Wikipedia: Miscellaneous FAQ

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Can you tell me anything about the Wikipedia logo?

The current logo is described at Logo

See International logo vote and Final logo variants for the selection process used.

See Wikipedia:Logos and slogans for more details and Logo history for Wikipedia's past logos.

Where can I get the wikipedia icon used in favorites or shortcuts?

Right here: favicon.ico

Is allowing everyone to edit pages safe? I could start defaming people. Then the legal implications of this could become a problem to the provider of this service.

Such a problem has not come up in the wiki world, so it's currently a theoretical matter. In practice, any sort of illegal material gets removed from active wikis quite quickly. See this discussion on Ward's Wiki for more thoughts.

Wikipedia has received several threats of legal action, but none have yet been followed through.

What is the best way to link into Wikipedia from another site?

To link to the front page, the preferred URL is http://www.wikipedia.org. Our older URL, http://www.wikipedia.com, still works but is deprecated.

If you want to link to a specific Wikipedia page, simply use, where XX is the code for the language the article is written in, XX.wikipedia.org/wiki/, plus the page name, changing spaces to underscores. For example, this is a link to the English-language article Mohandas Gandhi:

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Gandhi">Mohandas Gandhi</a>

The currently valid language codes are listed on the Recent Changes page. The only exception is s, which links to http://simple.wikipedia.org/.

Are there any Wikipedia banners or graphics I can use for a link?

A few of our contributors have made some. They can be found at Wikipedia:Banners and buttons. You can also use our logo. If you make your own Wikipedia graphics (please do!) and want them to be redistributed, simply upload them and link to them from the banner page.

Where's the article-a-day list? Can I add to it?

The article-a-day list was a feature to send out Wikipedia articles via email. This feature was discontinued and replaced with the Brilliant Prose feature. Now, the article-a-day has been reincarnated as the daily featured article.

I'm worried about scalability. What happens if Wikipedia is invaded by hordes of new people who don't understand what's going on here, and mess it up?

Wikipedia has a large number of dedicated volunteers who welcome newcomers, edit their contributions and point them to appropriate Wikipedia:Help pages to get them started. Our software maintains a complete history of page revisions, so Wikipedians can quickly undo any accidental (and intentional!) damage. Wikipedia has been Slashdotted several times, and we've handled the influx of newcomers with no problems.

Is there a place where people ask for new entries?

There are three places:

the Wikipedia:Reference desk aims to function like a real library's help desk: people are invited to ask questions on any subject. If you can answer something there, why not start an article on it?
on the Wikipedia:Requested articles page you can ask for a specific article to be created. See also Wikipedia:Requested pictures.
the Most Wanted page lists nonexistent articles that other articles have links to.

Is there any peer review process to validate the data that is displayed?

We are all peers here and we all review each other's work.

Some people have plans for formal peer review or article certification systems to work on top of Wikipedia. We'll be sure to point them out if and when any get up and running. For more information, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia approval mechanism.

How is Wikipedia backed up? Is it possible that an accident could destroy all this data?

Database dumps are made weekly and a slave server is usually running a copy of the database. Contingency plans include backups of the site's configuration files. The database download is available for anyone wanting to keep off-site backups.

Is it "the Wikipedia," or just plain "Wikipedia"?

Some people say the former, others the latter. Either one is fine.

If there were only one Wikipedia (which, as it happens, there is no longer; see Wikipedia:Multilingual coordination), then "Wikipedia" would be a (unique) proper name, in which case saying "the Wikipedia" would be rather strange-sounding, like "the Britannica." On the other hand, we might be using "Wikipedia" as a type term, like "encyclopedia," so if someone says, "I contributed an article to the Wikipedia the other day," it's like saying, "I contributed an article to the encyclopedia the other day." But in that case, we're using "Wikipedia" as a type term, and so it should be lower case: "wikipedia," right? Perhaps it would be best to refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/ as "the English Wikipedia" or "the English-language Wikipedia," since it is now only one of several Wikipedias (or is that wikipediae? probably not. if we're using one æ, we'd want it to be wikipædiæ. On the other hand, it does have the cool pronunciation wee-kee-pee-dee-ee). Clearly, we are in need of the services of a professional linguist.

On the other hand, it is common for British speakers to say "the Thesaurus" and mean Roget's Thesaurus. Names of reference works like "Britannica" and "Collins" are usually referred to without an article, but the Oxford English Dictionary is called "the OED" or "the Oxford", probably because the second word is used adjectivally.

Why are some pages yellow and others white?

Normal encyclopedia pages are white. In the classic skin, other pages (talk pages, user pages) have a colored background to indicate that they don't contain encyclopedic content, but are about Wikipedia.

Different skins use different colors, but in the current default skin, there is no background color difference between namespaces.

Help! Insert name here is copying from Wikipedia!

Chances are, they're allowed to do it, just as long as they comply with the GFDL, which all Wikipedia material is licensed under, which allows anyone to copy our material just as long as they provide a link back to Wikipedia.

However, if you find a site that absolutely does not have the requisite link back, please by all means let us know on Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks based on the degree of compliance (see that page).

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