Portal talk:Current events/Archive 1

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Mistake

Carlosr chill is right, Felipe Calderón is the conservative and Andrés Manuel López Obrador is the leftist. Greetings to the Wikipedia community.

Mistake

There's a mistake in the highlight about the preliminary results of the mexican election. It should say that Felipe Calderón has a slight lead over Andrés Manuel López Obrador: http://elecciones.reforma.com/prep2006/prep2006.html Carlosr chill 21:48, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Redesign

I believe we should take this opportunity to redesign the Current Events page. There were several calls for reform of the current events page on Talk:Current events and I believe this is the perfect time to try some of them out (including the transclusion approach). joturner 22:11, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Some ideas

• Transcluding days to make reversing the order of the dates much, much easier. joturner 22:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
• Moving the sidebar somewhere else to make section editing possible. joturner 22:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
• Moving all of the month articles (May 2006, April 2006, etc.) to portal subpages and redirecting the month pages to their corresponding year articles (2006, 2005, etc.) joturner 22:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
• In addition, I think the portal needs a better color scheme; I'll get on top that. joturner 22:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Proposal

I created a mockup for a redesign of the Current events page (or rather its portal). It can be found here. Please post your comments regarding the proposal on its talk page. Thanks in advance. joturner 06:08, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Initial portal migration steps complete

The steps in my revised version of Wikipedia:How to archive Current Events are complete. I left the June deaths from the second half of the month in the {{Current events}} template. The "how-to" for archiving is out of date so I will update it now before I forget what was different. Please comment below if I missed or mangled a step. Thanks—Kayaker (talk · contribs) 01:32, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

Whaaaaa......?????

Where was this move discussed? User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:35, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Several places, over the past two weeks:

• Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Portal:Current_events.3F
• Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals#Portal:Current_events
• Talk:Current_events#Should_Current_events_be_in_the_portal_namespace.3F
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Current_events#Current_events_portal

Is there somewhere else this needed to be brought up? Kayaker 01:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

It gets one mention on Village pump and three mentions on the talk page of the article which will be affected, and then in two out-of-the-way corners that are little-read, and suddenly it's a done deal? User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:45, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

As I said, where else would you have wanted to see it mentioned Kayaker 01:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

More time discussing it on the Current events talk page would have been nice. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:11, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm generally pleased with the changes, but most of the discussion did happen "out of the way", so it should have been brought back to the broader community for at least some getting-used-to time. --Dhartung | Talk 19:33, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

The village pump posting was one attempt to bring it to a broader community. Could you suggest another? Discussions are going on about future changes so it would be good to know where else changes should be discussed or "heads up" messages posted. Thanks--Kayaker 00:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC).

I would've like to see a straw poll before you make such a drastic change, at least. This is a classic example of administrators believing that they automatically know what's best for WP. - Kookykman|(t)e 17:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Rest of June

What happened to the rest of the month of June? User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

In June 2006 Kayaker 01:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

When I click the "June" link on the current page, it takes me to the Portal page, not to June 2006. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:08, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I found the "June" link at the bottom which is the one I think you're referring to and updated {{Events by month links}} to fix the problem. Thanks for reporting that. Kayaker 05:15, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

Cut and paste

And I notice that this supposed move is actually a cut and paste which has lost the edit history of the entire month. User:Zoe|^(talk) 01:46, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I mentioned that explicitly in my comment, after spending a while trying to get the move option to be made available to me. Kayaker 01:56, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

You should have asked an adminstrator to do it for you. And to be honest, the move option should have been available because it should have been moved to Portal:Current events/June 2006 instead of June 2006. joturner 03:46, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't sweat it though (although you may still want to an administrator's attention to try to fix the situation). joturner 03:47, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Your idea about putting monthly archives like June 2006 under Portal:Current events (i.e. Portal:Current events/June 2006) is an interesting one that didn't come up earlier. Davodd (talk · contribs) envisioned a yearly portal e.g. Portal:2006 in a comment posted at Wikipedia:Portal/Proposals#Portal:Current events. It was and I think still is my thought that we need articles for each month and year in the article namespace for both a theoretical and a practical reason. The theory would be that a given month like May 2005 or year (e.g. 1066) is as much of an encyclopedia subject as anything else in article namespace. The practical reason for leaving them in article namespace is that there are lots and lots of links in article namespace to those months and years, so you'd have a greater and greater dependency on redirects if the current event archives are kept under Portal:Current events. Kayaker 05:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

I have nothing against keeping the years. 2006 looks like an article; June 2006 looks like an archive. Of course, we can always have both. For instance, we could make the June 2006 article more brief and more article-like like 2006 (see July 2006) and then link to the portal and its monthly archives. joturner 23:26, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalized template

Which template on this page has been vandalized? User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:09, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, well, it's been fixed. User:Zoe|^(talk) 02:10, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

CSS stylesheet

The stylesheet on this page is useless. If you mouse over an item, the highlight should not remain when mousing out. Scott 110 02:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, when you hover your mouse pointer over a link (e.g. Mexican President -- taken from one of the news items), you see "President of Mexico" but those words remain even after you move your mouse away from the "Mexican President" link? Kayaker 03:02, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

What browser and skin are you using? The hovering as I describe it works fine for me in Mozilla and the default skin. Kayaker 03:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

Up in the 'Highlights' box: when you mouse over a news item, the whole line gets highlighted in a grey color (not just the words, the space around them also) and doesn't go away. I'm using SBC Yahoo browser... don't know much about intricacies of CSS things. Korinth111 03:39, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I see the Yahoo! browser listed here as being IE based, which I can't get my hands on to test at the moment. If you could, go to the bottom of Portal:Current events and hover over the "News about Wikipedia" and "About this page" link...does that produce the same behavior? What about the "Africa | Oceania | Southeast Asia" links above the highlights...same problem? And my final question: does the Highlights section appear as a white box with the word "Highlights" in the upper left and a gray box within that has a list of bullet items? That's the way it looks to me in Mozilla all the time, but I'm worried about a possible browser difference between the two. Kayaker 05:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

Added screen capture at right as a reference; let me know if what you see in the upper left hand corner looks like the image at right...Kayaker 06:04, 1 July 2006 (UTC).

Hmm, strange. I take it that the Highlights box is supposed to be grey all the time with a white outer box (similar to the Africa|Oceania box). For me, it's all white from the beginning and when I mouse over each line it turns grey like it should and doensn't turn back to white. The "News about Wikipedia" and "About this page" seem to be working fine... actually, everything looks to be fine except for the highlights box. Korinth111 14:57, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, that's enough confirmation and specificity that I can try to find volunteers to confirm the problem exists with other versions of Internet Explorer. Thanks. Kayaker 00:48, 2 July 2006 (UTC).

File:Current-ie1.gif Internet Explorer Image 1

File:Current-ie2.gif Internet Explorer Image 2

I do see the problem in Internet Explorer 6 (WinXP). It's quite odd. Upon opening the page, you see Internet Explorer Image 1. Upon moving the mouse over some of the items, you get something along the lines of Internet Explorer Image 2. However, upon minimizing the IE window and going to another program, it reverts back to Internet Explorer Image 1. Very strange. Of course, I use Mozilla Firefox (which is, in my very humble opinion, a much better browser). By the way, I don't believe your image falls under fair use. You don't actually see any Windows Internet Explorer parts, so like with Image:Www.wiki.x.io screenshot.png and Image:He-Wikipedia.png, you don't need to credit Windows. But I'm not 100% on that. joturner 01:46, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Fixed, I guess, or at least it doesn't do that anymore. Looks good and a lot less annoying!Korinth111 17:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Credit User:Ashibaka (a fellow IE user I suspect). Soon after User:Joturner did his experiment confirming the problem, Ashibaka checked in a fix, probably without knowing about this thread of discussion. Thanks again—Kayaker 18:42, 2 July 2006 (UTC).

Redesign Proposal

I created a mockup for a redesign of the Current events page (or rather its portal). It can be found here. Please post your comments regarding the proposal on its talk page. Thanks in advance. joturner 06:08, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Hi

The new "Highlights" section looks nice!

71.2.179.129 11:43, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Operation name?

Do you think it is a good idea to use an operation name as title for a section? Few people will know what it refers to, and it can hardly be called neutral. Socafan 16:21, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a briliant idea. If people don't know they can read immediately! Why do you think that it's not neutral? -- tasc ^words_deeds 16:29, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Usually a title should already inform the reader what the further information is about. If I read "Operation XY" I do not know what it is about. If I read Israeli-Palestinian conflict I know what it is about. The name is not neutral as it was chosen by one side and it is a drastic case of belittlement. People are killed and they call that "summer rain", I mean, that is close to black humour, just there is nothing to laugh about. Socafan 17:00, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

We call wave of terrorism Intifada and none sees here any "belittlement". It was also chosen by one side, people were also killed. They call it summer rains btw. -- tasc ^words_deeds 17:07, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I have never seen Intifada as a section title in wikipedia, I only remembered seeing the neutral and descriptive Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that's why I added it. I just learned intifada means uprising. That is what it is, and it is commonly used, unlike summer rains. Socafan 01:38, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

We have whole articles called intifada! Summer rains is ONLY name for operation in case you didn't know. -- tasc ^words_deeds 07:50, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

A Notice Added

I hope no one minds that I added a notice to the portal page regarding the proposal. If you have a problem with it, go ahead and change the background color or move it to another - albeit still prominent - location. I'm trying to make sure people know about the proposal so people aren't surprised if elements from it make their way onto the actual portal. If you have any better ideas for advertisement, go ahead and suggest them and/or do enact upon them. joturner 23:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Bias on choice of words "Kidnapped" vs "Arrested"

I have noticed a slight bias in the choice of words used to describe the mutual capturing of Isreali and Palastinians around Gaza. Words such as "kidnapped" and "arrested" imply a value judgement on the action. While all these capturings could be described as 'kidnapping' it is incorrect to describe any, whether carried out by Hamas or the IDF as 'arrests', as this implies some application of law. I think use of the neutral word 'capture' is best. Seabhcán 12:05, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Words used as they should be used. Word 'capture' in not better. -- tasc ^words_deeds 12:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Why use 'Kidnap' for what the Palestinians do, and 'arrest' for what the IDF do? Its biased. Seabhcán 13:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Arrest: To take into custody by legal authority.

Kidnap: confinement without legal authority.

Capture: the act of taking of a person by force

It is clear that neither Hamas nor the IDF have any 'legal authority' to take these actions. Thus the use of the word 'arrest' is incorrect. I suggest we either use the word 'kidnap' or 'capture' consistantly for all such events. Seabhcán 13:20, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

what makes you think that IDF had no such authority? -- tasc ^words_deeds 13:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

To 'arrest' ministers of a foreign government on foreign soil? Who could have given them this authority, themselves? If Hamas gave themselves the authority to capture people in Israel, wouldn't that make it an 'arrest' too? Seabhcán 13:28, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Its not wikipedia's place to make these kinds of value judgements. Its far better to remain neutral.Seabhcán 13:46, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Foreign government and foreign soil - are pov. Well hamas didn't, did it? -- tasc ^words_deeds 14:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

what makes you think that IDF Hamas had no such authority? Seabhcán 15:25, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Tasc, You have failed to convince me that the use of these words in not POV - I'm going to change it back. Seabhcán 16:26, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't have to convince you. I hope you understand this simple thing. -- tasc ^words_deeds 16:41, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Tasc, the words are biased, and wikipedia policy of is clear on POV. Please explain why you think these words are not biased - you do need to convince me, I'm afraid. You don't have ownership of this page. Seabhcán 16:50, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

It's your claim that the words are biased. I don't see how they biased at all. PA (+ Hamas) and Israel are not equal entities. -- tasc ^words_deeds 16:55, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

How so? They are both parties to the same conflict. Its not for wikipedia to judge which is right and which is wrong. Seabhcán 17:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

"Arrest" directly implies the authority to detain a person or persons, and "kidnapping" directly implies that the detaining party does not have legal authority to do so, thus being a crime. --Blututh 23:09, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. By using the word 'arrest' we wikipedians are awarding one side a legality they don't have. It is not NPOV. It should be changed. Seabhcán 23:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe the NPOV term of art is usually "detained". The IDF detained members of Hamas. (The word is simply the Latin-root version of "hold".) --Dhartung | Talk 19:41, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Detained is fine so long as we use the same word for when Hamas 'detain' someone. Seabhcán 22:06, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

To address tasc's assertion above: "It's your claim that the words are biased", I found an article discussing exactly this bias of language here: KIDNAPPED BY ISRAEL The British Media And The Invasion Of Gaza, by Jonathan Cook. There was also letter to the Editor of the Irish Times today, but it a subscription site. Seabhcán 10:02, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Highlights

1 vote for removing the highlights section. --marc 03:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

North Korea Missiles

On CNN just now, they were saying how North Korea launched three, not two missiles.--Lionheart Omega 21:00, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Should this go in the "highlights"? CJK 21:20, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Definitively 4 missiles now Cnn 72.81.208.103

KV festival

please, could someone add this text to news - Im not able to put it there right:(

American movie Sherryba by Laurie Collyer win the 2006 Crystal Globe (Grand Prix) Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

Calendar

The calendar doesn't work, as the linked dates use the dd mmmmm yyyy format, but the portal uses the mmmmm dd, yyyy format. Can't find where to change this if anyone knows. Thanks, Newnam^(talk) 00:46, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

What is an Airbus A390?

I think the article is incorrect. I thing the aircraft was an Airbus 310.