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General discussion

Gender bias on main page content

the discussion has moved past usefulness, and is now getting insulting. Thanks to Richerman for directing users to places discussing genuine concerns in this area. Please avoid belittling the genuine concerns about a documented problem at Wikipedia, and be constructive in your suggestions on how to fix said problem. --Jayron32 16:40, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

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.

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Hi, not sure if this is the best place to comment, happy to be redirected if so. What is the policy on showcasing diversity in the main page content? Reading the main page for 27 October reads like the whole of Wikipedia is written about men! As follows: featured article - biography of a man in the news - 5 items, one about an individual person, which was about a man DYK - 8 items, six about individual people, five of which were about men On this day - 5 items, 4 about people, all of which were about men From today's featured list - biography of a man From today's featured photo - building designed by a man It's important that Wikipedia is inclusive and diverse, and this main page certainly doesn't encourage that impression. Is there a policy on encouraging diversity? If not, how does that get discussed? Cheers, MurielMary (talk) 21:13, 26 October 2015 (UTC)MurielMary

It's fair enough, to an extent. Each section of the main page is determined by a different process, and as such, it's altogether possible that we could feature 18 items about mushrooms. Having said that, sections with control over their destiny, e.g. DYK, OTD, TFL, TFP, TFA, could work on ensuring diversity, but the latter three only have one choice per day. DYK has eight hooks every 12 or so hours. OTD has five or so hooks every 24 hours. Is there a real need to make sure there's an equal spread of male and female features? Is there a trend? Is there an explanation? (e.g. we have three times as many FAs about men as women [as a hypothetical example]). The Rambling Man (talk) 21:22, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

As regards TFA, at least, the problem is that there's a very limited pool of articles about women which have yet to run. This is a probably inevitable consequence of the nature of Wikipedia; by definition, people who meet Wikipedia's notability standards are more likely to be male (at least in the case of pre-20th-century biographies), as so many of the fields in which it's possible to become notable (politics, warfare, religion, the arts, science...) were fields from which women were either excluded altogether, or strongly underrepresented. If we were to have a 50-50 gender balance at TFA, we would literally burn through every available female biography in a couple of months at most. ‑ iridescent 22:01, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

• I have to agree with TRM here: it is entirely possible that, by sheer coincidence, we could end up with multiple items on mushrooms, or cricket, or churches, or.... As Jayron says, the best way to combat this is to improve content to the point that it can be featured on the main page. TFA and other processes can only run content which meets their criteria; coordinators cannot simply say "We haven't had a woman as TFA in a while. Let's run Marie Curie", because Curie's article (though well written) has not passed the featured articles process. Since the number of featured articles on women or works by women are limited, that means that, statistically, they have to be spread outstanding. We still do our best, however: this month, for TFA, we've had Mary Margaret O'Reilly, "Lisa the Vegetarian" (centered around a woman character), Luo Yixiu, and Debora Green. For POTD, we've had Ada Lovelace and will soon have a form of Indian dance generally performed by women; there have also works by women, including the photograph you comment on above. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:14, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Hi Chris, thanks for the point of view. I disagree that the best solution is to write more material. This is only one approach to the gender bias problem. It seems that the policies and criteria are set up to favour articles on men and there needs to be change in the systems involved with judging what is "noteworthy" and "valuable". A criteria could be "the article helps Wikipedia showcase a diversity of people from different gender/ethnic/class origins", which would open up the possibility of nominating a wider range of articles. This is not to say that academic integrity or journalistic quality would be compromised, simply that an additional reason for promoting an article (that it contributes to diversity) would be added to the list of criteria. As I've mentioned below, women's history has a different idea of what is considered "noteworthy" and if Wikipedia is to remain current and relevant it would be worth considering widening the definitions at a high level. MurielMary (talk) 00:43, 27 October 2015 (UTC)MurielMary

MurielMary; I'm of average intelligence, so you'll have to excuse me for not finding it, but can you point out the which requirements at WP:WIAFA either stop female-based articles of sufficient quality from being promoted, or which encourage male-based articles of insufficient quality from being promoted. I've read it over several times, and gender of the subject is not mentioned once. Can you explain how two equally-qualified articles, one about a male subject, and one about a female subject, would be treated differently according to those policies? --Jayron32 15:24, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

• As you've seen below, there will be considerable resistance to the idea that "women need a lower bar" (to paraphrase), and thus the idea is unlikely to be implemented. Creating content, however, is something you or anyone can do without initially seeking a consensus (which would be done at WT:N or a subpage, BTW). I've personally written several FAs on women's history topics (Roekiah, Streatham portrait, Mereka Bilang, Saya Monyet! to name a few), as well as numerous DYKs (Nyi Ageng Serang, Ratna Asmara, Fifi Young, etc.); once you're used to it, it becomes second nature.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 12:22, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Whether someting is "noteworthy", however that bar is determined, only affects whether it should have an article in the first place (this is the purpose of WP:N, WP:GNG, and the related policies which determine whether something is important or not important). Beyond being a requirement for having an extant article, noteworthiness doesn't stand in the way of any topic being featured (for FTA/L/P), or being highlighted on ITN/OTD/DYK, which don't require featured status but do require a certain level of article quality. Basically, once it exists, it's solely based on quality rather than subject from that point on. So if the issue is the idea that women's history is underrepresented in articles existing, that's a valid concern which might warrant the creation of a subsidiary policy of WP:N. But if it's about being underrepresented in assessed-quality articles (FA/FL/FP/GA etc), then that's solely down to volunteer effort, which anyone can help with. GRAPPLE ^X 13:02, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Thankfully, MurielMary, this is problem you have the power to fix! Simply find articles about females, and improve them until they meet featured article status (see WP:WIAFA). The more articles you improve to the highest standards, the more articles we can run on the main page! So, just write and/or improve more articles about women, and we'll have more such articles to run! --Jayron32 22:13, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

First off, I see that you're a new editor. Let me welcome you to Wikipedia, Mary. At a time when the site is receiving criticism for the treatment of many women who edit here, it's great to see some new representation from the female demographic, which is underrepresented on Wikipedia. Given that you are still new here, it's probably unrealistic to expect that you can write featured articles immediately. However, that doesn't mean that you are unable to have a voice in what gets featured on the main page. Most of the various processes have their own request or suggestion pages; for example, the featured list process, which I am director of, has a submissions page here. That process in particular may be helpful in balancing the Main Page, since we have many featured lists on women in music and media, among other topics. If there's a list that catches your eye and hasn't run on the Main Page yet, you can propose that we run it at the submissions page. Over time, as you gain experience and confidence, you can write articles that appear on sections like DYK, and maybe even bring an article to featured article status. For now, I'll take your comments into consideration when planning future TFLs. There's only so much we can do (sports FLs lean heavily male, for instance), but anything we can do is worthwhile. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:51, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

MurielMary, thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia. One of the easiest ways to get content onto the main page is the Did you know? section. You can start a new article or expand an existing article and put it right up there most of the time. If you tell people you are inexperienced with the process and ask for help, you will find that editors will be glad to lend a hand. Another easy way onto the home page is the In the news section, including Recent deaths. You could also look at the section Wikipedia:Selected anniversaries, though I have no experience with that one. Jehochman ^Talk 23:12, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies and thoughts. To clarify, I wasn't putting my hand up to contribute items for the main page, but it's certainly helpful to know the process for doing that, so thanks for those pointers! In response to RamblingMan, yes, I think it is important to have a balance of male and female features - the world is a diverse place and if an organization doesn't reflect that in its presentation it risks ending up irrelevant, biased or viewed as exclusionary or privileged. In response to Iridescent, the argument of women not meeting the Wikipeida criteria for notability is more of a reflection on the exclusionary criteria than on women's achievements. Women's history as a field has different criteria for notability than general history - for example knowledge about a woman born before say 1900 is considered noteworthy in itself as so little is known about women of that era. There is no additional requirement of "notability" or "achievement" to meet. Wikipedia would help get more women into articles if this guideline was adopted, for example. And Jayron, yes there is more work to do in writing however that alone is not enough. There is also change that can happen in the choices and the criteria for women's knowledge/knowledge about women to be showcased. As Giants2008 states, anything which can be done in this area is worthwhile. For example, when reading an article about a famous man, pay attention to whether his wife is named or mentioned, and if not, suggest that the original writer add that information. In many cases of historically notable men, there was a notable woman alongside him e.g. missionaries, politicians, pioneers and settlers, and the contribution of those women isn't highlighted. Again, thanks for the discussion, interesting to hear different perspectives. MurielMary (talk) 00:04, 27 October 2015 (UTC)MurielMary

I find your suggestion, that the notability standards should be relaxed for women, to be highly insulting. The idea that we need an easier notability standard for women, though undoubtedly well-intended, suggests that women can't meet the same standards as men. Women are just as capable as men in every way; they should be held to equal standards. Yes, women have been marginalized throughout history, and haven't had the same opportunities as men; that's a tragedy, and should be foreved remembered as such. But it's not a good excuse for a double-standard that would only trivialize the truly great historical accomplishments of some women. Far from fixing our systematic bias problem, such a group-specific guideline would only further disadvantage other historically marginalized groups for which there isn't an easy notability standard (such groups include: every ethnicity, all religions, etc: practically every group has been disadvantaged at some place and time). If we relax the standard, it would have to be for everyone, which doesn't help at all. The good news is there's still many women-related articles, yet to be written, that would pass current guidelines. The only productive solution is what everyone always suggests here when someone complains about bias: you need to create the content you wish to see. Sorry if that sounds like too much work and not enough grandstanding for your tastes - we are here to write an encyclopedia, after all. 75.250.166.56 (talk) 03:10, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Can you point us to these "exclusionary criteria" which deliberately set out to prevent more content about females? The Rambling Man (talk) 06:04, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

The same arguments against 'lower criteria' would apply to #any# group (including vegetarians 'as the topic has been already mentioned', or 'parts of the world not being the USA') - and to varying extents 'in areas of information gathering and organizing that are not Wikipedia' once they have got past the first stages. (If 'a field of research' is being created, there may be lower criteria in the initial stages.)

My back yard is an underrepresented field of research in its early stage, and so we should demand more articles about it with lower notability requirements (rhetorically speaking of course). Art LaPella (talk) 14:38, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

As far as I understand - the policy of the Main Page is to show the range of Wikipedia's coverage, and to some extent what constitutes 'particularly good articles' and 'topics that people may be unaware that they will find interesting' - rather than to have a checklist of topics and groups that have to be covered (and can anyone find more than Dr Molly for Moresnet?). Jackiespeel (talk) 13:29, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

• The gender bias that exists is, of course, a bias inherent to history. And not just major world history. To give an example: Much of my writing over the years has revolved around hockey. I have written 59 GA or FA class biographies on players. Only one has been female, Angela James. That isn't so much because I don't care about female players, but because women's hockey at a high level is still in its infancy compared to the men's game and the reliable source coverage is similarly unbalanced. There are easily 50 books related to the history of men's hockey for every one on women's hockey. At the highest levels, men's hockey is a multi billion dollar business that dominates entire sections of newspaper, has television channels dedicated to it and is covered on a mass scale. High level women's hockey is still largely dependent on charity and support and the willingness to play for the love of the game rather than high salaries or mass notoriety. We can lament this disparity at the personal level, but Wikipedia does not exist to right great wrongs. It is not our place to apply discriminatory notability policies based on gender in order to create a false equivalence in notability. Only time and effort will resolve the imbalance you perceive. As others have stated, if you are interested in seeing more women's topics on the main page, you are going to have to roll up your sleeves and put the work in writing articles. Resolute 18:59, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Right now, I see the picture of a woman in ITN. Another picture of a woman in SA/OTD. The DYK is a photo of a statute of a woman. The POTD is also a photo of a woman. There are dozens of men in the TFL pic, but none of their faces can be seen. No one is complaining about gender bias on MainPage today, eh?! Good. --PFHLai 04:22, Mischief Night, 2015 (UTC)

I am. Too many cisgenders on the main page. Where's our trans representation? 128.227.202.200 (talk) 11:38, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

And the left-handed pharmacists? Art LaPella (talk) 13:41, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

@MurielMary You asked "Is there a policy on encouraging diversity? If not, how does that get discussed?" I'm surprised no-one has answered that as there certainly are policies about tackling the gender gap on Wikipedia - it's one of the big issues being discussed at the moment. The New York Magazine says, "Wikipedia famously bears one of the starkest gender gaps in contemporary culture" and there is the Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias set up to look at this issue. One of the reasons why there is not enough content on Wikipedia about women is that there are not enough women editors attracted to the project. There is a task force looking at this problem - Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias/Gender gap task force which is exactly the right place to discuss this. Perhaps if you go there you can ask them to get someone to keep an eye on this page and try to counter dismissive jokes, such as the one about about left-handed pharmacists, made in response to serious concerns raised here. Richerman (talk) 16:11, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

---

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.

I haven't seen this discussion timely enough, but I would like to add a belated comment: The argument about trans representation is somewhat fallacious or at least misleading because openly trans people represent a distinct and very small numerical minority, while women are about equally numerous as men all over the world (even slightly more in most places), so there would never be an expectation that among the people featured on the main page there would be a trans person more than occasionally. Openly trans people, in fact, are quite possibly no more numerous than left-handed pharmacists, so the argument is equally blatant and ridiculous concern trolling, instrumentalising trans people as a tool to bludgeon a legitimate issue with female representation.

Moreover, I'd like to point out that while I do not advocate the "dilution" of notability standards either, there is already some kind of inherent "skewedness" in principle in that a female pioneer is inherently more likely to attract journalistic and academic attention regardless of her concrete contributions and thus to achieve notability just for the fact of being a woman where women are rare – although it should be kept in mind that (usually) women pioneers are motivated and even forced to work a lot harder than the average male colleague in order to even get to where they are, so their contributions tend to be disproportionately large compared to their rarity, easing concerns that women get attention and thus notability "too easy" just for being female in male-dominated fields. But in theory, a woman in male-dominated fields could be said to be able to achieve notability more easily already, so there is already some inherent "dilution" of notability standards if one were to focus exclusively on merits and contributions. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:22, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Don't take anonymous posts on Mischief Night too seriously. --PFHLai (talk) 18:17, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Halloween 2015

I must say. Of all the years here and of all the choices for articles to use for Halloween, this year might have the most scariest article selected for Todays Featured Article. Well done. GamerPro64 03:43, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

If they were rolling toward you... Eman235/talk 04:10, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Loving today's Featured Picture as well. --Rubbish computer (Trick: or treat?) 05:12, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Finally, a sufficiently scary set of pictures... epic genius (talk) 12:11, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this picture is awesome...and so are the vampire squirrels. Eman235/talk 16:44, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

5000000

Has anyone noticed we are 160+ articles past the 5000,000 mark? Simply south ...... time, deparment skies for just 9 years 12:56, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

more information here: Wikipedia:Five million articles.

I like the red banner now below our globe. What is the actual file (could not find its link)? -DePiep (talk) 17:26, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

@DePiep: File:Wikipedia-logo-v2-en 5m articles.png, created by Fuzheado ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 17:29, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

For the details: Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/5_millionth_article_logo -- Fuzheado | Talk 17:30, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Could I have found it myself, that is by analysing the mp code? Or are there some more shieldings? -DePiep (talk) 17:32, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Add one more vote! Great, Fuzheado. -DePiep (talk) 17:36, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

@DePiep: It is not terribly easy to find these days with CSS style sheets and all and it's a DOM background property. Even many utilities used to save the entire web page locally won't download it. I use Chrome to right-click and use "Inspect Element" to find the exact filenames. Thanks. -- Fuzheado | Talk 17:51, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Well Done

Well Done, wikipedia for 5,000,000 articles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.103.213.184 (talk • contribs) 17:07, 2015 November 1 (UTC)

+1 --Atcovi (talk) 22:15, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Did you know... Ugly Formatting

I have brought this up before on the DYK page, but maybe I will have better traction here. Simply put the formatting of the Did you know section looks sloppy, and I can't believe no one else is bothered by this. I would like help from anyone willing to create a Request For Change, so that "... that" will be removed from all future DYK entries. Figure 1: http://i.imgur.com/Vz3kANf.png Ccubedd (talk) 17:32, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Why would you get rid of the "...that"? It ties each entry to the "Did you know..." header to make a complete sentence. For example, the current first item in the list would be "Did you know that Godalming's Roman Catholic, Quaker, and Unitarian (pictured) places of worship, former Congregational chapel, and former Salvation Army hall are all Grade II listed buildings?"--Khajidha (talk) 18:06, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

I was really hoping to have another supporter by now. Khajidha, I do not share your opinion that the "that"s preceded by elipsis "tie each entry together". For example, "Did you know... ...that Wikipedia is important" less succinct than "Did you know... Wikipedia is important" (http://i.imgur.com/Vz3kANf.png) Ccubedd (talk) 19:45, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

The lack of "that" would be poor grammar, which is a greater problem than the apparent lack of succinctness caused by four letters. GRAPPLE ^X 19:48, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't go that far, but most Did You Know contributors prefer the "that". Art LaPella (talk) 21:39, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

In the news: Rugby Union

My question(s) answered. 2.126.242.160 (talk) 19:44, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

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.

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Since the result of the 2013 Rugby League World Cup final was not featured on the main page "in the news" feature, the result of the rugby union competition final should not be featured either. Unless Wikipedia holds a policy of one code being superior to the other, in which case, why? Neither is more popular worldwide than the other. League is more popular in some places than Union, Union is more popular in some places than League and some places haven't heard of either... Surely Wikipedia should be unbiased on the issue? Also, who actually decides what sporting events are featured and which are not? 2.126.242.160 (talk) 19:28, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

If one is mentioned and the other isn't, it's because either one hasn't been nominated at WP:ITN/C, or it has but hasn't yet been seen to be sufficiently updated or well-written. But the good is that whichever has been the case, you have the power to fix it. GRAPPLE ^X 19:30, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. 2.126.242.160 (talk) 19:34, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

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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.

Actually, the 2013 Rugby League World Cup did appear on the main page for a whole week. Smurrayinchester 16:19, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Do we know what the 5 millionth article happens to be?

Hi. In years past, on the main page, the specific n-millionth article has been displayed near the top with a wikilink to said article. I noticed at the 4 million article milestone the mentioning/featuring of the 4 millionth article was absent, and here we go again with the 5kk milestone. Do we still know which article was the milestone article? Why do we not commemorate in this fashion anymore? Thanks. -Curious 67.186.207.83 (talk) 19:45, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Persoonia terminalis. GRAPPLE ^X 19:46, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

In answer to your question: because nobody proposed it. The Transhumanist 09:37, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a reliable source

Wikipedia does not have 5 million articles because redirects are being counted as content pages. See here for the content pages. It is clear redirects are part of the list.

I think the statements "5,000,621 articles in English" and "Started in 2001, it currently contains 5,000,621 articles." is original research. QuackGuru (talk) 21:42, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Size of Wikipedia#The data set seems to say that the 5 million figure excludes redirects, so there is conflicting information. --David Biddulph (talk) 22:14, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

5 million is definitely excluding redirects. There are 7 million redirects.[1] Special:AllPages displays redirects in italics and has a "Hide redirects" box. The Wikimedia Foundation has announced there are 5 million articles today in [2], linked at https://wikimediafoundation.org. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:45, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

In case anyone wants to add some stats to their user page, the following wikimakup:

<div>As of {{CURRENTDAYNAME}}, {{CURRENTDAY2}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}, {{CURRENTTIME}} (UTC), The English Wikipedia has {{NUMBEROF|USERS|en|N}} registered users, {{NUMBEROF|ACTIVEUSERS|en|N}} active editors, and {{NUMBEROF|ADMINS|en|N}} administrators. Together we have made {{NUMBEROF|EDITS|en|N}} edits, created {{NUMBEROF|PAGES|en|N}} pages of all kinds and created {{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|en|N}} articles.</div>

creates this on the page:

As of Wednesday, 04 November 2015, 22:08 (UTC), The English Wikipedia has 26,638,551 registered users, 128,757 active editors, and 1,327 administrators. Together we have made 797,872,321 edits, created 37,727,167 pages of all kinds and created 5,002,693 articles.

Note that it updates when there are new stats and you reload the page.

We are approaching a billion edits. Alas, there is no way to include page views in the above list. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 23:01, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

And I guess we can't filter out unintended page views, then? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:34, 1 November 2015 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia count redirects as content pages? If you click here it will take you to the Statistics page. The first link at the top of the says Content pages 5,000,699. When you click on the content pages it will take you to here for content pages. This is confusing because the link links to all pages. There is no page where it only counts article pages. There may be a difference between content pages and article pages. QuackGuru (talk) 01:22, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Redirects are not included in the "Content pages" count at Special:Statistics. Click the "Hide redirects" box and then "Go" at Special:AllPages to only see articles and not redirects. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:33, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

It says Content pages for Special:Statistics. When you click on content pages it takes you to all pages not just article pages. I do not know exactly what they are counting. If I click on the "Hide redirects" box it does not show an edit count before or after. Where does it say excluding disam pages for the content pages. The term "content page" and "article page" may be different. I think clarification from the WMF would help. QuackGuru (talk) 01:48, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Like I said {{NUMBEROF|PAGES|en|N}} gives you the number of pages of all kinds (currently 37,727,167) and {{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|en|N}} gives you the number of articles (currently 5,002,693). No need to go to Special:Statistics and hide redirects. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:34, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Not the WMF, but maybe I can help :) According to the source code, only content pages are counted (which includes the main/article namesapce and all namespaces, which are added to wgContentNamespaces (for enwiki currently no additional namespace)). Explicitly excluded are redirects, so redirect pages aren't counted as "content pages". I submitted a change to change the link of "Content pages" to "Special:AllPages?hideredirects=1", so that redirects are hidden by default. --Florianschmidtwelzow (talk) 08:14, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Are disambiguation pages counted as content pages? 117.221.120.109 (talk) 05:52, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, as they are not redirects. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:20, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

But they are not articles. Is there an easy way to count them? The Transhumanist 09:45, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

{{PAGESINCATEGORY:All article disambiguation pages}} should do the trick (currently 263,495) ‑ iridescent 10:11, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

So does that mean there are only approximately (at time of writing 5,000,621 - 263,443) 4,737,178 articles and we should do this celebration again in a few month's time? Simply south ...... time, deparment skies for just 9 years 11:49, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Were disambig pages counted in the previous milestones? 331dot (talk) 11:51, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Simply south ...... time, deparment skies for just 9 years 11:52, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Then they should be now, or the previous milestones revised(which I don't support at all, just saying those are the options). 331dot (talk) 11:55, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Wouldn't that only count pages which are correctly inserted in to the category Category:All article disambiguation pages? With over 250k disambiguation pages, it would seem likely there are a few hundred, perhaps even over a thousand which don't have an appropriate template, or otherwise inserted in the category. Is there any bot that looks for possible disambiguation pages that aren't categorised? Of course there are also other sources of error which are probably equally as large. Nil Einne (talk) 12:24, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Congrats on 5 million articles

Congratulations! 75.150.207.115 (talk) 00:30, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! --Rubbish computer (Trick: or treat?) 02:11, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

In the news

Three of the top ITN articles are sports-related, posted above the Sinai Peninsula airplane crash, and amidst all of the news in the Middle East regarding Syria and Iraq. This is highly disconcerting and we should be ashamed. 128.227.219.209 (talk) 15:17, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

It is not ITN's fault that these events have occurred at the same time. Also, what you find unimportant is not necessarily what others do. If you are dissatisfied with what is posted, I invite you to participate at the ITN Candidates page where you can give your views on what should be posted, and make nominations. 331dot (talk) 15:19, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Not only that, but order is determined solely by date. The sun could explode tomorrow, but it would still place second below a story that happened two days from now, and that's the simplest and cleanest way to avoid favouritism. GRAPPLE ^X 15:23, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The most recent addition is placed at the top. It doesn't imply importance. Proposals for a seperate sports category have been rejected, partly because the number of relevant entries varies too much. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:25, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

This, once again, underscores the difference between the general reader's perception of ITN and the actual nature of the section. It is not meant as a news ticker, but there is basically no way to make people not see it that way. How many people had the same perception of Wikipedia that the original poster did, but did not post about it? How many of them will become more likely to think of Wikipedia as a joke or a disgrace and less likely to think of it as a serious resource? This section is fundamentally flawed and needs to be rethought. --Khajidha (talk) 16:46, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

To be fair, a lot of people think space ghosts are to blame for all life's woes, and that doesn't means we need to slant things to agree with that view. How ITN works is grand, the problem, if any, is conveying its purpose without presupposition. As it stands, these are articles whose subjects are "in the news", not "breaking news in the form of articles". GRAPPLE ^X 16:53, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Pretty much what Khajidha said... The intent may be one thing. The perception is entirely another. And the perception is - horse racing and baseball are more important than a devastating plane crash which killed hundreds and could possibly be linked to terrorism. 128.227.219.209 (talk) 16:57, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Nice example of a false analogy, 128.227.219.209. That being said, the dominant arguments in favour of leaving ITN as it is are simply pro status quo arguments, most of which could be paraphrased as "it (sort of) works, there is no need to mess with it". (Tacit underlying statement: it was this way when I started at Wikipedia, leave it alone!) Most of the dominant arguments in favour of changing ITN are ad hoc arguments to address specific and persistent issues (ie. apparent dominance of sports articles), rather than true overhauls. (Tacit underlying statement: I personally don't think X is real news.)

So why not try a third method which has some degree of solid objectivity? Divide ITN vertically into two sections. Any news articles which are normally given their full treatment in the main (first) section of a newspaper go in their normal chronological order in the first section. Any news articles which are normally given their full treatment in other sections of a newspaper (sports, entertainment, science ...) go in the second section in chronological order. To make it genuinely objective, the full front section treatment must come from news sources of at least two different countries.

But, to be perfectly honest: it has been my experience that whenever a will to change is not fully, strongly, and persistently united in the direction of change, status quo will win every time. I really do not expect my proposal to go anywhere ... even if I did submit it in the appropriate section of Wikipedia. The forces in favour of the status quo have far more inertia. - Tenebris 66.11.191.217 (talk) 16:38, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

• If you are ashamed, that should inspire you to work harder at adding good information to Wikipedia articles so we have more main-page-ready articles about non-Sports related events to post. --Jayron32 16:19, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

@Jayron32: - That's a rather antagonistic answer. Even if the original IP poster was a bit strong with the words, an Ameri-centric horse racing story trumping international human events is a legit concern. Are we simply going to be slaves to an algorithm, or can we do better knowing its deficiencies? -- Fuzheado | Talk 18:23, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure you mean this, but your reply seems to be implying that we actively encourage users to STOP improving Wikipedia articles. That seems just silly: All aspects of Wikipedia should be about encouraging users to improve Wikipedia. There is no other reason for Wikipedia to exist. What alternative advice would you give to the OP to fix the situation. Other than improving articles from other subject areas, the only other thing I could think of would be to go around trashing articles from over-represented areas. That seems like a stupid idea. What are you suggesting we should do: Make articles better or something else? --Jayron32 18:29, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

You could not have a section on the Main Page that gives all the indications of being a news ticker without being one. You could make sure that any section on the Main Page is not run in such a way as to make it seem like it is trivializing mass deaths, disasters, wars, etc by making them subsidiary to silly ball games and such. --Khajidha (talk) 18:39, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I don't have the power to make that change. If you'd like to see that change made, you're encouraged to ask the community in the form of a proposal that gains consensus to do so. Telling me what you want to change is useless, I am not the King of Wikipedia. Starting a well-worded proposal and gaining consensus to enact the change would fix the problem. I encourage you to do so.--Jayron32 21:36, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to vouch briefly for sports, since I find them being labelled as just silly ball games a little trivializing. Obviously they are not as significant as say a plane crash, but they still deserve some space on ITN. I have seen suggestions before for a specific sports section, which might help. I'll also note that I personally don't find the order the items are listed to have any implication on importance.

The problem with changing the order of these items is that any order that's not chronological could violate NPOV. How can we decide which events deserve more emphasis? It might be obvious in some cases, but not in others. Scarlettail (talk) 20:29, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

You could make the dates for each item visible to highlight the chronological nature of the listing. --Khajidha (talk) 20:47, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

A simple solution might be to vertically divide ITN into two halves. The top half would be for stories which are normally given their full treatment in the main (first) section of a newspaper. The bottom half would be for stories which are normally given their full treatment in other sections of the newspaper (sports, entertainment, science). Within each section, the usual chronological order would apply. That should cover all the concerns, from noteworthiness and article quality to individual perceptions of relative article importance. - Tenebris 66.11.191.217 (talk) 16:14, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

To be honest, I think dating each addition is the simplest and easiest way about it. I wouldn't even worry about years, just days and months (of course, ENGVAR will rear its head so a standard system would need to be agreed). These could probably be piped to an anchor at Portal:Current events, too. GRAPPLE ^X 16:17, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm on board with including dates on the blurbs, sounds like a reasonable addition. As for date format, styling of "On this day" leads me to assume MDY is the likely route to take. Piping to the CE portal would provide some much needed, more direct coverage (even though the portal is linked in the section already, additional links to relevant dates would likely attract more people) on events that fail to pass the bar at ITN as well—namely the ones that don't get posted because of lack of consensus. ~ Cyclonebiskit (chat) 16:22, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

The blurbs ARE dated. I'll copy-paste the full text of the T:ITN template below so you all can see it:

• <!--Nov 4--> At least 36 people are killed when an [[Antonov An-12]] cargo plane '''[[2015 Juba plane crash|crashes]]''' near [[Juba]], South Sudan.
• <!--Nov 3--> Romanian Prime Minister [[Victor Ponta]] ''(pictured)'' resigns over the fatal '''[[Colectiv nightclub fire]]'''.
• <!--Nov 3--> '''[[Cyclone Chapala]]''' becomes the first [[Tropical cyclone scales|hurricane-force]] storm on record to strike mainland Yemen.
• <!--Nov 3--> In horse racing, [[Michelle Payne]] becomes the first female jockey to win the '''[[2015 Melbourne Cup|Melbourne Cup]]''', riding [[Prince of Penzance]].
• <!--Nov 2--> In baseball, the [[Kansas City Royals]] defeat the [[New York Mets]] to win the '''[[2015 World Series|World Series]]'''. <!--

Those dates are the dates when the event occurred, not the date when posted. So, we've always done this. Because space is at a premium, we don't have the space to date every single entry on the main page, but the events are posted chronologically, and the dates are included as hidden comments so we can keep them in chronological order. Uncommenting the dates would be a bad idea, probably because it would add unnecessary text to a page already pretty crowded. --Jayron32 21:41, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

It's all moved on since the original complaint. As is the nature of ITN. Move on. (Oh, and adding dates would just reduce the limited space already available, so that's plainly absurd). The Rambling Man (talk) 21:38, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Talk page blip?

I tried to respond to a reply (which asked a question) in "On This Day". I can see my reply when I edit that section, as well as in the subpage Main Page/Errors (section), but I cannot see it on the main page talk page. Is there a reason for this, did I somehow do something wrong, or is it a bug? - Tenebris 66.11.191.217 (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I suspect all you need to do is purge your cache, because WP:ERRORS is transcluded here, and it will appear to you as well. Bencherlite^Talk 17:50, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

D'oh! I thought I had already done that -- I do it so often while browsing -- but when I read your reply I did it again. Of course I had missed this one time. Thank you. - Tenebris 66.11.191.217 (talk) 17:55, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

"purge your cache" is a misleading link text because it's actually about rebuilding the page on Wikipedia's servers. It is not the same as to bypass your browser cache by reloading a page, which I guess Tenebris had tried. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:09, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I did not actually look at the link. I simply purge cookies and cache about 20 or so times a day (using the browser tool), usually immediately after visiting any site with significant advertisements. I thought I had done that before reloading this page ... but as it turned out, I had not gone to any monetised sites in between WP checks. - Tenebris 66.11.191.217 (talk) 19:33, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Adding Template:Main Page banner to the Mobile site front page

Proposal: add the appropriate tags to make Template:Main Page banner appear on the mobile site's main page.

• Support --Pine^✉ 20:08, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support as well, seems like it should resize well to any width. Eman235/talk 20:47, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• SupportSpirit of Eagle (talk) 23:15, 3 November 2015 (UTC)
• Support Absolutely. --Rubbish computer (HALP!: I dropped the bass?) 01:58, 4 November 2015 (UTC)
• This seems like something for the technical village pump. Support idea, since the banner is used to broadcast messages to readers, and those on mobile devices constitute a fair share of our readers. But the technical implementation needs to be such that it would not be awkward in appearance. Mz7 (talk) 04:28, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

  I'm not completely familiar with how the Main page on the mobile site is set up, but it seems to be using something completely different to generate the Main page than what is done here on the desktop version. For one thing, the Main page here is currently not using the mf- and nomobile tags listed on mw:Extension:MobileFrontend#Configuring the main page (the Mediawiki extension that generates a mobile-friendly view). The Main page here is not coded to display the "Welcome, [USERNAME]!" message at the top for logged in users like the mobile site's Main page does. The mobile site also does reflect the modifications we made in 2012 where we changed the header from "Today's featured article" to "From today's featured article"[3]. But more importantly, even though have admin access here and have the ability to modify the main page like here, I apparently cannot edit the Main page via the mobile site. Any other admins have that issue, or know why it seems that the mobile site is using a different Main page file? Zzyzx11 (talk) 07:45, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I've asked WP:VPT to weigh in, but I would be inclined to agree with you. I definitely think the mobile Main Page uses a completely separate source. Which source exactly, I'm not sure. Mz7 (talk) 21:10, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

• Above or below the fold ? Below ok, but above, i find it a waste of precious real estate honestly. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 21:33, 4 November 2015 (UTC)