Essential glossary
From WikipediaStory
For a layperson, reading about Wikipedia for the first time, what are the acronyms and essential vocabulary needed?
This will be included as a glossary for the book The Wikipedia Story, as a reference for readers.
- 3RR - three revert rule. Designed as a limit to edit warring. An editor who reverts the same material more than 3 times in 24 hours can be blocked. In order to prevent this rule from being gamed, an editor who consistently reverts at slightly under this rate can be blocked for ("slow") edit warring anyway.
- Admin - See Administrator
- Administrator (admin)(sysop) - Uses that have the ability to delete pages, protect pages to prevent editing and block users from editing.
- AFD - Articles for deletion, started as Votes for Deletion: Where the deletion of articles gets discussed. Is technically not a vote, but a argument of policies and guild lines. There term XFD may be used to indicate the collective set of deletion processes.
- AGF - Assume good faith; an exhortation to remember that most people who appear to be editing in a way that degrades wikipedia, likely have a different view, and/or do so out of ignorance.
- AN - Administrators' Noticeboard
- Bureaucrat - Users which have the ability to make other users rights to admins, bot-status, etc., but can not demote them. They are only supposed to follow consensus of the comminity and and do thing alone.
- ARBCOM - Arbitration committee: A community elected board that can sanction users for misconduct. Does not decide on content.
- BAN - A social message that someone is not welcome to edit the wiki. Any accounts will be blocked. The following have the authority to ban users, the community, ARBCOM, Jimbo Wales, and the Wikimedia Foundation. Ban can be of a set duration or can be indefinite.
- BEANS - Don't stuff beans up your nose. Warning folks against doing X will tempt them to do X.
- BEBOLD - Be bold, an encouragement to step up and make changes to articles and ask questions later.
- Block - A technical measure that prevents an user or IP-address for editing issued by administrators. Blocks can be of a set duration or can be indefinite.
- BLP - Biographies of living persons. Special policies apply to this type of article.
- Bot - a computer program which changes pages without human intervention
- COI - Conflict of interest. Editing articles whose subject the editor has a real life relationship with that could make the editor bias.
- Crat or 'crat - see bureaucrat
- DE - Disruptive Editor
- Edit war - Where two or more editors fight over the wording of an article, by multiple reversions to a previous state.
- Featured content (FC) - Content that has gone though a community quality approval process.
- Featured article (FA) - An article that have gone though the highest community quality approval process (above GA), run by Raul654.
- Featured list (FL) - A featured article that consists of a full-article list and its introduction.
- Featured pictures (FP) or Featured images (FI) - Images that have gone through a community approval process to be declared visually striking and informative.
- Featured sounds (FS) - Sounds that have gone through a community approval process to be declared auditorily striking and informative.
- Featured topics (FT) - A group of related articles on a singular topic that have gone through a community approval process to be declared comprehensive and consistent.
- Featured portals (FPort) - Portals that have gone through a community approval process to be declared useful, attractive, and well-maintained.
- Five Pillars - Five community selected policies on the English Wikipedia. The policies are "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", "Wikipedia has a neutral point of view", "Wikipedia is free content", "Wikipedia has a code of conduct", and "Wikipedia does not have firm rules".
- GA - See Good articles
- GFDL - GNU Free Documentation License: A 3,289 word legal license that all text in Wikipedia is written under; requiring attribution, a maintenance a copyright information, and all derivative works released under the same license.
- Good Article (GA) - An article deemed to be classified as GA-class on the Wikipedia article-assessment scale.
- IAR - Ignore all rules. "If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the Wiki, then ignore them and go about your business."
- IRC - internet relay chat. A real time instant chat service which was used to discuss (on rare occasion) stuff to go on wiki
- Markup
- Meat puppet - I get my buddies in real life to register accounts in order to create the impression of massive support of my opinion.
- MfD - Miscellany for Deletion
- NOR - No original research
- NPA - No personal attacks
- NPOV - Neutral point of view, the only non-negotiable policy in Wikipedia
- NTWW - Not the Wikipedia Weekly
- OFFICE - for official edits done by the WMF staff which were not to be reverted or undone without prior written approval of the WMF
- Reliable sources
- RFA - Request for Adminship
- RfAr - Request for Arbitration
- RfC - Request for Comments (sometimes referred to as a "Spammish Inquisition")
- Sandbox - area for trying things out
- SOFIXIT - Rather than complain about a problem, fix it yourself.
- Sock puppet - Secondary accounts that are used for various reasons. Wikipedia forbids their use for giving the appearance of wider support.
- Sysop - See Administrator
- Talk page / Talk space / Discussion Page - A page attached to every article on which users can discuss the writing and editing of the attached article as well as settle disputes.
- User talk page - Where users can be contacted about their editing.
- User page / User space - A page for every registered user where they can write about themselves and catalog their activities in the project. These pages are intended to provide information specific to the user's activity as a writer and editor rather than a general site about them nor a social networking page.
- Vandalism
- Verifiability
- Village pump
- VFD - Votes for Deletion: see AFD
- Wikipedia: namespace - the place where pages that have to do with the project proper, but which are neither encyclopaedia articles, help pages nor users private pages go.
- Policy pages; Pages which describe policies that are largely considered valid by the editorship, and which it is sensible to follow.
- Guidelines; Pages which describe best practices, and which people who want to try to attain the highest quality, will likely adhere to, but which are not yet so universally agreed to be important and/or valid, as to be considered policy.
- Essays; Pages which represent a certain specific viewpoint, but have not in any fashion been more comprehensively vetted by the community, though some of these essays may have a sizable constituency of supporters.
- WMF - Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity that operates Wikipedia.
- WMF Mission Statement
Contents |
People of note
- Jimmy Wales, The [co-]founder of Wikipedia. He is in a long running dispute as to whether Larry Sanger was a founder or not. He is a member of the Board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, has never been elected to any position on the wiki, and is affectionately referred to as the god-king of the English Wikipedia.
- Ward Cunningham
- Richard Stallman
- Larry Sanger
- John Seigenthaler
- Richard Stallman
- Larry Lessig
- Carolyn Doran
- Tim Shell
- Michael Davis
- Terry Foote
- Brad Patrick
- Andrew Orlowski - The Register
- Bob Rosenschein - Answers.com
- Andrew Keene
- Yochai Benkler
Community
Significant members of the community that have been important in Wikipedia's history.
- Angela Beesley - one of the two original community board members, who resigned after she no longer had veto over board decisions.
- Anthere (Florence Nibart-Devouard) - one of the two original community board members and second Chair of the board succeeding Jimmy Wales.
- Mav
- Erik
- Raul654
- Delphine
- Soufron
- Amgine
- Danny
- Elian
- Brion
- Cunctator
- RickK
- Martin Harper (MyRedDice)
- Essjay
- Ram-Man -- launched the first bot which created 70,000-odd articles
Trolls of Note
- Lir
- Mike Garcia
- Ark
- HJ (Helga Jonat)
- Zog
- JoeM
- Entmootoftrolls
Vandals of Note
- Squidward - Changed pages to a image called squid with the edit summary "(SQUIDWARD!!)".
- Willy on Wheels - Moved pages to [article name] on wheels
- Communism
- Grawp
- Wik - a disgruntled stickler for detail, who snapped and went on a spree of massive vandalism using an incredible multiplicity of IP's
Programmers of note
- Lee Daniel Crocker
- Magnus Manske
- Brion Vibber
- Tim Starling
