[WikiEN-l] Moving the Main Page

[Steve Bennett]

On 1/15/07, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at 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]]&#124;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