using the dropdown feature to find them. Why not on the main page as well? Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 18:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

  I use Monobook. The Finnish Wikipedia's Main Page has a "343 more" button in the Languages section, after an apparently fixed list. The article on Earth has a "303 more" but when I click that, I do not get the FA and GA stars that enwiki's Earth shows me. I don't know where these differences come from but the proposed system does not seem to be working fully. —Kusma (talk) 18:53, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose per my comments above. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 15:13, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  @Pppery: You didn't even read what Dan Leonard replied to you, did you? This isn't about the languages shown on Template:Wikipedia languages. --Minilammas (talk) 17:06, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  I did read it, but I wasn't convinced. I feel the same logic behind Template:Wikipedia languages deliberately filtering out entries also applies to Template:Main Page interwikis. You obviously don't see it that way, and I suspect we won't convince each other of our positions so let's see what the rest of the community thinks. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 17:07, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  I don't understand why every single article on Wikipedia is allowed to show the full interwiki language link list (via dropdown menu) but not the Main Page. Not really logical. --Minilammas (talk) 17:10, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  You can't manage to filter the interwiki links of the articles since there are millions, unlike the main page. Riad Salih (talk) 17:25, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think it's Wikipedia's job to gatekeep readers from other language editions of Wikipedia. --Minilammas (talk) 22:02, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  Each local version functions independently, and every community makes its own choices. Riad Salih (talk) 22:04, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  If it were technically possible to do in a reasonable manner (it's not currently, and not likely to become possible in the forseeable future), I could totally see myself supporting excluding bot-created articles from interwiki links everywhere. * Pppery * _{it has begun...} 05:59, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose per Pppery. Riad Salih (talk) 15:28, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per Pppery above. —Fortuna, imperatrix 15:52, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
• Support per Dan Leonard. Gatekeeping the more prominently displayed links makes sense. Gatekeeping what's listed in a searchable dialogue is asinine. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 22:45, 7 June 2025 (UTC)
• Support, I don't think we should list all the languages on the main template. But, allowing all languages in the searchable dialog is reasonable. A new editor trying to find, say, Hindi Wikipedia (5th most spoken language), they should be able to find it. Alternatively, my preference is to include a link to Special:SiteMatrix at the dead last of the Main Page, this will provide a one-stop link to all Wikimedia sites without requiring any Main Page real estate. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 00:22, 8 June 2025 (UTC)
• Support. Makes sense to restrict it to the most prominent ones for the template, obviously, but for a search dialogue? I don't see any real reason to restrict a function. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:40, 8 June 2025 (UTC)
• Support agree with Tamzin. Dreamy Jazz ^{talk to me | my contributions} 08:56, 9 June 2025 (UTC)
• Support agree with both Dan Leonard and Tamzin. Migfab008 (talk) 12:21, 9 June 2025 (UTC)
• Support Wikipedias get better the more eyes they have on them. Wikipedias that get ignored for having a bunch of bad articles will have bad articles forever. This probably won't have that much of an effect but there's no reason not to. --CharaCookie241 (talk) 15:01, 9 June 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose per Pppery. The list of other Wikipedias is an explicit section at the bottom of the page, which is actively curated. The main page should not have indiscriminate links to other projects which may be of low quality.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:23, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

  That’s not what this is about - it’s about the dropdown in the corner. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:32, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

  Yeah, indeed. Do you want to strike your vote, Amakuru? Schwede66 23:41, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

  @Amakuru: This is not what this is about, and it has already been explained above. --Minilammas (talk) 18:38, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

• Question Are we talking about the drop-down that appears in the upper-right of most mains-space articles? I have always understood that to offer the same topic, but from a different wiki, not as a shortcut to switch between wikis. If I'm understanding properly, I think that's confusing, because there is no unified "main page" topic. All the different wikis do their main pages differently. It certainly should not be implemented on only one language, giving the user a confusing asymmetric, dead-end experience. If I'm understanding correctly, this seems like a change that should be made globally, at the foundation level, or not at all.ApLundell (talk) 17:57, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

  @ApLundell he is referring to the drop-down button at the bottom of the main page that links to the main pages of other wikis. Riad Salih (talk) 13:15, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, and this is already handled globally, ApLundell, through the default that any page linked to a given Wikidata item (in this case, d:Q5296) will have links to all other languages linked to it. The English Wikipedia is currently the exception in that we override this behavior for our Main Page. This made some sense back when the links were all in a column on the side of the page, but that is no longer the case. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 13:58, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  It is if you use a proper skin (I don't understand why people use Vector2022). Can we see a mockup of what the change would mean? I just tried to make one on Wikipedia:Main Page/1, but that page is not connected to the same wikidata item so of course it does not work. —Kusma (talk) 16:15, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  As suggested in the RFC heading, see the Finnish Wikipedia's main page for a nearly identical main page to ours but without the {{noexternallanglinks}} magic word. Add ?useskin=monobook to any URL to preview skins. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 18:24, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  The Finnish Wikipedia looks different with Monobook than the English one. In particular, Monobook on the English Wikipedia always displays the entire list of languages for me. The only mockup I have seen (previewing an edit of the Main Page) is not available for non-admins so I think it is a very reasonable thing to ask for that one is produced that can be tested with all skins. —Kusma (talk) 18:28, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  Do you have a custom version of Monobook? Every skin only ever shows nine languages (except vector 2022 which shows zero) and then a button with search box for the rest:

  View Earth in the skin:
  Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 19:29, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose, list is far too long / Main Page is too short, looks terrible in Monobook. —Kusma (talk) 16:17, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  @Kusma: The links would be behind a dropdown menu... it wouldn't make the page any longer. --Minilammas (talk) 18:22, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  Not in the only skin I care about. —Kusma (talk) 18:26, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  @Kusma: Yes they would. The CURRENT links are not behind a dropdown menu because the language links are limited by the template {{noexternallanglinks}}, which prevents the dropdown menu from appearing. But this proposal would get rid of the template noexternallanglinks, and put the language links behind a dropdown menu. The dropdown menu would be the same as it is on any article, for example Earth. It would look exactly the same as on the Finnish Wikipedia's home page. --Minilammas (talk) 18:31, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  @Minilammas, Earth does not show a dropdown menu for me but instead has all of the languages in all their glory. The article is long enough to support that, unlike the Main Page. —Kusma (talk) 18:35, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  I switched to Monobook to test and for me on Earth it shows 9 languages and a dropdown menu link. --Minilammas (talk) 18:37, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  At load time, it shows me all the languages, but after a second or so, everything but the top 9 items are collapsed. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 18:53, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  Ah, right, it is not the skin, but the "compact language list" misfeature. It hides the GA and FA stars in the collapsed languages so I have it turned off, but it seems this is a local preference, not a global one. I also disagree with that feature's premise that there are languages "relevant to me"; what languages I am interested in depends on the article more than on my knowledge of the language. —Kusma (talk) 19:01, 10 June 2025 (UTC)