Talk:Main Page/Archive 23

Link to Wikipedia article on free content from "FREE" at the top of the Main Page

Most people would probably find this sort of description as advertising what exists in hundreds of other news sites. A link would explain the apparent stupidity here. Psbsub (talk) 11:07, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the word free is enough. I really don't know anyone who would not know the meaning of the word. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 11:28, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there's "free" and there's "Free". The difference is in how liberal the copyright terms applied are. It's more an issue that people won't care about the difference; those who care will already know. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:44, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Minor point, why is FREE all caps? I think having just the first letter capitalized is enough. Perhaps instead of linking to wikipedia, we should make some sort of sappy, Wikinews:Our Philosophy and link to that. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:04, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

We already have our mission statement linked on the right side of the header. DragonFire1024 (Talk to the Dragon) 18:06, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

near the bottom

{{editprotected}}

Could an admin edit the bit at the bottom, so that the Wikimedia logo is not completely by itself and there is text up along side it? Dotty••|☎ 14:41, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I see the problem, the two logos far left and right are not aligned with the copyright text displayed in the middle. The text is MediaWiki:Copyright but I'm not sure what the full footer is. The three items should be vertically centred. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 14:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

No not that bit, the bit where it says About Us. Dotty••|☎ 14:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

That's the Creative Commons logo. It and the about text are in different messages. I suspect the about portion is in the actual skiin. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:05, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

No, the About Us bit just above the Wikinews in other languages section and the wikimedia section is just above that. Dotty••|☎ 15:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

in {{About}} right? I'm not exactly sure what you mean though. How do you want me to change it? Bawolff ☺☻ 23:38, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Correct! There's a large space above it that looks odd, ie. there's no text next to the logo. Dotty••|☎ 07:15, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, about the only way to fix this would be to reduce the amount line breaks. As it stands the issues you are seeing are directly related to the layout of the page and how it displayed on your browser. This is heavily influenced by the screen resolution of your monitor. Right now the screen I am viewing this on is 1024px (on a 1280px native res LCD) and it looks okay, but not great. The code for the page is okay, but not great. I'm not sure how to improve it other than adding some CSS to Mediawiki:Common.css. For now, I created User:Calebrw/Template:About for testing. I may be gone on my Wikibreak when this discussion is concluded, but I have no objections to moving this to the {{About}} page when it completed with censuses, etc. As for the CSS, I don't if really needs to be added to the above System Message, but Bawolff (talk · contribs) usually takes care of those things. Calebrw (talk) 05:51, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Well that draft looks fine on my screen, which is alot better.    Dotty••   07:13, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[unindent]Anyone else any thoughts, Bawolff especially?    Dotty••   07:35, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

/me feels special. Not sure why everyone is putting me on a pedestal... The new version looks good. Just from a grammatical perspective, I've always thought that the current {{about}} was choppy. /me goes changes it. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:10, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

You just seem to be the one who understands all this css/js malarkey! Thanks!    Dotty••   08:14, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Vector

What do people think of getting rid of the page title and sitenotice on the main page on the vector skin? (If you haven't seen vector yet - see [1]) We'd just have to add:

body.skin-vector #siteNotice, body.skin-vector #firstHeading {display:none}

To mediawiki:Common.css/Main_Page. Bawolff ☺☻ 22:20, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Oooh I like Vector! I don't know which bit you mean though I'm afraid?    Dotty••   07:27, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Although, how come there's no tab for Comments in Vector?    Dotty••   07:29, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, the template at the top of Comments pages doesn't show up properly?    Dotty••   10:26, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

• The sitenotice should remain visible on the main page. For a lot of people this is where they'll notice it, or not have a specific task such as reading an article in mind. Yes, hide the "Main Page" heading, it's ugly and I thought that was default on all skins.

As Dotty points out, there will be other needed tweaks to make the skin fully usable, but the skin is really nice. I'd like to suggest a background image be done for the skin (Like Wikipedia or Commons does on monobook), the needed tweaks to work with the comments namespace, and then putting it to a vote to make Vector the default skin. For the background, what size of image are we talking about, and what would be the preferred format?

I really like the way a lot of the lines in Vector fade away. Would it be possible to do a main page redesign that matched with this? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:04, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Which is the sitenotice? I think this is a really good oppurtunity to redesign the main page to make it less like a amateur news site which it is at the moment and more professional. Tieing this in with Vector would be really good as well I agree. What backgound image do you mean(me being dense probably!).    Dotty••   11:45, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

The sitenotice appears at the top of the page with a little [dismiss] label next to it. If you click to dismiss it, then you won't see it again until someone updates Mediawiki:Sitenotice id. The actual message is at Mediawiki:Sitenotice.

For a background image, pull up Wikipedia and look for the large, faded open book background. On Commons they have a rotated and large faded version of their logo. Here we've kicked about a few ideas before, I was quite in favour of an image using piles of newspapers. You can see something vaguely similar on Wikinewsie. As a first idea, you could take a copy of the WN logo a couple of times larger than the top-left version; fade it, rotate it about 20 degrees, place it on the same grey background as Vector, and repeat it until you have a big enough image.

We really should keep screenshot galleries of the redesign attempts we have. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:12, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh I see, the bit in the very background. Well, to be completely honest, I'm not too bothered about that bit, it's barely visible really. If we could get something looking good, I'm sure it would be fine! Anyone elses thoughts about Brian's proposal for a redesign of main page as well as changing default skin?    Dotty••   12:51, 3 July 2009 (UTC)PS. Can we also make the red more noticeable on a red link to a discussion page at the top?

• One other niggle with Vector is the bottom of the page. The copyright and TM text is all left-justified, I kinda prefer what is in place on monobook. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:18, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

This is where we need to put comments on it-[2] I've left mine.    Dotty••   13:21, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, try enabling the enhanced editing toolbar under editing in preferences and see what it's like.    Dotty••   13:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

As far as re-designing the main page - If you think you can, go for it (but re-design it in userspace, we've had a bit to much lets tweak the main page recently imho) However trust me, its not as easy as it looks to make something that looks good that everyone can agree on. (there's some ideas in category:Sandbox). p.s. I believe i have fixed the opinion namespace for vector. do a hard refresh. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:16, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Yep, opinions seems to work, good job. Can you fix the templates on those pages?    Dotty••   08:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I've added some rules to mediawiki:Vector.css to make the toccolours class style in a way similiar to how it styles a table of contents. that should fix issues with the comment template. Bawolff ☺☻ 08:49, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

As far as newspaper goes. I've done a little initial experimentation. (In firefox go to View→Page Style→Newspaper background), but i think it could still be refined quite a bit more before going live (that is assuming we want a newspaper background). Bawolff ☺☻ 09:11, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Do we want to rename the page tab to something like article, like it is on monobook? (Its controlled by mediawiki:Vector-namespace-main). Bawolff ☺☻ 09:39, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Template looks good on opinions, thanks, I support renaming page to article(or maybe story?). TBH, I'm not a big fan of the newspaper background. On Wikipedia and Commons, it is very unintrusive which I like; this is more noticeable, and also is not immediately recognisable as a newspaper, more just a random bit of writing discolouring the top left!    Dotty••   17:16, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, a tiny little thing, can we rename move to rename?    Dotty••   18:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Renamed the move action. Bawolff ☺☻ 18:36, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

OK, well in response to the possible redesign, I thought it might be a good idea to pool people's comments on how it should look and their ideas, so please see here.    Tris   21:36, 4 July 2009 (UTC)(Used to be Dottydotdot)

Also, at the top of the Main Page in Vector, it has the sighted symbol and word, which aren't in monobook and seem pretty unneccesary?    Tris   23:02, 4 July 2009 (UTC) {was Dottydotdot}

Sighted symbol should no longer appear on the main page in any skin. Bawolff ☺☻ 23:57, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

For the background, how about something using the image that's on the Twitter background-[3]?    Tris   00:32, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

<unindent>Can a 'purge' option be added to the drop-down items on pages? This would be a logical place to put it for the main page, WN:AAA, newsroom and so - probably easiest everywhere. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 22:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Theres already a gadget that does that. (add a tab named * to purge page) Bawolff ☺☻ 01:45, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

"older news" link

I only get to come to wikinews every few days, so I miss out on recent articles that are no longer on the main page, and have to trudge through the archives to find them.

Could there not be a link to a page with articles recently published on the front page, say all articles from the last two weeks ?

Thanks !

I added an older news link, however it could probably link to a better page than it currently does now. (currently links to the month page for whatever month it was 4 days ago) Bawolff ☺☻ 21:32, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Just want to say this rocks. It never occurred to me to request this, but I also read wikinews only every so often, and this helps me read stories that would otherwise go under my radar. 72.188.122.35 (talk) 16:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

New words added to Webster's dictionary

The article New words added to Webster's dictionary is featured on the main page along side a picture of waterboarding. Waterboarding was added into the dictionary alongside several other words but is not mention on the main page while several other words are. I feel that it would make more sense to either add a different picture or and waterboarding in the description on the main page. Cheers, Chandlerjoeyross (talk) 00:53, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Henry Allingham

The death of Henry Allingham at 113 was announced this morning. Mjroots (talk) 07:59, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Original Reporting section

Some recent edits have screwed the DPL in the Original reporting section - it's listing stuff from the start of last year. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:10, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Ummmm....?

I updated Lead 1, yet now the image credit and edit lead links have disappeared. Not sure what I did? Can someone clear up after me please!

You managed to lose the edit this parameter. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 08:10, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Wonder where that went! Thanks Brian.    Tris   08:12, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Whitespace issues

Is anyone else getting a big whitespace underneath News in pictures, like this: File:Mainpagewhitespace2.jpg? I tried balancing it, but then several users told me that they saw a whitespace appear on the opposite side after my edits. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:20, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that you appear to be running a very low resolution (1024x768?) thus the headlines are too long - and your browser starts shrinking things to fit. You can't please everyone all of the time with a layout like our Main Page. --Skenmy ^talk 14:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Link to Flickr

Why is there a link to Flickr? Even if its a link to Wikipedia on Flickr group, it doesn't seem to be inline with WPs open and free/libre philosophy. Is there alternatives to this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.168.223.77 (talk • contribs)

I tend to agree that the "Wikinews on Flickr" link is inappropriate. While freely licensed content is allowed, it is pretty pointless to link to a group that has two members only. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 13:51, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Collapsible sections

I notice that of the two collapsible sections at the bottom of the page, one uses [ + ] / [ - ], whicle the other uses [ ↓ ] / [ ↑ ]. I don't know which is better, or whether this is intentional, but I think it would look better if they were both the same. Dendodge _T\^C(en.wp) 12:32, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. (Its because the drop down box script was copied from elsewhere and than modified in a messy way, instead of doing it properly). Bawolff ☺☻ 01:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

p.s. you need to do a hard refresh to see changes. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:22, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Northern Rock lays off American workforce

Why is the article in Lead 3 about US unemployment rates illustrated by a picture of a British bank? If you can't find anything more relevant to illustrate the story than the US flag, then surely that would have to do? --89.240.207.16 (talk) 10:28, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I've changed it, thanks for pointing that out. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:17, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Audio Wikinews Link

Not too long ago someone kindly requested a link to Audio Wikinews be put on the top right of the main page. Now it is inactive (along with me, unwillingly, for a period of time) perhaps it should be taken down? --James Pain (talk) 22:29, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

US Army investigates drug trafficking across UK borders

Again as above, why is the article in Lead 4 about a UK drugs bust illustrated by a picture of American CID agents? If you can't find anything more relevant to illustrate the story than the UK flag, then surely that would have to do? --89.241.156.10 (talk) 20:00, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, replaced with image of heroin powder. My mistake. Tempodivalse [talk] 20:05, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Dates on stories in main page DPL

Okay, I've corrected the list of templates supposedly used on the main page. Latest News was listed, but taken out long ago and replaced with a DPL embedded in the page.

Speaking of that DPL, I really don't think it should be showing dates. I very rarely work with a fullscreen browser window so every time I look at the front page each story takes 1.5-2 lines to display the date and title. It is a ....ing mess. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 12:42, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible to change the format the dates are displayed in (i.e. drop the year, and possibly abbreviate the month)? the wub "?!" 14:35, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I would recommend the format used on my userpage (dd Mmm). Dendodge _T\^C (en.wp) 16:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and got rid of it completely for now - i don't think there's a way to abbreviate the dates. This is only a temporary fix - the main page should be completely redesigned soon. Tempodivalse [talk] 22:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Typo on Main Page

I'm not an admin here like I am on Wikipedia, so would someone who's one here please fix the typo currently on the Main Page? Specifically, the typo is "The FBI have arrested a man and charged him with interstate stalking over allegations he was responisble for nude videos of United States sports news presenter Erin Andrews." Please change "responisble" to "responsible". Thanks, Nihiltres (talk) 16:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Done --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 16:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Why were the dates removed on the latest news template on the main page? --Rayboy8 (talk) 16:06, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

It was removed because lot of people found it to be unnecessary and taking up too much space (see above). Tempodivalse [talk] 17:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Concerning bias on front page leads

Right now four of the leads have the {{VOA}} template on them. This should concern everyone.

VOA is fully funded by the United States Government. They are the personification of the administration's POV; I have looked at these stories and am not as confident as I would like to be that there is an active effort to question their content and what purpose is served in presenting the facts in this way. There is not yet a bot running to automatically import these articles yet so many are going up. Has someone set their home page to VOA? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 01:11, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

SOFIXIT. :P Cirt (talk) 01:17, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Brian, this has been a concern of mine for quite some time Soapy (talk) 01:50, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Most popular not updated - URGENT!

I think one or two people have noticed the most-popular article list isn't getting updated. Now it's 5 days stale. Is there anything we can substitute into this area of the main page until it gets going again? --Brian McNeil / ^talk 11:19, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Cute puppy

Hrm, perhaps a picture of a cute puppy? :P Cirt (talk) 11:23, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh look at the cute puppy. :) Its got my vote. On a serious note, we could replace it with the wikinews this time last year/3 years ago template. Bawolff ☺☻ 12:38, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. changed to {{main historical}} Bawolff ☺☻ 12:58, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

For comparision, i have also created {{Main puppy}} based on Cirt's suggestion as an alternate to {{main historical}}. Bawolff ☺☻ 17:07, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Puppies made the main page for an hour --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 01:59, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Today an article from yesterdas appears: Israel announces settlement expansion plans, all sources from 17th, but the news is from "today" = 17th ? That's ‎the wrong time - today it is 18th. We had a similar problem in the German version with updating. --House1630 (talk) 18:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• Next time check the revision history. It was reviewed and published on the 17th. --Brian McNeil / ^talk 18:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Two news

Today two news with the same picture seem very similar:

• UK lawyer comments on court case against Boeing over London jet crash
• Victims of London jetliner crash sue Boeing--House1630 (talk) 22:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

One is an interview with original reporting. Cirt (talk) 22:57, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm failing to see how us producing so much news that we have 2 similar articles, is a problem? This is a good thing! --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 22:59, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Cirt (talk) 23:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Today? One is from yesterday. Similar? Obviously you didn't read them. One announces the case, the following day the follow-up goes in-depth into the legal questions. Seriously... You said yourself that you did it by looking at the picture. Well done, they're about the same crash. Congratulations on working it out. Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 00:02, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I think one of them perhaps should have had {{updated}} on them to clarify that there are more news about the topic. Bawolff ☺☻ 20:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

main devel

At various points we have contemplated putting {{main devel}} on the main page. We now have a method of stopping googlebot from indexing them (showcurid=true ironically enough). Do we want to add it, and if so, what should it replace? Bawolff ☺☻ 20:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

If we know it works, I love the idea of having developing stories back on the main page. I think the best thing for it to replace is the "This day in <year>" section, which serves less of a purpose than the others. We would then need to find another place for popular pages once (if) they get fixed, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it. Dendodge _T\^C 23:59, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit worried that this could have too much room for abuse - e.g.: a vandal creates a few pages with names like WIKINEWS SUCKS!!1, add {{develop}} to them, and they up on one of our most prominent pages. Then again, showing developing stories on the main page would be an incentive for people to contribute to them (and any vandalism probably would be reverted quickly), so I can't say it's a bad idea. It should probably replace the "This day in ..." template, as it isn't as useful as the other templates. If the popular pages template gets fixed it would take the "This day in ..." spot and {{main devel}} could replace the "Around Wikinews" (which also doesn't have much function since most useful links are in the main page header). Tempodivalse [talk] 03:53, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Note, for a large portion of wikinews history, we did have developing on the main page, and we did not see too much abuse. Bawolff ☺☻ 14:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I vote no, because knowing our luck, the devs will go and "fix" the curid situation the day after we turn this on. --ShakataGaNai ^{^_^} 04:12, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

That is a good point - there is always the risk that might happen if we rely on a bug not being fixed. Bawolff ☺☻ 14:03, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry! 3 UK stories

Ended up with 3 UK stories on leads - wasn't looking to do so, just what was available. The FIFA one was screwed up whoever made it a lead. The opening was waaay too long, broken, and, well.... --Brian McNeil / ^talk 15:34, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Relocate the links to the portals?

At present the portals come below the latest news, which means that they are generally below the pagebreak, hence it's really not very noticeable. I was looking for the Science and Technology portal, and couldn't see it in the sidebar, nor in the body of the page on a first glance. Perhaps the links could be moved up the page, or placed on the right-hand side (above or below Latest News)?

Background: I'm used to the nice sidebar links on http://news.bbc.co.uk/ for quickly and easily finding science/technology articles without having to think about geographical regions. ;-) Mike Peel (talk) 00:04, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

User:Dendodge

I'm talking about the page, not the clever user responsible for it. User:Dendodge currently displays a Santa hat on the logo. Can we have that on the Main Page tonight/tomorrow? Blood Red Sandman ^{(Talk) (Contribs)} 16:57, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

As long as we keep it to the main page, and for one day only, it probably should be ok. Tempodivalse [talk] 17:48, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

CSS files are generally cached. It may or may not work that well if you want it for a short time period (unless you tell people to do a hard refresh). It might be better to do the thing with the banner (view the comments in Template:Main page header). Bawolff ☺☻ 04:43, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Ticker

Can we add {{ticker}} to the top of the main page so it would show up like this:--IBen (talk) 02:57, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

• Trump wins 2024 U.S. Presidential Election, securing 312 electoral votes and all swing states
• Smithsonian National Zoo euthanizes elderly Asian elephant
• Kemi Badenoch becomes new leader of UK's Conservative Party
• Lancet release yearly Countdown report raising alarm of increase in heat caused deaths
• Russian court fines Google more money than the world's entire GDP
• Indian and Spanish leaders inaugurate India's first private military aircraft facility
• Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh dies, aged 84
• Qantas Australian airline employees strike for better wages
• New Zealand defeats South Africa to win 2024 women's T20 cricket world cup
• Bruce Lehrmann judge said to have no links to published book of judgement
• Former leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond dies at 69
• Data breach and DDOS attacks bring down Wayback Machine
• TV host Willie Revillame files certificate of candidacy for upcoming Philippine elections
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineers tap access to battery-less desalination of more groundwater than ever before
• General secretary of Social Democratic Party of Germany resigns due to health problems ahead of next year elections

See Wikinews:Water cooler/proposals#Main page changes? --Pi zero (talk) 12:54, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Thats a slightly different [but related proposal] ({{ticker}} does headlines, as oposed to short snipets as proposed on the wc). Ticker seems to have somewhat lost popularity for being on the main page. Community concencess would have to be reached before i would add it back. Bawolff ☺☻ 01:51, 9 January 2010 (UTC)