Talk:Main Page

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edit Archives 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90 Please tidy up discussions for clarity before archiving.

Contents 1 "Plurality" in the news 2 Number of FAs mentioned as well as total number of articles, please! 2.1 implemented 3 Adopt a noob 4 "On This Day" for Dec 4th 5 Changing the image 6 How the "Complete List" link in interwiki area? 7 Search function 8 Featured article vandalism 8.1 Other discussions on this topic 8.2 Definition of Macedonia 9 Criticism of, or at least discussion of, Deletion Putsch 10 Dr. James McCune Smith page 11 Picture Placements 12 Stupid suggestion 13 VANDALISM- CODE RED 14 general discussion page? 15 Please ban our new friend, Bobby Steelworker the Bobby Boulders sockpuppet 16 hi 17 Can I use my search engine to crawl into wikipedia? 18 Questions 19 Featured content link 20 Comma usage in FA blurb 21 Featured user 22 Loaded: In the news 23 Vandalism 24 WHAT IS GOING ON? 25 The history of monopoly 26 how 27 Suffolk murders 28 Kofi Annan preview picture 29 Examining the Holocaust? Excuse Me? 30 Did You Know… is a bit rubbish

[edit] "Plurality" in the news

first item

• "The Socialist Party gains in Dutch elections, while Brodie Hayes Dalton (pictured) Christian Democrats retain their plurality"

is it plurality or popularity ?--Pixel ;-) 12:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Plurality. http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+plurality Rafy 13:40, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

ok--Pixel ;-) 18:02, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Plurality means that its still the largest party. Its just the stupid article being too fancy. Why can't they make it simple and say "Christian Democrats remain the largest party"???

Plurality is a well understood English word with a specific meaning when it comes to elections. This is the normal English wikipedia, not the simple one. Do you suggest we give up on all words and just don't communicate? Nil Einne 11:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems it is not well understood: I also would not have been sure of its meaning in this context. This might well be the "normal English" wikipedia, but that does not mean that informaiton should not be presented clearly. Bazza 13:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Anyone who don't understand the term should have clicked on the link on ITN at the time and read the Plurality article. This should be clear and concise enough. -- PFHLai 14:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, that link was added by me after Pixel's comment was originally made, in response to a suggestion on Errors. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 18:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Well that's fine. But I'm of the opinion that if people don't understand a normal and fairly common English word with a specific meaning which accurately conveys the information, then it is their responsibility to find out what it means rather then complain to us that they don't understand. They're welcome to suggest we add a link which I would support but suggesting we don't use the word, IMHO is a bit silly, no offense intended to anyone. I'm sure there are a number of people, who don't know what therapeutic cloning is (Portal:Current events). However it doesn't mean we should say cloning for non-reproductive medical purposes instead. Similarly we say "pro-choice" rather then "supports a women's right to choose whether to have an abortion (and this is quite a significant issue since in countries where abortion is not a domestic issue like in Malaysia and Singapore for example, pro-choice is something many won't be familiar with). Obviously when we are talking about obscure words that are rarely used then that would be a very different matter but that's not the case for plurality. The issue is being concise, accurate and ensuring that we can resonably expect people to either understand, or be able to learn from the information provided. Adding wikilinks when necessary helps, but ignoring words just because some people don't understand them doesn't. Nil Einne 11:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

(undent) Nobody complained. Why are you being so high-handed about this? The original comment was is it plurality or popularity? — that's not a complaint. My comment also was that the use of the word in this case (as a technical election term) is not common — the subsequent linking of it would have helped at the time. You comment that the issue is being concise, accurate and ensuring that we can resonably expect people to either understand... — an observation reinforced above by the unsigned remark Why can't they make it simple and say "Christian Democrats remain the largest party"?. Bazza 15:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

And I quote "Its just the stupid article being too fancy." If this isn't a complaint, I don't know what is. IMHO, "Christian Democrats remain the largest party" is unnecessary when we have a clear, fairly common English word that accurately conveys the meaning that was properly used. As I've stated, I strongly support the idea of linking to the word plurality, however I very strongly disagree with the view that we shouldn't use the word plurality because an uncertain number of people don't understand it (and any uncertainty can be resolved by checking out the link). I don't think the we're trying to be fancy. Don't get me wrong, if we had originally said "Christian Democrats remain the largest party" then I wouldn't necessarily suggest we change it (undecided on this altho I do feel "Christian Democracts retain their plurality" flows better then "Christian Democrats remain the largest party"). Anyway, I won't discuss this here anymore. If there is anything else you wish to say, you're welcome to respond here but I won't read it. Go to my talk page if you wish to discuss it with me. Nil Einne 15:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Just wanted to add a bit of context. I myself didn't know exactly what plurality meant, although I was able to guess since I'd read the section before it used plurality. Nil Einne 15:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

 : 'the largest party' is imprecise and quite simply does not mean the same thing as plurality. sorry ^ but it does indeed mean something, indeed something that specifically applies to elections in a FPTP system. There is no other simple way of saying 'the party which got more votes than any other party, but did not attain a majority'. We arent in a pub, this is an encyclopedia. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.53.232.222 (talk • contribs) 08:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

The term plurality should be known to anyone who's been through college or an an advanced history course in secondary school. It's also used heavily to describe demographics. If anything, those of European countries should understand the word more than Americans, as the US is heavily biased to two party/candidate elections.falsedef 21:07, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Well I don't know the difference between obtaining the most votes & not being a majority and being the largest party - if you're the largest party (regardless if you're a majority), you obtained the most votes!!! Besides, Encyclopedias like Wikipedia which is used I believe by people who go to the pub should be made to be clear and precise. Its inaccuracy is not lost if you simplify the terms when you can. Einstein said that 'one should make things as simple as possible but not simpler'. Well turning plurality into "remains largest party"(and hence most votes owned by single party) makes it as simple as possible and not compromise meaning. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.6.230.65 (talk • contribs) 01:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

I didn't do an advanced history course in secondary school, but I did do a university degree a few years ago. I studied Physical Geography and can't remember the word "plurality" ever being used. falsedef seems to imply I'm not therefore qualified to read or comment on this. I understand, as do some other commentators here, its general meaning, but people above are saying it's got a specific meaning in this case. In which case it should have been linked to an article explaining that (as this is an encyclopedia). It wasn't when I read it, nor when the original poster asked the first question. Bazza 13:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

That's your own assumption. I never said who was qualified for anything, nor do I particularly care what words you know or don't know. My primary major is Computer Science, yet somehow, I've come across it quite a bit (including in my required social computing course). However, despite what major you have, you still should've known what plurality meant by the time you graduated college and had taken breadth courses (as social sciences and humanities are required for general education in most institutions). Did you somehow skip over any sort of political sciences, social sciences, anthropology, history, social ecology class and so forth, in high school and college? If you somehow missed the word, well, that's neither my fault, nor the editors who wrote "plurality" instead of some excess passage describing it. I'm sorry to everyone who had to look up words on their own. falsedef 00:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Other than what I have made public, you have no knowledge of what I studied, where, why or when. Do not be so arrogant as to lecture me on what words I should or should not have studied or learned. Nor assume that the education system in whatever part of the world you live is the same as, or better than, that in other places. Did you somehow skip over any sort of citizenship classes and so forth, in high school? Students here are obliged to take them to learn how to treat people with respect and acknowledge their abilities. Bazza 13:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Number of FAs mentioned as well as total number of articles, please!

See also: Talk:Main Page/Archive 79

See also: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Discussion on whether to place a Featured Article count on the main page

I realise that this is not the first time this has been raised but... In the light of the recent 1.5million milestone, Jimbo's comments about quantity/quality, discussion on WP Weekly podcast, etc. Could we please get the number of Featured Articles and/or Good Articles listed on the front page alongside the total number of articles in English??? I'm not suggesting removing the count of the toal number of articles, just a small addition, so it would read something like:

Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. 1,513,706 articles in English, 1175 of which are Featured Articles.

Thanks for your consideration, Witty lama 00:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The people we'd want to impress with the FA-count are those new to Wikipedia. But such people aren't going to know why it would matter whether an article is Featured or not, or why or how it's decided that an article gets the status. So the only people it'd benefit to have the count up are experienced newbies, who are kind of difficult to find. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 01:04, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Why would we want to target only newbies? The number of FAs is a hundred above the last time I checked. I find that interesting. Besides which, there are certainly any number of items on the Main Page that have niche audiences, such as the two templates meant to direct readers to other languages. I would support adding an FA count for the reasons laid out by Wittylama. - BanyanTree 01:53, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree too! Wittylama is absolutely correct. Nishkid64 02:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

And I thought we should favor quality over quantity, so we are making more FAs than better FAs? How about including other "featured" content too? --Howard the Duck 03:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

What? An FA is quality. If we are making more FAs then we are making more quality. --Monotonehell 04:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. A greater quantity of quality is better than a greater quality of quantity. Whatever that means – Gurch 04:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

HA! That's an interesting way of putting it Gurch! Having a quantitative measure of of quality would not be the same as a measure that promotes quantity for its own sake. This would not decrease the quality level of FAs. Witty lama 04:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I support this idea, as long as I'm not the one who has to do it, and it doesn't interfere with the way WP:FA works (e.g, with the actual numbering scheme). Raul654 04:36, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

On a related note, this graph makes me very sad and anything that can be done to turn it around would be a welcome change. Raul654 04:37, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, the marginal rate of decrease is decreasing... which means we're starting to catch up. Perhaps an FA drive advertised on the Main Page would help... somehow? Titoxd^(?!?) 08:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll support this if other "featured" content also gets to be mentioned, like there 167 FLs, 668 FPs, etc. --Howard the Duck 12:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The German Wikipedia has lower standards for FAs/EAs than we do, though. Most particularly, they don't require inline citation. I'm currently translating the runner-up to the recent writing contest, Friedrich V. (Frederick V), and it does irritate me slightly that this 'best of the best' would still require major work to become a featured article here. I expect that the German Wikipedia is still better at quality than we are, but the gap isn't as big as it looks from that graph. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 12:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

In reference to the main arguement of the previous airing of this idea (listed at Talk:Main Page/Archive 79) - that having a FA count would be either "self-congratulatory" or "editor centric" (as opposed to reader centric), I would argue that the total-article counter is both of these things already. Surely if we can justify having the total-count listed then we can justify having an indicator of quality as well. If the casual visitor does not know what "Featured Article" means then he need only click on the link to find out. It is a wiki afterall! Witty lama 04:40, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

We should think about what we want the main page for. If it's just to impress visitors, the current setup more or less works, and a FA counter inside the FA box (like replacing "more featured articles" with "all X featured articles" would be an improvement. If, OTOH, we want the main page to attract new contributors and channel them into doing useful work, we should resurrect the project box on the main page and list collaborations and open tasks. Zocky | picture popups 15:01, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I like the idea of the "all X featured articles" rather than "more featured articles". Spebudmak 01:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Me too. Tennis DyNamiTe ^{(sign in)} 02:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Me three. Witty lama 06:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

FA-count inside the FA box? Briliant idea! Carcharoth 12:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree that this is a neat and unobtrusive way to get the number on the Main Page. The only down side I can see is that it makes it patently clear that less than 0.1% of articles are good enought to be "featured". -- ALoan (Talk) 16:00, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

(reindent)Given that identification of a problem or potential problem on the wiki tends to result in increased efforts to fix it, I see this is a positive. There seems to be pretty strong support for the idea of putting a count in the FA box in the discussion above. As an initial step, I have created {{FA number}}, which would have to be manually updated. I plugged the template into the {{TFAfooter}} markup to see what it would look like:

I've asked Raul654 if there are any issues with updating {{FA number}} in how he organizes FA. Otherwise, I am ready to implement. - BanyanTree 19:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Late support, but I'd like to see this implimented. It makes much sense. -Monotonehell 15:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thankyou BanyanTree, that's great! So, are there any hoops that we should jump through to impliment this (such as a poll advertised on the community bulletin board at the Community Portal)?? Witty lama 15:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a democracy. Be bold and let's get this done. If anyone objects then we can have a debate and reach concensus on it. --Monotonehell 17:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] implemented

I've gone ahead and implemented Zocky's modification to Witty lama's proposal. Template:FA number has replaced occurrences of the number at WP:FA, allowing one stop updating. - BanyanTree 21:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This new template created a whole 'nother article that has to be edited each time an FA is added or removed (FAC or FAR), and those processes are already labor intensive. Not pleased when these kinds of decisions are made without consulting those who must do the work, for example, at WP:FAR. Sandy (Talk) 01:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way Sandy, in fact the issue of whether this would create extra work was raised by Raul654. The solution with the template is in fact the "cleanest" and least labour intensive manner of doing this. As BanyanTree says on at Raul654's user page here:

"It's definitely another page to add to the watchlist. However, it doesn't require any more edits than already used. For the counter idea to work without a template would require admins to watch for changes at WP:FA and then directly modify {{TFAfooter}}, but that seems to clearly add to the number of edits required, and duplicates effort. Given the benefit of one-stop updating allowing other users to transclude the number for use in other pages, and finally getting a counter on the Main Page, I would say that using a template would be much more elegant."

Does this address you concern? Witty lama 01:54, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I'm not really happy with the idea. Raul adds the FAs, and a couple of editors remove the FARCs. Both processes involve quite a few steps, and it is an extra set of edits to go edit another article. I don't really see the benefit, I guess, in advertising on the main page that we have 1,000+ featured articles (especially since the number is so low). If Raul wants to try it, I guess we're stuck with the work, but I don't feel the extra work is worth the effort just for seeing the number on the main page. As it is, when FAs are added, all the work isn't getting done - I recently started adding the facfailed tag to the article talk pages, as no one had been updating the talk pages of failed FACs for almost a month. It's also too easy to forget that you have another article to edit, when it was all in the same place before. Sandy (Talk) 03:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm willing to try it on a temporary basis and see if I like it. A technical solution (read: a bot) would be much appreciated, though. Raul654 03:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The only thing I can come up with is a bot that is able to edit a protected template solely for this purpose. It would read the number from WP:FA, and update the template at regular intervals. (The FA template would need to be protected for the same reason the other templates on the Main Page are.) Titoxd^(?!?) 03:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That is one way of doing it; another way would be for the bot to directly count the number of FAs. Raul654 03:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That would be spectacular: it would lower our work, and lower the risk of errors. I had to count all the Former Featured Articles the other day, and found they were off by four. Sandy (Talk) 03:13, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Note - counting them should be almost trivial. It should be exactly equal to the number of dots (·'s) that appear after the first heading (==). Raul654 03:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Btw, Sandy - counting them isn't really all that difficult the way I do it. I copy the wikitext, and paste it into a spreadsheet (like MS Excel). Then delete all rows that don't have articles, and however many remain is the correct count. It usually takes me about 2-3 minutes (but I don't do it all that often). Raul654 03:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I also used Excel, but I had a lot to delete. Someone added some goofy tally lines to the Former article *sections*, so I also had to update all of those numbers, so it probably took me about ten minutes. Then I went over and checked the FAs, which was quicker, and they were right on. Sandy (Talk) 03:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

why not just count the number of articles in Category:Wikipedia featured articles with the bot. Gnangarra 03:33, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The category itself says the number it includes is not accurate. Also, the category itself is far more likely to be messed up by someone accidentally categorizing a page that they shouldn't, and mistakes like this are almost impossible to count. Also, from a programmer's perspective, it's more difficult to scrape the contents of all the pages in that category than it is to scrape the wikitext of a single page. Raul654 03:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

And, we periodically come across pages that have added the star without earning it, or lost the star from the talk page, when they deserved it. The category isn't right. :-) Sandy (Talk) 03:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

But then, that's the way Mathbot works, so it isn't as hard anyways... Titoxd^(?!?) 04:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If someone comes up with a bot to automate the process, I would be happy to co-nom at RFA. I assume that the bot could run on an unprotected template to prove that it is reliable in producing the numbers. This was a major issue at the last admin bot nom that I saw - people wouldn't seriously consider the bot for permission until it passed RFA and the RFA voters wouldn't approve a bot that lacked permission. - BanyanTree 03:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

If we have a deadlock condition like that, I will be happy to approve the bot and set its flag once it proves it can work on an unprotected template. An RFA on the matter seems pretty silly, actually - for a bot account being run by someone who is already a sysop, I see no reason anything beyond a normal bot approval process should be needed for both the bot flag and for the sysop flag. Raul654 03:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:BRFA would be the first place to go, IMO. First make sure the bot can do its job before opening hell loose... ;) Titoxd^(?!?) 04:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure that anyone has actually volunteered to create the bot, so Wikipedia:Bot requests might be a necessary first step. I'm willing to start a request, but will wait a bit in case anyone here wants to volunteer to write the bot or one of the FA regulars, who may be more qualified to state what is needed, wants to start the request. - BanyanTree 04:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Request made at Wikipedia:Bot requests#featured article counter, based on what I understood of Raul and Sandy's discussion above. I've added my own idea for a vandal spoofing feature. Any thoughts on that or the idea in general are welcome there. - BanyanTree 13:47, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Are there any non-admins currently involved with maintaining WP:FARC? I know there have been in the past. This change makes adminship a requirement for that task. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:46, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Sandy is not an admin. The two of us have discussed this on my talk and there is an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Featured articles#. He has thus far agreed, as I understand, to request an edit if he carries out a removal while we wait to see what happens with the bot. Someone has already responded to the bot request. - BanyanTree 01:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adopt a noob

I wonder how hard it would be to create a program like this, like Mechapixel did. Just have a list of all the unadopted new users, and let the experienced ones, (say, 2 months joined), choose one to mentor. They would answer any questions the user had, one on one, using email, or their respective talk pages or IM screennames. This way, a new user wouldn't have to wait so long to get that burning question answered. Just a thought.
WiiWillieWiki 22:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Adopt-a-User already does this on a volunteer basis. —Cuiviénen 23:20, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

This is not related to MainPage at all. Please be reminded to make use of Wikipedia:Village pump for suggestions like this. Thanks. --PFHLai 10:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "On This Day" for Dec 4th

in "On this Day" for Dec 4th, it says "1639 - English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks made the first observation of a transit of Venus (pictured)." Taken literally this might be interpreted that this picture is an actual photo taken by Horrocks. Could that get clarified? Spebudmak 01:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

P.S. The confusion stems from the fact that astronomers typically call data which they take "observations", which in many cases are photos. Spebudmak 01:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out, Spebudmak. I've typed in "(2004 picture shown)". Hope it's clearer now. Next time, please use WP:ERRORS. Service is usually quicker there. --PFHLai 10:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! Spebudmak 17:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Changing the image

Are there any strong objections to my changing the picture illustrating Down syndrome on the main page? Some have brought up the point on the image talk page that this picture does not really do a good job of illustrating the condition. It just shows a child drilling a table. I think Image:Down Syndrome Karyotype.png would be a much better replacement as this scientifically illustrates the cause of the phenomenon. I don't object to the use of Image:Drill.jpg in the article, but I think the other one is simply more appropriate for our main page. Irongargoyle 01:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm really not sure that the karyotype will look anything more than random black lines once shrunk to thumbnail size. Borisblue 01:10, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I also think a lot of people unfamiliar with karyotypes or biology in general would know what the new picture was. Nishkid64 01:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Good point about the thumbnails. I think I'll go look for a better image on commons. Irongargoyle 01:19, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This might do it: Image:Brushfield.jpgBorisblue 01:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

How about these pictures from the turkish wikipedia? [1], [2]. Borisblue 02:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Those look good. How about we give it a shot? Nishkid64 02:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Those images apparently were uploaded to the Commons with invalid licensing information (and should be deleted). The phrase "All rights reserved" appears on both Flickr pages: [3]/[4]. —David Levy 03:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

yeah it doesn't work particularly well as a thumbnail but how about this? Nil Einne 14:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Great idea. That should be used. --Descendall 18:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

No, the karyotype is useless as a thumbnail. As Borisblue says, at 100 pixels wide, it's just meaningless black lines. Raul654 19:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm no biologist, but is pretty damn clear to me. --72.75.108.135 20:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How the "Complete List" link in interwiki area?

I've looked through the wiki code of Main Page, can't find how the link was added. 219.234.136.51 14:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a clever javascript hack to the interwikis. I have no idea how it was performed but here's the discussion as it was created. --Monotonehell 14:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Search function

I'm very new to Wikipedia, but I find it to be a great source of information. In my experience, many of the "information" and encyclopeida sites have jumped on the bandwagon of maximizing the use of video and sound clips but provide little real information. Wikipedia gives you a lot of real information. However, to me, I find the search function very weak. I look up many words for which I don't know the correct spelling. Many times Wiki cannot find the word, so I have to jump to Google, put in my best guess of the spelling, get the correct spelling and then jump back to Wiki. There should be a better way. If this was not the correct place to post this, tell me where I should have posted it. I chose MAINPAGE because it is the entrance into Wiki and a better AI/speller suggester would better help people find what they want and would be a good thing to do for a better new year. -So you have my IP address, what'ya gonna do with it? 69.1.59.67 00:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)REH

Yes, our search function is somewhat inferior to Google's. This is partly because they have billions of dollars and some of the world's best programmers available to perfect their proprietary search algorithm, while on Wikimedia projects, the decision has been made to use only open-source software, so we use the Lucene search module. Lucene is actually a lot better than our search function gives it credit for, though – there are also issues with the way in which MediaWiki, the software that runs Wikipedia, stores text, which prevents it from making the most of Lucene's full capabilities – Gurch 01:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You can use Google to search through Wikipedia only.--cloviz 03:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article vandalism

Help someone!!! I can't find the source of the bad image on the very top of the definition of macedonia page. Someone help!!!! --Geekler A Segway Geek 01:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Ugh. It wasn't the page itself, someone must have edited one of the templates on the page. I didn't find it, but it's fixed now – Gurch 01:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Just happened again. It was a template. I reverted it this time. Users responsible are indefinitely blocked – Gurch 01:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Omg...I was eating some chips when I saw a big picture of a penis on that page. I'm still disturbed... Nishkid64 02:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

You poor guy. oTHErONE _(Contribs) 03:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

That was completely disgusting. I clicked that Macedonia link and it gave me a pic of that huge male organ!! Get those vandals!!!ResurgamII 03:25, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

See ANI discussion for details. - BanyanTree 05:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Also see Wikipedia_talk:Main_Page_featured_article_protection#Templates and Talk:Macedonia (terminology)#Vandalism while on Main Page. Carcharoth 10:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Other discussions on this topic

Other discussions on this topic are here, here, here and here. Please add more if you find them. Someone may wish to consolidate all these disparate discussions into one location. Carcharoth 12:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of Macedonia

(merged into relevant section by Carcharoth 12:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Someone keeps vandalising the Definition of Macedonia page by inserting multiple images of a penis on the page. For some reason, this vandalism cannot be reverted. People have raised the problem on the article's talk page but no action has been taken. --Damac 12:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

See the previous section. They are tampering with templates included on that page. Action has been taken – the vandalism has been reverted, the users responsible have been indefinitely blocked and most of the templates have been protected from editing – Gurch 12:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

In future can templates that are used in featured articles be semi-protected before they are put on the main-page? Catchpole 13:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Possibly. Discussions to that effect are underway on one of the pages linked in the previous section. It probably wouldn't be necessary for all articles, though – this one seems to be attracting an unusually large amount of vandalism – Gurch 13:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Criticism of, or at least discussion of, Deletion Putsch

You should address the persistent (and important to many contributors) question of why you suddenly have an army of editors deleting articles - as opposed to devoting their time to, say, editing article content and improving layout / proofreading. This subject was recently discussed (somewhat lightheartedly) in a New York Times article. So why are y'all doing this? Are you trying to alleviate a bandwidth shortage? Why so much eagerness to excise others' contributions of so many articles? Why give a crap so dang much, and who exactly grants these editors their positions of authority anyway? If there's a logical explanation for why this has become a priority, please explain.

Obviously, I have an opinion - I quarrel with the motivation and the execution of the new Wikipedia deletion surge. If Wikipedia isn't a suitable place to record and explain small bits of our world (such as passing pop culture phenomena, for instance) then where is? I have read the deletion guidelines, the policies on notoriety, but yet I still see, routinely, these guidelines applied arbitrarily, subjects of great magnitude of interest deleted, while other indisputably lessor subjects remain enshrined the hallowed halls of Wikipedialand. And this biased, imperfect deletion policy is towards what end?

And then all the lingo of "salting" to denote banning subjects - is nothing if not mean-spirited and elitist. To deny the public the right to write about any subject -ever-again- reeks of a betrayal of what this thing is supposed to be about - a democratic submission policy about collecting knowledge - in all its pros and cons, messy splendor. That a Wikipedia cabal has been deputized to delete and ban the submission of certain subjects (and that anyone would applaud the act) seems to serve little purpose, and certainly not a democratic one.24.199.84.215 17:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with the Main Page. If you have a question or proposal, you may be looking for the Village Pump. - BanyanTree 18:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. Wikipedia is not a democracy, nor an anarchy. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and subjects which are unencyclopedic are, frankly, not welcome. —Cuiviénen 00:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dr. James McCune Smith page

Hello Wikipedia Users,

Over the past couple days we have been working very diligently the Dr. James McCune Smith page. The reason we added so much to the page was because Dr. Smith was a very important man in American History and anti-slavery and abolitionist movement. He was also the first professionally trained African-American doctor in America.

To read more about him, please click this link: Dr. James McCune Smith.

Thanks!

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them on our talk pages.

Sincerely,

Psdubow and Cocoaguy

I think you'll have better luck with feedback either at the Village Pump, or in a peer review. Good luck :) RHB 23:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture Placements

I have a suggestion about the placing of the pictures in the 'Did you know...', 'In the news' and 'On this day...' sections on the main page: Wouldn't it be better if the pictures in those 3 sections appeared just to the right of their respective entries instead of the top right corner? I sometimes find it hard to immediately match the picture to the corresponding entry in those sections. Take today(december 9th) for example, the 'in the news' section is showing a picture of Hugo Chavez, but immediately to the left of the picture are entries about Ethiopia and Iraq, which has little or nothing to do with Chavez, but the Chavez entry is 2nd last in that section way at the bottom. I don't know what it would look like if changes were made, but it's just my suggestion. LG-犬夜叉 00:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

This was tried on ITN recently. See Template talk:In the news#Image/news item placement for the discussion and result. - BanyanTree 03:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Stupid suggestion

Is it possible to nominate the Main Page as a featured article? Simply south 01:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

It isn't an article... and I guarantee it wouldn't pass. --Majorly 01:07, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The Main Page is in the article namespace only for historical reasons and it's kept there for simplicity and because there are so many links, internal and external, pointing to it. It's more of a portal than an article, so Portal:Main Page would be a more technically correct title, or perhaps Wikipedia:Main Page since it's arguably a project page also (both these are currently redirects) – Gurch 01:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I suppose you could try nominating it as a Featured Portal if you want. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 16:01, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] VANDALISM- CODE RED

Go to Wikipedia's article and you will see VERY inappropiate pictures! PLEASE IMMEDIATLEY BAN THE USER Stellaartois AT ONCE! HE'S VERY TRICKY! EVERY TIME WE TRY TO FIX IT, HE PUTS UP ANOTHER PHOTO! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.122.3.19 (talk) 01:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC).

The user in question has been indefinitely blocked. In future, it would be helpful if you could link to the appropriate articles by typing, for example, [[Wikipedia]] to link to the Wikipedia article. Thanks – Gurch 01:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] general discussion page?

Excuse me, but is there a general discussion page talking about what we should on Wikipedia, etc.? I tried talking in here... But i suppose this is just a page that talks about the main page ALONE, so is there any other page that we can talk about what to add on Wikipedia, etc. ??? Dragong4 05:30, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

General discussion or questions tends to happen on a relevant subpage of the Wikipedia:Village Pump. If you want to see what sort of articles get removed, Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Verifiability are worth reading as an introduction. - BanyanTree 05:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village Pump. --Howard the Duck 05:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Please ban our new friend, Bobby Steelworker the Bobby Boulders sockpuppet

I can't believe his account isn't tagged yet. He's already done WP:CVU and probably the Bobby Boulders user page as usual. What a pest. --CommKing 23:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The account has been indefinitely blocked – Gurch 04:59, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You know that Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents is probably the best place to report this right? Nil Einne 19:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

WP:AIV is best for obvious vandalism, actually. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 03:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I always thought AIV was for users who have been appropriately warned but continue to vandalise and so may need to be blocked where as incidents is for things like sockpuppets and people evading blocks. That's what the respective pages say to me anyway, for example incidents says This page is for reporting and discussing incidents that require the intervention of administrators, such as blocked users evading blocks. In any case, I guess we can agree that either of those pages are better then the mainpage talkpage. Nil Einne 12:35, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] hi

how do u make a new page ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bklounge (talk • contribs).

Great question! I recommend you take a look at this. oTHErONE _(Contribs) 00:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Can I use my search engine to crawl into wikipedia?

To whom it may concern,

I have my enterprise search engine installed within my network, and is it possible for me to set my search engine to crawl into wikipedia and index it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alanay (talk • contribs) 04:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

Short answer: No.

Long answer: The sysadmin team actively blocks crawlers and scrapers. If you want to crawl our pages, you will need to ask their permission directly at Wikitech-l. Otherwise, they'll block you at the server level. Titoxd^(?!?) 04:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Stupid question time!!! What's a crawler? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 17:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

A web crawler is an automated program that searches and indexes webpages. Also see the Googlebot, a well known crawler. Koweja 18:09, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I see. I can see how that would be useful, and why Wikipedia would want to block them (to prevent server strain). But if Wikipedia blocks them then how does Wikipedia manage to always come up in search engine results? Does Wikipedia make an exception for Google, Yahoo, Ask, Vivisimo, and the others or what? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)} 19:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Let's just say they've already approved Google's bot. ~user:orngjce223how am I typing? 11:15, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Questions

Where do you find who the author is? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.102.127.60 (talk) 04:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

Click on the history tab at the top of an article, and it will list all the contributors who have worked on the article. --liquidGhoul 05:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

To expand on that comment, most ever article on Wikipedia has been edited by multiple people. Each of those people contributions are listed in the history. Click on any of the user names, and occasionally you'll find their real names, and occupations.

If you're wanting to cite an article, just look on the left hand side of the page, click "Cite this article". You'll automatically get a list of all the common citation formats, with the article's information already input for you. -- Zanimum 15:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured content link

On November 24th the sidebar was updated to link to Wikipedia:Featured content rather than Wikipedia:Featured articles. Given that this link is now included on every page would it make since to remove the 'featured content' link from the Main page or replace it with something else? This link is currently displayed on the upper right portion of the page in the section that looks like:

Contents · Categories · Featured content · A–Z index

Any thoughts on what other link might make sense there? A Portals link seems like one possibility. --CBD 13:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

1. Two of the links from the left-hand row (Help:Contents and Wikipedia:About) appear on every page; this redundancy is deliberate and has existed from the beginning. We could replace any of these links, but I don't think that we should. The extra attention is beneficial.

2. A link to Portal:List of portals (displayed in bold) already exists directly above the row of links that you cited. —David Levy 13:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The current setup seems fine to me too. Different folks pay more attention to different things. Rfrisbie^talk 14:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes... we already have a link to the portals. Cleverly hidden as close as possible to where I was suggesting. Doh! :] --CBD 16:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comma usage in FA blurb

"are sections of the Constitution of India, that prescribe the fundamental"

Is that one really necessary? --Zeality 01:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't seem so to me; go ahead and report it here. Split Infinity 02:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. —Cuiviénen 03:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Featured user

Any thoughts on putting a link to a featured Wikipedia user on the main page? Some people have really good userpages with lots of great links. Dlodge 03:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

This is an encyclopedia. —Centrx→talk • 03:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. In other words, user pages (and all other aspects of the "community") exists only as a means to an end. They are not part of the project's end product, and there is no reason why readers of the encyclopedia would want to see them. Wikipedia is not a social networking site – Gurch 05:45, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

A better place for such an item might be Wikipedia:Community Portal. --64.229.220.121 15:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Loaded: In the news

The bit on Kofi Anan and his speech is loaded in my opinion. There is no article regarding his speech, yet someone took the liberty of noting how critical he was of the United States. He didn't talk about anything else? Again, his stance on the US might actually be noteworthy if there was an article to properly back it up - it's editorializing otherwise. --Haizum μολὼν λαβέ 09:20, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Please join the on-going discussion at Template talk:In the news#Kofi Annan. --64.229.220.121 16:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

I know im not meant to post this here but i couldnt find the correct place to post it. Anyway there is a racist caption to a picture in the article on the human face (i think the page is just titled 'face'). I dont know how to remove it, but i hope one of you will do it. Also it might be gone by the time i type this but theres a giant nude picture on this talk page at the top!? I found that quite funny, but unacceptable of course. Harvestein

A better place for this complaint would be the talkpage of the article in question. --64.229.220.121 15:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

dont see anything os that sort.68.111.172.8

[edit] WHAT IS GOING ON?

Some vandal has made it so that viewing when this talk page, a VERY rude picture\painting appears. Please get rid of it. Simply south 12:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It appears to be something to do with Template:Main Page discussion header. It appears in all versions from this one onwards. Can't work out what the problem is though, unfortunately. Carcharoth 12:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the header until the vandalism is cleaned up. Carcharoth 12:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem was in Talk:Main Page/archivelist. Fixed now – Gurch 12:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I've restored the header template to this page. Carcharoth 12:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

It happened several times: [5]; [6]; [7]. The culprit is here. Carcharoth 12:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I filed a request at WP:RFCU. MER-C 12:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, vandalism is still there, some dirty pervert decided to leave it there. I suggest an IP ban. 85.12.80.128 13:29, 12 December 2006 (UTC) Unregistered User

It's either the person responsible for #Featured article vandalism above, or a copycat. Admins, please add images used by the template vandal to MediaWiki:Bad image list, as well as implementing an appropriate level of protection. Considering the vandal is now forced to use paintings from 1866, it appears that recent additions to the image list are constraining the images he feels will get a rise out of people. On a sidenote, I think that Gustave Courbet would be delighted that L'Origine du monde (not work-safe) is still considered shocking, a century and a half after he created it. - BanyanTree 14:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, maybe he should be delighted, either way, the vandalism is gone now. Thanks 85.12.80.128 11:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The history of monopoly

redirects to something eles.--Taida 01:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Somebody had vandalised the page. I've reverted it. The page should be visible now.--thunderboltz^(Deepu) 01:09, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] how

how do i post something on this?

Er... I think you just did. (If you mean "how do I edit an article", just go to the article and click "edit this page") – Gurch 03:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

If you want to post an article, you'll first need to register an account. GeeJo ^(t)⁄_(c) • 03:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suffolk murders

Shouldn't they be in the news. Biggest police investigation in the UK for 30 years so I hear. 82.163.157.251 09:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The investigation after the July 2005 London bombings was the biggest police investigation in British history. 129.67.108.253 10:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Well murder investigation then. Picky sod. 82.163.157.251 12:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Plus it's still massive news. 82.163.157.251 12:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Whilst is IS extremely massive in the UK I doubt it is in the US. This is (however much people sya it isnt), a US-dominant site, and the world. Five murders arent enough. Massiv in Britain, not here. Anyway, you dont post about that here, see the messages at the top. 82.3.239.85 17:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I remember coming here once and seeing a story about some people in California getting food poisoning! Now your telling me that a serial killer, the worst for thirty years in the UK, is not worthy of reporting. If this was America however! 84.65.200.246 22:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

What you need to do is write the appropriate article and nominate it at WT:ITN. Zocky | picture popups 03:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kofi Annan preview picture

I am just a frequent reader who thought I should report what apparently seems to be vandalism on the article about Kori Annan. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.185.26.92 (talk) 12:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

Thanks for your note! Anyone may revert vandalism. See Help:Reverting for how, so you can handle it next time you spot a problem. - BanyanTree 14:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Examining the Holocaust? Excuse Me?

Excuse me? It is a Holocaust denial conference - sponsored by a regime that openly wants to destroy Israel. NYU has conferences "examining" the Holocaust, discussing the functionalism vs. intentionalism and how it compares to other genocides. The Iranian conference is an openly antisemitic attempt to deny one of the greatest crimes in history (and is organized by one someone aiming to be one of the greatest criminals in history). Saying it "examines" the Holocaust is deliberate obfuscation at worst and belligerent ignorance at best. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.162.55.10 (talk) 14:45, 13 December 2006 (UTC).

I think I've found a better way of wording it now :) dab (𒁳) 14:56, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I beg to differ. There is nothing legitimate about the conference, and nothing about the existence of the Holocaust to "review." The conference's purpose is "to deny" the Holocaust - an openly evil act. It's like David Duke (who is at the conference, not coincedentially) "reviewing" whether blacks have a higher propensity towards crime then whites - the very act of saying the question can be legitimately "reviewed" grants it legitimacy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.162.55.10 (talk • contribs) 15:03, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a news headline. That's why it is on T:ITN. Nishkid64 15:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The fact that a news agency, probably reproducing Iranian propoganda, emphatically incorrectly describes an event does not mean we have to incorrectly describe the event. We are presumably all intelligent people and are capable of assessing whether certain statements are patently false, or belligerently neutral. The fact that something is described in a certain way in a press release or whatever does not mean that it is a legitimate view. A similar controversy arose with C-Span recently, where they planned to feature a Holocaust denier to "give the other side of the debate" after a lecture on the Holocaust. They finally concluded, very correctly, that there is no other side of the debate and that "truth is not balanced by falsehood."

Would we describe a KKK conference discussing, say, "black inferiority and whether lynching is necessary to keep blacks in line and how blacks liked slavery" as "reviewing African-American society" if a headline, no doubt reproduced from a press release, said as much? Are we incapable of determining whether a statement is grossly false and evil? I repeat: the Iranian conference's stated purpose is to deny the Holocaust, an emphatically evil and antisemtic act, and uncritically reproducing the claim that there is something legitimate to "review" is factually incorrect. It is also morally obtuse, but that apparently is not a relevant issue.

I think the best link would be Holocaust denial symposium Dullfig 17:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

this isn't a conference of holocaust deniers. The tendency is clear, but since several rabbis attend, we cannot so label the entire conference (unlike individual participants). The correct term is revisionism, in parts historical revisionism (negationism). They also avoid saying up front that they want to review the existence of the Holocaust, please be accurate, they claim to review its particulars, not its very existence. dab (𒁳) 17:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

That is not true - it is emphatically a conference of Holocaust deniers. The several rabbis you mention, which apparently are succesful in convincing the world that this is a legitimate conference, are members of the Neturei Karta - a tiny splinter group of ultra-orthodox Jews who are militantly opposed to the existence of Israel, to the extent that they openly support Hamas and praised Ahmedinejad's vow to destroy Israel. I mean literally "militantly opposed" - they fought on the Arab side in the 1948 War of Independence. They quite literally hate most Jews in the world, namely the secular ones and the Israel-supporting ones.

The fact that the conference organizers may "claim to review its particulars" does not mean that they are not engaging in Holocaust denial. The standard claim of Holocaust deniers such as David Irving is that indeed several hundred thousand Jews were killed by the Einsatzgruppen, but that the mass killing of several million Jews, mostly in gas chambers, NEVER TOOK PLACE. To argue that the true sum of Jewish dead in the Holocaust was 5.7 million is legitimate. To claim that the total number is 400,000 because the gas chambers never existed, and the Jews made it up, is an evil, antisemitic lie and a denial of the Holocaust. And what could a "review of the particulars" be about? Especially at a conference attended by actual notorious Holocaust deniers, held by a regime that sponsored a Holocaust-mocking cartoon contest? Somehow I doubt they are going to have a learned debate with Raul Hilberg over functionalism vs. intentionalism.

I see that the propaganda has suceeded in opening up the debate (since, as you say "they claim to review its particulars, not its very existence") on an issue in which there is no debate and to claim otherwise is both false and evil. Have we abandoned all critical thinking to take a false, evil claim to be worthy of legitimate review? Are we all belligerantly ignorant?

Dab - do you believe it is legitimate to question whether several million Jews were killed and if the gas chambers existed? And if so (and I hope to God the answer is no), is this a mere "review" or a denial of the Holocaust?

I repeat: this is a Holocaust denial conference, whatever reasonable-sounding title they give it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Minjitthemidget (talk • contribs).

a somewhat superfluous question. You will note that my change to ITN was from

'examine' to '"review"', introducing the scare quotes. It is obvious that little else than a full-fledged Holocaust denial session would be hosted by Ahmadinejad. Still, since the conference only just opened, "it" had no time to actullay 'deny' anything, did it. If the closing note of the conference should be "Holocaust is a fairy tale", there will still be ample time to rename the article appropriately. My point is that "a conference" usually does not make any claims, it is the individual participants that do.dab (𒁳) 18:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, the link it the quoted phrase goes to historical revisionism. Perhaps we should change "aiming" to "claiming". Koweja 17:48, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

That would be a start. I genuinely do not understand the issue. Something like "claiming to deny the Holocaust" is an accurate description of the event - on an issue where factual accuracy is of towering moral importance. Minjitthemidget 18:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

hm, no, they are "claiming to review the holocaust". They may still be denying it, all the while denying they're denying it... For the sake of brevity (ITN), they are claiming to review the holocaust, since that's the title of the conference, and after all historical revisionism is little more than an euphemism for holocaust denial. dab (𒁳) 18:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

So we both agree that the title is incorrect and I believe I have demonstrated that it gives a grossly, evilly distorted misreprentation of an evil conference. This is not a mere euphemism - it is a distortion and attempt at disguising something evil by making it sound legitimate. Why not "for the sake of brevity," let alone truth, call it what it is? Otherwise we are complicit in the distortion.Minjitthemidget 18:31, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

How about just "a conference on the Holocaust"? Redquark 18:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

That would work. The article explains in more than enough detail that it is a revisionist conference, and anyone who knows anything about Ahmadinejad can figure that out without reading the article. Koweja 18:54, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure we should be writing content with the assumption that readers already know about the subject. Just "a conference on the Holocaust", to me, fails to make it clear why this conference is newsworthy. --Maxamegalon2000 19:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Then they can click the bolded link and find out why. Koweja 19:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

"a conference on the Holocaust" makes it sound much more legitimate, and thus indeed "evilly distorts" facts than "'review the Holocaust'", in scare quotes, which makes it evident that they are out to, if not deny, at least downplay the extent of the Holocaust. dab (𒁳) 19:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no little pop-up bubble to indicate that the scare quotes are scare quotes. Especially in a news headline, quotes are taken to be quotations of things, without the skepticism implied by scare quotes. I frankly still don't see why "conference aimed at denying the Holocaust" is not the best option. It accurately describes the event. It does not in anyway mislead. Frankly, it does not even add a moral judgment; it simply describes the event accurately and lets the reader draw his/her conclusions. "Review the Holocaust" has all the severe problems I discuss above.Minjitthemidget 20:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Honestly, I'd prefer to just not mention it at all since I see no real need to acknowledge these people and the conference itself serves to actual purpose except to rile people up and call attention to the attendees. However, that's irrelevant since it is listed. I don't really see the problem with "revewing" since that's what they are doing. Of course they have to authority in the matter and have already decided the outcome, but a BS review is still a review. I just really don't think we need to add our collective analysis of the conference to the blurb. How about "a conference to discuss their views on the Holocaust" or something along those lines. Link "their views" to the article on holocaust denial, and we're good. Just a statement of fact and a link so the reader know what those views are. Koweja 21:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I know: "Holocaust Conference, a conference widely expected to deny the holocaust." Dullfig 23:08, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

We must avoid weasel words. Writing the motives purported by the organizers in quotations marks is perfectly neutral and factual.--cloviz 00:32, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Please people, we're writing a NPOV encyclopedia, not a "moral point of view" encyclopedia. It's completely irrelevant for our purposes whether what they're doing is good or bad, honest or dishonest, science or mumbo-jumbo. We don't need to judge their actions, we don't need to drive in the point that holocaust denial is bad. We are not an advocacy website. We just need to accurately describe what they're doing and readers will decide themselves whether they think that's a good or a bad thing. Zocky | picture popups 03:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I will say this once again: it is false to say you are "reviewing" something you are denying and lying about. I completely agree with the statement "We just need to accurately describe what they're doing." That means describing, quite accurately, it as Holocaust denial. NPOV does not imply printing false statements. And, incidentally, we are not necessarily neutral or not in need to judge their actions. We should strive for that, to be sure, but all discussions and summaries of controversial actions inherently tend towards bias of one sort or another through choice of words. We need to try to accurately describe events, not use the incorrect terms used by a government attempting to hoodwink the world by using reasonable, anodyne words for something unreasonable and disgusting. Iran is exploiting us and our propensity for ostensible neutrality to make Holocaust denial sound legitimate. Again: would we report a conference on the ways slavery was better for African Americans as a "review" of slavery, if David Duke described it as such? I suggest that the answer is, or should be, no.Minjitthemidget 05:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

IMO putting this bit of irritating "news" on the Wikipedia main page is just giving a stage to lunacy and idiotism, not to mention blind hatred. This whole "conference" is a big joke and if there was a section on the main page for various curiosities and weird phenomena, it would belong there - definitely not on the first paragraph of the news. If president Ahmeidnijad decided to go on a freak show circus tour would that be news? I don't think so! So IMO this whole "news" bit should be removed from the main page. Find another place for it. Tweekerd 13:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a recently updated article on an item in the news, and belongs in the ITN section. The conference itself is not explictly to deny the Holocaust, and several rabbis and other groups which affirm the Holocaust have agreed to attend, so the demand that we headline it in any other way is going nowhere. Much of the above smacks of misdirected anger - if you're angry that Mahmoud Imonajihad is hosting a Holocaust revisionist conference, tell him to stop it, don't tell us to either ignore it or lie about it. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 13:41, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I will say this yet again: let's report it correctly, and indeed not ignore it or lie about it. That means describing it accurately as a Holocaust denial conference. Or is our policy to acquiese in someone else's propaganda without any minimal assessment of our own? And regarding the Rabbis: They are all fanatical anti-zionists who have praised Ahmedinejad (not "Imonajihad") for vowing to destroy Israel. One actually does explicitly deny the Holocaust, because he is insane. As I said, they hate nearly all Jews, namely the non-ultra-orthodox and the ultra-orthodox who support Israel. In other words, they are de facto antisemites. These freaks being there should not give license to a Holocaust denial conference to be called something else.65.162.55.10 14:34, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

It's a Farsi name, please leave my transliteration out of this. (Incidentally, it's a great time for funny-sounding foreign names in the news, what with this and Frank Bananarama taking over Fiji.). I disagree that being anti-Zionist is automatically linked with Holocaust denial even if you don't, er, deny it. The ITN should explain briefly what is going on, and leave opinion (where it is sourced and neutral) to the article itself, which it covers adequately in two different sections. It may be the panto season but we're not going to go "It's the evil Vizier! Hiss! Boo!" in what should be a brief, neutral headline. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 16:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

historical revisionism is precisely the accurate, correct term for this. You will note that holocaust denial is the prime classic example for historical revisionism, even linked from the lead. The only thing we need to debate if the thing passes the notability threshold for ITN. dab (𒁳) 16:20, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Did You Know… is a bit rubbish

The 'Did You Konw…?' section on the main page needs a rethink. Such a section should include facts that are in some way surprising or thought-provoking, not just obscure. The way it is now, the only thought likely to be provoked is: "Why should I care?" For example (using facts that happen to come to mind right now): "Did you know that Nicephorus was a Byzantine emperor of the 9th Century?" [Boring] "Did you know that Nicephorus was the only Byzantine emperor killed in battle, apart from the very last emperor?" [Mildly interesting] "Did you know that the skull of the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus was made into a drinking vessel by the Bulgar khan Krum?" [Much better] Patrick Neylan 00:39, 14 December 2006 (UTC)Patrick Neylan

I think the editors do a fairly good job, since they are restricted to only new entries. However, I agree with you that snippets can be more intriguing -- and there's nothing stopping you from writing snippets yourself. If you want to help out, then go on over to the DYK section and give them a hand. falsedef 01:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

The main problem is that the information doesn't just have to be newly added, it has to be from new articles (or newly un-stubbed articles). With over 1.5 million articles already, Wikipedia's new articles are inevitably going to be about very obscure things; most of the inherently interesting topics have articles already – not always particularly good ones, but ones with enough information that expanding them further wouldn't qualify for an entry here. This is the way that the Did you know? section has worked ever since it was set up – years ago, when the number of articles was much, much smaller. It's possible that the way it works needs a rethink; I don't know if there's anywhere else you can bring it up than here to get more attention (it is related to the Main Page, so I guess this is a good place as any) – Gurch 02:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe a whole day of Eurovision Song Contest-related items would do the trick, lol. --Howard the Duck 08:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, we've gone a long time without a Eurovision DYK entry. Finally. —Cuiviénen 13:56, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I just saw one last weekend :p --Howard the Duck 15:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

WT:DYK is the policy page for DYK. suggestions welcome. Thanks, Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)