Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by RichardWeiss (talk | contribs) at 18:37, 26 December 2007 (Undid revision 180285348 by QuackGuru (talk)). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

It has been suggested that this article be merged into Misplaced Pages. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2007.

English Misplaced Pages

The Main Page of the English Misplaced Pages.
Type of site	Internet encyclopedia project
Available in	English
Headquarters	Miami, Florida
Owner	Wikimedia Foundation
Created by	Jimmy Wales
URL	http://en.wikipedia.org/
Commercial	No
Registration	Optional

The English Misplaced Pages is the English language edition of the Misplaced Pages encyclopedia. Founded on 15 January 2001 and reaching two million articles by September 2007, it was the first edition of Misplaced Pages and remains the largest, with more than twice the size of the next largest, the German Misplaced Pages. As of 2007, approximately one-quarter of articles in all Wikipedias belong to the English-language edition, this share having gradually declined from over half in 2003, due to growth of Wikipedias in other languages.

Pioneering edition

The English Misplaced Pages was the first-established Misplaced Pages edition and has remained the largest. It has pioneered many conventions, policies and features that have been adopted by other Misplaced Pages editions, and in turn has adopted features from the German Misplaced Pages, and from other smaller editions as well. These include "featured articles", the neutral point of view policy, navigation templates, sorting of short "stub" articles into sub-categories, dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation and arbitration, and weekly collaborations.

Many of the most active participants in the Wikimedia Foundation, and developers of the MediaWiki software that powers Misplaced Pages, are also English Misplaced Pages users.

Controversies

Among the controversies in the English Misplaced Pages is a debate over which national variety of the English language is to be preferred, with the most commonly advocated candidates being American English and British English. There has been a similar issue in the Chinese language Misplaced Pages, although with a different solution. Many suggestions have been proposed by editors, ranging from standardizing upon a single form of English to forking the English Misplaced Pages project. A style guideline states, "the English Misplaced Pages has no general preference for a major national variety of the language" and "an article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation uses the appropriate variety of English for that nation." An article should use spelling and grammar variants consistently; for example, center and centre are not to be used in the same article. The guide also states that an article must remain written in whichever dialect the article was initially created, or which first became discernible in the article's history.

Users and editors

English Misplaced Pages reached 4,000,000 registered user accounts on 1 April 2007, just a little over a year since it has crossed a threshold of 1,000,000 registered user accounts in late February 2006. The number of individual persons who are active editors (either registered or anonymous) at Misplaced Pages on any given month is much less than these figures.

As the largest Misplaced Pages edition, and because the English language is such a widely used language, the English Misplaced Pages draws many users and editors whose native language is not English. Such users seek information from the English Misplaced Pages rather than the Misplaced Pages of their native language simply because the English Misplaced Pages contains more information. Many successful collaborations have developed between non-native English speakers who add content to English Misplaced Pages and native English speakers who act as copy editors for those adding content.

See also

• History of Misplaced Pages
• Criticism of Misplaced Pages
• Simple English Misplaced Pages

Notes and references

1. There is some controversy over who founded Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages's official personnel page from September 2001 states Wales and Sanger were the two co-founders, and that there was no editor-in-chief. Wales considers himself to be the sole founder of Misplaced Pages and has told the Boston Globe that "it's preposterous" to call Sanger the co-founder. However, Sanger strongly contests that description. He was identified as a co-founder of Misplaced Pages at least as early as September 2001 and referred to himself that way as early as January 2002.
   • Jonathan Sidener (December 6, 2004). "Everyone's Encyclopedia". San Diego Union Tribune. Retrieved 2006-10-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
   • Peter Meyers (2001-09-20). "Fact-Driven? Collegial? This Site Wants You". New York Times. Retrieved 2006-10-15. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
   • Sanger, Larry. "What Misplaced Pages is and why it matters". Retrieved 2006-04-12.
2. m:Edits by project and country of origin
3. Rego, Anjali (2007-09-13). "Misplaced Pages Reaches 2 Million Articles". Tech2. Retrieved 2007-09-23. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
4. Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (2007-01-30). "List of Wikipedias". Retrieved 2007-01-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
5. English Misplaced Pages (2007-01-30). "Featured articles". Retrieved 2007-01-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
6. English Misplaced Pages (2007-01-25). "Neutral point of view". Retrieved 2007-01-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
7. Wikimedia Meta-Wiki (2007-01-29). "Help:Template". Retrieved 2007-01-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
8. English Misplaced Pages (2007-01-19). "WikiProject Stub sorting". Retrieved 2007-01-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
9. English Misplaced Pages (2007-01-27). "Resolving disputes". Retrieved 2007-01-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
10. English Misplaced Pages (2007-01-30). "Article Creation and Improvement Drive". Retrieved 2007-01-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
11. English Misplaced Pages. "Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (spelling)". Retrieved 2006-02-25. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
12. English Misplaced Pages. "Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style". Retrieved 2007-10-10.
13. Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2007-04-02/News and notes. Retrieved on 20 April 2007
14. Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2006-02-27/News and notes. Retrieved on 20 April 2007

External links

• English Misplaced Pages
• Misplaced Pages.org multilingual portal
• Wikimedia Foundation

• Articles to be merged from December 2007
• Wikipedias by language
• 2001 establishments
• English-language encyclopedias