Wikipedia talk:Selected Articles on the Main Page/Archive 2

Anniversaries
What is the reasoning behind not listing anniversaries of births and deaths under the "anniversaries" section? I think they should be listed when all events have been used up and there is nothing left to list. --Jiang 23:28, 30 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * Each day page should only contribute 3-4 events, so I don't see your point. --mav

Why only 3-4 events? Where was that set? I could only find 2 articles for Aug 31, so that is still below your specified range. --Jiang 00:38, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)


 * That's because I haven't had time to update the articles of late - but I will start again for September. Only the most complete articles from the most important events are listed. The Historical anniversaries line is a summary, not a place to put everything that is updated. --mav

But what is specifically wrong about listing births/deaths? Sometimes, the bios of people born/died on a day will be more substantial than the events. --Jiang 06:07, 31 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If we are to list each event once per year, we might as well list each important person once a year. This means we should either list births or deaths but not both. How about listing births for people who are alive and listing deaths for people who are dead? Or just listing births and not deaths unless it was an assasination? --Jiang 01:01, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * What are you talking about? We don't list all events on the Selected Articles section to begin with; just the most important ones that have good updated articles. The great majority of births and deaths are non-events and thus do not merit listing at all. We all are born and all die; so what? --mav

Although there is nothing much to being born, the accomplishments of whomever was born on a particular date makes it worth knowing. We don't celebrate MLK Day or President's Day for nothing. The anniversaries section must be updated as much as possible. If it is no longer the 1st, listing items that occured on that day is just misleading, since the page clearly indicates the current date. --Jiang 01:29, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * If a nation decides to officially celebrate a particular person's birthday, then when that is celebrated we should note that. MLK Jr was listed for this very reason and the article clearly indicated why (it stated the first time MLK Jr's birthday was celebrated). The first time something is officially celebrated is an event in history; thus it is listable. And it is not misleading to list older than the 1st; the day page is just another article that has relevant and timely historical evnents listed. There is no : indicating that the other items apply to the date. --mav 01:38, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

It is implied when the current date is listed that the anniversaries pertain to that date. I don't see how this is not implied. With "Sept. 2" being a date and the others being events, it is distinctly set apart to show that somehow it is more important. This is how "anniversaries" work. Otherwise, we should change it to "Week of Sept 1..."

How do you determine what is important enough to list and what is not? Where are the guidlines? I see this as a continum and when we run out of things to list, we should list birthdays/deaths. --Jiang 01:47, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * The day link used to be under the word "Historical anniversaries" but people complained so it was moved. And finding out what is more important is hard and more art than science. For example Hitler did a lot of notable things, but I've only listed him on the Main Page a couple of times since I want to also cover other items. Same for Elvis and many others. Simply adding a few events a day will keep the two anniv lines very up-to-date. There is no point at all to replicate the day page on the Main Page; that is just silly. --mav 01:53, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I am not asking that we list more items than what already exists or create a new category. I am only suggesting that births/deaths be used as backup when there are not enough events for a particular day. How will the day page be replicated? I don't see your point. --Jiang 03:03, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Filling both lines in the anniv section of Selected Articles with events from a single day is essentially recreating the day page on the Main Page. This is not useful at all. Just select (hence the name of the section!) a few notable events per day that are updated and are pretty good. Give users a nice selection of different types of events from different recent day pages. I would even advise against adding events from the current day until the day is over since these events are already listed on the current day page. Back when I was the only person updating this section, events stayed listed for 3-5 days and never were duplicatated on the current day page. I treated the anniv list as a "best of" archive of past day's events. --mav

People should look at the main page and see events that occured on the same day. Events should at most last one day unless if they occured over the course of more than one day (such as a military battle). The whole point of listing an article is because it is an anniversary (American Heritage: The annually recurring date of a past event, especially one of historical, national, or personal importance). It is no longer an anniversary if it happened the day before. If people were expected to look up events clicking on the day link, what's the point of listing all the other articles? It defeats the whole purpose of having such links if they are not listed on the actual anniversary, and not listing it on the actual anniversary misleads people and leads them to believe we are slow on updating. --Jiang 03:24, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Same problem with Recent deaths and Current events. So what is your point? If the name is misleading then lets change the name. You however, are the first person to complain about this so I am confident that others are not so confused. Updating the anniv lines completely each day is a no starter anyway; nobody has time for that. Now I'm going to actually improve Wikipedia now by updating all the year and subject pages for each of the events listed on September 1. --mav

"Recent deaths" and "Current events" are in no way limited to one day. "Current" and "recent" are not words that expire after 24 hours. However, anniversaries only last for a single day.

Nobody? I have time for it...

If one person can make the rules, one person can change them. On the same note, you are the only one defending it. Any input from others? --Jiang 03:40, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * OK, some input from me. The short and sweet version is that I agree with Mav. Tannin 04:27, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * These rules have not been made up by just me either; they have been developed over time through interaction among different people (mostly on talk:Main Page). --mav


 * Which archive? --Jiang 04:45, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * All over the damn place - I don't have time to hunt them all down for you. I have actual work to do improving Wikipedia. --mav


 * Nope, I scanned and found nothing. You did, however, direct someone to this page in archive 8 and explained the current policy. How that policy was formulated is not evident. --Jiang 05:01, 2 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * I don't have time to argue or to check the archives and page histories of a bunch of different pages because I would rather work on improving Wikipedia. But the de facto standard is to do things as I and others have been doing. Only you want to change that. The guideline has been in place way before you started working on the anniv section and will be in place until a consensus is formed to change it. --mav

From User talk:Maveric149
I'm working on updating the events linked from October 14 right now. I'll add the best examples from that page as soon as I'm done. For now all October 15th events are already linked via the October 15 link on the Main Page. So they are much lower priority - no reason to summarize a page that is already linked. --mav 06:16, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

We discussed this before. I will repeat - it is no longer an "anniversary" if it happenened the day before. By listing "October 15" as the first item in the list, it is implied that the events occurred on October 15th. Otherwise, we could retitle it "weekly anniversaries" or "week of October 13th". The current setup implies that the list is meant to be a summary of the day's anniversaries, not a list of anniversaries past. --Jiang 06:31, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Actually, come to think of it, maybe getting rid of the current day will be a good idea, since it's not the same date everywhere. --`Jiang


 * Again, you are the only person who has a problem with this. Might as well apply the same logic to Current events - since they are no longer current the day after (yesterday's news). So although "Recent anniversaries" would be more explicit, it is too long. Any other word we can use other than "anniversaries" that isn't as long? I'm all ears. -- mav

You said the same before, here is my response again: ""Recent deaths" and "Current events" are in no way limited to one day. "Current" and "recent" are not words that expire after 24 hours. However, anniversaries only last for a single day [if the event itself only lasted a single day]."

--Jiang 06:44, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)


 * Fine. It's now "Week in history" --mav


 * Sorry for completely missing this discussion before and coming in a bit late, but I disagree with "week in history". It does not sound correct. "This week in history" would, but that would be too long. I think "anniversaries" makes sense even when it relating to a week, rather than just a day. Angela 05:44, Nov 2, 2003 (UTC)

I still disagree that listing past "anniversaries" of the same week "makes sense". However, I wouldn't be opposed to the label if mav would stop reverting my updates of actual anniversaries. Not sounding correct beats being factually wrong. --Jiang 06:54, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * "Week in history" was designed to make you happy. If you don't mind "Anniversaries" and the listing of events that did not happen this day, then I think that "Anniversaries" would a tad bit better than "Week in history" (esp. since events very rarely are listed more than 4 days). It isn't the greatest heading and should be replaced as soon as somebody thinks of something better. --mav 11:25, 2 Nov 2003 (UTC)

New Articles

 * How about putting Siegfried & Roy in the "in the news' section of the main page? Perhaps the subject of much joking, one can't deny the impact of a major injury to half of an act that brings in forty million dollars a year...

(Warning: self-serving material follows) Can we list Eric Berne in new articles. I threw this together when I wanted to refer someonne to wikipedia and found out we didn't have an article. Regardless, I'm fairly happy with it. ;)...Lou I 20:47, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Whoever runs the Main Page should consider adding Edgardo Mortara to the New Articles list. It's beautifully written. Michael Hardy 00:44, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * It was created on Oct 23. Many hundreds of even newer articles have added since then. --mav 03:21, 5 Nov 2003 (UTC)~


 * Perhaps it would be appropriate under "Beatiful prose" then? Wernher 01:43, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Suggestion for a new article: Richard Lewontin, a notable evolutionary biologist. Not as well known as Stephen Jay Gould, but at least as important. It was just created a few hours ago. I wrote it, so I'm biased, but it's a non-stub, properly wikified and all that. --Lexor 14:18, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Could you add Mary Livermore to "New Articels?" Alexandros 13:34, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Suggestion for recent deaths: Rie Mastenbroek. Jeronimo 12:05, 7 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Done. - user:zanimum

-

Suggestion for Main Page anniversary mention in a couple of days: Intel 4004, the world's first microprocessor, released on November 15 1971, i.e. 'celebrating' its 32nd anniversary this year). I have tried to edit the article into a presentable form. --Wernher 01:43, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Wernher, in general, your best bet for making sure an article is listed on the Main page under Anniversaries is to make sure it is listed on the day page, in the case of Intel 4004, November 15 (it is). If so, it will most probably be included by a sysop. Keep in mind that it is customary to add the anniveraries after the date itself, ie, the 16th (see explanation in this article), so don't panic if you don't see it listed there when you first login today; it will probably be listed there this evening or tomorrow. -- Viajero 09:53, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I am asking the sysops to archive somewhere articles that were listed as New articles on the Main Page. I suggest Former New articles on the Main Page. It shouldn't require too much work, just enclose articles in &lt;!-- comments --&gt; instead of deleting them, and then move them to archive page, say, each week. This would help to select good articles, as only the best of new article make it to the Main Page. Also, I (and, I guess, other contributors) would like to know when an article written by me gets to the Main Page :) Nikola 22:18, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * This can be seen through the page history as long as people make decent edit summaries. Angela 22:45, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

chmod is a new article. I wrote it.-- Sverdrup 20:14, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ancient Egypt
I don't think Ancient Egypt is a very suitable article to have at New Articles on the Main Page. It's just a pointer to a lot of other articles. If you want something Egyptian, have a look at my Oxyrhynchus, which I'm rather pleased with. Adam 12:46, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Aeropagetica
Why was Aeropagetica deleted from the Main Page? Every single time I put something there, it is deleted, without discussion. RickK 02:35, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)~


 * Please stop spamming the same complaint in three different places. Here is the response I wrote at Talk:Main Page: Calm down. I simply replaced the sub-1KB entry you put up with one that is far more complete and therefore a better example of one of our history articles (that is why it is called "Selected Articles" - only good examples should be in that part of the Main Page). Oh and anything listed on the Main Page has to be listed on the corresponding day page before it is put on the Main Page. Sorry, but Areopagitica simply didn't fit the bill. Read Selected Articles on the Main Page for the guidelines. --mav

Simon and Mark
Could Simon Crean be added to today's In the News? Adam 01:37, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Done. Angela

Boring old Simon can now be replaced with the godlike Mark Philippoussis Adam 07:12, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Done. I didn't replace Simon Crean though as articles are supposed to be removed from the end and Simon Crean wasn't at the end. Angela 07:17, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Replaced Crean with Mark Latham - thought I should be bold :) Dysprosia 23:21, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Is it "ethical" to add own creations to the New articles, if we are veryvery pleased with them? :) Muriel Victoria 11:27, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * I just did it with Roman usurper... Muriel

Recent death: Dec 7, Carl F. H. Henry, influential theologian, editor of Christianity Today Candidate for main page? Pollinator 07:14, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Keiko made the front page! Any chance of including Our Lady of Guadalupe under "Anniversaries", to flesh out the current Latin American theme (whale, BVSC, Mozote...)? –Hjr 19:11, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Done! -- Viajero 20:15, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

¡Gracias! I might take a stroll round to the church again later and see if I can get a photo of the (reproduction) tilma there. I couldn't yesterday because it was so crowded. –Hjr 20:33, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Olavo Bilac
Now that it has been edited by a handful of users, I would like to see Olavo Bilac as a one of the "new articles" in the Main Page, if possible on December 16, the date of Bilac´s birth. It would mean very much to this new but active Wikipedian. Cheers and thanks Doidimais Brasil 18:09, Dec 14, 2003 (UTC)

Uh... anyone? Doidimais Brasil 02:36, Dec 23, 2003 (UTC)

HELLO??? Doidimais Brasil 22:31, Jan 4, 2004 (UTC)

Glossary of the French Revolution
I've recently added Glossary of the French Revolution. I hope it's not excessive ego on my part to nominate it for "new articles" on the Main Page. I'd really like to get some review of the article, because I've written a lot in an area where I'm moderately knowledgable, but not expert. I conceive of this article as groundlaying for a rework of the rather weak French Revolution article. I'm not sure I'm enough of a scholar of the period to really attack that re-write, especially since my French-language skills are mediocre (je parle comme une vache espagnole), but this article is at least a part of the groundwork enabling us collectively to do so. I would guess that eventually the French Revolution should be handled by a group of related articles, as hs been done for topics like History of Romania or even ones as relatively minor as History of Seattle. -- Jmabel 19:36, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Done. -- Viajero 22:25, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Christmas pudding
just done an article that I'm quite pleased with on this piece of UK weirdness (it's ok, I can say it's weird, being a UKian) - a brief and topical stay on New Pages possibly? seglea 22:07, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Done. -- Viajero 22:25, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Anniversaries

 * First Manned Flight by the Wright brothers. December 17, 1903. This marks the Centenary of flight
 * Aaron Copeland born 14 November 1900
 * Hi Bmills, as a rule we don't list births or deaths (accept assassinations or big anniversaries -- centenaries, etc). See Selected Articles on the Main Page for more info. Tip: if you are keen to see something listed as an anniversary, your best bet is to make sure it is listed on the day page (ie, November 14 and that the article mentions the date in the text. --Viajero 15:04, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Thanks Bmills 15:05, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Acronyms
Is it wise to put a relatively unknown acronym like IBDA-C on the front page? I think it shoud either be spelled out in full, or qaulified as, perhaps, "IBDA-C (Turkish terrorist group)"Andy Mabbett 16:39, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * And why should we support the aims of terrorists, by giving them the prominence and attention they crave? At most, just say Terrorism in Turkey. Why take a previously obscure terrorist group and give them free publicity? --Uncle Ed 21:28, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * By the same token, why are offering offering free PR to a known pervert like Mr M Jackson, likewise someone who craves attention? Why don't we refer to him as the ex-black Santa Barbara child molester? -- Viajero 22:08, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Yes, let's only write about nice people, fluffy little clouds and cuddly bunnies. Andy Mabbett 22:38, 21 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Andy, about your original query: you have a point. The problem is we have very little space; a string like "Turkish terrorist group" is waaay to long. In any event, lots of unfamiliar topics (to me at least) pass across the Main Page, and it is probably a good a mechanism as any to invite people to browse. As for the morality of listing the Turkish group there... I defer... except to say one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. -- Viajero 00:22, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * [OT] I should point out that, in the interest of fairness, the above comment is both wrong and (to an extent) libelous, AFAICT - TTBOMK, Mr. Jackson has never been convicted in any court (other than that of public opinion) of abusing, sexually or otherwise, children.
 * On the other hand, I agree with the argument being made, if not the examples used, so...
 * James F. 12:52, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Recent Deaths

 * Don Gibson (17 November). Andy Mabbett 00:27, 22 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * David Hemmings (actor; 3 December). Andy Mabbett 12:11, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

In the news
Andy Mabbett 00:55, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Charles Lindbergh's illegitimate children.


 * There is much ado about european constitution of European Union. Maybe it should be mentioned??


 * Jon Johansen acquitted in the 2nd trial. -- Card 13:58, 22 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ancient Egypt
I don't think Ancient Egypt is a very suitable article to have at New Articles on the Main Page. It's just a pointer to a lot of other articles. If you want something Egyptian, have a look at my Oxyrhynchus, which I'm rather pleased with. Adam 12:46, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Money and the ethnic vote
This new article deserves listing as such IMHO. -- Pakaran 07:14, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Done, -- Viajero 08:32, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
I also think this article should get listed. WhisperToMe 00:14, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Warren Commission Anniversary on 29 Nov
Nov 29th marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Warren Commission. I wanted to give a heads up to the whoever who updates the main page. -- hoshie 08:04, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * If the day page November 29 has a listing, it will probably make to the Main page on or around the 30th. -- Viajero 09:13, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)


 * Which it does. -- Viajero 09:53, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The main page does not render correctly in opera on windows. All categories come in a single column.


 * bharath, 20:48, 30 Nov 2003 (IST)

Ford Motor Company and December 2
After browsing December 2, the anniversary stated is not of the Ford Motor Company itself, but of the Ford Model A. The Main Page should probably reflect this fact (i.e., 'Ford Motor Company' should instead be 'Ford Model A').

Skybunny 21:21, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Fixed, thanks. -- Viajero 21:43, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

New pages we have:

4-H Zener Card

I sometimes get amazed at the things we never had before. Some cool guy 22:12, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I know what you mean. Let me read those, I think I'll add them if they do the concepts justice.  -- Pakaran 22:16, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Done. -- Pakaran 22:19, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Today is Hector Berlioz's birthday. Greenmountainboy


 * Sorry, Selected Articles on the Main Page says "Birth and death anniversaries can be listed if they mark a noteworthy year milestone (such as 100, 200, 300 etc years since the birth or death).". Angela. 00:52, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * No problem, the day is almost over anyway. Thank you for informing me of the policy, mam.  Hats off, Greenmountainboy 01:02, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Angela, actually 2003 is the 200th anniversary of Berlioz's birth; there have been a lot of performances of his music of late to mark this fact. -- Viajero 13:37, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Anniversaries
Why have some articles been in the "anniversaries" section since like December 6, namely, Pearl Harbor and Lethal injection...? ugen64 03:14, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)


 * They can be there up to a week. See Selected Articles on the Main Page. However the real reason is that I was until recently greatly expanding the events section of each day page as that day came and then updating every event article with that info. That resulted in at least 3-4 new entries in the Anniversaries section each day (meaning that the longest any event was listed was about 3 days). But I'm very busy at work right now and can't spend the 3-4 hours a day I had been just on the day page and associated event and year updates. Others add events though so it isn't that bad. --mav 04:25, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)~


 * Mav, now I understand how and why you spend so much time on that. I went to add some anniversaries for the the 10th and 11th, and I added Pilgrims because on December 11 it said they landed on Plymouth Rock that day. Went to make sure it was in the article. Wasn't. However, the 11th didn't make sense based on their departure date and the fact the voyage took 65 days. Checked the web. Was the 21st not the 11th. Removed Pilgrims. okaaaaaaay! -- Viajero 18:01, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Just be very careful about using any 'this day in history'-type websites for info (or even books!); they all seem to use each other as references without checking facts. This means that each rewrite of the text results in added error upon error (like an insane game of telephone). I therefore have to check every fact in one of my sources and find that anywhere between 1/4 - 1/2 of those entries are somehow wrong or misplaced (sometimes very wrong). --mav 07:09, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Frank Schubert died
I'd like to list Frank Schubert on the main page under recent deaths, but there is no article about him. Maybe someone could write a nice piece about him...News item. Kingturtle 03:19, 14 Dec 2003 (UTC)

People on the South Pole for the first time 14 Dec 1911
Hi there, how about putting the South Pole link in the Anniversaries list on the main page? Or would it have to wait until this time of year in 2011? :-) --Wernher 02:24, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Selected Articles
Let's talk a bit about the very idea of putting Births, Deaths and Anniversairies.

For me, the list of Selected Articles is inadequate, because:
 * Deaths: it's from Anglo-Saxon point of view.
 * Detailed example: right now I (--Ilya 22:19, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)) look at the main page and I see:
 * William Roth - US Senator
 * Heydar Aliyev well, if you are still sure his depth is planet's cataclism this can go to 'News'
 * Keiko 'killer whale widely known (???) for a role in the first of three Free Willy movies' (what's that???)
 * Paul Simon - US politician
 * Rubén González - musicin from Cuba
 * Capture of Saddam Hussein - may be it's important
 * Paul Martin - hm, Canadian PM
 * Bill Janklow - oh... US representative... I firstly thought he's a former senator....
 * Robert Mugabe - one more african dictator... is it so crucial?
 * Gemini 6A - 5th manned... in this series... oh and are you really interested in it?
 * United States Bill of Rights - it's interesting...
 * Gone with the Wind - ah, Mitchell... but what for remembering novel each year?
 * Bosman ruling - sorry, I particularly don't like football
 * Netscape Navigator is Netscape Co's problem, not mine
 * Alabama - US State
 * South Pole yes, somebody got to it at last...
 * Our Lady of Guadalupe. Thank you, it's an interesting educational article. It's better than I thought. I would appreciate it at 'New Articles'
 * Think a bit what does mean 'Anniversary'. Remember that when you say 'This event is on 5 Nov' you are working only with Gregorian calendar and if you say 'it's today 5 Nov and thus 10 years from the event' this statemant will be false in Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and other calendars.
 * Resume: I think the present contents of Selected Articles (all above items) violates NPOV. It's OK when it's not the Main Page
 * Proposal: let's restrict In the news to the most important events, move Deaths, Anns to another start page and add New Brilliant Prose instead
 * And I suggest adding 'Universal calendary' on Main page: "Today is 14 Nov ... in Common Western, .. in Arabic, .." --Ilya 12:23, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * I strongly object to this. This is, after all, the English Wikipedia.  RickK 01:40, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)~

The point is not for you to know what those articles are about. The point is for you to click on the links to learn about these subjects.
 * Clearly I did it to write all the comments I wrote. And after I did it looks rather obvious for me that 1/2 of these events isn't interesting for people outside US (while for me the other half is strange enough too) --Ilya
 * Then don't read them. "only" 7/17 topics were US related. This is not done on purpose - rather, when choosing articles for the main page, we choose more complete ones. How do you know people aren't interested? --Jiang | Talk

Note that just because you don't know that Bill Janklow is a representative and not a "former senator" doesn't mean other people don't know. Your views are not representative of everyone's views.
 * Yes, I agree. Let's go to something real now. --Ilya

Just because you don't like football or think Mugabe has no significance doesn't mean other people think the same way.
 * "I don't agree with the style of Deaths but I will defend your right to write it in your way". Still, I think our Main Page should be more culturally neutral. --Ilya
 * Doesn't everyone die? --Jiang | Talk

You do, however, have a point in that the anniversaries are western-centric. Then again, where is the Gregorian calendar not used?
 * And where is English not used? Why do we have Wikipedia in different languages? --Ilya 00:17, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * And this is the English wikipedia. All our articles are written in English. --Jiang | Talk
 * And still we have French one, Mandarin one etc. Ilya

Recent deaths should not be going anywhere. Maybe anniversaries can be scrapped. --Jiang | Talk 23:04, 15 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * Let's count News+Deaths: 9 articles = 3 US Politicians + 1 Canadian PM + 1 Very Important Event You Know What + 1 Keiko ; what remains is 1 Alyiev + 1 Mugabe + 1 Gonzales. And look above about Anniversaries.
 * My proposal:


 * This data now works at Experimental Main Page. --Ilya 12:23, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)
 * I think my proposal fits better into Encyclopedia scheme --Ilya 03:32, 16 Dec 2003 (UTC)


 * I like the brilliant prose list a lot and prefer it to the "anniversaries" thing we have going now for many reasons: highlights our good articles, encourages us to use and improve our brilliant prose listing, provides a less haphazard way to include articles, etc. But I don't understand the distinction you're making between "news" and "actualities", which is not a frequently-used English word.  DanKeshet


 * I want to very much commend your inclusion of Scientific headlines. This would be a good idea in the perpetual struggle to lift people's attention from trivialities to more significant and perhaps lasting events.  Admittedly, not all science stuff is equally interesting to all of us, but just including the category of such headlines gives a strong, and in my view, good, signal.  BTW, if I were the benevolent dictator of Wikipedia (which, alas, I'm not, I'm not even an admin), I'd call the category Sci-tech headlines, since I maintain the view that technology/engineering is at least as generally and culturally important as science. --Wernher 09:09, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Altair 8800 --> MITS Altair
Hi, see the headline: I think the machine is at least as well-known under the name MITS Altair, so I suggest fixing the visual link. This would be the most recognizable format even if MITS later produced machines with names such as MITS Altair 680b etc. --Wernher 09:16, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

18 Brumaire
Another pretty solid new article I've written, 18 Brumaire. Maybe put it on the list when Glossary of the French Revolution falls off? (But I promise I won't be offended if it doesn't make the cut.) Previously, as far as I can tell, there was no more than a sentence or two anywhere in wikipedia on Napoleon's coup. On the other hand, I really did mostly crib from two sources, even if I was careful to rewrite in different enough words to (I'm quite certain) avoid copyright issue. --Jmabel 00:30, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC) on the wrong darn page, reposted here Jmabel 09:54, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)