Talk:Main Page/Archive 8

Defacement
Someone has changed one of the RSS buttons on the front page to read "sex". It wouldn't be a bad thing if that were changed.

Wikinews Network
I think a link to WikiNews Network and possibly a listen link should go on the main page, any objections, or ideas where to put them?--Ryan524 05:15, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * The network is in the middle stages of development; currently we have only two shows planned. I think an appropriate place for a link would be in the FrontPageMenu.  NGerda 15:07, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Have Your Say?
Should we have a Have Your Say-style forum on the Wikinews website like on the Beeb? 159753 10:54, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * No. Wikinews is not an opinion forum that promotes particular views, it's a site intended to be NPOV.  This is Wikinews, not Usenet.  Sorry for sounding so harsh.Veritos 19:27, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * In the past the talk pages of several articles have become makeshift forums about the article (a la blog rather than a la wikipedia). It has been suggested a couple of times that we provide some place (clearly marked as opinion) to discuss articles and the news in general. I personally support such moves. That doesnt mean i think that we should in anyway give up the ideal of NPOV, just that it wouldnt hurt to set up a way to get reader feedback. I think we would have a better reader -> writer flow if we had some intermediatry phase such as commenting on the article. It gives the reader a sense of ownership of the site (a la /.) ~The bellman | Smile  09:51, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * if we were to do it, which I think we should, I've got an idea on how to. Bawolff 15:13, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

micheal jackson in latest news header
I personally don't think we should have 2005 trial of Michael Jackson linked to latest news. The proper place for a wikipedia article ,in my humble oppinon, is in the article as a side link. Lastest news should be for wikinews articles, (again in my oppinion).(I know I can change it, but, someone else wants it there probaly, or it wouldn't be there, so that is why I'm asking here first.)
 * I also changed

Michael jackson case: * Jackson found 'not guilty' on all counts * 2005 trial of Michael Jackson (rest of news)

to * Michael jackson case: o Jackson found 'not guilty' on all counts o 2005 trial of Michael Jackson

because the first one seemed very confusing Bawolff 22:32, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Traffic meter
How do I know how many people are seeing the website? I have used the "Alexa Traffic History Graph" and the graph shows a increasement near June 14. Is that correct? Thank you--Carlosar 00:52, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * statistics. Hopefully there is more then 0 page views in reality. Bawolff 03:25, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Page view counting is an optional feature of MediaWiki that is not enabled here. Uncle G 08:50, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Highlighting Original Reporting
As part of an attempt to promote more and better original reporting across all language editions, I have begun highlighting these stories in Template:Latestnews. I don't much care for the specific style we use to do this, but I do find it important that we give these articles some distinction. This makes it clear even to the casual reader that Wikinews is not just summarized content from elsewhere, and will hopefully also be an incentive for us to add more OR to stories.--Eloquence 04:23, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * A very noble idea, but I personally find it very difficult to tell whether it is the article above or below the notice that is its subject. Perhaps a little icon straight after the title could be clearer? Nevertheless, it's a very good idea - hopefully, more and more original reporting will increase regional and local news as well. --81.157.105.75 20:46, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * ok, already done by some useful individual Mark Lewis 19:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

can we add rss picture
can we make the rss stylised to make it look like an rss buton (stole from german wikinews) Bawolff 00:10, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Awesome observation &mdash; added to main page (via Template:Latestnews). -- IlyaHaykinson 01:43, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * That's amazing (look at the code!) Thanks! Dan100 (Talk) 18:32, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I quarantined the links to RSS on the Main Page due to the fact that the RSS feed is not live and contains an blog posting. We need a new live RSS feed. NGerda 22:33, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)


 * It may not be up to the minute acurate, but it gets up-dated usually once a day, and i find it useful. However this doesn't effect me because its a live bookmark in firefox already, and staying that way since the feed itself still exists. I agree that a live feed would be better, but this (in my opinion) works for now. Bawolff 23:39, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * There is still the issue of it being Dan100's blog, and his blog entries show up mixed in with the day's news. NGerda 23:40, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Wikinews Media
How do I update the "Latest Wikinews Media" section on the Main Page? It currently shows: "News Brief (OGG) June 16, 0400 UTC" even though there is a news News Brief for June 17 that I would like to change the link too. --142.161.174.202 12:37, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Template:FrontPageMediaMenu NGerda 18:59, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, the correct answer is "You, as an anonymous user, cannot.". The template is currently protected.  Uncle G 19:03, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * NGerda has kindly unprotected the template. Be bold. Uncle G 20:02, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Ryan524 was the one who protected it because at the time, administrators were the only ones who would need to edit that, but, as this user pointed out, that no longer holds true :) NGerda 01:39, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for unprotecting! I'll try to keep it updated... --Chiacomo 22:26, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * No problem...just ask your friendly neighborhood admin, and all will be resolved...we hope. :) NGerda 01:39, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)

Informativo da comunidade Brasileira em Montreal.
www.bayoubrasil.info tem un grande prazer de apresentar seu novo sitio internet

O objetivo do informativo consiste em promover a cultura brasileira através da comunidade brasileira radicada no Quebec e nas outras províncias, seja na música, literatura nas artes em todas as suas formas de expressão, na educação, esportes, turismo, sociedade, eventos, conferências, bem como divulgar as notícias referente às relações políticas e econômicas entre o Brasil e o Canadá. Promover uma agenda de contatos mútuos entre artistas, personalidades, empresas, prestadores de serviços e o público em geral. Assim sendo, pensamos ser de grande utilidade para ambas as parte establecermos um intercambio de laços entre nossos sitios, o que proporcionara una maior visão de nosso trabalho aos visitantes de ambos os sitios. Ficariamos muito agradecidos se pudessemos conhecer vossa opinão sobre nosso sitio e a nossa proposicão.

Desde ja apresentamos nossos respeitos e nossas cordiais saudações.

http://www.bayoubrasil.com/news_i_heloisa.htm

CORDIALMENTE, Jorge MARIZ 1 514 847 0088 info@bayoubrasil.com

is this an ad for a new site? why here?

Redirect
The "What is RSS" link goes to a redirect page. Shouldn't it go to RSS (file format).
 * I'll take care of it right away ;) NGerda 16:25, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the head's up! NGerda 16:26, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
 * The RSS feed is actually an ATOM feed (i think, i'm not sure. on the page is says atom in one part and rss in another). maybe instead of linking to a page in wikipedia we should link to a page here that says something like this:

ATOM is a file format that allows you to easily see the latest headlines for wikinews. to              subscribe to it in firefox go to rss page click the little icon in the right-bottom conner of                           your screen. to do it in thunderbird do blah, blah. to do in 'Insert random atom argetator here thats popular do so and so. for more information on the file format see atom (standard). I used tb, and fx because their the only to argetators I could think of on the top of my head.

Bawolff 18:53, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

w3c validater complains about valign
The w3c validater complains about the valign attribute when validating the mainpage saying its not part of xhtml 1 transitional. I never did very much advanced table stuff in html so i don't know any other way to do it in css (not even sure what it really does. geusing it somehow makes text go to the top of the cell or something). I think we should change it to a validating way, and we should always try to be standards compliant as possible, because being standards compliant is a good thing. Bawolff 23:58, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Looking into how to do this in css. - Amgine/talk 00:33, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * The way to fix is to use the css property "vertical-align: top;", and I've replaced all occurrnces. However, the validator is now working with a cached version of the website which does not reflect the latest version and I can't tell if there might be any other problems. In other words, I fixed it, but I can't test the fix. - Amgine/talk 01:36, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks for fixing it. Bawolff 02:03, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Is this really?
is this really the most important news in the world for over 24 hours (israeli soldier)? dont we also need to make sure everyone knows that the convicted soldier is arab and a muslem? is this really NPOV? - food for thought
 * you don't like the news so it should be removed / made look less important? -boneyard

Compared to a Boy Scout getting lost in the woods, yes. NGerda June 28, 2005 18:42 (UTC)
 * With the multitude of news (a prominent parliamentarian killed in Iraq, gang-raped woman wins in Pakistan, etc.), keeping "Israeli soldier convicted..." for the second day as breaking news is way beyond ridiculous and only demonstrates political bias around here. Humus sapiens 28 June 2005 22:49 (UTC)
 * If you have a problem with it, please be our guest and change it. This is a wiki. NGerda June 28, 2005 23:55 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the invitation. I'm new, so let me watch just how much longer the NPOV standards are being mocked as this old story is kept on top of what is considered "news" here. I am sure we can do better than this. Humus sapiens 29 June 2005 02:30 (UTC)
 * How is having that story as lead imply POV? The only reason it's still there is because no one's changed it.  I'd be happy to show you how, by the way, if you are willing to learn.  NGerda June 29, 2005 02:54 (UTC)

I think more than political bias, it indicates a lack of active editors. I've changed the story. Please join us as an active editor as soon as you feel ready! -- IlyaHaykinson 29 June 2005 03:15 (UTC)

refresh link
something like:  Click here to Refresh   which renders as:  Click here to Refresh   would be nice on the main page, IMHO. Kevin Baastalk June 29, 2005 03:01 (UTC)
 * We already have that on Template:Latest news, but feel free to experiment putting it where you see fit. :) If there's any issues, we'll be sure to discuss them ;)  NGerda June 29, 2005 03:10 (UTC)

I don't think we need a giant refresh link. Refreshing is a silly/sad side effect of our caching system. We shouldn't expose readers to this, and active editors can just use the smaller refresh link. -- IlyaHaykinson 29 June 2005 03:16 (UTC)

Over-long leads
Why do people put half the articles into lead stories?

The purpose of a lead is to introduce just a little more of the article (further than the headline), enough so people can figure out if they want to read it or not. You don't need a paragraph or two to do that! What putting so much of a story in a lead does mean that the reader then has to trawl through the story to find the bit he'd already got to when reading on the main page.

Put it this way - you don't see any other website putting such long lead texts, do you? Dan100 (Talk) 29 June 2005 15:19 (UTC)


 * I don't think putting national flag next to a story is a good idea. A flag is a political symbol so e.g. Afghani flag next to the downed chopper story may imply that Afghan govt somehow endorsed it. IMHO it is much more neutral and also informative to use maps. Humus sapiens 30 June 2005 03:48 (UTC)


 * Good point. Changing it. - Amgine/talk 30 June 2005 04:01 (UTC)


 * Dan100: because I'm an imbecile, of course! Actually, I prefer short teases which actually contain some information. The minimalist text you tend to post are usually less informative than the article title. There should be a level of information which is a compromise point. - Amgine/talk 30 June 2005 04:01 (UTC)

The minimalist text you tend to post are usually less informative than the article title - er, no they're not, thank you muchly.

And as I said, which news outlets do put huge leads? Dan100 (Talk) 30 June 2005 08:14 (UTC)


 * I just spent a considerable time going through every one of the lead links, Dan100. And interestingly, you added only one thing - a factual inaccuracy on the Dublin article (the venue holds 80 000, 3 night show, so only 240 000 fans preparing to see the show not "More than" 240 000.) Of the leads you left standing, they averaged less than 3 additional facts beyond the title. So I was incorrect, the leads you leave *are* more informative than the titles. - Amgine/talk 1 July 2005 00:39 (UTC)

Main Page Layout - Using DPL/Topics
I'd like to invite comment on a layout. This is a variation of Redge's layout, with two columns of news articles plus a third column for menu items, the developing stories, and the Get Involved block. There is a larger space for the lead article and graphic, plus the second and third leads leads.

Due to the restrictions of DPL, no graphics are available in the body of the links, which is currently the case with the Latest News template which is the body of the current main page. I'm working on some ideas for this, but no solutions yet.

The latest news, in this variation, would need to be restricted to two days to prevent it from over-powering the layout. Latest news, and the regional news below it, have the larger column with all the latest articles listed and up to 5 regional articles below, as well as links to the regional portals.

The topical news have links to the topic portals plus three articles each. These are the top-level topic on the section menu, but the order was selected arbitrarily and will probably need to be determined by the community.

Otherwise, there are no content additions or subtractions that I'm aware of. Point them out if you see any. - Amgine/talk 1 July 2005 00:17 (UTC)


 * It does seem like we're on to something here, but as I'm looking at this particular layout seems, it seems very crowded. Maybe we can work something out with color coding the various topics and regions as to remove this overcrowded. -- NGerda July 1, 2005 00:39 (UTC)


 * Yes, I thought so too... walls of text, sort of. I'd like to include some graphics to break things up possibly. If you have any ideas, please suggest or give it a try. - Amgine/talk 1 July 2005 00:45 (UTC)


 * What about this:
 * making the Latest News background off-white
 * changing Latest News to not be grouped by date (and just have it list the last 25 stories)
 * Thoughts? -- IlyaHaykinson 1 July 2005 00:55 (UTC)


 * Done... take a look? May still be a bit long?


 * Hm. It is a bit long. And doesn't stand out &mdash; looks like a sea of text! -- IlyaHaykinson 1 July 2005 01:49 (UTC)


 * I like the idea, but all those storys makes the page abit overwhelming, I also realy like having the news broken up by day as it is now. --Cspurrier 1 July 2005 02:03 (UTC)


 * My comments on the previous version are still floating around in the archives I think, but for what it's worth:
 * I really don't like the idea of having the front page as a portal: we're not a portal, we're a human news service and we should be trying to present a cohesive news agenda based on the consensus of the community rather than something produced by automatic lists that shows everything. Not to mention the duplication of stories in the different categories which will only be solved when there are far more stories, which might justify the inclusion of the different categories/regions on the front page. Also, I am probably not the only user who accesses the front page from a mobile phone and could do with not having to download masses of text when I just want to see what's breaking in the world.
 * Sorry, I appreciate the work that's been put in... but I just don't like all that text and googlynewsness. More constructively, could the portal be a very prominent link to an interior page, like 'Wikinews world' or something? It is undoubtedly useful for everything to be accessible like that, but not on the front page which needs to really attract people. ClareWhite 1 July 2005 09:38 (UTC)
 * Perhaps we can create a text-only Main Page at Main Page/Text? -- NGerda July 1, 2005 09:41 (UTC)

I've been through all the versions in the page history for that layout, but they're all broken in Opera, so it's hard to pass comment something that doesn't actually work (assuming it's not supposed be single narrow column?).

I have to say - this is a solution looking for a problem; change for change's sake. Or current Main Page has been carefully crafted (not by me, I should stress - I had no input other than creating the Section menu) and it works. It looks very polished and is visually very appealing.

And a general comment on using DPLs on the main page beyond Latest news - there's just not the room for all the topics we have, but we are the global edition of Wikinews, so any selection of topics would be PoV.

Furthermore, it's not as if we're writing dozens of stories a day and the Latest news list is getting unmanageable. In fact, we go days - or even weeks - between writing new Environment or Disasters and accidents stories, for example, so the Main Page would look very stale. Dan100 (Talk) 1 July 2005 10:51 (UTC)


 * Just seen Clare's comments, and she raises a very good point - most (if not all) our stories have more than one category, so with topic DPLs on the Main Page each story would be listed several times, which is, frankly, daft.


 * BTW, for a 'text only' Main Page, try my personal Main Page. Dan100 (Talk) 1 July 2005 10:57 (UTC)


 * And finally finally (hopefully!): Due to the restrictions of DPL, no graphics are available in the body of the links - actually NGerda created a system to include images alongside the articles in Latest news, but Amgine unilaterally dropped it. Dan100 (Talk) 1 July 2005 10:59 (UTC)
 * :) -- NGerda July 1, 2005 21:22 (UTC)

Highlighting original reporting, again
With the new DPL-based layout, we can no longer tag individual links as "Original reporting". I suggest adding a small selection of the latest 5 articles containing OR to the right hand column using DPL, perhaps directly above or below the leads. Thoughts, takers?--Eloquence 1 July 2005 10:49 (UTC)
 * Try out a template at Main Page/Temp. NGerda July 1, 2005 10:50 (UTC)
 * A good idea - the loss of the only very recently introduced OR highlighting is the one thing I miss. I'd suggest below third lead but above the Media menu (sorry, but that's honestly how I rank the importance of the various bits!) Dan100 (Talk) 1 July 2005 10:53 (UTC)
 * I think that's a good idea too, particularly as they're the stories that might raise our profile amongst other news outlets who would be looking for original stories. Highlighting them there seems better than having a tag where they still got a bit lost. Perhaps along with the list you could have a direct link to the guidelines on original reporting for those who might feel inspired to have a crack at it? ClareWhite 1 July 2005 11:22 (UTC)
 * I like the idea a lot, except I think the order should be third lead,Media menu, Original reporting. The Media menu gets lost when it is sandwiched between OR and Stories in development. --Cspurrier 1 July 2005 15:39 (UTC)

about feedburnet
how can i get rss for another wikinews ? WikiNews Romania ?
 * I don't think the romanian wikinews has an rss feed. you should proably ask them. last time i checked only two wikinews languages had them (english + something else, i think it was german, not sure, but it definitly wasn't Romania.) Bawolff 1 July 2005 17:43 (UTC)


 * I need help :P not comments on what wiki has it and what wiki doesn't.

Er, Bawolf is pointing out that you can't get a RSS feed for Romania - only English and German provide them. Dan100 (Talk) 2 July 2005 18:29 (UTC)

Developing articles times 2?
I don't quite understand why we have two developing stories boxes at the moment. Has this been discussed somewhere? Is there any rationale for it?--Eloquence 1 July 2005 13:37 (UTC)


 * Oh, goodness. Welcome to the hell that this past day has been, Eloquence... -- IlyaHaykinson 1 July 2005 13:43 (UTC)


 * I proposed that we use DPLs on Developing stories to ease the publication process for contributors. I had a system set up so that if a user wants to create a bank link, e.g. Bombs explode in Tehran, then there would be a manual list that is integrated with the automatic list.  With my proposed automatic system, the results were sorted by date, thus alleviating concerns by some that the results wouldn't have dates.  Amgine insisted that we accommodate users who don't want to use the automatic system at all, so he labeled the manual list separately.  He won't allow anyone to remove stories from the manual list once the article uses the automatic system, hence the double listing of article.  -- NGerda July 1, 2005 21:41 (UTC)

Same sex marriage
Spain is the fourth country after The Netherlands, Belgium and Canada (July 29). Thijs 1 July 2005, 15:42 UTC

Sorry, I think it's not true. Wikipedia says it's has to pass the Senate as well. Thijs 1 July 2005, 15:42 UTC