Talk:Wikipedia

This is not the page to ask for help with using Wikipedia or other random questions.

Correct

Does anyone have any statistics on how correct Wikipedia is? I've heard reports of about 80% of things on the website are "correct" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.106.195.48 (talk) 15:19, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

See Reliability of Wikipedia. -mattbuck (Talk) 15:23, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

 Is it possible to buy a wikipedia t-shirt, or sweatshirt.  I'm big on wikipedia and I want to show others how great wikipedia is!!

Criticism of Wikipedia

I understand the emotional feeling of wanting to avoid a section with "Criticism" in the title, but the current solution of slipping in a link to Criticism of Wikipedia under the section "Reliability and bias" just isn't a good enough solution because the criticisms of Wikipedia extend far beyond reliability or bias issues. We need to give criticisms of Wikipedia its own section with a further reading link to Criticism of Wikipedia. JayKeaton (talk) 16:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

I think it is the difficulty of finding the good organization of Wikipedia-related materials that is the reason why we don't have the criticism section (in addition to the direction given at Wikipedia:Criticism), and not because we let our "emotional feelings" get in the way. I probably made this point before, but I think the Criticism of Wikipedia article shouldn't exist in the first place. It's not a good way to organize materials. Some criticism are on the reliability of Wikipedia; some on the Wikipedia community. Consequently, the problem with that article is that the article is simply a collection of any sorts of criticism ever made on Wikipedia. That's not an intelligent organization. We need to connect causes to effects; policy and editorial decisions to consequences; censorships and review process to reliability and banning of access to Wikipedia, etc. I think the organization of this article makes more sense than how Wikipedia-related contents are organized currently. In article, we begin with the discussion on the editing model, since, everything else - the popularity of WIkipedia and the public reaction to it - follows it. The reliability of Wikipedia matters precisely because the public relies on it. Without making this connection explicit, it is pointless to discuss how erroneous Wikipedia is at some parts, for instance. Given how much academic studies are done on the editing process and the community in Wikipedia, the discussion should be on both how Wikipedia and how the public perceives Wikipedia. Anyway, to sum up, I don't think the form of criticism is the best way to achieve the improved clarity. -- Taku (talk) 23:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Two minor issues

Hello, there are two things I think should (possibly) be addressed. Sorry that they're unrelated, but I didn't feel like creating two headings. :)
1. The claim that "Wikipedia also does not censor itself" isn't actually true. This is not a criticism, mind you, simply a statement of fact. Ignoring the frequent application of the 'badsites' proposed policy (I'm assuming that never made it through, right? Nevertheless it's been enforced repeatedly), the simple fact is, even WP:BLP is enough to prove that wikipedia is censored.

I'm not saying that it shouldn't be censored. I can certainly see a great value in the idea that I can't edit Richard Gere's article to introduce a certain well-known but irritating urban legend. However, the fact remains, I can't do that(again, I don't want to do that, either. I'm just pointing out that I couldn't even if I wanted to). Official wikipedia policy disallows certain statements from being made, and that's censorship. As such, I don't think it's appropriate to make the claim that "Wikipedia also does not censor itself"; particularly without any evidence supporting that assertion.

2. For this issue, I'm not suggesting that it necessarily be addressed in the article; just that it be addressed here (and you can do whatever you like from there). I'm sure many of you have read by now that Wikipedia has been blocked by British ISPs for, well, child pornography. (I'm sure you could all find your own references, but it's mentioned here and here.

I'm not going to comment on whether or not the concerns are legitimate or warranted (that has nothing to do with this article), however... if, say, moveon.org were blocked by several ISPs for child pornography, and there was no shortage of reliable sources covering the issue, wouldn't that fact be in the article almost immediately? I know that there's a difference between wikipedia and a 'news site', and all that, but, seriously, wouldn't you expect that sort of thing to be added to any other site's article? (again, when sufficient reliable sources were provided)
(btw, I had a terrible time trying to format this so that it'd all be readable. If anyone can reformat it to make it easier to address this, please feel free to do so)209.90.134.188 (talk) 22:01, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the second issue is. Is it the British ban on Wikipedia? (I only added a link to IWF block of Wikipedia without elaboration on the event just because I don't know the details.) It seems the issue is only one: censorship. Anyway, as for the first one, Wikipedia does claim that it does not censor itself: Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_censored. I can see a point of rewriting the sentence a bit to clarify the issue, though. In general, it is much more difficult to explain what Wikipedia does in the reality than to simply describe what the public or the Wikipedia editors perceive what it does. What is true is that Wikipedia contains materials that some people find offensive and this isn't without a repercussion, just as we have found out recently. I guess it would be easier if we simply leave the question (whether Wikipedia is censored or not) unanswered. Also, I noticed it is probably more important to emphasize the consequence of the immediate availability of changes to the article. Wikipedia simply does not have a built-in mechanism to censor anything in it. -- Taku (talk) 22:58, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

My point in the second issue was in whether or not the main article about "Wikipedia" should include the fact that it's currently blocked by several british ISPs for child pornography. (It seems like it should probably, or at least possibly, be mentioned right in the main article)

As for the censoring thing, I'd have no objection to changing it to saying that wikipedia claims to not be censored, but I think you're right about it probably being better to change it to explaining that there's no built-in mechanism for censoring anything. It gets around the issue of whether or not it's censored, while still retaining the original point quite nicely. :) 209.90.134.188 (talk) 23:10, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

saharpada

it is a village under keonjhar district.It has a population of 20,000. YOU CAN USE OUR PICTURES —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.177.204.38 (talk) 17:26, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Odd sentence in lead

When Time magazine recognized "You" as its Person of the Year 2006, praising the accelerating success of online collaboration and interaction by millions of users around the world, Wikipedia was the first particular "Web 2.0" service mentioned, followed by YouTube and MySpace.

This really sounds like gloating; "Hey we're mention first! Haha let's publicise this!" So what if it was the first? Does that make Wikipedia better than the other two? No. So why not just say "Wikipedia was one of the "Web 2.0" service mentioned, along with YouTube and MySpace." or something?--Toda98 (talk) 22:40, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I never thought of that before. Is it such a big deal? Wikipedia is in fact mentioned first. Anyway, I'm not against the change, though. I think a bigger issue with the sentence is that it is rather one particular piece of facts. Wikipedia has received numerous awards, including one from the Economist. (Is this mentioned in the culture section, I don't recall.) Why Time's one so special? Since the lead should summarize the article, and since the third paragraph in the lead is about the social and cultural impacts of Wikipedia, it makes more sense to discuss matters more generally rather than giving a concrete example. -- Taku (talk) 13:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

la crise au niveau social —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.251.70.102 (talk) 19:40, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

This article about Wikipedia should be a positive example of its own editing policies and guidelines, in this case, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view; I've revised the sentence accordingly, as per that editing policy. One should be striving to achieve neutral point of view and maintaining emphasis that accurately represents the emphasis of the source being cited in the source citation (endnote). The order of examples is not significant in the passage in the source. Nothing is made of the order. Wikipedia is a web-based encyclopedia, YouTube is a video service owned by Google, and MySpace is a social networking service; they are "apples and oranges"--different kinds of examples of the web-based 2.0 utility/phenomenon being illustrated. --NYScholar (talk) 00:24, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Mnoon (talk) 10:40, 23 December 2008 (UTC) I just thought it should be appropriate to mention abou tthe Wikipedia's need for donations. But I would like to get something back more tangable for my donation such as a certificate so I can during a Birthday or Christmas give my son or other kin a certificate for donating like 100 bucks in their name. I think that would be a cool gift, and a good way to also support the worlds greatest Encyclopedia.