Wikipedia:Wikipedia NEWS

Wikipedia gets a lot of new articles each day. This page is here to help highlight a few pages of particular interest. You may also find New topics, Recent Changes, and brilliant prose worth reviewing.

History of Egypt

Posted September 11 (2001)

Alan Millar, MichaelTinkler and others contributed to this article. While this article has been here a few weeks, it is truely encylopedic grade material. Ancient Egyptian history is broken in ten different periods. The changes in periods indicate a time of social and political upheaval.

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MS Tampa

Posted August 29

I (Simon J Kissane) have just posted an article explaining the current diplomatic standoff between Australia, Norway and Indonesia concerning the MS Tampa, including the events of today (the boarding of the ship by Australian commandos). As far as I am aware, I think this is the first time an article on an event right now in progress has been added to Wikipedia, but the advantage of Wikipedia is that it can be that up to date.

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1911 Encyclopedia Volume 1: 'A' is in Wikipedia

Posted August 26

Alan Millar just posted in Andronicus_of_Rhodes, the last of his encyclopedia articles of volume one thought to be worth including in Wikipedia, covering topics starting with the letter 'A' (there are many more articles which were deemed less relevant, but others are encouraged to fill in any gaps they perceive). These come from the 1911 edition of the "EB", which was digitized and included with Project Gutenberg's free texts. I posted 'A', the first of the EB articles to be added, oh so long ago, and it is wonderful to see the torch passed along and the work finally completed. There are, of course, more volumes in the 1911 encyclopedia but only the first is available in electronic form. I would like to take this opportunity to pose a proposal to encourage folks to consider taking on the challenge of bringing in more encyclopedia volumes in the future.

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Insulin

Posted August 19

kpjas, rmhermen, Janet Davis, and other contributors have assembled a lengthy and fascinating article on insulin and how it is used in the human body. Insulin (Latin insula, "island") is a polypeptide hormone primarily playing a pivotal role in the regulation of carbohydrate metabolism; it also takes active part in metabolisms of fat and proteins. . . . Insulin is synthesized by beta cells (B cells) in the of islets of Langerhans. 1-3 million of islets of Langerhans (pancreatic islets) form the endocrine part of the pancreas, which is esentially an exocrine gland.

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Evolution

Posted August 18

Several good articles involving the subject of evolution have been added recently. An article refuting the notion that evolution was discovered by Charles Darwin has been developed by several 'pedians. There is also a brief start on an article about Alfred Russel Wallace.

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Talking Heads

Posted August 8

PaulDrye brings us a concise biography of the New Wave band Talking Heads. Formed in 1974 at the Rhode Island School of Design, the band first consisted of three members: David Byrne (vocals, guitar), Chris Frantz (drums), and Tina Weymouth (bass). Moving to New York the nascent Heads landed a gig opening for The Ramones at legendary club CBGB's. Adding one more member, Jerry Harrison (keyboards), fromerly of Jonathan Richman's band, the group quickly drew a following and was signed to Sire Records in 1977. Their first album, Talking Heads '77 was soon released.

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Schizophrenia

Posted August 5

An article on a commonly misunderstood disorder was started by Koyaanis Qatsi. A severe mental illness commonly confused with multiple personality disorder, schizophrenia has nothing to do with the manifestation of distinct multiple personalities within a person. Instead schizophrenia is a condition manifesting itself in paranoia, withdrawal from social interaction, and delusions of grandeur and/or persecution... Schizophrenia is the most common form of major psychosis; it is estimated that over 45 million people are affected worldwide.

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Hangover

Posted August 5

Hangovers are really unpleasant, and are normally associated with statements such as "I wish I were dead" and "I am never drinking again". The former is almost universal true, and the latter almost universally untrue.

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Thunderbird

Posted August 4

Alan D writes of a mythical creature of Native American lore: The Thunderbird. It is also of note that there have periodically been sightings of incredibly large birds in North America over the years. Some Cryptozoologists theorize the thunderbird myth to be based on sightings of a real animal that has dwindled in population of late.

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Monasticism

Posted August 4

MichaelTinkler brings an extremely interesting article on early Christian monasticism. Institutional Christian monasticism seems to have begun in the deserts in 4th Century Egypt as a kind of living martyrdom.

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Sir John A. Macdonald

Posted July 30

Colin dellow has written a rather extensive article on the life of Sir John A Macdonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada. Colin is one of our many new Wikipedians, and I think we can look forward to more quality Canadian articles with his arrival.

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Ode to Slashdot

Posted July 27

Yesterday an article written by our own Larry Sanger was posted to Slashdot. See Slashdotted. We did not merely survive, though, we PROSPERED massively, as an estimated 300 New topics were contributed to the site, and many existing topics were expanded, extended, and augmented. If anyone needed proof about whether Wikipedia can scale, this was a perfect demonstration. Due to past experience on other wikis, there was some fear (on my part at least) of vandalism and abuse, but if there was any evidence of this, it was far outweighed by the incredible number of constructively-minded new authors who joined us. I noticed a lot of nay-saying and pessimism in the comments on Slashdot, and that bugged me until I realized that the reason for this was that the pro-sayers and optimists didn't bother with Slashdot and instead just came here, rolled up their sleeves, and went to work. :-)

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Star

Posted July 27

Mike Dill adds a section on the life of a star. Many other astronomy articles have been appearing in Wikipedia of late, and this one is a good example of how well these articles are evolving.

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Saint Louis, Missouri

Posted July 27

Pierre Laclede founded Saint Louis as a trading post in the mid to late 1700's (exact date?). After the French and Indian War, Saint Louis was controlled by Spain; but Saint Louis, along with the rest of the Lousiana Territory, was returned to France during the Naploneonic Wars. Saint Louis and the whole Lousiana Territory were acquired for the United States by Thomas Jefferson. Saint Louis later became the starting point for settlers moving west. This is a very good city encyclopedia entry; be sure to look at the social issue section.

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Hacker

Posted July 27

It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome. There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled bogus).

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Patent

Posted July 26

ErikOliver, Lee Daniel Crocker, and Pinkunicorn have been working on an excellent and very topical article on Patents. While such an article in any other encyclopedia might turn out to be overburdened with legal jargon or doty history irrelevancies, this article is oriented to the general reader, and thus is likely to be much more relevant to our readership. (IMHO, this is yet another demonstration of one of the fundamental advantages of open encyclopedias over closed ones: by definition they will grow to fit the readership, because the readership is *directly involved* in the maintenance. This is much more important than its merely being free of charge.)

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Allegiance

Posted July 26

An article on Allegiance was brought into Wikipedia from Gutenberg project's public domain (i.e., old, old, old) encyclopedia. These old encyclopedia articles are well written, but really need our collective review and editing powers to bring them up to date and relevant to today's audience. Have a look at this article and lend your ideas on how to improve it. : (Read more...) | (Talk)

That was me ... What's the official stance on Gutenberg encyclopedia articles? I was going to just bring them in one at a time as I could wiki-fy, review, edit, and up-to-date-ify them. Is this ok? --Dlugar I think that's fine. --BryceHarrington

Pinyin

Posted July 26

Pinyin literally means "spell according to sounds" in Mandarin. It is a system of phonetic notation and transliteration for the Mandarin dialect used in the People's Republic of China since the 1950s. It superseded older transcriptions like the Wade-Giles system or Bopomofo. : (Read more...) | (Talk)

Ultimate Frisbee

Posted July 26

The Cunctator augments our article on Ultimate, the sport of frisbee. :-)

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Graphic File Formats

Posted July 26

Fletch has posted a table listing all of the most popular graphics file formats. Fletch has also contributed articles specifically about Raster graphics and Vector graphics.

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International Organization

Posted July 25

Simon J Kissane has been doing an impressive amount of work in the area of international groups and organizations. Simon appears to be very knowledgable in the area of internation relations; you can judge for yourself, using International organization as a jumping point. :(Read more) | (Talk)

Abortion

Posted July 25

There's been some heavy reworking and much debate on the contentious Abortion article. This is an interesting experiment to see how well Wikipedia's open environment can produce unbiased articles on touchy subjects.

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Doctor Who

Posted July 4th

An introduction to everyone's favourite Time Lord, the cult British science fiction hero, Doctor Who. Armed with his sonic screwdriver and a TARDIS, he confronts any number of foes resembling men in cheap monster costumes.

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Older stuff... /Talk