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 20:44 on 30 November 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 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)

Today's FA

he ran to return to parliament. American English. Per MOS:TIES should be BrEng he stood to return to parliament Spicemix (talk) 09:42, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Quite right. Gog the Mild (talk) 09:45, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

 Done. Black Kite (talk) 11:19, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Friday's FA

The text begins with "The École Polytechnique massacre". If you mouse over that link without clicking, either here or in the article, it says "French-language text". That is wrong. Mousing over normally tells you what article you will get if you click. But clicking the link doesn't give you an article about French-language text, nor does it give you an article written in French.

In edit mode, you'll see this is caused by template:lang, which is used 3 times. According to template:lang#Links, the lang template isn't even working when it's inside a wikilink like that, so you wouldn't lose anything by removing the lang links. The fix suggested at Template:Lang#Links doesn't seem to apply because the examples are entire links in another language, but here the word "massacre" is English. So unless someone has a better idea, I could just remove the lang templates that aren't working anyway. Art LaPella (talk) 07:03, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Or yuo could not. @Art LaPella:, please do not change featured content unilaterally. Paging relevant parties: @FAC coordinators: and @TFA coordinators . SerialNumber54129 10:00, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Just so everyone knows, I have often made minor unilateral changes to featured articles and blurbs without objection. Even when I ask for attention, I don't always get it. In this case I asked, and I'm happy to leave this issue for others. Art LaPella (talk) 18:40, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

• I've changed from '''[[École Polytechnique massacre|{{Lang|fr|École Polytechnique|italic=no}} massacre]]''' to '''{{Lang|fr|[[École Polytechnique massacre]]|italic=no}}''' (thus École Polytechnique massacre to École Polynique massacre) which gets rid of the problem. This is possibly temporarily unless someone finds a better way; as "massacre" is a cognate from the French this isn't problematic, per se. - SchroCat (talk) 10:25, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

  This is a browser problem, not a content one, and that change has introduced an error. "massacre" should not be treated as a French word because, in this instance, it's English. The target article's lead has '''{{Lang|fr|École Polytechnique|italic=no}} massacre''' which, being syntactically and grammatically correct, should be used here: École Polytechnique massacre. Bazza 7 (talk) 10:52, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

  Read the opening comment and come up with something that doesn't cause the problems that began the thread. - SchroCat (talk) 11:14, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

  @SchroCat: I did read the comment, and have pointed out already that this is a problem with the reader's browser, not the content. The content generates

  <a href="/wiki/%C3%89cole_Polytechnique_massacre" title="École Polytechnique massacre"><span title="French-language text"><span lang="fr" style="font-style: normal;">École Polytechnique</span></span> massacre</a>

  The browser uses any inner-most "title" attribute to generate a tooltip; so for hovering over École Polytechnique that will be French-language text, and for hovering over massacre it will be École Polytechnique massacre.

  The tooltip functionality is not a part of the code generated. We must not be led into generating inaccurate content purely to overcome the behaviour of certain browsers.

  The simplest solution to satisfy this non-error is to remove the language tag from around the establishment's shortened name which was also its shortened name in Canadian English at the time of the event; so: '''[[École Polytechnique massacre]]''' giving École Polytechnique massacre. Bazza 7 (talk) 14:17, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Art LaPella, that is Friday's (6 Dec) TFA not Wednesday's? JennyOz (talk) 13:21, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes which is the correct date. Secretlondon (talk) 13:31, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Friday 6 December. - SchroCat (talk) 14:16, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Bazza_7 is correct about this being a browser issue. What should probably be done is to modify the template concerned so that it is possible to supress the title attribute, by writing, say, ''[[École Polytechnique massacre|{{Lang|fr|École Polytechnique|italic=no|title=no}} massacre]]''; or possibly better still by simply removing the title attribute completely. I have raised this on the template's talk page; see Template talk:Lang#Issue with use in links. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:27, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Also noting that this is not an issue for users of the WP:Navigation popups tool, so the fix might be better done in whatever (Wikipedia) tool is failing to show the article preview popup. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:33, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Errors in the summary of the featured list

Friday's FL

(December 6)

Monday's FL

(December 2)

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

Accessibility: We could so do much better

Of the five images currently in the home page only one has anything like suitable alt text.

The current alt texts are:

File:Bird notes and news (1912) (14562015579).jpg

Lord Curzon, winner of the election

File:2014 Rallye Deutschland by 2eight 8SC0443.jpg

Thierry Neuville in 2014

File:Presidente Nayib Bukele (cropped).jpg

Nayib Bukele

File:Shropshire Scotsman.jpg

The Flying Scotsman

File:Sir Winston Churchill - 19086236948.jpg

Black-and-white image of Winston Churchill standing with his left hand on his hip and his right hand resting on the back of a chair

Three of the first four simply repeat the image caption, which is redundant, while the fourth adds "in 2014", which cannot be determined from looking at the picture, and in any case belongs in the caption, if anywhere (why would a blind person need to know that, but not a sighted person?).

What needs to change for things to improve? Do we need to write clearer guidance (we have an MOS page on alt text already)? Do we need to add an explicit check to the criteria for inclusion? Something else?

I'm sure we wouldn't tolerate frequent breaches of other parts of the MOS on the home page, yet the impact of doing so for alt text is far greater, for a proportion of our users, than things like inconsistent capitalisation or curly apostrophes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:33, 30 November 2024 (UTC)