Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Main Page features

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This is a request for comments regarding the future of the Main Page on Wikipedia. Currently there are disputes as to what should feature on the main page, how each feature is presented, and its general layout. The current design dates from 2006 - a long time in web terms. Before proceeding with actually redesigning to give our front page a fresh, up to date appearance, it is important that the community can agree on what is actually wanted, needed and required on the main page, which is the purpose of this RFC. The proposals suggested are merely to indicate what features are desired, and not how they are structured (so for example, if you support there being a "did you know" section, but not in its current format, you would still indicate that you endorse it).

Satisfaction with main page

Maybe this is the question that needs to be asked at the beginning, anyway. Can people please indicate their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the mainpage in the categories below: Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Content of main page

This confirms that the main page needs to be changed, how much is debated, but that makes the point further that I can't close this saying that the main page needs to be radically or needs minor changes, because the community has not commented on what those are. -- DQ (t) (e) 09:01, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Comment in this section on the contents of the main page.

Content with it exactly the way it is

Satisfied in general, but willing to consider some minor changes of content

Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Basically... although, I'm leaning more towards "in need of a comprehensive review" than "content with it". — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:45, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Satisfied in general, but consider some changes of content. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good enough for now Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Within reason its good enough, maybe some of the stuff at the bottom could be trimmed, but for now the content at the top should stay. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Content is reasonable. GAs on the main page would be nice from time to time, if nothing else but to motivate/reward the editors of the GA process. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 08:59, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The reason the main page has remained largely unchanged is that every time we try to discuss a radical visual change, it is derailed by an insistence on simultaneously discussing content. The concept is perfectly sound, and what we need is an aesthetic overhaul. Some sections are problematic in particular DYK (by problematic, I'm talking about quality control; the purpose itself is entirely sound), but those are separate issues IMO. —W F C— 15:26, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The only problem with discussing a purely aesthetic overhaul is you're gonna have a dozen or so hotshot web designers, each with their own ideas of how things should look, fighting with each other to get an opportunity to showcase their own design on one of the top traffic'd pages on the web. That may sound kind of harsh because we're supposed to assume they have Wikipedia's best interests in mind, but I just think we should also consider giving the job to the Foundation, for them maybe to hire some outside company, the way they did with the Vector skin (which turned out alright I should add). -- œ ^™ 01:14, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I came to this RfC following a link on WP:CENT, and I can't tell what problem it is trying to solve. (If it ain't broken, etc.) “[It] dates from 2006”, by itself, it's hardly a reason to do away with it. I'm not saying that the current layout and contents of the main page are the best possible, only that I'm no fan of change for the sake of change. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 17:48, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fine for now, in terms of major sections.— Preceding unsigned comment added by TCO (talk • contribs)
Has served us well so far. Sandstein 06:59, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's no problem to solve here. It's efficient, stable, and people are used to it. -- œ ^™ 08:45, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We haven't received any criticism from the media about the Main Page, its factuality etc. etc. so why fix what isn't broken? —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:49am • 01:49, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's room for improvement but overall it works pretty well.Volunteer Marek (talk) 12:54, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Marek etc. Changes should be slow and cautious. Johnbod (talk) 10:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One or two of the sections could be improved or replaced, but it mostly gets the job done. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:04, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not exactly broken. ... (talk) 06:24, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 05:05, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The current format seems fine. Warden (talk) 19:40, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Feel it is in need of a comprehensive review of all contents

We know what we are, but without a clear idea as to who are our readers and what hey want, it is difficult to say whether it is working "as desired" or not. Therefore a comprehensive review would appear to be the best way forward. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Entire sections currently on the page need to be scraped, in my opinion. Finding things to replace the scrapped sections is a natural extension of that. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:13, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Basically, I voted for a lot of what's already on the main page to stay on the main page, but with some changes. hare j 07:23, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Needs a radical overhaul. AD 10:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Needs a radical overhaul. Please see my comment under "Discussion" below. Tony (talk) 14:24, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is there anything wrong with a little discussion after five years? Hot Stop (t) 15:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's just way too much! The main page should be a jumping point to deeper within the site, not an end in itself. Text should be a fraction of the amount it is now. — Pretzels^Hii! 19:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's bloated. It's yahoo, not google, and I quit using yahoo in years ago. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Peregrine Fisher. It's too busy. We don't know enough about the reader needs. Lightmouse (talk) 17:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rd232 ^talk 20:46, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
-- Jeandré, 2011-07-19t10:56z
Sure, let's talk about it Jebus989 ^✰ 17:46, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Our main page design should be completely rethinked—it's quite cluttered, and TFP cannot be seen without scrolling. —mc10 (t/c) 15:53, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Protonk (talk) 20:31, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even though not in immediate need, it surely could use some redesign. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Satisfied in general, but major changes in content needed

Scrap DYK; replace it with featured content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:40, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
agree with Sandy Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:57, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
While nicely laid out and appealing to look at, the main page seems busy; in general I prefer a leaner look (like Google). The news I don't really need; I can get that elsewhere. Likewise, sections like DYK and OTD seem fluffy. Both of those could be replaced by icons to dedicated pages. For the most part I could live with just the Featured Article, the Featured Picture and the links to related projects. Likewise, the nine portal links at the top could be replaced by a singly, graphically-appealing icon/link to a more developed and visually stimulating topic/catalog tree. Regards, RJH (talk) 19:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with a couple others, remove DYK and replace it with more mature content. RxS (talk) 03:42, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly good, many changes could be positive. – Quadell ^(talk) 10:55, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

It's hard to dissociate content from layout, since taking advantage of widely available web-design to modernise the layout of the main page will have a bearing on what content can be highlighted. The good news is that less can be much more; in other words, less text crammed into the page, and possibly mostly displayed via mouse-over, could mean a whole lot more forums can be accommodated via single clicks. This is commonplace in the design of home pages. Tony (talk) 14:24, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think the main page should be for the readers, not the editors. Why not get visitors to the main page to decide what they want to see, or is that too radical an idea? Carcharoth (talk) 23:57, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
http://www.wikipedia.org/ is the real main page of Wikipedia. Go overhaul that, leave this one alone. -- œ ^™ 08:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So what? The one we're discussing is the main page of the English Wikipedia, though. A discussion about that other one doesn't even belong here, but on meta or somewhere. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just feel that this whole discussion is unnecessary. I don't believe the main page can be any 'better' than it already is, all it can be is redesigned and stuff moved around and repositioned because some people feel 'bored' with the current look, since it's been in place since 2006. That's not a good enough reason for me. If I can be proven wrong and it can somehow be better and not just shuffled around then that's great and I'll be surprised, but I'm happy with the way it is. If we want to improve upon it first we need to figure out what the problem is, otherwise what does 'better' mean? Is it not doing it's job? Is it ugly? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and its been its job just fine since 2006, what else does it need to be? There's no problem here to solve. -- œ ^™ 01:01, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Number of items of main page

General Idea is that the number of items on the mainpage is fine. -- DQ (t) (e) 09:04, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Too many items on main page

There are too many. Instead of having a ton to read, I'd like it to point me in a few directions that might be good for me. Right now it's like reading a book. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:56, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Far too busy. Just look at good websites, they are well organised but have a fraction of the words and links. Lightmouse (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely too much content on the main page. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:33, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Protonk (talk) 19:54, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Number of items on main page about right

Looking at foreign language wikipedias, I don't see any issue with the number of items we have, nor would an extra section be unworkable in future. For those reasons I'm borderline between this and too few. —W F C— 18:53, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Number of major sections is fine and might increase. Think we are way too busy with sidebar text, too many hooks in the multihook areas, and way too much text in the TFA (in single 1200, columned, para...grr!)
—James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:49am • 01:49, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At least as far as the aesthetics of the layout are concerned, not a problem.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:01, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It does look rather busy already, but there's a lot to summarize here. Johnbod (talk) 10:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The featured picture unfortunately falls below the fold, otherwise it's about right. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:04, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the volume of content at the moment is about right. It might be worth considering changes to layout or to the specific content put within that layout, but I'd oppose a large increase (or large reduction) of how much stuff is put on the front page. bobrayner (talk) 10:37, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's fine. – Quadell ^(talk) 10:59, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Number of items feels fine. —mc10 (t/c) 15:53, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 05:20, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not generally too much, just a lot of boring stuff that should be replaced with better items. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:04, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Too few items on main page

Layout of main page

Comment in this section on the layout and design of the main page.

There is conclusive consensus that the Main Page is not perfect and needs at least some reform. Inevitably, there is huge disagreement about what should be reformed and how it should be done. These issues should be explored in much more detail. Happy‑melon 16:57, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Satisfied with layout and design exactly the way it is

Satisfied in general, but willing to consider some minor changes of design

Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, leaning more toward "comprehensive review" than "satisfied". — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:45, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good enough, although some minor changes would be okay Crisco 1492 (talk) 04:03, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What I said above. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 17:50, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why mess with a winning formula. -- œ ^™ 08:55, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:50am • 01:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We should be cautious about major changes. Johnbod (talk) 12:43, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Could use an update in visual design, much like the recent new MediaWiki skin. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:04, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not exactly broken. ... (talk) 06:26, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No big design issues AFAICS (though I admit I'm certainly not the design guy). --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:07, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Feel it is in need of a comprehensive review

If we change anything, it needs to be reviewed. If images outside of FP are made larger, the two column setup needs examining. If sections are swapped out, left-right or even top-down size and visual balance issues come into play. For main page changes to be successful, there must be no sacred cows. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:17, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. There aren't enough pictures for starters. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was the first one to bring up that we need to reconsider our text-to-image ratio. (At least recently, anyway. Not that I'm claiming a monopoly on the idea.) hare j 07:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to stress quality over quantity and make a more streamline appearance by removing article stats, portals, amending "Welcome to Wikipedia" section into one line and by condensing the "Other areas of Wikipedia"/"Wikipedia's sister projects"/"Wikipedia languages" sections on the layout. I'm open to more ambiguous ideas, like amending the background, adding more colours, increasing image size or adding more images et cetera to change the look and feel of the main page. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 09:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Needs a radical overhaul. AD 10:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Breaks so many basic design principles it's disrespectful — Pretzels^Hii! 14:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Needs a radical overhaul. Please see my comments under "Discussion" below. Tony (talk) 15:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Layout is in more need of a change than the content. Hot Stop (t) 15:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the layout us outdated, bland; the content is fine. /ƒETCH COMMS / 06:04, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree word for word with Fetchcomms. The reason the Main Page has remained largely unchanged since 2006 is that even now it does its job. It just looks mediocre. —W F C— 15:29, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. Rip it up. We are in Rumseldian unknown-unknown world. I don't know the exact best way, but I know we don't know it either. And is fundamental. Down with Pangloss.TCO (reviews needed) 20:32, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Needs a fresh look; at the moment it feels tired. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 00:01, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Big changes are needed. Can we implement them?- Peregrine Fisher (talk) 02:58, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Too many 'calls to action'. Lightmouse (talk) 17:26, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rd232 ^talk 20:48, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Review, definitely. Our design is getting outdated. —mc10 (t/c) 15:54, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Needs some review. Right now the main page is comprised of competing fiefdoms representing different content areas and philosophies. We need some unification on the main page. Protonk (talk) 19:57, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

The main page has become a contest of directly opposed forces that end up serving no one well and making the product look grey and distinctly old-fashioned. The clash of these forces creates an impossible situation:

Everyone wants their piece of what is very limited real-estate, and the presence of only a few forums is possible and has come to be defined by their claims to a quantity of static, fixed text.
The total area is too large—and Google labs' research has found that website visitors often don't scroll down or across much (try pasting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page into the box; although the mobile version of the main page will skew this better, it's food for thought).
The page is crammed with fixed, static text.
Image use is seriously underwhelming—one inescapable corollary of the double-column 55/45% split is that images have to be tiny, with little impact and sometimes little comprehensibility.
Many high-quality aspects of the project are underplayed or not represented at all.
There's low-value clutter, particularly towards the bottom and in a number of linked sections at the top.

I strongly favour a mouse-over image-based layout in which an in-browser (as opposed to second-window) pop-up of the image floats out with accompanying judiciously short and clickable text. This would need to be professionally designed to a brief determined by the community and the final product approved by consensus. The community might also consider that more centralised coordination of images and other content would benefit a professional product. This RfC may be the start of developing such a brief. Let's not be complacent: if we're to remain the world's fifth- or sixth-most popular site, the home page needs to be designed with panache—you know: confidence, self-assurance, style, flair, and zing. And I mean panache that would gain international news coverage when launched. Tony (talk) 15:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just to note the Google Browser Size diagram doesn't show regions of the page viewed overall (eg including user scrolling), only what is "above the fold" - visible at once in the window on pageload. I don't think slidey mouseover animations or similar would suit the general feel of Wikipedia and are likely to scare a lot of editors off this idea completely! — Pretzels^Hii! 19:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of note I've made some suggestions on the talk page. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I try to be open-minded about things, but I have to admit that my first reaction to reading your idea here Tony is something along the lines of "hell no!". Pretzels hits on the high points of criticism, I think. I'm generally satisfied with our "look and feel", so I think things like animations and mouseovers are generally unwanted (certainly by me, and I believe that most others feel the same). Most reviews complement Wikipedia for not trying to be flashy, and I think that's a well founded complement of our design. Anyway, I'll see what Eraserhead has said on the talk page and go from there.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
People come to the Main Page looking for information, and lots of choices of places to learn more – "What is interesting and what is new?" Very few are thinking: "I want to read an ad for an encyclopedia article on a totally random topic, selected for me solely on the basis that it is well copy-edited." I'd like to see a three-column setup tested with the three columns "above the fold" being DYK, ITN, and OTD. Put FA and FP below the fold and rotate other Featured Content types in the third slot. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 02:33, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Weird mouse over stuff isn't the way to go. But, we should combine modern web design knowledge with the fact that wiki does't have a bunch of flashy ads. Simple, but functional. Right now we have 7 pages of simple stacked on top of each other. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just keep accessibility in mind. Don't get too carried away with flashy stuff. Remember the KISS principle. -- œ ^™ 08:59, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can live with show/hide buttons and scrolling bars, but any more interactivity would make me miss the current state of WP being one of the few websites left (along with Google) which still remember the KISS principle. (Also, some browsers limit the content of tooltips to a few dozen characters.) ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with the calls for accessibility and simplicity. Keep it simple, do it well. Think of this use case: "Bob and Jane are in a foreign country and want to check Wikipedia on their 3G phone." Lightmouse (talk) 17:32, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Someone on a 3G phone is likely to get the dire phone design skin which is a different problem entirely. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 17:40, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing that out. "Bob and Jane tried Wikipedia mobile but it didn't provide what they need so like many other small-device users, they use the main WP site" Lightmouse (talk) 17:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In that case, we should sort out the shower of shit that is the mobile version, rather attack sections which are in no way responsible for said shower of shit. —W F C— 22:36, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I hate mouseovers. Mouseovers require you to use a mouse, which means that it requires you to be the lucky kind of person whose joints don't scream if you use a mouse a lot. Also, I have Javascript turned off by default on one computer, although I've re-enabled it for Wikipedia. I hate script-y websites: the eye candy isn't worth the slowness, clunkiness, increased incidence of failure, and reduced functionality. I suspect that there are a lot of casual readers—especially people on the other side of the digital divide—with scripts turned off who haven't had any reason to re-enable it for Wikipedia. It would be good to keep us "luddite" readers in mind. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- "Mouseovers require you to use a mouse" - no they don't (I use a trackball). More seriously, I support exploring possibilities for good use of scripts, but anything in that direction would have to make sure it degrades well for people without scripts (eg to be no worse than what we have now). Most script-heavy websites can't be bothered to do this and basically throw up their hands and say "you ought to enable scripts" - that's not an option for us. Rd232 ^talk 09:37, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with everything Tony says up to the end of the bullet points. Protonk (talk) 19:55, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Layout (on first appearance)

Fine as is... -- DQ (t) (e) 09:06, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Note this refers to how it looks before any potential pop-outs or other features are discussed or viewed:

Needs to be simpler

Definitely, its currently far too cluttered. A 5% click-through rate (as discussed on talk I think?) is rubbish. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:40, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
5% clickthrough (if true) is pretty terrible. IMO one look at the main page shows that we don't have clear priorities. Figure out what we want a reader to see first and get them there. Everything else can be put someplace else. Protonk (talk) 20:28, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can remain at similar level of complexity and detail in number of elements

Just the right amount of elements in a nice neat package, and accessible to all. This already is the way an encyclopedia front page should look and feel. -- œ ^™ 09:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The number of major elements is fine, but we need to get rid of some extraneous detail that doesn't add much and is easily lost in the crowd. hare j 02:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The four-quadrant layout for the above-the-fold material is great and should be kept. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:04, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is an encyclopedia's front page after all. ... (talk) 06:28, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It seems fine as our front page. —mc10 (t/c) 15:56, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Never had any problems with it. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:08, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Complexity and detail can be increased

Discussion

This section appears dead. What is its purpose and who added it and when? Carcharoth (talk) 23:54, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added it, late in the peace - just answer the damn questions Carch ;) Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:42, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What are the aims of the main page?

To showcase Wikipedia's best content

There is consensus that this is a purpose of the main page, although it is far from unanimous that it is the primary purpose. Happy‑melon 16:42, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

Obviously the first priority Hot Stop (t) 15:18, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We want to wow people with the best stuff Wikipedia has to offer. hare j 18:23, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
yes. first impressions are important. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 18:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Obvious. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:20, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Secondary purpose. Sandstein 07:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Duh! —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:54am • 01:54, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Showcase" needn't mean "present in great detail" though (a point primarily an issue for expanding featured content showcasing beyond articles and images). Rd232 ^talk 20:51, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and in a couple sections it's failing this big time. RxS (talk) 03:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What Sandstein said.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Guerillero | My Talk 22:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yup. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. ... (talk) 06:40, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. – Quadell ^(talk) 11:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. —mc10 (t/c) 15:56, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Kudu ^~I/O~ 20:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 05:22, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Forget that. It should be a starting point for learning about what the reader wants to know. I guess that's my point, reader first, FA writer second (even though I am an FA writer). - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:05, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It may be a shop window for a selection of good content. But think of any other website:
- you expect to find out it is (not everybody knows)
- you are exposed to the brand
- you expect to see how to navigate to all the sections (not just content)
- you expect contact details for press/HQ etc. Lightmouse (talk) 17:38, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of all the aims mentioned in this RfC, I think this is the lowest priority. I'm not opposed to some use of the Main Page as a carrot to reward editors (with increased visibility) for producing top-notch work, but I think this is less important than other uses of the Main Page. cmadler (talk) 13:45, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Does a print encyclopaedia place it's best articles on the first page? No, they're all designed to aid the reader find exactly what there looking for as efficiently as possible, not giving a pat on the back to their best writers. Wholly agree with PF Jebus989 ^✰ 09:33, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with PF, generally. The front page should serve the reader first and editors second. Protonk (talk) 19:58, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with PF. Also, three of the four sections above the fold - ITN, DYK and OTD - are not necessarily reflective of our best work. They are reflective of what is topical, whether it be externally (recent news, date anniversaries) or internally (recently created or updated articles). If this were the true aim of the main page, it would require a radical redesign. Reso lute 04:50, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even though I appreciate the work behind our featured articles, I want to be frank and say that I have never read any of them. As Sandstein pointed out, this should be the secondary purpose of the main page. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:16, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The primary purpose of the front page should be to explain the overall nature of the site and to provide a variety of navigational cues so that the reader knows what to do next and is encouraged to go deeper. Warden (talk) 19:58, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Is anyone likely to oppose this? Getting people to support this option misses the point. It is not whether the page should be doing this (among other things), but how. Carcharoth (talk) 23:39, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They might. The main page could be reworked as a portal, without highlighing particular articles. After all, most people come to Wikipedia to look up a particular topic, rather than just looking at the first thing that's there. AD 23:56, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I opposed before I read this comment. I think we almost need to think about and have a crazy paradigm shift where the reader comes first. It's only even mentioned halfway down this survey, so we won't even know if people really care about the reader or not. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose this the place to mention that I have become seriously concerned that both DYK and TFA, and possibly other Main Page elements, have negative distorting effects on the project in the way they encourage the diversion of the efforts of what are often our best and most active editors into articles that have small and discrete subjects, especially those that are biographies and articles on things - whether ships, works of art or species. While the breadth of our coverage of such things is one of the glories of WP, our glaring weakness in most areas is our coverage of articles on broader topics, which is traditionally what most encyclopedias concentrate on. It is now clear that such articles are failing to improve anything like fast enough, and when you look at where editor effort goes one reason is clear. More on this in a talk I gave to the UK chapter conference. Johnbod (talk) 10:55, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, having lots of Vital articles of C class and lower is disappointing, but removing all featured content from the Main Page altogether would be too drastic a measure IMO. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't proposing that, indeed I don't have a clear idea how to solve the problem. But it is a problem. Johnbod (talk) 01:45, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Entice readers to become editors

This should be a secondary purpose of the main page. I also note this complements WMF's initiatives to increase (retention of) new editors. MER-C 03:57, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

I think this would be a massive improvement. Not in the form of DYK, but a clear intro and link to Help:Getting started. It's difficult to imagine as editors, but put yourself in the mindset of someone who has never contributed to Wikipedia before but is curious... where do you go from the Main page? The current access for this information is the small "anyone can edit" link in the slogan, or About Wikipedia > Getting started hatnote in the left sidebar. Not good enough IMO. — Pretzels^Hii! 19:45, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Somehow yes, there has to be some pathway concerning this on the mainpage. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Pretzels Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:57, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree. One of the reasons I think Wikipedia is not getting so much closer to perfection in the last coupla years is that the community has not grown as fast as the encyclopaedia. In May 2011 the number of Wikipedians with at least 5 edits in the month was 1/100th of the number of the articles, whereas in May 2006 it was 1/33rd. Hence, Linus' Law doesn't apply. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 18:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC) BTW, this is what I'm thinking of. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:45, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Should be priority #1 in terms of a redesign. Showcasing content should be on an equal footing with good ways to entice readers to try editing. It's been said that other pages do this (like WP:Community portal), but (a) a gentler intro curve is needed (b) putting it properly on the Main Page is a philosophical statement that we should be making. Rd232 ^talk 23:24, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Secondary purpose. Sandstein 07:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I rate this secondary behind the search function ("help readers find specific articles"), in that finding specific articles aligns with what (I believe) most readers want and are actually doing, while enticing them to become editors aligns with what we hope to get from them. All the other Main Page functions rank so far beneath these two that they're barely worth discussing. cmadler (talk) 18:25, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the way things are going we will be doing banner advertising on this one day. Anecdotal evidence suggests that basic awareness that WP can be edited by anyone has fallen among younger people, probably because now much media coverage doesn't stress this fact with wonderment in the way it did a few years ago. Johnbod (talk) 10:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
1. It doesn't help that on protected articles (and many high traffic articles are semi-protected) the "edit" tab says "view source". Really not helpful for the uninitiated. After adding the "edit request" system to the "view source" tab I tried to get this changed, but it didn't fly. Rd232 ^talk 18:17, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but we shouldn't be overly blatant about it. "Entice" is the effective word here; the idea is to impress people enough with the idea that they can accomplish something by editing. A small blurb of a few sentences would be warranted but not more than that. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If Wikipedia is, at its heart, a collaborative project, then the Main Page must contain content that encourages that fundamental identity. The Main page absolutely must provide an opportunity to convert a person who just showed up to look something up into an editor. Any other outcome is a tragedy. VI_WS ^talk 21:48, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This should not be the main or purpose of the main page, but if the main page entices a bored person into some obscure corner of Wikipedia where they suddenly realize they can make an improvement, and they then act upon that realization, it may be the first step toward becoming a more regular contributor. --Orlady (talk) 22:10, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If possible. Though I'm not sure there's much the main page can do in that regard. – Quadell ^(talk) 11:54, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If we can utilize the main page to entice more readers to become editors, that would be beneficial to our project. —mc10 (t/c) 15:57, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If possible, this would be very beneficial. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 20:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 05:22, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
99% of the articles on Wikipedia are less than GA/FA in quality and so there is still lots of work to be done. Encouragement of this should get more prominence. Warden (talk) 21:04, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Why would we want to do this to people? That's mean.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most folks just want to read stuff. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:18, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Secondary to the showcasing part. I'd put "that anyone can edit" in the logo or something, but the primary concern is the showcasing part. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Probably more discussion needed over how new editors are greeted and guided and both defended from WP:BITE and the existing community copes with new editors that 'don't get it', before something like this is done. Also, how much effect would this have? If the number of new editors jumped tenfold because of some change to the main page, would we be able to cope? Having said that, I am surprised at the number of people I talk to who say that editing Wikipedia is something they haven't tried because they think they don't have anything to contribute. They seem to think that "anyone" doesn't mean them. Carcharoth (talk) 23:45, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Relevant — Pretzels^Hii! 01:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One reason why I contribute content to DYK is my observation that the articles linked in DYK sometimes get improved as a result of getting main-page attention. --Orlady (talk) 22:17, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Help readers find specific articles

No consensus. MER-C 08:50, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

I actually think this is important. In my experience at least, people who go to Wikipedia are looking up something specific (at least that's how they start). This is why we improved our search features and it's why we should put a great emphasis on search. hare j 18:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is massively overlooked. Visitors generally will be either searching for specific info or browsing recreationally; our current main page provides masses to browse through but almost nothing in the way of clear links to indexes, topics, portals, search tools, etc. This is more important than ever now we have over 3m articles. — Pretzels^Hii! 19:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Obvious. People come to wikipedia to look up things. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, a prominent search section Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:57, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Primary purpose. We are here to provide information. The main page exists so that this information is accessible. Although the search box will do that for 90% of our readers. Sandstein 07:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the time readers enter via a search engine pointing them at the page they want. But the Main Page should still be concerned with showing how to search (brief search tips?) and especially browsing tools (most obviously Portals). Rd232 ^talk 20:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Without any of the in-depth analysis of traffic and debate that I think is truly needed, I would guess that the vast majority (easily more than 95%) of Main Page hits just use the search box and proceed on to the article they're really interested in. We should probably consider a Google-like emphasis on the search box. cmadler (talk) 18:22, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. Not sure how to do it, though. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:19, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What Sandstein said.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, a big fat search box with a bold "Search Wikipedia here" smack in the centre of the top box section, which is the least useful area of the page imo. The portal links don't really help, as they just take you to another complicated & far too general page. Johnbod (talk) 11:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most important thing. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:21, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

I think. What "specific articles" does this concern? Those that happen to be highlighted on a particular day? How would the reader know beforehand? The main page contains a search box, if you haven't arrived at WP through a google search. Aside from this, the MP is not a good place per se from which to find specific articles. It's a showcase of the whole project. Tony (talk) 01:52, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's concerning specific information the reader is already looking for, and has visited the Wikipedia website to find it. — Pretzels^Hii! 22:44, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Tony1's excellent points. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They're just going to use the search box, or bypass the Main Page entirely through using an outside search engine, if they're looking for something specific. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's what the search box is for, not the main page. VI_WS ^talk 21:49, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't this why the search box was moved to upper right? ... (talk) 06:40, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We had a design overhaul (known as Vector) for a reason—to improve usability. Our search bar is conveniently found in the top-right corner. What else do we need? —mc10 (t/c) 15:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Tony's excellent points. Also, I would say that 95% of people looking for info who come to Wikipedia get here via a search engine, not accessing Wikipedia directly. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 20:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Apart from a more sensible search box, how is this suggestion actionable? We've moved beyond the "googleify everything" paradigm in website design. Protonk (talk) 20:00, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The best feature for this is the search box, which we already have. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:24, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

The title is ambiguously worded. The main page should help people interested in a specific field to navigate towards that field, which is why the portals at the top (Mathematics, History, Science etc) are such a good idea. Beyond fulfilling that function, I agree with Tony. —W F C— 15:32, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That was the intended meaning, I'm sorry it isn't very clear. You are of course welcome to suitably amend it, or add more headings! — Pretzels^Hii! 22:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that the vast majority of hits on the main page are people coming here to use the search box, and briefly looking at the content of the page to see if there is anything interesting, with a few getting diverted by something that catches their attention. I do that as well (and rarely scroll below the fold), though I know I should really bookmark the search page separately and put the featured picture on my user page if I want to see it every day without fail. Carcharoth (talk) 23:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that the wording is ambiguous - we should help them find what specific stuff they are looking for, not what "we" want them to see, beyond the selections on offer. But an extra bigger search box here would be good. We all know where it lives on every page, but new people may not. Johnbod (talk) 12:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Showcase timely and newsworthy content

The main page should continue to display timely and newsworthy content. MER-C 10:48, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

I'd say our ability to rapidly update articles sets us apart from other Encyclopedias like Britannica. Hot Stop (t) 15:18, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and here's why. We have statistical evidence that suggests that when a current event happens, people go to Wikipedia and look up relevant articles. A notable example of this was when Michael Jackson passed away (may he rest in peace) and the readership of his article exploded. I think it even crashed Wikipedia. That being said, we should put it right on the main page so people can take a look immediately. In fact, we could automate this with a sort of "trending articles" feature. Important though is that the emphasis is on articles that suddenly have an uptick in readership, not articles that always get a lot of traffic. (I believe Twitter does similar filtering, which is why Justin Bieber isn't a trending topic anymore.) I guess you could make In The News obsolete this way—we'd be crowdsourcing it to the readers. hare j 18:35, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Current events on mainpage (a) help give page a 'current' look, and (b) promote polishing of highly-trending articles. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Kind-of agree, but remember WP:RECENCY. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 18:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC) Also, it should be accompanied by a prominent link to Wikinews, where readers who are most interested in that kind of stuff can go where they primarily belong to. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whilst WP:Recentism is a perennial problem, articles on big news events are actually something WP does fairly well, and it makes sense to showcase that on the Main Page. Equally, other news items attract reader interest, and it may help improve those articles. Rd232 ^talk 23:42, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Harej brings up an interesting idea. I would definitely support a 'trending topics' feature to help readers navigate to the info they want quickly, and that would also lack the politics, endless arguing and hooplah of ITN. The only issue I can see is the method of execution. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 01:45, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is one of our particular strengths. Sandstein 07:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If ITN can be made to understand what newsworthy means then that's the way to do this, but maybe it has to be bypassed and "trending topics" done instead. There's been shockingly little progress on opening ITN items up to new areas - case in point the failure to post the final Harry Potter even though there were 32000 Google news hits as well as enormous hit counts on our articles (over 200k). -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:43, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:55am • 01:55, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Trending topics is a great idea, and would be a great replacement for ITN. ITN is not fulfilling this, you'd think it would be but it's not. RxS (talk) 03:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Love it. Let the readers decide, not yet another space mission per ITN. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:22, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I very rarely look at it, but our ability to cover major fast-moving crises & events is one of our great strengths. Perhaps a bit too long, the last bits with headlines to longer-term stories and recent deaths might be given a line each instead. Yes to a link on trending topics, which should be sorted in some way - biogs, films etc, or by topic to highlight non-popular culture stuff. Johnbod (talk) 11:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Useful and showcases Wikipedia's timeliness, and its comprehensiveness (I often see things in ITN that I don't see covered in mainstream news). Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The ability to draw attention to timely content is perhaps the single best reason even to have a main page. --Orlady (talk) 22:19, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What sets Wikipedia apart. ... (talk) 06:40, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One of wikipedia's biggest strengths is that content is rapidly created and updated (it's also a weakness, but hey...). Current-affairs / recently updated content should not dominate the front page, as this isn't primarily a news site (in building an encyclopædia, we need to be wary of an overall bias towards recent events); but it's certainly worth using part of the main page for this content. bobrayner (talk) 10:44, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As dangerous as it is, people love it. – Quadell ^(talk) 11:55, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fairly useful for new readers. —mc10 (t/c) 16:00, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. ITN can sometimes be a terrific mess (when politics and meta-politics enter in to the discussion) but new articles on newsworthy subjects drive active traffic. Protonk (talk) 20:01, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 05:25, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even though we're not Wikinews, this is de facto what people care for. When they hear of something in the news and don't know about it, one checks out Wikipedia. I myself have already used the "In the news" section to browse articles (and sometimes correct them ;-)). --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:24, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

No. If it can be done, maybe it's worth doing. It is most certainly not, however, the primary objective. Sven Manguard Wha? 22:22, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm supportive of ITN as a concept, but see it as a promotional tool, rather than part of our core objective. Displaying timely content in other sections is something that the likes of Raul, Dabomb, The Rambling Man and equally prominent editors from other sections already do and will undoubtedly continue to do. —W F C— 23:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Partially. Why does the front page have to have a single purpose? ITN serves this function, but there's no reason why other aspects need to do. Tertiary purpose.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I like the idea of a 'trending' articles feature. Maybe with some editorial input. The big thing would be for editors to work on trending articles and improve them enough to feature on the main page. That would be a really good result. Carcharoth (talk) 23:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Promote the breadth of Wikimedia projects

No consensus. MER-C 13:06, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

Curb Chain (talk) 08:21, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Especially for more obviously complementary projects like Commons, Wiktionary and WikiQuote. Remember users may actually be looking for things which they won't find on Wikipedia, but on other projects. Rd232 ^talk 20:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but not too blatantly. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At the bottom, yes. ... (talk) 06:40, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Tripledot. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:28, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Absolutely not. Sven Manguard Wha? 20:03, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What's there should be removed. They can have one link. No one clicks on them anyways. They are basically ad clutter. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 19:24, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
1. How do you know no-one clicks them? Besides, if they get little traffic, it's surely because they're not presented very attractively. Feature some content from the sister projects where possible (eg Quote of the Day, Word of the Day would be pretty easy) and I'm sure traffic would go up. Rd232 ^talk 20:38, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Huh? Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. Wikimedia is a multi-language, multi-focused project but the home page of the english wikipedia should be about the english wikipedia. Protonk (talk) 20:03, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Undecided. I initially thought 'yes', but question how high the priority is if we are trying to simplify the page. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:10, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This heading refers primarily to items such as the languages list and sister projects — Pretzels^Hii! 20:01, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think mentioning them is enough. Promoting them gets into the tricky issue of some being (frankly) a bit poor. And you can't promote some and not others. This sort of thing is better handled by editorials in internal newsletters that introduces Wikipedia editors to the potential of the work being done on other projects. Carcharoth (talk) 23:53, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Hm. Some of them are poor? Yes, but how are they going to get better? And "you can't promote some and not others" - I don't see why. As long as you don't completely ignore the others (provide at least a link and mini description as now), you can promote some in more detail, especially if you can make a case that they're more relevant in terms of supplementing Wikipedia. Rd232 ^talk 00:01, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In principle "yes", but I'm not sure exactly how, beyond the status quo. I mean, in principle we could have, say, Commons' Picture of the Day, Wikiquote Quote of the Day, Wiktionary Word of the Day, etc - and that would boost those projects, and help people understand more easily (intuitively) what those projects are about. But do we really want to use the space that would need? Perhaps, given that we have the language links on the left, we could free up space by dumping the "Wikipedia languages" section (demote it to a link elsewhere, perhaps with an exception for Simple English). We could use that space for WP, or for promoting other projects. (It's worth bearing in mind that to some extent, most obviously in the case of Commons, the health of these projects does impact Wikipedia.) Rd232 ^talk 23:59, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Motivate editors to create new content

No consensus. Sharktopus' comment is important but came too late in the discussion to influence consensus. Happy‑melon 10:35, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Support

This is the goal of the DYK section and I believe it is still vitally important to Wikipedia. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 19:08, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes to some extent. Like it or not, people respond to incentives. We just have to make sure that good incentives (getting featured) are aligned with good behavior (quality work).Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. Getting a DYK or FA featured on the Main Page is a wonderful incentive/reward for all the hard work editors do. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:11, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A little encouragement goes a long way, and this can help minimize attrition by giving exhausted editors new focus and purpose. People like creating content, but you can get bogged down in the behind-the-scenes stuff, and a little motivation can be just the kick one needs. VI_WS ^talk 22:04, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would re-spin this to say "motivate editors to create new content that passes certain thresholds of quality." The possibility of main-space display does appear to be an effective motivator for many participants. There are multiple thresholds to consider. The possibility of being listed or DYK or ITN or OTD can motivate people to expand their new stubs to achieve at least start quality status, to find reliable sources, to provide good reference citations, and to make other valuable contributions that don't always get made without some sort of motivation. At a higher level, the possibility of being featured on the main page can motivate users to contribute the kind of new quality content that eventually becomes a featured picture or that is needed to bring an article to FA or FL status. --Orlady (talk) 22:05, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but I'm not sure we can get to a good route forward. Ideally we should showcase unfinished articles on the main page but I can't see how that would work, politically. Some of the opposing comments are depressing. Protonk (talk) 20:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Showcasing unfinished work and inviting the readership to step up and improve it seems to be a higher priority than showcasing work in which the i's are all dotted and the t's are all crossed. An easy way to select candidates for this fixer-upper slot would be to have a shortlist of articles which have been rated by projects as high priority but which are still stubs. Warden (talk) 21:12, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Existing editors should be using the Wikipedia:Community portal. Main Page appearances should not be tokenised as a reward for contributions. — Pretzels^Hii! 20:29, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Put that bluntly: no. The motivation for creating new content is largely intrinsic; and to the extent that it is extrinsic, it leads to cookie-cutter low-quality content by people chasing badges (quantity over quality). I'd have more time for the goal of "motivating editors" in general (particularly for creating high-quality content that's gone through reasonably rigorous review like Featured), but I'd still put that some way down the list of priorities (though happily, that goal coincides pretty well with the goal of showing off our best content). Rd232 ^talk 20:34, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As by new content we usually mean just new articles. That is what we do now. What we should try to do is to motivate editors to improve existing articles. See mini-rant in discussion at the top section of this header above. Johnbod (talk) 11:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What Johnbod said. We definitely already have enough articles, but we don't have enough good articles on important topics. When there are lots of C-class, start-class and stub-class vital articles, creating more stubs about obscure villages or whatnot isn't the best use of time. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Broke the quantity record already. ... (talk) 06:40, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No longer a primary aim. – Quadell ^(talk) 11:56, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Quadell: we have 3.8 million articles, so improving them is more important than creating new articles. For this reason, DYK needs a re-think. Tony (talk) 12:00, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, let them improve existing ones instead. They'll just put more pressure on NPP. —mc10 (t/c) 16:08, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not as if we didn't have enough trouble with new creations already... --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:30, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Clarifying: This item is about creating new content, not about creating new articles. Creating new content would definitely include expanding existing articles with improved content. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 13:35, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Sharktopus makes an excellent point. Not all new content consists of new pages. The possibility of mainpage display also can motivate contributors to add quality new content to existing articles to bring them to FA class or to allow them to be linked on WP:OTD, submit high-quality images that could become featured images, etc. --Orlady (talk) 14:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What should be featured on the main page?

Currently on the main page

April Fool's day Main Page

One day a year, an April Fools slot with Main Page items are written misleadingly. Example. Do you endorse or oppose this practice

A weak endorsement, or rather no consensus to stop the practice. Slightly stronger support for the TFA than in other items on the page. Happy‑melon 16:16, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

Semel in anno licet insanire. Also, those pranks are usually so silly I don't think it is possible for anyone to seriously believe them (for more than 500 milliseconds, at least). ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:29, 16 July 2011 (UTC) But, as James (User:M.O.X) says, I'd make the jokes more obvious by using standard capitalization and italics. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
They're all factual, just with a humourous spin. No need to be so cynical about it and it certainly hasn't attracted much bad press. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:57am • 01:57, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support, but not where the attempt to mislead includes deliberate inaccuracy either in spelling and grammar (as it did this year[1]) or factual. The "one section per year" as suggested by Dabomb87 may be an improvement. Peter E. James (talk) 21:56, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I always thought Wikipedia had the right approach to April Fools: weird and funny content, but nonetheless completely factual. hare j 23:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's fun and good for the community. (If we don't have a community, we eventually won't have an encyclopedia.) I also agree that the goal ought to be things that are a bit weird, quirky, funny, or silly rather than misleading. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, why not?Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:07, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One day a year. Johnbod (talk) 11:33, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, and the RFC statemenent is written falsely. IF DYK misled, then DYK (per multiple reasons) should no longer be on the mainpage at all, but we don't need to stop mainpage one-day-a-year tradition because someone goofed on one section. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:55, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's an expected tradition that most major websites engage in. Neelix (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All it does is promote already suitable content in a whimsical way. It draws a ridiculous number of viewers to obscure (mostly) well-written articles. Qrsdogg (talk) 04:17, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I love the unique Wikipedia take on it; it subverts the expectations for April Fool's Day in a wonderful way. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like the April Fools' Day page, but I wouldn't object to keeping it to one section. Karanacs (talk) 18:07, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At least the TFA. This is a tradition among sites like ours, Google's, etc. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:30, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep it, but restrict the strangely-worded things and the like to DYK and not TFA/TFP/ITN/OTD/etc. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:47, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's funny. Google does it too. -- $Σ talk contribs$ 02:30, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedians and its readers are entitled to engage in a little frivolity once in a while. Notions that April Fools Day is antithetical to policy might be true, but it also renders Wikipedia all that more sterile. Also, this seems one of the few occasions where ignoring all rules is appropriate. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 17:56, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Great fun. – Quadell ^(talk) 11:58, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's a funny joke and differentiates the day from a normal day; friends that do not edit Wikipedia also find the April Fools' Day jokes funny. —mc10 (t/c) 17:50, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. We aren't a bunch of stuffed shirts (appearances to the contrary). Protonk (talk) 20:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 05:26, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Everybody and his grandma make an April Fools' joke. So should we. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:34, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Great idea Bulwersator (talk) 07:00, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Wikipedia. It is also a fun creative challenge for editors to try to find articles that are accurate but can have a humorous spin to them. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 19:55, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Strong oppose Although some newspapers decide to lower their standards of truth (well, those papers that have such a thing) for one or two silly stories, they do not normally rededicate their entire front page to utter nonsense. Neither should we. We are not a paper, our style is not journalistic, and our motivation is not to maximise sales. The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to inform, not to mislead Kevin McE (talk) 12:45, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with above. Although it's a longterm tradition, I think it's had its time and is no longer interesting or good for the main page. AD 12:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think most of us can agree that jokes in ITN are inappropriate. The practice has waned in recent years resulting in an odd mix of true and fallacious items. Without April Fools ITN, the Main Page just falls all over itself. I did enjoy it while it lasted. Marcus Qwertyus 13:05, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen the April Fool's main pages, and they're just not funny. Hot Stop (t) 14:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, overdone, and the jokes aren't funny anymore. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with above. Don't see any value added. --Elekhh (talk) 04:34, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not funny. Lightmouse (talk) 17:34, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Misleading and usually not even funny. If it can be toned down a bit, I might endorse it. I like Dabomb's idea to have one silly MP feature; that way we can put more work into it and make it clever-funny and not push the truth so much. —Andrew_stalk 22:09, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Kevin McE. -- Jeandré, 2011-07-17t22:46z
I like to see unusual topics on the Main Page, but the jokey writing style falls flat. Zagalejo^^^ 02:51, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thankfully we had a modicum of common sense at ITN this year not to go ahead with this crap. It's unbecoming of an encyclopaedia. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 03:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think when TFA feels that it needs to resort to penis gags to fill the slot, they're sending a clear message that they can't do this annually. I'm not opposed to any sort of April fool's reference on the main page, but nigh on every section every year is too much. I'd restrict it to one section plus the first or last DYK per year. —W F C— 14:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why the special treatment? ... (talk) 06:43, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. Forcing jokes into a ritual structure makes them even less funny, and "april fools day" is hardly a universal and homogenous phenomenon among our readership. It does nothing to help wikipedia build a serious encyclopædic reputation. bobrayner (talk) 10:49, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose - This would put us at the risk of getting bad press and lowering our already poor credibility (in terms of public opinion). — Kudu ^~I/O~ 20:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Every joke stops being funny after a while. Wikipedia's April Fool's Main Pages were cute at first, but it's been going long enough that now they just feel tired and desperate. Robofish (talk) 22:29, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose How can vandalism be prohibited if we fill the front page with half-truths, double entendres and deliberate ambiguities? Even if it is just for one day. /Coffeeshivers (talk) 19:48, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I agree that the April Fool's feature is a bit tired, but at the same time I wouldn't want to see it go away entirely. Perhaps we could reduce the frequency at which we do April Fool's MPs (every 2 or 3 years instead of every year)? Or, we could limit the "joke" slots to one feature every year and have them rotate (TFA this year, DYK the next, ITN in 2013, etc.). Dabomb87 (talk) 02:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I think we could limit it to just a quirky Today's Featured Article. I say this because there would be no opportunity to put a humorous spin—you'd have to reproduce the opening of the featured article faithfully if not verbatim. Other features such as DYK and ITN are prone to spin on AF Day which I feel is inappropriate. hare j 23:28, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
INVALID commentary, leading to invalid conclusions-- take note now-- TFA is *never* written "misleadingly"-- it is always factual. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:55, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link to the introduction

This is currently in the top left hand corner, welcoming to Wikipedia and linking to Wikipedia:Introduction.

Consensus to keep, and quite a lot of support for expanding its prominence, although not reaching consensus level. Happy‑melon 16:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

Would like to see this expanded/turned into a "How you can contribute" section. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe. It's not much use as it currently is, but I agree with MOP that we need more on getting people contributing. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:45, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Endorse. I agree with master of puppets that the introduction should be reworked into a "how you can contribute" section. It should also be made more prominent, I personally didn't know it existed until now. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, why not. hare j 00:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
endorse but not strongly opposed to review which might include removal, restructure or rewording - the page hits seem to average 1.4 to 2000 hits a day, which suggests it gets a fair bit of traffic from the mainpage and is helpful....? Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As MoP, I'd even turn it into something more, e.g. this. Readers know we're an encyclopaedia, but I think in this context a sizeable fraction of them have at best a vague (if any) idea of what free and that anyone can edit exactly mean (in terms of what exactly a person has to do in order to edit, etc.). ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 18:15, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely, it's a good starting point. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:58am • 01:58, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per MOP - needs expanding into its own section. Not sure how useful this is at present, especially with the somewhat deceptive link, and it's important. Rd232 ^talk 20:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, it's just a link. Obviously none of us use it, but as Casliber says, others do. Johnbod (talk) 11:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's helpful for people finding out the basics. Neelix (talk) 13:10, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Needs to be more prominent. I agree with other editors in expaning it, but I think a two- or three-sentence blurb rather than a whole section would be more appropriate. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, useful for newcomers who wish to learn about editing. —mc10 (t/c) 16:09, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
TCO (reviews needed) 09:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC). Low value filler text in a very prominent area. People know who we are (Google does not need to say "a search engine"). Also, icon to the far left already has this info/words. Further, the writing has two MOS link errors: blue next to blue, and then wikilinking to free, encyclopedia, and English are a waste (well known terms). Wikilinking to intro and the site statistics is OK though.[reply]
Reduce to one line without deceptive link. As TCO points out "Google does not need to say they are a search engine", we don't need to say we are an encylopedia. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 09:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't even know this link was on the main page. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:35, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with TCO. Doesn't add much value and seems redundant. The adage "Show don't tell" seems apt. The main page should be showing that we're an encyclopedia instead of us needing to waste space talking about it. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 18:18, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

never noticed it before. Hidden behind the text "anyone can edit". --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, deceptive link.

Agreed, most inappropriate. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 09:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, deceptive link. This might be going way off-topic, and might create a labour-availability crisis, but if we really want to draw in good editors a help-desk or, better, a selection of areas they're interested in, with a one-to-one (anonymity) email button. Don't underestimate the value of personal contact .... Want to become a regular editor? Talk to one of our friendly volunteers. Tony (talk) 15:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:30, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Site statistics

The number of articles.

Consensus to display "statistics", of which the article count is the most obvious example. Some support for also displaying the number of FAs, GAs, etc. Happy‑melon 16:23, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse: ~~AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)~~[reply]

--Cybercobra (talk) 20:38, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The number is downright impressive. Marcus Qwertyus 22:35, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
yes, agree on the number - great advertising. :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One of Wikipedia's most salient features, and a snappy bit of advertising. I find the opposes per SunCreator bizarre - they would only make sense if quantity was something to be ashamed of. It's not, and denigrating new articles won't magically make quality elsewhere rise, since Wikipedia is a volunteer project. SnowFire (talk) 04:43, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Cas, 'tis impressive and good PR, but (1) when the main page is completely redesigned I'd be willing to dispense with it if it doesn't fit well visually; and (2) I oppose it if "English" (language) is still linked. You might link to the native language on the Armenian WP, but not English, please. Tony (talk) 08:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very tight way of making a big point. Link works (not deceptive). Would not kill me if this died in a super minimalist layout, but otherwise, keep it.TCO (reviews needed) 09:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd describe it as optional. I like it, but accept that that's a very weak rationale. As Tony1 says, whether it should stay depends what the new page looks like. —W F C— 11:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One of the main things I look for when I'm visiting other language versions of Wikipedia is the number of articles. This is an important and useful part of the main page and shouldn't go. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Should find space for this somewhere on the Main Page. Needn't necessarily be so prominent though (which becomes a particular issue if we want to expand by including FAs, GAs and perhaps other site stats, which is broadly a good idea I think). Rd232 ^talk 00:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We need to publicize just how big we are. This is perhaps the only statistic we need on the front page, but it's an important one. Them From Space 05:34, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Harmless and interesting to some. Sandstein 07:05, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's one miniscule line! Get over it already! —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 11:59am • 01:59, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's mildly interesting to some. Plus, removing the line would have no effect on the quality of our articles. Zagalejo^^^ 02:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Quick access to some site info lots of people do care about.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:08, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even as an editor involved in multiple featured content processes, I have to admit that more people probably care about our article count than our FA/GA/FL count. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of casual users find these statistics interesting. Neelix (talk) 13:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Simple and eye-catching. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Free publicity, even if it isn't a good indicator of quality. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:34, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's just an interesting fact that readers may find interesting. —mc10 (t/c) 16:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Oppose, figure is useful but not on front page. It speaks of quantity rather then quality. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 19:58, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, per SunCreator, also everybody knows that wikipedia is comprehensive, no need to show off. bamse (talk) 21:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also per SunCreator. AD 21:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Article number is meaningless when we're seeking quality. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per SunCreator. — Dispenser 00:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per above, also, the exact number of articles seems much less important as the project matures. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At one point, Google used to release how many web pages they have in their index. Then they stopped, saying that it's more than anyone else will ever have and we should take for granted it's some unholy number. Wikipedia has also reached that point. People take for granted that Wikipedia has an article on just about everything they're interested in, and the 3.5 million figure may give the impression that we have 3.5 million articles of equal length, weight, and stature, when at least a third of them are "East St. Thermodeaux is a village in central France. The population is 12." or "Gabor is the goalkeeper for Great People's Czech F.C. This article is a stub." We should stop counting total articles, and start counting decent articles. hare j 01:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per SunCreator and Harej. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as I did in the past years, I think is time to focus more on quality and a bit less on quantity. --Elekhh (talk) 06:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per RadManCF. The number is not so important anymore. Batjik Syutfu (talk) 12:08, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think Harej makes a good point. A raw count of all articles doesn't really achieve much; people already know that we have a very large number of articles of which many are mass-produced stubs, and what else is it going to be compared to? I'd be happy to see some other statistic which put more emphasis on quality or collaboration or "anyone can edit!". bobrayner (talk) 10:53, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Marginal. I don't think it is necessary to get into philosophical debates about the value of certain metrics (character counts, skeumorphic comparisons, etc.) in order to make the claim that # of articles isn't a core feature the main page needs to showcase. For each of these elements we should feel free to ask whether or not we would include it on the main page were we to build it from scratch. If the answer is no or maybe, it should be left off to respect readers' time and attention. Protonk (talk) 17:55, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

It's not such a vital thing, but on the other hand it doesn't take up that much space. If it's kept, I'd agree to tell the number of FAs as well. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 18:18, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nice idea. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 08:28, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree too. ... (talk) 06:46, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Meh, don't know if it really matters. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:37, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Site statistics. Would like to see, in addition, quality measures. eg Number (or percentage) that are FAs, GAs. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Those percentages would contain an unsightly number of 0s Jebus989 ^✰ 09:47, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like an interesting subject. I'd be all for changing the article count to something like a "Featured article" count.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Definitely add just the total number (the % is still too small), but having a link to WP:FA and our best articles is a really good idea. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - Broadly, I'd agree - maybe cover GAs as well as FAs? bobrayner (talk) 10:58, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Links to portals

The main page should not link to (a list of) portals. MER-C 10:51, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

A selected few portals, and as link to all of them.

Endorse

Weak endorse, linking to a list of portals may be helpful, but links to individual portals seems excessive. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Only if we link to portals that have the same appeal as the re-designed Main Page hopefully will have. hare j 01:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think I endorse a link to some - have a look at the pageviews - for July thus far, Portal:history averages 3.5-5k, Portal:Science 3.3-4.8k, Portal:Arts 2.2-3.0k, Portal:Biography 2.9-3.7k, Portal:Geography 1.8-2.2k, Portal:Mathematics 2.6-3.7k, Portal:Society 1-1.6k, 1.9-3.3k, and Portal:Contents/Portals gets 4.5-6.2k daily. These are massive figures and much higher than say Portal:medicine which gets 216-330 daily. I think this can be rejigged however, maybe a rotating roster of Featured Portals here occupying a slot. I think the pagviews suggest a lot of readers use them, even if most editors don't have them on the radar.. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:38, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
By default. While I agree that some of them are not that great, we must have a gateway to fundamental topic areas on the main page. If portals are removed, something else should fulfil the same purpose. —W F C— 11:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not great, but usable as a "top level index" of contents. Courcelles 13:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What we have now is OK, and so would a ‘Featured portal of the day/week/month’ section, but anything more would be too much. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 18:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per A. di M. The current eight portals are fine, but I would also support a 'Featured portal of the [time period]'. Portals are dying, but I think that they are a great feature and need to be more accessible. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 01:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If they "frequently fall into disrepair" a TFP section would encourage active maintenance and more contributions... —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:01pm • 02:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At least the major portals ought to be useful for readers. I think they currently are (lesser ones do get very neglected), and they're hardly going to get improved if dropped from the Main Page. If anything, I'd suggest greater prominence, because readers looking for specific things will tend to be dumped at the right page (or near it in the topic) by a search engine, whereas those coming to the Main Page are more likely looking for an overview. And the current prominence is relatively low: they may be above the fold, but they're small and unexplained, and I think probably missed by many visitors. Rd232 ^talk 21:06, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, yes, even though most portals unfortunately aren't particularly good. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:38, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 19:59, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
bamse (talk) 21:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not relevant to most visitors. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think most editors, never mind visitors, would struggle to define what a portal is or how it contributes to an understanding of our articles. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:48, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Portals are usually a waste of time and don't need to be promoted on the main page. Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Waste of time, variable quality, frequently fall into disrepair. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:42, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most portals are not very useful or well-maintained. Sandstein 07:06, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Waste of space as it is. Possibly ok if collapsed into a linked something like "Portals by subject area" leading to a page showing a rather longer list (which probably already exists somewhere. Johnbod (talk) 11:41, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not showcasing the best of Wikipedia. Neelix (talk) 13:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I honestly didn't realize those were even there. I don't think it's useful to link to just the braodest couple of portals, but I would be amenable to rotating featured portals as part of some new featured-non-article-content section. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:27, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Sandy. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Portals have been over-rated, IMO. As SandyGeorgia notes, they have a tendency to fall into disrepair -- I suggest that is largely because they don't generate very much traffic, so they don't get a lot of attention. --Orlady (talk) 22:24, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, I rarely come upon portals, and the concept of a "portal" is fairly difficult to explain to newcomers. —mc10 (t/c) 17:52, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I question the value of the entire Portal system. This wasn't a triumph. I'm making a note here, "little success". --Cybercobra (talk) 05:28, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We shouldn't be in the business of sending readers to rabbit holes. If the portals aren't active areas of wikipedia, they shouldn't be featured prominently on the main page. Protonk (talk) 18:02, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

Ideally, could be useful. In current state of practice, not so much.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Should we work on some kind of standard on how to make portals useful and something we would want to brag about to the public? Kind of like this RFC we're having now regarding the Main Page? hare j 01:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are Portals useful? Have readers, as opposed to editors, been surveyed? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- They could be useful, as they facilitate topic based browsing as any index in a book. They have been neglected however in the past two years, and the number of viewers has been accordingly stagnating/decreasing. In contrast better maintained portal systems on other language Wikis had increasing number of viewers (last time I checked). Better exposure would lead to improvements I think. --Elekhh (talk) 06:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What I'd be intrigued with is rotating some featured portals through, say, in a fourth column for a couple of months, and monitoring pageviews and thence pageviews for Featured Content off that portal, and see the results. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I proposed earlier today that we include Featured portals. Any old portal, however, won't do. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:45, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A click-on image and title for a featured portal / featured topic (in rotation, perhaps) would be great. A lot of work goes into topics and portals, and I feel they're under-recognised and underused but of powerful attractive value to visitors. I presume the 200 featured portals are all well-maintained ... are they? Tony (talk) 15:34, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don't put money on it. Is there a "Featured Portals Review" page anywhere? Johnbod (talk) 11:43, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Featured portal review. If you see a FPo that needs delisting, nominate it and it will either be improved or de-featured. Some of the older ones do need some attention to bring them up to the standards of the more recent ones, but once a good portal is up and running with plenty of quality content displayed on a randomised basis, they don't really need much maintenance. Bencherlite ^Talk 11:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks - the page could clearly use the publicity! I see the current 2 noms include things like "main image not updated since 2009". Johnbod (talk) 12:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This section is a prime example of a piecemeal, democratic RfC on main page design simply won't work.
- If the general subject areas of Arts, Biography, Geography, History, Mathematics, Science, Society and Technology are not relevant to most visitors, I'd like someone to tell me what is.
- The purpose of a portal is to act as a main page for the given subject. For instance, Portal:Mathematics should function as the main page for mathematics-related content, broadly construed.
- Portals are often a waste of time because they do not fulfil the previous purpose. For that reason I would be opposed to having a dedicated featured portals section.
I believe that's 100% of the above rationales refuted. The votes on this page will no doubt continue though. —W F C— 18:10, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WFC, re your first point: those eight portals are relevant, and all supporters agree. This straw poll is simply whether we should have portals on the MP or not, not whether we should have more or not. Re #2: Should the MP not link to the subjects' main pages/portals? Re #3: Well, it is sad that you think that. While a lot of them are crap, many of them are well-loved and in great condition. If we support portals on the MP, we may see an increase in the editing activity of portals, and the general quality of portals elevated. —Andrew_stalk 07:30, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Today's featured article

The main page should continue to include TFA. MER-C 03:49, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

With a blurb and a picture.

Endorse

AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:00, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Blurbs could be tighter though. Hot Stop (t) 20:17, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 20:38, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Include. Some discussion below on sometimes putting the TFL in the TFA slot, very much oppose that.
bamse (talk) 21:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Classic mainstay. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh definitely. Writing an FA is the ultimate achievement for a Wikipedian and is one of, if not the, most difficult feats one can undertake. We should recognise that at the same time as showing off our very best content. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:49, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Endorse. Prominently displaying examples of our best content in a heavily trafficked area seems like a PR no-brainer. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:35, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The shining star of the Main Page is indeed the featured article. hare j 01:17, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
'nuff said. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:24, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The best, and nearly the only, reason to go to the main page. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:36, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Easily the best way to draw attention to an article that might otherwise be missed; a good addition and hook for visitors, both new and old. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. High quality content well-reviewed. Shows 'the best that Wikipedia has to offer'. Lightmouse (talk) 09:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The one thing that definitely needs to stay. Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Almost didn't need to be discussed. Courcelles 13:09, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, it should be a centrepiece, but (1) click-on-image based, (2) shorter "dynamic" flout-out blurb, (3) more emphasis on polishing up the article before the day. Tony (talk) 15:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
— Dispenser 15:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
the only problem is the (sometimes) high vandalism...--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 10:46, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So far, it has worked. If it ain't broken, don't fix it. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 18:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC) Maybe the length of the blurb can be reduced, though. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Duh. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 01:54, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
of course Them From Space 05:35, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with the above. Sandstein 07:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
œ ^™ 09:05, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:03pm • 02:03, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can't picture the main page without one. Zagalejo^^^ 03:36, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I love TFA. --Another Believer _(Talk) 22:54, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. This is the highlight of the main page for a lot of people. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course! Theking 17825 06:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No reason not to showcase the best of Wikipedia. Neelix (talk) 13:14, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is really the only section I regularly pay attention to. Karanacs (talk) 18:10, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Neelix and Karanacs. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:39, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:05, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A no-brainer. —mc10 (t/c) 17:53, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

How do we know it's a good thing? We don't. Convince me. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:11, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As stated above, never read one. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The idea seems good but some recent examples have been dire. Today's for example: "John C. W. Beckham (1869–1940) was the 35th Governor of Kentucky...". I'd sooner read List of bus routes in Basingstoke. Warden (talk) 21:35, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

My endorsement would be provisional on an enhanced FA procedure: the blurbs are frequently full of errors, poor grammar, inconsistent capitalisation, incorrect or [un]sourced claims, breaches of MoS etc. This is not Raul's responsibility, it is either insufficient scrutiny at FA stage, or subsequent sub-standard edits. Kevin McE (talk) 12:53, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, see the recent and appalling Somerset. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:55, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These whinges don't make good cases for their respective authors as grammar monitors! TFA blurbs also face risks from the muggers who hang around the next days main page, with little supervision. Johnbod (talk) 20:45, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon? Whinges? These are valid comments from editors who have seen crap TFA blurbs placed on the main page that are neither interesting nor well written. Take a look at the criticisms being hurled at WP:TFL (without justification mainly, other than personal preference), at least they comply with MOS, are grammatically correct and have decent blurbs that are scrutinised for some time before being queued up and protected. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:52, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They are certainly comments. Whether they are "valid" or "whinges" is subjective. Blurbs do need more attention, but at an earlier stage (but not FAC, for reasons that are surely obvious), and where they will be seen by more editors. Johnbod (talk) 21:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Correct. So where does the "grammar monitor" comment come from? The Rambling Man (talk) 21:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear - "incorrect or sourced claims", "recently appalling". Johnbod (talk) 21:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Really? You're really here to correct grammar in our comments rather than talk about the "blurb crap" that gets shifted onto Main Page as our best work? Really? Wow. Pathetic. [Oh, you are being ironic, look: "the next days [sic] main page"!!!!!!!!! Tee hee...] The Rambling Man (talk) 21:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Muphry's Law, anyone? ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:55, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the news

With short hooks and links to Wikinews, deaths and current events.

The general consensus here is that ITN needs substantial reform, and a clearer sense of purpose, but there is currently no consensus to remove it. Happy‑melon 16:29, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

But see my comment below Hot Stop (t) 19:47, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~It should stay for now. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:04, 13 July 2011 (UTC)~~ Retracting due to the inability of a large number of the contributors to understand what a significant event is. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, Wikipedia is good at news content. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:11, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. ITN is the most topical section of the MP.--Johnsemlak (talk) 21:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
ITN isn't meant to be a bleeding-edge list of headlines, but offer congregated information about unfolding events. And it does its job well. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Though the items take days to get consensus, I think the ITN process is getting more and more refined and more and more people are taking part in the process. Marcus Qwertyus 22:32, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We have many articles on current events, often events of great importance and sometimes events that people might not otherwise read about. It's good to showcase such articles, especially since this is one of the areas where we do best against more traditional encyclopaedias. ITN is flawed, but so are TFA, DYK and OTD. The solution is to improve them, not abolish them—Wikipedia is, after all, a work in progress. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:44, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, It's a nice means of doing background research about current events, go to an article on a current event, and follow the links, you come out with a much more thorough understanding of the issue than you would from watching TV news. A link to wikinews may be useful, however. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but not in its current format - especially when we have "Current events" so prominently in the global navigation. — Pretzels^Hii! 01:13, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
endorse but openminded to other approaches - I do think it gives the page a feel that it is current and cutting-edge, which is nice, and if it promotes polished editing and rigorous review of current event articles, all the better. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:43, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In general I support this, but some fine-tuning of the process would do some good. hare j 02:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To be quite honest, it is the only way I get to read the news. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:39, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
as the main page section with highest viewership i think it does a great job. and ITN follows WP:NOTNEWS so opposes based on that seem to be rather misinformed. -- Ashish -g55 03:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very, very, weakly. If we had a really good idea of something to do with that space, present it, but as it stands, it works, and directs readers to the content they're apparently looking for. Courcelles 13:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What we have now is OK, but I'd oppose anything more per WP:NOT#NEWS. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 18:27, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We are not a news site, but people come to us looking for the background to what they see on TV. Sandstein 07:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The first thing I read when my browser starts up with the Main Page is the ITN headlines, and if there's something interesting going on in the world I'm only 1 click away from the article where I can read all about it. I'm sure I'm not alone.
Endorse. Spencer^T♦C 15:56, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:03pm • 02:03, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, it's something the general public expects to see. It's not perfect in its current form, but it's something worth fixing.Zagalejo^^^ 03:16, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What do you suggest doing to fix it? I've put vast amounts of effort into it, and we are still failing to post stories which attract millions of article views and tens of thousands of Google News hits and to avoid essentially voting on every item. I have retracted my vote here on the grounds that I don't actually think its fixable even after putting in huge amounts of effort to make it work. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 07:40, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
*shrugs* I don't have any specific ideas in mind. I'm just being idealistic. Zagalejo^^^ 00:57, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Raise standards for featuring, but keep as it is useful. Also I notice that some of the arguments in the "Oppose" section are just simply not grounded in reality.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC) Switching to oppose.[reply]
This is an opinion strictly based on principle. The idea of having important news on the main page is what I'm supporting. Unfortunately, it too often takes far too long to get something up. Shouldn't be taking hours to post The Open Championship, to name one recent example. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This section is integral to the main page; many people use our main page as their home page specifically because of this section. Neelix (talk) 13:15, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Source? -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:03, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Showcases Wikipedia's timeliness and comprehensiveness. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Especially excellent for background reading of current events. ... (talk) 06:56, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. While I am uncomfortable with the quality of some of the items that have reached ITN, I think we generally have an acceptable standard. And, while I feel strongly about WP:NOTNEWS, I don't think making it harder for readers to find articles about current events is going to make Wikipedia less "newsy". The problem is with the editors, not the readers. Jim Sukwutput 23:59, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Weak endorse. It's dangerous, and it will likely get us in trouble. But people love it. It's worth it. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:06, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Although we have WP:NOTNEWS, Wikipedia is still a nice place to glance at the current news, and articles usually have fairly useful and accurate content. —mc10 (t/c) 17:57, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Showcases one of our strengths. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:30, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--The Evil IP address (talk) 13:41, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. ITN has serious problems, but the main page should be about readers, not editors. Likewise the comments below suggesting we are not a news site are aspirational, not empirical. Some of our most trafficked (non-celeb) articles are on current or recent news subjects and many of them are of very high quality. Not only that but our ability to create, source and trim those kinds of articles is what distinguishes us from traditional encyclopedias and reference works. Protonk (talk) 18:07, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Its unreformable though. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 19:46, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
An important section that drives many editors to Wikipedia. Anytime a significant event happens, like the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, the Wikipedia article becomes a go-to page because it often has the most up to date and comprehensive coverage. It needs reforms and a stronger push towards better articles and less celebrity deaths and sporting events but that is not a reason to scrap one of the Main Page's best features. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 08:18, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

We aren't a news site and the articles are usually about out of date events anyway. AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not that useful, why are we trying to invent ourselves into a news site when we do so many other things so well?--Wehwalt (talk) 21:42, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per AD and Wehwalt. bamse (talk) 21:43, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
WP:NOTNEWS. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Being an encyclopaedia means we don't have to be topical. We often say "Wikipedia is not the news"; we also say "there is no deadline". Yet in this fast-moving world, should we continue down this route, there is often no event article, thus creating pressure to start and list articles whose quality cannot be adequately monitored in the short time of the news cycle. In addition and in any event, one of my main gripes is the chronic overlinking which folks at ITN seem to adore – almost to the extent of eschewing one link when two (or, even better, three) will do. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of whether people get to them via ITN, or directly current events articles get massive hit counts. South Sudan got 260k hits on the 10th July. With regards to over-linking I agree, but that isn't a reason to remove the section. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If we consistently did a good job, I'd support this. We do not consistently do a good job with this section. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
~~We have actually managed to improve it so far this year, maybe not enough, but it is working significantly better. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)~~ Retracting. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:39, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
NotNews, frequently POV and poor quality. The mainpage should be reserved for vetted content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:43, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Incapable of deciding what a significant event is without the page descending into a farce. A million article hits isn't enough for some people. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:50, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely get rid of this. Ends up polluting the main page with junk, and it's a breeding ground for biases of all sorts. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 05:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, seeing what goes on with these articles and the sensitive/controversial nature of them, I'd rather see this gone. Actually Wikipedia probably shouldn't have articles on anything that's less than two years old.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If we didn't cover anything less than two years old we may as well give up. There is massive interest in current events. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:56, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Sandy and the massive problems with the project. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:41, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I find ITN to be useful, but it needs to be changed. Content needs to get posted more frequently. I'd also prefer a separate recent deaths section as seen on the German and Spanish wikipedias, among others. Hot Stop (t) 19:47, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- ITN does need to continue to be improved, and I have been pushing hard for progress to continue in this regard at WT:ITN. If you don't believe ITN posts enough new content fucking tell us at WT:ITN. At a certain point I'm sure I will lose patience with it, but we should remember that it started the year posting one story every 20 hours, and in June it managed one every 13 hours, which is a big improvement. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:03, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - I was active at ITNC, but some recent events have turned me off there. Hot Stop (t) 20:06, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - I can't blame you for that, sorry if I had any part in it. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:11, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      - Thanks, it wasn't you though. Sometimes it's like bashing your head into a wall when you try to get something include. All the hyperbole and false comparisons don't help either. Hot Stop (t) 20:19, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        Agreed, and possibly ultimately the right answer is to remove it, but I think we should make a good effort to make it work. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:02, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- If there are sections for deaths, sectioning other items by type would be nice if our cookies remember which sections we've collapsed - I'd like to not see sport and celebrity gossip type items. -- Jeandré, 2011-07-17t23:18z
Maybe we could change the format? Perhaps a scrolling ticker type thing over the top of the page? I know it's very newsy, and we don't like that, but it would free up a good bit of space to do something else if we wanted to. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:52, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I'd be in favour of this. It would allow us to put more content into the ticker too. —W F C— 11:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- No, please no scrolling tickers! God help us if we start to emulate CNN. -- œ ^™ 09:11, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Eeeeww! People had realized how hideous <marquee> was by the early 2000s. C'mon, this is not 1999. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I won't oppose because there is a place for it, but the selection process needs wholesale reform so that it is possible to update promptly. If the community view is that we are not a news service, I would suggest that we stop calling the section In The News. —WFC— 11:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I was asked by Tony to explain how ITN has improved this year. Firstly the headline figure, in June we made 54 postings, compared to 100 in the three months earlier around Christmas, this means we've improved from posting every 20 hours to posting about every 13 hours (I can link the sources if required). Secondly we've introduced a template for posting articles {{ITN Candidate}} - and we've been marking items that are ready to be posted with [Ready] in their subject - this then gets replaced with [Posted] once an item has been posted, which also has the side affect of allowing you to see how much content we've posted at a glance and allows admins to post content more quickly. We have also created a purpose for the section for the first time, and introduced minority topics so that things we post less often are recognised. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:45, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Could we co-ordinate with WikiNews and link to a few of their headlines? That could tie in with the promotion of sister projects. Mind you, that kinda navigates readers away from WP. Just thinking out loud.... —Adabow (talk · contribs) 01:58, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The point of ITN is to link to our WP articles on people and topics currently in the news, not provide actual news stories. — Pretzels^Hii! 02:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikinews is rather poor quality, I think they need to work much harder to earn links from our main page. --Elekhh (talk) 04:40, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ITN does well when it provides information which slips below the radar of the main news outlets and features stories notable for their worldwide scope, academic importance, etc. When it simply acts as a slow echo of major news sites, or links to articles that are only summaries of news content, it is not valuable. Counting page hits is not a useful way of marking the suitability of an item for ITN. Kevin McE (talk) 13:10, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- For that to happen the discussions participants need to be capable of judging the significance of an event quickly - even when it isn't a bomb going off, and disappointingly that seems to be rather more of an issue than I thought given the total inability to post the new Potter movie even though its the biggest selling book series ever. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 13:18, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Kevin McE I strongly disagree with the idea that major events aren't useful on ITN. ITN allows users to access background information on major events, for more comprehensively than major news outlets often do.--Johnsemlak (talk) 22:02, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - Agreed, but to do that you have to actually post those items in good time. And the contributors to the candidates page need to be able to do a vaguely acceptable job of balancing stories of different types. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:12, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One thing that occurred to me later when I wondered why I personally find ITN useful sometimes, compared to traditional media sources - because we do have a pretty diverse body of editors, from all kinds of international backgrounds, ITN does tend to highlight many important but lesser known stories that you generally don't get from (at least American) news sources. Of course I could go read FT or the Economist (and I do) but sometimes I just want to see headlines and catch up quickly on a story and having ITN on Wikipedia does that.Volunteer Marek (talk) 11:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I rarely look at it, and take on board your criticisms (elsewhere) of article standards, but I do think that when there is a really big, complex and fast-moving story, such as recently the Japanese tsunami power station fiaso (2.6 million views since March, just on the main article), or the Chilean mine rescue, a heavily edited WP article will beat traditional media hands down, because it keeps it all as one story, not treating it in little driblets as traditional media do. We get massive hits on these stories, and I think in the early days our coverage of 9/11 was an important part of Wikipedia's Rise to Power. I think news deserves a place on the Main Page, and if that works to increase general scrutiny of these articles, as has finally happened at DYK, so much the better. Perhaps fewer stories. Johnbod (talk) 10:32, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But then it also misses things like the Death of Caylee Anthony which got 2.6 million views in three days. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 22:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Did you know

With short hooks.

As with ITN above, some reform is clearly needed, but there is not currently any consensus to remove the section. The suggestion of slowing the process down is widely mooted. Happy‑melon 16:48, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse as it prommotes article creation. Would also tend to somewhat older (more than the 5 day maximum) and longer articles. bamse (talk) 21:47, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Older article allowance would be nice. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You gotta love DYK. It pumps 24 hooks a day. That's plenty of opportunity for the average contributor to get something on the main page. Marcus Qwertyus 23:00, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Like ITN. Room for improvement, but it has value and is worth keeping. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, just so long as we're careful about what articles are used. Linking to a poorly referenced, poorly written article from the main page doesn't seem like a good idea to me. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:41, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's a nice eclectic feature, and it gives people an incentive to improve articles. However, I think we should consider restricting DYK entries to good articles, or at least incorporating them more. hare j 02:41, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also thinking about extending criteria to "Good Articles that have been listed within the previous five days" much like 5x expansion etc. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I love helping with DYK, and our visitors get to learn about otherwise obscure topics that aren't recent enough for In the News. If we were to include GAs as well, that would be interesting too. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:41, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
but not in its current guise, and with a lower rotation. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A nice way to encourage article creators, and to get a wide variety of articles on the main page Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is a pleasure to see that many DYK critics have joined the reviews and are helping to improve the nominations. DYK is as imperfect as wikipedia, and will always be. I believe the hard-core critics are missing the main benefit of T:TDYK nomination page - unique collaborative atmosphere where any editors can walk in and work together. This atmosphere is different from FAC (where excessive scrutiny is a norm) and from GAN or PR (where the review is slower and more individual); it is crucial for improving WP as a whole and should be cherished and preserved. Materialscientist (talk) 11:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
DYK has been having an identity crisis for a few years now and no one agrees on just what it should be about. But nevertheless, it serves a purpose that is different than the other main page sections and is valuable. (This is especially the case if the focus of DYK is kept to "newest articles", rather than improved articles, newly-referenced articles, etc.) rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
of course.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 10:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another interesting way to showcase our breadth and motivate contributors. Sandstein 07:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
DYK is the only hope of some editors to get their articles linked from the main page and noticed, without that incentive we'd lose out on a lot of new articles, and likely lose a lot of valuable editors too. -- œ ^™ 09:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse in its current form. Much grousing in the 'oppose' column comes from folks best known around DYK for failed proposals to hijack the project for their own ends. - Dravecky (talk) 22:12, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This project needs improvements, that's true. So if DYK does stay it'll need thorough reviewing. At the moment we don't have thorough reviewing. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:04pm • 02:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to scrap it entirely, because it has the potential to be something great. But we need to eliminate the "everyone-gets-a-trophy" culture and focus on getting quality articles with interesting hooks. Some of the DYK writers don't even seem that interested in the topics they're writing about. They just want to collect awards, or fill out red links out of a sense of duty. Zagalejo^^^ 03:25, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Until the end of history, Wikipedia's going to continue to need expansion in terms of breadth as well as depth. FA and GA serve a valuable purpose by encouraging the latter; DYK encourages the former. In the past few months alone, I've seen articles there on bird, plant, and animal species; famous, award-winning works of Indonesian literature; cities, rivers, mountains, and forests; Bach cantatas; Egypt's most famous playwright; the head of Thailand's largest TV network; a former Chairman of the Arab Parliament; a photojournalist awarded both a Pulitzer Prize and an International Press Freedom Award; and Burma's first hiphop star, who went on to become a widely-noted dissident and political prisoner. I think it'd be a mistake to not encourage and reward this kind of growth to the 'pedia, and I'd respectfully suggest that those opposers who say we no longer need new articles and/or stub-expansions should take a closer look at the continuing gaps in our coverage. -- Khazar (talk) 19:51, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Materialscientist sums it up well. Also per HJ and Fram. 28bytes (talk) 15:01, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Materialscientist. Cbl62 (talk) 02:06, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I very much support increasing quality standards for DYK (and I also think that reducing the number of noms and featured articles goes hand in hand with such a reform) but quite simply, if DYK didn't exist it'd have to be invented. It is one of the most dynamic aspects of the project and one of the few which actually aligns (more or less) good incentives with good quality work (unlike GA and FA which to a large extent rely on good faith and charity of a very small group of self selected contributors). Yes, there is an occasional SNAFU - which often gets seized upon by some people and held up as if it was representative of DYK articles in general, which is just not true - but honestly, I could go through the list of current FAs and GAs and find LOTS OF CRAP too. In some ways because DYKs receive input from the broader community it's a more robust process. I do however think that DYK has gotten too hectic and in a way has become a "victim of its own success". Slow down. Reduce. Improve. But keep.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:16, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the idea of the section is what I'm really supporting. We've all seen the problems that DYK has had, but I do think showcasing new content is a worthy goal. Higher standards and stronger checks are needed, though. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As has been pointed out, DYK really helps combat systemic bias. Also, some current reform plans look really promising, so no need to dump this now. Qrsdogg (talk) 04:23, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As the easiest way for an editor to get their work featured on the main page, it's a fun way to motivate content creation. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, though I do like Tony's idea below of "slowing it down" with less sets but 1-2 sets a day is too low. A middle ground of 3 eight hour sets of 5-6 hooks each is probably more ideal. Like most things on Wikipedia the format and execution of DYK can be improved but the amount of good that it does in highlighting new and obscure articles that might not otherwise get much attention is too valuable to scrap. After OTD, I would say DYK is the 2nd most interesting section on the MP. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 05:56, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This was how I became an active an involved editor; one of my articles was nominated as a Did You Know. It brought me to the attention of a WikiProject, and I've immersed myself because of that initial recognition. I used to just think of Wikipedia as a place where you would put content that you felt people needed to know about; now I think of it as a community where you develop content for the world. VI_WS ^talk 22:15, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
DYK reignited my flagging interest in WP, my productivity went up, there were things to look forward to which were nor so laborious as GA/FA. I felt that by adding brand new scientific articles/facts or filling in the gaps, I was doing much more useful work than run-of-the-mill editing. AshLin (talk) 13:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, since !votes seem to be getting counted. Oppose yet another proposal to trash DYK accompanied by vastly exaggerated criticism of its shortcomings. It is a Wikipedia project whose enthusiasts are many and whose substantial infrastructure is constantly being worked on in hopes of improvement. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 14:22, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
An effective project for enticing readers to interact with different parts of Wikipedia, enticing new contributors to engage in article development (because, unlike FA, most DYK articles offer opportunities for expansion or other improvement), and motivating current contributors. --Orlady (talk) 22:27, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Even if the articles that get put there are not GA-level article, they receive vast improvements by anonymous editors and users just by being listed there. I, Jethrobot ^{drop me a line} (note: not a bot!) 18:01, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think DYK is an encouragement to novice editors. They will not be participating in this forum because they do not know their way around the Community Portal and do not know this discussion exists. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:12, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
DYK is an encouragement for contributors to create articles that aren't stubs and have decent citations, not the articles that go directly to CSD, PROD, or AfD. —mc10 (t/c) 17:59, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Comments below about plagiarism and quality are important but I feel the two are conflated. I see a number of excellent content editors watching lower quality content be "rewarded" where their work must be pushed through a smaller pipe. We need to disambiguate the concerns about general quality with concerns about plagiarism. Protonk (talk) 20:09, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
DYK's best feature is the hook. It's important that the main page be interesting and intriguing so that it draws readers in. The hooks are like Twitter - short and attention grabbing - and this is most appropriate for the front page which should have headlines rather than blocks of text. Warden (talk) 21:50, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Quality control for DYK sucks. It has sucked for a long time, and I'm not willing to give it any more chances. The fact of the matter is that until it reaches a level of peer review that is capable of consistently weeding out plagiarism, junk prose, false citing, and other concerns, it's a liability to Wikipedia. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. An embarassment to the project. Dangerous. In most cases, it should be called 'Did You Kare'. Rushed and nepotistic review process would shame a banana republic. Lightmouse (talk) 09:48, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Lightmouse—and a strong oppose unless there's reform. I'm surprised to see so many uncritical comments above, which suggests that many editors simply haven't worked at DYK. Please see my comments underneath in "Discussion". Tony (talk) 16:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
DYK is the weakest part of the mainpage: it has a reputation for being Plagiarism Central, the hooks are often sourced to non-reliable sources or sensationalized, and in spite of YEARS of asking DYK to clean up their act, they have actually gone backwards of late by requiring nominators to review hooks, meaning quality control is now worse than when semi-experienced editors reviewed them. DYK is an embarrassment to the main page and a vehicle for those who want to climb the grease pole at RFA to put up quick, plagiarized content-- scrap it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:45, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Sandy. On the one hand, I really like the idea of "did you know" hooks, I think it's a great way to show off content and is a nicely idiosyncratic Wikipedia thing. On the other hand, I've gradually come to the conclusion that this corner of Wikipedia I mostly haven't paid much attention to is broken. The best thing I can suggest right now is to put it on hiatus, replacing hooks drawn from new articles with hooks drawn from new GAs (thus forcing a minimum of quality control). Whilst on hiatus, the time can be taken to figure out how or whether to reintroduce hooks from new articles. Having had a number of DYKs and 2 GAs, to be honest I think it's perverse to feature new articles this prominently and to ignore GAs - new article creation tends to be an intrinsic reward, whereas GA is hard work and needs more encouraging. Rd232 ^talk 00:31, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All of the weeks FAs could maybe be DYKs. People don't read 7 a day. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) 03:13, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Switching to weak oppose. I think DYK has a place, but the quantity over quality aspect is currently not in balance. Would slide towards expanded articles and less new ones(not refresh every 6 hours) with idea of quality over quantity. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 11:06, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very weak element of page: prides itself on being misleading, and defends that on basis of "we are not meant to be encyclopaedic, we are here to plug new pages". Prides itself on the sort of misleading texts that other elements at least restrict to 1 April. I spent some time watching the proposals page, suggesting that grammar and honesty levels should be improved, and was harried away from it acussed of discouraging new editors. Well I will continue to discourage people from posting sub-standard content onto the main page for as long as I have any interest in Wikipedia. Kevin McE (talk) 13:18, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I remember contributing to DYK a few years back as a new user and how exhilarating it was, but I have to say with regret that it simply does not have the purpose it had before. In short, too much quantity, too little quality. It's not the users that are to blame - 3.8 million articles cover pretty much everything that is in any way significant; the most notable new articles tend to be about recent events, and those tend to be on ITN already. Batjik Syutfu (talk) 21:41, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Time for it to go. It features the weakest content on the main page and there's no sign that will ever change. It seems very resistant to suggestions to re-tool it. RxS (talk) 03:55, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think the idea of DYK (highlighting the interesting new content that is continually being added to Wikipedia) is a good one. However the process has significant flaws, and given the current attitude towards reform by regulars, I no longer support this feature on the Main Page. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea of DYK, but most of the approved hooks are not interesting at all. Unless that is changed, I am afraid I have to oppose.—Chris!_c/t 04:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Rd232 and Kevin McE. -- Jeandré, 2011-07-18t12:43z
The main page should showcase the best of Wikipedia, not whatever happens to be the newest. Neelix (talk) 13:16, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Dump it as it is. The requirements seem to encourage hastily created articles on obscure topics. Resurrect it to focus on interesting facts regardless of "newness." If an article is updated with interesting information, or someone runs across something they find interesting and didn't know, they could nominate it. --TimL (talk) 14:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would support if DYK were showcasing good articles. As it is, it promotes quick work (and quick reviewing), and thinks done in haste should not be on the main page. – Quadell ^(talk) 12:10, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Usually not what people read. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:43, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, too many problems associated with it. The proposed reforms by many opposers of DYK currently would cripple it beyond any realistic function anyway. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 00:31, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Only quality work belongs on the front page. I like Peregrine Fisher's idea at 6 above. That's effectively shutting down DYK as we know it. --Anthonyhcole (talk) 11:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
DYK is the weakest part of the main page, and the one part that really doesn't need to be there. I would suggest changing it to highlight high-quality articles rather than recently created or expanded ones, which frequently have problems. Robofish (talk) 22:22, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

(leaning Oppose) Dunno, I almost never read them. Maybe, instead of showing eight of them, show only two or three chosen at random from a list every time the page is loaded, and use the space saved this way for something else. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 19:54, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like the idea of a "did you know" section that can link to more articles. I do not like the way this is currently done. There are too many articles in this section, the hooks are generally boring, many of the articles are full of issues - plagiarism, POV, poor sourcing. I worry that if a new editor is first exposed to these articles then that's the kind of articles that new editor will write. I'd open this up to new GAs with a few slots for other random articles which have been checked for POV, poor sourcing, and plagiarism. Karanacs (talk) 18:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually endorse the section, but oppose the 'scrolling ticker'. Too many too fast. ... (talk) 07:02, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Did you know. Change title. Perhaps "New articles". These are good for inviting new editors write new content. The demonstrate that decent new articles are still being written. Unfortunately, the "know" in the title implies completion and authority. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:38, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- On the contrary, I think DYK should become more focused on improving existing (important) articles than encouraging creation of new ones on obscure and barely notable subjects. It should continue to include article expansions but additionally could also include GAs. --Elekhh (talk) 06:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do think DYK can be and is sometimes very good on the main page in concept and practice, and some people there do good work. However, I'm going to express an honest opinion that will prompt anger in some quarters: in practice, DYK is all too often an embarrassment and dangerous. The root of the problem is the tidal-wave pace of up to 32 articles a day. It is just impossible for this number to be reviewed, it's hard on the queuing admins, and the recently introduced system of requiring nominators to review is a dreadful failure: they seem to count characters and not much more—tick, tick, tick. No one's suggesting FAC-type standards, but I agree with SandyGeorgia: at the moment copyvio, close paraphrasing, verification problems, bad prose, and poor structure are being let through daily—these are often policy matters. Many articles contain no decent hook material, and although there's been a recent improvement in satisfying the DYK rules about "interesting, catchy, and punchy" hooks, we have a way to go. I'm very uncomfortable that some editors put up large numbers of early-stage articles in the same topic area—often without good hook opportunities; by contrast, there should be an expectation that not all of one's new work should get through the review process. There seems to be a culture of avoiding the rejection of DYK noms. Why?

Slow it down, please—one shift a day (possibly two, but I remain to be convinced).
Reinforce the trajectory from DYK to GA to FAC by allowing at least one GA hook per day, thus injecting into GA nominating and reviewing a little more motivational impetus.
Change the emphasis to creating high quality newly created/expanded articles, as a powerful training ground for editors and something we can be proud of displaying on the main page, not embarrassed by. I'll change to support if the process is reformed to enable proper reviewing. Tony (talk) 16:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it really needs to be slowed down. There is no need for changes every 6 hours or whatever it is. I also believe that DYK should be replaced by hooks from Good articles. Currently good articles serve no purpose on Wikipedia, other than a trophy for somebody. They aren't as great as FAs, but they are still of sufficient quality, and imo deserving of mention on the main page. AD 18:55, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

NB: Have proposed at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Good_articles_redux - if this can run concurrently for part of this process might give folks a better idea when it comes time to overhaul. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking over the support comments (and the opposes) it appears there's a fair amount of dissatisfaction with DYK in its current form. Of course some opposes want to ditch it completely, but some (including me) would change if some changes were made. In any case, by the looks of this section so far some changes need to be made at DYK. RxS (talk) 04:09, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be happier with DYK if it posted "the best" of the new articles, rather than "all" of the new articles. Right now, many DYKers believe that it is their duty to post 100% of articles that happen to meet the minimum requirements. IMO we'd be better off posting the better 50%, and omitting the worse 50%.

DYK is not meant to be Good articles (which, in turn, is not meant to be a mini-FA). It is meant to show new articles. Basically all of our new articles need some work. So the fact that they are imperfect (bad prose, insufficient citations, etc.) does not bother me. In fact, I'd be inclined to promote that as a feature: here's a new article with room for improvement—and you could improve it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:28, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I like that point. However, I think that at the moment, setting a low bar has encouraged the creation of a large volume of new articles which are engineered to pass that bar and sometimes (certainly not always) have quite serious flaws in areas where DYK does not set any requirements. The fact that others could then improve the articles further is not wholly positive. (And I speak as somebody who's gone on a DYK frenzy in the past). It's unreasonable to showcase only the very best content (ie. FAs) because wikipedia is a work in progress and it's important to recruit and encourage new editors which inevitably happens further down the quality scale - people do not arrive as fully-fledged, elite FA writers on day one. However, I would favour setting a slightly higher bar - which could be done by broadening DYK's "internal" standards a bit (I mean adding a bullet point on copyvio, rather than increasing word counts or whatever), or by adding some GAs into the mixture, or something else... bobrayner (talk) 11:34, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WhatamIdoing is quite right. DYKs are not meant to be perfect like FAs and so to criticise them for being imperfect is otiose. All we need to do is emphasise that the content is new and so may still need more work. Warden (talk) 22:00, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On this day

No consensus. I note that of all the major content items on the main page, this has the least community support. MER-C 10:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

With short descriptions of events with links to yesterday and tomorrow, and to the archive, email, and the list of anniversaries.

Endorse

~~AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)~~[reply]

My favorite section on the MP, would prefer this to be where ITN currently is. Hot Stop (t) 19:48, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, this seems to be pretty good. With regards to content locations I don't have a big issue with switching it with ITN, but I would get the sections to compete with each other in some way for top slot. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:11, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Cybercobra (talk) 20:48, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fine as it is. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, room for improvement (not sure we really need the blurb format and it can be a bit dull sometimes), but of definite value. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't see a problem here. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:43, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
On the fence here, but I don't think there's anything necessarily bad about On This Day. hare j 02:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Useful, especially when it comes to celebrations or events that are often overlooked. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
--Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting and sometimes bizarre, a good way of exposing the stranger bits of the 'pedia. —Tom Morris (talk) 11:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, because it provides some useful information about our history, inventions, discoveries, important achivements by people, etc. (though it contains nonsense information, like first gay parade...) Plus it contains holidays, not just only christmas or eastern, but also more or less independent holidays like Saint Rosalia or Bon Festival, which gives the reader an overview about our various holidays in our world. It is of huge encyclopedic value, alike TFP.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 10:33, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's a worthwhile counterbalance to ITN. If (and only if) ITN is converted into a ticker format, I would consider OTD expendable. If ITN is retained and largely unaltered, OTD or an equivalent should remain too. —W F C— 23:48, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very interesting and educational. Excellent starting off point for a myriad of historical topics. A very underappreciated part of the main page, but I'm willing to bet that once it's gone, you'll start to see a lot of complaints from readers. -- œ ^™ 09:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are different links shown each time, they're not always the same. Also whether one likes it or not is a moot point, it's not about "you" it's about the wider community. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:05pm • 02:05, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly one of those most interesting sections on the MP. Personally, I don't think we leverage this section enough and should promote it more. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 06:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We don't do enough to promote these; they're supposed to be populated with higher-quality articles, but I don't think enough people realize that they can add their articles to any anniversary date. This is a much easier problem to fix than ITN's or DYK's. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:44, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is exactly the kind of content that causes some people to visit a particular website on a regular basis. (That's why it's a tried and true component of many daily newspapers.) --Orlady (talk) 22:31, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OTD and ITN complements each other. ... (talk) 07:06, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's an interesting section, but perhaps it should be given less weight. —mc10 (t/c) 18:01, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Oppose, cut this to one line with a link showing off on this day items. I feel this section is a little nerdy. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:16, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why show a small percentage of date specific article repeatedly linked(annually) from main page over none date specific articles? Makes no sense. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 11:51, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The least useful and my least favorite part of the main page. Marcus Qwertyus 22:26, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This would be high on my list of things to cut to free up space for other things. Even if space wasn't an issue, I've never really found this section valuable. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't find random links to events in the past useful in any way. --Elekhh (talk) 07:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No reason why these things should get on the main page every year again. Catholic saints should definitely go, the number of people eagerly awaiting the feast of Martinian and Processus isn't really that high (compared to national holidays and the like). Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just has always felt to me to be a poor use of real estate. Courcelles 13:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Combined with In the News, this section is too much - it would do better as a section of Wikipedia:Current events — Pretzels^Hii! 14:36, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The on this day events could be rotated more. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 17:53, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have always found this section to be lame and uninteresting. Calliopejen1 (talk) 17:02, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd rather use the amount of space it takes for something else. I'd just keep the “July 15: Festino of Saint Rosalia in Palermo, Italy; Chūgen/Bon Festival in Japan” part (maybe immediately above where TFA and ITN are now). ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 18:33, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Trivial, tedious and repetitive, just not a good use of real estate. It seems like the kind of thing we would've done in the early days when we were trying to draw readers, but Wikipedia's gotten more professional and authoritarian over the years and this "cutesy" stuff just doesn't fit in anymore. If someone were trying to add this now it would get voted down 90 to 10. —Designate (talk) 20:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's just trivia; why should it be on the main page? AD 21:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Never liked this. We can use the space in better ways. For instance I'd rather figure out some way to actively Counter Systemic Bias by identifying and highlighting underserved topics, and use the space for that. Rd232 ^talk 00:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The contents are based on mere coincidence. Why do we tell people about an event just because it happened to happen exactly x*365 days ago? Sandstein 07:10, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This section does not showcase the best of Wikipedia; the sections that showcase featured things (lists, pictures, etc.) should take precedence. Neelix (talk) 13:19, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's too much of a collection of random trivia. This is valuable real estate and I think it would be better filled by moving Featured Picture up here, or having some a featured-non-article-content section which rotates between featured pictures, sounds, lists, and portals. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No quality assurance.Volunteer Marek (talk) 06:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Antony-22, Volunteer Marek, Sandstein, Aiken drum, and others. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Extremely trivial. If we are going to have things on the main page based on the position of the Sun when it happened, we might as well post horoscopes. Jim Sukwutput 00:03, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Something has to go and OTD is at the margin. Protonk (talk) 20:10, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Random collection of items, never paid any attention to it. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:47, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

Though for now leaning support. As is, THIS is actually the one which probably features the most low-quality content. In a way, all the DYK-haters should re-focus on this particular aspect of the main page. It's a good idea, needs more oversight and involvement.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:18, 20 July 2011 (UTC) Switching to oppose[reply]

Discussion

Fine as it. A nice way to link to decent, random content. This sort of section is very popular in other media. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why are a small percentage of date specific article repeatedly linked(annually) from main page over none date specific articles? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 11:51, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would support repurposing this quadrant to rotating content, and replacing "On this day" to "This week in history" on Sunday and Monday, with a link to that content at the top of the section no matter what day. The space could be used Tuesday-Saturday to feature newly GA content, featured lists, this week's featured WikiProject, and this week's featured WikiMedia sister project. This is the one section of the main page that really can be better served by broadening its scope, and focusing on truly interesting content, rather than the merely trivial. VI_WS ^talk 22:28, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The content highlighted is not exactly random; it's content which is associated with a specific date. Some fields are much more disposed to dates than others; and in some fields even when you can tie something to a date it's still a somewhat skewed view. We can't put a date on most interesting anthropological stuff, but we can sometimes put a date on when it was "discovered" or "published" by some white guy from a western university. The last 500 years of history get really good coverage at the expense of biology, classical Greek sculpture, metallurgy, Bantu languages, or whatever. bobrayner (talk) 11:44, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Today's featured picture

With a picture and blurb from the relevant article, and recently featured pictures, the archive and other featured pictures.

A clear consensus to retain this section; however there is an interesting thread running through the dissenters that sometimes TFP (and indeed FP in general) is sometimes not entirely aligned with rewarding encyclopedic content, sometimes focusing too much on technical quality, which is something to be considered. Happy‑melon 16:35, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

I'd actually seriously consider moving it bang up to the top. Pictures will attract more people in. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:14, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Improve blurb checking because occasionally it is sub-optimial. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My vision of the main page is that, generally speaking, more, bigger pictures are used. I think we should find a way to tie in Today's Featured Picture with the other features on the main page, but barring that, a separate featured picture is doable. hare j 02:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
makes the page more visually appealing. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very beautiful pictures that otherwise we may not see and proof that free images can be just as stunning as copyrighted ones. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is my favorite part of the main page. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Makes the page visually more appealing, I would support a greater use of pictures on the MP in general. But not all featured pictures are suitable for TFP if we insist on a given dimension – for example, it's an utter waste of time featuring panoramas when you only give them 500 or 800 pixels' width like other 'standard format' images. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that less text in the FP might be a good idea, but I like this section, and it loosens up the page, which would otherwise be a wall of text with a few tiny images on the edges. Wikipedia is multimedia, and we should take advantage of that. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:53, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Aesthetically I don't like the current section at all. But aesthetics aside it's a fundamental part of the main page. A possible compromise would be to give preference to articles, lists and DYKs that have FPs, but that already happens, and a ~100px image doesn't do a featured picture justice. Agree with the above comments about panoramas, but we should certainly go out of our way to support them on the main page in future. The potential for panoramic shots to add to geographic articles is largely untapped, and who are we to undermine those efforts? —W F C— 11:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Second most active featured content process, and is valuable for introducing eye-catching images to readers, and getting image donations. Courcelles 13:15, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Featured pics are an impressive part of WP. But POTD is underwhelming because they're buried so far down and are too small. I warned Howcheng I was going to push for POTD to be moved to the top, and he rightly didn't respond for CoI reasons, probably. The pics definitely need to be bigger, and if at the top could have just a (shorter) caption in thumbnail style. But if the whole of the main page were rethought as an image-based design, I think POTD could be just one of the dynamic-click-image-float-out items. Tony (talk) 16:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC) PS I agree with the comment below that some of them are a bit less impressive, but hey, there are thousands in the queue: I'd be choosier. The horizontal slot is a big problem unless the pic is the right dimension. Tony (talk) 16:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. If (as I'm proposing) DYK and ITD are removed or shrunk, it would not even be that far down below the top of the page. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:00, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Courcelles. Showing a high quality image on the front page lets readers know that we are serious about how we illustrate our articles. Them From Space 05:38, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Otherwise it's rather a lot of text. Sandstein 07:11, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:07pm • 02:07, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is quality content, should remain on the main page in some form. --Elekhh (talk) 05:00, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Adds some visual interest to the page. Zagalejo^^^ 03:38, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I understand the opposers' rationale that pictures are secondary in an encyclopedia, but high-quality images greatly add to the visual appeal of the Main Page, which draws in readers. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:29, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Dabomb says it better than I can. I have a hard time thinking of a main page without a featured picture as an improvement. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Featured content should take precedence on the main page. Neelix (talk) 13:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse for many of the reasons mentioned previously. TFP is one of my favorite sections; it's visually appealing; it draws readers; it takes advantage of the multimedia aspect of Wikipedia. I agree with some comments that there could be a shift towards pictures of cultural and social significance.--Johnsemlak (talk) 17:24, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Walls of text scare away people --Guerillero | My Talk 22:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:48, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It unfortunately falls below the fold now, and should be made more prominent. It could be expanded into a featured-non-article-content section which rotates between featured pictures, sounds, lists, and portals. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is one of the best parts of our main page, and it should be moved up from its not very prominent position, possibly directly below TFA, if design allows. —mc10 (t/c) 18:03, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per MC10 above. Protonk (talk) 20:10, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Encourages photography for our articles. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:33, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's at the bottom, where really interested people are rewarded with great pictures. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:49, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Pictures are fine but don't see the point in featured pictures. AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To me pictures are supplements to articles which is the main focus of wikipedia. As such there should not be a special section devoted to them on the main page. bamse (talk) 21:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We have the Commons for media. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think the importance we give to featured things other than articles makes FAs less special, and they are the very best thing WP produces. A lot of these images are awesome, but many are just boring and some are of tangential relevance to their associated articles, but put there so someone can put a star on their userpage. I suppose we could keep it and make it smaller and with less text. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per bamse, m.o.p., and HJ Mitchell. cmadler (talk) 03:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't miss it. I think this is more appropriate for Commons since Wikipedia doesn't really do its own pictures anymore. Some of the featured pictures here aren't even taken by Wikipedia users, they're just pictures we've accumulated from other sources. We should highlight Wikipedia's accomplishments on Wikipedia's front page. A picture of the Earth we found on nasa.gov is not Wikipedia accomplishment, all we did was put it through the bureaucracy and labeled it. It's not an achievement. Commons (and the other sites) have expanded beyond the scope of this site, which is articles, and I think the main page should highlight article content exclusively. —Designate (talk) 20:30, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Highlighting featured pictures in this way is really, when you stop to think about it, only marginally more sensible than highlighting Quote of the Day or Template of the Day. These things are a part of articles, and highlighting them separately is not a priority. On the other hand, I totally buy the need to have strong visual content on the Main Page - in which case, why not import Commons' Picture of the Day and kill two birds (i.e. also promoting Commons) with one stone? (That's in addition to any images associated with the Featured Article, obviously, which should be the important thing.) Rd232 ^talk 00:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've never really understood having FP on Wikipedia, with the duplicate of Commons. Pictures should be used in articles where appropriate—that is their purpose. I strongly support Rd232's idea of showcasing Commons' TFP - that way we also tie in the promotion of a sister project. Commons is probably the most useful sister project of WP. Replace TFP with TFL or Today's Featured Portal etc. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per rd232; I don't doubt that we have many outstanding pictures, but wikipedia should be in the article business, not the picture business. The pictures are there as a pillar holding up our best content, but there are lots of other pillars (including less obvious ones - we're not going to showcase our best MOS entries, or our best RS/N thread, on the front page) and anyway I think our focus should be on what is atop those pillars: The articles. bobrayner (talk) 11:50, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

The second most interesting thing on the page. If there is one thing Wikipedia always needs more of, it is good quality free pictures. This gives pictures appropriate attention. Recommend moving it to the top right (replace "In the News"). --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:43, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My only problem with the featured picture process both on Commons and on English Wikipedia, and the promotion of the latter on the front page of Wikipedia, is that technical quality always seems to trump educational/historical importance. Some of the greatest photographs ever taken would probably fail the featured pictures process because of this emphasis on technical rather than aesthetic/intellectual content. But this is a reason to perhaps reconsider the featured picture process to ensure that it is judged on aesthetic rather than camera-dork criteria, not to remove featured pictures from the homepage. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, that the featured pictures seem to be overly biased towards technically difficult perfectly executed pictures of birds or insects, and against technically simple but interesting photographs. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:20, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Then I read this. Okay, it's about Flickr rather than Commons/Wikipedia but the issue is still the same. —Tom Morris (talk) 13:20, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also like to see more pictures selected because of their subject matter instead of technical qualities. For example, there's a featured picture of a scene after Wounded Knee whose content Durova describes at the end of this section: The photo restoration work has resulted in a far more accurate description of the image in the National Archives. This is a far more interesting "story" to tell in the FP section than "I personally agree with all settings s/he used on the camera". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:48, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the featured pictures are skewed slightly towards what photographers think is a really impressive photo, rather than what image would be the best compliment to other encyclopædic content. As an intermittent photographer I am very impressed with the expertise needed to get high-quality photos of wildlife (it's a difficult field) but looking at them from an article perspective, each such image just shows what one species looks like, and that's it. I'd love to see more featured diagrams/charts; more featured images of say, historic artefacts (which can have more encyclopædic value, but are less impressive from a photographer's perspective because they're glued down in a museum); images which help explain concepts that are not easily photographed; and so on. bobrayner (talk) 12:02, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Today's featured list

With a picture and blurb from the relevant article, and recently featured lists, the archive and other featured lists.

No consensus to change either way, noting some people commenting on the process that this is going on. -- DQ (t) (e) 09:14, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

The Rambling Man (talk) 20:07, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hot Stop (t) 20:17, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, only been running a short time but so far interest and quality of lists have been high. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse and hope to see them more than once a week. bamse (talk) 21:51, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If we have enough to go around, sure. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lists are underrepresented on the main page; this helps us strive to improve our lists. It would be interesting if Today's Featured article were occasionally replaced with the Featured List, to draw more interest. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lists are able to communicate certain types of information especially effectively. Having them appear once a week is a good thing. Having them appear every day, I'm not as sure about. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Provided there's a good image to go with each one! If TFA wasn't of such high quality and so well managed, I'd be more circumspect. Tony (talk) 09:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of the opposes below, three editors (who as far as I can tell have one featured credit between them) claim not to understand the concept. The concept is very simple: to present in the best possible way encyclopaedic content that doesn't lend itself well to pure prose. One of the others is opposed on aesthetic grounds, which is hard to understand given that we are redesigning the page. I would attempt to refute Fram's argument, but the lists we have featured and scheduled so far do that for themselves. —W F C— 11:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just started, working well. The FL process of today cannot be mistaken for the one of 3–4 years ago, where some, to be frank, lousy stuff was promoted. Courcelles 13:18, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The TFL process has run smoothly so far and attracted largely positive feedback. I'll note that two recent RfCs demonstrated strong community support of this feature. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:06, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
FLs are so underrated. Lists can be as good as articles. Just look at all those amazing FLs. To Confucius: How are lists boring and plain? They can be as instructive and informative as articles. The concept is working fine and we are trying to bring FLs on the mainpage daily.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 20:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is a wide topical variety of FLs, and these should be showcased on the MP. I agree that we should avoid repetition, especially as there are 'sets' of parallel topics (especially awards and sports-related lists), and therefore the number of 2000 FLs is not a realistic number of how many we should be posting on the MP. Good feature though, hope to see it expanded more in the future. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:08pm • 02:08, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—Chris!_c/t 04:37, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If the Main Page displays DYKs, some of which are minimal articles, lists up to FL standards also have the right to be showcased. --Another Believer _(Talk) 23:01, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well said above by Another Believer. "Boring" and "not interesting" are just another "I don't like it" argument. There is no reason why all featured content should not have the opportunity to appear on the main page at least weekly if not more. — KV5 • Talk • 23:15, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Changed my mind from oppose. Looking at the TFL queue, I think this might be worthwhile (if we only stick to one FL a week - otherwise, things might get really repetitive). Zagalejo^^^ 01:07, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many of the opposes below appear to be based on outdated views of the quality and variety of Featured Lists, rather than actually looking at the lists chosen for the main page in the last few weeks. There are many excellent subjects covered, appropriately, in list form, and it makes sense for the very best of these to be displayed on the main page. Bencherlite ^Talk 14:08, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't think TFL is ready to be on the main page daily, but as a once-a-week feature it does have value. As Dabomb says below, the last TFL got almost as many hits as that day's TFA. That's a clear sign that the process can produce content that is interesting to the masses. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely better than some options. Not every list will be interesting, but not every TFA catches my eye either. Wizardman _{Operation Big Bear} 05:08, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
These lists are valuable, useful, scholarly, and interesting. Full support for including them regularly on the main page. Neelix (talk) 13:06, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've never worked on list articles, but I've been impressed by the quality of some of the recently featured FL's. Definitely deserving of main page territory. Qrsdogg (talk) 04:20, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are a lot of really good featured lists, and I think it's good to let our readers know that this is another opportunity for contributing for those who can't write walls of prose. I am reserving opinion as to how often these should be run. Karanacs (talk) 18:34, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Once a week is fine by me. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:50, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Either keep FL at once a week in its own section, or replace the TFA once a week with a featured list, making it a "Featured content" section. Having its own section is taking up even more space on an already-cluttered page. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:36, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
TFLs usually have fairly high quality; as featured content, they should also take a place on the main page. —mc10 (t/c) 18:06, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

The featured list concept is hard to take seriously. Marcus Qwertyus 22:33, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As the youngest child of the Main Page features, I agree that it's pretty stupid that we decided to tack this on with all the other busyness of the main page. hare j 02:48, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Hare. I don't think lists are that interesting to the average reader. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Plain fracking boring. I never saw the point of featuring lists concept. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:31, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Featured lists are not the most interesting part of Wikipedia in general, good articles often take a lot more creative work. Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No need for a separate section for them, but I wouldn't mind if once in a while the TFA happened to be a list. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:02, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, I question the quality of some of our featured lists. They are definitely not held to the same standards as featured articles. Them From Space 05:40, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by "standards"? I don't think that the featured list criteria are any less strict than the FA criteria, in aspects where you can compare the two (prose, referencing). If you're referring to the general quality of FLs, realize that not all FAs are of the same quality either, but nobody seems to be worried that a subpar FA will make it onto the Main Page. We at FL have been very careful to select only the lists that are up to current standards. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please no. Item nine on the list of things that shouldn't be on the main page is 'Featured lists'. Lightmouse (talk) 18:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why not? Did you miss the entire discussion where it was unanimously agreed that FLs could appear once a week? Did you miss the work that went into demonstrating that we had a bunch of high quality lists with plenty of prose that superseded some of those TFAs (like the appalling Somerset)? I guess you were away that day? The Rambling Man (talk) 18:55, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The notability of the FLs are currently just too low. -- Jeandré, 2011-07-17t22:52z
Please elaborate your oppose. In what way isn't it notable? You know your comment is POVy and not a NPOV. You think List of leaders of the Soviet Union and List of people with hepatitis C aren't notable? Is this a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT?--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 10:28, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Moved to neutral. Good, well-maintained lists are among WP's most useful features, and I'm all in favour of the FL process to help improve quality. However, I'm unconvinced that the average FL is interesting enough to present in detail on the Main Page. A descriptive link (title ought to be self-explanatory, but a couple of words for context perhaps) and a couple of related links to archives would be enough for me, both to encourage FL and to show readers that these things exist. Maybe have a box dedicated to Other Featured Stuff (lists, sounds, media) as available. Rd232 ^talk 23:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right now, there are more than 2000 FLs, and TFL is featured once a week. Given the relatively low number of slots and high number of available lists, even if you ignore the "average FL", there are still plenty of lists that many readers would find interesting (a selection of which can be found at Wikipedia:Today's featured list/submissions). Dabomb87 (talk) 02:04, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"there are still plenty of lists that many readers would find interesting" - name ten! Seriously, looking at what is currently available, I see a lot of stuff that is ... I hesitate to use the word "boring", but from the perspective of the average Main Page reader, I can't think of a better one. They're good lists, and to someone looking for the topic, absolutely fascinating - but not to the average reader. Obviously this is a problem which also affects the Today's Featured Article - but I think on average, much less so. So I'm fine with promoting FL on Main Page, but not giving too much space to it. I'm even OK with once a week having it replacing TFA, to encourage the FL process, if that's what people want, but no more than that. Rd232 ^talk 00:00, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The replacement of TFA aside – and a large majority including myself are opposed to that – what you describe is already what happens. In response to your challenge to find ten, you will find a combined total of fifteen in the TFL queue and prep area, and another fifty-odd on the submissions page (albeit some of those need fairly substantial work before they will be main page worthy). You are very welcome to name and shame the overwhelming majority of those fifteen lists which are uninteresting pieces of dirge, assuming you have the guts. —W F C— 00:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well I'm sorry you took my carefully worded remarks as some sort of insult to the FL process or FL quality. The vast majority of current lists are, for me, not Main Page material in terms of being of wide enough interest; that's intrinsic to the list, however well done it is. I'd still have these on the Main Page in some minor form, but not showcased in detail like TFA is. Let me put it this way: how does traffic on TFL compare to TFA? If they're comparable, then fine. But I'd expect it to be very substantially lower, unless perhaps the choice of lists for Main Page featuring is very selective and judicious. Rd232 ^talk 01:00, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
TFA gets prime real estate at the top of the Main Page, while TFL shares space with TFP "below the fold", a significant difference. Also, TFL is a new feature that appears only once a week, so many readers may not even be aware of it yet. Despite that, look at the view stats for the most recent day on which both TFA and TFL appeared: James E. Boyd received 17.3M views, while the USSR leaders list received 16.5M. I agree that the selection of FLs will need to be judicious to keep reader interest, which is why we should probably limit TFL to a once-a-week feature, at least until we can convince more skeptics. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:26, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, that's good (though the interestingness of that list is pretty a-typical). Moving to neutral because it's not clear to me what the Support section is actually supporting. Rd232 ^talk 16:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't seen a satisfying way to condense a featured list so that it can be included on the main page. And most FLs don't really strike me as products of passion. Lots of them are just cookie cutter copies of other FLs, and don't require much time or skill to put together. Zagalejo^^^ 03:35, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Generally find these lists to be next to useless, the "featured" ones included. Get rid of it, make room for better stuff.Volunteer Marek (talk) 13:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And another WP:DONTLIKEIT oppose... Don't like it, don't look at it. It's far enough down the page when it does appear that it shouldn't affect you or anyone else. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 14:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So? This isn't article space or an AfD. "I don't like it" is a perfectly legitimate reason to oppose. See my comment below. And don't tell me "don't like it, don't look at it" - it's my main page too, space on it ain't unlimited, and I'd prefer to look at something else, thank you very much.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Shouldn't be its own section; could be combined with Featured Article or with a new featured-non-article-content section which rotates between featured pictures, sounds, lists, and portals. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not a fan of the Featured Lists process generally. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:34, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly useful lists, but a bit overkill for the main page. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:52, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral

Per discussion showing some TFLs can attract as much traffic as the TFA, I'm fine with TFL once a week; but I'd rather it replace TFA than change the Main Page structure just for that day. Also, as per my comments in the Oppose section, judicious selection is very important - there are far, far too many Featured Lists which I don't think merit Main Page showcasing in detail, despite being excellent lists and fascinating to those interested in the topic. I also think we should highlight other featured content on the Main Page where possible (like Sounds), and maybe the less notable lists can somehow be put into a section with that, with rather less space devoted to those ones. PS This is not a "Support" comment because it's not clear to me what the heck the Support section is actually supporting. Is it the status quo (weekly) or a new daily section? Rd232 ^talk 16:23, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I think TFL could feature more than once a week. It has sufficient support and interest to perhaps move to two or three days a week now. The Rambling Man (talk) 20:07, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it could be posted more, but when we do post an FL it should take the FA because the current format makes it look like someone just threw it in there. Hot Stop (t) 20:17, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I think that could work pretty well. Maybe they could be cycled ~ 16 hours or something to get a bit more flow in that area. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 21:01, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I think there should be a consensus reached separately if the TFA is ever going to be bounced from the main page. Very strongly oppose that.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Please note that TFL has never consensually suggested replacing TFA. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:51, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm fine with keeping both, if the list runs daily. We have a lot more FLs than I previously realized (2000+), so why don't they run daily now? Hot Stop (t) 23:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - Because the emphasis is on quality rather than quantity. We have a responsibility to all featured processes not to tarnish them by association, and to ensure that the rubbish that we do have at WP:FL does not make it onto the main page, unless it has been cleaned up first. A glance at WP:TFLS compared to lists that actually go on the main page show the marked difference between an initial suggestion and the end result, and also that we need more manpower on the checking side before we significantly expand.
      When we believe that we can consistently produce the required quality and diversity seven days a week, we'll go daily. But it's out of the question at this point in time. —W F C— 17:56, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm undecided. I've always thought of FL as being too focused on technicalities and not enough on whether someone has just split a table from an article because they know it's less work to write an FL than an FA but they still get a star for their userpage. I'm actually of the opinion that it's more work (fiddly tables aside) to write a GA than an FL, but GAs are very under-appreciated. FLs also tend to be of very narrow interest. However, many FLs are of undoubted encyclopaedic worth and couldn't be presented in any other format. So I'm in two minds. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Harry, it's true that FLCs are often less involved than FACs, but so are noms for the other featured-content processes. My main concern is that TFLs not reflect their significant bias towards sports, albums, the US, and men. In other words, with just one a week (or two or three a week), it should be possible to give us plenty of variety. Tony (talk) 09:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

TFL was approved for the main page literally a month ago. Doing this now seems like a poor attempt at gaming the system to get TFL off the main page because some people plain don't like lists, rather than any actual problem with TFL being featured. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm assuming it was added to the survey because everything else was, not out of some attempt to game the system. hare j 18:44, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - No, I think the issue is that the TFL proposal was passed unanimously. Where were all these opposers then? And have the opposers bothered to see the quality of the lists queued up for the main page? I rather doubt it considering the ill-founded comments above. Perhaps people in that mindset should read the lead of Somerset, featured a day or two ago at TFA. Appalling. The Rambling Man (talk) 12:39, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, we worked so hard to get FLs on the main page in June and now in July some people want to get rid of it.—Chris!_c/t 04:56, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Perhaps the proposal is too vague; I interpret it as proposing a separate Main Page section for FL, which would be daily. The status quo is just weekly, which I'm OK with. Rd232 ^talk 00:41, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - Too many WP:IDONTLIKEIT !votes appearing. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 14:04, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - Too many references to WP:IDONTLIKEIT appearing. As the target of that shortcut, Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, says, As this essay tries to stimulate people to use sound arguments in deletion discussions, it is important to realize that countering the keep or delete arguments of other people, or dismissing them outright, by simply referring them to this essay is not encouraged. This applies with much greater force to this discussion since there is no Main Page Policy which editors should be using instead of like/don't-like comments.

Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions intro

The following are a list of arguments that can commonly be seen in deletion discussions for templates, images, categories, stub types, redirects and especially articles. These arguments should generally be avoided, or at least, supplemented with some more arguments. The reason they should be avoided is because they are not based upon the issues listed at Wikipedia:Deletion policy, but are rather arguments based from side issues that are not relevant to the issue of whether or not a page on Wikipedia should be deleted. When taking part in deletion discussions, then, it is best to base arguments on the policies of neutral point of view, no original research, verifiability, biographies of living people and what Wikipedia is not, or on Wikipedia guidelines; however, just because an argument appears here does not mean that it is always invalid.

Remember that a reason which arguably could be classified as an "argument to avoid", can still have some valid points in it. For example, if a person argues for why an article is interesting, and the arguments for "interesting" are also reasonable arguments for "encyclopedic", it is wrong to summarily dismiss that argument just because WP:INTERESTING is a section in this essay.

As this essay tries to stimulate people to use sound arguments in deletion discussions, it is important to realize that countering the keep or delete arguments of other people, or dismissing them outright, by simply referring them to this essay is not encouraged (see also the section Just a policy or guideline below).

Rd232 ^talk 14:22, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this discussion has moved into another area, that of notability(in dictionary sense) or perhaps a better wording for wikipedians would be relevance of content. Several of the opposes above seem to be of the opinion that the content is not relevant. Perhaps it would be appropriate to have a section on this issue seperate of the particluar feature(FA,DYK,FL etc.) it gets placed in. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 14:42, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To Strange Passerby, GreatOrangePumpkin and others who are haranguing people over supposed IDON'TLIKEIT votes - this isn't article space. "I don't like it" is a perfectly legitimate reason to oppose here. The issues we are discussing here have at least partly to do with aesthetics, which means that "like it" or "don't like it", an aesthetic appreciation, is going to play a role. Ideally it would be nice if people articulate their reasons - and I did mine; the space can be better used for something else - but it's not necessary.Volunteer Marek (talk) 18:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree that "DONTLIKEIT" probably doesn't fit in here. This is a "personal choice" survey where people are making their minds up using purely qualitative means. However, arguments against TFL include "not notable" (so, list the FLs for deletion, right? that's why we have WP:N, right?), "boring" and "fracking boring" (I don't even know what "to frack" means, but one man's boring is another man's fascination, how one can generalise all FLs as boring is merely an indication that a one or two particular editors perhaps don't even understand what an encyclopaedia is for), "please no" (with no indication as to what that cry for help is helping us resolve), "hard to take seriously" (so RFC the FLC process, until then our featured content is as relevant as FA, FT, FP, FS), and perhaps my favourite: "As the youngest child of the Main Page features, I agree that it's pretty stupid that we decided to tack this on with all the other busyness of the main page." - what on earth kind of logic says "main page: last in, first out"? Did anyone with this "perspective" bother to contribute to the pair of RFCs, the second of which passed unanimously to put lists on the main page? It appears not. So, in summary, if you don't like seeing lists, that seems fine to me but given the time and energy expended by the list community, it's a shame none of the opposers could be bothered to take the time to read some of the TFLs recently featured and take a look at those lists queued up. The Rambling Man (talk) 14:38, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link to the community portal (in addition to link on left menu)

The main page should not include an additional link to the community portal. MER-C 03:58, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Under other areas.

Endorse

Wow, who are the 8000 viewers a day who are looking at it then? If promoting a sense of community is helpful to editor retention, then linking and promoting is essential. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:53, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Because it is linked from every page on Wikipedia, views unrelated to main page. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 12:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We need something somewhere on the main page about how to participate. The community portal kind of sucks currently, so I don't think it has to be the community portal.... but something along these lines. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:18, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, as part of the proposed new invitation-to-edit area. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:06, 15 July 2011 (UTC) The Community portal is moribund but it could serve a very useful purpose, so trying to revitalize it is a great idea. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We are a community. Big part of Wikipedia. -- œ ^™ 09:43, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Casliber makes a good point —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:09pm • 02:09, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As useful a link as could be asked for. Neelix (talk) 13:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Not important enough imo. AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Redundant to the side bar, and it goes unnoticed in the sea of everything else on the main page. hare j 02:53, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What Harej said... Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, I hadn't noticed this on the left side as well. So it is a duplication we can do without. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 12:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fairly useless, already linked to from every page, anyhow. Courcelles 13:19, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It might get 8K hits a day, but that's a drop in the bucket compared to the 4mil the main page gets. Hot Stop (t) 15:23, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Harej. The link is clearly redundant in this spot. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:52, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't feel important enough to deserve an extra link when one already exists in the sidebar. —mc10 (t/c) 18:07, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Redundant to the side bar. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:55, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Link to the help desk

The main page should include a link to the help desk. MER-C 03:50, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Under other areas.

Endorse

AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:25, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Already implemented. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, new users will need help at some point, we should make it as easy to find as possible. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A useful part of Wikipedia, but we need to include our links more prominently in general. hare j 02:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Help Desk gets around 1000 hits a day. Not sure where it all comes from. I am thinking that given the increasing knowledge base on formatting we are expecting new editors to either have or pick up quickly, the more we link and promote this page the better. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The main page should include a link to a page for those who need help. Courcelles 13:20, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very important for those who have questions about Wikipedia. --♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 21:03, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Probably should be made more prominent than the link in the collapsible sidebar. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:21, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course. -- œ ^™ 09:47, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So wait... the Community Portal isn't as important as the Help Desk, that's rather interesting. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:10pm • 02:10, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Readers/new editors will expect to see something directing them to where they can ask for assistance. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A help link has come to be expected on major websites. Neelix (talk) 13:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:53, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Emphatic endorsement; Helping bring in more - and better - new editors is essential to the future of this community project. Not just the bold newbies who are already comfortable with strange markup and a long list of rules. At the moment the main page rightly has a lot of emphasis on what we've achieved so far, but I think wikipedia can spare a little extra real-estate for a long-term investment which will yield better content in future. bobrayner (talk) 12:10, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes please, this will help new users answer their questions. If possible, a "Help desk" link should also be added to the sidebar, for convenient access. —mc10 (t/c) 18:09, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In general, but please kill the "Other areas" section and move this link somewhere else. --The Evil IP address (talk) 13:56, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Neutral

But I'd add a link to it to the sidebar on the left. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:09, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
:A diM, you mean dispense with the link in the main text and make do with one in the side-bar? If so, I heartily endorse the idea. Tony (talk) 06:09, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Link to the local embassy

The main page should not include a link to the local embassy. MER-C 03:51, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Under other areas.

Endorse

Great resource for users wanting help from someone in their own language. -- œ ^™ 09:46, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

What is that? AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, maybe a link off the help text? Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:26, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is this a feature people actually use? hare j 02:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to be quite inactive. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Dead. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Inactive. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:24, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bin it now. Those who need embassies link to them from much more intuitive locations. Cas, < 200 views a day doesn't mean much in this context. Where are they coming from, and why should the local embassy deserve space on such a high-intensity page?Tony (talk) 09:36, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Doing a good impersonation of a doornail. Courcelles 13:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This section isn't for the average reader, or even the average editor. Hot Stop (t) 15:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
...the what? Sven Manguard Wha? 22:34, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Had never heard of it before... and now I know why. It serves a purpose to some people, but I don't think it mandates a MP appearance. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:27, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If we get rid of one thing, it should be this. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This link is not important enough for the main page. Neelix (talk) 13:27, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea, but it's entirely dead. I do agree with TFS below. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:54, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Largely pointless. When I got to another Wikipedia in a language I don't understand, looking on the main page for a link (written in said language) wouldn't help. Takes up space. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:38, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Our embassy is fairly inactive, and isn't very helpful. —mc10 (t/c) 18:10, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What is this? Protonk (talk) 20:11, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't mind a removal of that link (or a deletion of the embassy). --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

undecided on this one - gets 140-200 views daily, might be alot, or not. fairly specialised interest? Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Seeing that it's linked from the main page, this is very few. --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:00, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unrelated comment While we don't have to publicize this on the main page, we really do have to work on how we deal with foreign language contributors. Other language Wikipedias have active embassies that I have found most helpful, but we offer few services for foreign language contributors. Them From Space 05:46, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think the embassy is essential on the main page but I do think this general area needs some attention (which is outside the scope of "what do we put on the main page?"). Engaging potential editors who aren't comfortable in English is vital to counter bias, but on the flipside many (not all) of those facing a language barrier who can't find what they want are not likely to be the most productive editors, and their ongoing participation is likely to require more effort from others... that's not good ROI. It's a fine line to tread. bobrayner (talk) 12:24, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link to the reference desk

No consensus. MER-C 03:52, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Under other areas.

Endorse: ~~AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)~~[reply]

--Cybercobra (talk) 20:52, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd make it much more prominent, near the top of the page, in the area of where the selected portals are now (e.g., as in this). In physics articles' talk pages I often see IP users posting questions about the topic of the article but unrelated to editing the article itself, which means that there are too many people that don't know there's the reference desk for that. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:13, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Isn't the help desk for WP-related inquiries and the RD for random questions? I believe that it has a function in that questions may be asked relevant to WP (I received very helpful...err...help with this issue), however I know that most of the activity is crufty crap ("Are there any good movies out soon?"), which should be aimed at bloggy forum sites. What if it was redesigned as a place to ask for help with content, rather than the help desk which "is only for questions about how to use or edit Wikipedia". This would stop the crap from being posted here. Each topic's RD gets hundreds to thousands of views/day, so the service is well-used. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with A. di M. on this one. -- œ ^™ 09:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Same as OlEnglish —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:12pm • 02:12, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There 4 ways for readers to find what they want: (i) dumped at the right page (or near it in the topic and navigate from there) by a search engine; (ii) internal search tool (iii) browsing structures like portals (iv) when all else fails, Reference Desk. I can understand a reluctance to feature RefDesk on the Main Page if we think we couldn't handle the resulting traffic; but from the reader's point of view, this should be reasonably prominent as an option for finding what they want to know - which ultimately, is what an encyclopedia is for! Rd232 ^talk 20:49, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Concerned that if this is removed, people will flood the help desk with questions that should be asked here. As a reader/newcomer, it's more convenient for me to have a direct link to the reference desk than to have the instructions (which I may or may not pay attention to) on another page. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There should be quick and easy access to reference desk, especially for those who aren't very familiar with Wikipedia. Neelix (talk) 13:29, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Editors below, would you go look at the reference desk and compare it to the help desk? Nowhere near the same purpose. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:55, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Oppose, a useful thing but a division of the help desk. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Already present as part of the Help Desk. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's already a part of the Help Desk, apparently. hare j 02:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not something your average reader will ever use. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another thing that seemed a good idea at the time; this is taking up valuable space for little reason. Tony (talk) 09:38, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bundle such things under the help desk. Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The link to the help desk works fine, this is essentially two links for the same type of thing. Courcelles 13:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not really about Wikipedia, the encyclopedia. AD 21:07, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Weak oppose. Refdesk gets a lot of traffic but seems to be really marginal. Protonk (talk) 20:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Some oppose comments prompt me to suggest: (i) go to WP:Help Desk and (ii) go to WP:Reference Desk (iii) compare and contrast. Rd232 ^talk 20:52, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link to site news

The main page should not include a link to site news. MER-C 03:53, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Under other areas.

Endorse

AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes people do read and care about this stuff. -- œ ^™ 09:50, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed with OlEnglish. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:56, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Oppose. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:29, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have to admit I don't give a shit about this, and I have getting on for 20k edits. I don't think our readers are likely to care about the sites internal politics. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:59, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not relevant to most visitors. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that most visitors won't care. This can go in the community portal. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not something for our main page. hare j 02:56, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not for anyone but the most addicted WikiHolics, who probably have it bookmarked (or have memorized the address). Most of the important stuff can be read in the weekly Signpost. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Less useful even than the signpost. I'm a diehard editor and can't be bothered. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Way below the utility threshold. Tony (talk) 09:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the community portal. Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
One of the more useless things on the MP. Courcelles 13:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Belongs to the community portal, not to the main page. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:16, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Esoteric, only of interest to insiders. Lightmouse (talk) 17:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't believe this is useful to enough readers to justify its place. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:56, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This link is not of interest to the average user. Neelix (talk) 13:30, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The main page should be for readers first, editors second. This link is primarily for editors and is taking up valuable space. To boot, Wikipedia:News itself isn't in all that great a shape; it's full of acronyms and improper section headers. Based on the low page view stats (for an item on the main page), and its generally being useful only to editors, remove. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:41, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My comment in the "Discussion" section was actually supposed to go into the oppose column, but since it's gotten a response, I can't just move it. So "per my comment in the discussion section". Sven Manguard Wha? 23:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia articles are like sausages (and legislation); many people would lose their appetite rather quickly if they had a tour of the sausage factory. bobrayner (talk) 12:30, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is fairly useless for most users. —mc10 (t/c) 18:19, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Protonk (talk) 20:13, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Unreciprocated external linking does not seem like an attractive idea to me. Actually it sounds awful. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Sven. Tony (talk) 09:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link to village pump

The main page should not include a link to the Village Pump. MER-C 04:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Under other areas.

Endorse

Editors new to Wikipedia can learn about some of the inner workings of this encyclopedia here. I found it quite by accident at a user's talk page fairly recently. It is for editors, right? Retention of new editors is an issue, right? They need to learn how to edit Wikipedia, which has many conflicting policies. I presume everyone has something useful to contribute (unless they prove me wrong). Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 07:00, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but below the first screen. It's good to lift the stone & see the wriggling creatures beneath, even if most new viewers will drop it back smartly. Johnbod (talk) 12:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most traffic won't care - we'd probably get inundated in unintelligible gibberish. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Too wonky for the likes of the main paage. hare j 02:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Editors who are interested in the Pump probably have its shortcut memorized; casual readers or new editors generally don't have a reason to go there. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wonky, for experienced editors. If we have anything behind-the-scenes on the front page it should be geared at newbies. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
TonyTheTiger says it best. (Top of discussion section) Sven Manguard Wha? 05:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Useful but an editor thing. Not a first place for newbies/readers. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 09:17, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the community portal. Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The MP is for readers, the VP is concerned with editors. Courcelles 13:23, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per above. — Dispenser 15:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Belongs to the community portal, not to the main page. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:17, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Esoteric, only of interest to insiders. Lightmouse (talk) 17:03, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The internal workings of Wikipedia do not need to be advertized on the main page. Neelix (talk) 13:32, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Useful to us editors, but not to the vast majority of readers who are just passing through. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Broadly speaking, I agree with rd232. The main page isn't just for readers; it's also a good place to start converting a reader into an editor. However, places like the village pump won't deliver much value for the very newest editors. bobrayner (talk) 12:33, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
VP is not useful for the majority of readers; they will just get lost. 18:21, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
I have ~20k edits and I'm an admin and I rarely visit VP. Occasionally we get good discussion there but honestly it is a honeypot for bad ideas. Protonk (talk) 20:14, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Would encourage junk/off-topic/misdirected posts too much. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:36, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Pump is for editors not readers.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:31, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The pumps are no place to send a casual visiting reader or even a new editor. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in favour of having the Main Page help turn readers into editors; I don't see this helping. I'm also in favour of exposing the innards of WP a bit more, but I don't think the resulting misplaced traffic is worth that. Perhaps a more useful link (as part of a "how to contribute" section) would be a link to something relating to dispute resolution (a very simple intro page, plus links; not sure if one exists now). Rd232 ^talk 20:57, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Links to sister projects

The main page should include links to sister projects. MER-C 11:00, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The sister projects.

Endorse

AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps make the box smaller though. --Cybercobra (talk) 20:52, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support, maybe smaller if all the sister can adopter the same design. — Dispenser 00:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense. It seems wise to redirect newbies to the proper venue if it turns out wikipedia isn't what they had in mind. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To promote the existence of the other projects. They also have their thing to offer, I guess! hare j 03:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Helps us suggest other sources to readers. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we should be linking to the sister projects so people can discover them and build the Wikimedia movement as a whole rather than getting Wikipedia tunnel vision. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:03, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Should be on the MP of every WMF project. Courcelles 13:23, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Especially per RadManCF. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:14pm • 02:14, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and consider featuring some content from sister projects to help make it clearer what to expect at the destination. Quote of the Day and Word of the Day are obvious low-hanging fruit there. Rd232 ^talk 20:59, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The sister projects are important and they will struggle unnecessarily if they are severed from Wikipedia. Neelix (talk) 13:33, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Helps to showcase the diversity of WMF as a whole. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep them, but I think they could be made to take up less space (i.e. one or two lines instead of three). Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:26, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, the sister projects are important and need to get more exposure, not less. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:43, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe reduce the space a bit. ... (talk) 07:13, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Let our readers discover that we are not the only wiki, as most innocently assume. They may find what they're looking for on Wiktionary, for instance. —mc10 (t/c) 18:23, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No issue linking them, as it's at the bottom anyway. --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:01, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Would turn into one line of text with link to full list. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:32, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This ought to be in the global footer, not stuck on the end of our front page. — Pretzels^Hii! 14:31, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, those things are often a mess, variable quality, not reliable. Reserve the mainpage for vetted content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:47, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That cuts both way: those things are often a mess, variable quality, not reliable, so maybe they need more hands and we could encourage people to help with that. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with SunCreator - reduce this to a few lines of text with a link to a page that includes the full list. Karanacs (talk) 18:39, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No disrespect to other projects but main page space is scarse and valuable. Protonk (talk) 20:15, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

At least in its current form. Takes up way too much space, and the odds that readers find these useful is small. Not worth using up our real estate to promote related projects. Calliopejen1 (talk) 15:05, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia in other languages (in addition to "Languages" section at left)

The main page should not include additional links to other language Wikipedias. MER-C 11:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Links to the other biggest language Wikipedias.

Endorse

Does no harm, especially as its at the bottom. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:09, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But let's limit it to those with 500,000 plus articles only. Hot Stop (t) 20:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Supports Wikipedia's multilingualism. --Cybercobra (talk) 20:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not very intrusive, but effective. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The English Wikipedia's main page has the biggest impact in forming the public image of Wikimedia as a whole, and the multilingual aspect is important. --Elekhh (talk) 07:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd also have something like a ‘Language of the month’ with a coupla lines of info in English about the language and then a reduced version of the featured article blurb currently on that language's Wikipedia's main page. The criteria in deciding which languages to choose (the equivalent of the “points” on WP:TFAR) should be how fast the Wikipedia has been growing recently, how large its community is (even as a fraction of the total number of speakers), and whether it is an endangered language (perhaps with extra points for the ones in English speaking countries, e.g. Navajo, Welsh, Irish, Scots, Maori...) ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:33, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not very useful, but foreign language WPs will be furious (justifiably or otherwise) if we remove this. — This, that, and the other (talk) 09:53, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What makes you think that? Of the few other language main pages I just checked, only the sidebar language links are used Jebus989 ^✰ 17:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's at the neglected section of the MP, no point in removing the ignored. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:15pm • 02:15, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Endorse. Interestingly, some of the Oppose comments are great ideas in favor of Endorsement. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 07:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fine where it is. Johnbod (talk) 12:20, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
At least keep the top ten. Marcus Qwertyus 21:30, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Retain these, at least the top ten or all those with at least 500,000 articles. Listing ones with less than 100,000, especially, seems excessive. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:45, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Top Wikipedias only (maybe top 100,000). Left bar just lists all. ... (talk) 07:16, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Right now, it doesn't list all (but maybe it should). ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:10, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep only top Wikipedias only; it's getting a bit cluttered. —mc10 (t/c) 18:24, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

AD 19:40, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, cut to one line, linking to complete list of all language Wikipedias. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:33, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose. The other language editions are already listed (without counts) on a dedicated consistent spot on the left and they are also prominently featured on the WWW-site. (Maybe we should link to the WWW instead?) If we remove the site statistics the article counts should also be removed. — Dispenser 00:06, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The side-bar already lists all the Wikipedia editions. I'm not sure that everyone is aware of it, so perhaps we could point it out somehow? "Hey guys, we have this fabulous sidebar!" hare j 03:13, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Pointless to have it twice on the same page. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:51, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, Dispenser is correct - we shouldn't be attempting to duplicate the consistent and effective listing on the global left sidebar. This would be more effective as a link to the www. portal as simply "Other languages". — Pretzels^Hii! 01:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Duplicates left sidebar. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:27, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
...because people go to the English Wikipedia to read things in English. Sven Manguard Wha? 05:59, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose: this is duplicated twice elsewhere on the main page: first, in the "projects" link, under "WP's sister projects" just above—a page that provides comprehensive information about all projects in all languages, not just WPs; and second, in the "Languages" list down the left-side margin. It's way overkill to spend so much precious real estate trotting out these other-language WPs. The visitors have come to the English WP for a reason, and it's not to redirect to Ελληνικά or 한국어 or the Catalan WP. Tony (talk) 08:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. We need to declutter the page. Any duplication has to have a strong case. The complete list at the left has a case, the partial list at the bottom has no case. Lightmouse (talk) 09:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No need for duplication. I support SunCreator's idea as a compromise. I should point out that I am even more strongly opposed to restricting it to (for example) 500,000+ articles than I am to keeping the section as-is. There is enough systemic bias on Wikipedia already, and as far as is practicable we should treat all reasonably well developed wikis equally. —W F C— 11:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unnecessary duplication. The multilingualism point can be made well enough by providing a link to the full list, possibly highlighting Simple English for hopefully obvious reasons. I could also buy A. di M.'s idea of highlighting a specific language Wikipedia on a rotating basis - would be a better use of the space. Rd232 ^talk 00:57, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Duplication, and readers have come to the English WP intentionally. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:44, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Redundant, perhaps change to a notice pointing readers to the sidebar. Sandstein 07:13, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is limited space on the main page; duplication of information should not be an option. Neelix (talk) 13:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Inherent redundancy. If it were up to me, I'd remove the list and change the note above it to something like "Many other Wikipedias are available; a partial list can be found under Languages on the left side of this page." Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This seems to me the first thing we should rid ourselves of. The sidebar contains all the links, I would argue even they are excessive. A sidebar link to "Wikipedia in other languages" would suffice, IMHO Jebus989 ^✰ 17:55, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. Almost every non-editor I watch use wikipedia starts at wikipedia.org (not en.wikipedia.org) and then clicks on the english wikipedia. If they want another language they can select it there. Protonk (talk) 20:16, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

I don't think they really hurt in their current position, but they're indeed kind of pointless and redundant to the sidebar links. Wouldn't mind a removal. --The Evil IP address (talk) 14:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Slogan

Proposal: The part of the slogan which reads "that anyone can edit."

One person cannot represent consensus. Happy‑melon 09:55, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

Oppose

Current research reported at Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-08-08/News_and_notes indicates, perhaps unsurprisingly, that "rejection of newbies' first few edits plays a strong role in newcomer retention." The slogan "that anyone can edit," the Fifth Pillar on "no firm rules," the ignore all rules policy, and encouraging people to be bold all encourage the departure of newcomers by luring them in with the false expectation that they mean that they can edit with blitheful impunity. I'm not suggesting that these be given up entirely, nor am I complaining (at all) about the way things work here in reference to retention and modification of edits, but only suggesting that these principles and all references to them need to be made more realistic, forthcoming, and cautioning about the way things really work here. While doing so might result in a few fewer initial edits, perhaps it will increase the number of newcomers who aren't quite so sensitive about the deletion of their initial edits. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 21:01, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Currently not on the main page

Good articles

No consensus as to whether GAs should be on the main page. If they are, then they may have a place as part of DYK and not in their own section. MER-C 04:05, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

GA proposals split for clarity, and some !votes copied to relevant new sections where the editor's view is unambiguous. Rd232 ^talk 09:15, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: include on the Main Page in some form.

Endorse

AD 19:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, subject to some kind of screening because the occasional GA is rather poor. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:42, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse replacement of New articles with Good articles in DYK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcus Qwertyus (talk • contribs) 22:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Something like Wikipedia:Good articles/recent.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:33, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
GAs are under-appreciated, but many are high-quality articles and well worth showing off. Some subjects, for one reason or another, just might not ever be able to get to FA while others are there because it lacks something that would push it over the last hurdle at FAC. Showing these off, and getting people to improve them with a view to taking them to FA would be a good thing imo. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, but I think—and I am not sure if this is a workable idea—that DYK entries should be GAs. hare j 03:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't support a stand-alone section, but believe that between a third and a quarter of DYKs should be recently promoted good articles. I would note that several of the opposers seem to support this view. This is in line with the broader opinion that we should be placing a greater emphasis on encouraging quality. —W F C— 12:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As part of a higher-quality DYK, not as their own section. Courcelles 13:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Courcelles, my proposal would be rebranding, "newest" to "newest and newly improved articles" (which it is anyway if you consider what 5x expansion is anyway), and including one hook of recently-promoted GA in same timeframe (within 5 days) per hook-set. This raises the bar a little of DYK and allows 4 GA/day on front page. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:32, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Qualified support. Good articles are head and shoulders above DYK in terms of quality control, but I ONLY endorse them being on the mainpage if a director is appointed to assure that quick-passes by inexperienced editors aren't run-- either Malleus Fatuorum or Geometry guy would oversee this area well, and there are others, but we can't just put any old GA on the mainpage, as there are still occassional faulty passes. A clearing house is needed to assure only quality articles are run. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:50, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Alternate DYK one day, TGA the next. Do only two or three GAs a day, because they're higher-quality articles and deserve more than one-sentence mentions. Have some kind of a voting system to pick the top GAs for each category. —Designate (talk) 20:15, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure it's worth a separate section, because that competes with the Today's Featured Article; but I'd replace DYK "new articles" with DYK drawn from GA articles, giving time to sort out the DYK process for new articles. (If/when that happens, "new GAs" would easily slot into a process that already allows for "newly expanded articles".) Rd232 ^talk 01:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Courcelles. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:29pm • 02:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think GAs should be on the main page in some form, at best replacing lower quality material. --Elekhh (talk) 12:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Qualified support per Sandy G. Would need one or more strong persons in charge to keep out the lower end of the quality spectrum, which is far too wide in GA. With luck this will serve to improve overall GA quality in the long term. One or two per day. Johnbod (talk) 12:24, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If only to end the barrage of harassment to the DYK project by GA aficionados who neither understand nor appreciate the mission of DYK. - Dravecky (talk) 06:07, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Courcelles—Andrew_stalk 10:48, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think new GA content (ala a DYK list) should be included in a weekly rotating content in the On this Day quadrant (along with This Week in History, new GA content, Featured List, featured WikiProject, etc.) VI_WS ^talk 22:33, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Include new GAs in DYK. A separate section would probably be excessive (note that I really like and support the GA process, I just don't think it needs a ton of mainpage exposure). –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:50, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please include GAs. Maybe in the same space as DYK but we need a spot for articles which are well above average but not FA. Protonk (talk) 20:18, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Need for a top-level article is filled by the TFA. No need for an article which of less quality standard.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:34, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Wehwalt. bamse (talk) 21:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, Wehwalt says it best. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Wehwalt. --Jayron32 00:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Wehwalt. — Dispenser 00:10, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Wehwalt Hot Stop (t) 00:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's plenty of Featured articles that can be on the main page. — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not worth its own section; recently approved GAs being included with DYK would be enough. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose own section but should be included with DYK. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think the question now is simply "what should be featured on the main page?" and not yet about where and in what form. So your comment is actually a "support". --Elekhh (talk) 12:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good articles range in quality from things that should never have been promoted to things that missed out on FA due to a technicality. Also, per Wehwalt. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good Article is a designation that is meaningless to readers and only caters to editors. For a reader who knows little about the behind-the-scenes of Wikipedia, the meaning of FA is clear (the supposedly best articles on WP), as is the meaning of DYK (as the newest articles--although that meaning is becoming less and less clear because of new additions to the DYK ensemble that people keep pushing through) and the rest of the main page features. GA, as an intermediate step in the editing process, isn't of any particular interest to readers who aren't also editors (this is the same reason I opposed the addition of GA icons to mainspace, although that eventually went through as well). rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both a new section and including with DYK. Either way, GA brings nothing unique to the Main Page. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. Too many GAs are still fairly crappy, and way too many--we'd never finish featuring them. /ƒETCH COMMS / 06:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per V = IR (User:Ohms law). ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Only if there are no recent FAs that have not yet been displayed. Sandstein 07:14, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per the comments of Wehwalt, Rjanag and Fetchcomms. Cbl62 (talk) 02:13, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The main page should promote the best of Wikipedia, not the second-best. Neelix (talk) 13:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just don't trust the GAN process. It's been too easy in the past for someone to pass a deficient list with minimal reviewing, or fail a list because of whatever bias they have. I understand that GAs are improving, but there's still a ways to go before I'd be comfortable seeing them on the main page. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Wehwalt. There is no point to GAs from a reader's perspective. The GA process is just an internal peer-review that can improve the quality of an article. It is not the "Best of the Best" (FAs) now does it serve any unique angle like ITN, OTD and DYK. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 06:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No need in more cluttery back-patting. Putting the reader first means if you have a section showcasing our best articles, they should be our best articles (i.e. FA) and not our best articles along with some pretty good articles Jebus989 ^✰ 18:06, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as the GA-standards are not well-enough enforced. I wish they were. The FA process generally works well; all other ratings are largely meaningless, sadly. Chzz ► 17:14, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: include on the Main Page as separate section

Support

Oppose

I don't support a stand-alone section, but believe that between a third and a quarter of DYKs should be recently promoted good articles. I would note that several of the opposers seem to support this view. This is in line with the broader opinion that we should be placing a greater emphasis on encouraging quality. —W F C— 12:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As part of a higher-quality DYK, not as their own section. Courcelles 13:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both a new section and including with DYK. Either way, GA brings nothing unique to the Main Page. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Courcelles. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:29pm • 02:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Need for a top-level article is filled by the TFA. No need for an article which of less quality standard.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:34, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Wehwalt. bamse (talk) 21:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, Wehwalt says it best. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Wehwalt. --Jayron32 00:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Wehwalt. — Dispenser 00:10, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Wehwalt Hot Stop (t) 00:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's plenty of Featured articles that can be on the main page. — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not worth its own section; recently approved GAs being included with DYK would be enough. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:54, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose own section but should be included with DYK. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good articles range in quality from things that should never have been promoted to things that missed out on FA due to a technicality. Also, per Wehwalt. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:00, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good Article is a designation that is meaningless to readers and only caters to editors. For a reader who knows little about the behind-the-scenes of Wikipedia, the meaning of FA is clear (the supposedly best articles on WP), as is the meaning of DYK (as the newest articles--although that meaning is becoming less and less clear because of new additions to the DYK ensemble that people keep pushing through) and the rest of the main page features. GA, as an intermediate step in the editing process, isn't of any particular interest to readers who aren't also editors (this is the same reason I opposed the addition of GA icons to mainspace, although that eventually went through as well). rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose both a new section and including with DYK. Either way, GA brings nothing unique to the Main Page. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. Too many GAs are still fairly crappy, and way too many--we'd never finish featuring them. /ƒETCH COMMS / 06:05, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per V = IR (User:Ohms law). ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:36, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Only if there are no recent FAs that have not yet been displayed. Sandstein 07:14, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per the comments of Wehwalt, Rjanag and Fetchcomms. Cbl62 (talk) 02:13, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The main page should promote the best of Wikipedia, not the second-best. Neelix (talk) 13:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I just don't trust the GAN process. It's been too easy in the past for someone to pass a deficient list with minimal reviewing, or fail a list because of whatever bias they have. I understand that GAs are improving, but there's still a ways to go before I'd be comfortable seeing them on the main page. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think this was ever anyone's intention. —Andrew_stalk 10:48, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We have FA and DYK, we really don't need yet another similar section. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No way. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:51, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as I wrote in the first proposal; GA-standards not good enough. Chzz ► 17:16, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. We have TFA for a reason. We don't need TGA as well. —mc10 (t/c) 18:25, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: include on the Main Page as part of DYK

Support

I don't support a stand-alone section, but believe that between a third and a quarter of DYKs should be recently promoted good articles. I would note that several of the opposers seem to support this view. This is in line with the broader opinion that we should be placing a greater emphasis on encouraging quality. —W F C— 12:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As part of a higher-quality DYK, not as their own section. Courcelles 13:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Courcelles, my proposal would be rebranding, "newest" to "newest and newly improved articles" (which it is anyway if you consider what 5x expansion is anyway), and including one hook of recently-promoted GA in same timeframe (within 5 days) per hook-set. This raises the bar a little of DYK and allows 4 GA/day on front page. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:32, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Courcelles. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:29pm • 02:29, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose own section but should be included with DYK. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support but not as a separate section but in a section dedicated to article improvements like DYK. --Elekhh (talk) 07:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Take the crème de la crème of current DYK and add GAs to supplement. Get rid of the rubbish passing through DYK at the moment (copyvios, extremely poor prose, unreliable sources, BLP violations). —Andrew_stalk 10:48, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Including one or two GAs per group of DYKs would increase the diversity of the section. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Need an all GA DYK. Marcus Qwertyus 13:33, 29 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Split newly promoted GAs and new articles half and half in DYK. This will bring some higher-quality articles to DYK and provide more exposure for the editors who spend a lot of time on improving articles to GA but not FA. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:53, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support, broadly in line with casliber. At the moment DYK has a space that showcases content which has recently passed a low bar. I think it could be quite helpful if we mixed in some content which has recently passed a higher bar but not as high as FA. In terms of quality, yeah yeah, FA is more demanding - but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the most worthy initiative. I think that GA may actually be a more important initiative as it's within the reach of more editors (and more articles) compared to FA, but it still has much higher standards than DYK; it encourages random members of the community (not just the elite FA writers) to produce content that's actually pretty good, rather than just a 1500 character placeholder. bobrayner (talk) 12:43, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As per HJ Mitchell and Courcelles. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 15:51, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Oppose both a new section and including with DYK. Either way, GA brings nothing unique to the Main Page. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good Article is a designation that is meaningless to readers and only caters to editors. For a reader who knows little about the behind-the-scenes of Wikipedia, the meaning of FA is clear (the supposedly best articles on WP), as is the meaning of DYK (as the newest articles--although that meaning is becoming less and less clear because of new additions to the DYK ensemble that people keep pushing through) and the rest of the main page features. GA, as an intermediate step in the editing process, isn't of any particular interest to readers who aren't also editors (this is the same reason I opposed the addition of GA icons to mainspace, although that eventually went through as well). rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per DaBomb. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 06:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose The proposition to bring GA to the front page should be entirely separate from proposals to remove all or part of DYK from the Main Page. It is not as if DYK is in the first screenful; it isn't. You already have to scroll down to see DYK, and there is no reason you couldn't put GA somewhere people also have to scroll down to see it. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 01:48, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. DYK and GA content are completely different and should not be conflated or otherwise linked. DYK content is content that needs people to look at it, so that new editors can come in with new resources (an informed eye, a WikiProject, etc.) to help these articles mature and flourish. GA articles are a different story, and need to be cultured in their own area. I personally believe that the On This Day section should be on a weekly rotation with "On This Day" replaced with "This Week in History", a list of new GA articles the past week, one featured WikiProject or other community, one featured Wikimedia sister, etc. GA deserves a spot, but it shouldn't get lumped in with DYK. VI_WS ^talk 13:03, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as I wrote in the first proposal; GA-standards not good enough. Chzz ► 17:16, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: include on the Main Page instead of new article DYK

Endorse

Endorse replacement of New articles with Good articles in DYK. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcus Qwertyus (talk • contribs) 22:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure it's worth a separate section, because that competes with the Today's Featured Article; but I'd replace DYK "new articles" with DYK drawn from GA articles, giving time to sort out the DYK process for new articles. (If/when that happens, "new GAs" would easily slot into a process that already allows for "newly expanded articles".) Rd232 ^talk 01:02, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

DYK is by far the easiest way for an editor to get content featured on the Main Page, and serves as a fun incentive/motivation to encourage new content from editors who can't or don't want to put in the massive effort needed for an FA or even GA. The ability to have your work featured on the Main Page is a great thing and DYK goes a long way towards democratizing that experience. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Having an "FA-lite" section replace a unique section (DYK) that serves a unique purpose (highlight new content) makes no sense. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 06:05, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose DYK is a great way to get new editors to become real contributors. It worked on me. VI_WS ^talk 22:36, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose How many different proposals to scrap DYK are going to be posted this week? DYK is a valuable part of Main Page and of Wikipedia.It motivates good contributors to create good articles, although special pleaders can of course find bad articles if they look for them hard enough. I would rather be working on interesting articles for DYK than running around to yet another brushfire demanding more !votes. $Sharktopus$ ^talk 01:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. Include GAs in DYK, but don't replace DYK with GAs. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:54, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose as I wrote in the first proposal; GA-standards not good enough. Chzz ► 17:16, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Strong Support but not as a separate section but in a section dedicated to article improvements like DYK. --Elekhh (talk) 07:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

NB: Have proposed at Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Good_articles_redux - if this can run concurrently for part of this process might give folks a better idea when it comes time to overhaul. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I could go either way, but I don't think that a daily feature is a good choice. I don't like the idea of rolling them into DYK (which is about brand-new articles). Featured Lists seem to appear once a week; I could see a GA section that appears once a week. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note that DYK is not simply about "brand-new articles" it also includes expanded articles. --Elekhh (talk) 12:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of: DYK is about brand-new content, created within a five-day time limit. I have the impression that a clear majority are brand-new pages, and all of the expansions were stubs (or sub-stubs). It's still basically a new "article" even if the DYKer didn't have to actually start the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:59, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be considerable confusion here whether the poll is about having a GA section on its own or in some other form. Some editors supporting GA as part of DYK voted in support (ex #8) while others voted oppose (ex #9). --Elekhh (talk) 12:12, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Featured portals

The main page should not include featured portals. MER-C 04:00, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

Sure, as long as it's near the bottom somewhere (under the featured images). — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think they're an underutilized and under-showcased resource. No one is saying bump the top spot for them, but our Featured Portals are often better than the ones liked to the top already. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Sven Manguard. Even above the featured picture would be OK with me. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:38, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very useful feature. More important than TFP and TFS (if that ever begins). —Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Periodically, as part of a featured-non-article-content section which rotates between featured pictures, sounds, and portals. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

AD 19:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:43, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not relevant. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. Putting featured portals on the Main Page would suggest they're of comparable importance to featured articles. I'm sure they have value (though I don't know what), but if the all disappeared overnight, the readers wouldn't notice and the encyclopaedia would be no better or no worse. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Linking to the portals in general is good, but something like this is kind of ridiculous. We should be setting priorities on what's on the main page. hare j 03:19, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
cmadler (talk) 03:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd expect about 1 - 2% of our readership to care, and maybe about 10% to even know what a FPortal is Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:55, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think portals are lame, and I bet most people agree. Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:17, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Portals are not part of our content, but background processes with limited use. Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If portals are dramatically improved and start getting much more interest from both readers and editors, we should include them on the front page. As they are, they don't seem to serve any useful purpose at the moment. —Tom Morris (talk) 12:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's 152 FPOs, and of those, the log shows five have been promoted in 2011. If the output was there, this might be worth considering, but when the process is making five in over half a year, it's not sustainable for a MP slot. Courcelles 13:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unnecessary.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 10:01, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've edited for years without ever looking at these. Designate (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per above. Sandstein 07:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. They aren't part of complete navigation so they don't belong on the front page. Lightmouse (talk) 17:07, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rarely used. Zagalejo^^^ 03:48, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The featured portals are not of comparable importance to featured lists, pictures, or articles. Neelix (talk) 13:38, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not even convinced that the portals we have on the main page now are useful. They certainly don't command my attention, and FPs wouldn't either. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I still don't see the point of having portals in general, much less as "featured" main page content. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:55, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia has a dynamic ecosystem; structures change over time, as well as content. I think that portals are the coelacanth in this ecosystem. bobrayner (talk) 12:49, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Portals are not widely used, most go inactive, and the concept of a "portal" is difficult to explain to a newcomer. —mc10 (t/c) 18:27, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Marginal. Protonk (talk) 20:19, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Portals are "meh" generally. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:42, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Prominent links to joining

The main page should contain prominent links to joining, with a mind towards converting them into editors. MER-C 04:29, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

To better entice new editors.

Endorse

AD 19:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you should also be able to login on the main page without going to the login page. Hot Stop (t) 19:43, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely agree. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:05, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Jolly good idea. --Cybercobra (talk) 20:53, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly agree. bamse (talk) 21:55, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We already have the "Welcome to Wikipedia" banner with an introduction link - maybe we could expand on it and feature a section that says, "Interested in contributing?" or something like that. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Interested in Master of Puppets proposal. Marcus Qwertyus 22:46, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I also like M.O.P.'s proposal. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Interested in contributing?" or something small along those lines would be good. We need to attract new editors and I remember being new and wanting to know what I could do to help and not really knowing where to start (and the community portal linked in the sidebar--the most obvious option for newbies--sucks). Calliopejen1 (talk) 04:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Don't care how but needs to be there somehow. Participation is the key. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is what I'm thinking about (but a version of {{opentask}} not using jargon such as Wikify should be made for this). ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 20:42, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely essential. Frankly, given how core "anyone can edit" is to WP's philosophy, it is utterly bizarre that the Main Page doesn't make a serious effort to draw people in. A dedicated "interested in contributing?"-type section should be top priority for the re-design. Ideally it would be structured to provide a good learning curve and link people into the backlog of tasks in a way that's helpful rather than scary (which is easy to say, but hard to do - but very well worth doing. Perhaps some form of randomization, eg "random article needing copyediting [here's how to copyedit]"). Rd232 ^talk 01:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- An idea would be giving a selection of a dozen articles chosen at random from the vital articles of C class or lower. After all, a random reader is more likely to have something to contribute to the article History of art than to Whitefish River (Yukon Territory). ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We don't need more accounts (although many newly-created accounts are probably socks), but new editors need to know how they can help. A di M's and Rd232's ideas are in the right direction, but we need to do it in a smoother fashion. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:53, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Why not? Sandstein 07:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A good idea! Nightw 11:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Rd232. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:30pm • 02:30, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse. Giving a new editor random articles to edit sounds like a good idea. Respectfully, Tiyang (talk) 07:46, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - at top, where the portal links now are. Not pointing to specific articles. Johnbod (talk) 12:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So many people do not realize how easy it is to join, and Wikipedia would be the better for having more editors. Neelix (talk) 13:40, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Would be nice to see something in this regard, to help counter a declining base of editors. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As a blurb of one or two sentences. It shouldn't be overly blatant or take up a lot of real estate. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sound like a good idea Jebus989 ^✰ 18:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea. --Orlady (talk) 22:34, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely deserves prominence. Chzz ► 17:18, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The more the merrier, especially based on the results of our recent Editor Trends Study. —mc10 (t/c) 18:28, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Protonk (talk) 20:20, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Not for Main page. Joining is suitable as a left menu option, i.e on every page. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:46, 13 July 2011 (UTC).[reply]
5,000 accounts are created daily, focus on converting them to editors. — Dispenser 00:12, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not needed on the main page. — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As stated above, our trouble isn't with people creating accounts, but retaining people as editors. hare j 03:20, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Article creation is at a high level; we need retention, which is getting lower and lower. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:56, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have zero confidence that this will be done in a way that is not horrifically tacky. I'd make "That anyone can edit" more obvious by building it into the logo up top instead. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Already a link on every page. ... (talk) 07:21, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not on the main page. I think we could do more to attract and retain competent editors within articles - people who care about a particular subject and want to improve it - but that's something we could do on the sidebar... bobrayner (talk) 12:52, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

More pictures, less text

There is consensus for bigger pictures but not more pictures. MER-C 13:04, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

So visitors don't face a wall of text when they are just looking for one thing.

Endorse

AD 19:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Completely agree. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:15, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse, a bit larger but not more (that may seem like clutter). For example would go 120px wide on main page thumb images, per primates. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk)
TFA image ridiculously small, often impossible to tell what is in it, favor raising to at least 150px.or make it rollover enlarge.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:35, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is a Very Good Idea. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hey. I know of some good pictures that we could use.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:34, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We should post more items with free images available even if the quality of the featured article isn't as good. Marcus Qwertyus 23:30, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, yea, of course. The thing is, the "Devil is in the details" when it comes to this. — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. In fact, we should focus on more, bigger pictures in general. Compare Wikipedia's text-image ratio to that of any news websites. Heck, go to Huffington Post and you're slapped in the face with a nice wide photograph. hare j 03:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Considering the increase in monitor resolution since 2006, larger pictures (at least for the FAs) should be a given. I like 150px. Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The great irony is that there's more support for this than for keeping FP. Yes, per my rationale at the FP thread. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have added #Full-size graphic for special events to add a special event "about the scroll" infographic. — Dispenser 13:19, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Larger high-quality images would do wonders for attracting readers. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:13, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say more, but certainly browsers have advanced enough since 2001 that we can scale them up a little. Designate (talk) 20:18, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Would work well for FA, FL, FP and in future FS (sort of). Is compatible with my view that ITN should be a ticker format, that OTD is only necessary in its current form because of the current prominence of ITN, and that DYK should focus on quality over quantity. —W F C— 23:56, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sort of -I guess my feeling is the same amount of image content but possible reduction of text. Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Casliber. Reducing the TFA blurb to approximately the first paragraph of the lead of the article and DYK to about three items (choosen at random from a list every time the page is loaded) would be a good start. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support. Fewer words, fewer details calling for attention. Lightmouse (talk) 17:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely, if we reduce the amount of text there'll be less errors and error reports. Win-win! —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:32pm • 02:32, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Bigger pictures, but not more of them. Johnbod (talk) 12:28, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Tentatively agree, though I realise we deal in text, and the main page needs to remain informative and navigational rather than decorative Jebus989 ^✰ 18:16, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, but we need bigger pictures, not more pictures. The main page isn't appealing enough as-is; either we need some more eye-catching things (images) or more whitespace so that it doesn't look as cluttered. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:57, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Kudu ^~I/O~ 15:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's probably some principle of graphic design that's applicable here. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which means it mostly needs to be read. Wikimedia Commons is thataway. I also note that many of the supporters above aren't supporting more pictures, but are supporting bigger pictures in the cases where there already are pictures. rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many articles don't have pictures anyway, and this is especially true of things like ITN. Those pictures we have (e.g. for DYK) could be made a bit larger, but thta's about it. Fram (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We are not a children's encyclopedia. Well, at least we're not supposed to be ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Pictures are pretty and all, but I just don't think that more or bigger pictures is either important or appropriately conveys the difference between the encyclopedia and the image repository (which, as Rjanag says, is thataway). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:55, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia will be taken less seriously if we have a greater emphasis on illustration. Neelix (talk) 13:42, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We don't want the Main Page to look like a Christmas tree. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Sandy and Neelix. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 17:59, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, the pics could be a bit more prominent, but we actually already have too many pictures on the main page: one each for FA, news, DYK, OTD, and FP. Let's work on figuring out how to make room for larger images by removing some of that artwork (I suggest OTD and news pics) before we start slashing content. It's not the presence of too much text, it's the pics that only add content when examined with a microscope that are the problem. VI_WS ^talk 13:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There're enough pics, even though quite small. ... (talk) 07:23, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Too much text? Yes. But the answer isn't pictures but better use of whitespace. Protonk (talk) 20:20, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

The Main Page is quite Wall of Texty. But I'm not sure more (or bigger) pictures are necessarily the answer; it may be that more whitespace is needed, as part of a modernization redesign. Also I wonder if we could have a mini-window popup when you mouseover an image, giving you a bigger version of it and a note to click for larger version? (Experienced editors take the clickability for granted, but for many newcomers it's far from obvious.) Rd232 ^talk 01:16, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What? Linking thumbnails of pictures to their full versions has been a de-facto standard practice on the Web even since I can remember (i.e. at least since the late 1990s). I find hard to believe there are many people (except complete beginners at Web browsing) who are unfamiliar with that. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 12:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link to the Signpost

The main page should not include a link to the Signpost. MER-C 04:04, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Could be mentioned somewhere.

Endorse

AD 19:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Signpost may be too internal at the moment, but linking to it from the main page even just with one line might nudge it into a new direction: to cater to readers. We should be trying to make sure there is as little reader/editor divide as possible. We should, where appropriate, make our innards more public so people can see that they can participate. Signpost is a pretty friendly and positive thing to show non-editors (unlike say WP:ANI). —Tom Morris (talk) 12:07, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not to the Signpost, to Wikipedia:News. This should be a small link present so this stuff is at least accessible to "outsiders". — Pretzels^Hii! 14:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Er, there is already. Johnbod (talk) 12:31, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many website have a news/blog section to keep follower informed and is less confusing then, the soon to be slashed, WP:News link. — Dispenser 15:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Link to the Signpost as part of the new "interested in contributing?" section (not that I like that title, but I can't think of a better one right now). Rd232 ^talk 01:19, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, it's a sanitized version of Wikipedia news that's good to showcase our emphasis on the community. Them From Space 05:50, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Should not be too prominent; perhaps it should replace the portals listed in the upper right corner along with a few other links. It would be beneficial to get readers to see a bit more of what's under the hood at Wikipedia. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

No. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:51, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No bamse (talk) 21:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Signpost is focused on mostly-internal developments and isn't relevant to most traffic. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nah. The Signpost is for us editors, not really for our readers (although getting them interested in our inner workings is hardly a bad thing). — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Too internal for the general population. Definitely worth the Community Portal, but not the Main Page. hare j 03:25, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
cmadler (talk) 03:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Signpost caters to editors, not readers. rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:56, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Only of real interest to people who already edit. Courcelles 13:29, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Won't be of use to readers. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not relevant to the majority of readers. --Taelus (talk) 22:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not interesting for general users, just for classic Wikipedians.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 09:55, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose, we don't need POV on the mainpage, much less internal POV and gossip. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:51, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, more an internal thing I think. Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:15, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per rjanag. Spencer^T♦C 16:01, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Esoteric. Of interest to the initiated so can be removed as part of the declutter plan. Lightmouse (talk) 17:17, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It'd be too much to swallow for a new user. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:34pm • 02:34, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The general public doesn't care, and couldn't understand. Zagalejo^^^ 03:49, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is already a link to Wikipedia:News near the bottom, which is enough. Johnbod (talk) 12:31, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The internal workings of Wikipedia do not need to be linked on the main page. Neelix (talk) 13:43, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like reading the Signpost, but I don't think enough casual readers will find it of interest to justify an addition. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. The Signpost is great for editors, but not so much for readers. –Drilnoth (T/C) 21:58, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. The main page should be aimed primarily at general users (outsiders), whereas the Signpost is primarily of interest to insiders (contributors). --Orlady (talk) 22:36, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, the Signpost is intended for editors, not for readers. —mc10 (t/c) 18:29, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with folks above about readers/editors in this case. All readers are potential editors. But the signpost is very inside baseball. Protonk (talk) 20:21, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All readers are potential editors, but new contributors may "choke" on a big release like the Signpost. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 15:54, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Cruft as far as the average reader is concerned. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More about Wikipedia itself

More on the background, purpose, how to edit etc. A short friendly welcome expanding on what's there now.

No clear consensus. Happy‑melon 16:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Endorse

AD 19:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We already have the "Welcome to Wikipedia" banner with an introduction link - maybe we could expand on it and feature a section that says, "Interested in contributing?" or something like that. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We have been repeatedly told that people thought Wikipedia was a commercial website (Bigipedia) and presumably never noted the lack of ads due to banner blindness. We need to do a lot to clear up the misconceptions. "Wikipedia, the non-profit, non-commercial, non-partisan free encyclopedia". — Dispenser 13:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As part of an "interested in contributing?" section, it's logical to include a few words saying what WP is. "WP is a non-profit project edited by people like you, and supported by donations from people like you!" sort of thing. Rd232 ^talk 01:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How about this? (As for the template messages, they are only read by people who have already signed up...) ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 13:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Rd232. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:35pm • 02:35, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but no more than two or three sentences. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe. Perhaps a link w/ text that says "what is WP?" or "who is WP?" Not a blurb on the main page. Protonk (talk) 20:23, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Rd232. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 15:55, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In some form, yes. Almost every other website has some kind of explanation of what it is, and a quick look at the info-en OTRS queue will show that a great many people don't understand what Wikipedia is—for example, most people emailing us think the editors are paid employees, some think they can advertise, that they can pay to have an article, or that by not having an article on them we have collectively decided they are not worthy. And then some people just want to sell us viagra, or dodgy watches, or lend us money at extortionate interest rates. But I digress. What Wikipedia is and how it works is not as widely understood as we like to think it is, and we should have a short introduction (with a prominent link to a longer one). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:21, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

I agree with the idea but feel the options are required on other pages(one the edit page, on talk pages, on help desk etc) and are not relevant to the main page. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:54, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Much too vague, decide what you want, bring it back to the community.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:36, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, Same reasons as for the Signpost. — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what I would be supporting here. A paragraph-long introduction would probably be too long, but we could use something more prominent than the subtle link to the Introduction we have right now. hare j 03:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All that information is included in the various subpages mentioned above such as the Introduction, and for anyone who wants to know it is very easy to find. For people who are just here to read an article or search for something, they don't care about that information and we shouldn't try to make them. rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's why we have dozens of welcome templates.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 09:54, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Between the introduction and a link to the Wikipedia article, what else can we add? Hot Stop (t) 14:14, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The main page should be filled with dynamic content, not static. Neelix (talk) 13:44, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

@Wehwalt - I don't want anything, these are just suggestions. It's meant to be vague, so we can discuss it. AD 21:38, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most viewed article list

The main page should not contain a list of the most viewed articles. MER-C 06:56, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Regularly updated, maybe by a bot? For those concerned over its contents, this is an example

Endorse

AD 19:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe a "Popular right now" page - similar to Twitter's hashtags - would work, but this would have to be fleshed out. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:36, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support - would be very relevant and interesting for very little page space. — Pretzels^Hii! 01:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
yes --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
or maybe no, after reading opposes. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
People like to see what others are looking at, even if they don't want to admit it. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:37, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely. But not a most-viewed list, but a "trending topics feature. This should replace ITN. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 02:59, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Something like this, probably "trending" rather than "top" (which would change too rarely & be boring), selected to avoid sex stuff. Johnbod (talk) 12:34, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Would be interesting to readers and useful to editors (i.e. spotting high-visibility unprotected pages that are being vandalised). Ideally a hard-coded sanity check would prevent 4chan (+ etc.) from abusing the system. Also, a real-time 'trending'-type list which looks for large increases in views relative to normal pageviews would prevent the sex-related pages (which are consistently popular) from appearing Jebus989 ^✰ 18:23, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In two minds. 'Now trending' would be great if done well and was not game-able. Requires a lot of development away from main page at first. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 23:31, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Isn't this basically what ITN should be doing? Sure we'd have to become less elitist and post more popular content, but I don't really see the value in linking Lady Gaga every day unless she's done something particularly interesting - i.e. her article reads have spiked. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:08, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not that I'm for censorship but do we really want a banner telling our viewers that people only use Wikipedia to look up sex? Marcus Qwertyus 22:42, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Amazingly, sex is rather low at #64. howcheng {chat} 00:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of those are portals or special pages. Also of note is that those stats are from December. Marcus Qwertyus 00:22, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
yea... stats.grok.se has never been a particularly useful list, if only because it doesn't exclude non-mainspace pages. I never quite "got that". — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Someone needs to pick up the ball on this (from the toolserver side) and get a Wikipedia namespace page updated regularly with this info, but it's not something that needs to be on the main page (although putting a link to the page on the sidebar would be nice). — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure it's something we want to parade on the main page. An auxiliary page, sure. But otherwise, it's kind of... embarrassing? hare j 03:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Harej, and per the fact that we're a bloody encyclopedia. Focusing on popularity is a bad road to go down. Focus on what is of high quality, and what is of high importance. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:09, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is extremely gameable. We get reliable hit counts so long as they don't matter. Making them matter invites spam. Consider that popular movies will naturally spike some articles - now imagine if a movie exec says "we need to have our movie advertised for free on opening weekend on Wikipedia, go make it happen." SnowFire (talk) 03:35, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We are not something like "Statisticpedia". It is maybe interesting, but it is nonsense. If you want to know the most viewed articles, then ask on Help Desk.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 09:53, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, right, an excuse to run porn on the mainpage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:52, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I note that the TFA view appears to be that Jenna Jameson is inappropriate for the main page, but this is fine. Nonetheless I agree with Sandy. Human penis size getting more hits than Jesus, Italy, Europe, List of Presidents of the United States and Internet is not something for us to be ashamed about – what people want to read is their business. But it's not something I'd advertise on the Main Page. —W F C— 00:12, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Would be deeply depressing, and a kick in the teeth for Countering Systemic Bias. Rd232 ^talk 01:24, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Mainly because of what is on it. I don't think it really enlightens anyone or serves any purpose. Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:19, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Casliber. A list of current US pop culture topics and/or penis/Hitler stuff, depending on the timescale, is of no real interest to anybody. Sandstein 07:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy has a good point, almost all of the pages with high viewership are pornography-related subject. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, we don't need some teenager jerking off to the MP and getting caught by their parents, what kind of impression does that instill in their minds, that Wikipedia is insane? —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 12:37pm • 02:37, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Advertizing this information does not help the project. Neelix (talk) 13:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Sandy. I'm sure that quite a few of our most-read articles are "adult-oriented", and we don't need to be promoting this fact on the main page. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This list is available elsewhere (I think) for people who are really interested, and doesn't really add anything to the Main Page. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not needed, would clutter things up. Maybe, maybe, add a link to another page which does have such data. –Drilnoth (T/C) 22:00, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Regular perusal of the "most viewed" list for the Tennessee Wikiproject has led me to conclude that the most-viewed articles generally are not Wikipedia's best work (nor even particularly good work) nor the type of content that encyclopedias in general are supposed to be about. (Often the state's most-viewed article for a month is a poorly sourced article about a hot Hollywood starlet; Elvis Presley is also usually near the top of the list.) --Orlady (talk) 22:49, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No bots, thanks. ... (talk) 07:28, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Our most-read articles are a strong cocktail which includes half a bottle of controversial news, a splash of porn, and a shot from some random bottle at the end of the shelf. That's not something I would like to showcase, especially if the act of showcasing it encourages third parties to game the system. bobrayner (talk) 12:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. Autogenerated content on the main page is a failure of design--full stop. Protonk (talk) 20:24, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Would probably have to be "Currently trending" rather than "Most viewed" to be very interesting. --Cybercobra (talk) 20:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Quite. So what ITN should be. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:58, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - ITN is more of headline-news venue; a separate "Popular right now" list might be attractive to all the Twitter-fused socialites we share the world with. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - Wouldn't what is Popular right now consist mostly of ITN items and be redundant? Marcus Qwertyus 23:27, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      - Now, we're talking about something like twitter's 'currently trending' section. Nothing to do with the News, just articles that are popular that day (be they most-viewed, most-edited, etc.) m.o.p 00:43, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting idea, but human intervention in the process would be a good idea, so that the 404 error isn't named the 6th most viewed article. RadManCF ☢ open frequency 00:58, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, inclusion would have to be based on largest % increase on the previous pageviews figure, whether it's done hourly, weekly, or daily. — Pretzels^Hii! 01:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And couldn't a malicious bot just manipulate the page views? Marcus Qwertyus 02:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
On further research, this already exists! See here on the toolserver. It seems to work quite well; ignoring a few inexplicable outliers, most of the rises and falls have been the subject of recent press attention. We have a number of possibilities: "top x most popular right now", "going up / going down (Osama Bin Laden, the KKK and Prince William at the moment)", "popular this month". It's very interesting data, and I think actually, Wikipedia's sheer traffic figures would make it very difficult to game. Nevertheless, the list would have to be updated hourly or so by a bot, so could easily be adjusted by editors in the meantime if required. — Pretzels^Hii! 00:58, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The criterion I'd use for this would be the number of views in the last 24 hours divided by the number of views in the last 12 months. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 01:52, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Currently trending" might have merit, but since the "currently trending" pages also tend to be major vandalism targets, I'm not sure that it's in Wikipedia's interest to give them even more visibility. The "trending" formula would need to be tested for a while -- and tweaked -- to make sure it was something Wikipedia could be proud of. --Orlady (talk) 22:49, 31 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Difficult in the extreme to give a true listing, and high potential for problems/abuse Chzz ► 17:20, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's already too much low quality crap that gets links to the main page. Let's focus on highlighting things that are actually at a level that showcasing them wouldn't be a cause for embarrassment. We're a goddamned encyclopedia, we need to do a better job of pretending to care about professionalism. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:11, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Currently trending articles

This idea has preliminary support. MER-C 07:00, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

That is, the ones with the largest percentage increase in number of views in the last X hours relative to the previous Y hours. (Compared to the previous proposal, this would exclude articles which are always popular such as Human penis size.)

Support

As nom., per above. (I'd use X = 24 hours and Y = one year.) ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:07, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support - a year is too long to compare to though, many trending articles may not have been around for that long. A good implementation of these statistics is at http://toolserver.org/~johang/wikitrends/english-uptrends-this-month.html. — Pretzels^Hii! 17:02, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per above. The only thing is we'd need to run quality control on these articles, to avoid the copyvio, POV and poor sourcing that has occured at DYK. —Andrew_stalk 09:08, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support, look at http://toolserver.org/~johang/wikitrends/english-uptrends-today.html it's very good quality. It would make Wikipedia more useful for the majority of people and a good reason for visitors to visit the main page, not just a place to start and search from at the vast majority of viewers currently do. I'd like to see this in action at first on user pages. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 12:01, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support, with some basic quality control checks. The articles should be at least DYK-level, favouring GAs. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 15:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Intriguing, could make ITN redundant. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If done right, this could be a very interesting addition to the main page. It would need oversight to weed out inappropriate/low quality articles, though. Robofish (talk) 22:31, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Per my prev cmt above; sounds like troll-fodder, and I'm unconvinced of its usefulness. Chzz ► 17:22, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's already too much low quality crap that gets links to the main page. Let's focus on highlighting things that are actually at a level that showcasing them wouldn't be a cause for embarrassment. We're a goddamned encyclopedia, we need to do a better job of pretending to care about professionalism. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:10, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neutral
Discussion

Links to policies

The main page should not include a link to the five pillars. MER-C 04:06, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Maybe the five pillars?

Endorse

AD 19:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good, but I think a summary page with the rules in a nutshell would be better. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:16, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Link to WP:5P, or even link to the 5 pillars in the way WP:5P does, as part of a "interested in contributing?" section. Although arguably even readers should know a smidgeon about how Wikipedia articles are written in order to be able to evaluate them - eg the notion of NPOV, collective authorship (no WP:OWNer) and Reliable Sourcing. Rd232 ^talk 01:28, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This would be OK with me, but more than that would not. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 13:05, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Low down, Johnbod (talk) 12:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As part of a two or three sentence blurb, yes. But it should be in some context rather than a bulleted list of a few links. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Not on front page. No. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 20:59, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Needlessly complicated. Internal pages that are integral to Wikipedia's operation don't need to be paraded on our main landing page. After all, 90% of our traffic has probably never edited before and never will - they don't have an interest in our operation. Putting policy on the front page will only confuse most site-goers. If anybody is interested, they can click on the Introduction page and go from there. m.o.p 22:28, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not interesting to the average reader. Hot Stop (t) 23:29, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not needed for the main page, for the same reasons as the Signpost item and the "More about wikipedia itself" item. — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:40, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What Ohm's Law said. hare j 03:35, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You don't need those until you edit, and you should get those as part of a new user welcome message if you do edit. A side note; I would link to our polices on all IP user pages as part of some IP specific top banner, as IPs are the only editors that don't get shown the 5P page on their way in. Sven Manguard Wha? 06:10, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
People who want to know the main policies can find it very easily. People who don't shouldn't have to look at it on the main page. rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not needed. The link to the five pillars is on every welcome template.--♫Greatorangepumpkin♫_{Share–a–Power}^{[citation needed]} 09:49, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Needs to be aligned with an "Introduction" section (see above discussion). Policy by itself would be an awful thing to spring on users. —Designate (talk) 20:31, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No, will come across as lecturing and is irrelevant to the average reader or person just considering editing. You learn it a bit further in.Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:38, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The main page should be for readers, not for editors. Nightw 11:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. It should be somewhere in help or guidance, but not on main page. Lightmouse (talk) 17:20, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't need to be on the front page. Zagalejo^^^ 03:51, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not on the main page. (And 5P is properly a popular summary of our official policies, not an actual policy itself.) Also, it's basically redundant with the existing link to WP:Introduction. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:57, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I love the policies, but they're internal workings and shouldn't be on the main page. Neelix (talk) 13:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Inappropriate on the main page Jebus989 ^✰ 18:25, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. The main page should be primarily for readers, and if they're interested in how Wikipedia works there are relevant links in the sidebar and already on the main page. –Drilnoth (T/C) 22:02, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No; that's pipework. They need to get links to it if/when they join, not on main. Chzz ► 17:24, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
5P is unneeded on the Main Page; if someone really wishes to become an editor, they'll find it linked elsewhere (on the Introduction, etc.). —mc10 (t/c) 18:32, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This should be integrated into the "new contributors zone", not as a direct link. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 15:58, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The average user is not an editor. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:47, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Full-size graphic for special events

This should not happen. MER-C 04:08, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

A very large (800x800) that takes the full screen for very special events (e.g. 100-year anniversary of World War I). This would push the normal content "below the fold". Perhaps with the interactive rollover elements (similar to Bing).

Endorse

— Dispenser 13:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In principle this sounds good Hot Stop (t) 15:27, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It would definitely shake things up. We have to be careful about using this judiciously, of course. hare j 18:50, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like this idea (make the readers sit up every now and again). But people won't support it until they see a visual example. Tony (talk) 11:15, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support, but I think 800x800 is a bit too big. It should be fully visible at 1024x768 resolution ideally with the worst of the browsers (with regards to screen real estate) JQuery supports on Windows XP/Mac OS X Leopard/A common Linux distro or better. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:05, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

I dislike the idea. Aside from that there will inevitably be fighting over what qualifies, and fighting over which image to choose for what event, this'll cause long load times and won't really add that much. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:36, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Are you serious? If I went to the main page and I saw a ginormous picture of which without scrolling I could only see the top half (remember, there are people – such as me – who browse on netbooks), I would be like “WTF?”. Ever heard of the principle of least astonishment? Also, what Sven Manguard said. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 19:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not worth it for the NPOV arguments it would create. There seems enough controversy when devoting front page sections to one particular theme already. — Pretzels^Hii! 19:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Graphics like this - no. On the other hand, I can see the appeal of building a themed Main Page for major major anniversaries (one per year might be the aim), with a thematic Featured Article, DYKs, Featured Picture, etc. Rd232 ^talk 01:32, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ick. Nightw 11:41, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
per Night w :) --Elekhh (talk) 05:03, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can see alot of arguments about potential candidates for this. headache....Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:17, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely not. Far too unprofessional. Neelix (talk) 13:48, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't sound appealing at all. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Too hokey, and it seems almost too commercial for this project. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Being commercial doesn't make it bad. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 20:06, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I envision battles over what qualifies for this. We don't need another headache. Karanacs (talk) 18:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ugh! Not unless the New York Times is running front page, above the fold, a single 8" tall word with at least three exclamation points after it. Any other time, it's completely inappropriate. VI_WS ^talk 13:16, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. Just no. If something is really, and I mean really, important, put a header at the top of the main page (above TFA/ITN) which has a small image and a brief description. –Drilnoth (T/C) 22:03, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Again, why the special treatment. ... (talk) 07:30, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No. Keep rollovers, popovers and all the crap that plagues other websites off wikipedia. Protonk (talk) 20:25, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Unprofessional feel, too much argumentation over the qualification criteria. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 15:59, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Criteria issues. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:48, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Today's/This week's/This month's featured sound

The main page should not feature sounds, at least for the time being. MER-C 09:23, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Doesn't have to take up much space: a box like the one currently on P:FC (even without the loudspeaker icon) would do it.

Endorse

One of those things print encyclopaedias can't have. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 17:45, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We should be supporting the Commons like the Commons supports us. Also, featured content is what the main page should be all about. Neelix (talk) 13:50, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Support the idea of FSs on the main page. Agree with A. di M. that this is a great advantage for us in comparison to print encyclopedias, and is worth showing off in a weekly/monthly form. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like the FS process is quite ready yet. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Periodically, as part of a featured-non-article-content section which rotates between featured pictures, sounds, and portals. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

FS needs more attention, but at the moment we need a mass overhaul of all our sounds for reassessment, that and a lot of us are too busy to deal with the current nominations on the FS main page. If people are willing to help out that'd be welcome, but at the moment we just aren't ready. That and the criteria are still being discussed, despite it being many months since that RFC was initiated. —James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 1:11pm • 03:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I'd like to see FP and FS dumped, since they are taken care of at the Commons. WP is about articles and its supplements (lists, portals etc), but having a duplicate of FS/FP is stupid. However, if TFP is kept, I don't see why we can't have TFS if people are willing to do the work. —Adabow (talk · contribs) 03:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This feature is Commons' domain. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it's for articles. Many Featured Sounds are not created by Wikipedia users; they're just files that Wikipedia users found and archived. That's not an accomplishment and not noteworthy enough for the front page. —Designate (talk) 03:40, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Leaning oppose, but openminded. Am aware there have been issues so "not yet" is my current thinking. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:20, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Adabow. ... (talk) 07:32, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose FS is a broken process with critically low participation, a failed set of procedures, and desperately needs a purge of about a quarter of its items. The FS directors are trying their best, but FS is nowhere near ready. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:07, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Per Adabow and M.O.X. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 16:00, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Most FSs, in my experience, are just uploaded from somewhere else (so their not our best work), most are largely useless, the file format for sounds is crap, and calling them "featured" is an insult enough to things that actually matter, like featured articles, without the need to feature it on the same page as the TFA. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:30, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

This week's/This month's featured topic

Inclusion should be further explored when reconsidering the contents of the main page. MER-C 08:52, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

It worked on 10th Anniversary. There are currently only 100 FTs, so one a day won't work yet.

Endorse

What I was hoping for was occasional sprinkling of Featured Topics in the TFA slot. We have an excess of FAs, and so this is a good way to process >1 at a time and also promote FTs. A larger box with two smaller boxes within (much like the Obama/McCain duet) was what I had in mind. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:23, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not in current form, but I support the principle of advertising topics on the main page. A full blown section is unnecessary, because lists have a slot, articles have a slot, and judging by the direction of travel it will soon be possible to get GAs onto the main page as part of DYK. However, I think that when a TFA or TFL is part of one or more featured topics, the most relevant topic should be advertised at the bottom of the section. —W F C— 14:36, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All featured content should have the right to appear on the main page in some fashion at some point. — KV5 • Talk • 23:22, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As with Featured Lists, too many of the current Featured Topics are very erm, specific, and the concentration of topics covered in certain areas is very notable. However I agree with KV5 - all featured content should get a crack at the Main Page. Where possible Featured Topics should clearly be integrated with the TFA. Where this is not possible, maybe as part of an omnibus "other featured content" section (perhaps like the 10th Anniversary example, perhaps something different). Rd232 ^talk 22:00, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As an FL director concerned about TFL, I think this would be an efficient way of showcasing series of lists, rather than having 20 lists of the same type appear at varying times. For something like this, featuring it in a group format makes a lot of sense. I wouldn't advocate this weekly or maybe even monthly, but as an intermittent feature it makes some sense. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:49, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not as a separate section, but either periodically in the Featured Article space, or as part of of a featured-non-article-content section which rotates between featured pictures, sounds, lists, and portals. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. It could be given a once-a-week spot or somesuch just like TFL has now (just on a different day). –Drilnoth (T/C) 22:05, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Featured topics are nice, and they're collections of articles that a lot of work has gone into, so I think there's value on having them on the Main Page is some form. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:32, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This would be a great idea, both for a bit more variety, and also it would give a chance for a little bit more attention to GAs, which at the moment is sadly lacking. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 05:06, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, monthly, not weekly. But only if we can get rid of some of the redundant and low-value stuff on the main page. Tony (talk) 08:27, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Including featured topics on the main page would be redundant; they are composed entirely of links to featured articles and featured lists, both of which are better served by having their own sections (TFA and TFL). Neelix (talk) 13:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Instead, when an article or list that is part of a featured topic is run on the main page, I'd love to see a note with it that "This article/list is part of this featured topic." I do like Giants2008's example above about running this periodically instead of TFL when there are a lot of lists that are similar. Karanacs (talk) 18:49, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Only 100, not yet. Or maybe replace TFA occasionally is better. ... (talk) 07:35, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Spotlight on....

Not enough comments to form a consensus...redo this later on (or whenever) -- DQ (t) (e) 09:17, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This is intended more of an idea for discussion than as something concrete to support/oppose, but I think that it could be good to have a rotating thematic slot because currently our content on the main page is all so random. (Random things that happened today, random dyks, random FA, random FP.) Maybe replace OTD (random things from today in history) with a slot for some (~6?) related articles that are interesting or good-quality, perhaps with one central article tying them all together, or with some cool media. This might be a place where featured or good topics could be highlighted, or good articles, or new articles, or content drawn from featured portals, or even perhaps just a selection of good-enough quality interesting articles curated by an interested Wikiproject or editor. Essentially just a slot for some interesting related content of quality that is not embarrassing. We could even include a link to a Wikiproject (though I know most people hate this idea) if there is an active Wikiproject associated with the content. I like the idea of having something a bit more freeform like this for the main page and it could be a good way to highlight whatever cool content is coming down the pipeline, especially things related to core encyclopedic topics (e.g. "Spotlight on mammals", "Spotlight on military history", "Spotlight on Vietnam").

Endorse

Something along these lines. Calliopejen1 (talk) 21:22, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think this sounds appealing, particularly if used in moderation. I actually suggested somewhere above "I can see the appeal of building a themed Main Page for major major anniversaries (one per year might be the aim), with a thematic Featured Article, DYKs, Featured Picture, etc". By "major major" I mean, for example, the hundred-year anniversary of the start of WWI - that sort of thing. Like TFA (and unlike OTD!), content featured in this way would be featured as a one-off, not every year. Also, if quality is high enough, the rate could be higher than one a year, but I think that would be a good starting point for testing. Rd232 ^talk 21:49, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I can see this as a possible solution to replace TFA etc. This method would accomodate whichever forms of media appropriate and hopefully ease the arguments over whether featured lists, sounds, etc should be on the main page. Instead of organising content arbitrarily by media type, grouping by topic would be a very viable solution. — Pretzels^Hii! 02:25, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very intriguing and an idea that I would hope grow legs. I think this idea needs to be built around TFA and would such need the FA's group support. I can see having a page (like Wikipedia:Main Page Themes ) where suggestions for a weekly theme are submitted based on 7 related Wikipedia:Featured articles (Helps insure a relatively broad thematic scope like Literature, Military History, etc) that have not been featured yet. Discussion and consensus (similar to ITN selection) takes place with the final selection being made 2-3 month ahead of schedule so DYK, OTD and TFP know what kind of content will need to be produced to fit upcoming weekly themes. The benefits to this idea are numerous with the least of which being that by encouraging purpose driven editing for DYK and OTD to fit with a particular (broad) theme we will gives those sections the freedom to be more discerning in selecting only high quality content that fit with a particular theme. Additionally, since a desired theme must be based around FA content this idea will encourage editors wishing to see a particular theme to be used in the future to create enough FA quality content to warrant its own week instead of stopping at GA, etc. Agne ^Cheese/^Wine 20:31, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Unless a more tightly delineated suggestion is made, I fear that this spotlight suggestion could easily be used as an excuse to put low-quality information on the main page or to POV-push. Neelix (talk) 14:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
1. That seems like an odd thing to say. (a) it's currently at a brainstorming stage, so why not say "support as long as safeguards are involved to ensure low-quality info and POV-pushing can't become problems"? (b) it's not obvious to me how such things would become serious problems, given that Spotlights would be infrequent and involve lots of planning and discussion, and largely or entirely draw on Featured content. Rd232 ^talk 22:25, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Kinda duplicate of FT above, except that FT has better contents. ... (talk) 07:37, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

"Spotlight on mammals", "Spotlight on military history", "Spotlight on Vietnam" - those topics sound too broad to me, particularly the first two. Country-based spotlights could work, especially around a Featured Article on the country (eg Vietnam, if it's featured), and ideally tied to a major anniversary of the country. Rd232 ^talk 23:45, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not tied to any specific topics... just brainstorming! We would run out of super-broad topics in not terribly long anyways. Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Sure. Rd232 ^talk 10:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also could be good for combating systemic bias (geographical areas outside the US/UK/Australia as noted above, spotlight on women in politics, spotlight on development, etc.) Calliopejen1 (talk) 03:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Good point, especially if an effort is made to plan well ahead "themes we'd like to see on the Main Page" (it could then also help push content to Featured status in order to support a planned theme). Rd232 ^talk 10:57, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It would make sense for Featured Topics to be used for this, at least some of the time (depends a bit on the scope and depth of the Featured Topic - some are pretty narrow and/or cover only a handful of articles). Linking it with Featured Topics (eg trying to develop a Topic to support a planned theme) might also support the FT process. Rd232 ^talk 11:01, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As proposed this seems similar to Featured Topics, except on an ad-hoc basis, which I don't think will work. We could have a "theme day" on occasion though, once a quarter or so, with all the content on the Main Page having a certain theme. Think April Fools Day, but with a specific (serious) theme rather than funny/unusual articles. Kind of like Google does with its logo for special occasions. Antony–22 (^talk⁄_contribs) 18:46, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This proposal is way too vague for me. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:30, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quirky corner

Not enough comments to form a consensus...redo this later on (or whenever) -- DQ (t) (e) 09:18, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

See example, User:Chzz/quirky bottom-right, under "On this day...".

Lots of TV news, and other media, have an "...and finally" section; for example, BBC has Oddbox. I think a similar feature would be an opportunity to showcase articles which naturally provoke curiosity, and would attract visitors to the main page. It would give a venue for articles that are not up to the exhalted standards of FA, nor new enough for DYK. I imagine it could operate in a similar fashion to DYK, perhaps just one article per day. Of course criteria would be subjective, but I'm sure we could sort out guidelines, and decide through !voting; nothing controversial/contentious, articles needing to be well-ref'd, and so forth. Wikipedia:Unusual articles provides ammunition. This would demonstrate to readers the extraordinary breadth of Wikipedia.

I apologize for coming late to this RfC party, and that this idea of mine hasn't been fleshed out; I thought of it a year ago, and always wanted to put together a proposal for it - like many things, I've never found the time and thought, if I at least mentioned it here, others could consider if it "has legs". Chzz ► 17:09, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse

Support I think this is what DYK should be about, instead of boring new articles. (Case in point: Current DYK - beetles are mildly interesting to me, the rest are pretty lame.) There are popular tumblrs and blogs that collect interesting and cool Wikipedia articles. These manage to attract a decent amount of traffic, so clearly they're doing something right. Why are we arbitrarily highlighting (often) boring, relatively low-quality articles on our front page to reward a relatively small number of editors? If the front page were designed for readers, we'd be highlighting cool articles, not new ones that are often pretty dull. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:21, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Oppose I believe that Wikipedia, even though it tends to behave like a whiny eight year old a lot of the time, needs to put on its best suit and tie and pretend to be mature, professional, and respectable, at least when it comes to the main page. Having the equivalent of Ripley's Believe it or Not on the main page is not mature, professional, or respectable. I think this would be a great little toy for people to put in their userspaces (where people are freer to act like eight year olds), but not on the main page. Sven Manguard Wha? 23:11, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

Whinge about the process

Discuss before RFC

One thing that I thought was clear in closing these is that the proposals did not have enough meat and were to vague. Attribute that to being not enough discussion before an RfC or call it not clear enough proposals within the RfC. Take your pick. -- DQ (t) (e) 09:27, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

This RFC is premature; launching an RFC on mainpage design before ample discussion will be a waste of community time and will not yield an optimal result. Discuss first, design an RFC correctly, then put it to the community. See Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Main Page features#Putting the cart before the horse.

Endorse

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:22, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Rambling Man (talk) 20:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
cmadler (talk) 20:24, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
David Levy 20:41, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nil Einne (talk) 23:39, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Carcharoth (talk) 01:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What happened to the whole "Research who is visiting the main page and why" concept from this morning? Sven Manguard Wha? 06:11, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This whole thing is a big waste of time. Strange Passerby (talk • cont) 11:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The quality of discussion is not as bad as I had feared it would be. However, dealing with the main page in a piecemeal manner makes no sense whatsoever. We need a concept, a vision of how the main page needs to move forward. For starters, do we want wholesale change to its function, or does it do its job perfectly and just need an aesthetic revamp? —W F C— 12:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Dabomb87 (talk) 14:18, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
—James ^{(Talk • Contribs)} • 1:11pm • 03:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

We don't need to have a discussion before a discussion before a discussion. Hot Stop (t) 20:25, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't about the design it's about the features. It's not at all premature, proposals for changes have been going on for years. Also per Hot Stop. AD 21:23, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'm not sure why we need to have a discussion to develop community consensus... to my knowledge, RfC is for determining community consensus. Also, how can we waste time if we don't have a deadline? If a discussion has merit, letting it proceed regularly can only bring about consensus and, with it, good ideas. If this RfC revolved around what shade of gray the Wikipedia logo was, I'd understand peoples' concerns, but the Main Page has historically been a hot topic - why not participate? m.o.p 22:13, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We can always talk about how we are doing and might improve things. No harm. I think people are worried about losing control of the main page.--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 22:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, please assume good faith.
Secondly, if we did seek to impose "control," this poll wouldn't threaten it in the slightest. (If anything, it would serve as a diversion from discussion that actually could interfere with the hypothetical "control.")
Wikipedia is not a democracy and polling is not a substitute for discussion, so the main page's content won't be determined by counting votes. —David Levy 00:01, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should let this run its course. If nothing useful happens, we've wasted a bit of time, but it could give us a clear idea of what people think should be on the Main Page. That, I think, nicely lays the foundations for a more sensible discussion. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:18, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If the idea here is to to get a rough estimate of where people stand, which seems to be in line with this (ie "polls are typically used in somewhat more complex situations, where it might be hard to otherwise get an overview"). Hot Stop (t) 00:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The main problem, in my view, is that this poll won't tell us why people want or don't want content on the main page and how these opinions relate (or don't relate) to our underlying objectives, which are neither laid out nor raised as points of discussion. —David Levy 00:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I did propose in the original discussion at Talk:Main Page that we should start this process by agreeing on the aims and audience of the Main Page. Do you think a similar format to this RfC with the question "What are the aims of the Main Page?", with proposed aims and discussion on each under subheadings, would be worthwhile? This would establish a basis for community consensus on the actual content included. — Pretzels^Hii! 01:21, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I view that as a much better approach. —David Levy 02:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just add another section to the end of this RFC. I really don't see the need to be all wonkish about this. :/
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 02:20, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We should be discussing our goals first. Continually tacking on sections as we think of them (in the hope that we'll stumble upon something worthwhile) is a highly impractical approach. Nothing ensures a poll's failure more reliably than rushing to take it live and trying to sort out the kinks on the fly.
We're compiling data lacking the necessary context to be of any significant use. —David Levy 02:46, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) The problem with "just add[ing] another section to the end of this RfC" is that the question of the purpose(s) of the Main Page must come before any discussion of the content, and I think, drives many of the disputes. If you think the Main Page is to showcase Wikipedia's best work, you probably favor dropping ITN, OTD, and DYK, in favor of more space for TFA, FL, and GA. If you think the Main Page is to entice readers to become editors, you might favor making the link to Wikipedia:Introduction more prominent, serving random links to stubs, articles tagged for copy editing and other improvement, and the like. If you think the Main Page is just a stopping point from which most readers search for a specific article or information on a specific topic (i.e. they come here looking for specific information), the goal is to get them to the information they seek as simply and directly as possible, and you probably favor a stripped-down Google-like Main Page with a search box and little else. In the absence of such a discussion, we are like a committee of Homer Simpsons trying to design a car: a tailfin here, a bubble dome there, shag carpeting, and "a horn here, here, and here"...that.."all play `La Cucaracha'." cmadler (talk) 03:14, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well said. —David Levy 03:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Those are certainly good points for discussion, but this RFC appears to be predicated on the idea that the current main page set up is... if not idea, at least adequate. There are some slightly "radical" items on the list here, but there's nothing at all about the basic character of the main page. Like I said, those are some good items for discussion, but they don't seem to be what's driving this currently. Personally, I wouldn't mind adding those topics to this page. I don't understand what the problem is, really.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 03:42, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Adequate for what, though? cmadler (talk) 04:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't feel it's premature. It's good to poll people on their opinions and then proceed from there so that we know where everyone stands. hare j 03:36, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We now have "What are the aims of the main page?" which may help clarify the basic perspectives. Rd232 ^talk 01:38, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Seems reasonable enough to do this. -- Eraserhead1 <talk> 06:28, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this RFC is a bit mis-timed, and would of been better not started when it did, but it is not a total either or situation; both a discussion and an RFC can take place - although the discussion may make the RFC meaningless. Regards, SunCreator ^(talk) 08:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All discussion is good, especially if given sufficient structure and framing to make some sense of opinions. I don't think any time is a particularly "good time".Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:37, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We are trying to discuss first. No redesign is guaranteed to happen, of course. /ƒETCH COMMS / 06:07, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Seems fine as a starting point for discussion. Data on how users use the page would be helpful - is there any chance of that? Rd232 ^talk 01:36, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I find it interesting. Sandstein 07:21, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What TCO said on the talk page. ― A. di M._plé^dréachtaí 14:00, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Discuss first": This RFC is the first discussion. Nobody's trying to make final decisions here. Actually, I don't think anyone's trying to make any decisions at all here. An RFC is a Request for Comment, not a Request for a Decision. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is this the line for beer or the line to stand in line for beer? Discussion has to start someplace. Protonk (talk) 20:26, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, the point of this RfC was specifically to discuss, not as a form of straw poll. Since this made it to WP:CENT, it seems like we'll stick with that. — Kudu ^~I/O~ 16:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
An RfC is a good way to determine the general feelings of the community. A postmortem round of discussion, and then we should have [a] concrete proposal[s]. --Cybercobra (talk) 05:51, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.