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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Gadfium (talk | contribs) at 01:10, 20 October 2004 (rv user tests). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Archived talk

Archives of older material from this talk page: Archives 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

The layout of the Main Page underwent a significant redesign, implemented on 23 Feb 2004. Talk archives 1-13 relate to the old design. Archives after this date: 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.

Talk pages specifically dealing with layout and design, or alternative designs for the Main Page:

Unicode

I was wondering when (or if) the English wikipedia will be converted to Unicode.

The major wikipedias in Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Chinese... are all encoded in UTF-8. I use the German wikipedia very often and the Japanese one occasionally and the Unicode encoding works very well, I've never detected a problem with it. Internet Explorer, Opera and Mozilla have complete Unicode support as well as all major operating systems and applications. So why is the English wikipedia still in ISO-8859-1?! Wikipedia is (in my opinion) the nicest multilingual environment on the internet. And UTF-8 is the future for multilingual text processing... so why don't we go ahead and do the conversion like the French wikipedia did. I don't know if there are still other wikipedias that use ISO-8859-1, but in the long run, using UTF-8 everywhere should be the way to go. This way, wikipedia would definitely be the largest seamless Unicode project on the web! Wouldn't that be cool? ;-)

Ben

The admins will get around to it, eventually, when all the other pending non-UTF-8 smaller languages are done. But updating the en: Wikipedia consistently is a huge job, and the techniques for mass conversion are still being polished in the smaller conversions. -- The Anome 01:23, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Completely Agree!!
Only Unicode can fill all words to Encyclopedia!! If not, Encyclopedia is not Encyclopedia any more.
You can also see my name has become a strange character because here is not UNICODE!!
--Ï€rate 04:35, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)
it's not like you can't realize any character you like already, they will just be encoded as unicode entities (like "ā" etc.) and appear as such in the edit box. Interestingly, even though fr: is in UTF-8, they seem scrupulous about non-ISO-8859-1-characters, and give a lenghty warning for articles that contain them (e.g. fr:Arabe) dab 14:43, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
the other thing is integration. From what i have read there are plans to provide at least some integration of things like recent changes this would be much easier with a common format

A thought on organization

The following organizational paradigm: 

Featured article | In the news
---------------- | -------------
Anniversaries    | Did you know?

has been used for a while, and I dont' really have a problem with it, but it seems slightly wrong. Featured Article and Did you know both introduce the reader to interesting info in Wikipedia. In the news and Anniversaries give the reader a little contact with the "real world". Should Anniversaries and Did you know be switched, to reflect these similarties, that is use this scheme: 

Featured article | In the news
---------------- | -------------
Did you know?    | Anniversaries

Just a thought —siroχo 22:42, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

There's a logical argument in favor of the current format, in that Dyk includes only new articles and Itn only includes updated or new ones (at least in boldface), whereas the left column links to articles that have been around for a while and which are either featured because of an anniversary or because they have reached featured article quality. Generally, articles in the left column are more likely to be accurate. I'd like to develop this connotation further in the future when we have more refined peer review mechanisms - left=stable, right=unstable/changing.
I also remember that the last switch (Dyk|Itn instead of Itn|Dyk) wasn't well-received at all. It confused many people who were used to the old layout.--Eloquence*
I would have to agree with Eloquence, logically the two complement each other better. I vote in favour of this --Exigentsky

Makes enough sense to me, leave it how it is (: —siroχo

Note that Siroxo's suggestion has top=stable, bottom=unstable. -- P3d0 13:49, Sep 13, 2004 (UTC) ewrew
except that it doesnt. ITN is not stable, and would be on top. keep how it is tooto 21:16, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm not a fan - the main page is generally well balanced (IE, the two columns are about the same length). This would almost certainly skew it so that the featured article/did you know column was shorter then the selected anniv/in the news section, and that would look lopsided and odd. →Raul654 22:11, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

Chile Coup

Can someone explain me why the number of dead for the September 11 are shown on the mainpage while these of the Chile Coup and the Pinochet Regime are not ? Are dead Chileans not as much worth mentioning as dead US-citizens ? And why is the crucial information concerning the CIA missing ?

1973 - A military coup in Chile headed by General Augusto Pinochet and heavily supported by the CIA toppled the elected Socialist government of President Salvador Allende. During the Pinochet regime over 3000 people were killed or disappeared and many more were subject to torture.

I would be pleased if someone could exchange the current version with the one I have written.

Turrican

Were the victims of the Pinochet regime all killed or disappeared on 11 September? I think not. Therefore it is not directly related to 11 September as a historical anniversary. Details about the Pinochet regime are available in the relevant articles. By the way, not all of the people killed on 11 September 2001 were US citizens. --Michael Snow 19:08, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Why is the nationality of the victims important?. Were all the victims of terrorist attacks killed on Sept. 11?. I think not. :)

Sept. 11, 1973 was a tragedy. Democracy was challenged by authoritarism and a policy of terror replaced it. What's more important... it was a "democratic" country who backed the coup (U.S). about 3000 were killed and tortured because of it. That is worth remembering.

Wayback

I just looked at an archived version of the front page (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Main_Page&oldid=3076580) Any change that the months with featured articles could be listed as before?

It never had that actually. That version is from back when it used Template:Feature. Goplat 21:19, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Free content

I changed the wording on the front page back to 'free content' (which it used to say a long time ago) in response to an email from Richard Stallman about the issue. I would appreciate it if it could stay this way during a period of discussion about it, and if we must change it back, we can do so only after we really understand why. I feel pretty sure that there must have been some big huge discussion about this back when the change was made, but I'm currently unaware of the parameters of that discussion.

My position is pretty simple. "open content" makes even less sense than "open source" as a term, because with source code it is possible to publish a binary executable without publishing the code. With content, it's always open in that sense.

Additionally, while I think Stallman is right about the use of the word "free," I also think it's worth noting that most people don't care much about it, and most of those who do would prefer "free" to "open". I am open to contrary evidence on this.

Finally, there was recently a comment on the mailing list, a comment I referred to as "trollish," saying that we are not clear on what we mean by "free." I think that's silly, we are clear on what we mean by it, and our commitment to it has never wavered. Therefore, the softer term "open content" (which is prone to misunderstanding due to there being several non-free 'open content' licenses out there) should be avoided.

Jimbo Wales 16:14, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Great point about differences between encyclopedia and software. Encyclopedia can't really not be an "open" one, but many (most) are not free. In addition "open content" does sound a bit... unfinished; when i hear the phrase i first think that it would refer to an article not yet completed, definately not an intention of Wiki... Keep it as it is currently ("free-content"). Beta_M talk, |contrib (Ë-Mail)

A user, 2:13 AM, 11 October 2004

Why not use "open and free content"?

Good job

I love the way the language section looks now. It's much more intuitive and easy to see now that the font has changed to reflect the number of articles. This way the most popular ones will be seen first and so visitors will be catered to faster.

Very nice improvement overall. Though I think it could be better if the drop shadows were more pronounced under buttons, to the right and in other such places. --Exigentsky


I want to thank Wikipedia's leadership for its broad and authoritative spectrum. Indeed, it has a considerable database, and is beyond most encyclopaedias I personally know such as Encarta. I used for long time Encarta, and when I discovered Wikipedia, I just stopped using Encarta, which, in my view, is quite poor, in comparison with Wikipedia.

Moreover, I like the fact that Wikipedia is a free encyclopaedia, and that it is open for everyone, such as a forum for discussions. I mean that it is trying to give an objective point of view, although this may not be always the case in particular articles, in my point of view. However, the fact that it is so much open and free is a breeze of fresh air, when we compare to Encarta. That is indeed the basis of a healthy society, and a vibrant democracy.

Therefore, I want to express my support for those who are in charge of Wikipedia, and hope that it will become even bigger, and even more dynamic.

Inappropriate featured article

I object to the currently chosen featured article. We do not permit references to genitalia in usernames, so why should this be permissible on the main page? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 05:12, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

For the same reason that we have articles on penis, vagina, anus, etc - because it's encyclopedic. And the general policy on the FA has been that any encyclopedic article should be featured-article worthy. That's not to say that they're all main page worthy, and if enough people raise objections during the FAC process that an article could be seen as offensive if it were put on the main page, an article can be flagged as no-main page (no one objected to this one at all). However, this has never been an issue. →Raul654 05:26, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
There's a difference between placing these articles on the main page, and simply having articles on their subjects. Normal articles are not encountered unless a user actively looks for them; the main page is prominent and viewed by many, many people every day. The main page should not cater to the sick fantasies of any particular group. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 05:46, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Your argument (that we don't allow genitalia in usernames therefore we shouldn't allow articles like holy prepuce on the main page) is nonsense. As a matter of fact, this whole objection is nonsense. This article is an interesting, historical fact -- there's not a whole lot there to be offended by. Grow up. →Raul654 06:18, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
Eequor is just trolling because she's miffed about something. She probably wanted to stick some naughty picture into her sig or something..--Eloquence*
In my opinion, the worship of a 2,000 year old body part is revolting. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 07:00, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
See above, re: "Grow up" →Raul654 07:03, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
This object is a serious part of the beliefs of the one billion catholics we share the Earth with. To declare it inappropriate because you personally find it revolting doesn't seem very... encyclopedic. Should we avoid featuring articles about war, just because I find the topic revolting? --d 08:43, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I very strongly doubt that one billion people seriously believe in this part. Also, as noted above, not all featured articles are considered suitable for the main page, so there's precedent for considering certain subjects inappropriate.
The main page is equivalent to the cover or table of contents of a physical encyclopedia. It's a form of advertisement for the content of Wikipedia. No paper encyclopedia would be advertised with an excerpt from an article about the sexual anatomy of any major religious figure. Claiming that such things are encyclopedic lessens the respectability of Wikipedia. Is this "the encyclopedia that Slashdot built", or a serious, highly regarded, general-interest encyclopedia? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 09:39, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Furthermore, Holy Prepuce is listed in Wikipedia:Unusual articles. From that page:
These articles are valuable contributions to the encyclopedia, but are somewhat odd, whimsical, or... well, something you wouldn't expect to find in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Shortly later, the paragraph warns about giving an appearance of unprofessionality. Claiming that the main page remains encyclopedic with the inclusion of such articles is an untenable position. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 09:56, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You're misunderstanding what Wikipedia:Unusual articles says. The full sentence about unprofessionality says "We should take special care to meet the highest standards of an encyclopedia with these articles so as to not give an appearance of unprofessionality." It's not for a moment suggesting that those articles aren't appropriate or professional - the exact opposite, in fact! There are at least two other Featured Articles (crushing by elephant and heavy metal umlaut) listed on Unusual Articles - I see no contradiction between the two. --195.11.216.59 10:39, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's peculiar that I'm told to grow up when I haven't resorted to personal attacks to support my argument. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 06:58, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Telling you that your objection is childish and that you should grow up is not a personal attack. If we had said you were a bleepity-bleep, now that would be a personal attack. There's a not-very-subtle difference. →Raul654 07:03, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
If you say so. I find the juvenile responses by yourself and Eloquence to be more or less typical of your behavior in the past, and find it appalling that either of you could have become admins, in light of such behavior. Aren't you supposed to be some sort of role model for other users? --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 07:23, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Nah, we're both members of the cabal. Move along...--Eloquence*
I was also offended by this featured article. May I see the voting of this article when it went through the featured article process or a link to it? If I had known this was a candidate I would have objected. Mooses 09:57, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While I do not find this article offensive personally, I have some reservations about feauring it on main page (and, by the way, the external links are frankly dreadful). What I do find offensive is the reaction of Eloquence and of Raul654 to any suggestion of an opinion not in accord with their own. In the context of an encyclopaedia, one might have hoped for a little more enlightenment. Filiocht 10:08, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Show me your enlightenment and I'll show you mine. What reservations do you have?--Eloquence*
By enlightenment I'd mean reasoned debate as opposed to hollow posturing and bully-boy sneers, but then that's just me. I have a few reservations about the article. Apart from the appropriacy of the links (ianpaisley.org? medieval sexuality?) ther is the complete absence of any print or online sources that would allow me to verify the article content (three of the four external links do not even mention the putative subject, only the Rev Ian does). As an encyclopaedia, I think it is not perhaps the best idea to pudh on Main page an article that is not directly verifiable in this way. Filiocht 10:36, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
For me to have a reasoned debate the debate needs to start with reason, but then that's just me. External links do not need to be neutral, so I don't see what's wrong with Ian Paisley, and certainly not what's wrong with "Sex in History" by Gordon Rattray Taylor. The Holy Prepuce is quite literally "sex in history" (sex as in sexual organ). The prepuce is not that unknown, by the way (I heard about it before, though not about the hilarious Saturn bit), although I think the specific term "holy prepuce" is somewhat uncommon.
Notably, both links cite sources for the prepuce claims. Paisley cites "John P. Wilder: The Other Side of Rome, Grand Rapids, 1959, p. 54", Taylor cites "Goropius, J. (Becanus). Origines Antwerpianae, etc. Plantini (Antwerp), 1569" and "Longworth, T. C. The Devil a Monk would be: a survey of sex and celibacy in religion. Joseph, 1936". I agree that these sources should be verified and, if they are valid, directly added to the article, replacing the Arthur Noble article.--Eloquence* 12:03, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)

This is plainly ridiculous - Puritanical, even; I find all religion an offense to rationality and humanity, but that doesn't mean I uselessly whine when such topics are covered.
James F. (talk)

You do, however, uselessly whine about objections, which is just as bad. In fact I'm religious myself, and am generally fascinated by comparative religion, but... an article about a 2,000 year old decaying male organ is simply disgusting, and placing it on the front page of a major website lacks taste. --[[User:Eequor|ηυωρ]] 19:29, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand what is so offensive? Would those people who are offended please take a moment to explain what they find offensive about having this article on the main page? Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 10:42, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm not offended (by the article at least), just do not think it's good enough. See above. Filiocht 10:46, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

To all of you are complaining, please note that future featured articles are listed on Wikipedia:Tomorrow's featured article, list your objections there, otherwise don't be surprised if something "objectionable" appears on the Main Page. Remember, just because something is objectionable dosen't mean you can't write a good article about it. Norm 12:20, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I was asked to comment on this issue, and I will, although this sort of thing is not normally within the realm of things that I give opinions about. I found the article to be fascinating and well-written. I hope to hell it is all accurate, and it does concern me that there are few online references available for people to cross-check it. I can only trust that an appropriate level of checking has been done anyway. I'm not really comfortable with harsh treatment of those who object, primarily because such treatment may chill other objections in the future, objections that will be valuable guidance for us. Please, we should be kind and accomodating whenever we can, and try not to use harsh words to characterize the positions of others. WikiLove, you know.
One thing that we as a community have to remember is that we have a strong tendency to be "liberal" in the broader sense of that term (i.e., not speaking of U.S. political liberal, but an older sense of the term). So such information merely interests us, without shocking us or frightening us. But we do well if we remember that others have different values. This does not mean we should not feature the article, but it does mean we should (a) make damned sure the article is professional, as per the unusual articles guidelines, and (b) be kind to people who feel a little nervous about it. Jimbo Wales 12:23, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for this common-sense intervention. A genuine open community needs tolerance of diversity and reasoned argument rather than simply dismissing the concerns of others. As I already stated, I do not object to the content of the article (allowing for verification concerns expressed above). What I found objectionable was the response to a genuine concern raised by another user apparently in good faith. Filiocht 14:04, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I don't really see how this is offensive. Sure, it's gross, but there's no real reason to ban it from the Main Page. It presents the issue even-handedly and tastefully. What are your objections to the article, Filiocht? If serious enough, the article could be de-featured. As for Moose, if the article is considered encyclopedic enough for inclusion, objecting to the article's topic isn't really a valid objection. You could object to it being on the Main Page, I guess, but just having it as a featured article...that's not really a valid objection for that. Just my humble opinion. Johnleemk | Talk 14:19, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Hi Johnleemk. Just to clarify: I do not find the article offensive. I am concerned about the level of referencing and verifiability. What I found offensive was the casual use of words like 'childish' and 'trolling' as response to someone who did take offense at the article. Filiocht 14:49, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Clearly, the article is not offensive. It does not ridicule its subject, and any objection that it's gross or disturbing is purely subjective. A foreskin was seen as something perfectly venerable, and there is no reason not to portray such traditions. The article's accuracy of course is open to criticism, as is the offense contained in the replies to — however unfounded — concerns about the article expressed above. dab 15:10, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Out of curiousity, how might one take offense in a non-subjective way? --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 23:22, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think I was defending your right to be offended. However, if your offense is too subjective to be backed up by objective violations of NPOV /style/slant, you are best advised to address your offense by closing your browser window. dab 11:35, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I won't comment on whether or not the article is too offensive for the main page -- I wasn't offended (as a Christian) by the article, and we had plenty of people from all backgrounds agree on the article when it was nominated for featured. I didn't envision at the time that it would hit the main page, but I personally have no issue with it. The article isn't particularly graphic (nor does it bear an image of the relic), so I can't say the disgust factor seems high to me, but that's pretty subjective. Anyhow, I have no idea why people are claiming the article is badly referenced -- there are two print references cited. Filiocht, have you consulted them and found them unsatisfactory? The article was put together largely by Ihcoyc, as I recall -- he's one of the most thorough, careful writers we have on religious topics, and I'd bet good money he used both references for most of the details of the work. I see no reason to doubt him. If we're going to demand that people only use sources we can all read for free on the web, I don't think we're adding much to the world, which is the point of Wikipedia, I do hope. That's my USD $0.02 -- Jwrosenzweig 23:20, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Forgive me, apparently the references are a recent addition. I still would stand by just about anything Ihcoyc put in an article, but apparently the print references are not from him, and perhaps were not there when Filiocht looked at the article? Well, they are there now -- does that resolve enough of the issue, Filiocht, or are you still concerned? Jwrosenzweig 23:23, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Yes re the references. Now all we need is more Wikilove. Filiocht 09:02, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I completely agree. Whether or not Raul and Eloquence felt they were justified in their resopnses, they look very much to me like rudeness, and I hope they will consider apologizing. Even if we all agreed that the article should stay on the Main Page, people have the right to note they are offended, and the right to do it without feeling they're going to get slammed by the old guard. Jwrosenzweig 14:05, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC) P.S. After a little more consideration, I'd also ask Eequor to be a little calmer in the future -- Raul's initial response may have been a little brisk, but it wasn't rude. The rudeness started after Eequor referred to the article as a "sick fantasy" of a religious group -- kind of a cutting remark against Christians, as though we take a prurient interest in Jesus' genitalia. So perhaps everyone ought to admit they could have been less inflammatory. Jwrosenzweig
Uh-huh. I sincerely hope that I can be forgiven for humorously suggesting that a user who describes herself as "an occasional Buddha, multiple, and universalist priestess of the goddess Eequor, often borrowing this name to reflect her patronage" and who also writes that she has a "fierce antipathy for the three major religions -- Judaism, Islam, and especially Christianity" might have been trolling by claiming to feel offended by an article about one of the historical relics of that latter religion being featured on the Main Page, citing our offensive usernames policy as a reason. Now I realize what a fool I was for not understanding how a 2000 year old body part might be deeply offensive to Eequor's anti-Christian beliefs. Again, accept my deepest apologies, and may your prepuce always shine in sacred glory, if you have one.Eloquence*
I guess I'd hope for a little more maturity from an established user here, Eloquence, and one who normally has my respect. I certainly agree with you that Eequor's motives seem obvious. I think calling someone on that is a reasonable action. I just don't see why your comments to people must so frequently involve ridicule and/or sarcasm. I think Eequor deserved a little better; I certainly think I did. I hope you'll consider what I have to say a little more seriously at some future date. Thanks, Jwrosenzweig 14:12, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps when the subject of discussion isn't a venerated foreskin, I will.--Eloquence*

I found the Coca-Cola as a featured article a bit offensive, but I'm not sure why the Holy Prepuce as a featured article would be considered offensive. (I haven't read the articles themselves, only seen them on the main page.) Κσυπ Cyp   22:16, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC) — *lol* dab

Hurricane Ivan

Ivan is currently a Category 4 hurricane, per the 1 PM CDT (0600Z) National Hurricane Center advisory. Advisories are released roughly every 3 hours at 0600Z, 0900Z, 1200Z, etc. for main page editors. Link is here: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov. ---Rob 18:42, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Help For New Users Like Myself

Can you guys add a section to the main page designed to help new users get started with their contributions? — Wikipedia Administrator 19:06, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers is linked from the main page. -- Schnee 19:12, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay but can someone please help the whole "namespace" thing is confusing me! Wikipedia Administrator 19:14, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oh, and on a side note, you should probably change your username. Names that have "administrator" in them etc. are against Wikipedia's username policy. ^_~ -- Schnee 19:18, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Talk to me about my user name on my talk page. I just want to know about the “NAMESPACE” thingy! Wikipedia Administrator 19:20, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What's wrong with a username called "administrator"? Wikipedia Administrator 19:20, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The best place for questions like this is the help desk. Perhaps you could add a section there explaining exactly what it is that you don't understand, and I'm sure somebody will be happy to help. As for your username, I'll try and discuss that on your talk page, as you requested. - IMSoP 19:33, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
It's confusing. Someone who sees it, especially a newbie, may think that it means you actually are an administrator, when in fact you aren't. As for namespaces, see Help:Namespace for more information. -- Schnee 19:36, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hey the time is wrong, I only have 3:48 (that's 15:48) on my Mac, but this server has 19:48, that's 7:48 PM! And still no one's used my talk page to explain the whole user name thing. Wikipedia Administrator 19:49, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The time's not the same all over the world, you know - the server uses UTC time (that's why it says "UTC", too). As for namespaces, see the link in my reply above. -- Schnee 19:54, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The second sentence of today's featured article Lawrence v. Texas says "the justices invalidated the criminal prohibition of homosexual sodomy in Texas". The prohibition wasn't criminal, was it? I'd Be Bold and put it to the test by removing the word "criminal", but as it's featured article today I thought I'd ask here first. Thoughts anyone?Moriori 00:29, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)

The prohibition wasn't criminal, was it - yes, it was. Read the article, please. Lawrence and Garner were arrested, held overnight in jail, and charged with violating Texas's anti-sodomy statute, the Texas "Homosexual Conduct" law. The law, Chapter 21, Sec. 21.01 of the Texas Penal Code, provides that it is a Class C misdemeanor for someone to "engage in deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex," →Raul654 02:12, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
I have read the article, thank you, and don't see the relevance of your response. Where does it spell out that a criminal prohibition was overturned. What prohibition was overturned, and why was it criminal? Does the article really mean to say the outcome of a prosecution was overturned? I'm asking because I don't know and it's not clear IMMHO. Please remember that I am unfamiliar with US legalese. Cheers. Moriori 03:57, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
Well, gay sexual contact was a crime in Texas, by definition making it criminal. For "was a crime" I also could have written "prohibited by law" or "legally prohibited". Despite my lack of knowledge with US legalese, it does seem that the statement is true unless "criminal prohibition" where read as "a prohibition that is criminal, itself prohibited," which to my knowledge is debateable. However it is thus redundant. It would also appear that a conviction given by a lower court was overturned along with the Texas law. Hyacinth 04:17, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
One could also read it as, "criminal prohibition (writ)", which would be "an official legal document drafted and issued by a supreme court or superior court to a judge presiding over a suit in an inferior court. The writ of prohibition mandates the inferior court to cease any action over the case because it may not fall within that inferior court's jurisdiction" that was itself criminal and prohibited. Hyacinth 04:19, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I suspect people are talking at cross purposes here - Moriori seems to be reading "criminal prohibition" as "a prohibition that's so wrong, it's criminal". But 'criminal' is here a *type* of prohibition, rather than a judgment on the legality of that prohibition. (To see the difference - is a "pig farmer" a guy who farms pigs, or a pig who runs a farm?) See e.g. criminal law for more examples of this usage. --Calair 04:36, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think Calair is correct - Moriori seems to be tripping up on the legal semantics. In this case, "criminal prohibition" means that it is prohibited, and to violate that prohibition is criminal. 04:58, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
Thank you all for your input. I am not tripping over semantics. I was taught that English words have definitions and we should be careful how we use them, but I also learn something every day, such as that in the US the phrase "criminal prohibition" does not mean a prohibition that is criminal. Fine, but in the interest of making this encyclopedia easily understood by all readers -- which I trust is a fundamental goal -- I suggest the relevant part of the second paragraph be amended to read as follows -- "In the 6-3 ruling, the justices overturned law prohibiting homosexual sodomy in Texas". No pedantic semantics, please. They overturned the legislation. Why don't we simply say so? Moriori 09:17, Sep 16, 2004 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but while this may be a point on "simple english" WP, on (not-necessarily-simple) english WP, you are expected to consult a dictionary if you don't understand a word. WP itself is not a dictionary, but it disturbs me that criminal is a simple redirect to crime, where the adjective is not further explained. There is an article Criminal law, however, which makes it clear that criminal is a general adjective meaning "related to crime", and not "breaking the law". Otoh, I agree that technical terms should be linked; thus, it should be criminal prohibition (ideally, with an actual article at the other end of the link ;o) dab 11:50, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The wording "the justices invalidated the criminal prohibition of homosexual sodomy in Texas", AIUI, means that the US SC overturned the criminalisation of the practice; "the justices invalidated the prohibition of homosexual sodomy in Texas" or "the justices overturned law prohibiting homosexual sodomy in Texas" would mean that the non-criminal prohibition would be removed, too. Of course, ICBW.
James F. (talk) 12:11, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Search interface needs revamp

Ok, wikipedia is possibly the coolest thing ever made, but the "search" box needs a major revamp.

Lessons from Interfaces 101:

  1. make the box much more prominent and the text entry field and buttons much bigger
  2. nobody knows the difference between "Go" and "Search". Just have "Go", get rid of "Search"

Given the importance of the search capability I'm surprised that it has such a poor interface.--Jawed

1) This is not desirable as long as the search box shows up on every page. The next version of MediaWiki will allow us to enable HTML selectively on a per-page basis, at that point we can add a nice and prominent search box on the front page.
2) The difference between Go and Search is important. Go views a page directly, Search performs a full-text search. If you use Wikipedia a lot, you will appreciate the quickness of navigation Go affords you, and it puts less of a strain on the servers. Just having "Go" would not work as in some cases, you want to do a full-text search for a word that is also a page title. If you know a way to allow both functions that is more intuitive, I'm open for suggestions.--Eloquence*
Instead of "search | Go | Search" it should say "Find article | Go | Search in text" Chameleon 10:28, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I agree with this. Up until now I never really knew the difference, so I always just hit go. I've been here for a couple of months, and this is the first I ever heard there was a difference. It's a very nice feature, but only if you know about it. Spalding 00:07, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)
I agree that the terms used for the two buttons are confusing. It took me quite a while to work out the difference between 'Search' and 'Go'. Many web pages outside Wikipedia use the word 'Go' to initiate a search. I am not sure what the solution is. "Find article" does not do it for me either, because the distinction for me is that it *gets* the article after finding it. Google uses the phrase "I'm feeling lucky" but that is too colloquial and I did not understand that at first either. It would be good to retain the term 'Search' because it is widely accepted and translates well. How about changing 'Go' to 'Get article' or 'Go to article'? Whatever the solution, it needs to be compact and translate well (you need about 40% more text space than English if you want a multilingual interface).
My complaint about the search function is that the results are not sorted in a meaningful order. They are not in alphabetical order, not in size order, and not in any form of chronological order. Bobblewik  (talk) 12:08, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I am always puzzled by the ordering of searches, especially when a page with the exact title of the search but different capitalization appears halfway down the list or not at all. Rmhermen 12:32, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

It is disputed whether anyone other than God and the author will care about this comment

Please can we end all this 'dispute' tagging of articles, it's a vile one liner that just ruins Wikipedia. Can we not just sort these articles out - decide one way or another - then either delete or keep?
SimonMayer 19:21, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe we could use this strategy to achieve world peace, too? Seriously, who gets to make the decision to "decide one way or another". What happens if 50% of people agree and 50% disagree? An article is typically in dispute because two or more groups of people feel strongly about the issue but have opposing viewpoints. Perhaps you should consider who made the decision to choose one viewport over another next time you read a newspaper or traditional encyclopedia. The fact that an issue is in dispute is important point to bring to the attention to a reader - that is, read this with a grain of salt, look at the discussion page and form your own opinion. --JackPorter 03:30, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
that said, we could focus on reducing the number of disputed articles. Many people will be ready to accept a compromise, if it is proposed fairly and patiently. dab 07:11, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Talk:Main Page is for discussion of the main page, not general topics. I suggest you take it to the Wikipedia:Village pump. -- Cyrius|✎ 05:09, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Paralympics 2004 Athens

Why isn't the Paralympic games article mentioned on the main page... 2004_Summer_Paralympics and I quote "The Paralympic Summer Games are the second-largest sporting event in the world, after the Summer Olympic games". If this is true, it would pretty low to have a high amount of publicity for the 2004_Olympic_Games and not for the Paralympics... wouldn't that just be discrimination to those who are physically disabled... would it or wouldn't it ? squash 08:19, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

No. The Olympics was the camel's nose. We're not doing it again for the paraolympics or anyone else. →Raul654 08:26, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)
It's not the size that matters. Very few people are actually interested in the Paralympics.[[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 02:09, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
Exactly - The BBC have only got about 1.5 hours of coverage per day on the Paralympics ; it might be the second largest event in terms of participants - but very few people actually care ; note the lack of work that has gone into entering substantial results for the events. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox 07:56, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
What's to sniff at about 1.5 hours per day? If (and perhaps this is a bigger if than I think) it receives 1.5 hours a day in every country that's represented, that's a lot of coverage. It would certainly put it on par with a lot of less global issues that get main page attention. -- Tlotoxl 08:00, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The 2002 Football World Cup got more than 1.5 hours a day coverage in Australia, and no-one here cares (sadly) about football (soccer football) (sadly). We haven't had a team even qualify for it in a long time (at least 20+ years). How sad, greatest sporting nation on earth, doesn't even compete in the biggest single-game sporting event on earth. :( -- Chuq 06:47, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The Fundraising Drive header

Any chance there could be a space below that box? The tops of pages look squeezed. RickK 00:20, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Looks okay to me. What browser are you using? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 00:47, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
IE 6.0. RickK 00:51, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
Don't feel too bad, most people use that browser.

A simple note

Just thought I'd mention that Holy Prepuce has 23,000 page views this month, which makes it our 7th most popular article (after Hurricane_Ivan_(2004), Goatse, Sexual_slang, Goatse.cx, OS-tan, and Jennifer_Hawkins). That's almost 5x as many page views as featured articles normally get. So I guess some people must have found it interesting. →Raul654 08:11, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)

Looking at per-page stats [1] is certainly interesting. We've gotten roughly 200,000 page hits per day but the average featured article got only 5000 hits. That's only 2.5%; the featured article is less important than I imagined. Also, it's not surprising to see that Holy Prepuce was so popular since the most visited articles are mostly about either sex or American politics. --Redquark 11:20, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
One article is about 2.85×10-7 of Wikipedia (by article count). So when that article gets 2.5% of traffic for a day, I think it is a huge amount. --mav 19:47, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I meant 200,000 main page hits per day, and the main page itself only forms 1% of traffic. 2.5% of the people who visit the main page go on to the featured article, not 2.5% of traffic on Wikipedia goes there. So in fact 0.025% of total traffic goes to the featured article. It's not huge. --Redquark 21:43, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Holy prepuce got 23,000 hits for the month. It's safe to assume that virtually all of them were in one day. So for one day, it got 10% of the people who were going to the main page :) →Raul654 07:59, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

I wonder what % of the day's vandalism does the featured article suffer? Filiocht 14:00, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Template Download...Search...Translation...FireFox

I want to download this website template...where do I get it?

Search needs to be better and faster

Nice. where do i get translation?

Firefox dosnt work for wikis for some reason

shuaibao, editor 


<style type="text/css" media="screen,projection">/*
<![CDATA[*/@import"/style/monobook/main.css"; /*]]>*/</style>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"
media="print" href="/style/commonPrint.css"/>
did you notice the donation link? if you donate a couple of servers to WP, search is likely to become faster. dab 11:58, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC) (using firefox)

A reporter and a librarian have written back to me to say "I went to wikipedia's site but couldn't find any ref to the press release!" and of course they're right. Added a banner, perhaps just for the next two days as initial word gets out. +sj+ 18:18, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Violent Red

Will someone please modify the red background on the "1 million pages" announcement? It is a violent shade of red that is jangling my nerves.

1,000,000th Article

Does anyone actually know what the one millionth article was? --ScottyBoy900Q∞ 23:04, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No, and it would be very difficult to find out. MediaWiki isn't really set up to make that task possible. -- Cyrius|✎ 02:25, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That sucks — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 02:26, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Yes. It was wikispam and has just been speedy deleted. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 02:45, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

"visit our Community Portal " starts up the edit page

On the Main Page, "visit our Community Portal " starts up the edit page. Ancheta Wis 23:59, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC) One clue is the color of the link. It looks orange, where the other links are blue. or purple.

Yes, but _why_ does it start up the edit page? There doesn't seem to be any reason for it. When was this change made, and may I change it back? Jwrosenzweig 00:31, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Wtf man? What's going on? — Ilγαηερ (Tαlκ) 02:26, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What's wrong with that? it shouldn't behavor that way. --Yacht (talk) 04:22, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)

Search engine rank test

There are regular complaints about low article ranks or slow updating of Google and other search engines. I've added a test section to the bottom of the page which may assist. It covers several issues:

  • For Google, it contributes part of the page rank of this page to each article, raising the ranks of all those linked pages and those they link to. Since this is the highest ranked page on the site, this is the best place to use this approach.
  • For all search engines: it points to new pages and orphaned pages which may not yet be in the search engine and it provides a comprehensive tree of links to follow to get to most pages via the all ages and categories sections.

Only time - probably several months - will give us sufficient feedback to know whether this is helping to solve the problem or not. Please feel free to adjust the cosmetics of it on this page.:) However, if you want to change the template itself, please create a new template. The one in use for the test was created for user pages and should not be modified for main page. Jamesday 10:28, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I already made it look alot better by using class=plainlinks, dang, in the template of course.. however do you want to keep it that way? -- Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 10:30, 2004 Sep 21 (UTC)
Looks fine the way it is now to me. Thanks. Jamesday 10:43, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I appreciate the idea, and I am also annoyed, that often the Wikipedia "Mirrors" rate higher on Google because they repeat the article title like ten times, but:
  • isn't it bad style to use sneaky SEO-tricks to improve rankings?
  • I just had a look at the Main Page source: these links make up for 19k, or >35% of the html. Sending these 19k to everyone requesting the Main Page amounts to a lot of traffic for data that is really only intended for the googlebot. If we really want to do this, would it not be better to send this to the googlebot only (i.e. by UserAgent)?
  • In firefox, the visual impact is a flat rectangle at the bottom of the page, filled with a blue single-pixel line (like a progress bar) about 1/5th across (the blue line resolves to lots of little links to new articles on mouseover, of course, betraying the intent of the whole thing). While this doesn't ruin the layout or anything, it ain't too pretty, either.
  • Google's exact policies are open to speculation, of course, but I don't put it beyond them to actually punish "hidden links" evidently installed for bots rather than humans, if they can detect them. Therefore, at some point in the future maybe, this policy *might* actually have an effect contrary to intention.
dab 11:37, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • The index side isn't an SEO trick - that's something Google encourages site owners to do, to help provide comprehensive searching. Knowing that it shifts pagerank around is SEO knowledge but helping Google to find pages, particularly new and orphaned pages, is a significant part of the reason for it.
  • The real size isn't 19k. This text is very compressible, down to 1.1k with zip. People use dialup modems with compression and if the browser supports it we send compressed pages ourselves.
  • Which version of Firefox? Mine shows readable text, ignoring the percentage. I'm raising the text size to something more normal, though, since it's puzzling people and that's not the point.
  • It might penalise things which help it to find pages but I doubt that it will. If it does, we can change it.
Jamesday
We get roughly 300,000 main page hits per month; this 19k link bar will amount to 5.7 gigabytes of bandwidth per month. Also, it looks very ugly and unprofessional (especially on IE), and slows the load time by up to 5 seconds for dialup users. Nice intention but this just isn't acceptable, even if we were sure this would actually help the search engine problem (which we aren't). --Redquark 04:31, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Total outbound transfer at the colo port last month was 8644GB (yes, 8 terrabytes). A change made a few days ago will reduce that by about 50GB. 6GB would be very worthwhile if it helps search engine visibility but 600 megabytes (2k after compression) is probably closer to the impact it'll have. Jamesday 10:43, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I buy the compression argument, and the links are visible now, too. But consider my argument against CGI-parameters below. Plus, does it really need to be all that many links (do we have a figure of how often googlebot is visiting vs. how quickly new articles are added, on average?) dab 14:58, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Google pays a lot of attention to the <alt> attributes on images. Kevin Baas | talk 16:12, 2004 Sep 21 (UTC)

fundraising banner

for the fundraising banner that appears at the top of every page i think it is wise to state that we wish to raise "US$50000" instead of the more ambiguous "$" -Krithin 11:27, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's probably a good idea, but make sure it's phrased something like:
Wikimedia Fundrasing Drive. Help us raise $50,000 (U.S).
See our fundraising page for details.
El Chico! Talk 12:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)


Is the Wikimedia foundation going to give a PC and Internet connection to everyone in the world that hasn't got one? Will $50,000 cover it? Asking for help is one thing, using drivel like this to do it is another entirely. Filiocht 14:37, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. You'll notice that my example above uses the original text and is short and to the point. I still see that no one's added (US) to it yet, though. Is there any Template where we can go to edit this? — El Chico! Talk 16:35, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Sitenotice, but like all MediaWiki: pages, only sysops can edit it. Goplat 16:50, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Okay, well, could a sysop please put a space between the "US" and the "$"? It looks wrong all together. Or put "$50,000 (U.S.)". Please. El Chico! Talk 17:10, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Nope, it does not look wrong. I work in accounting. There should be no space. The alternative would be 50,000 USD.[[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 00:16, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
Then can someone put "50,000 USD" instead of what's up there now? I would really just prefer a space. We don't all work in accounting you know. — El Chico! Talk 11:53, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)


For those who do not have computers but do have electricity we plan to partner with organizations that are already giving out computers by having them pre-install Wikimedia content. For those without electricity we plan to obtain grants to pay for printing costs. But IMO it is sappy to have the "Imagine" message at the top of each page. One message like that at the top of the fundraising page seems to be enough to me. --mav 17:38, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I went to the link and found the silly disclaimer that the solicitation for donations is not a solicitation for donations. Good grief! ;Bear 19:06, 2004 Sep 21 (UTC)

And the silly imagine text is still on that non-soliciting soliticitation page. Filiocht 11:26, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

What's that?

I'm using IE-6.0 and I see a strange box just above the disclaimers with overlapping text/numbers? What's that?? Awolf002 20:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Those seem to be links to Categories and new pages. In Mozilla it is also present, but the font is so small it looks like morse code. It comes from Template:Newpagelinks, which was changed today. andy 20:57, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The cell it's in on the Main Page has "font-size: 10%" in its style. Probably a typo, some of the others have 100%. Goplat 21:03, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That seems to be intended - see the above section Search engine rank test. andy 21:07, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
In that case, it should be made truly invisible, with display: none Goplat 03:07, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Invisible would be ignored by a search engine. They are aware that text which is invisible is sometimes used to add lots of key words of search phrases which won't be seen by humans. Hence the need to make it somewhat visible, though in the least prominent place I could find on this page. Jamesday 09:45, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Please tell me the full version of IE you're using - I'm interested in knowing which ones are actually respecting the 10% font size setting. Neither my version of IE6 nor my version of Firefox does. I've raised the percentage to something which might be readable but still small. Jamesday 09:45, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I suggest you create a special Template:Googlebait for this. Then, you would not need to include quite so many links. Also, Google is very dismissive about urls with lots of CGI-options (along the lines of http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Newpages&limit=500&offset=500 ). So, in the interest of both the intended impact and the reduction of traffic, there should be redirects with shorter urls, for example Special:New_500 replacing the above. As it is now, the approach is excluded alone by the expected traffic of 5G/month it will generate (see above) dab 11:15, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hey! Alt text of Eugene Armstrong is wrong!

It says "this is an example". Not sure why it says that but it could be taken as offensive, for example -- the terrorists made him an example. Remember that in some browsers the alt text comes up if you hover the mouse over the image.

It should just say "Picture of Eugene Armstrong, from CNN.com"

Can someone please fix this in respect for the deceased -- Main page not editable by Joe average user. Thanks.

Is this picture not a copyright violation? How come it can be used here at WP?? Awolf002 02:15, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I doubt that the "authors" of that image will try to file suit... But your point may have some obscure legal interest dab 11:04, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I hear what you are saying, but it seems to me that Al-Jazeera took over the copyright. Awolf002 11:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Looks like an almost certain copyvio. Filiocht 11:29, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
ok, the terrorists tape the beheading and put it on some islamist website. al-jazeera pulls the image from the website and "takes over copyright"? cnn gets the image either from al-jazeera or from the same website, and we get the image from cnn. Q: how can al-jazeera "take over" copyright like that? did the perpetrators grant that? would that even matter? Couldn't we just dig up that obscure website (nobody is linking to for obvious reasons) and get the image from there? would that give us the same rights to the image as al-jazeera? maybe it would be worth to research this and put together an advisory on "images of a criminal act taken by the perpetrators themselves" (the Abu Ghraib pictures would seem to fall under the same category) dab 11:52, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

1 mil articles bar

Please change the color of that bar. When I see the orange, my first thought is 'Oh! I have messages' which is obviously not true.

Someone changed it to #lightgray, with the border being #darkgray. This is invalid HTML and displays wrong on some browsers. (The # is for hex colors only, not named) Goplat 17:06, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Now with no background, it's very easy to miss.

In general, the Welcome, 1 mil link and tiny links on the right (FAQ, Sister Projects...) should be contained in some kind of light box simmilar to the sections below for a more clear organization. As it stands now, in additon to Browse... links, it looks much too cluttered.

Autumnal equinox Should Be On Main Page

In the Northern Hemisphere autumn begins on Sept. 22 at 6:23 P.M. EDT. There's no mention of this on the Main Page. It seems to me that even in a wired world we are not immune, nor should we be, from the changing of the seasons.

I like this idea. But where is the best plase to put this? under "in the news"? or maybe in a little box before or after the news, maybe called "ephemeridae"? In addition to equinoces and solstices, there could also be included other global astronomical events, such as moon phase, and planet alignments etc. dab 18:33, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I put it in Selected anniversaries. Let's see if it survives. ✏ Sverdrup 18:45, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It's on September 22, now. This is not good. The time given applies only to the current year. We need a Table of astronomical ephemerides or something. What is the status of Template:SeptemberCalendar? Is there a script updating these every year (I hope so, because it would look stupid to keep the "2004 days arrangement" forever)? In that case, the same script could insert these astronomical events. (cf. MediaWiki_talk:JanuaryCalendar)dab 13:53, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That script is me. :) Updates are easy and only needed once a year on a total of 12 pages. Put (2004) behind holidays that only pertain to the current year. But that does not apply here. --mav 16:51, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
yes it does. at present, on 22 September it says: In the Northern Hemisphere autumn begins at 6:23 P.M. EDT.. This is complete b*llocks, as long as not at least a 2004 is added (I won't do it since I think the entry will still be pointless, because the article is not about 22 Sep of any particular year). Remember to have your heirs tell us that 'the script' is gone, btw ;-) dab 20:20, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Please. I didn't put it there to stay the year, just to stay there for the duration of September 22, 2004. Now, when this date has passed, we have plenty of time to organise it properly for next time. ✏ Sverdrup 10:58, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I see, I apologize. dab

Did You Know - One syllable words

It might just be the way I say it, but isn't 'squi-rreled' two syllables? --uvarov 05:56, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

  • Only one syllable in my ideolect. RickK 05:59, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)
    • It's pronounced skworld, like "world" with "sk" at the beginning. One syllable, as RickK says.[[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 06:10, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Please see Talk:List of the longest English words with one syllable for a longer discussion. --Heron 09:09, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Voltaire

Hello,

As an editor for the French Wiki, I'm wondering on two links in our Voltaire page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire

The two last links refer to mirror sites, which have little relation to Voltaire.

The problem is the title of the last link : H. Duthel: «Allez-y, dites-moi que je suis un vieux con !» Oui? alors vous-etes de connard"

I think I should not translate this piece, because it's very insulting : "C'mon. Tell me I'm an old bastard ! Yes ? Then you're an a..-hole".

I don't want to edit this piece as I'm not too sure of the reasons why it's here. The other links are perfect !

Cheers

Power.

Hi: Thanks for this. I've removed these links as they are fairly clearly inappropriate for the article. Filiocht 13:50, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Filiocht ! Power

Ackermann.png

The diagram on today's (sept 24) main page has been created wrongly.

It has a bit snipped off from the right which makes it "senseless".

I cannot fix it as I don't have a PNG editor to hand.

-- SGBailey 2004-09-24 14:52 BST

Thank you for notifying us about it; I just downloaded the png generated in the article and uploaded it to fix it. ✏ Sverdrup 17:50, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC) PS. Wikipedians do the nifty timestamp trick by signing their posts with ~~~~.

Not when they aren't logged in though! -- SGBailey 22:38, 2004 Sep 24 (UTC) (and logged in this time)

Search doesn't reveal some articles

Some searches seem to fail, and reveal no results, even though the articles that I search for exist. Do you have to add something to the page so that the page appears when performing a search? Or is this maybe something that just happens when the page is new? --Logariasmo 02:18, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

If you're using the Google search, then, yes, new items won't show up, because Google hasn't caught on to the new page yet. RickK 19:09, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Also, the Wikipedia full-text search is cached - it doesn't update until midnight. So if you are looking for a phrase you just added an hour ago, you're out of luck. →Raul654 19:18, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the information. Can you specify the timezone for 'midnight'? Bobblewik  (talk) 19:43, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The servers operate on UTC. The updates can take many hours so the exact time when something will become available is not certain. Jamesday 18:26, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. That information is very useful. Bobblewik  (talk) 11:45, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)


The problem of less visited articles

I have noticed that many articles that aren't visited often tend to have more inconsistencies and inaccurate information than the articles that are visited more often. What can be done about it?

Please feel free to comment on this issue. --Logariasmo 06:33, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

A better place for question like this is probably the Wikipedia:Village Pump. I've noticed the same trend, but one answer is that we don't have to do anything explicitly — eventually, the articles with inconsistencies and inaccuracies will get fixed by visitors, just more slowly than the more popular articles. Many decent articles started out as rather useless stubs, but they improve with time. — Matt 08:17, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps we should try to direct more traffic to random articles: for example a front page "random article" link from the front page, from a manually edited pool of articles refereshed by hand? -- The Anome 08:30, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Format for today's "Yesterday"

Per the Manual of Style, shouldn't this be formatted as "Yesterday" rather than Yesterday? 13:15, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

... . . .

Since the main page is locked down, could someone with rights change the link to the Polish wikipedia from "Polska" (i.e. the country) to "Polski" (the language), since we're talking about languages.

As the only way to goto a page you want is to search, I feel position of "search" should be the first one after wikipedia Logo (ie, just above "Navigation") on wikipedia articles like 


search
.-------------------.
|  [             ]  |
|   [Go]  [Search]  |
`-------------------'

navigation
.-------------------.
|* Main Page        |
|* Community portal |
|* Current events   |
|* Recent changes   |
|* Random page      |
|* Help             |
|* Donations        |
`-------------------'

~Bijee


I concur. That looks like a problem for Monobook.css, though. — El Chico! Talk 01:25, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree! ✏ Sverdrup 14:59, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think the search box should be larger, and centered at the top of the page. A bit like Google, perhaps.
I have to say that coming in from the cold to the main page with a browser that doesn't have the modern capabilities is a mild form of hell. The casual visitor should not be hit with so much snazz. With some browsers the login link isn't even discernable. I use iCab most of the time but that's not the only one that has problems with the current wiki software. And I agree about the search box. ;Bear 20:05, 2004 Oct 1 (UTC)

João Rodrigues Cabrilho

I believe that it would be better to have the Portuguese form of his name (João Rodrigues Cabrilho) instead of the current Spanish version (Selected anniversaries Sept 18). He was after all Portuguese, even if he did sail for the Spanish.[[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 00:07, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Which version is he known by to English speakers? We say John Cabot, not Giovanni Caboto. RickK 18:34, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. Interesting point. But a mistaken majority is not right. (Besides, most English speakers probably have little idea who he is).[[User:Nricardo|--Nelson Ricardo >>Talk<<]] 20:57, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with "right" or "wrong", and all to do with usage. Wikipedia policy is to use the name a person is best known by to English speakers. RickK 21:17, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

OK, makes sense. Then "Richard Alpert" should redirect to "Ram Dass" instead of the other way around, eh? (Got a couple of good photos of him this past weekend, BTW) ;Bear 23:14, 2004 Sep 28 (UTC)

tomato

I've always heard Salem, NJ, not MA, but as the talk page on tomato points out, there are conflicting versions on the Internet. So what makes a good source? This really points out the unreliability of the Internet. Spalding 17:01, Sep 28, 2004 (UTC)

Pronunciation

I was wondering if it's possible to include a pronunciation in brackets of the article title. Just now I came across Hythe, Kent and I have no idea how Hythe is pronounced. I think it would be helpful in situations where the pronunciation is not so obvious. For example, Gloucester I had always thought was (glau-ses-ter) but later I found out it's more like (glos-ter).

You didn't sign that but I agree with you anyway. ;Bear 16:47, 2004 Sep 29 (UTC)
The consensus of Wikipedians seems to favor SAMPA, but I have never been able to understand it myself, even for words I know how to pronounce. I don't think it's practical. You have to be European to take any interest in it. It has virtually no mind-share in the United States. I'd prefer the Merriam-Webster phonetics myself, but that will likely get you hooted out of any discussion. The only thing worse is home-made phonetics, even though those sometimes actually work (as above). Ortolan88 17:23, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC) (Note: reply contains sarcasem.)
hoot! (out with Webster-style phonetics :-D). SAMPA is ascii, that makes it useful for email, but we of the 21st century have Unicode! So, what's wrong with IPA? dab 17:33, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
IPA? India Pale Ale? Nothing at all wrong with that! ;Bear 19:58, 2004 Oct 1 (UTC)
if you don't mind the Isopropyl alcohol, that is :-\ dab 20:57, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mt. St. Helens

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

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

Shaker builders

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

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

President of Ireland appointed?

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

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

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

Featured Article Vandalism

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

I've fixed it. But anyone can revert, not just admins. →Raul654 05:34, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
Is there a quick way to revert to an older version (like a link) without manually editing the page and inserting the text back in? Enochlau 06:55, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia:How to revert a page to an earlier version -- Cyrius|✎ 07:01, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Admins can rollback the previous edit using our quick-rollback link -- everyone else has to do it manually (IE, by going into the page history). →Raul654 07:09, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
Just to clarify: nobody ever has to re-type the text, see the link Cyrius provided (: —siroχo 08:44, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

Today's News (10/4/04)

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

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

suggestion: control going to the search textbox

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

A good useful dictionary, by the way.

sandeepsiroya@yahoo.com

Interwiki

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

Bwahahaha!

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

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

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

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

Please Add Toki Pona Language to main page...

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

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

Sihanouk's picture

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

News

Actually Michael Badnorink was serving legal papers.

Queen Lili`uokalani page

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

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

Mail fraud

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

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

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

This was fixed. Isn't there a policy about no red links on the Main Page? Nelson Ricardo 17:23, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
I don't know if it's an official policy, but when writing up the featured article summaries, I always take the red links out. →Raul654 17:26, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
I added that entry, I hope there is no policy against red links on the main page, as I feel they are not only part of the Wikipedia, but will even stimulate new and old users alike to start editing the page the link is pointing at. I have done it a few times now, and the red links always very quickly turn into a beautiful content-filled blue. -- Solitude 19:02, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

Attn: STEFFEN LOEWE Re: Gera

Hallo Steffen: Ich bin Fred (F.J.) Weissflach von New York, USA. Auch ein Americaner, so bitte entschuldige... Mein Deutsch ist nicht so gut! Danke fuer deine kritische Abhandlung, auf die "Gera" Artikel was ich hat am Juni 2004 schreibt.

[You also asked if you had written correctly in English. Und die Antwort ist "Ja", especially if you were writing to a person in Britain. German grammar is much more similar to "Shakespearean" English than to modern American English, and most Germans do very well with it.]

I appreciate your commentary about my short article. I am sorry if some of my assumtions were somewhat incorrect, about the size of the city, etcetera... However, my other research was genuine. The atlas is from Jahr 2000, and Gera here was depicted as a small "outpost" village of the Greek/Roman era. I also looked up the word in a Greek Woerterbuch, as I said... There is a word "Gera" (Gamma-Epsilon-Rho-Alpha). However, thank you for pointing out the German "Ger Aha" in your brief. This is an interesting contrast to what I had suggested, and is certainly also very convincing! I became very curious about Gera upon reading the Atlas, and you have added some good clarification. I will continue to look for your writings on the Wikipedia Websuche.

Vielen Dank, und viel Spass F.J. Weissflach 12.10.2004 Di.

Interlanguage Links On Main Page

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

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

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


Mount St. Helens

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

Mount St. Helens has already been on the main page "In the News..." section. See the 17:05, Oct 1, 2004 revision. [[User:JoshG|Josh | Talk]] 23:47, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
see item #38 in the Table of Contents of this talk page. Ancheta Wisasdf

Suggestion on viewing article statistics of wikipedia.

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

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

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

in the news

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

White background - white pics

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

Page rendering problem (re: dates)

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

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

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