Wikipedia talk:About/Archive 3

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Wikitrivia

global global is a serious condition in our lives, and will greatly impact our future. noticed a number of entries recently sprouting a section called "in popular culture" and containing the most banal information about movies, non-ebrities, TV (mainly US specific), etc. Perhaps someone could create a Wikitrivia site and we could move all that stuff over there and keep Wikipedia for information. I am not saying that all such trivia should be banned, but when you get famous people and places having minimal factual information about them and maximal trivia and references about them, references to references, etc. then something has gone haywire!! 78.147.148.26 (talk) 11:34, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Censorship?

In a couple of discussions I have seen people saying that certain info is classified so they removed it. In one case, an editor was asked to remove something by a branch of the US government/military because it was classified (he did remove it). I was certain that Wikipedia could not be censored by any government of any nation, but I'd just like to double check: should classified information (even if NPOV, reliably referenced and relevant) be censored? If so, which governments? My view was that if a government wished to censor some info, they could filter either the specific page or all Wikipedia, but they couldn't censor the content itself as it is an international encyclopedia, not specifically bound to the jurisdiction of any one government. If this issue is dealt with elsewhere, sorry but I spent an hour looking for it and couldn't find it. I may have just overlooked it. 78.105.191.12 (talk) 18:55, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia's servers are in Florida. So we must abide by the US law and Florida's law, otherwise we could be shut down.
But if the content is legal, and sourced, I see no reason to remove it. Puchiko (Talk-email) 21:24, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

I expected that to be the case but I thought it was possible the servers had been relocated to a place with loose(er) censorship laws. However, as they do come under US jurisdiction, I would like to know the extent of legally permissible censorship under US law (I am a student of law in the UK but know little about the US legal process) so that I am aware of this in the future. A specific example: If the US government deems something to be 'classified', to what extent can it legally censor that information without infringing freedom of speech? Could it force you to remove classified content? (I assume it would first use a sockpuppet to remove info, but if the article was fully protected, could they do something about it?)78.105.191.12 (talk) 17:06, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Under Wikipedia policy we only contain claims that are verifiable to published reliable sources so anything that is truly a secret is not in a published reliable source and can be deleted on that basis. There is no need or purpose in claiming something is "classified" and should be deleted on that basis. WAS 4.250 (talk) 04:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Florida's Laws? - I thought Freedom of Speech applied to the entire US. WSNRFN (talk) 23:29, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Freedom of Speech --macbookair3140 (talk) 14:52, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

If somebody has an idea , completely new to them, but already thought up by the USA science department(say), then could the US Gov censor the article? If they can then this will discourage use of Wikipedia as a free discussion tool. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.2.19.83 (talk) 07:35, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Someone publishing a completely new idea is in violation of Wikipedia's policy WP:No original research. As an encyclopaedia, Wikipedia is based upon reliable sources: it's not meant to be a place to publish new ideas. Puchiko (Talk-email) 15:38, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

"Anyone can edit"

I have begun to notice the seemingly countless times that the above phrase is mentioned in a trolling manner to support to try to say that Wikipedia is a cabal for not letting banned editors continue to edit. I propose a brief addition to the text to clarify that anyone can edit - unless they've been blocked and/or banned. The Evil Spartan (talk) 07:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, seeing as it appears no one else is much watching this page, I'm going to make the change myself. The Evil Spartan (talk) 07:55, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm watching this page :P. I don't mind you adding that clarification though. Puchiko (Talk-email) 17:57, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Even someone blocked or banned can edit. How do you propose to stop someone from going to a library and editing; or getting a new internet service provider and editing? We can block IP numbers and we can ban identifiable personalities. We have no means of blocking or banning individual humans who are sane enough to edit constructively and peacefully. We can and do block IPs used by children who have no financial means of buying a different IP. We can and do ban crazy people who are incapable of disguising their insanity. WAS 4.250 (talk) 04:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Children also have means of using a different IP; such as using a school computer, going to an Internet café (they aren't that expensive, at least where I live), using their mobile phone connection, or using a friend's computer. Puchiko (Talk-email) 15:10, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

And some ISPs offer dynamic IP addresses so you can just disconnect and reconnect your ADSL line for example to get a new IP.66.182.71.19 (talk) 06:16, 19 November 2008 (UTC) hello —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nitinkamkar (talk • contribs) 05:06, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Isn't this going into TOO much detail? 86.154.83.59 (talk) 22:04, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Archiving

This talk page has 52 KB. This could cause a lot of technical issues so I think we should WP:Archive this talk page. I'd use the subpage method, cut-and-paste procedure. I'd leave the threads started in March 2008 still here, because they might still be active. What do you think? Note: If there are no objections by Wednesday, I will perform the archiving. Puchiko (Talk-email) 15:03, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good, Puchiko. Thanks. WalterGR (talk | contributions) 07:30, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

 Done Sorry for the delay. Puchiko (Talk-email) 14:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Active Wikipedians

In the introduction of Wikipedia: about you come across the following statment. "There are more than 75,000 active contributors" However, that is data from Sep 2006, it's pretty out of date... Anyone know where we might find a statistic that reflects data at least up to the beginning of 2008--Sparkygravity (talk) 11:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Why isn't the statistics for the English Wikipedia up to date? It seems that for all other languages but English it is updated. [1]

Well yes, that seems like something good to do, but it says more than and not th exact. Since the no# of people creating accounts grow, it would be impossible to keep a up to dte no#

Non profit status in trouble

Based on the obvious political bias of Clinton, Obama and McCain, I don't see how the IRS can allow this organization to be considered a non-profit.

Wikipedia should not be a place to show biased information (or somehow forget to add "all" information) about somehow who is running of office.

Please keep all politics OUT of wikipedia.

Tomstewa (talk) 02:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you, and WP:NPOV does too. There should never be biased information on Wikipedia.
However, from the information I've gathered at Non-profit organization, even politically biased organisations can be non-profit. See National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws for an example of a political yet non-profit organisation. Puchiko (Talk-email) 13:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Footnote 11 Dead

Sorry in advance for not fixing the problem myself. I am brand new to editing Wikipedia, and I am just beginning to learn all the editing rules. The dead link is:

11^ Bergstein, Brian. "Felon Became COO of Wikipedia Foundation", 2007-12-21. Retrieved on 2007-12-27.

Could someone replace it or make a note that it's dead?

Smed (76.26.151.95 (talk) 06:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC))

Spelling

recognised = recognized organisation = organization Rkinci (talk) 08:41, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

They are both the correct spelling, I always thought where ever the article originates from it should match that spelling, an article about the US should use the US spelling and articles about the UK should use their spelling etc. --Benpaul12 (talk) 23:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

No, actually. Wikipedia uses the UK/US spelling, not both. Im not quite sure which one, however pointing to this article one could assume it is UK english. Makes more sense anyway, as US english is only used in well, the US. Metagraph 11:17, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I've yet to see an article in the "English" version of Wikipedia that isn't actually in American.~~

Last-Modified Date-Time Stamp

Why does the last-modified date and time at the bottom of a page not get updated when I post an edit even though the editing appears in an article and in its history? Eventually, the date-timestamp is updated, but that may be a week later, give or take. Immediate update would enhance Wikipedia's accuracy. If the delay is to permit internal review of a post before the public might rely on it, better methods would be (a) to show two date-time stamps with a uniform explanation (such as "The later date-time includes material not yet reviewed by certain editors.") (perhaps with only one stamp and no explanation when two stamps would be identical), (b) to block the post from appearing in public until approved and then the last-modified date and time should be immediately updated, or (c) to show the result of editing in a different color or otherwise make it stand out and, one time, edit the all-Wikipedia template to explain next to the last-modified date and time that the date and time do not apply to changes marked in that way. I recommend dual-stamping over blocking and blocking over styling, and over all 3 I recommend quick posting with immediate stamp updating. (I haven't checked whether Talk pages have a similar problem but the solution would be the same.) In the interim, for best accuracy about when the last modification was, I recommend the history page. Thanks.

Nick Levinson (talk) 18:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

It should update immediately. I believe this is a caching issue. Try purging your cache (In Firefox: click refresh while holding the shift key). Puchiko (Talk-email) 20:05, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not a caching problem at my computer. The page content updates but the date-time stamp on the same page does not update. Caching would not permit update of part of a page but not the other part. I tried your suggestion in Firefox 1.0.4 (shift-clicking the Reload toolbar button) but it didn't make a difference. The pattern is that if an article is edited Monday and Tuesday, the Tuesday edit will appear with Monday's date, and if it's edited again on Friday it will immediately appear with Friday's edit but with Tuesday's date. And the history pages will have correct entries. Perhaps the problem is at Wikipedia's servers, or perhaps it's a misprogramming error. If it's intentional, it detracts from accuracy and should be reconsidered. Nick Levinson (talk) 20:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Apparently fixed. (This may have been a problem in a version of the wiki software.) Thank you. Nick Levinson (talk) 07:57, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Archives 2 & 3 damaged?

Is something wrong with pages 2 and 3 of the archives of this Talk page? Perhaps content got deleted by error. There was nothing likely to revert to. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:About/Archive_2 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:About/Archive_3 (both accessed last Thursday). Or were they created before there was anything to archive there and so new archivings wound up on p. 4? Is that perhaps due to a feature or bug that should be reconsidered? Shouldn't what was meant for p. 4 have gone to p. 2 and (if the odd pp. 2-3 were to be kept) pp. 2-3 automatically pushed to be the last archive pages after all other archivings?

Nick Levinson (talk) 18:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Archives 2 and 3 never existed as proper archives, I'm not sure if they should be kept or deleted. There is no discussion there so they could probably be deleted. Archive 3 is a redirect, and not a useful one. --Snigbrook ^(talk) 19:10, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I have tagged them for speedy deletion as test pages. --Snigbrook ^(talk) 19:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Reason for edit to "portmanteau (combination of words and their meanings)"

The best I can tell, about 3 in 4 Wikipedians misuse the word "portmanteau", although it's used correctly here. Part of the problem is giving the wrong definition in articles like this one, so I changed it to the right definition. (A better definition would be longer, but that would be too distracting.) If you want to use a word that doesn't need definition, "blend" is also a correct word here, and would also be fine in cases where "portmanteau" is wrong. Please see the dictionary definitions and discussion at the RfC at Portmanteau_word. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:15, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

El Salvador

I want to tell Wikipedia that the translation of the national anthem of El Salvador is wrong because El Salvador is He nor She. It may a big difference. Thank you for your attention —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.186.229.32 (talk) 22:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Edit it yourself. And get a screen name. --Ragemanchoo (talk) 04:10, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Registering for an account is optional. Puchiko (Talk-email) 20:27, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the others, if you know, edit it!--Awesomedude52 (talk) 16:48, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Testing Wikipedia Subpage in Talk Namespace

/Subpage -- please feel free to revert. JimD (talk) 06:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

What is the point of that? user:Yetmotega/1 Yetmotega (talk) 22:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Contact number?

What is Wikipedia's phone number? They're based in San Francisco, but I couldn't find the number online. --Ragemanchoo (talk) 04:12, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

See WP:Contact Us -Seidenstud (talk) 01:59, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Most popular page

One thing that I have always wanted to know about Wikipedia is what are the most popular articles. This may not be included for a certain reason, like the most popular is something sexual and not really worth mentioning. Any ideas? --Benpaul12 (talk) 22:31, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The information is available at stats.grok.se. However, the top 1000 list hasn't been updated since February :( Puchiko (Talk-email) 15:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC).

Wikipedia:Parental_Advisory

I started this page today, with the intention of creating a useful guide for parents and those responsible for children, and how to best safely interact with Wikipedia - I'd like to put a reference to it in this page, and wondered if anyone had any thoughts on that? cheers, Privatemusings (talk) 04:09, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

okey dokey - being bold, and adding a ref now..... I think this is a good idea (obviously!) - Privatemusings (talk) 02:34, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

..and I've self reverted, pending an WP:MfD on this one - no rush. Privatemusings (talk) 06:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

..put it back now the MfD has closed as a 'keep', Privatemusings (talk) 02:38, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

9/11 articles

It's a fact that there exist Conspiracy theories and they HAVE to be mentioned in the articles! ([2]) I think wikipedia loses the freedom of information! I would keep on mention it! --83.77.49.203 (talk) 21:58, 3 July 2008 (UTC) 9/11 was a tragic day! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.214.205.95 (talk) 01:06, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Contextual and grammatical errors abound

"Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites, attracting at least 684 million visitors yearly by 2008."

A prime example of why serious thinkers choose not to use Wikipedia. Let us not mention the grammatical errors arising from those who porport to write in the Queens English! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.227.219.52 (talk) 20:57, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you mean "purport", and "Queen's" Mcewan (talk) 20:34, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes i agree, but we must not forget that People Use and edit this website, not computers. and we all know humans are flawed.--Awesomedude52 (talk) 16:45, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

Employees

The paragraph about a past COO being a felon doesn't seem to match the style of previous paragraphs. What does it have to do with a section that is primarily a list of employees? Should it be deleted? Sultec (talk)

Reposting this section, assuming it got lost in editing out vandalism after I posted this.

Sultec (talk) 10:04, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Spelling error

Could we change the year that all the new Wiki's were introduced? It currently says 2001, but i think it should be 2007. see the following - Under. Wikipedia History - In May 2001, a wave of non-English Wikipedias was launched . (should be 2007?) Wiked2222 (talk) 07:50, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

No, because it's true. They were launched in 2001. See de:, the lead paragraph, "Seit Mai 2001 sind so 803.545 Artikel in deutscher Sprache entstanden", translates as "since May 2001 803,545 articles have been created here in the German language". —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 11:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Ooops, you are right, my mistake. Wiked2222 (talk) 08:53, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Using Wikipedia as a reference tool

I have deleted two claims because they do not appear to meet Wikipedia standards. The first of these is the following:

"Studies suggest that Wikipedia is broadly as reliable as Encyclopedia Britannica, with similar error rates on established articles for both major and minor omissions and errors."history flow: results". IBM."

The web page cited is an interesting graphical study of "history flow" on Wikipedia pages, showing (amongst other things) the rate at which pages grow and the persistence within them of text contributed by single authors. It does not, however, make any assertions about the RELIABILITY of Wikipedia, and nor does it compare it with the Encyclopedia Britannica. The claim is not therefore supported by the citation, and should not be allowed to remain on the page.

The second is the following:

"There is a tentative consensus, backed by a gradual increase in academic citation as a source, that it provides a good starting point for research, and that articles in general have proven to be reasonably sound."

"There is a tentative consensus" is a classic example of weasel words. A consensus among whom? And where is the evidence that it exists? This statement appears to be pure opinion.

Ninj (talk) 10:13, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Browsing the Wiki

I don't know if it is possible to browse through from A to Z. If it is, I could not find the buttons. If not, I believe that it would be a useful function, especially for those of us who are curious and like to read. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.39.30.95 (talk) 01:03, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

There is such a function though I'm not sure whether anyone could ever read all of Wikipedia. :-) -- Mentisock 12:30, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

How do you post articles on Wiki? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Terrorsaur 0120 (talk • contribs) 08:15, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

See WP:EDIT and Starting an article. Please note that all new articles must conform to policies such as notability and verifiability or they will be deleted. This contribution you made to this page (which looks like an article you put in the wrong place) is NOT notable and will be deleted if you recreate it elsewhere - see WP:SOAP, WP:VANITY (WP:AUTO) and Wikipedia is not for things made up in school one day. Please also remember to sign your posts on any talk page by typing ~~~~ (four tildes) after them. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 09:46, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

the black stone

Removed duplicate of question asked and answered at Wikipedia:Help desk#Mohammed kaaba.jpg. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 10:23, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Support for Amazing Youth

Support should be given for articles of amazing youth in the US such as Raymond Grissom. Blackcheck20 (talk) 13:26, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Oldest Wikipedians

How about piecing together a list of the oldest editors of Wikipedia. The oldest editor I've met is 71 years old but I surely expect people in their eighties to be around here, probably, even those in their nineties-Ravichandar_{My coffee shop} 06:51, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Integration of other Wikis into wikimedia

I suggest that wikipedia take action to integrate other locations of wikipedia that have truly professional pages that are replete with excellent and accurate data, yet do not receive the exposure that wikipedia receives. I have never seen an article on wikipedia of the same caliber or quality as this one: http://www.psychwiki.com/wiki/The_Schachter-Singer_Theory_of_Emotion for instance. And yet the entire website I think has only been visited less than 5000 times. People are missing out on crucial information. (By the way, the website states in privacy that this information may be used in any place except for other wiki sites unfortunately-- I posted in their discussion of this the first post asking for the use of some of their excellent information.--Nonymous-raz (talk) 07:19, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, many of these sites do not come under Wikipedia's remit. For example, the page you linked to is not well referenced, and there are many licensing issues surrounding the straight copying of work from these sites. However, if you can find reliable sources and then rewrite that article with adherence to all the proper WP guidelines, go ahead - I believe it probably satisfies our notability criteria. —Vanderdecken∴ ∫ξφ 16:48, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia financial disclosure re: donation request 2008 January

I can't find anything on the Wikipedia site about its financial status. I will happily donate but either i) I can't find the financial disclosure or ii) it hasn't been disclosed.

Wouldn't a non-profit organization, asking for money, give some idea of its situation? Where did the money come from so far? Capital and operating costs? Balance sheet? Cash-flow sheet? Budget?

Incidentally, the Wikipedia appeal says that the site has no ads. It's good to remind us of that.

Keep up the good work, etc.

Wiki ctlow (talk) 16:54, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Hello. Financial reports are here and here's the budget for the year. Thanks for your interest Puchiko (Talk-email) 17:44, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Puchiko. Much-appreciated. I have had a look at both of those links. I still have a "complaint" (in the non-complaining sense, I hope), which is that I think that technical documents such as financial reports need "translation" for us mere mortals. A bit of exposition on the current request-for-donation campaign would, IMHO, be completely appropriate and very helpful. It could be linked to as a side-document for the minority who want a bit more depth.

So, if I understand it correctly, Wikimedia's budget is only $5M-ish, with the bulk coming from contributions. Did I get that much straight? If so, I think that the 2nd fact is highly-relevant and could usefully be proclaimed more clearly. Pardon me if I missed it but I don't recall seeing it stated explicitly (the donation-request said where money did not come from, rather than where it came from - I do see further information about this as I scout around, but I have to "pull" it and opposed to having it [gently] "pushed" at me.) Compare that with some of the multi-billion dollar Internet information sources, and it does make Wikimedia stand out from the crowd. It's enough to give me that little extra push to contribute, and I will now do so promptly.

P.S. to the Wikimedia people, if they're listening: the tax-exempt status won't help me here in Canada (pop'n > 30M).

Thanks again. Wiki ctlow (talk) 12:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Yup, the income comes from the contributions. However, a good chunk of those aren't $20 donations from individuals, but huger donations from companies and such. Still, it's impressive-Wikipedia relies solely on donations. Puchiko (Talk-email) 13:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Images

On my display the screenshot of wikipedia.org is very blurry, how about cropping it to be just the wikiglobe and it's surrounding language versions? Also the article itself could probably do with a few more images to improve it. LeeVJ (talk) 01:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Header to direct editors questions

I have used this on the questions page - it came from a few other pages with a high throughput of non-related questions - wondered if it'd be a good idea on this one? LeeVJ (talk) 18:38, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

This is not the page to ask general questions.
	This page is for discussion of the About Wikipedia page itself. You may be looking for one of the following pages: Wikipedia:Help desk - For questions about Wikipedia and editing. Wikipedia:Reference desk - For questions on factual topics (for example: Who is the pope?) Please reread Wikipedia:Questions for more details.

Sounds good to me. :) Let's put it up there if there are no objections soon. Puchiko (Talk-email) 21:00, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

I've been WP:BOLD and added the template. Puchiko (Talk-email) 15:13, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Grammar in Section 3.1

The sentence "As there are many more editors intent improving articles than not, error-ridden articles are usually corrected promptly." should read "As there are many more editors intent onItalic text improving articles than not, error-ridden articles are usually corrected promptly.98.243.196.117 (talk) 17:41, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up, I've corrected it. Welcome to Wikipedia! Puchiko (Talk-email) 18:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

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