If someone else Journal of American History, bloggers, etc. made the mistake (or in the past) have put out the full http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page it shouldn't be our problem.
When you get a dead link to something you know is not dead, what do you do?
I go to google.
It is far unlikely that Google will get it wrong or that Wikipedia will disappear from any search engine's results.
And we should not be taking on responsibility for other people's failings, mistakes, or trying to make up for what _they_ may have written in the past. In this case, we are not our brother's keeper.
We also can't expect to hold back progress, or refuse to comply with our own standards (even if they are seemingly arbitrary), because of things we cannot control (i.e. the past, other people's writings).
That's a lack of resolve, a culture of making excuses to justify inaction when action is called for, which is unforgiveable.
Regards, Christopher D. Thieme
I agree. I can't see why anyone would be opposed to the move. I have yet to see a good argument against moving.
Firefoxman
On 1/14/07, Christopher Thieme cdthieme@gmail.com wrote:
If someone else Journal of American History, bloggers, etc. made the mistake (or in the past) have put out the full http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page it shouldn't be our problem.
When you get a dead link to something you know is not dead, what do you do?
I go to google.
It is far unlikely that Google will get it wrong or that Wikipedia will disappear from any search engine's results.
And we should not be taking on responsibility for other people's failings, mistakes, or trying to make up for what _they_ may have written in the past. In this case, we are not our brother's keeper.
We also can't expect to hold back progress, or refuse to comply with our own standards (even if they are seemingly arbitrary), because of things we cannot control (i.e. the past, other people's writings).
That's a lack of resolve, a culture of making excuses to justify inaction when action is called for, which is unforgiveable.
Regards, Christopher D. Thieme _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
It is in violation of [[WP:NAME]]
Firefoxman
On 1/14/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
en: Firefoxman wrote:
I agree. I can't see why anyone would be opposed to the move. I have yet
to
see a good argument against moving.
I can't see why anyone would support such a move. I have yet to see a good argument for moving it.
-Rich
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On 14/01/07, en: Firefoxman enwpmail@gmail.com wrote:
It is in violation of [[WP:NAME]]
...something we ourselves invented and applied.
We're writing an encyclopedia here. We're working for the convenience of our readers and editors. We're not attempting to work on a giant self-consistent logical proof; we're not writing a legal system or playing a game of nomic. If a "rule" for articles conflicts with the sensible thing to do for the encyclopedia, we ignore the rule.
I am amazed people fall over themselves to comply with constraints that simply don't matter.
Yes, but we at least should change the code so that it displays Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia with out the words "Main Page" in the title!
On 1/14/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 14/01/07, en: Firefoxman enwpmail@gmail.com wrote:
It is in violation of [[WP:NAME]]
...something we ourselves invented and applied.
We're writing an encyclopedia here. We're working for the convenience of our readers and editors. We're not attempting to work on a giant self-consistent logical proof; we're not writing a legal system or playing a game of nomic. If a "rule" for articles conflicts with the sensible thing to do for the encyclopedia, we ignore the rule.
I am amazed people fall over themselves to comply with constraints that simply don't matter.
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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On 1/14/07, en: Firefoxman enwpmail@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but we at least should change the code so that it displays Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia with out the words "Main Page" in the title!
I don't see why that's a problem. It is the 'Main Page', not the entire encyclopedia, after all.
-Matt
It just looks better in the search engine.
On 1/14/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/14/07, en: Firefoxman enwpmail@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, but we at least should change the code so that it displays
Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia with out the words "Main Page" in the title!
I don't see why that's a problem. It is the 'Main Page', not the entire encyclopedia, after all.
-Matt
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It seems to me that if the Main Page could be simultaneously located at [[Main Page]], [[Main page]], [[Wikipedia:Main Page]] and [[Portal:Main Page]], everyone would be happy.
Now if only we had some kind of 'redirect' system to make these all show the same page, and a bit of code to hide the title so the difference was invisible to the reader, we could do this.
Oh, wait, we can. And we already do.
-Gurch
I am amazed people fall over themselves to comply with constraints that simply don't matter.
Because if constraints don't apply to everyone, it's possible to make a constraint, pawn off the inconvenience from the constraint on someone else, and not care about the inconvenience yourself because you've exempted yourself from it.
On 15/01/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
I am amazed people fall over themselves to comply with constraints that simply don't matter.
Because if constraints don't apply to everyone, it's possible to make a constraint, pawn off the inconvenience from the constraint on someone else, and not care about the inconvenience yourself because you've exempted yourself from it.
The rules are NPOV, NOR and V. Everything else is commentary.
- d.
On 1/15/07, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
I am amazed people fall over themselves to comply with constraints that simply don't matter.
Because if constraints don't apply to everyone, it's possible to make a constraint, pawn off the inconvenience from the constraint on someone else, and not care about the inconvenience yourself because you've exempted yourself from it.
For this argument to work, there would have to be a tangible way that the main page is hurting the namespace policy. Is it? Are people putting wikiproject pages willy nilly in the mainspace? Are people rampantly putting userpages and userboxes where they don't belong and then claiming "well, the main page does it, so why can't I???"
Is there any reason what so ever to move the main page, except "policy for policys sake"? Because that argument doesn't fly with us.
--Oskar
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
Is there any reason what so ever to move the main page, except "policy for policys sake"? Because that argument doesn't fly with us.
No, but it often should. Really, what should be done is make an exception to our namespace policy/guideline for things like this.
-Jeff
Occam's Razor, Llama. For all we know Oskar could have multiple personalities. That could easily explain his use of the word 'we' in this context.
Mgm ;)
On 1/16/07, PeruvianLlama peruvianllama@gmail.com wrote:
Oskar Sigvardsson wrote:
<snip>
Is there any reason what so ever to move the main page, except "policy for policys sake"? Because that argument doesn't fly with us.
Aha! So you admit it, there is an "us"! Anti-Main-Page-Moving Cabal! Cabaaaaaal!!
*ducks*
- PeruvianLlama
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On 1/16/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
Occam's Razor, Llama. For all we know Oskar could have multiple personalities. That could easily explain his use of the word 'we' in this context.
Mgm ;)
Yes! Yes! This is nice Oskar speaking! I'm trapped by evil Oskar, and he wont let me out! He tortures kittens and votes for the social democrats.... QUIET YOU! ... no, he's becoming more powerful.....QUIET!.... ahhhh!!!.....
There. Now I've quieted down that pesky "nice" Oskar... I can't stand the little wimp, but at least he agrees with me that we shouldn't move the damn main page!
--Oskar
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 14/01/07, en: Firefoxman enwpmail@gmail.com wrote:
It is in violation of [[WP:NAME]]
...something we ourselves invented and applied.
We're writing an encyclopedia here. We're working for the convenience of our readers and editors. We're not attempting to work on a giant self-consistent logical proof; we're not writing a legal system or playing a game of nomic. If a "rule" for articles conflicts with the sensible thing to do for the encyclopedia, we ignore the rule.
I am amazed people fall over themselves to comply with constraints that simply don't matter.
In a well ordered universe aesthetic sensitivities will occasionally be offended by irregular procedures. Sounds like an exciting game of [[Whac-A-Mole]].
Ec
On 15/01/07, en: Firefoxman enwpmail@gmail.com wrote:
It is in violation of [[WP:NAME]]
Firefoxman
Which specific part of [[WP:NAME]] is it in violation of? Could you please point us to it?
Even if there is such a provision in the naming conventions, the Main Page is much too important for any such prior decision (by a handful of people to institute such a convention) to stick without first consulting a much broader cross-section of the project.
The Main Page has been at its current title since January 2002. Before that it was called "HomePage", and was also in the main namespace, as were all user pages (and all talk pages, as subpages). There were no namespaces.
What is the rationale for shifting the Main Page out of the main namespace? Is there something else called "Main Page" that deserves an article that is currently missing out? Is there a technical inability to produce main-namespace-only article dumps that do not include the Main Page? Or is it just the same old pedantry?
I look eagerly forward to your response.
~Mark Ryan
Mark Ryan wrote:
Which specific part of [[WP:NAME]] is it in violation of? Could you please point us to it?
<snip>
Is there something else called "Main Page" that deserves an article that is currently missing out? Is there a technical inability to produce main-namespace-only article dumps that do not include the Main Page? Or is it just the same old pedantry?
Good questions, and I support the label of "pedantry" if the only reason to be had for moving the Main Page is that it "violates" any suffix of WP:. But what are we to do if something does come along that deserves an article called "Main Page"? Civilization at large may somehow struggle through, but if most of the concerns so far raised about it being too much of a hassle to move are in fact legit, then isn't this just going to get worse for Wikipedia? What I mean to say is that if moving the Main Page right now will be a pain because of server strain and internal/external link updating, then does it not follow that this will be even more of a pain once we have another year's worth of edit histories, and another year's worth of internal/external links floating around? And by extension, it will be all the more worse with five years' worth, and ten years' worth, etc.
I guess that ultimately, we can just cross that bridge when we come to it. This is the reason for consistency however; not just for its own sake, but because by sacrificing present consistency even in small and seemingly harmless amounts, we open ourselves to the possibility of a bigger headache somewhere down the road.
Cheers, - PeruvianLlama
On 15/01/07, PeruvianLlama peruvianllama@gmail.com wrote: (snip)
What I mean to say is that if moving the Main Page right now will be a pain because of server strain and internal/external link updating, then does it not follow that this will be even more of a pain once we have another year's worth of edit histories, and another year's worth of internal/external links floating around? And by extension, it will be all the more worse with five years' worth, and ten years' worth, etc.
(snip)
I see your point; if we're going to have to change its name, it's probably better to do it sooner rather than later.
I personally don't subscribe to the "OMG think of all the broken links" line of thinking. We wouldn't be silly enough to shift the Main Page and leave it a red link.
I think the best thing to do would be to make a non-wiki-page portal for our front page, like we have for www.wikipedia.org. It would be editable from a MediaWiki page somewhere, but would be full HTML coding, so we could get rid of the Monobook skin for the front page, and put all our effort into making the front page the sort of page people would set as their home page.
~Mark Ryan
On 16/01/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
I see your point; if we're going to have to change its name, it's probably better to do it sooner rather than later.
I personally don't subscribe to the "OMG think of all the broken links" line of thinking. We wouldn't be silly enough to shift the Main Page and leave it a red link.
Sure, there'd be a redirect. Links won't break. The problem is that many of the objections implicitly assume that, at some point after this move, we'll replace the redirect, so that .../wiki/Main_Page will no longer take you to .../wiki/Portal:Portal (or whatever), it will now take you to .../wiki/Some_Movie
And at *that* point all our inbound links break.
I'm sympathetic to the hypothetical "and if we have a film by this name?", and I don't see a workable solution for it*, but even if we move the article to a different internal name I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of that URL ever pointing anywhere but the front page. And if I'm working from that point, I figure, why move the article at all? The "free up namespace" argument is moot, and the naming conventions one is just silly...
* Though for a book, I'd contend it really ought to be at [[Main page]]. Which prompts me to wonder if we have any standard capping convention for book titles, and if not why not... beyond the fact that the standard formal convention "looks silly".
I think the best thing to do would be to make a non-wiki-page portal for our front page, like we have for www.wikipedia.org. It would be editable from a MediaWiki page somewhere, but would be full HTML coding, so we could get rid of the Monobook skin for the front page, and put all our effort into making the front page the sort of page people would set as their home page.
A not entirely crazy proposal :-) But does the benefit of a unified look and feel outweigh its advantages?
PeruvianLlama wrote:
Good questions, and I support the label of "pedantry" if the only reason to be had for moving the Main Page is that it "violates" any suffix of WP:. But what are we to do if something does come along that deserves an article called "Main Page"?
So we move it to, what, "Wikipedia:Main Page"? "Portal:Main Page"? But what shall we do when something comes along that deserves _that_ title?
See also: [[Category:Articles whose titles conflict with an existing namespace]].
On 1/17/07, Ilmari Karonen nospam@vyznev.net wrote:
So we move it to, what, "Wikipedia:Main Page"? "Portal:Main Page"? But what shall we do when something comes along that deserves _that_ title?
See also: [[Category:Articles whose titles conflict with an existing namespace]].
Duh. Rename all namespaces.
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
On 1/17/07, Ilmari Karonen nospam@vyznev.net wrote:
So we move it to, what, "Wikipedia:Main Page"? "Portal:Main Page"? But what shall we do when something comes along that deserves _that_ title?
See also: [[Category:Articles whose titles conflict with an existing namespace]].
Duh. Rename all namespaces.
Certainly, but it rather begs the question: to _what_?
Of course, we don't really need to rename _all_ namespaces. All we need to do is rename {{ns 0}} and all these problems will be solved for good. :-)
Ilmari Karonen wrote:
So we move it to, what, "Wikipedia:Main Page"? "Portal:Main Page"? But what shall we do when something comes along that deserves _that_ title?
Once it's out of the article namespace, nothing can come along that is more deserving of the title "<prefix>:Main Page" than the Main Page itself. I really don't think we're in any danger, if having moved the Main Page into a project space, of things spiraling out of control and the Main Page forever being moved from namespace to namespace for years to come.
Things pop up in the "real world" that need new articles with new titles. Nothing pops up in the project spaces except what the community wants there, so something will have precedence over "<prefix>:Main Page" if and only if the community really wants it to have precedence.
Cheers, - PeruvianLlama
PeruvianLlama wrote:
Things pop up in the "real world" that need new articles with new titles. Nothing pops up in the project spaces except what the community wants there, so something will have precedence over "<prefix>:Main Page" if and only if the community really wants it to have precedence.
Really? And what happens when D***** B***** publishes his best-selling book titled "Wikipedia: The True Story"?
Or perhaps he'll be a bit more creative, and calls it, say, "Wikipedia: Reliable sources". Or maybe "Wikipedia: Ignore all rules". :-)
Naming a book "Wikipedia: Main Page" might be a bit of a stretch, but I guess if the publisher thinks it'll sell...
On 1/15/07, Mark Ryan ultrablue@gmail.com wrote:
What is the rationale for shifting the Main Page out of the main namespace? Is there something else called "Main Page" that deserves an article that is currently missing out? Is there a technical inability to produce main-namespace-only article dumps that do not include the Main Page? Or is it just the same old pedantry?
I look eagerly forward to your response.
I eagerly await acceptance from those in the "don't move it" camp that it is in fact in the wrong namespace. Certainly, it's causing very little harm there. And moving it might cause more harm. But the only reason it is where it is is entirely historical.
Does [[Main Page]] violate policy? Probably not. Policies have more important things to do with their time. It might step on some guidelines' toes: "Remember, articles are part of an encyclopedia, not part of the Wikipedia project being used to create them." (WP:SELF) Amusingly enough, [[WP:SELF]] actually refers to the specific problem caused by Main Page being a navigational page, not an article:
In cases where a Wikipedia page should be mentioned on Wikipedia itself (for instance, at [[Wikipedia]]), and this link should be kept on mirrors, the format {{[[{{ns:Template}}:srlink|srlink]]|link}} can be used to write the link as external rather than internal, to prevent it breaking in mirrors. For instance: {{srlink|Main Page}} as opposed to [[Main Page]].
Steve
Steve Bennett wrote:
I eagerly await acceptance from those in the "don't move it" camp that it is in fact in the wrong namespace. Certainly, it's causing very little harm there. And moving it might cause more harm. But the only reason it is where it is is entirely historical.
If it solves this issue, I'm quite willing to write and commit a patch to MediaWiki that puts "Main Page" in a special little namespace of its own, all by itself. Need to clear it with Brion first, I suppose, but it does sound like a neat and simple solution to this problem. :-)
Seriously, namespaces are, except for some minor technical details and a few truly special cases like "Image:" and "Category:", merely arbitrary technical divisions of the flat, unstructured space of all possible page titles. Sure, it's convenient to have all non-article pages at titles that begin with something odd like "Wikipedia:", since that makes it less likely that they'll collide with the titles of actual articles. Note, however, that I wrote "less likely", not "impossible", as the category I mentioned elsewhere in this thread shows. And do also note that all those convenient little redirect pages we've been putting up at titles like "WP:WHATEVER" are equally conveniently out of the way, even though they're not technically in a separate namespace at all. If we did, in fact, some day decide to make "WP:" a real namespace, the only major thing that would change would be the names of the talk pages of those titles.
Anyway, my point is that, just like it's reasonably unlikely that we'll get too many articles about things whose name starts with "Wikipedia:" or "Template:", it's also reasonably unlikely that we'll end up with an article that ought to be titled "Main Page". Both are possible, of course, but we really shouldn't be bending over backwards trying to accommodate all the possible ways in which such a thing might happen before it has in fact actually happened.