Talk:Wikipedia

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Anyone can edit Wikipedia Myth

I was under the impression anyone could edit Wikipedia, but the more I use it and dive deeper the more I find, this is not the case at all; anyone can not edit Wikipedia (and have it stick). The article under Meritocracy indicates Wikimedia could be considered to operate under such a principle, which would mean that contributions and contributors with lower levels of merit or without merit are quickly quashed. Therefore, no, everybody can not edit Wikipedia. Dumb monkeys are excluded.

A person in fact has to be a highly skilled Wiki mentality editor to edit Wikipedia; there is a steep learning curve and a whole set of editing rules you have to learn. Most people do not write in the highly self critical, highly rule based neutral style for a newspaper, let alone an encyclopedia.

Wikimedia claims 4,000 editors, yet there are roughly 6 billion people in the world. That is less than .00006% of the world's population. 99.99994% of the rest of the world, yes, could try... but I wonder how many of them are anywhere near qualified by Wiki baseline standards (whatever they are) within such an Editocracy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.226.11.248 (talk) 12:18, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

While the quality of an edit matters, your statement that not everybody can edit Wikipedia is incorrect. In fact, the only pages people can't edit are those that are protected. Quality does matter on Wikipedia, but if one inserts poor quality material that is still valuable to the encyclopedia, the edit does not get removed; rather, another user or anonymous editor improves its quality. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 14:47, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is somewhat unfriendly and biased against 'just anybody'. In one experiment, experienced editors pretended to be newbies and created new articles at their usual standard. A great majority of them were deleted at Articles for Deletion. Also, a user group study on Wikipedia was summed up this way: 'Wikipedia makes me feel stupid'. My experience as a Wikipedian convinces me of these things too. The reasons and mechanismes of this that I have observed through my experience as a Wikipedian are too complex to expound here. Diderot's dreams (talk) 17:44, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

When I was new, the first thing I did was create an article, Stansbury Island. It was poorly done, but it was never taken to AfD; instead, several other users helped me improve the article. But now that you mention it, yes, there are a lot of biased editors here on Wikipedia. I guess it all depends on who you first encounter on Wikipedia. The Utahraptor^Talk/_Contribs 18:30, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I believe the "experiment" Diderot's dreams is referring to is the controversial WP:NEWT breaching experiment. If so, I would like to point out that the articles were not created to the experienced users' usual standards, but to a standard the users in question judged equivalent to that at which a newbie might write. Some of the articles were intended to seem borderline or outright unsuitable unless scrutinized carefully. The majority of the articles were not deleted or even tagged for deletion. None of the articles that were deleted or tagged were via AfD; all of the tags were CSD tags. If you meant a different experiment, please disregard this. Intelligentsium 23:49, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes it was that experiment:"Newbie treatment at Criteria for speedy deletion". And I have misremembered. Indeed, it was not 'newbie' articles inappropriately deleted, but 'newbie' articles inappropriately nominated for speedy deletion. The quality level of the articles was newbie level.

But the articles were specifically to be written such that they did not qualify for speedy deletion. If the articles were borderline or some trickery was used in regard to the speedy deletion criteria, maybe these sould be ignored. But then again new page patrollers should know what they are doing. Can you explain more about this? Which articles?

There were 63 articles, 52 were patrolled. None of them should have been tagged for speedy deletion, but 23 were, and 5 were actually deleted.

I see one flaw in the experiment. Secrecy is important for the experiment's integrity, and the experiment continued after the Wikipedia Signpost article about it on November 9th. But counting only articles created before then, the results are worse: 21 articles (16 patrolled), 11 tagged CSD, 3 deleted. Diderot's dreams (talk) 17:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Here is the Signpost post on the usability study.[2] Diderot's dreams (talk) 22:30, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia obviously has to have rules about what is acceptable content, and it must have some standards of quality. Obviously too there are styles of writing that are encyclopaedic, and styles that are not. Aiming to follow the rules and match that required style will get you a long way. Perhaps it does exclude those who are unable or unwilling to abide by the rules and to try to match the encyclopaedic style of writing. HiLo48 (talk) 19:41, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia has 1,766 administrators as of November 29, 2010. The admins are the de facto authors of Wikipedia. In the end, anything this tiny group of people disagrees with will be deleted or altered to conform to their Weltanschauung. Wasp14 (talk) 15:12, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not an "encyclopedia that anyone can edit". Wikipedia is biased based that is based upon the beliefs of a few (Administrators) get to dictate. There have been more then several articles as well as revisions that are instantly deleted if they do not fit the biased beliefs of the administrators. As long as information is plagiarized, um sorry, I mean validated and biased, your entry or edit will be revised to be even more biased. If a view other then what is already determined by the Admin is stated, the article is locked from edit and listed as vandalized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.172.162.156 (talk) 06:49, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Generally only locked against editing by unregistered editors. Simple solution. Register. HiLo48 (talk) 08:04, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

The Google search for Wikipedia reads "The Encyclopedia anyone can edit" NOT "The Encyclopedia on registered users can edit". There is a BIG difference between the two.

I posted above that a site like this has to have rules. Rules about writing style was the area I was talking about then. It cannot be open slather. But registering certainly gives you more rights. Is there anything stopping you registering? HiLo48 (talk) 08:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes. People have realized that it's not worth learning a poorly designed system of templates and tags, arkane procedures, and pathetic weaseling, all just to become an unpaid worker providing source material for the galère to twist--or extinguish. And as for users, many people have caught on that "verifiability not truth" means that there's a lot of self-serving misinformation being set into stone and protected with little icons. Some point this out explicitly, while many people just say, "...you can't trust Wikipedia." —71.203.125.108 (talk) 20:43, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Of course you can't trust Wikipedia, (DUUUHHHHH !) but it certainly is a great place to start and the best part about Wikipedia is that one can simply click the ref.links to try to get enough information to see the real story.This works for me. Wikipedia is a wonderful resource and adding negative comments doesn't serve much purpose.BrianAlex (talk) 14:55, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Hey guys, I'm a college student. If we even cite Wikipedia in research papers, we get flunked. There's a reason for it e.g. many times I have googled entire paragraphs as the search term--it returned more than just Wikipedia (sometimes, something even more credible--yes I am saying people on here plagiarize). Wikipedia's only use for academic work I have found is that it serves as a springboard to credible sources of information.216.228.249.43 (talk) 18:36, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

• A quick reminder to you all that, as it says at the top, "this is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject." "This talk page is exclusively for discussion concerning Wikipedia's article on itself." Jake the Editor Man _(talk)

Question about the counter

How does the counter work? {{NUMBEROFARTICLES}} - does it include the number of disambiguation pages? Is it possible to know the number of disambiguation pages? Thanks —  Ark25  (talk) 07:26, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Andwesseh, 6 December 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} Preston Papie Corporal (born March 9, 1987) is a Liberian player who plays in the Canadian Soccer League for Hamilton Croatia.

Club career

Born in Liberia,Lower Buchanan, Grand Bassa County, Preston a striker, started his professional football career at Liberian club Watanga FC, where he became a key player at the club and won the Liberia Football Association Most Value Player Award in 2003. One year later he made a stint with Liberia premiership club Invincible Eleven (IE). Later that year, he was called up on the Under 20, Liberia National team and made his debut against the Leone Star of Sierra Leone in an International friendly in 2004 and made his latest appearance for the Liberia National Senior team in the 2010 World Cup qualifier against Algeria in 2008.In November 2005 he made his way to the continent of Asia.

After an unsuccesful trial with DPMM of Brunei, he landed in Malaysia and made it with Angkantan Tentera Malaysia (ATM) in the Malaysia M-League.

In his first year, Preston bagged a total of 36 goals in all competitions and help ATM to win two Championships that year. In his second season with ATM, Preston made a short appearance in India with Mohammedan Sporting Fc. A club that was struggling relegation battle in the India top flight league.Searching for a striker who could save Mohammed Sporting Fc season by scoring goals on a regular basis, the scout recommended Preston after hearing about and watching the impressive striker in action , Mohammedan quickly signed him for a 4 months loan.

After ending his 4 Months Contract with Mohammedan Sporting Fc in India, the prolific striker return to Malaysia with his club ATM. After 2 more seaons with ATM he fianlly moved to Jamaica and played for Village United.

Andwesseh (talk) 17:50, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

 Declined This request for a new article belongs on this page, please ask there, but you will be required to provide some reliable sources to establish his notability. Cheers. Rodhullandemu 18:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Fernpwns8, 24 December 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} The top of the page is vandalised, you should fully lock it.

Fernpwns8 (talk) 16:47, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

•  Done Thanks. Rodhullandemu 17:02, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Is wikipedia the largest ad free site in the world?

Researching to see if wikipedia was declining, I found this:http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/nov/25/wikipedia-editors-decline and read this:

"Wow, this is depressing. Guys, it's a fucking FREE encyclopedia. There are thousands of featured articles which are [a] perfect overview (and even in-depth) [with] sources and references of knowledge. The site has been built by anonymous volounteers in their spare time for free, and there isn't a single ad on there. Of course it isn't perfect - it's a human system. Stop hating something that is inherently good."

which was in response to every previous comment which had only negative to say about the project and it made me wonder if wikipedia is the largest ad free site in the world, which I'll bet it is. Daniel Christensen (talk) 08:02, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Put a graph of donations along the years

Why not put a graph of the amount needed in donations along the years? I remember that in the past (some years ago) Wikipedia needed much less in donations than it needs this year (16 million dollars). It would be interesting to put a graph all the values it needed in all these years since its creation. Thanks! (and sorry my bad grammar, but you got the point!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.4.49.112 (talk) 08:19, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Licensing issues

My original question was what exactly it means when the article describes the GFDL as "not suitable for online reference works" which I changed to say it "was not considered suitable" and added a clarification tag to. On further inspection, this section also needs to use secondary sources rather than pages on Wikimedia's own projects. It's my understanding that there are issues with both using primary sources too much and referencing wiki pages that any person can change. Andreona (talk) 10:53, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Most viewed articles in 2010

Can anyone figure out what the most viewed articles in 2010 were? I don't think anyone cares about 2009 anymore. – Homestar-winner 03:37, 5 January 2011 (UTC)