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Archive 35

Election Controversy: On the Front Page or Not?

The US Election Irregularities page has been popping on and off the front page for hours now. While I write this it's been removed. Is it going to go back up? What's going on? Personally, I think it deserves the coverage, it's a solid article.

I agree Pedant 04:16, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)

I second this --Howrealisreal 19:28, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree as well --Quintin3265 22:29, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC) - just because this controversy is not in the media doesn't mean it's not important. The article seems to present both points of view, and is by far the most authoritative source on the Internet at the moment.

Cour d'Assize

In France a criminal court for the worst crimes is a Cour d'"assise," not d'assize.

Fallujah

Are there not British troops in fallujah right now? Yes i'm afraid that there is and so far 1 has been killed and 4 wounded. cherryblack sorry??

Vandalism on the Main Page!

Someone change this quickly, please, it's incredibly embarrassing.

"This"? I see no vandalism. →Raul654 22:44, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Americans and their the British are having a ball as usual. Hostory repeats itself. But not for long. They have to pay.

Arafat's picture

Arafat is not "Boston Red Sox Logo"... --205.189.150.1 00:25, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hahaha, yeah, I just noticed that, I was just about to post this myself. - Bloodshedder 01:39, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fixed, after screenshotting and before logging in. Oops! (That page is publicly editable, BTW, which is why I, a lowly n00b, was able to fix it, though I wanted to leave it.) Suntiger 03:54, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Arafat suddenly looks like Dick Cheney today (November 13-14). There has GOT to be a way to anchor a picture next to the paragraph it applies to. C'mon, guys, this is simple in HTML; it ought to be doable here. ;Bear 02:11, 2004 Nov 14 (UTC)

Infinite monkeys

A special case of a prepositon is not a therom. Neither is the zero-one law a prepositon, even though it is obvious

...err, a Prepositon? Is that a sub-atomic particle? Or did you drop the 'i'?

it is a sub-atomic particle, whereas a therom is a text-heavy encrypted read-only memory storage device. So the original poster is correct.

Happy Halloween!

Happy late Halloween everyone! "Antonio Van Helsing Martin"

Test

Main Page Sandbox

It has been done. Templates are comming soon.

Hellow from Ukraine....

In the news

whats up w the font on the dixville story? Sam [Spade] 01:08, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Also, why does the main page report votes as 15 Bush/15 Kerry/1 Nader when Dixville Notch, New Hampshire gives it as 19-7-0? --Calair 06:33, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In the news

Hi guys, This morning a controversial dutch filmmaker(Theo van Gogh) has been murdered in Amsterdam. He was attacked by a man and a woman, and stabbed to death. The man has been arrested, still looking for the woman. See this article on cnn: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/11/02/netherlands.filmmaker.reut/index.html I don't know if it is important enough, thought I'd notify you guys

nice combination of jacques plante and clint benedict

What's up with the pro-John Kerry ASCII art? Is Wikipedia offering an endorsement, or was the main page HA><ORED? --Feitclub 13:13, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

Option number three, simple vandalism. Don't give the vandals more credit than they deserve. -- Cyrius|✎ 13:56, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WIKIPEDIA.INFO, isn't it about time?

Wikimedia already owns the domain name wikipedia.info; so isn't it about time to adopt it as the main domain for Wikipedia? It sounds more likely for a work like this; it's even almost a full sentence!! --Alif 18:05, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't think .info has any particular benefit over .org. People know .org's, if you said wikipedia.info to someone they probably wouldn't know what you were on about. My cynical mind tells me that .info's were invented so that everyone had to shell out more $ to keep all variations of their domain name registered. -- Chuq 23:04, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

...which is, in general, an idea that I *strongly* discourage in people; it's moronic in the extreme. In this particular case, however, with a completely made-up trademark like Wikipedia, I don't *oppose* it, I'm just not sure I think it's worth the money. I *don't* think it's a good idea on the "making life easier for Stupid People" front. And since anyone who registers one of them to use for some other purpose has a much higher -- though still non-zero -- chance of infringing (the mere presence of a website on a domain name which matches your trademark is not inherently infringing; infringement requires *action* -- though IANAL, I just play one on the 'net). I *do* recommend that The Powers That Be choose one as the actual domain name, and make all the others redirect, though; primarily for cookie sanity purposes. I'd also recommend DNSing ww. and wwww. and similarly redirecting.  :-) Baylink 20:37, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is the conspiracy-theory explanation :-). Originally .org was meant for not-for-prophit organisations. While this applies to Wikipedia in a way, .info is more specif about the site being a source of information. Eventually .info will become as known as the other domains. --Alif 17:07, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

maybe. maybe not. I for one have hardly come accross any sites using the "new" tlds that were even remotely worth visiting. ".info" smells of SEO and dotcom-bubble. dab 17:36, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If we don't get that domain, someone else will. Guaranteed. -- user:zanimum

Agree with Chuq. '.info' is, as of yet, non-standard. (Alif pointed out above that "Wikimedia already owns the domain name wikipedia.info.") --Nectarflowed 22:48, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

.info and .biz are generally associated in the public mind with spammers namestealers and other low life scum using them as the main domain for a site like wikipeida would be throwing away credibility

WIKIPEDIA moderators are vandalizing their own site?

Check out the discussion of the election results! FIX IT FOOLS!

WikiAtlas?

I'd posted this one before, but it didn't generate any feedback. So here I go again. Does anyone have an opinion on this one?

I love WikiPedia, I love the random page function.

but ... Is anyone else annoyed at how often small town entries come up? It seems pointless to have "Nuclear_winter" and "Dacula,_Georgia" [with it's pop. of 3,848] in the same place.

Is there a way to seperate all these geographic entries from the rest?

I would say that inclusion of Wallaceton,_Pennsylvania is certainly non-encyclopedic ... unless you can open the WorldBook set, [or Encarta] and find Brights_Grove,_Ontario in there.

This is Natasha and I would like to comment on what you have said about the content of the site and I would have you know that those small towns ARE very needed. I am in history 12 and you learn about some not so important places . and I have even grown up in some not so important places .. and I would be very dissapointed if they didnt come up.

If Wikipedia did nothing beyond what its rivals do, there'd be no reason for its existence.

I also like the 'random page' button, and I also find the small town entries dull... but this problem can easily be resolved by hitting the button again ;-) I honestly don't see what the problem is. --Calair 05:59, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree that the town entries are fine. The only time where they ever get in the way is the random page button, which is a toy, anyway. However, "WikiAtlas" is an excellent idea! I have been wondering for some time how we could standardise custom maps. When I want to draw a map to explain a point in a specific article, I have to search for a public domain map of the area in question on google, and then maybe remove labels in an editor before adding my own information, arrows or whatever. The Xerox Mapserver has been gone for several years, and I don't know of a similarly useful tool to produce basic maps (e.g., the map of Image:Kurgan map.png is based on a Xerox mapserver map). How about starting a WikiAtlas project that somehow links to all geographical WP articles? There is probably not enough CPU resources to generate maps dynamically, but if we had an application that could generate maps from vector data, we could still make a large collection of ready made maps, and illustrate the location of all these little town stubs. dab 07:32, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I also like the idea of a WikiAtlas. I've seen a number of out-of-copyright books that had some fine maps well worthy of scanning. (If only I could fix that darn yellowing...) -- RJH 23:34, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Would an atlas be a secondary indexing system, something like a streetmap with links to position-based wikipedia entries? If so, I think that's a great idea. To be done well it would HAVE to be outside the existing wiki structure because most of the necessary pieces (arbitrary zooming, scrolling and smoothly displaying text on mouseover to name a few) would be difficult or impossible in a WIKI medium.

For that matter, the timeline as exists is awkward. It would be great to have a timeline index that had the ability to show events side-by-side at any zoom level (for instance, the century view would show significant events that centurary, but wouldn't show things you expect to see at the "Year" level. Again, smooth scrolling and the ability to slightly zoom the area under the mouse would be pretty cool.

I'm fairly new, so if it's taboo to mention leaving the wiki environment, please forgive me.

BLK

c.f. meta:Wikiatlas, meta:Category:Wikimaps, meta:The first useful map. An atlas where users can zoom and pan interactively would be great, if very CPU-consuming. For the purposes of WP, however, we would primarily need an atlas that generates maps for the article (i.e. 'semantic WP' style, coordinates in a geographic article could automatically trigger the generation of a map to be served with the article). dab 11:13, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

We could create it in WikiCommons ;) --Mac 18:01, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikiatlas , I think small towns are a good thing, ESP if they link to the local library, Town Council, Historical Society etc

Automatic indexing

4) Wie heeft de Slag om Stalingrad gewonnen? Stalin wou Stalingrad voor geen goud verliezen. Hij liet alle mannen loopgraven en verdedigingslinies aanleggen. Toen de Duitsers de stad kwamen binnenvallen werd er om elk huis en elke muur gevochten. Alles werd meerdere malen door de Russen terug veroverd. Toen de Duitsers in de gaten kregen dat ze de stad niet konden in nemen gingen ze hem omsingelen om daardoor de Russen af te zwakken. Op 18 November 1942 waren de Duitsers het verste gekomen in Stalingrad en hadden het bijna helemaal ingenomen. Maar vanaf toen werden ze alleen nog maar terug gedrongen. De Russen kwamen toen van het Noorden aanvallen en Sloten daardoor het Duits 6e leger in. De Russen zorgden er voor dat de Duitsers geen versterking konden aanvoeren naar Stalingrad en konden het Duitse 6e leger verslagen. De Russen hebben de slag om Stalingrad dus gewonnen, vooral doordat de Duitsers de Russen ver onderschat hadden en dus geen stand konden houden.

Is my article automatically indexed under the respective category or I have to manually edit the category to add the article? --Sbenza 13:47, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If you add [[Category:Xxx|Article name]] at the bottom, the article is automatically indexed. For people articles you might want to use [[Category:Xxx|Surname, first name]]. Hope this helps. Generally, this kind of question should go on Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous), by the way. Filiocht 13:58, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Featured article picture

Something's odd about the picture for the featured article at the moment, it's not very baroque at all. Lisiate 23:02, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fixed (not by me) Gwimpey 23:12, Nov 4, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks to however did so, I see the article has now changed anyway. Lisiate 00:24, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Lord Chancellor

The current featured article para begins: "The Lord Chancellor, is one of the most senior and important functionaries in the government of the United Kingdom." It could really do with losing that dreadful comma, please. :)

Oh and while I'm at it, the reference to "Tony Blair's ministry" does not, I think, work in UK English. Tony hasn't got a ministry! (No jokes please.) But I'd defer to the view of a person with some UK constitutional knowledge here. 82.35.17.203 00:59, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Link to low-bandwidth Main

There must be a link on the main page to some low-bandwidth-friendly version of the page; preferably no-tables and no-text (which can have links to the intermediate variants), for wireless users. Readding a link to the no-tables version, which is as close as we come to that ideal; it in turn has a prominent link to the text-only version (which has none of the first four sections at all). +sj+ 22:23, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

added your note to the Wikipedia:Technical FAQ , as a start for wireless users. Ancheta Wis 11:23, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Chinese Website

大家好，很高兴来到这个地方。不知有没有中文的网页？

慕名而来

在这里

• 繁
• 简

--Voidvector 08:29, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Google search

I want to ask if there is anyway to filter out those Wikipedia copy offs like BrainyEncyclopedia in a google search? --Voidvector 08:29, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

they are annoying! I usually repeat the search with a characteristic phrase of the WP article text excluded. dab 15:09, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Try using site:wikipedia.org search terms. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 18:46, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Buffalo, NY Public Libraries

I am posting this not as an act of vandalism, but to reach out to the Wiki community for assistance. The budget of Buffalo, New York is so poorly managed under the current leadership as to require cuts in the funding of the Buffalo Public Schools system and other publicly funded activities and organizations. Now, however, it is planned to close all of the public libraries in the city. Please, Wiki community, either make an "In the news" article about these recent developments or become active in some other fashion, but whatever is done, it must be done quickly. We've not much time.

Thank you, and good day.

I googled, and this is, in fact, true. →Raul654 20:30, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the verification Raul654. Now, once again, I ask of you all, please take action against this!

Intro paragraph

The intro paragraph ends with: "Learn how to edit pages, experiment in the sandbox, and visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article right now." Now, there are two ways to interpret this, either as these three clauses:

• Learn how to edit pages
• Experiment in the sandbox
• Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article right now

Or as these three clauses:

• Learn how to edit pages [to find out how you can edit any article right now]
• Experiment in the sandbox [to find out how you can edit any article right now]
• Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article right now

Either way, this is far from great prose. In the former set of three clauses, the last half of the third clause is redundant with the first clause. The latter set of three clauses is even worse, with the first clause being redundant with itself and the second clause of the set not making any sense at all. This is unfortunate, because I think the main page of Wikipedia should display some better prose.

Now, I would fix this myself, but I don't want to change the main page until I get the approval of other Wikipedians first. Basically, what we need is some sentence that has links to three places (Wikipedia:How to edit a page, Wikipedia:Sandbox, and Wikipedia:Community Portal) while avoiding the redundancy of having "edit a page/article" twice in the same sentence. Here's a tentative proposal for the fixed sentence:

"Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article, or experiment in the sandbox."

—Lowellian (talk)[[]] 07:36, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

Since no one objected, I've made the change. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 05:09, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

Unconfirmed news? REMOVE!!

Please remove "unconfirmed news" item. This is not a news agency or a blog website! Awolf002 15:32, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC) lol

From which source is this "report"? --ThomasK 15:46, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

This looks fishy -- there isn't even any article at the end of the link. And CNN isn't reporting anything about this. I think it's bogus. 23skidoo 16:22, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's why I ask. --ThomasK 16:26, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

It's been 3 hours at least and no media report on CNN or anywhere else I can find. I'd remove this myself but I don't know if regular users are allowed to. Yesterday about this time some hacker put a message up on the main page. Could this be another troublemaker? 23skidoo 18:43, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have just removed the rumour, WP should not report on rumours, but at least give the news time to settle. Note that any user, even anonymous users without accounts can edit the News section here: Template:In the news, for that matter, any page can and may be edited by any user (with a few exceptions, but in those cases there is no edit button). -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 18:50, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

ok, but how is this a rumour:

His death is being reported by some Palestinian sources, but explicitly denied by others.

that's just a simple fact: the Palestinians don't seem to be able to agree whether or not he is dead (we never did claim he was dead). dab 19:06, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It IS very shady language, and not suitable for our main page In the news section. The fact that they disagree whether he is dead, means it is just not known for a fact as of yet. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 14:24, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

This is becoming a trend, I guess. Two days ago Eequor added on a thing about a Bulgarian radiation leak, because someone "in Bulgaria" went onto Reference Desk and asked for safety tips for dealing with the situation. I'm worried for Wikinews. -- user:zanimum

Given the childish spat currently under way re Mordechai Vanunu, I think Wikinews is probably doomed to farce. Filiocht 15:36, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

let's be glad that Wikipedia:is not a newsticker ;o) dab 15:46, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe we need a Wikipedia:In the news is not a playpen page? Filiocht 15:53, Nov 11, 2004 (UTC)

featured articles repetition

Hello All

Weren't Japanese toilets a featured article 3 weeks ago? One might think someone had a fixation with this topic.

I noticed this also. Hyacinth 00:34, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually that is incorrect, check for yourself: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/October 2004. Note that it wasn't even a featured article until: 00:22, Oct 19, 2004 Raul654. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 14:29, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

It was on the main page. Someone must have changed it, because the accusiation is totally true. Frankly, I question Raul's judgement on choosing these things. Not only this, but he put an Australia veteran's memorial on November 9th, while two days after that is Rememberance/Veteran's Day. -- user:zanimum

The Japanese toilets article is relatively new article, and I remember it being on the Main page as well, but as I recall, that was in the Did you know section, where tidbits from new articles are listed. This makes perfect sense as it was a good article when it was just started and now it's featured it has appeared on Main again. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 21:27, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

To be exact, it is archived here: Wikipedia:Recent additions 16. On the selection of featured articles on main, they can not be changed at the last moment, as they are planned way ahead, take a look at the system here: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 2004. Of course you can always message Raul to suggest an article to feature on a certain date, suffice to say you can't please everyone, there are so many FA's, anniversaries, and so on, that would make great days to front an article, I think he's doing a great job. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\^talk]] 21:36, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

This article was on the main page under 'Did you Know' about 3 weeks ago. It became a featured article, and it is on the main page today because the author requested it. →Raul654 21:41, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)

So it went for being brand new to being featured in three weeks??? -- user:zanimum

Sure, why not? See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates for the procedure.--Eloquence*

To echo Erik's statement - yes - if the author the time to fix objections raised on the FAC, there is nothing to stop a relatively new article from becoming a featured article quickly. Of course, I believe this is (by far) the fastest an article has ever become featured, but in principle there is nothing to prevent others from doing. →Raul654 04:15, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

International Shipping Containers?

Does anyone know anything about international shipping containers? sizes, classifications, capacity, regulations that sort of information.

curious... I've looked at different web sites in China and they say how stuff can be shipped... but I dont know what the containers sizes mean.

Left-handed child

Can anyone tell me definitively whether a child's parent has to be left-handed to be left handed? I have a child that seems to be preferring her left hand and neither parent is left handed.

There's a hereditary component to it, but there must be more than one gene involved. It's quite possible for a left-handed child to have both parent right-handed. Don't blame the milkman just yet.-gadfium 23:44, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm the left-handed child of two right-handed parents. My maternal uncle was left-handed at birth - also born to two right-handed parents. But he now writes with his right hand as he was beaten as school (in the UK) until he did. Don't fear, he's in his late 50s and as far as I'm aware they don't do that any more. Ah, the age of enlightenment. There you go, social history and genetics all in one go. (PauaShells, NZ)

the only medical geneticist i know who studies handedness, Fred Biddle at the University of Calgary, has genetic evidence (in the mouse) that handedness is not genetic, but the propensity towards developing a preferred hand is. --- NamfFohyr , 16 Nov 2004

International nuisance

Please route all responses to the Village Pump's tech section. The IP of 64.12.117.7 has appeared for users in Austria, Austria, Canada (5 of 13 provinces), Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States of America (10 states). That's 16 countries, not including Wales and Scotland. Why? MediaWiki apparently lacks in some major areas.

Although some have enjoyed this "New United Nations", or even "New World Order", since they can "talk to a whole bunch of people around the world", it really has been a complete turn off Wikipedia for others. Many are getting aggrevated, asking "what the hell is this about", and "why the fuck was this new message sent to me of all people", and yes, they linked to that article.

Although I know the developer have better things to be doing, this is getting silly. Personally, I like this international wall for graffiti of sorts, but many may just be leaving as soon as they get this page. -- user:zanimum

Main page link for "encyclopedia"

Could someone please link the word encyclopedia on the main page? Walden 01:09, 2004 Nov 12 (UTC)

If you click Wikipedia, it has a link to encyclopedia. I think that people decided that there would have been too many links in the first sentence and that it would have been tiring to the eye. You can actually edit the welcome template, which might get reverted, however. Ancheta Wis 07:13, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fallujah

This is not a new topic. I want to comment on your article about Fallujah. You are missing some important elements and I thought that your article about Fallujah was not truly unbiased. Basically, Fallujah is where all of Saddam's Baathist party members were living and under his rule they had the better life and that is the life that they are fighting to keep. They don't want to be like the rest of Iraq and they want to keep their power. They see that with the Americans and changes in Iraq that they will become a minority and with free elections will lose their power. Also, maybe you should have asked a US Marine about whether those women and children in Fallujah were holding guns when they were shot when you cite civilian deaths. Combatants have their guns removed after Marines killed them so hence everyone looks like a civilian to your view of the world. The Baathist party members also left their uniforms in the sand and wore regular street clothing so how can you tell what they were--civilian or Saddaam's army. Now, quote sources on info, too--not hearsay and as we all know the news sources from both sides are never right. My Marine son will tell you that in many of the battles last year in Iraq-- a woman with a mini van full of kids would drive right into the middle of a raging battle. In such a moment, it is easy for you here to say she was not an enemy combatant but my son will tell you when gunfire comes from the mini van and you are fired upon--they have engaged you and rules of warfare call her an enemy combatant. Now, whether she is a willing party is a whole other story since the women of Iraq have basically no power.

Red Link in In The News

There is a red link in In The News (linking to the ivory coasts air force). Isn't there some policy about red links on the first page? If there isn't, there should be. I'd change it myself but the In The News-template is blocked. Gkhan 15:54, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Côte d'Ivoire story: "Anti-French sentiment"

The "Anti-French sentiment" link (pipeline with "Anti-French violence") should be removed and made plain text. Currently. "Anti-French sentiment" redirects to "Anti-French sentiment in the United States". I think it's highly misleading to have a link in an African news story go to a US-specific article. Dale Arnett 16:04, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Where has simple: gone?

The main page of simple: and its talk page seem to have been redirected to en:. Does anybody know why this is and – if not intentional – how to fix it? --Eddi 17:36, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The main page seems to be back to simple:, but the talk page still redirects here. --Sum0 18:04, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The main page was still redirected here (that or it was revandalized after Sum0 checked). I hacked the URL a little to get there without redirect, and reverted away the redirects. I also left a note encouraging an admin there to protect the main page. Jwrosenzweig 22:53, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

formatting error

Did you know...

From Wikipedia's newest articles:

...that in the history of transportation in Los Angeles, the first California freeway "traffic jam" occurred on 1 January 1940?

the text of this suns across the image of a freeway. Sam [Spade] 17:52, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Mention on main page Wikipedia is largest encyclopedia

When people first hear of Wikipedia, I think they are generally suspicious of an encyclopedia in which anybody can edit articles. The description on the front page should address this. I think we should make three changes to the main page. (1) Display a quote from a mainstream source such as the New York Times. (2) Display one of the [http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Trophy_box

awards] Wikipedia has won.  (3) Mention that Wikipedia is the world's largest encyclopedia.  I propose (with my changes in bold):

Welcome to Wikipedia, the world's largest encyclopedia. Wikipedia is a growing, free-content encyclopedia in many languages. In this English edition, started in January 2001, we are working on 393327 articles. Visit our Community Portal to find out how you can edit any article, or experiment in the sandbox.

I think this change introduces readers to why Wikipedia is important, not just another unofficial internet information repository. It also strongly defines Wikipedia as a progressive phenomenon, which I think is very psychologically powerful: 'good now, and getting better.'

When this topic was brought up on this page in May 2004, two points brought up were:

Size alone doesn't matter that much. I'm sure part of the contents of Wikipedia would be rejected flat out by any sensible editor of any established paper encyclopedia, just as we will do when we become serious about our printed edition. Even though I like to look in amazament at the weekly growth figures, I'm also a bit worried about all the emphasis that many Wikipedians put on number of articles, as if that is all that counts. Erik Zachte 23:25, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Saying we're the world's largest encyclopedia is useful for publicity purposes, but it's not as meaningful as quality, which we can't measure the same way. --Michael Snow 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)

I do agree that pointing out that the english wikipedia has more than 3 times the amount of articles than what appears to be the second largest english-language encyclopedia, the encyclopedia britannica, can be misrepresentative because the majority of EB's articles have significantly greater value in quality and credibility. However, 3x the amount of articles is very substantial, often makes the difference, and is a concrete achievement.

If we do include on the main page that Wikipedia is the world's largest encyclopedia, people visiting the main page will still automatically assume the articles are generally not as high quality as those of traditional encyclopedias, so I don't think the above concerns are obstacles to this change.--Nectarflowed 01:04, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If it's true, and if largest encyclopedia stops being a red link, I think this would be a useful addition. It might not be as meaningful as quality but it's still important and informative. Angela. 02:59, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

if at all, size comparisons should be done on the basis of MBs/words, not article count (do we have data on that?). Otherwise we just expose us to more ridicule that we're obsessed with counting our stubs, and making a press release every 100,000 or so ;) dab 07:09, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

By MBs/words do you mean we should be counting Megabytes or words instead of articles? By word count on the size comparisons page it appears that Wikipedia has 2 or 3 times the total word count of Encyclopedia Brittanica (the EB stats are inconsistent). So the proposed largest encyclopedia link could address both word count and article count, as well as a concise summary of the limitations of such a comparison (quality and credibility).

An IP wrote below "i'm wondering how credible this site is." This supports what I'm suggesting, that this should be addressed in the intro paragraph on the main page. --Nectarflowed 21:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I was not contesting we are the largest 'pedia. I'm just saying that our article count is misleading (look at a few 'random pages': they are (almost) all very short). word count is a good measure, although that still says nothing about quality and accuracy... dab 13:05, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hello!

I am interested (IN) this site

Wide screen Wikipedia

I am getting the chance to edit in a computer store on a 24"-diagonal LCD monitor, basically a personal wide-screen TV, 1920x1200 pixels, about 2.3 A-size pages, or about 2/3 of a C-size engineering drawing. The Main Page is awesome at this width. The .jpg files which I have previously downloaded show up beautifully at this width, what with the fast connection and all.

Can we get a picture? Sounds cool! - Ta bu shi da yu 04:38, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Eid ul-Fitr

There's a factual error on the front page. Actually, Eid ul-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, not the last day of Ramadan. Eid ul-Fitr falls on first Syawal, not on the 29th or the 30th of Ramadan (depending on the length of the month). __earth 01:25, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

It may also be worthy of note that there were two Eid ul-Fitrs this year: one marked by Saudi and the world (13 November); the other marked by ISNA and North America (14 November). Ostensibly, this was because ISNA felt they could not possibly sight the moon early enough for Eid to be on 13 November. My guess is that the author had a North American-centric view, but I would like to point out that ~ 90-95% or more of Muslims would have fasted and ended their fast with Saudi Arabia. 207.112.45.96 02:36, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To wiki or not to wiki...

I'm pretty new here, and am still learning the ropes, so I apologize if this has been answered elsewhere, BUT... I have a question.

When you are wikifying a document, do you generally only add wiki links to things that already have entries? If something SHOULD have an entry, but doesn't, do you not add a wiki link? This came up in an entry that I helped wikify, but included several wiki links to things that did not have entries, but probably should have. Someone else came in behind me and took them out.

I'm not personally affronted, just wondering what is the actual protocol. Thanks for any help. Katefan0 09:14, Nov 14, 2004 (UTC)

no, I do add "red" links to things that should have articles. They will appear as "requested". But if I have the time, I also create short stubs, so the links are no longer red. I realize that is not how everybody recommends it should be done, but I am not afraid of stubs that should be there. dab 15:38, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I concur. a red link often entices me to read up on and then write an article. If I recall, that's what got me started here, I think red links that are well-titled and worthwhile are a very good thing. I try to include at least one really good red link in any article I write. It's ok to go back and add the red links in if you think they are worthwhile. But if you really want an article to be written, you know what you have to do. Do it yourself.Pedant 04:27, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)

Commons

Should we have a link to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page on the main page? Wondering simply, -- Infrogmation 17:12, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good! I'm glad it's there now. -- Infrogmation 23:59, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)