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Switch

I propose that we swap the DYK module and the news module. We've been staring at Condi Rice for days now, DYK, by nature, stays pretty fresh. The requirements of the current events policy mean few events qualify--the layout could be reversed as events like 11-M warrant. jengod 01:37, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

I agree - it also looks nicer better, IMO. --mav 06:00, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Poor Condi. If she's reading Wikipedia on a regular basis she'll be very sad.--Eloquence*
She will get over it. --mav

Since the featured article and In the news tend to take up more space than Did you know and Selected anniversaries, I think it creates good visual balance to have them sort of diagonally opposite each other. However, I find no explicit requirement that one of the Did you know items have an associated image. If we're going to put that section up top, I think we should make that a rule. --Michael Snow 16:06, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I like having In the News at the top right -- whenever I open the front page to Wikipedia, I appreciate seeing what my fellow editors feel are the top stories. But I admit I see Jengod's point about needing new photos there to keep it fresh. -- llywrch 18:31, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Argh. Don't do this. Or maybe do this, but don't switch it back. I don't want to train my reflexes for clicking on current events every other week again. -- till we *) 18:33, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Keep the news at the top. It just makes sense. We just need to make sure it is current and of global importance, something like Madrid Suspect Hunt Ends in Blast; 4 Dead. The Korean train has had its time in the limelight. Brooklyn Nellie (Nricardo) 02:04, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)
For the record, I liked it better the other way. Anniversaries and Current Events are next to each other now, and it just doesn't look good to me. I prefer them placed diagonally from one another. Kingturtle 18:04, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Definitely move the news back to the top. Just be more active about changing the pictures. Ezra Wax
I prefer the news at the bottom. News is not the main item on our menu, it should just be a byline. We're an encyclopedia, not a Slashdot/CNN RDF feed. silsor 19:19, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)
Nowadays, I sometimes go to Wikipedia to catch the latest big headlines, and having news at the bottom is really annoying. I strongly ask that news be moved back to the top. --Lowellian 01:29, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
I prefered the news at the bottom. New articles should be more of a feature than the news. Angela. 01:49, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
I think that the DYK and Anniversaries should be switched. DYK is an article related section and would look better under featured articles, while Anniversaries would go better with news. Kirk 09:10, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I just looked at this option and it doesn't really work as things are now. Featured is really wide, and DYK (as it exists currently) is dwarfed by it. jengod 13:48, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)
I really like the DYK at the top; it makes it us seem more like an encyclopedia and less like a news site. -- Seth Ilys 13:21, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)


Question about logging in

When I'm logged out, Joshua A. Norton is still the featured article. Why is this? - Woodrow 02:20, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Because the anon cache had not been purged when you did so. See the top of this page. --mav 04:58, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Just now some fountain pen or something was the featured article. Now it's the platypus. What's going on? --203.106.8.141 14:32, 5 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Why can't I edit the main page? Do I have to be some special somebody? --Eponymous

To the above questions - the featured article is still Fountain Pen. Platypus was yesterday. Your browser is probably using an old cached copy. Hit shift-F5 to force it to load a fresh copy. To the 'Eponymous' question about not being able to edit the main page - it's one of about a dozen pages that are permanently protected from editing, simply to prevent rampant vandalism. →Raul654 17:09, Apr 5, 2004 (UTC)

Poll: in the news or did you know

I feel that Wikipedia is not a news report nor a Slashdot/CNN RDF feed. The version of the main page with the reversed layout is here. silsor 07:43, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)

"In the news" on top

  1. →Raul654 06:49, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
  2. Eloquence* 07:50, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC) (changed my mind after it was live for a while - having them next to anniversaries confuses my brain's timekeeping functionality)
  3. 172 07:57, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  4. Brooklyn Nellie (Nricardo) 10:45, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC) "Did you know" seems like pretty trivial stuff. C'mon, pokemon? I'm not saying we become CNN, but Wikipedia should be seen as encyclopedic and current. If it's in the global news, then it likely deserves an article. Today's news is tomorrow's history.
  5. People often want to use an encyclopedia to see the background to the news: this is a good way to drive traffic to articles of current interest. -- The Anome 10:48, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  6. Elf | Talk 15:23, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC) With mixed feelings. I agree w/silsor's comment but also w/ wanting to being seen as current. However, along with that, I've thought for a while that the heading should be "Behind the news" or "Background for the news"; "In the news" feels like we'll click a link and read the news, which isn't so.
  7. Agree with the Anome. RADICALBENDER★ 15:30, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  8. Having seen it both ways, I prefer the news at the top, where I can see it in my browser when I open the page. -- llywrch 17:45, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  9. Agreeing with Llywrch, but first of all: decide and then don't change the main page layout for the next time -- till we *) 21:59, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  10. To repeat what I said earlier, nowadays, I sometimes go to Wikipedia to catch the latest big headlines, and having news at the bottom is really annoying. --Lowellian 22:01, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
  11. Bensaccount 22:03, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  12. Danny 22:06, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  13. Artistically, it needs to be there. Historic anniversaries and ITN should be diagnolly opposed. Kingturtle 01:03, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  14. Nice to be able to cross ref news instantly, which is unique to wikipediaDominick 10:32, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  15. Dori | Talk 18:15, Apr 8, 2004 (UTC)
  16. Arwel 23:37, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  17. +sj+ 00:48, 2004 Apr 9 (UTC) Behind the news might be a good title. Agree that this is not a news feed site. (on the other hand, once you realize you can improve the news as you read it, this starts to replaces other news feed sites as the first and last to visit...)

"Did you know" on top

  1. silsor 06:48, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC)
  2. Angela
  3. Mark 06:57, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  4. mav 07:26, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC) (Wikipedia is not a news report, thus we should not emphasize that too much - a link to current events is already in the sidebar of every page.
  5. Krik - on top by default, but there should be some preferences for this kind of thing. Kirk 10:59, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)~
  6. Seth Ilys 11:55, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  7. Michael Snow 16:12, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC) I don't feel strongly, but this is my preference. Also, I think we should make it a requirement that one of the "Did you know" items have an associated image.
  8. jengod 18:25, Apr 7, 2004 (UTC) what snow said. specifically the top one if ask me
  9. Bevo 18:31, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  10. Itai - Partially symbolically, because it is the errors of the past that brought about the mayhem of the present, and partly for convenience's sake, as I find it much less disconcerting to read about people already dead than about those in the process of being killed.
  11. Frazzydee 21:33, 2 May 2004 (UTC): It was a tough decision. I agree with Kirk though- there should be a preference for this.

Corsican wikipedia and Yiddish Wikipedia

Moved to MediaWiki talk:Wikipedialang.

Main Page intro text

Two things I'd like:

  • to link "many languages" directly to the "other languages" achor at the bottom of the page.
  • to add an extra sentence at the top: "or visit one of our sister projects," and perhaps to add a fourth tiny link along the rhs., to draw more attention to those projects. [1]

[1] When I first came to wikipedia, it was many weeks before I realized wikibooks or wikiquote existed, and then only via VfD comments like "transwiki to wikiquote". when I came to take a look about a year ago, I had no time for WP, but would have had some for wikibooks (I was working on a couple books then, and in that mindset).

Thoughts? I'll wait a day before implementing the first idea, but it seems the right thing to do. The second is more drastic; I'll wait for feedback. +sj+ 13:44, 2004 Apr 9 (UTC)

The first change I support - for as long as wikipedia.org redirects to en, special attention to such matters is required. Could you provide an example text for the second change? (Nicely done, I have no objection, but it's important to provide a solid first paragraph.) -- Itai 14:10, 9 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it's a good idea. More text means more likely people will skip over it. It's important that only the most important text be there. The projects are already listed, and I don't think we can do more to advertize them. There is a ton of info on wikipedia, and it is likely that you won't be aware of it without spending some significant amount of time here. That's an inevitability IMO. Dori | Talk 14:58, Apr 9, 2004 (UTC)

Current text:

Welcome to Wikipedia! We are building an open-content encyclopedia in many languages. We started in January 2001 and are now working on 6,914,752 articles in the English version. Join us! Visit the Community Portal or try out the sandbox to find out how you can edit any article right now.

Proposed change:

Welcome to Wikipedia! We are building an open-content encyclopedia in many languages, started in 2001. We are working on 6,914,752 articles in the English version. Join us - browse, visit our Community Portal and sandbox to learn how to edit articles yourself, or visit one of our sister projects.


I want to keep the word "building" in the intro, and I prefer "in the English version" to "in English alone". As for the "Sister Projects" link, I can see the point, but I oppose unless we get rid of one of the other links. We have to avoid cluttering the intro space. I would fully support ditching the table-free Main Page link, that can certainly be linked elsewhere.--Eloquence* 17:33, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
Very well. Implemented, with these amendments.

protest against software-patents

the german wikipedia has made an red box with a protest against software-patents in europe on there main page. i think this is a very importaint thing for our digital rights and free sofware. more information about this topic: [1]. thanks for reading this --marti7D3

Full ACK! This website and most software will be illegal in Europe if software patents see the light of day in the EU! -- 195.158.147.135 09:49, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Elaboration on Sister Projects

  • They're already at the bottom of the page; no loss to the scroll-averse to add some detail.
  • If adding detail, it may be worth giving them their own section (rather than sharing the yellow-backed section with the other-lang versions of WP, which is rather confusing).
  • A short 2-sentence para for each, including basic stats and a description, would be appropriate. A ~1k thumbnail logo might be appropriate for a major project like wikibooks.

More to come,+sj+ 23:53, 2004 Apr 9 (UTC)

Cutting down on size of the main page

Right now the Main Page is ~100k. Can we cut that down? It apparently gets >1M hits a month, so that's a significant chunk of bw, even if caching helps relieve server load. Thoughts:

  • avoid having title tags that just repeat the full URL of external links
  • replace the classes "internal" and "external" with one- or two-letter class names. considering how often they're used throughout WP, that should also provide a quick 1% drop in server traffic.
  • reorganize things so that you don't have to have every href start with "/wiki/" (again, general WP-wide benefit).

... +sj+

I'm not sure I'm following your argument, Sj. I just did a "Save Page" on the Main page, & the resulting file was a few bytes short of 14K; perhaps a bit bloated in comparison with Google's Main Page, but better than some graphics-intense pages I've visited. Even adding the two pictures (each a shade under 4KB), I can't make the Main Page come anywhere near 100KB. Are we talking about the same page: http://en.wikipedia.org ? -- llywrch 17:21, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Interesting. for me it's 44k of html, 18k of main-page images (4 pics, not two!), 7k of javascript and [12k for the logo & 4k of css] (the latter two, at least, would probably be cached on the user's machine). Saving as "html only" instead of saving the whole page cuts it down to 36k (using Win/IE6) -- odd, eh? 36k of html is still quite a lot.+sj+ 20:46, 2004 Apr 10 (UTC)
Taking another look at what I did, I see I missed two images, & forgot about the logo -- adding them brings the total to 34K. However, I see no trace of javascript in what my browser sees. (Mozilla 1.0; an old version, yes, but I haven't seen a need to upgrade.) Could the javascript be something that IE6 adds? It wouldn't be the first time MS has bloated HTML code for reasons no one understands. (And I'm not gratuitously bashing a Microsoft product; I just know from experience MS software produces bloated HTML code.) -- llywrch 21:18, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)


I just saved with Netscape 7.0 and got 124k, including 10k in 2 .js files and 70k in images. (jpg:4 png:1 ico:1) Looking at those javascript files, it appears they are added by user preferences. --ssd 21:08, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Cutting down on size of RC

You know it's annoying. you're chasing down vicious villian VIII and suddenly, RC won't load. on the third reload, it takes 20 seconds to respond. Thoughts:

  • [disclaimer: I don't know css!] find a way to stick the width=12 height=12 border=0 associated w/ the image on every line, into a class description. (done on test)
  • use some form of spacing (transp gifs?) other than " " -- at 6B each and up to 6 per line, they make up ~5% of the content of the RC source I just looked at. (done on test)
  • As above for Main, reorg/rename so that you don't have to start every edit/rev/hist link with the string "/w/wiki.phtml?title" (soon fixed by gzipping before sending? not quite.)
  • rename the standard RC img ref so it's shorter than "/upload/Arr_.png" (soon fixed by gzipping before sending)
  • ... +sj+ 00:12, 2004 Apr 10 (UTC)

Browse by Topic update

I'd like to make BbT look like this, using a div style="float:right". Are there usability reasons not to do this? General objections? +sj+ 01:32, 2004 Apr 10 (UTC) 

'''<font size=4>Browse Wikipedia by topic</font>'''<br>
<div style="float:right; left:8px; top:0px; right:3px; bottom:3px;"><small>
{{Wikipediacats}}
</small></div> 
{{Wikipediatoc}}


I really can't see any benefit to it. It just looks asymmetrical and confusing.--Eloquence* 17:30, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)
Did you mean the odd way it was rendering before? I don't know why the first line was munged like that. The reason, in any case, is to separate the meta-notions of other categorizations from thd default topical one... and to better use the vertical space on the screen. +sj+ 18:25, 2004 Apr 10 (UTC)
Looking again, after a few days, I agree. I'd love to find some way to make it symmtric... perhaps making the list of schemes long enough that it can be its own narrow table cell? Or finding a clever way to highlight a horizontal list, perhaps with alternating beckground colors for each item. +sj+ 23:11, 2004 Apr 19 (UTC)

Main Page overall layout

Final thought on the main page: it deserves to break the standard article format. The "title", "Main Page", both conveys little information (it is obviously a special page) and takes up 5+ square inches of very prominent screen real estate. This page should be rendered specially, and that space should be used to direct visitors to other major entry points for the site. +sj+ 21:01, 2004 Apr 10 (UTC)

Specific ideas:

  • Direct users colorfully and concisely with a string of ultra-low-weight icons, or colored table cells containing links (perhaps with mouseover color a la Yahoo!).
  • extract information like "About Wikipedia", "Copyright and Free Use", "Ongoing Projects", "In the Media", &c. and link those pages from here.
  • Removing prominent "Main Page" links, since already on the main page, from sidebars/top/bottom. Replacing them with other useful link(s).
  • Refactor sidebar links, so that "Main / News(Current events) / About(Contact) WP" is in the top section, then Edit/Discuss/History/What links here/Rel changes/([un]watch)/move/([un]protect/delete), and finally "RC / Popular pages(My watchlist) / (My contributions) / Special pages / Upload file / Donations".
    • Note that an "about WP / Contact WP" link is made primary in the sidebar; it is a real gap in the current layout, and makes if feel, to me, most unprofessional. I want to be able to see the front matter of this 'pedia -- when and where and who and how, under what auspices, etc. Is that so much to ask?
    • Note that Delete/Protect are now only close to 'move', not to more common links like 'discuss'. Note also that discuss is just under edit; that a new 'popular pages' link is added in place of 'watchlist' for non-logged in users.

Behind the news?

I didn't understand what "behind the news" meant until I saw the discussion on this page. How about changing it to "topics in the news" or "topical articles" or something like that? Arvindn 17:31, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Could you explain what you find difficult to understand about "Behind the news"? I personally prefer this phrase to "In the news"; regarding Mav's argument below that this is wrong, I disagree, as the headline "Featured article" does not mean that the text below it is the featured article. We provide background information about news items, so "Behind the nwes" seems like the most reasonable headline to me.--Eloquence* 17:37, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)
I don't like it either. It is also wrong - news summaries are below the heading while the background is in the bolded articles. Besides, nothing was mentioned at the coordination page for that seciton (which is still named Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page). So I changed it back. --mav 22:58, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)
OK, I brought up the possible change again at that location. Elf | Talk 04:22, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

American centric news

Why does the front page of Wikipedia contain daily American-centric news? Nichalp 19:44, Apr 12, 2004 (UTC)

Because its mostly the American editors who add events? (If it were truly American-centric, you might have seen events like the snowstorm in the Eastern United States, while Oregon had record high temperates over the weekend.) I see that you hail from Bombay, India; please add any significant events you know of from your corner of the world to the Current Events page. -- llywrch 21:28, 12 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Main page displaying differently under different browsers

I just noticed that under Mozilla 1.6 the top margin of the text (e.g. the gap between "Featured articles" and the box) is quite big. While under Internet Explorer 6.0 the titles are much closer to the top of the box. Yet the left and right hand margins appear to be normal for both browsers. -- Popsracer 11:18, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Online Demonstration against software patents

It's the first time that I write sth. here, thus please be patient with me.

I want to make you aware of a problem that might break the neck of Wikipedia.org as well as uncountable other projects: Software Patents. The Commission and the Council of Ministers are covertly pushing for unlimited patentability of software, heavily lobbied by multinationals and patent lawyers. They are ignoring the democratically voted decision of the European Parliament from 24 september 2003, which has the support of more than 300.000 citizens, 2.000.000 SMEs, dozens of economists and scientists.

Thus, there is right now an online demonstration as well as a physical demo in Brussels, 2004-April-14 (tomorrow). Please join!

I sincerely doubt we'll close the website - however, we'd be happy to put it on our ITN section on the main page. →Raul654 12:52, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

You don't have to close it. Nearly noone really closed his site. You can just put either a different first page with a link to the real one or put at least a banner onto it, please.

Please see Jimbo's response to a request like this last August. Users can, however, add the message to their own user pages if they want to. See Tim Starling's user page for example. Angela. 18:20, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)
I've written a draft of ITN for tomorrow that includes the above. It's NPOV, so I don't think Jimbo would have any objections. →Raul654 18:29, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

ERROR: There is an error on the main page. Passover does not begin today, it ends today. I would fix this myself but the page is protected. Thanks.

The United States bombed Libya in retaliation for Libyan sponsorship of terrorism against U.S. citizens.

That's not neutral. Make it alleged instead. -- Dissident 16:30, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's not alleged when they admit it (as they did in the Lockerbie incident). →Raul654 16:41, Apr 14, 2004 (UTC)
Lockerbie was after the bombing, which was actually a retaliation for the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing and there is the suspicion that Gadhafi is simply admitting to acts just to start with a clean sheet. -- Dissident 18:32, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The "featured article" today is Labour Economics, but there is no link to it. The words "Labour economics" at the start of the article should be fixed on the main page (but not in the article itself) to link to the appropriate article. Andrew Levine 07:14, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Borders

When I swtiched from IE to firefox I noticed that the borders on the front page changed colour. I see that we don't specify a colour in the css, perhaps we should? I prefer the light grey that IE used, personally. What do you think? fabiform | talk 03:51, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)

File:Mainpage in firefox black borders.png
Firefox
File:Mainpage in IE gray borders.png
IE


  • I would prefer the border colors to be darker shades of the background colors, as they were before the page got redesigned. If no one minds, I can edit it that way. Mockup. Fredrik 23:58, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
    • Comments? Fredrik 18:00, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
    • Yes, please! I agree that same-color borders are distinctly nicer. +sj+ 19:59, 2004 Apr 19 (UTC)
  • Er, rather, someone with administrator privileges can edit it that way. Change the "style" attributes for the cells to the following, in respective order:
     style="border:1px solid #ffa9a9;padding:1em;padding-top:0.5em;"
     style="border:1px solid #9598ff;padding:1em;padding-top:0.5em;"
     style="border:1px solid #ababab;padding:1em;padding-top:0.5em;"
     style="border:1px solid #ffc68c;padding:1em;padding-top:0.5em;"
- Fredrik 21:05, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Done. (new colors for the 4th and NEW 5th sections) thanks for the impetus! +sj+ 22:26, 2004 Apr 19 (UTC)

Can we try a way to see the list of topics higher up on the page? Rigth now there's way too much space dedicated to news and the featured article. Also who cares about anniversaries/ did you know/ ... they belong to the front page but underneath the topics list. If anything, make the searchbox more visible. 192.245.119.190

A better idea would be to remove the index from the Main Page and add a link to Browse by topic in the sidebar. This would work real well with the new default skin being developed at http://test.wikipedia.org/. --mav 07:42, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Personally, if I want information on a subject, I don't browse by topic -- I just search for it. However, News and Features change quite often, so when I open my browser I'm eager to see the difference. I wouldn't mind seeing "Browse by Topic" in the sidebar, since it seems more useful to have it always at hand, if you actually do use it. ~ FriedMilk 00:31, 18 Apr 2004 (UTC)

typos in main page links

pages linked from the main page should be carefully screened for errors, if possible. typographical errors are common. Badanedwa 20:53, Apr 16, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia in other languages

Please add Maori - http://mi.wikipedia.org/

Titanium Article

There is something in the link on the Main Page to the article on Titanium that locks up my Browser while retrieving JPG and GIF files. K7jeb 03:19, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Well it is in the timeline of April, 2004

I think in the deaths (April 6, 2004) I think you should add Marjorie Pay Hinckley, Wife of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Passes Away on April 6, 2004. Just because so many people know her. I would be very happy if you did so. I'm sure other people would agree with me. I mean if you can put a long time caddy on it. I think it would be nice if you put a prophets wife in the timeline.

-Thanks

The "sister projects" links are broken. The anchor's title is "#Wikimedia_sister_projects" and the links point to "#Sister_Projects" and "#Sister_projects", both wrong. Fredrik 21:30, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Gosh, you're fast! Fixed by the time I read this. I also updated the color of the 'by topic' section, for the benefit of your upcoming border-coloring update. +sj+ 21:59, 2004 Apr 19 (UTC)

Recent boldness

  • Intro text has been updated; it's shorter and more informative, without removing wording El likes.
  • Sister projects are now prominently linked; two new links on the main wikipedia page should translate to a measurable bump in traffic for meta, wiktionary, etc.
  • Sister projects are now their own section; one line per project.
    • 9-11 link removed as per request on project-discussion page -- since some want a Wikimemorial link instead, and since the main page of sept11.wikipedia.org discussed its contended status in its opening paragraphs...
    • anyone who wants is welcome to re-add the link (the table wikification is there, in an html comment).
  • Browse by topic now has an extra link (in the intro text) and a less-depressing background color. Still looking for a good way to highlight the 'browse by other schemas' section -- browsing the LOC/DDS schemas and the global timeline really bring home wikipedia's depth and breadth.
  • Sister projects now have their own section/background color
  • Sections are now bordered with a darker shade of their background, not with black. per Fredrik's suggestion above.

+sj+ 21:59, 2004 Apr 19 (UTC)

I waited several minutes for the problem to fix itself before I posted :P Anyway, I think a slightly darker green would look nicer for that box - #90e090 for example. Fredrik 22:36, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Another suggestion: I think the green clashes with the blue and red a bit. It might look better if the yellow and green were switched. Fredrik 23:08, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Interesting... you're probably right. I'll wait a day or so for other feedback. I like having green for the topics - rather soothing - but just want to come back to it before figuring out how I feel. any other admin is welcome to switch the Topic/other-langs colors around. Trying a darker green now. +sj+ 23:26, 2004 Apr 19 (UTC)
Good changes overall. A couple of issues about the intro text:
  • We don't want too many links in the intro text. Its distracting and counterproductive. I suggest unlinking 2001 and number-of-articles.
  • I don't like bolding the word browse. What's the need for using color for the number-of-articles link? Again, distracting. Arvindn 12:23, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Hmm, I prefer the grey borders to black or coloured borders, they're distracting IMO. fabiform | talk 02:41, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I think Eloquence's change made them less appealing. Fredrik 07:54, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Testimonial from anon.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A wikipedia is an encylopedia whom anybody may edit at night or the day.

It is 'free' as a prisoner wants to be free. A prisoner endures in prison. He has no freedom to act as he wishes. But Wikipedia is free, not like in prison, it may edited any time at all.

It is perhaps also 'free' as in costing nothing... but that is only by chance. The telephone company can make you pay when you connect to the internet to edit wikipedia; it can make you pay much during the day, and maybe less at night. But you are free to choose a different telephone company.

Wikipedia is good because it is free.

There are wikipedias in many tongues. This wikipedia here is in english. But some wikipedias are in many other tongues. Tongues of a great many people, such as spanish and chinese, and tongues of only a few people. And even strange tongues such as esperanto are popular with many pages.

Editing wikipedia is also very easy. Each page has an 'edit' button. It is necessary only to press the button 'edit', and write new things, and press the button 'save'.

If you are not sure of your writing, only press 'discuss'. This makes you write in another 'discuss' page. People with good writing will write in the article page a good version of what you say.

The only bad thing in wikipedia is, no spell checker. You have to copy to Word and spell check and copy back to Wikipedia. Then you change and do it again. And again. And again... it is slow. There should be a 'spell' button when editing pages.

Thank you; translate this into good writing. Bless you.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Webby Awards

-> Wikipedia talk:Webby Awards

Today's featured article on James Bulger

I'm concerned about today's featured article for the following reasons. It is an extremely hurtful subject for the Bulger family and while it is a matter of public record and belongs in the Wikipedia for that reason, it's also a matter of relatively recent private grief and therefore inherently hurtful. We need to show sensitivity in an area like this. I don't think that it should have been made a featured article without asking the Bulger family how they felt about that. Did anyone do that ?

Many newspapers have used it (and continue to use it) as a sales boosting technique, trampling on the Bulger family's feeling without any thought for them, and I would hate people to think that Wikipedia is using it in the same manner. Subjects of this sort need more care than the average choice for Featured Article and even at this late stage, I would prefer that it was withdrawn until permission has been given for such a prominent use by the victim's family. -- 198.5.187.24 (aka User:Derek Ross) 14:21, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

You won't believe this for a moment I sat in a state of shock. I was absolutely numb to all sensations except the horror, grief and pain that struck me after reading the first two lines. Maybe I am a weak hearted guy but if my suggestion was worth anything please replace the featured article. AY 21:54, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not surprised, AY. You're not weak-hearted. Many people, including me, felt the same way at the time it happened (and whenever the subject comes up again). It was a horrifying incident. I think the subject is even less suitable for the main page featured article than the Shock site article unless featured with the full consent of the family. Whoever chose this article showed extremely poor judgement. -- Derek Ross 22:10, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi, I'm sorry you both found this choice of featured article distressing. We often link to distressing articles from the main page (in the new section) and several other featured articles on the main page have tackled unpleasant subjects. As far as I know, there's no policy to avoid linking to these articles once they have passed through the Wikipedia:Featured article candidates process. fabiform | talk 02:28, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Fabiform, I'm sorry that have you missed the point. It doesn't matter particularly whether I or others find the article distressing or unpleasant. What does matter is whether or not Wikipedia is seen as being prepared to take advantage of sensational events without regard to the feelings of the victims. Whatever your opinion as to the pleasantness or unpleasantness of previous featured articles, none of them could be seen as being callous and personally hurtful. This is the first one that I am aware of that could be seen that way.

I'm not looking for policy on the matter, merely the common courtesy that would make whoever chooses the next such Feature ask themselves "I wonder whether the mother of that child would be delighted to see us use this to encourage people to read the Wikipedia" and the sensitivity to answer with "Perhaps not, I'll choose something else". -- Derek Ross 03:21, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi Derek. I didn't miss the point you were making. I think this article (which I've contributed to) is a good one; it deals with a sensitive subject carefully and doesn't sensationalise it. We link to articles on murders and killings from the front page in the news section. We link to our articles on less recent atrocities in the anniversaries section. All of these links are "adverts" for the contents of Wikipedia. I cannot claim to know what Denise Bulger would think of our featuring an article about her son's murder. The article does however link to her website which campaigned for longer sentences for the killers (who served 8 years in the end), so perhaps she would be just as likely to thank us for highlighting what she sees as an injustice? fabiform | talk 03:50, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Granted that the article is good, granted that it's not particularly sensational, granted that Mrs Bulger might well thank us for the article being featured, I still say that we shouldn't assume that she will. I think that in this type of case it would be courteous to ask. It's rather a different situation from recent news for which there is justification owing to its immediacy and widespread publication and different also from anniversary links which form a lower-key, more anonymous group. The Main Page Feature is the most prominent article on Wikipedia for the time that it is featured and I think that special care should be taken over choosing it, including contacting interested parties for their opinions where appropriate. We might still decide to run it in the face of adverse opinion but we should have a good reason for doing so. -- Derek Ross 04:21, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it's feasible to ask, or even desirable. We just featured this article for 24 hours on the front page, and I doubt James's mother happened to see it. Contacting her and asking her permission would perhaps cause her distress. And just think of the logistics... why are we just concentrating on James's mother's feelings? What about his other family members, and what about the family members of the murderers? What kind of precedent would we be setting? Would we have to ask all the relatives of the Madrid bombings victims if we wanted to feature that article (many people supported that article being granted featured status)?
At what point in time does something change from being so recent that it's news and jusifiable, to no longer being news but too recent to talk about casually, and then to long enough ago that it's justifiable? The boys were released from detentiontwo years ago, is that recent enough to be news? The murder took place eleven years ago, is that long enough ago that we can talk about it dispassionatly now, or at least without being accused of feeding off it somehow? Just points to consider. fabiform | talk 04:58, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Could I suggest that as a matter of policy, articles which are placed on the main page as featured articles should be protected from editing while they are there? Main page articles are inevitably subjected to the kind of casual vandalism now afflicting Greek art, which I wrote and thus feel protective of. Perhaps a copy of the article could be put at the main page while the real article is still available for editing elsewhere. Adam 14:33, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)

An alternate solution would be an option that a change (or perhaps only a change by an anonymous user) to an article would require approbation by an administrator. This could be implemented with the existing system by duplicating an article, protecting the main one, leaving a message on the main one that users edit the secondary article since the article is target for vandalism, having administrators copy over any valid changes done to the copy. Fredrik 15:16, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
as i noted above, featured articles have plenty of typographical errors. this would prevent their removal.
however, vandalism causes worse harm to the image and usefulness of wikipedia, and so adam carr's suggestion may be best. in any case, copyediting is needed prior to inclusion in the "featured articles" list; locking for the duration would likely combine well with such a policy. Badanedwa 18:31, Apr 22, 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it seems that vandalism has increased much more than usual, with this new layout. I remember one of the article a couple of weeks after the new layout, it was just facing constant vandalism, I believe that we should implment what Adam was talking about. --Saint-Paddy 01:20, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I strongly oppose protection of these pages. The featured articles should be not only a demonstration of our best work, but a demonstration of Wikipedia's openness to editing. Locking them down through fear of vandalism overlooks two inportant points; firstly that Wikipedia is supposed to be editable by anyone, and secondly, that it is extremely easy to revert vandalism. Angela. 08:43, Apr 23, 2004 (UTC)

SimpleWiki

Can we get SimpleWiki added as a link at the bottom of the main page? I'm sure we can attract a few more writers if people were aware of it. Denni 18:56, 2004 Apr 22 (UTC)

Sure, just edit Template:Wikipedialang. Angela.

22 April ¿2000? featured Explosions on Guadalajara, Mexico. Due to gasoline leak on sewer system.

Please fix "hugarian"

In the languages block: Hugarian → Hungarian. Thanks. --grin ✎ 06:45, 2004 Apr 23 (UTC)

Done, it's from Template:Wikipedialang, and is not protected. fabiform | talk 07:50, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"behind" the news

The Main Page "In the news" summary of the Ryongchon disaster indicates that it was a collision while current news reports refute this. In my view this is an indication of the folly of trying to include breaking/developing news stories in Wikipedia, and especially on the main page. Jgm 20:17, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Killing 54"???? This is absurdly precise. The latest I've heard, on the radio just now is that the Red Cross on the ground estimate "many hundreds of dead". And the BBC are reporting without qualification that the explosion was caused by electric power lines falling onto goods wagons loaded with dynamite. The thing as it stands is simply wrong, and makes Wikipedia look foolish. Please somebody fix it, or else remove it. GrahamN 22:05, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

cyprus referendum

Shouldn't the Turkish vote also be mentioned? It was 65% in favor of Annan plan. Ato

Probably not here, in the very brief "headline" format this page uses. There's plenty of space for figures in the referendum article when the results are published and, in any case, the "story" (in journalistic terms) here is the rejection by the Greek side. –Hajor 20:19, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Who's that in the news?

Moved to MediaWiki talk:In the news

Wrong fact in selected anniversaries

1909 - Sultan of Turkey Abdul Hamid II was overthrown by his brother Murat V.

False. He was replaced by Mehmet V. Murat V was his brother and was deposed in 1876.

The reason why Wikipedia is slow?

On the main page it current says:

Recent press coverage (notably in Newsweek and Salon.com, and about our Webby Award nominations) has Wikipedia's servers suffering a bit of a Slashdot effect. Wikipedia may be loading slowly until the buzz wears off--please accept our apologies, and enjoy your visit! Thanks.

Is this correct, I thought that any current slow down has more to to with the Squid server Browne being offline. Looking at the stats [2] shows that Coronelli is serving twice as many requests as it normally does, but only because it is serving all the requests Browne would normally. Based on the total number of requests there does not seem to have been recent sudden increase in usage. Or is the message on the main page just way of putting a nice spin on the server problems. -- Popsracer 01:06, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't think the press coverage is the cause of the problem, so I removed it. Press releases should stay at Wikipedia:Press coverage and speculation about server issues at Wikipedia:Hardware status. Angela. 01:21, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)

Pops, I put that note up there. I just assumed that was why (assume, ASS, U, ME, I know), but there is a shameless spin component. I think it's bad jujubees for newbies to come b/c Newsweek sent 'em and have them find that the site is SLOOOOWWW. Also, it's a nice change to brag. :) jengod 01:24, Apr 28, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia is (probably) currently being slashdotted - they have a link on their front page stub to Model view controller at http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/27/1429237. Wiki's all a bit unusably slow :( --Tagishsimon 20:42, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Nah, slashdot isn't big enough to take on WP anymore... even the 200,000 article ABOUT WP didn't really affect the servers. As others have said, hardware issues have been the problem. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 15:07, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't be too concerned about what visitors think, if they're here due to publicity. I've visited several other Webby-nominated sites, and the story's the same everywhere. Lesson: if you get nominated, borrow a couple of extra servers... Denni 22:13, 2004 Apr 28 (UTC)

Darfur

The Western Sudan genocide in Darfur should be "in the news" on the main page. We shouldn't be silent, when thousands of people die! 82.83.23.254 21:28, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

It's policy not to put something on the 'In the News' (ITN) unless there is an article on it, or the relavant article has been updated. →Raul654 21:49, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)
But Darfur exists an it is up-to-date, isn't it? 82.83.23.254 21:55, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
There's one sentence By the spring of 2004, several thousand people had been killed and hundreds of thousands more had been driven from their homes, causing a major humanitarian crisis in the region. - that doesn't sound like breaking news to me. →Raul654 21:59, Apr 29, 2004 (UTC)
That's right. But we don't talk about breaking news, but current news. And of course Sudan is in the news!? Austrias new president isn't a breaking news, too. But it is worth to mention. 82.83.23.254 22:38, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I just went to google news and there are multiple stories on it, so it does appear that it's worth featuring. But as I said, the article itself is not in not in good enough shape to feature. →Raul654 02:50, Apr 30, 2004 (UTC)
Unforunately english is not my mother language. Perhaps someone else could improve the Darfur article to put it into the "in the news" section? 82.83.23.254 06:34, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

IE 6.0 problem?

The main page seems to want to DL as a file, that can't be displayed. To see it at all I have to point at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page

instead of

http://www.wikipedia.org

Am I screwed up on my end or wikipedia's end? Dominick 13:10, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Works here. Fredrik 13:32, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
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