Talk:Wikipedia/Archive 22

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 15

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Archive 20

Longevity of vandalism

The article mentions a fairly serious piece of vandalism that lasted four months. Last night I removed a far less serious and somewhat humorous piece from the Charles La Trobe article that had been there almost seven years! Do we attempt to record such instances, perhaps in the hope that we can do something about them more quickly in future? HiLo48 (talk) 23:16, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

@HiLo48: well there is Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 05:13, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Distribution of article importances

@Engineering Guy: I removed the graph, pie chart and table you added to the section on article quality, mostly because:

The relevance is limited (particularly considering the space used). It's hard to imagine a use case for the importance-wise distribution.
One pie chart was partly broken.
This section was getting very graphically charged.
Most importantly, the data used is highly misleading. As explained in "About this table", the importance given to an article is the highest importance rating given by all WikiProjects, which hugely inflates the average importance of articles, and which makes ratings even less consistent.

The table correlating quality with importance is not uninteresting since it says more about quality, and I wouldn't necessarily oppose its restoration if an appropriate source of data can be obtained, although even the quality distribution is known to be unreliable. Unfortunately, I would be surprised if such a source existed. --Chealer (talk) 23:01, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

@Chealer:

Both importance-wise and quality-wise distribution data are coming from the same source: the table that is created and auto-updated daily by the code of Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team. Your acceptance of quality-wise distribution, but rejection of importance-wise distribution suggests inconsistency. It may make more sense to either accept both or reject both. And I do not see why this useful and valid information should be rejected. Also, the quality-wise distribution data does not seem "misleading". Even after accounting for the highest rating, the majority of articles are rated as "low importance" or "???". The "highest importance rating" fact can be mentioned in the article text. By the way, the "highest rating" methodology is followed even for the quality-wise distribution.
As for "broken pie-chart", I do not know what you mean. Both pie-charts are shown below, along with other content. Everything seems fine to me.
"Section getting graphically charged" seems like a loose argument. It seems quite alright if some content (especially numerical data) is displayed in graphical ways, for easier and quick understanding. It is not necessary for text-only form to dominate the entire article. (By the way, if required, you can make the bar chart smaller by reducing the "height" and/or "width" parameters in its code.)

You may be genuinely trying to improve articles on Wikipedia, and that is good. But your edit history suggests that when you encounter content that does not seem right to you, you often directly take the easy way out of simply deleting it, instead of first putting in some time and effort in trying to improve it or discussing matters with other editors who may improve it. I do not think Wikipedia is supposed to work like that. Importantly, you may be harming other editors' hard work like that.

--EngineeringGuy (talk) 12:22, 8 September 2014 (UTC)

@Engineering Guy: Let us try to stick to content here, your comments on my editing are welcome on my talk page, but this is Wikipedia's, so I won't enter this topic here, except when if you present instances which concern this article. I did not state that quality's coverage was more appropriate than importance's coverage, but since you bring up the topic, notice that even though our quality data is way more accurate than the importance data we used, the text contains a sentence about its unreliability. You're right that even the quality ratings could vary between WikiProjects, but unlike importance ratings, there is no good reason for that. I do not remember seeing articles with different quality ratings, although plenty of articles have different importance ratings. The issue with quality is merely redundance; when one changes a quality rating for one WikiProject, one changes those of all other WikiProjects. This very article illustrates this.

As for the rest of your first point, what I consider [highly] misleading is the importance-wise data. My point about the inflation of average importance wasn't really that importance should be lower, I just meant to show one distortion the computation method causes. In fact, the current method does not necessarily inflate the average importance. If WikiProject Pokemon was more active than all others combined in rating articles and rated every single article, the apparent average importance may be lower than the actual average importance. That would still be a distortion. Basically, the importance given to an article by that method is quite random. I don't deny there is probably some correlation between what it computes and the actual importance, but it must be pretty low. I disagree that this information is useful (unless I'm missing some use cases), and I disagree that it is valid (although it might not be 100% invalid).

Sorry about the broken pie-chart. The pink part of the importance-wise pie chart is partly broken in my Iceweasel 31.0. Chromium doesn't display this problem, and Firefox 32 is somewhere in between the two. This might be a browser bug.

The "getting graphically charged" issue is certainly not grounds for removal alone, but reducing the bar chart's height would have been quite delicate, considering how crammed the classes already are for Top importance. --Chealer (talk) 03:15, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Assessment of articles' quality and importance: table and charts

Quality-wise distribution of over 4.6 million articles and lists on the English Wikipedia, as of 6 September 2014^[update]^[1]

Systemic bias

The paragraph beginning with "The study of systemic bias" mentions a field of study with "eight major" categories. Although there are citations to support statements about each individual category, "eight major" is unsupported. The actual field of study where the eight majors can be found is unclear, because the first sentence of the paragraph give a term with a long string of words, but doesn't link to an article where the entire collection can be found. Without sources to verify that first sentence and the "eight major", I'm not sure how to copy edit this paragraph. Would it hurt or improve the article to simply delete this paragraph? Folklore1 (talk) 19:39, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to LawrencePrincipe, who has supplied the much needed citation. Folklore1 (talk) 01:27, 26 August 2014 (UTC)

I have revised this section to make it a little more readable by folks who are not professionals in the field of organizational behavior. If you wish to add some technical terms, please attach a link to explanatory information for us non-technical people.Folklore1 (talk) 20:26, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

Guild of Copy Editors

After an earlier edit of this article, I pasted the Guild of Copy Editors (GOCE) tag here on the talk page. It was deleted without an explanation. I put it back after some more editing today. If you feel it doesn't belong, please leave an explanation here. Folklore1 (talk) 20:32, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

It was not really deleted, rather moved into the Article history template. --Chealer (talk) 23:57, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

By the way, I dislike GOCEinuse. It's not like copy-editing has to be done in huge edits. Even you do it in tiny edits with negligible risk of conflict. I fail to see a good reason to ask other editors not to edit at the same time. The history's purpose is to let you track changes.

Even if the template is removed quickly and doesn't affect many views, it is a distraction to other editors watching the page. The template's author was either misguided or too interested in his edit count. At least, try not doing an edit which does nothing but to add that template. --Chealer (talk) 01:28, 11 September 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia (ittu) deutsch loescht news.google.de news.google.at, news.google.ch, world.news.google.com

155.55.65.10 (talk) 09:40, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Reason for restoring See also Wikipedia: Five Pillars

Five pillars of Wikipedia currently redirects here, following an 'official' decision (after a RfC) a few years ago (and a later unsuccessful attempt to redirect it back to WP:Five Pillars). As a result, people arrive here while looking for WP:Five Pillars, and can then be deeply confused, and can take a long time to find their way to where they want to go, if they ever do (it is also possible, especially if they are in a hurry, that they may instead reach the mistaken and distressing conclusion that Five Pillars has been scrapped without their knowledge). It can also lead to the re-direct being 'corrected' and then uncorrected again, given that this has happened at least once before. Having experienced the problem myself a week ago, I put in See also Wikipedia: Five Pillars, to make the frequently desired link easily visible. This got reverted yesterday by Chealer on grounds that it is already linked in the text. But my experience is that link is far too hard to spot (while already being confused, you somehow have to guess that you are expected to read a paragraph that you don't want to read, and guess that the text is hiding a link to your desired destination). Therefore I am now going to restore the more visible link. Since somebody seemingly considers that's overlinking, I will then remove the redundant less visible link (though I have no objection to somebody restoring it, as long as they also leave the more visible one). Tlhslobus (talk) 02:22, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

On reflection, I've left the less visible link too. If anybody considers this over-linking, please feel free to remove that less visible of the two links, for the reasons stated above. Tlhslobus (talk) 02:48, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I also changed the 'See also' to explicitly use an srlink, given that the less visible link uses an srlink, just in case the 'See also' Template doesn't itself use an invisible srlink. Tlhslobus (talk) 03:07, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 October 2014

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Please edit the entry for Tom C. Foley, CT candidate for Governor to include the fact that he had a previous marriage to the one he has now. He was married to Lisa Foley and they divorced in 1994 and it should be included in his personal history or the chart where you list marriages

24.44.56.219 (talk) 18:17, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Cannolis (talk) 20:58, 8 October 2014 (UTC)

2014 book The Innovators good source for articles about Wikipedia

The 2014 book The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution is a good source for articles about Wikipedia.

The article History of Wikipedia specifically mentioned:

Isaacson, Walter (2014). The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Simon & Schuster. p. 520; Footnote 98. ISBN 978-1476708690. 'History of Wikipedia' and its talk page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Wikipedia {{cite book}}: External link in |quote= (help)

Also a positive mention on page 440:

Isaacson, Walter (2014). The Innovators: How a Group of Inventors, Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution. Simon & Schuster. p. 440. ISBN 978-1476708690. Tellingly and laudably, Wikipedia's entries on its own history and the roles of Wales and Sanger have turned out, after much fighting on the discussion boards, to be balanced and objective.

Also an excerpt from the book published by The Daily Beast:

Isaacson, Walter (October 19, 2014). "You Can Look It Up: The Wikipedia Story". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on October 20, 2014. Retrieved October 25, 2014.

— Cirt (talk) 03:02, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:COI

I don't believe applies just because we happen to have this article on Wikipedia. Tutelary (talk) 20:43, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

The dominance of Russian intelligence on Wiki - Since it. Censorship and suppression of the discussion's (in the subjects that can not have to emulate's first moment with FSB or GRU) , the prohibition on wiki Siet "GRU" and "FSB" link do it. Blocking library's IP in Brussels, also for English Wikipedia. And how many of these giants (User's:OneLittleMouse, Pafnutiy ) for online Wikipedia donated?91.183.61.248 (talk) 17:04, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

Several paragraphs were recently copied and pasted into this article

See the revision here: it appears that several paragraphs from Criticism of Wikipedia were directly copied and pasted into this article. Should these paragraphs be left here, or should they be re-written as a brief summary instead? Jarble (talk) 19:54, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Basically, anyone can get on here and write anything.2602:306:B8CA:E0:4C33:F693:DD07:88A9 (talk) 20:50, 17 November 2014 (UTC)Me

~~This issue has now been resolved: see this revision. Jarble (talk) 20:49, 19 November 2014 (UTC)~~

Much information was removed in this revision from November 2014, but almost none of it has been restored. Jarble (talk) 23:34, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Swap out Wikimania video?

curious if anyone things this video should replace the 2005-only video that's currently there now -- it references the 2005 conference. I'd add it but I'm too related to the video and the topic.

Wikimania 2013

Victor Grigas (talk) 04:54, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Agree-I don't think that would be a problem. It's not like you are promoting something. What matters most is updating the current video by replacing the2005 version which is really outdated.--Chamith (talk) 05:44, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Language editions graph

Why is the bar graph for the different language editions of Wikipedia logarithmic? It's not intuitive at all, and pretty misleading at a glance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattshank (talk • contribs) 19:41, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

You can comment on this issue at Template talk:Largest Wikipedias/graph. I did long back, but there has been no response yet.--115.69.241.8 (talk) 13:51, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 December 2014

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The Pie chart showing the content of different type of information Wikipedia holds rouds upto 101%.

The total should be 100% and not 100%. 203.91.213.69 (talk) 10:25, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 13:10, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

He/she is saying, change the % values in the content pie chart so that total adds to 100%. Currently it is 101%. Problem may be resolved if more precise values (up to one decimal place) are given. --115.69.241.8 (talk) 14:00, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

This appears to be referencing THIS chart File:Wikipedia content by subject.png, which is an image, no edit request can be done here--feel free to make and update the image. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:05, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Edit request

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In the § Critical reception section, it says

As of 2014, the most prominent site is Wikipediocracy, which, according to Wikipedia, "has provided some journalists with background information on Wikipedia's controversies."

The ref used is the Wikipediocracy article, whose lead contains the quoted material. While the Wikimedia Foundation could have an opinion about Wikipediocracy, Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source and the material in the Wikipediocracy article needs to be verifiable and based on reliable, published sources. The quoted material does not have a citation in the lead of the Wikipediocracy article, which is not necessary, but while it is factually correct that Wikipedia describes Wikipediocracy as quoted, I still believe that, seeing how what Wikipediocracy "has provided" is not an opinion, the ref should be replaced and the phase "according to Wikipedia" removed. I don't feel like looking into it further. If nobody does, my edit request in change X to Y format is: remove "according to Wikipedia", remove the quotes, and replace the ref by {{citation needed}}. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 19:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Done ^BE _CK ^Y _SA ^{Y L}E _S 19:31, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. --82.136.210.153 (talk) 20:13, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Does anyone know why there are so many million accounts, but the vast majority are inactive?

The article says "Wikipedia has more than 22 million accounts, out of which there were over 73,000 active editors globally as of May 2014." Is this because many people create accounts, make a few edits, then abandon Wikipedia?OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 20:32, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Correct ...see here -- Moxy (talk) 03:34, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

And Single User Logon made it so that anyone with a SUL account anywhere that visits here gets an "account" as well. — xaosflux ^Talk 04:01, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, not all accounts without edits are 'abandoned', there are features useful to readers which are only available to logged in users. I'm guessing this would only account for a very small percentage of those 22m. accounts --Versa geek 04:56, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

WP:Reasons for leaving Wikipedia provides some examples of issues that have driven editors away from Wikipedia. Jarble (talk) 07:32, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the useful link, but in the present context 'editors driven away' were presumably once active, and are thus presumably only a tiny fraction of the 22 million inactive editors. Tlhslobus (talk) 06:11, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 January 2015

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It should be '14 years ago' instead of '13 years ago' in the Launched Column. Mandeydarshan (talk) 05:11, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

The template for it should automatically update tomorrow I believe. Stickee (talk) 05:20, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

"A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject."

This tag has been applied to the article recently without justification, and has been reverted back in, when removed, twice now.

My understanding, which may be faulty is that this has been added because Wikipedians have written the article. I'd like to know why it is there, and under what circumstances it could ever be removed.

These tags are used to indicate that changes are needed to an article. If there's no changes that could ever be made to remove it, then this is a form of disruption, WP:POINT.GliderMaven (talk) 14:17, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the removal. I believe that the template applies to people that have a closer relationship to the subject that the average editor. I think that template would apply more to a case where the article was heavily edited by people like Jimmy Wales or members of the Wikimedia Foundation since they have a deeper connection to the subject.--67.68.163.181 (talk) 04:22, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I noticed the edit which added the tag and wondered what the joke was. Its only WP:POINT appears to be a so-far indiscernible joke, so it is best removed. Johnuniq (talk) 05:27, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion also covers the same topic. --Chealer (talk) 21:44, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Edit warring at Wikipedia

You are now up to two reverts about the COI tag. From here on your decisions may be reviewed by admins to see if you are following reasonable steps for WP:Dispute resolution. Simply announcing your opinion that there is a COI doesn't push the discussion forward. The WP:Edit warring policy does apply to your reverts and could lead eventually to a block. If you think there is a COI that is harming the article, we expect you will try to figure out how to fix it and try to get support for a solution. Thank you, EdJohnston (talk) 18:10, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks Ed. Unfortunately, I am not sure a solution exists. Wikipedia's article on Wikipedia will always be edited by Wikipedia editors. We could ask people who never edited Wikipedia whether they consider the article biased, but these people are very likely to lack information required to evaluate the article's neutrality. Suggestions welcome --Chealer (talk) 23:29, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Accurately summarising and reflecting reliable sources??? I heard that was a thing.

So apparently "Most academics, historians, teachers and journalists reject Wikipedia as a reliable source of information for being a mixture of truths, half truths, and some falsehoods"???

Maybe true, maybe isn't. So there was a survey that showed this? Oops no, it's just an opinion piece where it is stated without any evidence, in other words somebody made it up: [1]

Also "Wikipedia is notoriously subject to manipulation and spin." this one is harder to analyse, how notorious, how much spin, is the article on Riemann manifold implicated? But at least we're referencing a research paper: Wikipedia is notoriously subject to manipulation and spin. Oh.. wait.. that article says they took a random sample of history articles and found the articles gave good coverage and appeared accurate enough for K12 level... and this has been summarised down to "notoriously subject to manipulation and spin" in the lead.

But the final sentence says: "Wikipedia's Consensus and Undue Weight policies have been repeatedly criticised by prominent scholarly sources for undermining freedom of thought and leading to false beliefs based on incomplete information." The first reference points to: Encyclopaedia Idiotica which is simply an opinion piece that only referenced a study where somebody looked at the most often accessed articles (e.g. the United States). The second reference is another opinion piece, which at best is a primary source of somebody trying to add something to Wikipedia.

At this point I got bored. In every case I found that it was either an opinion piece, contained multiple anecdotes, or the text associated with it was virtually the opposite of the general thrust of the source; it had been cherry-picked.

Hey, is it even possible that Wikipedia isn't a heap of crap and that's why people use it? Wouldn't it be strange if the studies that selected articles by unbiased means and analysed them found that the articles are not perfect, but on the whole pretty good? Because.... that's what they find. Opinion pieces where you collect a shopping list of all the bad things that Wikipedia was ever involved in are not reliable sources. Within reason, I'm going to systematically remove this kind of rubbish from at least the lead as best I can.GliderMaven (talk) 16:48, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

@GliderMaven: I know. That stupid article and whoever selectively migrated that junk from that other article, as someone else complained about above on this Talk page, was a big bunch of "cool story, bro". I started copy editing some, and then I realized that the article had been cross-contaminated from another sabotaged source. But I just gave up. Which sucks. This is the type of article that should probably demands moderation by reputation, as I believe all of Wikipedia should have. These people are literally creating a tautological self-defeating prophecy. Thank you for trying. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 17:13, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) My limited experience is that the young (students) generally use Wikipedia for their projects, even reading it on their laptops in class, whether or not their professors endorse such usage. So it appears that some instructors do endorse it and some don't. I think that this encyclopedia would not be so widely read, as adjudged by its page-read counts, if it were a "heap of crap". The bottom line is that there will always be controversy as long as anybody and everybody can edit the encyclopedia. So I say "full speed ahead" to find reliable sources that lead to the truth about who uses and who endorses or rejects this encyclopedia. Joys! – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 17:17, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is read by the masses but is rejected by the intelligentsia. I understand it hurts you to find this out. But this is the case. and should be made very clear as it is right now.Bigbaby23 (talk) 10:03, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, you state that as if it were true, and perhaps it is, or isn't. I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that. But you'll forgive me that Wikipedia needs to stick to what WP:RS's state, not what non RSs people such as yourself state.GliderMaven (talk) 15:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I think that RS's reflect that your initial statement, "rejected by the intelligentsia", is no longer entirely true. And "hurts" me?

Not likely. When I started editing years ago, what you stated was much more true than it is today, and while I seldom toot my own horn, I feel that this project has had many editors like myself who are dedicated to improving this encyclopedia. Several years of that has led us to now, the present, a "gift" as E. Roosevelt told us. You would be better off living in the now, rather than in the past, as you seem to continue to embrace. Joys! – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 18:40, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Paine Ellsworth, pardon me, but i was not responding to you but to the OP. The OP in this thread is pseudo wikilawyering in order to push under the carpet the very clear and repetitive criticisms from very notable and leading scholarly sources. This lead has been here for quite some time. once in a while an editor feels he is being kicked in the gut with this criticism. But Wikipedia NPOV and Undue-Weight policies are exactly meant for this, to counter emotional and reactionary views. Bigbaby23 (talk) 08:45, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

You are so pardoned, Bigbaby23, so perhaps you'll remember next time to indent your response in the correct place in the discussion. You haven't really responded to the OP's indications that the sources are not so useful anymore to this article. They may very well be dated opinions and perhaps should be kept and tagged as such, as "historical" opinions that apply less and less as time goes by. Feel free to continue to improve this article. I promise I won't be "hurt" by whatever you find.

Oh! and what the heck is "pseudo" wikilawyering? If it's "pseudo", then where's the problem? One either commits wikilawyering or one doesn't, correct? If you have such a "case" against the OP, then by all means, do make it.

If not, then you must try to AGF. – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 19:39, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm glad you mentioned 'wikilawyering'. It's not wikilawyering in any way to say that we need to use good sources, and to report those sources well in an accurate and unbiased way. Whereas it absolutely is wikilawyering to choose bad sources, like opinion pieces, or to only cherry pick specific phrases out of otherwise good sources that only support a position that is being pushed, when that same source or sources by and large don't support that position. At best, that's false balance. We cannot allow false balance in this high visibility article, in either direction.GliderMaven (talk) 21:51, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Opinion pieces are often valuable especially if the opinion comes from a respected and notable person or group. Yet again, opinions can change over time and become outdated, so the material becomes of historic value, but may not reflect the present situation. And nothing is so odorous as lurking POV material such as you described. It may cause severe damage to an article such as this and, when found, should be summarily squelched. – Paine Ellsworth^CLIMAX! 08:45, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Up to a point they are indeed valuable, but the current situation is backwards. We have many, many pages of content under 'Criticism of Wikipedia' and one small section titled 'Academic studies'. Whereas Wikipedia is primarily an academic reference work, an article is not supposed to be mainly summarising newspaper articles like this, normal journalism is not NPOV.GliderMaven (talk) 22:01, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 February 2015

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I will like edit an article 41.190.2.129 (talk) 17:15, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Cannolis (talk) 17:26, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

QR codes to wiki articles

it would more beneficial if the Qr codes related to the article are included within the article somewhere in content/info box, or favorablely near the cited location. a bot could be developed so as the qr codes generated over the Qrpedia.org can be directly linked into the wiki articles. this qr codes can help in active collaboration and also brings ease on action of knowledge gaining. by this the users over the wiki platforms can download the qr codes instantaneously and also it helps in making generic qr-code instead of having numerous codes of a single page/article Raj.palgun13 (talk) 17:25, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Recent criticism of Wikipedia

Please could we add a section regarding the noted gender imbalance and anti-feminist tendencies that Wikipedia has demonstrated. This has been widely reported in the press recently; here are is some reference material:

Material to add would be welcome, but note that this topic is already covered in Wikipedia#Diversity. --Chealer (talk) 23:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@Chealer: Perhaps this information would be more relevant in the Criticism of Wikipedia article. Jarble (talk) 04:51, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Promotional video

A Wikimedia Foundation promotional video was recently added to the History section. This video reviews 2014 via Wikipedia. I removed it since the historical element (events of 2014) is about the history of the world, not about Wikipedia's history. The message it seems to convey about Wikipedia is that we covered 2014 well and that the Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 edition generated results.

This video will probably manage to motivate existing editors well, however I imagine the only thing about Wikipedia itself which the average viewer is likely to understand is that Wikipedia covers 2014 well. Considering that the source of this message is primary, I don't think this satisfies WP:Verifiability, and I really don't think this is worth 3 minutes of the viewer's time.

If some think this should be included anyway, we need some reflection on how the video can be properly integrated in the article. If no section is appropriate, this could go in the lead, but I consider this would give the video way too much prominence. --Chealer (talk) 21:32, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

@Chealer: You could try just saying that. Right? "This promotional video depicts Wikipedia's ability to summarize 2014. See (time code) for a key example." — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 06:16, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

But in any case whatsoever, stop needlessly deleting content and edit warring WP:3RR. You're presumptively overanalyzing a global generalization of everyone's perceptions. It's up to the user to decide whether they wanna watch a video, or how to manage their own time and whether 3 minutes is long or not, and we can refine points of interest. Thanks. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 07:35, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid pointing a key example would not really help. First, it is virtually impossible for anyone to form an opinion on Wikipedia's "ability to summarize 2014" by looking at Wikipedia for 3 minutes. The video may suggest we have sufficient coverage, but does not allow to verify that the content is of good quality. It would be even harder to form an opinion by looking at just a portion of the video.

Moreover, the message from this video is unclear, and would be even harder to get without a full view. I recommend someone views entirely or not at all. The question is not whether 3 minutes is long or not. I have no problem with hour-long videos if they deliver corresponding value. The question is whether the cost/benefit ratio is appropriate, and in this case, I see no significant benefit to the viewer to cover for the cost of 3 minutes. I fail to understand what you mean by "we can refine points of interest". Readers will decide to watch or not based on the caption, so I have tweaked that, but the video's presence in an off-topic section is still misleading - readers expect to learn something on Wikipedia's history by viewing it. --Chealer (talk) 21:19, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@Chealer: Hi there. I totally missed your reply because of a lack of {{reply to | Smuckola}}. Anyway, ok I'll at least try to clarify what I meant; I meant to say "we can specify points of interest", in the caption of the video, to succinctly guide a user's focus within the video's content. The point is not to prove that Wikipedia has good coverage of 2014, but that it has coverage of 2014. It's saying this is something Wikipedia exists to do, as part of its function and identity and mission; and it does it. It's for identification purposes, to identify Wikipedia's potential in this category. We're talking about a summary of a zeitgeist. It's not establishing some kind of competitive edge right in that moment. If the user didn't know anything at all (maybe had never heard of Wikipedia before), the video would in fact be a helpful orientation. Anyone else can simply ignore it! Video is a highly valuable medium, especially for multiple intelligences or for passive convenience. Different people learn in different ways at different times. It's not at all impossible to form an opinion on Wikipedia's ability to summarize 2014. A quick video is highly poignant to that. That's all I'm saying. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 08:39, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

Oh. And then I saw that you're regarded as a persistent vandal, so never mind. This is left in regards to anyone else who might care, then. — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 08:48, 22 February 2015 (UTC)

You are wrong, but I unfortunately don't dignify personal attacks with more elaborate answers. --Chealer (talk) 02:23, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Number of articles

The lede should definitely state how many combined articles the wikipedias have, German wiki says 33 million.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:52, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

It is now 35 million, so that has been added along with a source in the opener. --Frmorrison (talk) 18:16, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

Odd tags for stats

I am not sure why someone is adding OR tags for the bot generated charts. What is the problem with?? -- Moxy (talk) 17:34, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

That user has a bit of a history with disruptive edits on this page. There's currently a AN3 regarding their edits here. I see no reason for the OR tags. Even if it's a bot, WP:CALC applies. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 18:40, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I was looking at the history of the page ...and yes its a problem. I will watch over the page closer as well for the next little bit.....lost has gotten messed up here lately. HUGE amount of data removed and odd language used in some places. -- Moxy (talk) 18:45, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

WP:CALC only applies to routine calculations. For what it's worth, even these must be based on sources. --Chealer (talk) 22:14, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi Moxy,

Thanks for asking. Let me use this opportunity to try putting this issue behind us for good.

First, the charts you refer to are not really bot-generated. They are from User:Engineering Guy, who simply based them on a bot-generated table.

The table and the charts were added in December 2013 by Engineering Guy. The table and the 2 problematic charts were removed in 2014. Engineering Guy has then ignored the discussion and attempted to add these again.

To be honest, I disagree with all rules (except perhaps for this one :-) ), and that includes our policy on original research. However, I am using it here because it prevents exactly the problems the policy aims to address - the inclusion of incorrect content, and inclusion of insufficiently useful content. The tags therefore challenge Engineering Guy to properly source his problematic content. I am well aware that this will not be possible and ultimately lead to the content's deletion, but giving that chance will at least make the reasons for removal perfectly clear.

Therefore, I am not blindly applying policy here. The graph which will remain will violate WP:OR, but (as I disagree with WP:OR) I have no problem with that (see [2] for what will remain in the section). Talk:Wikipedia/Archive_22#Distribution_of_article_importances explains the actual reasons for the removal. --Chealer (talk) 22:14, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

This is still CALC. But also WP:ABOUTSELF applies. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 23:19, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Building a bar-chart is not a basic calculation. As for ABOUTSELF, it is an exception to Verifiability (and even then, it only concerns published sources). --Chealer (talk) 01:16, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

All rated articles by quality and importance
Quality	Importance
Quality	Top	High	Mid	Low	???	Total
FA	1,577	2,503	2,417	1,961	181	8,639
FL	181	688	768	702	100	2,439
A	370	681	788	584	91	2,514
GA	3,247	7,384	14,816	19,724	1,760	46,931
B	16,999	32,983	54,674	69,832	23,504	197,992
C	17,003	54,359	136,096	313,208	92,533	613,199
Start	18,538	92,549	417,304	1,633,221	414,093	2,575,705
Stub	4,277	31,458	277,970	2,809,022	762,948	3,885,675
List	4,889	17,233	54,108	195,662	69,553	341,445
Assessed	67,081	239,838	958,941	5,043,916	1,364,763	7,674,539
Unassessed	123	482	1,237	17,037	407,042	425,921
Total	67,204	240,320	960,178	5,060,953	1,771,805	8,100,460

About this table

The bot-generated table (from Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team) displays numbers of articles in different categories of "quality" and "importance". Articles are assigned the quality and importance ratings by Wikiprojects. As discussed in Talk:Wikipedia/Archive 22#Distribution of article importances, the main issue (deserving any merit) that User:Chealer seems to have is that if an article is assigned different ratings by 2 or more Wikiprojects, then the highest rating will be used to generate the table (as described in "About this table" at User:WP 1.0 bot/Web/FAQ#The global summary table). This does not seem such a radical or controversial point that the entire content must be removed. This fact can be easily mentioned in the main text of the Wikipedia article (and it currently is mentioned there). User:Chealer's point that this content is not useful seems strange. Of course, it is useful to display (both graphically and numerically) the quality- and importance-wise distribution of articles. But we must remember that this data is for only the English Wikipedia, and not all Wikipedias. Also, this does not seem like an original research issue to me. If you want to see the actual code used to generate the table, you can try contacting the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team.

By the way, these days I do not have much time for editing or discussing, so I can not keep checking all this every day. --EngineeringGuy (talk) 17:36, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Nobody asked you to keep checking this every day. All we ask you is that if you notice some of your content was removed, you do not restore it without checking why it was removed (in particular when the explanation was Reply to-ed to you) and justifying if you choose to restore anyway.

You still misunderstand my main point. I will ask you to re-read my previous answer on the topic.

I have no interest in the code used. Whatever code is used will give highly misleading results at best as long as it will be based on current importance ratings. --Chealer (talk) 01:16, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

The same principle should apply to you too. I read your answer long back. Like I said, there seems only that one point raised by you that deserves any merit. And it is addressed in the main text as "If an article receives different ratings by two or more Wikiprojects, then the highest rating is used in the table". But recently you removed that clarifying explanation. How strange. --Engineering Guy (talk) 00:16, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Which principle?

There are still several points which "deserve merit", as you write. However, one apparently no longer does - although I am still using Iceweasel 31, the problematic pie chart now displays correctly.

The point you refer to is not addressed in the main text. The sentence you quote would address the problem with quality statistics should that be necessary (I am not sure it is), but that is far from being the only problem with importance statistics. The sentence completely fails to explain that importance ratings do not actually rate [general] importance. --Chealer (talk) 18:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

User:Chealer at it again. In the table, this user changed the heading from "Importance" to the lengthy "Importance to the Wikiproject which rated the article highest on its importance scale" (but left "Quality" the same, suggesting inconsistency). Such a heading does not seem appropriate. Chealer also removed text describing: the different importance ratings, and some clarifying explanation regarding the table, in both, the English Wikipedia article (here) and the Wikipedia article (here). Sigh, beginning of more avoidable, pointless edit wars? --Engineering Guy (talk) 00:16, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

@Engineering Guy: Those edits were prior to their block for disruptive editing. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 00:58, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

@EvergreenFir: User:Chealer's edits: This one at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team was before User:Chealer's 7-day block from 22 to 29 March 2015, but this edit at English Wikipedia, and this edit at Wikipedia, were after that block. --Engineering Guy (talk) 20:33, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Why would such a heading not seem appropriate? If you are afraid that this is a pointless edit war, you are most free to stop edit-warring and start getting involved in pointful matters. --Chealer (talk) 18:33, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

Disabling auto-updating of the table at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics

User:Chealer has been doing more than just change headings in the table, and put failed verification tags. As seen in this edit, this user disabled automatic updating of the table at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics by de-linking it from the original at User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/OverallArticles (where it is updated daily by User:WP 1.0 bot). Edit summary says "freeze pending fix for User talk:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/OverallArticles#Incorrect column header". There seems to be no problem with the table; but even if there is, there is no need to "freeze" (i.e. disable auto-updating of) any thing, as it is not going to help. --Engineering Guy (talk) 20:33, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Engineering Guy your inferring that Chealer cant change the content here so they basically broke the bot? This is a bit out of hand if this is the case. How long was it down for and are WP:projects missing data? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Moxy (talk • contribs)

That sounds like a correct assessment Moxy. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:00, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I have posted a note at User talk:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/OverallArticles (a page with no watchers) asking Chealer to refrain from making edits to the page in-question without talking to the 1.0 Editorial Team first. -- Moxy (talk) 21:09, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

@Moxy: I do not think Chealer did anything with the bot (User:WP 1.0 bot, whose page says that it is operated by User:Theopolisme and User:Wolfgang42). Chealer just de-linked Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics from User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/OverallArticles (where the bot actually updates the table), and put a static table in place of the link (i.e. "froze" the table). So, as seen in this revision history, the table at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics was not auto-updated from 22 March 2015 to 7 April 2015, when I re-linked it to User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/OverallArticles. Chealer undid my edit and posted a comment at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index#Freezing. But then Chealer's edit was undone by EvergreenFir to the current version as of now.

I do not think any harm was done to any WikiProjects. --Engineering Guy (talk) 18:12, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Please see the problematic table's talk page for a (partial) of problems with it. --Chealer (talk) 01:08, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

ANI Notice

There is an AN directly related to this discussion which can be found here. Thank you. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 21:24, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia: contributions, guidelines, interpretations, social rules and decisions

Hello everyone! Well i don't know if this contribution of mine here is really related to the topic, it is a matter of interpretation. I don't have so much experience about the wikipedia editor community (nor i think that one needs a certain amount of it before interacting with the existing community, because how can the wikipedia editor experience could be measured in a not naive way?), but nevertheless i tried, at first, to interact properly and to make proper contributions.

So for example i ended in the reference desk to discuss about some topics to get a bit more knowledge, instead of, i don't know, using a Q&A website. The reference desk is nice but it seems obvious to me that the visibility of some questions is very short-lived, since they are archived; and archives rarely gets activity, indeed they are archives (again, for my perception. Everyone can speak only through his perception).

Then, when i thought i had some possible (minor) contributions to add to some articles, my content was disputed. That is completely ok, i don't want to appear like a person that says 'what i add is important and should be kept', nevertheless the way it was disputed was a bit discouraging. Therefore i thought about a more conservative approach, because we don't have infinite resources to contribute, thus using our effort in a more effective way is more rewarding, and without rewards (mainly psychological in this case) no one does nothing, in my opinion. One way is using first the talk page for several activities (hopefully i will enumerate some of them later).

So i read about the policies of the talk page and i realize the actual mess about policies and 'real' talk pages. For example, as far as i understood, the talk page is to talk about issues of the current page, not to talk extensively about the content or about personal point of view. But talk pages (especially the ones related to popular pages) are completely filled with personal opinions, or non-arguments even during disputes, like 'ah, three editors agree with me, and you are alone, you are wrong then' (argumentum ad populum, moreover related to a limited time visibility of the dispute).

So on one side i have policies that seem reasonable (to me), on the other side it seems, to me, that the actual usage of wikipedia talk pages is far away from the policies. Furthermore one can realize even that this is a matter of interpretation. Who said if i follow a policy or not? Or who said that the reference desk is better to discuss a topic instead of the talk page on that topic? Could be, for example, that the input in a talk page will be useful to lead to a better article. Or could be that someone that poses a question in the topic's talk page gains more information compared to the same question posed in the reference desk, because the ones interested in the topic are more likely to watch the page and the talk page rather than the reference desk.

In addition to this there is the policy about original research, or also the policy about 'how can we value a source', and so on and so forth. If the wikipedia's user base would follow those policies, would be laughable for a professor to say 'wikipedia is not realiable' because wikipedia would be quite strict. Anyway this is again my interpretation of the policies, maybe i read them in a too strict and utopian way.

Still, for my current understanding of wikipedia and its potential, seems more reasonable to discuss something related to a topic through its talk page, if possible in a compact way (this entry, for example, fails to be compact). I meant discussion in a broad sense: discussion about the content, discussion about possible additions, discussion about the topic itself, etc... Also due to the 'unwritten' rule that seems followed by the majority of editors here: if your contribution on the topic's page does not reach consensus (and again, the consensus policy seems reasonable while the actual practice for me it is not, because anyone has a 'veto' power), it is removed, even without discussion in the talk page ; while if your contribution is in the talk page, maybe everyone will disagree with you but few of them will edit what you wrote.

That is, for me, more rewarding, because the effort does not vanish immediately in an archive/version-history page (again, also version-history pages have very little activity/visibility).

Or could be that i completely missed the track, well, it happens. PS: i'm sorry for grammar errors, feel free to point them out :) . --Pier4r (talk) 15:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

@Pier4r: Wikipedia's pending changes system can act as a safeguard against vandalism and intentional hoax articles. Unfortunately, this system is rarely used, and vandalism remains commonplace in many articles. Jarble (talk) 02:43, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

The link that you posted seems like a peer review, could slow down a lot the progress of an article but i suppose that for mature/popular articles could be a nice idea. I still have to read more about "who is allowed to accept the pending changes". Besides, it is another reasonable policy (for me) but then i guess that there are various interpretations/applications of it, i understand that is a general problem in human affairs, but i'm still interested in possible solutions or workarounds here on the wiki. Many thanks. Pier4r (talk) 14:37, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

In the article's infobox, is the link to www.wikipedia.org even necessary?

I know that encyclopedias are supposed to be as informative as possible, but is the link to www.wikipedia.org in its infobox even necessary? I am writing this because most Wikipedia visitors already know the main, main link to the website, so I assume that it is not by very much necessary. Gamingforfun365 (talk) 19:41, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

It may not be necessary to the extent that it is vital for understanding the article, since most people are aware of the site they're on and the fact that it's Wikipedia. However, for the purposes of completion, it's included. Since it's a rather minor addition, isn't intrusive, and doesn't even "cost" that many bytes to keep, I would say it's fine to leave it. Unless it's causing trouble, I don't see why it should be removed. ―Nøkkenbuer (talk • contribs) 09:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Not everybody will be reading this on Wikipedia. For those that aren't, the link is useful as an entry point to the real site. Reach Out to the Truth 14:20, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinions. Gamingforfun365 (talk) 00:54, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Follow the rules

Editors can (key word) make changes to articles without following Wiki rules. Other editors can revise or revert their changes also without following the rules. An additional sentence addressing rules may be needed. Sandcherry (talk) 03:54, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, and

Done. Thank you! and Best of everything to you and yours! – Paine 20:19, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Added second sentence regarding the expectation of following the rules. Sandcherry (talk) 23:24, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 June 2015

This edit request to Wikipedia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Lots of typos and some missing citations. Also some inaccurate information. WikiExterminater (talk) 17:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Please provide some specific examples. --‖ Ebyabe ^talk - Inspector General ‖ 17:46, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

"16. Ayman El Was Here"?

The final section of the article appears to have had its title vandalized. 2605:6000:E94A:7300:E457:8AD4:C319:6FD7 (talk) 23:01, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that out. Someone vandalized a template that was included here. I've fixed it. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 00:55, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia Alexa Rank out of date

The Alexa rank for Wikipedia is out of date. As of December 12 2014, the Alexa rank for Wikipedia is 7 (+1).^[1]

References

^ "wikipedia.org Site Overview". alexa.com. Alexa Internet, Inc. Retrieved 16 December 2014.

Semi-protected edit request on 21 December 2015

This edit request to Wikipedia has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Totazai (talk) 13:55, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

@Totazai: Blank request, marking as answered -- samtar ^whisper 14:02, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

[en.wikipedia-1] Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Statistics – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] "wikipedia.org Site Overview". alexa.com. Alexa Internet, Inc. Retrieved 16 December 2014.

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