Misplaced Pages

So much duplication in the wikipedia.

Man, so many articles have duplicate info. Like where a regular encolopedia would just say "", wikipedia will actually have one or two paragraphs specifically on blah. Look at Nuclear reactor/Nuclear Power/Nuclear fission articles for instsance holly shit am I stoned!!!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.231.179.83 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Misplaced Pages is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the Edit this page link at the top. The Misplaced Pages community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). -- ReyBrujo (talk) 01:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Some of this is due to making each article be complete, so an article on nuclear reactor is likely to summarize what is needed for a sustained nuclear fission reaction before explaining which parts of a reactor are needed in order to provide each of those requirements. The flow of the article might make such duplication less obvious in a perfect article, but an article which has been edited piecemeal is more likely to acquire rough points which need polishing. Read over the whole article and see what needs to be copyedited. -- SEWilco (talk) 02:59, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

See also Misplaced Pages:Editing Under the Influence. Obuibo Mbstpo (talk) 11:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Definite Article?

I have recently taken notice of a singular phenomenon occuring here on Misplaced Pages. For it appears that a number of articles have utterly neglected to insert a definite article in its appropriate place. Is this some sort of new 'Misplaced Pages dialect'? Or is this merely an error caused by dint of a meagre translator? One example, ' Rurik remained in power until his death in 879. His successors (the Rurik Dynasty), however, moved the capital to Kiev and founded the state of Kievan Rus, which persisted until 1240, the time of Mongol invasion.' I believe that I have seen this error some seven or eight times over the course of the past week and wish to discover the reason behind it. Thank you for any response. -- 4.159.77.219 (talk) 02:41, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This is probably just a simple mistake. It's a common tendency to read over mistakes after having read the article a number of times. Nothing to worry about, this happens everywhere, from government reports to newspapers to online encyclopedias. If you come across such an error, feel free to fix it. Aecis 02:53, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Polish, Russian and other Slavic languages have different grammatical rules for the definite article when compared to English. Hence English articles edited by speakers of these languages may be missing the definite article where English speakers would always use it. That's the normal reason why it's missing. No big deal. It's always easily fixed. -- Derek Ross | Talk 14:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Requests for adminship/Zedla

Just a notice that this RfA is currently running in the Bureaucrats' discretionary zone and closes in a few hours. It would be good if more of the community would participate, to help make consensus clear, as currently fewer than 50 editors have participated. --Dweller (talk) 11:50, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

An early mystery

Just for fun, i thought i would try and find an earlier edit than UuU. I have come accross a new mystery though. Who or what was User:dhcp-22-95.lclark.edu? At first glance, it appears as if it is made up and not registered. I however did not just pluck this from thin air. Why it is not registered is a mystery. It does however exist as a user, according to here. Simply south (talk) 13:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Quite a few of the 2001 edits are messed up. This happened during the changeover from the original WP wiki software to the mark II and mark III versions. For another example take a look at the Doctor Who article. The history shows me as the earliest author (which I'm not) but if you go back through diffs you'll see that my Nov 2001 edit links back to an earlier edit from Sept 2002! -- Derek Ross | Talk 14:24, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I've also noticed this (a while back and this was explained then) with the history of the Main Page. Simply south (talk) 14:51, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Zero-sum BLP

I've written this (rather short) essay about BLP; basically we need to be fair to all living persons, not just the ones we have articles about or the ones who put in complaints to OTRS. —Random832 14:45, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Spelling error in Hans Scholl Article on Misplaced Pages

http://en.wikipedia.org/Hans_Scholl

"He showed no fear of dieing for a great cause." That should be 'dying.' It's the last sentence in the paragraph before the one sentence long paragraph (or more simply put, the second sentence from the bottom).

Can someone correct this, please?

Anyone can edit... why not fix it yourself? Blueboar (talk) 15:04, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Discordianism (Kerry Wendell Thornley) Hoax / joke

have noticed numerous articles which are in fact jokes and/or hoaxes and vandalism related to Discordianism. discordianism is a fictional creation of Robert Anton Wilson. Allot of Robert Anton Wilson's work is based on blurring fact and fiction, but it seems that this has infiltrated Misplaced Pages and there are many articles which are presenting fictional characters or Wilson's as though they were real. Its a funny joke but I think it's a serious threat to the credibility of Misplaced Pages, and underscores the Achilles heel of the collaborative nature of wikipedia. If allot of people think its amusing, its fairly easy to use Misplaced Pages to distort the truth. Rich.lewis (talk) 17:17, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

I had believed that Discordianism was created by Gregory Hill (writer) and Kerry Wendell Thornley, who were friends of Anton Wilson's. Is there reason to believe that he invented them? Algebraist 18:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Other than those two bios (if that), could you give several examples of articles that you think are hoaxes? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we can ignore this - based on this comment on Popefauvexxiii's user page, Rich.lewis seems to be making a rather deadpan joke. DenisMoskowitz (talk) 14:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Seen any flowers lately?

As springtime comes to the Northern Hemisphere, a lot of Wikipedians will notice flowers blooming in the gardens, lawns, and wild places in their regions. If you're wondering what these plants are (and whether there's a good article about them yet), you might be able to find them on the Wikiversity Bloom Clock using either local or global keys.

Whether or not you know plants, Wikiversity does need your help in telling us what flowers are blooming where, and when. To begin logging plants in bloom, all you need to do is tell us where in the world you are, and then it's as simple as typing *~~~~ on a log page. The more regions we get data from the better, and the more people logging from any particular region the better as well.

The Bloom Clock is Wikiversity's first, oldest, and most well-developed research effort, and has collected data for hundreds of flowering plants, including some of the most common garden plants and weeds. Participating an excellent way to become more aware of your environment, as well as being a way to show the world that the Wikimedia community can be a valuable component in the academic world (the data we collect here can be of great use to agriculturists, horticulturists, ecologists, among others). If you're the first from your region, 10 plants during one month gets the prize: one of the veteran users will start a key for your region, so that your neighbors will be able to find an easy answer to "what's that plant?" too. --SB_Johnny | 16:13, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Georgia articles

By studying the discussion at Talk:Georgia, I see that there appears to be a lot of evidence that Georgia (country) will be moved to Georgia, which means that people are trying so hard now compared to in 2004. Any Wikipedian able to put at their user name space User:(user name)/Wikipedia in 2004 and 2008 that talks about how Misplaced Pages has changed that makes Wikipedians try so hard in 2008 to want Georgia (country) at Georgia?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Reference desk and WP:NOT

I've been pretty active on Misplaced Pages for a couple years. I've never taken advantage of the Misplaced Pages:Reference desk before, mostly because I figure if I'm going to ask fellow volunteers to spend their time working on my questions, there'd better be a darn good reason for it.

Yesterday I posted my first question at the Humanities reference desk, hoping for a little assistance in getting an article over the final hump to FA. My question has gone ignored, which is not in itself a problem.

But what irks me is that the discussions generating the most interest are open-ended chats, like "Who is the greatest king of England" and "What is political correctness."

I feel that maintaining a forum like this, without any pushback on open-ended discussion unrelated to actual research, gives newcomers exploring it a very inaccurate and poor first impression of Misplaced Pages. I'm not sure what to do about it, or where to discuss it. But it bugs me. -Pete (talk) 20:27, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

You might want to bring this up at Misplaced Pages talk:Reference desk. Algebraist 18:35, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I had a problem with the Reference Desk too. It seems too often a forum for trolling. And when I have a legitimate question, like the one about whether I could catch anything from having my girlfriend perform oral sex on me when she had a bad strep throat, I got censored. Average White Dork (talk) 05:07, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Films coordinator elections

The WikiProject Films coordinator selection process is starting. We are aiming to elect five coordinators to serve for the next six months; if you are interested in running, please sign up here by March 28! Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 10:19, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

"Reference bot"

There was a discussion in Aug-Sep of last year (here) about making a bot that would change, e.g.

<ref>http://www.easy-ubuntu-linux.com/ubuntu-african-word.html</ref>

into

<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.easy-ubuntu-linux.com/ubuntu-african-word.html
|title=Ubuntu's African Roots
|accessdate=2007-06-06}}</ref>

It looks like someone wrote a script to find pages to fix, but no bot was ever written.

Does anyone know of something like this? e.g. a bot actually exists, or people are working on one?

Thanks! WalterGR (talk | contributions) 19:39, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Poet laureates

Forgive me if I have come to the wrong place for an answer for my question. I was unable to find another avenue for my inquiry. I was on the page for poet laureates and wanted to know if a singer/songwriter is eligible for the appointment of poet laureate in the United States Congress? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theresaduplessis (talk • contribs) 19:47, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Is Misplaced Pages fostering piracy by education Web viewers about DRM technology and DRM-piracy?

Greetings,

I feel concerned about wikipedia unintentionnally fostering DRM-piracy by informing Web viewers (and teens) about ways to crack DRM music titles and methods used. 
I am not saying that Misplaced Pages.org is directly explaining how to do it, but a malicious user could gain valuable general information on which strategy to operate to breakthrough the DRM licence.
The topic about the "analog hole" I feel is very technical and I myself wasn't aware of its existence.
 One can't foster respect of legality and free sharing of information if that information in turn can help malicious people.
 Maybe Misplaced Pages should strenghten its ethical code by filtering information according to the audience?

For example, the DRM page (http://en.wikipedia.org/Digital_Rights_Management#Methods_to_bypass_DRM) shouldn't be targeted to teens or young people who would be tempted to crack DRM licences. How to do this, I don't know. It might be utopic, since blocking access according to age, country, or status could be seen as discrimination and technically very difficult or impossible. One of copyright holders dream would be to force Web users to share their identity before having access to Internet (so that they can control who is downloading, etc). But that would BIG BROTHER Level 150 and I hope this will not happen anyday. But if the USA does it, then Europe (and the world)would follow, and citizens would have to respect laws,even related to the Internet. But let's face it: porn sites ask if one is under 18 or not because of the content.(and because it's the law). Could one extend the thinking to strategic information contained within Misplaced Pages articles? Should content editors and writers sign a chart of ethic before postin an article on Misplaced Pages? Filtering of information does not belong to Misplaced Pages, true. It is a matter of personal responsibility and personal ethics, true. But is also a matter of PUBLIC POLICY (so it is the government responsibility to manager what information can be damageful to the public). Private companies don't have to restrain information according the user, but they should do it if we all want to live in a safer and more respectful digital world.

I would not want honest and respectful citizens to have to pay for mistakes made by others.(such as more restrictions on downloading of music, higher fees and pricec to limit piracy, discrimination,etc).

Sincerely, —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mavyalex (talk • contribs) 10:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. The article on Digital rights management has a very negative tone. Wow! What a surprise! Who would have thought such an attitude would be found among WPers! Borock (talk) 13:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Today's featured article

Today's featured article on Stormbot is very educational - and a bit terrifying. It got me to wondering, that since wikipedia placed a negative article about it in a highly exposed location, would they be tempted to overload wikipedia's servers, as they have targeted others in the past? Would it be possible?

Just wondering. If this isn't posted in the right place, please move it. :-) ScaldingHotSoup (talk) 13:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Or they might be please to get all the attention. :-) Borock (talk) 14:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

General discussion happening weekly on Talk:List of Virtual Console games (North America)

Several editors continue to add a section each week announcing which games are coming out on Monday. The sources they use aren't reliable sources for the article. They know this, but contiune the sections anyway. I've told them to take it to their talk pages several times, but they refuse. I personally feel an admin needs to stop this. Due to their announcing of games coming out, several IP editors usually add the games to the article (which then gets reverted). If the announcing wouldn't happen, then this problem wouldn't be happening. In my view, this clearly violates the talk header... as it's just general discussion of the subject, and not a way to improve it. RobJ1981 (talk) 19:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)