Talk:Main Page/Archive 156

Julian calendar
Why does the anniversaries section always have Julian calendar holidays? Most holidays are simply listed as occuring on this day (for instance, some feast in Iran is on March 3). The Julian calendar has historical importance, but why is it given equal standing to the Gregorian on the main page? There are many other calendars in use in countries like Iran and Ethiopia that aren't listed.-RHM22 (talk) 14:12, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * A number of religions (such as Eastern Orthodox christianities) still use the Julian calendar for there their liturgical schedule. That's why you see things like "Christmas (Julian Calendar)". On the day that appears (which isn't 25th Dec on the Gregorian calendar) Eastern Orthodox christians are actually heading off to Christmas services. Regarding today, Old New Year is an informal holiday for Slavic Orthodox Churches. Non-major holidays tend to be on a shared/rota system for OTD, and there doesn't appear to be any other candidates for January 14, (besides Uttrayan or Makar, neither of which have an article.) By the way, we do mention new years for other calendars, when they are associated with celebrations, such as Chinese New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and Islamic New Year. -- 174.21.250.227 (talk) 17:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That makes sense, then. I didn't know that other calendars were included for festival dates. Thanks for clearing it up!-RHM22 (talk) 18:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW you may also be interested to know we did have Nowruz last year Selected anniversaries/March 20 (didn't check previous years) and "New Year's Day in the Coptic and the Ethiopian calendars" every year (see Selected anniversaries/September 11 and Selected anniversaries/September 12, a template it used so it's automatically shown with the right date) Nil Einne (talk) 19:16, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy Tenth Birthday WP

 *  GFHandel . 00:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ten years in, and we have done so much: over a billion edits, 3.5 million articles in English alone, and the 8th-most-visited site in the world. What will the next ten years hold? I can't wait. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 00:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ten years in; so much we've done, so much we still have to do! Happy Birthay to us all!!!! Yosy (talk) 00:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Ten years in and the WP continues to draw new article ideas and new contributors in this dynamic project. (Hey, I was here first!) ~ A H 1 (T C U) 00:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Here's me being a part of history 82.44.55.25 (talk) 00:40, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you Mr Sanger and Mr Wales for founding such a great project. -- George  2001  hi 00:57, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is a social experiment, a testament to human nature, a personal challenge to thousands of good-intentioned passers-by and dedicated visitors alike, and a bit of an encyclopedia on the side. It's a reference work in theory, and an ongoing illustration of the infinite monkey theorem in practice. It saw to it that members of generation Z have been raised knowing that for all its faults, society is able to converge on one central goal and work until it is complete – in this case, never. Editors come and go, segments of the project rise and fall, and articles are sculpted and disintegrated. I was once among the most prominent users of the English Wikipedia and have long since moved on for the most part, but I feel compelled to wish the site a happy 10th birthday, congratulate the folks who stuck around all this time, and hope for a successful future. Juliancolton (talk) 01:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Glad it's only for a day!
Yeah, happy birthday WP. Like many ten-year-olds you have strange tastes sometimes. I can't say that I like the anniversary logo and having Jimbo's photo staring at me from the bottom of the main page is somehow Orwellian. Glad it's only for a day! --Ashanda (talk) 01:00, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree completely with the above user.--William S. Saturn (talk) 01:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I concur wholeheartedly. Manxruler (talk) 01:19, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * A strange coincidence indeed. Toshio Yamaguchi (talk) 02:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed, Hey Jimmy, no one wants to see your face. 205.209.67.82 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:18, 15 January 2011 (UTC).

thumb|left|200px|So happy it's her birthday thumb|200px|And wish you many more! Well, the logo and Jimmy Wales pic were the only special content? What, no Wikipe-tan? — Rickyrab | Talk 02:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The oldest known surviving Wikipedia edit — Rickyrab | Talk 03:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Boring birthday page
I went to the main page hoping to find something interesting to read about Wikipedia but, besides Jimbo's picture, there's really not much about Wikipedia. Also I'm so surprised with the choice of feature content. Surely we could have picked topics that appeal to a broader audience than the Guadalcanal campaign or the moons of Saturn? Laurent (talk) 04:23, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm just as glad more self-references weren't included - patting one's self on the back is in poor taste. The only times I find it acceptable is in promotional material such as resumes and advertisements. And face it, Jimbo looks creepy in that photo - like he quickly washed up in the sink and put on a fresh shirt after a two-day bender...--Ashanda (talk) 04:42, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If you look above, there was talk about using a self reference for the FA, but Wikipedia isn't a Featured Article, and it would have been kind of sad to celebrate the 10th birthday by featuring an article that isn't up to the normal FA standards. APL (talk) 07:12, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Login issue
I cannot login. 24h ago the same problem. And: no serious helproute by wikipedia. Great. -86.93.225.116 (talk) 04:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The 'serious' help route is WP:Help desk and linked at the top of this page as well as in the edit notice when you edit this page Nil Einne (talk) 10:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Curious note to readers

 * "To mark the occasion, Wikipedia is showcasing content not normally featured on the main page."

Somehow, this sounds almost like an apology for being off our game; as opposed to highlighting special, celebratory, fun, or otherwise different items, we're just being 'not normal'. Can we choose a different word to give some idea how the page is different today. Otherwise it doesn't say anything in particular, and I find it open to a mix of interpretations. Ocaasi (talk) 07:14, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree and how about "a greater variety of featured content" -- Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Or: "To mark the occasion, Wikipedia is showcasing a special selection of content not normally featured on the main page."
 * Also, could we spice it up a little? I think just one or two 'more' content pieces would help give the impression that there's a lot going on here. Today, more than ever, the Main page looks a little too quiet.Ocaasi (talk) 07:19, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes it seems that the only difference today is that the main page is less interesting than usual. I far prefer when there's a good article being featured rather than a seemingly random selection of uninteresting topics. Laurent (talk) 09:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * This was actually discussed at length in discussions above. 狐 FOX   09:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Added "a special selection of". 狐 FOX   09:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

What's so "special" about this particular content? It just looks like three articles picked at random instead of one. 87.112.177.117 (talk) 09:39, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * "Wikipedia is celebrating its tenth anniversary!" should be sufficient. The rest is just repetitive and awkward: (1) there is no need for the two "10" signs since the main logo has also been replaced, (2) "special selection" is just puzzling - doesn't look very special, (3) "not normally" sounds awkward. --Elekhh (talk) 10:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Um read carefully. These aren't ARTICLES being featured Nil Einne (talk) 10:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not a fan of "special selection" either. Perhaps, "varied selection" or even just "selection"? -- Dorsal  Axe  10:50, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Other featured content
Why can't the other featured stuff be featured normally, even if they are featured? Simply south..... 09:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer the usual presentation. The featured article should be given some sobering, quality reading space, and the main page of wikipedia shouldn't look like the front page of a newspaper, with a couple of headlines. Maziotis (talk) 10:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It was discussed above that we may possibly do this more often. But that's a discussion for a later time. This is just a one-off for now. -- Dorsal  Axe  10:47, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

How to dunk the banner and the logo (cross post from Village Pump/Proposals)
I've spoken to a few people online this morning who simply want to get on and edit, not get this stupid jigsaw logo and the banner on the front page and all over the shop. So between Guandalug and I, 2 small pieces of CSS for you to have wikipedia looking like Wikipedia.

This removes the Wikipedia Ten logo:


 * 1) p-logo a { background-image: url("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Wikipedia-logo-en.png") !important; }

This removes the Orange "anniversary" banner:


 * 1) mp-banner { display: none; }

Add these to the .css file for your skin, save the content, deep reload, and enjoy.

If not everyone likes the anniversary related stuff,they should be given an opportunity to know how to remove it.

Barking Fish  12:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * How does the logo stop people "get[ting] on and edit[ing]"?-- Beloved  Freak  15:33, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It doesn't, BelovedFreak. Those people, like myself, believe we're the same website we were yesterday, just a bit older. They, like me, simply want Wikipedia to look like Wikipedia, so I'm giving them (and myself) the opportunity for it to do just that. I really don't see the point of having the Ten logo here, and the ten jigsaw pieces, when the celebration has its own wiki where you can see the logo anyway. Barking Fish  15:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The point is that Wikipedia exists 10 years, and that deserves a small reminder. The logo is hardly anything to be upset about. Besides, it will go back in about 8 hours. — Edokter • Talk  — 16:08, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It has a small reminder, Edokter. Its own wiki. How much more of a reminder is needed? Barking Fish  16:19, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The thing is, if a reader has supressed the banner, they won't even know about that wiki. The logo does go some way to promoting the foundation's activities, as well as making note of the occasion. Still, by all means share this.-- Dorsal  Axe  16:37, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, the plan is to retain the special logo until after 11:00 (UTC), when 15 January ends in the last inhabited timezone. (Sorry about the "stupidity," BarkingFish.) —David Levy 16:48, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Is the banner to stay on for that time as well? As it is curently coded, it will disappear at 01/16 00:00 UTC. — Edokter • Talk  — 17:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yay. Barking Fish  17:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The banner won't be needed once normal featured article scheduling resumes, at 00:00 UTC. Right now, its main purpose is to point out the three different featured items on the main page today. So yes, that's meant to happen. -- Dorsal  Axe  17:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * In fact, I proposed the special logo as an alternative to the suggestion that the banner be retained until 15 January ends in all timezones, specifically because of its text's inapplicability to the 16 January (UTC) main page content. —David Levy 17:30, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Why, if we're leaving the logo on until 15th Jan. ends in all timezones, didn't we switch it on when the 15th of January started in the first inhabited timezone? Barking Fish  17:36, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Because no one suggested it in time. —David Levy 17:39, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As my old University lecturer used to tell me when I was late for study, David, "Perfect planning prevents piss poor performance." <font color="red" face="Arial">Barking <font color="blue" face="Arial">Fish  17:43, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As the Slackers tell us, "better late than never." —David Levy 17:49, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * BarkingFish: Raul654 only suggested the idea on 11 Jan, so we had less than four days days to implement it, and most of us have day jobs, IMHO we did pretty good in the span of time we had.  howcheng  {chat} 20:31, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't dispute that you have day jobs, Howcheng. I do too. I just really didn't see the point of changing the logo for one damn day. We had a 1 hour discussion on it on the village pump, and it was being prepared for implementation 30 minutes prior to the discussion even finishing. You did good in the time you had, I don't argue with that. You could have saved the time however :) <font color="red" size="3" face="Tahoma">Barking <font color="blue" size="3" face="Tahoma">Fish  21:16, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * BarkingFish - you really, I mean really, need to start getting to grips with the whole "consensus", "work in progress" and "not perfect" concepts of Wikipedia. Fairly quickly to be honest. Sorry to be blunt, but honestly a bit of wp:clue (I won't blue link it as you are an established editor and I don't wish to be rude) wouldn't hurt. Pedro : <font style="color:#accC10;background:#0000fa;"> Chat 22:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Pedro, you really need to understand me before you tell me what I need to understand. I have a clue on all of those topics already. I've been here 6 years thanks. I posted something here which simply helped people whom I'd spoken to, who didn't like what Wikipedia had done. I helped people fix something they didn't want. Anyway, it'll be gone soon, and frankly, I will be glad. Others may not be, so whatever. <font color="red" size="3" face="Tahoma">Barking <font color="blue" size="3" face="Tahoma">Fish  23:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No one objects to the coding advice. It's your Ebenezer Scrooge-like attitude that's bothersome. —David Levy 05:05, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

This has turned into a flame fest, so I'm collapsing this whole discussion. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 08:31, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Featured List
WOOO!!!!!! a featured List on the main page!!!

This is a good day. --Found5dollar (talk) 16:00, 15 January 2011 (UTC) weeeeeeeeeee – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 16:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Applause
I was coming to the Main Page to look for places where a FS/FL section could be added. TO my surprise, a FS and an FL was already there! I applaud the change for today, and I think that keeping a modified version of this permanently might be a good idea. Especially with this shameless plug for FS, which is severely lacking in editors, people might be interested in working on other types of content (like FS, hint hint). Perhaps the way to do this in the future would be to have only 2 types a day (FA + FL, FA + FS, FA + FPO), or have it on a rotating schedule (FA one day, FA + FL the next), etc. I really think that it would increase activity in those areas. ( X! ·  talk )  · @756  · 17:09, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The main page is for readers, not editors, and that would confuse that. I get the idea though. 狐 FOX   22:17, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

10th Anniversary FA
There was a discussion here about what the FA for the 10th anniversary (Jan 15) should be. Some of the ideas thrown out were (in no particular order):
 * Featuring an essay describing the FA process, or perhaps linking to the old signpost dispatch describing it
 * Featuring 10 featured article that have previously appeared on the main page
 * Featuring a range of content that normally doesn't make the main page - featured sounds, featured lists, etc. (I find this idea particularly intriguing)

I wanted to open up discussion here and see what everyone thought. Time is short, so I need to decide this soon. (I'd also like to see suggested blurbs for the above ideas, particularly for the ' range of content that normally doesn't make the main page ' suggestion). Raul654 (talk) 17:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I had suggested finding the best possible unused TFA and running it. My idea was speed of light, which I thought might carry a nice implication.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I believe Transport is the oldest known WP article. What about a drive to get it to FA standard? Appreciate there's not much time, so it's just a thought. --FormerIP (talk) 17:41, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * There are two problems with that idea: (1) it would be impossible to get up to FA status in 3 days, and (2) The transport article dates back to November, 2001. Doubtless there were earlier articles whose revision histories have been screwed up, which doesn't strike me as a reason to get excited about it. Raul654 (talk) 17:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Anything that could be got up to FA standard at all could be got up to FA standard in 3 days provided there's the will to do it and we can be confident that the topic is not going to be contentious (I reckon so, anyway). U was redirected in Feb 2001 from UuU, created on 16th Jan 2001. I expect that |AaA probably predates this by a few hours, although early edits are not in the database. William Alston was edited on 17th Jan (so ditch Transport), although it might be hard to FA. --FormerIP (talk) 18:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * A look at the logs here: appears to show that the first WP article was titled "Philosophy and Logic" (no article by that title now - this also appears to inclclude WP's fist ever gross violation of NPOV, by placing Ayn Rand in a short list along with some philosophers). The second ever article seems to have been "United States". The first page with actual article content was Afghanistan. Assuming I'm understanding the logs correctly. --FormerIP (talk) 18:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I do like having the other WP:FCs in there, even just for a day. lists can replace ITN, sounds can replace DYK, topics can replace OTD, and the portals at the top replaced with the Featured Portal. Can we just have a randomizer (1 of each per refresh) that'll allow all featured content to be on the Main Page for that day? – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 18:55, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Rather than replacing ITN, FP, DYK, what I am envisioning is using the FA slot to simultaneously run a featured list and a featured sound and a featured topic. The write ups for each would be short (probably no more than 2 sentences each, along with an appropriate image and a links to Featured lists, Portal:Featured sounds, and Featured topics). Raul654 (talk) 19:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If only Wikipedia was a current FA... Time to hunt through Category:Featured articles that have not appeared on the main page. I think it's a bit late to start replacing content in other sections or implementing new randomising code, which would need to be tested on multiple platforms. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 19:01, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm willing to feature a Wikipedia-related article (which normally I would not), so long as it is actually a featured article. But I don't think any are up to FA status. Raul654 (talk) 19:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Australia is our oldest article to now have FA status, according to the log I just mentioned. It looks like it was created by a regular user in Australia and it has the log number 979992628. Can someone else verify that I am right about this and can this be our anniversary FA? --FormerIP (talk) 19:32, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think age is a good criteria on which to base the selection. Nobody is going to make the connection unless they read this thread, which is bad. Raul654 (talk) 19:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a fair point, although the connection could be flagged up. --FormerIP (talk) 19:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I support the 10 FA idea. Browsing through the category of unused FAs, it doesn't seem we have any single article that would be quite good enough. 10 FAs would be a bold change to the main page that would draw attention to the anniversary. And it would be able to showcase the broad range of FAs that we have. --Mkativerata (talk) 19:48, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't limit yourself to unused ones. If you could pick the 10 best/most interesting articles to feature on the 10th anniversary, regardless of whether or not they have appeared on the main page, which ones would you want to see? Raul654 (talk) 20:15, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it would be good to open that to some form of community input, although it might be tough within the short timeframe. WRT our great writers, I don't think we should have one Australian cricketer, one Alberta politician, one South Vietnamese military article, and one mushroom. I'd go with (a) FAs that are highly viewed (demonstrating that we can write well about significant topics); and (b) across a broad range of subject matter. But we'd also need to take care that we weren't picking any old FAs that had degenerated significantly since their promotion. --Mkativerata (talk) 20:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I really enjoyed the three featured articles on the 10th anniversary. Is there anyway to have triples more often (eg/ Saturday ± Sunday) I believe it will make it more appealing to readers as it provides an excellent starting point for when you're wikisurfing!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.63.26.124 (talk) 00:52, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Proposals for 10 FAs
Since Raul asked, here are some proposals for FAs to be featured on the main page for the 10 year anniversay. Remember (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Truthiness - I think that this would be somewhat self-referential and show wikipedia's ability to chronical current trends.
 * Encyclopædia Britannica - Since I think this is somewhat appropriate.
 * Speed of light - new FA that is well-written about an important subject
 * Evolution - good general topic.
 * Bird - another good general encyclopedia topic
 * Tulip mania - interesting historical economic topic
 * Hydrogen - first element
 * Antartica - good encyclopedia geography article
 * Tang Dynasty - good history article
 * Romeo and Juliet - good literature article
 * Free will - good philosophical article
 * Earth - good planet article.

Those are my ideas. Any others? Remember (talk) 21:13, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of using FAs on the WP:CORE list. In which case we'd have the following to pick from:

Admittedly that's a bit biased towards science topics. Or we could supplement with articles from WP:VITAL. If we do have a rotating list, there should be some sort of indication that we're doing so, rather than just a random one showing up each time someone hits F5 (how will they know to do so?). <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 21:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Antarctica
 * 2) Earth
 * 3) Poetry
 * 4) Evolution
 * 5) Bacteria
 * 6) Fungus
 * 7) Virus
 * 8) Big Bang
 * 9) Galaxy
 * 10) Moon
 * 11) Planet
 * 12) Star
 * 13) Sun
 * 14) Atom
 * 15) Law
 * I like the core idea, but yeah, the bias is a bit of a concern. Ultimately, I think we should showcase our variety of coverage. Mix a couple sciences with a couple biographies with a sporting topic with an entertainment topic with something completely off the wall. Reso lute 21:29, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Love the idea of 10 FA's, so....
The issues are, however;
 * Irrespective of the Actual FA's, I strongly support the idea of showing a lot of featured content (totaling 10) on the main page (and in-line with what Raul describes as "intriguing" above.
 * 1) Coding the page to work and look okay (I assume we will need to remove ITN, OTD, DYK etc. ??)
 * 2) Balancing the FA's (we have 8 portals and my personal like would be 1 FA from each portal, one Featured Picture and One Featured .......list? Featured .....sound? Something to balance but show diversity.)
 * 3) Agreeing, QUICKLY, said content - Raul will have to be pretty firm here if this idea was accepted.
 * Just thought I'd throw this out. Pedro : <font style="color:#accC10;background:#0000fa;"> Chat 22:09, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Blending MG's idea of using WP:VITAL FA's with a need to go a bit beyond science topics, I'd suggest the following 10 articles:
 * William Shakespeare
 * Law
 * Elizabeth I of England
 * Ancient Egypt
 * Antarctica
 * Charles Darwin
 * Poetry
 * Olympics
 * Sun
 * Archimedes
 * I've left out articles on countries or religions - which ones of those to select will unnecessarily divide opinion. The list has four biographies, one sports article, and no more than two related to the one country. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:35, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ... Shakespeare, Elizabeth I and Darwin all strike me as being from the same country; Shakespeare and Elizabeth I are also from the same era, and four bios is at least one too many I think. How about Oxygen instead, and / or an animal article such as Sheep? My original suggestion at WT:TFAR was ten randomised FAs, using the same code idea as for US Presidential Election day when we had two random FAs on display - I don't think that removing DYK / ITN / OTD would be a good idea, particularly because placing the entire focus on the FAs would take away the spotlight from the other sections that people might find interesting or useful. Bencherlite Talk 22:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'd cut out QE1. And you've got 4 bios but only one science now. And yes we've only got the FA box to work with, there's no way we can exclude all the other sections. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 22:49, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You're right, it's three British bios and that's too many (especially with no Americans). Oxygen is an excellent idea: it would be good to have an element article. Perhaps we should dump Shakespeare. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I dont know which one but i would replace one of them with Earth considering thats the only Level 1 VA FA we have. -- Ashish -g55 22:53, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't care about Americans or Brits, but all bios on that list are all white guys. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 03:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You're calling a former Queen a guy? :P 狐 FOX   03:29, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * In my demographic, "guy" refers to both boys and girls. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 04:15, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Earth would be an easy replacement for Sun, I think. --Mkativerata (talk) 22:55, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * As far as main page balance goes, we don't need to do ten full TFA's, I think, but rather a standard size TFA blurb that brings ten FAs together? Reso lute 23:11, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm thinking of an FA blurb in the range of 1x to 2x the normal size. If we go with a larger-than-normal blurb, we can balance it out by putting something at the top of ITN along the lines of "Wikipedia celebrates its 10th anniversary." Raul654 (talk) 23:32, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Our mini-blurbs for each TFA might need to be so short as to be essentially useless. Another option might be a collage of pictures, with a "clockwise from top left, ten of wikipedia's most prominent featured articles..." caption. Perhaps someone with some creative ability might have a bright idea from "outside the box", so to speak. --Mkativerata (talk) 23:35, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

So I started wrigging an example mockup of the 10 article idea at User:Raul654/test1/User:Raul654/blurb1, but I stopped because with pictures it is much too long, and without them, it looks just like DYK. I think the idea needs to be scrapped unless someone can come up with a way to do it that doesn't re-do DYK with FAs. Raul654 (talk) 18:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I implemented the other idea (featured content that normally doesn't make the main page) at User:Raul654/test2 and I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Raul654 (talk) 18:59, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Once y'all decide on this, better notice WP:AN and WP:ANI to get extra vandal watching (I'm not participating in this discussion, as I'm entertained at Andrew Wakefield ITN. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 19:13, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * So what does everyone think of the above mock-ups? Raul654 (talk) 21:54, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No question test2 is the better, and perhaps you could make it better by moving one (if the sound) or two of the images to the right.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:03, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Be my guest - play around with it, make it look better. Raul654 (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You're right: the 10 FAs just don't work. Making it work would seem be a graphic design/coding feat that we couldn't realistically ask of anyone in the little time that we have. The "other featured content" comes up quite well and isn't too much longer than a normal ITN. Would Solar System or Nobel Laureates be better for the featured topic? --Mkativerata (talk) 22:08, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * We already have a science article, so solar system isn't a good choice, and the nobel laurietes article doesn't use the name of the article in the introductory paragraphs (which makes it very hard to write up a blurb). In short, I'm happy with the articles I've picked. Raul654 (talk) 22:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Timeline of chemistry is currently on our list of FL's that may be below standards though... Courcelles 23:10, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll choose a differnet once. Raul654 (talk) 00:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * @Raul: Just pointing out that the first ever promoted featured topic was Saffron. Nergaal (talk) 00:48, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I did not see this discussion earlier, but what would be the chances that we run this sort of trio for either 1 week, 1 month, or 10 days? Nergaal (talk) 00:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I figured that someone was going to ask that sooner or later. My answer - For now, for this is a one-off thing. Assuming this doesn't blow up in our faces, after the anniversary, we can discuss doing this (or something like it) on a more regular basis. Raul654 (talk) 00:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Featured content for a day
Ok, just so everyone's clear - I'm going to go with the "Today's featured content" blurb that I've done up at User:Raul654/test2, which includes a featured topic, list, and sound. I'd appreciate it if someone could check my HTML and make sure I didn't do anything bad. I'd also appreciate it if someone could play around with the pics to get rid of the empty space below the featured sound. Raul654 (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Lastly, are we planning to have some kind of "Wikipedia celebrates its 10th anniversary" statement somewhere on the main page? If not, I will put that in the featured content blurb. Raul654 (talk) 22:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Love this idea. As an 2007 FL, timeline of chemistry may or may not in decent shape, and I've alerted the folks at WT:CHEM so we can be sure it's up to snuff. If it's not, may I suggest List of cutaneous conditions instead? Dabomb87 (talk) 23:15, 12 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Why not put Vivaldi's image on the left and the link on the right? Nergaal (talk) 00:27, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've left a test edit on your /blurb2 talk page; it transcludes without the space and looks fine. Just a minor quibble: is the external link necessary? Nergaal (talk) 00:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Starting with your version, I flipped the music to the left and the Vivaldi pic to the right, then decided I like it better without the Vivaldi pic at all. Raul654 (talk) 00:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, about the external link -- we got the file because I found John Harrison's webpage, emailed him, and asked if he would please contribute a few. I walked him through the process of registering and uploading them. His username is User:Whyameye, a red link. Ditto commons:User:Whyameye. I figured an external link was the best thing to do. Raul654 (talk) 01:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)


 * @Raul: I was thinking you were going to mention it somewhere so I took it out of OTD, but we can put it back there if it's hard to fit anywhere else.  howcheng  {chat} 00:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, it might be a good idea to put it at the top of ITN in a bigger-than-normal font, which should help balance out the main pag (the FA blurb is going to be about 1/3 longer than normal). Raul654 (talk) 00:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, OTD is a sorta nondescript location for it.  howcheng  {chat} 00:40, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I came up with a mock-up of how it might look in ITN here. It looks really weird with just the text you suggested at WP:ITN/C, so I added some text under it to pad it out. It's an idea at the very least. -- Dorsal  Axe  14:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * We traditionally display such announcements via Main Page banner, which I believe makes more sense than adding a meta item to ITN or any specific section. I created a mock-up.
 * Note that we frequently accommodate long TFA blurbs by including extra items in ITN and/or OTD, so that isn't a problem. —David Levy 16:05, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Minor issue
Since it was decided to put three distinct featured content on mainpage I have a question: Talk:Moons of Saturn and Talk:BBC Sports Personality of the Year are featured list and the "maindate" can be added to them, but Talk:The Four Seasons (Vivaldi) is not a featured article or list, even not a good article. My question is, what can be done? Tb hotch Talk and C.  02:03, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Forget the Four Sesaons article - the article text is just "garnish." What is being featured is File:01 - Vivaldi Spring mvt 1 Allegro - John Harrison violin.ogg. A main date should be added to the image or talk page. Raul654 (talk) 02:05, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Good idea, I added a similar tag used by the picture of the day. Tb hotch Talk and  C.  02:14, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If we start doing this on a regular basis (per Nergaal's question above) it might be a good idea to create a template for this purpose. Raul654 (talk) 02:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe interspersing Today's featured picture with a featured list, a featured sound, a featured portal, a featured topic and a good article each day of the week. It does not is a bad idea. Tb hotch Talk and  C.  02:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Anniversary TFP
What do y'all think about putting File:Jimmy Wales Fundraiser Appeal edit.jpg as TFP for the 15th?  howcheng  {chat} 23:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's pretty funny, though I'm amazed it's actually an FP. Only if we can use Lugo as well! <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 00:05, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * All hail Lugo!  Lugnuts  (talk) 09:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Support the pic of Fernando Lugo. Raul654 (talk) 00:27, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * How about a FP which illustrates a WP:VITAL FA and was created by a wikimedian ? I found File:All Gizah Pyramids.jpg (Ancient Egypt) and File:Calliope-nest edit.jpg (Birds). --Elekhh (talk) 02:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not keen on that because then it's not particularly different than running a regularly scheduled FP.  howcheng  {chat} 16:41, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh boy, I really thought it was a joke.... --Elekhh (talk) 05:54, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, me too. As if our readers haven't seen enough of his staring visage recently. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 10:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * How about we finally show the one we never showed when it was due i.e. File:Michele Merkin 1.jpg Michele Merkin 1.jpg. I'm sure the foundation will love the attention for their anniversary even if no one knows it is because they're all too busy thinking of the children. That will fulfill the criteria of 'different'/'not normally featured on the main page' and I'm sure many will agree it fulfills the criteria of attention grabbing and interesting. Hey we don't even have to worry about the self ref in the description since it's our anniversary so we expect self refs! (Okay it doesn't fulfill the wikimedian criteria but it was specifically donated to us as free content.) Nil Einne (talk) 19:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No love for this specific TFP then? So what are we going with? Jimbo Wales? Nil Einne (talk) 23:49, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Seriously? That was deemed unsuitable for TFP? Bizarre. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 10:45, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * We went with Kevin Kostner? ;) Matthewedwards : <font style="color:#accC10;background:#0000fa;"> Chat 20:31, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * See User talk:Howcheng/MerkinPOTD and Picture of the day/Unused for the discussion/reasoning. You'd have to ask him about this, but I get the feeling one of the reasons why it's wasn't TFP is not simply because of the lack of any real consensus or even significant support when the issue was brought up but because Howcheng doesn't want to have to detail with the inevitable complaints and controversy if it were TFP. (I believe at least that's one of the reasons Raul has given for reluctance to feature certain articles like Jenna Jameson.) Nil Einne (talk) 19:10, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As an aside, it occurs to me one thing which may partially allay some of the concerns would be if we could do like we did for the US election day in 2008 and have a similar photo of a male, even better if it's someone 'non-white'. Of course a blurb would be needed for these, glamour photography doesn't mention males (in that way) at all. I guess two blurb would be an option although you'd still need to make sure they fitted together (for example a blurb on glamour photography and a blurb on say physical fitness would be strange, a blurb on each person would be better although would lead to even more complaints about being free advertising). It's a moot point until such a FP exists anyway... Nil Einne (talk) 19:40, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If it was an explicit or erotic photo, that argument would make sense. But that image is less sexually stimulating than most perfume adverts... I'd be amazed if there were significant numbers of complaints. I was just surprised. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 21:55, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Content selection
I can't seem to find the discussion of the content selection for tomorrow's featured content triptych. There's some above, but I can't find a good explanation for any of them. Moons of Saturn seems a good choice and The Four Seasons is probably the best of our featured sounds. But BBC Sports Personality of the Year seems a curious choice for the featured topic. I can't speak to the quality of the featured topics, but I certainly think a more interesting one could have been chosen. Nobel laureates, Noble gas, Saffron, or Guadalcanal Campaign would have been of much higher interest and better choices. It's probably too late to make a change; I just thought it was worth pointing out. If anyone can point me to a discussion elsewhere, thanks. Makeemlighter (talk) 02:34, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with using a featured sound or featured list. The Four Seasons was not created by a Wikipedia user, it's simply hosted on Commons (not even Wikipedia) under a public-domain license (which is not an accomplishment). Featured lists are also a dull category. This is our tenth anniversary; we should showcase something bigger and better than the normal items, and lists are just "FA-light".
 * I agree with the earlier idea, to showcase ten of the most vital FAs in a bold, colorful display. I don't know why this idea was dismissed so fast. We're trying to impress users, not confuse them or show them our peculiarities.
 * Another good option, which would showcase our diversity and breadth, would be to set up a random featured topic on each pageview (and each item clearly marked as an FA/GA). This will involve a lot of Simpsons and WWF but it's still an accomplishment, and it's better than showcasing a sound file uploaded by one user to a different site. —Noisalt (talk) 03:29, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

An alternative proposal
I know Raul654 has essentially made up his mind, but I pressed on regardless. Here is my proposal for the main page, including 10 featured articles. It also includes an optimistic introduction at the top. What's represented: Geography, history, science, literature, sports. Some may object to so many images, but look what's represented so succinctly: I think this is a little more exciting than the BBC sports award. Let me know what you think. —Noisalt (talk) 05:08, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Earth
 * United States
 * Europe
 * UK
 * Africa
 * Russia
 * East Asia
 * Arabic culture (not Middle East but Algeria, close!)
 * Microscopic
 * Macroscopic
 * "The Unknown" (Antarctica)


 * I wholeheartedly support this proposal, including the choice of FAs. If image placement was a problem before, then this shows it can be done in a way that is both concise and aesthetically pleasing. That being said, there might still be some issues with page stretching at lower resolutions and I'm not sure about the "Here are some of our favorites" line. As suggested above, information about the 10th anniversary could be added to ITN to balance the sections. mgiganteus1 (talk) 07:50, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It does mean the loss of DYK though...  Worm   10:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I liked this proposal, apart from the empty space that I saw below OTD (screen capture). So I inserted DYK to fill the gap (screen capture). Noisalt reverted with the summary "I don't know how that looks on your computer but it looks pretty bad on mine... DYK can take a breather for one day." This led me to realize that the special section contains a highly variable amount of white space above and below the images (depending on people's resolutions and browser configurations), resulting in an extraordinarily inconsistent layout (and an awkwardly narrow column of text at lower resolutions). For this reason, I must oppose this implementation. —David Levy 13:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to agree that there are severe display issues with this proposal. It's a nice idea, although I think I prefer the idea of content not normally featured getting a chance to shine for once. -- Dorsal  Axe  14:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to point out, I get the same godawful gap under OTD. 狐 FOX   16:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Noisalt's alternative is eye catching - it never occured to me to do away with DYK for a day, but it's a good idea in this case. However, it's a non-starter until and unless the display issues can be resolved. Raul654 (talk) 17:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Changes for 0:00 UTC
Here's a quick summary of the changes that need to be made at midnight UTC to accomodate the featured content blurb:
 * On the main page,  |R}}>150|Today's featured article  need to be changed to  |R}}>150|Today's featured content| 
 * I like David Levy's suggestion above, so Template:Main Page banner/sandbox should be copied to Template:Main Page banner
 * ITN is going to have to add a few additional items. Raul654 (talk) 17:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Note: I've temporarily modified the main page's code to automatically display Template:Main Page banner (to which I copied the message) and the "Today's featured content" heading from 00:00 to 23:59 tomorrow. —David Levy 21:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll be on at midnight, so I'll sort ITN out if nobody beats me to it. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  21:33, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ITN should be set. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 21:50, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: Titoxd is referring to this edit, which I reverted (because I'm fairly certain that the idea is to display the message via the banner instead of that section). —David Levy 22:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yet Raul also said that ITN will have additional items. Let me poke him to see what's going on. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 22:05, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I noted above that we routinely add additional items to the section to accommodate long TFA blurbs. Raul was referring to that. —David Levy 22:12, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Can someone please tweak the code (or modify it by hand) so that it persists into the evening in the Americas and the Pacific? I raised this issue here and there was significant support for doing so. A banner that disappears on 16 January UTC time makes no sense because it will be 7 PM in New York, 6 PM in Mexico City, and 4 PM in Los Angeles when Wikipedia stops celebrating its tenth Anniversary for the day. That's lame. The usual justification for cycling stuff on the UTC clock (having the TFA, etc. up for only 24 hours) does not hold in this case. Thank you.--Chaser (talk) 22:15, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I can just do it manually. It's less complicated than I thought.--Chaser (talk) 22:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The special content to which the message refers will appear from 00:00 to 23:59 UTC. If we were to display the banner beyond that point, it would need to be modified to mention only the tenth anniversary. —David Levy 22:21, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I propose that we instead use this site logo until the tenth anniversary ends in all time zones. Opinions? —David Levy 22:41, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's a great idea and a rather nice logo too. As an aside, we also need to remove the anniversary blurb from the featured content box, as it has been made redundant by the banner above it. -- Dorsal  Axe  22:44, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Done. —David Levy 22:49, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you David. That's a good solution. Given that after midnight UTC it will be just a logo change, I could see leaving it up for, say, a week. Any thoughts?--Chaser (talk) 21:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Shouldn't we have started celebrating the anniversary before 2pm then? Nil Einne (talk) 23:38, 14 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Is there a preview of tomorrow's page? I notice that Main Page/Tomorrow has different code then Main Page. I don't know if this is intended or that that may cause the main page not to show the main page banner properly. I tweaked some spacing in Main Page/Tomorrow, but that may have no effect on the real page. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  — 23:54, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Guess we'll find out soon Nil Einne (talk) 23:59, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've figured it out and fixed it at 00:00 UTC... :) — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  — 00:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

The picture that is currently going up tomorrow for the Guadalcanal Campaign is not related to that. It was never chaged when the featured topic of changed from BBC Sports Personality of the Year. This needs to be changed. Z gin der 2011-01-14T22:38Z (UTC)
 * Yes, good catch. But what image should be used do you think? And as someone said above, the BBC sports personality trophy does have an unfortunate resemblance to a sentry gun... ;) -- Dorsal  Axe  23:06, 14 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I've fixed it. Raul654 (talk) 23:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Just a quic note - when I said above that ITN is going to have to add a few additional items, I was talking about adding a few standard news items for balance -- not a 10th anniversary announcement, which David Levy's suggestion makes unnecessary. Raul654 (talk) 23:03, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

ITN is still short, but everything else looks good. Raul654 (talk) 00:00, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I preferred the colouring in the /Tomorrow subpage. The banner doesn't stand out as much here. Other than that, great job guys! -- Dorsal  Axe  00:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Happy Anniversary, Wikipedia!

 * ~ A H 1 (T C U) 00:02, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

History
One of you more technical editors please restore the FA history. To me this is big, I use this list daily. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Starranger00 (talk • contribs) 10:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean the "recently featured" bit? -- Dorsal  Axe  10:56, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Welcome banner (and other small updates)
What do you think about putting the bottom half of the main page in a table as well? — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  — 15:21, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Similar styles were proposed during the last successful main page redesign. It was decided that it was better to limit the colored boxes to dynamic/encyclopedic content, with the static/meta content remaining visually distinct. This also addressed concerns that the inclusion of too many colored boxes was visually overwhelming. The "welcome" banner, being intermediate in nature, received a grey box. —David Levy 15:29, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. The welcome banner though has been a sore eyecatcher; it just doesn't sit well between the Vector skin and the featured content. It is a depressing black hole. Even plain white would be better. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  — 15:44, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Can we try that with the grey border currently in use? (I realize that the blue border matches the Vector skin, but it doesn't match the rest of the page.) —David Levy 16:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * sure. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  — 17:08, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The actual page's background is white (so there would be less contrast), but I like it. It would be a refreshing change. —David Levy 17:36, 15 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Indeed. As an alternative (if no one likes it), we could at least change it from #f6f6f6 to #f9f9f9. (Edit) In fact, I think I prefer #f9f9f9; the white is a little too bland. Not too dramatic, but still a little fresher. — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  — 00:27, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * (←) While we're at it, next to the white/lighter welcome banner, I've been doing some minor cleanup in the sandbox, sanitizing some hanging CSS, added a missing id, and taking the Main Page banner (#mp-banner) out of the main content table, giving it 'Community portal yellow' as the default color, and removed automatic centering. Here's the (cross-page diff, preview shows current main page). Please review and discuss, as I'd like to update it to the man page (and then update all very outdated copies). — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> •  Talk  — 12:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Blinking between the current MP and current sandbox, I can barely tell the difference. The background page colour is different (but I think that's done by the skin, not your changes), and there's some very minor changes in where the boxes get drawn (ie a pixel or two). <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 02:15, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That's because I already brightened the welcome banner to #f9f9f9 yesterday; it is now the same as the sandbox. Try blinking between an old revision of the main page and the sandbox (which indeed has a blue background in monobook). — <b style="color:#008">Edokter</b> • Talk  — 03:38, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Today's DYK
Bravo to the editors who wrote Interactive urinal and to those who listed it on DYK! It had me checking the calendar to make sure it wasn't April 1st! --Ashanda (talk) 22:08, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Shriver in the news
In the news mentions "American politician Sargent Shriver (pictured)", but in my browser at least he isn't pictured. Or if he is pictured, then Gormley isn't pictured. Anyway there are two "(pictured)" for people but only one picture of a person. Morenoodles (talk) 04:44, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * That would be my fault! Thanks for pointing it out, I've fixed it. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  04:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm glad if I have have helped. Morenoodles (talk) 05:14, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Pointing out errors on the main page is always a help, and you can use WP:ERRORS too as it is probably watched by more people. Needless to say HJ Mitchell will have his salary docked this month. ;) --Step hen 05:19, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * As a minor clarification WP:ERRORS isn't necessarily watched by more people (I don't watch it personally and never have much although I used to watch this page a bit), however it is hopefully watched my more admins (who are the only ones who can make changes to the main page) and more often Nil Einne (talk) 09:21, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You are right, by more than two orders of magnitude. Looks like they'll be docking my admin salary too. Step hen 10:25, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Template:Other areas of Wikipedia
There's a proposal at Village pump (idea lab) to expand Template:Other areas of Wikipedia so that it includes links to WP:Sandbox and WP:Editing tutorial. Please comment there. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Not another hurricane
Too many hurricanes on the main page!--131.111.145.118 (talk) 13:19, 26 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I think it's dis-gust-ing... Careful With That Axe, Eugene  Hello...  14:31, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If you want FAs on a different subject, you can help write them, then Raul can choose them.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:34, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry, my attempt at humour. I did not begin this thread. Careful With That Axe, Eugene  Hello...  15:01, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I really meant the IP.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:06, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Then WP:Indentation would be a good read. -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 02:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The requests page has had openings for two straight weeks. If you want something to appear on the main page, ask and ye shall most likely receive. Raul654 (talk) 19:19, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Could we have like a 10 year moratorium on featuring hurricane articles perhaps? Just a breather really :) Kaldari (talk) 19:23, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No, but we may have hurricane week to clear the hurricane backlog ;) Raul654 (talk) 21:17, 26 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sweet! I might be tempted to send some hurricane articles to FAC if you do that. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 08:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I always thought it would be rather rude to request an article on that page when I hadn't significantly contributed to it. So if the authors don't ask... <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 01:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Portrait of Queen Victoria
Why is Queen Victoria here illustrated by a portrait of Queen Liliuokalani? Deipnosophista (talk) 18:24, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Queen Victoria isn't being illustrated. AD 18:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Building name in italics
Why is Trump International Hotel and Tower in italics? It isn't italicized in the article itself, and in all the time I've written about architecture on and off Wikipedia I don't recall the name of any building being italicized (When we had Chicago Board of Trade Building on the Main Page, for instance, it wasn't italicized). In fact, WP:ITALIC doesn't mention buildings as something whose name is to be so formatted. Daniel Case (talk) 00:25, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The italicization isn't used in the article at all either. I know this one was up on WP:TFAR, so it's likely that the nominator just italicized it and nobody caught it before it went up. Bob Amnertiopsis  ∴ChatMe! 01:32, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * So should we fix it? Daniel Case (talk) 02:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ Daniel Case (talk) 02:26, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Temples
Hey, the last three TFAs all have the word temple in the title. Any significance? :) Zagal e jo^^^ 03:13, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that, too.—<font face="Cambria" size="3"> Chris! c / t 05:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * When there are no suggestions at WP:TFAR (hint, hint), Raul654, who picks the TFAs, has to get his fun somewhere... Bencherlite Talk 07:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that as well, and was wondering if anybody had noticed. —innotata 02:03, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it was like last time and the first two were coincidental so Raul decided to throw a third one in for fun Nil Einne (talk) 14:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hummm....subtle rooting for the Owls, mayhap?--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 21:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

A variant of the MP game in which as many entries begin with a given letter as possible - include as many references to a given word as feasible. Jackiespeel (talk) 16:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Is this right?
I do not know if this is right place to ask this, but the pages Common ownership and Community ownership do not mean the same thing? They should not be merged? - Eduardo Sellan III (talk) 23:55, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ I've removed the suggested merge tags, since they have been on the pages for over three years. These tags are meant to alert other editors to an ongoing discussion. In the future, you can bring up any concerns about an article on its talk page. If you look at the top left of any article, there is a tab that will take you to the talk page for that article. Feel free to drop me a note on my talk page if you have any questions about editing Wikipedia. --Banana (talk) 00:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Temples
Hey, the last three TFAs all have the word temple in the title. Any significance? :) Zagal e jo^^^ 03:13, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that, too.—<font face="Cambria" size="3"> Chris! c / t 05:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * When there are no suggestions at WP:TFAR (hint, hint), Raul654, who picks the TFAs, has to get his fun somewhere... Bencherlite Talk 07:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I noticed that as well, and was wondering if anybody had noticed. —innotata 02:03, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps it was like last time and the first two were coincidental so Raul decided to throw a third one in for fun Nil Einne (talk) 14:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Hummm....subtle rooting for the Owls, mayhap?--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 21:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

A variant of the MP game in which as many entries begin with a given letter as possible - include as many references to a given word as feasible. Jackiespeel (talk) 16:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Is this right?
I do not know if this is right place to ask this, but the pages Common ownership and Community ownership do not mean the same thing? They should not be merged? - Eduardo Sellan III (talk) 23:55, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ I've removed the suggested merge tags, since they have been on the pages for over three years. These tags are meant to alert other editors to an ongoing discussion. In the future, you can bring up any concerns about an article on its talk page. If you look at the top left of any article, there is a tab that will take you to the talk page for that article. Feel free to drop me a note on my talk page if you have any questions about editing Wikipedia. --Banana (talk) 00:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

No Challenger?
Why isn't the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in "On this day" column? I think it should be on there just out of respect for the people that died. — Dusty777(talk • contribs) 00:51, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * For a start, because the article has a big refimprove notice at the top. On a related note, a whole seven people died. If we were to list every event which killed at least seven people, there would be hundreds (maybe thousands) of entries every day. This was a notable event, but not just because people died. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 01:02, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The article has 59 references. That's a lot to be slapped with that tag. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 02:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It's also an FA, which I thought was rather odd. Best to let the article talk page deal with it. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 02:38, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well there are entirely unreferenced sections, but the refimprove tag might be too much. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 02:46, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You could use refimprove-section but if it's multiple sections I can somewhat see the problem 14:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nil Einne (talk • contribs)
 * I was wondering the exact same thing. I mean, the largest recorded snowflakes and the first guy to get a speeding ticket are noteworthy, but not the Challenger disaster? The number of deaths isn't the important part, it was an incredibly significant historical event. Why isn't it there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.211.198.115 (talk) 15:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You'll probably find it was there last year. Can't keep featuring the same things over and over. 狐 FOX   15:17, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I just found out that it's the 25th anniversary today. That's why. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 15:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The rules (WP:OTD, #7) say we can't use an article with a cleanup tag on it. The challenger disaster article has one. Unless and until it's dealt with, we can't use it, regardless of how significant the event was. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 16:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * It's gone now. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 16:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I put Challenger back into OTD, but there's still sections that could use more references (i.e., simply removing the tag doesn't mean that the article doesn't need work). I'll put the maintenance tags back in the article after 00:00 UTC.  howcheng  {chat} 16:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * No offense, but doesn't that defeat the rule's purpose? Isn't the idea that articles in need of such improvement aren't highlighted? This makes it seem as though we simply don't want the embarrassment of readers knowing that the problems exist. —David Levy 16:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah I know, but Space Shuttle Challenger disaster isn't in dire need of attention, and it's got the FA star of approval, so it doesn't look embarrassing having that item featured. I don't mind sweeping this under the rug for a few hours.  howcheng  {chat} 19:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well what i meant by respect for the people that died is that Millions of people were affected by this event. The school teacher that died affected all the kids in her class as well as the parents, her family. What about the others who died that day? If you were someone who was related to or friends one of the people who died, wouldn't you like to feel like some people remembered what happened? Also the people that worked at NASA that day when it happened? These people all were affected the second Challenger exploded. Also its the 25th anniversary (and you guys didn't even put the Picture on there), i think that by it self is good enough for OTD. You guys run the main page and you can do what you want. If you dont want it on there thats fine. I wont get mad or anything but i will be a little disappointed. I just think that the people that died and their family's and friends deserve a little bit of respect. If you want to take off of OTD no problem, just think a little about what you said and what happened.(Dusty777 17:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dusty777 (talk • contribs)
 * The sole issue with the article was that it's not good enough to be on the main page. The thing with "a whole seven people died" should've not been said anyway since it laughingly oversimplified what happened, and the problem (not being good enough) was apparently dealt with. It could've helped if you've earlier said it was the 25th anniversary so that it was dealt with earlier (OTD likes anniversaries that are divisible by 5). – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 17:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * With all respect to those who died (and I remember the Challenger explosion quite well, I found out when I got an afternoon newspaper), I do not believe every website in the world needs to run with the Challenger explosion 25th. I agree that it would have been nice, but I really can't believe it is disrespect. The survivors will continue to do just that. There is ample coverage around the world. Dusty, why not work on the article so we will be prepared for the 30th?--Wehwalt (talk) 17:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * If we are going to go by sheer numbers, we have two roof collapse articles (Katowice Trade Hall roof collapse and Knickerbocker Theatre) that are currently hidden on OTD where a lot more people died.  howcheng  {chat} 19:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I understand what you guys are saying. The two roof collapses need to be on there too out of respect for the others that died. Wehwalt, maybe I should work on the article so its ready in 5 years (good advice), but tell me something, i want five websites off the top of your head (without looking it up) that have the 25th anniversary of the disaster on their home page? (so we can see if every site is honoring it) I don't really care about it being on the home page but i am thinking about the people affected by this disaster. If you think the article is not suitable for the OTD by all means get rid of it. Just think about this though, If you were a friend or relative of any of the people who died on that day, wouldn't you like to have a few people remember out of respect for them? Thats about my whole argument right there. I have nothing against any of you but it really seams like none of you care that seven people died 25 years ago. Just think, i might die today or tomorrow and no one else will care enough to get the article ready in the next five years. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dusty777 (talk • contribs) 19:27, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The challenger disaster was significant and had lasting effects and great interest from many-even today. Otherwise the article wouldn’t have had 150k+ viewers yesterday. Seems to me on wikipedia if people make a mistake the trend is always to find a wiki policy that backs you up as being right and move on after the fact. Was the article Space Shuttle Challenger tagged?., didnt look like it, so why not use that one? Probably can be argued that its the shuttle and not the event but still., the event article is pretty close to a Featured right?-is it not still classified as such? Do we require all articles to be featured articles to appear on the main page? The majority are not of course. It just seems reading this text above that theres alot of excuses being made for the page not appearing on On this day.... Regardless whatever the reason, it is devastating that this article (event) was forgotten here- whether on the main page or with its maintenance in general. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.175.88.108 (talk) 14:25, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The sole viable solution to an article that has a cleanup tag on it but needs to be on the main page in the same day: rapidly improve the article and remove the tag. ~ A H 1 (T C U) 18:53, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You seem to be missing the point about what people are saying about numbers. 7 people is hardly a large number of deaths. And for most deaths what you say applies. Whether someone dies is space shuttle explosion or a bus crash their families, friends etc are still going to be affected. We can't put up every event where 7 people died, for most of those events we don't even have articles. And there's no reason to concentrate on events anyway if all you care about is people affected. If someone has a heart attack and dies their family and friends aren't going to be much less affected because it wasn't part of a mass casulty event. 7 people, isn't even a blip on the daily death rate. In case it's still not obvious I'm not saying the Challenger disaster didn't belong but that the argument 'some people died and their relatives/friends were affected' is an incredibly flawed one. And BTW yes sorry to save but if you do die tomorrow, there's quite a good chance there won't be a wikipedia article about you. Nil Einne (talk) 14:40, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll readily admit that I don't care about seven people dying 25 years ago. The disaster was notable for other reasons. You're not the only one who remembers. --118.208.186.59 (talk) 15:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Sorry I haven't checked back here. I did see the Washington Post and CNN feature it on their main pages, anyway. People die every day; each is a tragedy, this disaster is tragic for the death of seven; perhaps more so because of the death of the explorative space program. After this year, it may be quite some time before NASA itself orbits an astronaut, and I trace it back to Challenger. As Pournelle said, "If we can send a man to the moon, why can't we send a man to the moon?"--Wehwalt (talk) 16:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the great discussion on this.... I was not expecting it haha. Well i guess we got a about everything discussed on this lol. See ya next for the same thing maybe =D. Dusty777 22:14, 2 February 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dusty777 (talk • contribs)

Donation receipt
Hi. I am a charity which has raised money for Wikipedia. I would like to donate online under the charity's name and have an "online receipt" as a proof of giving. How can I do that? Cheers, 128.232.228.114 (talk) 13:50, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * For something like that, probably best to contact the foundation directly particularly if it's a large amount of money has contact info in particular donate(at)wikimedia.org while  gives donations(at)wikimedia.org Nil Einne (talk) 15:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you! --Dweller (talk) 11:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia Languages Section
Indonesian has passed 150,000 articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.180.39.164 (talk) 19:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); January 31, 2011; 19:20 (UTC)

German (Deutsch) and French (Français) have passed 1 million entries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.78.126.75 (talk) 07:11, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The absence of a "More than 1,000,000 articles:" row is deliberate; please see Talk:Main Page/Archive 155 for the most recent mention of the issue and a list of links to more in-depth discussions. Best, -- Black Falcon (talk) 07:27, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

If I may add, the Tagalog Wikipedia has also exceeded 50,000 articles. -- Sky Harbor ( talk ) 07:08, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Ali Abdullah Saleh
It should be mentioned in the news that also His Excellency Ali Abdullah Saleh stated that he didn't seek re-election in Yemen, almost same time as Mubarak did. --112.205.7.91 (talk) 11:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The discussion is going on over at In The News. --Banana (talk) 15:42, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

On this day
1994 – The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued its final ruling in Ney v. Landmark Education Corporation and Werner Erhard and affirmed the decision of the District Court; Werner Erhard defaulted on the payment due to Ney.

- What is this, and who cares? Surely there must be something better to put here, especially since most of the English speaking world will not have a clue what this is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.195.241.3 (talk) 16:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Today marks the lunisolar Chinese New Year, the most important holiday for most ethnic Chinese. Surely this deserves a mention? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.166.83.180 (talk) 04:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Random Article
Random article used to support the back button going to the previous random article, but now it takes the user back to the main page. Please restore the original behavior. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.14.154.3 (talk) 18:29, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It works OK for me; it goes back to the previous random article. If more than one person has this problem, a better page to report it is Village pump (technical). They will want the name of your operating system and browser. Art LaPella (talk) 21:10, 2 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have this problem too so I've copied the OP there. Ericoides (talk) 22:30, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Chinese New Year
Today is chinese new year, a very important occasion to Chinese people, so should it be added to the On This Day column?Ysjzysn (talk) 02:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Alas, Chinese New Year is tagged as both lacking references and requiring cleanup, which per WP:OTD, disqualifies it from being featured in the Selected Anniversaries section.  howcheng  {chat} 05:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Ditto with Tết, but Korean New Year, Tsagaan Sar and Losar are clean enough to get on to the main page. --70.31.8.40 (talk) 13:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Added Korean New Year. --BorgQueen (talk) 14:00, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well technically speaking (not to wikilawyer, but more to IAR), articles are "preferred" to be free of cleanup tags. The Chinese new year article is long and written somewhat decently, with 35 references, it just has 1 unreferenced section and one section needing cleanup. While we as insiders know that the Main page is to feature Wikipedia's best/better content, your average MP reader is probably not. Just my 0.02. Arakunem Talk  17:43, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I was really suprised too; it's such a massive thing - even here, for example, in the UK.
 * Is it just the "Dates" section not being referenced? So couldn't someone have simply removed that - put it on the talk page - pending refs? Oh, and OK, there is 'cleanup' on "Red envelopes" - but, again, wouldn't take long to just tidy it.
 * I'd do it myself, but I guess it's a bit late to bother now; it's a pity. WP:SYSTEMIC and so forth.  Chzz  ►  18:08, 3 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 'Dates' is the worst offender, but 'Festivities' is almost entirely unreferenced, and there are many paragraphs of text without a single reference scattered throughout the entire article. Looks like a refimprove tag is justified, unfortunately. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 23:05, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Erie Summary
The summary of Erie really should mention what country it is in. There is no indication short of readers clicking into links as to where it is. Remember the majority of readers are not from the United States. Canterbury Tail  talk  17:11, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

(Philadelphia is a global city.) (New York is especially well known, due to its namesake city.) (self-explanatory)
 * From the blurb:
 * Named for the lake and the Native American tribe that resided along its southern shore, Erie is the state's fourth largest city (after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Allentown), with a population of 104,000.
 * Erie is in proximity to Cleveland, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
 * Erie won the All-America City Award in 1972.
 * —David Levy 17:28, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, and you have to get very far down the blurb, and do your own detective work to deduce that. When other cities are put there they include the country, no reason US cities, especially less well known ones, should be any different. Canterbury Tail   talk  20:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * You originally stated that "there is no indication short of readers clicking into links as to where it is." Now you acknowledge that the information is present, but you claim that "you have to get very far down the blurb, and do your own detective work." Conversely, I assert that the context should be obvious to most readers by the second sentence.
 * While the project described on your user page is an admirable one, this particular complaint appears driven more by principle than by any actual ambiguity. —David Levy 21:09, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I concur with David. It's not exactly onerous to expect readers to read all the way to the second sentence, by which point it will be obvious what country Erie is located in. Raul654 (talk) 21:25, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Normally, I'd concur with Canterbury Tail and, indeed, I'd point out that Little Thetford, from last month, was disambiguated to "Cambridgeshire, England" in the first sentence. That said, I think most English speakers know where one would find Philadelphia in the fridge, of course!. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  21:32, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * In retrospect, the Little Thetford blurb also contained enough information to render such disambiguation superfluous. —David Levy 22:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Quite possibly. I expect most people know where Cambridgeshire is. I'm of the opinion that it doesn't hurt to to add the country on the end even when it's not really ambiguous, but the MoS disagrees. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  22:22, 4 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, the first sentence contains a reference to London (which, unless otherwise specified, obviously refers to the one in England), and the second sentence contains a reference to the East of England. —David Levy 22:33, 4 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And yet in spite of that today's article on Battersea Bridge feels the need to tell us that it crosses the River Thames in somewhere called London, England. 87.112.177.117 (talk) 13:12, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I've removed "England" from the main page blurb. I'll leave it to others to determine whether it should remain in the article's lead, where it was added by UK editor Iridescent in May 2009. —David Levy 14:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, my old bugbear, borne of the US-centrism of this project. For the vast majority of US-related articles, the city and state are all that are given, as if we should all automatically know that they are in the US. Click on random article and you'll see what I mean - articles about other countries usually state the country; articles about the US usually don't. It's this special treatment/arrogance/whatever you want to call it that I object to - somehow Paris, Texas and Paris, France are considered equal. Usually it'll be argued that "oh, you only have to read on it the article to work out where it is (if you are stupid enough not to know the names of all the US states)" - I would argue that the purpose of an international encyclopaedia is to provide the basic information in the lead, not to expect people to read on or click on a link to work out where it is that is being talked about. Why not put it in if, by leaving it out, you confound and/or annoy a large part of your non-US readers? Why accept this special treatment for the US? 86.143.69.176 (talk) 12:37, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * 1. Given the fact that Paris, France redirects to Paris (rightly so), your assertion that it's "considered equal" to Paris, Texas doesn't ring true. Also note that both articles' leads contain mentions of the countries.
 * 2. In case you aren't aware, the same type of "edit" link that you clicked to write about "US-centrism," "special treatment" and "arrogance" also can be used to fix the problem about which you complain. —David Levy 14:03, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Are you seriously suggesting that us non americans don't know which country Texas is in? Next you'll be suggesting we don't know where Queensland is.©Geni 17:22, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you know where London is Geni? or Twyford? Or Springfield? Your GB bias (and indeed you increasingly bizare editing) are not helping. Your rhetoric is particularly useless. Perhaps you'd do better re-reading the "resign" part of your user talk rather than adding useless commentary here. Thanks. Pedro : <font style="color:#accC10;background:#0000fa;"> Chat 21:57, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that David's point is that some people will not know the names of some of the US states. If we routinely use the country with the names of places in other countries then we also do the same for places in the US. FerdinandFrog (talk) 17:59, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That was part of 86.143.69.176's point (not mine). He/she also attributed the disparity to "arrogance," which is unhelpful.
 * My point is that this is a volunteer project. Rather than attacking people who take the time to write articles (and sometimes omit important details that they mistakenly take for granted), a more constructive approach is to correct these oversights. Inventing conspiracy theories and hurling insults won't solve anything.
 * Of course, if anyone is actively removing mentions of the United States from these articles, that's a different story. In such a scenario, I hope that someone would draw attention to the specific person(s) responsible. —David Levy 18:48, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, innocent ignorance is usually easily solved. Whenever I see one of those US based articles where the country hasn't been mentioned, but could and/or should be, I just add it with a polite Edit summary. Never any nasty comebacks. It's just unfortunate that, like the incorrect corrections of British English, it's usually US based editors that make the innocent mistakes. But, so long as the end result is that we all learn something, everything is good. HiLo48 (talk) 22:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If 86.143.69.176 is referring to article names, that's utter bullshit. U.S. place articles that don't need disambiguation are in the, format. In other place articles from other countries, the predominant naming convention is . See Duhallow, Kroonstad, Upper River Division and Neu-Ulm as examples. Don't expect people to know where those four are. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 08:17, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Super Bowl
At the risk of appearing to be Amerocentristic, I really think that the Super Bowl should be listed "In the News". It is one of the largest television events in the world, even if most of the audience is in the States. Just my opinion. HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:26, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Patience. Looks like it's coming. Art LaPella (talk) 04:31, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Super Bowl XLV has to be updated first. Knowing the people at WP:ITN/C it has to be an FA's worth of updates for a contentious blurb such as this. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 04:34, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well if someone would care to add two paragraphs of prose on the game and the result, complete with reliable sources, instead of cluttering ITN/C and now this page with reams of unnecessary discussion, I will put it up myself. The Super Bowl will go on ITN, that's not in doubt, but it can't go up until it meets the ITN criteria. It would be about 15 minutes' work if anybody wants an easy ITN credit for their userpage. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  04:42, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Nah, I'd be those old people and talk about the good old days when ITN had laxer standards such as three years ago when the ITN was updated within a minute of the end of the game. hbdragon88 (talk) 08:16, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd appreciate, HTD, that you cease with the stupidity regarding ITN/C. 狐 FOX   13:29, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This is what I expected from you. How sweet. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 13:41, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * And I expect your facetious pish about the world being against corporate America and her sporting achievements. And you never let me down. 狐 FOX   13:55, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Update in the languages section
The Tagalog Wikipedia has now reached 50,000 articles. :) -- Sky Harbor ( talk ) 12:13, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The Tagalog Wikipedia was removed from our list (when we had a lower numerical threshold) because it comprised primarily stubs and placeholders. This appears to remain the case. —David Levy 12:39, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * And this is despite the fact that the Tagalog Wikipedia has a depth of 18, which if I may add is at the same level as or higher than the Polish, Esperanto, Galician, Malay and Lithuanian Wikipedias? I hope we're not being mistaken here with the Cebuano Wikipedia. ;) -- Sky Harbor ( talk ) 23:18, 8 February 2011 (UTC)


 * The "depth" data is highly unreliable, due to the widespread use of multiple bots to create stubs and placeholders (thereby artificially inflating the reported figures). —David Levy 07:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Weird, since we've seen a decrease in our depth every time some user posts 100+ stubs at any given time. -- Sky Harbor ( talk ) 07:58, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, the initial creation of a large quantity of articles would tend to reduce the reported "depth." But it's my understanding that the performance of trivial edits via multiple accounts (as seen here in a random article's revision history) has the opposite effect.
 * Regardless, we no longer rely on "depth" as a criterion. —David Levy 19:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That sounds pretty subjective. —Noisalt (talk) 00:30, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Random article test. Never fails. Well, usually. 狐 FOX   00:59, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Has there even been a formalization of the criteria for the inclusion of Wikipedias in the Main Page? I understand depth is one of the criteria, but what else? While a random article test I ran does indicate that six of the ten articles that came up are stubs (which we're working to fix), are there other inclusion criteria that may work either in or against the Tagalog Wikipedia's favor? -- Sky Harbor ( talk ) 06:40, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * No. Just expand the articles with substantial, human-generated content.
 * We no longer rely on "depth" as a criterion (for the reason described above). —David Levy 07:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * We had no choice but to implement such standards. Wikipedias began creating thousands of essentially empty articles, sometimes with our numerical inclusion threshold as an explicit target. —David Levy 07:14, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I understand the implementation of such standards, but it still begs the question: on what basis are these standards based on? Sure, we can expand individual Wikipedias' coverage with "substantial, human-generated content", but what exactly is "substantial"? The term "substantial" is highly subjective as it is, and in the case of the Tagalog Wikipedia, what can appear to be medium-sized articles at first glance can already be considered "substantial" given current prevailing attitudes toward the language, both officially and among Filipinos themselves. -- Sky Harbor ( talk ) 07:58, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * This is the English Wikipedia and not the Tagalog Wikipedia; the question is what do we consider substantial, rather than what other Wikipedias might consider substantial. Also, without recourse to philosophical discussion regarding subjectivity, I think the question is one of intent; has the content existing on the Tagalog Wikipedia been created with the intent of being a useful encyclopedic resource, or as a nationalistic and/or promotional device? I believe that the languages section exists to help readers find useful content, rather than to promote the Wikipedias being listed. (e • nn • en!) 16:35, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * We aren't particularly strict. Few would dispute that this is a stub and this is a placeholder. That the Tagalog Wikipedia's Benigno Aquino III article is a stub (and tagged as such) is far from encouraging. —David Levy 19:31, 9 February 2011 (UTC)


 * That last example's pretty damning. —Noisalt (talk) 21:44, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Over represented ?
Computer games as TFA 3 times in less than 8 weeks (17 Dec, 19 Jan and now 7 Feb). Is this indicative of the articles that have FA status? Kevin McE (talk) 14:56, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * At the moment, it seems that 135 of our 3,165 featured articles are computer/video game related (~4 %), while some 31,476 of all 3,551,497 English Wikipedia articles are video game related (~1 %). So, the ratio of featured game articles is higher than average, yes. Most likely because of systemic bias issues. --KFP (contact | edits) 16:42, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, see: --KFP (contact | edits) 16:52, 6 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I would note saying 3 times in less then 8 weeks (which would seem to suggest ~19.6 per year) is probably a little misleading. If you look at the dates what you see is about 1 per month. This concurs with what I've seen when I looked in to it. Nil Einne (talk) 12:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Confirming, I searched each month of 2010, every month except March had 1 video game only. March had 2. This is 13/365 or 3.6% which is lower then 4.3% percentage of FAs which concurs with my belief video games are at a comparative disadvantage although it's possible some items are in that cat that I would have missed. I admit it wasn't as much a disadvantage as I had thought although it's worth remembering other items like tropical cyclones, pop music and TV shows are I expect also at a comparative disadvantage which means some other subjects are at more of a comparative advantage then going solely by the difference in percentages. Note this isn't just recent video games, for example one of the ones in 2010 was Space Invaders. In my count I did just search for 'game' (looked thru January but decided it was a waste of time) so it's theoretically possible there was some video game FA which didn't include that word in the blurb but that would seem to be a rather flawed blurb. I also excluded classic RPGs (which may or may not have had video games based on them) of which there were 2 (July and October), and brief mentions in other blurbs like some magna series and Jack Sparrow that had video games. Nil Einne (talk) 13:07, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Also please see here.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:28, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

'My impression is' there has been a prepoderance of 'birds and crawlie-beasties' - and we are about due for a Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells-complaint causing Main Page entry. Jackiespeel (talk) 17:35, 7 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If there was no bias, and all available information was shared by everyone to form a complete compendium, and if FA topics were chosen based on the percentage of the wikipedia pie they represented, over 99% of the FAs would be baseball statistics. 69.249.239.113 (talk) 13:38, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Sports section
Currently there are 6 items in the "News" section. 3 of them cover the subject of sports. It is my assertion that sports are not news, but only relevant to people who follow the specific sport mentioned. I don't care about cricket, sumo, or football, so how is that news to me? There should be a separate sports section on the mainpage so un-newsworthy items such of these are not given undeserved attention. Cosprings (talk) 21:26, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Please try to assume good faith of other editors. There are a set of criteria listed on the main in the news page. All items posted satisfy the criteria. If you feel that you do not like what is there the best thing would be to make your views known there. meshach (talk) 22:45, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Having perused the ITN section for quite some time today, I can tell you that it's been a very slow news week. Unfortunately, it looks like the sports news are the only items of real notability as of late.--WaltCip (talk) 23:31, 8 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Personally I don't give a crap about a few million Egyptians protesting and their president resigning nor about some boring border dispute involve two south-east Asian countries many people probably couldn't locate on a map regardless of how many soldiers die or whatever the potential affect on stability so I have to agree with Cosprings, why do we have such un-newsworthy items on the main page? Incidentally we haven't had a football item on the main page for a while AFAIK. Nil Einne (talk) 07:46, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Eh... you guys might like this: WT:ITNR -- moar sport items, including bandy, MMA and handball. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 14:13, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

The Grammys
Is the grammys really suited to be the top world news story on the main page for the past 3 days? I'm sure some people feel that an event where stupendously wealthy celebrities are presented with awards and showered with praise is an important news story. But I would suggest that perhaps the celebration of american pop culture isin't exactly earth shattering "news". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.134.239.187 (talk) 20:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's a break from all the plane crashes. Besides, it's the most watched and most prestigious musical awards ceremony in the world, no question. 狐 FOX   20:36, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * American pop culture, you say? I imagine Arcade Fire, Jeff Beck, Tak Matsumoto, Rihanna, La Roux, Michael Bublé, Paul McCartney, Iron Maiden, Neil Young, Muse, Sade, Chucho Valdés, Alejandro Sanz, Buju Banton, Julie Andrews, and Mitsuko Uchida might all have something to say about that. But of course, we wouldn't want reality getting in the way of knee-jerk reactions, now would we?--Fyre2387 (talk • contribs) 20:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Featured sounds proposal
There are currently 155 featured sounds, which, thanks to some being long, symphonic works, equals 235 files. There is also a backlog of featured pictures over a year long.

The basic proposal is that a second Featured pictures section is added to the main page. On Wednesdays Saturdays(updated per discussion) and Sundays, this will become a Featured sound section instead. This has the support of Howcheng, the Featured pictures head.

This will both deal with the massive backlog in featured pictures, while at the same time giving featured sounds more visiblity, thus encouraging that sort of content. It would also make for a good press release.

With the number of featured sounds we have, at two a week, we have between a year and a half and two years of backlog. Should the number of featured sounds being nominated and promoted increase, we could add additional days of sound. In the very unlikely event that featured sounds cannot become viable after this, it can be scrapped from the main page at the end of the backlog.

I open this motion to debate for one week, after which, we can open it to a poll. Should the poll be successful, I (and any others interested) can begin building the backend and create an appropriate tweak to the main page, which can then be put to a final vote. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:04, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The idea seems promising. But I suggest that we include the featured sounds on Saturdays and Sundays (the same days on which the featured picture replaced Did you know... until the former received its own seven-day placement as part of the last major main page redesign). In terms of promotion and user recognition, "weekends" is more memorable and intuitive than "Wednesdays and Sundays" is. —David Levy 18:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * That's an excellent point. I'll change the proposal. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Here is an idea to tack onto this one, instead of a 2nd featured picture, why not a "Featured Media" for sound, animations, and videos, and opposite it on the page finally get a "Featured List" section. --Found5dollar (talk) 18:46, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't think that would work: Quite simply, videos and animations already appear under "Today's featured pictures", and I don't think there's enough featured ones that haven't already been on the main page to make that proposal practical.
 * As for lists, I think that would best be handled in a separate discussion, since it's not entirely obvious how one should summarise a list for the main page. I'd suggest talking to people involved in lists, and coming back with a somewhat more detailed proposal. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:26, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh goody, it's nice to have Adam back, as he has the guts to go straight here and actually say something. In this measure Adam has the complete backing of the rest of the Featured Sound regulars, who have all been trying for a very long time to get sounds onto the main page.
 * As to the issues raised by Found5dollar, I would point out the following: There are currently six and only six featured processes that I am aware of. Articles, Lists, Pictures, Sounds, Topics, and Portals. There are videos in both the Featured Pictures and Featured Sounds repertoires, and could be included in the regular rotations of either. The only other featured content that lends itself easily to being on the main page (other than featured sounds) is Featured Topics, which area already neatly formatted in a landscape oriented rectangle. Featured Lists are possible, but would take much, much more work, and I sadly can't envision a way to make Featured Portals possible on the main page. I'm building a crude mock up now, for visual purposes, and will post it shortly.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  20:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, FLs should be relatively easy to include - none of the lists promoted in the last couple of years start "This is a list of ...." and all will have a decent introductory lead summarising the contents of the list. Some have several paragraphs of text before the body of the list. But I digress. Bencherlite Talk 21:01, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * If the FL regulars want to hurry up and launch their own proposal, then, if it passes, I'll try and include it in the backend recode. Having said that, mind if I collapse the FL part of this discussion sometime tomorrow evening? (Using hat hab) Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Just to let you know, i have posted here and here that a discussion about Featured Lists on the main page has begun. comments from regular contributors would probably make this discussion alot smoother. --Found5dollar (talk) 01:43, 15 February 2011 (UTC)



To the right is a mock up I designed that would show the most logical and easily flowing method of adding space to the main page that I could think of. As you can see, I split the picture section into two portions, which for most of the year week would have two pictures, and added a horizontal bar section below it, which could be used for featured topics (as shown) or for featured lists, or for featured articles. It's just an idea. Either way, as we're getting off topic, I'd like to focus again on featured sounds exclusively at this time.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  21:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)
 * The one problem that might come up with that layout is panoramas - very wide images. However, it'd be relatively simple to make the boxes combine, like in the present layout, on panorama days. That's backend, though, and probably best dealt with after the poll on including featured sounds in principle. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 22:03, 14 February 2011 (UTC)


 * I strongly support sounds being added, and Sven Manguard's mock-up looks really good; FTs would be nice to include, too. I'm not really fussed about FLs being on the main page, though. Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:00, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hearing you say that made the absurd amount of time required in actually making that mock up worthwhile. Thank you. (It took over an hour, as I had to make sure that everything that I displayed was technically possible. It is, as far as I know.)  S ven M anguard   Wha?  05:26, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * If FS and FT are to be included, then FL should definitely be included. It is unfair to leave out FL when all other featured content are on the main page.—<font face="Cambria" size="3"> Chris! c / t 03:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no actual proposal on featured topics at this time. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:59, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, so that's a bit blunt, but in light of the comments below, he is correct. I'm not saying that it should be kicked to the curb, but FS has been waiting just as long as FL has, and this is shaping up to be the best shot we have of getting a spot on the main page. The last thing I want to see is something popular getting derailed because the discussion ended up a jumbled mess. Grant us the kindness of allowing FS to have a clean shot, and I'll make sure that I remember that kindness when your proposal hits the deck. If everything goes as planned, your turn won't have to wait too much longer.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  05:26, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure, I will support the FS proposal. I just felt a little upset that previously proposals (here is one I could find) of adding a featured lists section never get much support from the community, especially the FA diehards. :)—<font face="Cambria" size="3"> Chris! c / t 06:07, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Understood. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 10:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Note: I'm the one who's most likely going to be making the backend, and I know the featured picture process, I know the featured sound process, and I know the featured picture backend, so I can easily make a modified copy to fit the proposal I made.

I cannot do that for Topics or Lists. I'm not a member of those communities, and, so far ads I know, there's been no discussion about how sections including them should be handled, such as DYK-style bullet points, FA-style summaries, and so on. That needs to be decided before those could even be considered. Featured sounds can just use a modified FP-style layout.

I've done this backend work before. The media section on the Commons Main Page was completely redone by me. But I'm one of the people who basically built featured sounds. I don't mind putting the work in for that. Once it's done, I'd be happy to code other sections, if, by that time, those featured content communities have gotten a proposal together.

Thanks, everyone! I don't mean to be rude here, but there's about 10 to 15 templates involved in a backend, and, while I can adapt some things from the existing FP code, there's going to be a lot of adaptation needed to set up a Featured Sound/Featured Picture backend, and I suspect that I'd have to base FL or FT on completely different code. So, you know, it's just not practical for me to try and move forwards more than one proposal at a time. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:51, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Correction: As discussed below, if I do the backend for the main page right, there shouldn't be much preventing other featured content processes from claiming one of the days that otherwise default to FP. If all goes well, I'm hoping the new code will allow FS and FL to launch onto the main page at roughly the same time, but would ask that any other proposals wait until after the coding's finished =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:42, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Quick note on Featured topics
There's 97 featured topics, which is somewhat on the low side, and, since featured topics are collections of featured articles and featured lists, most of the content will already have appeared or will eventually appear on the main page anyway. I'd suggest, therefore, that we ignore featured topics for the moment. If the FS proposal passes, the backend should be open enough that the members of that community could always claim a day (I suggest Topic Tuesday, for the alliterative appeal) at some later date. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * How about a link to a featured portal for a week at the bottom of the portals section? – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 17:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Featured list proposal
Since the slightly off-topic discussion was capped above, I thought I'd stick my neck out and get some comments on the possibility of seeing featured lists on the mainpage in a similar nature being described above for featured sounds (e.g. weekends or similar). There are nearly 2,000 lists which are currently featured, none of which has featured on the main page except Moons of Saturn which went up for our tenth anniversary. The good news about that was that nothing bad happened, nobody died, and as far as I'm aware, nobody (but me!) complained about the quality of the list.

I know this has been discussed several times, and the general consensus has been against it, I'd like to invite new discussion, perhaps with a small plea. Not too many moons ago, we tightened up the featured list criteria and took advice from some of the featured article community, including Tony1. This has, in my opinion, led to a dramatic improvement in the overall quality of a number of our more recently featured lists. Out of the 2,000 I'm sure there are stinkers, but, like Moons of Saturn there are treasures too. It would, again in my opinion, be rewarding for the FL community to be held in similar esteem to the featured sound gang. The Rambling Man (talk) 10:38, 15 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Strong support and long overdue. --Dweller (talk) 11:41, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hear, hear! Courcelles 11:48, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I've often wondered why the rest of the featured community gets left out in the cold. This has my strongest possible support. — KV5  •  Talk  • 12:09, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support I am with you; I was just amazed about the design of the mainpage at the time of the 10th anniversary of Wikipedia. Hope there will be "Today's Featured Lists"!-- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 14:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong support but we'd need to know how we can summarize lists. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 14:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support in principle - There isn't actually a proposal here, given that HOW to implement it, and so on, hasn't been proposed yet, nor has the style of the Featured list section been determined (For example, it might actually work better, given that, well, it's lists, to have a DYK-style list of interesting facts from one or more lists, instead of just quoting the introduction of one list - or maybe it wouldn't!) FL will also need to appoint someone to do the work of preparing lists for the main page, and various other minor hurdles. I do think the FL community could easily overcome these hurdles, but, given the lack of detail, I think we'll need a second vote to select the best way of presenting it. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Inevitably biased support as I have many more FLs than unused FAs! Partisanship aside, the quality of FLs has improved significantly, both through tightening up of standards and effective action taken to delist or improve older lists. There are some really interesting subjects at WP:FL (it's not all sports stats) that we ought to be showcasing as some of Wikipedia's finest work. Bencherlite Talk 16:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I, too, would like to offer my support in principle. Clearly there are details that need to be worked out, but I believe there are many featured lists that deserve to be featured on the Main Page. I will keep an eye on the discussion (and thanks for bringing it up!) -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 16:42, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support – with a couple of thoughts. Having observed the quantity of work that is needed to present TFA and DYK, I hope that all of the FP people will be happy with the idea of finding extra featured pictures to present. Using one day per week for 'Today's Featured List' would reduce that workload. I wouldn't think it makes much difference which day is chosen for TFL, so I'd suggest that it is determined by negotiation between FP and FS folks whether they would prefer a FP/FP/FL/FP/FP/FS/FS rotation or some other scheme like FP/FP/FP/FP/FL/FS/FS. I believe that all featured lists should be capable of being introduced with a short summary (per WP:LEAD), even if they do not have a substantial one, and would prefer to see that rather than a DYK-style. In the time spent deciding on a line + hook, you could write a lead for those lists that lacked an adequate one. --RexxS (talk) 16:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. I used to be a regular FL contributor in the past, but I have been much more active with DYK recently, precisely because DYK gets to be displayed on the main page. I think the inclusion of lists on the main page will encourage more people to contribute to FL. --BomBom (talk) 17:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Fortissimo support. —<font color="gray" face="Times New Roman">La Pianista  ♫ ♪ 05:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

How do we summarise a list?
This should be resolved I suppose, although featured pictures do and, presumably, featured sounds will have a very short summary on the main page, so lists wouldn't need to necessarily be any different. With the more recent lists, it's been a requirement for a comprehensive lead which has engaging prose. I think these lists will have adequate lead material to write a decent summary. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:29, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * One thing that might be worth considering is doing some (or all) of them DYK-style. For example, one could have a one-paragraph introduction, followed by a bullet-point list of interesting facts.
 * I'd also suggest featured lists needs to decide how the list for each day will be chosen, and various other implementation issues. FS will almost certainly follow the FP pattern, but FA - the nearest thing to FLs on the main page - uses a somewhat ad hoc voting system, which requires the article be proposed and gains acceptance, mixed with filling in by Sandy, etc, when there isn't a proposal. That may be a little too complicated when you have a 2000-item backlog.
 * Indeed, if anything, the size of your backlog might almost suggest DYK-style bullet points, with five lists or so every day. What's your promotion rate?
 * Also, do you have someone to code your backend? I'd consider doing it, but realise FS would come first, for obvious reasons. =)
 * Finally, where on the main page do you see Lists? I do hope you're not intending to grab the spot FS claimed above. ;)
 * On the whole, I think the idea of FL inclusion has a lot of merit, but to move forwards with this, it needs to get a lot more specific. Adam Cuerden (talk) 14:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree we need to get more meat on the bones, but there is usually a certain degree of hostility when suggesting the inclusion of featured lists on the main page so that's why I really wanted to gauge the opinions of the community before trying to construct a watertight proposal. I think initially that we wouldn't attempt to get a featured list on the mainpage every day necessarily, but if we did, then a DYK-style introduction seems a very reasonable approach. Regarding "coding my backend" (?!) count me out, I don't know what this would entail so any help you could offer would be gratefully accepted. And as to where this should go? I don't know yet. As I said, I think some consensus in favour of repeating what happened on the 10th anniversary main page where we had our first ever main page featured list is needed, and not just from the FL community! The Rambling Man (talk) 14:53, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Quite right, then. Basically, the backend is all the templates, pages, and all the other stuff that supports the main page section. For instance, Featured pictures' main page backend is basically all the pages in Category:Wikipedia Picture of the day. Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:03, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think people oppose FLs on the main page -- after all it's one of Wikipedia's featured content. The problem is implementation, and where to put it. With FS gaining traction the Main Page would be too long -- perhaps this is like the Main page redesign proposals: everyone wants it changed but no one agrees how.
 * Now with the FS being first at this year they now claim the other half of the FP (TFLs had been perennially proposed much, much earlier than that, so I dunno how to resolve "where" they should be at.
 * As for "how" either by unordered lists (w/c is kind of fitting or a la FAs. If it's via unordered lists, would every FL appear only once (I don't think FLs are approved that fast at a large enough number; if a la FAs, how? Via the lead section? What if the lead doesn't summarize the list? – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 15:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Why don't the FL regulars prepare a couple of examples of how they might present lists at a subpage? --Dweller (talk) 15:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Having had a quick look at the mocked up screenshot above, I thought it would be possible to split the featured sound area in two (horizontally) and have the featured list below the sound in a DYK-style summary. Although that is somewhat pushing it I guess. Or maybe we can have a featured topic (in its suggested location) on Saturdays and a Featured List (where the FT is) on Sundays? Just thinking out loud. Dweller, I think we need to understand what our choices are for where it can be hosted before we try to work out how/if we summarise it or if we use a DYK-style strapline.... The Rambling Man (talk) 15:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, some of our featured sounds are sets, and, while we may not be able to include the entire Diabelli variations, I think we'll need the vertical space to get, say, a four-movement symphony in.
 * One possibility noone's brought up yet is that FS's are Saturday/Sundays. What about something like Featured List Wednesdays? Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:18, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well that would certainly be a good starting point and would alleviate some of the pressure on the project in the early days of making sure we get our act together and get something ready once a week. So your suggestion would have a FP across the whole space Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, featured sounds Saturday and Sunday and a featured list on Wednesday? Sounds nice and varied. And it would mean we could cherry-pick lists who have sufficient prose in the lead to summarise them as per the current mainpage FA approach. The Rambling Man (talk) 15:20, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I dunno, but hasn't anyone got the idea that instead of using a separate purple box at the bottom, why not extend the green box at the left and blue box at the right? Left: FA->DYK->FP/FS, Right: ITN->OTD->FL? Problem is what should be done when its panoramas. – HTD  ( ITN: Where no updates but is stickied happens. ) 15:25, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I have a coding solution for panoramas. Basically, on panorama days (which would need to be double-FP days) it should be possible to make the boxes join back up, by basically setting a parameter in the second box. Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:42, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

[Edit Conflict]
 * I'd suggest that FL Wednesdays might be the best solution, not least because, if I do the backend for Featured sounds, adding in FL Wednesdays to the same block is basically minimal extra code, so you'd get your backend absolutely free. We could work on a dedicated section later, for instance:


 * ...But why not go with the option where I'm doing the code for you to start off? =)

Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:44, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I like (a) the sound of "Featured List Wednesdays" and (b) stuff done for us for free...! I guess then that's our formative proposal, just need that good old "consensus" to give us a round of applause... The Rambling Man (talk) 15:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Right. It should take me about a month to code the backend. The featured sounds vote begins in a few days, and let's say it'll run a week. So, presuming this preliminary discussion comes out in favour of FLs, a formal vote on FL Wednesdays, with examples of how you'll summarise them and so on, can begin at that point. So, try to be ready for it then, if possible. So long as the FS proposal passes, I'll make sure support for FLs is included in the code, even if it isn't used right away. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:11, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Cool. Is the vote happening here? As for summarising, as I said before, I don't see a reason why we can't adopt the same approach as FA. Today's FA's summary is the lead. Should be able to do similar for most of our FLs. Simples. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:15, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It'll happen here, but I usually find that opening up a proposal for discussion first makes the vote go a lot more smoothly. For example, the FL discussion happening when there wasn't a vote open was productive and led to a viable way to start getting FLs on the main page, but if I had started a vote right away, it could have ended in amendments, alternatives, counter-proposals, and all the muddling, vote-splitting events that doom proposals to failure. The more things you can deal with BEFORE a vote happens, the better. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure thing. I wasn't really expecting the support to arrive so mob-handed! As I said before, there has been hostility towards the idea of "some list" being mainpaged but since the precedent was set in January, and with the above support, I'd like to think it's just a case of getting it technically right. I'll follow in your wake, it may be useful to note that FL will be following you when you make the final FS proposal (if you like, of course) so people can size up the change overall? In any case, thanks for your help so far. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:51, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I certainly intend to briefly mention that the code, as planned, will allow for other featured content to be put in the rotation, and mention FL is working on a proposal to use this ability. However, since the proposals will need to be fairly detailed (and mine, in particular, will have a somewhat detailed section on intended technical features), I think it's best to note the support for FL as a major advantage, but keep the FL implementation details separate, to avoid the infamous "too long; didn't read" problem. Adam Cuerden (talk) 17:40, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

The Chaos I Caused
Oh god. My posting came out all wrong. What I was hoping would happen was that all of the various reformers would group together and push FS through with a unified, resounding voice. We'd then follow up by doing the same thing with FL immediately afterwords. My goal was to make sure that everything had a clear and unified backing, and that once we broke through with FS, everything else would carry through with positive momentum, one at a time. I'm an overly ordered person. Instead, my poor communication skills made it appear that I was angry at people. Frantic, yes, but not angry. I'm sorry if I offended anyone in the past few days of this. I assure you all that was not my intention.

Thankfully cooler/saner heads prevailed, Adam set everything right, and it appears that even without my ability to communicate it, the idea of a one at a time push with unified backing is taking shape. Special apologies to The Rambling Man, I hope I didn't offend.  S ven M anguard  Wha?  21:26, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Colors
I suggest that links in wikipedia are of more or less same color as text. or alternatively wikipedia can make "skins" for different colors fonts styles etc. Text must be readable not just some jugglery of words in different colors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.132.93.127 (talk) 19:06, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Changing the color of links is something you can actually do on your end. Blue is used as a default because a large number of people are red/green colorblind, and because it's the world default for clickable links. You can change that on your browser settings, although I'm not sure how to do so. If you want answers to that, however, I suggest going to the Village Pump, probably to their technical section.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  21:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * {Off-topic but ...} Each registered user can have a personal CSS as well as a choice of pre-defined skins. For example, I use monobook skin, so I created User:RexxS/monobook.css and placed:
 * a:visited { color: #8800C0; }
 * in it to make my visited links stand out more. You would need to register an account (it's free) to make use of that, but having links the same colour as text would require no more than:
 * a { color: #000000; }
 * in your user's CSS to accomplish. You could also experiment with different dark colours until you find one you like. --RexxS (talk) 01:49, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

Is not Facebook the colour it is because the creator is red-green blind?

Could there be a 'quick fix how to customise WP layout' page (including eg 'what is CSS?')? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.147.68 (talk) 13:46, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Cascading Style Sheets. -- Perseus   8235 18:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sadly, you MUST create an account to do this :(. -- Perseus   8235 18:13, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

DYK Beavis and Butt-head moment
Huhuhuhuhuh ... it said "uranates" ... huhuhuhuhuhuh. Daniel Case (talk) 14:21, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Good grief - what will you be like when this picture gets onto the front page :-) —   Tivedshambo   (t/c) 16:12, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Hahahaha that pic is one of the nominations for April Fools Day.--Found5dollar (talk) 20:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Suggested internal link
On the second bullet in the news section, can we link "Anti-government protests" to 2010–2011 Arab world protests? Kansan (talk) 18:49, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems reasonable to me - ✅ —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 20:11, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Not really. I had to remove the link per this complaint. --BorgQueen (talk) 20:47, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

No cricket world cup?
Why is this not included in the "In the news" section ? The cricket world cup is the world's second most watched sporting event after its football/soccer counterpart and only takes place once every 4 years.
 * I'll cheekily suggest that the World Cup doesn't actually start for another five weeks. But in all seriousness, it's quite unusual to post the start of a sporting tournament. Even doing so for the football world cup was controversial. --Mkativerata (talk) 01:42, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * IMO except olympics we should not post opening ceremonies. we'll post the final. -- Ashish -g55 01:50, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Not that my 2 cents matters that much, but I agree with Ashishg55. Other than the Oylmpics opening ceremonies aren't what we should report on; just post the final results.Rhodesisland (talk) 04:08, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It should be said, that anyone is free to nominate the event at WP:ITN/C, so if you feel it should be posted, you can do so. However, as above posters have indicated, the opening of the CWC is unlikely to gain consensus support.--Johnsemlak (talk) 16:46, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this will certainly go up when the final is completed, but not just the start of the (overly-long) tournament. Other than the Olympics and football world cup, we never post openings - otherwise every sporting item would go on twice. <font face="Times New Roman" color="maroon">Modest Genius talk 17:41, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

In the news: Belgium
This strikes me as a very badly researched in the news item: "Belgium breaks the record for the longest time any country has been without a government". I checked the source on the article, while reliable, it mentions nothing of the research it has done to arrive at this claim. Has someone checked every country in existence since the formation of the first civilisation and checked how many years each was without government? Surely not! This does not seem proberly researched. It shouldn't be on the main page, or be rephrased to "Belgium breaks the record for the longest time the country has been without a government". . Calistemon (talk) 06:32, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Discussion over this issue is taking place over at Talk:2010–2011 Belgian government formation and in the errors report for in the news. I think starting a third discussion here will just make it more difficult to determine consensus.--Banana (talk) 07:23, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Featured sounds vote


There are currently 155 featured sounds, which, thanks to some being long, symphonic works, equals 235 files. There is also a backlog of featured pictures over a year long.

The basic proposal is that a second featured pictures section is added to the main page. On Saturdays and Sundays, this will become a Featured sound section instead. I've run this past Howcheng, who manages Picture of the Day, and he fully supports this.

This will both deal with the massive backlog in featured pictures, while at the same time giving featured sounds more visiblity, thus encouraging that sort of content. It would also make for a good press release.

As a further beneficial side effect, the code to make that possible can easily be adapted to have other additions to the main page. The Featured List community have expressed an interest in Wednesday, for example. (Though that is another vote)

With the number of featured sounds we have, at two a week, we have between a year and a half and two years of backlog before we run out. However, the greater visibility of the project should both encourage people and groups to offer more recordings to Wikipedia, and increase participation in the project. Should the number of featured sounds being nominated and promoted increase, we could add additional days of sound. (In the very unlikely event that featured sounds cannot become viable after this, it can be scrapped from the main page at such time as the sounds run out.)

The formatting will be roughly the same as Featured pictures.

I created the backend for the MOTD section of the Commons Main Page, and have a high level of experience in Wikipedia templates and code. As such, no further technical assistance is required. For the code geeks, my rough plans for the backend are below the following cut.


 * The new section will use a modified form of the code currently used for FPs, adapted to allow multiple content types. The layout for FSes will be similar to FPs, though some minor changes may be made for aesthetic reasons.
 * The box will be able to be set to several modes, by assigning a parameter. I believe that the starting modes will be:
 * Featured picture: Emulates the formatting of the other box.
 * Featured sound: One sound + description, similar to the featured picture
 * Multiple sounds: It will be convenient to allow for more than one sound, so that, for example, we can give a whole symphony, instead of just one movement. I suspect the maximum will be 4 or 5.
 * Video sound: We have a small number of these, but since videos and sounds use completely different formatting, it'd be useful to have a dedicated mode.
 * Panorama: Suppresses the FP/FS box to accomodate a very wide image in the main FP box. Should only be used on FP days. =)
 * Featured list: The featured list project is interested in claiming a day on the main page, and it's fairly trivial to code basic support in to help facilitate this.
 * Further modes could fairly easily be added, if needed later.
 * User friendliness and accessibility can, if necessary, be improved by using a &gt;inputbox&lt; on the collective page for Today's Featured Whatever. This will preload the correct formatting for the featured content.
 * The Today's Featured Picture section uses special code and formatting to make things easier for machine readers to find out what Today's Featured Picture is. I will try and retain this feature for Today's Featured Whatever. However, since multiple content types are used, I cannot guarantee complete success.
 * I'll try to come up with a suitable way to automatically separate the different types of content into their own archives. This shouldn't be too hard, as we can always check the mode, and only show, for example, those days that use one of the sound modes.
 * In the other main page columns the left gets 55%, and the right 45% of the width. This will probably be retained (and is easy to change if something else is desired).
 * Estimated coding time, including debugging: 1 month.

This proposal is made with the full support of the featured sounds community.

Voting will close on the 22nd, at about 8pm. A 2/3rds majority is required.

If this proposal passes, the coding will commence. Coding time is estimated at one month, though it may be quicker. When it's complete, it will be put up for review, including a mock-up of it in action, and a "rubberstamping" vote at simple majority to confirm its use. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:44, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support  S ven M anguard   Wha?  18:27, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support providing a diversity of featured content on the main page is a worthwhile objective, and featured sounds would be a logical step. --RexxS (talk) 19:05, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support for the same reason lists should be on the page. And apologies, this wasn't intended to be a vote for FL, it was simply to see if the usual objections to lists on the main page still existed. I've collapsed that part of the discussion until we have a complete technical solution. The Rambling Man (talk) 19:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —<font face="Cambria" size="3"> Chris! c / t 19:37, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support -- ♫Greatorangepumpkin♫ T 19:54, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support (e • nn • en!) 20:17, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support The Celestial City (talk) 20:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support putting featured sounds on the main page. (About the others: I support putting featured lists on the main page in principle, if there's a way to mesh it with the existing content. I oppose putting the featured topics/portals up - I don't think they're well-suited for the main page, at least as illustrated by File:Front Page Mockup with Featured Sounds and Topics.png.) Raul654 (talk) 21:00, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support featured sounds - very much so. This is fully in keeping with a NOTPAPER encyclopedia. Thanks as ever to those providing the technical solutions for their generous work. Pedro : <font style="color:#accC10;background:#0000fa;"> Chat 21:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support - Fully. This has been necessary for a while. ( X! ·  talk )  · @939  · 21:31, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support It's not "featured content" if it isn't, well, featured! -- Dorsal  Axe  21:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support It seems that the community's atttitude toward putting other featured content on the Main Page has changed. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:24, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support in concept although I will reserve final judgement for when the layout is done.  howcheng  {chat} 23:02, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * What do you think of the layout in the mock up in the image above? (focusing only on the purple section, not the yellow section.) I think that Adam has confirmed his intention to do the split that way (55/45 I think) with the ability to recombine them into one full length section on days with panoramas. It is, based on what I saw when I was doing research for the mock up, perfectly possible to do.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  23:39, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: that's easily tweaked. It's literally just a matter of changing a width parameter for the box. This might be better dealt with once the code's set up, and I can easily show changes. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support All featured content should have a degree of representation on the main page. —W F C— 23:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support "Sounds" (sorry!) awesome. I'm just wondering, what will the header be when the second box is used for FPs? "Featured picture two" doesn't sound very good (ahhh puns). / ƒETCH  COMMS   /  23:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I was thinking "Today's bonus featured picture" or "Today's second featured picture", but that's trivial to change. We could also do some clever code to make it "Today's featured pictures", and so on. There'll be a period of feedback before the final vote when all this can be discussed and tweaked, but, for obvious reasons, I don't want to spend days or even weeks on code before getting the community's approval. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:35, 15 February 2011 (UTC)
 * A single "Today's featured pictures" heading would work nicely. —David Levy 00:37, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support conditional on Howcheng's final approval. Howcheng and POTD are the ones giving up Main Page space, and if he's content with the final setup then I'm content. In case there's any doubt created by the image used above to illustrate how this would look, I oppose inclusion of featured topics. - Banyan Tree 00:32, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Query will this prevent very wide pictures being suitable for POTD? They are something of a wiki-speciality - some of the most striking FPs are panoramas, of a type seldom seen elsewhere on the web. If the second "featured whatever" box is e.g. a featured sound that doesn't need much space, that'd work well, but will it be practicable to adjust the sizes of the two boxes to ensure a good fit in general? TheGrappler (talk) 00:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it will not prevent panoramas from appearing on the main page. Adam mentioned in the (collapsed) technical details section that the second box could be suppressed, meaning that there would be one box on days scheduled for panoramas (identical to what currently exists today.) And I agree, panoramas are just awesome.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  01:06, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks Sven - I just spotted your comment upthread and struck through my query but got an edit conflict! I think the proposal should probably make this fact explicit: the fact that some days (determined by rota? at the very least it's going to involve putting some heads together) there will be only one FP, isn't obvious from what's written above. But the proposal actually sounds very good. (And in contrast to Raul, I even liked the Featured Topic idea!) TheGrappler (talk) 01:19, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * This was all made very clear at some point yesterday before the voting started. As an indication of how much has happened, and why I'm not at all bothered by the query, I can't even find it anymore. The short answer is that if this goes through, there will be two featured pictures on Mondays through Fridays, and one Featured picture and one featured sound on Saturdays and Sundays. This is part of the reason that the FP people are behind this, they've got quite a backlog to clear themselves, and this will certainly help. On days where there are two featured pictures, the option exists to combine the two boxes into one and insert a panorama there. The FP leadership will continue to determine which FPs go where, when, and the FS leadership will determine which sounds appear when, however Featured Sounds will only appear on the main page on the weekends, that's not based on rotation. I hope this clears everything up.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  01:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * For the record, I'm going to set it up so that panoramas can run on any of the double-FP days, but I don't think the percentage is high enough that there should be a specific day of the week for them, just whenever they show in rotation. Adam Cuerden (talk) 01:51, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. What a great idea! All featured content should have a chance to reach the main page and I think this is an excellent way to do it.4meter4 (talk) 01:39, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support All of our best work should eventually be featured. The inclusion of sounds would be fantastic. Melicans (talk, contributions) 02:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support per the peer pressure above and the fact that this is a good idea. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:10, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * support mostly we should be prepared be switch back if the backlog of FP ever becomes significant depleated. Oh and we'll need to to the usual cross browser/screen resolution and skin testing before going live. So dig out those old computers with tiny screens and IE6 people.©Geni 02:14, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * There is no reason why either of those would be infeasible. I've got access to a public school computer lab, so if you want this tested on Netscape with a 600x400 tube-style screen, I can actually do that. Take a minute to contemplate how sad a statement that is.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  02:52, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Why bother? Not even Microsoft supports IE6 any more, and the Main Page gets horizontal scroll bars when the viewport goes below 1264px in both Firefox and Opera. --RexxS (talk) 03:31, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * 3.66% of our non mobile users use IE6 compared to 3.55% of non mobile users who use opera of all types. Good news is MSIE 5.01 is down to 0.02%.©Geni 18:56, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It won't go live until the mockups are up and have had time to be tested, obviously. =) Thanks for the reminder, though: I had forgot about cross-browser testing. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's called browsershots.org. ( X! ·  talk )  · @106  · 01:33, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Hey, I have an old computer, and I use it when the "main" computer is being used by someone else. It has W98, MS 5 and a 800x600 CRT monitor that goes all green-ish if the VGA cable is not exactly placed in a certain position. I manage to browse and edit wikipedia in it. --Enric Naval (talk) 16:42, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support in principle. From what I remember, the FP backlog was about 300 two or so years ago. How has that changed, and what's the (average) promotion rate now? MER-C 02:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm told we have a year of FP backlog, and, looking at the last couple months, the FP promotion rate appears to be slightly above the (current) break even point at about 35 a month. This should give enough time for FS to find its feet. Adam Cuerden (talk)
 * I remember you saying something like this two years ago! 718smiley.svg I opposed this last time, but my concerns (mostly about inflexibly squashing the FP to one column) have been addressed. I'm confident that this will help FS to find its feet and if we run low on F[PS]s, we can fill out the space with something from the other categories. MER-C 05:30, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I've actually coded a backend since then, and thus know more about what's possible =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:28, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support, an excellent idea, great proposal. -- Cirt (talk) 02:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. Great idea. --Patar knight - chat/contributions 04:04, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support everything looks good to me, and it adds some variety to the Main Page.  Imzadi 1979  →  05:07, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Jclemens (talk) 05:29, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Should also encourage people to become more active in FS and may result in some high-quality media released for WP use. Great idea! Adabow (talk · contribs) 05:33, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I would certainly hope that those two things happen.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  05:43, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Not only would this be a great way to show more featured content on the main page, but it would be a great way at getting exposure for the featured sounds project as well (full disclosure: also support featuring FL on the main page). Great proposal. Nomader  ( Talk ) 07:53, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Featured Sounds is a great part of Wikipedia, and I think that everyone should know about it.--Danaman5 (talk) 08:54, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support This would demonstrate some more of the exciting resources available at Wikipedia. Major Bloodnok (talk) 09:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support, in principle. Good idea. --Tone 10:26, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support A good proposal, and an applicable one too. – <b style="font-family:Arial; color:CornflowerBlue;">Novice7</b> (<b style="font-family:Arial; color:DodgerBlue;">talk</b>) 11:06, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Conditional Support I am for this proposal as long as the people at FP on on board with reducing their current space on the Main page, that at a certain point in time (say 6 months from when this is implemented) we revisit to see if any issues have risen we are not seeing right now, and that a proposal to include Featured Lists is forthcoming.--Found5dollar (talk) 15:08, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that they are on board as this gives them a chance to reduce their considerable backlog of FPs themselves.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:11, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm slightly against making an "official" review-in-six-months proposal, simply because I honestly don't think anyone will remember to actually do it. But, of course, if issues arise, they should be brought up and looked at, at any time they're noticed. Adam Cuerden (talk) 16:25, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong support Great idea! -- Perseus   8235 17:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * For today's featured topic, we should make a short summary of the topic, in my opinion. -- Perseus   8235 18:00, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Topics aren't part of this proposal, and, frankly, without someone involved in them pushing for it and planning things out, it's not going to happen. You can't put something on the main page without that community's support. Adam Cuerden (talk) 18:24, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong suggestion - in this case, someone ought to crop the mockup image at the bottom, to remove the "Featured Topic" section. Particularly since the technical details are hidden in a collapsed box, I suspect a lot of people are basing their decisions on the mockup (which is certainly the most prominent and easily-understood part of this proposal). TheGrappler (talk) 18:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I suspect there'll be a bit less confusion now! TheGrappler (talk) 21:09, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. We need to have more diversity on the Main Page and need to do some promotion to get more sound files. --Eleassar my talk 17:49, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Full support for increasing the diversity of content on the Main Page. <b style="color:forestgreen">Happy</b>‑<b style="color:darkorange">melon</b> 18:15, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support I believe that this will be a positive change to the main page. Alpha Quadrant   talk  19:34, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Excellent work. I really hope this turns out as well as envisioned. Bob Amnertiopsis  ∴ChatMe! 20:17, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support – I agree with the general feeling that a piece of featured content should be able to have its day on the Main Page, and think that the example shows that a featured sound would be a good fit there. It just feels right in that position. I wouldn't want to see an FS every day because we don't have enough of them, but twice a week should be fine.  Giants2008  ( 27 and counting ) 22:47, 16 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose Not every featured sound or featured image needs to hit the front page. The process of selecting items for the front page should be a second layer of editorial control. With regards to featured sounds, the quality and quantity are currently too low to warrant a spot on the front page. John Vandenberg (chat) 00:35, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I respectfully disagree with you on several points here. First of all, with over 150 featured sounds, there is over a year and a half of sounds if we place two a week on the main page. Several editors are working on acquiring more high quality recordings, and a few Wikipedians upload their own performances. As to the quality of the sounds, these sounds represent the very best of free sound on the internet anywhere. Also featured are historical recordings of great importance, including presidential speeches and "firsts" in sound (such as the first known recording of the human voice.) I believe that there are plenty of excellent works that deserve to be featured.
 * If this still does not sway you, consider the comparative states of Featured Pictures now and when it first began appearing on the main page. Clearly much has improved since then, in quality, quantity, and participation. Many of us in the featured sounds community see this as not just a way of featuring excellent content, but as a way of pushing the genre forward, much as the at first occasional featuring of pictures on the main page did for images.
 * I do hope you and the community come to embrace and support this, I wholeheartedly believe it is truly deserving.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  01:55, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support: More representation of featured content on the Main Page. -- Another Believer ( Talk ) 00:39, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 *  Oppose . Change to "Support", after discussions, but I do believe the system should be prepared to adapt if it becomes clear that there are shortages of "professional"-standard featured sounds. We simply do not have the kind of professional-quality sound files to sustain two exposures a week—and here I talk mainly of our music files. The same issue does not apply to speeches and animal sounds, I think. But music files are different from everything else, including featured articles and pictures. The standard of performance and the audio-engineering that is essential to produce an acceptable quality in a music file occupies a highly professional, exclusive realm. We have very few featured sounds that are of professional standard. The few that are of professional standard are unsatisfactory in certain ways—it's complex and multifactorial. This contrasts with high-quality pictures and prose, which involve skills that are less reliant on exclusive, advanced professional training, which don't suffer from the same extraordinarily tight rules about copyright as apply to music recordings, and the almost total lack of a culture worldwide of free uploading by professionals. Let us not forget, too, that "found" featured content is just a little bit weird when we drum on about it on the main page, whereas featured articles always show off the talent of WPians. I can cope with "found" featured pictures, although the work of our own photographers is somehow inherently more satisfactory when highlighted on a page that is quintessentially associated with the achievements of the community and its product. On another level, I believe the public who arrive at the main page are going to be far more judgemental of music files than they are of pictures and prose: music files are in your face a lot more than pictures are prose. I love the idea of two featured pics per day (there's a huge backlog), but I think one featured sound per week would be wiser, not two, given the current state of our repository. Who is going to choose these music files for main-page exposure? I'll be coming in as a wet blanket, applying the highest standards, at the venue for selection. It will end up being a slot for frog noises and old speeches, and very occasionally a music file. Tony   (talk)  02:08, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * To the concern of who is deciding on what appears on the main page, it is my understanding that Adam would be integral to that. As you know, he is just as capable of picking out the finer points within a musical performance as you are, and I don't think he would allow anything substandard onto the main page. You, of course, would also be invited to weigh in. The objective here is to showcase the best of Featured sounds on the main page, which will by virtue of prominence promote the upload and expansion of the FS process.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  02:56, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I reject the argument. There may be some sounds that do need selected out, but can you name a repository of freely-licensed music that's better than Wikipedia? No. Because none exists
 * Featured sounds will improve with exposure. Denying that exposure, while asking it to reach a level that's only possible through a slow process of increasing quality, is counterproductive.
 * Even then, we have many sounds that are of professional quality. Pandora Records was a professional record company that opened its archives after failure. We have expert-level performances by User:Jujutacular on the classical guitar, User:Makemi singing, and User:La Pianista on piano. We have Enrico Caruso, the first recorded jazz piece, Scott Joplin himself on piano roll, and John Philip Sousa's band playing John Philip Sousa.
 * Dozens of Wikipedians have searched out and found the history of recording, from the earliest known recording of the human voice, which was never actually intended to be played back, to an Edison phonograph cylinder advertising itself, as the technology became commercialised. We have speeches by Walt Whitman, Arthur Sullivan, Neville Chamberlain, and even have a recording of Heinrich Himmler talking about the planned extermination of the Jews. We have entire albums by notable artists such as Hungry Lucy. Could it be better? Yes. Will the prestige of being on the main page directly lead to it being better? If Featured pictures is any guide, yes. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:58, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Speaking from (a little) experience, getting good recordings of some material types isn't beyond the ability of many with home recording instruments. It'd be nice to attract more of them - I bet most people don't even know you can upload sound to wikipedia. JJ Harrison (talk) 08:37, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support Though Saturday and Sunday we receive the fewest hits of the week. What if sounds were featured on Sunday and Monday? Then you get a bigger hit day, and therefore more views? I don't see a downside to that.  upstate  NYer  04:54, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you link me to the data for that please. I didn't know that was the case.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  05:31, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * here.  upstate  NYer  18:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Outweighing that is surely the fact that people accessing Wikipedia at work won't be as likely to listen to audio content as at home. Rd232 talk 06:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * But that's no more than conjecture. The data illustrates my point.  upstate  NYer  18:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support. I'm all in favour of spreading the goodness of Main Page exposure more widely. Rd232 talk 06:44, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. I was a little skeptical at first but Adam Cuerden's little rant above convinced me otherwise :P --haha169 (talk) 08:04, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 11:32, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Awsome EBE123(talk | Contribs) 15:17, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Extremely minor issue, I have already voted, but realized a small issue. I am basically the only year round editor at April Fool's Main Page and I am just curious as to weather or not you plan on adding the Featured Sounds before April fools day this year. If so i will have to create new pages for discussion as it is less than 2 months away.--Found5dollar (talk) 16:07, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * April 1st is a Friday, so we would not be scheduled for the main page, although I wouldn't turn down the invitation. The closest thing I can think of that would fit is File:DescenteInfinie.ogg, an aural (audio) illusion.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  16:38, 17 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Fully support this well thought-out proposal. Careful With That Axe, Eugene  Hello...  17:12, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Strong support - this is a considerable launching pad for FS. The key to improving a wikiproject is exposure, and with main page coverage, we'll only continue to grow. —<font color="gray" face="Times New Roman">La Pianista  ♫ ♪ 18:46, 17 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose the use of the "vote" terminology. Wikipedia is not a democracy. Corvus cornix  talk  01:19, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * (apologies for the tangental comment) One day I'll get around to writing Wikipedia is a de-facto democracy. I'm not saying I'm happy about it, but it's difficult to argue that most discussion-based processes (RfA, Arbcom elections and resolutions, RfCs, most XfDs, DRV) are democratic processes nowadays. The only exceptions are AfD (where admins can do by-and-large as they please), and the featured processes (where actionable objections must be resolved, except where there is consensus that an objection is not valid).—W F C— 01:46, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have any comments on the concept of featured sounds on the main page or just about the method? Also, what exactly is your alternative. I point out that just under 50 people have already showed interest in this by posting here. I expect that number to at least double. With 100 people in an open discussion, the amount of chaos generated would drown out any ability to reach consensus, and it would likely end up in a straw poll when that became apparent. There's a reason that all the processes that have the highest levels of participation use polls, it might not be the idea way, but it's the most functional one.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  03:24, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. Are there implications for server load from serving multiple sound streams over serving pictures? Step hen 03:35, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Sound files are smaller than video files, which are occasionally included on the main page as part of Featured pictures. (For example, File:DuckandC1951.ogg, a 20 megabyte file, was on the main page in March 2009). As such, there shouldn't be any problems. Comparing them to regular pictures, I actually suspect that sounds may use less resources compared to pictures, as the pictures are served to everyone, but sounds are only served to those who choose to listen to them. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, what Adam said. Also, for the sake of discussion, the video on the main page today is 6.8 MB for 17 seconds. The Featured Sound that was put on the main page on January 15th for Wiki10, a part of The Four Seasons, was 4.1 MB for three and a half minutes. Sound files really are not that large, and the main page does not seem to have any trouble today holding the video file.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  03:54, 18 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support per duh. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 06:31, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support It'd be a great way to showcase the fine sounds hosted on enwp and possibly encourage more participation in FSC. ''' Ancient Apparition •  Champagne?  • 01:28, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Long overdue.-- White Shadows We live in a beautiful world 02:53, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support Yay ! Hopefully encourage more participation at FSC, and possibly donation of high-quality sound files.Acather96 (talk) 14:41, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support I've always believed that 'Featured Media' should make an appearance. Iciac (talk) 03:23, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support It's something that I'll never use, but I can certainly see the benefits. As long as it doesn't preclude wide images on occasion, I'm happy to support  Worm    <font color="#000">TT  09:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It won't, I assure you.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  20:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I consider myself assured ;)  Worm    <font color="#000">TT  10:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support along with FL. Courcelles 10:03, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * They are already working on their proposal and are going to launch it as soon as this one clears. We just didn't want to have multiple ones going on at once, it would become too chaotic. I agree though, FLs would be a wonderful addition to the main page.
 * In an either/or proposition, I would much rather have FLs and/or or GAs, which are more encyclopaedic and often require more work (not that I wish to disparage Featured Sounds), but, in principle, more Featured Stuff on the MP is no bad thing. HJ Mitchell  &#124;  Penny for your thoughts?  18:20, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * See my response to Courcelles directly above.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  20:27, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support. --Avenue (talk) 00:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support I have some concerns on the technical end (the player), but running stuff on the front page, may make those more likely to get fixed. Would love to see Featured Videos for same reason (probably joint with sound as FEatured Media). Featured Lists (maybe even GAs) would be good as well. I don't really care how often the run or what they steal from, just get more stuff in the mix. Wiki needs to grow or die.TCO (talk) 00:54, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * To Tony's point, I think we are better off running some stuff on the front page and using that as a driver to improve quality. I could support once a week though. Maybe an FL a week and an FS a week. I don't have an issue with showing off uploaded stuff. This is about displaying what is in the encyclopedia, not about emphasizing original work, per se.TCO (talk) 01:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what can and cannot be done with the default player. All featured sounds should be able to run on it though, and if one isn't capable of doing so, that's actually rather easy to fix.
 * As to featured videos, the current system is that both FP and FS have videos. Really though, videos are much more common in FP, FS only has three. That isn't to say we don't want them, however in FS videos would have to be focused on things already covered by FS (so we would have videos of speeches, videos of musical performances, and video field recordings.) The judging would swing heavily towards the audio component of the video, although both parts would have to be of a high quality. If the audio was outstanding and the visual was awful, I suppose we might separate the two, however to my knowledge that hasn't been done or even proposed before. I suppose the best answer I have is that if you see something that you thing is FS or FP quality and is in Video form, don't hesitate to submit it. If it's primarily an audio centered video, send it to FS, if it's primarily a visuals centered video, send it to FP.  S ven M anguard   Wha?  01:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support - FS, FP, FL and FV also. Although the latter video infrequently because of browser and bandwidth issues, but having a video infrequently would highlight the lack of royalty free video support on many browsers. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 02:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Videos are generally considered part of Featured pictures, and have been on the main page for ages. I don't think anyone will be hugely surprised to know FL will be going to vote once this one is done, since the proposal uses this one's backend. Adam Cuerden (talk) 02:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It's pleasing to hear videos are considered pictures. As I don't recall seeing one on the main page, can I ask when (what date) was the last one on the main page? Regards, SunCreator (talk) 03:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't know. I know two were promoted last week, if that helps. Adam Cuerden (talk) 03:39, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * I remembered a plasmaball File:Plasmaball vid2.ogg, but it turns out that was over a year ago (16 Feb 2010). A cursory check reveals a couple of animated gifs, but I didn't see any other videos since then.  Worm    <font color="#000">TT  12:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Support. Will the sound files increase the download time of the page?--DJDunsie (talk) 18:53, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
 * They shouldn't: Sounds are only loaded after you click the "Play" button. Adam Cuerden (talk) 19:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)