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Funding

Anyone have any information on who funds Wikipedia and how much Wikipedia generally receives? Part of it is probably anonymous public donations--I would like to know how much that is too.

I want to include this information in the main article. I think it is important because it would shed light on the impartiality of the site.


It's run by the non-profit organization wikimedia, which I believe is heavily donation-based. Sc7 03:41, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Alternative(s) to Wikipedia

WHY IS THERE A NEED FOR A WIKIPEDIA PAGE ON WIKIPEDIA?

Is there a website that offers the same amount of content and information as Wikipedia? I need something more reliable and not as biased. I've searched the web and I couldn't find anything close to the size of Wikipedia.

-G

ARE YOU CALLING WIKIPEDIA BIASED?????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S IN THE RULES THAT WIKIPEDIA ARTICLES MUSN'T SHOW BIAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALSO - A RECENT STUDY HAS SHOWN THAT WIKIPEDIA SCIENCE ARTICLES, ON THE AVERAGE, ARE MORE ACCURATE THAN THEIR ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITTANICA COUNTERPARTS (Source - The San Diego Union-Tribune. Section: Quest. Subsection - Eureka!.)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (And yes - before you ask - I am furious that you would make such a suggestion as you just did in the previous paragraph.) 72.197.202.36 00:00, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I hardly think Wikipedia is biased or unreliable... But no, there's really not much with this amount of information. (199.126.134.144 20:04, 1 July 2006 (UTC))

What ever you say JIMMY WALES.

-G

You really have no clue what you talk about. Look at this IP. This means that the ISP is based in Edmonton. Jimmy Wales hardly lives on this continent.

Think.

BEFORE you speak (or type). (199.126.134.144 02:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC))

I'm sure it would be beyond the power of Jimmy Wales to falsify an address. Or to have outside contacts. Or is currently visitng that continent. All aside, I just want an alternative to the wonderful site of Wikipedia.

-G

Well, to be blunt, Answers.com basically points to Wikipedia, and everything else is really pay-to-use as far as I know.

Oh, as to falsifying adresses, it's really impossible to falsify an IP without getting a new computer in general. I hardly think Jimmy Wales is going to go and buy a computer just to fool you. Of course, he COULD be waiting a huge while between edits just to getr the smae IP each time. Though of course that woyuld be greater than the time between our edits.

Outsode contacts? Huh? You really think he's going to phone up friends to prank you?

As for visiting the continent, you think he monitors Wikipedia looking for people to prank? Conspiracy much? 199.126.134.144 06:15, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

To falsify an IP address, all you need is a proxy. You don't need to buy a new computer - that would be really expensive!

Christ, I just want an alternative to Wikipedia.

-G

Hmm, Encarta, Britannica? They're pay, but they're alternatives.Splintercellguy 21:12, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Forget Britannica - see the second paragraph of this section. 72.197.202.36 00:07, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

alternative to Wikipedia? you go to a wikipedia site and ask for an alternative to Wikipedia...amazing. thats like walking into a ford dealership and asking if toyota makes a good car.

Actually Wikipedia, as a good encyclopedia, should offer information neutrally on encyclopedias, including notable encyclopedias and verifiable assessments of their strengths and weaknesses. Try the article on Kenneth Kister for a lead... or ask at the helpdesk. FT2 (Talk | email) 17:42, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

You people take Wikipedia entirely too seriously. And what for? Wikipedia is not considered a reliable source by any high school teacher, college professor, or anyone else in the academic world. Show me an academic who uses Wikipedia as a reliable source, and I'll show you a guy who doesn't deserve a BA in burger flipping, much less whatever he has. You guys really need to get a life--find a hobby, go jogging, get a job, play Dungeons and Dragons in your mother's basement, do something outside of sitting at your computer thinking that you're "da shit" because you waste your life away constantly editing a virtually useless website.

What he said. Still looking for a substitute for wiki.

-G

I belive digital universe is working on it. Otherwise try your local libiary.Geni 02:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Digital universe doesn't look promosing. And I said "website".

-G

I think that Wikipedia is not reliable, i.e. some fucking morons (Read: teenies) used to edit the Gerard Way page to post stupid rumours about his girlfriend. && Why delete the page for Alicia Simmons?! O.o Plus, people who feel like they have the right to boss us around are fucking scumbags who shucld get fucking goddman life instead of trying to bitch the fuck out of us. Plus, Wikipedia does NOT have the right to monitorize our IPS, and, WORSE, to post them like that. Don't you have brains?! Obviously, not. Assholes. - Emmy

Struck out uncivil sections. Please be civil, even on heated discussions. I can't comment on your prior experiences or those deletions, but if you read the privacy policy, the Wikimedia Foundation pretty much only publishes your IP address if you edit anonymously, or if it becomes necessary when you disrupt the site. Thank you for your time. Luna Santin 11:49, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
Dear Emmy or whatever your name is, if you are unknown to Wikipedia, please try to be more decent enough to state it etiquettely and do familiarize yourself appropriately while dealing with the Wikipedian community when it comes to discussion pages. Such discussions (particularly the one with some marked-straight-cancelled-lines) you have made here coupled with foul language of several taboo words are considered a great and a horrible violation to this Wikipedia even including by those who are not logged-in or registered as a Wiki-user. Avoiding those over-derogatory words and sentences by such cancelling method still would not help blocking from all the eyes of Wikipedia. This is deemed as making a personal attack. There is absolutely no excuse for making such terrible remarks on any Wiki-contributors or on anything related from this whole encyclopedia by the Wikimedia Foundation. If you continue to make any more personal attacks, your message might be erased or even deleted by any of the Wiki-administrators plus you will be reported immediately although it is still shown with cancelled-lines edited by anonymous editors. Judge yourself on that and please consider to foster and maintain a positive online community into this big site! Thank you. --onWheeZierPLot 09:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism timespan

I read somewhere a estimated amount of time for a page to remain vandalized on Wikipedia before someone found and reverted it, but I can't remember where. Does someone know this estimate?

The Digital Pioneer 18:02, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

For some reason '8 minutes' has stuck itself in my head, but don't quote me on this! Philipwhiuk 18:00, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
It is five minutes, see Wikipedia:Vandalism. Iolakana|T 18:17, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Rogue Paragraph

Microsoft Encarta has started to solicit comments from readers in attempt to improve the accuracy and timeliness of its encyclopedia. Encarta Feedback allows any user to propose revisions for review by their staff.[1]

The above paragraph does not seem to have any place either in this article, or in the Coverage section in which it originated. If it is not properly related to the article or section somewhere, then I think it should be deleted.--Susurrus 05:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. Perhaps add it to the Encarta article? Iolakana|T 18:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Neatral POV sentence

Third paragraph: "under which notable perspectives are purportedly summarized without an attempt to determine an objective truth" I think "without" should be "with", but I didn't change it because I know this is a popular wiki and it would have been found already. 24.154.173.50 21:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Random Articles

I think that something that would add a lot of value to wikipedia would be to have a stub filter in the Random article navigation option. That way, you wouldn't have to fall on a two-liner on some random person in Wisconsin or something while navigating. You should be able to filter off stubs, or select only random articles who are FAs.

What do you think? Guitar George 23:39, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Hello! This isn't the appropriate place for suggestions about Wikipedia; this is the talk page to discuss and improve the article Wikipedia. The Village Pump is more appropriate for proposals. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 01:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, I'm new and I'm trying to get used to the atmosphere. I have used wikipedia for a while and now I've decided I might as well start helping the community. Cheers! 201.14.110.252 14:22, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

There are quite a few interesting stub articles in wiki's arsenal that crop up in the random link, it would be a shame to see them go. Elysium 845 13:59, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Title

????? Why is the title wikipedia is communism? can someone explain? 209.74.4.2 15:44, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Just vandalism. It has been fixed. Jkelly 15:56, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Graffiti

Since the page is protected, can an admin remove the graffiti in the first line under "Characteristics"? Thanks, NawlinWiki 18:21, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Jkelly 18:24, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Too much?

Is it me or is there just too much information on this Wikipedia article - even the discussion page is long. I think it should be offered in note form as well because I think very few people would be prepared to read all of that! Jimster 260 16:29, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, let's shorten all of our articles because you can't be bothered to read them! Sounds good. - Proud anon
Thanks for the wonderful sarcasm. Jimster 260 21:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
What do you suggest is irrelevant to the article? -- Zanimum 13:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I feel that much could be cut down so it is easier to read. I think it would stupid to read the whole article. Whereas if you could have it briefly it would be much more appealing.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jimster 260 (talk • contribs) .

Look, we're writing an encyclopedia here. We want large articles. If you don't want to have to read the whole article, use these new technology's called "Section Headers" and "Fast read" to find the parts you want.--Ac1983fan (talk • contribs) 21:44, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Please calm down. I find your words quite threatening.Jimster 260 22:06, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I was calm when I made that post. Now, tell me which parts you found "threatening". However, I was being serious here- the longer the article, the better.--Ac1983fan (talk • contribs) 00:45, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
Again I find your language aggressive. Please refrain from doing so. You placed 'want' in bold and it was underlined as well suggesting anger and annoyance. I believe you're getting off topic - please don't harm me with your menacing messages because I said. Jimster 260 13:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Ac1983fan, though. Yes, the article's long, but I had no problem reading it, and I think the more available information, the better. If you don't want to read a long article in one sitting, toss it on your watchlist of bookmark it, and read it in chunks. Sacrificing good information in favour of a shorter read is not the purpose of Wikipedia, in my mind. Keakealani 01:49, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the sentiment "The longer the better". If Wikipedia really does want to be taken seriously, it should aim to be factual and concise, not unneccessarily verbose.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.89.225.183 (talk • contribs)

You're entitled to your opinion, and I agree that conciseness is definitely good for an encyclopedia, but by the same token it is difficult to trim an article successfully without sacrificing important information. If you or anyone wants to change the phrasing or take out irrelevant information, that's fine, but removing things sheerly because the article is long and bulky is, in my opinion, conbtrary to the point of Wikipedia. <3Keakealani 07:55, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

External links...?

Isn't there a better way to link to en.wikipedia.org than putting it under "external links"? After all, all you get when you click it is a redirect to the main page. . . -- the one and only hackmiester (contact) 15:30, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

...Because it's a link to to the English Wikipedia. Where should it lead, AfD? - 68.106.140.79
Remember, many people are reading this article on Answers.com... etc., not just on WP itself. -- Zanimum 13:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

A redirect is a poor-man's-choice. Use links to direct pages as Marisa proposes to you

Wikipedia not a portmanteau?

Please see here to comment. Thanks in advance, - Glen Stollery 21:09, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I beleive "wikipedia" is a portmanteau or at least close to one. 68.42.106.119 10:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

multilingual portal

Added cool external link above picture of multilingual portal. --Chuck Marean 06:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Another user removed that link, as it was "unnecessary", to which I agree. -- Zanimum 13:34, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Who News?

Coke gets slammed on Wikipedia
MSNBC - USA By Ryan Mahoney. If you want to learn about The Coca-Cola Co., don't expect to find The Real Thing on Wikipedia. As recently as June ...
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13269186/ See all stories on this topic:
http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13269186/

Is a Wikipedia priesthood attempting to erase history? Email Battles - Bettendorf,IA,USA ... This forced the keepers of the Wikipedia flame to trim editing down to only those self-serving individuals who had declared themselves judge, jury and ...
http://www.trimmail.com/news/elsewhere/data/1150147374.71/

--G-Spot 13:46, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Founder Discourages Academic Use of His Creation

On June 12, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education ran an article entitled Wikipedia Founder Discourages Academic Use of His Creation. This generated a certain amount of discussion--see [[1]].

The main point many people are making is obvious--that a good student uses any Encylopedia as a starting point, not a finishing point. Clearly, it's the responsibility of university professors to make this point when giving a research assignment. However, here's a suggestion: is there any way that a standard "health warning" could be put on the navigation bar? A link to "Note on reliability," for example? Which would include this point?

There is one extra issue. I'm a univeristy professor myself, and one of the courses I teach is on the history of terrorism. I keep getting students quoting a Wikipedia definition of terrorism. In general, taking a definition from an Encyclopedia is legit. The problem is that they take "a" definition--there are usually about ten competing ones vying for attention on that page, and often implicitly rather than explicitly. The page is a battlefield between ten strongly held and incompatible perspectives. As a result, it's a dreadful article. There must be several others like that. So, suggestion: what about some way of handing certain problematic pages, or even just the opening section of such pages, over to a moderator who will preview and if necessary edit changes, and generally manage the page or section to come up with something that almost no-one sensible, university professor or not, will object to?

Mark Sedgwick 07:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid that there wouldn't really be enough room to put all the disclaimers and warnings about the unreliability of Wikipedia's content on the navigation bar; pages like Wikipedia:General disclaimer will have to suffice. Nor does Wikipedia really have enough volunteer manpower (or enough expertise spread throughout that volunteer base) to consistently maintain the level of formal control over articles which you request: to even come close to reliably determining an article's level of quality would consume so much time and energy that the quality of the article itself would be much worse than if we'd spent that time improving the contents. However, there are some informal methods you can use for identifying when an article is less likely to be sub-par: if you see a small brown star () in the upper-right corner of the page, that means that the article is part of Wikipedia's Featured content, which have generally gone through a few stages of editor peer-review and tend to be more comprehensive and well-written, though we still can't make any guarantees. There are currently 1,000 Featured Articles on Wikipedia, including such topics as global warming, voting system and diamond.
In any case, you are indeed wise to advise your students not to rely exclusively on Wikipedia as a resource for defining "terrorism". The term is already a complex and extremely loaded one (as Wikipedia itself notes at pages like definition of terrorism), which makes defining it consistently a difficult task for a volunteer-edited, ever-changing project like this.
On the other hand, the plus side of Wikipedia's coverage is that it always has the capacity to improve, and, when at its best, lends itself well to covering controversial things (like the definition of "terrorism") neutrally through presenting all relevant points of view on the issue. So, if you have any specific recommendations for improvements to make to Wikipedia's terrorism articles, although that obviously won't solve Wikipedia's broader systemic faillings in coverage, it may at least help protect a few people from receiving a skewed perspective on the word's meaning. Sorry I can't be of more help than that: I know that Wikipedia's "see a problem? so fix it!" mentality isn't much consolation for a university professor trying to stem the tide of misinformation. -Silence 21:35, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for a full reply!

    • "I know that Wikipedia's "see a problem? so fix it!" mentality isn't much consolation for a university professor trying to stem the tide of misinformation."
      • Believe it or not, I'm a Wikipedia fan! Sure Wikipedia isn't perfect, but it's remarkable. And like it or not, it's where everyone looks--so one had better like it!
    • "I'm afraid that there wouldn't really be enough room to put all the disclaimers and warnings about the unreliability of Wikipedia's content on the navigation bar; pages like Wikipedia:General disclaimer will have to suffice."
      • I didn't know that disclaimer existed, and most people probbale don't; what about adding it to the navigation bar?
      • I've written a general Academic caution and linked it to Wikipedia:Citing_Wikipedia. ("so fix it!")
    • "Nor does Wikipedia really have enough volunteer manpower (or enough expertise spread throughout that volunteer base) to consistently maintain the level of formal control over articles which you request"
      • What I was thinking is that you could set up a protected "experts' area" for bits of certain individual articles (not for the whole article), and ask some recognized experts to moderate it/manage it/write it. For example, I could probably get two or three academics working on terrorism to volunteer for this task for a section of the terrorism article. Academics write as volunteers too-it's just that most haven't got round to volunteering for Wikipedia yet. Having a potected "experts area" might encourage more to participate.
    • "Wikipedia's coverage ... when at its best, lends itself well to covering controversial things ... neutrally through presenting all relevant points of view on the issue."
      • Yes, but too many competing points of view, unless organized, produce incoherence. Hence my idea for a protected and an unprotected area within the same article. The unprotected area would guarantee the diversity of views that Wikipedia is so good at; the protected area would be coherent.

Mark Sedgwick 10:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

automatic reverts

This newer edit was a good edit: [2]. People or programs that revert pages without even looking at the page itself are not helping Wikipedia. Automatic reverts are against the purpose of open editing. The reverters comments don't seem to know what the edit was.--Chuck Marean 21:15, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Chuck, I am fully aware of what your edits were. (I commented that it wasn't the proper place for such a link in my edit summary when I reverted it, and I pasted of copy of your edit to your talk page with an explanation.) I recognize that you are trying to improve pages in good faith, but as has been pointed out to you before, your methods can be disruptive at times. In this particular case, the Wikipedia page is using a standard website infobox template [3], common to most articles about a website. The top of that template is meant to be the name of the website. Changing that to a hyperlink, and adding different text is a significant change to the way the template is supposed to be used (and alters the way the page has existed for months). As suggested to you already, such changes should be discussed first. Again, please read Wikipedia:Discuss and draft graphical layout overhauls. I hope you are taking the time to read the comments and policies suggested for you. Please feel free to ask me for any help. --mtz206 (talk) 21:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
I left the name in the original edit [4], but somebody anonomously reverted to before the edit. Also, my mention of the edit was somehow deleted from the history of the talk page. That thread could have been where the edit was discussed, but it was removed.--Chuck Marean 23:47, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

{{Infobox_Website |websitename = <span class="plainlinks">[http://www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia]</span> |screenshot = [[Image:Www.wikipedia.org screenshot.png|250px|Picture of the home page for the ten largest Wikipedias.]] |commercial = No |type = [[Internet encyclopedia project|Online encyclopedia]] |reg = Optional |owner = [[Wikimedia Foundation]] |author = [[Jimmy Wales]] and [[Larry Sanger]] }}

  • In the introduction to this article, when you place you pointer over the picture of the search box, the statement "Detail of Wikipedia's multilingual portal at http://www.wikipedia.org. Here, the project's largest language editions are shown," appears. The url, http://www.wikipedia.org, makes a person think the picture is a hyperlink to the search box itself. However, when you click the picture, you are sent to Image:Www.wikipedia.org screenshot.png instead. That image is not the functioning search box. It is only a picture of it. My solution to this problem is to move the url from the "screenshot =" to the "websitename =" part of the page. This solution gives visitors an actual link to the Muli-Wikipedia search box. I really don't know why the"screenshot=" part calls it a portal. I thought a portal is a box that gives the first part of an article and also has a link to the entire article. Maybe portal is just another word for hyperlink. The functioning example below(at right), I think is the way the picture in the introduction ought to be:--Chuck Marean 05:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
    Your original thread is still there, just above. Talk:Wikipedia#multilingual portal.
    Images on wikipedia ALWAYS link to image pages. (except in a halfdozen special cases, irrelevant here)
    Wikipedia is not a web portal, which is what the word portal here is alluding to, as are our own wikipedia:portal pages.
    Please reply to the comments at your own talk page. -Quiddity 05:56, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Then I suppose the writer ment "entry-points to Wikipedia content." Also, I've decided not to respond to angry messages. I could just explain an edit on the talk page. --Chuck Marean 15:57, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia infobox

Moved url from screenshot to websitename of Wikipedia infobox because explanation that appeared was confusing. --Chuck Marean 16:31, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I reverted your edit because (a) it has already been explained various times/ways that changing the website tempate in such a way in unconstructive, and (b) you also deleted various vandal and edit warnings within the code. Finally, Chuck, your note above about not responding to "angry" messages seems out of place and a tad uncivil since, IMO, there haven't been any "angry" messages left for you. Further, I encourage you to continue engaging in the discussions on your talk page (rather than deleting them). Please let me know if I can help. --mtz206 (talk) 17:16, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, I've received several tense, needlessly critical messages. I was following the template the best I knew how. After looking at the history list, the vandal message seemed to me to incourage editing wars by reverting. In fact, some reverts seemed to be by surfers just for fun, having learned what reverting is. I'm being careful. The fact is, the URL appearing when putting the pointer on the picture was confusing to me. It looked like the picture was a link to the search engine shown, yet it was not.--Chuck Marean 04:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

What does wikipedia run on?

What does wikipedia run on? is it a gigantic server or what? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.58.31.86 (talk • contribs) 21:32, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Information on the Wikimedia Foundation's hardware can be found here. —chair lunch dinner™ (talk) 03:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Revisiting Questions on How up-to-date Online Encyclopaedias Are

The question of whether Wikipedia is the world's most up-to-date encyclopaedia (see Archive 8 of this discussion) merits further attention.It is certainly true that both The Gadget Show and the magazine Focus, in comparisons with other online encyclopaedias, have found Wikipedia to be very up-to-date, the former through its comparison with Online Encyclopaedi and Wikidedia's entries on Tony Blair, the latter through its comparisons of entries on bird flu in Encarta, Infoplease, Encyclopaedia Brittanica online and Wikipedia. However, it seems that Wikipedia does less well here with articles on academic theories than it does with articles pertaining to news stories or popular and media culture. As of June 2006, compare the article on the psyhcological theory of attitude change termed cognitive dissonance, an academic theory advanced by Festinger, with those on the more recently media-hot topics of Bill Gates and Microsoft. The former could still do with updating, as many academic psychologists will surely acknowledge; the latter have ensured up-to-date coverage of news stories that happened just last week pertaining to Microsoft. I do think that this is another example of how Wikipedia is helping to transcend the boundaries between newspapers and encyclopaedias. ACEO 19:05, 19 June 2006 (UTC) ACEO 19:21, 18 June 2006 (UTC) It seems that Wikipedia could also currently do with updates in the areas of medicine and natural history. There has just been a report into whooping cough in Oxford, the United Kingdom, stating that a surprisingly high number of children may have whooping cough, which was reported on July 7 2006 in the Independent newspaper. However, the last update to the article on whooping cough was in June. The Independent for Friday 7 July also gave a report on the natterjack toads and other toad species in decline, but the last I looked, the details of these latest surveys were not in pertinent articles on Wikipedia. For medicine, it is surely important to have some one who can update information regularly? ACEO 20:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Unknown language

What The heck is The ??? language? You know how you get the page that asks you for the language that you speak? Well, the ??? language is on there. And all letters are ? marks. Um... whats the deal with that? Fatandlazy11 01:04, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

The question marks are showing up most likely because your browser doesn't support the characters that are being used. Certain configurations don't support languages with complex scripts, like Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Thai, and Urdu. —chair lunch dinner™ (talk) 01:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Improvement suggestion

The Wikipedia "foundation principles" don't seem to be explicitly mentioned as such on this page (I could be being unobservant though). Any views on whether they should feature here? SP-KP 19:21, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Origin of the name

Does anyone know where the name "Wikipedia" came from? - User:Sasuke-kun27 14:15, 24 June 2006

As explained in wikipedia's entry on wikipedia itself, the word is a portamentau of "wiki" (meaning a web page open to consumer editing) and "encyclopedia". Elysium 845 11:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC) Elysium 845


Okay I am perusing Wikipedia for the first time my dear friend Highly Recommended but I am very surprised by the Grammer and lack of Spell Checks Sylviamessages@hotmail.com

What about the Use of Creative Capitalization? Isopropyl 04:42, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Weasel words/Unsourced statements

The criticism section has several weasel words in vague sentences that need citations.

  • "Proponents contend that open editing improves quality over time" - Who are the proponents?
  • "Some argue that allowing anyone to edit makes Wikipedia an unreliable work"
  • "Some critics have suggested that Wikipedia cannot justifiably be called an "encyclopedia", a term which (it is claimed) implies a high degree of reliability and authority that Wikipedia, due to its open editorial policies, may not be able to maintain."
  • "Wikipedia has been praised for making it possible for articles to be updated or created in response to current events." - Vague. Who praised Wikipedia? Anything can be updated/created in response to an event; is Wikipedia praised because the articles are created and updated quickly after the event? The following example about the earthquake isn't cited either and doesn't really illustrate this statement. I'd suggest removing the example as it would be difficult to cite all the press sources.
  • "Critics of Wikipedia have also viewed it as an oligarchy which is controlled primarily by its administrators, stewards, and bureaucrats, or simply by a small number of its contributors."

I don't like how the praise of Wikipedia is lumped in with the criticism. There's no "praise" section in the article, and I'd prefer to see them in separate sections. There's more criticism than praise in this article, and where the good qualities of Wikipedia are mentioned, they are not obvious to the reader or are not explained in enough detail. Perhaps some of the information from Wikipedia:Why Wikipedia is so great could be adapted into this article. SCHZMO ✍ 15:51, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that references should be added for the "proponents", "critics" and "some people" as this currently reads as innuendo. I also agree that the praise could be put under a separate section. Peter Campbell Talk! 08:40, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

WRT weasel words: I think that in this situation none of those count as "weasel words" per se. "Proponents" perhaps. But the "some" in "some argue", as well as the critics in "some critics", these people do exist. It's just that a lot of these "critics" and "arguers" seem to me to be normal people rather than credible sources. In my own experience I have encountered many people that criticize/praise Wikipedia for all of the reasons mentioned in this article. None of the people that I have encountered (some in real life, some in various places on the internet) were anybody notable (as in; they don't write articles in a magazine, and you would not recognize their names), but there -seems- to me to be a lot of valid, logical criticism/praise of Wikipedia. On one hand, since reliable sources for criticism/praise were not named, the criticism/praise would be considered POV and not fact. On the other hand, it is a fact (or rather, it's my theory -- my sample set size is small but I think I am correct in asserting that this is a fact) that such criticism/praise exists on a large enough scale in the general populace, and that shouldn't be ignored. I think what should happen is this: perceived weasel words should be removed and statements reworded to contain the same content without using any of the phrases present in the "weasel words" article. That way nobody will be able to make claims that weasel words are being used, as "weasel words" themselves are not always weaselly -- it's very context dependent (see weasel words discussion page). The "weasel words" warning itself strikes me more as whiney than relevant (and also strengthens my own personal opinion that Wikipedia seems to be going downhill as far as quality content goes -- whiney, irrelevant warnings about inconsequential things like this really bother me because, in all honesty, anybody coming to the Wikipedia article looking for factual information about Wikipedia would most likely see right past all that anyway [and if they came here to use this article as a reference, they certainly wouldn't be able to cite the unnamed critics in this article in their article lest they use "weasel words" as well]). As far as a praise section goes, I certainly agree that it deserves it's own section. --JCipriani 05:59, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Wiki software and hypertext mark-up language: Query about address for Wikipedia articles

I have a query about addresses for Wikipedia articles, and I hope that some one who knows more about computer software than me can answer it. I understand that wiki software is not quite the same as hypertext mark-up language. Why then is it that one would type in "http" for website addresses, e.g.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wikipedia is a quick way of reaching this article? Surely the initials for "hypertext transfer protocol" imply that websites are written in hypertext markup language? ACEO 19:24, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Although wikipedia uses wiki markup, the Wiki engine (called Mediawiki, as you may or may not know) "translates" it (so to speak) into hypertext format. At least, that's the understanding I got.--Ac1983fan (talk • contribs) 14:15, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Http stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol; a protocol with which to send hypertext over the Internet. And this is true. Open up the source of any Wikipedia page and you will see HTML. As stated, one inputs text and wikicode into this edit box which the software then translates into browser-readable HTML. —Michiel Sikma (Kijken maar niet aanraken) 06:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
you can to consult: wikitext. 206.74.183.198

The content dispute on F-14 Tomcat

The aforementioned content dispute shouldn't be mentioned in this article, for several reasons:

  • The editor who introduced the dispute into this article is one of the participants. This article is not a place to grind your axe; if you have an issue that can't be resolved on the talk page, take it to WP:RFC.
  • Said content dispute has not been covered in any external source that I'm aware of.
  • Said content dispute appears to be over minutiae (is the F14 an "air superiority" fighter?); and there are conflicting sources on the matter. To claim that one position (being advanced by an agressive editor, apparently) somehow makes Wikipedia look bad is quite seriously begging the question.
  • Content disputes are a known issue on Wikipedia, and already covered here and on Criticism of Wikipedia. Mention of the F-14 debate does little to further improve this article.

Reverted. --EngineerScotty 22:56, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

AFD nominations

The following articles, which are breakout articles of this article, have been nominated for deletion:

See also:

Uncle G 14:55, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia & Google

All around Wikipedia, there has been much discussion of what could from a collaboration between Wikipedia & Google, listing lots of possible pros and cons, and how it could benefit both companies. While a partnership is all up to executives of the Wikimedia Foundation & Google Inc., I propose the creation of an article where Wikipedians could explore the issue. There are dozens of articles dedicated to defining different parts of both internet companies, and lots of talk about their relationship, so a entire article dedicated to the possibilities might be beneficial. I could create the article myself, but I would like feedback to see if its appropriate or not. I'm not positive if it fits into Wikipedia's policies, so I step cautiously. I don't want anyone to shoot me down for this proposal, even if it turns out to be a bad one, I just want to explore an idea.--Wikiphilia 23:58, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

A seperate 'page' isn't really necessary unless it is to document known information concerning a colloboration, at which the associated talk page would be the perfect place to dicuss it. Wikipedia's articles are not discussion points - thats the talk page's job. However as far as I know (not much admittedly ;) ) no such page exists. If you fins enough information from reliable sources of such a colloboration then create the page. Otherwise the alternative is to use this section (and a link at Google's talk page, to ensure that everyone who wishes to make a comment knows where to look. Thanks for being cautious. Philipwhiuk 18:18, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I changed these links to be external links, because they referenced Wikipedia:-space. (The point is that the links would otherwise be broken in many Wikipedia mirrors, but they add enough to the article that they should appear here; this is explained in the header of WP:ASR.) However, I was reverted. Could someone explain why the links should be internal? --ais523 09:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you. The links should be external, as in any other article. -- Ec5618 09:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
I must disagree. To my mind that means that in any article that references the Wikipedia space (eg Spam or AWB would require this change. We are not here to provide for mirrors and you could say that all links should be external as the mirror may not have all of Wikipedia. I think though that this would be better discussed at Wikipedia talk:External links or Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style as this has an impact on multiple articles and not just this. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 14:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
Both of those examples are {{selfref}} tagged so they will be removed in Wikipedia mirrors. In the case of Wikipedia, however, removing the links would harm the article, so they have to be written as external instead. If you disagree with the style guidline, why not debate it on Wikipedia_talk:Avoid_self-references? --ais523 15:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Weakness of Wikipedia Geography Articles vis-à-vis Political Regions

I find Wikipedia such a wonderful resource that I am spoiled. Despite all the obvious effort that has gone into many otherwise terrific Wikipedia articles on geography, they overwhelmingly stink, for one reason: they are almost without exception incomprehensibly weak in establishing geographical context for political regions: Where is the region in question located on the globe, on its continent, relative to something bigger than itself ??? It is rarely any help at all to go to another article. For a totally typical example, try figuring out where Mauritius is, relative to something else big, like Africa. (I don't doubt that with all the info in Wikipedia, this can be done -- but how hard is it for the average user?) You go to the Mauritius article and it is almost entirely lacking larger context. It says its geography article is part of a larger, African Geography article. But that article astonishingly does not bother to convey where countries in or near Africa are located, for the most part, and if it offers another, better option, one clearly has to work pretty hard to find it, since I was unable to. This is, unfortunately, a very familiar scenario.

How can the typical Geography of Continent X not convey where the countries of Continent X are located and positioned on this contintent? Could it be because of a fear and loathing of artificial political boundaries? Or just massive cluelessness? Stay tuned.Daqu 04:37, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Out of curiosity I just went and had a look at Mauritius and one of the first images seen was this one. Is that the sort of thing you're talking about? How is that not good? -- Francs2000 07:26, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I find the position of Mauritius on that map to be a question of a) guesswork and b) eagle-eyed vision. My response to your question is: How is that good?Daqu 00:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
I looked at the Mauritius page and the 1st sentence says that the island "is about 900 kilometres (560 mi) east of Madagascar and about 3,943 kilometers (2,450 mi) southwest of India." I'm afraid I can't see what the weakness in geography is. Could you clarify please?--Planetary 01:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The sum of all human knowledge?

Ever try to learn wine tasting from a computer? How about gymnastics? Let's assume Jimbo meant the tiny fraction of human knowledge which can be represented on a computer. You're going to accomplish this herculean feat with a system that discourages experts and rewards TV appearances? Buckle up, we're about to re-enter the atmosphere. New pages are added to Wikipedia somewhere in the neighborhood of once every thirty seconds. The limited number of so-called "editors" are currently overrun. They can't weed out all of the irrelevant articles. The rate at which new articles appear is growing faster than the rate at which new editors appear. What are they going to do when a new article is added every second? Ten per second? Wikipedia is destined to become a gargantuan repository of incomplete, inaccurate, irrelevant, and totally useless information. The actual useful bits of information are going to be like needles in a haystack. Eventually Wikipedia will resemble a putrified version of usenet. Then it will implode under the weight of its own "dark matter." I don't think there's any dispute about this among those in the know. The only question is when. -Advocron 22:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

  • Oh, you'd be surprised how quickly those of us on RC patrol can flag, tag, and delete vandalism and rubbish articles. Not only that, but numerous bots assist in the effort. Plus, numerous technical measures (and the current overloaded state of the database servers) keep the page creation rate down well below ten per second (it's generally several per minute; and the vast majority of created pages are either useful new articles, or obvious trash that gets speedy-deleted).
  • However, I suspect that you're mainly upset about the fate of one particular article, aren't you? Whether or not Mark Steere is sufficiently notable or not, I don't know. Regardless, creating articles about yourself is considered bad form here, and whining about how Wikipedia is going to hell in a handbasket just because an article you created doesn't survive an AfD is, to be blunt, old hat. If I had a dime every time someone predicted the imminent demise of Wikipedia just because a community decision didn't go their way, I'd be a wealthy man. --EngineerScotty 23:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Pretty close. Initially I was discouraged by the hoard of "deletion yahoos" and their rallying cries of "Vain" and "Bio". And the notable absence of any argument of exactly how the article failed Vain and Bio.
  • Simple, really: WP:VAIN means, among other things, you shouldn't write articles about yourself (as does WP:AUTO. WP:BIO means that biographical articles should only be written about persons who are verifiably notable. I'm not notable; and have no encyclopedia entry. I'm not familiar with the particulars of your work, but many biographies are submitted which don't survive the scrutiny which is applied. Don't take it personally.
Ultimately it was a popularity contest devoid of any foundation. Naturally I got to looking into Wikipedia and had a good laugh. What with Jimbo hiring Larry to do a job and then performing auto edits to minimize Larry's contribution after Larry had left. Then there was the infamous Kennedy assassination accusation. Don't get me started. By the time I got done reading all this I was glad my article was turned down.
  • Sounds like we can reach an agreement, then. If you don't like Wikipedia, nobody forces you to stick around. OTOH, you are welcome to stick around should you choose--it's entirely up to you.
  • As for the future of Wikipedia? Come on, admit it. Garbage in, garbage out. You guys are shovelling shit against the tide.
  • Actually, we're shovelling useful content--the ratio of useful content to shit on Wikipedia is higher than one might initially expect given the open-edit ratio. Besides; you're now trying to have it both ways. Having your particular contribution rejected, you then wail about the amount of low-quality content which you think exists here. Which should it be? Should we tighten up the submission criteria, essentially preventing articles such as Mark Steere and other forms of self-promotion from being created in the first place? Or should we relax the submission criteria such that anybody can post anything they want, with no editorial oversight?
  • What are you going to do when the rate of attempted page creations does reach ten per second?
  • That will likely mean that we have a significantly greater number of active editors--which will in turn mean that we'll have more volunteers for recent changes patrol--largely the same folks which you so elegantly described as "deletion yahoos". (The reason some folks show up on a significant number of AfDs and speedies is not because they're sociopathic assholes trying to ruin others work; it's because they're trying to protect the collective work of others from being diluted by the deluge of crap that you postulate above.)
  • What "technical measures" are going to address all those people pressing their respective "Save page" buttons. Computer programs can't evaluate all those entries for notability.
  • Notability comes into play in a small percentage of questionable edits and page creations. As I said above, most junk is uncontroversial junk, that never makes it to an AfD. We have bots which are quite effective at reverting vandalism and tagging junk. (Deletion of pages still is done by human admins, however).
  • You're already letting a fair percentage of non-notables slip past and the problem is only going to grow.
  • Oh, I'm sure that there are a few articles on non-notable subjects out there.
  • You must realize that "sum of all human knowledge" bit is utterly preposterous. And that the whole Wikipedia project is a runaway train headed for increasingly steep downward slope. -Advocron 00:36, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • What some call preposterous, others call marketing. Obviously, computer technology only allows for thorough stimulation of two of the five senses; and many topics still have inadequate coverage. OTOH, Wikipedia has broader coverage than any other encyclopedia. And contrary to the predictions of naysayers, who have been predicting that Wikipedia will sink into a swamp for years, the quality of Wikipedia has continued to improve as time goes on.
  • I should point out, that all of the criticisms you offer, we are all well aware of. The article Criticism of Wikipedia is a good place to start. We listen to our critics, and we adapt when needed. However, there is one way in which we ignore our critics; we ignore those who suggest that the project is hopeless, and the best we can do is pull the plug. While Wikipedia may not be, at current time, on par with Brittanica or other traditional encyclopedias concerning subjects covered by both, we're quite useful and gaining all the time. The notion of Wikipedia (popular in some critical circles), with windows boarded up and articles left to rot and decay as talented editors flee left and right for greener pastures, simply isn't true. Maybe some day it will be time to make fundamental changes in how this encyclopedia operates, but not today. --EngineerScotty 05:24, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Funny you should mention "sociopathic assholes." What was the point of your showing up at the Mark Steere RfD discussion, already nearly 100% deletion endorsements, including my own, and adding one more deletion request? Besides the obvious overkill, you've already stated that you're unaware of the subject's notability. You've just presented the strongest evidence yet of "deletion yahoos."
  • The subject's notability is not relevant in a deletion review; deletion reviews are intended to ensure proper procedures were followed. (There have been cases where admins prematurely closed deletions, or there were allegations of ballot-stuffing; DR is for that). I didn't participate in the initial AfD, and I probably would have left that one alone. (I actually don't participate in many AfDs; most of my deletion requests are the speedy variety, concerning articles that say things like "my friend Kim is a slut" and such).
  • It's not a matter of tightening or relaxing admissibility standards. It's a matter of deletion yahoos, such as yourself, converging in a cabal-like manner on every new page that gets flagged, and letting a flood of unflagged pages pass by totally unnoticed. Wikipedia is already overrun with obscure athletes and tumbleweed townships. Five minutes on the Random will enlighten you on the current state of affairs. There's obviously a trend here. Focus. The rate at which articles are being added is growing faster than the rate at which new deletion yahoos can flag them. -Advocron 13:12, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • If you can think of any pages that shouldn't be present on Wikipedia, you can tag 'em yourself. Just go to WP:AFD and follow the directions. The existence of other fluff on Wikipedia is not to be construed as justification for new fluff; just as the fact that many people speed on the highway and get away with it isn't going to help you when the officer does pull you over and write you a ticket. But anyway; if you think that too many articles are being deleted unfairly; you're welcome to participate in AfD and keep them. Or, if you'd rather not participate here, nobody is forcing you to stay. It's entirely up to you. --EngineerScotty 16:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • Man, you have remarkable penchant for sidestepping the issue. One last time, the rate at which articles are being added is growing faster than the rate at which new deletion yahoos can flag them. After all this you think I want to become a deletion yahoo? There are other ways to participate. Obviously if I didn't want to be here I wouldn't be. Nobody is forcing you to stay, any more than they are me. -Advocron 17:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
  • I guess we disagree on this point. Currently, RC patrol does keep up with the recent changes and new articles, and is able to flag most of the obvious junk that is created; though some slips through. There are many articles whose existence is controversial--and there has been much discussion among editors as to how "notable" a subject ought to be to have an article; personally, I don't consider the existence of borderline articles to be a problem. (Articles which are poorly written, contain factual errors, and such are bigger problems; in many cases the cure is to fix the article rather than deleting it). I see no evidence--at this time--that RC patrol is being overwhelmed. At any rate, I choose to stay here and participate. Wikipedia can certainly be improved, after all, which is why I'm here. --EngineerScotty 18:02, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Using the NUMBEROFARTICLES template

In this article's very early history, it used the phrase "over a round number" articles. Then, in mid-2003, someone used the NUMBEROFARTICLES template in this article. I'm trying to find out when in history the "Do not change this to NUMBEROFARTICLES" HTML comment was first added. Georgia guy 23:56, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

X-Play

Wikipedia was mentioned on X-Play, while explaining a game Adam gets semi-frustrated and says "Just go look it up on wikipedia".

Reliability and criticisms section

I've put this section into summary style and split out the details of assessment of Wikipedia and findings of studies which have examined this (as opposed to simple criticisms) to a new article, Reliability of Wikipedia.

This section was a bit of a mess, with the various edit disputes of the past leaving a mix of studies, assessments, quotes and editorialising on the subject, that didn't seem very helpful. I've tried to make a start on cleaning some of this up, but it really needs to be done collaboratively.

Main edits:

  1. Fork off Reliability of Wikipedia, as a neutral article assessing reliability (although the line is not always clear between an assessment and a criticism)
  2. Clean up criticism subsections -- Authors was not in fact a criticism section but a description of the process, much of Coverage was studies on reliability, some of Reliability was generic "I don't like/trust it" about the wiki process, and so on.
  3. Split out network reliability issues from article reliability issues
  4. Wikify some links, add category:Collaboration
  5. Finally, put the criticisms section into summary style, summarising findings rather than repeating them. (More could probably still be done on this, on both articles; it's still too messy)

Hopefully this gives a slightly better article. Where else should the "Reliability" article be linked from?

FT2 (Talk | email) 19:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This video should be at least linked in the criticisms section. Hahaha. http://youtube.com/watch?v=zmHm0rGns4I&feature=TopRated&page=4&t=t&f=b Lordofchaosiori 15:46, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Google search trends.

Google Search Trends is a service provided by Google. It shows:

  • The volume of how much something is searched on Google
  • What cities search for it the most
  • What countries search for it the most
  • What languages its search for in the most.

I was wondering if some information from Wikipedia's Trend could be displayed on this page? --Alan Frize 21:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Postscript: It is of my belief that this info is somewhat relevant but I'm not sure where to put it on the page. Therefore I have no problem if a more experienced editor inputs this info.

Exponential growth

The proper way to demonstrate exponential growth is generate a plot where the abscissa is linear time and the ordinate is a logarithm of the dependent varabile (in this case, article count). For exponential growth, you should then have a straight line. If you do not have a straight line, then you have something else. Also, the chart is out-of-date. Please update it in any case. -- 64.175.42.148 02:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

3 simple questions, mild confusion

  1. This article has a lot of reference links that would appear to go against WP:ASR. Is the Wikipedia article exempt?
  2. What outside source can/is cited somewhere for the first reference link of http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/PlotsPngUsageVisits.htm? Is it also WP:ASR...?
  3. "Midway through 2006, Wikipedia had more than 4,600,000 articles in many languages, including more than 1,200,000 in the English-language version." There is no outside source link for this under WP:V. rootology 19:36, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
It is not quite self-reference as it is a reasonable topic for any modern encyclopedia. It could reasonably be mirrored elsewhere, though rather oddly it is not at [5] but something similar is at [6]. --Henrygb 16:41, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

October 2003 growth spurt

Does anyone have an explaination for the growth spurt in October 2003? The article count seems to have almost doubled in the third week of October 2003. -- 75.26.7.168 21:42, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you mean October 2002, perhaps? Johntex\talk 21:48, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
FYI History of Wikipedia article states 'In October 2002, Derek Ramsey ("Ram-Man") started to use a "bot", or program, to add a large number of articles about United States towns; these articles were automatically generated from U.S. census data. Occasionally, similar bots had been used before for other topics. These articles were generally well received, but some users criticized them for their uniformity and generally machine-like writing style (for example, see this version of a town article).'

This is probably the explanation for the growth spurt. Tom 23:16, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Milestones

Many articles (Skype being an example) have milestones and developments sections. I think this article needs one as well, bvut I'm not familiar enough with its history to add it.

A section of this kind should list major innovations in versioning and capabilities (or point to the mediawiki software for this information), as well as milestones for wikipedia itself.

Can someone research and add? FT2 (Talk | email) 02:13, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Is that picture supposed to be there?

You know, the one that shows two guys partaking in oral sex? FireSpike 19:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry for the slow response to vandalism. -- Coneslayer 19:19, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

I think this page should be under selective user editing for obvious reasons. It gets annoying when you have to revert edits every other minute.Gagueci 22:26, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Lol, I just laughed at the truth in the statement. Yea, I also think that the selective user should be one that has been a member for atleast a couple of days. So as to limit the vandals. Monkey Brain 22:31, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

You can see how no one really takes the talk page seriouslyGagueci 18:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

You might want to see this -- Lost 18:08, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Quote: "You can see how no one really takes the talk page seriouslyGagueci 18:00, 25 July 2006 (UTC)".

The History section is too long

The History of Wikipedia has its own article. This article's History section should probably say nothing.

Bias against values of U.S. Democratic political party

I think it should be pointed out in the article that Wikipedia as a whole has a bias against traditional values of the Democratic party. 75.2.253.161 20:14, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

If there exists a reliable source that has made such a criticism, that might be eligible for inclusion. Jkelly 20:45, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
I think it would be easier to find proof of bias against the Republican party, but either way a verifiable source is needed. Johntex\talk 06:03, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
This probably doesn't qualify, but touches upon it. Jkelly 19:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
That actually says Wikipedia is bias for Democratic views, not against them. Konman72 21:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
It doesn't even say that, but note that I was replying to Johntex. Jkelly 21:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Jkelly - thank you for providing that link. I've only had a chance to skim it, but it looks very interesting. Best, Johntex\talk 22:07, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

For the record: what Cox did was to make a major revision on April 6; on April 13 he reverted to it four times (some of them differ slightly, he found two more links to take out). He reverted several different editors. After this, he made a smaller edit, taking out the links again, and reverted to that version. All this was within 24 hours, and earned him a 3RR block. So what? Septentrionalis 00:07, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, that depends. Was his version better? Was his version more NPOV? Johntex\talk 00:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
Cox's case is that he edited Keith Olbermann and Countdown with Keith Olbermann and that he revert-warred until he got blocked. Decide for yourself how NPOV his edits are; they're in this section; but that's not a defense for an editor who makes five exact reversions in 24 hours. Septentrionalis 01:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Re: The New Yorker

--Slgr@ndson (page - messages - contribs) 20:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The graph seems broken

The graph showing the growth of article count seems to be broken. Its presence may cause harm to wikipedia if it is used to judge wikipedia's vitality. If it can not be fixed perhaps it should be removed. Update: the problem was fixed.

Pop culture merge.

"(rv cut and paste merge. consensus was to merge in wikimedia page, not the wikipedia one)"

The Wikimedia page still contains no reference to that article. Also that article is titled "WikiPedia in..." not "Wikimedia in...". If that was the consensus then why hasn't anything changed? Duh -- "Wikimedia in pop culture", not "Wikimedia" --JCipriani 04:51, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

origan

nevada is origans cuba —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.28.250.225 (talk • contribs) 18:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Um, what? Picaroon9288|ta co 03:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone know what proportion of Wikipedians are female?

I am very interested in this because I am an Admin on the Psychology Wiki, and 90% of psychology students are female. If anyone thinks they actually know, or has a good estimation, please could they leave a message on my user page :)

Tom Michael - Mostly Zen (talk) 16:26, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Heh define wikipedian. You could check the relivant userboxes but that would only get you so far.Geni 02:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
And that won't be too reliable, I noticed in Guild Wars a lot of female players, and I was surprised. Then I found that my three sons sometimes play as female characters - and it appears to be a normal thing. --Brat32 02:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

The Jimmy Wales reference 46

"Given enough eyeballs, all errors are shallow" -- as given in the article. The very recent article in the Atlantic Monthly gave this as "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow". Correct version please?

And should the recent articles on Wikipedia, in the Atlantic Monthly and the New Republic [I think] be added to the references? --Dumarest 15:28, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Administrators....

If this is ever going to be taken seriously or trusted by "non-believers" and the non "cult-believers" then System Administrators should be called fact checkers and the ista-deleters called bots should stopped. Some mindless program can't have the sense god gave the common bovine.

--G-Spot 13:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC) User:Gzlfb

NPOV

Since it is much disputed to call Larry the "co-founder" of Wikipedia, this article should not do so. As is well known, I strongly contest this characterization of Larry's role. I think it is an insult to the people who really created the site, the early contributors who shaped policy in opposition to Larry and made Wikipedia the success it is today.--Jimbo Wales 18:06, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, there is a difference between founding and making successful of course. If Larry Sanger co-founded the project and then did whatever and left because of disagreements (I don't know the story), he does not cease to be the co-founder. "The early contributors who shaped policy in opposition to Larry" were there only *after* the project was founded. If reality is an insult to them, we should still write about reality. In any case, he should not simply be removed as co-founder, but the text should be rewritten to explain what happened. The article currently says very little about this. Piet 09:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think he should be removed as a founder but perhaps more emphasis can be placed on his early abandonment of the project. Unless there is some major evidence showing that he wasn't a founder it would be POV to not include him. Konman72 09:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I did not argue that we should not include him. My point is, it is very much contested (and wrong, in my opinion). And Wikipedia should not take sides in any controversy.--Jimbo Wales 02:49, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Infobox

I need help! On soem pages there's an info box and there are lots of different types, tv show infobox, buffyverse caharcter infobox, but I wanna know how to make a new infobox! please, please help me!!!


I wonder who decides what is non-notable and what is notable. I attempted to run a few entry on some unknown but interest persons who are only notable to people in a rather specialized field, but who may have been of interest to general readers. My article were deleted on the basis of "non-notable." And yet, wikipedia chooses to run articles on such august personages as MR. METHANE and BALLS MAHONEY. MR. METHANE AND BALLS MAHONEY!!!! Let me ask, if these two individuals deserve articles, who doesn't? Bob Guedel IV --Fugabutacus 18:30, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The 'Free' Encyclopedia

There's a little bit of ambiguity here. Did the title originally mean free as in liberated, or free as in free of charge? The French version titled L’encyclopédie libresuggests it is the former, as opposed to the latter which would be L’encyclopédie gratuit. Apologies for the dumb observation...

It has always been both, but this does cause problems for translations. But free as in freedom is the most important than the free as in free beer.--Clawed 23:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
There's a bit more at Wikipedia:Main Page FAQ#Why is the word "free" mistranslated in the names of other language editions? - BT 11:55, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
To the best of my knowledge, The "Free" in the Wikipedia title, as being a free encyclopedia, refers to it as being free content, and free editing - basically, the content on here is free to use and redistribute under the GFDL, and the editors are free to edit absolutely anything they wish. Therefore, I would go with the French original, as specified, "L'encyclopédie libre", suggesting an open and liberated encyclopedia. Thor Malmjursson 12:25, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

A giant hand comes out of the monitor and slaps you in the face for looking up wikipedia on wikipedia... Seriously though do they need to be told the URL of wikipedia under neath the picture on the right side?

Compare with other platform

Increase the table will may be better

platform website function advantage disadvantage ???
wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org ??? ??? ???
Yahoo!+ http://answers.yahoo.com/

http://tw.knowledge.yahoo.com/

??? ??? ???
Google Answers http://answers.google.com/ ??? ??? ???
Windows Live QnA http://qna.live.com/ ??? ??? ???
Ask Yahoo http://ask.yahoo.com/ ??? ??? ???
Baidu http://zhidao.baidu.com/ ??? ??? ???

-- Why do you want to compare it to portals that are not encyclopedias? --62.168.125.219 21:19, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedias of non-English languages

I saw in Category:Wikipedias by language that there are 52 articles on Wikipedias in different languages. Some of these Wikipedias are small having less that 2000 articles. What Wikipedias are considered notable enough to have their own article here. GizzaChat © 12:29, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Size of Wikipedia

I can't find anything on this page regarding an estimate of the combined size of all the articles for any particular language Wikipedia. I think that such a statistic would be useful for this page. I know Wikimedia keeps stats at this page, but I don't think it's linked to on the page. 80.47.241.46 16:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia Look there, about 1/4 down the page, in the "Language editions" section. It lists what I believe you're looking for. HyperB 8-25-06 @ 1900hrs EST

The English WIkipedia is very good, but the Arabic version is not. It is biased and religious (Islamist). The Arabic version is also not professional.

Arabic Wikipedia is Islamist!

The English Wikipedia is very good, but the Arabic version is not. It is biased and religious (Islamist). The Arabic version is also not professional.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikipedia" --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.33.106.4 (talk • contribs) .

Not being able to read Arabic, I'm unable to comment on that claim. However, it has been noted by many that different language editions of Wikipedia often offer different points of view on the same topic; an example which has been noted on an admin's homepage for now is the Falkland Islands; the English-language Wikipedia tends to support England's claims to the place; the Spanish-language article (es:Islas Malvinas tends to support the Argentine claim. Both articles do attempt to be NPOV (and aren't flagrantly biased), yet can lead the reader to different conclusions.

If an external commentator of note were to document this, we could include it in the article. My comments here, and others on the Wikipedia, however, aren't acceptable sources to support such a claim.

--EngineerScotty 16:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Wikipedia/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

30 images, 369 citations, prose is large. Per 2006 FAR discussion. JJ98 (Talk) 06:19, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Last edited at 06:22, 8 November 2014 (UTC). Substituted at 21:01, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

  1. ^ "Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2005-04-11/Encarta editing", Wikipedia, April 11, 2005.
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