Talk:Wikipedia/Archive 19

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Begging for money

Shouldn't there be some mention of the yearly 1/3 screen banners begging for money? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.196.153.73 (talk) 06:20, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

I would not call asking for donations begging. Also unless there are reliable sources referring to the calls for donations as begging that wording can't be used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.24.215.154 (talk) 01:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Blanking Wikipedia Protest v SOPA

Just heard/read about it. here's the news search. CarolMooreDC 23:16, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Blanking ever page on Wikipedia would be the finest thing Jimmy (look at me I created a website) Wales ever did. 86.158.101.167 (talk) 21:32, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Hidden text for BRD discussion December 2011

I have just hidden this as it appears to be a little POV? The preceding text is discussing the history of the encyclopaedia and this paragraph deals with the number of articles and article creations peak in 2006/7:

"New or occasional editors have significantly higher rates of their edits reverted (removed) than an elite group of regular editors, colloquially known as the "cabal". This could make it more difficult for the project to recruit and retain new contributors over the long term, resulting in stagnation in article creation"

I have a couple of issues with it:

  • It appears POV
  • New or occasional editors will always have a higher rate of deletions; something which is not mentioned here - this is because problematic editors, vandals and repeat advertising spammers cannot establish accounts which last more than a week or two. There is also the missing mention of the issue that experienced editors, especially on particular topics or pages, often have more idea of what has already been removed or counted as below notability and can quickly remove offending items/topics again.
  • the cabal does not exist, or at least it would need some seriously good refs, or proof should be given for it's existence.
  • This sounds more like a bad piece of POV written by some disgruntled ex-wikipedian who only hangs around now to stick the spear in the imaginary cabals head before mounting it and waving their St George's Cross flag about.

The second sentence is equally OR and POVish - claiming that this elite group of editors could result in 0 article creation due to walling in. Unfortunately this is OR and both sentences appear to be unrefd - I have hidden them until discussion here is completed.

I suggest leaving them both out. Chaosdruid (talk) 03:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Slight Issue.

According to Alexa, wikipedia is the world 6th most visited website. source: http://www.alexa.com/topsites

please update the many letters/this article, which claim otherwise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.200.236.47 (talk) 00:42, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Anti-consensus conduct (study on arbitration committee)

The paragraph on the arbitration committee says the following about its remedies:

When conduct is not impersonation or anti-social, but rather anti-consensus or violating editing policies, warnings tend to be issued.

The study about the arbitration committee defines the anti-consensus category this way:

Anti-consensus: Achieving consensus is an important organizing principal in the Wikipedia community. It is about “how editors work with others” and is the “fundamental model for editorial decision-making” on Wikipedia. 154 Wikipedians undermine the goal of consensus when they engage in “editwars” and “revertwars,” which involve continually editing articles rather than listening to others’ suggestions. For example, Wikipedians are expressly prohibited from violating the three-revert rule (3RR), which generally forbids “more than three revert actions . . . on any one page within a 24 hour period . . . . [A] revert is any action . . . that reverses the actions of other editors, in whole or in part.”155 administrators, too, can violate the policy by engaging in “wheelwars,” which occur “when an administrator’s action is reversed by another admin[istrator], but rather than discussing the disagreement, administrator tools are then used in a combative fashion to undo or redo the action.” 156 Our analysis identified anti-consensus behavior in 125 cases (47% of the sample).

Why should "editwars" and "revertwars" be considered as anti-consensual? I would be interested to know exactly which disruptive ways this category includes, but the study doesn't specify. The study mentions in footnotes on page 177 that " The case sample is available with the authors. ". --Chealer (talk) 21:36, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Number of editions in Lead and Infobox

The opening paragraph of the Lead section says, "As of January 2012, there are editions of Wikipedia in 283 languages", but the Infobox says there are 282 in total. Can someone investigate and fix this? Nightscream (talk) 01:42, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I think that some one contributing to the List of Wikipedias article typed in that there were Wikipedias in 283 languages after some one had said that there was a Wikipedia in the Mingrelian language. I shall be quite happy to look at the article and make the necessary amendments. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:04, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry - I see it is the infobox which says 282, and I am not quite sure how to fix this! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:07, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Formal organization

Currently there's a hat note "For Wikipedia's formal organizational structure, see Wikipedia:Formal organization." ..Why? It's an essay (and should be tagged as such). It's already linked through Wikipedia:About which should be sufficient. Why is an essay being given such prominence in the encyclopaedia article, without consensus? Яehevkor ✉ 19:04, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Wikiblackout

Hi, I think this article should include the prospective blackout of the english version occurring this wednesday (19-Jan-2012). As far as I can remember, this would be the first time the english page is going down, regardless of the reason. I think its pretty important for the wikipedia with the most articles out there. Cheers. Danielfc.mx (talk) 07:48, 17 January 2012 (UTC)


Also worth noting that they are going against their longstanding point of view of neutrality — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.26.141.133 (talk) 01:46, 18 January 2012 (UTC)


I agree - this blackout should be mentioned in the article. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Although that might be better mentioned in the article History of Wikipedia. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 22:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Where the blackout is already mentioned! ACEOREVIVED (talk) 11:48, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

OK, I have now made a brief reference to this in the article (under the sub-heading "History of Wikipedia") but I did not wish to type too much on this as it is already covered in History of Wikipedia. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 19:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

WP:NPOV only applies to articles, so the SOPA blackouts didn't actually violate it. Just clearing that up. 143.92.1.33 (talk) 03:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Talking to yourself on Wikipedia... Tut tut tut. 203.11.71.124 (talk) 08:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Formal organization ( revised and updated)

The presentation Wikipedia:Formal organization has undergone extensive review and editing. It appears to contain useful information for readers and contributors that would be more likely to be found if placed in Wikipedia than in its present form as a project page.

Please evaluate whether it is now suitable for inclusion in the article Wikipedia as a subsection, or what changes might bring it into that form. Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Comments

  • Comment:
  • Oppose. Oppose due to lack of secondary sources as I have mentioned in the past. If these sources do no exist, it simply should not be placed into the main name space and should remain as an essay in the Wikipedia space. Яehevkor ✉ 19:19, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose Per my comments on its talk page it's fine where it is as an essay. It's not reliably sourced, instead is sourced almost entirely from Wikipedia itself, which is among the sources that are usually not reliable. Apart from that it has style issues, (many inline external links), is unencyclopaedically written, has a number of POV issues and would be imbalanced if added here. A lot of that stems though from the lack of proper sourcing: if it only included what reliable sources write about Wikipedia it would be much more suitable for inclusion in an article.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 19:28, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Rehevkor & Blackburne: Your opposition is based upon next to no use of secondary sources. That position seems not to pay any attention to the article preamble that points out that what is reported is what WP says about itself, and also the limitation of this material to reporting only the formal administrative structure without commentary upon its efficacy or suitability for its purpose. In other words, there is no "point of view" or commentary or evaluation presented that might require a secondary source to achieve objectivity. As noted in the introduction, WP allows itself to be used as a source under these circumstances.
Can you address these points that do not support your stance? Brews ohare (talk) 19:35, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
No, WP:V does not say that Wikipedia is a reliable source. It only says it can be used as a primary source. Reliable sources are still needed for an article. As for POV that arises when an editor does not use secondary sources but instead assembles an article from primary sources or other non-reliable sources.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 19:45, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
The policy you link, WP:V, lists five circumstances to be satisfied in order that a "questionable source" be used as a source of information about itself. Every one of these five conditions is satisfied by Wikipedia:Formal organization. Brews ohare (talk) 16:55, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
You also can refer to this policy statement: Wikipedia may be cited with caution as a primary source of information on itself, such as in articles about itself. If attention is paid to WP policy on primary sources in this regard, it says very sensibly that "All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than to the original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors." and that "Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. "
Can you point out anything in Wikipedia:Formal organization that constitutes a misuse to advance "interpretive claims" or "novel interpretations"? Frankly, I find your use of the primary source limitations to be a superficial invocation of a policy in a manner contravening its stated purpose, and without any actual instance where the policy has been violated in the sense the policy itself describes as a violation.
If you can identify any specific objectionable statements in Wikipedia:Formal organization, they will be removed or rephrased. Brews ohare (talk) 19:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Failing the presentation of any specific instance of a statement violating the conditions put forth in WP policies, I'd say the objections of both of you, Rehevkor & Blackburne, have no basis. Brews ohare (talk) 17:11, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
You have my reply above. It needs sourcing in reliable sources. Please identify the reliable sources it is based on. See e.g. WP:OR: "all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source."--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 17:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
Blackburne: It doesn't constitute a "reply" to reiterate claims with no attempt to meet objections. In particular, there is no example statement provided that violates any of the policies you incorrectly claim to limit movement of Wikipedia:Formal organization to become part of the article Wikipedia. Brews ohare (talk) 17:44, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
I'll provide an example of correct application of policy. The leading sentence following the Introduction in Wikipedia:Formal organization says
The contributors or editors of Wikipedia participate subject to a number of policies and guidelines governing behavior and content.
Now, as you quote WP:OR "all material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source." Obviously the link provided in Wikipedia:Formal organization is to WP, not a "reliable" source. So this statement, according to you, is in violation of the policy WP:OR.
To counter this view, WP:OR#Primary, secondary and tertiary sources says
"Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source..."
Clearly the provided sentence from Wikipedia:Formal organization does not attempt any "novel interpretation", "interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims". Consequently, there is no violation of WP:OR. Likewise, you have claimed earlier a violation of WP:V. Here again, this policy states:
"Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves, usually in articles about themselves or their activities, without the requirement in the case of self-published sources that they be published experts in the field, so long as:
  1. the material is not unduly self-serving;
  2. it does not involve claims about third parties;
  3. it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;
  4. there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity;
  5. the article is not based primarily on such sources."
Evidently the provided sentence from Wikipedia:Formal organization satisfies all these conditions that permit the use of WP as a source of information, with the exception of the last one. Its applicability could be discussed further by looking into this policy in more detail.
Your reduction of very extensive policies, like WP:OR and WP:V that occupy pages on WP, to sound bites that ignore all nuance about their application, is not proper use.
If you have identified some statements in Wikipedia:Formal organization that are objectionable when the entire policy description is entertained, please present them here for correction. And please avoid the sound-bite approach to policy application. Brews ohare (talk) 18:32, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Support. High quality and relevant information, adequately and abundantly sourced with reliable primary sources where no secondary sources are available, in full compliance with wp:CIRCULAR: "Wikipedia may be cited with caution as a primary source of information on itself, such as in articles about itself."

    Note. If the quoted policy statement is not applicable, then it should be unambiguously rephrased or even removed from the wp:V policy. - DVdm (talk) 18:58, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

  • Comment: I'm not bothered by citing Wikipedia itself that much, but it bothers me that it's rather long. It only covers the EN Wikipedia, while this is supposed to be the article about the whole project. The English Wikipedia subsection is already unique - this would make it even longer. It's fine as a standalone, but I think unless radically shortened it would be undue weight in this article. --GRuban (talk) 21:57, 23 January 2012 (UTC)
GRuban: The question of how much space should be devoted to any chosen topic in the article Wikipedia is worthy of discussion. It could be argued that the material in Wikipedia:Formal organization is of greater importance to the article Wikipedia than, for instance, the extensive section Rules and laws, which also is devoted mainly to the English WP, and which could easily be split off as a separate project page. As a general observation, the content of Wikipedia appears to be a result of accretion and not of editorial planning. Do you agree? Brews ohare (talk) 18:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
  • Oppose. (1) I agree with GRuban that adding the section to this article would create undue weight problems. (2) The article is already very long. It has a readable prose size of 56K, while WP:Article Size says that articles above 50K may need to be split. (3) The section is based on primary sources, while WP:PRIMARY says, "Do not base ... material entirely on primary sources" -- JTSchreiber (talk) 06:25, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
JTSchreiber: GRuban has brought up the length issue, which has nothing to do with the policy undue weight, which discusses whether one side of a subject has been overemphasized compared to alternative views, a topic hardly relevant here. The length question has merit, though it could be argued that there are many other topics in the article Wikipedia that are better candidates go elsewhere or be summarized to shorten the article.
The WP:PRIMARY argument does not have merit. It has been thoroughly disposed of above in the reply to Blackburne. To summarize, WP:PRIMARY is a very extensive policy, and contains exceptions that apply here, and that are not addressed by a sound-bite summary of this policy. Brews ohare (talk) 18:26, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
No, the WP:PRIMARY argument has not been 'disposed' of. It is part of WP:NOR, one of Wikipedia's core content policies, and cannot simply be ignored when inconvenient. There is no exception for Wikipedia; it is a primary source which cannot be used as the main source for material.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 18:47, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
John Blackburne: Once again, you have refused to reply to the obvious points raised above in response to your earlier identical unsupported assertion that WP:Primary rejects the proposed transfer of WP:Formal organization to the article Wikipedia. Your assertion is based upon summarizing WP:Primary in a sound bite, and failing to address the detailed exceptions that apply to this case. Although iteration of fallacies can sell toothpaste, it shouldn't work here. Brews ohare (talk) 01:12, 27 January 2012 (UTC)
Brews ohare, you made two incorrect statements in your discussion of undue weight. First you wrote that "GRuban has brought up the length issue, which has nothing to do with the policy undue weight". No, GRuban brought up undue weight. Look at the last sentence of GRuban's posting: "I think unless radically shortened it would be undue weight in this article." Second, you wrote that undue weight "discusses whether one side of a subject has been overemphasized compared to alternative views". You implied that this is all that undue weight includes, but actually it is broader than that. Here is what the policy states:
An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and neutral, but still be disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic.
This is the type of undue weight which GRuban refered to. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
I have agreed that the length issue is worthy of discussion from the viewpoint of the overall length of the article. However, an overall analysis of all the topics in the article, and how much weight should be given to the organization of WP compared to these, has not been attempted so far. Brews ohare (talk) 20:18, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
On the subject of WP:PRIMARY, my response was not a sound bite argument. I pointed out a sentence in WP:PRIMARY which was was missing from your somewhat thorough response to Blackburne above. The sentence I quoted is a key principle for this debate and must not be ignored. It is not overridden by the sentence about avoiding interpretation of primary sources. To comply with the policy, material must not interpret primary sources and material must not be based entirely on primary sources. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
The point in WP:Verifiablity suggesting acceptability requires that "the article is not based primarily on such [primary] sources" was mentioned in the response to Blackburne. Although more could be said about this, the basic point to consider here is the following: Wikipedia:Formal organization has as its stated purpose to describe what WP says about its own organization. Further, any discussion of this organization in secondary sources is entirely of the nature of quotations from the very self-same WP articles used for the same purpose in Wikipedia:Formal organization.
It all seems a bit ridiculous to suggest that a secondary source is needed, for example, in order to say "Jimmy Wales sits on the board of Wikimedia Foundation". Finding a "secondary source" that says this means only finding a source that cites exactly the same WP article as its own source that is used directly in Wikipedia:Formal organization.
This example is completely typical of all the information in Wikipedia:Formal organization, which is restricted in its entirety to simple matters of fact, and involves no assessment or evaluation of this organization, its strengths or its wisdom. The espoused purpose of WP:Primary in insisting upon secondary sources is "to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources, though primary sources are permitted if used carefully." In other words, to insure balance in opinion on debatable subjects, of which there are none here. Brews ohare (talk) 20:18, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Yes, in your response to Blockburne, you did mention this WP:V statement: "the article is not based primarily on such [primary] sources" Here's all that you wrote about that statement: "Its applicability could be discussed further by looking into this policy in more detail." That's so vague that it's practically a non-statement. And yet, that vague statement is all you have to justify your later claim that "The WP:PRIMARY argument does not have merit. It has been thoroughly disposed of above in the reply to Blackburne." Thoroughly disposed of? Really? It was barely even touched on.
As far the "espoused purpose" of WP:PRIMARY, your statement is incorrect. The next sentence in WP:OR after the one you quoted is "Material based purely on primary sources should be avoided." The policy does not say that this second sentence is derived from the sentence you quoted. The two sentences are stated independently with neither taking priority over the other. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 06:31, 3 February 2012 (UTC)
  • Suggestion — Let's have a look again at the wp:V-policy, in casu wp:CIRCULAR. It seems somewhat ambiguously worded now as:

    Wikipedia may be cited with caution as a primary source of information on itself, such as in articles about itself.

    I think that it either should be reworded to:

    Lacking secondary sources, Wikipedia may be cited with caution as a primary source of information on itself, such as in articles about itself,

    or it should be reworded to:

    Lacking secondary sources, Wikipedia may not be cited as a primary source of information on itself, such as in articles about itself.

    (Emphasis for clarity — not to be included).

    So, in order to avoid this discussion and future similar discussions, the policy statement would just need either 3 extra, or "4 extra and 2 less" words to become undisputably unambiguous.

    Would anyone mind if the policy would be reworded to one of these alternatives? - DVdm (talk) 21:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

It seems clear to me without the extra wording that the second is what's intended. It states WP can be used as a primary source where appropriate, and the policies on primary sources are clear. The 'with caution' does not modify this, it only suggests editors are careful about using such sources, so they don't rely solely or mostly on them. It is perhaps redundant as the same policy applies to all primary sources, and it doesn't say anything different about WP than is said elsewhere about primary sources.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 21:27, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
To me it seems absolutely clear that the first wording is what's intended. So, it would be a good thing to have it iron-casted, so to speak, don't you think? - DVdm (talk) 21:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
The first interpretation though doesn't match the policies on primary vs. secondary sources, OR, verifiability etc. In particular it goes against the core policies that secondary sources are required for notability and verifiability. But if you think it needs clarifying it should be raised at that page, not here, as any such changes to policy should be discussed centrally.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 22:23, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree about your latter point. I have added an RFC at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#RfC: Ambiguity about the circularity wording. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 23:16, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
Update — The RFC resulted in a change of the above statement at wp:CIRCULAR to:

Citing Wikipedia to support a descriptive statement about Wikipedia itself, is not a form of circular referencing. Instead it is the use of Wikipedia as a primary source and should follow the relevant policy for the use of primary sources.

- DVdm (talk) 20:11, 4 February 2012 (UTC)


Legal Use?

I develop applications for the BlackBerry PlayBook. And I noticed that someone released a 1.99 application that is really just wikipedia:

http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/76936/?lang=en

This raises a good question to me, is it legal for someone to sell access to Wikipedia? Just curious. I'm certain this guy did this for a free PlayBook.

70.72.48.24 (talk) 02:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

  • Unfortunately yes. In fact, to access Wikipedia you're paying your ISP right now.Jasper Deng (talk) 02:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

sexual content

I've noticed that the part on sexual content has links to explicit content now I know that wikipedia isn't concurred but shouldn't the links to these articles not be linked please reply --Jeffrd10 (talk) 14:24, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean "censored"? I don't see any reason not to link to those articles. garik (talk) 16:56, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

On sexual content

The article currently makes the unsourced claim (bolding mine):

It also contains materials that some people may find objectionable, offensive, or pornographic.[114] It was made clear that this policy is not up for debate, and the policy has sometimes proved controversial.

But it is _clearly_ stated in the lead of a professional news article that "massive sitewide pornography purges and pledges to “do better.”"[1] which directly contradicts this unsourced claim. This page is protected so I am unable to change it. Can someone please correct the article to reflect that according to reliable sources that Wikipedia distributes explicit pornography, including child pornography, and has pledged to "do better" but has, according to the sources, failed to live up to those promises?

Anything less would be editorial bias— the same kind of claims are often taken without question on other articles so long as they are verifiable

Cheers. --71.191.197.79 (talk) 05:36, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Creation of page

Dear sir/madam,

I want to create a descriptive page about the tourist area of our region. How can I do that task ?

Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Meroramu (talk • contribs) 14:42, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

[WP:YFA] might be a good starting point. Please check that your subject is notable as per WP:N and WP:GNG and that your wording is as neutral and possible in tone. Cheers. 217.251.164.48 (talk) 11:10, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Poor quality pronunciation audio file

The article head includes links to two pronunciations of "Wikipedia". The first one, commons:File:En-uk-Wikipedia.ogg, is very poor quality and should be replaced. In my opinion, the audio is too quiet and it noticeably peaks on the plosive 'PEE' syllable. I'm not in a position to rerecord it, so I'm bringing it to the attention of any editors watching this page. I'll look to see if there's any maintenance tag I can add to the Commons page to alert this to the attention of other interested editors. Matt (talk) 21:42, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

What is lying? why people tell lie? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.99.30.44 (talk) 09:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Low quality and out of date

This article needs work. I'm surprised to find that it's not a shining example. It would be quick-failed at FAC. It would help if the Foundation could get the stats "dump" happening again. A lot of stats haven't appeared since the start of 2010. There was talk that this would be corrected January 2012, but nothing thus far. With updated stats, at least we could get a move on freshening up the underlying stats for this article. Tony (talk) 12:55, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree with your very first sentence. But what exactly do you propose? The article is moderately accurate, but, lacking a principal writer (or writers), it feels very disorganized. -- Taku (talk) 00:21, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

A question on how Wikipedia can really have an article on itself without bias.

Is it honestly possible for this article to be without bias. Many editors love Wikipedia and wouldn't that make any user who edits this page someone who has a conflict of interest? Just throwing it out there. Hghyux (talk) 00:10, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Everyone has interests. But it's only when the aims of the editors and the aims of Wikipedia aren't aligned that conflicts of interest are created. Wikipedia aims to be an unbiased encyclopedia. So it depends what you think the aims of the majority of contributors are. If the aims of the majority are to create an accurate, unbiased encyclopedia, then the article will be unbiased as well.Planetscared (talk) 15:41, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
In the case of simply reporting facts about WP such as its organization, or simply stating what WP claims to be its dispute resolution procedures, or statistics about its operation such as how many articles it contains, WP may be the best source available for information about itself, and bias is unlikely, other than sins of omission. However, where assessment or judgment is involved, such as comments on ArbCom activity, there is the possibility of bias. So, in this case, the statement that Arbcom functions "not so much to resolve disputes and make peace between conflicting editors, but to weed out problematic editors", some may disagree that this is espoused policy. (Personally, I'd call this remark accurate as to how things work in practice, whether or not WP claims explicitly that this is the function of ArbCom. Of course, the objective identification of "problematic editors" is another matter.) Brews ohare (talk) 16:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
WP has a strong and well-oiled tradition of neutrality. This is a very exposed article. You'd expect bias to be reported here if it were suspected. Tony (talk) 07:20, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
However, isn't there the issue of the page being excessively detailed? If there is any bias in the article, it would likely be that too much focus is placed on too many aspects and not an issue of biased writing per se. 74.15.69.22 (talk) 02:44, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

See...Also links

This edit removing links to WP:Formal organization and WP:Editing environment is based upon the in-line comment "per WP:SEEALSO the see also section is for links to related articles", which seems to me inapplicable, inasmuch as the WP hierarchical structure and editing environment appear to me to be very much pertinent to the topic Wikipeida. The See also link in this comment suggests that "common sense" be applied to this section and that "The links in the "See also" section should be relevant, should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic", which clearly is the case here. Brews ohare (talk) 15:42, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

As the guideline says that section is for
A bulleted list, preferably alphabetized, of internal links to related Wikipedia articles. (emphasis added)
And neither of those links are to articles but to two essays. The common sense mentioned is that used to decide which articles to include. It does not mean the guideline should be ignored.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 17:12, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
So, John, what is your take on the For...see link to WP:About at the top of the page? If I understand your interpretation, no Main page article can link to a Project page through See also. Is that your view? So perhaps a For...see link is preferable? Brews ohare (talk) 17:22, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
No, please stop trying to promote your essays.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 17:41, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
John, I find your comment unresponsive to the questions asked: (i) What is your take on the For...see link to WP:About at the top of the page? (ii) Is it your view that no Main space article can link to a Project page through See also links?
The guidance essay WP:Formal organization is not "my" essay. As you will find at the top of its Talk page, this article has gone through extensive assessment by many editors and modified accordingly. It is not "my" essay, but the result of collaboration and review. Brews ohare (talk) 17:50, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
I am not here to answer questions or explain policy to you. As for WP:Formal organization and WP:Editing environment they are almost all your work: no other editor has made a substantial contribution to either. That is not a criticism of it: many if not most essays are largely the work of one editor. But they are still essays, and so should not be added.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 18:11, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
John, although it's not your function to explain policy, it could be helpful. In particular, you pointed out:
A bulleted list, preferably alphabetized, of internal links to related Wikipedia articles. (emphasis added)
I took this to mean your interpretation was that "articles" (main space) as opposed to "project pages" were referred to. Perhaps I have misunderstood you? That is my question. It is about your interpretation of this policy. Brews ohare (talk) 18:33, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:What is an article?--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 19:02, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

For...see link to WP:Formal organization

It seems to me that a For...see link to WP:Formal organization analogous to the present WP:About link is appropriate and would be a service to readers interested in the organizational structure of WP, a topic quite pertinent to the subject of the article Wikipedia.

What is the general view of this matter? Please comment here. Brews ohare (talk) 20:13, 5 March 2012 (UTC)

Comments

  • Comment: Editor Blackburne has removed a For...see link to WP:Formal organization on the basis that this link was to a "personal" essay. According to WP:ESSAY there is no such essay category. The article is presently identified with a banner that makes clear it is not a policy or a guideline.
The implication of the wording "personal" essay, of course, is that WP:Formal organization somehow involves my own opinions, not necessarily widely shared. What WP:Formal organization is in fact, is an outline of WP documentation regarding the hierarchical structure of WP (its officers and their duties, terms of service, etc.). It contains no assessment, analysis or viewpoint upon these matters, but simply lays out the facts according to WP documentation.
It seems that a For...see link to WP:Formal organization is appropriate and helpful, such as:
For Wikipedia's formal organizational structure, see Wikipedia:Formal organization.
Brews ohare (talk) 20:13, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: Some mainspace articles have hatnotes (e.g. For x, see y) that link to policy project pages (Verifiability -> WP:VERIFY, for example). But I've never seen one linking to an essay. I don't know if there's a policy on it, but it's my understanding that essays may reflect personal opinion - that is, they are allowed to, you don't have to have community consensus and scrutiny for whatever you say in them - and therefore they should not be linked from mainspace, even if you have made an effort to write them with NPOV. I often see editors linking them from talk pages to illustrate a point, however... as I'm about to do. :) WP:WES and WP:SA? ~ Kimelea (talk) 14:57, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
I do understand that a link to personal opinion would be undesirable. The article WP:Formal organization in particular involves no opinion, nevermind a NPOV.
That raises an issue that appears difficult to resolve: how is WP:Formal organization to be classified? It is not an essay because it involves no opinion, assessment or viewpoint. It is just a statement of what WP documentation says about WP hierarchy, without embellishment or commentary. I'd say it is an Information page, but that description appears to require some rite of passage that is not spelled out anywhere that I can find. Have you any idea how to do this? Brews ohare (talk) 17:52, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Unfortunately not, I'm much newer than you and had to research the topic of essays to check my facts before I posted my earlier reply. But it does seem to me that the deal is not the POV/non-POV issue, it's that something labelled 'essay' has simply not been vetted / reworded / scrutinised / torn to pieces and put back together by the whole community the way something labelled 'information page' has. Achieving that widespread consensus, not just for what you're saying but how you're saying it. (Please, Community - correct me if I'm wrong.) Maybe the Village pump might be able to give you some advice about how to get that consensus? Sorry not to be more help. ~ Kimelea (talk) 18:14, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
Kimelea: An appeal to the Village Pump has produced the suggestion that a discussion be opened on this reclassification. Perhaps you would undertake to comment there? Brews ohare (talk) 20:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment:

Nature of Wikipedia

That section seems too long. Maybe the vagueness of the section title contributed for the section to expand without clear direction. I think one solution is to start a section on content. I tentatively gave a name "appraisal of content". It will cover, at least, reliability, sexual content and quality of wiring. (I'm not sure about what to do with notability.) -- Taku (talk) 20:59, 16 March 2012 (UTC) I think we should make each section of wikipedia relevant to its own topic, rather than making such a detailed article.140.198.42.45 (talk) 01:55, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, anon, but I don't really understand you. Are you saying this article is too detailed? What's wrong with that? -- Taku (talk) 21:03, 23 March 2012 (UTC)


Thanks for starting this. I basically adopted that section and made it about the criticisms of wikipedia, and included a "bias" section for allegations (true or not) of various biases. I kept your three devisions, but re-named them: Quality of writing, Possible Bias, Accuracy and consistency, and Content controversies.

Let me know what you think.

CircularReason (talk) 00:15, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Generally speaking, having a section named "criticism" is a bad idea per Wikipedia:Criticism. It's simply dull to list all criticisms on wikipedia. Much more smart thing to have the analysis of the nature of criticisms: (so "apprisal" sounded good). Other than that, I don't have particularly strong opinions on section titles. Any edits that are intrroducing more structures into the article is a good one I think. -- Taku (talk) 01:49, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This page should not be speedily deleted because... (it is a cool page) --98.207.235.212 (talk) 02:59, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

look at the date 188.221.79.22 (talk) 13:40, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia Criticisms

I need a little back-up here.

I changed a variety of things about the "Criticism" page. It was poorly worded, and disorganized.

Me and Tepeat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Teapeat) may end up in an edit battle here, but I'm not going for anything shady.

He said, "Blogs are not considered reliable sources" so I took out the blogs, and added Journal articles.

If he takes it out again, I am worried about his motivation. CircularReason (talk) 02:34, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

What was the reasoning behind breaking up the reliability section into accuracy and bias? The Reliability of Wikipedia article covers both topics, so it's odd to have them split out here. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:18, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Good question. The short answer is: they seem different. Take two statements. If one person said, "At the end of his life, Elvis was fat" and another said "By 1970, Elvis had become obese" these are both factually accurate, but the first one hints at a value judgment (Elvis is a failure, he lost it, he died a loser). If a third person said, "By 1970, Elvis was still fit and slender," that would be factually inaccurate (as well as possibly biased, but primarily inaccurate). Some mistakes are innocent. So I guess all bias is inaccurate, but not all inaccuracy is biased. Cheers, mate. CircularReason (talk) 17:29, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Main Purpose of Wikipedia

Yes users of the global web should party to the founding president of the global Wikipedia web as a privilege for users, yes there will always be vandals, however, there are some vandals actually testing the security of Wikipedia, because they are Wikipedia administrators, confirmed users, and journalists travelling and trying to test the security of their bots and honest users in order to find ways of strengthening security, thus, why in the weird world do we need Wikipedia? Use the usual reliable references they need to support the article for any report to transfer other newspapers, and the main idea is the site also helps for news documents and news records forgotten and needed to be analyzed, such as movies, festivities, weather disasters, latest scams, and more. It is by this right Wikipedia maybe allowed freely and cautiously to secure it's need in the far future. Auto-confirmed user from CVU.--74.34.89.122 (talk) 19:46, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia's view on itself

Resolved
 – Good question, but details about vandalism were recently removed by User:CaseyPenk. Chealer (talk) 17:22, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

From the article:

  • Abuse of tags - Bad-faith placing of non-content tags such as {{afd}}, {{delete}}, {{sprotected}}, or other tags on pages that do not meet such criteria.

My understanding is that Wikipedia may only contain an article about itself if it's written from an outside perspective, i.e. like someone else than Wikipedia was writing it. So these direct wikilinks to tags struck me as odd, as they seem to be going directly through this layer of opacity. Is such a thing allowed? JIP | Talk 14:24, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

I notice the topic is considered solved, but I figure I should explain what User:Chealer is talking about above. The previous problem was exactly what you're talking about, User:JIP. There were many "inside jokes" if you will referring to Wikipedia itself. A little of that might be expected - it's a page on Wikipedia on Wikipedia, after all. But the minutia of the different vandalism tags was getting out of hand. So I condensed them down into something I think is more relevant to general readers, most of whom are not editors. CaseyPenk (talk) 17:32, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Lead section dismissive of criticism

I understand that we all love Wikipedia. But the lead section seems a little too eager to defend ourselves and dismiss valid criticism. For as much time as I've put into editing, I still take much of Wikipedia's content with a grain of salt. Here are the phrases I find problematic in the lead section, along with why I find each problematic:

  • "Although the policies of Wikipedia strongly espouse verifiability and a neutral point of view" (preempting criticism by defending ourselves and our reputation)
  • "intentional or unintentional" (implying that we are not entirely to blame and should be given some leeway)
  • "These allegations are variously addressed by Wikipedia policies." (this passage is simply vague - what does it mean by "addressing"? are we taking measures to respond to criticism after the criticism has been leveled at us? or are our policies so effective that they preempt problems before they even start? either way, we still have problems with bias, writing quality, etc. that we cannot easily dismiss)
  • "While not a criticism per se" (attempting to downplay the concern that follows as trivial)
  • "vulnerabilities inherent to any wiki that may be edited by anyone" (offloading responsibility to the medium we use, suggesting the articles are victim of a flawed system and we lack power to fix them)
  • "though some studies indicate that vandalism is quickly deleted" (defusing the criticism in the same breath the criticism is introduced, without giving time or space for said criticism to sink in)
  • "though a 2005 investigation in Nature showed that the science articles they compared came close to the level of accuracy of Encyclopædia Britannica and had a similar rate of 'serious errors'" (same problem as preceding passage - use of a comma is problematic because it combines two distinct phrases that should each be given careful attention; people take a small amount of time to stop and think when they see a period, while a comma proceeds more quickly)

Taken together, these passages give the appearance of a NNPOV toward ourselves. As some others have noted on this page, we must be careful to remain unbiased. I suggest we remove or rephrase some of these defenses and let the articles speak for themselves. CaseyPenk (talk) 08:30, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

"Various experts (including founder Jimmy Wales and Jonathan Zittrain of Oxford University) have expressed concern over possible (intentional or unintentional) biases"

This claim is supported by four sources. None of them, that I can see, is by Zittrain (who could be wikilinked, and is no longer at Oxford). One is a blog by "Dan". One is a post by Jimbo raising a concern about an article. I think we should have a sentence to this effect, but it should be properly sourced. --Dweller (talk) 10:25, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm also not sure how Mr. Wales, as the ultimate insider, is an "expert" at analyzing the biases of the project he founded. Perhaps a different word is in order. CaseyPenk (talk) 16:08, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
He founded the project, but the project's nature is that of multiple editors, so I don't really see a conflict of interest. Didn't take me too long to find some links: [2] [3] [4] [5]... uhmm – let's go? Hearfourmewesique (talk) 17:44, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
Wales may very well be unbiased. I don't know. But I also don't have any conclusive evidence that he's an expert. Even if Wales is completely unbiased, and even though he's an authority, it takes a high standard to be considered an expert (e.g. published research, accuracy of past statements, etc.). I would like to see a journal-quality source directly calling him such. Also, I'm not sure if you were providing the links with regard to Wales' expert status or something else. I just wanted to chip in as far as Wales goes. CaseyPenk (talk) 18:23, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Impact on pending high profile court cases

A useful addition to the article would be info on what has been Wikipedia's impact on pending high profile court cases in the past. I'm suggesting this because I'm interested in how much impact the article Shooting of Trayvon Martin might have on the pending court case The State of Florida vs. George Zimmerman. --Bob K31416 (talk) 14:01, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

You know, I think Wikipedia's impact on real-life events is sometimes underestimated. Somewhere I was reading an opinion piece that the United States presidential election, 2008 page could have been as valuable as any campaign ad. Do you know of any sources that discuss the impact of Wikipedia on the legal process? CaseyPenk (talk) 16:12, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
No I don't. Didn't have any luck googling. Hoping someone here might have come across something. --Bob K31416 (talk) 17:56, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Move of paragraph on derivatives out of History section

This edit moved the paragraph on derivatives out of the History section, to a new "Derivative encyclopedias" section, commenting "A discussion of derivatives doesn't belong in the history of Wikipedia itself; it's irrelevant to that particular section, breaks up the ongoing discussion about growth in articles / edits, and interrupts the chronological order of the history". I think it's a good idea to have a different section covering derivatives outside of the History section. I also agree that the paragraph may have broken the part on growth. However, I disagree that discussion of derivatives doesn't belong in the history of Wikipedia, in so far as these are forks (which is not the case for all "derivatives" mentioned - in fact, although I don't know these "derivatives", I doubt that qualifying all of them this way is accurate). Wikipedia is both an encyclopedia and a project, and the history covers both aspects. If the project (and its community) was hurt by Enciclopedia Libre, this is relevant to Wikipedia's history. Also, there is information in that paragraph which is very much about Wikipedia (decision on advertisements and domain change).

I am tempted to just undo the change, but since I do think a coverage of derivatives outside of the history section is interesting, and this needs to be done carefully to minimize duplication, I am not doing that for now. --Chealer (talk) 17:37, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi there Chealer, and thanks for your concern. I agree that we should look for a better name to group these "Wikipedia-inspired projects." I was WP:BOLD and went ahead and renamed the derivative section to "other wiki projects." There's not necessarily a causal link between Wikipedia and those projects (unless we find one in a reliable source). As such, we might want to move "other wiki projects" outside of "impact" and make "other wiki projects" into more of a "see also" type of a section. I think the new name is better than the old one, but we should consider other names - I think wiki projects sounds too much like WikiProjects.
As for the really germane topic, which is Enc. Libre, you're absolutely right. I looked up the provided source, and Shirky notes a causal connection between Enc. Libre and Wales' actions. I moved the sentences related to Enc. Libre back to the history section, in an area I thought was appropriately contextualized.
I think the current format strikes an effective balance between retaining an intelligible flow in the historical account, and properly explaining the other wiki-type projects. Let me know what you think of my changes. CaseyPenk (talk) 18:05, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
With that gone, I moved the paragraph on similar encyclopedias to another section (Related projects), leaving only the part on other Wikimedia projects. I hesitated to give a new name, and finally went for "Sister projects - Wikimedia", which precises but still gives a hint that these projects are wikis. The only thing I'm not too satisfied about is the Related projects section. Oh well. Thank you very much. --Chealer (talk) 21:12, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Request for an edit

While organizing the list of External Links into columns, I noticed that the following external link points to a secure server. Can anyone please fix this, so it points to a non-secure website? Thanks. IjonTichyIjonTichy (talk) 14:38, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia shut down

I don't remember the date, but around 2004 Wikipedia was shutted down due to lack of money that is required to run the servers. There was only a message when you entered the site, along with the logo. Does anyone know more about it? I think that a screenshot can be obtained from Wayback Machine, if I knew the date. Hopefully, it looks as it looked back then (no missing pictures or anything else). Galzigler (talk) 15:43, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

No, I do not remember anything about this. I do remember that in January this year, i.e. 2012, Jimmy Wales organized a one-day shut down of Wikipedia as a protest against some internet policy of which he did not approve, although I do not know enough about this to put it in the article. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 10:37, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

All is well, I have just seen that news of this is in the article that at the end of the section marked "History" - that date was January 18, 2012, and what I am thinking of is mentioned as the final paragraph under the section with the sub-heading "History". ACEOREVIVED (talk) 10:40, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Can someone please fix

In the "Dispute resolution" section there is a "the the", but for some reason the Edit button doesn't show so I can't fix it. Can someone repair this, this must be one of the most-read pages on the wiki and it doesn't look good to have such an obvious mistake. MOGISM (talk) 14:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. I've fixed it. You could not edit the article because it's semi-protected, perhaps due to vandalism. At the rate you are editing, it shouldn't be long before you can edit semi-protected articles yourself. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Missing whitespace

Resolved

It is not “theSemantic MediaWiki”, i guess. --Aschroet (talk) 18:02, 11 June 2012 (UTC).

  • Fixed. Thank you --Chealer (talk) 14:40, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Servers are not people; they can't "reside"

Resolved

Rules and laws governing content and editor behavior

Content in Wikipedia is subject to the laws (in particular, the copyright laws) of the United States and of the U.S. state of Florida, where the majority of Wikipedia's servers reside.

(last word should be changed to "are located.") Mfreistedt (talk) 22:22, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

It has been fixed, thanks for your help. Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 16:09, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Peer Review 2012

A long time has passed since the last peer review. It appears that this article is stuck in an editing limbo. I am going to recommend this to peer review in 24 hours from this post. If anyone has any objections, then they may state them. Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 00:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

"Zillionaire" vandalism alert

In the subsection entitled "Wikimedia Foundation and the Wikimedia chapters," Warren Buffet and Richard Branson are referred to as "zillionaires." I could not remove this because this page seems to be protected. 129.59.115.14 (talk) 14:58, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

I've removed the mention, but I wouldn't have anything against putting it back in if a working source could be found, and if "zillionaire" was changed to "billionaire" or something similar. (And it doesn't seem to be a vandalism edit, by the way.) — Mr. Stradivarius (have a chat) 10:33, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

"See...also" links on Wikipedia

Links to WP:Formal organization and WP:Editing environment have been removed by Blackburne from the See...also section of Wikipedia shown below:

See also

The in-line explanation for removal is that these links are "inappropriate non-article links, per WP:SEEALSO." However, according to WP:SEEALSO: "Whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense." On this basis, these links are appropriate here, as their purpose is to guide readers to the scattered WP documentation about its organization and procedures.

These articles are clearly labeled as guidance essays, which I suspect is the origin of Blackburne's reservations about them, as in his mind they are not "articles" and so should never be linked in any article, whatever its nature. That is a very limited view, and assumes utility to readers has no importance.

Despite their labeling as "guidance essays", these are not "guidance" in the sense of being "opinion" or "interpretation" pieces. Instead, they are "guidance" in the sense of leading readers to the appropriate WP statements and articles about WP organization and procedures. They are in the public domain, and any editor can add documentation on other aspects, or correct any inaccuracies.

As WP information is dispersed on many pages and is not terribly easy to find, this guidance is useful to the community. Some indication is that WP:Formal organization has about 100 hits a day while WP: Editing environment has about 15-20 hits a day.

With the obvious "guidance essay" info box at the top, and the absence of advice or interpretation, no reader should confuse these essays with WP policies or guidelines. Rather, these guidance essays are obviously aids to finding WP documentation about how things are organized and how they work. They provide useful See...also links for readers of Wikipedia.

I'd like to reinstate these links. Please comment. Brews ohare (talk) 17:56, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

You omitted the relevant bit of the guideline. It starts
Contents: A bulleted list, preferably alphabetized, of internal links to related Wikipedia articles
So article links to the main namespace. Not links to content in the Wikipedia namespace. Practically, there are hundreds of such pages including policies, information, guidelines, and an untold number of essays. They clearly can't all be linked, and even if just some could there are others that are much more useful, relevant and popular. But the guideline is clear: the section is for article links.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 18:23, 19 July 2012 (UTC)
Hi John. I take it that you wish to insist the usage of "article" in your quote is to be understood in this context very narrowly so as to exclude articles with the project title lead-in Wikipedia. Perhaps you could explain further why such an interpretation should be applied to the articles WP:Formal organization and WP: Editing environment? They are helpful to readers in guiding them through the labyrinthine WP documentation, and denying linking to them on a technicality seems to me to be an example of Wikilawyering, that is, applying a narrow interpretation at the cost of failing to improve WP.
Perhaps you could suggest a different way to alert readers of the article Wikipedia to WP:Formal organization and WP: Editing environment? Brews ohare (talk) 18:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
As you seem unclear what an article is, see the help page Wikipedia:What is an article? for a detailed explanation.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 19:03, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
John: The issue is about help to the reader, not hairsplitting; see Wikilawyering. Brews ohare (talk) 19:15, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
You asked for a further explanation, so I gave you one. How is that wikilawyering? Now I see you have added links to WP: space categories as external links, so against both WP:SEEALSO and the external links policy. I don't see how links to WP: categories, which just list policy pages without explanation, 'help' readers at all.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 19:33, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

John: The titles of most articles give a pretty good idea of what they are about. The Category links show readers which articles exist and what they are about, which otherwise will go unnoticed. In contrast, the Special searches link already present contains a lot of stuff of no interest at all, including zillions of pages of links to various issues of the Signpost that basically mean these searches are useless entirely once you reach Signpost and have to page through acres of these listings.

So far, you continue to pursue your opposition to improvement of the article Wikipedia by listing WP:Formal organization and WP:Editing environment, simply reiterating legalities as you see them, with no attention to their purpose. Brews ohare (talk) 19:47, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Brews, you started this section quoting policy. I pointed out that you had missed out the main part of it. You asked me to "explain further". I did. Now all of a sudden my replies are wikilawyering/reiterating legalities, while all was doing was explaining the policy - one you were happy to quote when you thought it supported you. So it's good policy when you quote it, but when other editors refer to it the policy should be ignored? You can't have it both ways.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 21:18, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
I don't follow any of that, John. I am not citing policy except to indicate your interpretation is too narrow, and that you are obstructing addition of useful links based upon your narrow interpretation of "article", links that could help readers navigate WP. You haven't addressed your evaluation of the utility of these links, nor how they might be made available to readers of the article Wikipedia in a manner that would not offend you. Brews ohare (talk) 23:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
You have added external links to the See also section (though ones to Wikipedia), because you think they are "useful". You do not do much watchlist patrolling so maybe you don't have to deal with this, but if we allowed everyone to add links which they thought "useful" then some articles would be full of links to everyone's favourite blog, wikia site, link farm and, yes, essay, user page or other non-article page. So we have clear policies and guidelines, both on external links and the See also section, to stop such links being added where they should not because some editor thought they were "useful".--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 23:55, 20 July 2012 (UTC)
John, no doubt additions to the See...also section can be either useful or not. The proposed links:
See also
fall into the useful category, providing guidance to readers of Wikipedia through its labyrinth of documentation describing its organization and processes. The utility of this information seems clear; denying addition of these links based upon generalities with no specific evaluation seems to border on pretext. Brews ohare (talk) 11:24, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

They are badly written, POV essays. Now that describes many essays, and is often the point of them, to provide a personal, alternative viewpoint to policy and guidance that reflects consensus. But that doesn't matter: the guidelines on the see also section are clear, that section is for article links; not essays you've written, or any other links to the WP namespace.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 16:52, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

That's your personal assessment, John. Characterizing them as POV pieces out of the blue is just silly: after all, they just outline WP documentation with links to the originating articles, and do not contain analysis or interpretation. It's clear that you are not about to provide suggestions that might make these articles better, in your opinion. So maybe someone else will comment, and provide some perspective? Brews ohare (talk) 19:39, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
As I wrote it doesn't matter and so is irrelevant. WP:SEEALSO doesn't say "articles and good essays", so it doesn't matter how good they are. They are simply not meant to be included. If they were there are hundreds of much more useful and informative pages in the WP namespace; we don't include them for the same reason.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 21:35, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

I just want to say I'm with John. See also is for links to other articles pages; not pages in other name spaces. It's simply how we use the section and this is not controversial. We might want to put some links at the further reading or external links, but the pages in question (formal organization and other one) don't seem particular neutral and also they appear idiosyncratic. -- Taku (talk) 22:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi TakuyaMurata: I am interested in your remarks. You may not be aware, but Blackburne already has refused to allow mention of these articles in External links, and it isn't clear that Further reading would fare better with him.
However, what is more interesting would be converting these essays to articles instead, for example, WP:Formal organization → Formal organization of Wikipedia. Then there would be no argument about meeting the letter of the law about See...also links including only articles. As a beginning point suppose we restrict attention to WP:Formal organization. What changes would seem necessary to make this an article instead of an essay? Your remarks about neutrality and idiosyncrasy suggest you might offer some changes? If you prefer, this discussion could be moved to Talk: Formal organization. Brews ohare (talk) 20:29, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
you tried to add this material to this article only a few months ago. It was pointed out to you then that it's improperly sourced, relying almost entirely on WP as a source, so is not suitable for inclusion in an article. This would also make in unsuitable for a standalone article, aside from the issues with the actual content.--JohnBlackburnewordsdeeds 20:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
These insubstantial assertions have been dispelled already as explained at Talk: Formal organization and in earlier discussion. The simple point is that WP can be used as a source for quotations about itself. Brews ohare (talk) 12:10, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
The substantive point is WP:POINT. Someone who has created mountains of trouble due to a failure to understand Wikipedia's core procedures is not the person to be writing essays on how Wikipedia does or should operate. Johnuniq (talk) 23:50, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposal to move history section

I propose we move the history section to after "Nature". I think it is more logical to provide the reader with a good explanation of what the subject is before we talk about its history (which appears to basically be what the "Nature" section is). Also, this appears to generally be how articles are organized already, including today's featured article--π--which has a "Fundamentals" section before "History" and after the lede.

What do y'all think? Byelf2007 (talk) 22 July 2012

Why didn't I think that before :) I agree it makes more sense to describe what Wikipedia is before telling its history. -- Taku (talk) 19:59, 22 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm gonna make the change if no one objects in the next 24 hours. Byelf2007 (talk) 23 July 2012

Edit request on 25 July 2012

I am editing some text [1] 119.226.77.150 (talk) 08:55, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Not done: Good to know, but that doesn't need a ESp template. Floating Boat (the editor formerly known as AndieM) 09:08, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Non-neutral Tone in Introduction

The introduction contains the following text:

"Other disparagers of Wikipedia simply point out vulnerabilities inherent to any wiki that may be edited by anyone. "

The word "disparager" seems biased and emotionally charged. The word "simply" implies diminution. The "inherent to any wiki that may be edited by anyone" part seems like an argument in favor of Wikipedia being made.

It just seems like the wording could be changed to sound more neutral.

129.59.115.14 (talk) 20:47, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

OK, I tried to fix that as part of a wider copyedit of the lead. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:33, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Missing Comma

Section 3.1, Accuracy of Content:

"He comments that some traditional sources of non-fiction suffer from systemic biases and novel results, in his opinion, are over-reported in journal..."

should be

"... from systemic biases, and novel results, in his opinion, are..."

although it would be even clearer to say

"... from systemic biases, and novel results are, in his opinion, ..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.244.9.8 (talk) 17:10, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Citation Needed Purging

This article is on its way to becoming an FA article. As such, unless it is critical to the article, I am going to start purging all information that has no cites. The ones that are critical will need to be addressed once I am done with the purge. But I am not going to do this now. I will start doing this in 72 hours from this post. That is 6:30 GMT-5, on Tuesday, August 1st.Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 22:23, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

English Wikipedia Sources

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/ever-wonder-where-wikipedias-info-comes-from-here-are-its-top-5-sources/ — A most interesting and intriguing graphic, content, and extensive researched list. — Charles Edwin Shipp (talk) 15:38, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Grammatical Eff Ups

Should it really be "Britannica replied that the study's methology and conclusions were flawed" I'm guessing it should methodology, not methology. I'm from the Midwest, and I watch Breaking Bad, so if I'm wrong here I can probably point you in the right direction anyway, but pretty sure I'm not. If Britannica really said "methology" then it'd be a pretty hilarous (and necessary) (sic), at the very least.

Yeah, your definitely right. There is no "methology" word in the English Language. It should really be changed to "methodology". --205.174.125.90 (talk) 16:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Criticisms of Wikipedia

Currently, the article lead has a short discussion on the criticisms levelled against wikipedia. I think this is the wrong place for it - it's unnecessary clutter in a very restricted space and I'd suggest it looks a bit defensive putting it right up there. So I think most of it should go in a new Criticisms section where it can be tidied and expanded a little, with just a short note left behind on policies. If nobody objects in the next day or so and I remember, I'll get on with it. — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 10:41, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Don't. The reason there is no criticism section is Wikipedia:Criticism. -- Taku (talk) 11:12, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I guess you mean Wikipedia:Criticisms (with an 's'). But no, I think I am on your side here? I am not advocating a big expansion of what is already in this article's lead. I think it needs giving less prominence, not more, by moving out of the lead and into the body of the article. Alternatively, it might be moved to the lead of Wikipedia:Criticisms, which could then be linked to from here. Or, are you saying that it really does need to stay this prominent? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 13:45, 29 July 2012 (UTC)
Actually I did mean Criticism without "s". (It's confusing, I know.) I was referring to the section "Criticism" section. In nutshell, it says having a section named "Criticism" to collect various criticisms that have ever made is not a good idea; better to scatter them around the page. For example, "explicit content" covers any porn issues that have been raised on Wikipeida. I think this is a good advace and I think we should follow it. -- Taku (talk) 13:49, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
As to the criticism prose in the lead, I do agree that it is little too detailed. (e.g., no need to cite Jimbo) Maybe we should trim it down since it's covered in the article already? -- Taku (talk) 14:01, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
Sorry to harp on about this, but your reply is confusing me. Wikipedia:Criticism (no 's') opens with, "This essay is about material that emphasizes negative criticism. For criticism of Wikipedia see Reliability of Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Criticisms." How then does it relate to criticisms of Wikipedia? Is it not telling us that we mean Wikipedia:Criticisms (with an 's')?
And again, I do not advocate collecting anything (as you seem to think I am), just moving what has already been collected by someone else. What is wrong with moving it? Are you saying it should just be deleted wholesale? But might that look too much like ignoring criticism? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 19:21, 30 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree with Taku. The Wikipedia:Criticism essay provides a recommendation for how to structure articles in general, including the article about Wikipedia itself. Applying that recommendation to the article would mean that we would not have a separate criticisms section. In addition, the article has no need for a separate criticisms section because all of the criticisms listed in the lead section are already found in the article:
* quality of writing (section 3.2)
* inaccurate, inconsistent or unverified information (section 3.1)
* explicit content (section 3.5)
* too much weight is given to some topics, bias (section 3.3)
* vandalism (section 1.3)
Why would we take information from these existing sections and duplicate it in a new section? -- JTSchreiber (talk) 04:47, 31 July 2012 (UTC)
OK, now I get it. Thank you for that. So could the details just be deleted from the lead, then? — Cheers, Steelpillow (Talk) 18:49, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

No, I don't think it was a good idea to remove so much content from the lead. Per WP:LEAD, the lead should summarize the article, not just introduce it. There are now large parts of the article which are not summarized in the lead. I think that there certainly is room to improve the content which was deleted, but deleting it was not an improvement. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:42, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Since there is a subject already here, I may as well point out that we should open up a page called The trouble with Wikipedia... and all critiscisms in the talk page. I have already started creating it. If you have an objection go to my talk page. TollHRT52 (talk) 13:27, 4 September 2012 (AEST)

The first paragraph under the heading: Dispute Resolution.

The first paragraph under the heading "Dispute Resolution" could use a little bit of revision. In particular "... when a change is repeatedly done by one editor and then undone by another, an 'edit war' may be asserted to have begun by the editor who chooses to engage in that assertion" is beyond awkward. My natural inclination was to go for something like "... when a change is repeatedly done by one editor and then undone by another, an 'edit war' may be considered to have begun" but this is problematic because the assertion is referenced in the next sentence (which has it's own problems). I'm concerned that if I change too much I may mangle the intention because I'm not terribly familiar with the subject matter (most of my edits are minor). Perhaps someone with a bit more familiarity with the subject could take a crack at it. Olleicua (talk) 07:13, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Italian Wikipedia Article

Could we get someone fluent in both English and Italian to look at the Italian article on Wikipedia to see if it could improve this one? If you do find something, could you put it in your user space as a rough translation? Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 17:59, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Italic title

I think the word 'Wikipedia' should be italicized. According to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Text_formatting#Italic_face: "Online encyclopedias and dictionaries should also be italicized." — John Biancato 03:16, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

We can also argue that "Wikipedia" refers to more than just an encyclopedia. It's also a project, community, movement... -- Taku (talk) 12:01, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, but most importantly it is an encyclopedia. From Wikipedia article: "Wikipedia is a free, collaboratively edited, and multilingual Internet encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation." From Wikipedia:About page: "Wikipedia is a multilingual, web-based, free-content encyclopedia project based on an openly editable model". — John Biancato 16:00, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
Ok, how about this argument: Wikipedia is an exception to the rule. I looked at the German version and French version and they also don't use italic title. Also, on the Internet, Wikipedia doesn't seem to be italicized. Maybe it's a reflection that people don't see Wikipedia as an encyclopedia :) In any case, it's usually better and simpler to stick to the convention. -- Taku (talk) 16:07, 15 August 2012 (UTC)
It's certainly an exception to the MoS rule, both in reliable sources and within the project. We codify existing practice so the last paragraph of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting#Italic face should be updated to reflect the non-italic status of Wikipedia, Citizendium, Conservapedia, Nupedia, etc., after a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting. 71.212.250.193 (talk) 00:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
I am aware of exactly one external page where the word "Wikipedia" is italicized.
—Wavelength (talk) 20:45, 20 August 2012 (UTC) and 22:31, 20 August 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. Nupedia and Citizendium are not italicised either. Perhaps they should be too; but it seems that it is common to view Wikipedia primarily as a website, names of which are in most cases not italicised. Keφr (talk) 18:19, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
Why should Wikipedia be an exception? Also, just because other Wikipedias or articles don't use italicised titles doesn't mean it is correct. Again, Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Text_formatting#Italic_face. — John Biancato 20:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC)
Maybe because using italics every time Wikipedia is mentioned in the text would be too distracting. And I think I agree with Taku's first explanation: Wikipedia is not just a fixed body of content, it is rather a group of communities surrounding multiple projects under the same banner (because the other language versions operate pretty independently from the English Wikipedia, aside from hosting and funding). Notice you used the word Wikipedia in plural - something you can't do with most titles. And you did not italicise the word yourself. </snark> I think it's rather the WP:MOS that needs to be clarified. Keφr (talk) 23:26, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Further comments should probably go to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting#'Wikipedia' is not in italics. 71.212.250.193 (talk) 00:47, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Incorrect Header Size

The header "Arbitration" under Nature>>Rules and laws>>English Wikipedia is one header size smaller than it should be, a very small fix. --Nitsuaeekcm (talk) 01:48, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Done. And welcome to Wikipedia! For your information, you could have made this request using {{editsemiprotected}}. Keφr (talk) 06:36, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Usage of Wikipedia in judicial opinions

Is there a fork that covers the usage of wikipedia as a reference in legal ruling?Smallman12q (talk) 20:01, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I have never heard of such a fork but a Google search shows that Wikipedia has been used in courts. There is also a wikiproject dedicated to law that may be able to give a better answer. Hope that helps. meshach (talk) 01:32, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
There is a small amount of information on this subject in the following section: Reliability of Wikipedia#Reliability as a source in other contexts. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:07, 30 August 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia has been cited in a judicial opinion, just a few days ago, as noted here in an appellate case in which half the decision discusses Wikipedia and quite famously in federal court by Judge Richard Posner as well as over 400 times in various courts over the last decade. The article should include this quite notable information.99.102.212.191 (talk) 13:57, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

but stuff happens, yolo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.148.0.190 (talk) 17:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Superscript Numbers

May I ask what are the superscript numbers in brackets They look like this: [22]

86.167.17.148 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC) place t

They're links to footnotes. Click on them. garik (talk) 18:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Italian Translation

I just talked to the italians. Their article for Wikipedia is not as good as this one, and there is no information that can be gathered, as we have thrice the size of theirs. So, I am taking that out of the checklist. Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 15:15, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

A-Class Review

I want a review to see if Wikipedia meets the criterium for an A-Class article. This will allow us to see how far this article is from becoming a featured article once again. Since becoming a good article, this article has received many changes, many improvements. I think now is the time to upgrade the rating. Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 02:42, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to Wikipedia

I liked Wikipedia very much. It helped me very much. It gave me lot of information. It helped me to do school projects. I sincerely thank Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.241.160.101 (talk) 18:01, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Important security Published

It is important to note that all the information that is published is not true, there should be some form of control and be confident in the information published.

But there are also pages that verify this information and allows security.


Martha Mora. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.31.93.140 (talk) 22:49, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by this? All of the information that is published must meet Reliability Guidelines and must be cited. Information that is not cited is removed eventually, and before that is marked with a Citation Needed template. What more information do you need? Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 22:09, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I've copied up my reply from a below conversation: Although Wikipedia strives to provide the best possible information on a wide range of subjects. However, due to its open format, not all information is verifiable. An international team of editors collaborate to create the millions of articles available, and every attempt is made to ensure that the information included is correct. Some false information does slip through the net however, and is included on Wikipedia. If you are unsure of a fact listed within a Wikipedia article, check to see if a source is cited. This will appear as a number near the fact. Click the link provided to find out where the information came from. If you are still unsure whether a fact is true, check other websites, books, or sources to try and verify it. If you know something to be false, contribute to the article to help improve Wikipedia's accuracy. Please see Wikipedia:Improving referencing efforts for more information on the effort put into providing Wikipedia, and how we can help improve the accuracy of every one of the millions of articles contained within it. drewmunn (talk) 13:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

维基百科是无望 (Wikipedia is hopeless)

维基百科是一个非常糟糕的网站非常非常绝望的网站，维基百科给我错误的信息。 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.241.182.236 (talk) 05:39, 23 October 2012 (UTC) (Wikipedia is a very bad site is very, very desperate websites, Wikipedia gave me the wrong information. Translated from Chinese)

In my computers class we learned how to edit things on wikipedia...so we all know now that some 14 year old could change this information at anytime..so dont always believe what it says! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kimberly.zimmel (talk • contribs) 12:27, 13 November 2012 (UTC)
Although Wikipedia strives to provide the best possible information on a wide range of subjects. However, due to its open format, not all information is verifiable. An international team of editors collaborate to create the millions of articles available, and every attempt is made to ensure that the information included is correct. Some false information does slip through the net however, and is included on Wikipedia. If you are unsure of a fact listed within a Wikipedia article, check to see if a source is cited. This will appear as a number near the fact. Click the link provided to find out where the information came from. If you are still unsure whether a fact is true, check other websites, books, or sources to try and verify it. If you know something to be false, contribute to the article to help improve Wikipedia's accuracy. Please see Wikipedia:Improving referencing efforts for more information on the effort put into providing Wikipedia, and how we can help improve the accuracy of every one of the millions of articles contained within it. drewmunn (talk) 13:33, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Quotes about MediaWiki

I'm doing research for Wikiquote, if anyone knows of interesting or pithy quotes about q:MediaWiki, please let me know at q:Talk:MediaWiki, it would be most appreciated! Thank you, — Cirt (talk) 17:09, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

Question About Wikipedia's stupid policy

Can I just ask why is EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE on Wikipedia AMERICANIZED!!! That every single movie has to feature dollars when their are currently only TWO countries that uses the dollar and that is America and Australia. Why does every single page have to feature AMERICAN sources only when someone features something from BBC news its removed yet when something is posted from CNN it's classed as fact and left on. This website is so biased towards American values and whatnot. Like every movie doesn't matter if its been made in Japan, Uk, France, Germany ect the first line on every single Movie that has an American studio attached to it has it stated as an American movie. Its BS. America isn't the only country in this DAMN WORLD!

  • Please provide examples where a BBC source is removed in favour of an American ref. Thanks Ottawahitech (talk) 00:48, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
The reason most films are listed with financing in Dollars is because most films are American. British films, such as Attack the Block list their finance information in GBP. British films such as Hot Fuzz that were distributed by one of the Big Six list their budget in GBP, and their box office in USD, as the takings were made in Dollars, not Pounds. The fact that the majority of the world's movie output comes from America means that it's financed in American currency; to change it to anything different would be favouring a particular country or currency. By leaving it as its currency of origin, you avoid favouritism and exchange rate issues. Your next point needs to be a little more specific: as requested above, an example of a BBC source being replaced would be useful. In many cases, sources are replaced because they do not provide all the required details. It could be that a BBC article confirms one point within an article, and a separate source is needed to confirm another. If the editor finds a source that confirms both, he or she may replace the BBC article, as it has been made redundant. This isn't Americanism, it is logical thinking. Furthermore, many articles concerning British subjects (see Doctor Who) are written in British English, and a template exists to enforce this. You may not see as many subjects that are heavily localised to a country such as France, as they are most likely to appear on the French Wikipedia. The reason you see lots of American articles is because we share a language. drewmunn (talk) 07:23, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
New Zealand and Canada use dollars. They were just two I thought of immediately. There's bound to be many more. HiLo48 (talk) 09:22, 8 November 2012 (UTC)
Dollars yes, US Dollars no, there is a slight difference, and I think that the Australian dollar is currently above parity with the US NotinREALITY 04:20, 11 November 2012 (UTC)
Ecuador and El Salvador use the USD too. Travuersa (talk) (edits) 06:57, 4 December 2012 (UTC)
At the last count there were, I believe, twenty-eight countries who call their currency the dollar. Not US dollars, obviously. Hong Kong and Singapore spring to mind - I have examples on my worktop. --Anthony Bradbury"talk" 22:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

The Wikipedia app for Windows 8

Would there be any merit in including a screenshot of the Windows 8 app 'Wikipedia' published by Wikimedia? if so, see the attached file

Windows 8 Interface app 'Wikipedia'

NotinREALITY 04:14, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 17 November 2012

Reference 56("Founder shares cautionary tale of libel in cyberspace By Brian J. Buchanan". Firstamendmentcenter.org. November 30, 2005. Retrieved July 13, 2010.) in section 1.3 Vandalism contains a dead link. I googled the article name and author and found that the article has been moved to http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/founder-shares-cautionary-tale-of-libel-in-cyberspace. The current link should be removed and replaced. 69.116.218.170 (talk) 22:13, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

 Done -- Dianna (talk) 23:57, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Resistance to commercial or political propaganda disguised as fact

I think that this article should contain a section detailing the manner in which Wikipedia deals with attempts by corporations, by political activists, or by governments to present advertising, ideology, or propaganda within Wikipedia's articles, in writing that is disguised as Neutral Point of View.

For example, would it be possible for a government to infiltrate Wikipedia's editors, learn the system, and then serve as an opening wedge for a take-over of Wikipedia's senior editorship by incremental means? The most likely goal of such an attempt would be to control Wikipedia's content on issues which the government regards as politically sensitive, to ensure that its own side was portrayed sympathetically and that the other side(s) were portrayed, perhaps incorrectly, as aggressors or as evil-doers or as people who are so unreasonable that they might be regarded as "crazy."

How do Wikipedia's senior editors know that there isn't, among themselves, already someone who intends to make such an attempt at taking over the Wikipedia project on behalf of a government (or a corporation, or a political activist group, etc.)?

Or, for that matter, how can anyone else be certain that this has not already been accomplished? How can readers be sure that the "Neutral Point of View" isn't an illusion that would be difficult to perceive without direct experience with the article's subject?

173.87.162.84 (talk) 10:34, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Given the huge number of editors, it's almost certain that some are paid political activists and/or paid government representatives. Wikipedia's strength comes from it's requirements for sourcing, and that aforementioned massive number of editors. Most of us aren't paid political activists and/or paid government representatives. And we're watching. We can't be sure, but it's a pretty good formula. HiLo48 (talk) 11:01, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
As mentioned above, the large number of editors would make this difficult. Any single editor, or even a few hundred, would be lost amongst the others who are on here to provide a reliable resource. There are also policies in place to help limit the chances that material is manipulated. For more info on this, see WP:NPOV. Especially relevant is the WP:UNDUE section. drewmunn (talk) 22:11, 25 November 2012 (UTC)
That's all well and good, but the OP is talking about coverage in the article. The answer to this is to find reliable sources that talk about the issue. Formerip (talk) 22:14, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Payment plan

Shouldn't we put a payment plan on Wikipedia so there wouldn't be many more vandalism, edit warring, blocking, and I always see advertisements of Wikipedia asking for donations. It is just an idea that i just thought of and feel free to discuss how you feel of this? Think about it, if we have a payment plan in Wikipedia, there wouldn't be so many negative or nonconstructive informations in the page because only people who are willing to pay to edit, would put useful information in the page. Furthermore, the Wikipedia page would receive money for its needs.--(Slurpy121 (talk) 02:59, 2 December 2012 (UTC))

Bur then it wouldn't be Free anymore.--Auric 10:31, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
...and you'd lose around 99% of the editors. Most people get into editing by seeing an error on a page, looking at the edit button, and going "eh, why not?" If you added a payment plan, then very few new editors would join. Those who did would most likely be paid for by companies, therefore leading to biased information. All in all, not a good plan. drewmunn (talk) 15:22, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
Probably, but there are still some problems in Wikipedia, such as constant arguments and some administrators (no offense and not all) can be a little uptight, abrasive and unhelpful but like you said, it wouldn't be free anymore and might end up in a website of biased information. But i do agree that some modifications should be done though to improve the rules of the page and have a more orderly site. Then again, just tossing ideas around.--(Slurpy121 (talk) 04:15, 5 December 2012 (UTC))


Please keep in mind that, per Wikipedia's talk page guideline, this page is to be used only for discussing how to improve the article about Wikipedia. Discussions of how to improve the Wikipedia website are inappropriate here. Thank you. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 06:02, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

New Users "user page" link

In the New Users paragraph in this article, where it says "contributor is expected to build a user page", perhaps "user page" could be linked to Wikipedia:User pages --Burnishe (talk) 12:07, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

New Users and cultural rituals

In this article, perhaps the New User paragraph could include a link to Wikipedia:Tutorial, (or a Wikipedia New User Welcome page, if there is one). I think the suggestion of "cultural rituals" might be a little bit intimidating to new users if it's not obvious how to become informed about them. -- Burnishe (talk) 12:53, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

This sort of suggestion would be more suited to the Wikipedia:About page, rather than the Wikipedia article. This article is meant to be an encyclopaedic entry about the encyclopaedia, rather than an introduction to it. drewmunn (talk) 10:57, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 19 December 2012

The following sentence has incorrect wording and doesn't make sense in its current form:

This means that, with the exception of particularly sensitive and/or vandalism-prone pages that are "protected" from some degree of editing,

and should be reworded to

This means that, with the exception of particularly sensitive and/or vandalism-prone pages that are "protected" to some degree from editing,

121.45.193.118 (talk) 13:04, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

  • Done. Thanks for noticing that! drewmunn (talk) 13:11, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 19 December 2012

The following punctuation error should be fixed, changing a comma to a full stop:

and commercial use of content while authors retain copyright of their work,

to

and commercial use of content while authors retain copyright of their work.

121.45.193.118 (talk) 14:03, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Done. Feel free to join Wikipedia, and you can make these edits yourself! drewmunn (talk) 14:12, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 8 January 2013

"When multiple editors contribute to one topic or set of topics, there may arise a systemic bias, such as non-opposite definitions for apparent antonyms. In 2011 Wales noted that the unevenness of coverage is a reflection of the demography of the editors, which predominantly consists of young males with high education levels in the developed world (cf. above)[146] Systemic bias on Wikipedia may follow that of culture generally, for example favouring certain ethnicities or majority religions.[185] It may more specifically follow the biases of Internet culture, inclining to being young, male, English speaking, educated, technologically aware, and wealthy enough to spare time for editing. Biases of its own may include over-emphasis on topics such as pop culture, technology, and current events."


MAJOR OMISSION: according to the cited source, 90% of wikipedia editors are white males. So naturally, the sentence should read: "... which predominantly consists of young white males with high education levels in the developed world... inclining to being young, white, male, English speaking, educated..."

Thanks.

I don't know about users, but back when I joined in 2009, and when I've just tried now, Wikipedia did not ask for my gender, age, or ethnicity. I therefore doubt the validity of the statistics provided, and would suggest another citation should be found that independently certifies this claim. If you can find another citation, please add it to this talk page in a request edit. I'd also welcome other people's opinions of the reliability of this data. Thanks. drewmunn (talk) 22:20, 8 January 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for checking on that. I myself have not been able to locate another source. To my knowledge, there have been two surveys done by the Wikimedia Foundation: the April 2011 Editor Survey and December 2011 Editor Survey (the 2012 Survey data has not yet been released). These are where the statistics on editor demographics come from. Both surveys ask for age, level of education, employment status, marital status, number of children, gross income, nationality, country of residence, primary language, and gender. Notably, both omit race and ethnicity. The demographics questions were designed by "Wikimedia Foundation staff and contractors, mainly from the Global Development department. Several staff members, including active editors, provided input for the original design of this part of the survey, and for its current revision" (from the Survey's wiki page).
I am personally concerned by the Foundation's decision to omit race and ethnicity from its probe into the demographic makeup of the Wikipedia editor community. I am currently drafting an email to the main contact for the Wikipedia Editor Survey, Tilman Bayer (tbayer@wikimedia.org), in hopes of receiving a communique from the Editor Survey staff outlining the reasons why the Foundation has omitted race and ethnicity questions from past surveys, and stating whether or not greater transparency into the racial and/or ethnic demographics of Wikipedia editors will be a priority for future surveys. I am heartened by the successful efforts made in recent years by women to increase transparency in gender demographics, and believe that with the same constructive criticism, parallel progress can be made here.
Until there is reliable data on the race and ethnicity among Wikipedia editors, I would ask that this edit request be left up. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.173.64.23 (talk) 03:04, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 13 January 2013

Reference 92("Andrea Ciffolilli, "Phantom authority, self-selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Wikipedia," First Monday December 2003.") has a broken link. It should be replaced to http://firstmonday.org/article/view/1108/1028

Flebuz (talk) 12:50, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Done. -- Taku (talk) 13:04, 13 January 2013 (UTC)

Last sentence in the lede

About this sentence:

In 2011, Wikipedia received an estimated 2.7 billion monthly pageviews from the United States alone.

I think this is too specific. The first paragraph isn't a place to go into detailed statistics. Article counts and number of language editors make sense, I suppose, but anything more is too specific. The paragraph already notes the rank of Wikipedia; that's enough to establish that Wikipedia is a popular website. Not to mention US traffic is US-centric. Why US? Not British? -- Taku (talk) 14:45, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

Searching for images on Wikipedia

Excuse me, but does anybody know how I can search for images on Wikipedia. Is there any search bar where I can search for pictures?Peta8 (talk) 17:49, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia hosts images on Wikimedia Commons, which you can use to search for images. Visit their main page, and search as you would on Wikipedia. However, the results will be taken only from the media selection, and no encyclopaedia articles will be shown. drewmunn (talk) 18:04, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

American

Wikipedia identifies every person and organization by nationality. This article should say that Wikipedia is American. (Of course that's obvious to non-American readers). Fourtildas (talk) 06:19, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Is it American? The servers are in the U.S., and the NGO that oversees it (along with various other wikis) is in the U.S., and no doubt much of the content of the English Wikipedia is U.S.-centric, but it is a global project. Even en.wp has a vast number of contributions from all over the world (which is one of the things I find refreshing about it, compared to other leading web sites). And I wonder what the contributors to, say, the German or Portuguese or Persian Wikipedias think. Remember, those are all part of Wikipedia. Rivertorch (talk) 06:36, 28 January 2013 (UTC)
How is an organization's nationality determined? I assume it is based on headquarters location, since most (large) organizations today are by their nature multinational. Irishexpatriate (talk) 01:33, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Editing Talk Pages

Does editing talk pages make one an editor? I mainly stick to Talk Pages because the main pages don't allow me to be individualistic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.70.202.28 (talk) 12:59, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes it does, although the term contributor would probably be a better fit. Please note, however, that this isn't the place for such questions. This talk page is for discussing the Wikipedia article about Wikipedia. For general discussions, you could visit the Teahouse. drewmunn talk 13:47, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Good advice. Also, creating an account can enhance your individuality. Rivertorch (talk) 19:03, 31 January 2013 (UTC)
Thread is unrelated to the topic of this page
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Sedition or Subsidy.

Many of the pages in relation to current affairs fall under the heading of ´sedition or subsidy´ which is a propagandist trick or treat civil society & corporate halloween con. Note that halloween was orginally spelled holloween, of two words, hollow & wean, implying an empty feeding. You should definitely seperate those pages from other pages due the stigmata associated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.94.187.76 (talk) 14:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Empty feeding. Right. And Thanksgiving was originally spelled "Thinkskiving" (literally think + skiving, because everybody looked forward to having the day off). This talk page is for discussing improvements to the article Wikipedia. Rivertorch (talk) 17:16, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Database type

The article only makes references to MySQL as the database used by MediaWiki, while the entry for MariaDB states that Wikipedia is using MariaDB, (they use this reference), so apparently Wikipedia is not fully migrated to MariaDB but it would be soon. I feel that this article should reflect that, either specify that MySQL is on the way out, or that MariaDB is the current DB. I could try to make some changes by my self but they would probably be reverted seconds later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.112.156.144 (talk) 10:23, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Off topic-a

Thread is unrelated to the topic of this page
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

-- Non wikipedia- wikis! --

Thanks to wikipedia, lots of other wikis, mostly fan sites, have been created! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.145.218 (talk) 22:46, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

This page is for discussing improvements to the Wikipedia article. drewmunn talk 07:52, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Deitalicization degrading?

I recently italicized the title of this article and cited other works, the titles of which are also italicized. I feel that to not italicize the title of this great work may very well be degratory. Before anyone reverts my edit again, please explain to me how you are not degrading Wikipedia by deitalicizing it's title. Thank you for your consideration. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 06:41, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

  • Quotes:
    • "This article is about the Internet encyclopedia." from the hatnote
    • "Online encyclopedias and dictionaries should also be italicized . . ." WP:ITALIC
    • "We discussed this before; Wikipedia is more than just an encyclopedia." TakuyaMurata, reverter

In Cold Blood is more than just a book. To say that Wikipedia is more than just an encyclopedia does not negate the fact that it is an encyclopedia, the title of which should be italicized in accordance with the MOS. There must be very good reason to go against that guideline. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 07:16, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm not going to go either way here at the moment (yet to thouroughly read to MoS with this in mind), but I'd like to point out that I don't think it's degrading in any way not to italicise it. If the MoS is for italics, and there is no clear reason for going against, then I'd support italics. However, I don't think having it in normal font face degrades the article, or the subject, in any way. Let's hope this doesn't become the new Star Trek. drewmunn talk 07:50, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
Well, I could be wrong about the degratory effect on the article if the title is not italicized. However, there is no getting around the MOS, which does include online encyclopedias in its italicization guideline (as noted above at WP:ITALIC). – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 21:52, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
If it is the inconsistency that bothers you, we can just change MOS so it says Wikipedia is an exception. By the way, Citizendium is also not italicized. I don't know why but it seems to me that the standard convention is to put the titles of online encyclopedia in normal fonts; not just here but everywhere on the Internet. I would thus argue the problem has to do with MOS, not this article. -- Taku (talk) 11:08, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
...it seems to me that the standard convention is to put the titles of online encyclopedia in normal fonts; not just here but everywhere on the Internet.
That's quite a sweeping statement there, Taku! And I'm sure that, if asked, you could come up with several examples to support it. I'll be glad to take your word for it, for now; however, in my humble opinion the use of normal typeface rather than italics to title this article may be a violation of Wikipedia's NPOV policy and lend a bit of UNDUE weight to this article's form. This essay seems to explain it much better than I can. You bear a good argument, TM, however when one goes against the MOS, one needs a very good reason to do so, and when one chooses to change the MOS to fit a need like you perceive this to be, one needs quite a bit more than a very good reason to do so. If that's what you want to do, then you are, of course, entitled to do so, and yet I really don't understand such earnest opposition to the MOS-standard typeface. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 20:28, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
I think this is a matter of common usage. "Wikipedia" has never been in italics. It's not gonna be in italics now.
Try asking Jimmy Wales. Janus Savimbi (talk) 02:11, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
I disagree (with you, not with Jimbo, who may enter this discussion whenever he wishes). There are still a lot of articles that have never been italicized and that need to be italicized, as per the MOS and, in this case, possibly the NPOV policy as well. Not italicizing this article title may lend undue weight by emphasizing Wikipedia over other encyclopedia articles that are italicized. I still don't understand such earnest opposition to this issue. Please explain why you are so dead against following the MOS? – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 19:12, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
  • The current guideline is very clear that Wikipedia should be italicized. Thus, the title should be changed unless there's a clear consensus not to do so. In other words, the burden should be on those who do not want to italicize the title. There is some history here. The paragraph that says you should italicize online encyclopedias was added to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting in 2011 as a result of this discussion. Many months later, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Titles was synched here to match the other. Also, there has been a discussion of the issue on this talk page in August 2012; I don't see a consensus being reached. There are two choices here. One is to start a discussion on the guideline page to change it. The other is to reach a consensus here against italicizing the name. The second option strikes me as wrong as the guideline is so clear. Personall, fwiw, I don't like it italicized, but I suspect that it's just jarring to me because I've never seen it italicized and never italicize it myself - in other words, I've been conditioned. :-) --Bbb23 (talk) 13:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
    I've opened a discussion there, and I'm personally of the view that what the MoS says goes. If people want to create an exception, then I'd accept that. However, it'd need to be noted in the MoS. drewmunn talk 13:10, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I've been told that my edit summary was unstylish in two ways. To be clear, I did not call my fellow contributor, TakuyaMurata, a vandal nor his reverts vandalism. I stated that his reverts bordered on the "v" word. As for my uppercase "shouts", the software leaves little choice in editsummaries when it comes to emphasis. If I'd had my druthers I would have used italics or bold, but neither of those work in edit summaries. I was shooting for emphasis, as in community consensus, that's all. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 15:26, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I find it best to make the edit summaries as least controversial as possible. Emphasis of any kind in them generally gets taken as an insult or aggression by parties who don't agree with your edits, and this can spark a whole new argument. It's best to make them succinct and polite, and put your views on why you made the edit into a talk page section, so people can read more if they want to, and respond in an open forum, rather than through reversion. drewmunn talk 16:32, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Wise words. I tried that, as the history shows; however, Taku was on the brink of his third revert. I was hoping to avert that with some emphasis before he did something we'd both regret. If I am not successful and we don't bring Wikipedia up to date with the MoS as it now stands, then at least Taku won't 3RR himself into a wikibreak. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 17:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
  • I've resisted weighing in here because I can see both sides and because I don't think it's terribly important which we decide, but here are a few thoughts. I tend to balk at the idea of inflexibly following WP:MOS (or, to be honest, many other WP rules with guideline status); I see nothing wrong with making an exception if a reasonable case can be made to do so and consensus is respected. In this case, consensus appears to support leaving Wikipedia unitalicized. At least, that's been the convention for all these years, and editors aren't exactly falling all over themselves in their eagerness to change it now. As for making a reasonable case, two things: first, there's a long tradition in print media of having a "house style" that treats self-references differently than references to other publications, so there's really nothing exceptional about keeping one's own publication's name in roman type. Second, I'd note that WP isn't merely more than an encyclopedia"; it's much, much more than an encyclopedia. When I log in here each day, I'm not logging in to an encyclopedia but rather to a project and a global community of editors working on an encyclopedia—in other words, I'm logging in to Wikipedia, not Wikipedia. Since it would be tedious (read: impossible) in this or many other articles to cleanly separate out references to Wikipedia the encyclopedia from references to Wikipedia the project, it just seems simpler and less confusing to avoid italicizing it in any case. Having said all of the above, I think it's an interesting question and I'm glad Paine Ellsworth raised it. Rivertorch (talk) 18:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
    Thank you for the credit, but the only thing I've done is to nearly get another good contributor (and possibly myself) a nice wikibreak (as if I don't need one;>). Looking back into the history of this issue, I am not the first to raise it nor will I be the last. Consensus has been, from the viewpoint of the community, to italicize online reference works. Contributors have worked long and hard to sharpen and hone the MoS. Sure it may be just a guideline and not a full-fledged policy, yet it is still the result of multiple acts of community consensus, and this issue is not an exception. Thank you, Rivertorch, for your very kind words! – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 19:03, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I don't comment on the merits/demerits of "italic titles". But at least we all should be able to agree that we should build the consensus before implementing the change to the article. Paine Ellsworth's, essentially unilateral, action is not constructive. And, from what I'm reading, there is no consensus for the change. -- Taku (talk) 20:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I will start a discussion on this matter at the MoS talkpage. (Actually the discussion has already started.) -- Taku (talk) 20:16, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Okay, the page has lacked correct formatting for a long time. I'm happy to wait a little longer for you to hopefully realize that my edits are backed by community consensus, the MoS and possibly a policy or two. Sorry if I went a little too far to make a point, but at times, when I'm sure I'm right, I turn from a gnome into a gremlin. No hard feelings. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 22:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
I disagree with much of what's been written above by persons on both sides of the debate.
Firstly, some appear to have taken the position that we must italicize "Wikipedia" because the Manual of Style tells us to. As I've opined on multiple occasions, "because the rules say so" is one of the worst arguments to make in discussions such as this one. The MoS is important, and it's perfectly reasonable to cite it as the basis for change. But when disagreement arises over a style guideline's existence or application, it's time to focus on the merits. Our guidelines are descriptive, not prescriptive. It's true that editors who wish to deviate from an accepted style convention bear the burden of justifying that, but this is counterbalanced by the burden of establishing that a style convention is accepted.
Secondly, I disagree that not italicizing "Wikipedia" is degrading or places emphasis on it. It merely reflects common usage, over which we have no control. It's reasonable to argue that we should italicize "Wikipedia" (because it is an encyclopedia), but we aren't sending any sort of message by not doing it.
Thirdly, it's stated above that "there's a long tradition in print media of having a house style that treats self-references differently than references to other publications". As explained at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid, we explicitly don't do that. We're compiling a free work, the contents of which are republished by others. Our goal is to write encyclopedia articles, not "Wikipedia articles", so that isn't a valid reason to not italicize the site's name (or to provide any special styling).
With that out of the way, it's my opinion that the non-italic form should be retained. As noted above, it isn't special styling; it's common usage. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but it's also a collaborative online project. Its reputation as such has impacted the manner in which reliable sources refer to it, and I see little justification (apart from a self-imposed guideline, which is easier to change) to do otherwise. —David Levy 23:18, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
Forgive, but your arguments above have so many disagreements with themselves, I wouldn't know where to begin. Ignore long-earned community consensus just to maintain the status quo? I'll stop there. I'm going back to being gnomish for awhile. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 01:26, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Forgive, but your arguments above have so many disagreements with themselves, I wouldn't know where to begin.
If you change your mind about withdrawing from the discussion, I'd appreciate some elaboration. I'm unable to address your perceived contradictions unless you convey them.
Ignore long-earned community consensus just to maintain the status quo?
I said nothing about ignoring consensus or doing anything for the sake of maintaining the status quo. —David Levy 02:09, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
As I said, I wouldn't know where to begin. I can only say that we do not hesitate to italicize the titles of articles that, by our Manual of Style and by global convention, should be italicized. If the title is a book, like Man's Search for Meaning, then we italicize it. Collections, such as the poems in Leaves of Grass are italicized. Reference works such as the Britannica, italicized. These are italicized in line with global convention and our MoS. I would wager – and win – that if somebody were to write a book about Wikipedia – wait... it's already been done – we do not hesitate to italicize Wikipedia – The Missing Manual, a book about Wikipedia.
This article, by its own admission in the hatnote, is about the encyclopedia. Anything in this article that elaborates too much on Wikipedia items that are not about the encyclopedia should be split out into their own article or into existing articles. Those items that are not about the encyclopedia, that are about the Wikipedia (project) or Wikipedia (Community), should not be italicized. By global convention and our own MoS this article's title and every instance of "Wikipedia" in it that refers to "Wikipedia the encyclopedia" should be italicized. We can continue to go back and forth, back and forth, on this talk page, but that's the bottom line. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 18:14, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
As I said, I wouldn't know where to begin.
Then you shouldn't have begun. Asserting that a fellow editor's arguments have "many disagreements with themselves" — without citing any examples — is nonconstructive. If my message contains multiple contradictions, it shouldn't be difficult to point out at least some of them. Otherwise, I'm unable to defend myself or address your concerns (perhaps by reevaluating my position or clarifying comments that you've misinterpreted).
I can only say that we do not hesitate to italicize the titles of articles that, by our Manual of Style and by global convention, should be italicized.
Indeed. And if there were such consensus regarding the title "Wikipedia", that's exactly what we'd do.
If the title is a book, like Man's Search for Meaning, then we italicize it. Collections, such as the poems in Leaves of Grass are italicized. Reference works such as the Britannica, italicized. These are italicized in line with global convention and our MoS.
And how do we typically style the names of wikis?
I would wager – and win – that if somebody were to write a book about Wikipedia – wait... it's already been done – we do not hesitate to italicize Wikipedia – The Missing Manual, a book about Wikipedia.
Your point being...?
This article, by its own admission in the hatnote, is about the encyclopedia.
Do you disagree that Wikipedia also is widely regarded (and described by reliable sources) as an interactive website that helped to popularize the wiki model?
Anything in this article that elaborates too much on Wikipedia items that are not about the encyclopedia should be split out into their own article or into existing articles. Those items that are not about the encyclopedia, that are about the Wikipedia (project) or Wikipedia (Community), should not be italicized.
We should remove information concerning the site's method of operation and place it in separate articles? Why?
By global convention and our own MoS this article's title and every instance of "Wikipedia" in it that refers to "Wikipedia the encyclopedia" should be italicized.
Please cite evidence corroborating the assertion that it's a "global convention" to italicize mentions of Wikipedia when referring to it in that context (as an encyclopedia). Please see my other reply with this timestamp for further discussion of the MoS and its applicability to the article. —David Levy 06:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
Man, I do like that {{gi}} template! Ever since you used it to respond to me on the Mainpage issue awhile back, I have occasionally used it in similar fashion. David, please forgive me if I was heavy about your arguments in argument with themselves. I'm just a bumbling gnome; sometimes my tongue gets in the way of my eye teeth and I can't see what I'm saying. I've taken on the job (one of many) to italicize articles that need it when I come across them. I see articles about books, films, albums that have yet to be italicized and I slap on the {{Italic title}} template and I'm on my way. I've never had a problem with it until now. I see the article on Wikipedia the encyclopedia and I slap on the template. But am I on my way? No. I find myself in an edit war with another contributor who is probably one of this article's stewards who feels that his lofty standards are above and better than the standard from the MoS, the convention that was worked on by several editors who, after many hours of research and discussion, came to the consensus that the Wikipedia project should italicize the titles of online encyclopedias. I come out of my shell and discuss it with him, because that's the right thing to do. Other stewards chime in who feel that rather than go by that hard-earned consensus, all that research, this article "has never been in italics. It's not gonna be in italics now." — Janus Savimbi.
Indeed. And if there were such consensus regarding the title "Wikipedia", that's exactly what we'd do.
All evidence to the contrary. There is just such a consensus, the one that resulted in the addition to the MoS that specifies that online encyclopedias should be italicized, so that is decidedly not exactly what you'd do. Not all wikis are reference works like Wikipedia, so they shouldn't be italicized. You know that. Wikilawyering? Asking a question to which you already know the answer? You already know my point. I've made it several times, and I'm through with it.
We should remove information concerning the site's method of operation and place it in separate articles? Why?
As I said, Anything in this article that elaborates too much on Wikipedia items that are not about the encyclopedia..., which I thought was quite clear. This article is about the encyclopedia, after all.
Please cite evidence...
Already done. It's in the archives of the MoS talk page that's been cited in this discussion. All the research by editors who want to hone and sharpen the MoS to make it fit with global standards. The long discussion, back and forth until community consensus was reached. It's all there. To me, it is the height of arrogance and ego to want to change all that hard work, and why? This article's stewards don't want their article title italicized. What a croc – so I'm outta here before I get swallowed whole. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 10:11, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
I see the article on Wikipedia the encyclopedia and I slap on the template. But am I on my way? No. I find myself in an edit war with another contributor who is probably one of this article's stewards who feels that his lofty standards are above and better than the standard from the MoS
That characterization is uncalled-for. You needn't belittle good-faith editors because they disagree with your interpretation of a guideline.
the convention that was worked on by several editors who, after many hours of research and discussion, came to the consensus that the Wikipedia project should italicize the titles of online encyclopedias.
Again, the discussion concluded with Adrian J. Hunter's realization that Wikipedia wasn't a valid example of the advice's application, which prompted this revision.
Adrian evidently was aware of something that you refuse to accept: the MoS is descriptive, not prescriptive. It documents (not dictates) our style conventions. Before, during and after the discussion, this article presented the name "Wikipedia" in a non-italic style. There was (and is) no consensus to change that. You're welcome, of course, to argue that we should. Instead, you treat your opinion as an indisputable truth that others are downright disrespectful to deny.
I come out of my shell and discuss it with him, because that's the right thing to do. Other stewards chime in
Right, anyone who disagrees with you is a "steward" engaging in ownership. (Never mind the fact that I haven't edited the article in the past three years.)
who feel that rather than go by that hard-earned consensus, all that research, this article "has never been in italics. It's not gonna be in italics now." — Janus Savimbi.
Disagreeing with your interpretation of consensus ≠ advocating that consensus be ignored.
There is just such a consensus,
No, there clearly isn't consensus that this particular article's title, "by our Manual of Style and by global convention, should be italicized."
the one that resulted in the addition to the MoS that specifies that online encyclopedias should be italicized,
There was consensus to add the advice to the MoS. There wasn't (and still isn't) consensus that it's applicable to this article. Again, this was recognized at the time.
Not all wikis are reference works like Wikipedia, so they shouldn't be italicized.
And not all online encyclopedias are wikis, so their names should be italicized.
My point was that we're dealing with something multifaceted. You keep noting that Wikipedia is a reference work, but that isn't its sole category. The same is true of other wiki-based reference works. What style do we use for their names?
As I said, Anything in this article that elaborates too much on Wikipedia items that are not about the encyclopedia..., which I thought was quite clear.
Yes, you were quite clear in stating that. You simply haven't explained why such material should be separate.
This article is about the encyclopedia, after all.
The article is about Wikipedia, which is described in the hatnote as an "Internet encyclopedia" (as a means of succinctly identifying the subject and distinguishing it from others).
If you're citing said hatnote as evidence that Wikipedia's other characteristics are off-topic, you're either mistaken or engaging in the "wikilawyering" of which you just accused me. (I prefer to assume the former.) If that's your argument, it's analogous to claiming that the Robert Downey, Jr. article should be stripped of all information not pertaining to Downey's acting career (because "this article is about the actor").
Already done. It's in the archives of the MoS talk page that's been cited in this discussion. All the research by editors who want to hone and sharpen the MoS to make it fit with global standards. The long discussion, back and forth until community consensus was reached. It's all there.
When quoting my request, you replaced most of it with an ellipsis, resulting in "Please cite evidence..." (to which you responded via the above). The full sentence was "Please cite evidence corroborating the assertion that it's a 'global convention' to italicize mentions of Wikipedia when referring to it in that context (as an encyclopedia)." I see no such evidence in the archived discussion. Please bring it to my attention.
To me, it is the height of arrogance and ego to want to change all that hard work, and why?
I repeat: disagreeing with your interpretation of consensus ≠ advocating that consensus be ignored.
This article's stewards don't want their article title italicized.
Do you honestly believe that such a characterization is constructive? —David Levy 12:07, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
David Levy, with respect, you're replying to a post that Paine Ellsworth concluded by saying "I'm outta here". Sorry for butting in, but I don't see this conversation ending up in a good place if it continues. At the risk of banality, I wonder if we can all just sort of agree to disagree and move on. Rivertorch (talk) 17:50, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
There is one thing he said to which I'd like to briefly respond:
Right, anyone who disagrees with you is a "steward" engaging in ownership.
I never spoke of ownership – you brought that up. I do know the difference between article stewardship and ownership. AGF and HAND. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 19:23, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
You stated that "this article's stewards don't want their article title italicized" and described their behavior as "the height of arrogance and ego" and "a croc". —David Levy 21:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
And I stand by that, but I never said anything about them owning the article. I've come up against article ownership on a few occasions, and that's a far cry from what I've been up against here. These are good contributors whom, I feel, are way too overprotective and close to this article. What's the big deal? It's the article about Wikipedia the reference work. And it is decidedly arrogant and egotistical to feel that this article is an "exception" to the rule. That word "exception" is nothing but POV puff'nstuff. (And some of my best friends are arrogant and egotistical.) – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 21:23, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
And I stand by that, but I never said anything about them owning the article. I've come up against article ownership on a few occasions, and that's a far cry from what I've been up against here. These are good contributors whom, I feel, are way too overprotective and close to this article.
Even if we set aside the language "their article title" (emphasis added), I see absolutely no distinction between ownership and the behavior that you allege is occurring.
What's the big deal? It's the article about Wikipedia the reference work.
This point has been addressed repeatedly. You needn't agree with our responses, but please acknowledge their existence.
And it is decidedly arrogant and egotistical to feel that this article is an "exception" to the rule. That word "exception" is nothing but POV puff'nstuff.
It appears at the top of the relevant guideline's page (and those of Wikipedia's guidelines in general). —David Levy 21:59, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
With reciprocal respect, if Paine wishes to withdraw from the discussion, it isn't my intention to drag him back in. As in the previous instance, I'm merely addressing what's been written. Paine can either reply or move on, and I'll respond in kind. If he chooses to reply, I won't allow comments with which I disagree (including accusations of misconduct on my part and others') to go unchallenged. —David Levy 21:02, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Moving on. In my humble estimation, you, David, as shown by the above accusation on your part, have excessively overreacted to my statements. That has been the case in almost every one of your replies to me. Look at this entire discussion. It's as if we're discussing abortion or gun control. So I move on now, with pleasure that you have responded to me as best you could. Thank you for your participation in this discussion about such a controversial and historic subject as the italicization of the title of an online encyclopedia. Best of everything to you and yours! – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 04:26, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Moving on.
As in the two previous instances, further commentary accompanies this announcement.
In my humble estimation, you, David, as shown by the above accusation on your part, have excessively overreacted to my statements.
I don't know what "accusation" you mean. The "accusation" that you accused others of misconduct?
Regarding overreaction, I do know that I didn't react to my disagreement with your opinions by deeming them "the height of arrogance and ego" or claiming that your actions "border on vandalism". —David Levy 09:47, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
@Paine Ellsworth: There are various ways to gauge consensus, and looking at the wording of a guideline is only one way. Custom and convention (i.e., the way things actually have been done "on the ground", not according to the MoS, for more than a decade) are really important, too, and so are the results of localized discussions like this one. Thus far, no one has agreed that failing to italicize is derogatory (I think that's the word you were looking for), and with that point out of the way we're left only with the "but the MoS says" argument. As for that, David Levy is right: the MoS is descriptive, not prescriptive. If the wording of the MoS conflicts with established practice, then the former probably should be changed to reflect the latter. Rivertorch (talk) 08:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
Another contributor, as noted early on in this discussion, researched the origin of the part of the MoS that applies to this article's format. As I sifted through that, I realized that those editors worked very hard to find the outside conventions that led to the change in the MoS that guides us to italicize the titles of online encyclopedias. I said earlier that non-italicization may not be derogatory, but it still sets Wikipedia apart from global convention. So it's not just the MoS. The MoS has been sharpened and honed to be in line with convention – outside convention. There have been no arguments on this talk page that, in my estimation, lead to any reason to go against the MoS and global convention. – PAINE ELLSWORTH CLIMAX! 18:39, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
You've described the practice as a "global convention" five times and as an "outside convention" twice. Please corroborate these assertions via evidence that outside entities usually italicize "Wikipedia" (globally or otherwise).
In the guideline, it's noted that "website titles may or may not be italicized depending on the type of site and what kind of content it features." Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, but that isn't its only major function. We aren't "go[ing] against the MoS" (let alone "border[ing] on vandalism") by considering the circumstances and determining that Wikipedia's nature (as covered by reliable sources) logically leads to us to treat it as a different "type of site" than Britannica or Encarta is.
You've cited the discussion behind the relevant MoS language, in which Wikipedia was mentioned as an example of an online encyclopedia, but real-world usage wasn't addressed in that context. In fact, the thread concluded with Adrian J. Hunter's realization that Wikipedia wasn't a valid example of the advice's application, which prompted this revision.
But even if the article were inconsistent with the MoS, that wouldn't automatically mean that the former should be changed. You seem to regard the MoS as a law that binds us. Again, that simply isn't the case. It's descriptive, not prescriptive. We don't do things because the MoS tells us to; the MoS documents how we do things. If the MoS's description of how we do something is inaccurate, it should be revised (unless there's consensus to start doing it that way). —David Levy 06:06, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
David Levy wrote: "Our goal is to write encyclopedia articles, not 'Wikipedia articles'". But they are Wikipedia articles. I've read the entire MoS page you linked and don't see anything in it that addresses (even peripherally or by implication) typographical matters in self-references. Consider also that we don't just write encyclopedia articles; we also write content in project space—a lot of it—and this discussion has a bearing on self-references there as well. Rivertorch (talk) 08:46, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
But they are Wikipedia articles.
My point is that we write encyclopedia articles with the understanding that they'll be republished elsewhere, so we don't assume that they're being read at Wikipedia.
I've read the entire MoS page you linked and don't see anything in it that addresses (even peripherally or by implication) typographical matters in self-references.
The guideline explains that when writing articles, we don't include self-references reliant upon the assumption that they're being read at Wikipedia. Why would this principle not apply to typographical styling? How can we possibly write articles intended to be equally appropriate for publication elsewhere while maintaining "a house style that treats self-references differently than references to other publications" via special formatting of "own publication's name"?
Of course, this isn't directly relevant to my position on which style we should use (an area in which we're in agreement).
Consider also that we don't just write encyclopedia articles; we also write content in project space—a lot of it—and this discussion has a bearing on self-references there as well.
I wasn't referring to content appearing outside the article namespace (though I believe that we should use the non-italic style there as well). —David Levy 10:34, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
  1. ^ Media info
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