Talk:Main Page/Archive 90

message: Why is this not "In the News"? It's a pity that tonight and maybe tomorrow are the last chances to see it in the southern hemisphere before it disappears forever (northern hemisphere had a chance last week). I think we missed a golden opportunity to put something quite pertinent onto the main page while we had a chance. And perhaps a featured picture would not have gone amiss either. Zunaid©® 08:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm both our article and the news sources I've read suggest it will probably still be visible in the southern hemisphere for a while yet, altho fading in brightness all the time... 203.109.240.93 12:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It's not in ITN because no one has suggested it. Things don't happen automatically. ITN relies on people nominating candidates. See the info box at the top of this page for all the details. Eventually you'll want the candidate page which is here. --Monotonehell 12:48, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Doomsday Clock has been there for a while but not used on ITN. --13:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Is there an anti-science bias on ITN now?  Somehow, both of these items on Wikipedia:In the news section on the Main Page/Candidates have been ignored by admins. --199.71.174.100 01:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've moved it to the next day's section maybe people aren't watching the old entries. --Monotonehell 12:01, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Comet McNaught]] 

message: I'm pretty sure the most common bacterial disease is gingivitis, not tuberculosis.  The article on Tuberculosis gets it right--specifying that it's the most common *potentially fatal* bacterial disease--but the summary on the main page claims that it's the most common bacterial disease period, with no qualifications.  --Lode Runner 22:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Next time, use WP:ERRORS. —Dark•Shikari[T] 06:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tuberculosis is NOT the most common bacteria-caused disease 

message: Would it be a good idea to make a new counter "Categories with only one article" in the special pages? --195.197.175.20 (Alphaios) 18:04, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well since categories with only one article are not categories at all then those categories should be deleted. So no. That's totaly not what I read yesterday lol --Monotonehell 19:05, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well that's the idea. If you can find them, you can delete them. However, I'm asking what people think about it here, because in finnish Wikipedia many seems to think, that those are acceptable categories.  --195.197.175.20 (Alphaios) 04:46, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Let's not bug the devs for more special pages until we can fix the really necessary broken ones (like Special:DoubleRedirects). —Mets501 (talk) 19:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They don't have a to-do list? --Nelson Ricardo 22:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure what you mean. Here's example: There is only one article about greenlandic people, and he is the prime minister. Now categories are: greenlandic people -> greenlandic politicians -> Prime ministers of Greenland. So, three categories and only one article: Hans Enoksen. Many think it's ok to keep this person alone on the category, because there is a chance that somebody makes another article there during next five years. --Alphaios 00:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Small categories

message: It says: "Parliamentary elections are taking place in Serbia, the first elections since Serbian independence in 2006."
Serbian independence?--Steven X 11:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Independence from their union with Montenegro. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 11:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay.--Steven X 13:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be best for our readers if we link to an article about Serbian Independence. I was taught this year in my Geography class that the country is Serbia and Montenegro, and I wasn't aware of independence until I saw your comments today. Can we change the Main Page to reflect that?--Ed ¿Cómo estás?Reviews? 17:27, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just goes to show that you can't trust anything you learn in school. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 08:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  In the News: 

message: "India Standard Time"???? Is that the best featured article we can use for the main page? There must be some better choice for the main page featured article.  I can't say the same for the pics, though---they are good. Seldon1 18:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the problem, almost every FA eventually appears on the Main Page — people have worked hard to bring this to FA standard, and I personally found it interesting, we don't often see such FAs after all. Todor→Bozhinov 18:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It's the Battle of Cannae tomorrow. Is that better? – Qxz 18:36, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  And history of saffron is on the horizon.  --  Zanimum 19:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

text: We try to get a diverse selection of articles on the main page. Not everybody agrees with what's good for the main page, pop culture? science? humanities?  --  Zanimum 19:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I suppose thats true. I always assumed the purpose was to have a featured article that is also important or interesting--but opinions on whay is interesting do vary. I withdraw my complaint. Seldon1 19:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

text: I commented before that the function of the entries on the main page is to make people aware of topics they might not otherwise have thought of looking at. There will always be some topics that readers will think "why did they bother" - and the odd one which causes a few squawks of protest (g).  Jackiespeel 18:13, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In any case, I would argue the time 1 billion people follow must have at least some interest and importance. And I suspect other people like me still find half hour time zones a bit strange 203.109.240.93 15:15, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Try living in one, it's a pain in the proverbial. --Monotonehell 15:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

text: You can't make everyone happy, some people won't be interested in some articles, while others will not be. --Credema 07:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  featured 

message: The capital of The Netherlands is not AMsterdam but De Hague! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 194.7.54.162 (talk) 08:37, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The second paragraph of our article on The Hague explains that while The Hague is the seat of government, Amsterdam is actually the capital city. Raven4x4x 08:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Capital of the Netherlands 58.106.25.60 10:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Amsterdam is the capital city, not The Hague, which is the correct spelling. --Soetermans 17:12, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  194.7 spelt it the same way as you...? --Monotonehell 01:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Nope he write "De Hauge". I missed that one too at first. :) Jeltz talk 13:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  De = The. The complaint was about spelling not language. --Monotonehell 01:43, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Are you sure you missed it? Maybe Jimbo is using his overseer privilages to screw around with your head? 203.109.240.93 13:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture on the main about Amsterdam 

message: Or an alternative title: Sandbox link
What i am wondering is, shouldn't the navigation contents bar on the left link to the WP:Sandbox? Simply south 12:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why? FirefoxMan 13:39, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You could always do this yourself with the addlink script (inquire at WP:US). Many users have their own personal sandboxes to experiment with rather than share a common sandbox, so a link to WP:SANDBOX might not be necessary for many users. AZ t 00:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Navigation on left 

message: Wikipedia is the most unsafe place to search for information. Luckily, everybody cooperates. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.184.170.164 (talk) 18:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How so?  dposse 18:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unsafe? One might say that Wikipedia's information isn't always reliable, but the users are always working on that. Anyway, this isn't really the right place for such a discussion. If I were more experienced in Wiki, I would've gladly linked you to such a place. --Soetermans 21:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: If you really can't bear to see the odd piece of vandalism, Stablepedia mostly guarantees that what you're viewing is worksafe, at the cost of losing the most up-to-date information. GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 22:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: "Each page requested will require our servers to transfer at least 500 KB of data from Wikipedia." (FAQ) This is a good thing? - BanyanTree 17:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: My £20 donation should cover the cost of my using the service now and then for a while. What's £20 worth in dollars these days, $100? $200? :P GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 19:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Less than one buck! By the way, Stablepedia's article on Moshe Katsav says he might resign. How old! Ugh! :-) | AndonicO Talk · Sign Here 19:43, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The user of Stablepedia must understand that he is giving up most-up-to-date for stability. The service is not designed to be used as a starting point for retreiving articles. It is rather designed to use when you feel a page is vandalized, hence, the bookmarklet has been made; for switching easily. Also, regarding the bandwidth usage, Stablepedia's algorithm has been adjusted to use less bandwidth, now it uses about as much bandwidth as you will use if you opened the page directly on Wikipedia, the FAQ has also been updated to reflect that. Sinan Taifour 01:22, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: WTF? They just took down the notice about the 500 KBs per page load!  Compare Google's cache to the current version! —Mets501 (talk) 01:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Indeed it isn't a good idea to cite Wikipedia in paper for school, but it's a pretty safe people to get information from because there are a lot of people that are checking pages and reverting vandalism. In your example someone would probably notice the page on the recent changes and double check the correct number and revert the page if need be. --Credema 06:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia 

message: It should be noted that as of now, (see below), whenever the cursor is hovering over one of the options such as "Log In" or "My Watchlist," the options quickly switch to the top left, as if they went from right-aligned to left-aligned in an instant. This is possible an individual error, yet is believed to be an error in the coding for the group.
:This should be examined before someone gets frustrated.
Prodigy Kid 22:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It works fine for me. Try Bypassing your browser's cache. | AndonicO Talk · Sign Here 22:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Tried that. With Internet Explorer, bypassing the cache fixes it temporarily, but the second you move your cursor over it, it moves back behind the Wikipedia symbol. Prodigy Kid 22:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What skin are you using? Any unusual additions to your personal .js file? GeeJo (t)⁄(c) • 22:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: No. No preference changes. I switched to a different computer and it's fine. Must be my internet options then. I'll delete this in 30 minutes since there is no apparent defect in the system. Prodigy Kid 00:53, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've had that problem before. I just ignored it or refreshed the page. After a few times i have been on here it seemed to stop doing it. Simply south 15:18, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Same bug affected me before I switched to Firefox almost a year ago. —Mets501 (talk) 22:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It's a known issue, but with Internet Explorer. Bug Microsoft about it. Titoxd(?!?) 22:29, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No pun intended, I hope :). Anyway, I've had the same problem with IE 6. Sometimes, the personal JS fails completely as well. It seems to happen only occasionally, though. <shamelesspromotion>Maybe you should get Firefox!</shamelesspromotion> PTO 01:59, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No shame in that promotion. As a web designer I constantly get annoyed with IE's foibles. And regret that I can't use a lot of the facilities that PNG provides, because IE doesn't support them properly. I just hoping that either everyone adopts Firefox or at least the Vista version of IE will be W3C compliant. --Monotonehell 02:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You mean IE7? Don't hold your breath... – Qxz 10:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Top Right Toolbar 

message: Can someone please move the obscenity from the section of the lead article that appears on the main page? Postlebury 14:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a direct quote and wikipedia is not censored (Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not censored) 203.109.240.93 15:03, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Obscenity on main page

message: Um, London didn't have a police force until the 19th century... Totnesmartin
*It had parish constables and court runners and thieftakers, so I assume the term is being used in an informal sense. Postlebury 14:38, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you had clicked the link, you would have ended up at Bow Street Runners which described this force as a police force. Also, in future this kind of thing is best discussed at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. 203.109.240.93 14:56, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I clicked James Field itself, which mentioned a constabulary. i didn't know about the Errors page - there are so many specialised WP pages I never know when I'm on the right one. Totnesmartin 18:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, things can be confusing. Helpful hint: read the help boxes at the top of this page. --Monotonehell 11:42, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  James Field (in DYK?) 

message: Hello. I am a filmmaker, and I was wondering that if I showed an administrator a local newspaper article that includes a photograph of myself and another local celebrity filmmaker and a summary of my film, would that be enough to have my own Wikipedia page for biographical purposes. I also have a website for my film production company, Gonzo Films, on which you can view the films that I have made. I believe my friends in The River Company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_River_Company) got their own page in the same manner. Thank you in advance. Michael.m.winters 23:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Notability

message: I'm starting to think we should use only American spellings, and not just because I am one. America's population is 5 times more than England (according to Englands Wikipedia article), so why isn't everything American English. If it has 5 times the amount of people, than you could estimate that for every 5 Wikipedia readers, 3 are American, 1 is British, and 1 is from other countries. --TeckWizTalk Contribs@ 22:34, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the matter does seeing words spelt differently hurt your eyes or something? Jooler 22:46, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No. But the encyclopedia should be consistent in spelling. --TeckWizTalk Contribs@ 22:48, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: As the great American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:01, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: This is a very contentious issue, and I don't want it to degenerate into a flamewar. Wikipedia is meant to be used by English speakers all over the world, and there are lots of articles about subjects from the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, African countries, India, Pakistan, the West Indies, et al., all of which are likely to be written by people from those places, who primarily use British spelling. It would be a giant waste of time, and create lots of ill-will, to start changing the spelling in all those articles. Please see the discussion on this on the Manual of Style page if you want to get into this further. Newyorkbrad 22:38, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please remember that this is the English Wikipedia. Not the American Wikipedia. It really makes no sense to use American English in articles about the UK or other places that use British English. Note that place names themselves are spelled using BE there (e.g., Fillinnameofplace Harbour), and we would have to reflect this. Another note is that it is offensive to many users of British English to imply that we should use AE because it is the majority dialect (if indeed it is that). Our current way of doing things is the right way, I think. Heimstern Läufer 22:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: English-language Wikipedia policy already covers this issue; the original dialect spellings are used unless the article is about a specifically British, specifically American, specifically Australian, etc. subject, in which case the local dialect spelling is used no matter the original dialect spelling in the article. (Also, FWIW, just over two-thirds of all native English speakers are American; see English language#Geographical distribution.) —Cuiviénen 00:12, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: TeckWiz, as I pointed out when you raised this issue here, this has been discussed before.  Many times.  The consensus reached was, as Newyorkbrad points out, to use the variety of English most appropriate to the article.  See here for the relevant guideline.  Also, this isn't really the best page to raise this issue; it would be more appropriate to discuss it at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style.  However, I doubt that you'll gain much traction on this — as I said, it's been discussed a lot. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:57, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

text: As someone that don't speak English as his first language I don't really care. English is English is English! Some minor differences exists but they are minuscule and I don't even have a problem mixing two different kinds of English in an article. It just isn't noticeable for me. Stop the bickering and just continue writing articles. The information is what is of primary importance after all. Lord Metroid 00:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Using the same logic as Techwiz, maybe the USA's official language should be Spanish? (82.43.189.130 23:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

text: How bout if the article has to do with an American issue, company, person, profile, etc. on American soil, then it should the American vernacular and if from the U.K. then the Queen's English ...? Metamorphousthe 21:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's more or less the existing guideline. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:23, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

text: That's because us Orstralians don't pronounce them correctly. ;) --Monotonehell 12:51, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  A few comments. One the language is called English, not the Queen's English, which is a dialect of English. Two, please refrain from mixing and matching England and Britain, they are two different things. The former is a country, the latter is an island.--81.106.139.233 23:46, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Are you forgetting this is the English Encyclopaedia? Not the American English Encyclopaedia? Also just because Americaland has a large population how does that make it the defacto English? enlighten me, bu please, do not blaspheme. thanks/Fenton, Matthew Lexic Dark 52278 Alpha 771 00:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  American vs British Spellings 

message: Is it just me, or does anyone else think it's weird that you need need a seperate account for sister projects. If I am wrong, and you don't need seperate accounts, then I'm confused--Zramsay 01:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If I remember correctly, I think that meta provides a service that reserves a username of your choice across all Wikimedia projects. I don't know if that service is still active, though.--Ed ¿Cómo estás?Reviews? 02:00, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It sounds like a good idea to have a common account for all projects, but this isn't the place to bring this up. And I bet this has been brought up 100 times over at meta. My guess would be the horse has bolted. --Monotonehell 02:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I was under the impression that they are moving towards a universal account, though it will take a while to implement, get everyone migrated, and resolve naming conflicts. Koweja 06:04, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See Single login specifications at Meta and the pages linked from there. Graham87 10:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Accounts

message: Should the featured article not be locked? I realize this is not the greatest article but it has become increasingly vandalized since it's been on the mail page.thegreattim
:See WP:SEMI. We usually don't protect Today's Featured Article, unless things get to out of hand. The purpose of Wikipedia is so everyone can edit the encyclopedia, and keeping such Main Page articles unprotected helps convey this idea. Nishkid64 22:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism On Featured Article 01/30/07 

message: Wikitravel hasn't been listed alongside the other Wikimedia sites.  Could it be added, its a really good site.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.65.57.87 (talk • contribs) 19:11, 31 January 2007
:It is not a wikimedia site. It is independent. ffm yes? 19:24, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: WIKITRAVEL

message: "...that when the Young Bengal leader Ramgopal Ghosh was threatened with ostracism for opposing Hindu religion?"
what? I'm so in suspense! Tell me wikipedia! Sdedeo (tips) 22:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been fixed now. Next time, try WP:ERRORS. Tennis DyNamiTe (sign here) 23:54, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

text: You're reading the sentence completely wrong, and I think it is because of a misinterpretation of the word "adapted." There are birds that have adapted to a marine environment, and there are birds that have adapted to a land environment. The former are called sea birds and the latter are called land birds. There's no presumptiveness. Andrew Levine 02:12, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: sentence fragment in "did you know"

message: All the arguments for moving/keeping appear to boil down to this:
* Move: The fact that the Main Page is not an article but a portal is a wart on an otherwise clean design.  Warts can cause problems.
* Keep: The secondary effects of moving the Main Page will require some effort to fix.  Any benefits are not worth the effort.
Monotonehell does an excellent job of breaking things down into objective fact, theories, ideology, etc., but I think this is a good introduction to the debate.  —DragonHawk (talk) 13:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Super-short summary

message: * Moves article from article space, correcting the most viewed articles, cite this article --HamedogTalk|@ 06:21, 25 January 2007 (UTC
: I've split these benefits into two points. Okay that's a benefit. Can we quantify the affect of this? How much will the statistics be changed? Is this change going to affect the counts a great deal? A little?
:: It's a lot of minor changes. Most of the counts affected will change by exactly 1 (out of ), so that's a tiny and somewhat pointless benefit. The charts that name specific articles (such as the ones linked from Special:Statistics) put Main Page as the most-viewed article (rather than the most-viewed portal), disrupting the list; 'cite this article' would be absent rather than present (and it doesn't work properly on the Main Page, because permlinks don't take account of transcluded templates). Probably the biggest change here would be to tools, etc., external to Wikipedia; for instance, many mirrors and external search engines only copy/search articles, and they need special exceptions for the Main Page (which not all of them have). --ais523 11:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree that "keeps the most viewed page inline with Wikipedia policy" is the most important point.  Indeed, I would say that is the least important of reasons.  Remember: Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy.  Wikipedia does not have firm rules.  Policy exists only to help us write an encyclopedia.  It does not exist as an end in itself.  Do not worship at the altar of policy.  The rest of your points have merit; I suggest focusing on those.  —DragonHawk (talk) 13:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Also, assuming that most policies are intended to be descriptive in nature, this page  probably doesn't violate anything. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Keeping the attack on the argument's wording aside, who does this benefit? How does this benefit them? What's the affect of this benefit? Define, quantify.
*Allows for someone to eventually create an article about main pages (i.e. the primary page on a website, sometimes homepage). The article should probably be a protected redirect for quite sometime to allow search engines and people to update their bookmarks. falsedef 21:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Small benefit here, we free up a possible article title. How would redirecting the page alert people to the need to update bookmarks? This sounds like a cost (adding below). --Monotonehell 01:28, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also the reason I mentioned a protected redirect is because the article space for main_page will be quite sought after for both vandals and glory seekers. falsedef 09:19, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So is that another cost? --Monotonehell 11:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

text: While I can't quantify the cost, the relative cost here must be on the side of moving. If we ever need the Main Page article then it is rather likely we would have needed it in any case. Ergo, whatever decision we make, if this issue ever arises, we will have to confront it. If we've already move the main page our options are likely to be greater hence the cost would be lower. 203.109.240.93 14:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, if we never encounter that problem, we've spent resources with zero return, for a net loss.  Back on the first hand, if we are going to encounter the namespace collision problem, the sooner we fix it means the less disruption, so the sooner, the better.  Unfortunately, both of these are speculation.  We have no way of knowing if "Main page" will ever be a namespace collision.  It falls into the realm of "Not overly likely, but not unlikely, either".  Without an accurate mechanism to predict the future, coming up with hard numbers is going to be... difficult.  —DragonHawk (talk) 00:25, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Benefits

message: * ais523 claims above that 38 articles in article namespace links to Main Page. Jeltz talk 15:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: How is this a cost? --Monotonehell 01:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Jeltz was trying to quantify the amount of work in updating double-redirs after the move. --ais523 13:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. I thought that the purpose here was to try to quantify costs, and I listed on that already has been quantified even if it happens to be minimal. Jeltz talk 13:33, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah I see now. So it's a small cost then. Thanks people. --Monotonehell 02:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

text: Again we need to quantify this point. Every user who arrives via the old main page URL will need to be alerted and redirected if the page is intended to be reserved for an article. If not we need a soft redirect, this would add approximately 10% load to the servers on top of requests for the old main page. Either way people need to be alerted of the change. --Monotonehell 01:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Quantification is necessary. However we need to remember it's extremely speculatory beyond a day. There's no knowing how long it will take people to update their bookmarks 203.109.240.93 14:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is that a 10% extra load for every request through the current main page url? Surely that's not acceptable? Then it could not be a redirect, but it would have to be a message "The main page moved to ... " so the lazy visitors too update their bookmarks. That would be a cost, although small and short-term. But are you sure about that 10%? If the page is cached on the server, it seems to me the only extra cost is the extra line "redirected from ...". Piet | Talk 14:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've linked the VPT discussion above. It's a real but negligible extra load on the servers, it seems. --ais523 16:45, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

text: User:Simetrical said in that disccsuion that "Redirects don't add noticeable load." 10% would definatly be noticable load so it is much less than that. Jeltz talk 19:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah okay, the 10% was based on the relative size of a page with only the sidebar, other menus and etc verses a whole page of text. The idea being that the server has to effectively serve one small page and one big page instead of just one big one. This would only be additional to requests for the main page, not a 10% increase on the servers over all. But according to the VPT discussion this small increase would not be a big load. --Monotonehell 02:45, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Costs