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MPRP Proposal

Hey ChyranandChloe, I read your oppose on my proposal. It's a shame it's not quite right for you and I've changed a few things you mentioned, and thought you might want to know.

• The POTD is centered leaving blanks space at 1280 and above.
  • Picture of the day is now Today's Featured Picture, and sits in the same style as ITN, DYK and OTD. This is more similar to the current layout and should alleviate any whitespace issues.
• The "ABC" icon in the header makes us look very childish.
  • Someone said at some point I'm using too many icons. /understatement I've cut down substantially on the number of icons in the proposal, and finally gave in to removing the ones in the header. Let me know what you think.
• The search bar is essentially redundant and unaesthetic.
  • From a reader's point of view, most people landing on en.wiki Main Page want to search for information on x. Giving them an extra wide, obvious search bar stops them from completely ignoring the Main Page content and looking solely at the sidebar; hopefully drawing more attention to our editorial content. As for the aesthetics, in a real-world situation it can be styled with CSS to look great!
• In icons, I would sit in the middle.
  • Possibly the most difficult balance to strike just now. I totally understand where you're coming from.
• Donate isn't a bad choice in design, but it would have implications that can reflect badly on us.
  • The space where the Donate box is could be used for anything — the first things that come to my mind are notices about Wikimania, policy updates, etc etc. Perhaps better wording, noting that the site is ad-free, would be more appropriate, but I think a sentence offering to explain how Wikimedia operates is worthwhile and helpful.

I'd really love your support on this. Let me know what you think of the changes I made, and if I can do anything else for you. Best wishes, Pretzels 17:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Closure

In your summary, you obviously did not take the comments at the bottom into consideration. Several people expressed interest in certain parts of certain proposals, and so I would presume those "supports" should apply to each of those proposals. Would you please modify your closure to do so? - jc37 02:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm sticking to the consensus regarding the grounds of the closure, see Misplaced Pages talk:2008 main page redesign proposal#Request for Comment and Misplaced Pages talk:2008 main page redesign proposal#Instead of tossing out ideas...., and I apologize if I cut your discussion sort. In regards to the RFC discussion I didn't actually close it (it was done before hand, see page history). Presumably that page should be a redirect to the main project discussion. ChyranandChloe (talk) 02:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Please see my comments on that page. Consensus indicates that a straw poll may supplement a consensus, but it's not a substitute for one. Every comment at the bottom should have been taken into consideration. It had nothing to do with "cutting the discussion short". It's clear that the page should be closed. But this should be more than just a head count. And acknowledging merely just the supports and not the opposes, seems problematic as well. - jc37 02:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

You are entirely correct that a straw poll (RFC) cannot substitute discussion in leading to a consensus. However the discussion that have evidently resulted on the RFC project page should not have occurred. For the various reasons, I think we need to put more signs to direct people that we are centralizing discussion on Misplaced Pages talk:2008 main page redesign proposal, and that comments on the RFC project page are only for small remarks commentating on all the proposals as a whole. I apologize for the inconvenience. Feel free to migrate the discussion the main discussion page. ChyranandChloe (talk)

Except that the intent of the straw poll in this case (AFAICT) was to reduce the number of proposals, so the comments at the bottom, directly refer to that in that some editors were more interested in the "parts" of individual proposals than the sum of the parts. (Which perhaps should also be noted by the closer in the close.) - jc37 03:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

And incidentally, if you commented in the discussion(s), why did you "close" the discussion(s)? - jc37 02:48, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the intent of your query, please clarify. As of three and a half hours ago, the RFC is to be closed per consensus(see above, Request for Comment). I posted in the discussion, in poor judgment, to bring forth awareness of how and why some proposals are closed before the actual date established. In sort, iMatthew began closing proposals under WP:SNOW and later by his own formula, I stated my protests (see User talk:iMatthew), and placed a short note in the discussion summarizing that. I've modified the RFC closure statement — with a notice stating that if you wish to continue the discussion, you are to migrate it to the centralized discussion. Consequently the discussion on that page are not closed, they are to be moved. ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

No, AFAIK, that's not how closure of discussions (RfC or otherwise) works.

As such, I'm going to revert your closure (again - noting that your edit summary was quite incorrect in suggesting that this is "resolved"). I think at this point, I'm going to post to WP:AN to request for an independant third party to close this. - jc37 03:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The discussion isn't closed, the RFC is. Or in other words, you can carry on your discussion; but under which the RFC was established, the proposals that are to be developed collectively have been decided. ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:55, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

jc37, just because you were too lazy to put your comments under the respective proposal sections like everyone else, that doesn't give you right to hijack the process and dictate how it's going to be run. We've been working on this project for months, so take a seat. You comments were too nonspecific to determine which five proposals to apply them to. So, in short, if you wanted your comments to apply to any specific proposals, you should have, like everyone else did, placed your support where you wanted it. لennavecia 04:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Has nothing to do with "laziness". It has to do with a problem with the presumption of how straw polls should work, and how consensus should be interpreted in a closure. We have general guidelines and even policy in reagrds to this. And I don't see why they should be ingnored in this case.

And incidentally I've been a part of and have been watching, this "process" (off and on) for at least as long as you have, so perhaps a bit of "good faith" might be appropriate. - jc37 04:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Good faith would be you not assuming ill-intentions on the part of the people who've been running this process. Thanks for observing, but if you cared so much about the process, you'd have closed it yourself. This isn't a matter of determining consensus, so it doesn't matter who closes it. It is a matter of numbers. It was clearly detailed at the top of the page. Vote for up to five designs. If you wanted to give general comments, well, there was a section, but to expect us to take your comments and go through each of the designs and attempt to determine which ones you want to support is beyond ridiculous. If not laziness on your part, then what? You had the designs you liked, but you instead expect the responsibility of placement of your support to fall on someone else? Absurd. You're being completely unhelpful. Comments from that section will be taken into account during the next phase, so they're not a waste. But they're not going to be counted as support toward any specific design. You lost your chance on that. لennavecia 04:36, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec) - Wow, there is so much in your response that is... (at a loss for the right word).

Let's take it in sections.

First and foremost, it is NOT a "matter of numbers". Misplaced Pages operates by consensus, not voting. The only places where "voting" occurs involves the granting of responsibilities to people, such as rfA, or the Arbcom elections.

And in something as complex as the design of the main page, a simple up and down "vote" for an aggregate proposal is a horrible idea. The merits of the parts should be discussed (as have been on some occasions). The goal (I would presume) is for the best possible Main page, not for which individual proposal suvives "sudden death".

And I haven't presumed ill-intentions at all. I initially came here to request that the closer clarify their close. It wasn't until I looked further than I noticed that they were "involved" in the discussion, and so, probably shouldn't be the closer. Which is when I decided to revert. So if anyone is presuming "ill-intentions" or "bad-faith", it's you.

And "lost your chance"? You've got to be kidding. A discussion presumes the consensus of all of Misplaced Pages, by assessing those who choose to comment. I seriously am thinking that you have a misapprehension of what Consensus is. - jc37 04:47, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm sorry jc37, but I'm running out of good faith at the moment. You have not been part of any discussion, any consensus, nor any proposal — and I find it your arrogance galling in placing your personal position over the discussion we have worked on since July. Watching ("on and off") does no equate to participation, if you find that our processes are flawed, you'll have to discuss it like the rest of us; not by entering in the middle of closure and aggressively wresting control from the discussion and consensus currently established. I understand that there are several guidelines and policies regarding Straw polls and otherwise; however this is not an article, and many of the attributes usually associated cannot be easily applied (see project page discussion). As a result we conform under WP:IGNORE. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

"You have not been part of any discussion, any consensus, nor any proposal" - Looks like I had better go find the diffs for you (which includes my submission of some thoughts near the beginning of these discussions). Just because I may decide to not directly comment in a discussion because I think others are covering my concerns doesn't mean I'm should be disenfranchised, and treated to what I'm seeing here.

And I'm not seeing the applicability to WP:IAR in this case. - jc37 04:50, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, I'm not trying to "wrest control" of anything. I merely think that this was and is improper. - jc37 04:52, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty simple. The process was clearly laid out at the top of the poll page. If you disagreed with the format being used, after the close was not the time to bring it up. The page is littered with the intentions of the poll. Support the designs you like, up to five. This was even directly stated to you. Your response was that you would "allow" the closer to appropriate your support. Well, as considerate as it is that you would allow someone else to determine what you want, it's not a responsibility anyone must take. Multiple times, multiple people pointed out that the top five designs (as determined by the poll) would move on and from there the best aspects of each (taken from the discussion on the page) would be used to determine the style and design of the final proposal or two. So really, there's not point in even discussing this further. The appropriate time has passed. There were days to voice displeasure with the format. Now that it's closed, as it was planned to be, it's just slowing progress. Your comments will be taken into consideration during the final design phase. Thanks for your participation. لennavecia 04:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

But if, as has been stated, the "format" is an RfC, then I did exactly what should be done in an RfC. And a closer of an RfC takes every comment under consideration in the close.

And incidentally, I didn't wait until close to clarify. I noted it when asked about it. And incidentally, I'm not alone in this, as there were several others who did the same.

And the "thank you and have a nice day" comment (AKA the "please shut up and go away" comment) pretty much indicates your thoughts, I think. - jc37 05:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

No, my thoughts are summed up with "to expect us to take your comments and go through each of the designs and attempt to determine which ones you want to support is beyond ridiculous." There was a limit of five supports. Your comments were too broad and non-specific. There was no way to determine which five designs to apply them to. Thus, we can't count your comments toward the tally. Regardless, they'll be taken into account in the final design phase. So what, exactly, is it that you now expect from us? لennavecia 05:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

You're missing it, apparently. I'm not some IWANTIT editor who's upset that my own comments alone weren't taken into account. I'm saying that not taking everyone's comments into account is simply improper, and further that neither of you should be the ones determining consensus, as there does not seem to be a rationale to WP:IAR to the guidelines which say that involved editors should not. And as one of the 'final five", you indeed have a vested interest in the outcome. Note the comment that even User:ChyranandChloe had to note to you below. This is about determining consensus, pure and simple. - jc37 05:22, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Dude, my design by far took the lead. I'm not in a state of worry here. I'm just ready to move on with it. My understanding of how the next phase is going to work is different than how it's set up, which is fine. I thought it was a skeleton page, that's all. I cannot more clearly explain the format to you. There was no way to place your support into the poll, you should have done it yourself like everyone else. We stated from the beginning that it was the top five designs moving on, and that participants were to support up to five designs. It was extremely simple. Comments in the general comments section will be taken into account during this next phase. This was stated in that section more than once. If you have a problem with it, take it to AN/I or wherever. But stop warring with us on these pages. لennavecia 05:25, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I haven't been "edit warring" with you, actually. (I reverted User:ChyranandChloe twice, the second time, because they apparently were under the misapprehension that the discussion here was "resolved", per their edit summary.) And have been attempting to discuss. As I said, your comments here reek of bad faith.

I am empathetic of your (plural) wish to move on with the process. But haste is not a valid rationale, per Misplaced Pages:There is no deadline. - jc37 05:32, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm currently waiting for HereToHelp (was in a position similar to yours) to comment, and potentially for others as well. I stated WP:IGNORE because MPRP are not common, and we are setting precedent. The one conducted in 2006 was done in an entirely different fashion; this one (2008MPRP) we decided to add some competition mentality to increase participation and creative ideas. Of course this resulted in a mess. We went several over methods on fixing this, and a straw poll with approval voting appeared to be the best solution. In a matter of speaking, this is not an RFC. I chose and promoted that name because WP:Straw poll was struck down. I am sure there are others who would concur with you. However hiding in the shadows until we are in a major turning point to strike does not reflect positively on you. If you are in discontent, we have a discussion page on our methods — the consensus was achieved before you arrived, we are simply executing it. In a way, I've sort of set up the proposal process to lean towards your goals following the RFC/Straw poll. I issue no position over Jennavencia's interests, therefore you cannot use this as supportive evidence. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:34, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification.

I might suggest that it's difficult to consider any of the attempts to change the main page as "precedents", both due to WP:CCC, and just simply because it's typically such a mess (as this one has been, from time to time).

And while I don't necessarily oppose the competition mentality (and had noted that it was being somewhat injected long before this specific straw poll), I do oppose that the "competition" should be determined by "voting". I apparently missed that in the various discussions leading up to this. (As I would have strongly opposed it, and I would presume, as you note, would others.)

I still would like to see a third party determine the results based upon consensus of the discussions (and if you suggest that there is some section on some other page that should be taken into account as well, then perhaps that should be indicated as an aid to the closer).

And I'll take a look over the "next step" (I hadn't gotten that far yet).

And to clarify, I'm not accusing you of bias towards anyone, merely that the closure should weigh all the arguements, not count "votes", and that as you commented, unless there is a good reason, you shouldn't be the one to close this. And Jennavecia really shouldn't be the one to close this. - jc37 05:45, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

jc37, we obviously have glaring conflicting points of view here. It's not a matter of bad faith. Are you disputing my claim that you expected someone to take your comments, compare them to every open design and determine which five to assign your support to? Are you disputing my claim that you waited until after the RFC was closed to complain about the format? Are you disputing my claim that the process was clearly stated from the beginning and that you chose to take a position of "I don't have to follow the instructions, someone else can do it for me"? لennavecia 05:43, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

If you missed the discussion, then I'm sorry: there's a lot of it, and sadly some of it is exported to IRC and other pages (e.g. MediaWiki talk:Watchlist-details#2008 main page redesign proposal). Approval voting was selected though IRC (between me and iMatthew), and was further endorsed in Misplaced Pages talk:2008 main page redesign proposal#Instead of tossing out ideas... by HereToHelp. In short, the rationale is that since so much of the decision rests upon personal preference — discussion though consensus is simply not feasible. Therefore approval voting was the only clear method of measuring this aspect. Of course there are other elements, and they are noted. Jennavencia has contribute a tremendous deal of time, thought, and discussion into this proposal — and therefore I recognize her opinion as an authoratative voice regarding the closure of the RFC/Straw poll. Nevertheless, in deductive logic, if "Jennavecia really shouldn't be the one to close this", and unless for good reason I cannot close this — then does this mean that you are the only one allowed to close this? I find this unilateral that you are allowed to break the established consensus in order to uphold several policies that don't even have precedents for this. Misplaced Pages doesn't have a dead line applies to articles, extending it to proposals is absurd: we don't wait six years for an arbcom election, and neither should we break consensus in order to uphold this policy. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

No, and I never attempted to close it. I too commented there, and (unless there was a good reason), I shouldn't be the one to close it either. That's part of why I posted to WP:AN, in the hopes of an impartial admin to come, weigh consensus, and close the discussion. The other part is my subsequent concerns of Jennavecia's subsequent actions of attempted fait accompli. If you know that there is an ongoing question concerning consensus, posting what you deem to be "consensus" in an attempt to "push forward regardless", may not be the best way to instill good faith. - jc37 06:17, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

It followed the detailed plan posted on the page from the start. Why are you not able to understand this. Top five designs move on. Top five determined by support. A comment directly to you to support the candidates you like. You are completely missing the entire point. It was an extremely simple process. All intentions were detailed at the top, from the beginning. You chose to ignore the instructions and do your own thing. Sesame Street has a song about this. Top 5 based on support. There's no consensus to determine outside of that. All comments considered for the matter of final design(s). Your expressed expectation was unrealistic. And your claim here that I or C&C have some sort of COI is unfounded. This isn't a typical process. It is one born from consensus that has no set process for closing. And quoting essays to us doesn't change that. لennavecia 06:21, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Please note my comment at WP:AN. - jc37 07:00, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) It's CaC by the way. I'm freezing discussion, rationale see WP:AN. My reply, see WP:AN. ChyranandChloe (talk) 07:05, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

jc37 - maybe this is a stupid question, but do you tihnk the outcome would have been different if the closure had been managed in the way you would prefer? Numerically represented it would have looked identical, is that right, because there was a limit to the number of votes and there is no way to count non-vote comments? So the discussion element would have entered into the final analysis primarily if it conflicted strongly with the numerical outcome. Did that happen, in your view, and you think the close should be other than what it was?

If not, is it fair to say that your criticism is more to do with process than with substance? I understand (as I think does Jennavecia and ChyranandChloe) that process is not unimportant - on the other hand, it does seem unnecessarily disruptive to go back and rework the process now after it has already been completed - particularly if the outcome would ultimately be the same. Avruch 19:24, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

My process

...is at User:IMatthew/Sandbox5. I use Support - Oppose. iMatthew (talk) 10:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Final five

Okay, so regardless of which way we break it down, the top five are the same five designs and in the same order. Breakdown is as follows:

Design: Support | Net

1. Jennavecia: 28 | 22
2. Pretzels: 24 | 10
3. CrazyChemGuy: 21 | 9
4. Wintran: 16 | 3
5. Dudemanfellabra: 12 | -1

So now we can finally get on to the final design phase. لennavecia 05:00, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, revert WP:MPRP back to the one I set (). Everything else is prepared. Going by the general plan, we're discussing potential improvements. We might want to shorten the number of proposals to two or three before we place it against the current main page — so there might be an intermediate step. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:06, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Also I don't recommend naming the proposal candidate after its sponsor. We're trying to disown remember, and get away from the competition mentality. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:08, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, right, right. لennavecia 05:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

I archived the old page and restored the new with the link. Sorry for the confusion. I thought it was a skeleton page to discuss the pros and cons of each and then go from there. But I think I see how this is going to work now, so it's all good. I'm going to bed now. I'm excited about this next phase. Hopefully it runs smoothly. لennavecia 05:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi

I'm taking a break from the brick wall that is that project talk page. I was looking at some other languages and came across nl and bpy main pages, which I found, in one aspect, to be very impressive. That being the transparency of the right column. There's no place for that in my design, but it could probably be worked into one of the others. This looks professional, though the icons and the colors do not appeal to me... a bit cartoony. Anyway, just thought I'd drop that here for now. See what your thoughts are. لennavecia 03:52, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it a brick wall, but I think a break can be good for you. David, Quiddity, and Transhuman — have a point, however have never proposed a definitive plan or any suggests leading towards that; this is what I'm trying to get across. In effect, they have no substance.

When you made your comment against David or Quiddity, I feel that we've become the gatekeepers. The definitions you provide can be confused with mine and this I think is what's really concerning David. If you want, you can clarify to the definition I provided in the discussion, which would help my position; but that's entirely up to you (one thought that keeps recirculating accross my mind is to disown your comments, which I think can confuse our positions). Unity is perhaps what we need, and so far I feel that it's only me and HereToHelp working towards that. I don't agree with him, and I believe he has difficulty understanding my positions (this is where you can really help); but he's on the right track.

In short, while you're on break, I think you should simply constrain yourself to the discussion of Proposal Candidate 1. I know we've disowned, but that doesn't mean we can't still support it. Those are really nice main pages, though I think this Proposal is currently too much division to effectively get such a design across; perhaps in 2010. My other thoughts are that there is a very likely chance that this proposal will fail: either by lack of support towards positive ends, or by our distraught efforts when it comes time to place it against the current main page. So, whatever the results are, one thing that I think will remain constant is to remember what's happened and establish a policy guideline for future proposals. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:19, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I have that feeling that I'm on a sinking ship. I don't want to abandon it, but I've got better things to spend my time on. I already got my design on one main page, I don't need to defend it against inaccurate criticisms made only to be insulting. I think that's where the problem has come for me. It's turned petty all of a sudden. So I'm over it. I'll hang out on the proposal pages, but that's about it for now. لennavecia 12:54, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Rabies

In rabies, I suppose "differential diagnosis" is not strictly necessary. I suppose you can delete that. Do you want to transfer this conversation to that talk page if you do? --Gak (talk) 19:57, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think that would be helpful since it would reduce the number of modifiers. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:17, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

stub tags

Hi, When you add a stub tag to an article (as with To a Mouse), please add it to the bottom not the top, as this is the normal place ("By convention this is placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last. It is usually desirable to leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it." from WP:STUB) and it makes life easier for stub-sorters if it's in a consistent place. Thanks. PamD (talk) 14:57, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm used to using {{expand}} rather than stub, so sticking them in the top is a habit. Thanks nevertheless. ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:07, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Erythema multiforme

Hi ChyranandChloe! I saw you reverted my edit to the gallery in Erythema multiforme. My reasons for the edit were:

1. The right image does not show Erythema multiforme major but Stevens-Johnson's Syndrome, at least according to its name. I don't know whether this can be verified from the image, it is not very sharp. As the article says, EMM and SJS might be related (or not), but they are not the same.
2. The subtitle of the left image is cut off, at least on my computer (WinXP, Firefox). The gallery tag worked fine.
3. A minor issue: "multiforme" and "major" should not be spelled with capitals.

I would appreciate it if you told me what was wrong with my edit. Regards, ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 12:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Perhaps it should be said in the gallery documentation that the scroll box doesn't work for Firefox (at least not with me, I've no idea what could be wrong). --ἀνυπόδητος (talk) 13:08, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Main page WikiProject

I'm not sure WikiProject is the right heading, because WikiProjects (ideally) are constantly active making small changes. MPRD sees a flurry of activity for a few months and then lies dormant for a few years until somebody raises an issue far more complicated than they think (as we've seen). I do think that we should archive our experiences as advice for the next group, and include a contact list so we can be in that next group. (I would have loved to be notified when the project started, although I was away at the time.) Perhaps an essay would be the best format? Anyway, let's focus on this redesign for the moment.--HereToHelp 02:54, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Concentrating on this particular proposal is certainly our primary goal, however I think it would be a good idea to have a small group continually looking at looking at the main page applying small and non-invasive patches and tackling comments people would raise in the discussion. As we've seen with the hundred some proposal, there is a lot we can do. There will of course be slow times, and if we fail, we can at least know. This is the main page, it the proxies Misplaced Pages's community and content to the public. ChyranandChloe (talk) 08:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I still favor the essay format over the WikiProject. (We can have lots of discussion on the talk page.) If you want to start Misplaced Pages:Main Page redesigns, I'll meet up with you.--HereToHelp 14:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I think that would be the best compromise—a wikiproject would perhaps be too much, but at least we have some offical place to meet whenever we want to coordinate something. I'll start the page in a few days when I'm less busy: vandalism spiked in all the articles I'm tracking, which doesn't help one bit. Nevertheless, thanks for sticking around, this is a reall challenging proposal, perhaps occupying more time than its deserves, but at least the end is in sight and we can begin talks on understanding our shortcommings. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

User:ChyranandChloe/Workshop 6

Your template has a bug that I just found (It was in mine too). For today (December 1), the "Recently Featured" pictures result in an error when it tries to call Template:POTD/2008-11-31.. When you were typing your code, you accidentally shifted the dates for each month (in the #switch parameter) up one. You're using {{CURRENTMONTH}} in that code, so it gives you the current month. Doing the subtraction of days would make the month decrease one; therefore, you have to shift the numbers for each month down one. I don't think I'm doing a very good job at explaining this, so just take a look at this diff to see what I did. The template is fixed now, though I think ours differ slightly.. something about CSS I think.. not exactly sure. Later! --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 16:21, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I just found another bug dealing with recently featured pictures when the CURRENTMONTH is larger than 10. Your code was forcing a zero at the beginning of the subtracted month, so today (December 2), the template was trying to call Template:POTD/2008-011-30. This diff shows how to fix the code by adding an #ifexpr statement to determine whether or not the month will need a zero after subtraction. Haha apparently we'll get all the bugs worked out sometime.. I can't forsee anything else going wrong with it because I was forced to look at the code in detail this time to figure out how you were doing the math, but if anything does go wrong, I'm sure we'll find it. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 17:30, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the update, I'm a bit busy right so it makes it a challenge to keep the patches up with the code. Nevertheless it's applied. Sorry about not breaking the lines or indenting the code, it must be a challenge to read and understand; and I appriciate the effort you've placed into this. ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:15, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

This is not necessarily a bug, but in my template, I redirected the links for recently featured images to the POTD templates themselves instead of the article in which the picture is displayed. Sometimes the articles (such as Pink Cliffs on 2008-12-07) are very short and stubby and hardly look appropriate to be linked on the main page. The current main page links to the POTD template, so I did the same. Another reason I think this is appropriate is that these links are in the featured MEDIA of the day section.. not featured ARTICLE; when a user clicks on that link, (s)he expects to see a media file - not an article. Yes, this effectively doubles the code because you have to determine the right date twice (once for the image title and again for the link text - image and texttitle respectively), but unless you can think of a better way to do it than in this diff, I see no avoiding the size problem. I will try to come up with a better system of determining the date, though, because at over 7kb, the template is massive IMO. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:38, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Update: I've been working on a new method of determining time (by researching the underworkings of {{CURRENTDATE}}, etc.) and found the #time function. By implementing this into the design and rethinking the method of displaying the dates, I've been able to shrink the code drastically. Unlike the old code, I split determining current year, month, and day each into its own respective #ifexpr branch; this allows the code for each recently featured picture's year and month to be identical - the only thing that changes among them is the code for determining which day to display. Even though I effectively doubled the old code by making the links go to the POTD template, I still came out with a net reduction of template size. The code size isn't 7 kb any more.. nor is it even 4.1 kb (as it was before the doubling).. it is now only 3.3 kb.. a net reduction of about 750 bytes from it's pre-doubled condition. I believe that since the #time method takes much less space(<50%!), it is the way to go. Check out the code here. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 01:18, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Congratulations, I think you're building the foundations for a new method of importing content into the main page. See one the key reasons why I like the POTD template so much is because of how modulated it is. Effectively, the entire template is built of small pieces: which allows us to build the template for the main page rather than the main page for the templates. If we could do this with with the FA, OTD, and so on—we could make those drastic changes (especially some of those Pretzels wanted) entirely feasible, given that we do not have to go through the arduous process of proposing a change to the template and praying that the Wikiproject will pass. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:09, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Update: So umm.. I'm gonna stop writing on here about this template sometime haha... but I just found something that makes the template even smaller. Apparently the #time function has a built in parameter that allows one to call the current date, minus x number of days.. this is done by calling {{#time:Y-m-d| -x days}}. There's no need for all of our ifexpr and months and leap year and crap like that haha... the thing already does it for us.. Now instead of being 7 kb... or even 3 kb.. the template is only 848 bytes haha.. big improvement I'd say. --Dudemanfellabra (talk) 21:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that's a good idea, I'll migrate all this discussion into the MPRP. Now, this is starting to bother me seeing that I didn't find that in the code research back when I started witting the template; I'm laughing, nice job. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:56, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

"health" effects of Tobacco

I hate to ask, but could you confirm for me that you do not and have never worked for any tobacco company, supplier, subsidiary, or other entity with obvious interest in tobacco sales.

less important, but out of my curiosity, could you also specify whether you are a smoker and since what age? Obviously this last quesiton is particularly relevant only if you started smoking at like 9 or something. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.120.231.253 (talk) 00:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

See your talk page. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

MPRP publicity

If you haven't noticed, there's only a few of us left. The discussion--and new ideas--have dwindled. I know the last time I tried to draft a press release it went poorly, but if I just said "The ongoing MPRP would like users to comment on content and formatting," would that be okay? I'd try to organize the discussions and summarize what's active and what isn't so newcomers can find what's important quickly. (If you don't mind, please reply on my talk page.)--HereToHelp 00:49, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed, and your right — having so few editors can damage legitimacy since the consensus is built on a rather small and unrepresentative group. We need to provide context on the issue, the MPRP has been through a lot, and we need to orient new member into the editing climate we are in. New ideas are challenging to propose in a consensus based discussion, since so much weight is placed on the discretion of others. This is why I opposed shutting down the proposal based system, however as the discussion as shown: times has changed. I'm not sure publicity would help so much as introduce a lot of editors intent on pushing their egos and opinions through; however we need more people, this is what I got:

The main page has been cited to be:

• The current page is bland and unexciting. It is hardly enticing to a new reader.
• It is outdated in parts. Some links are to pages that are rarely used anymore, or are deprecated (e.g., Misplaced Pages:Local Embassy)
• It doesn't cover much in the way of things like featured portals or good articles.
• The arrangement needs looking at—some think Did You Know should have a more prominent position.
• Links to better-used pages should be added.
• There should be some description of the site itself. Currently there is nothing except "the 💕" and the number of articles.

The 2008 Main Page Redesign Proposal (WP:MPRP) has been established to address these issues. Please join and provide your analysis on the matter. Consensus has also changed from proposal based to a more stable consensus based redesign process; if you are motivated, please join the discussion.

It's a little weighty on some parts, but the main issues is that we need an introduction to new editors to get them oriented. I don't have that much time this week: teachers are all rushing seeing that they're not making the deadlines they set in their lesson plans; so I guess I'm sort of putting that off on you — sorry. I think we should hold off the release until Friday, in the mean time this also gives time for an intro. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:47, 11 December 2008 (UTC)