Jump to content

Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
< Wikipedia:Main Page

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Dying (talk | contribs) at 20:32, 25 August 2023 (→Errors with "In the news": add comment). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Shortcuts

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 19:28 on 18 October 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 because this is not a talk page. (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 or determined not to be an error, or the item has been 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)[reply]

Today's FA

Tomorrow's FA

Day-after-tomorrow's FA

Errors with "In the news"

  • "Thailand's parliament elects Srettha Thavisin as Prime Minister following general elections in May."
    Per WP:JOBTITLES and virtually every academic and journalistic style guide out there, "prime minister" should not be capitalized. Surtsicna (talk) 13:20, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Capitalization seems to meet this case:

    When a formal title for a specific entity (or conventional translation thereof) is addressed as a title or position in and of itself, is not plural, is not preceded by a modifier (including a definite or indefinite article), and is not a reworded description

    —Bagumba (talk) 13:23, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It does not. "Prime Minister" is not a formal title. Please see the very first sentence of the guideline, which explicitly says that "prime minister" alone should be lower case, as well as the examples given in the table. Surtsicna (talk) 15:58, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 16:27, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
that's not what the first sentence of the guideline says, though. it says that it "should be in lower case when used generically", so the question is whether or not the phrase is being used generically in this case. (i am admittedly unsure which examples in the table are being referred to.) my assumption is that the phrase is being used specifically in this case because the link specifically targets the "Prime Minister of Thailand" article rather than the generic "prime minister" article.
alternatively, another solution is to simply bypass this question by adding "the" to the link text so that the blurb reads "the prime minister" instead, which presumably would satisy the mos:jobtitles concerns of most editors, follows itn's practice of including "the" in the link text when targeting a specific article rather than a generic one, and conforms with Ravenpuff's rule of thumb by not using capitalization after "the". also, other modifiers could be used instead, such as "their" or "the 30th". dying (talk) 19:59, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I don't know why this was changed again after we discussed it at length yesterday. It should be restored to "Prime Minister", which is the title of this person's job.  — Amakuru (talk) 20:05, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because WP:JOBTITLES explicitly says that the title of a person's job should not be capitalized. "Offices, titles, and positions such as ... prime minister ... are common nouns and therefore should be in lower case when used generically." It then goes on to list the three conditions for capitalization, which are not met here. If that is too complex, we can just take a cue from virtually every academic style guide and media outlet reporting this. Surtsicna (talk) 20:46, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, I don't know why this was changed again after we discussed it at length yesterday: The blurb had since been tweaked from "Prime Minister of Thailand" to just "Prime Minister"[1]. So is the contention whether to only capitalize "Prime Minister of Thailand", a formal title, but not "Prime Minister", arguably not the full title, thus a generic reference? —Bagumba (talk) 01:43, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the change to a generic job title is why I actioned the request. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 02:51, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
wait, i'm confused. what makes "Prime Minister of Thailand" a formal title, and "Prime Minister" not? if i had to draw a line between formal and informal titles for this position, i would have considered "Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand" to be the formal title, and the others not. also, what is the formal title (or are the formal titles) of yoon suk yeol? "President of the Republic of Korea"? "President of Korea"? "President of South Korea"?
to be clear, these are sincere questions. my personal preference would be to have everything uncapitalized (obviously), but we all know that is not happening, so i am just trying to understand how most editors interpret mos:jobtitles. after being confused about this guideline for years, i thought i had finally understood it until this recent conversation made me realize that different editors appear to have different ideas regarding what constitutes a formal title. previously, i had thought that the term "formal title" was used to distinguish titles such as "Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" from titles such as "team co-captain", which is explicitly given as an example of an informal title in mos:jobtitles. dying (talk) 06:44, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:JOBTITLES is as confusing as it is because it is a compromise solution; a compromise between those who cite other style guides and those who like capital letters. It obviously does not work. Wikipedia needs to decide whether it wants to look up to academic publications or government press releases. Surtsicna (talk) 13:15, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For better or worse, it's a house style guide. The decision on which parts would be similar or not have been made. Don't see much benefit in reinventing the wheel yet again. But defintitely tweak where unclear. —Bagumba (talk) 13:43, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
i'm not seeking to reinvent the wheel, but since it appears that a number of editors i look up to disagree on what constitutes a formal title, i am wondering if this part of the wheel's specification has been discussed before in unambiguous terms, or perhaps something needs to be tweaked because it is unclear. i'll admit that i ignored most of the discussions when the wheel was being invented because i didn't understand them at all at the time, and wouldn't have been able to contribute anyway.
if something needs to be tweaked, i assume this conversation should take place at wt:mosbio. i searched the last few years of its archives, and was unable to find anything explicitly discussing what constitutes a formal title. dying (talk) 20:32, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose change. The current blurb respects the uncertainty about this incident and is not erroneous. As Prigozhin's presence has not been confirmed, we should continue to be careful about this. The suggestion that Putin is a reliable source is ludicrous. Andrew🐉(talk) 22:05, 24 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    • The blurb should agree with the article, which currently says that Prigozhin was "confirmed" by the Russian state to be on the plane. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 01:15, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, neither the Russian state nor Wikipedia are reliable sources either. The article in question is flagged as a contentious topic and protection has already had to be ramped up to ECP level. This indicates that there's a significant level of disruption and dispute about its content and therefore it is not appropriate to be highlighting it on the main page. Per WP:RSBREAKING and WP:NOTNEWS, Wikipedia is not a newspaper and so we should wait for the dust to settle and the verdict of history rather than rushing to headline speculation and best-guesses. Andrew🐉(talk) 08:00, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        @Andrew Davidson: I don't really have a horse either way for lack of investigation, if someone wants to edit the article to match that's fine with me. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 08:07, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
        Looking at the article, the sentence that stands out is "In 2019, Prigozhin was erroneously reported as having been killed in the crash of an An-72 transport plane in the Democratic Republic of the Congo before reappearing three days later."
        There's also an orange cleanup tag which is usually a no-no for ITN topics.
        Andrew🐉(talk) 08:48, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Errors in "Did you know ..."

Current DYK

Theo Baker is orange tagged & currently at AFD, I'm aware hooks can't be deleted while on the mainpage but not sure if the orange tag was driveby or not. Therapyisgood (talk) 01:00, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The AfD precedes the article's appearance on the Main Page by a few hours, and appears to have a reasonably valid point. I'll pull the article off DYK and reopen the nomination, it can be rerun if it survives AfD. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 01:09, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Theleekycauldron Is it possible to restore the hook since the AfD nomination was reversed due to sock puppetry reasons? Cielquiparle (talk) 09:43, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Theleekycauldron @Cielquiparle  Done BorgQueen (talk) 10:11, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
thanks for covering me while I was out! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 18:41, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"that Lorenzo White was the first player to rush for 2,000 yards in a season without winning the Heisman Trophy?": I think we need to add "college football", for once because otherwise a lot of people who are not from North America will simply not know which sport we are talking about here, and additionally because otherwise that sentence is simply incorrect: There is at least one football player who has never won a Heisman Trophy but has rushed for 2,000 yards before White did it: Eric Dickerson rushed for 2,000 yards in the NFL in 1984, while White 2,000-yard rushing season happened in 1985 in college football. So, I would suggest "that Lorenzo White was the first college football player to rush for 2,000 yards in a season without winning the Heisman Trophy?"Spike (talk) 11:09, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed --Jayron32 11:51, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Next DYK

Next-but-one DYK

Errors in "On this day"

Today's OTD

Tomorrow's OTD

Day-after-tomorrow's OTD

Friday's FL

(October 18, today)

Monday's FL

(October 21)
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.

Today's POTD

Tomorrow's POTD

  • 26 August Pobiti Kamani - "There are a number of theories regarding its origin, with two broad hypotheses. According to the former, the formations are the result of coral activity, while the latter explains..."
There is no "former" or "latter" to refer to in the blurb. (Though there is in the article lede: "an organic or abiotic origin".)
Suggest change "According to the former," to 'According to one,' and change "while the latter" to 'while the other'? JennyOz (talk) 06:26, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Fixed. --Jayron32 11:49, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Any other Main Page errors

Please report any such problems or suggestions for improvement at the General discussion section of Talk:Main Page.

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Main_Page/Errors&oldid=1172236358"