Talk:Main Page

Main Page error reports

To report an error in content currently or imminently on the Main Page, use the appropriate section below.

• Where is the error? An exact quotation of the text in question helps.
• Offer a correction if possible.
• References are helpful, especially when reporting an obscure factual or grammatical error.
• Time zones. The Main Page runs on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC, currently 14:33 on 28 April 2024) and is not adjusted to your local time zone.
• Can you resolve the problem yourself? If the error lies primarily in the content of an article linked from the Main Page, fix the problem there before reporting it here. Text on the Main Page generally defers to the articles with bolded links. Upcoming content on the Main Page is usually only protected from editing beginning 24 hours before its scheduled appearance. Before that period, you can be bold and fix any issues yourself.
• Do not use {{edit fully-protected}} on this page, which will not get a faster response. It is unnecessary, because this page is not protected, and causes display problems. (See the bottom of this revision for an example.)
• No chit-chat. Lengthy discussions should be moved to a suitable location elsewhere, such as the talk page of the relevant article or project.
• Respect other editors. Another user wrote the text you want changed, or reported an issue they see in something you wrote. Everyone's goal should be producing the best Main Page possible. The compressed time frame of the Main Page means sometimes action must be taken before there has been time for everyone to comment. Be civil to fellow users.
• Reports are removed when resolved. Once an error has been addressed, determined not to be an error, or the item has rotated off the Main Page, the report will be removed from this page. Check the revision history for a record of any discussion or action taken; no archives are kept.

Administrators: Clear all reports

Errors in the summary of the featured article

Please do not remove this invisible timestamp. See WT:ERRORS and WP:SUBSCRIBE. - Dank (push to talk) 01:24, 29 September 2022 (UTC)

Errors with "In the news"

As mentioned at ITN, the blurb about Ariel Henry contains errors. It should read "Ariel Henry resigns as acting prime minister of Haiti, replaced by Michel Patrick Boisvert. A Transitional Presidential Council was sworn in on 25 April 2024." Any mention of "acting president" is not supported by the vast majority of sources (most speak of a de facto leader... NYT - - among others --explicitly states that Haiti has no president since Jovenel Moïse's assassination). The TPC is also not an acting prime minister (or government) as the blurb misleadingly suggests. Thanks for your attention to these errors. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 21:51, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Errors in "Did you know ..."

Next DYK

Not exactly an error, but in the first hook, using "quiet" to describe a music scene is a bit...you know. I suggest "sparse" or "spare". (I almost said "minor".) Primergrey (talk) 20:19, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Can we please get input from ezlev (nominator), Makeandtoss (reviewer), PrimalMustelid (promoter to prep), and Ganesha811 (promoter to queue)? Schwede66 10:24, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I think "quiet" works equally as well as "sparse" or "spare", but don't mind a change if there's consensus for it. —Ganesha811 (talk) 11:40, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Low-key? -- Sca (talk) 12:12, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

meh, all three of the proposed alternatives are less clear, and it's not like there was an error of style here in the first place. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 22:22, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Less clear only if the music scene has, in fact, less volume than others. A bit like saying there were concrete decisions made on a building project. Primergrey (talk) 07:08, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

there's nothing even approaching ambiguity in the hook – any intelligent reader would know that music scenes are almost never described as literally being quiet or loud because they aren't music. if you want to read it as a pun, go ahead, but there's no rule in the MOS that says that DYK hooks need to have dull writing. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 07:46, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(May 3)

Monday's FL

(April 29, tomorrow)

Errors in the summary of the featured picture

Notice to administrators: When fixing POTD errors, please update the corresponding regular version (i.e. without "protected" in the page title) in addition to the Main Page version linked below.

General discussion

Main Page January 2020 technical update

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T32405

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T138622

Hello, a technical design update incorporating responsive elements and template styles is proposed to be brought online for the Main Page. This may be previewed here: Wikipedia:Main page 2020.01 technical update, this incorporates styling found here: Wikipedia:Main page 2020.01 technical update/styles.css. The goal of this is to improve technical components, and allow for removing of hard coded back-end configurations for the mobile web view of the main page. Specifically, this update is not focusing on changing the actual content, or layout of content on the main page, or the mobile view. This update is also not changing any of the current editorial processes for adding or updating main page content. To see the diff of the technical code change, Special:Diff/938165663 has the low-level details. If enacted, a future discussion could be held to determine if any content updates would be useful for the mobile view. What is the next step? Testing and feedback! Please review the proposed page and test it with any method you would like, if you find bugs please let us know. As this is designed to be a technical change only, if your feedback is about content or content styling (such as what featured content should be on the page, or where it is on the page, or if you want some styling changed such as new color schemes), please start a separate discussion. Thank you! — xaosflux ^Talk 14:46, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Pings to some contributors that were involved in this or similar efforts recently: @Izno, Jdlrobson, Yair rand, and MSGJ:. — xaosflux ^Talk 14:49, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Xaosflux, looks okay to me (desktop, vector theme). I'm not seeing the "In other projects" section on the left side on your version, but I'm assuming that's because your test page doesn't exist on those projects and isn't a technical issue. ^creffpublic _{a creffett franchise} (talk to the boss) 14:59, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Creffett: Yes, no part of the change should impact anything in left sidebar, or special css that does things like hide the delete and move tab from admins at the top - this should only impact things in the main layout area. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:04, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Good work, well done. Bazza (talk) 15:05, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Looks fine to me, I couldn't spot any issues or desktop or mobile. Modest Genius ^talk 16:27, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

• A very minor point, but the new look is not completely identical to the old. The main page mobile view looks different when viewed in Google Chrome on a desktop with wide screen - compare the live version with the test version. Obviously this is not the primary way that mobile view is supposed to be used, it's really for a narrow screen, but noting it here anyway. Instead of a vertical layout, it's tiling horizontally, and including coloured boxes around the section headers - again, in wider screen view only.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Amakuru: try changing your screen width in those views, it should adjust if you are in a smaller viewport. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:46, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: yes, indeed it does change on a smaller viewport, and as long as you're aware of this then I'm sure it's no actually an issue. It's only that you said above that "layout of content on the main page" and the mobile view would not be changed yet this is a change, albeit a minor one that nobody will notice under normal usage scenarios - unless they're someone who loves reading the mobile view in a browser!  — Amakuru (talk) 17:26, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

@Amakuru: thank you for the note, I didn't mean to be misleading - forgot to explain that part (side by side vs stacked) at certain viewport sizes in mobile view - that is on purpose and may match what you see with a tablet on the current version. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:33, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

• Also, while we're on this topic, and if people are tinkering with the layout in this way, is there any chance we could add DYK, OTD, POTD and TFL to the mobile layout? I recall from a past conversation that those were removed some years ago without any explicit community consensus to do so. I personally find it very annoying and wrong that those sections, which editors are putting time and effort into each day, are not visible to a sizeable portion of our viewers. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 16:41, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Amakuru: we are at a bit of a technical stick right now, as far as adding sections in - once this change, and the associated phab work, gets done - the community will have local control over what sections will be show in mobile - I think that is a good discussion to have, but should be broken out from this one. — xaosflux ^Talk 16:46, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Xaosflux: thanks for the response, that makes sense.  —  Amakuru (talk) 17:26, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

This will be **a lot** easier after this change but is out of scope for now! Jdlrobson (talk) 00:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

  New bug  (Portal links at low res.)

• The portal links (Arts, Geography, ...) becomes a vertical list on screen sizes <1000px, and show up under the "Welcome to Wikipeda" banner rather than to its right. This looks very ugly. I'd be in favour of not showing the portal links at all, and centering the "Welcome to Wikipedia" banner, on <1000px screens. Other than this, the redesign looks very neat 👍. SD0001 (talk) 20:06, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

  @SD0001: let me get back to you on that one - needs improvement. — xaosflux ^Talk 20:15, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

  For comparison, my 2018 proposal shows the portal links quite differently on small screens (and also keeps the background coloring for the various sections). --Yair rand (talk) 21:16, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

  I think Yair rand's direction is the way to go for those, or perhaps with hlist (or similar) formatting. We can probably just include the specific rules needed in this case (no sublists gets rid of a lot of those classes in context). --Izno (talk) 21:30, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

  I'll take a look at Yair Rand's version of this today and see what I can do. Jdlrobson (talk) 00:05, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

  I started a change there that works to fix this on Timeless. Unfortunately Vector may need a little more massaging for its min-width since it is not as smart as Timeless. :) --Izno (talk) 00:28, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

• @Xaosflux: Love it, overall. 1: Do the <div>s without any attributes enclosing TFL and TFP have any function? 2: I've proposed accessibility markup in Wikipedia:Main page 2020.01 technical update/Accessibility (diff). Should be no visual changes. Matt Fitzpatrick (talk) 01:37, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks User:Matt Fitzpatrick those seem within the scope of this technical change. Thanks! I've made adjustments per User:SD0001 to mirror Yair rand's version. I urge against making too many more changes to the responsive mode as most users will not be seeing any of the changes here - only users who use Minerva or Timeless as a desktop skin on a mobile device are likely to benefit for the time being - and perfection is the enemy of progress. The more comfortable we get with making incremental changes, the more we can achieve and the quicker we can make progress. I'd love to ship this one and for us to switch focus onto redesigns and revealing further sections on the mobile site - which will be much easier with the new stylesheet! For example enabling "did you know" on mobile should be as easy as removing a single class with the new design in place. Jdlrobson (talk) 03:52, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

• In the web mainpage, the Featured articles heading is "From today's featured article". That is fine, because we have more than enough space there. In the current mobile mainpage, that heading is truncated to "Today's featured article" and so makes the text one-liner fittingly. This proposed change will alter that and serve "From today's featured article", this brought at least two problems, one big one small. The small one is, the "From" is clearly unnecessary in such place where space is scarce. The big one is, it makes the title to extend to two lines now and obviously creates unnecessary large white space to the right while pushing the article snippet down. Note that, even if you click mobile view on Wikipedia:Main page 2020.01 technical update it does not show how it will actually looks on mobile. In the real mobile or with the actual mainpage, above that Featured articles heading there's a welcome note (which has its own space issues too), thus making the headings to become three lines, that's almost one-quarter of some screens just for headings. That would clearly not be an improvement. So I'd advise that the Featured articles heading should be preserved as it's. The way it's on mobile is OK and does not need changing. – Ammarpad (talk) 04:40, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand you User:Ammarpad. Clicking mobile view is how it will display. I have verified this locally and read through the code multiple times. Per heading yes this will change on mobile and could be improved. I would prefer to change the heading on desktop but if that is too controversial I can provide an option which retains the status quo but at added inefficiency/maintenance burden. Jdlrobson (talk) 05:40, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I think I said this clearly. But let me rephrase. On current mobile page, the Featured articles heading occupies single line. It says; "Today's Featured article". This new proposed change will alter that. It will rename that heading to "From today's Featured article" (unifying it with desktop text) and that will make the text to extend to two lines. If you add the welcome note, that means three big headings. But I note you just changed that after your comment. That's what I was saying. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:57, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

If you are referring to the "Welcome, username!" note that's logged in only and is not impacted by this change. Jdlrobson (talk) 05:42, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

I know it's logged in only, but I did not say it will be impacted. I only said Wikipedia:Main page 2020.01 technical update does not show (actual mainpage elements) because it omits the welcome note and that makes a difference worth noting. – Ammarpad (talk) 05:57, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

• Not sure if it slipped in with the recent tweaks, but "Today's Featured Article" should still be titled that, even if dropping the "From", not "Today's Featured Content". — xaosflux ^Talk 12:40, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

  I get it that there is less space on mobile view, but remember that "From" was added so the blurb wouldn't be mistaken for the entire Featured Article. Art LaPella (talk) 15:07, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

 Done but we are fine with that confusion on mobile? :) the new version retains the existing headings by hiding the text "from" on mobile when there is no space which is how the mobile heading has displayed since 2012 albeit it will now say article not content . It would be ideal if a three word heading could be agreed upon that displays the same on mobile and desktop but for now I think this is good enough. Jdlrobson (talk) 01:04, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

The mobile has always said 'article', as far as I can remember. So there's no more problem there. I don't want nitpick here also, @Jdlrobson: but since you're working on desktop minerva I have to say this. The "Today's featured article" is shown correctly on mobile minerva, but on desktop minerva, the "today" part starts with a small case and that apparently does not look good. – Ammarpad (talk) 06:31, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

{{{Done}}} Issue with Minerva desktop fixed. Jdlrobson (talk) 07:54, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

• When resizing the window on desktop view below 1000px the sections lose all their styling and default to h2 headings which look bad. Also, at exactly 1000px the portal text overlaps the logo; @media (min-width: 1000px) {} and @media screen and (max-width: 1000px) and (min-width: 850px) {} are used to apply styles and someone forgot the widths both inclusive.  Nixinova   T   C   05:53, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Per portlet text overlapping logo: {{{Done}}}

Per media queries not sure what you mean. I think these were added specifically for Timeless in screen resolutions between 850px and 1000px. The medias query min-width applies for all resolutions above 1000px. For example at 1200px only the latter applies.

Per heading and section styling this is by design and aimed to mirror the mobile design that has been in place since 2012. On small screens I would argue contrast of background to foreground and touch size area are the most important factors. I think this is very subjective and needs some stronger arguments to why this is a problem compared to the status quo. Please consider the existing behaviour of the Main Page. On Vector at about 836px and below the page is already unusable and readable - portlet spills out the main container and only about 3 words per sentence display in boxes.

If this is really a sticking point for making these technical changes we could limit all these new changes to Minerva and Timeless skins for the first pass by adding body.skin-minerva and body.skin-timeless to all the CSS rules. As a MobileFrontend maintainer I plan to be much more ruthless with deprecating the existing mobile main page behaviour - which has been deprecated for several years now - so paying off this technical debt should be priority and trump any considerations around preferred layout on smaller resolution. Jdlrobson (talk) 07:54, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

I think I've fixed some of the issues. I'm bothered the whole main page does not display in Timeless at mobile resolutions but I'll tolerate it for now because I would rather us get this deployed. Then we can fuss about what displays on the main page on mobile or on responsive skins. --Izno (talk) 21:11, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Since this likely going to lead to an RfC to add all sections to mobile, I created Wikipedia:Main page 2020.01 technical update (nomobile removed) mobile version. I see some issues in the "Wikipedia's sister projects" section. The mobile view on my laptop screen appears to force two columns when three columns are better. On minimizing my screen, I see the sister projects are forced into 1 column when two columns is better. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 17:19, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

@Coffeeandcrumbs: certainly worth talking about - and one we have editorial control of that layout again that is a very worthwhile discussion that should have a well advertised RfC. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:53, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Xaosflux, I think a look at Template:Wikipedia's sister projects/styles.css is needed to address the issue I mentioned above. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 18:18, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

• Most of the concerns have been addressed, we are looking in to the off-wiki configs to ensure that the legacy mobile and main page special casing don't break anything, or if they would need to be coordinated with any update. If there are specific items that anyone still sees would make the tech update be worse then the existing configuration, please summarize below here. — xaosflux ^Talk 17:53, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

  Xaosflux, check out https://en.m.wikipedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Main_Page (below the gray box). I haven't copied across the sub-templates but that shouldn't matter - the containing elements are what it's important. Toggle to mobile view and you'll only see the two boxes that currently display. You can go ahead with the technical update when you are ready. No config changes necessary at this time. Jdlrobson (talk) 04:51, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Just to add that the changes all look good to me, and I really appreciate the clear class naming. Removing the special casing of mobile is long overdue (phab:T32405 has been open since 2011!), thank you for the hard work on making it happen here. Hopefully this can be a jumping off point for future improvements to the main page. the wub "?!" 20:15, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

• Note: an attempt to move this live failed and has been reverted. A technical review will be scheduled. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:38, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

  Follow up at Wikipedia talk:Main page 2020.01 technical update. — xaosflux ^Talk 00:42, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

  Will try again tomorrow, preview version available here: Special:PermaLink/939044305, now that the CSS issue is fixed. — xaosflux ^Talk 03:19, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion about a new selection method for featured articles

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article#the calais entry... um.... about whether future featured articles should be randomized on the Main Page which needs input by Main Page people. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:48, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

Is there good reason for cascade protecting Wikipedia:Main Page/Yesterday?

I am not sure why Wikipedia:Main Page/Yesterday is cascade protected. It seems excessive. It would be nice to edit OTD entries before we forget about them. --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 23:27, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

This seems like at @Howcheng: question. --Jayron32 16:58, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

I dunno, it's been like that for as long as I can remember. —howcheng {chat} 17:00, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

It is rather frustrating. Sometimes an error is noticed and raised at ERRORS, but the item rolls off before an admin shows up to fix it. Non-admins then have to wait another 24 hours before they can fix the item, yet admins won't deal with it because it's no longer on the MP. It would be good if there's a way to close that loophole without compromising protection of the live MP. Modest Genius ^talk 17:29, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm reducing it to EPP (via IAR) and removing cascade - I don't see any direct threats to the actual main page here. Let this bake in for a week, then we can try to reduce EPP to SPP next. — xaosflux ^Talk 18:04, 4 February 2020 (UTC)