Talk:Wikipedia

Countries

Moved to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)#Countries

Conflict of Interest

Shouldn't Wikipedia's rules require this article to be deleted? Everyone who wrote it is a contributor to Wikipedia. 66.81.223.210 (talk) 02:32, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

This comment consitutes gaming the system. No, this article is not COI and is neutral.Jasper Deng (talk) 02:33, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Also the Conflict of Interest page states Conflict of interest is not a reason to delete an article, though other problems with the article arising from a conflict of interest may be valid criteria for deletion. So even if we did have a Conflict of Interest that itself would not be enough of a reason to delete an article as long as the page meets our other policies and guidelines as this page does.--76.66.187.132 (talk) 03:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Graph of the article count is old, needs to be replaced with a newer one.

Please replace "Graph of the article count for the English Wikipedia, from January 10, 2001, to September 9, 2007 (the date of the two-millionth article)." with one that goes up to the present. 71.109.163.149 (talk) 00:33, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Snagging

Snagging is a form of fishing the diffence is that you do not use bait or lures istand you use empty hookes and a lead sinker you cast out into the water and ral your line in jerking as you real —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.7.6.224 (talk) 18:51, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Archives missing

The archives list at the top list 18 archives but the archives on the left only go to archive 13. Could someone with more knowledge on how to fix this, please fix it. 86.162.146.176 (talk) 19:16, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

What makes Wikipedia unique

So to say all other Encyclopedia articles and scientific texts, in publications, magazines and so on, except for Wikipedia, is marked by individual contributors adding their signature, both in the narrow sense of signalling the author and in the broader pertaining to the metaphysic dimension of poetics. The unnavoidable biased elements of any autorship are sort of tamed by the signature, the person, and broader context of the publishing. With Wikipedia this is not the case. The signature-elements of any wikipedia-article are myriadic, complex and pretty impossible to trace. Because of this lack, I think, Wikipedia would benefit from enhancing modest and open forms of making statements. For instant, the Mohammad article was earlier less modest and open in its opening statement: Mohammad is the founder of the religion of Islam. Now, it seems, an editing war has ended. The more modest and open phrase: Mohammad is regarded the founder of the religion of Islam. has become the preferred statement. I believe such language need to be stimulated, because of the absence of signatories. A model author is appearing in the imaginary field. I don't think it is stupid to be aware of this imaginary speaker/writer when writing. In matter of fact, I think it is important to try too "see" if the character of the model author (the imagined author a reader relates to) is male/female, oriental/occidental, old/young and so on. I believe most articles in English is read having predominantly male white personas. Not because of the real or empirical bias of the myriad of editors, but as result of analyzing the use of language codes hinting to characteristics of authorship. --Xact (talk) 18:44, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

I think this is beyond the scope of this talk page, which is really just for discussing improvements to this article, not Wikipedia as a whole. Perhaps you could try the Village Pump. Rehevkor ✉ 19:47, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Reliability

I am sorry, but please do allow me to use my First amendment rights here: I have a really hard time not chuckling at the reliability section here. It states:

• People known to use Wikipedia as a reference source include film critic Roger Ebert, comedian Rosie O'Donnell and University of Maryland physicist Robert L. Park.

If we can name only three people here (one of them a comedian) then we have already lost the reliability debate. This just reads like a joke. Just three people? And one of them is a comedian? Did she write this joke?

Another issue is that it is unclear if we can even believe what Wikipedia says about itself elsewhere. The page for Bradley E. Schaefer says:

• Schaefer is known by students to repeatedly discredit the accuracy of Wikipedia and Google in class and in assignments.

Is that even true? At the moment, it is unreferenced folklore added by an unknown IP. I have no idea if it is true. But overall, I think while we are all busy giving barnstars to each other many people in universities are laughing. That should change - and stopping the flow of junk IP articles and imposing more quality measures on article edits, avoiding spam, and attracting more experts to Wikipedia will be essential.

There are many articles in Wikipedia. What is needed is improving content reliability by attracting and maintaining experts. (Yes, I do know about the mistakes made at Citizendum, but that is a different story.) The first decade of Wikipedia was just a start. In the second decade, Wikipedia needs to get serious and focus on reliability. And that will require a change of attitude. But that must start if the jokes are to end. When the jokes end, we know reliability is within reach.

I am sorry, but I think the reliability section here is just not credible. History2007 (talk) 18:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

How about software that detects when an assertion is made and then blocks publishing it unless it is accompanied by a proper citation? Google already scans websites for SEO and knows how to tell assertions from other types of written speech. Why isn't Wikipedia using this technology? 74.205.144.180 (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Google has a few more dollars (millions and zillions) in their development budget than Wikipedia, which is mostly managed by unpaid people. There are a number of Wiki-software items such as ClueBot that do clever things, but they are typically developed by part time programmers, each on his own, and there is no "large project" AI research at Wikipedia. Yet, I must say that the collection of the many "one man armies" that constitute the Wiki-bots does produce impressive results. However, in time Wiki-technology will improve if conversations can start between these people. Yet the real barrier there will be the usual: clever programmers often do things best on their own and large tech-teams at Wikipedia without a formal management structure may not be immediate. However, so far the one man armies have done Ok, although there is significant room for further improvement. History2007 (talk) 20:13, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

The people-known-to-use-Wikipedia sentence was a very recent addition. I agree that it is weak and so I have deleted the sentence. The rest of what History2007 and 74.205.144.180 have written should not be on this page per WP:TALK. This page is for discussing improvements to this article, not your personal opinions of Wikipedia or how the Wikipedia processes can be improved. Ideas for improving the Bradley E. Schaefer article should be posted on that article's talk page. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:00, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually that sentence was referenced, and not weak, but was "embarrassing" to me as a Wikipedia editor. The way to ask that so it improves the article is: "Are there any serious people who are known to use Wikipedia, say Nobel laureates, etc.?" And I guess the answer will be: "not that we know of". In fairness, my goal (driven by my desire for less shaky content) was to start a process of improvement to make people pay more attention to reliability. As is, the status quo seems to be that "all is fine" - and that is reflected within this article. In fact all is not fine. There are huge reliability gaps and that section is not a reflection of reality. I guess those who read this page are now aware of this, and you can delete this embarrassing talk page section (would like a barn star?) but the problem will not go away by just exiling the Schaefer problem to his own page. The way Wikipedia will get better and will have Nobel laureates using it in 2021 is by having the reality represented within this page, rather than keeping this page an "all is fine" PR-type article. However, a section with the simple "Are there any serious people who are known to use Wikipedia, say Nobel laureates, etc. that can be included in this page?" would then be appropriate here so the situation with respect to that section can be clarified. History2007 (talk) 09:14, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Please assume good faith rather than immediately implying that I might be in this for a barn star. The people-known-to-use-Wikipedia sentence is now in the Reliability of Wikipedia article, which is a more appropriate place, although the sentence is still problematic. The goal of trying to improve content reliability is a good one, but, again, this is not the place to rally support for that goal. Please stop now. If you think that the Wikipedia's coverage of itself is "PR-type", then why not put some work into improving this coverage? I suggest starting with the Reliability of Wikipedia article, especially its lead section. Once that section is improved, the changes can be merged into the Wikipedia article. -- JTSchreiber (talk) 05:12, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

I was not implying that you were looking for a barnstar - and I have never given a barnstar, ever. Above that I had joked that everyone is too busy giving barnstars to each other to worry about reliability. So I joked about that again. And my general feeling is that it would be great if everyone stopped giving barnstars until all reliability problems have been addressed. By the way, I do not think the entire article is PR-like - I was just unhappy with that specific Comedian-user quote and also thought (and still think) the reliability issues need more prominence. As for fixes, I just built two pages for two of the tools that check Wikipedia reliability, and as is Wiki-Watch is not even mentioned here - maybe it should be added later. So over the next year I will address these issues in several articles and write a few more on this topic probably. Reliability is a long term goal and is not achieved in 2 weeks. So wait a year then see how things have shaped up. History2007 (talk) 07:55, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Hey, there is spam. reference 232 brought me to a completely unrelated site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.136.60.148 (talk) 22:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Goethe quotation

I've just removed the following from the section on editing:

Here, as in other human endeavours, it is evident that the active attention of many, when concentrated on one point, produces excellence.

— Goethe, The Experiment as Mediator between Subject and Object, 1772

"Here" was of course not referring to Wikipedia. Such an inclusion seems highly biased towards the idea that the whole Wikipedia project produces excellence. If this quotation has inspired or guided the founders or developers of Wikipedia (and why wouldn't it?) then that should be cited and included as part of the article. If not, it shouldn't be there. Opera hat (talk) 22:36, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Logo/Branding

It would be worth having at least a small section on Wikipedia's logo and branding. --Dweller (talk) 12:46, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Sentence on Articles Containing Errors Contains an Error

"This means that an article may contain contain errors, misguided contributions, advocacy, or even patent nonsense."

I suppose this sentence is proof that this sentence is true?