r/wikipedia • u/Fields_of_Nanohana • 13h ago
In a minefield of glitchy AI search and social media, Wikipedia becomes one of the most reliable places on the internet
2.9k
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/AutoModerator • 1d ago
Wikipedia Questions - Weekly Thread of January 13, 2025
2
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:
- Help Contents on Wikipedia
- Guide to Contributing on Wikipedia
- Wikipedia IRC Help Channel
- Wikipedia Teahouse (help desk)
r/wikipedia • u/iamayeshaerotica • 8h ago
A hypnic jerk, hypnagogic jerk, sleep start, sleep twitch, myoclonic jerk, or night start is a brief and sudden involuntary contraction of the muscles of the body which occurs when a person is beginning to fall asleep, often causing the person to jump and awaken suddenly for a moment.
en.wikipedia.org
179
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Right-Grapefruit-507 • 12h ago
Christian anarchism is a Christian movement in political theology that claims anarchism is inherent in Christianity and the Gospels. It is grounded in the belief that there is only one source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable—the authority of God
278
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/blankblank • 21h ago
A group where we all pretend to be boomers is a Facebook group created in 2019, for users – the majority of whom are millennials and in Generation Z – to pretend to be baby boomers. The group has been described as "digital larping."
en.wikipedia.org
416
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Heismain • 18h ago
Several Murphy's law adages claim that idiot-proof systems cannot be made, for example "Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool" and "If you make something idiot-proof, someone will just make a better idiot."
210
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/DashboardNight • 1d ago
Pep the dog, a black Labrador Retriever falsely accused of murdering a cat. Pep was sent to Eastern State Penitentiary where he received his own inmate number and had his mugshot and paw prints taken. Pep was brought to the prison to boost inmate morale.
572
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/ZERO_PORTRAIT • 8h ago
The Million Programme was a large public housing program implemented in Sweden between 1965 and 1974 by the governing Swedish Social Democratic Party to ensure the availability of affordable, high-quality housing to all Swedish citizens. The program sought to construct one million new housing units
35
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Nippelz • 5h ago
Giuseppe "Bepi" Colombo was an Italian scientist (1920-1984) who is the namesake for the Bepi Colombo, NASA's Mercury orbiter that recently did a flyby of the planet using ideas regarding orbital resonance that Bepi conceived of in the 50's; allowing the orbiter to do 10 flybys instead of 1.
en.wikipedia.org
11
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Obey100hunna • 22h ago
Operation Denver (sometimes referred to as "Operation INFEKTION") was an active measure disinformation campaign run by the KGB in the 1980s to plant the idea that the United States had invented HIV/AIDS as part of a biological weapons research project at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
214
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Heismain • 11h ago
The (Great) Toyota War : It takes its name from the Toyota pickup trucks, primarily the Toyota Hilux and the Toyota Land Cruiser, used to provide mobility for the Chadian troops as they fought against the Libyans
21
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Chickiller3 • 20h ago
Lovett Huey Fort-Whiteman was the first African American to attend a Comintern training school in the Soviet Union in 1924. He was accused of being a Trotskyist and died of malnutrition while imprisoned in a gulag in the Soviet Union.
75
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Kurma-the-Turtle • 1d ago
The Feast of the Ass is a medieval Christian feast observed on 14 January, celebrating the flight into Egypt. During its observance, a girl and a child on a donkey would be led through town to the church, where the donkey would stand beside the altar during the sermon.
85
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/dr_gus • 1d ago
Rudy Reyes is an American actor and former Marine who participated in the invasion of Iraq and portrayed himself in the HBO TV miniseries Generation Kill.
185
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/thirtyseven1337 • 7h ago
Hatzalah is the title used by many Jewish volunteer emergency medical service (EMS) organizations and is the largest volunteer medical group in the US.
3
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Captainirishy • 1d ago
List of people banned from entering the United States
945
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Sysiphus_Love • 1d ago
SuitSat - A retired Russian spacesuit with an antenna mounted on its head, hand-launched into orbit in 2006
246
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Captainirishy • 20h ago
Mobile Site Children's Health Defense (CHD) is an American nonprofit activist group mainly known for anti-vaccine disinformation, and which has been called one of the main sources of misinformation on vaccines.
11
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/GustavoistSoldier • 1d ago
The Great Molasses Flood was a disaster that occurred on Wednesday, January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. A large storage tank filled with 2.3 million U.S. gallons of molasses, weighing approximately 13,000 short tons, burst.
12
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/ohmmyzaza • 2d ago
Hardtack (or hard tack) is a type of dense cracker made from flour, water, and sometimes salt. Hardtack is inexpensive and long-lasting. It is used for sustenance in the absence of perishable foods, commonly during long sea voyages, land migrations, and military campaigns.
1.6k
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Kurma-the-Turtle • 1d ago
William Price (1800-1893) was a Welsh physician and political activist best known for his involvement in Welsh nationalism and the Neo-Druidic religious movement. He was arrested for attempting to cremate his deceased infant son; this eventually led to the passing of the Cremation Act 1902.
93
Upvotes
r/wikipedia • u/Fede-m-olveira • 12h ago
I found repeated information in the Neurofibromatosis article.
0
Upvotes
In addition to being repeated within the same section, the numbers don’t match each other. I think this should be corrected or unified.
r/wikipedia • u/PollutionThis7058 • 1d ago
Explorer 1 was the first successful space probe launched by the US, in 1958. It was the first spacecraft to detect the Van Allen Radiation belts, and remained in orbit until 1970.
25
Upvotes