Talk:Wikipedia

Countries

Moved to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Countries

Alexa

Why is alexa considered a credible source? The wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Internet is pretty darned critical, and for good reason. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.88.234.224 (talk) 10:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Link for "volunteers"

The first paragraph says "Wikipedia's 13 million articles (3 million in English) have been written collaboratively by volunteers," and "volunteers" links to the [[Volunteer|general volunteer page]. I think it should link to the [Virtual_volunteering|virtual volunteering] page instead, since these are specifically online volunteers, rather than traditional onsite volunteers, especially since Wikipedia is one of the largest examples of virtual volunteering. Comment by: User:Jcravens42

Admins can't delete articles or ban users; the community does?

The following was moved from User talk:TakuyaMurata.

What do you mean by this comment? Admins are the ones who decide these issues. Of course, community has some contribution to the decision, but the final decision is made by the admins. This is clearly a priveledge. SA ru (talk) 21:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

No, the decision is made at each AFD. When the community reached the consensus to delete an article, an admin carries out the actual technical step: deletion of an article. You might be interested in this Wikipedia:RfA Review/Reflect. -- Taku (talk) 21:44, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Wrong. AFD only collects evidence for or against a particular decision. The actual decision is unknown until an admin makes it. It is an exclusive priviledge of the admins to make decisions. The situation is even simpler in the decision to block someone. Here an admin makes the decision mostly by himself. You are confusing the environment in which admins work with their decision making function. You should revert your edit; it is simply wrong. SA ru (talk) 22:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Wrong?? Are you really sure you know how Wikipedia works? I don't know how long you have been contributing to Wikipedia. But admins are explicitly disallowed to make editorial decisions. It used to be the case for a long time, and it hasn't been changed. Also, an admin can't just ban an editor. A user gets banned usually for disruption (edit warring or vandalism) In other words, admins can't just ban users because they feel like it. Let me cite this from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion:

Articles for deletion (AfD) is where Wikipedians discuss whether or not an article should be deleted. Articles listed are debated for at least seven days, after which the deletion process proceeds based on Wikipedia community consensus.

I have no idea where you got a wrong impression. -- Taku (talk) 22:07, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I am more familiar with the Russian section of Wikipedia, and admins make editorial decisions all the time over there. But even in the English section admins make decisions. Please read Decision making. You simply confuse the rules that admins are supposed to follow with their role as decision makers. If no decision by an admin was needed after a debate then a computer program could finalize the discussion following a strict algorithm. In reality, an admin makes a decision using his decision making priviledge, rules and his subjective opinion. Different admins might make different decisions. SA ru (talk) 22:42, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

• If I might butt in here, speaking as a newer admin, you are both sort of correct. In the case of AFDs, the closing admin is expected to analyze the debate and either keep or delete the article based on its content. Speedy deletions, however, can be carried out by an admin without any community input. This is because speedy deletions are only for unequivocal cases where there is no need for a debate. The point is, these supposed "privileges" come with a lot of extra baggage. Admins need to carefully consider the consequences of their admin actions before making them. Even if they make the right decision, they often have to deal with angry users who are upset because they believe the admin acted incorrectly. That is why we have WP:RFA, to weed out those individuals that lack the judgement, restraint, and policy knowledge needed to wield the extra tools. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:54, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

• The keyword here is decision. Admins are entitled to this priviledge, regular users are allowed only to express their opinion, but they are not the ones who decide. Even if the admins always decide correctly (which I doubt) they still decide, and this is their privilege. SA ru (talk) 23:11, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree the keyword is "decision". Whether admins make correct decisions or not cannot be an issue by design. This is because admins don't decide. They are not decision makers, but janitors who we rely on to perform some technical steps, which can be dangerous. Speedy deletions only apply to obvious cases like patent nonsense. They are really not editorial decision: they don't require community input because the results of AfD would be too obvious and editors can use time for other more important stuff. The bottom line is the whole point of admins is to assist editors, and it is the community that make decisions. -- Taku (talk) 12:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Beta version of Wikipedia

Wikipedia article does not contain any information about the new beta feature nor any content about wikipedia's future. Wikipedia staff should do something about this.

Refencing a YouTube video

I've seen youtube videos linked and I believe I have seen them refenced in cases where they were very pertinant such as number of views of the Evolution of Dance video. So, what is the scoop on referencing youtube, or perhaps, some other, more strict video hosting sites, such as how to sites with pro submitted material; what is hte name of that one...192.156.234.170 (talk) 16:08, 28 September 2009 (UTC) Oh yeah, eHow.com was the pro submitted one I was thinking of. 192.156.234.170 (talk) 16:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Umm. Balance???

If I read this article I discover that open editing is the most horrible thing ever, it has only ever been criticised, and nobody has ever said anything good about it. We should obviously give it up immediately! (hint: sarcasm).- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 01:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Just before reading that comment, I had a suggestion myself.There is an article Criticisms of Wikipedia, but, for the sake of balance, I wondered whether there should be an article "Merits of Wikipedia". Top of my list would be how up-to-date Wikipedia is. As of today (October 3 2009), one can already find an article on Bluehenge and find out that the Olympic Games in 2016 will be in Rio de Janeiro - items that have literally only just been in the news on BBC Radio Four within the past forty-eight hours. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 21:28, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, although I think in general it's better to avoid separate pro and con sections.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 22:17, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

You're only supposed to mention stuff when it's been talked about in a secondary source.--99.237.222.73 (talk) 23:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I just happened to read this page, and found it incredibly helpful because it reminded me that the wider public know that wikipedia isn't always balanced, and so it really isn't the end of the world if a few editors take over certain subjects and hi-jack the article. Honesty is the best policy, because you tend to believe those who are honest about their failings even if it's being honest that not everything in wikipedia is free from bias. 88.110.76.120 (talk) 14:10, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Link to Wikiality not working correctly

Currently, in section 5 - Cultural Significance, third paragraph is a link to Wikiality. Previously this had linked to a section of the entry on The Colbert Report entitled Wikipedia References. This has since been moved to the section of the entry "Cultural Impact of The Colbert Report" entitled "Wikipedia References", at this link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_impact_of_The_Colbert_Report#Wikipedia_references

I found it today while randomly clicking links on here. Sorry if this post is weird, it's my first time posting, so forgive me for any mistakes.

Yoshi1277 (talk) 19:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Can one wiki article copy a paragraph from another wiki page?

Title self explanatory. I'm working on a page where a section on a book needs help, and on another page, a List, the book is defined perfectly IMHO. What is the policy on borrowing from another page? Thanks, Randy Kryn (talk) 00:58, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but you need to mention and link to the other page in the edit summary of the edit when you do so in order to comply with the CC-BY-SA attribution requirements. Also, this talkpage is only for discussion of Wikipedia's article on itself, not Wikipedia discussion generally. Your question technically belongs at the WP:Village Pump. --Cybercobra (talk) 01:13, 22 October 2009 (UTC)