Talk:Main Page/Archive 19

message: We're about to pass 260,000 articles. Brockhaus has "about 260,000" in the current edition, and I remember reading somewhere that they're the largest by entry count. So is this a significant milestone? Worth an announcement? Arvindn 13:39, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be of interest to the editing community, but not so much to the audience at large, I think. Most readers of the English Wikipedia will not know or care about a German encyclopedia. So it's worth mentioning in Goings-on or Announcements, but not on the Main Page. What I would suggest instead is that we tweak our introduction to start saying that we're the world's largest encyclopedia. Then play up that angle in the next press release. --Michael Snow 16:03, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd rather see Wikipedia become the best encyclopedia. We may well be in some areas, but certainly are far from it in other areas. Size alone doesn't matter that much. I'm sure part of the contents of Wikipedia would be rejected flat out by any sensible editor of any established paper encyclopedia, just as we will do when we become serious about our printed edition. Even though I like to look in amazament at the weekly growth figures, I'm also a bit worried about all the emphasis that many Wikipedians put on number of articles, as if that is all that counts. Erik Zachte 23:25, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. We still have a large amount of crap. However, even if we take the pessimistic assumption that 25% is crap, 50% is mediocre, and 25% excellent, we have roughly 65,000 excellent articles in English alone! I hope that the category scheme will let us start sifting articles by quality soon. -- The Anome 23:33, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

text: I agree with you. Announcements is what I meant. In fact I'm against emphasizing our size to the general public. Erik: I'm sure most wikipedians are as concerned about quality as you are, but since its far easier to measure size people tend to make size comparisons much more often. Arvindn 06:38, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry, given that the discussion was on this page, I assumed the suggestion was to announce it on the Main Page. Erik has our priorities right. Saying we're the world's largest encyclopedia is useful for publicity purposes, but it's not as meaningful as quality, which we can't measure the same way. --Michael Snow 19:03, 5 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brockhaus 

message: Now that we have received a prestigious award (at least that is what I hear it is supposed to be), from people who are willing to put their money where their mouth is, I think it would be nice to mention this on the main page for a while. See German main page for an example. Erik Zachte 23:25, 4 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Prix Ars Electronica 

message: ...but declines to resign, demonstrating that "full responsibility" for a Sec of Defense is different from full responsibility for the soldiers. - not that I disagree, but this isn't exactly NPOV, is it? Tualha 18:34, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rumsfeld 

message: The item in current events says "A Chicago laboratory announces they helped chose embryos by genetic testing to yield five babies who could donate stem cells to sick siblings." The item on our main page currently says "A laboratory in Chicago announces that they helped engineer five babies for stem cell research."  These are completely different things.  One must be wrong.  Please fix this. GrahamN 22:39, 8 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Stem cell research" 

message: The main page does not contain a link to Medicine, but does link to Health science. Most articles with a medical bent are not accessible in a hierarchical fashion from the Health science page. Can I suggest Medicine is added? JFW | T@lk 09:04, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You can edit this yourself at Template:Wikipediatoc... it sounds good to me. :)  fabiform | talk 10:27, 10 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Health science 

message: Why has the Main Page apparantly remained unchanged since April 21st?   Is it maybe connected with the fact that I cannot be logged in on the Main Page but am automatically Logged in on every other page, even this one, Talk Main Page? ping 07:19, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It has changed. You must be seeing a cached version. Make sure you are logged in, and then try forcing a reload or clearing your cache. Hopefully you'll then see today's version. Angela. 07:42, May 11, 2004 (UTC)
*That worked a treat, thanks Angela.   I also got to see Recent Changes for the first time in two or three months.  Thanks again,
 ping 11:17, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Unchanged page

message: When is 2-3 UTC, when the server is being shut down? -- user:zanimum
:See UTC to translate this into your time zone.  UTC is roughly GMT.  Hope that helps.  fabiform | talk 15:27, 11 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: When is 2-3 UTC?

message: Isn't "retailiation" spelled 'retaliation' ? If so, I humbly  suggest the typo be removed from the main page. Tjunier 07:26, 2004 May 12 (UTC)
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Why is "by academic discipline" abbreviated to "by acad. discipline" under sorting systems? There's no gain in abbreviating academic.
: thanks for pointing it out!  It used to be a vertical list of categories, at which point there was gain from making the whole column 3 ems thinner... fixed.
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Under May 19th Mexico-America war - surely "ceding large tracks of land to the United States." means large "tracts" of land? Nedlowe 09:22, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typo ? 

message: Does Wikipedia has articles about modeling? Currently, this link goes to science models.
I think building models is an important part of human activities. It surely deserves many many articles.
:I think the modeling page could be restructured into a disambiguation page rather than a redirect -- I'll try to tidy that up this weekend.  What you're looking for is currently split up into various hobby articles:  model train, model aircraft, model rocket, model ship, model car.  See also List of hobbies.  Good luck! Catherine | talk 04:22, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: On Scale Models

message: Well its the second really. In "We are building an open-content encyclopedia in many languages." could we embolden the word encyclopedia to make what the site is stand out a bit more? -- SGBailey 22:11, 2004 May 20 (UTC)
:I agree. Angela. 01:12, May 21, 2004 (UTC)
::So, now "Welcome", "encyclopedia" and "you" are emboldened. An excellently descriptive triplet :) Fredrik 01:23, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: But please, let us claim they are bolded rather than emboldened! <G> - Nunh-huh 01:31, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I can't find the word "bolded" in a dictionary. Though the meaning is obviously obvious. Fredrik 01:34, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Boldfaced is probably in most. Emboldened is a bête noir of the Miss Thistlebottoms who prescribe proper use<g>. -- Nunh-huh 00:09, 22 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a personal preference obviously but I thought it looked better without encyclopaedia being in bold face, I just think it stand out far too much as a long word, maybe if it linked to encyclopaedia and thus appeared blue it would be less attention grabbing. -- Ams80 19:06, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  First sentence 

message: I browse Wikipedia in justified text mode and, on the main page, the text in tables are not displayed in the best way, because cells are not wide enough and words are not hyphenated. I suggest adding "text-align=left" in  style (-> ), if it works. gbog 06:09, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggest unjustifying tables 

message: we want the complete knowledge and details of the software VISUAL STUDIO.NET and about .NET programming
:We have articles about Visual Studio and .NET. Wikipedia is however an encyclopedia and not a programming reference. I suggest you look to MSDN. Please place future questions of this kind at the Wikipedia:Help desk, as this particular page (Talk:Main Page) is about Wikipedia's Main Page and not for general questions. Fredrik 10:28, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: .NET programming

message: The logo on the main page is not that of the American Red Cross, who use just a red cross without the border. You could argue, that since it is a member of the IFRC, this logo is not completely unjustifiable, but it is misleading, could someone change it? Thanks! Mark Richards 16:05, 21 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Red Cross Logo

message: I think there are too many links in the first sentence... I think it should either be expanded or have some of the links removed. ugen64 the powerless at school
:I agree.  What we are seeing is the gradual expansion of the number of links in the first sentence.  While a good case can be made for each of the links individually, the overall effect of too many links is to confuse the reader, and leave them thinking 'where do I go now?'.  I think we should keep the paragraph short and simple, and reduce the number of links, keeping only those that are absolutely necessary. Enchanter 14:17, May 28, 2004 (UTC)
::Are we talking about the first sentence, or the first paragraph? --Michael Snow 19:10, 28 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Too many links