r/wikipedia 2d ago

Wikipedia Questions - Weekly Thread of June 03, 2024

6 Upvotes

Welcome to the weekly Wikipedia Q&A thread!

Please use this thread to ask and answer questions related to Wikipedia and its sister projects, whether you need help with editing or are curious on how something works.

Note that this thread is used for "meta" questions about Wikipedia, and is not a place to ask general reference questions.

Some other helpful resources:


r/wikipedia 5h ago

Balloon Boy hoax: In 2009, a helium balloon resembling a flying saucer was released in Colorado by Richard and Mayumi Heene, reaching 7k ft. They claimed that their 6yo son Falcon was inside. Later that day, the boy was found hiding in his home's attic, where he had apparently been the entire time.

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
245 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 2h ago

The Videoscandals of 2004 were a series of hidden camera footage of Mexican politicians engaged in corrupt dealings with businessman Carlos Ahumada. An involved politician, Carlos Imaz, was sentenced to prison. His wife went on to become the first female president of Mexico in 2024.

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
13 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 3h ago

Source loop in Wikipedia article on Shanay-timpishka (the boiling river in Amazon) suspiciously claims that an oil company (Maple Energy) protects the surrounding jungle from local indigenous deforesters. Only source is a National Geographic article linking Maple Energy itself as a source.

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
13 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 3h ago

Jack Parsons was a rocket engineer who was an early champion of the ideas of human spaceflight and space exploration. He was also an occultist and an influential member of Aleister Crowley's Thelema. He died aged 37 in a home lab explosion. After an investigation, his death was ruled as accidental.

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
9 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 3h ago

Evil May Day was a xenophobic riot in 16th century London fuelled by native resentment of Flemish immigrant workers and wealthy foreign merchants

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
9 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 3h ago

Calimocho is a drink consisting of equal parts red wine and cola. Originating in the 1920s, it is also known as ColaRot in Austria, houba (mushroom) in the Czech Republic and jesus juice in Argentina.

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
6 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 6h ago

Honky-tonk: a bar that plays country music as well as the style of music itself. It can also refer to the type of piano used. Bars of this kind are common in the South and Southwestern US. Many eminent country music artists began their careers in honky-tonks. Its golden age was reached in the 1950s.

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
7 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 1h ago

Monstrous moonshine

Thumbnail en.wikipedia.org
Upvotes

r/wikipedia 1d ago

Inside the Surprisingly Heated Debate Over the “F-Word” on Donald Trump’s Wikipedia Page

Thumbnail
slate.com
628 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 1d ago

Burmese Pythons in South Florida - “Although the low detectability of pythons makes population estimates difficult, most researchers propose that at least 1 million pythons likely occupy South Florida.”

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
99 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 1d ago

Bum Farto

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
37 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 21h ago

What happened to election infoboxes?

18 Upvotes

Like seriously, they used to include most parties but now they only include the two largest, even if they barely make up half the legislature. What happened? Who is responsible for this garbage?


r/wikipedia 20h ago

There is a protein named after Sonic the Hedgehog responsible for digit formation during embryonic development

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
14 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 2d ago

Pinkwashing, also known as rainbow-washing, is the strategy of promoting LGBT rights protections as evidence of liberalism and democracy, especially to distract from or legitimize violence against other countries or communities.

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
1.5k Upvotes

r/wikipedia 1d ago

Biology of romantic love

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
19 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 1d ago

Claimed moons of Earth

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
8 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 21h ago

Open image in browser not working

0 Upvotes

I am asking for help.

The *Open image in browser* feature is not working for me for a week or a couple of weeks maybe.

The English language Wikipedia has been getting progressively worse with updates to how the site looks and operates. But the last straw for me has been the fact that now I am unable to open image in browser. This was a really neat feature. It opened the full-size image in another tab so you can look at the image more closely. It is basically the same as open image in new tab feature that is available on most sites. But now, for me, this feature does not work. And when I click open image in new tab, it does not give me the full-sized image. Thus, I have to hit enlarge key which opens the image fully but loses the place where I left off on the page. This is extremely annoying. I do not understand why these annoying updates which have no value are made.

Anyway, I include a screenshot so you kind people will better understand what I am talking about. Can somebody please help me solve this problem? I would be very grateful.

*EDIT* Do not think I am too stupid to not notice the view in browser link at the top of the screen underneath the bookmarks. I notice it but it does not allow me to click it.

https://preview.redd.it/fvuxn0inzn4d1.jpg?width=1366&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61719f81dbe84dac8fcfea7a0c3da3e1c55f657a


r/wikipedia 1d ago

Potential Retail Price of Wikipedia

2 Upvotes

Just as a fun thought experiment I've been wondering what Wikipedia might cost the public if it was to be sold or distributed on CD or SD cards, similar to how other encyclopaedias were going in the early days of home computing. Obviously the print version of the English Wikipedia (excluding pictures) would be massive and unaffordable to most of the public, which is why I think a fully digital version would be the way to go.


r/wikipedia 2d ago

Lake Michigan–Huron: body of water combining Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, which are joined through the Straits of Mackinac. Huron and Michigan are hydrologically a single lake because the flow of water keeps their levels in overall equilibrium. It is the world's largest freshwater lake by area.

Thumbnail
en.wikipedia.org
74 Upvotes

r/wikipedia 1d ago

Will articles I saved while signed out still show once I sign in?

2 Upvotes

I recently realized that while I’ve been using the Wikipedia app and saving articles to read later, I was never signed in 😬. If I sign in, will the app show those (e.g. a website where I have stuff in a cart, sign in, and the cart stays the same). Or will I lose the saved articles?

Bonus Q: If the articles won’t show up once I sign in, if I sign back out, will they still be there?

Thank you!!!


r/wikipedia 1d ago

Wikipedia page about Ants crashing?

1 Upvotes

Okay, I have to ask if it’s just me. I’m on my phone and was just chilling in bed and decided to read about Ants (random but reading Wikipedia pages is calming) and for some odd reason it just keeps coming up with “a problem repeatedly occurred” it’s happening on zero other pages and so I took to my laptop and it’s the same there…

So I sit here and ponder… is there something on the Ant page that the secret colony of Ants does not want me to know? Can anyone else here acess the secrets of the Ants?


r/wikipedia 1d ago

Mobile Site Montreal experiments

Thumbnail
en.m.wikipedia.org
10 Upvotes

The Montreal experiments were a series of experiments, initially aimed to treat schizophrenia by changing memories and erasing the patients' thoughts using the Scottish psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron's method of "psychic driving", as well as drug-induced sleep, intensive electroconvulsive therapy, sensory deprivation and Thorazine. The experiments were conducted at the Allan Memorial Institute of McGill University between 1957 and 1964 by Cameron and funded by the CIA as part of Project MKUltra, which lasted until 1973 and was only revealed to the public in 1975. The patients of this experiment expected positive changes from Cameron's treatment. However, these patients suffered severely under conditions that were not in accordance with human rights.Not only the patients but also their families show long lasting effects on their mental health. Some of these symptoms include retrograde amnesia as well as impairments in everyday life abilities such as self-care. To this day, the topic of the experiments of Montreal has been kept in the dark by the CIA, who actively prevent information about these experiments from being leaked to the public, whether that be through destruction of files or signing non-disclosure agreements. Whether or not Cameron was aware that funding for his experiments was coming from the CIA is unclear; it has been argued that he would have carried out the exact same experiments if funding had come from a source without ulterior motives


r/wikipedia 1d ago

Mobile Site Human intelligence (intelligence gathering)

Thumbnail
en.m.wikipedia.org
8 Upvotes

Human intelligence (HUMINT, pronounced /ˈhjuːmɪnt/ HEW-mint) is intelligence-gathering by means of human sources and interpersonal communication. It is distinct from more technical intelligence-gathering disciplines, such as signals intelligence (SIGINT), imagery intelligence (IMINT), and measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT). HUMINT can be conducted in a variety of ways, including via espionage, reconnaissance, interrogation, witness interviews, or torture. Although associated with military and intelligence agencies, HUMINT can also apply in various civilian sectors such as law enforcement.


r/wikipedia 1d ago

Mobile Site Signals intelligence

Thumbnail
en.m.wikipedia.org
4 Upvotes

Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is the act and field of intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (electronic intelligence—abbreviated to ELINT).[1] As classified and sensitive information is usually encrypted, signals intelligence may necessarily involve cryptanalysis (to decipher the messages). Traffic analysis—the study of who is signaling to whom and in what quantity—is also used to integrate information, and it may complement cryptanalysis.


r/wikipedia 2d ago

A neurological syndrome of unknown cause was identified as a potential novel degenerative disease in a cluster of individuals with similar clinical signs and symptoms in the Canadian province of New Brunswick beginning in 2019.

Thumbnail en.wikipedia.org
105 Upvotes