Wikivoyage talk:Main Page Old/Jan 2007 to Dec 2007

This is an archive of discussions about the Main Page from January 2007 to December 2007 inclusive.

Protected

The recent changes page is turning into a mess, so I've temporarily protected this page. The vandalize & revert every two seconds isn't worth it... Please unprotect ASAP. -- (WT-en) Ryan 18:38, 5 February 2007 (EST)

If we're changing our editing behavior to suit a software problem, it may be time to file a bug report. -- (WT-en) Colin 18:46, 5 February 2007 (EST)

Protection reverted. Trolls are looking for attention - reverting their edits immediately gives them that attention. It takes literally seconds to clean up after them once they are gone, but encouraging them to stay around makes a mess of the recent changes for those trying to keep track of what's happening on the site. -- (WT-en) Ryan 18:45, 5 February 2007 (EST)

History has shown that not reverting them immediately also provides sufficient attention. Many times Willy has come and happily wiped out a few dozen pages and left before anyone bothered to intervene. It seems to me the only recourse is temp-bans. But since it's policy to not do that, I really don't see how we can avoid messing up recentchanges. Also, I'd appreciate it if anyone who thinks recentchanges ought not be messed up (and it's not just you) would propose that as a policy so that a debate about dealing with this could happen outside of an actual event. -- (WT-en) Colin 18:53, 5 February 2007 (EST)

Discussion started on Project:How to handle unwanted_edits#Handling trolls. -- (WT-en) Ryan 13:23, 6 February 2007 (EST)

One point: there is not a policy that forbids banning users. We've had a very strong social norm against using those tools on Wikivoyage, and many of us consider it a point of pride that we don't ban users. I've noticed as a Wikipedia admin that when a vandal starts a run on the wiki, about half the users spend time cleaning up and rolling back the mess, and the others spend their time banning the new user accounts that get registered every minute or so. So it ends up being more work than not doing a ban at all.

I think part of our process of choosing admins to work in this community is choosing people who'll make this decision wisely if they need to. I think all our admins know that this isn't a toy to play with, and that it's never been a big part of our local culture. I'm glad to know that this tool is in the admins' toolbox if they need it. I'm also glad it's so rarely used. --(WT-en) Evan 14:24, 6 February 2007 (EST)

Can't we just semi-protect this page? It'll add no hassle for logged-in users, and will save us from the increasingly tedious job of having to revert this page multiple times daily. Worse yet, though, is that any actual discussion here tends to get buried under the spam attacks. (WT-en) Jpatokal 05:53, 20 February 2007 (EST)

Bumpity-bump. See? Another two reverts made to the page, and nobody notices my actual edit. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:05, 20 February 2007 (EST)

I'm with Jani on this one. Vandalism of this page has gone far beyond the bounds of toleration, and semi-protection should stop that while allowing the main functionality to be retained. It's an unfortunate step, but about time. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 22:15, 20 February 2007 (EST)

By semi-protection, are you suggesting making it something that only logged-in users can edit? That seems reasonable given the amount of spam this page is hit with. Alternatively, someone had an interesting idea (which was reverted without comment), and that was to add a word to this page such as "SPAM_PROTECTION_KEY", and then add that to Project:Local spam blacklist. An additional note was then placed at the top of this page indicating that to save an edit either the spam list should be edited to remove that value, or else the term in question should be removed as part of the page edit. I think I prefer limiting edits to logged-in users, but it's an interesting alternative. -- (WT-en) Ryan 22:18, 20 February 2007 (EST)

Unfortunately that wouldn't stop the spammers who blank most/all of the page, so I'd prefer the semiprotection. I'd also wager that the average newbie would find an incomprehensible warning message about blacklisted SPAM_PROTECTION_KEYs far more intimidating than a clean error telling him that he needs to create an account to edit this page. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:46, 20 February 2007 (EST)

Or, for that matter, two sections which state "This is spam!" -- (WT-en) Jonboy 22:51, 20 February 2007 (EST)

I'd support protecting this page by allowing only logged-in users to edit it, provided a pointer is added indicating that you must be logged in but that anonymous users can still edit the Pub. -- (WT-en) Ryan 11:43, 6 March 2007 (EST)

What version of MediaWiki are we running here? CAPTCHA image confirmations (, ) will probably solve the bot problem without having to protect the page from human edits. --(WT-en) NJR_ZA 13:18, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Temporary Protection

I've protected this page against edits by "unregistered users" since it appears that our spamfilter is currently borked, and the spams are coming a bit too fast. I would like to unprotected it, but can we get the filter running again first? -- (WT-en) Colin 00:13, 22 February 2007 (EST)

Spam filter is up again, so I've unprotected. -- [[User:(WT-en) Cjensen|(WV-en) == High praise for Talk:Main Page ==

esta pagina es muy buena
it is page is very good

Thanks. We've worked very hard to make this the best Main Page discussion page it could be. --(WT-en) Evan 10:31, 26 February 2007 (EST)

Haha, you mean, "This page is very good", I think :) (WT-en) Dwringer 22:50, 28 November 2007 (EST)

<titleoverride>

We've had some discussion in the past about the title of this page. If you do a search on Google or Yahoo or whatever, it's hard to tell what Wikivoyage is from the title that's shown: "Main Page - Wikivoyage". To make this a little nicer, I wrote a quick extension that adds a new tag, <titleoverride>, the contents of which become the HTML title of the page. I've tried it on Main Page, and it seems to work fine. I've added some potential text for the title, which I think captures the essential part of Wikivoyage (free-as-in-freedom and worldwide) without having the full mission description. Of course, the title can be edited; I just wanted to get the discussion started with something useful. And, if it really bothers people, I think it's fine to remove the override, too. --(WT-en) Evan 16:20, 1 March 2007 (EST)

That's a good idea, and it reminded me of this idea here . I don't know what the hell happened to the message I wanted to link to, but I found this which seems to be a fairly simple way of removing the title "Main Page" from the main page and saving some space. — (WT-en) Ravikiran 00:24, 2 March 2007 (EST)

IB ownership

So I don't object in principle to noting that Wikivoyage is owned by IB, but the very first sentence is not the place to put this — it's just not that important. Why not stick an IB logo next to the CC by-sa or MediaWiki ones? (WT-en) Jpatokal 04:48, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

As an attorney, I have to tell you that most folks I speak to (whether they're coming to the question from a utopian socialist property-is-theft point of view or businessman wishing to exploit a market advantage) do believe ownership to be important - especially as with the look and feel of Wikivoyage they may feel cheated or misled if IB ownership is "hidden".

...(WT-en) Gaimhreadhan ^{(kiwiexile at DMOZ)} • 09:49, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

I suppose you can always go back and point out that the first word of the opening sentence "Wikivoyage is a project to create a free, complete, up-to-date, and reliable world-wide travel guide." does contain a clickable link to an article that (currently) does clarify ownership of the project. I think your idea for displaying the IB logo is a good one, though. I presume this is a job for User:(WT-en) Evan?

...(WT-en) Gaimhreadhan ^{(kiwiexile at DMOZ)} • 10:13, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Since appearances are important, I wouldn't mind seeing the IB ownership thing more prominently on the main page, whether via Gaimhreadhan's edit or an IB logo - doing so makes it clear that Wikivoyage isn't trying to hide the fact that a corporate entity controls the servers. There have been a few users who, despite the CC-SA licensing, complained that they weren't aware they were contributing to a "commercial site" (their words), so this would give us one more way of making it clear that Wikivoyage is an open source site that is hosted by a corporation, thus helping to avoid any appearance of "hiding" the IB association. -- (WT-en) Ryan ^(talk) 12:00, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

The problem is that, if we state "Wikivoyage is a site owned by Internet Brands", 99.9% of the people seeing that will assume that the site's content (and hence anything they contribute) is also owned by IB. Thanks to the magic of copyleft, this is of course not the case: IB only owns the trademark and the domain, and the users retain the copyright to their own contributions. (WT-en) Jpatokal 12:06, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

Yes, the site's ownership is important. But no, it is not more important than the mission of the project. If we're going to put an ownership statement on the main page, I'd prefer something clearer as a closing statement, such as "The contents of this guide are owned and freely licensed by its contributors. The Wikivoyage trademark and site are owned and operated by Internet Brands." —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) TVerBeek (talk • contribs)

On de: we've put Wikivoyage and World 66 are presented by Internet Brands, Inc. (though the literal translation is "operated". To clarify - we put the disclaimer in the footer, but we didn't make use of a logo (technical limitations of some kind, though, that may have changed since). -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 16:30, 23 March 2007 (EDT)

This is John from Internet Brands. We don't desire that our ownership of Wikivoyage be hidden, but we also don't consider it to be the main point. As stated here, the content isn't ours to own, per CC-SA. We're open to the consensus of the community. From our perspective, we'd opt for IB having a lesser profile than Wikivoyage, since most users care a lot more about the latter than then involvement of the former. -- (WT-en) Redondo

So you'd be happy with a link on the main page featuring the IB logo provided it was of a discrete size and placement? Would you prefer the link to go directly to your website Internet Brands, Inc. or to an intermediate Wikivoyage page Internet Brands? I presume the former, as that would be less prone to vandalistic attack ...(WT-en) Gaimhreadhan ^{(kiwiexile at DMOZ)} • 07:39, 24 March 2007 (EDT)

Main Page & Talk:Main Page both locked

Swept in from the pub:

Is this intentional/permanent?

If so, the main page blurb needs updating:

• First, understand: We want you to edit this page. Like nearly every other page on this site, the Main Page is open for anyone to edit.

Also, might be a good idea to add an explanation to the top of Talk:Main Page. ~ 203.147.0.48 04:49, 30 August 2007 (EDT)

I've unlocked editing privileges for both pages, as neither protections were justified on Project:Protected pages per Project:Protected page policy. We should be more systematic about protections, IMO. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 05:05, 30 August 2007 (EDT)

Thanks, appreciated. How about Project:Local spam blacklist? ~ 203.147.0.48 05:11, 30 August 2007 (EDT)

The local spam blacklist is a bit more important security wise, since it is a principal tool on this language version for keeping our guides spam-free. We have had one excellent anon contributor in the past (possibly you?), but the blacklist does necessitate a slightly higher ease of communication/coordination, which anonymous use does not facilitate. I'm not necessarily opposed to a semi-protection of the Main Page either, but I'd prefer we do that systematically, rather than just sliding into it. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 05:18, 30 August 2007 (EDT)

Thanks for your reply. I've just posted a comment at Project:Local spam blacklist#Semi-protect?, which is where I should have asked my original question, apologies for the duplication. ~ 203.147.0.48 05:26, 30 August 2007 (EDT)

Protection?

Was there a decision to keep the main page and the talk page protected? I missed it. — (WT-en) Ravikiran 07:19, 13 May 2007 (EDT)

As far as I'm aware the main page should only be protected against moves. Based on the edit comment from when the page was protected it looks like the current protection was meant as a temporary way of stopping persistent spamming, so I think it can be removed, although I may have also missed a discussion somewhere. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 13:01, 13 May 2007 (EDT)

See the "protected" section further up on this page... – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 17:52, 13 May 2007 (EDT)

I was wondering about the protection myself. I saw in the logs that it was protected on April 11th. I think it should be removed. -- (WT-en) Tom Holland (xltel)

This talk page is protected against anonymous edits due to the high amount of automated spam it receives. Aside from a few times where a registered user failed to log in the vast majority of main page edits by anonymous users are also spambots, so would there be any objection to protecting that page against anonymous edits as well? It doesn't seem like too high of a barrier to ask someone to login to edit the front page. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 19:47, 1 June 2007 (EDT)

I would be in favor of the proposed protection. Yes, our general philosophy is to have a wiki that "anyone can edit." The content parts of Wikivoyage still fit that heading, and I would not want to see protection extended to individual articles unless something is coming under violent and persistent attack, bilious edit wars, etc. But the front page isn't just another content page; it's our face to the world. Protect it. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 20:06, 1 June 2007 (EDT)

I'm supportive of this. - (WT-en) Todd VerBeek 12:54, 2 June 2007 (EDT)

I've added protection against anonymous edits only. Logged-in users can still edit the main page. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 02:42, 3 June 2007 (EDT)

This page was previously protected against anonymous edits - that protection was removed on 30-Aug. From previous discussions (above, and further above) it seems that the consensus was that protection was reasonable since the page is a spam magnet - we're getting numerous edits a day on this page that are spam, and all of the reversion hides valid discussion. Is there a reason why this page shouldn't be protected, or why the old protection was removed? I don't see anything above that would indicate why the page shouldn't be protected against anonymous edits. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 14:43, 27 September 2007 (EDT)

See Project:Travellers' pub#Main Page & Talk:Main Page both locked

The spambot problem could be resolved by making this page a redirect to Talk:Main Page/Jan 2007 to Dec 2007 and then protecting the redirect page. ~ 203.144.143.6 15:17, 27 September 2007 (EDT)

Sorry, didn't mean to go against consensus. I unprotected the Main Page and Talk:Main Page because, when the above anonymous user asked why it was protected, I checked Project:Protected_pages and there was no explanation there (which is required per Project:Protected page policy). Accordingly I didn't have an explanation handy so I unprotected both pages.

Personally, I don't see any reason to protect the page. I've become somewhat of a knee-jerk soft protection advocate recently and if anonymous ips have a question or suggestion regarding the main page, why shouldn't they be allowed to voice it here? It's not like we have any difficulty keeping up with the spam edits—everyone who patrols at all has this page on their watchlist. But far be it for me to overturn an existing consensus. In any rate, I would appreciate it if people would enter a reason on Project:Protected pages when protecting. --(WT-en) Peter ^Talk 15:27, 27 September 2007 (EDT)

Title and search box

Two tweaks:

1. Is there a way to get rid of the rather pointless "Main Page" bar?
2. The Finnish Wikipedia's main page starts with a Search box with a cursor blinking it right off the bat, which usabilitywise is the coolest thing since sliced bread. Any chance of making this happen here too? The code seems fairly trivial, just an inputbox with type=search2. Testing: (WT-en) Jpatokal 03:41, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

Search:

 

Well, last November I wondered about the same thing, did some research and found that it involved a Javascript hack. Unfortunately, I pasted the wrong link so the research will have to be re-searched. — (WT-en) Ravikiran 03:58, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

Well, here is the hack — (WT-en) Ravikiran 04:02, 28 May 2007 (EDT)

Wouldn't it be better to just find a way to have the cursor blinking in the already existing searchbox in the left nav rather than add a whole new one? I agree it would be cool not to have to click in the search box first – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 22:49, 11 September 2007 (EDT)

I made a tech request to enable Common.css and Common.js over one month ago, but still no response. Is there problem to enable them like security issue? -- (WT-en) Tatata 00:16, 12 September 2007 (EDT)

BUMP! Can't we get rid of "Main page"?? It would look nicer without, we don't be needin that. Here is Tatata's tech request: wts:WtTech:Use of Common.css and Common.js – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 01:57, 24 November 2007 (EST)

Protected

I've protected the main page from user edits because some fifteen year old, who just got out of school and doesn't have a date, and wants to fuck around on Wikivoyage's main page. As the main page is important for new users because it helps navigate them around I decided temporarily to protect the page from user edits. -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 01:14, 16 June 2007 (EDT)

Category 5 Felix barrels toward Central America

ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Felix rapidly strengthened into a dangerous Category 5 hurricane and churned through the Caribbean Sea on a path toward Central America, where forecasters said it could make landfall as “potentially catastrophic” storm. Felix was packing winds of up to 165 mph as it headed west, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It was projected to skirt Honduras’ coastline on Tuesday before slamming into Belize on Wednesday. “As it stands, we’re still thinking that it will be a potentially catastrophic system in the early portions of this week, Tuesday evening, possibly affecting Honduras and then toward the coast of Belize,” said Dave Roberts, a hurricane specialist at the center in Miami.

American Virgins vs Virgin America

Jani, why did you revert my edit in which I changed "American Virgins" to "Virgin America"? The name of the airline noted is Virgin America, not American Virgins. I feel it is innapropriate to screw it up. Tell it like it is, shall we? --(WT-en) Rogerhc 13:15, 11 September 2007 (EDT)

It was poetic license. I agree that "American Virgins" is more interesting writing, and would prefer to keep it. -- (WT-en) Colin 13:30, 11 September 2007 (EDT)

There was going to be a parade of virgins, but one was sick and the other one would not march alone ;-) .. (WT-en) 2old 13:34, 11 September 2007 (EDT)zz

Sorry Roger, that was my doing in the first place, and you weren't the first to try and change it... That's the news section, so think of it like a newspaper where you might have a schnazzy heading that is a play on words... though admittedly most papers probably wouldn't have opted for that particular phrase ;) Anyhow, the best thing that someone can do is just come up with a new piece of news, since it's the next one to be bumped off anyway! – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 19:38, 11 September 2007 (EDT)

Slightly off topic, but I am looking for some American virgins in Warsaw. If you know any, please send me an email through Wikivoyage, seriously – the mail order girlfriend Evan was supposed to send me last year never arrived. ;) -- (WT-en) Sapphire • (Talk) • 19:43, 11 September 2007 (EDT)

Hiroshima photo

I'm aware that there is dissatisfaction with the photo used for this month's DotM (Hiroshima). Without taking particular sides in the debate, I've gone ahead and put that photo up, simply because it's now the first of the month and time to do something. If somebody has a compelling alternative, there's always the good old "Edit" button ... -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 16:56, 1 November 2007 (EDT)

Vandalism @ 14/Nov/07 2:19 PM CET

The main page has been defaced, and it seems that only registered users can modify it. A registered user is needed to rollback the main page.

Done, thanks. -- (WT-en) Tatata7 08:43, 14 November 2007 (EST)

Ending the cooperation with WikiOutdoors

I propose to take WikiOutdoors out of the list of sites linked to on the left-hand sidebar. WikiOutdoors has become an un-maintained spam magnet (I'm an admin there and nobody else has done maintenance on it in weeks) that in no way enhances Wikivoyage by association. Please discuss on Project:Cooperating with WikiOutdoors. -- (WT-en) Bill-on-the-Hill 00:07, 19 November 2007 (EST)

travel news glitch

what's with the little white box next to the Travel News banner? – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 23:55, 19 November 2007 (EST)

Don't see any problems on my browser...? (WT-en) Jpatokal 02:08, 20 November 2007 (EST)

Hmm, me either. That cacahuate dude be smokin some k-r-a-k – (WT-en) cacahuate ^talk 01:45, 24 November 2007 (EST)