NationStates Jolt Archive

As in its been completely blocked from the network, it was bad enough when the library staff just yelled at you for using it in the library (I only use it as a reference guide, not to cite anything). Is this fucking retarded or not? I might complain or appeal for the ban to be lifted or not, do you think its worth doing? Do you think it was a good decision?

Poll coming.

It's alright as a source of information just to give a cursory glance at things. Since it's all attributed, you can then go and read a ton of books and such afterwards, too.

Horrible decision! Did they give a reason?

I think they may have gotten too many idiots citing Wikipedia instead of using a reputable source, or just outright plagarism.

(I know that plagarism is not spelled right, not on my computer, don't have the spell checker.)

Wow. Just wow.

Whenever a teacher tells a student at my school to look up something-Wikipedia. Just today, it happened.

"Hey, Steve*, could you look up the current political situation in Haiti?"

"Ok."


about a minute later (he's kinda slow), he finds it.

*false name

Wow. Just wow.

Whenever a teacher tells a student at my school to look up something-Wikipedia. Just today, it happened.

"Hey, Steve*, could you look up the current political situation in Haiti?"

"Ok."


about a minute later (he's kinda slow), he finds it.

*false name

Let me guess, real name is Tom? :p

It's alright as a source of information just to give a cursory glance at things. Since it's all attributed, you can then go and read a ton of books and such afterwards, too.

Yep, have you heard about this in any other colleges?

Horrible decision! Did they give a reason?

Nope

I think they may have gotten too many idiots citing Wikipedia instead of using a reputable source, or just outright plagarism.


Still thats not enough of a reason, you can't cite any encyclopaedia, so why don't they throw out the volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica they have also?

It's not worth the time and effort, although honestly I think it should be up to the professor and not up to the college as a whole. I am slightly biased since I have written for Wikipedia and even got the T-26 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-26) article to feature status [wrote it, as well]. Most of my issues with Wikipedia are more personal:

1. I don't like having my work edited and changed, especially when most of the edits are wrong.
2. I like to have credit for my work, and so I prefer writing for magazines where I am the sole author.
3. I prefer to get paid for writing.

OTOH, Wikipedia can be a good resource if you use the right article. However, professor's are not paid to look at the articles individually, just to see if it was a good source to use. Consequently, it makes sense to ban Wikipedia as a whole; it's not that they thik it's worthless in general, it's that they don't have a mental list of what articles are good and which aren't.

I think they may have gotten too many idiots citing Wikipedia instead of using a reputable source, or just outright plagarism.

(I know that plagarism is not spelled right, not on my computer, don't have the spell checker.)

So those students should be failed.


This is kind of a lame decision.

Yep, have you heard about this in any other colleges?
I'm smart, not omniscient...

Hasn't happened at my college, so that's only a 50% presumed tragedy rate, eh?

Still thats not enough of a reason, you can't cite any encyclopaedia, so why don't they throw out the volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica they have also?
Ever try lifting a few of them at a time? :p

Stupid.

OTOH, Wikipedia can be a good resource if you use the right article. However, professor's are not paid to look at the articles individually, just to see if it was a good source to use. Consequently, it makes sense to ban Wikipedia as a whole; it's not that they thik it's worthless in general, it's that they don't have a mental list of what articles are good and which aren't.

Wikipedia will always say if any statement is not cited or is being disputed, I think its silly for the college to assume that everyone is a complete fucking idiot who cannot realise that a 'disputed source' is not a reliable source.

OTOH, Wikipedia can be a good resource if you use the right article. However, professor's are not paid to look at the articles individually, just to see if it was a good source to use. Consequently, it makes sense to ban Wikipedia as a whole; it's not that they thik it's worthless in general, it's that they don't have a mental list of what articles are good and which aren't.

If anybody is citing an encyclopedia in university, they deserve a poor grade, but blocking Wikipedia makes no sense. It won't solve anything, and it makes everyone's life a whole hell of a lot more inconvenient.

I understand not allowing it as a source to cite...but blocking it completely is moronic. Simply don't allow people to source, cite, or whatever Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a good starting place to pick up some terminology on a topic as well as getting some ideas of what you should look up in better sources.

I'm smart, not omniscient...


*converts back to atheism from yootopianism*

I think they read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wikipedia

Did they also block access to Conservapedia? :p

Did they also block access to Conservapedia? :p
I dunno. It cites the Bible, which I guess is a pretty verifiable source. [/lol]

just use a proxy to work around the blockage

Did they also block access to Conservapedia? :p

*Pictures a student using Conservapedia to research Evolution.*

*Dies*

Wikipedia will just retaliate by putting a page up saying your college doesn't exist. And as Wikipedia is always right, it will instanteously disappear to match the article. Humankind will be none the wiser it ever existed. Its the internet 'nuclear option', y'know.

Did they also block access to Conservapedia? :p

Probably not actually, not because of a conservative bias, but because they are not aware of it.

just use a proxy to work around the blockage

Well they block proxy sites as well.

Whether you find Wikipedia reliable or not, it has a huge list of references for every significant article, and it is a great place to find online resources.

That being said, I could probably hack through their block, but it's not worth the trouble, is it?

Well they block proxy sites as well.

You can set up your home computer as an authenticated proxy. It's not that hard.

*Pictures a student using Conservapedia to research Evolution.*

*Dies*

Precisely. Banning Wikipedia will drive the students to ever more desperate information gathering tatics.

Something has to be done to stop students from citing encyclopedias but I would suggest they ban encyclopedias that don't list real citeable sources to look up at the end of each article before they ban one that does.

Wikipedia will just retaliate by putting a page up saying your college doesn't exist. And as Wikipedia is always right, it will instanteously disappear to match the article. Humankind will be none the wiser it ever existed. Its the internet 'nuclear option', y'know.

I KNEW IT! :D

Well they block proxy sites as well.

Use a proxy to get around the proxy. Oh. Wait. I think that might not work.

You can set up your home computer as an authenticated proxy. It's not that hard.

Probably not worth it.

If you can get into a decent college, you should be able to circumvent internet blocks anyway. I noticed in high school that the same kids who didn't know the name of the Vice President or the proper use of grammar were the same kids who asked for my help to get them past the blocks.

Wikipedia is good for its external links and finding actual scholarly sources for things. Its basically plagiarism to do anything with the article itself, because really it is someone else's work and you don't know whose it is. But I agree, it was dumb to ban Wikipedia. Its just a bunch of librarians paranoid that they'll be out of a job because of it, I think.

Wikipedia will always say if any statement is not cited or is being disputed, I think its silly for the college to assume that everyone is a complete fucking idiot who cannot realise that a 'disputed source' is not a reliable source.

Has nothing to do with being an idiot; it has more to do with being lazy. If the student can get away with it, he or she is likely to use the resource instead of opting for a better one, because this one is easier to access.

Well, I have now even less faith in humanity. Yay... :(

Wikipedia is essentially a world-wide peer-review journal. You can use it as a starting point for your research. People make sure that articles either have references for claims or notices that the information therein is either original research or not backed by evidence from legitimate scholarly sources.

And if the administration of your college has banned Wikipedia because they cannot handle it, then they the college does not deserve a student body. This is beyond fuck retarded.

If anybody is citing an encyclopedia in university, they deserve a poor grade, but blocking Wikipedia makes no sense. It won't solve anything, and it makes everyone's life a whole hell of a lot more inconvenient.

I agree; blocking it completely doesn't make much sense, and as I said, IMO it should be up to the professor if the student can use it as a source or not. My uncle, for example, allows it to be used as a source, although it can't really be used much for what he teaches [he is an agrarian engineer who is a professor at the Politécnica de Madrid].

Well they block proxy sites as well.

So where are you going? The University of Alcatraz? Leave the college Library, go across the street to the nearest Starbucks, and surf to your little hearts content.

Wikipedia is essentially a world-wide peer-review journal.

I agree with what you said on a whole, but it should be noted that not all articles are 'peer-reviewed' in the same way that an academic journal would be. Furthermore, not even the authors have time to look over the articles they wrote to make sure nobody has made idiotic changes. It's been a year since I've looked at the T-26 article, and I haven't even bothered expanding on the Panzer I article [originally, I wanted to get it featured] and the Ch'onma-ho article [yes, I have a fetish for tanks!]. Some of the edits made are completely nonsensical, tbh, and that was one thing that got on my nerves. I don't want to revert edits every two hours.

Well, that is ridiculous. Similar to mine banning anything related to 'pornography' for no clear reason.

I suggest you use google cache or something similar to view stored pages.

Did they also block access to Conservapedia? :p

I just browsed that site, as I didnt know it existed.


I am now depressed. Thank you.

How is the block implemented?

If it's a DNS based block just use OpenDNS (www.opendns.com) instead of the college's DNS servers.

Now, I can see a few reasons why it could be banned, as I know that Wikipedia is frequently trolled and articles are messed with. Hell, I've seen some librarians do it themselves, just because they want to prove a point! It is still good for external links, though.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Wikipedia

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

So where are you going? The University of Alcatraz? Leave the college Library, go across the street to the nearest
Starbucks, and surf to your little hearts content.

Oh, just for clarification, in the UK 'college' usually means the place you go to when you're 16 to 18 (I'm 18) before you go to university. There isn't an internet cafe anywhere near, and I don't the laptop with me to college.

You can set up your home computer as an authenticated proxy. It's not that hard.

How would one go about doing that?

I just browsed that site, as I didnt know it existed.
I am now depressed. Thank you.

One does one's best.

Who cares if they block it anyway...Its called a Proxy Server...

:rolleyes:

Oh, just for clarification, in the UK 'college' usually means the place you go to when you're 16 to 18 (I'm 18) before you go to university. There isn't an internet cafe anywhere near, and I don't the laptop with me to college.

That does change things somewhat.

It's banned at many public schools by the auto-blocking software as well.
(Because it has *gasp* dirty and illegal things in it, Duh because it's an Encyclopaedia)

Funny isn't it.

I wonder if the school has banned ED. If it hasn't then that's lulzly.

It's not worth the time and effort, although honestly I think it should be up to the professor and not up to the college as a whole. I am slightly biased since I have written for Wikipedia and even got the T-26 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-26) article to feature status [wrote it, as well]. Most of my issues with Wikipedia are more personal:

1. I don't like having my work edited and changed, especially when most of the edits are wrong.
2. I like to have credit for my work, and so I prefer writing for magazines where I am the sole author.
3. I prefer to get paid for writing.

OTOH, Wikipedia can be a good resource if you use the right article. However, professor's are not paid to look at the articles individually, just to see if it was a good source to use. Consequently, it makes sense to ban Wikipedia as a whole; it's not that they thik it's worthless in general, it's that they don't have a mental list of what articles are good and which aren't.

A study showed that it was more accurate than the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

Not that you want to be citing an encyclopedia for your paper - you probably want to cite specific works.

Wikipedia is fine, you just have to make sure the sources on it are reliable, check the links if you want to be sure what your reading is reliable, personally i think banning websites that do no harm whatsoever is a joke.

A study showed that it was more accurate than the Encyclopedia Brittanica.


That's not saying much. :p Honestly, Wikipedia is good when it comes to certain topics. For example, in regards to military history Wikipedia is, in general, a good source [being in the Military History Project and being the author of a number of articles], but its science articles could use some work [not a lot of people know about some of the topics - my article on electrothermal-chemical technology has not really been touched, and even I admit that it needs to be worked on].

That does change things somewhat.

Not really. My original point stays the same. Unless you're living on site and the place is completely walled off, there's always someplace to go, if wikipedia (or any other site for that matter) means that much to you.

Are all the Wikipedia mirror sites banned as well?

Not really. My original point stays the same. Unless you're living on site and the place is completely walled off, there's always someplace to go, if wikipedia (or any other site for that matter) means that much to you.

I should've taken the internet café part out of the quote. I meant his explanation of 'college' changed things somewhat. I had assumed he was referring to university, and a university blocking its thousands of residents from access to any site seems nuts.

Whereas schools can do what they want, because kids aren't people. :p

I agree with what you said on a whole, but it should be noted that not all articles are 'peer-reviewed' in the same way that an academic journal would be. Furthermore, not even the authors have time to look over the articles they wrote to make sure nobody has made idiotic changes. It's been a year since I've looked at the T-26 article, and I haven't even bothered expanding on the Panzer I article [originally, I wanted to get it featured] and the Ch'onma-ho article [yes, I have a fetish for tanks!]. Some of the edits made are completely nonsensical, tbh, and that was one thing that got on my nerves. I don't want to revert edits every two hours.
Well, my point was more along the lines that Wikipedia, because of it's wide-open edit policy lends itself to much checking by those who are knowledgeable. It is not perfect, but the transparency makes it really good on balance. I maintain that while Wikipedia is not a scholarly source, it is one of the best ways to begin non-original research these days.

It is definitely not a peer-reviewed journal proper, but it is comes close enough to be valuable for middle and high school students as well as college undergraduates.

Did the college ban Wikipedia or did Wikipedia ban access from the college? Because the latter has happened before, due to vandalism.

"Fucking retarded" about sums it up. What college is it, anyway? NP if you don't want to disclose that information.

Well they block proxy sites as well.

okay here is what you do.
go to mega proxy.com from a non school computer.
sign up for 6 months (think 12 dollars for 6 months). they have a secret rotating site they use, specifically so IP cant be blocked.

what collage is this? I think I may have an idea why if it just happened recently.

If they were just telling student not to use it as a source in formal essays, I'd probably be fine with it. But preventing anyone from accessing it at all? That's pointless, and frankly offensive. One can find a lot of interesting things on Wikipedia, even if tis not the most reliable source. It is not without merit, and I fail to see any solid justification for this policy. By all means, complain.

I think they may have gotten too many idiots citing Wikipedia instead of using a reputable source, or just outright plagarism.

Probably, and those too many idiots citing Wikipedia screwed it up for everyone else...

(I know that plagarism is not spelled right, not on my computer, don't have the spell checker.)

Should have looked it up on Wikipedia...oh, wait... j/k

I don't understand why they have blocked it myself, if students want to use it as a source and put down the wrong information because they got it from an unreliable source then so be it they fail. Students should be using a range of sources anyway not just one.

While it wasn't banned at my University, I did have one lecturer that said if she saw we had cited Wikipedia or had used it as a source in any of our essays she would fail the student on that essay. A couple others told us not to use it as a main source of information.

I myself while have a quick look just to get some basic info, mainly just to refresh the memory e.g. What year did the American Civil War end. Then I would use it, if I wanted to find out the all reasons behind it and the various battles and troop movements then I would not use it without some other sources to back it up.

As in its been completely blocked from the network, it was bad enough when the library staff just yelled at you for using it in the library (I only use it as a reference guide, not to cite anything). Is this fucking retarded or not? I might complain or appeal for the ban to be lifted or not, do you think its worth doing? Do you think it was a good decision?

Poll coming.

It's not a horrid porno site, why did they do it? I've never heard of this. Hell even in college, they didn't block porno sites in the dorm computers.

I don't agree, but I can understand their reasoning.


Maybe the students at your college should learn to write their own essays instead of plagerising Wiki...

As fucking retarded as it gets.

As in its been completely blocked from the network, it was bad enough when the library staff just yelled at you for using it in the library (I only use it as a reference guide, not to cite anything). Is this fucking retarded or not? I might complain or appeal for the ban to be lifted or not, do you think its worth doing? Do you think it was a good decision?

Poll coming.

That's an odd choice. Leave it up the professors to accept the site as a source, simply rewrite the rules to preclude the site as a valid source, maybe even associate a penalty with using Wiki for a source, but block the site altogether? I can't see the sense in it, unless there's some sort of history associated with Wikipedia at your school.

I think it's endlessly stupid, but I can somewhat understand their fears. Wikipedia can be a huge crutch. Even if one doesn't plagiarize straight from the article, simply taking sources compiled by Wikipedia is quite lazy and discourages learning of true academic research, an important skill in academia. I've done that in a pinch before (used the listed wikipedia source), but I felt a bit bad. It's better to do real research.

That being said, I love Wikipedia for general knowledge type stuff.

Asinine. Wikipedia is great if you need a quick, basic knowledge on a subject. Better, it cites its sources, so if you do end up using it you can just cite its sources.

Besides, whenever I use it the alternative is me just writing how I think things work (read making shit up), so Wikipedia is the lesser of the evils here.

I think Wikipedia is a great resource for those who can use it properly. Those that can't make it blatantly obvious and I think they should have to deal with the consequences.

Even if one doesn't plagiarize straight from the article, simply taking sources compiled by Wikipedia is quite lazy and discourages learning of true academic research, an important skill in academia.

Problem being, How Many students are going to be Career Academics? id wager less than 5%, so its not a very Important skill to learn, not to mention, the Internet, and Websites like Wikipedia are the future of Research..

My college says it's ok as long as we look at other sources too; which makes sense.

When our lecturers tell us not too look at Youtube, I just go on Dailymotion/Veoh and the like; taking advantage of people thinking that the only sites that exist on the internet are Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, Ebay, the BBC and Wikipedia. :rolleyes:

Wikipedia is good for its external links and finding actual scholarly sources for things. Its basically plagiarism to do anything with the article itself, because really it is someone else's work and you don't know whose it is. But I agree, it was dumb to ban Wikipedia. Its just a bunch of librarians paranoid that they'll be out of a job because of it, I think.

Now, I can see a few reasons why it could be banned, as I know that Wikipedia is frequently trolled and articles are messed with. Hell, I've seen some librarians do it themselves, just because they want to prove a point! It is still good for external links, though.

:confused:

Do you have some issues with librarians that you would like to talk about?


(Incidently, Hydesland, are you at the University of Liverpool?)

As in its been completely blocked from the network, it was bad enough when the library staff just yelled at you for using it in the library (I only use it as a reference guide, not to cite anything). Is this fucking retarded or not? I might complain or appeal for the ban to be lifted or not, do you think its worth doing? Do you think it was a good decision?

Poll coming.
It's stupid. Wikipedia is an excellent starting point for almost any kind of project. Not necessarily as a primary source, but the links at the bottom of the page are usually full of them.

As in its been completely blocked from the network, it was bad enough when the library staff just yelled at you for using it in the library (I only use it as a reference guide, not to cite anything). Is this fucking retarded or not? I might complain or appeal for the ban to be lifted or not, do you think its worth doing? Do you think it was a good decision?

Poll coming.

Are they removing all the encyclopedias from the shelves also?

I believe blocking any resource, even ones like wikipedia, sorta goes against an educational rule. You might not get perfectly correct information but alot of what is put on wikipedia isn't placed there by someone who doesn't know what their talking about. You might find mistakes, but usually there easy to notice and if wikipedia is your only source then you shouldn't be in college.

Bloody stupid.

Asinine. Wikipedia is great if you need a quick, basic knowledge on a subject. Better, it cites its sources, so if you do end up using it you can just cite its sources.

Besides, whenever I use it the alternative is me just writing how I think things work (read making shit up), so Wikipedia is the lesser of the evils here.

I think Wikipedia is a great resource for those who can use it properly. Those that can't make it blatantly obvious and I think they should have to deal with the consequences.

Aye. Using wiki as a start point for any research project can be good. especially when writing dissertations. It can give you quick background knowledge and a list of sources to check out for yourself. The main thing to remember is to always always do your own work. Once you have the research from the cited sources and many others, begin writing your own take citing where you got any information taken directly from a publication..

Just ripping wiki is obviously going to fail you, as is just ripping from the Encyclopedia Britanica, Encarta (yes, im old enough to remember that!) or any other source.

Remember, in certain subject areas, if your writing is considered to be of the highest standards, you show a comptence in the subject and show some of your own research/findinbgs, you could have your paper published..

(such as my friend who studied one of the sciences)

Puzzle pieces.

Professors live in a "publish or perish" world, their academic and career status is in part derived from the papers they've had published, and the frequency with which those papers are cited.

Those publishers lose money on the journals in which those papers are published. Try as they might, there is just no profit publishing Quarterly Journal of Homeotropic Polysulfide Chemistry.

But those same publishers rake in tons of money from textbooks.

Universities know this. They're in on the game. That is why, when a textbook is updated (almost as frequently as automobiles) they sell new ones. They do not ask the publisher to merely print a two dollar addendum/errata section to the last issue. They want a whole new book- just because the writer has added some comments and a new chart to chapter seven. They need to toss some bucks to the publisher, so their papers will continue to get published in the money losing academic journals.

But the students can only be soaked for so much in the book store. So the university wants to buy a lot of other books too- keep the publishers busy and happy. High usage justifies library expenditures. So the university system has a vested interest in keeping library book usage high.

Using internet media in lieu of printed material is a threat to the system. The system doesn't like threats.

<snip>
Using internet media in lieu of printed material is a threat to the system. The system doesn't like threats.

This could be true if libraries didn't invest heavily in various electronic resources for their students.


EDIT: It is simply amazing to see the sheer amount of stuff published online that is used by librarians and libraries

http://www.conservapedia.com/Wikipedia

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I have to shake my head at conservapedia, as it puts all even moderate conservatives in a bad light. But you must admit there have been a few articles that have had a left wing bias or some sort of bias it is not after all just the facts.

One problem with Wikipedia is that people can get into it and change the information, aka Hillary Clinton's picture being changed with that of a walrus comes to mind.

Also, I am sure they were receiving way too many papers with just Wikipedia used as references.

You can always use your won computer to research from Wikipedia as well.

As in its been completely blocked from the network, it was bad enough when the library staff just yelled at you for using it in the library (I only use it as a reference guide, not to cite anything). Is this fucking retarded or not? I might complain or appeal for the ban to be lifted or not, do you think its worth doing? Do you think it was a good decision?

Poll coming.

I think it was a great decision.

/me discretely edits an obscure article to see how long it takes for anybody to notice the extreme factual inadequacies.

This is just plain retardednisnm (if thats a word dont know look it up on wiki ;) )
But seriously its good to find references and there are programs to find plagiat (or how its spelled, dunno wiki should say it to ;) )
As long as you dont use the text it isnt forbidden, wiki is a reference site not a scientific one. Don't use it as a source and it should be fine, teachers are hired to check for copying... so they should shuv it and lift the ban

If they don't like it as a nice site try this 1: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

/me discretely edits an obscure article to see how long it takes for anybody to notice the extreme factual inadequacies.

This is the biggest issue; I wonder how many incorrect edits have been made on my T-26 article in the past year I haven't been keeping up with it.

This is the biggest issue; I wonder how many incorrect edits have been made on my T-26 article in the past year I haven't been keeping up with it.

I wonder how many were done to "test" the system.

I wonder how many were done to "test" the system.

Probably quite a bit, but most are stupid - I checked my Panzer I article today and found that a while back the page had been blanked. Generally speaking there are people that always check the 'recent edits' list and keep track of that, even if they don't know the subject. It's more difficult when the edits appear to be related to the subject or when it has to do with changing a word. For example, I remember that one person changed my wording from 'counterstroke' to 'counterstrike' and I had to link him to a dictionary definition of 'counterstroke' and edit it back. I figured it just wasn't worth to spend all my time doing that.

I noticed that just a few days ago someone deliberately blanked all your info.. Damn good thing that wiki has that revert option to revert back to anything previous

Yep, that's classic America. Ban the largest and most widely accessible repository of free knowledge on the planet.

Yep, that's classic America. Ban the largest and most widely accessible repository of free knowledge on the planet.

Merseyside has become the 51st state?

Samuel L Jackson was right...:eek:

Merseyside has become the 51st state?

Samuel L Jackson was right...:eek:

Oh, wait, England. That was unexpected, my bad.

What kind of Englishman calls an English school "college"? It's university! Say it!

Incidentally, Liverpool > Manchester.

Did the college ban Wikipedia or did Wikipedia ban access from the college? Because the latter has happened before, due to vandalism.

Quoting this.

Oh, wait, England. That was unexpected, my bad.

What kind of Englishman calls an English school "college"? It's university! Say it!

Incidentally, Liverpool > Manchester.

Bah. That's fighting talk :p

(I do actually like Liverpool alot though)

Bah. That's fighting talk :p

(I do actually like Liverpool alot though)

YNWA >_<

YNWA >_<

Never cared much for football. Especially not united

Quoting this.

I know a few Liverpool Uni students who occasionally vandalised wikipedia.

BNot sure they did it enough though

Never cared much for football. Especially not united

Being English and not caring for football is like being human and not caring for oxygen. It's been said that Lucy Pinder could walk into an English pub naked and nary an eye would move away from the television.

If anybody is citing an encyclopedia in university, they deserve a poor grade, but blocking Wikipedia makes no sense. It won't solve anything, and it makes everyone's life a whole hell of a lot more inconvenient.

I once had a wikipedia article listed (I was looking a few references and left the link in to remind me to continue on the next day). Now I know that I should have seperate draft and final versions :p.

Being English and not caring for football is like being human and not caring for oxygen. It's been said that Lucy Pinder could walk into an English pub naked and nary an eye would move away from the television.

That's just not cricket

I prefer writing for magazines where I am the sole author.
3. I prefer to get paid for writing.


lol good wan

Does your school ban babelfish? If not then use it to translate wikipedia articles from Mandarin to English. This was how I used to access nationstates when I was at school. As a testament to babelfish shittiness it would occasionally translate words somehow - despite there being no mandarin on any of the ns pages...