Talk:Wikipedia/Archive 7

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ARCHIVES:

  • Archive 1 (discussion upto April 2003) Topics: FAQ, International Wikipedias, Wikipedia on CDROM, Wikipedia should be in the article namespace (discussion in March 2002), Script for automatically , Searching problem, Pornographic images...
  • Archive 2 (June-August 2003) Topics: Why have articles about movies and tv shows?, Can we describe Wikipedia with a neutral point of view?, Why new software?, Stallman, Unnecessary and harmful deletions? (August 2003), Hardware, Major figures in history of encyclopedias not included.

The Status of Protest on Wikipedia

Wikipedia it seems does not delineate between freedom of expression and the right to protest and vandalism. Wikipedia is supposed to be a viable source of information. In my mind it must also be an "appropriate" source of information. But if we can't conduct peaceful, nonviolent protests on the texts of actual articles which people find disturbing (i.e. queef) what kind of message are we sending across to people who wish to protest but find themselves being blocked as a result of what editors consider "vandalism". I agree with the sentiments expressed by some that a template that has been termed as "nonsense" (Wiki-Protest) should be allowed in order for editors, WPs, and contributors to protest what they consider as harsh, racist, or inappropriate wikipedia articles in a manner outside of the normal spectrum for wikipedia. What do you all think about this? A friend of mine was blocked recently for participating in this kind of protest.


a different pov

Perhaps the nomer "the free encyclopedia" is a trouble for some. By using the term encyclopedia a suggestion is made about academic standards IMHO. Maybe wikipedia should stop trying to be something it ain't and just be what it is, namely, The Wikipedia.

What I think

Everyone who adds blatant vandalism to this page should get an inderf. block, or three month's at the least. εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 02:47, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

who are you to say what is vandalism and what is not?, i could add to the Bin-Laden page a few notes about how he is not looked for 9/11 on the FBI page, providing a plausible doubt about his authorship on the terrorist attacks. Yet, this could be seen as vandalism for rightists eyes. Who decides what is vandalism or not?, NPOV is a serious matter here, those who are online the most seem to decide what should stay or not, depending on the political view of that person sometimes. Ive seen dozen of times people who say that this or that is vandalism, a vague term, for wikipedia, vandalism is to sometimes write the truth, vandalism is also to write cuss words or mocking AND it is also the vast use of euphemism and justifications instead of just providing information so that we should be the judges. Vandalism is wikipedia's cornerstone, as you can see. You cant be the judge here. Its no secret that wikipedia has always been POV, im amazed that while China, North Korea & Cuba have their rightfully placed pages on human rights offenses, the united states has none in its page. Sutile, but yet a big POV here, yet this is what is wikipedia about.
Vandalism means putting missleading and incorrect information, this encyclopedia is about facts and not opinions, u can put extreme left and right wing comments in Bin laden page but both will get deleted because its not based on facts 201.215.193.42 07:59, 3 February 2006 (UTC)Anonymous

With all of the changing and reverting going on, how is it possible for this article to be meaningfully updated in a valid way? I'd reckon any valid change might get reverted, too.--Mylon 17:26, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I have yet to see the article without vandalism between edits. I am trying to figure out how the good info stays in myself. It seems like this article is vandalised 5-10 times per hour. εγκυκλοπαίδεια*(talk) 18:37, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Uh-Oh!

Wikipedia is losing some of its articles very soon here. A lot are even being fed false information. I find that offensive, and Wikipedia should, too. I recieved a poor grade on a report, because false information was written for that article. Wikipedia should be more careful in the future, and watch out for those "prankers" as I call it. Thank you for noticing. Try to moniter things better. I tired of seeing fake articles!--Mac Simms 15:28, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Your reposting of John Seigenthaler Sr.'s newspaper article was a copyvio, so I deleted it. Many Wikipedians are already aware of this incident, and if they aren't, they should go check out that linked page. And let me tell you something about Wikipedia: we don't care if you get a poor grade on a report. The purpose of Wikipedia is to create an encyclopedia, not help students' grades. Sometimes those two areas overlap (in the case of preventing false information from seeping in). But if you use Wikipedia as your only source of information on a school report you only have yourself to blame. And you complain about seeing fake articles and then tell us to monitor things better? Maybe you don't understand how Wikipedia works - anyone can edit it. If you find Wikipedia a useful resource then it's almost your duty to fix fake articles when they come up. Also, I think you're exaggerating the situation. Can you link to this article that supposedly got you a bad grade as well as some examples of the other "fake articles" you think we should monitor better? Thanks. --Cyde Weys [u] [t] [c] 18:35, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
What the public wants from Wikipedia is a source to which they can go and get verifiable information on a reliable basis. The responsibility for accuracy belongs to Wikipedia. Outsiders only share that responsibility when and if they choose to. {{sofixit}} is a classic example of groupthink. Though I agree that the problem is much smaller than Mac asserts, we are wrong to say that any of the things that Mac has complained about are his fault or his responsibility to deal with. Ingoolemo talk 19:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, now, it's certainly his fault, not ours, that he got a poor grade on a report-- let's hope it's a learning experience for him. A student who bases a paper on a single source deserves a poor grade, especially if the single source is on the internet, and even more especially if it's an editable encyclopedia. You write of "Wikipedia" and "outsiders" as if they were two different entities-- they're not (quite).
I, for one, am getting pretty tired of the "Wikipedia-- Threat or Menace?" type of article which is becoming all too common these days. The New York Times Week in Review did a considerably more balanced piece on the Seigenthaler story yesterday [1] than is usual, but even it started out pretty shrill. But if Wikipedia does nothing more than to get people to mistrust all information sources, it will have served a good purpose. -- Mwanner | Talk 20:37, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the fact that the student needs to use more sources; if a student does not know this, I would more readily blame the school system that the student is involved in. I also agree that this is a good learning lesson for student - the educational world is filled with "false" references. However, how can this be called an encyclopedia if one is looking at it with an expectancy that the information will be unreliable? Let's not put the blame on people who come here looking for information, when the blame should go completely to those who propagandize the website. 5 December 2005

Reverted, but why?

I did change the article intro, adding some info from a recent NYT article with stats about Wikipedia in total (2 million articles, 7% growth pr month, 2 billion pageviews per month and traffic doubling every four months. I also added a description in the subject field about what I did. The edit was reverted by User:Cyde without any comment, nor can I see any discussion here or on my talkpage.

I thought it was common to state why one did reverts, at least he could have stated that it was vandalism if he thought so. As the article seems to be about the whole of Wikipedia I believe that it is more to the point to state the total number of articles, not the number of articles in the English version. I believe its interesting for readers to know the number of pageviews and growth as well. Or is this article only about the English version? If so, the references to the other Wikis should be deleted. Ulflarsen 19:31, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It's usual to give a citation when adding statistics. Mark1 19:38, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
I have reinstated the number of articles in the total Wikipedia, because this is an article on Wikipedia as a whole. However, I don't feel that the correct place to add those statistics was where you did. Try putting them in the footnote for 'steadily risen in popularity'. Ingoolemo talk 19:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
As far as I can see there were no stats with the number of articles listed there previously. Besides, the stats were provided by Wales to NYT so I guess they are here somewhere. But my main point is that there were no reason given, not even the "revert vandalism". Myself I try my best to give meaningful descriptions and/or write something on the discussion page, or give the user a message. Not so in this revert. It is not the way to encourage others to participate. Ulflarsen 20:18, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Add Disclaimer to History Page

To avoid another incident with an article that may or may not contain factual information, there should be a disclaimer on the history page letting the viewer know that these atricles were past revisions that were removed and may no longer be taken as the information supported by Wikipedia's standards. That way noone can say that the info is there in the history and it must be removed in which it shouldn't be because information in the history is no longer relevant to the published information in the Article. I'm just stating this because one of the main arguments by John Seigenthaler on CNN was that even though the edits are there on the main page of an article, the history contains information that may not be factual and thus should be removed. This cannot be allowed to happen, as older edits should always remain in the history in the event that one is trying to bend the factual truth to a fictional belief because that is what they wish people to think of the article, not what they know about it. Like Kyra Phillips of CNN, who sees her page and is disapointed at the view that is perceived by the general public and doesn't like her entry, so she will wish to spruce it up and 'bend the truth' so that her entry looks more appealing. We must continue to allow only the truth to be shown and not let anyone simply come in and tell us to "say this about me" because I though this site focuses on the truth, not what 'they' prefer as the truth. --Azaze7

This is a good idea. You might want to propose it at the village pump. Also, you will probably receive more attention if you create an account. --TantalumTelluride 00:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm a noob to this, but when I saw a clip from cnn, I thought I'd give my two cents. Registered and put the idea there, although I hope I put it in the right place. Proposals, right? --Azaze7 01:26, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
Right. That's where I'd put it. --TantalumTelluride 19:39, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Changes required in the section titled "Editing"

Hi, some one may want to add the bit about the latest controversy and the decision to allow only registered users to create new articles as a fallout of that. And probably {{current}} should be placed on the page. --Gurubrahma 12:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Footnotes

The footnotes are broken (again!). Alan Pascoe 16:02, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Situation right now is that notes 1 through 14 are fine, then the pointer to 15 actually takes you to 44, 16 to 45, and so on. It's as if a massive chunk of text was taken out out the main body at some point in the past and the corresponding footnotes weren't taken out with it. The whole process is inherantly unstable - you have to make exact corresponding changes in two places at the same time, otherwise the notes are going to misbehave. For a "featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community" (and which is subject to dozens of changes per day) this is bad news. Nick Levine 09:40, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

That is bad. However, I don't see any reason why footnotes shouldn't work here: although there are a lot of changes, most of them are small additions without footnote references, rather than big deletions or attempts to add footnotes. Mark1 09:55, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Right, the footnoes are now basically fixed. A massive chunk of text was indeed taken out- covering policies, members, and awards- so I've deleted the notes that went with that text. If the text has been exported to other articles rather than just being deleted, then the notes to it can be found in the history. The only slight problem now is that there are inline external links which mess up the numbering. Ideally, these should be conveted to footnotes. Mark1 11:20, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I've converted the in-line citations to footnotes. Perhaps someone should check the formatting of the references -- I'm not up to speed on this. One question; is the writing a bit small? People with small monitors/failing eyesight may struggle to read the references. Alan Pascoe 22:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Footnote 4 is broken. The sentence is: "Danah Boyd said in 2005 that '[i]t will never be an encyclopedia, but it will contain extensive knowledge that is quite valuable for different purposes'[4]." -Barry- 07:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Is quoting an email from the government original research?

I'd like Splash's reversion of my edit to be reverted. His reasoning was "that actually qualifies as WP:NOR, since it is like a journalist." Maybe my comment "The criticism is far from universal" is original research, but Splash deleted the quote from the email sent to me from the Library of Congress, as well as part that had already been in the article saying that "Wikipedia won a comparative test by the German magazine."

How are reversions done? Are they just edits in which the previous text is manually pasted in, or is there a reversion button somewhere? -Barry- 18:28, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, conducting your own research into a topic constitutes original research, as it describes in WP:NOR. It makes you the primary source for that information. NOR says "Primary sources present information or data, such as...interview[s]". That email exchange is an interview. If that exchange were reported elsewhere by a reliable source, that would be fine. But we can't verify the fact that you did not, in fact, construct that email yourself (I'm not implying that, just pointing it out), whereas if a reputable newspaper published it, we'd be able to rely on them. Basically, you can't put anything in an article that you are the primary source of. Harsh, it seems, but necessary. -Splashtalk 18:37, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
In Sweden, sunshine laws ensure that email to and from authorities and officials is recorded and available to the public. Is that not true in the United States? — David Remahl 20:50, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I assume that email from U.S. government agencies is kept for some amount of time and would be subject to the Freedom of Information Act.-Barry- 21:43, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Copyright law has nothing at all to do with this. Please take a read through WP:NOR. -Splashtalk 21:48, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I did, and it says "Original research in this context means untested theories: data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication..." If the government makes its email messages available to the public, they're more or less freely available and possibly qualify as "published." Or else, maybe the word "published" shouldn't be used in WP:NOR.
-Barry- 21:59, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
No, that's not what it means. Published doesn't mean "released". It means published in some other reliable source that we can rely upon to verify its factual accuracy for us. You are the only source for that email conversation: you originated the research that produced that email. It is original research. Copyright law does not come into the original research policy. If you find your email published in a reputable newpaper, that's fine because then we can say "Newspaper X reported that the Library of Congress said" etc. At present, we'd have to have people phone you up to check all this out, or phone the Library: either way, it's not acceptable. (PS Please don't put your signature on a seperate line, there's no need.)-Splashtalk 22:11, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Anyone with an account

Why is "added by anyone with a Wikipedia member account" in the intro? That isn't true... we allow anons to add things, but does that count as an account? Should it maybe be changed to better reflect that fact? -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 20:23, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the word 'added' there is intended to refer to new articles. I assume this has been introduced recently to reflect the change of policy with regard to anonymous users and new articles. Alan Pascoe 20:42, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Whether anonymity prevented John Seigenthaler from punishing libel

Tok added "For example, John Seigenthaler was defamed on this website and blamed for the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. Because of the anonymity of the source, nothing can be done to punish the libel." I don't think he was blamed for the assassinations, was he? And he had the option of suing to get the information he needed to press charges, didn't he? I think he just didn't want to. -Barry- 00:39, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

The quote—from the Seigenthaler article—stated that for a brief time, he was thought to have been involved, but nothing was ever proven. Hope this clears it up a little. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 00:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Genuinity

Wikipedia changes first need to be sent to a group of moderators to check it first for quality before posting.

And that would be "biting the hand that feeds" Wikipedia. No thanks. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 23:15, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia is a little too unconventional and liberal with the editing. Its purpose should have been to take things to the next level, not to be so radically permissive and accept such a high level of bad writing and inaccuracy. The anarchy level needs to be tweaked down a bit. -Barry- 23:33, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
That's how wikis work. And I'm confident your opinion is amongst a small radical minority. It's the anarchy that made Wikipedia what it is... a great resource! This cannot be denied, except, I suppose by newbies, and again, the small radical minority. — Stevie is the man! Talk | Work 23:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
This article clearly states that expert researchers tend to think Wikipedia is too inaccurate to be used as an reliable source of information. Wikipedia's strength is that it makes information more easily available to people searching the internet, and information can be helpful even with less than conventional encyclopedic accuracy. I just think that the quality is somewhat lower than it should be. The disclaimer "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." is ok, but still...-Barry- 23:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Expert researchers who haven't done their homework, maybe. See: http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html. The idea that Wikipedia's availability for anyone to edit makes it an inaccurate resource because there isn't some centralized control of the articles is ridiculous. I love this site precisely because it drives a stake through the heart of that very idea.
Wikipedia has a centralized administration; Jimbo Wales, the Arbitration Committee and 700 administrators. Take away this government body and wikipedia will fall apart. 142.150.204.245 18:13, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


Curation

I think that Philip Bradley has an excellent point regarding the usability of Wikipedia as a formal "source" of information. While a continually evolving entry is invaluable for many purposes, meaningful citations can only be made to a specific version of an article - and because contributors only provide "edits", as opposed to formally signing off on the entire text of an article, even a specific version of an article does not actually have one person taking responsibility for the entire text. I believe that Wikipedia could evolve further to become a free encyclopedia that anyone can curate: in other words, that when a user submits an edit, he should have the option to go further and formally state that he has carefully reviewed the entire article and is willing to publish it under his name. His user profile can then serve to list qualifications, positions, publications, faculty URL, etc. A link to curated versions could be placed at the top of any article for which they exist. When read, a curated entry might also provide a formal citation, including a full list of authors whose edits are preserved in the curated version. For compatibility with bibiliographic software it may be convenient to convert month and year of curation to a volume number and the day of the month to an issue number. I see no reason why Wikipedia shouldn't reach full academic credibility with only a few such added features.

I agree with the above point, I think that it would be a good idea if the academic credentials of people who edit Wikipedia were entered into the public domain (these people could be given code-names to preserve anonymity). As Wikipedia by definition is a "wiki" work, it means that any one can edit it. I have considered that a compromise between a wiki-based encyclopaedia and an expert-written one (such as the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy) might be to have experts only editing the articles per se, but to allow the general public to enter requests into a a "request for change" section (similar to the "Discussion" pages that appear in "Wikipedia"). People could then challenge articles on such changes - and experts could check these recommendations for accuracy.I would also like to add that some of the criticisms of Wikipedia seem rather harsh, as they are emphatically not unique to this particular website. For example, how many medical articles may be accessible on the Internet that contain inaccurate informtaion? I am sure that many doctors would be concerned if their patients were basing all of their health-related behaviour on websites read on the World-Wide Web in general, rather than in <<Wikipedia>> in particular.ACEO 13:53, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Merge from Wikipedian

Wikipedian was recently changed from a redirect to Wikipedia:Wikipedian into an article. It should not have been a redirect across namespaces, but it also doesn't really merit an article unto itself--it serves no function except to explain Wikipedia policies and processes. I suggest that it would best be merged and redirected here. Chick Bowen 06:09, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it is important to telll the reader that they are reading about a registered or known Wikipedian so that the reader can be alerted to see if the article is really "notable". Think about Wikipedia:Avoid_self-references . True, we now have Template:selfref, but that is current all-or-nothing. Wikipedians who create and contribute phots are getting photo credits in the captions. We also have Wikipedia:Wikipedians_with_articles, which is or more than of passing interest if we are serious about minimizing the concept of "avoid self-ref". Also, people are calling themselves "editors". I think that the reader deserves a more clear explaination and this page allows for that. I think that every article that might be in Wikipedia not solely because of "notability" but because a Wikipedian is involved with the subject and created the article should link back to the new "Wikipedian" page. I do not mean "is a memeber of this large organization", but rather "owns a big part of this company" or something like that. It is already happening: The question is: how to deal with it. It it not my intent to minimize it: it is my intent that it be, when we recognize it, labeled as such. Some examples: Sam Sloan, Brad Wardell, Charlie Richmond. Use the "What links here" tool. See how it is just more than just their biographes? They are borderline notable, and even less notable Wikipedians are on the "with articles" list, but that is just because I have not yet put their pages through an AfD . Not nice, but I suspect that some of them will not make it through. Otherwise, how do you fall down the slipper slope and lose the ability to fairly label other Wikipedian content as "self referential" and possibly "promotional"? Also, we have certain types (webcomic authors, software developers, science fiction writers, etc.) who tend to become active and visibile on the Internet, but that does not necessarily make them "notable" the way an author with a published book might. They both have something to sell, but the former tend to use the Internet (and, if possible, Google and Wikipedia) as their primary sales vehicle. This is also relevent for who should really be a Wikipedian "with an article", but I am will to trust the AfD process for now. -- Fplay 15:24, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, I see the problem. People are using Wikipedian internally to promote participation. I give in. I will create a new term, maybe "Wikipedia editor". Cumbersome, but it will do. -- Fplay 19:47, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Omnipedia

Has anyone ever given thought to increasing the scope of wikipedia from a mere encyclopedia to being the container of the sum knowledge all humanity without regard to so called *noteworthiness* and *encyclopedia merit*. Carterhawk 07:34, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Reproducing the complexity of all human experience would be pointless, since the world already contains all human experience (and impossible, since the reproduction would have to be as complex as the original). What the world lacks is a summary of the important bits of human experience. Mark1 19:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
you misunderstand, i mean the knowledge of everything, not hte experience, not a duplication. every single fact anyone could ever want to know. no article should be deleted simply becuase it wouldnt go in the britannica.Carterhawk 22:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I think that I do understand. My knowledge includes everything which I have ever experienced: the number of moles on my big toe, what I was thinking about in the sixth minute of a maths class on 3 November 1988, etc. Of course I've forgotten some of my experiences, but if everyone was contributing in real time we could get over that hurdle. Once you start introducing further qualifications, like "what people would want to know" then you're re-introducing the notability requirement (just setting the bar a little higher or lower, depending on how much you want to know). Mark1 22:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Ok thats ok, that would be a biography, but there are lots of things that have happened that arent in here, and should be, because someone might want to know more.Carterhawk
I think this is a good idea. We could make that container searchable, and give you links to the information. We could include every external link in articles, too. What should we call this though? It'd be quite fun, so we could call it Giggle. -Splashtalk 19:23, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia 1.0? 1.5? 2.0?

I'm sursprised an article on Wikipedia itself, which has gained FA status, does not cover the concepts of Wikipedia 1.0, 1.5, and other versions. I keep hearing about them on this site from MANY different places, yet I have no way to find out what they are.

After searching throughout the site on my own, I came under the impression that 1.0 is the current (desired-to-be) site, 1.5 will be a collection of peer-reviewed and approved articles (like Nupedia), and 2.0 will be printed. I COULD BE WELL WRONG THOUGH, since I have no way to verify the information or even get an official explanation of what those versions mean.

The article on Wikipedia REALLY should cover this. Elvarg 18:30, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Wikipedia_1.0. Mark1 19:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I looked over this page, but:
1. It is a project page, nor an article. It is designed for active participants, not for newcomers, and as such it has little background information.
2. It is dug in somewhere in the project namespace, mentioned nowhere on the Wikipedia article, where it should be. Elvarg 19:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
My point was not that there is an article with the information, it was that you do have a way to verify the information. The project page is the official explanation (or as official as things get around here). By all means add a summary of the information from the project page to the article. Mark1 19:21, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I do not know enough background info to interpert and convert this project page to an article (especially as notable as Wikipedia), and the project page, as I said, is not that helpful (copy-pasting won't work well at all). I'm asking someone with deeper knowledge to update the Wikipedia article with that info. Elvarg 19:26, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is now on the list of cults

The recent article in the Guardian UK that stated "What I realised - perhaps it was the mention of Scientology - is that Wikipedia, and so many other online activities, show all the outward characteristics of a cult" justified its inclusion in the list of cults. Andries 18:03, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. The whole point of why the Internet is useful because: ANYONE can post an HTML page with encyclopedic content. Instead of fighting about what goes on the George W. Bush article, you have websites that are Pro-GW and those that are Anti-GW. You get both viewpoints. Wikipedia seems to be 100% biased for this reason alone, and the cult that supervises the content is offensive because they have "rules" about what they consider to be important information. Everyone on this planet should have a wikipedia article about them because everyone is important. But the cult says you have to be "notable". That's an anti-Internet attitude.
Considering that we're already in conflicts because some subjects of biographies here are offended that we invade their privacy by mentioning them, do you really think that adding articles on all six billion people in the world would be a desirable thing? *Dan T.* 12:15, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikification

This article needs to be {{Wikified}}, as several references do not fit with the standard, and there are interwiki links to WP: namespace pages where they should be external links to distance the article from Wikipedia policies. I'm not on my regular computer, but I will be tonight. Any help would be appreciated. -Mysekurity(have you seen this?) 19:06, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S. The article is 53 Kb: time to break some of it off

Report

Our class has to do a report on Wikipedia, and we are finding this site very useful, but the question we have is this- "Since this website is edited by its users, how can we be sure that it is relable?"

Anyone have a good answer for us? Please email me at hosfly[at]gmail.com

Thank you.

You can't be sure that it's reliable (which means you can be sure that it isn't reliable). If it's important to you for any reason that what you read here is accurate, then you should check the information elsewhere. Of course no source of information is totally reliable. Mark1 16:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
As Mark says, no source of information is guaranteed to be reliable, but we do our best to ensure the accuracy of the information on this site. For more information, please see Wikipedia:FAQ and Wikipedia:Replies to common objections. Canderson7 (talk) 18:07, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
How can you be sure conventional encyclopedias are reliable? Take a look at the Encyclopedia Britannica article; there is a reference in the External Links section entitled "The Lies and Fallacies of the Encyclopedia Britannica". This is about how, in the early part of the 20th century, the Catholic Church used its influence to purge the Encyclopedia Britannica of anything that portrayed the church in a bad light. Alan Pascoe 21:25, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree with Mark. When it comes to information on the internet, there aren’t many ways to be sure if the information is accurate. If you have to ask the question of whether or not something you read on the internet is true and you have a hard time justifying the information then you don’t need to use the information. (hickse) January 2006

Uhh, pedo_____?

Why does Wikipedo redirect here? 67.68.154.18 20:51, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that anything with Wikiped(ia) would redirect there.

Why are you looking up Wikipedo anyway, may I ask?

Link 20:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted now. Thanks for pointing it out! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:53, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Self-endorsment

Um... Wiki doesn't allow self-endorsment, correct? So, uh, why does the Wikipedia page exist? Hm, while we're at it, maybe we should redirect Wikipedia to the "Hypocrisy" page. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 64.12.117.6 (talk • contribs) 22:38, 20 December 2005

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, and the subject of Wikipedia is clearly encyclopedic and noteworthy. In fact, the Encyclopedia Brittanica has already mentioned us. Flcelloguy (A note?) 22:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia allows self-endorsement of notable topics. As Flcelloguy explains above, Wikipedia is indeed very notable. Also, the existance of an article does not imply endorsement. Our article on Timothy McVeigh, for example, does not imply that Wikipedia supports terrorism. However, we do strive to maintain a neutral point of view in all of our articles. If you feel that the article violates Wikipedia's NPOV policy, feel free to edit it or discuss the violation on this talk page. --TantalumTelluride 22:58, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
"No self-reference" is a guideline, not an absolute rule, and there are exceptions in contexts where mention of Wikipedia itself is notable. Other encyclopedias also mention themselves sometimes; look up "encyclopedia" in the World Book Encyclopedia, and you find much (probably too much) mention of World Book itself. *Dan T.* 12:33, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Although I understand the original concerns, the original premise which stimulated this discussion seems to have confused self-reference with self-promototion. I have seen reference to Wikpedia within Wikipedia which refer to criticism Wikpedia have received, such as those from editorial staff on the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Therefore, providing the article is presented in an even-handed way, I do not personally have a problem with Wikpedia including this article. My understanding is that Wikipedia stipulates that articles should be neutral, rather than expressions of personal favouritism or opinion, and an article on Wikpedia which listed objective facts, such as the date when Wikipedia was launched or how its fore-runner was Nupedia, could certainly be said to fall into this category and to escape any charge of self-promotion. ACEO 21:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

error in external links

The Merits of Wikipedia - links to an article which criticizes wiki.

don't know html, so didn't edit

Whatever link you saw seems to be gone now. -- user:zanimum

Wikipedia - The Filtered Internet?

After reading this page, it seems that Wikipedia is:

- Lacking. Lists are almost always incomplete. The list of Atari ST software is incomplete, yet readily available on the Internet, the list of episodes for most shows is incomplete.

...and banning all new edits to articles, as you suggest below, will help this, how? *Dan T.* 12:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

- Biased. Articles like George W. Bush are 'pro-Bush' and changes/edits to address the opposing viewpoints are deleted, and suprisingly, cited as vandalism.

...well, aside from it mentioning his military-record controversy, his youthful heavy drinking and DUI arrest, his business scandals, the election controversies, his declining approval rating, his being heavily criticized for the government botching Hurricane Katrina relief, the Plame affair, and so on... *Dan T.* 12:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

- Filtered. There are some Wiki-power users that seem to think they know everything. It seems ridiculous to allow speedy deletion; new content is especially filtered.

...and we all know that "[My High School Classmate]'s mom is gay!" is so encyclopedic. *Dan T.* 12:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

The Internet itself has much more encyclopedic content than Wikipedia. The Wiki-editors seem to take delight in marking new content with the grafitti saying "This is not encyclopedic".

The Internet has never been known to contain a mistaken fact, or a biased article, of course. *Dan T.* 12:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia has only a breath of the actual encyclopedic content available on the Internet. If I want to look up which articles appeared in the STart Magazine from 1986, it's readily available on the Net.

It's impossible to manage a project of this size without reducing the quantity and quality of content, especially in light of the ego displayed by the editors.

Here's what I propose:

Allow No Edits to existing articles. New information can be added to the discussion page and *thoughtfully* and *en-masse* moved to the article page once a year.

As time goes on, you will see that the work is unmanageable. Wikipedia is a vanity project for the group who admininsters it, and it totally ignores the vast information store available on the actual Internet.

Nobody cares about Wikipedia. They want the Internet.

...except, I guess, for all the people who have put it in the top 30 ranking in Alexa. *Dan T.* 12:07, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
Nice job Troll! Your comments emphasized all of the points made here. Benjaminlindelof 22:26, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia.org?

Do we really need a link back to Wikipedia? I mean, if they find this page, they either found it on google or just searched Wikipedia. I think it's redundant.

...except when the article is exported to one of the many mirror sites. *Dan T.* 00:57, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Biased

I, myself, am Hindu. I believe when we die, we meet the great krishna, and are accepted into gishnahk. Krishna removes our souls -- When I see unproven scientific POVs in the "Death" section, I feel oppressed. Either remove all scientific black magic from Wiki, or put that WIki oppresses religions in THIS ARTICLE.

Followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are being oppressed too... their religion isn't mentioned in every topic on which it has a viewpoint! *Dan T.* 15:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Neither are the veiws of the Invisble Pink Unicorn being represented! Such bias is outrageous!24.43.51.199 17:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Treason's defeat

People of Wikipedia... I am Mr. Treason, I am sorry, and I will no longer vandalize your pages. Sorry.

Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia.

Why do you say that Wikipedia is an encylopedia? It's not. Wikipedia is not an encylopedia. Saying that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia does not comply with a neutral point of view. --2004-12-29T22:45Z 19:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Right. You might want to take it up with that icon in the upper left, first. --Golbez 19:35, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

All right. So who created that slogan (The Free Encyclopedia) in the icon? --2004-12-29T22:45Z 19:38, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Anyway, there are many people who don't see Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. So how could that statement there not be against neutral point of view? --2004-12-29T22:45Z 19:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

We might consider altering the first sentence to 'Wikipedia (pronounced as [ˌwiˑkiˈpidi.ə] or [ˌwɪki-], also [-ɐ]) is a multilingual Web-based project that aims to create a free-content encyclopedia.' However, it should always be referred to as an encyclopaedia afterwards, because I think that Mr 2004-12 exaggerates the extent to which his view is held. Ingoolemo talk 22:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

It's not exaggerating. --2004-12-29T22:45Z 04:30, 31 December 2005 (UTC)


Usage Survey

Curious, does anyone else use Wikipedia articles by typing the name straight into the Address Bar, as opposed to using the Search Box? Thanks! --Excalibur363 00:13, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I've done it in the past. Way back before I registered an account, I was fascinated by the concept that each page's URL could be predicted without having to search for it. Since then, I've realized that it's usually more efficient to type the page name in the search bar and click the Go button. --TantalumTelluride 04:40, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Problem with intro paragraph

Re: "But Wikipedia's status as a reference work has been controversial. Its open nature allows vandalism, inaccuracy, inconsistency, uneven quality, and unsubstantiated opinions. It has also been criticised for systemic bias, preference of consensus to credentials, and a perceived lack of accountability and authority when compared with traditional encyclopedias."

This makes it sound like such things are rampant, which is completely unsubstantiated. Often I find that such criticisms come from those who don't read Wikipedia but criticize it anyway based solely on the grounds that anyone can edit it, as though this fact alone makes it untrustworthy.

I'm not against listing such concerns, but I think it should be toned down a little. Maybe even a lot. The above seems excessive.

Wikipedia CD

The article stated, until I just changed it, that the English-language Wikipedia CD would be released in late 2005. This obviously didn't happen, so for the time being it now says "sometime in 2006." Does anyone have more timely/accurate information? --zenohockey 21:45, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales has changed the world for the better

Please join me in both thanking him for this wonderful concept and tell any Congressman or official you might know to nominate him for a very ligitimate NOBEL PRIZE consideration. Those who admire his accomplishment should also consider at least a $2 donation, even an offline "street person" can afford to do that. Wales4nobelprize 07:17, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

  • To be frank, an offline street person probably needs that two dolalrs a lot more than Mr Wales, great as his achievement is. Barbara Osgood 03:06, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Philosophy of Wikipedia

How about a section on how Wikipedia fits in, e.g. regarding censorship, democracy, objectivity, etc. I'm not suggesting that Wikipedia has a philosophical bias, but purely because of the way it operates it has a stance with regard to how information is disseminated. I'm not making sense, am I? Gwaka Lumpa 13:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Mission Statement

"to distribute a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet in their own language" ... why isn't this in the article? --JianLi 00:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this should go in the article, as long as we can find a suitable place to put it. Tribaal 16:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Comparisons

I think there should be some information regarding the relative size of Wikipedia. For example, I think I read somewhere that Wikipedia is 6 times as long, by wordcount, as Britannica --JianLi 00:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)


Nomination for Wikipedia:Stable versions

Nomination has been completed. -- Zondor 08:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

An article version of Wikipedia with an oldid of 34314154 is nominated as the current stable version.

Place your support or opposition below by using {{Certstabletrue|YOURUSERNAME}} or {{Certstablefalse|YOURUSERNAME}} with your signature and optionally with your reasons. (See also: diff with current) -- dml 14:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

An article version of Wikipedia with an oldid of 34370689 is nominated as the current stable version.

Place your support or opposition below by using {{Certstabletrue|YOURUSERNAME}} or {{Certstablefalse|YOURUSERNAME}} with your signature and optionally with your reasons. (See also: diff with current)

  • Abstain vote for now. -- Zondor 15:10, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
  • I, Zondor, oppose the nominated article version to be a stable version. fix of grammar - Vicipeidia/Vicipaedia -- Zondor 16:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

An article version of Wikipedia with an oldid of 34378720 is nominated as the current stable version.

Place your support or opposition below by using {{Certstabletrue|YOURUSERNAME}} or {{Certstablefalse|YOURUSERNAME}} with your signature and optionally with your reasons. (See also: diff with current)

Meta discussion

To what extend and how will small edits be considered in this process? [2], [3] and [4] where incorporated by practically starting the process over. Will [5] be considered?

The notice at the beginning of 34392027 should definitly not be part of the stable article.

What about forking to Stable:Wikipedia/Release Candidate and applying small changes there? 82.135.73.29 (Markus Schmaus) 22:23, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I think we should go with "good enough" and not worry about trivialities and we definitely should not keep restarting the process whenever someone makes a minor change. Stable articles will not be perfect articles, that is part of life. If we let the perfect be the enemy of the good, we will accomplish nothing. dml 22:55, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
(I wrote this before reading Zondor's answer, I'll post it anyway)
That's true. So the answer is not to incorporate [6]. Probably only those changes should be considered which remove objections to becoming stable. Which was the case with [7] and probably also with [8] and [9], though this was not explicitly said so. What should happen if an objection surfaces now? 82.135.73.29 (Markus Schmaus) 00:11, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
This is the very first stable version nomination, and an experiment at that. So we are essentially drafting the process as we go along, though we have a good idea of the overall process. I think only errors that is too hard to ignore must be correct (re-nominated) such as those corrections of self-references, and spelling errors that I have just performed as well as gramatical errors. Such glaring errors must be corrected anyway if they have been left in after they have been published as stable versions. As for the 34391839/34392027 edit, this is considered new information which should not be included in the nomination because this can go on forever. -- Zondor 23:52, 8 January 2006 (UTC)
I perfectly understand the experimental character, that's why I'm adding my thoughts. I hope they are useful.
What about my edit 34405218/34424217? It's somehow a spelling error. 82.135.73.29 (Markus Schmaus) 00:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
This particular edit is not really a spelling error but a formatting one - adding underscores to the wiki link. There are two other edits in between such as the update of the number of articles and users, and rewording. So it should not be pursued because of the new information. However, if there is a serious, critical error that has been discovered, they are only to be written down without any further renominations. -- Zondor 01:19, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Without the underscores the reference number was broken this change fixed it. However this error is not contained in the version nominated as stable. I thought it were and hence should be fixed but it isn't. Markus Schmaus 15:47, 10 January 2006 (UTC)
Again there is perfect vs. good. While we should avoid self-references, that is hardly a make or break issue, merely a style guideline. Spelling errors are a little more critical, though the hypothetical spelling of wikipedia in Latin (I don't believe the word was around when Latin was in vogue) is again not critical. This can go on forever if we are not careful. There will always be the chance later to update the stable version (though certainly not on a daily or weekly basis let's hope). dml 00:18, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
In my opinion, we should nevertheless remove the obvious, even if noncritical, errors before making an article stable, but this should not go on forever. There could be a set period of time, for example one week, in which such errors are removed from a proposed version. If at the end of that period consensus is reached, this version becomes the new stable.
P.S.: The Latin spelling of wikipedia is defined by la.wikipedia.org. 82.135.73.29 (Markus Schmaus) 00:56, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Forking to Stable:Wikipedia/Candidate might not be a bad idea. Only corrections should be made, not new information to be added. But you can also move it to Stable:Wikipedia and do the corrections there. -- Zondor 01:37, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
Stable:Wikipedia might suggest that this is allready a stable version, put it is only proposed to become a stable version. Hence Stable:Wikipedia/Candidate is better. Also if there already is a stable version it should remain at Stable:Wikipedia until it is replaced by a new stable version and should not be replaced by a mere candidate which in the end might fail the process.
And yes, no new information only corrections and with a set deadline to prevent this process to go on forever. Markus Schmaus 04:25, 9 January 2006 (UTC) (I finally loged into my account, which I didn't use lately)

Nomination has been completed. -- Zondor 08:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Stable Version Marker

I pulled this marker off the article: </nowiki>

Comment This article is currently being nominated for a stable version. You can help with the process.

</nowiki>

As this is only a proposed process, it should not be on an article, especially a high visibility article. xaosflux Talk/CVU 03:33, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


External Links

In my opinion, the External Links don't seam particularly relevant or specific to this article. Is it helpful or educational to include a link to Wikipedia Watch or Wikipedia Class Action? While, I appreciate the requirement to provide a balanced view, these sites are hardly balanced themselves and are often unreliable sources of information. They convey an image of Wikipedia which is untrue (in my opinion). That's my opinion - thoughts? Hamdev Guru 22:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you go to the article on desforestation, you'll find the same polarisation. The more we insult ourselfs, the less fun it becomes for vandals to do it. -- user:zanimum

Protected

I've fully protected the article due to a wave of heavy vandalism. If someone wants to switch it over to semi-protection, that's fine with me. android79 20:15, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Freedom of editing - I think not

The article on Wikipedia, discussing freedom to edit, does not allow editing. Is this not ironic?

Also, it is not easy to add pertinent information, since senior editors erase whatever they like, even important facts with references, that belong in an article. -- DeveloperFrom1983 03:57, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes it is ironic, but necessary. It is the "funniest" article to vandalise. Can you give any examples of the later acquisation, so specifics can be discussed? -- user:zanimum

Unreliable

It should be pointed out that Wikipedia is not meant as a reliable place for information. 68.75.165.87 19:21, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

See Criticism of Wikipedia. -- user:zanimum
I have to ask: WHY isn't this a section of the article with a link to the main one, rather than a "hidden" link under "See also"? Circeus 02:09, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
It was originally part of the Wikipedia article, but got too long, so it had to be split off. I've move the link up on the page. -- user:zanimum

Absolutely unreliable and insulting; just another chat room

I have given up on Wikipedia. My colleagues, friends, and family warned me about Wikipedia, but I was more hopeful, trusting and optimistic. But no longer.

I do not want to fill out forms to report rudeness of other editors, but if you care to do so: A user with name Ewlyahoocom claimed that I was "crowing about how much money" I "made on inestments" (improper spelling is his or hers, not mine), when I reported on the stock history of a corporation. I made no such investments; how audacious of this Wikipedia editor. See AAPL discussion.

A user with name Grahamuk ranted at me as soon as I edited an article, calling me a "sockpuppet" although I always sign in, and telling me that my editing "annoyed people" and that I should stop editing and stop "annoying more people". I checked his contributions and histories. He calls other users "fools", "monkeys" and such, and has a rambling essay with improper grammar on his user page showing how self-important he is and how he dislikes other folks.

I also wanted to tell about some of my experiences, backed by references of course, from years ago, that might be interesting; User Ewlyahoocom derided me for this also.

I give up. Wikipedia is no better than internet chat rooms; I will not tolerate such disrespect of myself or of others.

If Ewlyahoocom and Grahamuk and others like them are allowed to spew personal insults at me and others, this is no place for civilized people, and does not deserve our efforts, time, or monetary contributions.

DeveloperFrom1983 10:35, 16 January 2006 (UTC)


CheckUser confirms that user:DeveloperFrom1983 (talk • contribs) is a sockpuppet of user:MathStatWoman (talk • contribs). Kelly Martin (talk) 17:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC) Graham 01:09, 17 January 2006 (UTC)


Now you only need to prove user:DeveloperFrom1983 and user:MathStatWoman are not 2 different people who share the same computer. M00Lord 02:29, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

I have sadly come to the opinion that Wikipedia is a futile endeavor & that Jimbo Wales' beautiful monument to the wonders of the age of Hyper communication has been in vain. (Paulo Fontaine 03:02, 25 January 2006 (UTC))

Happy birthday Wikipedia!!!

Wikipedia The Free Encylopedia turns a milestone five this January 15th!!! Happy birthday Wikipedia!!! (fireworks?) Google celebrates its birthday so why not Wikipedia???

See Wikipedia:Wikipedia Day! :D - IMSoP 04:03, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

500,000 article milestone is wrong - fixed

Why has my edit been reverted? How many people agree it should be reverted? 207.195.241.142 15:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the press release, it looks to me like both versions were wrong - that's too early for enwiki alone to have half a million, but it doesn't mention "22 language editions" anywhere, only 50. Seeing as the English Wikipedia has now reached 500k alone, and the combined total passed a million, I figure it's time to rejig which milestones are mentioned anyway, and will update both text and references appropriately. - IMSoP 18:06, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, I read the wrong figure of the two in this version of the press release. 207.195.241.142 19:22, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Criticism of Wikipedia

I presume the criticism stuff has been split out because it's too large? I would suggest we include a brief summary of Wikipedia criticism even in this article, according got Wikipedia:Summary style, in order that this article represents a reasonable stand-alone overview of the topic. (Not least because it looks suspicious that we've sidelined all the criticism stuff to a sub-article.)— Matt Crypto 12:05, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

We used to have a section on praise and awards, which seems to have completely disappeared now:

Wikipedia won two major awards in May 2004[32]: The first was a Golden Nica for Digital Communities, awarded by Prix Ars Electronica; this came with a 10,000 euro grant and an invitation to present at the PAE Cyberarts Festival in Austria later that year. The second was a Judges' Webby award for the "community" category. Wikipedia was also nominated for a "Best Practices" Webby. In September 2004, the Japanese Wikipedia was awarded a Web Creation Award from the Japan Advertisers Association. This award, normally given to individuals for great contributions to the Web in Japanese, was accepted by a long-standing contributor on behalf of the project.
Wikipedia has received plaudits from sources including BBC News, Washington Post, The Economist, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, Science, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times, The Times (London), Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, The Financial Times, Time Magazine, Irish Times, Reader's Digest and The Daily Telegraph. Awards to the Wikipedia project and press clippings are listed by Wikimedia contributors on its website.[10].

Where has this content gone?

This article used to be better, but I'm afraid to say that this article isn't really Featured quality any more. — Matt Crypto 08:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree; right now, it looks like the criticism in particular has been deliberately moved away in a POV manner.--Eloquence* 16:28, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry

I'm sorry I've vandalised Wikipedia,and I'm very thankful that you didn't block me from editing pages,I admit I've gone too far much times,that's also the main reason why I'm very thankful that you didn't block me.I don't think I'll ever edit a page again,but if I edit a page again,I promise I'll never vandalize a page again.And if I do,please block me forever.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.156.71.55 (talk • contribs) .

Thank you for your apology. -- user:zanimum

Languages

How many languages are there on wikipedia?

Pece Kocovski 12:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

201 with more than one article. 164 of these have more than ten articles and 122 have more than 100 articles. See the list of Wikipedias. Mushroom 12:35, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

then how many different types of wikipedias are there, eg: star wars wiki "wookiepedia", homestar runner wiki, etc?

Pece Kocovski 06:01, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The wikis you mention, such as Star Wars Wiki, are not Wikipedias. Instead, they are either WikiCities, other Wikimedia projects, or simply unaffliated wikis using MediaWiki or other similar software. All Wikipedias are in the format "xx.wikipedia.org", where xx is the language code. If the url does not have "wikipedia", it is not Wikipedia. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:58, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandal Revert times

I've gone ahead and edited the average number of seconds the article is reverted in, based on the last 50 revert times gathered by my Bot, see this page for all the data used to come up with the new average of 21 seconds. --lightdarkness 21:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Is everything on Wikipedia correct?

I'm kind of suspicious about Wiki-encyclopedias . . . how do you tell what to trust and what not? If anyone can log onto Wikipedia and post anything, then that forces me to go and look at another source . . . and what is Uncyclopedia? I want to sue it. Janet6

You're right, and Wikipedia itself gives this warning, which applies to lots of things on the internet and in newspapers, etc. It's still a brilliant resource though - in the past I've been fed up of finding things in printed encyclopedias I know to be wrong. If this is so in Wikipedia I can correct them myself Gwaka Lumpa 07:51, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia strives for accuracy, but you should never rely on just one source for anything, and encyclopaedias (Wikipedia included) should generally only be used a starting point for academic or other serious research. Uncylopedia is a parody of Wikipedia, the content there is intended to be humerous rather than accurate. Thryduulf 00:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I know that, but even though Uncyclopedia {I don't want to make a link, I want as less people to find out about this site as possible) is humorous, who is it humorous to? It looks like some people with warped senses of humour came together and wrote trash.

Janet6 01:00 PM, 31st January 2006

LOL, you think Uncyclopedia is bad? Checkout Encyclopedia damatica http://www.encyclopediadamatica.com G. Jones 23:31, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Kidipedia

How about another major project? A children's version of Wikipedia...? Gwaka Lumpa 07:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I think most children or teenagers like my self can use wikipedia perfectly well, there really is no need for any such thing. Dracion 16:27, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
Proposals for other Wikimedia projects should go to m:Proposals_for_new_projects, not here. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 20:55, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
There is also Wikijunior. -- user:zanimum

The Charlie Brown article

I was shocked and angry to see the [11] article on Uncyclopedia . . . can it be stopped, or deleted? Janet6, 01:05, 31 January 2006

Uncyclopedia has virtually nothing to do with Wikipedia (apart from being an off-shoot satire of it), and we have no editorial control over it. It is a wiki like any other, though, so you are free to edit the page yourself. You should understand, though, that it is not an encyclopedia, and its articles are not meant to be taken seriously. — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 19:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
Also, it has nothing to do with improving the Wikipedia article on Wikipedia (uh, neither did that statement). If you want to complain about them, you may want to complain to Uncyclopedia itself. Using this talk page for this makes absolutely no sense at all to me. --WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 23:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Move wikipedia links from Further Reading to See Also, Statistics

Does anyone object to moving these links

from the Futher Reading section (where they are incorrectly linked as external links) to the See Also section, and making them internal wikilinks?

Also, the [Statistics] page is a bit.. arcane - suggest we replace this with a link in See Also to the much more informative Wikipedia:Statistics page, which links to that page anyway. WhiteCat 09:08, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Avoid self-references. Ucucha (talk) 20:27, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedia???????????

Is wikipedia really an encyclopedia?? I think of an encyclopedia as something verifiable, that is written by experts. Calling it an "encyclopedia" is very misleading. Someday someone is going to web search a topic for a school research paper and the wiki article will come up, and since it says "encyclopedia" they will use the info and cite it in their bibliography. Then the information will turn out wrong and they will get in trouble for using a bad source. I love wikipedia, but i think they should call it "the online information-sharing site." TheTruth12 02:30, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedias should not be used for research papers anyway. They should be used to get a quick understanding of a topic, but even at high school you should be digging deeper to get facts for a paper.-Mr Adequate 02:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I think Mr Adequat is right. You shouldn't use just one source and leave, especially if you're in junior high school or college. Janet 18:18, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
What's an encyclopedia? If an encyclopedia is a "a written compendium of knowledge", where a compendium is a "concise yet comprehensive compilation of a body of knowledge", then Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. I've never really understood this idea that Wikipedia isn't an encyclopedia; it clearly is by any reasonable definition. The important question is, how reliable is it? If an encyclopedia is only an encyclopedia if it is free from errors, then Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia, but then, neither is Britannica, or Encarta, etc. — Matt Crypto 19:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Agreed. The only difference between us and Britannica are the ratio of "experts" to "non-experts" who contribute. - CorbinSimpson 19:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

WikiPotter

Hey RcMurphy, can you or whoever is in charge of Wikipedia article have something on the Wikipedia main page where we can get updates on the new movie "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2007)?--Janet6

This is an encyclopedia, not a Potter fan site. Anyway, this talk page is about the article in Wikipedia about Wikipedia, so discussions of what belongs on the Wikipedia front page are not on-topic here. Try the talk page about the front page itself. *Dan T.* 18:16, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
0oh, 'scuse me. --Janet6
Are you really 22? Your post here and your user page hint that you are younger. (Trust me, in 8 years, that'll be a good thing.) --Nelson Ricardo 00:09, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Funding?

Where does Wikipedia disclose it's funding and costs? Shouldn't there be a sction on how Wikipedia is funded? Tbeatty 16:04, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

The budget (for the Wikimedia foundation, the non-profit org that runs Wikipedia and its sister projects) can be found at http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Budget Raul654 04:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The previous editor mentioned Bomis. Why did you revert it? It seems Bomis plays a role. It is very aggressive to remove someone's contribution to a Talk page. Tbeatty 04:51, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
The Wikimedia foundation is (financially) completely independent of Bomis (Bomis did donate bandwidth and colo space for a while, though). I deleted that user's comment because it was (a) the only one he has ever made, and (2) trolling. Raul654 05:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I believe the policy is that comments are made in good faith unless proven otherwise. The Bomis entry in Wikipedia acknowledges that a) it played a role in Wikipedia development with both manpower, hardware and domain names and b) a majority of it's revenue was derived from adult-oriented content. The comment you deleted was:

"It's funded by revenue from Jimbo Wales's pornographic company Bomis." I don't think the comment was so far off the mark to warrant deletion from the talk page although the NPOV rule would require modification before making it to the main page. Tbeatty 05:12, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I think we can safely conclude that a user whose first edit is to spread a lie designed to smear Wikipedia is not acting in good faith. Raul654 05:14, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
This is a photo of Jimbo Wales http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:Jimbo-bikini-babes.jpg back when he was running a porno blog, you won't find this photo on Wikipedia though, Jimbo Wales doesn't allow it, LOL. Chuck Egf 05:16, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Followed the link to the budget, but there is no budget for 2006? A bit strange, as we are already in February, should be a budget by then I guess. Ulflarsen 13:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

No. IT seems it's released quaterly. That's normal for most businesses. They release an accounting statement at the end of the quarter. Tbeatty 14:35, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
I am not much into business, but isn't the budget the plan for what one is about to use, and then, when the period is over - one makes the accounting statement? But no budget for the period we are in now. Or am I wrong? Ulflarsen 16:07, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
Technically you are correct. I think their "budget" is a misnomer but it is not uncommon for them to do it this way. I will change it to "costs". Tbeatty 17:47, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Should be protected

lots of vandals today... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ac1983fan (talk • contribs) .

(By the way, you can sign all your posts on talk pages with four tildes ~~~~; this automatically adds your name and timestamp.) I haven't looked at the article history (also, your comment was several hours ago, so the situation may have changed), but I would like to point out that we should protect or semi-protect this article as little as possible; see User:Raul654/protection, which can be applied to this page. However, you may request any article be protected, semi-protected, or unprotected at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:20, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia/Stable

Shall we protect Wikipedia/Stable (38860953) for a Wikipedia:Stable versions experiment? [12] -- Zondor 18:46, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Galactica

The world may call me naive but I believe that if people limit themselves to only posting factual information then Wikipedia has the potential to become the “Encyclopedia Galactica” of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels. I only wish he was alive today to see this wonderful humanist project. --Neilrieck 21:21, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Auto-disallowing links associated with kapitalism.net

A vandal going by many names keeps adding links to the page that's currently at lir.wikipediareview.com. If you watch the status bar as the page is loading, you'll see a redirection from the domain kapitalism.net to that page. There's also a link to kapitalism.net at the bottom of lir.wikipediareview.com. Here's a quote from the top of the "Thoughts" page at kapitalism.net/thoughts/thoughts.htm: "WARNING: Below is my diary; it is not a blog, it is a diary....Super Disclaimer: This is a work of original fiction and creative-writing; none of the characters or events described herein are real, any similarities are entirely coincidental." It's obvious that the similarities aren't coincidental. The author can't be trusted.

At the top of lir.wikipediareview.com itself, it says "On 5.26.05... the Wikipedia cabal tried to shut this page down: with an illegal denial-of-service attack!" It's perfectly understandable for Wikipedia not to link to such a page.

Maybe this has been discussed before, but I don't know where and I wanted to explain why Wikipedians keep removing that link and why it should be hard-wired into the system so it can't be added in the first place. -Barry- 01:51, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

What happened to the language section??

There used to be a nice language section here, with a graph and everything. And the contents box used to be nearer the top. This page looks like it has been completely vandalised (or at least not cleaned up properly yet). Carcharoth 08:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia's problems

Even though I've only been a Wikipedia user since December 2005, I still don' understand this place fully. Yes, I have successfully created my first article and I have made made changes to other articles, but I notice one weird problem. Even though this is the so-called "free encyclopedia", it seems that certain people's edits get to stay and other's edits don't. Like me, for instance ... I was recently accused by a Wikipedia user that some guy named User:Gerald15 was my sockpuppet ... she said that our articles and changes appeared hours after each other and we both "vandalized" articles ... Now, I'm a basically nice person, but every change I make is messed up with a revert or is rudely butted out by other users. ...Is this really a free encyclopedia, a place where I can contribute? Or is this a place where people simply tell you to act civilized, don't touch nothing and be a good little girl? Janet 18:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Response at User talk:Janet6. Jkelly 18:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for your contributions. Wikipedia is not censored (perhaps it is). There is no right or wrong. Everyone else is as clueless as you except some are more experienced than others. The accusation is perhaps just a mistaken indentity. Hopefully, at the expense of conflicts such as these, Wikipedia will become a neutral and unbiased compilation of notable, verifiable facts. Wikipedia is also free in the sense that it is openly editable. Open editing does not necessarily mean it should be smooth. Conflicts are normal and you should just learn to manage it. Wikipedia is like real life. When you cooperate with some stranger on the street, you usually begin with being polite. Some people may interpret your actions differently particularly via this medium which may call for wikiquette. -- Zondor 18:51, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what edits Janet is complaining about, so it's hard to take sides, but I know there's a huge difference in writing skill between professional editors and people with casual interest in an article who edit it. Even professional writers have their material edited in almost every case before publication in conventional media. There could be a handful of experts in writing and in the subject of the article who keep track of revisions, and it's understandable that they'd want to edit almost every revision, and I'd probably tend to agree with their revisions. It could be disappointing to someone who thinks they know the topic and thinks they're decent writers, and that might include the vast majority of people who attempt to contribute, but that's how it is and it makes sense and is good, if you must make things even that open. Personally, I would only use the information in Wikipedia to get information for further research using conventional material because of how the openness of Wikipedia affects it's reliability. I certainly don't want more openness than it already has. -Barry- 18:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism not yet repaired!

Carrying on from what I said in the comment before the one above, the vandalism to this page hasn't been properly repaired. I'm not entirely sure how to repair it, so I'll just provide a link to the last edit I could find that had the missing bits: [13], and the diff with the current version is here: [14]. Can someone who has time to carefully check things please repair the page or revert to this edit? Thanks. Carcharoth 22:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Link please

I dare not edit this page ;-) so could someone please put up a link to User:Larry Sanger/Origins of Wikipedia? TIA. --Larry Sanger 02:07, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Seems like some other link is causing a little instability at the moment. Perhaps someone can be helpful when things get worked out. Jkelly 02:39, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Currently listed as an "External" link. Jkelly 04:31, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism Solution?

I'm wondering if the time has come for wide-open-door policy at Wikipedia to close slightly. Maybe all authors and editors should be required to have personal email addresses (excluding all free accounts like those at yahoo.com etc.) --Neilrieck 04:26, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

The appropriate place to discuss this would be the Village Pump. Titoxd(?!? - help us) 04:28, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

vandalisum

i think we should add the work POOP after every mention of Vandalisum on the page, thx.

Pronunciation

The pronunciation of Wikipedia is most certainly /wɪkiˈpiːdi.ə/ not /wikiˈpiːdi.ə/ --Revolución hablar ver 18:36, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Why? SFT | Talk 20:22, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Registered Users?

What a worthless BS statistic...we all know that most of those are inactive/vandal accounts. Why is that number still there?Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 17:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

vandal/sockpuppet accounts out number real accounts 20 to 1. Robust Physique 23:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Irresponsibility on Wikipedia

Yes, I'm on wikibreak, but I'd like to ask this last question: shouldn't there be a language rule on Wikipedia, so that people don't include adult references or cussing in articles or talk pages? We have to **be nice**. See you all again on 31st March! Janet 01:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Profanity
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_censored_for_the_protection_of_minors
-Barry- 01:40, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Yet wikipedia admins have tried to censor pictures in Lolicon article. Robust Physique 15:30, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Banned/Censored in China

I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed, but while I was in China, I couldn't access any of the Wikipedia sites. I'm still not sure why Wiki would be banned, but looks like it's happened. Oh.cera 02:10, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Communist governments tend to do that, especially the one in China. They have no way of censoring us, so they block access to our website. On a side note, I can't believe Google gave in and censored its Chinese version. All we can do is wait for that government to collapse and a republican one rise in its place. —User:ACupOfCoffee@ 02:20, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
From what I know, Google just doesn't link to sites which were censored- it's been useless to link to them anyway, because people wouldn't be able to see them even if they wanted to. I was really surprised Wiki would be censored though, and not like censoring the internet is going to help the government in any way.Oh.cera 02:38, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
The Chinese government is fearful that the Internet will allow people to see how they have been the victims of propaganda for decades. The very nature of the internet makes it virtually impossible to control (Mental note - stop by Mills' office tomorrow and say thanks). The whole sordid affair is detailed at Blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China. Raul654 03:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Yeah...this stuff kind of makes me angry...especially when I am already angry due to heavy Wikilag.Voice-of-AllT|@|ESP 03:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
Nope, in China, Google is censoring itself to stay on the good side of the Communist party and not be banned. Read it in TIME last week. —User:ACupOfCoffee@ 06:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
But in Soviet Russia, websites censor you!  :-) *Dan T.* 13:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
But how can they censor Wikipedia in China when Wikipedia's enter page has so many languages? The Chinese can either read the English page (if they understand it), or someone can email them a saved Wiki article ... and I don't see why Wikipedia wouldbe be banned. Yes, China is a Communist country, and yes, I know Wikipedia has gone a little too far with picture freedom (see the Buttocks article), but I still don't understand why. Janet 23:17, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
They can ban wikipedia in every language. Robust Physique 22:17, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Category:Articles lacking sources: ?!

Can someone please find why this article is in the above category, and remove the code? I tried, but couldn't find it.--HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 20:44, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

It is in the category because I added a {{fact}} tag. There are actually many unsourced claims in this article; please address the issue by adding citations instead of removing the tag. Fredrik Johansson 20:49, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

external links

A quick comment... are all those external links necessary? There are almost 30 links, some of which seem redundant. I think some should be removed (or at least organized). Comments? Westfall 07:30, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I say leave them as it is. Robust Physique 20:17, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Semi-protect??

Our article on our favourite website has been vandalised by anons frequently, I would suggest semi-protection for this issue. Any comments? --Terence Ong 11:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

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