Talk:Wikipedia/Archive 6

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Misplaced SPUI comment

This article has only been written by members of "Wikipedia". --SPUI (talk) 14:53, 26 August 2005 (UTC)


Hello

Dont know how to talk back to that guy, but told him what was up, dont know if he seen it on my warning page or now



Faulty Endnote Linking

I have just been browsing this article and discovered a problem with the end-note reference links. Reference 19 links correctly to its note, but reference 20 links to note 26. It seems that all of the subsequent references link to the incorrect notes as well. Why would this happen, and how can it be fixed?

I have sorted out the order. Two remaining problems are a missing reference (30) and an spare reference (55).
Alan Pascoe 18:04, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
I have restored the missing reference. I have removed the orphaned reference. It was identical to one of the other references (37). As far as I can see, it does not belong anywhere else in the article. The main causes of the problem were the moving of the Authors section and the addition of two 'normal' in-line numbered references. Perhaps this approach to indicating sources is not practicable in an article that is likely to be edited.
Alan Pascoe 21:32, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia's traffic level

Allegedly, "Wikipedia.org alone gets 800 million hits a day, making it one of the top 50 websites in the world." (according to [1]) Are these number accurate? If not, why is it still found on wikimediafoundation.org? If so, why was it removed from this article, as I recall seeing the reference to "800 million hits" in an earlier version. Shawnc 19:18, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Origin of the name

The page lacks something about the origin of the name "wikipedia", does it really come from "wiki" and greek "paideia" ?

Yes. Thryduulf 12:46, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Origin of the name 2

I was unclear on your previous answer. Did "wikipedia" really come from "wiki" and the greek "paideia"? 70.70.212.72

"Paideia", Gr. "mutual nourishing of learning and culture" see e.g. encyclopaedia; "Wiki", Hawai'ian "Quick, informal". Perfectly legitimate name, what's so hard to understand?
Let me explain. Wikipedia is a corruption of encyclopaedia, which is the name of a depository of knowledge. 'Wiki' is the Hawaiian work for "quick", and the software that runs Wikipedia (indeed, all the Wiki projects) is called Wikimedia. Hence, Wikipedia. Hope that clears this up! Batmanand 22:43, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
And let me correct that explanation. The software used is MediaWiki, the projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation. – ABCD✉ 02:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
Yep my fault. Was typing and not thinking. I did know that. Honest... Batmanand 16:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Logo image looks kinda weird

Am I imagining things, or is the Wikipedia "sphere" logo image in the article somewhat flatter than the actual logo (which can be seen at all times in the upper left corner)? Someone confirm or deny this, please; it's driving me crazy. :) --Ashenai 11:09, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

It's you. They're identical except for the background - which is probably what makes it look flatter. --BigBlueFish 19:39, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

WP:Sign and WP:AN

These are both an important part of Wikipedia. Shouldn't they deserve a mention? - 211.30.179.151 12:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Maybe... bear in mind though that the "important" WP: pages change relatively quickly. Yes now AN is riding high, and the village pump is less important. The announcements page has given way to the Signpost... this sort of thing might be documented on the meta page about the History of Wikipedia, but may be too trivial for this page which will be exported outside of Wikipedia itself. Pcb21| Pete 12:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Year Wikipedia is claimed to be founded?

Curious as to what year Wikipedia is claimed to be founded? Thanks Scott 14:31, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

As it says in the introduction, the English Wikipedia, the first, was started on 15 January 2001. -- Arwel 15:25, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

McHenry Quote

Why is the quote by Robert McHenry started with "[h]owever"? I've never come across there being a problem with quoting full-sentence prose beginning with a capital letter before. --BigBlueFish 09:30, 8 October 2005 (UTC)


Pronounciation

Unless there are objections, I am going to add that Wikipedia is pronounced "wee-kee-peedia" because of the pronounciation of Wiki.

I don't think everyone pronounces it like that; some, at least, pronounce it to rhyme with "stickypedia". — Matt Crypto 18:52, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Not even that for some areas. Everyone I know pronounces the second i "short" - i.e. wicket-pedia without the t --BigBlueFish 19:26, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Matt. I was pronouncing it with the pedia e like egg till it was pointed out by my brother that that was wrong, but I have never heard of any pronunciation of wiki that doesn't rhyme with sticky. My pedia problenm was because I was thinking of the Spanish (living in Honduras), and weekee sounds equally Spanish, SqueakBox 19:40, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

The very person that came up with Wikis said that the preferred pronunciation is "wee-kee" (see the Wiki article and the link in it), so the "wee-kee-pedia" pronunciation is not wrong, as some people above say. But the same page also says that "wik-ee" is an equally acceptable pronunciation. Eternalbeans 21:12, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

You shouldn't set your pronunciation based on the pronunciation of another word. Consider omni, when one says it by itself, it might be om-ni (om-nee) or om-naɪ (om-ny), but when added to words like omniscient and omnipotent, it is not pronounced om-naɪ-po-tent, but usually om-nɪ-po-tent. I say wick-ey, but say wɪ-kɪ-peedia. Besides, it is near impossible to establish pronunciation for a word with such little history or awareness.

I have added a new prononciation, wi-ki-pedia (wɪ-kɪ). At Harvard, everyone calls it by this name, and I think it deserves recognition.... it is the easiest way too pronounce it, anyways. And as Matt Crypto said above, this is a common prononciation all over.

Changes to Introduction

I made some changes to the introduction that made it stay more "on point". My changes were based on:

  • making the first paragraph mention the very important "anyone can edit it" aspect, which seems so crucial that it belongs in the first paragraph and no later.
  • devoting the second paragraph to discussing the credibility controversy
  • devoting the third paragraph to talk about language versions/factoids
  • noticing that Hitwise doesn't seem warranted to deem an encyclopedic page of its own in Wikipedia, so citing it for the most popular ref work doesn't make much sense in the intro (if someone makes an article on Hitwise that can establish its relevance, then ok)
  • leaving mention of the GPL content license for the next section of the article, since it kind of pollutes the readability of the intro and is conceptually covered by saying "free content"

Some anonymous IP blindly reverted my work calling it "oddity", but I think they were out of line in doing that. My edits were very obviously in earnest, and if someone didn't at least note that I hyperlinked neutral point of view and keep that then they probably didn't read it well enough to revert. Metaeducation 15:43, 12 October 2005 (UTC)


Does wikipedia have another meaning? (in chinese)

Either that or this wins several WTF awards:

http://search.ebay.com//search/search.dll?from=R40&satitle=wikipedia


Translingual

Wikipedia is multilingual, but it isn't translingual. Why not? My user account doesn't cross over to other languages, and articles don't seem to be cross-linked across languages. I think it would add a lot to Wikipedia to have multilungual editors making links like this. I'd like to make a few myself.

Many users are only capable of editing pages in one or a few languages only and it may not make sense to generate accounts for those who do not need it. I'm not sure if there's an elegant way to link to articles in other languages, so I just use the full URL. Shawnc 03:22, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
There are two elegant ways. [[it:Wikipedia]] creates a link to the equivalent page in another language in the language box on the left side of the page. [[:it:Wikipedia]] creates a link, which looks like this: it:Wikipedia. Chick Bowen 19:03, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Compression

Also, I'm interested in contributing by editing down entries so that they contain virtually the same meaning with fewer words. If someone can point me at an article that needs this kind of work done, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Google hits

As of October 17, 2005, Wikipedia scored 181M google hits! (unsigned comment from anon)

163m hits on Nov 11, 2005 using this computer. Shawnc 03:24, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

So,

Where can I find a complete list of projects that where started by those who founded Wikipedia?

"Those who founded Wikipedia" means Bomis, an Internet company from which Wikimedia was spun off in June 2003. To see which of of the current Wikimedia projects were started by Bomis, go to Wikipedia:List of largest wikis.

If you wanna know about Wikimedia projects in general, and not just those founded by Bomis, go to that same page (List of largest wikis) and check the hyperlinks in the last section of the page.

Catch 22 / Racism

Yes, very funny. If you have the concerns that you chose to publish on this page, please quote evidence to back up those concerns - so that a consensus can be reached on the way this should be phrased. Otherwise, that is POV and is not allowed. Ian Cairns 13:34, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Print Version of Wikipedia?

Does anyone know if there will ever be a print version of Wikipedia? I mean, will this ever be put into print? -- Wikipedian2005 05:40, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:1.0 --TantalumTelluride 18:19, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

It'd be nice, but it would be obselete 4 seconds after it came out of the printer. -Anonymous User (No Account)

Formal distinctions of editors

Where it says:

There are no formal distinctions between different editors on Wikipedia

Wouldn't admin versus non-admin be a formal distinction? --rob 15:18, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Amen to that. The former 134.250.72.176 23:50, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
Not really. Admin's don't have any extra priveleges for editing articles - anyone can dlolo that. Administrators rights are there for dealing with vandalism and certain housekeeping tasks, not for editing. Enchanter 00:11, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
It didn't say formal distinctions between ability to edit. It said distinctions between editors, which there are. The former 134.250.72.176 00:21, 28 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually, I would go further and say there is a distinction in the ability to edit. One should keep in mind that deletion is a type of editing, as are other so-called "maintenance" tasks. The old wording tried to pretend that admins are just these people religated to maintenance. They in fact have substantially more influence over what content goes in or stays out of wikipedia. Admins can remove content that no non-admin can see (and this is power that is "formally/officially" given to them). Of course, blocking a person, who's edits you wish to stop (even if they are a vandal who should be blocked) does in fact give you more control over editing. Of course, these extra formal powers aren't to be used for personal benefit, but in theory that applies to almost any corporation, and certainly any non-profit/charity. --rob 14:22, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
  • mmm... admins get to get a mop, thats about it. Aside from dealing with Wikipedia:Vandalism "admin powers" are generaly not practiced, even then admins are required to at least warn once before blocking. Majority of the activity on wikipedia is from users with out sysop level access, which can be aqured through an WP:RfA by any registered user, given the community trusts them enough.
    A large number of users don't want to deal with this duty, as admins have less time left to write articles. Also admins generaly stay away from articles with WP:POV disputes, while that is not the rule it is the common practice (as far as I can observe). --Cool Cat Talk 14:49, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

NUMBEROFARTICLES

Why should we care about mirrors? I think this article should be best (and most current), and if it makes some mirrors strange - well, tough luck. Besides, what are those ad-full sites good for, anyway? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Reading Wikipedia when Wikipedia is down? Pcb21 Pete 17:57, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
That's like using a Google mirror when Google goes dow- oh wait. That never happens. -Anonymous User (No Account)

Pronunciation

I pronounce it [ˌwɪkɪˈpidi.ə]. Does anyone else? Ingoolemo talk 08:32, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

no, no definately not

Needs to be locked from non-sysop editing

Almost every time I visit this page it has been defaced. It needs to be locked. The article probably has all the infomation it will get. -- 2005-11-07 08:29:23 193.62.42.27

I strongly disagree. Even if it means that I have to revert all the vandalism on this page myself, i believe that the very last thing we should do is lock the article on "wikipedia" -- the very spirit of the encyclopedia is that every article is editable, and if we lock the article about the encyclopedia itself then we're sending a pretty mixed signal. TastemyHouse 15:28, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Even though a library is public, that doesn't mean that everyone gets to check out all the items. Just as "reference" items must always be available (and therefore not allowed out of the library), it could be said that certain articles should always have only good information. Furthermore, there is already precidence for this as some (many?) Wikipedia policy (and other) articles are indeed locked. Grika Ⓣ 19:50, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Regarding precedence: the locked pages you mention are project pages, not articles. Perhaps most pertinently, Wikipedia:About is unlocked. Few policy pages are actually locked. Ingoolemo talk 21:06, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I refer to this quote from Jimbo's "statement of principles page" "You can edit this page right now" is a core guiding check on everything that we do. We must respect this principle as sacred - even to the extent that this page itself can be changed. <--- this is from an old revision of the page. Everything after "We must respect this principle as sacred" was removed by a user.. and not reverted TastemyHouse 06:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Another possible solution to this problem might be semi-protection in the future. Then again, it is the article on Wikipedia. We wouldn't want to lose the wiki-spirit on this page! --TantalumTelluride 18:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Why lock pages? Lock people. If an article is defaced, click a report button that shows the versions of that article. Click the one where the defacement got there. That change is then investigated by MediaWiki employees. They add a notice to a record, or if it has two marks already they are banned. -Anonymous User (No Account) PS: This is harsh, I know. I had to write this quickly. Suggestions?

"We make the internet not suck" (from the PBS commentary or whatever it was...)

This comment goes somewhere in this article, I just cant decide where... ideas? --Cool Cat Talk 14:37, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yep

Wikipedia is falling apart by the SQL. --69.128.154.57 06:57, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

who created wikipedia?

well?

Pece Kocovski 06:48, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I created it a week ago during an unusually long drinking binge whilst smoking a *lot* of cannabis.
 ;)
Look up Jimmy Wales here at Wikipedia for the answer to your query.

"Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia."

I have a request for all the venerable Wikipedia historians out there. I'm interested in the origin and originator of the now ubiquitous phrase "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia." Of course, the words "Wikipedia", "free" and "encyclopedia" have been used together in one sentence from times imemmorial, but I'm interested in the precise phrase with its charming double hyperbole (pretending that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, which it most certainly wasn't during those early days, and pretending that it is the only free one). Archive.org shows that the phrase was inserted as the title of the main page between 26 Oct and 31 Oct 2001 when it replaced the somewhat uninspiring "HomePage". AxelBoldt 19:18, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

no idea as to the answer of your question, but you sound a bit sarcastic, which might've driven people off from answering your question. Sorry if you didn't intend that tone. seemes like you might want to ask the question in other places, too, the Village Pump or maybe at the help desk?TastemyHouseBreathe, Breathe in the air 19:17, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

"Article [name]space" vs. "Project [name]space"?

I thought it would be useful to link to Wikipedia:Wikipedians in the Wikipedia article, but I learned "(→Free-content - rm link to Wikipedians - this is a redirect to Wikipedia:Wikipedians and AIUI links from the article space to project space are against MoS)".

After using List of Internet slang & Wikipedia:Edit_summary_legend to understand where I messed up, I searched Wikipedia for guidance, but couldn't find any answers (e.g., at Wikipedia:Tutorial, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links), *here*([[Talk:Wikipedia]]), & Wikipedia:Project_namespace).

So, 4 questions:

  1. Are different Wikipedia:Namespaces kinda mutually exclusive?
  2. Is this the correct place to ask? (e.g., is the Wikipedia:Village pump better?)
  3. Have/do many other Wikipedians also (ever) felt/feel Analysis paralysis instead of boldly editing ?  :-(
  4. Any suggestions for finding the answers to such Q's in the future? (and should someone add the A's somewhere?)

Thanks (for ANY comments/etc., including RE:my style/markup).

-- Curious1i 07:09, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Here are my answers (and others may chip in as well).
  1. Wikipedia:Namespaces aren't mutually exclusive. The article namespace is special in that it's the actual content of the encyclopedia, and it should not in general contain references to the Wikipedia project (see, Wikipedia:Avoid self-references).
  2. This is a fine place to ask, although might not be seen by many people. Village pump is a fine place to ask and will be seen by more people. A more direct approach would be to ask the user who undid your change. You apparently found the "history" tab. The change whose summary you quote was made by user:Thryduulf. You could navigate to his talk page and post a question there. Nearly all users are happy to help other users (we're all volunteers).
  3. Of course. Many newcomers seem quite reluctant to directly edit any articles, which is the rationale behind another guideline, Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. It's perhaps helpful to remember that anything you do can be quite easily undone (so there's no risk that you'll "screw something up"), and although it may at times seem newcomers aren't very welcome Wikipedia encourages new users. There's even a guideline about this, see Wikipedia:Please do not bite the newcomers.
  4. Someone will almost certainly post a welcome message on your talk page sometime soon. The message will have pointers to the various help and guideline pages, and an invitation to ask whoever leaves the message anything you'd like. There's an extensive set of help pages that you can access by clicking the "help" link that's visible on every page. You might be interested in Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers. And, if you're stuck, please just ask someone on their talk page. I'm around quite a bit - feel free to ask me anything.
-- Rick Block (talk) 16:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

publication

would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:10, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Huh?? (I can't tell who &/or what this refers to -- clarification needed.) -- Curious1i 22:26, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
i am spamming Wikipedia:Requests for publication -- Zondor 22:44, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Vandalism

Given today's history of this article, would it not be best to lock it? Jon Harald Søby \ no na 20:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)


Probably but that will be againist Wikipedia's philosophy!!! Wikipedia has always had a problem with vandalism, because anyone(anyone with an network connection)can post. But it'll be edited out, don't worry. Though anyone can just vandalize it again, Because anyone can post anything!!!! Anyone Anything 29-Nov-05 4:53 PM

And as this is one of the prime articles to attract vandals such vandalism is easily spotted and fixed. If we protect all the articles popular for vandalism, then pages much less monitored will get the nonsense edits, and then the vandalism may stay online much longer. andy 22:51, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Interesting strategy, andy… The weird part is that when I think about it, it seems very clever. Jon Harald Søby \ no na 09:56, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Andy also. Neither this page, nor Wikipedia:About should be protected, because it will make cleanup easier (as Andy said). Ingoolemo talk 19:37, 1 December 2005 (UTC)