Revision as of 02:49, 30 December 2006 view sourceCarcharoth (talk | contribs)Administrators73,576 edits →US centrism: comment← Previous edit | Revision as of 02:50, 30 December 2006 view source Carcharoth (talk | contribs)Administrators73,576 editsm →US centrism: formatNext edit → | ||
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And now it's my turn to say 'Oh c,mon': there's masses of non-US topics on the suggestions page that could have been chosen. (And pre-colonial Native Americans aren't anything to do with the US? Where did they live then? Atlantis?) ] 02:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC) | And now it's my turn to say 'Oh c,mon': there's masses of non-US topics on the suggestions page that could have been chosen. (And pre-colonial Native Americans aren't anything to do with the US? Where did they live then? Atlantis?) ] 02:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC) | ||
There might be an Iraq-related one anytime soon. ] 02:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC) | There might be an Iraq-related one anytime soon. ] 02:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC) |
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donation thing at the top of the page
Re: Can someone PLEASE take that big ass donation thing off the top of the page?
Please? - Anonymous, 2:13 12/17.06 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.19.12.207 (talk) 22:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC).
- Just click the "dismiss" link to the right of it. That sets a cookie that will prevent the donation bar from appearing. If you do not have a cookie-enabled browser, however, I guess you're out of luck --Jmax- 22:48, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
- Plus you have to be a registered user. Chris as I am Chris 22:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
can i ask. what will the donations help towards. i mean will you see the outcome of what was done with the money?
How about moving it to the sidebar? It would be still prominent on every page, but less intrusive. Rafy 00:14, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- It's supposed to be intrusive. If it's easily ignored, people won't get guilted/annoyed into contributing. See pledge drive for background on the annoyance factor, though people outside the U.S. that have state-funded public stations may find this whole idea weird. - BanyanTree 00:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- Believe it or not, in previous fund drives, people have looked at the size of the notice vs. the number of donations, and it actually does increase donations significantly to make it slightly more intrusive. It's a bit of a pain, but it's worth it for the Foundation. Ral315 (talk) 07:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- well, if this is an arms race of sorts, does this mean it will take up half the screen, flash and play jingle-bells in two years' time? I find it bearable still, but the 'dismiss' link will prompt many people in reflexively switching it off without even looking at it -- so maybe a small bar that cannot be switched off will turn out to produce a greater effect than a big annoying banner you switch off and forget §about in two seconds. dab (𒁳) 10:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- Believe it or not, in previous fund drives, people have looked at the size of the notice vs. the number of donations, and it actually does increase donations significantly to make it slightly more intrusive. It's a bit of a pain, but it's worth it for the Foundation. Ral315 (talk) 07:47, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- No, it won't. For starters, not all English Misplaced Pages readers are Christian or in the Northern Hemisphere, and thus Jingle Bells is irrelevant. Anyway, take a look at the pledge drive. As you may seem, there's multiple people/organizations matching donations, something we have never had before. This trend will continue, and will mean our goals are reached quicker. There is no other way to keep Wikimedia running as one of the top 10 most visited websites internationally, other than soliciting money. So get over it. -- Zanimum 16:40, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- For example, I like it, and I enjoy refreshing the browser sometimes just to see how much it did increase. :) --V. Szabolcs 20:12, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Choose one of the following actions:
- Create an account, log in, donate, click dismiss.
- Create an account, log in, don't donate, click dismiss.
- Don't create an account, put up with it, stop complaining, it won't be there forever.
--Monotonehell 06:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- i just use adblock to remove them... The Uber Ninja 09:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- If you're logged in just press "dismiss". --Monotonehell 09:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, and adblock shouldn't be able to remove it, as it's hosted on-site. -- Zanimum 16:40, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- Uh... why not? The Adblock extension for Firefox, and most other decent ad blockers, can block individual scripts, images or objects without blocking an entire site – Gurch 23:16, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
- Stop complaining from an IP. Follow WP:DICK. --Ineffable3000 03:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I really don't think you can classify objecting to begging notices as being a dick. I mean, the guy even said please. --Sam Blanning 19:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- If he really cared about the Misplaced Pages project, he would get an account, would do many legitimate edits, and wouldn't be here complaining about minor flaws. --Ineffable3000 21:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- Perhaps, but I wouldn't call him a dick. Ironically, directing thing him a link to an article just to say "don't be a dick" is alot more dickish than asking for a way to get rid of the banner.DarkGhost89 08:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- How does telling someone to stop being a fucking douchebag compare? --Cyde Weys 04:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Perhaps, but I wouldn't call him a dick. Ironically, directing thing him a link to an article just to say "don't be a dick" is alot more dickish than asking for a way to get rid of the banner.DarkGhost89 08:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- He has a Point, nevertheless...82.171.188.144 14:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
how much do i need to donate?
how much do i need to donate to have a article of myself? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wtfmaaan (talk • contribs) 08:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC).
- I'm afraid that that's not how Misplaced Pages works. Unless your donation is huge enough to be covered by multiple news agencies, it will not in itself confer the required notability for an article on you. If you want to be covered by Misplaced Pages, your best bet is to do something unique or notable ennough for the media and world at large to take notice of you. GeeJo ⁄(c) • 08:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, and there was me thinking my 50p would get me an article. MFlet1 09:43, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- You can, of course, make yourself a user page for nothing; just go to User:Wtfmaaan and start typing – Gurch 11:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- you mean, DFTTmaaan. dab (𒁳) 11:40, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
man then what's the point of donating when u dont get anything back. i'd spent the money to get a can of coke —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Wtfmaaan (talk • contribs).
- Funny, I thought people were paying for the continued pleasure of having and being able to contribute to an online encyclopedia. The project as a whole is primarily financed by donations. Dragons flight 16:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- Donating literally means giving money or items in return for little or nothing substantive. — Dark Shikari /contribs 17:24, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
It's your money, not mine --Signaleer 18:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
- Read WP:VAIN. However, if you donate a billion dollars, CNN might do a 30-second shot about you, and you might get a stub article. --Ineffable3000 21:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, I would venture a guess that a $1 billion donation will get more then a stub. Nil Einne 17:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm totally confused. I could swear that I saw the donation had reached 500,000 earlier today, then later on it suddenly became 400,000 and now it's back to 600,000 dollars! Am I hallucinating? --Gunsfornuns 05:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Positioning of appeal banner
The banner that runs across all pages asking for donations to the Wikimedia Foundation clashes with the co-ordinates for cities at the top of their pages. It would be good if someone who knows how to do it could sort this. Thanks. Itsmejudith 11:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
- Is that really the best place for coordinates? Wouldn't it be better with the rest of the article? Koweja 01:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
- The problem is that the position of coordinates generated by {{coor title dms}}, etc are absolute on the page, rather than relative to the title of the page. In previous funding drives the location was just moved down temporarily, but I have no idea what sort of workaround is possible when some users see the banner and some do not. I have asked this question at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Geographical coordinates#donations banner. - BanyanTree 03:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Top of main page
it reads:
- Welcome to Misplaced Pages,
I think it'd look better with the last line:
- Welcome to Misplaced Pages,
I think that'd look better, non? (I don't know why the formatting is off.) → JARED 16:01, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'd rather we didn't - we're focusing on the quality of our articles rather than the quantity at the moment. --Sam Blanning 16:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I do not think it could hurt to make this tiny change, but perhaps the phrase "and counting" does put a bit too much emphasis on quantity over quality. I do think that a link like this would be useful in getting people to start a new article. --Ihmhi 16:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm with Ihmhi on that Samaster1991 16:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I do not think it could hurt to make this tiny change, but perhaps the phrase "and counting" does put a bit too much emphasis on quantity over quality. I do think that a link like this would be useful in getting people to start a new article. --Ihmhi 16:17, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- No, because we don't want people to start new articles. Seriously, we don't. We want people to improve existing ones. We get far too many junk articles that then have to be deleted as it is, without encouraging more of them. It would be better, in fact, to remove the article count from the Main Page altogether; this was extensively discussed and for a time it wasn't there at all. Whereas in the early days of WWWWikipedia it was necessary to focus on the number of articles in order to increase basic coverage of important topics, the project now has more than enough articles, and the focus has shifted, as Sam Blanning mentioned, to improving existing articles rather than creating new ones. Also, anonymous users can't start articles at all (this was necessary to stem the aforementioned flood of junk articles) so this would be unhelpful – Gurch 16:24, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- If we don't want people to start new articles, why not just disable it? Should be easy enough, because unregistered users could't start new articles, so just expand it to include all registered users too. Then if something new happens that is encyclopedic (Olympic Games, presidential elections, etc.) nobody could start a new article and pretty soon Misplaced Pages will be so far behind that Citizendium could finally be the ultimate online encyclopedia. Thank you Misplaced Pages! --Gunsfornuns 17:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- Straw man. - BanyanTree 17:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- No straw man at all. He did say "we don't want people to start new articles. Seriously, we don't". If you think I take it out of context, read Gurch's response again and see if he actually says otherwise.--Gunsfornuns 20:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- We want people to create verified, neutral articles on topics of encyclopaedic interest; the Main Page is not for us, it's for our readers (the vast majority of Misplaced Pages's traffic), and the vast majority of them won't have any inclination, nor the ability, to do that. We already have links to the Introduction and the Help Pages, which is a much better path towards editing to follow. --Sam Blanning 17:56, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- We do want people to create new appropriate articles if they wish, or improve existing ones if that's what they wish.--Azer Red Si? 21:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- Straw man. - BanyanTree 17:26, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- In addition to the de-emphasis of quantity and problematic nature of the proposed link, this exact wording was proposed and rejected during the recent main page redesign process. As I noted at the time, the phrase "and counting" is a figure of speech that would seem confusing or nonsensical to some people for whom English is not a primary language. Also, the "in English" wording was included to avoid falsely conveying that all of the Wikipedias combined contain only 6,933,361 articles. —David Levy 17:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I have to say I prefer:
- Welcome to Misplaced Pages,
It adds the nice extra bit and doesn't provide misinformation. --Muna 02:48, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- "As I noted at the time, the phrase "and counting" is a figure of speech that would seem confusing or nonsensical to some people for whom English is not a primary language." You could change it to so far or at this time --Muna 02:51, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Can't we just put the "and counting" part at all Misplaced Pages's indifferent of the language, that should solve all problems.--Eternal Imortal 13:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- No straw man at all. He did say "we don't want people to start new articles. Seriously, we don't". If you think I take it out of context, read Gurch's response again and see if he actually says otherwise.--Gunsfornuns 20:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Main page
This isn't really a big deal, but if you look on the side under navigation, the first link is to the "Main page" with lowercase p. The p is supposed to be capitalized, i.e. "Main Page". --75.20.219.75 17:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not sure if this is deliberate, but I suspect it might be - Misplaced Pages:Community Portal has the same mismatch between capitalisation in the title and on the sidebar. --Sam Blanning 17:57, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- This is, in fact, deliberate. (Also note that a Community portal link has existed on the main page since March.) Both Main Page and Misplaced Pages:Community Portal are inconsistent with our MoS-prescribed naming conventions and the titles of other project pages. We've retained the former for logistical reasons. I've proposed that the latter be changed. —David Levy 18:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
"Main Page"?
What if someone was actually looking for an article called "main page"? Why not move this page to Misplaced Pages:Main Page?, delete Main Page as it is now and then re-create it as an actual article? Just a suggestion. --172.194.17.74 03:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- 1. The idea of moving the main page has been discussed from time to time, and it's been decided to leave it at Main Page for logistical reasons.
- 2. If we were to move page to the Misplaced Pages namespace, we also would correct the capitalization to comply with our Manual of Style (which didn't exist when the page was created); the title would be Misplaced Pages:Main page. Actually, it's been argued that we shouldn't even refer to it as the "main page." ("Front page" would be a possible alternative.)
- 3. Under no circumstance will Main Page ever be used for another purpose. This is, by far, the page most likely sought by someone typing that phrase. Even if a best-selling novel entitled Main Page is published, it won't usurp the title. If the page were to be moved elsewhere, Main Page would become a redirect to the new location. —David Levy 03:43, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
Leave it as it is now. And remove any search that leads to the Main Page. Only an idiot would search for the main page. --Ineffable3000 04:26, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- To not naming it the main page, in theory, it is as it is the most visited page, thus the "main page". Just a little smart-assing for you :).
Yeah imagine a best-selling book being called Main Page...we'd need to have a disambiguation link on the main page. That would not be good. --WikiSlasher 05:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
See also: § Requested moveThe ultimate solution to vandalism
A while ago I read a news article about a revised Misplaced Pages editing system. In this system, edits made to pages do not appear immediately. They must be viewed and approved by an admin before actually replacing the current revision of the page. This is, if I'm not mistaken, already being tried on the German Misplaced Pages. I have been in approval of this ever since I saw it, and that "mutilated penis" incident has just made me all the more so. If this is implemented, vandalism as we know it will cease to exist and Misplaced Pages's potential as a functioning encyclopedia will increase a hundredfold. And in addition, there will be no more need for page protection, as any edits made will be reviewed before going into effect. Who's with me on this?--Azer Red Si? 21:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- One problem. There's only ~1050 admins on Misplaced Pages. We'd get backlogged so fast that this system would be pointless. Would you really want to wait an hour or two before your edit is actually processed? Nishkid64 21:31, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, that is a concern, but I'm beginning to think that that's the only way that Misplaced Pages will be able to achieve true credibility as an encyclopedia. Maybe it should start creating more admins, or maybe give certain users the right to shift revisions of pages while ommitting them other rights such as block rights.--Azer Red Si? 21:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I've suggested in the past the Misplaced Pages content presented to not logged in visitors might be made subject to a stability criterion, so that only versions that have persisted unaltered for at least 15 minutes be shown to visitors. In my plan, versions that are created and then reverted within 15 minutes need never be shown to the public at large. Admin edits could be made exempt from the criterion to avoid vandals trying to use it against us. Dragons flight 21:52, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- What "mutilated penis" incident are you talking about? There are penile disease pictures on Misplaced Pages but that is encyclopedic. --Ineffable3000 21:54, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- The one that appeared on the Main Page earlier today. Again. Dragons flight, it's a good idea, but there would be problems. Example: article is vandalised, 15 minutes later the vandalised version becomes the displayed version, someone reads it, spots the vandalism and fixes it. But they're not an administrator, so the vandalism persists, visible to everyone, for another 15 minutes. The majority of vandalism is reverted by non-admins, and we don't have anywhere near enough of them to go chasing after edits that fixed vandalism but haven't been shown because they weren't made by an administrator. Having completely separate display and development versions of popular articles would be better, but at the rate MediaWiki development is currently going won't be with us for some time, if ever – Gurch 21:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
So admins are the only users on Misplaced Pages who are exempt? There are hundreds of users who do just as much good if not more. Another solution, would be to, oh I don't know, stop letting IPs edit. They are the main vandals on this website. --SonicChao 21:59, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
There have been just about 100 million edits made since 2002. That's what, 25 million edits a year on average? That's 68,000 edits a day. No way in hell are 1,000 editors going to slog through that 24/7. — ceejayoz 22:13, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- 68,000/1,000 = 68 edits per day per administrative editor. I'm sure some admin/editors on this wiki do far more edit-actions daily now, and many if not most involve removing innappropriate or incorrect content that was allowed in for a minute or a day or a year before it was corrected or removed. Under a matured editorial system, edits by trusted non-administrative editors could be given higher priority, and edits by new editors could wait for approval. This could push much article-creation work into venues outside Misplaced Pages so that new articles submitted would arrive sourced, verified and copy-edited.
- Administrative edting tasks that involve selecting valid, useful content could attract a different class of adminsitrating editors. For better or worse, admins now primarily serve as janitors. The job, no offense, attracts people who are comfortable in highly conflicted, gamey environments. A shift in administrative responsibilities might attract a more academically oriented group of volunteers to supplement the current cadre of strong-armed janitors.Amicus Sparticus 08:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Maybe we could get bots to do it that flag edits with certain key words/text that are likely vandalism, and these suspicious edits could be reviewed by admins.--Azer Red Si? 22:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- And then people catch on and name pictures of dicks to "sunshine"? dposse 23:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I suppose that couldn't always be avoided, but this isn't intended to be just solution to image vandalism, but to vandalism in general. For instance, say some vandal thought that it would be funny to post the word "poop" all over an article. "Poop" would be one of the key words and this revision would be flagged for an admin to review before becoming the current revision.--Azer Red Si? 23:23, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- My best solution to image vandalism is to not allow newly-registered accounts to upload images (e.g. accounts should have at least accumulated enough edits to edit semi-protected pages before they can upload images).--Azer Red Si? 23:40, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- And then people catch on and name pictures of dicks to "sunshine"? dposse 23:04, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- This already happens. In fact, not only do bots pick out suspicious edits, they revert them as well. User:AntiVandalBot. – Gurch 23:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- I was talking about within the proposed revised editing system (edits made do not appear immediately, but first have to be approved). Considering the number of edits that Misplaced Pages gets, admins would never be able to keep up with this, so I proposed bots that would cause edits made to articles to go into effect unless the edits contained suspicious terms that were likely an indication of vandalism, in which case those suspicious edits would be flagged for admin review before going into effect.--Azer Red Si? 00:07, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- This already happens. In fact, not only do bots pick out suspicious edits, they revert them as well. User:AntiVandalBot. – Gurch 23:49, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
Keyword flagging is essentially what's happening with User:Lupin/Filter recent changes (may not be viewable without the JavaScript entry in your monobook). Banning IP edits has been repeatedly discussed and rejected/failed to gain consensus. There was also a proposal to only allow users with email addresses registered to upload images, but I don't think it was ever implemented. Requiring a minimum number of edits to upload images might reduce the vandalism, but it's pretty contrary to the "anyone can edit" spirit.--Kchase T 23:48, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
- Well so is semi-protecting pages (only registered users with I think twenty 20 edits can edit them) and protecting the main page, and we do all of that.--Azer Red Si? 00:03, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- It's four days, as described in our semi-protection policy. That said, this suggestion probably won't fly, as it goes against our foundation issues. Titoxd 00:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don’t know that the admin pre-read approach would be practicable and, if it were, the nuisance would simply drive a lot of current editors away and discourage many new ones from joining. What I would rather see is elimination of “drive-by editing” through requiring joining up as a member before one can edit. That would eliminate most of the petty vandalism which is due simply to being able to edit on a whim with complete anonymity (not to mention all the time wasted reverting their nonsense). Serious — and semi-serious — editors have no problems with becoming members. This wouldn’t eliminate the recent pornographic vandalism performed by an ill-intentioned person who was willing to become a member and wait out the four-day upload restriction; extending it to 7 days or even 30 days might help and wouldn’t hurt, but even so not all examples would be prevented, simply because there are some sick people who really get a kick out of doing sick things. Still, becoming a member eliminates a certain degree of anonymity and binds them to certain conditions of responsibility. The recent pornographic vandalism recently posted appears break a number of laws, so it might strengthen any case against them that the authorities might pursue (assuming Misplaced Pages notifies them of the case). Askari Mark (Talk) 00:55, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages is supposed to be the 💕 that ANYONE can edit. This system, if implemented, will probably deter many new users from joining Misplaced Pages. Another problem: How will the edits be attributed to a user? The history of articles will only show admin edits, so everybody else will have a low edit count. Encarta already uses a system similar to this. If this system is implemented, won't Misplaced Pages become just like Encarta? Yes, this will completely get rid of vandalism, but the existing system, with a few improvements (like protecting the high-risk templates on featured articles, for example), is already good enough. Besides, our goal is not to eliminate vandalism, it is just to keep it to a minimum. Vandalism is inevitable in a user-contributed encyclopedia. --67.116.239.213 01:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm sure that the software could be modified so that the contribs for each indiviual user could be viewed, though the admins (or bots) would still have to upload the most recent changes to a page before that version could actually be viewed. And going with this system would actually help Misplaced Pages to live more fully up to its name as the encyclopedia that anyone could edit: under this system, there would no longer be a need for page protection because any edits made would have to be "activated" before going into effect.--Azer Red Si? 00:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages is supposed to be the 💕 that ANYONE can edit. This system, if implemented, will probably deter many new users from joining Misplaced Pages. Another problem: How will the edits be attributed to a user? The history of articles will only show admin edits, so everybody else will have a low edit count. Encarta already uses a system similar to this. If this system is implemented, won't Misplaced Pages become just like Encarta? Yes, this will completely get rid of vandalism, but the existing system, with a few improvements (like protecting the high-risk templates on featured articles, for example), is already good enough. Besides, our goal is not to eliminate vandalism, it is just to keep it to a minimum. Vandalism is inevitable in a user-contributed encyclopedia. --67.116.239.213 01:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- I agree fully with comment by 67.116.239.213. Above SonicChao suggested to stop letting anonymous IPs edit. Would mean we wouldn't have comments like the above. And more that we would miss. Jimbo Wales emphasizes in all talks that I heard the number 1500 or 1000, as the number of editors that keep the project going and make nearly all valuable contributions (very similar, I don't remember the exact wording he uses). I think that's crap. It's impossible for 1500 users to write 1,500,000 articles. Or even the good ones, if you can name such a group. As far as I could see, a lot of admins or people with many edits didn't contribute a single article. They tag articles, delete them, and correct grammar. That's important also, agreed. To my knowledge there has been no investigation yet, who really writes the articles (compare Who Writes Misplaced Pages?). There is only this number 1500 around. I am convinced there is a long tail in the frequency distribution of contributions in the sense that added up, unregistered users make more edits than the group of registered ones. And I am sure, anyone is the one, who write the articles, anonymous IPs, e.g. That's the revolutionary idea about wikipedia, if you didn't understand it yet. If you don't like it, maybe you should have a look at Larry Sanger's new project. I am sure it will fail. --Ben /C 10:54, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- A simplified version of what actually happens is this: Lots of anonymous and new users add information in a few big chunks, then administrators and regular editors make lots of small edits to tidy it up. Almost all our content comes from anonymous or infrequent contributors, but without the relatively small number of dedicated users checking and correcting it, and generally ensuring some level of consistency across the site, it would be a massive jumble of nonsense rather than an encyclopedia – Gurch 12:26, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
- I see no merit whatsoeber to the fact that "anyone can edit" Misplaced Pages. Most of the edits by new IP addresses appear to be be vandalism, and editors who want to make Misplaced Pages something to be proud of have to spend their time reverting stupid vandalism and posting meaningless warnings on IP address talk pages. A given page may be vandalized a dozen times a day, and the vandal can insert the word "poop" or someone's name in an article way faster than another editor can revert it and paste a warning template. Blocking an IP address at a school or library for 12 hours or 24 hours after several warnings and posting on an admin noticeboard is a pretty lame and ineffective penalty. Edison 18:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
James Brown taken off "in the news"
So I noticed James Brown's death was on In The News, but prompty got taken off. I'm upset. Is this not relevant? He's an incredibly important figure in American music. INCREDIBLY important. I think news of his passing might be a bit more relevant to English speaking people than news of Ethiopia invading Somalia. NIRVANA2764 01:10, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- I agree on this one. Usually, deaths are not included, but James Brown is an ideal 5b candidate: "the deceased was a key figure in their field of expertise, and died unexpectedly or tragically". His death was unexpected (he was scheduled to perform in my hometown on Thursday!) and he was a defining figure in the field. The topic is currently under discussion at Template talk:In the news#James Brown death, however. —Cuiviénen 02:11, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- The James Brown article contains three sentences pertaining to his death (up from the two sentences that it contained when the entry was added and removed). —David Levy 02:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- So we should write a full
paragraphsection everytime a person dies a in order for it to be added in the main page? (Of course, those persons which had rather notable deaths, like the Russian spy deserve a section). --Howard the Duck 12:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)Well basically yes, that's one of the requirments of ITN.Ignore that, I misread your comment. --Monotonehell 13:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC)- No, we shouldn't pad articles with prose that doesn't belong. Some news, however prominent, simply doesn't warrant article creation/updates that result in ITN qualification. There is, however, ongoing discussion of revamping the section. —David Levy
- So we should write a full
- The James Brown article contains three sentences pertaining to his death (up from the two sentences that it contained when the entry was added and removed). —David Levy 02:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Requested move
Main Page → Misplaced Pages:Main page — This page is not an encyclopedia article; therefore, it does not belong in the main namespace. Simply put, the Misplaced Pages namespace exists for pages related to the project, which is exactly what the main page is. —Mets501 (talk) 02:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- The Main page is part of the encyclopedia. It is the very first page of the encyclopedia, like the title page or table of contents of a book or the front page of Britannica.com. The Misplaced Pages namespace is for pages about the encyclopedia or policy and processes for creating the encyclopedia. The Main page does not fit there. —Centrx→talk • 20:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Survey
- Add # '''Support''' or # '''Oppose''' on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~.
Survey - Support votes
- Support - Per the suggestion. Article space is for articles. Main Page is obviously not an article. All the oppose votes seem to be about the links being broken. As far as I am aware, not many pages redirect to the main page so double redirects wouldn't be an issue. Bots and a task force could then fix the redirecting links. Links being broken isn't an issue. And besides, the main page is less than 5% of Misplaced Pages's traffic (which granted is still a lot) so this isn't as big a deal as it is being made out to be.--HamedogTalk| 07:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Support, per Hamedog although Misplaced Pages:Home page seems to a better title for me. --Howard the Duck 07:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Support I proposed this requested move back in 2004. Another case of Misplaced Pages defying its own rules...namely, the naming conventions. I always love how several editors will gladly bitch us out for minor violations of these rules, but for simple, no-brainer violations of the rule by the administration, they'll defend it as if they were preserving a wounded virgin's honour. I'm afraid the WikiHypocrites will WP:SNOW this proposal yet again. —ExplorerCDT 08:54, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Your anticipation of this issue and concern for consistency are noted with appreciation, although no one has responded to my inquiry below about whether the suggested move has any practical implications rather than largely meta and theoretical ones. However, this is hardly a contentious discussion, and I see no reason that terms like "WikiHypocrites" would need to be used. Newyorkbrad 17:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Brad, I know I should probably be civil, but you being a lawyer would know that it's usually the aggreived who quote the rules and argue loudly and strictly for a response from the bureaucracy that enforces rules by the letter. Living by the sword and dying by it. I'm using a little corollary of the Bush Doctrine on this one, pre-emptive strike against the those who quote rules vociferously to others but are mysteriously silent when they realize they're in a glass house. From my knowledge of this, I don't see any technical problem with moving the page, the theoretical won't become practical or experiential, but the database stuff isn't my forte and my knowledge is limited. —ExplorerCDT 18:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Your anticipation of this issue and concern for consistency are noted with appreciation, although no one has responded to my inquiry below about whether the suggested move has any practical implications rather than largely meta and theoretical ones. However, this is hardly a contentious discussion, and I see no reason that terms like "WikiHypocrites" would need to be used. Newyorkbrad 17:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Support - Although also Portal:Main page could be workable. A great part of Misplaced Pages is that it is flexible. Given policy over name spaces, there is no reason to keep the main page where it is, other than tradition and bookmarks. Well, slavery was a tradition, so too was denying women the vote, oh and don't forgot burning old ladies as witches. So I think that reason is rather defunct. The second holds more sway - but a great deal of wikipedia is also ready redirects, so I don't see why a redirect can't be used. However, ultimately, there are far greater problems in Misplaced Pages than what name space the main page should be in. --Midnighttonight (rendezvous) 09:01, 26 December 2006 (UTC) (after edit conflict)
- The WikiHypocrites always raise reasons that are illogical and specious. But they desperately hold fast to them like my dog does to paper towel rolls.—ExplorerCDT 15:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- You know you're a Wikiholic when... you compare moving the Main Page to abolishing slavery. -- tariqabjotu 22:05, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Association_fallacy -- Rafy 00:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don't think this is a case of association fallacy. Perhaps Midnight didn't choose his/her words well. But the meaning of the words are clear. S/he isn't comparing this to slavery nor is s/he saying well slavery was bad and so was abc so Main Page must be bad as well. What s/he is saying is that a lot of people have argued in a lot of instances that we shouldn't bother to change it because it's always been like that/it's tradiation. But when something is broken and a bad idea, should we really let intertia and the fact that it's tradiaition stop us? Or should we Misplaced Pages:Be Bold and do something which should have been done a long time ago? Some changes may seem radical at the time, but later, we are all amazed that they took so long to come Nil Einne 14:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Conditional Support the implications to meta,foundation, and other language wikipedias are assessed/address before implmentation. Gnangarra 09:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Conditional Support - Assuming that there is nothing about Meta that would keep the redirect from working properly, this page should be moved immediately. Otherwise, let's fix that which needs fixing and do this move ASAP. As long as this move does not immediately deprive people of access to the main page using the same means as before, there should be no problem with doing it. (In the longer run, if someone wants to write an actual article on "main page", they should be allowed to do so. However, I advise keeping the left-over redirect locked for at least a year before permiting such a thing to happe.) --EMS | Talk 16:23, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Conditional Support – make sure that all of the consequences have been thought through and planned for before the move takes place. It makes sense to have the main page in the appropriate place - and it's not an article. Mike Peel 07:42, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Support According to Comment of Hamedog. to that, when Main Page has moved, the old title "Main Page" will be redirects to an suggested new title: Misplaced Pages:Main page. but that makes few "Double redirects". however, they are easy to fix. so moving does not affect links from other pages. -- Korean alpha for knowledge (Talk / Contributions) 09:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Strong Support per Hamedog and the original suggestion. Makes perfect sense. We should choose what is most consistent and simpliest, especially to new users. Misplaced Pages:Main Page or Portal:Main Page is consistent and simpler then Main Page. Our current set-up is likely one of the causes of confusion as to the purposes and functioning of the main page and of wikipedia in general. Nil Einne 14:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Support as per Hamedog's redirect suggestion. It is important to maintain consistency throughout the encyclopaedia, and it makes no sense having such a unique page listed as an encyclopaedic article. Chairman S. Talk 15:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Cheers for using my thoughts in your vote!--HamedogTalk| 01:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Conditional Support as long as this is discussed on meta and with other Wikipedias.--Ed 15:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Moral support. It's not as stupid an idea as some of the opposers seem to think... Imagine the ruckus that would be caused if there was an encyclopedic article called "Main Page" to be had. It might not be bad to think ahead a little. :-) Grandmasterka 20:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Survey - Oppose votes
- Oppose because this page has been here forever. If this were to move to Misplaced Pages:Main page, it would have to be a considerable amount of time – certainly years – before it would be safe to break the cross-namespace redirect as there have been so many pages linked to Main Page from all over the Internet. And then what would we do with that former redirect? Make it a blank, useless page until someone directs a featured film entitled "Main Page". I can already see it now... in a world... where Britannica ruled... there was one page that dared to dream... the MAIN PAGE. -- tariqabjotu 03:21, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Clearly we'd need to get Don Lafontaine to do a voice-over. :-) -/- Warren 04:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- We would likely leave Main Page as a redirect until we ever have use for the other page. If there is ever something called Main Page, we will probably turn it into a disambig Nil Einne 13:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. I'm in complete agreement with tariq on this. The issue might be worth looking at if a topic for which the best article title is "Main Page" becomes encyclopedic one day, but otherwise it's more of a problem than a solution to move the Main Page at this point. —Cuiviénen 04:03, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- I strongly disagree with this idea. I don't think the reason should have anything to do with whether there should be an article called main page but what is the most consistent, makes the most sense and is simpliest. Misplaced Pages:Main Page or perhaps Portal:Main Page are that not Main Page. More importantly as others have pointed out who oppose, if we do change it we will need to leave the redirect for quite a while. If we suddenly find we need an article and we still have Main Page as Main Page we will have a right royal mess. What do we do? Suddenly change it and turn Main Page into a disambig? We need to anticipate problems before they arise, not pray to God they don't arise and then when they do run around in a mass panic Nil Einne 13:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose, it would just be too confusing and in this case it's best to preserve the status quo. DoomsDay349 04:05, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. Ain't broke. Don't fix it.--Skyraider 04:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Who said it isn't broke? Nil Einne 14:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. It's a good idea, but way, way, way too much work would be involved in implementing it successfully. Chalk it up to an intricacy of our community. alphachimp. 04:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose per Skyraider. Naconkantari 04:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- But it is broke, so surely we should fix it? Nil Einne 14:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose - (double super mocha latte edit conflict) This would cause chaos for the newcomers who don't care about namespaces. Also, if it gets moved, Slashdot might link to it, causing even more chaos...you get the picture. PullToOpen 04:35, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- If the newcomers don't care about namespaces, it will not affect them. And Slashdot linking to Misplaced Pages has not been a problem for quite a while now. Misplaced Pages is largely immune to the Slashdot effect, much to the chagrin of Slashdotters. Uncle G 20:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose - My views echo those of tariqabjotu Rafy 04:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. Simpler URLs are better. -/- Warren 04:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose - Why change what isn't broken? —Ryūlóng (竜龍) 05:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- But it is broken. That's why people want to change it... Nil Einne 14:06, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. Can you imagine how many links would have to be fixed? Yikes. --Woohookitty 06:38, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Approximately 9,500, according to Special:Whatlinkshere/Main Page. However, the large majority of them are links from notices on talk pages. And most of those are links that result from templates such as Template:mainpage date, which would all be modified by adjusting the template. Uncle G 20:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose - not to mention double redirects... MER-C 09:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- The double redirects would be far fewer and would be the few obvious ones, such as mainpage and main page, and a couple of not-so-obvious ones such as %s. Uncle G 20:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose, a solution in search of a problem. GeeJo ⁄(c) • 09:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose per Tariqabjotu, Skyraider and Warren. --Ouro 13:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- But Skyraider said it isn't broken and it is broken... Nil Einne 14:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Nope, not to me it isn't. 'sides, it's just simpler for newcomers/for the bulk of users, if the Main page stays in the main namespace, because the're basically going to be mostly interested in the main namespace anyway when looking up information, or am I wrong? It's always been this way, it's definitely not broken. Still oppose :) --Ouro 15:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose Naming conventions are not that important. . .--Banana04131 18:08, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose Every rule needs an exception. --Sam Blanning 18:12, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose "Technically correct" and "user-friendly" are not always (or, quite possibly, ever) the same thing, and user-friendly is much more important in this case. Moving the page would cause a lot of problems and not solve any, so there is no reason to move it. The main page isn't an encyclopedia article so we don't need to be correct about the name. Koweja 18:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- That the main page isn't an encyclopaedia article is the very rationale given above in favour of the move. Given that altering the "Main Page" link in the navigation side bar would be a concomitant part of any such move, please describe what other user-friendliness issue you are alluding to. Uncle G 20:06, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. You must be joking me. The main page gets three million views per day. Much of that probably comes from links directly to the main page (bookmarks, etc). Making it into a redirect would cause the "redirect from" crap to display for tons of people. Also, the main page doesn't belong in the Misplaced Pages namespace. As others have said, it is part of the encyclopedia. --- RockMFR 02:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Just to clear things up, the software would be changed to point to Misplaced Pages:Main page, so there would be NO redirects. —Mets501 (talk) 03:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose per Skyraider. —EdGl 03:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose It'd be one thing if Misplaced Pages had just started, but since Misplaced Pages is one of the top-visited sites of the Internet, I think that changing it could wreak havoc. Also, using similiar logic, should Google change its home page to http://web.google.com, to match with convention of other Google services, such as http://images.google.com and http://video.google.com ? If and only if something notable enough to merit an article with the title "Main Page," it is then we should move it. Until that time, it isn't sensible. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 05:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. No real benefit to a move: the page is linked from everywhere, so we would need a cross-namespace redirect anyways. Besides, if we moved it, what would take it's place? A redlink? No, thanks. Titoxd 05:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- We wouldn't need a redirect if we fixed all of the links. Uncle G 13:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose per all the above. I think everyone's made better points than I could make. Ral315 (talk) 05:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose No way you can justify removing url of a page which is direct linked to as the MediaWiki standard, which implies a permanent XNSR, and whats the benefit of that? And on this page not being an encyclopedic page, it has far more encyclopedic content than Misplaced Pages: space pages do. Unnecessary wikilawyering I say. Ansell 06:39, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- As others have explained, there is no MediaWiki standard and it doesn't affect the Foundation or Meta. Other wikis already do it. Portal:Main Page is also an idea. This isn't wikilawyering. It's about doing what makes the most sense, is most consistent and is simpliest and easiest to understand. The fact remains, Main Page clear isn't an encylopaedic article no matter how much encyclopaedic content it may have Nil Einne 14:15, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose Main Page is not an article but the overwhelming links to the page means that it will have to stay. Gizza 08:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- This is a wiki. Links can be altered. Uncle G 13:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. Bad idea. Let's move on. --Ligulem 09:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- This isn't supposed to be a simple vote. Could you explain why it's a bad idea? Nil Einne 14:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Strong oppose. --May the Force be with you! Shreshth91 10:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose, no, this is fine. Terence Ong 10:22, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- But does that mean we shouldn't change it if the alternative is better? Nil Einne 14:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Strong Oppose per Skyraider RHB 13:26, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Who said it isn't broke? Nil Einne 14:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Whats wrong with it as it is? It changes dynamically every day, its entire content. What is we have a band/political party/famous person called Main Page? We stick a disambig link at the top? RHB 00:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Strong Oppose as per everyone else here. Someone tell me this is a joke. Pacific Coast Highway 00:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Strong oppose, as per everyone else. Timrollpickering 01:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose - not something we should be worried about. --Ineffable3000 02:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose, this vote is stupid. -- Zanimum 17:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose This is called main page, because it's the site's main page. Equivalent to a index.htm file. This is a clear case of where WP:IAR comes into play. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, as they say. --SunStar Net 19:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose. A complex and major change with no real benefit other than conforming to an arbitrary standard. - SimonP 22:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose besides all of the difficulties mentioned above, I don't think this is even the right place to go. This page is really more like a portal into Misplaced Pages. Dar-Ape 22:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oppose because that would still be the wrong namespace. As discussed below, this is a Portal. Matchups 02:58, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Don't Care
- Right Here Just H 03:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- To all of those opposing this move who have voted to remove all other Misplaced Pages namespace redirects from unambiguous non-namespace terms: be consistent and support this move too. — AjaxSmack 06:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Discussion
- Add any additional comments:
- Another possible name with I thought could be a good substitute - Portal:Misplaced Pages instead of the other suggestions. Currently Portal:Misplaced Pages redirects to Misplaced Pages:Community Portal. Portal:Misplaced Pages is a good alternative, IMHO, because it releaves the name "Main Page" (which is kinda redundant) and kinda says that to portal is the (main) Misplaced Pages one. One more - Portal:Misplaced Pages Home which is the same idea.--HamedogTalk| 00:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Another type
I suppose Portal:Main page would also be out of the question? Simply south 00:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- See sv:Portal:Huvudsida. It makes more sense to me than the Misplaced Pages name space; the main page is like the main portal. // habj 15:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Location of move request
Somehow I don't think this is the best place for this move request. They normally appear on the talk pages for their associated articles so that those interested in the respective articles will take a look at the move request. But everybody reads the Main Page. We are polling nearly every visitor that chooses to come by... longtime editors and one-time readers alike. I understand that nearly everyone is allowed to !vote, but the idea behind the move request (Misplaced Pages-space vs. mainspace) is not a trivial concept the average fly-by reader would understand. I predict us getting an exceptionally large amount of !votes from uninformed visitors. That would not be helpful in resolving this issue. -- tariqabjotu 03:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- It might not be helpful because there would be a large volume of such !votes that would make this discussion quite long, but the outcome of this discussion will be based on consensus and not the number of !votes, so I don't think it can really be that detrimental. Dar-Ape 16:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Its ironic that they may not even understand the logic behind the whole idea in the first place. Especially this nonsense about "!vote" (ie, not-vote). It is clear that votes happen, much to the disgust of some it seems. If the average reader wants the page to stay here who are you to say they should be ignored? It all comes down to the number of votes in the end. Consensus is just another word for super-majority after all. Of course, campaigning for your "cause" could make all the difference. Keep up the effort and dont you dare look at improving an encyclopedia article :-O... 59.167.118.99 08:05, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Consensus does not mean super-majority, it means agreement. The way we (attempt to) reach agreement is through discussion and argument. Consensus is reached when the discussion reaches a conclusion. Sometimes this doesn't happen and no-concensus is reached. It's not about weight of votes, it's about weight of argument. --Monotonehell 12:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Well it's looks like we haven't actually been getting that many votes from the uninformed and new users. But extremely sad to say, we have been getting a lot of no votes from experiences users :-( Nil Einne 14:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Practical implications?
I can understand the meta/theoretical argument for this proposed change, but apart from serving perfect consistency, is it anticipated that it would have any practical effects on the site or on users, good or bad? (The only effect I can think of is that edits to mainpage talk would be in a different category for the edit counter, but that is hardly a big deal.) Newyorkbrad 04:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- I personally think it will be easier for users to understand the purpose and intention of the Main Page and also how wikipedia works if we use Portal:Main Page/Misplaced Pages:Main Page Nil Einne 13:41, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
In the hypothetical
tariqabjotu's hypothetical, though intended in jest, touches on something important. Given all of the really strange and odd things people name books, films, music, etc., I'm actually pretty surprised that no one has ever used such a fairly common phrase for anything else. And what if someone did? Would the main page have a dab link? – Anþony talk 08:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Meta / Foundation
An interesting proposal but one must ask what implications for the foundation such a move would entail, I remember it was a significant effort to alter the side bar recently. I dont think that consideration to mirrors, or other sites that just feed off our efforts is a valid reason to not consider the move. As for internal changes a bot could be run to correct redirects, though it would consume a few resources for a couple of days and produce significant increases in watchlist sizes while it was occuring. Gnangarra 09:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- There aren't any implications for the Wikimedia Foundation. Indeed, some other Foundation projects already have their main pages in the project namespace, without affecting the Foundation one iota. The English Wiktionary has its main page at wikt:Wiktionary:Main Page, for example. Uncle G 19:25, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Target namespace
Considering what User:Midnighttonight said above, shouldn't this move be to something like Portal:Misplaced Pages? The Misplaced Pages namespace is usually for policy, help, and meta processes, but the Main Page much more like a portal into the encyclopedia. Dar-Ape 16:21, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- I thought of this too. Though having Portal:Misplaced Pages be about Misplaced Pages itself (kind of like where it leads to now) is also not a bad idea. Jason McHuff 02:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
How do most people come to Misplaced Pages?
Do most people (not users) come via http://en.wikipedia.org or http://en.wikipedia.org/Main_Page ? Are there any statistics for how many people get here via http://www.wikipedia.org ? Because if people are going via http://en.wikipedia.org or http://www.wikipedia.org they are already being redirected so it wouldn't hurt bookmarks (or typing in the address) so much. --Midnighttonight (rendezvous) 22:30, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- From my personal experience, I would say most non-editors don't know Misplaced Pages's URL and hence come via Google. The first link when "Misplaced Pages" is typed should be where most people go to. Gizza 08:08, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- I would guess people who do type in would type in en.wikipedia.org or www.wikipedia.org. Bookmarks would probably be en.wikipedia.org/Main_Page since thats what you would get whn you click add to bookmarks/favourites. Of course, booksmarks can easily be updated. I don't know about the load on the servers cause of the temporary redirects but I presume it won't be that great Nil Einne 14:02, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- I always type in
en.wikipedia.org
on my address bar. But there are other ways to access Misplaced Pages:
- I always type in
- Directly going to a specific page on the address bar (example: to go to my userpage, I type
http://en.wikipedia.org/User:Ed
skipping the Main Page altogether). This is useful if you want to check your messages/watchlist right away - Typing in wikipedia.org and clicking on English
- Typing in en.wikipedia.org
- Going to a search engine (Google, Yahoo, etc.) and typing in Misplaced Pages
--Ed 18:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- I've been typing en.wikipedia.org for 2.5 years, and oddly, i can type en.wikipedia.org in 1.12 seconds according to my computer. Faster than at the typing rate I use for my own name. —ExplorerCDT 01:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- You can always change your name to en.wikipedia.org. You might get in the signpost, but i'd watch out for legal actions by the foundation. Just H 03:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I've been typing en.wikipedia.org for 2.5 years, and oddly, i can type en.wikipedia.org in 1.12 seconds according to my computer. Faster than at the typing rate I use for my own name. —ExplorerCDT 01:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages Standard Time
What time zone is Misplaced Pages run from? For example, I would assume that the featured stuff on the main page is changed around midnight, but midnight in what time zone? If there is no set time zone Misplaced Pages runs on, then that should be taken into consideration. Seldon1 04:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages's servers are located in Florida, which is in the North American Eastern Time Zone, but Misplaced Pages uses Coordinated Universal Time as its default. —Cuiviénen 04:09, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I see. Hence "UTC," I suppose. Thanks. Seldon1 04:24, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) Yes, it changes when it's 4:00pm in Los Angeles (5p in the summer), 7:00pm in New York (8p in the summer), 9:00pm in Rio de Janeiro, 12:00am in London (1a in the summer), 1:00am in Paris (2a in the summer), 2:00am in Jerusalem, 3:00am in Moscow, 4:00am in Dubai, 5:30am in Mumbai, 7:00am in Bangkok, 8:00am in Beijing, 9:00am in Tokyo, 11:00am in Sydney (10a in the winter), 1:00pm in Wellington (12p in the winter). -- tariqabjotu 04:27, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- I live in the UK and so my time zone is UTC, but everytime I make and edit say, 11:34pm, 22 Dec. and then I go to my Watchlist and Misplaced Pages tells me I made this edit on 12:34am, 23 Dec. AxG (talk) 12:55, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Check your preferences and set the time offset (in the date and time section) to zero. --Cherry blossom tree 15:13, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- During Daylight Savings Time, the UK does not observe UTC. —Cuiviénen 16:52, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Indeed we do not. But we are in UTC at the moment – Gurch 23:36, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
- Did you reset your offset to 0 or not? Nil Einne 13:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Sorry I didn't read the thread properly. I thought you were the one saying we're in UTC at the moment and therefore you meant you still had the problem. I'm guessing it did work. Nil Einne 15:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages: Five Pillars
- Moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Five pillars. --15:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Wrong devnagari symbol for "wi" in Misplaced Pages's logo
The wikipedia globe image contains wrong devnagari symbol for "wi".
The correct one should be :
File:Devnagari logo.jpg
- Vishalmungi 14:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oh. They're meant to be specific symbols? I thought they were just random letters from different alphabets – Gurch 14:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- They're all "W" or "Wi" sounds (or a close equivalent). I think there is a better place to bring this up, but I'm not sure where. —Cuiviénen 16:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Please refer to User:Ambuj.Saxena/Wikipedia-logo and its talk page.--Ed 16:21, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- They're all "W" or "Wi" sounds (or a close equivalent). I think there is a better place to bring this up, but I'm not sure where. —Cuiviénen 16:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, the Cyrillic one is "I" and the Greek one is "O". They're indeed random letters, not approximations of W. Zocky | picture popups 16:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- This came up once before as the Japanese katakana at the top is "kwi" and someone thought "wi" was meant, as it's only one stroke away. It eventually came back that the letters were chosen pretty much randomly, though the "W" is confusing. - BanyanTree 17:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- In that case, why did the logo creator choose "W" for the English letter?--Ed 18:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don't know. Why not ask him? – Gurch 18:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- The backstory is at meta:Meta:Historical/Logo history, though the actual meaning of the letters/characters is not mentioned. - BanyanTree 19:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- In that case, why did the logo creator choose "W" for the English letter?--Ed 18:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
but the Devanagari symbol isn't even valid, it doesn't just not mean "vi", it is meaningless. Clearly, the creator intended vi but got it wrong (WP:COMPLEX). I do think this should be fixed, it is embarassing. dab (𒁳) 18:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- If it's wrong that's cool, it represents the inaccurate information in Misplaced Pages :) --WikiSlasher 00:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
lol. Just H 03:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Anyway theres no character like the present one shown, in devnagari.. so how can this be changed ? -- 125.18.2.10 06:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
the issue was discussed with the creator of the logo, User:Nohat. His comments are here: it's too cumbersome for him to fix the mistakes in the indic and japanese characters because the logo was designed on some advanced graphics program and he will not settle for a lower image quality to fix the logo (even if the lower quality is hardly descernible to readers). the only solution now is for someone to step up and create the same logo from scratch with the characters fixed. any takers? -- mowglee 10:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- hah, now that is representative of Misplaced Pages. If we have to choose between shiny templates, icons, bells and whistles on one hand and actual accuracy of content on the other, our choice is obvious! dab (𒁳) 16:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The logo is a trademark of the Misplaced Pages Foundation. It is not subject to the same editing policies as Misplaced Pages content. Even if someone were to make an acceptable replacement image, any change to the logo will have to be subject to the approval of the board. Nohat 20:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Then we will have to tell the board.--Ed Reviews? 20:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The logo is a trademark of the Misplaced Pages Foundation. It is not subject to the same editing policies as Misplaced Pages content. Even if someone were to make an acceptable replacement image, any change to the logo will have to be subject to the approval of the board. Nohat 20:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Gerald Ford's death on In The News
Okay, first James Brown's death isn't important enough to qualify as news, and now Gerald Ford? Who was the last surviving member of the Warren Comission? A former President? Shame on you, Misplaced Pages.
- huh? It's up there, chief. Just H 02:35, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
You can begin the onslaught of technicalities now. NIRVANA2764 14:17, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Well, technically, Arlen Specter is the last surviving member of the Warren Commission. Having said that, I think Gerald Ford's death should be on ITN. I don't think James Brown's death should have been, but Ford is much more notable. Gavia immer (u|t|c) 14:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Nevermind, I see it's up there now. :) NIRVANA2764 15:14, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- What is/isn't notable is subjective, as many people on this site have claimed James Brown is more notable than Ford. That is why notability should be kept out of the discussion whenever possible. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-12-27 16:32Z
- Furthermore, notability wasn't the only issue. James Brown was taken off ITN because his article was deemed inadequately updated. Please see various related discussions on Template talk:In the news#Gerald Ford?. --PFHLai 17:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- I suggested this news tidbit at about 12 midnight EST (05:00 UTC) on IRC, and there was some users who disagreed with it being put on there. I shrugged and guessed that the death of an American president was not worldwide enough to merit an ITN mention, and didn't add it. I guess I should have been bold and added it anyway, but I just figured I was an ignorant American. Oh well. What's past is past. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 21:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- The Gerald Ford article at 00:00, 2006 December 27 EST had merely 2 sentences in the "death" section. Posting that on ITN at the time would be too early and against ITN guidelines, as ITN is a place to feature well updated articles, not a news-ticker. Someone posted it anyway. Someone else then took it off. The line returned soon after, as the page has grown quite a bit since. --PFHLai 06:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I suggested this news tidbit at about 12 midnight EST (05:00 UTC) on IRC, and there was some users who disagreed with it being put on there. I shrugged and guessed that the death of an American president was not worldwide enough to merit an ITN mention, and didn't add it. I guess I should have been bold and added it anyway, but I just figured I was an ignorant American. Oh well. What's past is past. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 21:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Furthermore, notability wasn't the only issue. James Brown was taken off ITN because his article was deemed inadequately updated. Please see various related discussions on Template talk:In the news#Gerald Ford?. --PFHLai 17:00, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
100,000,000+ edits
I just noticed that users on English Misplaced Pages now have made 100,128,601 edits. --Camptown 16:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Where did you get that figure from? Simply south 16:23, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages Statistics --Camptown 16:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Any idea on what the 100 millionth edit was? (Then again, that would be hard to find). Simply south 16:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Remember that day when we celebrated 1,500,000 articles? How did we calculate that?--Ed 16:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Someone narrowed it down to three new stubs and then waited for two to be AFDed ;) --Monotonehell 17:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Well I guess we'll have to work our way back recent changes to determine the edit. =( Ed 17:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yipes! Good luck. Simply south 17:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Wait! It says that there are 1,552,539 articles, not 100,000,000! Tennis DyNamiTe 18:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- 100,000,000 edits not articles. BTW the millionth article was measured exactly, unlike the 1.5 millionth. Prodego 18:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Why not 1.5? Just H 02:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- It wasn't important. Apart from the fact that it's not as round a number as 1,000,000, the 1,000,000th article and the Wikimania convention shortly afterwards were the cue for a shifting of focus onto quality of articles rather than quantity. 10,000 featured articles will be more of a milestone than 10,000,000 articles. --Sam Blanning 12:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Why not 1.5? Just H 02:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yipes! Good luck. Simply south 17:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Well I guess we'll have to work our way back recent changes to determine the edit. =( Ed 17:07, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Someone narrowed it down to three new stubs and then waited for two to be AFDed ;) --Monotonehell 17:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Remember that day when we celebrated 1,500,000 articles? How did we calculate that?--Ed 16:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Any idea on what the 100 millionth edit was? (Then again, that would be hard to find). Simply south 16:43, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Misplaced Pages Statistics --Camptown 16:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
A NEGATIVE DONATION WAS JUST MADE
Your donation thing just dropped by 200 000 dollars. I saw this and did not know who to tell. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Conrad.Irwin (talk • contribs) 21:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC).
- There was a stock donation, apparently according to the live list of donations. They might have excluded this from the total, it could be phony, or some other reason. I'm sure we will find out what's going on within the hour. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 22:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, see my comment at WP:VPN#Massive_donation.3F. — Dark Shikari /contribs 22:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Nice!
Woohoo! Does that mean I can go in there and put in a negative number and they'd actually pay me? I gave them around 3500 edits, it only seems fair. :-) Just H 01:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Vandalism?
I didn't even scroll down to see the whole picture, but I'm pretty sure whatever is at the bottom of the page is vandalism. ShadowUltra 23:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
Vandalism on the mainpage...again
I managed to scroll away before I saw much of it, but there's some sort of major vandalism on the main page. I remember this happened a few days ago. Can someone fix it? ...again? RememberMe? 23:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- How can the main page of wikipedia become vandalized? Flying Hamster 23:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Admin on Wheels? Just H 02:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Don't ask me, but it's been done before somehow. I think it's either a hacker, or they're editing a featured article before it gets protected. RememberMe? 23:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- If someone hits a template that is transcluded on the Main Page, then the page can be vandalised. Nishkid64 23:57, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, well shouldn't that be easy to fix? RememberMe? 23:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- It is, but this is a recurring problem. This is happening almost daily now. Something really needs to be done about this. ShadowUltra 23:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah. I still can't see what has been vandalized though. Apparently, someone said it was DYK, but I know I protected the image before putting it on the Main Page (and yes, it was protected). Anyone know where this happened? Nishkid64 00:00, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Shit. It was on the DYK. It was {{Baseball Year}} which I had used for my DYK on Guy Bush. Sorry. =( Nishkid64 00:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Don't beat yourself over it. I bet that's the last time you make that mistake. - BanyanTree 01:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The picture was quite disturbing as well as high-res i might add. Flying Hamster 00:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Why does {{Baseball Year}} exist? It seems so... useless. -- tariqabjotu 05:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- It's a shortcut template. Instead of typing out ], we can just use do {{BY|1955}}. It saves us a good deal of time. Nishkid64 20:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- (edit conflict x 2) It was a template used in a DYK item; I caught the unprotected template and protected at the same moment as the vandalism and then reverted, so luckily it was removed within a minute. :-) But when updating any items on the Main Page, please look for templates used and either subst them or protect them. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:06, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Shit. It was on the DYK. It was {{Baseball Year}} which I had used for my DYK on Guy Bush. Sorry. =( Nishkid64 00:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Is there room for a bot that would run on Main Page/Tomorrow, check the page and give a list of templates that need to be protected? RHB 00:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The bot doing User:Shadowbot2/Report would appear to be the best bet for a request. I've already asked if it can check for templates used in the text at Template:Did you know/Next update. More admins watching that report would be appreciated. - BanyanTree 01:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Is there room for a bot that would run on Main Page/Tomorrow, check the page and give a list of templates that need to be protected? RHB 00:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I've put a note about templates on the warning message I added earlier in the week. Hopefully that should help stop such things happening in future – Gurch 14:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Virgin Unite Logo
Can someone think seriously about removing that Virgin Unite Logo and message near the donation counter. Or atleast the Logo and external link. It is simply looking like another ad on common commercial webpages.--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 00:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- And it links to a dead site ... :-) bogdan 00:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- See the Fundraising FAQ on the matching donation. And their servers seemed to crash when we linked to them so the current guess is that they blanked the page in order to keep their site at least running. - BanyanTree 00:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Their "servers"? I suspect they had one' single dedicated server (Netcraft says it's Linux + Apache). That's the Misplaced Pages effect! :-) bogdan 00:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The Virgin link, though, works fine if you want to order an airline ticket... Camptown 10:26, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
It's not an ad. The closest analogy is a sponsorship message. Virgin Unite is being generous and matching all donations from today; in response, we are thanking them. It's different than an advertisement, because in an advertisement, the advertiser is the one choosing the message. In this instance, it is the WMF Board that has chosen the message. They could have just as easily not had a matching message at all, but that wouldn't be as good for donations, and it would discourage more future matchers. Anyway, none of us really has the authority to remove the message; it'd have to be done by a Board member. These are the Foundation's servers, after all. --Cyde Weys 00:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- If we don't have the authority to remove the message, then what's the point of this talk page section? It doesn't seem like many editors have the authority to do all that much to be honest with you, Cyde. Just H 02:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, come on! A donation is a donation whether big or small. All the visitors of Misplaced Pages (Main Page) can see the logo and deduce that it is there to gain commercial leverage. If this continues we're soon gonna see similar ad (I still call it ad) from various big firms who are being generous by donating there money to us. Big or small, every donation is hard earned money spent without a thought about any gain in return. Definitions conveniently change when a big donation is expected.--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 01:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- ACCEPTING donations is one thing, BEGGING for them is another. It's sad to see this transformation into Beggaropedia. 24.80.236.118 01:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- We aren't begging, we are asking for donations. We've done this multiple times over the years to cover server costs and such. If you don't think we need the funding to keep running our servers, fine, you can go read some other encyclopedia. But calling us "Beggaropedia" is very unfair. --Cyde Weys 01:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Seems pretty fair to me. That's what we're doing, might as well accept it rather than put negative connotations onto it. PBS does it all the time. Just H 01:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I disagree. I don't know how you define begging in the US, but countries like the NZ, Malaysia and probably the UK, asking for donations to a charitiable foundations is not usually called begging. Nil Einne 14:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Seems pretty fair to me. That's what we're doing, might as well accept it rather than put negative connotations onto it. PBS does it all the time. Just H 01:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- It is unfair to call Misplaced Pages by that name. There is a big difference between begging and accepting donations. There is no personal gain involved in working on articles for free and accepting donations for the practical needs of the project.--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 01:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, there is a big difference. If you say "no, I don't want to give you any money" and then you don't have to hear about it anymore if you don't want to, that's accepting donations. If that begging box at the top doesn't go away after that, then it's begging. I keep on trying to turn the thing off, and it keeps on coming back.Just H 02:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- We aren't begging, we are asking for donations. We've done this multiple times over the years to cover server costs and such. If you don't think we need the funding to keep running our servers, fine, you can go read some other encyclopedia. But calling us "Beggaropedia" is very unfair. --Cyde Weys 01:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- ACCEPTING donations is one thing, BEGGING for them is another. It's sad to see this transformation into Beggaropedia. 24.80.236.118 01:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Clicking on "dismiss" should remove the SiteNotice (the fundraiser message); are you sure you have cookies enabled on your computer? Also note that whenever the SiteNotice is updated (i.e. the addition of new matching sponsors), the SiteNotice will reappear and you'll have to click dismiss again. However, these updates should be relatively rare, as the "dismiss" link was designed for editors' convenience. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I clicked it, but the ad comes back after a few page changes. Just H 20:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Second Part of the Convo
- Um, Virgin Unite is a charitable organization. What do you mean by "commercial leverage"? — Dark Shikari /contribs 01:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Virgin (the parent company) is not.--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 01:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Dark Shikari, you think they'd get the same amount of donations if they didn't have the Virgin logo there, or just called themselves "Unite" rather than "Virgin Unite"? Just because it looks like it's non-profit doesn't mean they're doing it for free, they're putting that logo up there for exposure, which in itself assists their parent company to...get profit. Just H 01:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- They have Virgin Unite in a .co.uk domain rather than .org.uk, so they apparently regard it as more of a company than a nonprofit organization. *Dan T.* 01:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I wouldn't put too much stock in that. I try to run my websites on .com domains, even though they are utterly non-commercial (like just a blog). .com is more popular than .net and .org, and .co.uk is certainly more popular than .org.uk. It's not like there's any kind of strict rules on this stuff anyway. Anyone can buy a .com, .net, or .org and use it for any purpose. --Cyde Weys 01:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Domain misuse is one of my big pet peeves, as documented on my Domain Site. And I go out of my way to use non-dot-com domains for all of my noncommercial sites (as does Misplaced Pages as well; note that it's at wikipedia.org). *Dan T.* 03:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I wouldn't put too much stock in that. I try to run my websites on .com domains, even though they are utterly non-commercial (like just a blog). .com is more popular than .net and .org, and .co.uk is certainly more popular than .org.uk. It's not like there's any kind of strict rules on this stuff anyway. Anyone can buy a .com, .net, or .org and use it for any purpose. --Cyde Weys 01:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Virgin (the parent company) is not.--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 01:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Um, Virgin Unite is a charitable organization. What do you mean by "commercial leverage"? — Dark Shikari /contribs 01:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Somebody at least had the good sense to change the external Virgin Unite link to internal Wikimedia link, after my comments. That is an improvement, although minor. Thanks.--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 01:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Ditto, thanks to whoever did that. Just H 02:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
A corporate logo on every page. The times are a-changin' at Misplaced Pages.--Melburnian 02:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The above comment was brought to you by Coca Cola and Microsoft.... :-) Just H 03:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
The Virgin Unite logo and the "All donations received today will be matched by Virgin Unite" seems like some advertisement for Virgin. Many Wikipedian's are against ads. That logo does not need to be there.
Acknowledgements are different from Advertisements.--Randalllin 02:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Because of this, a charitable, knowledge-loving organization will get a bunch of attention and Misplaced Pages will get funding to continue. It's a win / win situation. --Zeality 03:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I don't have any problem with that, the problem I have is trying to sneak it in up there, and the potential bias against Virgin's article now. If we can be open about this ad and the POV on the Virgin article, then fine, but it shouldn't be construed in any way that Virgin is the official whatever of Misplaced Pages. Just H 03:55, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Because of this, a charitable, knowledge-loving organization will get a bunch of attention and Misplaced Pages will get funding to continue. It's a win / win situation. --Zeality 03:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- See the FAQ for a related topic; there is absolutely no official association between Wikimedia and any of the companies sponsoring matching donations that will affect or impact any content in any manner. It should be explicitly clear that Virgin is not related to Wikimedia in any way except for their generosity in giving us matching donations; which part do you think needs clarification? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I understand everything, but - say what you want - to me it still looks very much like an ad. I kinda know it kinda isn't so, but that's the way it looks like. Period. --Ouro 07:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I know that Misplaced Pages isn't endorsed by Virgin, and vice versa, but with the two logos right next to each other like that, it certainly might look that way to the casual observer... opinions? Dreaded Walrus 09:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
What's bad is that the Virgin logo is inside the Virgin Unite logo. Does no one remember the Spanish fork? Hell, there's a WikiProject to show that the editors don't want things like this: Misplaced Pages:WikiProject No ads. -- Jeandré, 2006-12-28t11:37z
Keep Misplaced Pages free from commercials!
Appalling to say the least! Richard Branson and Wikifoundation should know better. Is this the first time Misplaced Pages has sanctioned a border-line commercial (or a "commercial message") on page 1? And - why didn't Virgin Unite accept to act as an anonymous contributor? Camptown 09:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Have they forgot about WikiProject No ads?Oh, I just saw the discussions above but IMO I still don't trust that Virgin logo. Gizza 10:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Frankly, I'm really concerned about this. The project relies 100% on volunteers, and suddenly a big corporation gets special treatment. The dollars received from the Virgin Group might well by a Pyrrhic victory for Misplaced Pages. -- Camptown 11:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- What special treatment? If you want to match donations, I'm sure they will say "All donations received today will be matched by Camptown". Of course, any wikipedia article on you will have to establish notability as does the Virgin Unite article Nil Einne 14:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed. -- Zanimum 17:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- More at Misplaced Pages:Village pump (policy)#Advertisement. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 18:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Alternatives?
So people, if you're so appalled by corporation-related charities doing matching grants, I'm sure that you have a list of other organizations that offer matching. Come on, cough the list up. -- Zanimum 17:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Independence?
According to the foundation:
Will this affect Wikimedia's neutrality, now that money has been given by several companies?
- No. We have not agreed and will not agree to any arrangement that requires us to change the content of the sites. We are committed to maintaining the neutrality of the sites and entrust the user community to ensure that these standards are upheld.
Which is why an article on "Virgin Unite" was mysteriously created yesterday, and is now being defended on the grounds that "it is poor manners to bite the hands that feed you"... yandman 10:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- That was only one user and I agree it's an extremely poor argument and should be ignored. However it remains an open question as to whether the article should be kept. If believe the answer is no, then why don't you take part in the discussion with adequete explaination of why you feel it shouldn't be kept? The fact that they sponsored us and the article may have been created in response to that by persons unknown is equally a poor argument. Whatever the reason and sponsorship, the only question is whether we should keep the article in accordance to existing policy Nil Einne 14:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The article was created at 08:14, 27 December 2006, by User:Virgin United. I don't see what's mysterious about that. You do see what's ridiculous about applying the opinion of one user to the entire Wikimedia Foundation, right? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-12-28 15:41Z
- And in no way should the fundraiser impact whether or not the article should be kept or any such editing questions about the article; we're confident that the community (you and I included) will treat this article like any other one and take it through the normal processes, when appropriate. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Of course it should have an effect. It is called a conflict of interest. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 18:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- And therefore you should be objecting, not to the ad, but to the fact that Wikimedia is taking Virgin Unite's money at all. But there's no non-trivial conflict of interest so long as the donation is one-time and we're not dependent on it, both of which are the case. ~~ N (t/c) 19:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- "It's not an ad. The closest analogy is a sponsorship message." — what on earth is the difference? They promise to pay money if Misplaced Pages promises to sport their logo for a day. This is a paid advertisement, pure and simple. I am not saying this is necessarily despicable, it's just a big step for Wikimedia, which used to be ad-free until today. Personally, I think it's a sad day. dab (𒁳) 16:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- No product and no service is even mentioned. Without that mention, there is no ad. This is much less ad-like than even the sponsorship messages Americans always hear on PBS and NPR. --mav 16:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- When companies pay to have an entire sports arena named after them, is that an advertisement? What did they pay for? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-12-28 18:15Z
- In that case, their sponsorship is conditional on the stadium being named after them. There's no sign that that's the case here. Seriously, if you're that uncomfortable with TEH EVIL CORPORATIONS having anything to do with Misplaced Pages, it's not the logo you should be attacking; that doesn't give them any influence. You should be saying that the Foundation should reject their donations. ~~ N (t/c) 18:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- That ignores the rationalizing the board has offered so far. The board didn't elect to accept a large donation with an acknowledgement on the donor page...it prominently spammed every Misplaced Pages reader and editor with the VU logo, on every single page. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 18:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- But it's important to tell individuals that their donations will be matched, as it encourages donation. And once we're doing that, it'd look very strange not to say who's matching it. Other than your personal objection to seeing corporate logos (and, again, you can use the Dismiss button, or use your monobook.css to keep from ever seeing the sitenotice again), how does having the logo there harm anybody? (Hint: Just because Virgin wins doesn't mean someone else loses.) As I said, any influence Virgin gains is through the donation itself, unaffected by the logo. ~~ N (t/c) 19:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- That the donations will be matched by some "donor" is enough for people to know that it is matched, and opposition to the logo is not a "personal objection", and ability of registered users to dismiss the advertisement (for today), does not mean that the hundreds of thousands of anonymous readers do not still see the advertisement, all day. —Centrx→talk • 21:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- But it's important to tell individuals that their donations will be matched, as it encourages donation. And once we're doing that, it'd look very strange not to say who's matching it. Other than your personal objection to seeing corporate logos (and, again, you can use the Dismiss button, or use your monobook.css to keep from ever seeing the sitenotice again), how does having the logo there harm anybody? (Hint: Just because Virgin wins doesn't mean someone else loses.) As I said, any influence Virgin gains is through the donation itself, unaffected by the logo. ~~ N (t/c) 19:10, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- That ignores the rationalizing the board has offered so far. The board didn't elect to accept a large donation with an acknowledgement on the donor page...it prominently spammed every Misplaced Pages reader and editor with the VU logo, on every single page. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 18:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- In that case, their sponsorship is conditional on the stadium being named after them. There's no sign that that's the case here. Seriously, if you're that uncomfortable with TEH EVIL CORPORATIONS having anything to do with Misplaced Pages, it's not the logo you should be attacking; that doesn't give them any influence. You should be saying that the Foundation should reject their donations. ~~ N (t/c) 18:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- When companies pay to have an entire sports arena named after them, is that an advertisement? What did they pay for? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-12-28 18:15Z
- No product and no service is even mentioned. Without that mention, there is no ad. This is much less ad-like than even the sponsorship messages Americans always hear on PBS and NPR. --mav 16:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I am just saying, this is the first non-Wikimedia logo I see in non-encyclopedic context on Wikimedia webspace. That is a big deal. No, we shouldn't reject their donations, provided they are happy to give them without demanding their logo is shown. Arguments along the lines "it's not an ad, it's sponsorship" are just rationalizations. It's not the end of Misplaced Pages, but it's an important first. How bad exactly you think this is will depend on your general mentality. dab (𒁳) 20:09, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
This is the first advert I have seen on Misplaced Pages (At least the first that I couldn't edit away as unencyclopedic). There's no question in my mind that it is an ad - money in exchange for publicity for the Virgin brand. A statement that Virgin Unite was matching donations might be acceptable but why the logo? Is this going to become a regular feature with anyone willing to donate enough money getting their logo on every page? Misplaced Pages is built by its users the servers etc are a necessary but tiny part of the work, it shouldn't be spoilt by advertising.IanOfNorwich 20:59, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Excuse me, but why all the disparagement of beggars? If Misplaced Pages would stick to a humble position, such as begging, it would be one thing. Begging has a long and reputable history in some spiritual traditions. Apparently, NPOV stops outside of article space here (and doesn't always fare to well there, either). Whether it's beggars, "trolls", "sockpuppets" or "vandals" it seems insulting outsiders is the norm, rather than the exception at Misplaced Pages.
- When a charity moves from begging to offering to assist donors with their commercial branding, the "thank you" becomes more of gratuity. Get used to it. No band of libertarians led by a die-hard libertarian will long resist the lure of commercial activity. Why not enjoy our liberty, right? In this project, it seems to be an article of faith most members have not accepted that one of the founders is determined to commercially exploit the project, whether through use of MediaWiki software and wiki experience to promote Wikia, or through a commercial liason with Amazon.com to make a search engine that spams results with Misplaced Pages articles and paid links. Did you really think your volunteer work was protected from commercial exploitation, and your leader was not ideologically a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist? Amicus Sparticus 08:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- what do you mean, "your leader"? See GFDL. I am not donating content to Wikimedia. I am releasing content under the GFDL. Anyone is equally entitled to try and "exploilt" GFDL'd content under the same terms, that's the entire point. The question is, does the community want to stoop to plastering the site with logos to buy more hardware and bandwith. Speaking strictly for me, I'd rather have a shoddy response time and occasional downtime, as we used to have in the past, than selling "sponsorships". dab (𒁳) 12:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- By "leader" I mean the chairman of the board of the foundation that hosts the pages you build with your GFDL donations. Anyone can exploit the GFDL content, but some are in a position to use power within the organization to enhance commercial appeal of the project. An arms-length commercial exploitation, such as if I started selling CDs of select, vetted Misplaced Pages articles is far different than an entreprise where a person who uses position or prestige within the organization to build machinery that the person is also actively seeking investments to commercially exploit, such as for the basis of a commercial search engine in partnership with a for-profit company, where results feature listings of the GFDL donations alongside paid advertisements. In the latter case, a person can't be sure an appearance of conflicted interests is not an actual conflict. Amicus Sparticus 19:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- what do you mean, "your leader"? See GFDL. I am not donating content to Wikimedia. I am releasing content under the GFDL. Anyone is equally entitled to try and "exploilt" GFDL'd content under the same terms, that's the entire point. The question is, does the community want to stoop to plastering the site with logos to buy more hardware and bandwith. Speaking strictly for me, I'd rather have a shoddy response time and occasional downtime, as we used to have in the past, than selling "sponsorships". dab (𒁳) 12:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- When a charity moves from begging to offering to assist donors with their commercial branding, the "thank you" becomes more of gratuity. Get used to it. No band of libertarians led by a die-hard libertarian will long resist the lure of commercial activity. Why not enjoy our liberty, right? In this project, it seems to be an article of faith most members have not accepted that one of the founders is determined to commercially exploit the project, whether through use of MediaWiki software and wiki experience to promote Wikia, or through a commercial liason with Amazon.com to make a search engine that spams results with Misplaced Pages articles and paid links. Did you really think your volunteer work was protected from commercial exploitation, and your leader was not ideologically a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist? Amicus Sparticus 08:19, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Bots gone wild...
Re:Teaching Bots The Difference Between Edits with Tildes And Edits That Don't Need Them
I was wondering if this was possible. I just tried to clean up the convo up there and it signed my name, screwing up the point of the edit. Just H 02:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Here's the diff. Just H 02:07, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- A -- generally means that it is a user comment. It is rarely used otherwise. --Ineffable3000 02:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Just H, you'll probably get a better response from the bot's operator/owner at User talk:Hagerman#Possible improvement rather than complaining here on Talk:MainPage. --PFHLai 06:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
US versus the Rest of the World
I'm curious on the balance between the US and the rest of the world on the current events section and how the consensus on that is determined. I heard about the Somalian conflict here first, I think the balance is pretty good, although sometimes it's a bit non-US biased when it comes to sports. Just H 02:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- It is frequenrly US biased. If an international president dies, it doesn't get as much attention for example. --Ineffable3000 02:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Well, you have to remember this is the English speaking Misplaced Pages, and most users are either American, British (anywhere in UK), Australian, Canadian, etc. There is a good number of non-native English wikipedia contributors, but how many readers fall into that category? Put bluntly, the general English wikipedia reader is going to be more interested in events in those countries. That's not to say the international events are unnotable; it's just that your average reader won't care as much about foreign affairs as domestic ones. DoomsDay349 02:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- What about Augusto Pinochet? He got "as much attention" as President Ford. PullToOpen 02:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Well, you have to remember this is the English speaking Misplaced Pages, and most users are either American, British (anywhere in UK), Australian, Canadian, etc. There is a good number of non-native English wikipedia contributors, but how many readers fall into that category? Put bluntly, the general English wikipedia reader is going to be more interested in events in those countries. That's not to say the international events are unnotable; it's just that your average reader won't care as much about foreign affairs as domestic ones. DoomsDay349 02:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The US doesn't compete in international sports nearly as much as in Europe and other nations (e.g. the Champions League, International Test Cricket and Heineken Cup (Rugby Union)), also The Premiership (the world's most watched sporting league and most lucrative football league) is filled with international players. Most sports reporting in the US is concerned with domestic competitions and is of little interest internationally. Jooler 02:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The Premiership is England only, and I can't believe it's more watched/profitable than the NFL with the Super Bowl.Just H 03:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- You seemed to have missed the point there. The teams in the Premiership are English, but over 50% of the players are from outside of the UK. It is the world's most popular and most watched sporting league, followed worldwide by over a billion people. It is widely watched overseas, with matches being shown in 195 countries (from our article) . Few people outside of the USA give a toss about the NFL. So while the NFL teams may individually be more profitable than their Premiership counterparts, the amount of money that can be made from the league by all parties has a lot more potential. Jooler 12:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Plus there's money from transfers to take into account, too. --Dreaded Walrus 12:16, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- You seemed to have missed the point there. The teams in the Premiership are English, but over 50% of the players are from outside of the UK. It is the world's most popular and most watched sporting league, followed worldwide by over a billion people. It is widely watched overseas, with matches being shown in 195 countries (from our article) . Few people outside of the USA give a toss about the NFL. So while the NFL teams may individually be more profitable than their Premiership counterparts, the amount of money that can be made from the league by all parties has a lot more potential. Jooler 12:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The Premiership is England only, and I can't believe it's more watched/profitable than the NFL with the Super Bowl.Just H 03:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Ineffable, we're trying to do our best with keeping it neutral. What sort of American bias do you even see on ITN now? We had Augusto Pinochet and Saparmurat Niyazov up there, but no James Brown or Milton Friedman. Gerald Ford is up there right now, and that's about the only American thing on ITN, atm. Nishkid64 02:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- It isn't perfect, but it's not too bad of a job in regards to neutrality. Just H 03:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- US bias is prevalent in, as well as the things that are included, but also the things that are rejected. Andre Agassi's retirement was on the main page, but Shane Warne's was removed. The death of Peter Brock was also removed from the main page. The Baseball World Series was on the main page (city based teams only from America - save for just one Candian team), and yet I doubt that the result of the Ashes (involving the Aus. national team vs. the English national team) - which has already been decided - will be deemed important enough.
- I agree. It's very much biased towards Americans. Seriously, who outside the U.S. (other than a political science major) cares about an old president kicking the bucket? This place has become Wickamerica. 67.171.158.208 03:57, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oh, please. If Margaret Thatcher or Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Jiang Zemin or another former leader of a major nation died, they, too would be on ITN. —Cuiviénen 04:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, clearly we need to expunge Misplaced Pages of all things American. Unclean, unclean! 71.127.245.83 06:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The US doesn't compete in international sports nearly as much as in Europe and other nations (e.g. the Champions League, International Test Cricket and Heineken Cup (Rugby Union)), also The Premiership (the world's most watched sporting league and most lucrative football league) is filled with international players. Most sports reporting in the US is concerned with domestic competitions and is of little interest internationally. Jooler 02:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
The French, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese and Swedish Wikipedias currently have both Gerald Ford and James Brown in their ITN infobox. The German and Spanish sites have Ford. Are they US-centric too? – Anþony talk 06:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- First of all, somewhere it was decided that only the biggest events for any sport would be included in ITN. Secondly, any US bias shouldn't be surprising given the fact that it has more than twice the population of Canada, the UK, New Zealand and Australia combined. This means that there are bound to be more US-related articles that can be placed on the main page. Tennis DyNamiTe 23:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Actually, the US politics are followed throughout the world, unlike most other national politics. But this worldwide interest is not valid for American sports, as in most countries, they are virtually unknown. Most non-USians know a bit about baseball and American football from Hollywood movies, but they don't know the rules and don't care about those competitions. bogdan 23:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- TD - There are over 1 billion people in India. The official language of that country is English and you will find that most newspapers etc are in English. You also forgot Ireland, South Africa and a multitude of other technology rich nations. Going by your logic we should see nothing but Indian stories on the front page. Bogdan also makes a good point. I'm sure Indians would much rather see information about The Ashes (Cricket) than The World Series...but it was nowhere to be seen on the front page. Snowbound 00:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Indeed. from English language " has more people who speak or understand English than any other country". bogdan 00:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
The ITN articles all come from those written at wikinews so we are reliant on what gets written there and generally speaking people only write about news events that are local to them. If theres a need to increase what being covered it because theres a need for a more diverse group of editors there. Gnangarra 02:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Seriously, not all come from Wikinews. (Check the reference section of individual wikiarticles for the many different sources.) Misplaced Pages & Wikinews are two independent projects. But, yes, Wikinews could use more 'local' editors in different parts of the world. So does Misplaced Pages, btw. --PFHLai 12:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Snowbound - I merely mentioned the nations that Doomsday mentioned above (with the exception of New Zealand). I'm just giving what may be the reason for the bias. Again, the World Series is considered the most important event for the sport of baseball. I know next to nothing about cricket, but I remember an international tournament being up there a while back. Is this Ashes the most important event in Cricket? If so nominate at the In the News Page. Either way no event is placed in ITN, unless its article has been significantly updated. Tennis DyNamiTe 16:16, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Donation Spikes over $200,000
Within a matter of seconds, the amount of money listed in the box at the top jumped over $200,000!. I checked the live list of donors, knowing it wasn't Virgin Unite, who was matching todays donations, because I don't think we had raised that much today. It says an anonymous person made over a 200,000 dollar donation. I really don't know why someone would anonymously donate that much, so is it possible that someone faked it (used a false credit card, etc.) or something? --(trying to get 1,000 edits in 1 month!) TeckWizContribs@ 03:23, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- We must have a very generous donor, or a very mean person. DoomsDay349 03:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Or the check from the anonymous donor that had offered to match donations earlier in the week was cashed. Titoxd 03:27, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- This donation is from the anonymous donor that was matching donations for a couple of days. It's not really possible for someone to fake the number anyway; the number only reflects charges that have been approved by the credit companies. --Cyde Weys 03:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I noticed this earlier today as well. The donation meter jumped from about 350k to 500k, and then moved back down eventually. Weird. (That guy's donation was $286,800.00!) Cheers, PullToOpen 03:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yeah, I almost changed my mind, but then I figured Jimbo would send me a really good Christmas card next year...Just H 03:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I noticed this earlier today as well. The donation meter jumped from about 350k to 500k, and then moved back down eventually. Weird. (That guy's donation was $286,800.00!) Cheers, PullToOpen 03:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Which proves that there are anonymous donors who match-donate without needing ads to gain commercial leverage. I bet Virgin never expected any one person to donate $200,000 at a time. It increases (doubles or more I guess) what they expected to get off with, in lieu of that ad. Serves them right.--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 03:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yep, it's become a rather costly product placement. :-) Just H 03:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The anonymous donor was specified in the sitenotice as well, it just said an anonymous friend. Also, I'm pretty sure Virgin won't be paying for this because 1) It was before 28th December UTC, 2) This was almost definitely a donation outside the agreement Nil Einne 14:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Sure Virgin will find a loophole in the agreement to avoid paying that amount. So whats the use of touting around that they are matching doantions of the day? 'Simple reason - It is not profitable to be charitable!' --Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 16:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The anonymous donor was specified in the sitenotice as well, it just said an anonymous friend. Also, I'm pretty sure Virgin won't be paying for this because 1) It was before 28th December UTC, 2) This was almost definitely a donation outside the agreement Nil Einne 14:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yep, it's become a rather costly product placement. :-) Just H 03:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Have you got some sort of vendetta against charity organizations? Cheers, PullToOpen 03:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I think he just has a vendetta against corporations pretending to be charity organizations, pull. Just H 03:48, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Ditto. Thanks Just H. When one pays for an ad, one should admit it. --Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 16:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm sure they appreciate any and all donations, as do we; they did not do this "to gain commercial leverage" - instead, they were interested in helping the Wikimedia Foundation and agreed to match donations for a certain time period. See the FAQ for more information. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- To be fair, I think it's quite clear that charities associated with organisations are in part intended for PR for the company. However this doesn't change the fact IMHO that these organisaties are still legitimate charities. Nor does it change the fact that the people associated with the charities almost definitely have some intention to act charitable for charitable/moral reasons. I personally don't like the way some people treat people like Bill Gates as God just because he's giving so much money away but it doesn't mean I deny his sincerity or the fact that the B&M G Foundation is a legitimate charity. I guess we should at least be glad the first named matching donor was a charity rather then simply an organisation so we only cover one issue at a time Nil Einne 14:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- If you believe Virgin Unite isn't a real charity, then I suggest you consider taking action in the UK. I believe UK law is resonably strict on charities and any charities have to actually be charities unlike the Netherlands where Stichting INGKA Foundation is registered which doesn't appear to be considered a legitimate charity by a number of sources. However I recommend you have your arse covered since accusing a charity of not actually being a charity would probably be considered libel in the UK if you didn't have good reason to suggest Virgin Unite wasn't a legitimate charity. Nil Einne 14:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- If Virgin Unite calls itself a charity - it is. Objection is on the ad on the main page. Is that governed by UK or US law?--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 16:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm sure they appreciate any and all donations, as do we; they did not do this "to gain commercial leverage" - instead, they were interested in helping the Wikimedia Foundation and agreed to match donations for a certain time period. See the FAQ for more information. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 04:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Have you got some sort of vendetta against charity organizations? Cheers, PullToOpen 03:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Some big checks and such got cashed, then there was some confusing adjustment of which bits were counted in the donation counter. I believe it's been sorted out by the boys in the office. --brion 04:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I wonder when the "sponsored" by Microsoft banner will turn up. --Ezeu 05:53, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Soon! Trust me! May be under Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, but soon. He doesn't miss much. :-) --Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 15:52, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- All donations received today will be matched by Citizendium - The Misplaced Pages that noone will edit --Dreaded Walrus 07:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Well the foundation still reserves the right to reject any organisation. However, I would personally hope they don't reject Microsoft or Citizendium. There is no reason to. The only reason IMHO why they should reject a donor is if it would open up legal issues (e.g. the donor is an organisation or person considered associated with terrorism by some government). Tobacco and alcoholic product companies may open up some legal issues as well given tobacco and alcohol adversting restrictions in some countries. But companies like Exxon-Mobil and other controversial but not legally problematic companies should be accepted (although I doubt this would ever arise anyway). Nil Einne 15:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Let's not talk law. Virgin Vodka is a alcoholic drink produced by Virgin Drinks owned by Virgin Group. Virgin Wines is an internet Wine retailer. --Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 16:17, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Well the foundation still reserves the right to reject any organisation. However, I would personally hope they don't reject Microsoft or Citizendium. There is no reason to. The only reason IMHO why they should reject a donor is if it would open up legal issues (e.g. the donor is an organisation or person considered associated with terrorism by some government). Tobacco and alcoholic product companies may open up some legal issues as well given tobacco and alcohol adversting restrictions in some countries. But companies like Exxon-Mobil and other controversial but not legally problematic companies should be accepted (although I doubt this would ever arise anyway). Nil Einne 15:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Hear, hear!! Let's rather have banner on the very top covering 1/8 of the page length depicting the Corporate (with charitable guise) which pays the best. What say? Well agreements signed in future will sure have something like that.--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 16:05, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Regarding the banner, the developers implemented the "dismiss" link to make sure that registered users would not have to be bothered by the SiteNotice if they didn't want to; although it will occasionally reappear if the SiteNotice is updated, each time the "dismiss" link is there for your convenience. In addition, while I understand your concerns about future notices, I can assure you that the Foundation will never condone of or approve any such "competitive bidding" with the intent to "advertise". We should be thankful that matching donations are being offered, and it (logically) means that the fundraiser will end twice as fast as if there were no matching donations. :-) Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Seriously, would you just rather the Foundation reject all corporate donations? Or just be ingrates and take the donation but say nothing about it? ~~ N (t/c) 18:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I would prefer the Foundation return to rejecting all corporate donations (specifically ones that require logo placement.) Matching sponsorship notices must be restricted to the existing donor pages, where no one (not even me) can reasonably object to them...and where they belong. Spamming the heading of every page is unacceptable. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Why is it unacceptable? --brion 06:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I would prefer the Foundation return to rejecting all corporate donations (specifically ones that require logo placement.) Matching sponsorship notices must be restricted to the existing donor pages, where no one (not even me) can reasonably object to them...and where they belong. Spamming the heading of every page is unacceptable. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Because it is advertising (as opposed to an acknowledgement.) But hey, maybe it is just me, and (as you finally noticed on IRC) because I am an "asshole." The proverbial barn-door is open now for a multitude of advertisers to exploit now. The flimsy, pissant arguments about maintaining a NPOV go next. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 16:00, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Fundraising
I suguest making a perment link on the main page where it says the "free" encyclopedia...linking free to ongoing fundraising...that way anyone who would like to contribute year round could...just a thought. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.158.133.194 (talk) 11:18, 28 December 2006 (UTC).
- There is a link in the top-right corner of the screen linking to the donations page all year round. If you create an account and log in , you don't see it – Gurch 11:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
so only unregestered users can donate all year?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.158.133.194 (talk • contribs).
- No, only unregistered users get the reminder in the corner all year round. :) --Dreaded Walrus 11:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes. You'll notice there's also a "Donations" link in the sidebar (underneath "Contact Misplaced Pages"). That's visible to everyone, all the time – Gurch 11:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- "Free" in that context doesn't mean at no cost, it's free as in liberty. So a link to the donations page would be out of context. Free as in beer verses Free as in liberty. --Monotonehell 12:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Spenditure of the funds?
I'm interested in what will be bought with 1,5 MIL USD. I once found a map of Wikipedias servers. Are these upgraded. Please tell me the details. Teemu Ruskeepää 15:01, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Try taking a look at the FAQ linked aboved... Nil Einne 15:04, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Wasn't there. Just question without answers. Teemu Ruskeepää 15:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- http://wikimediafoundation.org/Fundraising_FAQ#Wikipedia_is_cool.21_I.27ll_give_you_some_money.__But_what_will_it_be_used_for.3F — BRIAN0918 • 2006-12-28 15:36Z
- i.e."The money will be used for the continued operation and improvement of Wikimedia projects. This includes hardware, bandwidth, staff, events like Wikimania, and other expenses. A successful fundraiser will mean both being able to continue and expand what we are currently doing, and to have a secure financial base for the future." RHB 15:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- You're still missing what will be bought. 2005-2006 Wikiprojects used 430000 USD for hardware. What hardware is going to bought this year? It can't be that difficult. Teemu Ruskeepää 16:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'll tell you what will be bought. We will buy additional high end servers to host ads of our generous corporate donors. (Please ignore if out of context). :)--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 16:30, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- You're still missing what will be bought. 2005-2006 Wikiprojects used 430000 USD for hardware. What hardware is going to bought this year? It can't be that difficult. Teemu Ruskeepää 16:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- i.e."The money will be used for the continued operation and improvement of Wikimedia projects. This includes hardware, bandwidth, staff, events like Wikimania, and other expenses. A successful fundraiser will mean both being able to continue and expand what we are currently doing, and to have a secure financial base for the future." RHB 15:40, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- http://wikimediafoundation.org/Fundraising_FAQ#Wikipedia_is_cool.21_I.27ll_give_you_some_money.__But_what_will_it_be_used_for.3F — BRIAN0918 • 2006-12-28 15:36Z
- Wasn't there. Just question without answers. Teemu Ruskeepää 15:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- You may be interested in this article, from a few weeks ago, from the Signpost (which I wrote) on the financial audit and management letter. While I can't provide the exact specifics of what equipment was bought, etc., I can assure you that the money is being used to make sure that the exponential growth of all the projects doesn't collapse the technical equipment. (In other words, new servers will have to be bought, developers, technical, and administrative staff paid, and equipment upgraded so that we don't experience common site-downages like we did last year.) It should also be noted that in the audit, the Foundation used a five-year depreciation cycle, instead of a standard three-year depreciation, meaning that the technical equipment is depreciating faster than what was showed in the audit. I hope this answers your question. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:24, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)According to the financial statement, the expenditure on computer hardware was US$42k in 2004, $141k in 2005 and $426k in 2006, while the numbers for other expenses were $23K, $177k, and $791k. (My, how the baby has grown.) A simple extrapolation of those numbers, taking into account continued growth, puts the total needed way above $1.5 mil, which I assume will be filled in by regular year-round donations. If you want an itemized list of future expenditures, such as exact number of servers, for the coming year beyond what can be extrapolated from the financial report, I don't think any organization - for-profit, non-profit or government - can do that credibly. Many have trouble accounting for their past expenditures. - BanyanTree 16:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
MainPage Column Width
The Main Page is divided in the ratio 2:1 from left to right instead of 1:1. So, the shape of the page is very bad especially the Did you know section. I viewed it using Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer under Windows XP. Please save the Main Page.
--Meno25 15:37, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Still unchanged...is everyone taking a break?--cloviz 17:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Ummmm, I'm being blind on the line to fix -- Tawker 17:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Two lines after <!-- End of header section / beginning of left-column --> for the left column (change 55 to 50) then the same for right column (change 45 to 50). --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 18:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- No it's because of DYK. I added that yesterday but saw what happened so I removed it. I'm fixing it now. Nishkid64 18:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Okay, fixed now. Nishkid64 18:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- No it's because of DYK. I added that yesterday but saw what happened so I removed it. I'm fixing it now. Nishkid64 18:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Two lines after <!-- End of header section / beginning of left-column --> for the left column (change 55 to 50) then the same for right column (change 45 to 50). --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 18:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for fixing it.
--Meno25 19:38, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, the left column is supposed to be slightly wider than the right column (55:45) as it contains more text. The difference wasn't meant to be quite as big as it was, though; that was a result of too much text in Did you Know, I think – Gurch 20:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, there's a DYK about the longest place-name in the United States. Apparently, it was too long for the Main Page, so I had to shorten it. Nishkid64 20:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- "Did you know... that a lake in the US which is often touted as having the longest name is too big to fit on the front page." ;) --Monotonehell 23:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, there's a DYK about the longest place-name in the United States. Apparently, it was too long for the Main Page, so I had to shorten it. Nishkid64 20:50, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Proposal
Why don't we just keep the "this donation will by matched by Virgin Unite" text but remove the logo? I think this is a reasonable compromise between most parties. 66.108.66.125 21:44, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- The agreement involved using the logo. --Cherry blossom tree 22:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Did it? I didn't see that tidbit in the FAQ. Where was that mentioned? --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 22:58, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- It seemed implicit to be based on this. Dar-Ape 23:21, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- I read it stated somewhere amidst all the discussion that's gone on about it. Possibly by Danny but maybe not. The implication was that we made the offer, rather than virgin, and that the offer involved using the logo. I can't find it again, so I'd check with someone higher up if it's important to you. --Cherry blossom tree 23:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, please. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- As I recall, Danny did say this on IRC. Why, however, should such an offer be made to provide a logo? If the logo or similar was necessary in order to secure the donation, then that is exactly a paid advertisement. The FAQ is not compelling: many advertisements are for establishing brand recognition; an advertisement does not need to be a car salesman hawking goods to be an advertisement. —Centrx→talk • 02:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I read it stated somewhere amidst all the discussion that's gone on about it. Possibly by Danny but maybe not. The implication was that we made the offer, rather than virgin, and that the offer involved using the logo. I can't find it again, so I'd check with someone higher up if it's important to you. --Cherry blossom tree 23:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- That section indeed has enough ambiguity under it to drive an aircraft carrier, unnoticed. It does not say that the logo (nor the company mention) is required for that agreement. Where is the public record of the board's internal vote on all this? --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 23:41, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
- Please do not consider this issue closed, now that the logo is finally gone from the advertising banner. If this problem is ignored, there will be a larger, more offensive one tomorrow. --Connel MacKenzie - wikt 00:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I agree. Last thing we want to see is Google ads in lieu of a matching donations (Uncyclopedia looks real cool with the google ads though)--Vikas Kumar Ojha Talk to me! 07:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Owned?
Somebody just messed up the links on the donation header. Just thought I would point that out, if anybody hasn't noticed. PTO 01:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- It was a temporary breakage of all interwiki links, and the issue has been fixed. Thanks for pointing it out, though! Flcelloguy (A note?) 02:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Lol, nice section heading. "Owned?". Nishkid64 02:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Hrmz yes, but it is traditional to spell it with a P. ;) --Monotonehell 10:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Lol, nice section heading. "Owned?". Nishkid64 02:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
On This Day ... An Error
- Moved to Misplaced Pages talk:Selected anniversaries/December 29 (Should have been on WP:ERRORS first.) --10:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford should not be on ITN. He was an old man who died of natural causes. He was not in office at the time of his death, he didn't die unexpectedly, and his death hasn't had any large impacts on current events. Therefore it does not meet any of the ITN criteria, stated here. Thanks. --liquidGhoul 12:18, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- And also Misplaced Pages:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates#27 December. --PFHLai 12:33, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- They only say that there is a guideline which is in discussion which would allow this inclusion. I am not against the guideline, but if it hasn't reached concensus, it shouldn't be used. Also, the state funeral doesn't constitute (c), as it is just a state funeral. What articles, excluding Gerald Ford, has been changed because of his death? --liquidGhoul 12:40, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- IMO, the state funeral is a current event, so it passes (c). The Gerald Ford page was indeed updated. (a requirement for ITN) Other pages changed because of this death ? Well, Death and state funeral of Gerald Ford (a new page, though some people want that merged back into Ford's page) and list of oldest presidents, etc. (not a requirement for ITN) ... I'd rather not change that line on ITN when discussion on changing the ITN inclusion criteria is still on-going. Please be encouraged to join the discussion. (Furthermore, edit-wars should never take place, and I don't want to somehow start one on MainPage.) -- PFHLai 14:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- But we can't put up the death of every old person who has done something in their life. I seriously doubt that the death of an old Australian Prime Minister would ever get on ITN, even if there was a state funeral. Secondly, if the "story" is about the funeral and death of Ford, then that should be bolded, not Ford. We shouldn't be placing a (rightfully) controversial article on the main page. And we should be basing our choice of ITN on the current guidelines and policies. There will always be discussion about guidelines, and the content of the discussion should not influence the content of the encyclopaedia until it has reached concensus. You should not be arguing any point on the basis of a guideline under discussion.
- If "the death of an old Australian Prime Minister" were to have significant international impact, it would qualify for ITN inclusion (assuming that the other criteria—most importantly the article update—were met). Also, I advocate expanding the ITN criteria to cover all former heads of state/government. —David Levy 16:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- How could this possibly pass criteion (c) in the guidelines? His death has not had any "international impact". A state funeral does not constitute an international incident, it says in the name: "state". If the loophole to pass (c) is to create an article about the death, then it is a very weak loophole.
- Quoth the Death and state funeral of Gerald Ford article:
- "Some foreign leaders who paid tribute included Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Czech President Vaclav Klaus, and German President Horst Köhler. In Great Britain, the Union Jack at Buckingham Palace was flown at half-staff. "
- Please explain how that fails to qualify as "international impact." —David Levy 16:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Quoth the Death and state funeral of Gerald Ford article:
- That's people paying tribute. You get that when anyone dies. Gerald Ford's death hasn't had any international impact at all - the world is just the same as it was. --Cherry blossom tree 17:20, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- "International impact" != "dramatic effect on people's day-to-day lives." It means "impact occurring in more than one nation." When notable dignitaries from various countries (having canceled previous plans) travel to the U.S. for Ford's funeral, that will be further international impact. —David Levy 20:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- You are using an extremely broad definition of international impact, which would include the deaths of even moderately famous people. This is not the definition that has been applied to other deaths previously appearing (or not) on the news template. --Cherry blossom tree 22:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I also do not wish to have an edit war. That is why I have taken it up on the talk page. An exception is being made here, and I fear it is because he was an American president. --liquidGhoul 15:10, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- It was indeed a weak pass of (c), but I don't see that as a loophole. And the link to Death and state funeral of Gerald Ford was indeed bolded for a while.... --PFHLai 15:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- This is exactly the kinds of arguments that have been occuring recently (Freidmann, Brown, Ford et al) that have brought us to the discussion that PFHLai mentioned above. LiquidGhoul: have a look at the three near identical debates on that page that occured recently, then have a look at the guidline change proposals. The reason the change is sort is because of the disatisfaction with the current guidelines and how they are being interpreted differently by different editors. The objections you've stated above have already been stated by others. --Monotonehell 15:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- The discussions at Talk:ITN really heated up since the death of James Brown. Please join the discussion there, LiquidGhoul, if you've more to add. --PFHLai 16:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Which is interesting, as we've had one of each now; a statesman, an entertainer and an academic. Each hotly debated as to their worthyness of inclusion. ITN ain't working like people want it. Also, wish my mouse mat would stop curling... --Monotonehell 16:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Do you know how frustrating it is to deal with allegations of American bias every time an entry pertaining to the U.S. is added?
- We just excluded the death of American musician James Brown (which was reported on the main pages of numerous languages' Wikipedias) because the criteria weren't met. Last month, we included the retirement of Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe. Did I hurl accusations of Australian bias? No.
- No "exception" is being made for Ford; the criteria are met. For the record, I'm a stickler for the ITN rules and a member of the Democratic Party (the primary opposition to Ford's Republican Party). —David Levy 16:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
The pentultimate!!1-11 solution to vandalism
Not really. But now that I have your attention.
Recent vandal attacks on the main page where an 'interesting' picture has been snuck in via unprotected subparts of the main page have been annoying at the least. Yes it's true. It was one or two lapses of concentration by admins who forgot to protect something that they placed on the front page templates. Admins are human, they do make mistakes. Everyone has been poked and reminded. I'm not saying that it won't happen again, but everything that should be done has. So leave them alone.
However.
What should happen when such a vandal attacks? Within minutes someone with admin ability spots it, quietly reverts it and covers the cracks that the vandal oozed in via. The vandal is blocked, defeated and deflated, they move on.
What does happen when such a vandal attacks? Everyone, their dog, cat, hamster and rabbits swamp this talk page with "OMG!11!! I'M OFFENDED!! ARGH! ARGH! MY EYES WTF!" style messages of outrage and indignation. The vandal says "HAR HAR PWND! I EMS TEH 1337", posts several taunting messages about how good they are and revels in the afterglow of their nuclear attack.
Eventually, within minutes someone with admin ability spots it, reverts it and covers the cracks that the vandal oozed in via. The vandal is blocked and moves on with a self-satified smug smile and sticky underpants.
People. If you get all up in arms about it, you're feeding the vandal's ego. Just let it pass. It will be reverted within minutes.
This has been a public service announcement on behalf of a (mostly)sane but (slightly) inebriated Monotonehell 16:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Dude, you get 40 more points if you take the Are You a Wikipediholic Test right now. (When you use Misplaced Pages, no. 10) - BanyanTree 17:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- The answer to that question is, Yes. I only edit when drunk. What, you think I spell this bad sober? ... 1051 questions? I think not... short and automated hey.. okay... --Monotonehell 17:47, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- The vandal is blocked, defeated and deflated, they move on.
- The five (six?) attacks on the Main Page this month, as well as dozens of attacks on the Featured Article of the Day, are similar enough to make it very probable, in my opinion, that this is the same person; someone who clearly has a technical knowledge of Misplaced Pages, a large amount of spare time and an immature desire to cause as much damage as possible; someone who is prepared to spend longer searching for gaps in our image and template protection than the administrators themselves. Something tells me that simply not talking about this person isn't going to make them go away – Gurch 21:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Also, I don't think I've ever seen this vandal post such "taunting" messages. Certainly the times I dealt with them, they were too busy trying to vandalise as many times as possible before being blocked to post anything – Gurch 21:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Good post Monotone. The whole idea of covertly adding penis pictures is to SHOCK. If no reaction is noted, the vandal will know that everybody is cool enough to handle his outrageous behaviour, and move on. Vranak 21:48, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Suggestion to help preventmain page vandalism
While looking through the upcoming selected anniversaries sections at Misplaced Pages:Selected anniversaries/January, I noticed that a number of the daily pages for next month are currently unprotected. I'd like to suggest that all of the Misplaced Pages:Selected anniversaries/date pages be permanently protected as they are automagically transcluded onto the main page and receive very few edits (For the pages for 1-7 Jan, I count a total of 7 content (as opposed to formatting) edits in the almost-year since those dates in 2006.)
IMO the unwikiness of this suggestion is outweighed by the fact that it is cutting off a potential avenue for major high profile vandalism if a daily page is missed (as happened on December 15 where the page was vandalised by User:Earthofsprit.) -- AJR | Talk 17:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- It's a fair proposal, but may now be superceded. Largely prompted by the recent vandalism, Shadowbot2 was created to check Main Page templates for protected status, including those in Main Page/Tomorrow, and alert admins who sign up. It should also soon be able to check the text in Template:Did you know/Next update to warn of situations like that of the most recent vandalism. Thanks, BanyanTree 18:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I also added a massive great big warning notice to the templates that don't change daily (Template:In the news and Template:Did you know), which should help prevent such oversights as forgetting to protect images there (the other source of Main Page vandalism) from occuring in the first place. The bot should also catch this if it does happen – Gurch 21:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Automatic Search Input
I think that once the Misplaced Pages main page loads, the blinking text cursor should automatically be in the search box for quick input. This is like when you load Google. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Digitalapocalypse (talk • contribs) 00:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC).
About the proposed move
I can't see any real reason why it should be moved: this is a clear case of ignore all rules. It's equivalent to index.htm on most websites: and 'Main Page' describes what it is, after all, it is the site's main page.
I realize this may be a controversial viewpoint, but I'm expressing my opinion. Feel free to comment. --SunStar Net 01:51, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- By the results of the move poll above, that's definitely not controversial. I (as the proposer of the move) still support Misplaced Pages:Main page, but I understand the viewpoints of others. —Mets501 (talk) 01:53, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- You're entitled to your opinion as much as I am. I still think moving it might be a bad idea.. --SunStar Net 02:09, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
US centrism
Hey, what happened? Right now the FA and the first four of the six DYKs are all on US topics. Not exactly reflecting the aims of an international encyclopaedia, surely? 81.152.169.19 02:23, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Oh c'mon...It's not like it's rigged. Today's FA is something that we can't really control since Raul654 randomly picks dates for FA's to appear on the Main Page. As for DYK's, well that's up to the editors who are providing the articles. By the way, only 1 item in OTD and ITN are US-related, so that's good. Nishkid64 02:26, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Um, I point you in the direction of DYK Rules and Regulations:
"Try to avoid country-centrism and topic-centrism. Misplaced Pages is a general-interest encyclopedia with a global audience. No DYK installment should have more than two entries relating to one country, topic, or issue, and no more than one is even better." 81.152.169.19 02:33, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- That's just the ideal. In reality, I doubt it's possible to find separate DYK's that comply with those rules all the time. We try our best, but sometimes it doesn't happen. Nishkid64 02:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Also, there are only two DYKs specifically about the US. The Great Trail one is as much about Canada as the US and is really about pre-colonial Native Americans, anyway, and James Brown, while American, was a world-famous musician. —Cuivi
- That's just the ideal. In reality, I doubt it's possible to find separate DYK's that comply with those rules all the time. We try our best, but sometimes it doesn't happen. Nishkid64 02:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
énen 02:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC) And now it's my turn to say 'Oh c,mon': there's masses of non-US topics on the suggestions page that could have been chosen. (And pre-colonial Native Americans aren't anything to do with the US? Where did they live then? Atlantis?) 81.152.169.19 02:44, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
There might be an Iraq-related one anytime soon. Carcharoth 02:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- "World: Ford Remembered Around the World." CANOE.CA. 28 December 2006.