Talk:Main Page

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Administrators: Clear all reports

Errors in the summary of the featured article

Please do not remove this invisible timestamp. See WT:ERRORS and WP:SUBSCRIBE. - Dank (push to talk) 01:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Errors with "In the news"

• Carter- Why was the fact that he is a Nobel laureate removed from the blurb? 331dot (talk) 16:02, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

  It seems that @Stephen removed it, possibly following concerns raised by some editors at Wikipedia:In the news/Candidates#(Posted blurb and closed) RD/Blurb Jimmy Carter about including the mention of "Nobel Laureate." The AP (talk) 16:33, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

  Interesting- his Nobel prize, for his post-presidency work, is probably more noteworthy than his presidency. 331dot (talk) 16:38, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

  It avoids editorializing on death blurbs, which are already a point of contention. Sticking to the single core profession to help with quick identification keeps the blurb objective. The article lede should make it clear why the person was considered a major or great figure that deserved a blurb than just an RD. Masem (t) 16:48, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

  It's not editoralizing to state that he was given a Nobel- and the Nobel represents his humanitarian work which is arguably more noteworthy than his presidency. But I was more interested in the explanation than trying to change it- it's clear ITN is very different than it used to be. 331dot (talk) 16:51, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Errors in "Did you know ..."

Current DYK

... that the only fatality of the Belvidere Apollo Theatre collapse was the only audience member to buy a [[|Concert T-shirt|band T-shirt]] at the event? The source (emphasis mine) reads

"A man, Lira said, her band remembers well that night. He was the only fan who bought a t-shirt from us. The first and only," she said.

In other words, he was definitely “the only audience member to buy a band T-shirt from Crypta”, but not necessarily the only audience member to buy a shirt period. It’s possible that someone bought a t-shirt from the more popular Morbid Angel or any of the other three bands at the event. Alt1 (that the lead singer of Crypta recognized the only man to die in the Belvidere Apollo Theatre collapse as the only audience member to buy a concert t-shirt from them that night?) or the more minor change “... that the only fatality of the Belvidere Apollo Theatre collapse was the only audience member to buy a band t-shirt from Crypta at the event?” would work better since it doesn't run the risk of being incorrect. Pinging Departure–, Wildfireupdateman, and Chaiten1. Sincerely, Dilettante 02:15, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

In support of the more minor change. the wildfire update guy that also writes about other weather (talk) 02:52, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

the minor change would still be incorrect, because it doesn't attribute the claim properly – it should be ALT1. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 03:05, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

swapped in a version of that :) theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:47, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I proposed this in two altblurbs but the original was chosen instead. I think it was to save on blurb size. Departure– (talk) 03:26, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

... that the grapefruit (examples pictured) was described as the "forbidden fruit" in 1750? Not sure the link to forbidden fruit is accurate. The source does not appear to make any connection between the fruit's name and the biblical fruit, least of all that the name was in reference to the latter. - ZLEA _T\^C 18:58, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(January 3)

Monday's FL

(December 30, today)

Errors in the summary of the featured picture

Notice to administrators: When fixing POTD errors, please update the corresponding regular version (i.e. without "protected" in the page title) in addition to the Main Page version linked below.

General discussion

"Mian Page" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Mian Page has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 December 2 § Mian Page until a consensus is reached. Ca ^{talk to me!} 01:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Add number of editors in the topmost banner

I suggest this addition for the following reasons:

• It encourages people to become editors via argumentum ad populum.
• It is a interesting fact about the scale of Wikipedia
• It dispels reoccuring myth that only 100 or so admins edit Wikipedia
• It demonstrates the motto "anyone can edit".

I suggest formatting it like this:

116,969 active editors · 6,932,362 articles in English

Ca ^{talk to me!} 00:50, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• I strongly support this addition. Cremastra ‹ u — c › 00:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
• "100 or so admins edit Wikipedia" factoid actualy just statistical error. average admin does not edit Wikipedia. Sockpuppets Georg, who lives in cave & passes RfA 10 times each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.
  But yes, this seems like a great idea! -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 01:24, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
• I shall lend my support as I like this idea. It ties in well with the post on social media by the Wikimedia Foundation (earlier today, yesterday?) about "Wikipedia in numbers". Schwede66 09:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
• Support - and maybe also add a edit count? Something like this might work:
  1,261,484,762 total edits · 116,969 active editors · 6,932,362 articles in English
  '''[[User:CanonNi]]''' (talk • contribs) 09:59, 12 December 2024 (UTC)
• I can't see any downside of adding the number of active editors, which is an impressive number given that the count is just for the last month. The number of edits seems a bit meaningless since it is a huge number that is hard to grasp and since what constitutes an edit is so variable. JMCHutchinson (talk) 09:02, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
• Also support this. It's a minor but potentially quite impactful addition. J947 ‡ ^edits 09:08, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
• Good idea; I like the model that CanonNi proposes above. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:03, 13 December 2024 (UTC)
• I like Ca's suggestion of just including the number of editors. I'm not super keen on adding the number of edits as it is fairly meaningless to most casual visitors. Also, it will always be off because of caching (and I don't want us to get useless reports of "I made an edit but the number didn't go up!"). —Kusma (talk) 17:08, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

  Very good point, Kusma, about useless reports. Schwede66 18:08, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

• The interpunct might need to be replaced with a line break on mobile devices, for aesthetic reasons. Ca ^{talk to me!} 10:38, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  Maybe just a comma to separate them. Stephen 11:01, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  Personally, I think a comma would be out-of-place since this is not a list. Ca ^{talk to me!} 11:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

  It’s a list of two counts Stephen 11:43, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Id support. Maybe something somewhere which explains what active means. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:06, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The wikilink to Special:Statistics already provides an explanation. Ca ^{talk to me!} 13:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I dunno about other people, but because the link is the amount of people, I'd expect the link to be to the list of people. If it were "active editors" that was linked, I would click it to find out what "active meant". Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:15, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The number of articles link also goes to Special:Statistics, though. – Joe (talk) 12:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that's also a bit dumb. Maybe if we linked both the term and the amount to the same link. Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 13:45, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

How about linking the number of active editors to Wikipedia:Wikipedians, where it is explained? Ca ^{talk to me!} 12:05, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

• Sounds like a good idea. I would but the editors after the number of articles, though – best to lead with the bigger number. – Joe (talk) 12:16, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
• This appears to be WP:BIKESHED problem; I believe it would be best if we went ahead with the original formatting and discuss the minute details later. Ca ^{talk to me!} 15:09, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  I never said it was a problem, just a suggestion. – Joe (talk) 15:35, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Sorry, I didn't mean to reply to you in particular. I've changed the indentation level. Ca ^{talk to me!} 15:45, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

• Displaying the 'active editors' variable significantly discounts all of prior editors associated with those millions of articles being discussed in the same line. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:57, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  I suppose you could say something like, "6,925,100 articles in English written by <number of users that have made >0 undeleted mainspace edits> editors" to be maximally precise. – Joe (talk) 16:03, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  What I'm saying is that the 48,480,197 {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} is certainly way more than the 116,969 {{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}}, and that the 6,932,362 {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} certainly would not have been possible with only the later. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:16, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Advertising how many "active" users we have isn't necessarily a problem, I'm saying we shouldn't in anyway suggest that such a low number of contributors has led to the number of articles we have to casual readers, reporters, etc that would read the line. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:18, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Perhaps something like "currently maintained by X active editors"? (Which also discounts all of the many unregistered editors). — xaosflux ^Talk 16:19, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  "by over" maybe.... — xaosflux ^Talk 16:20, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Why, though? "X active editors" isn't saying that that's all the editors who've ever been. It's doing the opposite, by qualifying "active". Getting a bot to keep a tally of total editors ever, per Joe, could be a cool idea, but there's nothing misleading or incorrect about just listing active users, and it's potentially of more interest to readers. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 03:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not opposed to somehow advertising the currently active editors, just saying we should ensure that such a figure isn't associated with the total count of all articles made by a much much larger group. (As the original problem is suggesting that readers are underestimating the number of volunteers that have built Wikipedia). — xaosflux ^Talk 18:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I absolutely support this. Maybe also include the number of edits made in the current calendar day? ApteryxRainWing🐉 | Roar with me!!! | My contributions 18:09, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Better would be in the last 24 hours, especially as most readers will not know when Wikipedia's midnight is. Certainly better than a count of all edits since Wikipedia began, although not a priority in my opinion. JMCHutchinson (talk) 09:20, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

@Jmchutchinson Well, Jimmy Wales lives in the Carolinas so it could reset at midnight Eastern. Although last 24 hours works as well ApteryxRainWing🐉 | Roar with me!!! | My contributions 18:13, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Thinking it about it a bit more, maybe the preceding calendar day ("yesterday") would be computationally easier. We certainly don't want a figure that increases from 0 each day, and it may be undesirable to have one that fluctuates minute to minute. Instead maybe consider over the last week up to and including yesterday, to iron out variation over the weekly cycle. JMCHutchinson (talk) 14:17, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. I don't see the point in this, or the relevance of this number to readers. It might make sense on a page intended to be viewed only by editors, but the Main Page is for readers. None of the bullet points are convincing e.g. I've never heard anyone suggest that there are only 100 editors. It's a only minor bit of clutter but would serve no useful purpose. Besides, it's not clear what constitutes an 'active' editor - the very different numbers quoted above suggest this could be seriously misleading. Modest Genius ^talk 20:33, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Special:Statistics, where the number comes from, defines it as "any editor that has performed an action in last 30 days", which appears to include IP editors as well. Ca ^{talk to me!} 23:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  It is labeled Active registered users - of which IP editors are not. — xaosflux ^Talk 23:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for the correction; when the language is set to Spanish, it just reads "active editors". I wonder if it is possible to get a count of all editors, including IP editors. Ca ^{talk to me!} 02:52, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  A single editor could have many IP's and a single IP could have many editors. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:08, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, that was a problem I imagined; though I do not want to discredit the work of IP editors, they are hard to keep track. Ca ^{talk to me!} 01:09, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

• I suggested this idea back on December 8 at the VPR[1], so yes I would support it. Some1 (talk) 03:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Next steps

I see a broad consensus for including the number of active editors, but there seem to be a lot of discussion on the finer details, which doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Should I make a RfC for this? Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:17, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, most of us want the number of edits/active editors in the banner, but an RFC might help figure out the smaller details we keep arguing about Apteryx!🐉 | Roar with me!!! 🗨🐲 14:43, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Informal RfC

Five questions to decide on the formatting. Note that this doesn't preclude any further changes in the future.

Which figures should be added to the current text?

1. Active editors (original proposal)
2. Active editors and total edit count
3. Active editors and edit count in last 24 hours(bot required)
4. Active editors and all-time editors(bot required)

Support 4 if possible, support 1 as a lower-effort but still effective alternative. Oppose 2 and 3 per the concerns raised above that it would create confusion among new editors/readers who would not realise that the count cannot update immediately. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:40, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Which symbol should be used as the separator?

1. Use interpunct (·) (original proposal)
2. Use comma

• Support 1, neutral on 2. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:40, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Which symbol should be used as the separator on mobile skins?

1. Use line break
2. Use comma

• Support 1, neutral on 2. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:40, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

How should it be ordered?

1. Smaller number(s) first (original proposal)
2. Bigger number(s) first

• Support 1 or 2. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:40, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikilinks?

1. Wikilink all of the numbers to Special:Statistics (original proposal)
2. Wikilink only the first number to Special:Statistics
3. Wikilink "active editor" to Special:Statistics

Ca ^{talk to me!} 12:27, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

• Support 1, neutral on 2 and 3. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:40, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

If a bot is difficult or resource hungry, an edit count for yesterday (preceding calendar day) would serve the same purpose as a count in the last 24 h. JMCHutchinson (talk) 08:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

From a maintenance and server load perspective, a bot updating daily is no different than a bot updating every minute (i.e., just a line of code's difference and resource usage that rounds down to 0). -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe|🤷) 05:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

@Ca Do you expect people to respond here with their opinions on these 5 issues? Or is this just a draft for a forthcoming formal RfC?

If you plan on having another, better-publicized RfC, I'd recommend relisting the original question Should this be added at all?; the original consensus for this had less than 10 editors. [Personally, I think it's a great idea. But all changes to Wikipedia face incredible opposition, so a stronger consensus would be helpful in overcoming that.] ypn^2 04:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I should have been more clear, but yes, I was expecting people to give their opinions. However, I am waiting before pinging everyone to see if anyone have any more suggestions for the questions. I count 13 people who support the proposal and one who explicitly opposed it; I feel that a RfC is going to have the same consensus for inclusion. Ca ^{talk to me!} 05:49, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

So perhaps you could split the five questions into separate subheadings, to allow for clearer discussion of each issue? ypn^2 16:49, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Good idea Ca ^{talk to me!} 07:39, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd add a 4. option with both active users and all-time editors, as xaosflux suggested above. (Maybe after the total articles count, "... created by 48,480,197 editors"). Alexcalamaro (talk) 08:39, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

I've added it, but using {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} would be inaccurate since it includes user accounts with zero edits. Ca ^{talk to me!} 16:48, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Since a week has passed for suggested additions, I'll be pinging previous participants tommorow to decide on the formatting. Ca ^{talk to me!} 16:51, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Pinging participants: @Cremastra @Tamzin @Schwede66 @CanonNi @Jmchutchinson @J947 @Stephen @UndercoverClassicist @Kusma @Lee Vilenski @User:Joe Roe @User:Xaosflux @User:ApteryxRainWing @User:Modest Genius @User:Some1 @User:Ypn^2 Ca ^{talk to me!} 12:28, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

• I've added my replies/thoughts under each individual item, which might help to keep/make consensus visible despite the many moving parts. There's a very large danger of WP:BIKESHED here! UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:40, 29 December 2024 (UTC)