Article introductions, ~or~ just exactly how stupid are wikipedia admins Options

[TungstenCarbide]

What is so magical about the first sentence of articles that they must contain every spelling, pronunciation, translation, transliteration and etymology known? Why must it be there and no where else?

More specifically, why does everything in red have to be in the first sentance?

Kyrgyzstan (pronounced /ˈkɝːɡɪstæn/; KƏR-gis-tahn; Kyrgyz: Кыргызстан [qɯrʀɯzˈstɑn]; Russian: Киргизия [kirˈɡizija] or Киргизстан [ˈkirɡistan] or Кыргызстан [ˈkˠɨrɡˠɨzstan], variously transliterated, also Kirgizia or Kirghizia), officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a country in Central Asia. Landlocked and mountainous, it is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east. The ethnonym "Kyrgyz", after which the country is named, is thought to originally mean either "forty girls" or "forty tribes", presumably referring to the epic hero Manas who, as legend has it, unified forty tribes against the Mongols.[citation needed] According to popular interpretations, the 40-ray sun on the flag of Kyrgyzstan symbolizes the forty tribes of Manas.


See here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=...oldid=269348830
there are even more hidious examples at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_tal...ages_in_opening and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_tal...ing_clusterfuck

I made some notes on my user page but it was spitefully deleted after I was banned. Is there an administrator without their head up their ass who can undelete my page? thanks.

This post has been edited by TungstenCarbide: Sat 14th March 2009, 3:57pm

[zvook]

This objection comes up from time to time on the talk page of the wikipedia manual of style page dealing with lead sections.

The initial drive for including information in brackets after the initial subject mention came from from looking at dictionary practice, where of course there are no leads.

So different parts of the MOS came to be maintained by different groups each with regard to their particular piece of name info in the opening sentence.

A particular article as Wikipedia is now may have English, Arabic, French, and Berber. Another may have English, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, pinyin and Wade-Giles. In theory, I guess all could have etymology and IPA guides beside each.

Some encyclopedias use no parenthetical information at all after the initial mention of the subject, some use IPA, yet some others use wade-giles, some use footnotes, and so on, but finding an encyclopedia which uses more than two instances of parenthetical information is difficult.

A footnote when these things are not brief is the obvious solution, though Jeandré du Toit dumped some stuff in a box here, having procured SlimVirgin's blessing on a MoS talk page.

Back when I used to edit (and care), I put some looooong strings of info of this type I came across in footnotes, but they were all reverted pretty quickly.

As an afterthought, I thought it had been recognized in recent times on wikipedia that stuff people say while responding to being blocked should no longer be used against them, it being understood that a heated response is quite a normal and forgivable reaction.

I guess not.

This post has been edited by zvook: Sun 15th March 2009, 1:59am

[Milton Roe]

This objection comes up from time to time on the talk page of the wikipedia manual of style page dealing with lead sections.

The initial drive for including information in brackets after the initial subject mention came from from looking at dictionary practice, where of course there are no leads.

So different parts of the MOS came to be maintained by different groups each with regard to their particular piece of name info in the opening sentence.

A particular article as Wikipedia is now may have English, Arabic, French, and Berber. Another may have English, simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, pinyin and Wade-Giles. In theory, I guess all could have etymology and IPA guides beside each.

The appropriate place for most of this etymological stuff, IMHO, is in the article section just after the LEAD, which is usually the history of the term, and has the dictionary stuff in it. In the LEAD, the IPA and one other most common foreign language alphabet spelling (if that's appropriate) is about all the reader can be expected to take.

Some encyclopedias use no parenthetical information at all after the initial mention of the subject, some use IPA, yet some others use wade-giles, some use footnotes, and so on, but finding an encyclopedia which uses more than two instances of parenthetical information is difficult.

A footnote when these things are not brief is the obvious solution, though Jeandré du Toit dumped some stuff in a box here, having procured SlimVirgin's blessing on a MoS talk page.

Oooohhh the blessing of the Sacred Virgin! This is almost as as good as a Get Out of Jail Free Card in Monopoly. Which is sort of what Wikipedia is (Jimbo already has the hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place, sorry). Or, since we're into the Roman church metaphor, perhaps a gift-card which has a magnetic strip showing you have X $ worth of a pre-paid plenary indulgences. Handy for those really, really warm nights in purgatory. Which there is a version of, on WP. Just ask Science Apologist. He's doing a 3 month-er on nothing but bread and 200c occillococcinum, the poor bastard.

Back when I used to edit (and care), I put some looooong strings of info of this type I came across in footnotes, but they were all reverted pretty quickly.

That's where section II comes in handy.

As an afterthought, I thought it had been recognized in recent times on wikipedia that stuff people say while responding to being blocked should no longer be used against them, it being understood that a heated response is quite a normal and forgivable reaction.

I guess not.

No, the answer is: it depends. If you have WIKIPOWER points, your being angry may serve as a good excuse for outrageous remarks. If you don't, you're expected to just take it, and politely say "Sir, may I have anohter, sir"? It's all in your status.

[zvook]

No, the answer is: it depends. If you have WIKIPOWER points, your being angry may serve as a good excuse for outrageous remarks. If you don't, you're expected to just take it, and politely say "Sir, may I have anohter, sir"? It's all in your status.

Yep, I know this dynamic well, and I like your formulation of it since it applies just as well to goading newbies as it does to the familiar personæ of wikipedia's regular dramata. I just thought this particular game had been openly rumbled somehow, my error.

The appropriate place for most of this etymological stuff, IMHO, is in the article section just after the LEAD

This works for etymology, which can be delivered in a more-or-less readable sentence structure, but for Tungsten's stream of red it would just contribute to the impression of incoherent unbalanced layout that wikipedia is already famous for. Since I'm somewhat of a "hasten the day" kinda guy at this point, I'd be all for that.

It would probably discourage reversion, as you suggest, since it takes it slightly out of the automaton editing range - the relatively brainless, time-filling editing to MoS standardization so beloved of the wikipedia addict.

Oooohhh the blessing of the Sacred Virgin! This is almost as as good as a Get Out of Jail Free Card in Monopoly

Yeah well one would think it's considerably better than nothing, which is what all the other regular passing objections to this practice receive at MoS. One must generally first make a name for oneself through controversy, admin or otherwise, before one can get movement on an issue. But since de Toit didn't edit a couple of hundred pages afterwards, perhaps with a note here and there about consensus at MoS, this practice didn't stick either.