Talk:Wikipedia/Archive 13

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Ridiculous Question.....

Do you have to be a certain age to create an account for Wikipedia ??? Jetstar888 04:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

No you don't! And btw, please post new sections of discussion at the bottom of the page. It is easier to just click the "+" next to "edit this page" which automatically leads you there. To learn more on how Wikipedia works, please see Wikipedia:Tutorial. Thanks and welcome to Wikipedia! Gizza^{Chat ©} 11:31, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Policy

Policy information should really be concentrated into one section as much as possible. Currently policy links are littered all over the article, which is part of the reason there are so many of them. The "features" section, for instance, devolves into policy talk after the first paragraph.

I'm going to try to come up with a new logical layout for the article first rather than shuffling things about incrementally. Chris Cunningham 12:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I've rewritten the last paragraph of the introduction so that it doesn't enumerate all the policies, just explains they exist and refers to Wikipedia:List of policies and guidelines. That better? – Qxz 12:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I also added this to the to-do list – Qxz 12:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

The lead section is now 3,608 characters, down from 4,492 earlier this morning – Qxz 13:55, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Following pruning of the External Links and rewording of the "Encyclopedic characteristics" section, the size of the whole article is now 72Kb rather than 78Kb, which is hopefully more acceptable – Qxz 14:40, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Though evidently not acceptable enough. Someone decided to attack it with a meat cleaver, and it's now 50Kb... – Qxz 09:44, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Thoughts on improvement

I started to edit the current "features" section, the content of which I find rather odd, but in the process I started to think the article needs more reorganization. Thoughts on my thoughts?

• I'm not sold on including our policies in the last paragraph of the first section; are policies a "feature"? I'm especially not fond of mentioning only NPOV here; if anything, it should be the five pillars or Foundation issues that get top billing. NPOV is mentioned separately three times in this article... which is, ironically, arguably POV. Especially the "objective truth" sentence; do any current encyclopedias claim that?
• I know it fits logically in the sentence, but putting the single sentence about fair use under the header "free content" is awkward.
• Careful about using Wikipedia jargon to describe its functions; for example, I reworded a sentence that mentioned article "protection" and referred to "edit wars". The latter, I imagine, is pretty obvious, but "protecting" isn't. (I might've thought so, but in describing the features of MediaWiki, I got confused responses to the term.)
• On statistics as POV: the sentence "For comparison, the index of the 2007 Encyclopædia Britannica contains 700,000 terms, less than half the number of articles in Wikipedia" reads like one of those contrived comparisons people use to make rhetorical points, like "if you took all of the french fries eaten by Americans in a day and stacked them end to end, they'd stretch from the earth to the moon" or "if the length of the football field represents the age of the universe, a ribosome in a cell in a blade of grass in the end zone represents human history" (all statistics from the Insitute of Opabinia's Ass ;).
• In general, I do think the encyclopedic characteristics section spends too much time comparing to Britannica. A lot of this material is very well written and would make an excellent essay in project space comparing and contrasting the advantages of the two models, but it's a bit awkward here - it sort of sounds like we've got something to prove?
  • Getting back to the example I posted above: Wikipedia "does not shy" from covering controversial issues - the implied comparison here is that Britannica "ignored" and did "shy awat from" covering sexual harassment (truth movement, whatever). While Britannica was criticized for not covering sexual harassment, we don't know why they didn't (unless they've made a statement on it?). Maybe they thought it didn't merit a top-level article, or was adequately covered in subsections of other articles, or they commissioned an article three years ago and are still waiting for the author to send them the final draft. (I'm also not sure sexual harassment as a topic is especially controversial, though individual cases may be.)
  • The first paragraph of "biases" is. (Sorry, couldn't resist, though that doesn't quite work.) This should be about Wikipedia's biases or lack thereof, not about famous errors Britannica made - those go in the Britannica article. Also, NPOV violations/tendentiousness is "usually" dealt with "swiftly"? There's a lot of people who've dragged or been dragged through ArbCom who would disagree with that.
• On statistics as POV, part 2: in the breadth and depth section, there's mention that the number of FAs has been increasing, but not that the ratio of FAs to total articles has been decreasing.
• Why are there two reliability sections? One or the other needs to be renamed, if only because repeating header titles makes it more difficult to link to a subsection from outside.
• The information about use in court cases and being plagiarized, which is currently in the first reliability section, ought to have its own section - perhaps a "use in culture and media" section (or somesuch) that could subsume the "in popular culture" title, which as I understand it is deprecated. I'm personally shocked that court cases refer to Wikipedia articles.
• Since the encyclopedic characteristics section is explicitly organized according to the criteria from the Kister study, it should mention Kister by name and refer to his study as an authoritative attempt to judge the quality of encyclopedias (assuming it is).
• On statistics, part 3: "approximately one-quarter of Wikipedia's traffic came from users without accounts, most of whom were not regular editors" - I can't think of an interpretation for this sentence that doesn't make it bunk. The meta page says "Statistics suggest that anonymous viewers make up one fourth of total readership.", which is almost certainly misstated; three quarters of readers have accounts? Not a chance. One quarter of Wikipedia's editing traffic might be from anons, but that's not what meta claims. Maybe worth taking up there, because there's no way that what they say is what they mean.
• "Authorship and management process" is mostly a more specific version of the previous "editing" section. I may be biased, but I think editing is a sufficiently notable quality of Wikipedia that it could get its own top-level section that merges the existing two.

Hm, I intended this post to be less specific and more organizational, but apparently I can't see the forest for the trees. I'm only being this nitpicky because I was asked to point a critical eye this way. I'll let Chris above make any reorganizational suggestions he has in mind. Opabinia regalis 05:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Following Thumperward's edits, I cut down on references to policies a bit yesterday, at least in the lead section, "Features" and "Encyclopedic characteristics" — though yes, NPOV is still mentioned too many times. NPOV is one of the five pillars, but perhaps they should all get equal weight. How about making a new subsection that deals with policies, and removing mention of them elsewhere?

"Free content" could perhaps be renamed to "Licensing" or similar.

If the Insitute of Opabinia's Ass has any better statistics they would be welcome, failing that just get rid of them.

I trimmed a good 3Kb off "Encyclopedic characteristics" yesterday precisely because it was somewhat essay-like. Perhaps we should cut it down to a few paragraphs, then fish the original version out of the history and post it in WillowW's userspace as an essay. :)

The mention of an increasing number of FAs but not a decreasing FA-to-article ratio is probably semi-intentional; the latter statistic seems to me to be going into a bit too much detail (and sounds like another one from the IOA, to be honest).

One of the reliability sections covers criticism of reliability, whereas the other just discusses reliability. I agree this isn't optimal; perhaps it would be best to just get rid of the subsections of "Criticism and controversy" and squash it up a bit — it does have it's own whole article, after all. Mind you, so does reliability, another reason not to have two sections on it.

"In popular culture" is deprecated? What should happen to Wikipedia in popular culture, then (of which that section is basically a one-paragraph summary)?

"Encyclopedic characteristics" was organized under the criteria from the Kister study, but then we decided that was too many subsections (I think there were seven or eight) and cut some out. So describing it as such would be misleading. Perhaps the best thing is to reorganize that section further so that it bears no resemblence to the study. :)

Most meta statistics are hopelessly outdated, sadly. This is a shame, as statistics such as that one can be useful. While as editors we can only say what sources tell us, in this incidence I think we can make a good case that the source is not a reliable one, and remove it.

Yes, the "authorship" bit has sort of been left in the middle of things where it doesn't really belong. It's probably better off under "editing" or "features" or something.

Bascially the article needs to be reorganized somewhat, though I'm not quite sure how. Hopefully we can come up with something – Qxz 08:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks for everyone's work on this. I'm busier than I expected to be right now, so not as free to contribute as I'd like to be. Chris Cunningham 10:41, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I can make a suggestion on what to do with Wikipedia in popular culture, though it's so bad and full of cruft at the moment that I'm tempted to say get rid of it and put the useful information back in this article. I haven't thought through yet what Willow posted below (though I generally agree that the writing desperately needs one person to go through and regularize), but I'll think about a more useful organization for this article. Unfortunately the IOA is mostly in the business of producing statistics with laughably small sample sizes, so nothing much of use there. Also, see the featured article statistics; the FA-to-total ratio has indeed been dropping of late. I agree it's not worth mentioning in this article, but then, I don't think "the number of FAs is increasing" is very useful either. Opabinia regalis 08:16, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

they need to be alerted every time someone makes a change to an article minor changes are just put off. it causes it to have a bad reputatiopn[[1]]also it should be that only users and the people in charge of wiki can change other people's work. Caleb M. 00:51, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Hi - not a registered user, but there are so many repititions in this article, it would help to at least rephrase them a little. I'm not experienced with Wikipedia so didn't want to edit directly. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 138.89.107.30 (talk) 07:41, 23 February 2007 (UTC).

"Encyclopedia characteristics"

I mistagged this because I was in a hurry. This is an essay. The section should be disassembled. As-is it's disrputing the flow of the article by essentially trying to be its own comparative essay. Chris Cunningham 14:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, now things have completely changed. I'm not entirely satisfied with things yet, though; some of the sections about editing are in a mess, and the stuff that was in this section — which is useful ?— has been broken up and in many cases seems to have gone altogether (it was a little essay-like, but I removed most of the problematic stuff earlier) – Qxz 15:56, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I have to withdraw from editing Wikipedia regularly for the time being, due to sudden external factors. In parting, let me offer some friendly advice.

Wikipedia is first and foremost an encyclopedia; everything else — the software, the policies, etc. — is secondary to that goal. Encyclopedias are judged by a standard set of criteria that were listed previously; I cited Kister (1994) for convenience but, if you wish it, I can upload several other standard citations, such as the Association of Librarians. Therefore, I think you are making a mistake by not discussing WP as an encyclopedia, and how it fulfils (or not) those standard criteria. It's unimportant whether you like or use any of my contributions, but those criteria should be discussed, ideally early in the article. I believe that the encyclopedic qualities of WP are far more important (and interesting to readers) than its sociology, policies or software; I hope that you agree with that.

Other small suggestions. Two "s"'s in "timeliness". Add Paris to lead as server location, and fix the number of server locations ("three other locations", right?). Mention that WP tries to limit the length of articles, so that they can be read at one sitting, but that it compensates with having daughter articles, "See also"'s, categories and portals.

Umm, please try to keep your paragraphs and sections logically integrated. Ideally, there'd be a topic sentence, followed by cogent sentences that follow from one another. Ditto on organizing the paragraphs, and the overall architecture of the article.

Forgive me if I've had to write tersely; I have a lot to do today. :( The constructive criticism is kindly meant, and I hope that you will pause to consider it fairly. Willow 17:03, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

F: I say never say never, to comment in reference to not using an Encyclopedia as a source in academic research. There are many questions over all kinds of new and ever-changing technologies in education. Certainly, questions may be raised over the validity and reliability of a citation from Wikipedia in an academic paper. However, whether doing so is deserving of an "F" should itself be questioned and addressed. My opinion is that instructors should encourage students to think critically and examine the reliability of content for themselves rather than making the absolute statement of NEVER! --Kenneth M Burke 19:54, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Please fix the link that calls Wikipedia a "non profit organisation" and change it to the correct spelling, "organization"

Correct for you perhaps, not for the Briton who wrote it. Just saying... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vladsinger (talk • contribs) 19:46, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

Page requests

The current article states, "Wikipedia receives over 2000 page requests per second.". Last time I heard, the number was 30,000. Who is correct? Yuser31415 (Editor review two!) 19:37, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I imagine that 2,000 figure has been in the article for a long time (i.e. years). Anyway, according to the stats (which we can cite in the article if necessary), it just about reaches 30,000 requests at peak times — though it falls below 10,000 during the quietest part of the day – Qxz 10:52, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I've updateed the image caption – Qxz 10:56, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

So how do you pronounce Wikipedia?

Is the reason why it isn't listed here because of different cultures, nationalities, etc, pronouncing it different? I say Wick-kuh-peed-dee-uh (like Wicca) instead of Wee-kee-peed-dee-uh. Just curious. Disinclination 20:06, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Huh. Now that you mention it, there used to be an IPA guide for pronouncing Wikipedia. I guess it got lost somewhere along the way. I'll restore it from a previous version... —msikma (user, talk) 09:18, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are at least three different ways in which it is pronounced; arguably the "correct" way to say it is the way that "wiki" is said in Hawaiian — "Wee-kee". Some people (e.g. Disinclination) say "Wick-kuh"... and others (such as me) say "Wick-ee". This being a written project I don't think anyone ever bothered to try to establish a standard pronounciation – Qxz 10:50, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

You forgot "wih-kih", the way I usually pronounce it :) but yeah, there's no official version and unlike certain projects the way it's pronounced isn't any kind of community shibboleth. Chris Cunningham 12:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

It would be interesting to gather audio recordings of people around the world saying "Wikipedia". I bet there would be tens of different pronunciations.--Pethr 04:56, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I always pronounce the e like in egg whereas many English speakers pronounce it like in pea, SqueakBox 04:58, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I say wee-kah 18:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)Blh1527

That is the right one, but I like Why Kai pedia. ffm _{on 2007-02-19 19:29}

I just burp. --NEMT 00:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

One assessment and one suggestion

I'm just one person, but I hope that you will consider this constructive criticism. I know that there can be differences of writing style, some preferring a richer 19th-century style while others favor a terse Hemingway-like style. Likewise, I know that there may be differences of opinion on what should be included here, or how much weight or background any given facet of Wikipedia should be given.

That said, in my assessment, the ACID has been disastrous for this article. I hope that no one will accuse me of being disloyal to Wikipedia or its ideal of open collaboration, but the present state of this article seems like wonderful supporting evidence for Jorge Cauz's statement that WP is a mass of random trivia, poor organization and wretched writing. The single-sentence paragraphs, the lack of flow within paragraphs, the broken connections between paragraphs, the weak large-scale architecture in the article, the huge number of references for a paltry amount of data, the lack of distinction between important and trivial facts, interesting and boring...one could go on and on and on. Does anyone think that this is presently a good article that reflects well on Wikipedia?

It's not clear how it happened, but it seems to be a "too many cooks spoil the broth" kind of problem: severe systemic disagreements among editors on what should be covered and how. My suggestion is that the active editors agree on an overall size and structure of the article (and its lead) first, and then integrate the far-flung factoids into well-written paragraphs within that structure. It seems like 4 major sections would be good, say, Goals and Implementation, History, Encyclopedic assessment, and Impact. "Implementation" would cover the editorial policies, practices and sociology, along with the hardware/software. If the active editors could agree on a detailed article organization first, that might forestall others from massively rearranging and disemboweling their collective hard work afterwards; they could explain their rationale by pointing to an agreed-upon organization. That would give us the hope of building a stable article by consensus, rather than something that will be torn down over and over again.

I'm very sorry to be so negative about the state of the article, but it's my honest assessment and I'm only saying it with the hope and goal of its eventual improvement. Sometimes it's healthier to acknowledge problems, so that we can deal with them and make progress. However, I also understand that others may not have the same perspective. Willow 13:44, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the writing is that bad (although the single sentence paragraphs are a concern, and I see some redundancy), but I agree that this article needs a good massage to reattain featured status. I don't think I've ever even made an edit to this article, and I can't add it to my plate, but I'd like to see some improvement. For the record, I prefer the terse style :) — Deckiller 13:57, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you, Willow. I actually made this same comment, except less concisely stated, in the peer review section. The prose of this article is terrible in some parts. What happened to explaining things along the way? We're an encyclopedia, which means that we must attempt to educate our audience by catering them with information. Simply stating the truth along with a reference and then running away is not the right way to go about this. References are only used for providing a reliable source of the claims made in the article, but currently most of them are used as though they're external links. What this article needs at this moment is a thorough copyediting process that will bring the fun of reading back into it. I think that perhaps rewriting the article from a new basis might be a bit extreme, since the current order of headers would likely not be changed very much. But whatever we do, we must do something. —msikma (user, talk) 07:20, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Make some changes, be bold, and see how people receive it. No harm done. ~ Rollo44 08:00, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

The difficulty of not having an agreed-upon outline and space-budget, as I see it, is that editors may have sincerely-felt differences of opinion about the writing and coverage; since the work of a week can be undone in an hour, editors may despair of ever reaching a stable version. Despair is harm indeed. We all must accept that Wikipedia's words are written in water, and shouldn't hold our own work too dear, but it's hard to devote yourself whole-heartedly to an article if one imagines that someone is waiting for you to finish so that they can incinerate your efforts. If we agree and plan in advance, the article will be better organized and better written, and would allow us to explain to eager newcomers why they should be conservative in reverting, what the organizational rationale was. Given a topic as complex and controversial as Wikipedia, a plan would also help us to cover everything without being redundant, and to understand each other's perspectives re:writing and coverage. That would be my suggestion, at least, for making a more stable and better written article. Willow 11:39, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Citation format

Shouldn't we be using the cite templates in this article? It gives the references more semantic information, and standardizes them. Any objections to changing the citation format? CloudNine 13:31, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

They're used in some cases, but mostly (where {{cite web}} would be used) they aren't. I think people have left it the way it is because it's simpler and because there are so many of them that it would take forever to change. But feel free to change them if you wish – Qxz 16:34, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I too strongly agree with using {{cite web}} for references. MediaWiki's syntax is limited, and templates like that were made specifically to address such limitations. Plus, they offer a consistent interface for the references as well. It shouldn't be too difficult to convert them on a mass scale. I'll see if I can write a converter to do it for me for at least most of them. —msikma (user, talk) 07:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Editorial management and control of Wikipedia

I don't know if there is already, but there should be an article on how Wikipedia is managed editorially. For instance, I don't know how one becomes an editor with certain powers, or how this authority has evolved over time. I know that there is a whole editorial world that many Wikipedia contributors know nothing about. I came to the Wikipedia article to see how this hierarchy is managed to find only general explanations. There must be a pyramidal hierarchy that we can elucidate and define. ~ Rollo44 21:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Every user has the same status on the wiki. Being a sysop is just getting some extra tools and doing some housecleaning that only trusted users can do. ffm ^yes? 21:48, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, see WP:ADMIN#Trivial_matter. ffm ^yes? 21:50, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

For instance, you have to be relatively initiated to find out about that term sysop and go through the Wikipedia subpages. It doesn't appear at all in the Wikipedia article. ~ Rollo44 22:25, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

"Sysop" doesn't actually mean anything; it is merely another word for "administrator", which is mentioned in the article. "Sysop" was the more common term in the early days of Wikipedia but has now been replaced by a less jargon-like word; "administrator" appears in the interface (by default the MediaWiki interface refers to administrators as "sysops" and it still does internally, but has now been customized) and on policy pages – Qxz 00:40, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Would anyone mind the creation of an article which explains fully the powers of adminship, how policy is formed at the top, what kind of tensions over policy there have been, etc, etc? While I find the explanations in the article Wikipedia acceptable, I think there should be a more detailed article available. It's just too difficult for the average person to navigate the Wikipedia subpages to learn about this stuff. And since Wikipedia has become so popular and important, information regarding the above is no longer esoteric and of concern only to those involved. ~ Rollo44 22:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

It is already there in the project namespace as WP:ADMIN and WP:CON. I do not see why that is hard to find. ffm ^yes? 22:24, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to be bold and make it. ffm ^yes? 22:30, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, I would love to, but ugghhh... I'd have to learn all the ins and outs to create that article. And the deletionists and anti-eventualists would eat me alive if I did a half-asked job. But if no one else is up to it, I'll do it at some point. ~ Rollo44 23:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The details of Wikipedia's policies and procedures, including those related to administrative tasks, are insignificant outside of Wikipedia, and hence do not merit a separate article, or anything more than a brief reference in this one. As Firefoxman mentioned, we have project pages (those in the "Wikipedia:" namespace) that explain these things. While it is important that Wikipedia makes information about its own procedures easily accessible, it is equally important that it does it internally and not as part of the enyclopedia. Suggestions as to how the organization of project pages could be improved are welcome, though this discussion page is not the place for them; Wikipedia:Village pump would be a better starting point – Qxz 00:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I see that there are some people who don't like the idea. Is there anyone who thinks it may be a good idea? ~ Rollo44 04:53, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Not Notable

If the editors of Wikipedia are going to determine that webcomics are "Not Notable" with followings for individual webcomics number in the thousands, then I suppose that Wikipedia itself should then be classified as NOT NOTABLE.

72.84.62.114 00:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia recieves over twenty thousand page views per second. Assuming "followings" can be equated with the number of page views a website gets, Wikipedia is several orders magnitude more notable than the webcomics to which you refer. Page views, however, are not Wikipedia's metric of notability; rather, it is the ability to construct an article with reference to reliable, independent published sources. Wikipedia has been mentioned in many such sources; most webcomics have not. – Qxz 00:36, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I second that. Wikipedia is NOT NOTABLE thanks to the B.S. admin shielding their non neutral POV behind the wikipedia philosophy. 86.147.110.137 12:13, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Please read our notability criteria for websites. The relevant criterion here is "The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself." A cursory glance at the References section of Wikipedia will demonstrate that this is indeed the case. The issue which you raise is irrelevant to notability, and indeed irrelevant to this article; if you have a genuine concern regarding Wikipedia's internal processes, please bring up the issue in a mature fashion on an appropriate project discussion page. This is not the correct place to discuss such issues. Thanks – Qxz 12:20, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Image

Where is the image for our logo? I have looked all over and have not found it. Thanks, Megalodon99 _(Talk) 13:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It is Image:Wikipedia-logo-en.png (see also: Wikipedia:Wikipedia logos). El_C 13:04, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

pronunciation

is not /ˌwɪːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/ (with an /ɪ/ in the place of the first /i/) also acceptable/commonly used? I realise the original Hawaiian is /wiki/, but I think a more naturalised english pronunciation would use /ɪ/. --Krsont 22:38, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

See Talk:Wikipedia#So how do you pronounce Wikipedia? – Qxz 12:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm from the Silicon Valley and most people I know pronounce it: /ˌwɪːkəˈpiːdi.ə/ with a schwa [ə] in the second syllable. Vowels such as [i] are usually reduced in unstressed environments such as the one in question.

67.170.232.152 09:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Graph

There used to be a graph of Wikipedia's growth on this page. A few months ago, it got out of date, and apparently it's been removed. I would really like to see it back. Any suggestions? 66.250.190.112 20:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I think that it was impossible to update beyond a certain point due to software limitations. Maybe they'll fix it sometime. —msikma (user, talk) 20:33, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Vadalsim

Why would anyone vandalize a article about the site if there on it.Themasterofwiki 19:10, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Probably because it's consistently one of the most viewed pages on Wikipedia. CloudNine 19:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

You could equally ask why do people vandalise wikipedia at all. The sad and frustrating partial answer is that 95% at least is kids, perhaps much higher than that though there are a few deliberate adult vandals, see Wikipedia Watch, SqueakBox 05:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

on the citation it only appears one of the two mentioned sources, anyone knows the other source?

Censur on Swedish wikipedia is very usuall

I think its wrong that on the Swedish version of Wikipedia you can't say what you want to with out being blocked for let say 24 hours or so. And you be blocked for no appearent reason like if you tell that you dont agree on something toally silly the other person or someone else of that persons allies block you. There is something wrong with the wikipedia system it makes people powerhungry and people block each other just becuase they can. But i dont think their is a way to improve it because it has already fallen apart at least in the Swedish version. And i think the english wikipedia is heading towards the same situation, where all conversations is about "you are doing this, and you are doing that wrong " and so on.This should be a happy and fun place to be, but thats also the problem when people get even power over something as small as other people on a article writing page it goes out of hand. matrix17, 19:18, 14 February 2007

I don't think this is the correct venue to bring this topic up for discussion/debate. --Strangnet 20:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Is that an international thing? Is that the world where you were raised? I want to. End of story.--Creator face 55 02:28, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Running out of Money?

Is the Wikimedia Foundation running out of money? I ams seeing references to this on a number of sites, and I'm not sure whether to believe them at this point. Where would I go to find information on Wikimedia's financial situation? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 23:03, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Anthere (the chair of the WMF) made this post on the foundation-l mailing list, which is very informative about the situation. the wub "?!" 23:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

YouTube were in a serious financial predicament. The idea that a site worth the money that wikipedia is worth would crash from the lack of a few dollars is lol ridiculous, SqueakBox 23:13, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Personaly, I am for having opt-in ads on wikimedia sites. ffm ^yes? 20:27, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

I am for text/links ads, with the option to disable them. It's needed for further development. Alexandre Koriakine 15:04, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I know its not for here but...

HOW THE HECK DO I MAKE ONE OF THOSE MINI-WIKI'S ON THIS SITE!!!! when ever i try, it says "There is no wiki by that name. Would you like to create it?" i click, and it starts all over again, and it goes around like that! HELP ME!!!!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Xlr8 the Hedgehog (talk • contribs) 13:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC).

You can't make "mini-wikis" here. Are you talking about Wikia? If so, you'll have to ask there for help; Wikia has nothing to do with Wikipedia. Thanks – Qxz 18:51, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Here's an example: http://editthis.info/the_hero_wiki/Main_page Xlr8 the Hedgehog (talk • contribs) 9:55, 18 February 2007 (UTC).

Ah, you're talking about editthis.info, which, again, has nothing to do with Wikipedia; we cannot help you here. Please request help at editthis.info. Thanks – Qxz 14:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

"Criticism" sections

Has anyone ever mentioned that "criticism" sections tend to politicize every single goddamned issue on Wikipedia? Has anyone ever written anything about this?--Rotten 10:59, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

You might want to see (and rewrite) Criticism of Wikipedia – Qxz 14:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

what of that kid who became a mod by pretending he was a proffessor of religion? or microsoft bribing wikipedia? they aren't every day things, and seem pretty significant

Top 10 visited sites. (9th)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070217/tc_pcworld/129135 --216.164.24.232 08:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Portmanteaux, portmanteaux

Since the Portmanteau article itself says that portmanteau is a "historical" term that "has been eliminated in modern linguistics," oughtn't this article use the modern term, Blend? Seeing the P-word right there in the lead section of such a keystone article only adds to the portmandemic currently plaguing Wikipedia. Fishal 21:27, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Portmandemic, nice :) It's true that WP is practically keeping the word alive by itself, but so long as it isn't actively confusing them it's nice to maintain consistency with, well, every other article on a blended word... Chris Cunningham 11:10, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale

Don't we need some fair use rationale for the images containing the logos. Without them, that's copyrighted content with no claim of fair use! Sure this is Wikipedia but...don't we need it anyway? --WikiSlasher 10:40, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

They're used for identification of the article subject, which is a pretty routine fair-use claim. Anyway, the Wikimedia Foundation is hardly going to complain to us that we're infringing their copyright by using the Wikipedia logo in our article, are they? – Qxz 22:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Links to other wikipedia articles

These should stay. The editor who deleted them wrongly claimed the list of foreign language wikipedia articles was the same which of course it isnt, these are all wikipedia in English articles, SqueakBox 18:34, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

True, but it's better to give a link to the List of Wikipedias article (or indeed the category on the English Wikipedia). They're not the 'Wikipedia in English' articles (that's covered by English Wikipedia and the equivalent in other languages). I just don't think it's best to include a huge list of all Wikipedias in the main article. CloudNine 18:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I've put them in List of Wikipedias as it is vital we give this info somehwere, that was a soft redirect to meta but these are en.wikipedia articles and need linking to as such, SqueakBox 18:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is like. . .

Wikipedia is like an all you can eat buffet for the hungry mind.RSido 18:13, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

This page is for discussion of the Wikipedia article, not Wikipedia itself. If you wish to discuss Wikipedia itself, you're in the wrong place – Qxz 22:55, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Non-notable

Technically speaking, shouldn't (with the increasing elitism, increasing inaccuracy, increasing corruption of the admins, increasing refusal by educational institutions to accept references from Wikipedia) shouldn't Wikipedia be marked as non-notable? Self-congratulatory masturbation aside, I mean. 203.191.175.140 22:52, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

None of those things either constitute or hinder an assertion of notability. The standard metric of notability is that the subject of the article has been the subject of an independent, non-trivial, reliable source such as a research paper, book, newspaper article, television news broadcast or the like. Wikipedia has been featured in hundreds if not thousands of these – Qxz 22:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, I'm not sure there's an increasing refusal of educational institutions to accept references from Wikipedia. Any higher-level academic institution worth its salt should have been discouraging citation of any encyclopedia for decades; Wikipedia shouldn't be permitted as a source in such cases – and this is neither here nor there, as this is not the purpose of the project – Qxz 23:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

See those padlocks all over the place?

Wikipedia is dead. --AnYoNe! 23:42, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

If you have an account more than four days old, you can edit this article. It's not really that much to ask; new contributors can use those four days to learn what's what, editing less popular and controversial articles than the protected ones, and familiarizing themselves with editing. Trust me, if protection was removed from this article, the page history would consist almost entirely of vandalism and reversions of vandalism, making constructive work on the page almost impossible, and many people coming to view it would find it in a vandalized state. Protecting a page is not ideal, but it's far, far better than the alternative – Qxz 07:26, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment from Paroswiki

When it comes to esoteric details about items of POPULAR CULTURE, Britannica and Encarta cannot hold a flame to Wikipedia. I don't know why this is not mentioned in this article. Shall I be forced to put this in myself? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paroswiki (talk • contribs).}

No, because doing so would constitute original research, which we do not allow. If you can find a reliable source that backs up your claim, you can add it and cite that source – Qxz 07:58, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

I don't think the pronunciation is /ˌwɪːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/, it should be /ˌwɪkiˈpidiə/ or at most /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/. The same holds for the alternative pronunciation, /ˌwiːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/. 83.190.200.245 08:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Different people pronounce it different ways. See wiki. ffm ^yes? 12:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"Wiki" as a word is pronounced differently from the first part of "Wikipedia". I don't dispute that there are two variations of the same pronunciation, but they are both wrong in this article. Two problems: extra "ː" symbols and confusing/inconsistent "." as syllable separator. 205.228.73.11 09:12, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Again, it varies; some people (myself included) pronounce "wiki" and the first two syllables of "wiki" in the same way. The "ː"s are intentional; they're IPA symbols (see article for explanation) – Qxz 13:58, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I know what "ː" are and also what "." means in IPA. Do you? Please re-read my proposal. Everybody I know pronounces it /ˌwɪkiˈpidiə/ or at most /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/. The latter, incidentally, is how the reader of the audio article pronounces it. Please let's be consistent and remove those extra symbols. Thanks. 83.67.217.254 06:53, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Everyone you know is not representative of the world in general – Qxz 08:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, if you put it that way you are even less representative. Anyway, what can you tell me about the way it's pronounced in the audio article? 205.228.74.13 13:34, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

See the section above, this has been discussed already. You will see that Chris Cunningham pronounces it "wih-kih-pee-dia", Disinclination says "wih-kuh-peed-dee-uh", Blh1527 says "wee-kah-pee-dia", I say "wih-kee-pee-dia", the origianal Hawaiian word is "wee-kee-pee-dia" and SqueakBox says "wih-kee-peh-dia". In other words, the pronounciation is all of the things you suggest as well as all of the things currently in the article, and more. However, there isn't room to list them all, which is why the most common ones are there, not your personal preference, or that of the person who recorded the audio version. Apart from anything else, this a written project, which is the reason there's no agreed-on pronounciation in the first place. So nobody really cares; the pronounciation in the article is just a suggestion to readers that that's one way they could pronounce it – Qxz 07:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

None of the above discusses IPA. All this "wih-kuh" stuff is ambiguous, nonstandard and inaccurate (precisely why IPA was invented), and best left to amateurs. To my best interpretation, none of that rubbish corresponds to either /ˌwɪːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/ or /ˌwiːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/, which means that they are definitely not "the most common ones". Also, please note that "Wikipedia" is not an "original Hawaiian word". In any case, at the very least the wording in the intro should make it clear that those pronunciations are only a few among many different pronunciations. Obviously, a reference to a reliable source would be best. I insist that the version used in the audio article should at least be mentioned for consistency, but really, I am more and more convinced that whoever put those two pronunciations simply got it wrong. I have seen a lot of IPA pronunciations around that were overly elaborated, presumably because it's cool to show off so many funny symbols. By the way, what about the "."? Do you really believe that Wikipedia is made of two sillables? Either we use this symbol properly, or we leave it out altogether, which I think would be best. You may "not really care", but I do. 205.228.74.12 08:44, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe "Wikipedia" is made of five syllables, the third of which is stressed. The "." indicates that ə is a separate syllable, which it is, distinguishing it from "diə" pronounced as one syllable, which as far as I know nobody does for "Wikipedia". And in fact both /ˌwɪːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/ and /ˌwɪkiːˈpiːdi.ə/ occur in the "rubbish" above. Note that the second pronunciation given in the article is /ˌwɪːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/, not /ˌwiːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/ as you claimed in your previous post. I agree IPA is more accurate, but the users above didn't give IPA representations of their pronunciations and I couldn't be bothered to construct them. Wiki, the part of the word where pronunciation is not agreed upon is a Hawaiian word, pronounced /ˈwiː.kiː/ in Hawaiian and now also pronounced /ˈwɪ.kiː/; the second part of "Wikipedia" comes from encyclopedia, which does have a standard pronunciation which people seem to use regardless of how they say wiki.

Your original suggestion for the main pronunciation, /ˌwɪkiˈpidiə/, seems to have no long vowels at all, quite in contrast to the current /ˌwɪːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/, which has three. You have offered no explanation for this other than that that is the way you pronounce it. Comments from other contributors suggest that some pronounce it that way but also that some do not, leaving no compelling reason to change it from what it currently is. Short of a survey of all regular contributors I don't see consensus for a change emerging – Qxz 07:49, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

"diə" is never pronounced as one syllable in English, because "iə" is not an English diphtong. Therefore the "." is redundant, and either it should be omitted or else all syllables should be marked.

Where would /ˌwɪːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/ occur in the rubbish above? Note that whatever the answer this would be entirely your interpretation, as there is no one-to-one correspondence between rubbish and IPA.

I can't see any reference to my claiming that the second pronunciation given in the article is /ˌwɪːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/, which incidentally somebody wisely simplified in the meantime (though it is still wrong).

I am well aware that "wiki" is a Hawaiian word, and how it is pronounced, but neither its original pronunciation nor its current pronunciation need have anything to do with the pronunciation of the word "Wikipedia". Else we would all be pronouncing "email" quite differently, wouldn't we?

My original suggestion, which remains the current suggestion, is either /ˌwɪkiˈpidiə/ or /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/ (and the same for the "i" alternative pronunciation). The reason why it is "quite in contrast with the current /ˌwɪːkiːˈpiːdi.ə/" is that the latter is quite wrong. It is not true that I have offered no explanation for my proposal other than that that is the way I pronounce it. I have made a clear reference to the audio file that is inconsistent with the current IPA. A reference that you either have already forgotten or are choosing to ignore. 205.228.73.11 11:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I changed to /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdi.ə/, which I hope is a fair compromise. Hopefully acceptable username 21:46, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia featured on CNN today

There was a 3-4 minute segment on Wolf Blitzer's Situation Room today, It was on Wiki and politics, specifically the 08 Presidential Candidates. They discussed the inherent drawback of letting anyone edit, but explained that articles like these have many people (and Admins) 'guarding' them - and also explained that many of these articles do not let 'non accounts' edit. They showed a close up of the lock icon, and showed the pages of McCain, Romney, Obama, and maybe another. There might be a transcript. - FaAfA (yap) 06:02, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

May deserve a mention in Criticism of Wikipedia if they actually aired any criticisms. If not, unless it's being used as a source for something, there's no need to include every bit of media attention in an article. We do, however, maintain project pages with details of media coverage – update Wikipedia:Wikipedia on TV and radio, if is hasn't already been updated – Qxz 09:00, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Established User

When attempting to edit this page, the page notes that editing is semi protected so only established users may edit. What is an established user? (I assume I am one since I can edit this page.) Gagueci 16:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Semi-protection policy explains the concept of semi-protection. Basically, you have to be registered for at least four days. CloudNine 18:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

This is not currently the case. I was able to register and edit this article immediately. 205.228.74.11 09:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Really? Can you point to the username you used and/or the edit in the edit history? I just tried the same thing myself and it didn't work – Qxz 16:22, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Here it is. The account was created 3 minutes earlier. 83.67.217.254 21:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, some administrator decided to unprotect the page on March 3rd. This, as you might imagine, led to rather a lot of vandalism and it was re-protected soon afterward. Not sure why they did that – Qxz 19:19, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Copied from my talk for comment

This has to do with the Wikipedia article's current inclusion in the advertising-free websites category. Any opinions on this would be greatly appreciated. This is not meant to be a debate on whether or not the inclusion of the Virgin Unite logo was legitimate. Thanks, Alsandair 20:43, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Um, may I ask what you meant by this edit? JoshuaZ 04:52, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really in the know around here, but I believe I saw an advertisement on the top of all pages for a short while a little more than a month ago. Since (again, to my knowledge, please correct me if I am in the wrong!) there has been no assurance from the Foundation that more advertisements will not be used in the future, I don't think the Wikipedia article belongs in the "no advertisements" category. I guess you could keep adding and removing the category depending on the current state of the website, but it was my impression (as a very limited contributor) that it's the philosophy of the thing that's important - i.e. an "advertising-free website" should never have any advertisements.

Thanks for taking the time to talk about it, and sorry for all the trouble! Alsandair 04:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what you saw that you thought was an advertisement but I can assure you that there has never been an advertisement. Things that might have looked at a glance as advertisements could be someone overly frilly userpage tricks (especially those that involve Java) or a new messages bar at the top of the page. However, Wikipedia has never had advertising. If it did, you would notice a blow-up by many users. JoshuaZ 05:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

No, it definitely was an advertisement, and it was at the top of every page. For some airline company or something I think. Alsandair 05:04, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, that's very strange. The only thing I could think of is that someone temporarily hacked the server and we didn't notice or there was some sort of adware on the computer you were using. JoshuaZ 05:08, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a mystery I guess! I have switched browsers since then, so it could have been adware. I certainly hope it was not a hack on your servers! Thanks again, and sorry for taking your time. Alsandair 05:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I see someone else is explaining it to you. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 05:25, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but thanks for checking all the same! Alsandair 05:32, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

If this is what you remember seeing, it was a notification that Virgin Unite was matching donations to the Wikimedia foundation for a while during the fund-raising drive; it wasn't an ad. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 05:38, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes! that's it. But isn't what you call a "notification" really an ad? I mean, the only logical reason Virgin Unite could want their logo imprinted over the entire encyclopedia is for publicity, right? And their matched "donations" are payment for the "notification." This just seems to be a case of dodgy terminology. Call it for what it is! Alsandair 05:45, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, did we really do that? Virgin Unite is a non-profite charitable organization so it might not come across as advertising in the same way, but wow. That's disturbingly close, especially given Virgin being a member of the Virgin group. What was the foundation thinking? JoshuaZ 05:48, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

A certain Pink Floyd song comes to mind! I guess the Foundation has to support itself somehow, but that's not really what this is about. I'm just sayin' that all this means the Wikipedia article doesn't belong in the "no advertisements" category. Wouldn't you agree? Alsandair 05:53, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

No, Alsandair, I don't agree; please don't repeat that edit. For the specific background of this matching donation, refer to Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-01-02/News_and_notes. For some of the uproar, see here and here. The phrase "much ado about nothing" comes to mind; a non-profit organization matched donations to another non-profit organization for a period of time. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 06:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Here it is, personally I don't think that was that big of a deal. --WikiSlasher 06:15, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Wow, quite a bit of uproar! In my opinion, the placement of the logo meets the definition of an advertisement, but it certainly is a fine line. I wonder why Virgin Unite couldn't simply have been listed with other benefactors on the relevant page. I think it all comes down to publicity, and that makes it an ad. There was an exchange - Virgin Unite gives Wikipedia money, Wikipedia gives Virgin Unite publicity. Lots of it.

I agree that it's not really a very important matter, but why shoo it under the rug just because of that? Why not remove the category from the Wikipedia article and be done with it? Even in seemingly insignificant matters, we should still strive to tell the truth! Alsandair 06:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

• Also, note that the article on advertising says that sponsorship is a form of advertisment. Alsandair 06:22, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

If you feel that strongly about it, start a discussion on Talk:Wikipedia and try to rustle up some consensus for your position that the temporary presence of a logo announcing matching donations from a nonprofit organization several weeks ago means that Wikipedia now accepts advertisements. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 06:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

You seem to want to trivialize the facts to prove a point. I'm simply going by what I think is a black-and-white definition of an advertisement. The crucial facts are that:

1. Wikipedia at one point placed Virgin Unite's logo, along with the message that the group was matching donations, at the top of every page
2. By Wikipedia's own definition of an advertisement, the logo and message should be construed as one.
3. There has been no declaration by the Foundation that such logos/messages will not be placed on the site in the future.

Reasoning through these facts points to the logical conclusion that Wikipedia is not permanently advertisement-free. It would therefore not belong in the "advertisement-free" category.

I would gladly copy and paste this discussion onto the Wikipedia article talk page, if you think that would be appropriate. I'm afraid it might be construed as an attempt to reignite the debate over the validity of the ad in the first place, but hopefully level-headed discussion would prevail. Alsandair 06:59, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I completely agree with this. The advertising that was used during the fundraiser (I saw it, though only briefly while looking something up, and not as a contributor) was advertising, without a shadow of a doubt. I think Wikipedia should not be in the "advertising-free websites" category. Though this is partly because I don't really think there should be such a category at all; the very idea has a somewhat uneasy and possibly un-neutral feel to it. I don't care enough to actually try and get it deleted – Qxz 21:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, maybe I'll try to get it deleted eventually. I hadn't really thought about it until now, but it's very subjective, hard to define and, as you say, inherently non-neutral. As far as Wikipedia's inclusion in the category goes, I'll wait to see if there's any more response to this before doing anything about it. Thanks so much for your input, especially since it looks like you are quite busy around the site! Alsandair 22:17, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, given that no one else has responded, I'm going to re-remove Wikipedia from the "no-ads" category. Hopefully this time I won't be reverted within minutes :) Alsandair 04:37, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

More detailed information?

This articles gives a good overview, but it should link to more information. I can't find information of article types, e.g. those "Wikipedia:Something"-articles or the syntax of this wikipedia markup language. Could someone add a link to a page where you can get detailed informations? Thank you. 130.83.72.81 15:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Try English Wikipedia, SqueakBox 17:00, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The thing about this article is that it's an article, and as such should be redistributable and make sense outside the context of this particular website, like all the other articles. Therefore, linking to the "project" pages (those that start with "Wikipedia:") has to be avoided. The best places to go to find such information are Wikipedia:Contents, which serves as an index of all Wikipedia project pages, and Wikipedia:About, which is basically the "internal" equivalent to this article, which presents things from Wikipedia's viewpoint and has plenty of project page links. (Doing so in this article would violate the neutral point of view) – Qxz 05:26, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

An award?

Looks like Wikipedia got an award in Italy! Anyone know anything about this? - Ta bu shi da yu 04:46, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't hear anything. I guess we should get someone who speaks Italian to ask at the Italian Wikipedia – Qxz 19:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It's the 2005's "premio WWW" ("WWW award", in english) organized by the italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. The italian wikicommunity commented the event on this page. Sadly, in the 2006 edition, the italian wikipedia didn't win even in its category (Education & Jobs) --Banus 12:49, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Ah, shame. Proabably deserves a one-line mention under "Awards", though – Qxz 20:08, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Good lord the bad press about Wikipedia

Google search I never realized Wikipedia had such bad press, until I stumbled on these search results. Anyone who wants to write about "Will Wikipedia Run Out of Money and Disappear", based on these search results is welcomed too. Travb (talk) 12:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Just some newsreports trieng to generate hype (and thus sell papers). ffm ^yes? 00:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Test Wiki

I saw Wikipedia's Test Wiki at http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page. What is it, and can I put a link to it from the Wikipedia article? Wikiman232 19:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It is the wiki where changes to the wikimedia code go live on first, so as to make sure it does not crash the main wiki. ffm ^yes? 00:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's only used by the MediaWiki developers to test out code; it's not something the average contributor uses or is even aware of. Probably not important enough to need mentioning in this article – Qxz 16:17, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Notability

• sigh* This article cites mostly its own webpage as sources which does not qualify for notability under wikipedias own notability guidelines. I strongly suggest a review of notability policy as it is a hindrance especially to upstarting articles.

If such review does not take place I suggest policy be enforced on all articles and not as selectively as currently. Wikipedia used to be free of prejudice however some categories especially are being hindered entirely from expanding, whereas other types of areas have vast arrays of articles that would never meet notability guidelines as stands, yet are allowed to exist.

How would you propose to enforcce policy on all 1.6 million articles? SqueakBox 20:08, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

At least enforcement should be consistent and applied to all major articles instead of focusing on newly created stubs in areas of wikipedia that could need help growing instead of hindrance.

The notability and attribution guidelines only state that there should be an independent source for notability, and a source for the facts stated in an article. It doesn't specify how many independent sources there should be, or what proportion of the total number of sources should be independent – one independent, reliable source that demonstrates non-trivial coverage of the article's subject in the media is fine. This article clearly has that, so easily meets the project's notability guidelines. Many of the sources cited are internal project pages because many of the points that need citation are simple facts and figures that are best illustrated by direct reference to the statistics pages, or claims that Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation make – in which case the citations point to the primary sources for those claims. There are clearly dozens of media sources on top of these – in fact, the number was trimmed down considerably to avoid an excessively long "External links" section, and could easily be far higher. Many more such references can be found in the articles that have been split off from this one, especially Criticism of Wikipedia. Which particular categories of articles did you have in mind anyway? – Qxz 05:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

absurdity at it's most absurd.

glaringly obvious: this article should not exist.

-**********@******.*** _{(email removed by ffm ^yes?)}

Why? ffm ^yes? 00:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

because its wikipedia. if you get results for google on google, its ok for wikipedia Bearflip 07:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Audio

I see we have an audio pronunciation of wikipedia. Do we have a source that it is pronounced correctly? If not perhaps the pronunciation is wrong in which case it should be removed, SqueakBox 01:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no "correct" pronounciation. Wikipedia is a written work, after all, and so unlike most words it hasn't come into being through the evolution of spoken language. I guess technically we should pronounce it the way Jimbo Wales and Larry Sanger do, since they thought of it, but provided the pronounciation is a plausible one and one in common use (which it is) I don't think it matters – Qxz 12:25, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Just a question

Why in the world would you need a wikipedia page for wikipedia? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bearflip (talk • contribs) 07:00, 11 March 2007 (UTC).

Same reason as the need for an article on any other subject – to inform readers about that subject. Someone visiting Wikipedia probably knows it's a free encyclopedia, but I doubt there are many people – even established contributors – who know everything mentioned in the article. Also, because Wikipedia is free content, it can be (and has been) redistributed freely (provided certain terms and conditions are met). Users of these redistributed versions may never have used Wikipedia the website, and (since there are plans to release print and DVD versions of the encyclopedia) may not have Internet access or even a computer – Qxz 12:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Logo

How was the wikipedia logo originally made? Was it an image? A 3d model? If so, is there a copy of it somewhere?

It's just an image. The logo was designed by a contributor – specifically User:Nohat, based on a concept by User:Paul Stansifer. There's a larger version of it here – Qxz 19:14, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Credibility

The third paragraph gives only brief information regarding the critics of wikipedia. If this page is to exist it should no doubt give a full range of problems cited by critics in the interest of balance. If wikipedia does not do this then we can conclude that the article is biased and should be removed anyway. The short section given is also appears to be defensive and should be expanded to a greater degree. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bswartz (talk • contribs) 17:43, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

Sections of this article are deliberately kept reasonably short to prevent the article becoming overly long, and more detailed information is split off into separate articles, which are clearly linked from the top of the relevant sections. The article you are looking for in this case is Criticism of Wikipedia, which expands upon the issues that are summarized in this article – Qxz 19:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

mediawiki

What version of Mediawiki is Wikipedia using? Should this be added to the article? 70.104.16.217 17:53, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia (and the other Wikimedia sites) always use the latest stable "alpha" developement version of MediaWiki; changes to the code generally go live a few days after they are committed. Currently Wikipedia is running version 1.44.0-wmf.5 (d64f667), but the revision number changes daily, the version number changes quarterly as new release versions of MediaWiki are produced, and it's always an 'alpha' version. Hence specifying the version isn't particularly useful, as it changes so often – Qxz 19:12, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh, stable "alpha". Nice oxymoron. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.120.86.79 (talk) 19:29, 14 March 2007 (UTC).

It's unusual to see 'alpha' code in production, but that's exactly what happens. There are advantages to this, of course – new features that are urgently needed on Wikipedia can be rushed in in a couple of weeks, as happened recently with 'cascading protection'. In fact, Wikipedia is running a stable alpha – oxymoron or not; the software seems pretty stable to me, short of errors thrown up when the servers get overloaded with requests, problems are few and far between – Qxz 22:25, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

languages

should some1 put wikipedia in different languages......i thought it'd be useful and interesting ksmith3 21:50, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

m:List of Wikipedias – Qxz 22:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

See List of Wikipedias which I had puit here but someone reverted me. Feel free to bring them back here. Not having the list on wikipedia is not acceptable, SqueakBox 22:22, 14 March 2007 (UTC)