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Use of 'till'

Some helpful soul changed the article to read 'until' instead of 'till', because the later has no relation to the former. The edit was reverted by someone who was obviously not a native English speaker; could it be corrected please? Simplyw00x (talk) 23:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Till, sometimes spelled 'til, is synonymous with until (in addition to being something you do to soil), as per Wiktionary. More information can be found here. And usually one contrasts "the former" with "the latter" rather than "the later". Finally, I wouldn't presume someone is not a native speaker simply because they speak differently than you would. skeptical scientist (talk) 23:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Till and until are both old in the language and are interchangeable as both prepositions and conjunctions: It rained till (or until) nearly midnight. The savannah remained brown and lifeless until (or till) the rains began. Till is not a shortened form of until and is not spelled 'till. 'Til is usually considered a spelling error, though widely used in advertising: Open 'til ten." (Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.) To me personally "until" sounds more formal than "till", but again I'm not a native speaker, too. --79.192.207.45 (talk) 05:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You mean you're not a native speaker either :-)--194.29.32.100 (talk) 07:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks

This page really helped for my project on wood! Wikipedia has been the source that has been the most reliable for my classmates and me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.188.116.139 (talk • contribs) 21:38, 19 December 2004 (UTC)[reply]

Wood grain

I've been trying to eliminate as many links as possible to the disambiguation page grain (trying not to link to it), and I've mostly handled the ones that mean cereals, or seeds, or the unit of weight. I could get rid of a few more of the remaining links if I could point them to an article on wood grain or grain (wood), but no such article exists. I'm hoping to find some wood and Wikipedia sages who could give me advice. Should such an article exist? Should I set up a redirect from those titles to this article? Is there another possibility I'm missing? Thanks — Pekinensis 00:28, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

opening definition

Wikipedia:Lead section suggests we should start with a definition. I'll take another crack at it. The article is about wood, not merely the usage of wood. Samw 00:00, 3 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think most people reading this page would already know, but nowhere in the opening section is anything said about where wood comes from. Though you may know that wood comes from trees, this article should cater to those who do not happen to know this24.161.53.152 03:19, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed the vandalism. Samw 04:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Heartwood

What is the proper way to deal with common words like Heartwood which have been used as the name of important organizations (www.heartwood.org). I see Heartwood Institute has its own page, which can be distinguished by the extra word.

See Wikipedia:Disambiguation Samw 03:11, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From my talk page:

Re [1]: If you endorse the link that's good enough for me, but note that these links were added by someone affiliated with the site who will have a commercial and promotional gain from it, thus it's linkspam by definition. Femto 18:22, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for pointing that out. I don't claim I've reviewed matbase in detail but it looks like a reasonable source to me. If others have opinions, we can discuss it here and delete if needed. Samw 18:44, 10 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Solid

Would wood be classified as an amorphous solid or a crystalline solid? James Callahan 23:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neither? Both? Wood is complex, and there are both amorphous and crystalline components.--Curtis Clark 03:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wood can be considered a solid, but it's also the only possible state of wood. It can never be liquid or flow alone because wood can't melt. In a gaseous state, the wood would have to be hot enough to give off carbon emmissions which produce charcoal. JustN5:12 02:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wood cutting

Is here allready a section on wood-cutting? Otherwise, I intend to make it! Swami Woodcutter 14:29, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Lumber maybe? Samw 22:41, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GA On hold

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed.

  • The lead needs to be trimmed per WP:LEAD. It's not a very long article, so there isn't a need for more than maybe three paragraphs. Additionally, it should summarize the article while introducing no new information (anything not expanded upon in the body). Many of the stubby paragraphs in the lead can be combined into larger paragraphs as well. And, last, consider rewording the prose to avoid starting almost every paragraph and sentence with "Wood".
  • Referencing needs to be consistent. Currently, the article uses the footnotes style and Harvard referencing. While both are appropriate, they should not be used together; only one or the other.
  • This article also needs further inline citation for verification. Currently, entire sections are unreferenced. One citation per paragraph is my recommendation for this article.

I will check back in no less than seven days. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GA/R). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAC. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions. Regards, LaraLove 18:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article has been delisted. Regards, LaraLove 02:46, 23 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


I clarified the reference section a bit by adding a general subsection to the references section, it still could use more citation and references. Please add them in, especially if you have access to the two books in the reference section or better sources.

--D27061315 (talk) 04:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


wasnt it actually episode 7 "Our Mrs. Reynolds"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alpha Cluster (talk • contribs) 00:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, it was episode 6, "Our Mrs. Reynolds" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.98.224.234 (talk) 01:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Except for the fact that it had not been desstroyed, evidenced by the woods Helo and Sharon move through after the Cylon attacks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.253.112 (talk) 11:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about this? Edit: Damn, you're right... Most! --QuicksilverJohn (talk) 04:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wasn't the point of that comic how pointless and random popular culture sections are? Trying to add this to the actual articles reminds me of the Ali G fans who try to act and dress like him in real life--comepletely missing the point that they're the butt of the joke.citation needed Dinoguy2 (talk) 05:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The recursion in the irony, is the irony in itself... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.232.132 (talk) 05:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I could have sworn that the point was that Wikipedians are silly, but then again what do I know? User:CorbinSimpson 05:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.171.234.224 (talk) [reply]
For anyone wondering what this is about, today's xkcd comic referenced this page and these edits. --Stéphane Charette (talk) 05:32, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I interpret the comic as a pretty sad, yet accurate picture of the state of many of the articles we host on the English-language Wikipedia. [2] Results 1 - 10 of about 130,000 from en.wikipedia.org for "in popular culture". (0.26 seconds) JBsupreme (talk) 05:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In Popular Culture sections have a place - for example, when a religion is extremely misrepresented, the setion could be use to describe how.citation needed Things like that. Otherwise, unless it's so extremey well-known that a particular reference is the only reason it's known (which, if there was a meta-article about the Wood article, might be true of the xkcd reference...) pop culture references probably don't need a mention. --Kinkoblast (talk) 05:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is a meta-article. You're reading it! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.102.142.124 (talk) 05:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
i interpret the comic as a pretty funny, yet accurate picture of how wikipedians take everything too seriously. hotaru2k3 (talk) 05:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I interpret the existence of this discussion as how Wiki editors (including myself) take everything too seriously. :) Buspar (talk) 07:08, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As a note, the episode shoul be Our Mrs Reynolds, not Jayestown. :) Camajsterek (talk) 07:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.26.0 (talk) [reply]
-squeeze in- its jaynestown, not jayestown. inaccuracies like this ruin WP ;) --Echosmoke (talk) 20:43, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ooh, your powers of deduction are exceptional. I can't allow you to waste them here when there are so many crimes going unsolved at this very moment. Go, go, for the good of the city. --CBG —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.211.201.174 (talk) 09:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Moderators: Unlock this article at once, so that it may be amended to cite critical Popular Culture reference in xkcd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.76.161.36 (talk) 07:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I looked back at the revisions section and noticed that the first thing added after the comic came up was simply an acknowledgement of the comic itself. It seems that the edits involving the exact satirical text from the comic were not added until after the first edit was deleted. What I must ask, and understand that if this is a ignorant question it is meant in good faith, what is wrong with mentioning the comic? I understand why you don't want a "In Popular Culture" section that contains more information then the rest of the article and I understand why you don't want the text of wikipedia to match a satire of wikipedia verbatim, but isn't leaving in the mention of the comic a reasonable comprimise? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.34.99.251 (talk) 09:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, because this is not an article about articles in Wikipedia that have been referenced in webcomics; it is an article about wood. The xkcd satire is entirely irrelevant to the particular subject covered by this article. Shmuel (talk) 12:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Shmuel, that makes sense. Also, I'm starting to pick up the Talk page guidelines. 71.34.99.251 (talk) 19:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The title text of that particular comic says:

Someday the 'in popular culture' section will have its own article with an 'in popular culture' section. It will reference this title-text referencing it, and the blogosphere will implode.

Clearly this comic is a satire of Wikipedia. Let's not conform to our negative stereotypes, guys. --Slashme (talk) 07:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wait!! If that happens wikipedia will divide by zero!! Oh shi- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.32.190.3 (talk) 08:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Popular_Culture —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.234.75.131 (talk) 07:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, Wikipedia:"In popular culture" articles —The imp (talk) 11:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Brilliant! I also came here to reference the xkcdcomic. Great mind think alike. 11:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eagleapex (talk • contribs)

And fools seldom differ. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.1.66 (talk) 12:45, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I came here to laugh at the fools who would inevitably be trying to vandalise this page, I was not disappointed. Derobrash (talk) 13:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is that trivia sections are discouraged by WP policy. What XKCD is satirising is a degenerate WP page, not a healthy one. The Wednesday Island (talk) 12:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, except some very well-established editors fight tooth-and-nail to retain entire "In Popular Culture" articles at AfD. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 16:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think things like knocking on wood, magic wands, divining rods, vampires, Dryads, Hamadryads and the flag of lebanon should be mentioned in the article somewhere (e.g "in different cultures" section) --George (talk) 13:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The above users are all lemmings. Why not attempt something original, no reason to execute Mr. Munroe's ideas. He is a big boy, he can do it himself. Fafnir665 (talk) 15:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, shouldn't it be “Wood in poplar culture”? 86.156.98.61 (talk) 15:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It should, but we'll just have to be content with the fact that there's now a protection log for the article. :) --Chaos386 (talk) 17:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought that ;p Daedae (talk) 13:44, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I love the xkcd comic about Wikipedia, I love that xkcd fans immediately tried to make life imitate art, I love that Wikipedia moderators locked the article in response. For me, this is the internet operating to perfection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew-Galvanize-Davies (talk • contribs) 18:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


I think we ought to at LEAST include a "In Popular Culture: xkcd - Webcomic xkcd featured a spoof on popular culture references to Wood in comic #446  :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.200.11.150 (talk) 18:43, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Except that the comic is no more a reference to wood than The Simpsons is... the comic is about wikipedia. If it must be added as a cultural reference somewhere (since it seems that just about every xkcd comic gets gratuitously added to a popular culture section somewhere) it should be at Wikipedia:"In popular culture" articles. And indeed it is there.--Angelastic (talk) 08:01, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That settles the matter of the XKCD reference, to my liking, at least. 63.230.169.106 (talk) 05:40, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not to me. The article isn't really about Wikipedia, it's about In Popular Culture references in Wikipedia. It makes more sense to create an article with the topic In Popular Culture, then have a section at the bottom titled In Popular Culture in popular culture. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 17:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What really matters

Look, people, we all love xkcd. We all think it's awesome that xkcd has referenced Wikipedia, and some of us want xkcd to mould real life to be more like xkcd. What needs to be understood is that xkcd's strip was a parody, a joke. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be logically and semantically cohesive, and anything not directly related to the topic of "wood" should not be in this article. If you care about xkcd and how people shouldn't use the internet for stupidity, obscenity, and arguments, then please, think rationally about what should be in this article to make it a verifiable, comprehensive, accurate, and well-written article about wood. If you can't think rationally, there are other games you can play with Wikipedia that don't fuck it up for the rest of us. Thanks, {{Nihiltres|talk|log}} 15:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • sigh* There are enough idiots with established accounts that I think we should request full protection until at least Wednesday, when the next comic goes up, with semi through the weekend. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 15:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive me for interrupting, but this doesn't seem to be in keeping with Wikipedia's core principle of Civility. 71.34.99.251 (talk) 20:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What really matters is the wiki "popular" subculture. You can have 1 article about wood, but a article about ONE episode of battlestar generates as much content on Wikipedia as a non fiction article like wood. :Sterremix (talk) 16:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, the incivility of Nihiltres is shameful. The request was made in a much more polite manner above and these comments are intentionally inflammatory. LeilaniLad (talk) 20:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I say open up the article. Dudes already know about wood.  ;-) --72.95.164.138

From a purely informational standpoint, I must side with those who wish to keep the "popular culture" references (for the most part, anyways). I also feel it is a bit hasty to label this as vandalism, for no other reason than the fact that the references are valid. I think the core function of a wikipedia article is to grow as knowledge on one subject is pooled by many, and even though the comic points out the comedic (sometimes unintentionally so) nature of the popular culture section it plays a major role in many articles. I'd be willing to bet there are a great many wikipedia articles out there that would find a popular culture section a meaningful addition for as many that have it as a frivolous add-on. I applaud the comic for stirring up this debate, and I think it really highlights what makes wikipedia so above and beyond an encyclopedia. Whether or not it means there will be such a section in the final wood article is secondary to that fact--I'm glad to see that the wikipedia community is alive and kicking. (hope this doesn't violate the talk page guidelines too much...)
Psualan (talk) 04:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)psualan[reply]
Psualan, what you are missing is the distinction between information and useful information. The fact that Harry Potter uses a wooden wand may add information to the wood article, but it adds nothing useful. If someone is looking up an article on wood, they are likely to be curious about its structure or uses, but not how various TV shows incorporate wood. Adding useless information clutters otherwise helpful articles. This is not an argument against "in popular culture" sections in general, but rather an argument that each fact should be considered for whether it truly merits inclusion. The idea is not to prevent useful information from getting out there, but to prevent repeats of exactly the phenomenon that today's xkcd comic was denigrating. Remember that the purpose of an encyclopedia is to quickly give the reader a decent understanding of the topic, and if they want to go further they can check the references; adding too much trivial information only hinders this goal. -skeptical scientist (talk) 07:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think we could have a long discussion as to what constitutes as useful information and what doesn't as well as who gets to decide such things. I'm not saying the above 'in popular culture' references are useful or not, however who really has the authority to determine the usefulness of a particular bit of information? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.94.233.202 (talk) 13:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No doubt we could. Certainly there is a spectrum of information between useful and useless, and reasonable people will disagree about where things fall on the spectrum. But certain factoids are just so far off the useless end of the spectrum that I think we can all agree that they serve no serious purpose, and should be removed. - skeptical scientist (talk) 17:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What's more, copying the 'in popular culture' section from the comic could be considered plagiarism, given that the comics are under an attribution license. If User:xkcd really wanted that section in the article, he'd add it himself (and be reverted.) --Angelastic (talk) 07:51, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Skeptical is right. I remember what my ICT teacher said on the first lesson I went to: "information with meaning is knowledge". I don't see any knowledge being made here. Sceptre (talk) 18:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How on Earth does the fact that "the fence at the back of the Simpsons' house is made of wood" constitute "knowledge" about wood? I do hope you're joking, Psualan. MartinPoulter (talk) 11:46, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, what's wrong with an "In Popular Culture" section? Besides the obvious implication that it might grow to include like every use of wood ever... it's relevant by its very nature, and a little harmless amusement isn't so much of a problem as anal retarded trolling. Many serious texts make use of humor where relevant, often with the most deadpan subtlety possible; an accurate but small IPC section would fall into that category, and not harm Wikipedia's goal of providing accurate, encyclopedic content. I call WP:IAR on this one, on that basis along with the basis that we have no rules explicitly forbidding humorous references (the rules go as far as forbidding non-relevant content), and no rules (that I'm aware of) about In Popular Culture sections. I'll sustain the licensing issue, it's a valid concern. --John Moser (talk) 01:49, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We don't do jokes in Wikipedia, minor or not. Unencyclopedia is the proper venue for that. The xkcd comic was funny because it pointed out the fact that our "in popular culture" content is already arguably excessive and silly, which is precisely the reason why we don't need to add more, especially here. OhNoitsJamie Talk 02:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Really? I seem to remember quite a few minor jokes on April Fools Day 72.64.38.69 (talk) 22:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I recall, any jokes posted that day resulted with a a quick revert and block. OhNoitsJamie Talk 22:18, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It seems a sad commentary on any endeavor, no matter how important, when I read the words "We don't do jokes". Nothing and no-one is too grand to be the subject or source, of humor (or even both at once). One can't take oneself that seriously, even when one is a kind of consenses information repository. Especially then, I'd imagine. 63.230.169.106 (talk) 05:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For my money, it's not necessarily an Encyclopaedic sort of thing to leave out the jokes. Didn't Denis Diderot cross-list the Eucharist with Cannibalism in one of his editions? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.191.118.228 (talk) 22:33, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What is "Useful Information"?

Something just occurred to me on the question of "useful" vs. "useless" information. What's clear is that an article that contained every appearance of wood ever in a show, movie or comic would take up more space than is reasonable, simply because it is such a ubiquitous building material (which makes me wonder why the "Uses" section isn't longer, but I digress).

The reason the "Uses" section is so short is that it was originally part of the intro. I deemed it too long for the intro so split it off into its own section; hopefully now that it has its own section it can be expanded. - skeptical scientist (talk) 17:51, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand "Wiki is not paper" as the expression goes, it can contain an almost limitless amount of information.

So it seems that the rich and varied beliefs about, and mythological references to, wood might have a place in the article... including the influence of such on popular culture.

More specifically, it might be excessive to mention that on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, impalement on wooden stakes is a common remedy for vampire problems, but it might be very reasonable to mention that in mythology and popular culture vampires are generally killable by this method.

It may be going to far to mention the kind of wood used in Harry Potter's wand, but it wouldn't go amiss to discuss that wood is traditionally used in wands, that it has other significance in indigenous and modern magical practices, or that it's one of five classic Chinese elements.

While we're on the subject, why not give a few paragraphs to the military applications of wood throughout history, from arrow shafts, to barricades to spear hafts.

Once the article is more comprehensive on it's subject, perhaps a Popular Culture section wouldn't be nearly so glaring and wouldn't merit this kind of debate over what constitutes vandalism. 71.34.99.251 (talk) 23:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki may not be paper, but the challenging of wading out useful knowledge from mountains of information was the limiting problem of information retrieval long before we broke free from the limitations of paper. The storage may effectively be limitless, but the readers time is no nor are the resources needed to maintain vast collections of data, especially when they are poorly organized.
Fortunately Wikipedia is hypertext, so we can make wood far more informative that reader tolerance would normally allow by linking to useful information elsewhere... though, since virtually every tool ever built by man has been made of wood at one point or another, I'm not sure that enumerating all uses of wood would provide a lot of value.
The XKCD Wood popular culture section is a good example some of the perils of trivia, perhaps brilliance on Randals part: The section contains several factual inaccuracies and yet people aggressively kept reinserting them anyways.
--Gmaxwell (talk) 00:37, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I make no defense of "people aggressively... reinserting" the exact text from the comic. It's a harmless enough joke to do once, but there's no need to make a point of it, rather I argue that this attention can be an opportunity to expand the information provided by wikipedia.
As for "reader tolerance" I don't see a danger as long as headings are available to provide easy navigation.
I frequently skip ahead through wikipedia articles to find the information I'm looking for and I'm very rarely annoyed or put off by the article containing information I wasn't seeking. The truth is, so many people come to wikipedia for different kinds of information. It's not, strictly speaking, possible to predict what will be "useful" and what won't.
I have, however, found myself in the position of not finding what I was looking for in an article even after reading the whole thing. In these cases I often find very general information of the kind I already had before reading the article. I wonder how much those occurrences stem from well-meaning editors' desires to keep the article to a stricter standard of "usefulness".
Indeed, the more obscure a piece of information is the more likely it is to be useful to the person seeking that specific piece of information, because they will be less likely to find it elsewhere on their own. From this perspective an article that has been trimmed down to general essential data is less useful than one that contains "useless" information.
It seems that a fact-checking is essential, of course, as is clear use of headings to ease navigation, but the exclusion of any information based on an editors assumptions about it's usefulness diminishes the encyclopedia. 71.34.99.251 (talk) 03:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It occurs to me, that while addressing Gmaxwell's points I may not have made it clear that his comments were well argued and appreciated. I agree that hypertext links are an exellent compromise when resolving questions of what information is included and one of the major advantages of the wiki format. Also, I think we're both in agreement that their is a threshold to how much trivia can be considered reasonable. 63.230.169.106 (talk) 05:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And it seems my IP address has changed. I should just get an account to avoid this confusion. 63.230.169.106 (talk) 05:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with 71.34.99.251, saying that "the fence in the backyard of the simpsons is wooden" is not useful, but an IPC section can be useful to the reader. eg:

  • One method of destroying a suspected vampire is staking it through the heart.
  • It is commonly thought that knocking on wood has been a superstitious action to ward off evil throughout history.
  • A wand is a magical tool usually made of wood.
  • A divining rod is a forked (or "Y" shaped) branch of a tree or bush used in dowsing.

--George (talk) 22:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The missing See Also Section

In the kerfuffle of the past 24 hours, the "See Also" section has been deleted. (See [3].) It probably should be restored. -- 128.104.112.147 (talk) 15:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've re-added it. --- RockMFR 16:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's been re-removed and re-added at least four times over the last day, perhaps due to the increased visibility of this article. Let's work out whether it should be kept, rather than continuing the revert-war. skeptical scientist (talk) 20:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's just kids messing up when they try to add xkcd stuff. 21:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.97.5.140 (talk)
Not true. Look at the edit summaries:
section is unnecessary - JBsupreme
most of these links should be here - RockMFR
Undid revision 224155684 by RockMFR (talk) no explaination given for why these are needed - Coccyx Bloccyx
adding back see also - Zyrxil
this section, while unrelated to xkcd, is completely superfluous - RFerreira
It's not superfluous; how should people find such related pages, if there are no links to them? As I see it, this only enriches the page. - Alatius
It's a clear edit war, albeit between two points of view rather than two people. All I'm saying is that we should have the discussion here rather than continuing to edit the see also section back in and back out of the page, with one-line explanations hidden in the edit summaries. skeptical scientist (talk) 22:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please could you add a link to Xylophagy into the See Also section? Or better yet, unprotect so I can write a short section about the topic. Anxietycello (talk) 00:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not unprotecting. Personally, I think there should be a short see also, but the XKCD fanatics are trying to make it overly long on purpose. Superm401 - Talk 14:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't protect

I've seen Wikipedia pages get referenced in XKCD before, and this always happens. Massive numbers of eyeballs come to the page, and everyone wants to make a joke. Here's the thing. What Wikipedia is about is the idea that eyeballs are good. That a thousand people poking at an article will produce good results. And that's what I've seen every time. Stupid edits get made, and responsible wikipedians remove them, but the extra attention means that a handful of constructive edits get made too, and a week later, that's all you see - the benefits of extra attention to the page.

Protection defeats all this. Protection squanders a valuable opportunity for improvement. In my experience, that's precisely what it nearly always does.

Please un-protect.

-MBlume (talk) 05:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I stated this case more clearly a few months ago, when Foreplay was featured - here's my comment -MBlume (talk) 05:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that it's not like a featured article, where the traffic mostly comes from people who were on Wikipedia anyway. It mostly comes from the kind of weenies whose immediate response is to add a reference to the xkcd link to the article. See also: anything Stephen Colbert mentions. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:20, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, the Foreplay article was featured in XKCD. 139.80.123.36 (talk) 13:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the added attention is in fact negative. If people are coming to contribute, they will have no difficulty finding articles to work on (Template:Opentask is a good start). As for making a "joke", criticizing Wikipedia's faults can be funny; adding more is not. I'm not unprotecting early. Superm401 - Talk 14:12, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that the article was locked due to temporary vandalism, and that lock will disappear tomorrow - not a very long time off. As for now, though, I'm concerned with the heightened number of attack phrases used in talk pages, by various editors. I know we don't have to like each other, but can we please keep it civil? Thanks. X-Kal (talk) 14:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The folks who think it's funny and harmless to add little jokes or XKCD easter eggs should take some time to read and consider Kant's categorical imperative. Anyone with the slightest spark of creativity could easily find hundreds of amusing changes to make to Wikipedia, but consider what would happen if each of over a hundred million readers per month acted on the whim and made only a single change? ... and what might be a cute in-joke to you could well be misleading to someone else, will likely be not funny to many others, and could well be an embarassment to people who put in considerable time creating good content. Of course, ... a few pieces of humor here and there wouldn't bring about the end of the world. But whos humor? Yours? Mine? Shall we edit war over which joke stays in? Wikipedia's meatball:SuperordinateGoal of being a free content encyclopedia, along with policies like WP:NPOV allow us to come together and agree on content, but there can be little stability in easter eggs. I hope that the XKCD readers can understand this and realize that Wikipedia isn't a bunch of humorless bureaucrats trying to spoil their fun, though a glance at the XKCD forums doesn't give me much hope. --Gmaxwell (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After unprotecting, add link to Dendrochronology in initial section. --Speedevil (talk) 18:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Semiprotection would be far more appropriate here. Skeptical scientist claimed above that "it's a clear edit war," but I and many other editors do not find it so clear. There are two distinct alleged edit wars going on in this article: one regarding the "see also" section, and the obvious "in popular culture" one. Taken one at a time:

  • The "see also" section has been three times removed and three times reinstated ([4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]), each time by a different user who only touched this issue once. All edits had civil summaries and were made in good faith. An edit war "...is the confrontational use of edits to win a content dispute," something I see absolutely no evidence of here. All I see is increased interest and activity because of sudden popularity, and needless to say increased activity is not only to be tolerated, but to be welcomed as it is one of the core ideas of Wikipedia that more attention and more pairs of eyes over time will lead to better content. In fact, the large majority of edits made since the publication of the xkcd comic in question do not concern either of this issues, but other aspects of the wood article. Would I prefer that these editors had raised the issue on the talk page? Of course, but the activity here certainly doesn't constitute edit warring to me.
You're right, I was misunderstanding the definition of edit war. I didn't mean that any individual editor was doing anything wrong; clearly they were all acting in good faith, trying to improve the page, and didn't realize that the "see also" section's status was a matter of legitimate disagreement in all the kerfuffle (great word btw, thanks 128.104.112.147) of the xkcd edits. I merely wanted to point out that there was a legitimate disagreement about whether it should be kept or not, and it wasn't just lost in the shuffle as it were, in order to get people to debate the issue on the talk page rather than continuing to edit it in and out due to a misunderstanding. My point was not to criticize anyone. - skeptical scientist (talk) 17:49, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see, and I didn't think you were criticizing people-- I just disagreed with you saying that this was an edit war. Thanks for clarifying, anyway, and kerfuffle is indeed an excellent word. Dar-Ape 00:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The xkcd "in popular culture" section is of course the more troublesome issue. Over the approx 19 hours of semiprotection, I counted seven instances of the "in popular culture" section being added. To me, especially considering that over 50 edits were made in this same amount of time, this seems like an undesirable but certainly tolerable amount of jokes made in poor taste. Especially interesting to me is that two versions of a message commented into the page code warning off would-be pranksters were accompanied with a lapse in the addition of this message, but the message was removed and never reinstated. Why? I have found this technique to be quite effective in the past. Although already at a manageable level, a temporary inclusion of such a warning comment on a semi-protected page could lower the frequency of xkcd references even more.

In brief: reinstate semi-protection, add a comment to the page code asking users to act in good taste and not create extra work for others, and allow the wiki process to continue for the majority of edits which have not been related to either of these issues. Dar-Ape 01:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have done this; the full protection was almost expired anyway. I just hope the joke has settled down now. -- SCZenz (talk) 09:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! Dar-Ape 00:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I hope you let the semi expire soon. the reason for it: MBlume expressed it better. Some vandalism is no problem that needs to be handled with protection on a highly visible page. It will be tefloned out soon. :Sterremix (talk) 08:15, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:Protection policy, and also take a look at the protection status on George W. Bush. Our first priority here is the encyclopedia, not the community or wiki culture. That being said: yes, semi-protection here will end at some point, I'm just personally not in a hurry. -- SCZenz (talk) 08:42, 10 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just leave it

Can't you just leave the "Popular Culture" joke until it dies down? If you keep deleting it, more people will come back and vandalise this page again. This section could be deleted a couple of weeks later when everybody will finally stop giving a shit.Seriously.

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