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it.wiki has a new Main Page
hi, any comment on the new it.wiki Main Page? --81.211.179.224 10:05, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- IMHO the new main page rocks. The new village pump (bar) su**s. --Jollyroger it.wikipedian
- The lightblue rectangle on the right shouldn't be covering the cute icons. -- 199.71.174.100 10:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I really would've expected all the bugs to have been fixed before it was rolled out! Could be good, but there are too many problems in IE. violet/riga (t) 12:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Doesn't look great in firefox either.--Peta 12:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Horrible. I don't like the way the blue border goes through the icons, and it happens in both Firefox and IE. --Tim1988 15:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Safari, too. — ceejayoz 16:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Read their talk page: the icons were intentionally put halfway under like that. It's not a bug. Whether that effect is desired here or not, their layout is excellent--far better than ours is or ever will be (after all, with a community as large as the English Misplaced Pages's, big changes to the Main Page are unlikely to ever meet approval thanks to our desire to do things democratically, as if a bunch of yes/no opinions ever produced anything innovative). — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 17:03
- I couldn't disagree more. Our main page is less flashy, but all of the information is laid out in a logical, accessible manner. The Italian main page places far more emphasis on looking pretty than on functioning as a useful gateway to an encyclopedia. "Innovation" doesn't mean "abandoning sound design elements for the sake of change," let alone change for the worse. —David Levy 17:21, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Perhaps that particular thing isn't a bug but there are plenty of others. violet/riga (t) 19:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- It's more stylish than the previous design (which I strongly disliked), but it still isn't very good. It contains a great deal of wasted space, superfluous decorations, and project information that belongs on separate pages. The static and dynamic content is erratically mixed, and viewing the featured sections now requires even more scrolling. Just as before, much of the important text is significantly smaller than that of articles, which makes it less accessible to many people. (I have good eyesight, and it's uncomfortably small for me.) I hate the rounded corners (which the previous design also incorporated). They're jagged (and therefore ugly), and they don't display in non-Mozilla software. It seems unadvisable to include deliberate inconsistencies across common browsers, and this element was soundly rejected during the English main page redesign process. —David Levy 17:21, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- You complain about having to scroll to view the featured content, as if that's a problem. Our layout is angled toward presenting our best content, whereas theirs is angled toward helping people find content and understand Misplaced Pages and its community--something that I think is more important. We should be as reader-centric as possible, especially on our main page. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 17:34
- With featured content and project information seemingly strewn about in haphazard fashion, I don't see how their layout is more helpful to anyone. We include links for new users at the top of the page (clearly demarcated from the featured content), so I don't understand your assertion that our readers are neglected. —David Levy 17:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- They provide numerous links to sub-portals right on the main page, which is definitely reader-friendly. And their first block explains Misplaced Pages, replies to common concerns with Misplaced Pages, etc. We devote only a few words to that on the entire main page. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 18:28
- I prefer the Italian layout, with the exception of the half-way icon thing, which I think is ugly. The English wikipedia is too focused on showing off featured stuff and referencing random stuff(Did you know and On this day). --Kinst 18:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- The Italian main page includes the same type of content, but it's jumbled with the project information (seemingly without rhyme or reason). —David Levy 19:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Again, we wouldn't have to adopt their layout exactly. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 20:35
- Again, I'm of the opinion that the overall design is poor. Just because I decided to comment on a particular flaw doesn't mean that my comments on the other flaws suddenly disappear. —David Levy 20:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Again, we wouldn't have to adopt their layout exactly. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 20:35
- The Italian main page includes the same type of content, but it's jumbled with the project information (seemingly without rhyme or reason). —David Levy 19:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Portal:Browse is one click away from our main page (thereby avoiding needless clutter), as are Misplaced Pages:Welcome, newcomers, Misplaced Pages:Introduction, Misplaced Pages:About, Misplaced Pages:Searching, Misplaced Pages:Tutorial, Misplaced Pages:Questions and Help:Contents. All of these are linked at the top of the page. —David Levy 19:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- You talk about the Italian main page being a jumble, then reference Portal:Browse, which is the epitome of ridiculous and useless jumbles. The simple truth is that the Italian Misplaced Pages's main page portal breakdown is far superior to anything we have. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 19:43
- If you feel that Portal:Browse is poorly designed, fix it! This has no bearing on whether the information contained therein should be crammed onto the main page. Obviously, I believe that it shouldn't be. —David Levy 20:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Portal:Browse and the Main Page are poorly designed. Just because I decided to comment on the former doesn't mean that my comments on the latter suddenly disappear. We should have a main page portal breakdown like they use on the Italian Misplaced Pages. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 20:28
- I'm not disregarding either criticism. I'm noting that the issue of Portal:Browse's quality (or lack thereof) is separate from the decision of whether to add such information to the main page (which I oppose). —David Levy 20:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Well, if you weren't trying to lump one discussion into the other, why would you word it that way? "This has no bearing on whether the information contained therein should be crammed onto the main page." That's obvious and unnecessary. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 21:00
- How, by explicitly noting that the two issues are separate, was I attempting to "lump one discussion into the other"?! I was doing the exact opposite! —David Levy 21:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I complained about the main page. You mentioned Portal:Browse as being sufficient. I said that it wasn't sufficient. You said that my problem was with Portal:Browse, not with the main page. You were thereby shifting my complaint about the main page into one about Portal:Browse, lumping the two complaints together into one. It's a very common tactic. :) — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 21:47
- Rubbish! I did not say that " problem was with Portal:Browse, not with the main page." I noted that your criticism of the former was separate from your criticism of the latter. (I can't imagine why you would interpret a statement that "issue A has no bearing on issue B" to mean that "issue B is nonexistent.") My intention was to avoid lumping the two complaints together. Your opinion that Portal:Browse was poorly designed was an argument for improving its content (irrespective of whether said content is to be displayed on a separate page or on the main page), and that was my point. Please stop accusing me of engaging in dishonest "tactics." —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I complained about the main page. You mentioned Portal:Browse as being sufficient. I said that it wasn't sufficient. You said that my problem was with Portal:Browse, not with the main page. You were thereby shifting my complaint about the main page into one about Portal:Browse, lumping the two complaints together into one. It's a very common tactic. :) — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 21:47
- How, by explicitly noting that the two issues are separate, was I attempting to "lump one discussion into the other"?! I was doing the exact opposite! —David Levy 21:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Well, if you weren't trying to lump one discussion into the other, why would you word it that way? "This has no bearing on whether the information contained therein should be crammed onto the main page." That's obvious and unnecessary. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 21:00
- I'm not disregarding either criticism. I'm noting that the issue of Portal:Browse's quality (or lack thereof) is separate from the decision of whether to add such information to the main page (which I oppose). —David Levy 20:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Portal:Browse and the Main Page are poorly designed. Just because I decided to comment on the former doesn't mean that my comments on the latter suddenly disappear. We should have a main page portal breakdown like they use on the Italian Misplaced Pages. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 20:28
- If you feel that Portal:Browse is poorly designed, fix it! This has no bearing on whether the information contained therein should be crammed onto the main page. Obviously, I believe that it shouldn't be. —David Levy 20:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- You talk about the Italian main page being a jumble, then reference Portal:Browse, which is the epitome of ridiculous and useless jumbles. The simple truth is that the Italian Misplaced Pages's main page portal breakdown is far superior to anything we have. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 19:43
- I prefer the Italian layout, with the exception of the half-way icon thing, which I think is ugly. The English wikipedia is too focused on showing off featured stuff and referencing random stuff(Did you know and On this day). --Kinst 18:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- They provide numerous links to sub-portals right on the main page, which is definitely reader-friendly. And their first block explains Misplaced Pages, replies to common concerns with Misplaced Pages, etc. We devote only a few words to that on the entire main page. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 18:28
- With featured content and project information seemingly strewn about in haphazard fashion, I don't see how their layout is more helpful to anyone. We include links for new users at the top of the page (clearly demarcated from the featured content), so I don't understand your assertion that our readers are neglected. —David Levy 17:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- You complain about having to scroll to view the featured content, as if that's a problem. Our layout is angled toward presenting our best content, whereas theirs is angled toward helping people find content and understand Misplaced Pages and its community--something that I think is more important. We should be as reader-centric as possible, especially on our main page. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 17:34
- We can't fit everything onto one page (nor would we want to, as this would be overwhelming), so we use the main page as a means of directing readers to the appropriate content (conveniently broken down into separate pages). This quickly establishes the type of navigation used throughout the encyclopedia. —David Levy 20:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you for that logical fallacy. I haven't proposed that we "fit everything onto one page", or even close to that. I'm proposing a block smaller than On This Day that provides quick links to general subjects for readers, so that they can easily find more specific subjects. How is it that the Italian Misplaced Pages can do it, but, in your words, "we can't"? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 20:57
- That isn't what I wrote (unless you define "everything"—which was not intended to reference anything that you wrote—as "a longer portal list"). I'm stating my opinion that including such a section, while possible, is a bad idea. I'm stating my opinion that it's better to include a link to a separate page. I'm stating my opinion that the Italian main page design (which includes such a section) is poor. I'm stating my opinion that our design (which includes a link to a separate page) is good. I don't know how I can make myself any clearer. —David Levy 21:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, you've stated your votes, but you haven't backed them up with rationale. The last rationale was about why "fitting everything onto one page" is a bad idea... but nobody was suggesting we do that; you've lumped my suggestion into one extreme (presenting countless links on the main page) to uphold your other extreme (presenting the bare minimum) when my suggestion is closer to your end of the spectrum. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 21:52
- 1.I most certainly have provided a rationale: I believe that our main page contains an appropriate amount of content (and the Italian main page contains too much). The fact that you disagree with my assessment doesn't mean that I haven't made it.
- 2.I've already explained that my "we can't fit everything onto one page" comment was not an attempt to address anything that you wrote. It was merely a general statement regarding why we limit the amount of content that we seek to include. I'm not claiming that you advocate "presenting countless links on the main page." —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- So far you've said that we should try to keep the reader-oriented content on the main page short, but there's no reason to go as extremely minimalistic as the current main page is (one word for each vast topic).
- It still stands that our main page is highly oriented toward praising the work of editors, and not oriented toward helping readers find content quickly and easily. Instead, we shift that responsibility onto sub-pages that are ridiculous jokes. We should take back that responsibility, keep this page reader-oriented, and fix the problem. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 21:52
- 1. Obviously, I disagree with your assessment. I believe that that simple, succinct links are the best means of directing readers to the appropriate content. I believe that additional clutter would only distract and confuse people. —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- You're oversimplifying the debate. There's a difference between keeping it simple and being overly minimalistic. The current version is as minimal as it gets, but there are more detailed versions (such as the breakdown on the Italian main page) that are simple, yet more functional, useful, and reader-oriented. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 23:08
- I'm oversimplifying nothing. I disagree with you. I believe that our current main page is practical, accessible, inviting and aesthetically pleasing. I believe that the Italian main page is cluttered, disorganized, overly fancy and less functional. You're entitled to disagree, but please stop attempting to invalidate my opinion. —David Levy 00:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- You're oversimplifying the debate. There's a difference between keeping it simple and being overly minimalistic. The current version is as minimal as it gets, but there are more detailed versions (such as the breakdown on the Italian main page) that are simple, yet more functional, useful, and reader-oriented. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 23:08
- 2. Again, your belief that the pages in question are "ridiculous jokes" has no bearing on the optimal location of the information contained therein (which should be improved regardless). —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- You've replied to my 2 words "ridiculous jokes", and not to the rest of my comment. As I said, we should shift the responsibility back to the main page, which is what we present first and foremost to every reader. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 23:08
- I replied to the rest of your comment above (under point "1") by plainly stating that I disagree with you. —David Levy 00:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Well, clearly this is some brand of consensus-building I've never heard of. Can you explain how two people come to a middle-ground when one of them repeatedly states only, "I disagree with you". — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:08
- 1. I have not stated "only" that I disagree with you. I've cited the reasons why I disagree with you. 2. What gave you the idea that consensus must be build via "middle-ground" compromise? Please read Misplaced Pages:Consensus. —David Levy 01:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Middle-ground is the usual outcome, especially when someone will only keep saying "I disagree". — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:55
- Again, I haven't "only" stated that I disagree. I've made a good faith effort to accurately and appropriately describe my view on the subject (including the reasons behind my disagreement). What am I supposed to do? Say that I agree? Say that I agree halfway? I don't! Do you want me to pretend that I do?
- If one person claims that a cat is black, and another contends that the same cat is white, this doesn't obligate both to agree on the "middle-ground" statement that the cat is black-and-white (or gray). Consensus sometimes lies somewhere in the middle, but not always. —David Levy 02:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Middle-ground is the usual outcome, especially when someone will only keep saying "I disagree". — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:55
- 1. I have not stated "only" that I disagree with you. I've cited the reasons why I disagree with you. 2. What gave you the idea that consensus must be build via "middle-ground" compromise? Please read Misplaced Pages:Consensus. —David Levy 01:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Well, clearly this is some brand of consensus-building I've never heard of. Can you explain how two people come to a middle-ground when one of them repeatedly states only, "I disagree with you". — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:08
- I replied to the rest of your comment above (under point "1") by plainly stating that I disagree with you. —David Levy 00:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- You've replied to my 2 words "ridiculous jokes", and not to the rest of my comment. As I said, we should shift the responsibility back to the main page, which is what we present first and foremost to every reader. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 23:08
- 1. Obviously, I disagree with your assessment. I believe that that simple, succinct links are the best means of directing readers to the appropriate content. I believe that additional clutter would only distract and confuse people. —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Yes, you've stated your votes, but you haven't backed them up with rationale. The last rationale was about why "fitting everything onto one page" is a bad idea... but nobody was suggesting we do that; you've lumped my suggestion into one extreme (presenting countless links on the main page) to uphold your other extreme (presenting the bare minimum) when my suggestion is closer to your end of the spectrum. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 21:52
- That isn't what I wrote (unless you define "everything"—which was not intended to reference anything that you wrote—as "a longer portal list"). I'm stating my opinion that including such a section, while possible, is a bad idea. I'm stating my opinion that it's better to include a link to a separate page. I'm stating my opinion that the Italian main page design (which includes such a section) is poor. I'm stating my opinion that our design (which includes a link to a separate page) is good. I don't know how I can make myself any clearer. —David Levy 21:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you for that logical fallacy. I haven't proposed that we "fit everything onto one page", or even close to that. I'm proposing a block smaller than On This Day that provides quick links to general subjects for readers, so that they can easily find more specific subjects. How is it that the Italian Misplaced Pages can do it, but, in your words, "we can't"? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 20:57
- We can't fit everything onto one page (nor would we want to, as this would be overwhelming), so we use the main page as a means of directing readers to the appropriate content (conveniently broken down into separate pages). This quickly establishes the type of navigation used throughout the encyclopedia. —David Levy 20:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Image:DSCN0745.JPG ;) --Monotonehell 21:31, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Adopt the Italian Misplaced Pages's layout?
Would anyone else like to see us adopt some form of the new Italian Misplaced Pages layout (except for the icons-halfway-under effect)? (here's a babelfish translation to better understand the layout) Of course, it will never happen, but one can always dream... — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 17:12
- Absolutely not! (See above.) —David Levy 17:21, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't say to adopt it exactly. (see above) — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 17:31
- I'm saying that we shouldn't adopt it at all. —David Levy 17:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I like plain and boring..... Childzy 21:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I'm saying that we shouldn't adopt it at all. —David Levy 17:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't say to adopt it exactly. (see above) — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 17:31
- I don't like the design at all - I prefer clean and simple. --Tim1988 21:36, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't say adopt the colors/icons. I said adopt the layout. I only care about the functionality and usability. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:02
- In my opinion, both the aesthetic design and the layout are poor. —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't say adopt the colors/icons. I said adopt the layout. I only care about the functionality and usability. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:02
- it looks nice. although my first thought is "spam website". It has nice and flashy design details, and you'd be tired of them within a month. dab (ᛏ) 21:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't say adopt the colors/icons. I said adopt the layout. I only care about the functionality and usability. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:02
- In my opinion, both the aesthetic design and the layout are poor. —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't say adopt the colors/icons. I said adopt the layout. I only care about the functionality and usability. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:02
- I'll just say: death before pastels and shiny big icons! They invade our message boxes, and we fall back. They assimilate entire front pages, and we fall back! Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!
- I didn't say adopt the colors/icons. I said adopt the layout. I only care about the functionality and usability. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:02
- In my opinion, both the aesthetic design and the layout are poor. —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't say adopt the colors/icons. I said adopt the layout. I only care about the functionality and usability. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:02
- I think our present page is cute enough without being a Mac OS/Windows Vista wannabe like the Italian Main Page is. Have we no shame? JRM · Talk 21:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't say adopt the colors/icons. I said adopt the layout. I only care about the functionality and usability. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:02
- What are you implying, Brian? That we shouldn't adopt some aspects of the layout? :-P JRM · Talk 22:30, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- In my opinion, both the aesthetic design and the layout are poor. —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I didn't say adopt the colors/icons. I said adopt the layout. I only care about the functionality and usability. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:02
- translucency is the "blink tag" of the 2000s :) dab (ᛏ) 21:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- If done well it looks good. The it.wp guys haven't done it well. But I think Brian was speaking more to the content rather than the form. There's a few good ideas in there that could be taken onboard. Especially the way they've handled the "news", making it totally un-newsy. --Monotonehell 21:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I'm expressing my distaste for the form especially because nobody else seemed to do so. I'll leave the content to people who are less superficial. :-) JRM · Talk 22:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- "Nobody else"... except for Tim1988, Dbachmann, Childzy, a couple anons, etc. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:16
- I got the impression they focused on what they thought were bugs, which turned out to be design choices. I haven't seen anyone say they hate pastels yet, which I do. So there!
- Ignore me, I'm just the peanut gallery. I don't actually want to contribute to discussions on the Main Page layout, because, as you've noticed, it takes huge reams of comments to get anywhere. If anywhere. JRM · Talk 22:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- "Nobody else"... except for Tim1988, Dbachmann, Childzy, a couple anons, etc. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:16
- I'm expressing my distaste for the form especially because nobody else seemed to do so. I'll leave the content to people who are less superficial. :-) JRM · Talk 22:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- If done well it looks good. The it.wp guys haven't done it well. But I think Brian was speaking more to the content rather than the form. There's a few good ideas in there that could be taken onboard. Especially the way they've handled the "news", making it totally un-newsy. --Monotonehell 21:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- translucency is the "blink tag" of the 2000s :) dab (ᛏ) 21:53, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you for looking beyond the colors and icons! There is hope among us yet :) So, yes, the news section is definitely more article-oriented and less like a news-ticker. Are there any other aspects of the layout that you like? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:05
- I'm all for such reform of In the news. —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- So, "the aesthetic design and the layout are poor", and "we shouldn't adopt it at all", but we should adopt their ITN? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 23:01
- I support the idea of making the section "more article-oriented and less like a news ticker." This has absolutely nothing to do with the page's aesthetic design and layout. —David Levy 00:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- You said, "we shouldn't adopt it at all". Then, you said "I'm all for such reform of In the news." If you didn't mean that you were for this reform, but simply for reform in general, then you need to clarify. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:05
- The "it" in "we shouldn't adopt it at all" refers strictly to the page layout. In no way does this statement (or any of my similar remarks) pertain to the individual sections' editorial content. —David Levy 01:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Ha! Suuure.... — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:58
- You: "Would anyone else like to see us adopt some form of the new Italian Misplaced Pages layout (except for the icons-halfway-under effect)?"
- Me: "Absolutely not! (See above.)"
- You: "I didn't say to adopt it exactly. (see above)"
- Me: "I'm saying that we shouldn't adopt it at all."
- I expect an apology for your rude implication that I was lying. —David Levy 02:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying that I get the impression that you alter the reasons behind your statements as it becomes necessary for you to do so. I considered the layout of the news section to be part of the overall "layout", while you seem to have chosen a more restrictive definition of "layout". Whether or not you chose that definition from the very beginning, I don't know. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 01:05
- 1. Of course you accused me of lying. 2. I'm not referring to the "layout of the news section." I'm referring to its editorial content. 3. Please examine all of the comments that I've made "from the very beginning" (including numerous criticisms of specific design elements). Now find one instance (other than the above regarding In the news) in which I commented upon the editorial content of any section (as opposed to its aesthetic appearance or location on the page). —David Levy 02:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not saying you're lying. I'm saying that I get the impression that you alter the reasons behind your statements as it becomes necessary for you to do so. I considered the layout of the news section to be part of the overall "layout", while you seem to have chosen a more restrictive definition of "layout". Whether or not you chose that definition from the very beginning, I don't know. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 01:05
- Ha! Suuure.... — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:58
- The "it" in "we shouldn't adopt it at all" refers strictly to the page layout. In no way does this statement (or any of my similar remarks) pertain to the individual sections' editorial content. —David Levy 01:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- You said, "we shouldn't adopt it at all". Then, you said "I'm all for such reform of In the news." If you didn't mean that you were for this reform, but simply for reform in general, then you need to clarify. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:05
- I support the idea of making the section "more article-oriented and less like a news ticker." This has absolutely nothing to do with the page's aesthetic design and layout. —David Levy 00:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- So, "the aesthetic design and the layout are poor", and "we shouldn't adopt it at all", but we should adopt their ITN? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 23:01
- I'm all for such reform of In the news. —David Levy 22:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you for looking beyond the colors and icons! There is hope among us yet :) So, yes, the news section is definitely more article-oriented and less like a news-ticker. Are there any other aspects of the layout that you like? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:05
- Firstly I think the it.wp mp is too cluttered. But I like the functional idea of the Contents down the right column and the content down the left side, this means those looking for information have a starting point. Although the search box should probably be associated with the contents. -- The first thing that should be catered for is new users and they've addressed this with the selections directly below the welcome bar. The community links below are probably a good idea, pointing people off in appropriate directions. All the links included there would need to be thought through and justified well. -- Then they've put their featured item, did you know and on this day (inclusive of news) in a much better format than we have. I believe it's becoming hard to keep the quality of items up due to there being a limited amount of quality articles left to feature. Reducing those to one a day would help this. They've suceeded in taking the news ticker aspect right out of the front page, which removes the current conflict ITN has with wikinews. --Monotonehell 22:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE trying to read several columns of info. It's not a natural reading style. Keep it simple. (And yes, the cutesy pics and colours are positively barf-worthy too.) --24.79.238.235 07:51, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Language list revision
- alright, what we could learn from them is their handling of "other languages". The ten largest wikis, plus minor related (Romance) languages. That's it. Click here for the full list. We need to get rid of the 'other languages cruft' here, at least of the below-10,000-articles ones. dab (ᛏ) 21:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed. Our list on the main page is basically useless as it stands. I suggest that we list the 10,000+ wikis, as well as the other world languages that have populations larger than the least-spoken of the 10,000+, and keep the rest on the separate list of wikis. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:08
- why 'the other world languages that have populations larger than the least-spoken of the 10,000+'? I think we need to remember that this is the English language Misplaced Pages, not the Terran Federation one, so the only 'small' languages that I can see should get special treatment are, arguably, Gaelic and Welsh, for being minority languages within an English-speaking country. Or if that is controversial, just the largest ones, say 50,000+, period. dab (ᛏ) 23:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- I think you misunderstood me. We should present the largest Wikipedias (100,000+), because they are our best work, but we should also present the Wikipedias that represent the largest languages, to counteract the bias of our pool of editors. So, for example, we'd list German, Spanish, etc, because they have 100,000+ articles, but we'd also list Chinese, which represents over 1/6 of the world. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 23:13
- why 'the other world languages that have populations larger than the least-spoken of the 10,000+'? I think we need to remember that this is the English language Misplaced Pages, not the Terran Federation one, so the only 'small' languages that I can see should get special treatment are, arguably, Gaelic and Welsh, for being minority languages within an English-speaking country. Or if that is controversial, just the largest ones, say 50,000+, period. dab (ᛏ) 23:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed. Our list on the main page is basically useless as it stands. I suggest that we list the 10,000+ wikis, as well as the other world languages that have populations larger than the least-spoken of the 10,000+, and keep the rest on the separate list of wikis. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 22:08
- There's of course the 'third' option, where we list none at all, but simply link to here or here on the principle that they've already done it better. --Monotonehell 23:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
Proposal
How about this:
- Deutsch (German) · Español (Spanish) · Français (French) · Italiano (Italian) · 日本語 (Japanese) · Nederlands (Dutch) · Polski (Polish) · Português (Portuguese) · Svenska (Swedish)
but also include:
- 中文 (Chinese) · हिन्दी (Hindi) · Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) · Bahasa Melayu (Malay) ·Template:Ar(Arabic) · বাংলা (Bengali) · Русский (Russian) · ਮੁੱਖ ਪੰਨਾ (Punjabi)
That covers the 100,000+ Wikipedias, as well as all the languages with 100 million+ speakers. All the rest would be listed on the complete list of Wikipedias. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-22 23:23
- I just found out that my unicode font doesn't include Bengali and Punjabi. That's 17 list items, such an awkward number. But yes I like your de-bias-ing rationale behind it. I do believe that we should put less emphasis on being the repository of links when there's a perfectly good portal for all of WP at www.wikipedia.org. --Monotonehell 23:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Alright, I will invoke the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle and see where we go from there. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 00:38
- How about patiently continuing the discussion and establishing consensus instead? —David Levy 00:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- People usually comment on a change when they notice the change. Invoking the change early is not done as a means to say that the change should be finalized early, but simply to get the attention of anyone interested. Otherwise, we are only getting the attention of anyone who happens to frequent this talk page, while leaving other people out of the whole consensus-building process. Read WP:BRD. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 00:54
- I don't believe that such a strategy should be applied to the main page. It's viewed by many as "official" (so revert wars are embarrassing), and only sysops are capable of reverting. Unlike many talk pages, this one is read by a large number of people, so there should be no shortage of feedback. —David Levy 01:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Did you read WP:BRD? It specifically says not to revert war. So, why would there be revert wars? Regardless of who actually has the talk page on their watchlist, far more people actually view the main page. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:51
- Why do you expect everyone to abide by the terms of the essay that you've unilaterally applied? —David Levy 02:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Alright, you've belittled it for being a mere "essay". Now show what's wrong with its content. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 22:45
- I did not belittle the essay. I inquired as to why you believe that all editors would heed its advice (irrespective of whether it's good).
- I just boldly switched to a compromise version of the list. If someone reverts to your version, this will violate WP:BRD. Let's see what happens. —David Levy 00:02, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- You don't seem to understand BRD at all... but do as you please. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 00:15
- Your changes constituted "B." Mine were tantamount to "R." The next step is supposed to be "D," not "R." —David Levy 00:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- My intial change was B, as were my subsequent later changes based on the discussion here. Yours was also B. Nobody has gone to R. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 01:10
- My "B" was a partial "R" (which counts as an "R" under actual policy). If anything, the fact that it was an attempt at compromise (rather than a complete "R") meant that it was worse for someone else to "R."
- Incidentally, we both sound pedantic and utterly ridiculous. —David Levy 02:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- My intial change was B, as were my subsequent later changes based on the discussion here. Yours was also B. Nobody has gone to R. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 01:10
- Your changes constituted "B." Mine were tantamount to "R." The next step is supposed to be "D," not "R." —David Levy 00:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- You don't seem to understand BRD at all... but do as you please. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 00:15
- Alright, you've belittled it for being a mere "essay". Now show what's wrong with its content. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 22:45
- Why do you expect everyone to abide by the terms of the essay that you've unilaterally applied? —David Levy 02:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Did you read WP:BRD? It specifically says not to revert war. So, why would there be revert wars? Regardless of who actually has the talk page on their watchlist, far more people actually view the main page. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:51
- I don't believe that such a strategy should be applied to the main page. It's viewed by many as "official" (so revert wars are embarrassing), and only sysops are capable of reverting. Unlike many talk pages, this one is read by a large number of people, so there should be no shortage of feedback. —David Levy 01:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- People usually comment on a change when they notice the change. Invoking the change early is not done as a means to say that the change should be finalized early, but simply to get the attention of anyone interested. Otherwise, we are only getting the attention of anyone who happens to frequent this talk page, while leaving other people out of the whole consensus-building process. Read WP:BRD. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 00:54
- How about patiently continuing the discussion and establishing consensus instead? —David Levy 00:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Alright, I will invoke the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle and see where we go from there. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 00:38
- It should be noted, however, that the idea of including fewer language editions was discussed and rejected during the main page redesign process, so your "boldness" defies an existing consensus. It is, of course, appropriate to seek a new consensus. (For the record, I'm undecided.) —David Levy 01:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Was the change actually "rejected" in that a supermajority of the voters were opposed to it, or was there no supermajority either way? In any case, "consensus" is simply a means to bring those currently involved in discussion toward an agreement. If you look at a page like Creation science, for example, consensus is always changing. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:51
- Err... the page you cited is simply an essay: consisting of opinion, no more, no less. I could very well write up a page saying the opposite: work on consensus if there is disagreement, and then implement changes, especially on high profile pages that aren't true articles. For what it's worth, I disagree with the change: the template was fine before; it was concise enough, while demonstrating more of the other languages. Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- You believe that this massive list-o-links was useful to readers??? It's practically unmanageable. It's also biased toward languages that our pool of editors is willing to edit. For example, it doesn't list Punjabi, which is spoken by more people than most of the other languages on the page. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 02:02
- If I recall correctly, a majority (but not necessarily a supermajority, depending upon one's definition) opposed the modification. Yes, consensus is subject to change. I had mixed feelings, and I still do. —David Levy 02:38, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- So you are for having the bare minimum of links to portals and explanatory pages, but you have mixed feelings about a massive unformatted list of Wikipedias? Can you explain further? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 02:41
- Please stop asking loaded questions. I don't agree that our main page contains "the bare minimum of links to portals and explanatory pages," nor do I agree that the list in question was "unformatted."
- I do believe that space is less of a concern here, because the section is at the very bottom of the page. (This change was made during the redesign process. When Misplaced Pages languages was the second-to-last section, there was more support for the idea of either removing the "1,000" level or hiding it by default. This faded when Misplaced Pages languages and Misplaced Pages's sister projects swapped positions.) At the same time, I feel that "1,000 articles" might be an unreasonably low threshold. —David Levy 02:57, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- So you are for having the bare minimum of links to portals and explanatory pages, but you have mixed feelings about a massive unformatted list of Wikipedias? Can you explain further? — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 02:41
- Err... the page you cited is simply an essay: consisting of opinion, no more, no less. I could very well write up a page saying the opposite: work on consensus if there is disagreement, and then implement changes, especially on high profile pages that aren't true articles. For what it's worth, I disagree with the change: the template was fine before; it was concise enough, while demonstrating more of the other languages. Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Was the change actually "rejected" in that a supermajority of the voters were opposed to it, or was there no supermajority either way? In any case, "consensus" is simply a means to bring those currently involved in discussion toward an agreement. If you look at a page like Creation science, for example, consensus is always changing. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 01:51
- It should be noted, however, that the idea of including fewer language editions was discussed and rejected during the main page redesign process, so your "boldness" defies an existing consensus. It is, of course, appropriate to seek a new consensus. (For the record, I'm undecided.) —David Levy 01:43, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
(deindenting) I'd agree with that list, but would consider adding the Simple English Misplaced Pages, given its connection to the English-language Misplaced Pages. GeeJo ⁄(c) • 02:11, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Sounds like a good idea. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 02:15
- Ah, another minor edit. A point needs to be inserted between العربية (Arabic) and বাংলা (Bengali). GeeJo ⁄(c) • 02:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm wondering if it might be good to put the link to the wikipidias in a slightly bigger font than the link to the en article about the language. Aside from making it clearer what links to the other wikipedias, it also could fill up the white space in the second line that looks pretty awkward in many resolutions. zafiroblue05 | Talk 03:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. I offer the following arguments against the short list of languages:
- A longer list of languages is a tiny price for improving multilingual coordination. The English-language Misplaced Pages has a special role in multilingual coordination due to the international scope of the English language and the large size and influence of the English-language Misplaced Pages.
- You talk about "the English language Misplaced Pages" as if all of its importance must be conveyed on the main page. I fully understand the position we're in, but the previous version was a complete mess of links that I could never see a user sifting through to find what they want. The complete list of Wikipedias looks much better and is easier to scan through. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 11:17
- We can't clearly draw lines like "languages with over 100 million native speakers" using available evidence. In particular, estimates of numbers of native speakers come from sources with imperfect and widely varying reliability. Yet they rarely state a margin of error.
- There are other factors in the relative importance of languages besides the number of native speakers.
- The relative importance of languages is a frequently contentious political issue. I hope that Misplaced Pages does not have an opinion on the issue. The size of Misplaced Pages's various language editions, and alphabetic order by ISO code, might be the only appropriate ways for Misplaced Pages to rank languages. For some language editions of Misplaced Pages, it might make sense for the main page to give special mention to specially related languages.
- On the English-language main page, I think the only edition that might merit special mention is Simple English. (I'm not as concerned about this point as the others.)
- In general, each article in the English-language Misplaced Pages lists all of its versions in other languages. I don't see why the main page should depart from this rule. The "in other languages" list is a useful navigation feature. It is particularly useful to people who are not monolingual. Those people are the majority in this world, including about 40% of English speakers (according to Ethnologue).
- Twenty languages are not enough. Considering articles World population and List of languages by number of native speakers, I would suppose that the native speakers of those twenty languages leave out some 40-50% of the world's population.
- More like 35%. The problem with your argument is that it would take far more than adding another 20 to get anywhere close to even 70 or 80% of the population, since the number of speakers drops rather quickly once you get below 100 million. Just out of curiosity, how much of the population did the old page cover? My guess is only about 70-75%, over the current ~65%. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 11:17
- The current twenty languages exclude many languages of substantial importance:
- All Eastern European languages except Russian.
- All Scandanavian languages except Swedish.
- Korean.
- Hebrew (more articles than Arabic, Malay, Bengali, Hindi, and Punjabi put together; more edits than Russian).
- Turkish (more users than Swedish).
- Esperanto (1000x the articles of Punjabi). --Hoziron 05:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- But why are they "of substantial importance"? You said that we should avoid getting political, but your suggestions here seem exactly the way to start getting political. "Importance" is very subjective. "10,000+" is completely objective, and "100 million+" is almost completely objective. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 11:17
I'm very happy with the new section - it's much closer to what the main page when we originally switched to this layout; the language list was never meant to grow by a factor of 5 - it just happened to so slowly as to avoid complaint - this doesn't mean it was a good thing. Raul654 06:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- That's exactly the sort of thing that slowly turns featured articles into crap--small changes that are alright by themselves, but in large numbers make the article a total mess. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 11:01
Oh finally the evil has been curbed! Much, much better. violet/riga (t) 07:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
It was very hard to find a particular Misplaced Pages in that old list anyway - far too many sections. The disadvantage of this new style is that it is highlighting what are currently some of Wikimedia's duffest projects (the Punjabi Misplaced Pages currently has a "Nobody has really started on this section" notice - in English - on the front page and not even 50 articles!) and it is hiding some of the best other-language Wikipedias. What the language list fails to take into account is that readership of Misplaced Pages varies widely from country to country - there are some stats on this somewhere, and I particularly remember that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have extremely low readership. This is presumably one of the reasons the Punjabi Misplaced Pages is currently so dire. While I like the idea that highlighting the Punjabi edition helps counter systemic bias, it's very unlikely to actually draw in new editors. English Misplaced Pages probably does get more traffic from Hebrew-speakers than Punjabi-speakers, despite the gap in numbers of speakers. On the other hand, we obviously can't use readership-by-language stats directly to pick the selected Wikipedias. May I please make a strong suggestion that would substantially address this? Setting the cut-off at 50,000 articles would substantially address the problem by including more of the other major Wikipedias. (In fact 30 or 40,000 might be a better choice, but that number seems a little too arbitrary). I suspect there is a strong correlation between usage of en: Misplaced Pages by a particular language group and the size of that language's Misplaced Pages (Punjabi certainly bears that out) so this would also mean that the displayed Wikipedias were more representative of - and useful for - our front page readership. Here's how it would look:
This is the English language Misplaced Pages. Started in 2001, it currently contains 6,931,905 articles. Wikipedias are also being written in many other languages:
- More than 50,000 articles:
Deutsch (German) · Español (Spanish) · Esperanto (Esperanto) ·Suomi (Finnish) · Français (French) · Italiano (Italian) · 日本語 (Japanese) · Nederlands (Dutch) · Norsk bokmål (Norwegian) · Polski (Polish) · Português (Portuguese) · Русский (Russian) · Svenska (Swedish) · 中文 (Chinese)
- Other languages with more than 100 million speakers:
हिन्दी (Hindi) · Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian) · Bahasa Melayu (Malay) · ] (Arabic) · বাংলা (Bengali) · ਪੰਜਾਬੀ,پنجابی (Punjabi)
Complete list · Multilingual coordination · Start a Misplaced Pages in another language
The 100,000 articles line in the sand is pretty arbitrary, I think switching to 50,000:
- shows off more of our better projects (any WP with 50,000 articles deserves to be called an encyclopedia - 49 articles, on the other hand, doesn't)
- reflects better the language skills of those reading the page
- permanently solves the whitespace problem on the 2nd line
- seems to at least temporarily solve it on the 1st section
- is still easily browsable.
It might be an idea to sort the first section other than by language code. I would like to emphasise that my suggestion does not entail continual bloat of the number of WPs shown - if a bloat is approaching, whack the line in the sand up. The 50,000 or 100,000 (or 250,000...) is basically arbitrary. Let's just pick it so that it highlights a decent but easily navigable number of our best projects. The current number highlighted is too low, the previous number too high.
Another thing that really irked me about the current rewrite is the "More than 100 million speakers" when it actually means "Other languages with more than 100 million speakers". In fact, I'm not sure that even that is quite right (maybe it implies that Polish in the top row does have 100 million speakers) but it is definitely closer to the key idea: we don't repeat English and Spanish, which clearly do have 100 million speakers, on the bottom row too. Could somebody either change that or suggest a better alternative? TheGrappler 15:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- I agree with your suggestions, but am unsure what to do about the "More than 100 million speakers" bit. It should be pretty obvious to people that the reason an entry isn't in the 2nd set is because it's already in the first set (eg, Spanish). — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 16:16
- It just seems silly to be obvious and wrong. At least the "Other languages with more..." is only subtly wrong, if that! Would you mind updating it to my suggestion? Plus or minus the "other languages...", as you see fit. I'd be bold and do it myself but I'm not an admin. It looks a little scrawny at the moment, which can't be helping your argument. There's also the question of ordering - I am drifting towards the idea of ordering by English name for the language, in both of the two sections. Ordering the second by size seems odd if several languages are in the first section instead. Ordering the first section by Misplaced Pages size makes a degree of sense but would make it harder to find a particular language in the list. Sorting by language code isn't obvious to the general reader. TheGrappler 17:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Alright, I've updated it. I used "Additional languages" instead of "Other languages", but if you find a better synonym for "other", please reply here. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-23 19:50
- It just seems silly to be obvious and wrong. At least the "Other languages with more..." is only subtly wrong, if that! Would you mind updating it to my suggestion? Plus or minus the "other languages...", as you see fit. I'd be bold and do it myself but I'm not an admin. It looks a little scrawny at the moment, which can't be helping your argument. There's also the question of ordering - I am drifting towards the idea of ordering by English name for the language, in both of the two sections. Ordering the second by size seems odd if several languages are in the first section instead. Ordering the first section by Misplaced Pages size makes a degree of sense but would make it harder to find a particular language in the list. Sorting by language code isn't obvious to the general reader. TheGrappler 17:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Compromise version
Based upon the concerns expressed above (and both the favorable and unfavorable criticisms of the new setup), I created a compromise version that still contains well under half as many language editions as before. To improve accessibility, I increased the font size (except for the article links) from 95% to 100%. I also tweaked the introduction's wording, added a link to English language, bolded the middots (to improve their visibility and match those at the top of the main page), and used non-breaking spaces to prevent the interwiki links from being separated from the corresponding article links.
As noted above, the "quantity of speakers in the world" criterion relies upon unverifiable (and controversial) statistics, and it fails to consider the number of Misplaced Pages users per language (which tends to directly correspond to the number of articles per edition). It also necessitates the inclusion of the Punjabi Misplaced Pages (which is practically nonexistent) and the Bengali and Hindi Wikipedias (which are rather small). Those are the only three that I've removed.
Meanwhile, we aren't going to improve international relations (or reduce the appearance of "bias") by including the Arabic Misplaced Pages (containing fewer than 16,000 articles) and excluding the Hebrew Misplaced Pages (containing more than 41,000 articles).
The obvious solution is the reversion to a multi-tiered "quantity of articles"-based setup, but with a threshold much higher than "1,000" (but lower than "50,000"). "10,000" presently seems reasonable, but this can be occasionally increased (along with the other two tiers) as all of the Wikipedias grow.
Numerically, "30,000" makes slightly more sense for the middle tier than "25,000," but the latter currently results in much more even division.
I'll note that if additional size reduction is desired, we could drop the "10,000" tier entirely. I believe that this would be of little benefit, however, as this would only remove text from the very bottom of the page. As the Wikipedias in question are in decent shape, I see no harm in listing them. —David Levy 00:02, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Your argument throws up a lot of FUD about the statistics concerning the number of speakers. Now, please answer this: Are you suggesting that any one of the languages that was listed under "100 million+" actually has fewer speakers than any of the 200+ languages that were not listed under "100 million+"? If not, then what foundation is there for your argument against listing the largest languages in the world? Sure, "100 million" may not be a perfectly accurate number, but we have to draw the line somewhere based on the evidence at hand. "FUD, FUD, FUD" accomplishes nothing. We should be revealing our shortcomings, and encouraging others to help counteract this bias. Your version embraces this bias to an even larger degree, by showing off even more languages that outrank some of the largest in the world, and removing the list of largest languages. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 00:19
- 1. The statistics in question are estimates that we have no means of verifying. The quantities of articles, conversely, are 100% verifiable.
- 2. The number of speakers per language is far less relevant than the number of Misplaced Pages users per language (which tends to directly correspond to the number of articles per edition). There might be a billion speakers of "Zxelquent" on another planet, but they aren't using Misplaced Pages.
- 3. We aren't demonstrating bias against any languages. We're demonstrating bias against small Wikipedias. The goal is to link to Wikipedias that serve as useful resources, not to one with fewer than 100 articles! The language in question is spoken by a large number of people, but that doesn't change the fact that there's practically nothing there for them to read.
- 4. With or without the "10,000" tier, the current list is short, manageable and fairly evenly divided, and it contains only Wikipedias in reasonably good shape. —David Levy 00:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I thought that the purpose of linking to small Wikipedias from the largest languages was similar to one of the purposes of DYK: to encourage people to participate in editing/expansion, and also, in this case, counteracting systematic bias. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 01:03
- That's a secondary goal, but we have to draw the line somewhere (and we absolutely shouldn't link to a Misplaced Pages that's barely gotten started). As noted above, the number of people in the world who speak a language does not necessarily correspond to the number of available Misplaced Pages readers/editors. The quantity of articles per edition is our best available gauge. —David Levy 02:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I thought that the purpose of linking to small Wikipedias from the largest languages was similar to one of the purposes of DYK: to encourage people to participate in editing/expansion, and also, in this case, counteracting systematic bias. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 01:03
- Let me just point out - on behalf of the speakers of all the "non-important" (because not spoken by 1 bn people or so) languages - that this topic has been dealt with here several times thoroughly and the final consesus has always been that we also keep the smaller languages at the bottom of the page. The last version (that D. Levy managed to revert, fortunately) was useless, magalomanic, politically incorrect, insensible, impractical, ignorant, against the general wikipedia-spirit, and against users switching between several language versions. I am mentioning this here, because I see that the adherents of this side have not noticed this discussion and are nor so loud as one overly active user above. Juro 00:16, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Can you provide links to these past "final consensuses", and then explain why exactly these past discussions should prevent present and future changes? (Otherwise, why even bring them up?) If users want to easily switch between language versions, they can simply go to the m:List of Wikipedias, linked right on the main page. As for your long list ("magalomanic", "politically incorrect", etc), these are a bunch of words without any arguments. Thus, it is simply a list o' FUD. If you would like to provide rationale, we could possibly reach consensus. Until then, your statements have no foundation. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 00:29
The current version (David Levy's version sans the 10,000k section) looks good to me. It's aestehtically appealing because it is approximately the same size as the 'sister projects' and 'Other areas of Misplaced Pages' and it includes virtually all of the important languages. Raul654 00:42, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- While I would prefer to retain the "10,000" tier, the current setup is acceptable. —David Levy 00:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I'd like to include the couple languages that are "100 million+" but below 25k articles, but this looks alright. At least we have the top 5. — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 00:59
I have no idea why the "importance of languages" is being discussed. This is about linking important Misplaced Pages projects, not "important languages". Punjabi is a major language. pa-wiki has 49 articles. Hence, no matter how important Punjabi may be, pa-wiki is not linkworthy. This is English wikipedia, not United-Nations-Misplaced Pages, hence we have no responsibility to link minor projects. dab (ᛏ) 19:35, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Because it's a rather obvious systematic bias. One of the largest languages in the world has one of the smallest Wikipedias. To not link to it seems like we're trying to hide our inherent bias. But maybe that's something more appropriate for www.wikipedia.org — BRIAN0918 • 2006-07-24 23:54
Judging by the discussion above, Brian0918 clearly has a lot of energy that needs a useful outlet. Perhaps he could Punjabi (one of the largest languages in the world, after all), and translate some articles...? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:59, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
War between islam and christianity now and then
There should be something on the frontpage about the 550 year old defence and battle of Fort Nándorfehérvár, one of the most decisive early victories against ottoman turkish conquest in Europe. The 550 year celebrations are held during this weekend throughout Hungary. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/Siege_of_Belgrade —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.70.32.136 (talk • contribs) 17:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC).
- Great idea, so write the article, place it as a date on July 12, and it will probably appear next year.--Dhartung | Talk 20:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
- Way to go, that should put him in his place. -- klaus
- Misplaced Pages:Don't bite the newbies. But people do have to realize that the absence of their pet topic should be an incentive for them to get involved. --Dhartung | Talk 04:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Way to go, that should put him in his place. -- klaus
- This 1456 event was indeed a selected anniversary that day and was shown on MainPage for 24 hours straight. I'm not sure what the problem is. --PFHLai 16:03, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Weasel words in FA intro?
The intro to today's FA now reads: In the 1992 presidential election campaign, Pat Buchanan made extensive use of the phrase in his surprisingly strong challenge to Bush in the Republican primaries. I can't help but ask, "Surprising to whom?" Does this seem like weasel wording or POV commentary to anyone else? Would this be better asked on the article's talk page as it's in the article without any citation there as well? Dismas| 00:22, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- I agree. I think it should be changed to merely "in his challenge to Bush", as the point you brought up, and the question "Strong, compared to what?" should be reason enough to eliminate them both. Picaroon9288 02:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- A sitting president usually has a breeze in the primaries; Bush did not. It was a stronger challenge than most sitting presidents get. Raul654 06:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- True, but it sounds like a prejudgement of Pitchfork Pat. Not that such a judgement would be unwarranted (from Crossfire to the Oval Office?), but that "surprising" was inappropriate. --Dhartung | Talk 05:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I disagree, the grandparent has it right: the surprise was that Bush got any opposition at all, not over who the opponent was. A revision: In the 1992 presidential election campaign, Pat Buchanan made extensive use of the phrase in his unusually strong showing against the normally-unchallenged incumbent Bush in the Republican primaries., which better conveys what was so unusual.
- True, but it sounds like a prejudgement of Pitchfork Pat. Not that such a judgement would be unwarranted (from Crossfire to the Oval Office?), but that "surprising" was inappropriate. --Dhartung | Talk 05:07, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- A sitting president usually has a breeze in the primaries; Bush did not. It was a stronger challenge than most sitting presidents get. Raul654 06:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
"mounting military and civilian casualties on both sides"
Implies some kind of parity. In fact, Lebanese deaths are an order of magnitude higher than Israeli losses. In this report - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5206470.stm - are the values "More than 350 Lebanese have been killed in the 11 days of violence, many of them civilians. Thirty-four Israelis have been killed, including 15 civilians killed by rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel." That's a factor of 10:1. The phrasing on the front page is misleading. "ounting military and civilian casualties, particularly on the Lebanaese side." would be a fairer reflection of the true state of affairs.
- Bear in mind that the ITN blurb isn't designed to act as a full news story. As it stands, it's already the longest blurb up there, and is both neutral and accurate. Those interested in learning more can click on the link provided to do so. GeeJo ⁄(c) • 02:06, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- I think it rather non-neutral for precisely the reason described above: it treats as equal an order of magnitude difference. Yesterday, I had a copy of the Observer which cites this exact phrasing in reference to media bias (tossed it, or I'd give the quote). Whether they were referring to Wiki itself I don't know. Marskell 14:56, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Nothing in the statement implies equality of the losses, only that both "sides" are suffering "increasing" loss, which is fact if you accept there are two sides, which I do not. Again this points to the idiotic concept of NOPV, how do you state something on this without someone seeing it as biased. And probably the only way to state it without someone seeing it as biased would be to remove the true meaning from what is happening. For example even the use of the word "sides" gives me some problem since Lebanon is not at war, Israel is a side, but Hizbollah is a faction not a nation, so which is the side, the headline implies that this is a war between nations, that everyone killed on one side is part of a group as opposed to the other. I would rather "total dead and injured mount in Lebanon and North Israel" but someone somewhere would state that this created an equality between the two sides. Another statement like "Israel is destroying Lebanon" would be fine by me, but would be likely viewed as NOPV by 50% of the readers in the US. And Hezbollah is still holding 2 Israeli troops, if they handed them over that might end it, Hezhollah is also a guilty party, how do you seperate those killed in fighting for Hezbollah from innocent civilians? Its just not possible to describe this in any human form without some subjective perspective. This is simply a cornerstone of modern philosophy since the early 20th Century. Its strange that the only place anywhere I read anything like NOPV is in Misplaced Pages. Any freshman in critical methods, history, or philosophy would know the complexity of such a claim, and yet Misplaced Pages takes it for granted, its almost never questioned which is really strange. Are the claims I read that Misplaced Pages is a cult dominated by followers of Rand to be taken seriously, it seems like it. As for the war in Lebanon and Northern Israel, having been to both places, here is the headline "humans continue to show what asses they are, innocent people die!" --Rhooker1236 15:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- It is the absence of qualification that leads to the implication of "equality of loss." Re the rest of it, of course there will always be some who find any statement on a topic like this non-neutral—but that doesn't invalidate the NPOV policy. In its absence, it's hard to see how drafting sentences like this would be any easier. Marskell 12:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Grammar
- "The Israeli-Lebanese conflict continues with mounting military and civilian casualties on both sides; other nations rush to evacuate their citizens; the UN warns of a possible upcoming Lebanese refugee crisis."
There are two semicolons in this sentence, which is grammatically incorrect. Try replacing it with something like:
- The Israeli-Lebanese conflict continues with mounting military and civilian casualties on both sides; other nations rush to evacuate their citizens. UN officials warn of a possible upcoming Lebanese refugee crisis.
OR
- The Israeli-Lebanese conflict continues with mounting military and civilian casualties on both sides. Other nations rush to evacuate their citizens, while the UN warns of a possible upcoming Lebanese refugee crisis. TomStar81 01:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
unclear ITN
The ITN that says "Former Khmer Rouge commander Ta Mok, scheduled to stand trial in 2007 for crimes against humanity in Democratic Kampuchea, dies in a military hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia." is very unclear. When I had read it, I thought the trial was going to be in Democratic Kampuchea. I would suggest putting a comma after the 2007. 03:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- When I read it, it also sounded ambiguous to me. I've removed the phrase "in Deomcratic Kampuchea". Someone may want to add it back in later, but at least in this way, is sounds clearer. --HappyCamper 03:30, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed, it added nothing useful. Democratic Kampuchea was just the name of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. --Dhartung | Talk 04:54, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Misplaced Pages main page
No need to complain for now, because the main page is very organized and not cluttered of unneeded information. The new multi-lingual coordination list is short and avoids rambling of how many languages exist in the world. The news articles can be expanded by let's say 10 paragraphs and given the links for more details. However, the Cherokee language suggestion hasn't been accepted. On the other hand, Nepali is expected to get included as the language has a million speakers. I love the main page's current format and let's keep things rolling smooth in Misplaced Pages. --Mike D 26 20:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
- According to Misplaced Pages:Multilingual statistics, Nepali and Cherokee Wikipedias have 79 and 50 articles respectively. Not sure what "speakers" has to do with anything. --Dhartung | Talk 04:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Ah, I see, it's buried in #Proposal. --Dhartung | Talk 05:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I think that 100000+ and 20000+ would be a better chose (than 50000+ and 25000+) --Lucinos 07:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
In the news - Miss Universe 2006
Can someone add a wikilink to the Zuleyka Rivera article? Carioca 03:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Done! --Madchester 03:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, but the article is actually duplicated: Zuleyka Rivera and Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza
. It is better to use the Zuleyka Rivera instead of the Zuleyka Rivera Mendoza in the Misplaced Pages's main page, to prevent a redirect. Carioca 03:30, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I just can't believe this is considered more significant (as determined by its placement at the top of the section) than a military campaign that has already displaced half a million people, killed hundreds, and may yet trigger even worse. When historians look back in the future at how Misplaced Pages recorded "in the news" as a first draft of history, this will be another reason why our discreditors don't take an online, democratic encyclopedia seriously. Is the policy that the most recent news must go at the top, or is there some standard for keeping the top story the most important? Bruxism 06:18, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I'm going to have to agree with Bruxism. The Miss Universe thing doesn't warrant being higher than the conflict on the main page. It doesn't even deserve to be above the Tour de France. Some prioritization is necessary here.--72.197.96.86 06:37, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
At the risk of repeating myself; the current ITN format places entries in the order at which they are added. There's no subjective judgement made as to one item's significance over another. To do so would just lead to more arguments. (Another reason to revisit the format of ITN) --Monotonehell 06:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Did the disucussion on name changes for ITN get anywhere? I haven't checked. Maybe a whole raft of ITN changes should be proposed, or is it better to try and get bits through piecemeal, bit-by-bit? Carcharoth 17:13, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- The discussion ended with no real conclusion. The result was several speakers that raised the problems and several more who claimed there were no problems. Piecemeal changes usually end up like something designed by commitee; not really good for anything. I think it would be better to examine the holistic problems and solutons and put forward an entire model for replacement that addresses all concerns. But changes are slow on WP. --Monotonehell 19:44, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Bust picture of Augustus
Should not the bust picture of Augustus be placed along with the relevant news item? --Apnavana 03:22, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I thought those were Miss Puerto Rico's chiseled features.... Figma 04:17, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- Obviously, Miss Puerto Rico would like to achieve world peace by defeating Mark Antony... But images on the Main Page must be free, as fair use is not permitted. --Dhartung | Talk 05:03, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Same old complaints, no one seems to want to cure them... --Monotonehell 06:47, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- It's more like no one seems to know a simple way to cure them. -- 64.229.223.85 13:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- There's been attempts at solutions but they seem to always been objected to by folks claiming that there is no problem. XD --Monotonehell 15:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- So, no one knows any simple ways to cure the folks who can't see the problem. --64.229.228.122 05:46, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
- There's been attempts at solutions but they seem to always been objected to by folks claiming that there is no problem. XD --Monotonehell 15:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
New Image?
Image:Floyd-landis-toctt.jpg has had its licensing changed to be compatible with Misplaced Pages. Perhaps it could make its way back onto the Main Page? That bust has been there for awhile. -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 14:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- I already replied to Tariq at Template talk:In the news. Just for the record, I put the image back on the front page a few hours ago. --Oldak Quill 18:21, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
On This Day
The "Lost City of the Incas" usually refers to Vilcabamba, not Macchu Picchu --Descendall 23:48, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
- "then thought to be the ..." would be most accurate. The name is associated with its history. --Dhartung | Talk 00:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Red link
There is a red link in the Featured picture thing. That should be removed. It is standard policy to not have red links on the main page —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.89.69.182 (talk • contribs) 00:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC).
- It was probably an unauthorized move, i.e. vandalism, since repaired. I couldn't see anything obvious in the histories of the wikilinks, though. --Dhartung | Talk 00:34, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- It was not vandalism - whover wrote the blurb screwed up and I had to fix it. Raul654 04:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- surely someone should have looked at Main Page alternative (tomorrow) before it went up? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.89.69.182 (talk • contribs) 09:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC).
- Surely someone like you, User:219.89.69.182, should have looked at that and then reported it at WP:ERRORS yesterday. --64.229.223.85 13:29, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- surely someone should have looked at Main Page alternative (tomorrow) before it went up? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.89.69.182 (talk • contribs) 09:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC).
- It was not vandalism - whover wrote the blurb screwed up and I had to fix it. Raul654 04:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Huh, I was not aware of the policy of not having red links on the main page. howcheng {chat} 18:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- I don't think it's policy as such, but rather common sense for style. —Daniel (‽) 12:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Alpha Phi Alpha image
Image:Alphafstconvent.jpg is almost certainly not public domain, at least not under the current pd tag. It was taken in 1908 and thus even if the photographer died the day the photo was taken, "term of life plus 100 years" could not expire until 2008 at the earliest. Is there a free equivalent that could be used? savidan 00:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- Death of the author has nothing to do with it (older images). Images published before 1923, which this image almost certainly was, are in the public domain. Raul654 00:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- I've replaced the {{PD-old}} tag
with {{PD-old-50}}. —David Levy 01:21, 25 July 2006 (UTC)- I just realized that {{PD-old-50}} indicates that that the image was published before 1923 and the author died 50 or more years ago. The latter might not be true, but I was unable to find a tag for images published before 1923 that doesn't also mention the author's death, nor could I locate a a special category. Therefore, I created {{PD-pre-1923}}. Feel free to correct the category or delete/redirect this template if it's redundant. I'm not a copyright expert, so if there's some legal reason why this template is inappropriate, I consent to its immediate deletion. —David Levy 01:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- The tag you were after is {{PD-US}}. I've redirected for now since I'm not an admin. If any fancy deleting the redirect, feel free. GeeJo ⁄(c) • 02:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- Thank you! Instead of deleting the redirect, I've categorized it for the benefit of users searching in vain for a template with "1923" in its name. —David Levy 02:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- The tag you were after is {{PD-US}}. I've redirected for now since I'm not an admin. If any fancy deleting the redirect, feel free. GeeJo ⁄(c) • 02:31, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- I just realized that {{PD-old-50}} indicates that that the image was published before 1923 and the author died 50 or more years ago. The latter might not be true, but I was unable to find a tag for images published before 1923 that doesn't also mention the author's death, nor could I locate a a special category. Therefore, I created {{PD-pre-1923}}. Feel free to correct the category or delete/redirect this template if it's redundant. I'm not a copyright expert, so if there's some legal reason why this template is inappropriate, I consent to its immediate deletion. —David Levy 01:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
- I've replaced the {{PD-old}} tag
The British Open news bit...
Perhaps "the 2006 Open Championship" should be changed to "the 2006 Open Championship". Seeing as, unlike the Tour de France, there isn't a separate article for each year's competition (as far as I know). The Glow Pt. 2 21:20, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
DYK Overstatement
One item says ...that Dorothy was the longest-running musical stage production ever until the 20th century, with an initial run of 931 performances?
Alright... the article says The revised Dorothy had an initial run of 931 performances, becoming the longest running musical production ever. Considering the revised Dorothy opened in late December 1896, just before 1897 and considering that the production that surpassed Dorothy, A Chinese Honeymoon, opened in 1902 (note the ~five year difference), that DYK item sounds a bit overstated. Additionally, the record probably was not broken in December 1896 (I'm guessing 1899, assuming a performance a day, but I don't have a source). -- tariqabjotu (joturner) 02:32, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
- Well, DYK got updated and this item is no longer on MainPage. -- PFHLai 18:00, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
On this day...
July 26 was the day that the Kargil War officially ended and is celebrated as Vijay Diwas in India. No mention of it has been made in the "On this day" section. Considering that the article is a FA some admin must try to include in atleast now. --Idleguy 08:10, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
- Try Misplaced Pages:Main Page/Errors. --64.229.204.225 13:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
- We cannot make sure that every constituency's event is listed, unless we list them all, and there isn't room for that. It's better, in fact, to choose a slightly random selection every year. --Dhartung | Talk 18:27, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
formatting error with "chick" style
Hey, I'm new here (as a registered user) and so I just had to try out the different skin choices. I noticed that with the "chick" skin the search box and the "Go" and "Search" buttons do not align properly with the page. They block out some of the content. I'm not sure if this is the right page for bringing this up. My resolution is 1280 x 1024, but I doubt that has anything to do with it. Can/should this be fixed? Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by F16fan12 (talk • contribs) 15:22, 2006 July 26 (UTC).
- This talkpage is intended for discussion about the Main Page only. You may want to report the problem to Misplaced Pages:Village pump. Hope this helps. -- PFHLai 18:21, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I'm talking about a problem with the main page.
Page size
There is an automatic complaint about the page being too long. Can someone decide where to archive to please. Jackiespeel 17:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
- The archives are near the top, next to the table of contents. --PFHLai 18:24, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Personalised Home Page?
This is probably the wrong place to mention this, but I don't know where else to put it, so here goes: has anyone thought about making a Misplaced Pages home page? i.e., something like most major portals have, but based on Misplaced Pages? There could be a Google search, and the news section would be personalised to one's location, but otherwise it would be just the normal home page. This would be my ideal home page -- Misplaced Pages is already my home page, but this would be way better. Another person I mentioned it to thought it was a great idea; any thoughts? CMcQueeny 12:22, 26 July 2006 (CST)
- You can do (almost) anything you like on your user page. Happy editing. :-) --PFHLai 17:56, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
- For tips see Misplaced Pages:WikiProject User Page Help. --Dhartung | Talk 18:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
As of July 2006
The United Nations is claiming that a UN observer post has been struck in the ongoing Middle East conflict, and Kofi Annan is thinking it was done on purpose. Surely, such a story deserves to be mentioned in the news.
- Yes it is mentioned in the news. I've seen 3 mentions of it this morning before breakfast. But this is an encyclopedia not wikinews. Items get a mention in the "In the news" section on the main page if and when there is a coresponding encyclopedic article updated with current events and it gets nominated for inclusion on the pages mentioned at the top of this talk page. Don't feel put out, lots of people make the same assumption and complain that such-and-such a news item isn't mentioned. Some of us are petitioning for a change to better reflect this. --Monotonehell 22:11, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Today's featured article - A mosque
I was a bit jolted by seeing this on the main wiki page. I've been reading a book about Islam, from a historical interest, to learn a little more about these people, and clearly stated is one thing; The term mosque is offensive, as in very politcally incorrect.
I followed the link to the wiki article about the mosque and found the following:
"A mosque is a place of worship for followers of the Islamic faith. Muslims often refer to the mosque by its Arabic name, masjid"
In fact Muslims always refer to their place of worship as the masjid, and will nicely ask you not to use the term mosque.
Also in the wiki section of the mosque entry is the following:
"The modern-day English word "mosque", just like its equivalents in many other European languages, derives from the word masjid via Spanish mezquita"
The history of this is the word mezquita means mosquito, as in the annoying blood-sucking flying insect. The reference comes from the same king and queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbus, the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. They were out to conquer the Muslim stronholds in Spain, and referred to wiping out the temples of worship as in swatting away the mosquitos.
I kid you not, this is where the english term mosque comes from, and for reasons I do not yet understand about the followers of Islam, they don't stand up and nicely/legally/peacefully demand the politically correct word, masjid. The word masjid, to an Arab, simply means temple, and could be used for a Greek temple of Zeus as easily as a Jewish temple. If used in an english language reference, I think we could assume an Islam temple.
There are other things wrong with the article, showing a very decisive Western source, although it seems to really try hard to be objective and factual.
If Wiki could be the seed that changed how the english language refers to the temples of Islam, it would be a historical achievement of this web site, and promote peace where it is needed the most these days. I say God, they say Allah, and if in the West most don't even know it is the same thing, could we at least not officially insult their places of worship?
oops, forgot to sign it. Bptdude 02:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
It is my understanding that the most common term is used regardless of anything. Don't worry, stuff like this always happens. What comes to mind is the talk page of the Use of American article .
Either way I can't really help you...
Tennis Dynamite 02:21, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
The Real Academia Española doesn't relate the origin of the word mezquita to "mosquito"; it rather suggests that it's derived directly from the word másgid.--Cloviz 02:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
I'll try to find a verifiable reference to the quote from the Spanish monarchs. What I'm telling you is believed and taught in Islamic mosques. Bptdude 03:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
Interesting adventure, this Wiki. I researched it a lot more, AFTER, I made the posts above, of course. I found lots of reference to the book I picked up, and many web references stating that the mosque/mosquito connection is not true. But I also found a number of sites that teach it as true, some are suppose to be authenticated Islam sites.
Here is the most amusing one refuting that the link is incorrrect: http://www.beer-pages.com/notes/bp4.htm
- smiles*
It is enough to state there certainly exists the belief it is true.
But for all the academic logic in the world, you won't convince the average Moslem that it is OK to call it a mosque. It is like trying to explain to an African-American in Harlem that the word Niger is really derived from the latin word for the color black as linked to the name of the nation of Nigeria, so if he calls himself a Black man, it should be OK for you to call him a Niger. If you are stupid enough to stand there and not understand why he might be upset, you should go back to your safe ivy covered tower. Politically correct, as I learned it, is what people prefer to call themselves and those things part of their culture, and to force otherwise is beyond ignorant, but blindly confrontational. Someday walk near a mosque, and ask somebody coming out what you should call it! So, if this is true, what do we do? This is important to some people, as you can imagine. Bptdude 05:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- As much as I'm of the opinion that we should, for example, call Germans - Deutches (sic?), call Munich - Munchen and so on. I think in this case the english word mosque is far too rooted in the vernacular to try to force a paradigm shift. Which btw is totally against WP's mission I believe. Interesting side story though --Monotonehell 06:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- Why should we primarily use non-English terms in an English encyclopedia? —David Levy 06:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- It isn't clear from the above whether you meant to type "Niger" (as in the West African nation, the Nigerian state, the river for which they're named, or the political commentator Niger Innis) or "nigger" (a word commonly regarded as an ethnic slur), the latter of which of which is etymologically connected to "niger," the aforementioned Latin word for "black." Either way, this isn't particularly relevant, as neither term is currently used in the English language as a mainstream, academic word for "black person."
- This is, after all, the English Misplaced Pages. For whatever reason, "mosque" is the English word for the article's subject.
- If the Indiana article is featured on the main page, should we change the title to Native Americana (because the name "Indiana" falsely implies that the state is the "land of the Indians")? —David Levy 06:13, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I have several Muslim friends, and they freely refer to their place of worship as mosque. Perhaps there are a small number of Muslims who mistakenly interpret mosque as being derived from insulting terminology; if there is a reference to them, it would be interesting to mention in the article, but I see no need for any further change. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:23, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
- I have seen many mosques referred to as masjids, and that was how I learnt about the word. Something of all the above should be in the mosque article, if it is not already. In any case, I think that mesjid should be its own article, and not just a redirect to mosque. The differences between the terms should be explained in both articles. Carcharoth 09:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)