Langbahn Team – Weltmeisterschaft

Talk:Main Page/Archive 208

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Add number of editors in the topmost banner

I suggest this addition for the following reasons:

  • It encourages people to become editors via argumentum ad populum.
  • It is a interesting fact about the scale of Wikipedia
  • It dispels reoccuring myth that only 100 or so admins edit Wikipedia
  • It demonstrates the motto "anyone can edit".

I suggest formatting it like this:


115,958 active editors · 6,940,359 articles in English


Ca talk to me! 00:50, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Id support. Maybe something somewhere which explains what active means. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:06, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
The wikilink to Special:Statistics already provides an explanation. Ca talk to me! 13:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
I dunno about other people, but because the link is the amount of people, I'd expect the link to be to the list of people. If it were "active editors" that was linked, I would click it to find out what "active meant". Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:15, 15 December 2024 (UTC)
The number of articles link also goes to Special:Statistics, though. – Joe (talk) 12:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Yeah, that's also a bit dumb. Maybe if we linked both the term and the amount to the same link. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:45, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
How about linking the number of active editors to Wikipedia:Wikipedians, where it is explained? Ca talk to me! 12:05, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
I absolutely support this. Maybe also include the number of edits made in the current calendar day? ApteryxRainWing🐉 | Roar with me!!! | My contributions 18:09, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
Better would be in the last 24 hours, especially as most readers will not know when Wikipedia's midnight is. Certainly better than a count of all edits since Wikipedia began, although not a priority in my opinion. JMCHutchinson (talk) 09:20, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
@Jmchutchinson Well, Jimmy Wales lives in the Carolinas so it could reset at midnight Eastern. Although last 24 hours works as well ApteryxRainWing🐉 | Roar with me!!! | My contributions 18:13, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
Thinking it about it a bit more, maybe the preceding calendar day ("yesterday") would be computationally easier. We certainly don't want a figure that increases from 0 each day, and it may be undesirable to have one that fluctuates minute to minute. Instead maybe consider over the last week up to and including yesterday, to iron out variation over the weekly cycle. JMCHutchinson (talk) 14:17, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I don't see the point in this, or the relevance of this number to readers. It might make sense on a page intended to be viewed only by editors, but the Main Page is for readers. None of the bullet points are convincing e.g. I've never heard anyone suggest that there are only 100 editors. It's a only minor bit of clutter but would serve no useful purpose. Besides, it's not clear what constitutes an 'active' editor - the very different numbers quoted above suggest this could be seriously misleading. Modest Genius talk 20:33, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    Special:Statistics, where the number comes from, defines it as "any editor that has performed an action in last 30 days", which appears to include IP editors as well. Ca talk to me! 23:02, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    It is labeled Active registered users - of which IP editors are not. — xaosflux Talk 23:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks for the correction; when the language is set to Spanish, it just reads "active editors". I wonder if it is possible to get a count of all editors, including IP editors. Ca talk to me! 02:52, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    A single editor could have many IP's and a single IP could have many editors. — xaosflux Talk 18:08, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, that was a problem I imagined; though I do not want to discredit the work of IP editors, they are hard to keep track. Ca talk to me! 01:09, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
  • I suggested this idea back on December 8 at the VPR[1], so yes I would support it. Some1 (talk) 03:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Next steps

I see a broad consensus for including the number of active editors, but there seem to be a lot of discussion on the finer details, which doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Should I make a RfC for this? Ca talk to me! 14:17, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, most of us want the number of edits/active editors in the banner, but an RFC might help figure out the smaller details we keep arguing about Apteryx!🐉 | Roar with me!!! 🗨🐲 14:43, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Informal RfC

MINIMAL PARTICIPATION
Despite the RfC being open for 16 days and pinging previous participants, it attracted only two respondents, showing the lack of interest in this topic. I will assume most people did not see an issue with my original formatting suggestion when they !voted "support" and submit an edit request. This close does not preclude any future discussion about the formatting or new additions to the proposed text. Ca talk to me! 15:06, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Five questions to decide on the formatting. Note that this doesn't preclude any further changes in the future.

Which figures should be added to the current text?

  1. Active editors (original proposal)
  2. Active editors and total edit count
  3. Active editors and edit count in last 24 hours(bot required)
  4. Active editors and all-time editors(bot required)
  • Support 4 if possible, support 1 as a lower-effort but still effective alternative. Oppose 2 and 3 per the concerns raised above that it would create confusion among new editors/readers who would not realise that the count cannot update immediately. UndercoverClassicist T·C 14:40, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
  • Prefer 1, then 3; dislike total edit count and all-time editors as too large numbers, with no sense of what is happening now. JMCHutchinson (talk) 22:08, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Which symbol should be used as the separator?

  1. Use interpunct (·) (original proposal)
  2. Use comma

Which symbol should be used as the separator on mobile skins?

  1. Use line break
  2. Use comma

How should it be ordered?

  1. Smaller number(s) first (original proposal)
  2. Bigger number(s) first

Wikilinks?

  1. Wikilink all of the numbers to Special:Statistics (original proposal)
  2. Wikilink only the first number to Special:Statistics
  3. Wikilink "active editor" to Special:Statistics

Ca talk to me! 12:27, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

If a bot is difficult or resource hungry, an edit count for yesterday (preceding calendar day) would serve the same purpose as a count in the last 24 h. JMCHutchinson (talk) 08:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
From a maintenance and server load perspective, a bot updating daily is no different than a bot updating every minute (i.e., just a line of code's difference and resource usage that rounds down to 0). -- Tamzin[cetacean needed] (they|xe|🤷) 05:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
@Ca Do you expect people to respond here with their opinions on these 5 issues? Or is this just a draft for a forthcoming formal RfC?
If you plan on having another, better-publicized RfC, I'd recommend relisting the original question Should this be added at all?; the original consensus for this had less than 10 editors. [Personally, I think it's a great idea. But all changes to Wikipedia face incredible opposition, so a stronger consensus would be helpful in overcoming that.] ypn^2 04:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
I should have been more clear, but yes, I was expecting people to give their opinions. However, I am waiting before pinging everyone to see if anyone have any more suggestions for the questions. I count 13 people who support the proposal and one who explicitly opposed it; I feel that a RfC is going to have the same consensus for inclusion. Ca talk to me! 05:49, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
So perhaps you could split the five questions into separate subheadings, to allow for clearer discussion of each issue? ypn^2 16:49, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
Good idea Ca talk to me! 07:39, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
I'd add a 4. option with both active users and all-time editors, as xaosflux suggested above. (Maybe after the total articles count, "... created by 48,555,088 editors"). Alexcalamaro (talk) 08:39, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
I've added it, but using {{NUMBEROFUSERS}} would be inaccurate since it includes user accounts with zero edits. Ca talk to me! 16:48, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
Since a week has passed for suggested additions, I'll be pinging previous participants tommorow to decide on the formatting. Ca talk to me! 16:51, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
Pinging participants: @Cremastra @Tamzin @Schwede66 @CanonNi @Jmchutchinson @J947 @Stephen @UndercoverClassicist @Kusma @Lee Vilenski @User:Joe Roe @User:Xaosflux @User:ApteryxRainWing @User:Modest Genius @User:Some1 @User:Ypn^2 Ca talk to me! 12:28, 29 December 2024 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Edit request

Per above consensus, please implement the original proposal of replacing the following

<div id="articlecount">[[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] articles in [[English language|English]]</div>

with

<div id="articlecount">[[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFACTIVEUSERS}}]] active editors · [[Special:Statistics|{{NUMBEROFARTICLES}}]] articles in [[English language|English]]</div>

The interpunct (·) should be replaced with a line break on small screens via Templatestyle ( Wikipedia:Main Page/styles.css ), which I am not how it'd be implemented. ChatGPT gave me a potential solution of using a ID'd span tag on the interpunct and hiding it on smaller screens, but I have limited CSS knowledge and can't verify if it would work properly. I know this is a technical request so I will be grateful if a technically-oriented admin can help out. Thanks! Ca talk to me! 15:29, 5 January 2025 (UTC)

I've created a mock-up of your proposed changes atWikipedia:Main Page alternatives/(editable) and Wikipedia:Main Page alternatives/styles.css (based on the code at {{hlist}}). I'll hold-off actually making the changes since I don't actually see a RfC (only two informal discussions) and I'm unsure a local consensus is sufficient to change the main page. Sohom (talk) 06:55, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for the mock-up! It works perfectly on my end. The Localconsensus issue was also a concern of mine. However, this discussion has been open for almost a month and in a dedicated forum for proposing main page edits. The participants include a wide variety of experienced editors, with very solid consensus for its addition (13 to 1). A more widely attended discussion would be very unlikely to change the results. The consensus for the current wording was achieved back at 2006 redesign of the main page, and I didn't see any mention of the active editor count in the discussions. So I don't think this proposal overrides any previous consensuses. Ca talk to me! 10:38, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Fair enough, I'll leave this thread open for comments (technical or otherwise) for a bit. If no concerns are raised I'll +2. Sohom (talk) 14:42, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Seems good to me.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:14, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Thanks for the mock up. Looks splendid. From my perspective, this is ready for implementation. Schwede66 16:25, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Looks good. Cremastra (u — c) 20:50, 6 January 2025 (UTC)
Looks good to me too. UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:28, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

 Done. Just a small additional comment. "English" is an everyday word and probably does not need linking to English language. But that's a separate discussion — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:48, 6 January 2025 (UTC)

Comment: I just saw this editor count on the main page and wanted to come by and say I love it. Not just an interesting statistic but a reminder to all visitors that this is a volunteer project not just a faceless and hegemonic Establishment entity. Nicely done everyone!! Proud to be one of the 116,430! jengod (talk) 17:53, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

Propose to remove the link from "English" to English language. This is an everyday word and per WP:OVERLINK, we should avoid linking everyday words. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 08:10, 8 January 2025 (UTC)

I can't find the previous discussions on this, but the main page isn't an article, and it doesn't seem an overlink to link to the language the encyclopedia is linked to when introducing the encyclopedia. We WP:SEAOFBLUE "free" and "encyclopedia" too, it's a limitation of the format. CMD (talk) 08:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
"Free" (in the sense we use it) and "encyclopaedia" at least plausibly something that a reader might need defining for them. There's nobody reading the English Wikipedia that doesn't know what English is. – Joe (talk) 08:41, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
Knowing what a topic is is not the bar for a link. I certainly don't think it's less defined than "encyclopaedia", and speaking of encyclopaedia, I've seen enough engvar "typo" fixes to know there's a lot about the English language many readers don't know. That's not to be demeaning, there's a lot I can learn from it too, it's the only Good Article out of the four articles linked. CMD (talk) 08:51, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • I would oppose removing it. The main page serves as a place for readers to see examples of the kind of work we do, and perhaps become engaged to write and edit themselves. As such, English language, which is a GA and looks quite well structured and referenced, is a good link to have. It also shows how linking to other topics works, alongside encyclopedia and Wikipedia. As CMD says, it's also the language of our project.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:59, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
    English Wikipedia might be a more appropriate target, but I can't see the benefit of linking for the sake of linking. Plenty of links to good and featured content lower down the page! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 10:28, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
In actual articles, I 100% agree with this - in practice this being used means that most articles have a nation or language as a link almost immediately. However, the main page isn't an article, and if we were to start using all the MOS on it, it would be a completely different look. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:47, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal, per Amakuru's excellent points. It's a good link to have, and there are probably quite a few people who make their first edit as a result of clicking through it. Stephen 22:42, 8 January 2025 (UTC)
Oppose. 'English' can have multiple meanings; our English article is itself a disambiguation page. This is not an encyclopaedia about England, or English people, or any of those other meanings. The link to English language is necessary to clarify how the Main Page is using that word. Modest Genius talk 12:27, 9 January 2025 (UTC)
Quelle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Main_Page/Archive_208