Talk:Wikipedia

Template:FAOL

Larry Sanger? No Larry Sanger?

Look, I have no opinion on this, but the edit warring has to stop. Please discuss proposed changes to the infobox's "Author:" attribute here before making them. =David^(talk)_(contribs) 01:50, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm willing to discuss it. Jimbo told me on the IRC channel that he founded wikipedia himself.--Trulexicon 04:27, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

That is not verifiable ;-). --Stephan Schulz 04:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

article about wikipedia on wikipedia?????

why?Mariofan1000 20:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Because Wikipedia itself, just like, say, Encyclopedia Brittanica, is a subject worthy of an article, of discussion. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 22:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

This article should be written in first person.

After all, in a sense, wikipedia is talking about itself. Therefore it is possible that the wiki is conscious, and should be construed as an "I". Xhin Give Back Our Membership! 03:44, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

What exactly are you saying? It doesn't really make sense. If you are suggesting that Wikipedia should be referred to in this article in the first person, then you are being ridiculous. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 06:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

This article is like any other article on here, and so it should be written like other articles, and should not be treated any differently. Sebi _[talk] 06:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Dumb Question

What was the first article created on Wikipedia. I have had a look around but I have only found editors/articles from July 01.134.148.5.119 09:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd guess a tie between all the articles imported from Nupedia? See Wikipedia:Nupedia and Wikipedia for a list, including weird things like Donegal fiddle tradition which I believe was originally written by Larry Sanger. 68.175.102.171 04:06, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:UuU for the oldest surviving edit on wikipedia. ffm 20:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Audio file

The audio file really needs to be updated. Any volunteers?Randomblue 18:47, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Google Search Results

I've noticed recently that google has started giving brief summaries of the contents of wiki pages instead of the first sentence or two from the page itself as is usually the case with google search results. As an example, searching for "Arabic Language" the search result for wiki is "Wikipedia article, with links to other articles on Modern Standard and Classical Arabic, as well as other varieties of the language." Is this a google thing or is it a wikipedia thing? TheStripèdOne 16:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia fork

Wikipedia fork redirects to this article. I think the article should say something more about the over 500 Wikipedia forks. Should we use Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks as a reference for that number, or is that too self-referential? --75.48.165.135 15:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It used to redirect to Wikipedia:Sites using MediaWiki, that might be a good idea to make it point to Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks but that's would be a cross namespace redirect. -- lucasbfr ^talk (using User:Lucasbfr2) 15:09, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced statement removed

I am removing the following statement as it has been tagged as needing a source for several months:

• Because of the nature of the "copyleft" license Wikipedia uses, Wikipedia's content has been mirrored and forked by many sites including database dumps.

If anyone can add a source for this, feel free to re-add it. —Angr 19:13, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I support your decision --Youhavenolife 14:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

See WP:MIRROR. ffm 13:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

What is the non-free material?

Many language versions of Wikipedia are free content, while others, such as the English version, include non-free material.--71.234.97.27 21:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

For example, the English Wikipedia includes album covers on articles. Other WP, like the French one, don't do that. You can read more at WP:NFC. -- lucasbfr ^talk 21:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Broken Links

Was discussing irony of criticism against wikipedia for lack of proper citations (had a cite on that XD) went to visit the site listed and was unable to access the page. Someone should look into this, it managed to get wikipedia nearly banned here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Morphoray (talk • contribs) 19:07, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Idea

Wikipedia should let people upload music to certain sites that the music would aply to. Then People could listen to music while there reading.

The music would have to be freely licensed, though. —Angr 14:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Article locked, can someone do an edit by proxy please?

Following is too petty for article (a minor politican raising an unimportant question, of minimal relevance to this article) so I think it should be removed:
On 29 September, 2007, Italian politician Franco Grillini raised a parliamentary question with the Minister of Cultural Resources and Activities about the necessity of freedom of panorama. He said that the lack of such freedom forced Wikipedia, "the seventh most consulted website" to forbid all images of modern Italian buildings and art, and claimed this was hugely damaging to tourist revenues.
Thanks.--82.148.54.193 20:59, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I disagree about the importance of this event. To have Wikipedia mentioned on the floor of the Italian parliament is surely interesting to anyone concerned about Wikipedia's notability. I could not locate the reference provided, to 'Italy Global Nation', a site where 'Wikipedia' was not found, so I replaced it with a citation to the same parliamentary speech at Franco Grillini's web site. EdJohnston 01:07, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

In the future use {{editprotected}}. ffm 16:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

wikipedia globe

Is it just me, or did the wikipedia globe (right above teh search bar) change? 76.109.11.127 02:23, 12 October 2007 (UTC)chewka

Not within the last few years. See Wikipedia:Logos and slogans. ffm 16:21, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

British and american wikipedia?

Is it just me or exist two version of the english wikip edia? Exist it an american wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lordbecket (talk • contribs) 13:43, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

There are two English-language Wikipedias, but they're not an American English version and a British English version. There's the "regular" English Wikipedia (which accepts both British and American usage, as long as an article is internally consistent), and there's the Simple English Wikipedia, designed for readers with a limited vocabulary. —Angr 15:53, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

So what're the rules for the various spellings?

Dsmccohen 09:26, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

See WP:ENGVAR and WP:SPELLING. —Angr 18:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the best encyclopedia ever

Ever. 129.176.151.6 01:26, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

We know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaktibhar (talk • contribs) 15:41, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

This website lies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.83.138.179 (talk) 04:52, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Is Wikipedia primarily run by editors with liberal views?

I am finding that majority of articles ( for ex MoveOn.org articles, Al Gore article ) have a clear liberal slant - yet, I could not find a single page with a conservative slant.

Which leads me to wonder if Wikipedia is primarily a medium for expressing liberal views? - Not that there is anything wrong with it ;) TwakTwik 02:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

A fun project to do would be to use WikiScanner to location map the IP addresses of all changes and then do a cross look up of blue and red states. TwakTwik 02:52, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of editors who are not from the United States. I would guess more than half of them. A.Z. 02:55, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Interesting that you should note some articles having a slant one way or the other; Wikipedia has a strict neutral point of view policy. I'll go check out the ones that you mentioned. Were there any others that you saw having a particular slant one way or another? GlassCobra 02:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Another example would be Bill Clinton's page, specifically around impeachment section TwakTwik 17:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Grammar Problem

There's an incidence of the word "a" before a vowel (the word "internet") in the final sentence of the fourth paragraph. I'd fix it, but the article is locked, and I'm a wikinoob, alas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.103.48.35 (talk) 05:37, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Corrected; thanks for pointing it out! —Angr 05:42, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Vanity

This is just vanity and self-worship. It's even classed as a "good article" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.219.13.209 (talk) 07:32, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Legal issue of Wikipedia

Is Wikipedia under the USA law since the Wikimedia (and main server) locates in the USA? Thanks. --Manop - TH 05:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

yes – Gurch 15:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Repetition?

The word "over" is repeated twice in only two sentences, one succeeding the other.

As of September 2007, Wikipedia had approximately 8.29 million articles in 253 languages, comprising a combined total of over 1.41 billion words for all Wikipedias. The English Wikipedia edition passed the 2,000,000 article mark on September 9, 2007, and as of October 14, 2007 it had over 2,047,000 articles consisting of over 890,000,000 words.

Randomblue 22:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

History/founding

There used to be a section named "history" on this article but it has been vandalized by TheMarioManiac on May 14th, 2007 and it was badly reverted (deletion actually, but the person probably didn't know it was a real section before being vandalized). Then a new similar section ("Founding") has been written on July 6th, 2007. I think this section "history" is really worthy, so can anybody merge it with the new section "founding"? 16@r 22:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

you are great

great site —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.21.117.152 (talk) 15:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

We try. :) GlassCobra 17:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Request: Number of UNIQUE words

The article presents the number of wikipedia's words. Is it possible to inform us and the number of its UNIQUE words? -- Kaseluris, Nikos 06:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Unlock

Could someone please unlock this page? I would like to add some sarcastic criticism of Wikipedia along with some off-colour sexual humour. Thank you. --24.235.231.206 22:55, 20 October 2007 (UTC)