Talk:Main Page/Archive 13

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Rename HTML title

I think it's bad practice for this page to have the HTML title "Main Page - Wikipedia." It should instead be "Wikipedia - Main Page", "Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia" or simply "Wikipedia." Kent Wang 18:34, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I like "Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia" (translated appropriately for the other language wikipedias). Of course its the main page; I once compiled a list of the top thousand google-rank sites, and it was embarrassing how many of them had titles like "Homepage of <foo>" instead of "<Foo>, <description>". As WAP and other content-sucking devices become more popular, page titles and other mata-info will start becoming more important in people's browsing habits...

Likewise, I think the HTML source around the first H1 tag on the Main Page should read

<h1 class='pagetitle'>Welcome to Wikipedia</h1><p class='subtitle'>the free encyclopedia

instead of

<h1 class='pagetitle'>Main Page</h1><p class='subtitle'>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

-- +sj+ 05:08, 2004 Feb 24 (UTC)

Every other page on the wiki is like that ("Talk:Main Page - Wikipedia"). Is it better to keep it consistent? alerante 22:59, 13 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I understand the importance of consistency, but I think in the case of the home page, the value of a prettier title outweighs. Kent Wang 08:43, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Kent, Why? —Noldoaran (Talk) 04:32, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps a better way to phrase it is that when I'm looking at my Windows taskbar, I would not think that a browser window entitled "Main Page..." is my Wikipedia window. Kent Wang 08:43, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

How about "Wikipedia - [article title]" then? I do see the advantages of a wiki-wide change. alerante 18:52, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think a site wide change would be bad...if you have multiple windows or tabs, tehy would all say "wikipedia". Just changing the main page woudl be good.--Mishac 21:43, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. +sj+ 23:02, 2004 Feb 21 (UTC)

Agreed. Kent Wang 22:26, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Slovenian

Should the link to the Slovenian Wikipedia be labeled "Slovensko" in keeping with using the local name for the language? "Slovensko" is how it appears in other interwiki links (e.g. see Paul Dirac). --Minesweeper 13:06, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Is that correct? I keep getting Slovenian and Slovakian mixed up, especially as "Czechoslovakia" was "Ceskoslovensko"! Judging from some of the "other language" links, "Slovenian" should be "Slovensko" while "Slovakian" should be "Slovenčina". I await correction! -- Arwel 13:34, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

From 1993 here exist two states: Czech republic and Slovak Republic - called Slovensko. But language is called Sloven?ina.

Can be a link to Slovak Wikipedia added to english main page? -- Valasek 08:46, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC) - Native Slovak speaker but not a liguist

Ivrit/Hebrew

The right English name for the language עברית is Hebrew, not Ivrit (which is how the name of the language sounds like in Hebrew) -- Max Timchenko

Agreed and implimented. →Raul654 18:12, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

On the same basis, however, we should therefore also change

• Araby --> Arabic
• Hangukeo --> Korean
• Nihongo --> Japanese
• Russkiy --> Russian
• Srpski --> Serbian

Does anyone recall why transliterations of the local names were used originally? -- Arwel 20:31, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

N, but I agree. I think the accepted names are a much better idea than the transliterations. →Raul654 20:34, Feb 14, 2004 (UTC)

They should match the interwiki strings for starters. And the interwiki strings have to have that language's name for itself, not the local language's name for it. If I'm on the japanese wikipedia checking interwikis, the backlink to the english page has to say "english" and not be written as the japanese characters for english. Do I disagree with this change, as whatever the "right english name for hebrew" is irrelevant - it needs to be the right hebrew name for hebrew. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:35, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I'm not altogether convinced of your logic, Finlay. We're talking about the "other languages" part of the Main Page, not the interwiki links. The languages in question already appear in their own language/alphabet/characters, and it's not proposed to change them, just the latin-alphabet equivalents... and since this is the English Wikipedia it's logical that the names should appear there in English. Arwel 21:02, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

The transliterations are useful if somebody's browser isn't set up to read that script, but they still know the language and can switch browsers/settings if they want to go to that wiki. And why have "Hebrew" in English when we don't have "French" in English? We never intended to have the English names! Now that it's come up however ... it could be nice to list the English equivalents of every language. The transliterations probably aren't really necessary in that case, IMO. -- Toby Bartels 04:58, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create an accurate and comprehensive free-content encyclopedia. We started in January 2001 and are currently working on 206513 articles in the English version

Can I suggest changing to:

Wikipedia is a multilingual project to create an accurate and comprehensive free-content encyclopedia. We started in January 2001 and we currently have 206513 articles in the English version

→Raul654 19:21, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

I would argue against this change, on the grounds that Wikipedia is an evolving resource, and the text "are currently working on" reflects this fact. It reflects the fact that no article is considered complete or final, and that every article has room for improvement. Also, many of the articles included in that count are stubs or sub-stubs; the revised langauge could be interpreted to suggest that the Wikipedia community views those articles as satisfactory. I would, however, be curious to hear Raul's justification for the proposed change. - Seth Ilys 21:11, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No special reason other than (IMHO) my version sounds better. →Raul654 21:45, Feb 15, 2004 (UTC)

I too think it's better the way it is. The rough "well, we're working on it" pages far outnumber the number of ones where we could reasonably say "Yeah, we've got an article on that subject". -- Infrogmation 21:23, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Another vote for the opposition. I like "are currently working on" because it suggests bustling activity on every article (wishful thinking, I know). --Michael Snow 18:09, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

New page moved from User space not on newpages

Hm. I moved New Orleans Mardi Gras into the article space this morning, at about 13:50 UTC. I had created a rough draft of it in my user space at User:Infrogmation/New Orleans Mardi Gras back on the 14th. It appears on Special:Newpages not at all, at either time or title. Should it have? Wondering simply, -- Infrogmation 18:36, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

All main pages seem ugly to me

• See Wikipedia talk:Main Page. Optim 02:34, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Plain vanilla main page

See Wikipedia:Plain vanilla main page. Optim 02:55, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Colosio

We've jumped the gun (sorry) on this one, to the tune of a month. The shooting was 23.Mar.1994. However, 23.Feb.1993 was the Billionaires' Banquet -- which is probably worth an article of its own (and ψ5 from my account to anyone who does). –Hajor 18:27, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)