Wikipedia

It is not my intention with this website to become a "look-up" service for Wikipedia. In many cases when I placed a link to a Wikipedia page that I had used to support my research the visitor finding it would click on it never to return

While I have no problem with this I'd rather the visitor stay and explore other pages on this website. The Wikipedia pages were mainly placed so that I dudn't have to make an additional Internet search to confirm what I had originally found when I made the first search. I am in the process of adding a "shim" to such links so that I can find the Wikipedia pages myself and to allow the visitor to do so if they read about why I am doing this.

Don't get me wrong, I thik WiliPedia is great. It is a great source of information.

I can understand why educational institutions have a problem with students quoting directly from WikiP. While it is a valuable resource the fact that is potentially editable by all, it can be abused and corrupted. In any case it can be an easy way out for those that should be researching their own answers.

Wikipedia is a "Living Document", by this I mean that it is constantly being edited. As a consequence if you quote the text you have to remember that what you quote may change. As such it is always best to visit the Wikipedia page itself.

Template messages

Due to the collabrative nature of Wikipedia you often find a message at the top of the page that suggests edits to improve the page.

Date selector for Timeline

When and if I get this to work.

Transistion to new links

At the time of writing most of my Wikipedia links are not shimmed.

The shim on this page shows how the outbound link is to be configured on new pages. The pop-up has a hyperlink but I have hidden the underline and the cursor makes it look like regular text. A mobile user (touch screen) will not see this as a link and is not likely to click it and leave.

In addtion, since the time of writing this page I have changed my linking policy radically. In fact, there are no shimmed links on this page presently.

User editing of pages

While I am perfectly positioned to do this I have no intention of doing so.

Thoughts about the person that I thought might have done this in the past prompted this discussion. I think that I heard a conversation where it was said, or implied, that this had been done. Although it was not clear what pages were edited and why. However, due to some of the other things that I have seen being done by this person I think that is beyond their capabilities.

TYhe editing of Wikipedia involves a rather complex Content Management System interface.