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Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "Who" :
  • Simon Waldman, [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/oct/26/g2.onlinesupplement Who knows?] ''The Guardian'', [[October 26]], [[2004]]
  • {{cite web | url = http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/oct/26/g2.onlinesupplement | title = Who knows? | accessdate = 2007-02-11 | author = Simon Waldman | publisher = ''[[The Guardian]]'' | date = [[2004-10-26]] }}
• "Torsten_Kleinz" :
  • {{cite news |first=Torsten |last=Kleinz |title=World of Knowledge |work =The Wikipedia Project |url=http://w3.linux-magazine.com/issue/51/Wikipedia_Encyclopedia.pdf |publisher=[[Linux Magazine]] |date=February, 2005 |accessdate=2007-07-13 |quote= The Wikipedia's open structure makes it a target for trolls and vandals who malevolently add incorrect information to articles, get other people tied up in endless discussions, and generally do everything to draw attention to themselves. }}
  • {{cite news |first=Torsten |last=Kleinz |title=World of Knowledge |work =The Wikipedia Project |url=http://w3.linux-magazine.com/issue/51/Wikipedia_Encyclopedia.pdf |publisher=[[Linux Magazine]] |date=February, 2005 |accessdate=2007-03-25}}

DumZiBoT (talk) 00:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I've corrected each duplicate to the more detailed or recent copy of its pair. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 01:38, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

CNN???

I am not a vandal, but a long-time registered user; I have no idea why someone removed my contribution, but I AM GETTING the CNN logo instead of the big green W logo at the beginning of my URL in the address bar for Wikipedia, and also in my Favorites folder where I click on Wikipedia. What's up with that? I'm looking at it now. Has Wiki sold out to CNN? I put this on the talk page instead of the main article to avoid chaos. PS- I am now using Vista on a Toshiba laptop, FWIW. Nirigihimu (talk) 01:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes the icon seems to get misplaced for some reason - ever since Questionable Content swapped with Dinosaur Comics for April Fools Day, the QC icon on my favourites menu has been replaced by the dinosaur... -mattbuck (Talk) 02:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia conventions

Someone should put something about the wikipedia conventions described in the manual of style and their importance. Cuz they are really important, the page layout, the naming conventions... They give wikipedia a big part of its importance cuz they make the information clear, easily navigational and to the point. --JB (talk) 14:03, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Critcism Section

There is considerable amount of negative criticism towards Wikipedia, it should be added here because of the objectivity and neutrality it would bring to the article itself. This would be useful in deflecting a lot of critcism. Thoughts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.104.32.27 (talk) 01:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

We have an article called Criticism of Wikipedia which is linked. Also there is mention of criticism on the reliability and bias section. --76.66.182.196 (talk) 04:13, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Need for section on popularity of Wikipedia

According to the website of Alexa, globally, Wikipedia is the eighth most popular website in the world, making it to the Top 10, along with You Tube, Google, Facebook, Yahoo! and MySpace. According to the website of Hitwise, based on websites in the United Kingdom only for July 2008, Wikipedia was in the Top 20 but not the top 10.Could these data get a mention here? ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:20, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

recent edit at the top?

Um ... did people decide that it wasn't worth warning about vandalism etc at the top? [1]. Tony (talk) 09:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

need for updated statistical figures

Last update of the statistical figures of this page has been in 2007. Is there any way to update the figures or maybe set an automatic monthly update? Whitethunder79 (talk) 00:04, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

school

Is there any way that I can create an account and add to my account accomplishment the things I did with my IP address account. What that means is can I link my IP address and my current works and posts and a new account I plan to open? (I'm guessing no) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.249.55 (talk) 23:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but I'm pretty sure that isn't possible as apart from any technical reasons it would not be possible for you to prove that you were responsible for the previous edits. For more help on editing and using Wikipedia see WP:HELP. Guest9999 (talk) 15:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Sum of all knowledge

Recently I removed the phrase in the lead about the aim of attempting to summarize all of human knowledge ([2]), this was reverted ([3]) and I was wondering if it would be possible to establish a consensus on the issue. Basically my reasoning for the removal of the phrase was as follows:

1) As it is the sourcing is questionable, the in-line citation leads to this 2004 interview with Jimmy Wales in which he says "Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. ". Simply put the sum of all knowledge and a summary of all knowledge are different things I do not know if one should be taken to mean the other.

2) Wikipedia itself does not appear to claim the goal of attempting to be the "sum of all knowledge" either on the Main Page or in the About Wikipedia informational page. This search shows the only Wikipedia page the phrase appears in is the essay Wikipedia:Ten things you may not know about Wikipedia which is less than authoritative.

3) The phrase itself in the context of the interview is almost promotional, if a Honda executive said something like "Imagine a world where everyone drives a Honda, that's what we're doing", I doubt it would make it into the lead of the Honda article.

4) The phrase itself is ambiguous and it isn't clear whether it means that it is the goal of Wikipedia to be the sum of all human knowledge or if Wikipedia simply aims to be part of a world where all knowledge is freely available along with other websites and sources which will also freely provide knowledge. If some higher up person involved with Linux said the same phrase it would be interpreted as promoting an open source future rather than as a future where everything was Linux based.

5) The phrase is used on the home page of the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organisation of Wikipedia and a very similar phrase ("Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.") is stated as their Vision. This indicates it is the goal of Wikimedia and not Wikipedia.

6) Wikimedia operates many sister projects to Wikipedia which would seem to be freely providing human knowledge such as Wikispecies, Wiktionary and Wikisource. If Wikipedia was intended to be the free source of all human knowledge why would the other projects be necessary in achieving their vision?

7) Wikipedia includes several content policies which would seem to indicate that it's aim is not to include the sum of all human knowledge including Wikipedia:No original research, Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not which explicitly states "merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia.". Rejecting knowledge on any grounds would make it seem to be that Wikipedia cannot be "the sum" of "all human knowledge".

Essentially my argument is that unless further sourcing to the that indicates the contrary becomes available the sources and evidence suggest that "sum of all knowledge" phrase is the vision of the Wikimedia Foundation (and perhaps that Wikipedia is a project which it hopes will play a part in achieving that vision). Using only the Slashdot interview I do not think it should be said that Wikipedia "attempts to collect and summarize all human knowledge in every major language". If there is additional (probably obvious) sourcing or more Wikipedia pages that I have missed that support the statement I apologise for wasting your time. Guest9999 (talk) 16:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

It seem there are two issues: sourcing and accuracy. I believe if the problem is sourcing, then it should not be hard to find reliable sources that discuss the goal or scope of the project. The primary source isn't the only source we can use. As for the second, let me ask you this then: what is the goal of Wikipedia? True, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia building project, but this explains more about the nature of Wikipedia rather than its aim. Hence, this fundamental question: What are we trying to achieve by building Wikipedia? My answer to the question, obviously, is the project attempts to summarize all of human knowledge. What is yours? -- Taku (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there is one more issue besides the above. I just noticed that the body of the article discusses the nature of Wikipedia fairly in depth; it discusses policies and guidelines; even a censorship. On the other hand, the article makes almost no mention of the project aim. What is Wikipedia about? Is it an experiment. This is in a sharp contrast to the Knol article, which devotes itself mostly about the project aim; basically, being a wikipedia competitor and create a content that Google can monetize. Since the lead is supposed to be the summary of the whole article, the statement in question, I agree, does look out of place. -- Taku (talk) 21:37, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Financial management

What are the links between a capital structure and dividend in a firm that has 100% equity makeup? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.44.56.82 (talk) 22:33, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Is this a homework question? Maybe the Wikipedia reference desk can direct you to some material to help you. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Removed profane image

I removed the recent vandalisim to this page, do not know who posted the image however... XXWRAITHXx (talk) 18:38, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

To track down who did just go to the history on top and it will show you who did it!--Spittlespat! ǀ T ♦ C ♦ S 01:30, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Right, forgot.... DUH!!!! XXWRAITHXx (talk) 00:30, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia switched to Ubuntu

I just wanted to inform anyone interested that wikipedia has switched to the Ubuntu operating system, as mentioned here:

• http://blogs.computerworld.com/ubuntu_scores_major_wikipedia_win
• http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081009-wikipedia-adopts-ubuntu-for-its-server-infrastructure.html

I would insert that info myself but I'm not sure were to place it, nor if it's appropriate... SF007 (talk) 20:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's all that relevant: Wikipedia's used Linux for a long time and the change to Ubuntu seems to have been largely an issue of standardization. How is such an issue relevant to the topic? As I see it, the fact is at most worth a minor mention in the "software and hardware" section—Ubuntu is little more than what we happen to be running our servers on! I've moved a bunch of the "Ubuntu! Ubuntu! Ubuntu!" stuff out, and without the issue being more relevant to the topic, it should stay that way. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 00:44, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

If there was a more specific article on the subject it would be worth discussing. Something like operation of Wikipedia would be suitable, though the first question would be whether that aspect of Wikipedia was notable enough for a separate subarticle. Richard001 (talk) 07:42, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Scholarly Disagreement

There needs to be a section reguarding schools and professors not letting Wikipedia be a citable source.150.176.82.2 (talk) 18:16, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Does there? I see no very strong reason why such a section shouldn't be included, but I'm not sure there are any reasons for including it either. Most universities and professors discourage using any internet site as a citable source, with certain rather specific exceptions. garik (talk) 19:19, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

In my experience they dislike Wikipedia more than most, because anybody can edit the content. 60.242.98.209 (talk) 12:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Well of course, but almost anyone can put up a website too. Wikipedia just happens to be popular. Anyone who is using Wikipedia as a source is lazy anyway: the point of wikipedia is that it should be based on citable sources. If those are provided, students should use those sources; if they're not provided, the information is poorly supported and sholdn't be cited. In other words, it's obvious why wikipedia (among many other websites) isn't usually considered an acceptable source in universities; and it's a sensible policy. Why does this especially need mentioning in this article? garik (talk) 19:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

I rather think that commentary on the above issues would be better placed in the article Criticisms of Wikipedia. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Colbert Report?

While reading through this article, it struck me as odd that the Colbert report "Wikiality" was mentioned twice in separate places within the article. It just feels kind of redundant to me.

Once in "Reliability and Bias" and once in "Cultural Significance." As both of these say essentially the same thing, I figure one of them could be removed, though I'll leave that for someone else to decide, if he or she concurs.

Also, in the Cultural Significance section, some clarification would be helpful in the line "and a select few parody Wikipedia's policies, such as the xkcd strip named "Wikipedian Protester", that also included the joke "Semi-protect the Constitution!"" A clarification of "select few WHAT" would be helpful (even though, with some back tracking, it can be seen to be referring to "media sources"--the preceding sentence is so lengthy it detracts from the message of the second half.

3y3 5|>34|< <0|\|\/3r54710|\|4|_ 1337. (talk) 16:16, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

I just came to the link and the content is "A load of CRAP", I went in to revert the vandalism and it seems another user had done it already, but for me the content still shows as the vandalized one. I tried shift+refresh on FF but it has no effect, the page is still showing wrong. Does anyone have the same results, and if so, any idea on how revert the vandalism from the page and make it sitck?

Kind regards, Notivago (talk) 14:52, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Man, I see the same thing although cluebot reverted it already. And I didn't visit this page earlier so I'm sure its not my cache. - Unpopular Opinion (talk) 16:26, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Somebody please fix it :(

It works for me, did you try to purge the page on the server side? Zginder 2008-10-29T17:44Z (UTC)

Yes, now the page is back to normal for me. - Unpopular Opinion (talk) 17:45, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

It is working for me now, although I did nothing. I guess the new edit from the last user fixed it. Notivago (talk) 14:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Question

How many people are moderators to the website? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.68.34.195 (talk) 04:25, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Almost everybody can be a moderator. Since this encyclopedia is free for anyone, therefore anyone can be a moderator. Alexius08 (talk) 03:04, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Is there any way that I can create an account and add to my account accomplishment the things I did with my IP address account. What that means is can I link my IP address and my current works and posts and a new account I plan to open? (I'm guessing no) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.249.55 (talk) 03:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

No, you may not. On your future userpage, though, you could mention that you once edited under that IP address and cite some contributions from the earlier account.

And a note: questions like these are best directed to the help desk. :) —La Pianista ^{(T•C•S•R)} 19:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect link--

I suppose the Wikipedia page is semi-protected, and I haven't made enough registered edits for myself to be allowed to edit the page.

The link for 'counter-intuitive' in the 'History' part of the page is broken; it incorrectly points to 'intuition' instead of to 'counterintuitive'.

Someone please make that edit. Thanks!

Hyperactivity (talk) 13:50, 21 October 2008 (UTC)HyperActivity

fixed ATMarsden^{Talk · {Semi-Retired}} 10:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

One-page articles?

Since this is the talk page of the article of wikipedia itself.. I would like to know why wikipedia's articles always consist of only one page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.202.158.3 (talk) 06:36, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

While this is a question best suited for the Wikipedia help desk, I'll answer it here. Wikipedia's articles consist of one page because this is simpler in several ways:

• on a technical level, single-page articles are easier to get the software to render
• on a formatting level, avoiding page breaks is convenient, as page breaks interrupt an otherwise smooth flow of text
• on a practical level, there is no reason that a web-based page cannot extend to the length of several paper pages
• on the reader's level, not having to open a new page to continue reading the same article is convenient

I would presume that these are good enough reasons for Wikipedia's one-page layout. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 16:29, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

On a technical level, single page articles are harder for the software to render (assuming that single page does NOT refer to the lack of words in an article, but the act of smashing articles into a single section instead of breaking them up.) On a formatting level page breaks CREATE transitions between information. Removing page breaks reduces a readers ability to decern what that reader is reading, as section titles and subsection titles do not "float" allowing easy reference. Additionally, assuming you are referencing formating wikipedia like a book, showing less information at the cost of more pages helps aleviate any stress imposed upon the reader by sheer content. (And, of course, table of contents bars, hot links... are more accessable when the reader does not need to stop reading and scroll to the top of the page. On the PRACTICAL level there is NO EXCUSE for having a web based page extending to the length of several paper lengths. It's even in the wikipedian's guide book "don't exceed 50k" or what not. And if we're going to debate "practical", you have to realize that it is NOT practical to increase the load on the servers because you couldn't find the clearly labled hyperlink to the section of the article you wanted because you never read the article to begin with. (See Internet vs Reading). On the readers level, not being required to click a hyperlink surpasses all! Why not have all wikipedia articles become one! Never click a hyperlink again!

• veracity*

Just because it makes the point, the BIG reason why people should not mash articles together. How many wiki articles reference eachother? How many include their own section explaining the other article? How many of those sections get corrected with the original article (or how many are incorrect assumptions based off the original article or even questionable sources?) The key to an encyclopedia is not information, but consistancy... and that is a major fault point for wikipedia. As long as pages that are split off reform in the main article there will always be consistancy errors... (you only need a small annotation if anything, WHY insist that we transfer the information in the linked article to the main article)

There is one and one reason only to have wikipedia's articles seamless. So lazy people can use the find function instead of read... and quite probally plaugerize instead of learn. If you are offended by my comments, do protest. I won't read it but it'll make you feel better. _{This comment has not been signed on the basis that requiring a person to sign their comments is a violation of free speech and only serves to discriminate against those who are quick to the gun}

"operated by"

The article says wikipedia is "operated by the Wikimedia Foundation". What does this mean? It is mainly maintained and updated by Wikipedians, not by the foundation, which is what 'operated by' often means; the servers are supported and hosted by the Foundation. Perhaps "supported by" would be more accurate. +sj + 16:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

That's an interesting question. I keep thinking of different verbs, but none quite fits. Wikipedia's maintained on a corporate level by the WMF (think legal stuff, press, etc.), on a financial level (they do all the donation stuff), and on a technical level (they hire devs and server ops and acquire the hardware), but on a practical level, that stuff wouldn't mean much without the core community and content. With the corporate and technical levels, "operated" is not itself inaccurate, but probably misleading to anyone not already familiar with the basics (that the community runs the site itself). "Maintained", "managed", and "administered" are similarly misleading. I'm hesitant to apply "supported" because of the potential implications that Wikipedia is somehow separate from Wikimedia, but I can't think of a better verb, so I'll change to "supported" in the text for now—should someone come up with another verb later, it would be worth discussion. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 16:58, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

BLP??

Why is there a blp notice at the top of this talk page? +sj + 16:31, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

No idea; I've therefore removed it. This article isn't a biography. {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 16:58, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

I think it was because of the way it deals/dealed with Jimbo Wales and/or Larry Sanger. But don't ask me what is/was the problem, I am not very aware of that... SF007 (talk) 01:40, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Alexa rankings

I am no expert on Alexa rankings, but visiting Alexa, it seems as if Wikipedia has moved up to six. Can someone please verify and correct, please? LCpl Stephen Bolin, USMC^talk 00:48, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Still seems to be in 8th place: [4] and [5] SF007 (talk) 01:38, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Documentaries

"The first documentary film about Wikipedia, entitled Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story, is scheduled for 2009 release. Shot on several continents, the film will cover the history of Wikipedia and feature interviews with Wikipedia editors around the world. Dutch filmmaker IJsbrand van Veelen premiered his 45-minute documentary The Truth According to Wikipedia in April, 2008." [quoted from the article]

As a matter of curiosity, if The Truth According to Wikipedia is a documentary which premiered in April, 2008, how can Truth in Numbers: The Wikipedia Story be the first documentary film about Wikipedia? Samuel Robbins (talk) 19:11, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Because "The Truth According" is a TV documentary while "Truth in" is a theatrically released (will-be-released) film? -- Taku (talk) 00:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense. I was misled by the phrase "Dutch filmmaker IJsbrand". Thank you. Samuel Robbins (talk) 01:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I must say that it does sound a bit awkward: the "first documentary film" given that this article is about Wikipedia. That kind of phrases should be found in the articles of filmmakers or films. Since this is so minor issue, I don't bother myself fixing it. -- Taku (talk) 02:31, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I Find this article a bit humerous

Wikipedia (pronunciation ) is a free,[5] multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and encyclopedia. That's like having Bill Gates say, "Bill Gates is a multibillionair owner/part inventor of the PC." It'slike talking about yourself in thirdperson. Maybe this article should redirect to [6] but even that has the same problem as this. It's just weird.--70.190.36.152 (talk) 00:09, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

What, you want it to say "We're Wikipedia, and we are a multilingual encyclopedia project supported by a company we created."? And if Bill Gates ever wrote a press release about himself, he probably would address himself in the third person. That's just how informative prose is.--Remurmur (talk) 21:38, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

WIKIPEDIA IS THE BEST SITE EVER!!!!!UR COOL WIKIPEDIA —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nga hiraka (talk • contribs) 00:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Weird how that person was a vandal (I looked on the contribs} YOWUZA Talk 2 me! 19:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

It just goes to show that Wikipedia is great when it describes its faults in its respective article. Hananoshi 15:46, 26 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hananoshi (talk • contribs)

Ideally, it should say "I am Wikipedia"! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.63.141 (talk) 18:40, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Correct

Does anyone have any statistics on how correct Wikipedia is? I've heard reports of about 80% of things on the website are "correct" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.106.195.48 (talk) 15:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

See Reliability of Wikipedia. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible to buy a wikipedia t-shirt, or sweatshirt. I'm big on wikipedia and I want to show others how great wikipedia is!!

Yeah, just get a plain white tee, cram the thing into your printer, copy the picture that you see in the top left of this page, paste it to "Paint" and blow it up about 400%, then press Ctrl+P. --63.241.174.129 (talk) 23:56, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

It depends, but the sources (at the bottom of most pages) often links to somewhere where you can look up fact. Eg. a blog is not really that reliable, but eg. a official website or newspaper is (probably) pretty reliable. SakJur (talk) 10:25, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Criticism of Wikipedia

I understand the emotional feeling of wanting to avoid a section with "Criticism" in the title, but the current solution of slipping in a link to Criticism of Wikipedia under the section "Reliability and bias" just isn't a good enough solution because the criticisms of Wikipedia extend far beyond reliability or bias issues. We need to give criticisms of Wikipedia its own section with a further reading link to Criticism of Wikipedia. JayKeaton (talk) 16:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it is the difficulty of finding the good organization of Wikipedia-related materials that is the reason why we don't have the criticism section (in addition to the direction given at Wikipedia:Criticism), and not because we let our "emotional feelings" get in the way. I probably made this point before, but I think the Criticism of Wikipedia article shouldn't exist in the first place. It's not a good way to organize materials. Some criticism are on the reliability of Wikipedia; some on the Wikipedia community. Consequently, the problem with that article is that the article is simply a collection of any sorts of criticism ever made on Wikipedia. That's not an intelligent organization. We need to connect causes to effects; policy and editorial decisions to consequences; censorships and review process to reliability and banning of access to Wikipedia, etc. I think the organization of this article makes more sense than how Wikipedia-related contents are organized currently. In article, we begin with the discussion on the editing model, since, everything else - the popularity of WIkipedia and the public reaction to it - follows it. The reliability of Wikipedia matters precisely because the public relies on it. Without making this connection explicit, it is pointless to discuss how erroneous Wikipedia is at some parts, for instance. Given how much academic studies are done on the editing process and the community in Wikipedia, the discussion should be on both how Wikipedia and how the public perceives Wikipedia. Anyway, to sum up, I don't think the form of criticism is the best way to achieve the improved clarity. -- Taku (talk) 23:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Two minor issues

Hello, there are two things I think should (possibly) be addressed. Sorry that they're unrelated, but I didn't feel like creating two headings. :)
1. The claim that "Wikipedia also does not censor itself" isn't actually true. This is not a criticism, mind you, simply a statement of fact. Ignoring the frequent application of the 'badsites' proposed policy (I'm assuming that never made it through, right? Nevertheless it's been enforced repeatedly), the simple fact is, even WP:BLP is enough to prove that wikipedia is censored.

I'm not saying that it shouldn't be censored. I can certainly see a great value in the idea that I can't edit Richard Gere's article to introduce a certain well-known but irritating urban legend. However, the fact remains, I can't do that(again, I don't want to do that, either. I'm just pointing out that I couldn't even if I wanted to). Official wikipedia policy disallows certain statements from being made, and that's censorship. As such, I don't think it's appropriate to make the claim that "Wikipedia also does not censor itself"; particularly without any evidence supporting that assertion.

2. For this issue, I'm not suggesting that it necessarily be addressed in the article; just that it be addressed here (and you can do whatever you like from there). I'm sure many of you have read by now that Wikipedia has been blocked by British ISPs for, well, child pornography. (I'm sure you could all find your own references, but it's mentioned here and here.

I'm not going to comment on whether or not the concerns are legitimate or warranted (that has nothing to do with this article), however... if, say, moveon.org were blocked by several ISPs for child pornography, and there was no shortage of reliable sources covering the issue, wouldn't that fact be in the article almost immediately? I know that there's a difference between wikipedia and a 'news site', and all that, but, seriously, wouldn't you expect that sort of thing to be added to any other site's article? (again, when sufficient reliable sources were provided)
(btw, I had a terrible time trying to format this so that it'd all be readable. If anyone can reformat it to make it easier to address this, please feel free to do so)209.90.134.188 (talk) 22:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the second issue is. Is it the British ban on Wikipedia? (I only added a link to IWF block of Wikipedia without elaboration on the event just because I don't know the details.) It seems the issue is only one: censorship. Anyway, as for the first one, Wikipedia does claim that it does not censor itself: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_censored. I can see a point of rewriting the sentence a bit to clarify the issue, though. In general, it is much more difficult to explain what Wikipedia does in the reality than to simply describe what the public or the Wikipedia editors perceive what it does. What is true is that Wikipedia contains materials that some people find offensive and this isn't without a repercussion, just as we have found out recently. I guess it would be easier if we simply leave the question (whether Wikipedia is censored or not) unanswered. Also, I noticed it is probably more important to emphasize the consequence of the immediate availability of changes to the article. Wikipedia simply does not have a built-in mechanism to censor anything in it. -- Taku (talk) 22:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

My point in the second issue was in whether or not the main article about "Wikipedia" should include the fact that it's currently blocked by several british ISPs for child pornography. (It seems like it should probably, or at least possibly, be mentioned right in the main article)

As for the censoring thing, I'd have no objection to changing it to saying that wikipedia claims to not be censored, but I think you're right about it probably being better to change it to explaining that there's no built-in mechanism for censoring anything. It gets around the issue of whether or not it's censored, while still retaining the original point quite nicely. :) 209.90.134.188 (talk) 23:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Odd sentence in lead

When Time magazine recognized "You" as its Person of the Year 2006, praising the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, Wikipedia was the first particular "Web 2.0" service mentioned, followed by YouTube and MySpace.

This really sounds like gloating; "Hey we're mention first! Haha let's publicise this!" So what if it was the first? Does that make Wikipedia better than the other two? No. So why not just say "Wikipedia was one of the "Web 2.0" service mentioned, along with YouTube and MySpace." or something?--Toda98 (talk) 22:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I never thought of that before. Is it such a big deal? Wikipedia is in fact mentioned first. Anyway, I'm not against the change, though. I think a bigger issue with the sentence is that it is rather one particular piece of facts. Wikipedia has received numerous awards, including one from the Economist. (Is this mentioned in the culture section, I don't recall.) Why Time's one so special? Since the lead should summarize the article, and since the third paragraph in the lead is about the social and cultural impacts of Wikipedia, it makes more sense to discuss matters more generally rather than giving a concrete example. -- Taku (talk) 13:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

la crise au niveau social —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.251.70.102 (talk) 19:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

This article about Wikipedia should be a positive example of its own editing policies and guidelines, in this case, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view; I've revised the sentence accordingly, as per that editing policy. One should be striving to achieve neutral point of view and maintaining emphasis that accurately represents the emphasis of the source being cited in the source citation (endnote). The order of examples is not significant in the passage in the source. Nothing is made of the order. Wikipedia is a web-based encyclopedia, YouTube is a video service owned by Google, and MySpace is a social networking service; they are "apples and oranges"--different kinds of examples of the web-based 2.0 utility/phenomenon being illustrated. --NYScholar (talk) 00:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Mnoon (talk) 10:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC) I just thought it should be appropriate to mention about the Wikipedia's need for donations. But I would like to get something back more tangable for my donation such as a certificate so I can give a relative something tangible for donating 100 bucks in their name. I think that would be a cool gift, and a good way to also support the worlds greatest online Encyclopedia.

Characteristics of Wikipedia contributors

Would it not be more appropriate to merge this section with 'Wikipedia in Culture' or maybe 'Criticisms of Wikipedia', it seems out of place at the moment. Gandygatt (talk) 16:20, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it belongs to the wikipedia community section, so I did the merger. -- Taku (talk) 23:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

What are the 'carbon costs' of Wikipedia lookups and searches?

An article on the BBC website today ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7823387.stm 'Carbon cost' of Google revealed

... reminds us that Internet searches have costs other than the simple cost of running our own computer and paying for our Internet connection.

In principle a search on a traditional Internet search site searches the (results of searches of the) entire Internet. That is a vast space, and it is not a surprise that such a search has a considerable cost.

In comparison a search on Wikipedia searches a much smaller but, shall we say, more informationally dense space. It would seem logical that the cost of such a search should be much less than that of a global Internet search.

Furthermore, if a search on Wikipedia resolves to a simple lookup (that is the search is for a term for which a Wikipedia page already exists), then its cost should be a further fraction of a full Wikipedia search.

Finally, traditional internet search sites have further costs in that their programs must constantly walk the Internet in search of new items to add to the search site database. Wikipedia does not have this cost. Wikipedia does not have to go in search of information. Information comes to it, at what would appear to be almost no cost, in the form of edits by readers.

If someone could put numbers to these different costs I think it would be very useful, and very strongly in Wikipedia's interest, to add a section to the Wikipedia page on this subject.

A suggested title or theme for the section:

The carbon and and other energy costs of finding information on Wikipedia

Christopher Scott

201.32.162.17 (talk) 12:48, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

broken syntax in section "Media debate"

Hi, there is some broken syntax in the section "Media debate". It looks like a part of a quote was lost and needs to be found again. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 05:51, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

 Done — Cheers, Jack Merridew 07:09, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

Minor Numerical Update

Just wanted to note that the number of English articles stated in the opening lines is going to be inaccurate pretty soon, as the site is rapidly approaching 2.7 million English articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Voendomar (talk • contribs) 14:37, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks like it's been updated. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 17:09, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I Live for Irony

Should there be a page devoted to the "wikipedia" page on wikipedia? because that seems like a wonderful idea to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.215.220.228 (talk) 23:12, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Nice idea, but an individual Wikipedia page is pretty clearly non-notable unless there is a significant amount of information about that specific article in reliable, independent sources. I think this would only apply to cases such as the Seigenthaler incident article. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 17:13, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

2002 spike in contributions?

Where is there an explanation for the 2002 spike in contributions?--128.231.88.7 (talk) 18:55, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't see an explanation for it in the article, but it's probably not significant enough in itself to mention. I assume you're referring to the 2002 spike in the daily number of articles created. It could have been just a result of some news coverage (which might have had a significant impact back then), an article creation bot (if there were any of those at the time), or some users creating a lot of articles. Maybe ask someone who was an editor back then? Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 01:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is Semiprotected.

{{editsemiprotected}} Indulge in Almonds (talk) 22:36, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. Martin 00:21, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

error in link

The link in the note 86 is wrong. The (new) correct one is: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126883.900

--Biasco.ch (talk) 02:03, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

The link you provided and the existing link go to the same page and both work fine, as far as I can tell. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 21:56, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

You are right, now it works. Maybe it was just a problem on their server. Thank you for checking. --Biasco.ch (talk) 22:44, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Hidden Vandalism

Srs109 vandalized a word here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Biasco.ch (talk • contribs) 02:34, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

It appears to have been reverted. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 21:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia and schools

Unsure of if other users have encountered this - at my school, Pedare Christian College, we've been explicitly warned against using Wikipedia as a research resource because of the 'anyone can edit it' thing. In fact, if we use Wikipedia, we need to have a total of 4 sources, rather than the usual 3. Has anyone else encountered similar dislike of Wikipedia in school, universities, etc.? And yes, a lot of us have tried to point out that admins exist for a reason. It's not working. -150.101.251.68 (talk) 03:50, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

You may have caught my mini-rant embedded within edit summaries a couple of hours ago. I assume no one did, of course. Anyway, yes, I've had this problem a lot, and I've even had teachers be so bold as to say "I can put myself on Wikipedia if I want to". Heh, I just keep quiet and wait for things like that. I'll say this again, Wikipedia is like free speech. Elm-39 - T/C 17:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

Our School's history co-ordinator encourages us to use Wikipedia (or Wilkipedia as she knows it), but encourages us to check the history, for consistencies, and to take some sources from it (not signed in: ATMarsden) 19:44, 11 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.150.37.246 (talk)

Wikipedia and Technical Articles

Wikipedia is the number one technical reference I use. Most of the people I know (grad students or recent PhDs) in Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering say the same thing. Should something about this be included in the main article given that Wikipedia is so amazingly useful in this respect? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.97.49.105 (talk) 08:20, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

No hole in the universe

And here I thought searching for Wikipedia, within Wikipedia would tear a hole in the fabric of space-time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.205.213.53 (talk) 20:31, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Been watching the IT crowd too much..... Machete97 (talk) 14:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Lifetime of vandalism

Dude, isn't "scholary work suggests that vandalism is generally short-lived" only about one-eighth true? I mean, look it up. There are about four hundred articles from respectable sources that indicate that there is quite a bit of long-lasting vandalism. I'm trying to remember the article about that imaginary country... Also, not to be rude to any one person in particular, but "vandalism", in practice, is just as often something that the admin/person who wrote it doesn't like very much than something that was actually against the rules. Asperger, he'll know. (talk) 18:12, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, let me note that the qualification "generally" allows for many unusual cases. The Seigenthaler incident, for example, was an unusual case—although it received a great amount of press, it was not typical vandalism. There will always be such outliers as long as vandalism persists, and we don't want to risk confirmation bias as a result of selection bias on the part of the news sources. News sources are highly likely to be subject to such confirmation bias: stories detailing how an article wasn't vandalized never get run. Second, can you back up your claim of "about four hundred articles from respectable sources that indicate that there is quite a bit of long-lasting vandalism"? This would, after all, contradict at least somewhat the two reliable sources already cited. Finally, while I recognize that things often get mislabeled and not all admins are perfect, in general it's useful to recognize that things which are disruptive get reverted even if they're not technically vandalism. I don't see how that point is at all relevant to this article, though. :) {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 18:59, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

I am trying to say that because the editors of these reliable sources have their own definitions of vandalism or rely on Admin reports, it may become somewhat misleading. And while I have certainly read a great deal of those articles I mentioned, I am afraid that Google's fickality has made it somewhat difficult for my to locate them. And does anyone know what the name of that country one guy made up and posted here? It got covered by somebody, probably not a notable guy, I'm sure, but there must be some way I could look that up if I knew the name... The article lasted for a couple of months before people realised it was a hoax, if I remember correctly... which I probably don't. Asperger, he'll know. (talk) 03:22, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't Squidoo.com be mentioned in list of competitors?

I think that Squidoo ought to be included--certainly if these three first-mentioned are, and each of thoes only gets a mere fraction of Squidoo's traffic, as you can see at http://www.alexa.com/. Thus, I think it should say:

"...such as Citizendium, Scholarpedia, Conservapedia, Squidoo, and Google's Knol"

Let me know what you think.

68.174.102.95 (talk) 20:20, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia was mentioned recently on Simpsons (by Sideshow Bob

Include?Mtsmallwood (talk) 05:01, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

No, but it might be appropriate on Wikipedia in culture --Cybercobra (talk) 10:48, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Reference to article on wikipedia

I think this page should note that wikipedia has an article on wikipedia. Dayyanb (talk) 06:22, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Umm, why? It's obvious and not a big deal either. -- Taku (talk) 12:19, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Anyone reading this article would already know that making it completly pointless. --76.66.188.127 (talk) 03:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

The Life Project

spam blanked by Enviroboy^Talk_Cs 16:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipaedia

Removed per WP:FORUM Hadrian89 (talk) 08:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

infobox Website

What's wrong with just the screenshot? I think name= and logo= makes the infobox look cluttered.--Chuck (talk) 16:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

First article

What was the first Wikipedia article? Daniel Christensen (talk) 17:49, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Elephant in the Room

This is also the name of the website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.17.110.95 (talk) 09:26, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.246.235.134 (talk) 03:52, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Controversies of Wikipedia

As much as I enjoy using Wikipedia, as I have used it on many occasions, does anyone else feel that Wikipedia should have a section informing users on the poor qualities, or on how the odd time it will be unreliable. I ctrl-f'd the page for the words 'bad, poor, incorrect, controversies' and none was to be found. A majority of the other pages on Encyclopedias and such have a controversies section, and I believe that there should be section to inform users of the truth. Lets not pull a far less extreme version of communist China censoring the poor events that happened in the past (1989 massacre etc.) through media. Calethesneak (talk) 02:42, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Try Criticism of Wikipedia. -mattbuck (Talk) 03:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You could also try reading the article before commenting, the criticism article in question is even mentioned in then lead. Just searching for words is a poor way to asses what's in an article. Rehevkor ✉ 03:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hello —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gibbson0821 (talk • contribs) 10:15, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Rehevkor - that's the sort of response the makes Mattbucks comment so likely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacobsdad (talk • contribs) 23:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Book missing in book section

The first scientific monography about wikipedia was published in German and is missing in the book list. It was supported by the German chapter of the wikimedia foundation (see also: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Literatur )

Ingo Frost: Zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement in virtuellen Gemeinschaften? Eine systemwissenschaftliche Analyse des deutschsprachigen Wikipedia-Projektes Herbert Utz, München 2006 ISBN 3-8316-0609-9 [7] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ifrost (talk • contribs) 13:32, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Strange Loop

Perhaps the article should mention that it's part of a strange loop? This is clearly self-referencing, though it seems to be informative about wikipedia (ie: wikipedia contains strange loops). Would this necessitate more of a citation than, say, the definition of a strange loop?

Rāga man (talk) 07:14, 28 March 2009 (UTC) Rāga man

I think we should go one step further and create a wikipedia page that is primarily focused on the wikipedia page about Wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.22.146.65 (talk) 15:15, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Someone might have noticed that this talkpage is a page about a page in Wikipedia about Wikipedia.. -- Taku (talk) 22:27, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

since content on wikipedia isnt owned by wikipedia, but simply resides here temporarily, and its also mirrored endlessly anywhere anyone wants it to reside, then its sort of an open loop, as this article doesnt have to mention (and shouldnt mention) that it exists in wikipedia: it doesnt! in fact, does anything exist anywhere. and have you ever really looked at your hand? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.80.6.163 (talk) 22:33, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Criticism?

Some schools don't allow Wikipedia to be used for research because "anyone can edit it" (even though we include citations for verification). I don't see anything about this on here, but I could be wrongIndianparttime2 (talk) 20:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

This is covered in Criticism_of_Wikipedia#Criticism_of_the_content Hadrian89 (talk) 12:51, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Some? I presume you mean all? My older colleagues forbid their students from using it because they seem to be under the impression that it's an edit free-for-all rife with spurious information, about as reliable as a 4chan thread...I don't let them cite it because it's because it's become a bureaucratic circle-jerk for deletionists and e-lawyers ;) Wormwoodpoppies (talk) 03:30, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Don't cite wikipedia in research, cite it's sources. It has sources too, and wikipedia's articles are nothing more than combinations of one or more outside sources. Citing wikipedia in research is like citing Google in research.

ojay123 (talk) 13:36, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah my school doesn't allow wiki either, but isn't true that in order for you to make a statement that doesn't seem realistic you have to cite where you found it? --3lt3ponz3r (talk) 23:15, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Sources are worthless if they are misused. Reasonable sources are written objective expository articles from an author with credentials. We don't allow wikipedia articles because wikipedia authors utilize sources from any random webpage, video games, television shows and many other questionable sources. While some articles may have up to the nth source in listing, it doesnt mean those sources are any good. If an article has sources any information contained on it can be verified and confirmed even if anyone edits it.

Famous wikipedians

Are there any? I mean people who are really famous outside wikipeidia in real world. I not only mean scientists but celebrities and all kinds of other folks who are well-known among us mortals. Is there a list of such people? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.58.143.118 (talk) 23:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Wikipedians by Erdős number. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:05, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

See Category:Wikipedians. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

See Category:Notable Wikipedians. -- Wavelength (talk) 18:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

A Wikipedia search for the search string "famous wikipedians" will take you to Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles. The Wikipedia community has thought of and planned for so many things that often, if one simply tries a reasonable search string in the search box, one is directed to what one wants or to an intermediate page on the way to the desired page. Incidentally, many useful pages on Wikipedia are merely one or two clicks away from the Main Page, and a little time spent in leisurely exploration of them can bring pleasantly surprising discoveries. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:20, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Taking sides

This article should be deleted Utter neologism. 69.39.49.27 (talk) If Wikipedia does not take sides than it should permit every one to post an article on themselves or their own project. 69.39.49.27 (talk) Wikipedia could be described as a homosocratic forum, but wikipedia decided that homosocratic is not a word because it only exists in academic documents not accessible to Google. 69.39.49.27 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:58, 17 March 2009 (UTC).

• Wikipedia does not take a side.

This is not true. In several major public controversies, Wikipedia sides with "science", i.e. the viewpoint of the scientific mainstream. I don't know why this is seen as consistent with NPOV, as it seems to me to be endorsing the mainstream POV.

How large a majority must there be in a scientific dispute before Wikipedians may declare that there is a scientific consensus? Or how large must a a minority be before it is allowed to be covered in full? --Uncle Ed (talk) 23:17, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Could we take a moment to call a spade a spade, please, and admit that in most "scientific controversies", the two sides are "observable fact" and "myth", and thus the rational "POV" to have is to side with observable fact? If all scientific evidence holds that the earth is, indeed, round, then do we really need to give the Flat Earth Society a platform in which to dispute the spherical nature of the planet? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.59.55.0 (talk) 18:36, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what controversies you're referring to. Anyway, since science is a combination of a method and an existing base of knowledge rather than a POV, using that knowledge is standard practice for encyclopedias; I don't see how that conflicts with NPOV, particularly since a scientific consensus doesn't necessarily match the most widely held views outside the scientific community. A scientific consensus may be declared in an article when it is considered such by independent, reliable sources (particularly ones that are specific to the field), so that issue would fall under verifiability instead of NPOV. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 00:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

It is pretty obvious what is meant. There are editors with some apparent standing on Wikipedia who go through and obsessively delete any criticism relating to the activities of big pharmaceutical corporations, agribusiness, and so forth. Go to any controversial topic in science and read the talk page, and view some of the edits on the history page (in fact, I do this now for almost any topic I am researching because it is the only way to get the whole truth). You will see these editors allow all studies FUNDED BY THESE CORPORATIONS but will delete even studies published in the most respectable journals or newspapers if they are critical, with an excuse basically amounting to, 'Other studies have shown X is not a problem, so these other studies are clearly just funded by people with an agenda'. View the talk on the page for Gardasil for example. When opinions of doctors that patients are suffering as a result of this vaccination are cited, this is censored as being unscientific, then the same editors turn around and add comments to the effect that there have been few to zero problems (because they have discounted all problems as basically concocted). This is information censored by large corporations who have minions monitoring Wikipedia for hours per day. I am not saying Wikipedia is actively colluding with profit-driven science, but they sure are not bending over backwards to keep articles neutral and punish editors writing propaganda pieces.

Science, when practiced well (i.e., honestly), has a good method for discovering truth. But what about when there are disputes over whether a particular bit of scientific work has been done honestly? What if other scientists report being unable to reproduce the results?

In other words, how are we contributors supposed to assess the independence and reliability of scientific sources? I refer in particular to the problems with the Anthropegenic Global Warming theory, held by the (journalistic) mainstream to be responsible for most of the past century's global warming. How are we as contributors to explain to readers whether essential things properly and not taking a side. Besides, the statement "Wikipedia does not take a side" is used in this article in the context of describing policy, not as a statement of what necessarily occurs in every case, so this discussion doesn't really have an impact on what the article on Wikipedia should say. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 21:50, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Ed's trying to drum up support to force content changes at various articles related to denialism he's has a history with, global warming, AIDS, science and ID. The history of this is covered in his RFAR. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.237.4.140 (talk) 23:42, 28 January 2009

This is slightly off-topic, but it is true that Wikipedia has often been accused of actually taking a side , no matter what its policies say. Conservapedia, for example, was founded because of perceived liberal bias in Wikipedia. Describing policies is a must, of course, but discussing the reality--or, more precisely, the reality that reliable sources depict, is also important, I think, and currently the article doesn't do this poorly. (It does discuss bias, but really not in depth: it has to include discussion on liberal bias, systemic bias and above-mentioned scientific bias.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by TakuyaMurata (talk • contribs) 00:04, 29 January 2009

Little defence for wikipedia: The accusation , quoting consevapedia:

link conservapedia accusation of wikipedia for liberal bias

Wikipedia show a "systematic bias in that tiny proportion of articles which treat controversial issues. It ignores its own NPOV policy when it allows contributors to "delete well-referenced information" merely because it comes from a scientist who holds a minority view. It would only be a violation, if the article used the information to give a false impression of the proportion of scientists adhering to that view, but liberalst use "undue weight" like a sledge hammer. They are either unaware or unconcerned about their bias."

It been know that wikipedia work to be a good encyclopedia with a strong neutrality. And so, some mechanism are actually use to reduce the lack of neutrality of some article. yes and some days ok. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.154.197.220 (talk) 11:09, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

The Neutral point of view is ask to be use in any topic, include controversial one. The point of view from scientist who holds a minority view should not be give an important place in the scientific topic. However, the minority point of view accusation seem to point to some pseudo-scientific, like creationism, with are view also in this encyclopedias.

However, the neutral point of view is limited to unbiased information and several review, include the Nova Southeastern University, Nottingham University and the Gould Library at Carleton College in Minnesota found a really few factual error in different set of articles and even comparing wikipedia to Britanica.

And so, conservapedia is accuse of a strong, conservative systematical bias by different web site: http://rationalwiki.com/wiki/Conservapedia:Bias_in_Conservapedia_(May_2007) http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/03/conservapedia-hopes-to-fix-wikipedias-liberal-bias.ars http://kriswager.blogspot.com/2007/07/tired-of-conservapedias-liberal-bias.html http://hnn.us/articles/37366.html http://apcmag.com/wikipedia_vs_conservapedia.htm

Even worst, even uncyclopedia make a strong fun about the bias in conservapedia: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Examples_of_Bias_in_Conservapedia

Wikipedia might have some bias, it is not perfect and never will be. But the community work to give better article, and it's seem to do a good job be some study. Conservapedia, on the other hand, don't receive this advertisement of quality and should work hard if they want to have the same quality of wikipedia. It is also know that any wiki should not use as the only source for research. Triple and quadruple "check" is always a good idea for any research, even in primary school.

This defence was not neutral, and was not intended to be.

Therrydicule —Preceding unsigned comment added by Therydicule (talk • contribs) 22:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course there is some bias in Wikipedia, but we as a community try to limit when possible, see our major rules. But we represent the truth, and science is the truth. Bearian (talk) 23:20, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

---

1.) Wikipedia doesn't take sides. The users of Wikipedia take sides, but it's definitely difficult if not impossible to make a judgment on it's bias as a whole. Wikipedia has a very large number of contributors, and the bias of individual contributors probably evens out while people with different opinions cancel eachother out. 2.) Referring to number one, Wikipedia should have an article about themselves (or itself) because Wikipedia's goal is to have a wide variety of articles in many languages, so why not include Wikipedia? 3.) I ask you, what credibility does Uncyclopedia have? Are we simply revering to the ridiculous arguments of it, or are we actually citing it. Please don't cite uncyclopedia ever on Wikipedia!

ojay123 (talk) 13:32, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

"The Website you are on right now"

Don't you think in the first sentance, it should be said somewhere, "And it's the website you are on right now"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrpengo88 (talk • contribs) 01:43, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Uh, no? That would be a WP:SELFREF and it might not be the case given the number of mirrors there are out there. — Manticore 02:26, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

That's like a dictionary definition of dictionary saying "this book." It adds nothing to the information.

ojay123 (talk) 13:37, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

With regard to the above, I would argue that is not quite the case. A dictionary is a generic term; Wikipedia is specific and precise, a proper noun. While it's hardly our job to service the consistancy of mirror sites however, this does fall under WP:SELFREF. YeshuaDavid (talk) 21:19, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Logo

More info on Wikipedia's logo is needed. What characters are used in it and why? I recognize only W, Й and Ώ. Miraceti (talk) 13:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Freedom

The opening sentence refers to wikipedia as a "free [...] encylcopedia" with the footnote, "Some versions such as the English language version contain non-free content." - can the senses of the word 'free' be clarified, here? The "free" in the opening sentence seems to be as in beer, the "free" in the footnote seems to be as in speech... --JCrue (talk) 01:16, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

No, the free in the opening sentence is as-in-speech. The footnote just notes a slight caveat in that it's not absolutely free. --Cybercobra (talk) 04:48, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

RNA Biology

I'm not certain whether this is relevent, and, if it is, where it should go, but... Peer reviewed scientific journal RNA Biology now makes it mandatory for some of its authors to contribute to Wikipedia. Nature mentions it ; see also here and here. It seems relevent to me, but I'm not sure where we should include it. Aridd (talk) 08:55, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Definition

I think we should emphasise earlier in the definition (introduction) part of the article that Wikipedia is present on the web. From the first few sentences one might suppose that it is a paper-based encyclopedia. 83.233.153.178 (talk) 22:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Intro been abused

I cant edit this page becuase it is semi protected but someone has written abusive language in the first sentence, hopefully one of you can change it ( —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.131.9.6 (talk) 21:25, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Hadrian89 (talk) 21:31, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably this edit which has now been reverted.--Alf ^melmac 21:39, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Backups

A section about how all this massive info. is backed up might be useful —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.104.177.39 (talk) 00:46, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Employees?

does wikipedia employ anyone? and if so how many? i don't know if it was mentioned somewhere in the article but i didnt see it and on some companies and organizations' articles it says how many employees they employ Blah42b10 (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Like "Lord of the Rings", "wikipedia" (like hoover) is the name of a published work and neither has employees. There's also "Wikipedia" (like Hoover) a trademark registered by the Wikimedia Foundation as its name for the version of the work that it hosts, as distinct from the work itself. Others can copy the work wikipedia that is licensed to all, including the Foundation, by its authors, but not use the trademark name Wikipedia without permission. The Wikimedia Foundation does have some employees, just as normal distributors may have employees, but they aren't employed by the work itself. So:

1. the work wikipedia has no employees.
2. the authors of wikipedia usually have no employees but are simply individual people.
3. the trademark Wikipedia has no employees.
4. the hosting and service provider for the best-known distribution of wikipedia, the Wikimedia Foundation, does have employees.

Jamesday (talk) 21:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for clearing it up, and sorry it took so long for me to reply, its been awhile since ive been on Blah42b10 (talk) 16:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Media reference

There was an article directly on Wikipedia here. --The New Mikemoral ♪♫ 04:56, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Now noted in the "mentioned in media orgs" banner above. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia

Couldn't we just put the site your on and save the work. :)Varlinx (talk) 17:12, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

FA

Why isn't the "Wikipedia" Wikipedia article a featured article? Shark96z (talk) 23:55, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

It was at one point but was found to no longer meet the criteria. Simply said to be a feature article the critiera must be meet even for this article.--76.65.142.119 (talk) 02:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks alot! Shark96z (talk) 03:00, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales and administrators scrubbing information

I think this should be covered by this article about Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales and administrators were actively removing factual information about the kidnapping of David Rohde from Wikipedia. Of course, this article is locked so the info can't be added.

A dozen times, user-editors posted word of the kidnapping on Wikipedia’s page on Mr. Rohde, only to have it erased. Several times the page was frozen, preventing further editing — a convoluted game of cat-and-mouse that clearly angered the people who were trying to spread the information of the kidnapping. ...

The sanitizing was a team effort, led by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at The Times. ... Knowing that his own actions on Wikipedia draw attention, Mr. Wales turned to an administrator, one of several who would eventually become involved in monitoring and controlling the page. ...

"The idea of a pure openness, a pure democracy, is a naïve one."[8]

--JHP (talk) 09:02, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It's covered here, but it's not just about David Rohde. It's about Wikipedia itself. It should be mentioned in this article. --JHP (talk) 09:09, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I have copied the Wikipedia portion of the David Rohde kidnapping stuff to this article. --JHP (talk) 03:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

NPOV dispute

The NPOV dispute in question is located here. --JHP (talk) 03:16, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Small HTML tag in images

Say, why is there a < small > tag in the image descriptions? There's no need for that, is there? It's inconsistent, the Wikipedia article surely should be in line with its own manual of style? 195.241.69.171 (talk) 19:56, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Weasel words and weasel logic in "stable versions" discussion

"some editors have called for "stable versions" of articles, or articles that have been reviewed by the community and locked from further editing—but the community has been unable to form a consensus in favor of such changes, partly because they would require a major software overhaul. A similar system is being tested on the German Wikipedia, and there is an expectation that some form of that system will make its way onto the English version at some future time."

Let me get this straight, someone or some people have "an expectation" that English language wikipedia articles will be "locked from further editing" despite the lack of "consensus in favor of such changes". First off, "there is an expectation" does not make clear who has this expectation. It gives the reader no idea of the likelihood that the expectation will be borne out. Second, how could any bona fide wikipedian support such locking, when wikipedia has thrived on the unlocking of collective knowledge? Longshot.222 (talk) 10:38, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Some of your concerns would be better handled at one of the discussion threads that can be reached through WP:Flagged revisions. But I agree that the current language uses weasel words, and it's not quite up to date. Will others please take a look at this proposed rewording of the passage about flagged revisions:

One way to improve reliability might be a system of "stable versions" of articles. This would allow the reader to specify an option to always see versions of articles that have been reviewed. The community has not yet reached a consensus to implement this proposal, which is known internally as 'flagged revisions.' A similar system is being tested on the German Wikipedia. Software already exists that would allow flagged revisions to be implemented on the English Wikipedia, if it is found to be desirable.

Let me know your reactions. Further wordsmithing might help. Flagged revisions are not held back any more by the lack of software, since it appears to be ready. I don't think we need to give the precise status of the current proposal; just say that it exists. The comment in the existing text about 'locking' is not quite right, and we don't have space to talk about the new reviewer roles here. I have endeavored to be neutral as to the value of flagged revisions. Correct me on any technical points if needed. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 16:47, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

That is much better. Thanks, Ed. Longshot.222 (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Hudong is Bigger?

At the end of the first paragraph this article states Wikipedia is the 2nd largest general reference web site after Hudong. But Hudong has 2.9 million articles vs. Wikipedia's 13 million, so is this statement correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.62.113.38 (talk) 07:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have 13 million articles, it has just under 3 million (2,960,305 to be precise). —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 17:26, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

This depends on how you look at it. Wikipedia's multiple language editions have ~13 million articles together, while the English Wikipedia alone has ~3 million articles. Besides, the statement's already been removed from the article. {{Nihiltres|talk|edits}} 19:04, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Personality Paper on Wikipedians Contradicts Itself

I'm referring to the study cited in the statement "A 2008 study found that Wikipedia users were less agreeable and open, though more conscientious, than non-Wikipedia users.[91][92]" If you look at the [9] written about the study, and at the table that shows the mean and SD, Wikipedians scored higher on openness than non-Wikipedians. The data also shows that Wikipedians of both genders scored higher on openness. While Wikipedian males scored lower on conscientiousness than non-Wikipedian males, Wikipedian females scored HIGHER than non-Wikipedian females. So, the paper's abstract doesn't match its own data, the New Scientist article replicates the mistake, and it's been carried here, too. I'm wondering if perhaps the paper is sloppy enough it shouldn't be referred to at all. 76.115.3.200 (talk) 06:38, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposed by Richard Stallman?

I don't get it. Was Nupedia around when RMS announced there should be a free enclopedia or whole thing started with it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.189.22.84 (talk) 08:40, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Possibly. You should ask someone else —Preceding unsigned comment added by MontO9 (talk • contribs) 22:49, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I've removed this. The reference demonstrates that Stallman proposed the idea of an online encyclopedia under a free license, but it's not generally accepted that he proposed Wikipedia. Nonplus (talk) 21:15, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Beta

I think a new article should be created about Wikpedia's Beta version. I don't have any references, but if someone could find some and create it, it would be a big help. Thanks! Divod (talk) 07:53, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

What is the Wikipedia beta version? -- Taku (talk) 19:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't say it warrants it's own article, a section at most with enough sources. It may never even be used properly. Taku, click the "Try beta" link to the left of the bar at the top. Rehevkor ✉ 19:59, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I didn't know about this: cool! Thanks, Rehevkor. I agree we don't need a standalone about this. Having a sentence or two about the beta probably suffices. -- Taku (talk) 21:19, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, you're probably right, a pargraph would suffice. Still, I don't have sources, so can someone please find those? Divod (talk) 02:52, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

There should be a small section describing new features, updated technology, and all the other things that make ^beta different. -Cheerios and Cheers Qwertyfish11 (talk) 23:35, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The Basic question is WHY is there a DISCUSSION page on Wikipedia articles?

Should I ask this? Other encyclopedias online and off. Dont have DISCUSSION pages. True,new information on some articles is needed but not everythning has to be DISCUSSED! Why not just a page to ask the Editors about this that or yes the other thing! Instead of the hassles of being deleated,accussed of Vandalism or being a "Sock Puppet" (still have no idea what that is!) Really, is a DISCUSSION page necessary for Wikipedia? This is an Encyclopedia not a Message board or chat room! Yet, thats ones of the reasons the attitude driven and yes agenda drive editors of Wikipedia have as an excuse to deleted or ban someone from posting! They (the Editors) seem to have their own Attitude and or Agends!.Just thought i'd ask!Thanks!JANUSROMA (talk) 18:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Most encyclopaedias aren't collaborative projects like Wikipedia. Collaboration requires discussion usually. The talk pages are not for general chat, but for discussion on the itself article only, see WP:TALK and WP:FORUM. This is also not the place to discuss such things, perhaps you'd like to try the village pump. Regards, Rehevkor ✉ 18:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

3 million articles

The article states that the English version only has 2.9 million. However, seeing as English Wikipedia now has 3 million, this should be amended.

TouYube (talk) 05:40, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions

Credentials verification for scientific topics. This would not have any effect on anything non-scientific. This would make academic articles valuable but wouldn't cripple the users' ability to edit topics like games, artists and all that other stuff Wikipedia is full of.

Add drafts. Wikipedia users edit the main article and they are encouraged to do so. Allow them to suggest material or edit the drafts instead but not edit the main article. A user that has just wondered in may have no idea of the train of thought tried to explain the articles and usually they cause more harm than good. By allowing them to edit or suggest to a draft, a better system of control is established.

Remove porn and drugs. As it stands I can't allow my sons to browse Wikipedia and keep my peace of mind. This is unacceptable. Wikipedia claims to allow this topics to be handled on some specific policies but they are taken out of proportion. While this doesn't change, Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons will remain with the blocked sites on my computer with personal access only to myself just because of this adult content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.45.196.49 (talk) 06:36, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

First sentence

What on earth does "born in the project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation" mean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.39.197.203 (talk) 20:20, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Does this sentence in the first section make sense? it cited Wikipedia as one of three examples of Web 2.0 services, along with YouTube, MySpace and Facebook. One of three? But I count four web 2.0 services listed in the sentence. Facebook is mentioned in the article but later and not in the paragraph that introduces wiki thusly:

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you'll see another story, one that isn't about conflict or great men. It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace.

Mindme (talk) 19:02, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has gone from...

Interesting discussion at Slashdot where what appears to be the majority of users repeating 'Wikipedia has gone from "the encyclopedia of everything that everyone can edit" to the "encyclopedia of things we like and some people may edit."' http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/08/13/1310228/Wikipedia-Approaches-Its-Limits I suggest this should be included somehow in the article. 216.57.96.1 (talk) 16:13, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Seconded. Kentstander (talk) 20:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Thirded. It's not the only article that have suggested Wikipedia is getting more exclusive. Maybe that's inevitable: any community would reach maturity eventually, soon or later. -- Taku (talk) 21:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

F\uck off do I accept criticisms of Wikipedia?! Wickipedia is the greatest institution since the BBC (and it's precedent, sliced bread) and so it is beyond reproach. We should delete outsiders who want to encroach their corporate ways on our collaborative system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.192.187.203 (talk) 22:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is basically run by Nazis. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.53.176.235 (talk) 01:34, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia needs some sort of control. This site has gone from a site I allowed my kids to look for information for their homeworks to a site I must revise every single time to make sure it's safe from vandalism, drugs, nudity and many other stuff. Currently, as it stands, Wikipedia is forbidden at their school and at university it's only worth a penny if you use THE REFERENCES, not the articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.45.196.49 (talk) 05:52, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section

I propose a criticism section on this article. Wikipedia is routinely criticized in the media, as we all know very well, so I believe that a section should be introduced to cover this. Hopefully proponents for Wikipedia are unbiased enough to accept the criticism as well as the praise. Discuss. EdgarBacon (talk) 03:48, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Criticism. -- Taku (talk) 12:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

And Criticisms of Wikipedia.----occono (talk) 02:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

As usual; BACK UP YOUR OPINION WITH EVIDENCE —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.192.187.203 (talk) 22:20, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I strongly support this propsal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.253.137.189 (talk) 14:13, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

A paragraph on trademarks in "History" section

I'm thinking of removing that paragraph. Is it really important? Who cares about the trademark status of WP in Japan? The halting of growth seems more interesting and important. -- Taku (talk) 01:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC) yes —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.70.89.139 (talk) 17:29, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Howard Tayler boycott

I have deleted the mention of Howard Tayler's Wikipedia boycott from the Talk:Wikipedia/to do list. His webcomic's Wikipedia page does not mention it, and a quick Google search turns up little but a Slashdot post. Also, quite notably, the point was added to the To Do list by user I love webcomics, who may have been slightly biased. -M.Nelson (talk) 22:45, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Featured Article

Do we not consider Wikipedia The feature article as it is probably the most important on this site? Or is it because the article's locked? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.252.33 (talk) 12:58, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Quotation marks

On a couple of occasions i have seen that punctuation is in the quote, when it should not be (e.g. the comment of the Encyclopedia Brittanica about the weakness of wikipedia: (...) wikipedia is a "faith-based encyclopedia. ". Obviously, in this case, the quote should end after the word 'encyclopedia', but BEFORE the full stop. Someone who has access to edit this should look it over and correct it, because it just looks scruffy. It's not that hard to fix, and it looks way better. -Ilyushin12(talk) 15:31, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I've removed that statement entirely...not because of the grammar though. It was an uncited, speculative claim compounded by an uncited assertion of the claim's effect (ie. not only did it fail to provide evidence that the claim was popularized, but it failed to cite a source for the claim itself). -K10wnsta (talk) 19:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

(Ok, I missed this.) It's really not speculative. If you run a google search with "faith-based encyclopedia", you can get a lot of hits. It needs a source, but the statement itself is accurate, I think. -- Taku (talk) 23:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Then source it. Rehevkor ✉ 23:12, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

And why can you do it yourself? -- Taku (talk) 23:15, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I already linked to WP:BURDEN, right? I'm pretty sure I did. Rehevkor ✉ 23:23, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you meant by this. At least citing a policy isn't an argument. You failed to see explain why the claim is dubious in the first place. Certainly you have heard of the phrase "faith-based encyclopedia". All "we" have to do is to go fishing sources. -- Taku (talk) 12:37, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Alexa

Why is alexa considered a credible source? The wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Internet is pretty darned critical, and for good reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.88.234.224 (talk) 10:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Admins can't delete articles or ban users; the community does?

The following was moved from User talk:TakuyaMurata.

What do you mean by this comment? Admins are the ones who decide these issues. Of course, community has some contribution to the decision, but the final decision is made by the admins. This is clearly a priveledge. SA ru (talk) 21:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

No, the decision is made at each AFD. When the community reached the consensus to delete an article, an admin carries out the actual technical step: deletion of an article. You might be interested in this Wikipedia:RfA Review/Reflect. -- Taku (talk) 21:44, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Wrong. AFD only collects evidence for or against a particular decision. The actual decision is unknown until an admin makes it. It is an exclusive priviledge of the admins to make decisions. The situation is even simpler in the decision to block someone. Here an admin makes the decision mostly by himself. You are confusing the environment in which admins work with their decision making function. You should revert your edit; it is simply wrong. SA ru (talk) 22:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Wrong?? Are you really sure you know how Wikipedia works? I don't know how long you have been contributing to Wikipedia. But admins are explicitly disallowed to make editorial decisions. It used to be the case for a long time, and it hasn't been changed. Also, an admin can't just ban an editor. A user gets banned usually for disruption (edit warring or vandalism) In other words, admins can't just ban users because they feel like it. Let me cite this from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion:

Articles for deletion (AfD) is where Wikipedians discuss whether or not an article should be deleted. Articles listed are debated for at least seven days, after which the deletion process proceeds based on Wikipedia community consensus.

I have no idea where you got a wrong impression. -- Taku (talk) 22:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I am more familiar with the Russian section of Wikipedia, and admins make editorial decisions all the time over there. But even in the English section admins make decisions. Please read Decision making. You simply confuse the rules that admins are supposed to follow with their role as decision makers. If no decision by an admin was needed after a debate then a computer program could finalize the discussion following a strict algorithm. In reality, an admin makes a decision using his decision making priviledge, rules and his subjective opinion. Different admins might make different decisions. SA ru (talk) 22:42, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

• If I might butt in here, speaking as a newer admin, you are both sort of correct. In the case of AFDs, the closing admin is expected to analyze the debate and either keep or delete the article based on its content. Speedy deletions, however, can be carried out by an admin without any community input. This is because speedy deletions are only for unequivocal cases where there is no need for a debate. The point is, these supposed "privileges" come with a lot of extra baggage. Admins need to carefully consider the consequences of their admin actions before making them. Even if they make the right decision, they often have to deal with angry users who are upset because they believe the admin acted incorrectly. That is why we have WP:RFA, to weed out those individuals that lack the judgement, restraint, and policy knowledge needed to wield the extra tools. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

• The keyword here is decision. Admins are entitled to this priviledge, regular users are allowed only to express their opinion, but they are not the ones who decide. Even if the admins always decide correctly (which I doubt) they still decide, and this is their privilege. SA ru (talk) 23:11, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree the keyword is "decision". Whether admins make correct decisions or not cannot be an issue by design. This is because admins don't decide. They are not decision makers, but janitors who we rely on to perform some technical steps, which can be dangerous. Speedy deletions only apply to obvious cases like patent nonsense. They are really not editorial decision: they don't require community input because the results of AfD would be too obvious and editors can use time for other more important stuff. The bottom line is the whole point of admins is to assist editors, and it is the community that make decisions. -- Taku (talk) 12:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Refencing a YouTube video

I've seen youtube videos linked and I believe I have seen them refenced in cases where they were very pertinant such as number of views of the Evolution of Dance video. So, what is the scoop on referencing youtube, or perhaps, some other, more strict video hosting sites, such as how to sites with pro submitted material; what is hte name of that one...192.156.234.170 (talk) 16:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC) Oh yeah, eHow.com was the pro submitted one I was thinking of. 192.156.234.170 (talk) 16:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Umm. Balance???

If I read this article I discover that open editing is the most horrible thing ever, it has only ever been criticised, and nobody has ever said anything good about it. We should obviously give it up immediately! (hint: sarcasm).- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 01:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Just before reading that comment, I had a suggestion myself.There is an article Criticisms of Wikipedia, but, for the sake of balance, I wondered whether there should be an article "Merits of Wikipedia". Top of my list would be how up-to-date Wikipedia is. As of today (October 3 2009), one can already find an article on Bluehenge and find out that the Olympic Games in 2016 will be in Rio de Janeiro - items that have literally only just been in the news on BBC Radio Four within the past forty-eight hours. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:28, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, although I think in general it's better to avoid separate pro and con sections.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:17, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

You're only supposed to mention stuff when it's been talked about in a secondary source.--99.237.222.73 (talk) 23:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I just happened to read this page, and found it incredibly helpful because it reminded me that the wider public know that wikipedia isn't always balanced, and so it really isn't the end of the world if a few editors take over certain subjects and hi-jack the article. Honesty is the best policy, because you tend to believe those who are honest about their failings even if it's being honest that not everything in wikipedia is free from bias. 88.110.76.120 (talk) 14:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Link to Wikiality not working correctly

Currently, in section 5 - Cultural Significance, third paragraph is a link to Wikiality. Previously this had linked to a section of the entry on The Colbert Report entitled Wikipedia References. This has since been moved to the section of the entry "Cultural Impact of The Colbert Report" entitled "Wikipedia References" (link follows), Cultural_impact_of_The_Colbert_Report#Wikipedia_references

I'm adding this here because I don't currently have the ability to edit the page (new user).

Yoshi1277 (talk) 19:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Can one wiki article copy a paragraph from another wiki page?

Title self explanatory. I'm working on a page where a section on a book needs help, and on another page, a List, the book is defined perfectly IMHO. What is the policy on borrowing from another page? Thanks, Randy Kryn (talk) 00:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but you need to mention and link to the other page in the edit summary of the edit when you do so in order to comply with the CC-BY-SA attribution requirements. Also, this talkpage is only for discussion of Wikipedia's article on itself, not Wikipedia discussion generally. Your question technically belongs at the WP:Village Pump. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:13, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

New Page?

I just want to know how to create a new page on Wikipedia. Ive been on with it for 2 whole months and STILL don't know how to! Saprissy (talk) 17:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Look at Wikipedia:Your first article -- Mokoniki | talk 21:42, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Criticism

There should be a section on criticism of Wikipedia on this page. TokenPassport (talk) 10:17, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

There is already a link to the Criticism of Wikipeida article.--76.66.180.72 (talk) 04:43, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The first one

Is it known which was the first article of wikipedia? Is it still kept, or was it renamed, merged, deleted or something else in this time? MBelgrano (talk) 15:10, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Spelling error in the article: "Wikipedia"

Under the section "Attacks on the Encyclopedia" - the subsection "Vandalisation" is a blatant grammatical error. It should be replaced with the word "vandalism" originally posted by User talk:Madgeek999 (talk | contribs) 08:11, November 11, 2009

Actually, it is a word, but it can indeed be phrased more straightforwardly. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:52, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Madgeek999: you can review the nounal form of 'vandalise' at this Merriam Webster webpage, so 'vandalism' and 'vandalisation' appear to be two different forms for the same word and would thus be interchangeable –and yes, 'nounal' is also a good word. Best: HarryZilber (talk) 17:05, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Geography of Wikipedia

Hi all. Would this article be a good place to mention some of the distinct geographies of Wikipedia (as covered here: http://zerogeography.blogspot.com/2009/11/mapping-geographies-of-wikipedia.html)? Perhaps in the "coverage of topics" section? I think the fact that there is such an uneven global distribution of articles would be worth a mention here. Lucidwave (talk) 20:06, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Minor wording quibble

At the end of the lead section, I suggest

"... because of how quickly articles about recent events appear."

is changed to

"... because of the speed at which articles about recent events appear."

because the former does not seem like very good English to me. 21:55, 13 November 2009 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.242.27 (talk)

pronunciation

I've never heard "wikipedia" pronounced with the first syllable like "wee", on TV, the radio, or in conversation, and so have deleted the IPA for that. Dictionary.com and the six sound files at forvo.com would appear to back me up. Anyone actually pronounce it WEE-kee-PEE-dee-ə rather than WIK-ee-PEE-dee-ə? (And no, we don't care how it's pronounced in Hawaiian. That's irrelevant. If we were concerned with that, we'd transcribe it VEE-tee-PEE-dee-ə.) —kwami (talk) 09:09, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm in the UK and I have never heard it pronounced "wee..." 21:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.242.27 (talk)

I think what is being referred to is the tendancy of people to call it Weak-apedia, because they think it isn't up to much. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.81.177.148 (talk) 08:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

No, that's just you - you weren't allowed to put unsourced, negative, WP:BLP-violating information in an article, and now you're mad at the project. (talk→ BWilkins ←track) 12:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Add software license to the infobox

It's GPLv2+ as you can find out at MediaWiki. This is just as important as mentioning the content licensing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.148.220.242 (talk) 12:02, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Why? This isn't really an article about the software, the article you linked to about MediaWiki is. MediaWiki is used on a lot more than just Wikipedia. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 18:09, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Regarding web 2.0

I had a look at the definition of web 2.0, which includes ajax (javascript xml), but I don't think that wikipedia uses much of ajax at all, all of which are processed after the pages are refreshed, so you might want to think taking it off. Besides that, wikipedia uses more html codes for format instead of user friendly, eg bbcodes, or just a new line (
is required in this case) so afterall, wikipedia is not really user oriented too. Please let me know about your thoughts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ted chou12 (talk • contribs) 05:41, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

That's not what Web 2.0 means. 128.211.198.168 (talk) 03:30, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Re "user friendly" editing, have a look at http://usability.wikimedia.org/wiki/Usability_and_Experience_Study. It's been up since May this year (2009), but has had zilch comment on content on its talk page (which really surprised me!) -- Bricaniwi (talk) 09:01, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikiseek

This Wikiseek seems like it could be a useful tool if it searched past histories of articles... 70.59.140.179 (talk) 06:17, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

http

It should say that wikipedia uses htpt to edit things. hot do you spell it, is it http or htsp or something like that. Wikigoogleplex (talk) 02:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Q program, discussion and criticism

Somebody who is active on this article may want to give a listen to the podcast of Q for Monday, 7-Dec-2009. It includes a discussion concerning criticisms of established editors who make knee-jerk reverts of contributions by newbies. Link will be at http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/pastpodcasts.html?42#ref42 whn they put it up, or if you catch this soon enough the live feed will be available through the day as the shows moves through time zones in the morning, and it's repeat in the evening. Check http://www.cbc.ca/q/ Kid Bugs (talk) 15:32, 7 December 2009 (UTC) yes u should talk 2 us! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dolphinsrok (talk • contribs) 16:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Drop in number of contributers to Wikipedia

In the UK there has been a lot of negative press around the dropping numbers of contributers (me for one) to Wikipedia. This is thought to be mainly due to the amount of red tape and "over zealous" monitoring of submissions by editors and the "Wiki Police". Perhaps this needs to be featured? (208.51.151.2 (talk) 15:26, 11 December 2009 (UTC))

category removal

Category:Advertising-free websites should be removed from this article's category list, as there's one hell of an advertising spot up the top now. — ceejayoz ^talk 15:08, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

No section to address editor bureacracy and elitism turning novices away and spreading inaccuracies?

A drop in the number of wikipedia novice editors has been discussed by many major news outlets and has been acknowledged by Wales. Such articles have often discussed the elitism and bureaucracy of wikipedia editors as a possible cause. Anyone familiar with the movie Deja Vu can aptly see how the system has failed (the plot summary omits crucial off screen events furthering the spread of misinformation about plot holes). Look at the discussions page and Starkiller7's comments in particular 64.145.175.190 (talk) 08:34, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

True, there is also a film called Sahara though I believe, with plenty of sand for burying one's head... (Trevorsem (talk) 14:57, 16 December 2009 (UTC))

RfC: Should Wikpedia be added to the list at the bottom of Internet begging?

Please comment at Talk:Internet_begging#RfC:_Should_Wikpedia_be_added_to_the_list_at_the_bottom_of_the_article.3F. Cheers. > RUL3R^>trolling_>vandalism 08:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Lawsuits involving Wikipedia

Perhaps there should be a distinct entry about lawsuits involving Wikipedia, given that many people over the years have argued that some material on the website constitutes a liable defamation against them. Because of the rather limited jurisprudence of the Internet, many of these lawsuits have turned out to be notable in determining what does and doesn't constitute defamation. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] ADM (talk) 06:43, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Hardware

IIRC, we no longer have caching servers in Korea. Might be worth checking and updating if so.  — Mike.lifeguard | ^@en.wb 19:14, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Usage Volumetrics

I notice that whilst this article give a good overview of Wikipedia and page volumetrics, that it is entirely silent on usage volumetrics. Adding such a topic would enrich this article. Unfortunately as far as I can see the foundation doesn't seem to publish page hit volumetrics, and if this is the case then including it in the article could be classified as original research. (I have searched the discussion archive to see if the point has been raised previously, but the nearest that I can find is Google search trends. — TerryE (talk) 12:49, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Motto

Although "the free encyclopedia" is a good motto, another good one could be: "providing a way to see the big picture" (eg versus what's right in front of us in society). Perhaps something could be done with this. 91.182.187.161 (talk) 12:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

This isn't the page to be discussing that. Try searching where to talk about that. --Hadger 04:59, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Namespace

I suggest that this article be duplicated in the Wikipedia namespace. Us441 (talk) 00:20, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

What, at Wikipedia:Wikipedia? Why? -- Vary | (Talk) 01:32, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

The Wikipedia namespace is for information on Wikipedia, and this looks like a good introduction to information on Wikipedia. Us441 (talk) 15:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:About serves that purpose. Both articles have hat notes linking each other. Rehevkor ✉ 16:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Let's hold a vote lasting until April 30, 2009 at 22:00 UTC. Put Support if you think Wikipedia:About should be replaced by this article, Oppose if you think it should not, and Neutral if you choose not to take either side. Us441 (talk) 21:01, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

How about you get at least one or two people agreeing with this bizarre and pointless idea before a vote is taken. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia article that tries hard not to be self-referential. Wikipedia:About serves a completely different function. LonelyMarble (talk) 21:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Polling is not a substitute for discussion --Cybercobra (talk) 00:07, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Request for switching to first person point of view

Instead of "Wikipedia is..." it should be "I am..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.180.101 (talk) 01:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Support —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.221.202 (talk) 16:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

How about no, Scott. Rehevkor ✉ 16:52, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Robert McHenry's clever, unpleasant, simile

"The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him. Wikipedia [is a] faith-based encyclopedia."

• McHenry is eliciting disgust and snobbery to put down Wikippedia and thus promote his rival encyclopedia. It would be better if a quote of his were found that made his point more dispassionately. We're not here to promote his former employer or even to bend over backwards to appear fair. We should simply be fair.Rich (talk) 20:39, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Update of Wikipedia:Most frequently edited pages

Could anybody who understands the stuff about java etc. update this list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Most_frequently_edited_pages/How_to_generate_the_lists)? It would be quite interesting to know which actual entries (Namespace 0) are the most edited. The list here is nearly to years old and back than, the entry on George W. Buch was the most edited (40.000+) and that on Wikipedia only second (less than 30.000). THANKS!! VonLoyola 17:14, 12 February 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by VonLoyola (talk • contribs)

Bias

The article apperars to be a bit biased. For example, "Wikipedia does not take a side." This is not really true- Wikipedia tries to avoid taking a side, but this ideal is not always achieved. There are numerous other examples of what Wikipedia tries to be, but there is less real information about what Wikipedia actually is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.116.247.246 (talk) 22:19, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

• Don't expect too much, after all, you are looking at Wikipedia's page on itself. It's a bit like looking at a politician's own web site and expecting to see an honest critique. --199.76.171.89 (talk) 03:58, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Start date / launch date of Wikipedia?

If one looks at the first revision of Wikipedia's main page [20] which is dated 15:28, 26 January 2002 one reads: We started in January 2001 ...' However, in the opening paragraph of this article about Wikipedia it states: ... was launched in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger...

The former is precise but unsourced; the latter seems too vague (there are twelve months in any year, after all) and is also unsourced. I think the article would benefit from more precision as to the date with a verifiable source for the information. Do others agree?

Is it possible to establish from a verifiable (and citable) source the date on which Wikipedia started? I concede there may be a discussion about what constitutes "started" - was it when Wales and Sanger first thought of the idea, or first publicly sought contributions, or when the domain name was first registered, or when the first version went live, or what?

Any thoughts, anyone? Andy F (talk) 08:38, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

{{editsemiprotected}}

{{editsemiprotected}} Can i edit the page Wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mooza19 (talk • contribs) 23:23, 26 February 2010

You will be able to edit the page Wikipedia when you have four days of being registered and ten edits. In the meantime, you can request an edit be made here, readding {{editsemiprotected}} when you see a change you wish to make. Welcome to Wikipedia! Intelligentsium 23:26, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

New Chapter

Dninyo (talk) 20:51, 13 March 2010 (UTC) There should be a chapter in this article about donations to Wikipedia. How this started and where these donations from readers go to.

Wikipedia as an organization.

Good day,

While Wikipedia is a project in itself, it should be considered as an organization. Wikipedia was created by people, was grown by people, and is maintained by people. Therefore, I propose the Wikipedia article include some or all of the following:

1. A general description of Wikipedia as an organization.

2. An organizational chart based on the current organization.

3. The number of members (e.g. editors) that are part of Wikipedia.

4. A graph showing the number of members of Wikipedia per year.

Finally, I suggest including statistics and graphs of the users of Wikipedia, by year and by country (or region). Users are also important since they are like customers for the "Wikipedia organization".

Best regards,

Luis R. Villegas H. México.

--LuisVillegas (talk) 04:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC) wikipedia is a free encyclopedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.69.245.53 (talk) 14:44, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

this article is complicated

i can't read this article it's waaaaay too complicated. WikiYoung27 (talk) 03:16, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

What are you talking about? If it is hard to read, you should try it on Simple English Wikipedia

Ojay123 ^{(Talk•E-Mail•Contribs•Sandbox)(Respond on my talk page!} 23:35, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

What happened in March 2009?

http://stats.grok.se/en/200903/Special%3ASearch Did people just stop using wikipedia as much. Or did whatever counts as special:search change? Every month before it's like 15 million a day and every month after it's like six million a day. The change happened on March 25 and March 26. Please leave me a message as I'll forget to look for this. WAIT, I can just watch this page... Daniel Christensen (talk) 22:06, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Village pump? ---> Rehevkor ✉ 22:09, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Squille, Caserta, Italy —Preceding unsigned comment added by Campagnano (talk • contribs) 01:06, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm.

No mention of Certain Recent Events. Very interesting. --Larry Sanger (talk) 01:44, 9 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.170.157.188 (talk)

Free Speech

I notice that the page on Wikipedia is not editable. I think this is an outrage, and a repression of free speech. Fix this now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tylercombs (talk • contribs) 11:42, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

How exactly does this impugn free speech? 76.92.135.68 (talk) 00:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not believe this is repression free speech. Reasons because you have the ability to suggest edits here, and because you are allowed to speak you mind here. If you have a edit or change you would like to see occur, this is where you put it. --xXSc3n1cXx 13:18, 22 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by XXSc3n1cXx (talk • contribs)

Yes, and perhaps too many people speak their minds on this particular article. Just as any owner of real estate has the right to prohibit trespassing on their property, Wikipedia has the ability to make certain articles uneditable by anonymous and unaccredited users. It is actually laughably easy to get the ability edit this and other semi-protected articles. To edit Wikipedia, one simply needs to have an account at least 4 days old with at least 10 edits. In other words Tylercombs, you just need 9 more edits and then you can edit this article to your heart's content (providing that you, of course, do not vandalize)!

Oh, and one more thing. Demanding that we "fix this now" does not help...

Ojay123 ^{(Talk•E-Mail•Contribs•Sandbox)(Respond on my talk page!} 23:32, 2 May 2010 (UTC)

I also find it ridiculous the only single wiki page that is uneditable is wikipedia one. What would be so awful if someone actually wanted to edit something on this page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.3.250.42 (talk) 01:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

This page is not "uneditable", it is simply semi-protected as are plenty of other pages on Wikipedia. --Daniel5390 (talk) 04:53, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

"the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit"

Where and when did the discussion settling on this bizarre new slogan occur?
Varlaam (talk) 20:08, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

So it was vandalism then, eh?

Varlaam (talk) 00:55, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Search Location

Just for the record, Wikipedia should consider moving the search bar back to the left. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.105.36.88 (talk) 01:13, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Is there a discussion thread that led to this decision? I'd be interested in reading the reasons for the move. As a Firefox user, I already have a Wikipedia search option in the top right corner. And now long titled articles are shortened, which (I think) wasn't necessary when the search box was on the left side. Gigantibyte (talk) 02:42, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Was in an open beta for months, everyone was invited to try it out and comment. Anyhoo, here is not the place to discuss this; Village pump? ---> Rehevkor ✉ 12:11, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Edit Request

{{editsemiprotected}}

The second and third paragraphs in the introduction should be moved somewhere else. The second paragraph is criticism of Wikipedia. That should go in a "Criticism" section, or the "Reliability" section further down the page. It is not general information about Wikipedia. Having it so close to the top is so strange that I wonder if a Wikipedia detractors did that on purpose. The third paragraph starts out with another criticism, which should be moved with the second paragraph. The rest of the third paragraph should be moved to "Cultural Significance" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dustin184 (talk • contribs)

Not done: Welcome. The lede "serves both as an introduction to the article and as a summary of the important aspects of the subject of the article. The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article." If the article includes criticism and discussions of cultural significance, then the lede should mention these as well. You may also want to reread WP:AGF. If you still want to improve the lede after reviewing those, please detail your request in a 'please change X to Y' manner. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 14:51, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

"please detail your request in a 'please change X to Y' manner'" Uuuummm, didn't he just do that with his suggestion? Also, I agree with the opening sounding strange. It's a disparate grouping of very different tones, and makes it seem awkward. The second and third paragraphs should definitely be moved - it sounds like someone came by and threw together a bunch of citations in the introduction to belittle the site, followed by another who came by with more to quickly support it.RobinSenaRisen (talk) 19:02, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

The largest collaborative project in human history?

Would it be correct to say that enwiki is the largest collaborative project in human history? Tisane (talk) 15:15, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

If you said, "enwiki is the collaborative written work with the largest number of different writers in human history", then yes, probably. Otherwise things get a bit iffy. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 15:27, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

How many megabytes/pages/words were the great pyramids? Or the great wall of china? Rehevkor ✉ 15:33, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe I've been here too long, but I ted to see the Earth as a collaborative project. It has its vandals, its admins, its arbitrators, and, of course, it's completely free to enjoy. Well, most of the time :) - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 08:28, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia 4 Ever :)

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Wikipedia had become the 4th most visited website (yey), and it is the most viewed website without any adverts (which is a blessing). Just thought that someone might cook up some nice sentences to add to this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Usbdriver (talk • contribs) 19:55, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is awesome! Wikipedia is the best source of info for me. Its usually correct and if it isnt then it gets fixed eventually. I love it =](Steve4529 (talk) 16:24, 6 June 2010 (UTC))

Largest general reference, period.

Wikipedia is described as "currently the largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet." Is the qualifier "on the Internet" needed? No other encyclopedia or reference is larger or more used, is it? What about the qualifier "currently?" Was there a larger encyclopedia in the past? How about just "The world's largest and most frequently consulted general reference work." 72.244.206.31 (talk) 07:32, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, there actually seems to a source to support that. http://oreilly.com/catalog/9781593271763 : "You'll learn the skills required to use and contribute to the world's largest reference work". Probably not of sufficient quality to add to the article though. --Cybercobra (talk) 08:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

See WP:Size comparison. The answer is really that we don't quite know, but we think we are the largest work ever, and definitely the largest on the internet. So we run with the latter. - Jarry1250 ^{[Humorous? Discuss.]} 08:37, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Isn't there a big on-line Chinese encyclopedia now?- Wolfkeeper 13:35, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

We'd still have them beat via being multilingual. --Cybercobra (talk) 13:52, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Dunno, it's arguable whether it's one encyclopedia or many. Hudong has over 4 million articles, the English Wikipedia is only 3.3 million.- Wolfkeeper 14:02, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

The Yongle Encyclopedia was apparently "the world's largest known general encyclopedia" before Wikipedia. I think that if the world's largest known printed encyclopedia had 50 million characters, and if Wikipedia has several billion characters, then we can reasonably gather that Wikipedia is larger than any printed general reference work. 72.244.206.31 (talk) 22:20, 2 June 2010 (UTC)