Wikipedia talk:About/Archive 4

10 January
In what year was the 10, January that you refer to? Only a presumptuous person would think that this is clear from the context.but its not —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.171.106.179 (talk) 00:38, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I assume you are talking about the first paragraph in About. It seems clear to me that the year referred to is 2000.--Commander Keane (talk) 01:01, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * 2001, actually. *Dan T.* (talk) 04:03, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The lack of a year caused me to do a double-take just like the unnamed contributor above. Unlike CK, I thought that the year should be 2001, judging by previous dating of the creation of Wikipedia as being in 2001.  Since I find that I am not the only one who questioned this, for the sake of clarity I added the year, 2001, to the February 10.  HTH  --Paine (talk) 03:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Editors intent on improving articles
Just noting that this particular page has an assertion

"As there are many more editors intent on improving articles than not, error-ridden articles are usually corrected promptly."

Wondering -- is there any basis for this statement in terms of actual data ?

--InnocentsAbroad2 (talk) 22:52, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The Clock
Is it just me or is the clock on the statistics box 1 hour behind ?

I purged it at 21:57 3rd august. The time appeared as: 20:57 on August 3, 2009. StephenBHedges (talk) 20:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

A nonsensical link title
At the end of the intro section there's a link titled What Wikipedia is (and is not) which leads to a what wikipedia is not page. OK. This is obviously somebody's failed attempt at humor. Quite as logical as hitting the start button in windoze to shut down... Somebody should rename it to what wikipedia is not. --88.148.205.72 (talk) 18:26, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Beta
I do not know if perhaps this page or the encyclopedia article Wikipedia should mention the Wikipedia Beta, but that would be highly useful considering that there is no information on this website about it. --vizzydix1:-) 22:10, 20 August 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vizzydix1 (talk • contribs)
 * That would belong more on the Wikipedia article than here. You should raise the point on the talkpage. --Cyber cobra (talk) 22:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

pronnunciation
I've never heard "wikipedia" pronounced with the first syllable like "wee", on TV, the radio, or in conversation, and so have deleted the IPA for that. Dictionary.com and the six sound files at forvo.com would appear to back me up. Anyone actually pronounce it rather than ? (And no, we don't care how it's pronounced in Hawaiian. That's irrelevant. If we were concerned with that, we'd transcribe it .) —kwami (talk) 07:07, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm personally the founder of wikipedia, and "Wee" is precisely how I pronounce it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.3.14.177 (talk) 07:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Графички дизајн
Терминот графички дизајн може да се однесува на голем број на уметнички и стручни дисциплини, кои се фокусираат на визуелна комуникација и презентација. Различни методи се користат за да се создададат и комбинират симболи, слики и / или зборови за да создаде визуелна претстава на идеи и пораки. А може да го користи графичкиот дизајнер типографија, визуелната уметност и распоред страница техники за производство на конечниот резултат. Графички дизајн и често се однесува на процесот (дизајнирање), со која е основан и комуникациски производи (дизајн), која се произведуваат.

Заедничка употреба на графички дизајн вклучува и списанија, реклами на производи и пакувањето. На пример, еден производ пакет може да содржи логото или други уметнички дела, во организација на текст и чист дизајн елементи како форми и боја која ги обедини парче. Состав е еден од најважните белези на графички дизајн, особено кога се користи постоечки материјали или различни елементи. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gonce88 (talk • contribs) 19:56, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

how much were collected of the bir last 2008-2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.54.32.100 (talk) 10:09, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

About sub-page
Per requests from some editors on AN/I, I have created a sub-page for IP and new users to comment, given the volume of unproductive edits made to this page. Wikipedia talk:About/New and anonymous editors is the page in question. If you watch this page currently, please watch that page too and respond as best as possible. Thanks. Protonk (talk) 19:32, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

First paragraph
I think there is overlinking in the first paragraph. Some of the links don't really make much sense, and I don't think we want to encourage readers to click away from the article before they have even read the first paragraph. I suggest reducing the number of links. Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 01:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Contents
I thinkt that the contents of this page is rather long winded but i like to thank the person who contributed it because it is very useful! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.12.26.142 (talk) 12:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Page moved. Ucucha 14:51, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

About → Help:About — As well as a means of segregating information based on readership, the namespaces determine what sort of content can be expected. Wikipedia namespace is the project namespace and should be kept for editing and all other related pages. The Help namespace should be for help. This page is primarily for reader help and therefore should not be in Wikipedia namespace (which is for editors). Help:About current redirects to this page. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 10:19, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Survey

 * Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with  or  , then sign your comment with  . Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's policy on article titles.



Discussion

 * Any additional comments:
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Regarding the request above.. seems there was no discussion at all. However I'd like to re-open this discussion because I think this page should be moved back to its original and long-held title. About is linked pretty much everywhere, including at the very bottom of every page (in both monobook and vector). Considering it's literally part of the interface it's probably better if the link doesn't redirect. -- &oelig; &trade; 11:08, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

With the sole exception of this one page, Alan Liefting's comment regarding namespaces is valid and I totally agree with it. -- &oelig; &trade; 11:34, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Not underground
Wikipedia is not a counter-cultural or subversive organization. In the free world people express their truth openly. People even stand for office and confront controversy honestly. This encyclopedia need not increase fear. The article says
 * Users can contribute anonymously, under a pseudonym, or with their real identity, if they choose, though the latter is discouraged for safety reasons.

Many users are easily identified and located by their user names, and this article about the project need not say there is a safety concern.Rgdboer (talk) 21:52, 22 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you User:Cybercobra for eliminating the final eight words cited above. Further, we have had ten days in which there has been no reaction. The invitation has lost its ominous tone.Rgdboer (talk) 01:31, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Pillars, please?
Would it be helpful if the pillars were displayed on this page, to help new editors know what's most important (at least theoretically)? There is a link to them but it's buried, rather than prominent. Thanks for considering, Postpostmod (talk) 12:32, 25 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Agreed, I'll give the pillars a link more prominently in the lead. -- &oelig; &trade; 14:55, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Credits
I've added a brief paragraph on credits. The CC-BY license requires that we give attribution, and while Wikipedians know that this is done by looking at the page history, for text, and clicking on an image, I could find no place where this is made clear to the casual user. --agr (talk) 10:33, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Not Wikileaks
Should we add a section to the About page to indicate no affiliation with Wikileaks? We have received many questions about this on OTRS. 7 04:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
 * There's a selfref note on WikiLeaks. I think that's more than sufficient. Mentioning them here would give them way too much importance and credit. --Cyber cobra (talk) 07:37, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

content of cookies
Now that Wikimedia uses cookies, and since the Wall Street Journal months ago tested some leading websites for privacy issues and found that Wikipedia was not using cookies, we probably should explain what our cookies do, so that it's clear what they don't do, such as (I assume) remembering a reader's search for cancer treatments, information that affects privacy if third parties can buy the information from firms who read the cookies without Wikimedeia's or the reader's consent or knowing cooperation. We already discuss a little of this. Would someone who knows the subject of what Wikimedia stores on cookies please edit this section? Thanks. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC) (Corrected by adding the subject/title to this section, intended as new: 04:14, 23 January 2011 (UTC))

Hey about the 3 British soldier were killed by a US Jet fight planes in August 23, 2007?
The reason i tried to take it out on the "list of post-1945 of British victims by the United States military" is because i don't want people to think it's a US-on-UK friendly fire. It was clearly a Brit-on-Brit Friendly Fire. It was well-documented that the British Foward Air-Controller will face Manslaughter charges so the US was not to blame for this. I mean some one look it it and just blame on the US. Especially when Brits(even today) are very quick to blame this on the US despite the fact it was proven it was the fault of the British FAC giving the bad coordinates to the US pilot. That's why i'm trying to take it out many times and yet someone still post it in there. I do not want people(mostly foreigners) to continue to believe it was the Americans fault for this. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1038781/British-soldier-faces-manslaughter-charges-Afghanistan-friendly-deaths.html

if u get my message thank u. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulioetc (talk • contribs) 09:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Ten Simple Rules
I came across Ten Simple Links for Editing Wikipedia while reviewing library resource collections, and thought it might be worth adding to External links, alongside The Missing Manual. I don't want to add it myself, as I do't know if it's already been discussed, is unknown, or is in any conflict with any guidelines. So here it is. If you want to add it, fine. If not, also fine. Flatterworld (talk) 06:38, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

Notation
The use of NPOV and Consensus to arrive at the contents of an article can lead to the problem of leading to the inability of any discussion of less agreed on alternative such as was often the subject of discussion in the earlier editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and other scientific publications. This makes for a unbalance in the tone of discussion of the topic.WFPM (talk) 22:50, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

For instance, I can detect a considerable bias within Wilipedia against the Janet Periodic table, which only recently has been imported from Europe, and which has a considerably less degree of coverage as to its potential utility, both in Chemistry and in Physics considerations. And I find it hard to make any headway against the predominant preference of the editors in favor of the standard Periodic table. And maybe this is all for the best, And I hope so.WFPM (talk) 23:09, 2 November 2011 (UTC) See Charles Janet.WFPM (talk) 23:18, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Constant corrections
Wikipedia is a great idea a way of tapping the worlds knowledge on countless subjects. But it is spoilt by too many vandals, busy bodies and no-it-alls. I am relatively inexperienced when it comes to writing these articles and it takes me an age to do so. I don't mind my English or formatting of articles being corrected so they conform to 'Wiki' standards. But I have lost the will for further contributions, as I have neither the time nor inclination to constantly correct factual errors, or argue about references with people who 'think' they know what they are talking about.

There was a long debate over the reliability of Ancestry sources, which I was asked to contribute, sorry I have a life, the debate was long winded, petty and trivial, there were too many people passing comments on things they don't understand. Yes there are errors in census returns, the 1841-1901 were filled in by an enumerator, however the 1911 census [primary source] was filled in by the head of the household [how many of our ancestors were fully literate?] and so it too contains mistakes. Just like there are in BMD certificates, how many illegitimate brides and grooms gained fathers, or married when they were supposedly single or widows [but were still married], names spelt wrong or swapped around and even wrong/conflicting dates, birth certificate says one date, death certificate another! BUT these are just as reliable as newspaper articles or books and biographies, its not like they don't make mistakes or offer conflicting information or go on to repeat the same mistakes in new articles. To prove relationships a family tree is the only thing we can reference sometimes. The GRO [a secondary source] offers a reference in order to obtain the certificates which you couldn't upload to WIKI as they would be copyrighted. I am a keen and experienced family historian and have a few 'notable' distant cousins in my tree for which I have provided facts/information to their biographies on WIKI. However facts keep getting changed and/or references removed, by people who haven't got a clue, especially on working out what is a bad or good family tree [more than one primary source to support the information] Suggest otherwise how you can prove family links/knowledge without the aid of these sources? OR how for example the family-tree for the Royal family on Wiki is acceptable but others aren't.

The article on Dennis HIRD is a case in point. Yes he is a distant cousin to me [1st cousin 3 x removed to be precise] he died 50 years before I was born, he was not known to me, my family or my grandmother [they were 1st cousins once removed]. I have been accused of expressing a bias [I wrote the article based on the facts I found and I referenced them]. I came by my knowledge after extensively researching HIRD for 10 + years. I have looked at countless newspaper articles, books, biographies, letters on him and by him and backed up these facts with census returns and BMD certificates. So I think I am a 'bit' of an expert on his life, yet the facts keep getting changed or references to his family discounted. He is also included in a chapter of a book I had published on his family [freely available on the internet and royalty free] This was written using the exact references/information as I had used for the WIKI article, BUT the book [a secondary source] is OK for reference purposes BUT some of the primary reference material isn't!

I would have liked to have added more facts, information and photographs to the numerous articles on here, to which I could have contributed further. However life is too short to waste it constantly correcting the same things, or spent on petty arguments.

MBorrill (talk) 09:07, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Reader feedback: Make the left hand side link...
70.74.163.6 posted this comment on 10 July 2013 (view all feedback).

"Make the left hand side links more eye catching. Or maybe run a little banner some time saying that this info is available, maybe saying something like 'Interested in how wiki works? links on the left provide in depth explanations/information'. I've always wondered and never even thought to look at the left hand side to read what was listed there because it never caught my attention and I just assumed it was for editors or someone other than me. I'm always using wiki focusing on the info I want so my line of vision is on the center of the page not browsing around the site but I would have read this a lot sooner if it was brought to my attention that this information is available. It's embarrassing to me that I didn't know this information was available and that I never even looked for it.  I even commented on the fundraiser feedback page that it 'should' be on wiki.  Maybe it should be part of the wording of the fundraiser so people can assess the value of the information they receive but this page does brings attention to potential vandalism and false info so maybe it would hurt the fundraiser for those who believe the information is totally reliable."

Any thoughts?

BV talk 23:31, 11 July 2013 (UTC)

Reader feedback
It seems that a majority of people clicking on the link "About Wikipedia" are actually looking for contact information (phone # or e-mail), where to donate and about Jimbo Wales. Raykyogrou0 ( Talk ) 12:03, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Disclaimers link
Per a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/RFC on medical disclaimer, I would like to suggest adding a Disclaimers link at the end of the navigation bar at the top of the About page. It would add very little clutter and would give our disclaimers greater visibility.--agr (talk) 15:21, 15 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What I am suggesting requires changing a template which may be overkill. Instead I'm adding a mention to the end of the intro.--agr (talk) 12:34, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

A misspelled word
This: "non-specialists" is misspelled. The word is "nonspecialists". Please correct this spelling. In common nouns and common adjectives, the prefix "non" is never hyphenated onto anything, and we can find 100 correct examples. Here are a few: nonbeliever, nonconductor, nonfunctional, nongermaine, nonhuman, nonliving, nonmaterial, nonmetal, nonoptimal, nonparticipant, nonrural, nonsense, and nonverbal. 98.67.111.72 (talk) 00:13, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Done - WP:HYPHEN seems to indicate that for this usage, this is correct, also nonspecialist. It doesn't seem to be one of the exceptions listed at WP:HYPHEN. Thank you. Begoon &thinsp; talk 02:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

for reference: - see also Wikipedia talk:About/New and anonymous editors.

Ok Ayoyonetizen (talk) 21:06, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Open new browser tab for "discussion" ("talk")
When switching to "discussion" ("talk" for English readers, I guess), why not automatically open a new tab (target = "_blank" type)? I know that the reader can do that her- or himself with Ctrl-click, but as she usually thinks only later that she wants to refer to a detail in the main text, and she hadn’t been aware that the discussion will replace the main entry, she didn’t think about opening a new tab by Ctrl right away, etc. – Your are welcome to remove this entry here after reading. Fritz Jörn (talk) 05:44, 19 February 2017 (UTC)


 * You could open a new Phabricator ticket if you like; however, users will quickly learn that a right-click on the "Talk" or "Discussion" link gives the option to open in a new tab. Thank you very much for your suggestion!   Paine Ellsworth   put'r there  19:02, 9 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Rightly. That may be a better idea, Paine. What I really would like: To be able to reference deeply into a referenced text and pre-scrolling to the proper location there, eg having the “receiving” browser automatically searching for some keywords I selected. Thus you could pinpoint deeply into a source text, even if it does not have name or div entry points. But I doubt that HTML offers that. – Fritz Jörn (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:23, 11 March 2017 (UTC)
 * yes, that would be nice, but you're probably right about the HTML. The closest thing for me would be search link or just using my browser's "Find on this page" option in the "Edit" menu.  Best to you!   Paine Ellsworth   put'r there  15:51, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Simple.
Simple thing about Wikipedia.

It is a great wiki/site. Its a wiki/site where people can share their knowledge with other people.

Agree Mtemar (talk) 10:54, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Hey I think so too and thank you for that Kat strout (talk) 16:52, 25 March 2017 (UTC)

Survey
Hey all,

I'm looking into doing some research about the things that users seek out help for. If noone has any objections I'd like to add a brief survey to this page to collect some anonymous data about what people are looking for and how we can help them better. I'd like to add this in the next week or so. Ping me if anyone has any issues with this. Seddon (WMF) (talk) 22:58, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Kinds of Phonetic Alphabets
... is a subject worth studying. RCNesland (talk) 19:03, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Accessibility
Felt pretty compelled to mention that I find the small text, that my browser's 200% text size setting doesn't increase, difficult. It is discouraging to constantly scroll back and forth. Dcebr (talk) 15:23, 29 August 2019 (UTC)
 * What specific text are you referring to? Text on the page About? —  xaosflux  Talk 17:01, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes. The text that the articles are scripted in. Dcebr (talk) 20:04, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

General comment on Wikipedia's reliability
After attempting to contribute sourced information, contributions that I phrased using nonbiased language and based on reputable sources (NY Times, Bloomberg News), I found myself in a real-time edit war with, perhaps, who knows, ...

The next day, as an educator in Silicon Valley, I found myself in a learning opportunity with 5th graders doing research, and I conveyed to my 5th-grade students, with great emphasis, that Wikipedia is an unreliable source of information.

Wikipedia is an extremely unreliable source of information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schnuppiepup (talk • contribs) 07:41, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

Explain MOS:EGG to readers
The section § Basic navigation in Wikipedia doesn't properly demonstrate that Wikipedia follows MOS:EGG. The paragraph has some confusing text like "this" which should never appear on Wikipedia per MOS:EGG. Also telling readers, Holding the mouse over the link will often show to where the link will lead. will make them think that it's common that links are unintuitive, while MOS:EGG requires links to be intuitive. w umbolo  ^^^  08:51, 9 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The section doesn't look egregiously wrong to me, although perhaps some phrasings could be improved. That Wikipedia links are supposed to be intuitive is something that I think most readers pick up without it needing to be explicitly pointed out to them. And MOS:EGG isn't followed perfectly, so telling readers they can check by looking at the tooltip doesn't seem like bad advice. Sdkb (talk) 07:48, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Adding an image to top?
I think it would be nice to add some sort of visual element at the top of this page, since the stats (while nice; they should be kept) don't add much visual appeal by themselves. Here are two candidates:

The first one has the drawback of being racially specific in a way that could reinforce stereotypes about Wikipedians, and the second one has the drawback of being oddly shaped unless cropped, so I'd be open to other suggestions, too, if anyone finds any. Sdkb (talk) 17:32, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Update: I found a better one, File:Wikipedia Community cartoon - high quality.png, and added it. Sdkb (talk) 22:43, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Statistics of Wikipedia
The statistics in the article are derived with  however this includes both active and closed wikis (there are currently 12 closed wikis). To calculate for active wikis use. This seems like a more fair/accurate way, except when displaying historical numbers.

Example: -- Green  C  15:52, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * sounds good to me. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 16:46, 21 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Excellent thanks (this is a new feature of NUMBEROF as of a few hours ago). --  Green  C  17:24, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Reducing the amount of content about contributing
This is obvious but worth stating — one of the biases that all regular Wikipedia contributors have is that we're inclined, way more than your average visitor to the site, to focus on the act of contributing to Wikipedia as opposed to the act of just casually reading it. (WP:READER, although that's not saying quite the same thing) This page is the reader introduction to Wikipedia, though, not the contributor introduction, so I think we ought to significantly reduce the amount here about contributing. We're not going to have room here for a stand-alone mini-tutorial on contributing, so it's better to just note that readers can also contribute and then point them to better places to learn more. Would there be support for that? Sdkb (talk) 07:55, 23 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Mulling this over, I still feel similarly, but I think the page is also way too long in general. So when I get around to revamping it, I'll probably make it much shorter overall. The details can go in Wikipedia or in other WP-space pages. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 07:56, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm going to start going through and making some cuts. If anyone else is here and wants to discuss plans, feel free to let me know. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 02:39, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree whole article could use a big trim. Let's make sure it's not an advertisement for other pages.....give real information here on what to do. Registration is up because of COVID but retention is way down. Let try to give consumable information on this one page.-- Moxy 🍁 03:04, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Edit button
Button has changed its look. Could be changed. EnTerbury (talk) 17:26, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Wikipedia" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Wikipedia:Wikipedia. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 25 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. the ultraUsurper 05:17, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:EDIA" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Wikipedia:EDIA. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 19 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. 🌸 1.Ayana 🌸 (talk) 10:54, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Editnotice about keeping this page simple/streamlining
Following the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Help Project, an editnotice has been added to a bunch of help pages targeted specifically at newcomers. This notice, which appears above the editing box (not to people just reading the page normally), will hopefully help prevent WP:CREEP. This page is one of the more bloated pages on Wikipedia (it needs some TNT at this point, really), so I think it could benefit from the notice as well; would others agree? &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 17:39, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Seeing no replies, I'm going to go ahead and add the notice. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 08:22, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Additional images available
I tried adding three decorative images, which were removed by Moxy. I won't argue the reversion since I don't feel like having to explain why this page isn't Wikipedia and therefore doesn't need to go by MOS:IMAGEREL, but I do want to plop them here for the record, since we'll need to do a fundamental redesign of this page at some point and these files might be useful when we do. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 07:06, 23 December 2020 (UTC)