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Wikipedia talk:Selected Articles on the Main Page

I reckon that the ongoing Loyalist Feud deserves a mention on the main page, as it has been making major political headlines.

I think today's announcement of new discoveries in the Great Pyramid of Giza is perhaps worthy of mentioning in the "current events" listing here -- but our article on the pyramid is pitiful at present! :-( -- Tarquin 23:27 Sep 17, 2002 (UTC)

I agree on both counts; perhaps its presence will inspire someone to fill it out. --LDC

Certain issues that turn up under "Background on current events" are historical anniversaries. Perhaps it would be nice to divide that section into Current Events ---- "On this day" kind of thing. — Anon

I don't think that we get enough of these to make it worthwhile right now. But it's certainly an idea to keep in mind, in case conditions change. (We went through a similar phase of separating out deaths, but we abandoned that. We just have too few items so far to divide them up into categories yet.) — Toby 11:08 Sep 28, 2002 (UTC)

Can we add Bertrand Delanoë to the front page? (Also, is there somewhere else I can ask these kinds of things?) - ~~

Done. I guess getting stabbed in the butt is worth a couple days. This is the best place for these types of requests. --mav

The stomach, you thilly. - Montréalais

The Queen is in Canada. Maybe you would like to link Queen of Canada to the current events. -- Montréalais on patrol

An interesting bit of trivia; in it goes. --Brion 01:36 Oct 9, 2002 (UTC)

El Niño is starting again (http://cbc.ca/stories/2002/10/09/elnino_021009). Shall we link? This is much more interesting than the Queen. -- your news beaver Montréalais

I'd like to update the Current events section to look like this:

Current events

Ongoing events: Israeli-Palestinian conflict - U.S. plan to invade Iraq - 2002 stock market downturn - Washington sniper

In the news: Nobel Prize - Eldred v. Ashcroft - Jimmy Carter - Jemaah Islamiyah - Myyrmanni bombing - Bali car bombing

Recent deaths: Stephen Ambrose

but I know that at least LDC objects to linking to recent/ongoing events from the main page. Anyone else want to weigh in?

...and the "2002 stock market downturn" isn't even a recent event anymore. Last time I looked, the Dow was rising. That's exactly why I don't think we should have news items themselves here--we aren't equipped to cover ongoing, changing, news in a timely way, and links will grow stale and irrelevant. But we should certainly have links to things like the AR-14 rifle, Myyrmanni, Bali, etc., that link to articles that we know will still be useful articles a year from now. --LDC

They're not news items. They're newsworthy events. U.S. plan to invade Iraq, Washington sniper, etc. will be useful articles a year from now. Washington sniper kills 8th victim[?] is a news item, Washington sniper is a newsworthy article.

Having a link to AR-14[?] without having any explanation why is not a good idea. There of course needs to be editorial judgment, but I think there's room for judgment outside of "nothing". --The Cunctator

I can see some of your point; yes, "Washington sniper" will be a useful article a year from now, and I wouldn't object too strongly to making a stub article now and pointing to it. But it's a good example of my main concern--accuracy and completeness. We're not a newspaper, we're an encyclopedia. People expect a newspaper to be up-to-the-minute, but to get things wrong

now an then. They expect an encyclopedia to have reliable information (albeit their expectations are certainly lowered here). A year from now the sniper incident will have all played out and we'll have accurate information. Right now, it's breaking news, and half of what we hear reported is likely to be nonsense--the American press is not a reliable source of encyclopedic information. My concern is that we should not have the front page pointing to articles that we know are incomplete and likely to be inaccurate. We can point to "Bali", because what info we have here on Bali is probably good, it's interesting to people hearing about the bombings in the news, and it's not likely to be the kind of info in the newspaper. What info we have on the bombings is likely just press reports, and press reports don't belong in an encyclopedia (except, perhaps, as coverage of the press itself). But if there are other opinions on the issue, I'm happy to listen. --LDC

Last night I heard a local Washington-area reporter call him the "One shot sniper". We should probably wait until a steady name develops. -- Zoe

Perhaps we should label articles on current stuff -- some sort of standard text at the top: "Warning: this is a topic related to current events still in development." -- Tarquin 22:05 Oct 15, 2002 (UTC)

In an ideal world, we'd have some automatic way to generate groupings of the type at background articles for ongoing events. The problem is that people don't really want to do that. What they actually do is write entries like Washington sniper. I agree that right now the Washington sniper entry should mainly be an entry point for related background entries--there should be a bunch of See alsos. Personally, I find having a link to Bali or Queen of Canada without explanation of what the current event is that motivates its inclusion in the Current events section really frustrating.

I guess I'm saying that--especially since I mainly like writing entries that have (potentially fleeting) timely relevance--I'd like some rein to include breaking events on the front page, keeping in mind all of the absolutely correct considerations LDC points out. Namely: Wikipedia should not try to compete with breaking news sources; Wikipedia should try to provide access to all the necessary background to breaking news; Wikipedia should make sure that events of historical interest are included (but not waste time and especially main-page real estate on those that are not). --The Cunctator

I understand that people are motivated to write about topical things. After all, I wrote biographies like Mortimer Adler, Ken Kesey, Walter Annenberg not just because they are men I admire--there are far more of those--but because their recent deaths brought them to public attention. I won't object to "Washington sniper" or "Bali bombing" links; they're specific enough, and I suppose there is enough information about them, and as you say they do provide some topical context to the backgrounders. But I still think most things like that are adequately covered on the Current events page itself, which is prominently linked from the front. And what I really don't like is things that aren't events at all like "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" and "U.S. plans to invade Iraq". Those are categories under which certain events might fall, and those are definitely better covered in the longer current events page, because they by definition incomplete, and they just invite editorializing. --LDC

I'm not personally averse to a bit of editorializing--good history needs some degree of analysis. But in such topical big issues editorializing can easily slide into ugly edit wars. The positive aspect of those articles is that they are the best catch-basins for listing related topics--Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a perfect example (and probably why you haven't nixed it from the front page?). Separate entries are much more likely to get updated, I'm finding, than the general Background articles for ongoing events. Can you think of any way (through informal/formal policy, naming convention, etc.) that would properly encourage people to create pages that list background articles for a certain breaking-news topic, while discouraging editorializing?

We could potentially try leading by example...can we have a trial run, where I try some things, and see what happens? If you'd like, you can set some criteria for what we should consider failure--that is, if edit wars break out, etc. Or we should also continually poll people on this, especially since right now the numebr of people who can weigh in simply by editing the main page is limited. Whatever the case, I know this isn't a something worth fighting to the death over--it's just that I really enjoy working on such entries, and I know that they're popular. But do they give the wrong impression to incoming users? They certainly could. There's a good metric--see if new editors attracted by such entries have a skewed concept of the project... --The Cunctator

Perhaps the founder of the American gay rights movement merits a "recent deaths" mention. - Montréalais

Done. --Brion 05:41 Oct 26, 2002 (UTC)

Arigatou gozaiimasu. - Montréalais

Can somebody add Lonnie Donegan to the "recent deaths" bit on the Main Page please? Those of us who aren't admins yet (ahem) can't do it ourselves ;) --Camembert 20:02 Nov 4, 2002 (UTC)

Can we get a link to the Information Awareness Office in the "Current Events" section"? User:kwertii Dec 3, 2002

Opps! I missed the request. Up until today I was not watching this page. Sorry. --mav

Mwai Kibaki wins the presidential elections in Kenya, putting an end to 24 years of rule by Daniel arap Moi. Just contributed this article, maybe it's worth a link in the "In the News" section. KS

Done. In the future you should update the Current events page and the page you want listed so that the reader can easily know why the person/thing is being listed. This has to be done before an article is listed in the news/deaths/events/anniversaries section. I did this work for you to serve as an example. --mav

Question: Should religious and other observances (such as the anniversary of very famous person's death) be listed on the Main Page? The Historical anniversaries section is already difficult to maintain and it focuses only on major events (not observances). IMO we shouldn't have more than four lines in the selected articles section but I wouldn't object to having some major observances mixed-in with the other entries in Historical anniversaries. But the name Historical anniversaries doesn't really work if observances are also thrown in. Does anybody have a better name for this part of the selected articles section of the Main Page? There is also the fact that Historical anniversaries conflicts with the name of our calendar at list of historical anniversaries (but that should be changed as well - it really is a list of days). --mav

Today in 1933 - Adolf Hitler appointed Chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg, important event in our planet's recent history.

How do holidays make it onto Selected Articles? Today is Imbolc (February 1) and tomorrow is Groundhog Day/Candlemas. --Jeff

There simply is no section for them - thus the Historical anniversaries section focuses on actual historical events. So observances like Christmas and Ground-hog Day aren't listed but holidays that mark actual historical events, like Australia Day are listed (Jesus, if he did exist, was not born on December 25th - birthdays aren't listed either BTW). As it is the events listed in the Historical anniversaries section are only there only at most several days. Adding birthdays and holidays would shorten that to about a day. That is way too short to be at all useful since the same items are already all listed on their day page - which is only linked to the Main Page for one day. There is little point in just summarizing the current day page on the Main Page only to replace all the links with new ones the next day. That is too much maintenance for very little benefit. Aside: Is there a list of holidays on Wikipedia? We may decide to just add a new section but to do that we need a list of holidays. See my comment above. ---mav

It is now 40 years to the month since Dr Beeching in Britain unveiled the plans to cut the UK's railway network, or the Beeching axe Wouldent it be a good idea to put this in the historical anniversaries section.User:G-Man

Where does it say that in the article? Where is the entry on the correct day page? The guidelines on this page lay-out what is needed. --mav 02:55 Mar 7, 2003 (UTC)

I've now added it to the date page See 1963 and mentioned it in the article User:G-Man 23:37 UTC, Mar 7

Great! It'll be listed on or around the 28th (there are many other events to be listed first). --mav

Carlo Urbani died! Peter Arnett is out of the news! addaddaddaddaddDietary Fiber

Ever hear of the word "please"? If you use it you may get faster results. --mav

Valentin Pavlov, former Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, died on March 30th. Can we get him added to the recent deaths section? Chadloder 06:09 Apr 2, 2003 (UTC)

First, that article needs to be listed on Recent deaths. Second, it needs to be more than a pitiful stub. The purpose of Selected Articles is to showcase some of our best work that happens to be of timely interest. --mav

April 4 is the 35th anniversay of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Chadloder 23:10 Apr 4, 2003 (UTC)

Yep, that's a historical event alright. Done. --mav

April 5 is the 9th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death, and April 16 is the first anniversary of Layne Staley's (of Alice in Chains). -- goatasaur

Hm. Suicide. I'm not completely sure if that qualifies as a bona fide historically significant event... But since it wasn't a natural death and much has been made of it then I guess it is at least nominally alright. We'll see what the mix of events are after April 5 falls off the page. But in the meantime please add that entry under the Events heading at April 5. --mav

Perhaps Jessica Lynch should be on the main page.

done --mav

Can we put the Madrid metro expansion on the main page? It is the largest current civil engineering project in Europe, or it was before it opened today. - Montréalais

How about putting Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf (the Iraqi Information Minister) on the main page? -- (Haven't registered yet.)

April 14 is the anniversary of the Titanic disaster.

April 15 is the anniversary of the GATT treaty and the Battle of Formigny[?]. Chadloder

news agencies are reporting (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/15/sprj.irq.abbas.arrested/index) that Abu Abbas has been arrested in Baghdad. I just added a decent article about him and it would be nice to see it added to the In the news section. Chadloder 23:24 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

Done. Note that such items can also be put on Current events by anyone. -- Infrogmation 23:46 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

News agencies are reporting (http://news.google.com/news?q=Bechtel&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=nn) that the Bechtel Corporation has just been awarded a $680 million contract for the rebuilding of Iraq. Bechtel was also in the news yesterday because of the recent lawsuit by the Boston Globe and the Associated Press against the Big Dig to publicly release Bechtel's performance audits (think: cost overruns). Since Halliburton had a few days on the front page, I think the Bechtel Corporation article deserves mention because there are really TWO current events stories about it. Chadloder 00:35 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

The Bush Road map for peace has been receiving attention lately. (Maybe link to Israeli-Palestinian conflict.) -Astudent[?] 03:23 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

I suggest a new heading in this section, called "New articles", where we could list recently written articles that have already received some copyediting and that we would like to give additional exposure. Are there any objections? --Eloquence 23:22 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

And what about special:newpages? The point of Selected Articles is to select articles that have current topical interest. I don't have a strong objection but I don't have any desire to add such a line or to help maintain it. --mav

New pages contains lots of stuff -- stubs, experiments, unformatted text written by newbies, disambiguation pages, imports from other sources and soon-to-be brilliant prose written from scratch hidden among it. This section on the other hand should only link to articles which we think are "good enough" for mainstream consumption already. It could highlight the fact that we constantly work on new articles, even about subjects which go entirely uncovered by normal encyclopedias, without exposing first time visitors immediately to our rough edges. It may be the only way for articles about fringe subjects to get some Main Page exposure. I don't know if it will work yet, but I'll give it a try. --Eloquence 23:36 May 13, 2003 (UTC)

Fair enough - experiment away (please keep it to one line though). --mav

Maybe we could call it Spotlight articles, Featured articles or just Selected articles rather than New articles: it's just that as Wikipedia expands, New articles will become more and more obscure. --Astudent[?] 13:31 31 May 2003 (UTC)

I dunno - what's so obscure about it? It's a list of articles that were usually created in the last 24 hours, and "New articles" links to Special:Newpages, which lists all recently created articles. New articles is not just a line to put any article (that would make it very hard to determine what belongs there) but only ones which were recently written. --Eloquence 13:34 31 May 2003 (UTC)

I meant that as Wikipedia matures, many of the main topics will be taken, and so new topics will have to be more specialized (except for current events). Perhaps more effort will go into improving existing pages rather than creating new ones; sort of like more New changes or New edits rather than New articles. But anyway, these are just suggestions and random thoughts. --Astudent[?] 13:09 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

This page is getting a little long in the tooth. Is the New articles section going to remain a semi-permanent feature? If so, I'll go ahead and refresh this page a little. -- Minesweeper 02:33 21 May 2003 (UTC)

Perhaps a link to the The New York Times or journalism fraud for recent scandals. Astudent[?] 06:15 29 May 2003 (UTC)

May 11 is a bit back in history, no? I don't think there are any current events on the Main Page that old. ---mav

Ok. Astudent[?]

Would Beagle 2 be worthy of a link? Astudent[?] 13:12 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Should we have different main pages for each English-speaking nation: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc. And one for World. At the moment the main page is quite US-oriented. Astudent[?] 02:11 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

OK, here is how you can fix it. Write a great new article on any topic you like, just so long as it is of general interest and non-American. Pop a note on my talk page when it's done, and I'll add it to the "new articles". (Or any of the other sysops - the people who have the "keys" to the main page.)

Or, work out what two or three articles are on the main page right now that maybe shouldn't be, and suggest articles that are not on the main page that probably ought to be. Post that here and, provided you are sufficiently persuasive, one of the people that usually look after the main page will make the changes. (By the way, as you have probably guessed, the main page has to be protected because it is such an obvious target for vandalism, which means that you can't edit it directly. But the protection is supposed to be a safety measure, not a form of censorship, so if you have good ideas, sing out with them.) Tannin 02:32 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for the advice. Astudent[?]

I want to thank Infrogmation for putting Weedon on the new aricles on the main page. But, I've got a request. George Weedon is almost a stub, that I needed to resolve links. On the other hand, I'm fairly proud of the just finished (not 'new' because it took a week) Daniel Morgan article. If its not too much trouble, would you mind switching them? Thanks..... Lou I 23:02 8 Jun 2003 (UTC)

the ulr painters online arcyclopedia must notto be changed, it was a web WONDERFUL,WHAT WAY WILL I BE ABLE TO FIND:DAUBIGNY IN ALL MUSEUMS OF THE WORLD WITH ALL YOUR PAINTINGS I ALL MUSEUM,:ADVISE:FOLLOW WITH THE SAME URL PAINTERS ONLINE ARTCYCLOPEDIA, http:www.guillermograndal.com , ggrandal@telefonica.net cordially:grandal, http://www.guillermograndal.com ,

How about adding Iraq and weapons of mass destruction to the main page? Both American and British politicians are asking questions about the lack of evidence to date for the primary (public) reason for the war. Astudent[?] 04:09 10 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Vancouver and Whister[?]'s bids for the 2010 Winter Olympics was successful, beating the other finalists, Austria and South Korea. - user:zanimum

Is this eligible? This isn't news news, but it certainly is of great world-wide significance. - user:zanimum

Yah, it'll blow over in a few weeks. But it'll have its consequences, like the damaging of the bids of New York and Toronto for 2012 Summer Olympics. -Poor Yorick

Could the article Hong Kong Basic Law Article 23 be added to the In the news section on the main page? It may not be of great world-wide significance, but once-the-most-open society in Southeast Asia is now facing the danger of losing the freedom of speech. International attention to the crisis faced by Hong Kong is definitely needed. -- Wshun

yup yup Poor Yorick

May I suggest The Mississauga Blob as a "New Article". It is certainly oddballish, but by every means is an unexplained scientific occurance. - user:Zanimum

yup yup Poor Yorick

Wow, I never thought anyone would take my offbeat article seriously. Cool. - user:Zanimum

I read it, and its lighthearted enuff. The Main page could use something relaxing once in a while. Poor Yorick

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