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Talk:B roll

I'd like to point out also that separating audio from video also allows great liberty in making potentially unethical edits without those edits being very noticeable. But I'm not sure if that should go into the main article: first off I don't know if people will realize that immediately, and second I'm not sure if putting that there stains a legitimate practice. After all, most documentarians do use B roll footage to hide coughs, sniffs, sneezes, etc. and all the other verbal tics that, uh, a person, um, might have, you know. Dude. --KQ

Is "Roll" supposed to be capitalized or not? The article is not consistent. If not, then this article should be moved to the correct (non-capitalized) title. Michael Hardy 23:50, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

title: Talk:B roll


text:
Bantu languages

The Bantu languages (English:, Proto-Bantu: *bantʊ̀)  are a language family of about 600 languages that are spoken by the Bantu peoples of Central, Southern, Eastern and Southeast Africa. They form the largest branch of the Southern Bantoid languages.

The total number of Bantu languages is estimated at between 440 and 680 distinct languages, depending on the definition of "language" versus "dialect". Many Bantu languages borrow words from each other, and some are mutually intelligible. Some of the languages are spoken by a very small number of people, for example the Kabwa language was estimated in 2007 to be spoken by only 8500 people but was assessed to be a distinct language.

The total number of Bantu speakers is estimated to be around 350 million in 2015 (roughly 30% of the population of Africa or 5% of the world population). Bantu languages are largely spoken southeast of Cameroon, and throughout Central, Southern, Eastern, and Southeast Africa. About one-sixth of Bantu speakers, and one-third of Bantu languages, are found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The most widely spoken Bantu language by number of speakers is Swahili, with 16 million native speakers and 80 million L2 speakers (2015). Most native speakers of Swahili live in Tanzania, where it is a national language, while as a second language, it is taught as a mandatory subject in many schools in East Africa, and is a lingua franca of the East African Community.

Other major Bantu languages include Lingala with more than 20 million speakers (Congo, DRC), Zulu with 12 million speakers (South Africa), Xhosa with 8.2 million speakers (South Africa and Zimbabwe), and Shona with less than 10 million speakers (if Manyika and Ndau are included), while Sotho-Tswana languages (Sotho, Tswana and Pedi) have more than 15 million speakers (across Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, and Zambia). Zimbabwe has Kalanga, Matebele, Nambiya, and Xhosa speakers. Ethnologue separates the largely mutually intelligible Kinyarwanda and Kirundi, which together have 20 million speakers.

Name
The similarity among dispersed Bantu languages had been observed as early as the 17th century. The term Bantu as a name for the group was not coined but "noticed" or "identified" (as Bâ-ntu) by Wilhelm Bleek as the first European in 1857 or 1858, and popularized in his Comparative Grammar of 1862. He noticed the term to represent the word for "people" in loosely reconstructed Proto-Bantu, from the plural noun class prefix *ba- categorizing "people", and the root *ntʊ̀- "some (entity), any" (e.g. Xhosa umntu "person", abantu "people"; Zulu umuntu "person", abantu "people").

There is no native term for the people who speak Bantu languages because they are not an ethnic group. People speaking Bantu languages refer to their languages by ethnic endonyms, which did not have an indigenous concept prior to European contact for the larger ethnolinguistic phylum named by 19th-century European linguists. Bleek's identification was inspired by the anthropological observation of groups frequently self-identifying as "people" or "the true people" (as is the case, for example, with the term Khoikhoi, but this is a kare "praise address" and not an ethnic name).

The term narrow Bantu, excluding those languages classified as Bantoid by Guthrie (1948), was introduced in the 1960s.

The prefix ba- specifically refers to people. Endonymically, the term for cultural objects, including language, is formed with the ki- noun class (Nguni ísi-), as in KiSwahili (Swahili language and culture), IsiZulu (Zulu language and culture) and KiGanda (Ganda religion and culture).

In the 1980s, South African linguists suggested referring to these languages as KiNtu. The word kintu exists in some places, but it means "thing", with no relation to the concept of "language". In addition, delegates at the African Languages Association of Southern Africa conference in 1984 reported that, in some places, the term Kintu has a derogatory significance. This is because kintu refers to "things" and is used as a dehumanizing term for people who have lost their dignity.

In addition, Kintu is a figure in some mythologies.

In the 1990s, the term Kintu was still occasionally used by South African linguists. But in contemporary decolonial South African linguistics, the term Ntu languages is used.

Within the fierce debate among linguists about the word "Bantu", Seidensticker (2024) indicates that there has been a "profound conceptual trend in which a "purely technical [term] without any non-linguistic connotations was transformed into a designation referring indiscriminately to language, culture, society, and race"."

Origin
The Bantu languages descend from a common Proto-Bantu language, which is believed to have been spoken in what is now Cameroon in Central Africa. An estimated 2,500–3,000 years ago (1000 BC to 500 BC), speakers of the Proto-Bantu language began a series of migrations eastward and southward, carrying agriculture with them. This Bantu expansion came to dominate Sub-Saharan Africa east of Cameroon, an area where Bantu peoples now constitute nearly the entire population. Some other sources estimate the Bantu Expansion started closer to 3000 BC.

The technical term Bantu, meaning "human beings" or simply "people", was first used by Wilhelm Bleek (1827–1875), as the concept is reflected in many of the languages of this group. A common characteristic of Bantu languages is that they use words such as muntu or mutu for "human being" or in simplistic terms "person", and the plural prefix for human nouns starting with mu- (class 1) in most languages is ba- (class 2), thus giving bantu for "people". Bleek, and later Carl Meinhof, pursued extensive studies comparing the grammatical structures of Bantu languages.

Classification

The most widely used classification is an alphanumeric coding system developed by Malcolm Guthrie in his 1948 classification of the Bantu languages. It is mainly geographic. The term "narrow Bantu" was coined by the Benue–Congo Working Group to distinguish Bantu as recognized by Guthrie, from the Bantoid languages not recognized as Bantu by Guthrie.

In recent times, the distinctiveness of Narrow Bantu as opposed to the other Southern Bantoid languages has been called into doubt, but the term is still widely used.

There is no true genealogical classification of the (Narrow) Bantu languages. Until recently most attempted classifications only considered languages that happen to fall within traditional Narrow Bantu, but there seems to be a continuum with the related languages of South Bantoid.

At a broader level, the family is commonly split in two depending on the reflexes of proto-Bantu tone patterns: many Bantuists group together parts of zones A through D (the extent depending on the author) as Northwest Bantu or Forest Bantu, and the remainder as Central Bantu or Savanna Bantu. The two groups have been described as having mirror-image tone systems: where Northwest Bantu has a high tone in a cognate, Central Bantu languages generally have a low tone, and vice versa.

Northwest Bantu is more divergent internally than Central Bantu, and perhaps less conservative due to contact with non-Bantu Niger–Congo languages; Central Bantu is likely the innovative line cladistically. Northwest Bantu is not a coherent family, but even for Central Bantu the evidence is lexical, with little evidence that it is a historically valid group.

Another attempt at a detailed genetic classification to replace the Guthrie system is the 1999 "Tervuren" proposal of Bastin, Coupez, and Mann. However, it relies on lexicostatistics, which, because of its reliance on overall similarity rather than shared innovations, may predict spurious groups of conservative languages that are not closely related. Meanwhile, Ethnologue has added languages to the Guthrie classification which Guthrie overlooked, while removing the Mbam languages (much of zone A), and shifting some languages between groups (much of zones D and E to a new zone J, for example, and part of zone L to K, and part of M to F) in an apparent effort at a semi-genetic, or at least semi-areal, classification. This has been criticized for sowing confusion in one of the few unambiguous ways to distinguish Bantu languages. Nurse & Philippson (2006) evaluate many proposals for low-level groups of Bantu languages, but the result is not a complete portrayal of the family. Glottolog has incorporated many of these into their classification.

The languages that share Dahl's law may also form a valid group, Northeast Bantu. The infobox at right lists these together with various low-level groups that are fairly uncontroversial, though they continue to be revised. The development of a rigorous genealogical classification of many branches of Niger–Congo, not just Bantu, is hampered by insufficient data.

Computational phylogenetic classifications
Simplified phylogeny of northwestern branches of Bantu by Grollemund (2012):

Other computational phylogenetic analyses of Bantu include Currie et al. (2013), Grollemund et al. (2015), Rexova et al. 2006, Holden et al., 2016, and Whiteley et al. 2018.

Glottolog classification
Glottolog (2021) does not consider the older geographic classification by Guthrie relevant for its ongoing classification based on more recent linguistic studies, and divides Bantu into four main branches: Bantu A-B10-B20-B30, Central-Western Bantu, East Bantu and Mbam-Bube-Jarawan.

Language structure
Guthrie reconstructed both the phonemic inventory and the vocabulary of Proto-Bantu.

The most prominent grammatical characteristic of Bantu languages is the extensive use of affixes (see Sotho grammar and Ganda noun classes for detailed discussions of these affixes). Each noun belongs to a class, and each language may have several numbered classes, somewhat like grammatical gender in European languages. The class is indicated by a prefix that is part of the noun, as well as agreement markers on verb and qualificative roots connected with the noun. Plurality is indicated by a change of class, with a resulting change of prefix. All Bantu languages are agglutinative.

The verb has a number of prefixes, though in the western languages these are often treated as independent words. In Swahili, for example, Kitoto kidogo kimekisoma (for comparison, Kamwana kadoko karikuverenga in Shona language) means 'The small child has read it [a book]'. kitoto 'child' governs the adjective prefix ki- (representing the diminutive form of the word) and the verb subject prefix a-. Then comes perfect tense -me- and an object marker -ki- agreeing with implicit kitabu 'book' (from Arabic kitab). Pluralizing to 'children' gives Vitoto vidogo vimekisoma (Vana vadoko varikuverenga in Shona), and pluralizing to 'books' (vitabu) gives vitoto vidogo vimevisoma.

Bantu words are typically made up of open syllables of the type CV (consonant-vowel) with most languages having syllables exclusively of this type. The Bushong language recorded by Vansina, however, has final consonants, while slurring of the final syllable (though written) is reported as common among the Tonga of Malawi. The morphological shape of Bantu words is typically CV, VCV, CVCV, VCVCV, etc.; that is, any combination of CV (with possibly a V- syllable at the start). In other words, a strong claim for this language family is that almost all words end in a vowel, precisely because closed syllables (CVC) are not permissible in most of the documented languages, as far as is understood.

This tendency to avoid consonant clusters in some positions is important when words are imported from English or other non-Bantu languages. An example from Chewa: the word "school", borrowed from English, and then transformed to fit the sound patterns of this language, is sukulu. That is, sk- has been broken up by inserting an epenthetic -u-; -u has also been added at the end of the word. Another example is buledi for "bread". Similar effects are seen in loanwords for other non-African CV languages like Japanese. However, a clustering of sounds at the beginning of a syllable can be readily observed in such languages as Shona, and the Makua languages.

With few exceptions, such as Kiswahili and Rutooro, Bantu languages are tonal and have two to four register tones.

Reduplication
Reduplication is a common morphological phenomenon in Bantu languages and is usually used to indicate frequency or intensity of the action signalled by the (unreduplicated) verb stem.

 * Example: in Swahili, piga means "strike", pigapiga means "strike repeatedly".

Well-known words and names that have reduplication include:
 * Bafana Bafana, a football team
 * Chipolopolo, a football team
 * Eric Djemba-Djemba, a footballer
 * Lomana LuaLua, a footballer

Repetition emphasizes the repeated word in the context that it is used. For instance, "Mwenda pole hajikwai," means "He who goes slowly doesn't trip," while, "Pole pole ndio mwendo," means "A slow but steady pace wins the race." The latter repeats "pole" to emphasize the consistency of slowness of the pace.

As another example, "Haraka haraka" would mean "hurrying just for the sake of hurrying" (reckless hurry), as in "Njoo! Haraka haraka" [come here! Hurry, hurry].

In contrast, there are some words in some of the languages in which reduplication has the opposite meaning. It usually denotes short durations, or lower intensity of the action, and also means a few repetitions or a little bit more.

 * Example 1: In Xitsonga and (Chi)Shona, famba means "walk" while famba-famba means "walk around".
 * Example 2: in isiZulu and SiSwati hamba means "go", hambahamba means "go a little bit, but not much".
 * Example 3: in both of the above languages shaya means "strike", shayashaya means "strike a few more times lightly, but not heavy strikes and not too many times".
 * Example 4: In Shona  means "scratch", Kwenyakwenya means "scratch excessively or a lot".
 * Example 5: In Luhya cheenda means "walk", cheendacheenda means "take a walk but not far off", as in buying time before something is ready or a situation or time is right.

Noun class
The following is a list of nominal classes in Bantu languages:

Syntax
Virtually all Bantu languages have a Subject–verb–object word order with some exceptions such as the Nen language which has a Subject-Object-Verb word order.

By country
Following is an incomplete list of the principal Bantu languages of each country. Included are those languages that constitute at least 1% of the population and have at least 10% the number of speakers of the largest Bantu language in the country.

Most languages are referred to in English without the class prefix (Swahili, Tswana, Ndebele), but are sometimes seen with the (language-specific) prefix (Kiswahili, Setswana, Sindebele). In a few cases prefixes are used to distinguish languages with the same root in their name, such as Tshiluba and Kiluba (both Luba), Umbundu and Kimbundu (both Mbundu). The prefixless form typically does not occur in the language itself, but is the basis for other words based on the ethnicity. So, in the country of Botswana the people are the Batswana, one person is a Motswana, and the language is Setswana; and in Uganda, centred on the kingdom of Buganda, the dominant ethnicity are the Baganda (singular Muganda), whose language is Luganda.

Lingua franca

 * Swahili (Kiswahili) (350,000; tens of millions as L2)

Angola

 * South Mbundu (Umbundu) (4 million)
 * Central North Mbundu (Kimbundu) (3 million)
 * North Bakongo (Kikongo) (576,800)
 * Ovambo (Ambo) (Oshiwambo) (500,000)
 * Luvale (Chiluvale) (500,000)
 * Chokwe (Chichokwe) (500,000)

Botswana

 * Tswana (Setswana) (1.6 million)
 * Kalanga (Ikalanga) (150,000)

Burundi

 * Swahili is a recognized national language

 * Kirundi (8.5 – 10.5 million)

Cameroon

 * Beti (1.7 million: 900,000 Bulu, 600,000 Ewondo, 120,000 Fang, 60,000 Eton, 30,000 Bebele)
 * Basaa (230,000)
 * Duala (350,000)
 * Manenguba languages (230,000)

Central African Republic

 * Mbati (60,000)
 * Aka (30,000)
 * Pande (8,870)
 * Ngando (5,000)
 * Ukhwejo
 * Kako
 * Mpiemo
 * Bodo
 * Kari

Democratic Republic of the Congo

 * Swahili is a recognized national language

 * Lingala (Ngala) (2 million; 7 million with L2 speakers)
 * Luba-Kasai (Tshiluba) (6.5 million)
 * Kituba (4.5 million), a Bantu creole
 * Kongo (Kikongo) (3.5 million)
 * Luba-Katanga (Kiluba) (1.5+ million)
 * Songe (Lusonge) (1+ million)
 * Nande (Orundandi) (1 million)
 * Tetela (Otetela) (800,000)
 * Yaka (Iyaka) (700,000+)
 * Shi (700,000)
 * Yombe (Kiyombe) (670,000)
 * Lele (Bashilele) (26,000)

Equatorial Guinea

 * Beti (Fang) (300,000)
 * Bube (40,000)

Eswatini

 * Swazi (Siswati) (1 million)

Gabon

 * Baka
 * Barama
 * Bekwel
 * Benga
 * Bubi
 * Bwisi
 * Duma
 * Fang (500,000)
 * Kendell
 * Kanin
 * Sake
 * Sangu
 * Seki
 * Sighu
 * Simba
 * Sira
 * Northern Teke
 * Western Teke
 * Tsaangi
 * Tsogo
 * Vili (3,600)
 * Vumbu
 * Wandji
 * Wumbvu
 * Yangho
 * Yasa

Kenya

 * Swahili and English are national languages

 * Gikuyu (8 million)
 * Luhya (6.8 million)
 * Kamba (4 million)
 * Meru (Kimeru) (2.7 million)
 * Gusii (2 million)
 * Mijikenda
 * Taita
 * Embu
 * Mbeere
 * Giriama

Lesotho

 * Sesotho (1.8 million)
 * Zulu (Isizulu) (300,000)

Malawi

 * Chewa (Nyanja) (Chichewa) (7 million)
 * Tumbuka (1 million)
 * Yao (1 million)

Mozambique

 * Swahili is a recognized national language

 * Makhuwa (4 million; 7.4 million all Makua)
 * Tsonga (Xitsonga) (3.1 million)
 * Shona (Ndau) (1.6 million)
 * Lomwe (1.5 million)
 * Sena (1.3 million)
 * Tswa (1.2 million)
 * Chuwabu (1.0 million)
 * Chopi (800,000)
 * Ronga (700,000)
 * Chewa (Nyanja) (Chichewa) (600,000)
 * Yao (Chiyao) (500,000)
 * Nyungwe (Cinyungwe/Nhungue)(400,000)
 * Tonga (400,000)
 * Makonde (400,000)
 * Nathembo (25,000)

Namibia

 * Ovambo (Ambo, Oshiwambo) (1,500,000)
 * Herero (200,000)

Nigeria

 * Jarawa (250,000)
 * Mbula-Bwazza (100,000)
 * Kulung (40,000)
 * Bile (38,000)
 * Lame (10,000)
 * Mama (2,000–3,000)
 * Shiki (1,200)
 * Gwa
 * Labir
 * Dulbu

Republic of the Congo

 * Kituba (1.2+ million) [a Bantu creole]
 * Kongo (Kikongo) (1.0 million)
 * Teke languages (500,000)
 * Yombe (350,000)
 * Suundi (120,000)
 * Mbosi (110,000)
 * Lingala (100,000; ? L2 speakers)

Rwanda

 * Swahili, Kinyarwanda, English, and French are official languages

 * Kinyarwanda (Kinyarwanda) (10 – 12 million)

Somalia

 * Swahili (Mwini dialect)
 * Chimwini
 * Mushungulu

South Africa
According to the South African National Census of 2011
 * Zulu (Isizulu) (11,587,374 )
 * Xhosa (Isixhosa) (8,154,258 )
 * Sepedi(4,618,576 )
 * Tswana (Setswana) (4,067,248 )
 * Sotho (Sesotho) (3,849,563 )
 * Tsonga (Xitsonga) (2,277,148 )
 * Swazi (Siswati) (1,297,046 )
 * Venda (Tshivenda) (1,209,388 )
 * Southern Ndebele (Transvaal Ndebele) (1,090,223 )
 * Total Nguni: 22,406,049 (61.98%)
 * Total Sotho-Tswana: 13,744,775 (38.02%)
 * Total official indigenous language speakers: 36,150,824 (69.83% )

Tanzania

 * Swahili is the national language

 * Sukuma (5.5 million)
 * Gogo (1.5 million)
 * Haya (Kihaya) (1.3 million)
 * Chaga (Kichaga) (1.2+ million : 600,000 Mochi, 300,000+ Machame, 300,000+ Vunjo)
 * Nyamwezi (1.0 million)
 * Makonde (1.0 million)
 * Ha (1.0 million)
 * Nyakyusa (800,000)
 * Hehe (800,000)
 * Luguru (700,000)
 * Bena (600,000)
 * Shambala (650,000)
 * Nyaturu (600,000)

Uganda

 * Swahili and English are official languages

 * Luganda (9,295,300)
 * Runyankore (4,436,000)
 * Lusoga (3,904,600)
 * Rukiga (3,129,000)
 * Masaba (Lumasaba) (2.7 million)
 * Runyoro (1,273,000)
 * Konjo (1,118,000)
 * Rutooro (1,111,000)
 * Lugwere (816,000)
 * Kinyarwanda (750,000)
 * Samia (684,000)
 * Ruuli (250,000)
 * Talinga Bwisi (133,000)
 * Gungu (110,000)
 * Amba (56,000)
 * Singa

Zambia

 * Aushi (Unknown)
 * Bemba (3.3 million)
 * Tonga (1.0 million)
 * Chewa (Nyanja) (Chichewa) (800,000)
 * Kaonde (240,000)
 * Lozi (Silozi) (600,000)
 * Lala-Bisa (600,000)
 * Nsenga (550,000)
 * Tumbuka (Chitumbuka) (500,000)
 * Lunda (450,000)
 * Nyiha (400,000+)
 * Mambwe-Lungu (400,000)

Zimbabwe

 * Shona languages (15 million incl. Karanga, Zezuru, Korekore, Ndau, Manyika)
 * Northern Ndebele (IsiNdebele) (estimated 2 million)
 * Tonga
 * Chewa/ Nyanja (Chichewa/ChiNyanja)
 * Venda
 * Kalanga

Geographic areas
Map 1 shows Bantu languages in Africa and map 2 a magnification of the Benin, Nigeria and Cameroon area, as of July 2017.

Bantu words popularised in western cultures
A case has been made out for borrowings of many place-names and even misremembered rhymes – chiefly from one of the Luba varieties – in the USA.

Some words from various Bantu languages have been borrowed into western languages. These include:

• Boma

• Bomba

• Bongos

• Bwana

• Candombe

• Chimpanzee

• Gumbo

• Hakuna matata

• Impala

• Indaba

• Jenga

• Jumbo

• Kalimba

• Kwanzaa

• Mamba

• Mambo

• Mbira

• Marimba

• Rumba

• Safari

• Samba

• Simba

• Ubuntu

Writing systems
Along with the Latin script and Arabic script orthographies, there are also some modern indigenous writing systems used for Bantu languages:
 * The Mwangwego alphabet is an abugida created in 1979 that is sometimes used to write the Chewa language and other languages of Malawi.
 * The Mandombe script is an abugida that is used to write the Bantu languages of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, mainly by the Kimbanguist movement.
 * The Isibheqe Sohlamvu or Ditema tsa Dinoko script is a featural syllabary used to write the Sintu or Southern Bantu languages.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Bantu languages


text:
Bearing

Bearing(s) may refer to:

 * Bearing (angle), a term for direction
 * Bearing (mechanical), a component that separates moving parts and takes a load
 * Bridge bearing, a component separating a bridge pier and deck
 * Bearing BTS Station in Bangkok
 * Bearings (album), by Ronnie Montrose in 2000

title: Bearing


text:
CIM-10 Bomarc

The Boeing CIM-10 Bomarc ("Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center") (IM-99 Weapon System prior to September 1962) was a supersonic ramjet powered long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) used during the Cold War for the air defense of North America. In addition to being the first operational long-range SAM and the first operational pulse doppler aviation radar, it was the only SAM deployed by the United States Air Force.

Stored horizontally in a launcher shelter with a movable roof, the missile was erected, fired vertically using rocket boosters to high altitude, and then tipped over into a horizontal Mach 2.5 cruise powered by ramjet engines. This lofted trajectory allowed the missile to operate at a maximum range as great as 430 mi. Controlled from the ground for most of its flight, when it reached the target area it was commanded to begin a dive, activating an onboard active radar homing seeker for terminal guidance. A radar proximity fuse detonated the warhead, either a large conventional explosive or the W40 nuclear warhead.

The Air Force originally planned for a total of 52 sites covering most of the major cities and industrial regions in the US. The US Army was deploying their own systems at the same time, and the two services fought constantly both in political circles and in the press. Development dragged on, and by the time it was ready for deployment in the late 1950s, the nuclear threat had moved from manned bombers to the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). By this time the Army had successfully deployed the much shorter range Nike Hercules that they claimed filled any possible need through the 1960s, in spite of Air Force claims to the contrary.

As testing continued, the Air Force reduced its plans to sixteen sites, and then again to eight with an additional two sites in Canada. The first US site was declared operational in 1959, but with only a single working missile. Bringing the rest of the missiles into service took years, by which time the system was obsolete. Deactivations began in 1969 and by 1972 all Bomarc sites had been shut down. A small number were used as target drones, and only a few remain on display today.

Initial studies
During World War II, the US Army Air Force (USAAF) concluded that existing anti-aircraft guns, only marginally effective against existing generations of propeller-driven aircraft, would not be effective at all against the emerging jet-powered designs. Like the Germans and British before them, they concluded the only successful defence would be to use guided weapons.

As early as 1944 the US Army started exploring anti-aircraft missiles, examining a variety of concepts. At the time, two basic concepts appeared possible; one would use a short-range rocket that flew directly at the target from below following a course close to the line-of-sight, and the other would fly up to the target's altitude and then tip over and fly horizontally towards the target like a fighter aircraft. As both concepts seemed promising, the Army Air Force was given the task of developing the airplane-like design, while the Army Ordnance Department was given the more ballistic collision-course concept. Official requirements were published in 1945.

Official requirements were published in 1945; Bell Laboratories won the Ordnance contract for a short-range line-of-sight weapon under Project Nike, while a team of players led by Boeing won the contract for a long-range design known as Ground-to-Air Pilotless Aircraft, or GAPA. GAPA moved to the US Air Force when that branch was formed in 1947. In 1946, the USAAF also started two early research projects into anti-missile systems in Project Thumper (MX-795) and Project Wizard (MX-794).

Bomarc A
Formally organized in 1946 under USAAF project MX-606, by 1950 Boeing had launched more than 100 test rockets in various configurations, all under the designator XSAM-A-1 GAPA. The tests were very promising, and Boeing received a USAF contract in 1949 to develop a production design under project MX-1599.

The MX-1599 missile was to be a ramjet-powered, nuclear-armed long-range surface-to-air missile to defend the Continental United States from high-flying bombers. The Michigan Aerospace Research Center (MARC) was added to the project soon afterward, and this gave the new missile its name Bomarc (for Boeing and MARC). In 1951, the USAF decided to emphasize its point of view that missiles were nothing else than pilotless aircraft by assigning aircraft designators to its missile projects, and anti-aircraft missiles received F-for-Fighter designations. The Bomarc became the F-99.

By this time, the Army's Nike project was progressing well and would enter operational service in 1953. This led the Air Force to begin a lengthy series of attacks on the Army in the press, a common occurrence at the time known as "policy by press release". When the Army released its first official information on Ajax to the press, the Air Force responded by leaking information on BOMARC to Aviation Week, and continued to denigrate Nike in the press over the next few years, in one case showing a graphic of Washington being destroyed by nuclear bombs that Ajax failed to stop.

Tests of the XF-99 test vehicles began in September 1952 and continued through early 1955. The XF-99 tested only the liquid-fueled booster rocket, which would accelerate the missile to ramjet ignition speed. In February 1955, tests of the XF-99A propulsion test vehicles began. These included live ramjets, but still had no guidance system or warhead. The designation YF-99A had been reserved for the operational test vehicles. In August 1955, the USAF discontinued the use of aircraft-like type designators for missiles, and the XF-99A and YF-99A became XIM-99A and YIM-99A, respectively. Originally the USAF had allocated the designation IM-69, but this was changed (possibly at Boeing's request to keep number 99) to IM-99 in October 1955.

By this time, Ajax was widely deployed around the United States and some overseas locations, and the Army was beginning to develop its much more powerful successor, Nike Hercules. Hercules was an existential threat to BOMARC, as its much greater range and nuclear warhead filled many of the roles that BOMARC was designed for. A new round of fighting in the press broke out, capped by an article in the New York Times entitled "Air Force Calls Army Nike Unfit To Guard Nation".

In October 1957, the first YIM-99A production-representative prototype flew with full guidance, and succeeded to pass the target within destructive range. In late 1957, Boeing received the production contract for the IM-99A Bomarc A, and in September 1959, the first IM-99A squadron became operational.

The IM-99A had an operational radius of 200 mi and was designed to fly at Mach 2.5–2.8 at a cruising altitude of 60000 ft. It was 46.6 ft long and weighed 15500 lb. Its armament was either a 1000 lb conventional warhead or a W40 nuclear warhead (7–10 kiloton yield). A liquid-fuel rocket engine boosted the Bomarc to Mach 2, when its Marquardt RJ43-MA-3 ramjet engines, fueled by 80-octane gasoline, would take over for the remainder of the flight. This was the same model of engine used to power the Lockheed X-7, the Lockheed AQM-60 Kingfisher drone used to test air defenses, and the Lockheed D-21 launched from the back of an M-21, although the Bomarc and Kingfisher engines used different materials due to the longer duration of their flights.

Operational units

The operational IM-99A missiles were based horizontally in semi-hardened shelters, nicknamed "coffins". After the launch order, the shelter's roof would slide open, and the missile raised to the vertical. After the missile was supplied with fuel for the booster rocket, it would be launched by the Aerojet General LR59-AJ-13 booster. After sufficient speed was reached, the Marquardt RJ43-MA-3 ramjets would ignite and propel the missile to its cruise speed of Mach 2.8 at an altitude of 20000 m.

When the Bomarc was within 16 km of the target, its own Westinghouse AN/DPN-34 radar guided the missile to the interception point. The maximum range of the IM-99A was 400 km, and it was fitted with either a conventional high-explosive or a 10 kiloton W-40 nuclear fission warhead.

The Bomarc relied on the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE), an automated control system used by NORAD for detecting, tracking and intercepting enemy bomber aircraft. SAGE allowed for remote launching of the Bomarc missiles, which were housed in a constant combat-ready basis in individual launch shelters in remote areas. At the height of the program, there were 14 Bomarc sites located in the US and two in Canada.

Bomarc B
The liquid-fuel booster of the Bomarc A had several drawbacks. It took two minutes to fuel before launch, which could be a long time in high-speed intercepts, and its hypergolic propellants (hydrazine and nitric acid) were very dangerous to handle, leading to several serious accidents.

As soon as high-thrust solid-fuel rockets became a reality in the mid-1950s, the USAF began to develop a new solid-fueled Bomarc variant, the IM-99B Bomarc B. It used a Thiokol XM51 booster, and also had improved Marquardt RJ43-MA-7 (and finally the RJ43-MA-11) ramjets. The first IM-99B was launched in May 1959, but problems with the new propulsion system delayed the first fully successful flight until July 1960, when a supersonic MQM-15A Regulus II drone was intercepted. Because the new booster required less space in the missile, more ramjet fuel could be carried, thus increasing the range to 700 km. The terminal homing system was also improved, using the world's first pulse Doppler search radar, the Westinghouse AN/DPN-53. All Bomarc Bs were equipped with the W-40 nuclear warhead. In June 1961, the first IM-99B squadron became operational, and Bomarc B quickly replaced most Bomarc A missiles. On 23 March 1961, a Bomarc B successfully intercepted a Regulus II cruise missile flying at 100000 ft, thus achieving the highest interception in the world up to that date.

Boeing built 570 Bomarc missiles between 1957 and 1964, 269 CIM-10A, 301 CIM-10B.

In September 1958 Air Research & Development Command decided to transfer the Bomarc program from its testing at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to a new facility on Santa Rosa Island, south of Eglin AFB Hurlburt Field on the Gulf of Mexico. To operate the facility and to provide training and operational evaluation in the missile program, Air Defense Command established the 4751st Air Defense Wing (Missile) (4751st ADW) on 15 January 1958. The first launch from Santa Rosa took place on 15 January 1959.

Operational history
In 1955, to support a program which called for 40 squadrons of BOMARC (120 missiles to a squadron for a total of 4,800 missiles), ADC reached a decision on the location of these 40 squadrons and suggested operational dates for each. The sequence was as follows: ... l. McGuire 1/60 2. Suffolk 2/60 3. Otis 3/60 4. Dow 4/60 5. Niagara Falls 1/61 6. Plattsburgh 1/61 7. Kinross 2/61 8. K.I. Sawyer 2/61 9. Langley 2/61 10. Truax 3/61 11. Paine 3/61 12. Portland 3/61 ... At the end of 1958, ADC plans called for construction of the following BOMARC bases in the following order: l. McGuire 2. Suffolk 3. Otis 4. Dow 5. Langley 6. Truax 7. Kinross 8. Duluth 9. Ethan Allen 10. Niagara Falls 11. Paine 12. Adair 13. Travis 14. Vandenberg 15. San Diego 16. Malmstrom 17. Grand Forks 18. Minot 19. Youngstown 20. Seymour-Johnson 21. Bunker Hill 22. Sioux Falls 23. Charleston 24. McConnell 25. Holloman 26. McCoy 27. Amarillo 28. Barksdale 29. Williams.

United States
The first USAF operational Bomarc squadron was the 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron (ADMS), organized on 1 January 1959 and activated on 25 March. The 46th ADMS was assigned to the New York Air Defense Sector at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. The training program, under the 4751st Air Defense Wing used technicians acting as instructors and was established for a four-month duration. Training included missile maintenance; SAGE operations and launch procedures, including the launch of an unarmed missile at Eglin. In September 1959 the squadron assembled at their permanent station, the Bomarc site near McGuire AFB, and trained for operational readiness. The first Bomarc-A were used at McGuire on 19 September 1959 with Kincheloe AFB getting the first operational IM-99Bs. While several of the squadrons replicated earlier fighter interceptor unit numbers, they were all new organizations with no previous historical counterpart.

ADC's initial plans called for some 52 Bomarc sites around the United States with 120 missiles each but as defense budgets decreased during the 1950s the number of sites dropped substantially. Ongoing development and reliability problems didn't help, nor did Congressional debate over the missile's usefulness and necessity. In June 1959, the Air Force authorized 16 Bomarc sites with 56 missiles each; the initial five would get the IM-99A with the remainder getting the IM-99B. However, in March 1960, HQ USAF cut deployment to eight sites in the United States and two in Canada.

Bomarc incident
Within a year of operations, a Bomarc A with a nuclear warhead caught fire at McGuire AFB on 7 June 1960 after its on-board helium tank exploded. While the missile's explosives did not detonate, the heat melted the warhead and released plutonium, which the fire crews spread. The Air Force and the Atomic Energy Commission cleaned up the site and covered it with concrete. This was the only major incident involving the weapon system. The site remained in operation for several years following the fire. Since its closure in 1972, the area has remained off limits, primarily due to low levels of plutonium contamination. Between 2002 and 2004, 21,998 cubic yards of contaminated debris and soils were shipped to what was then known as Envirocare, located in Utah.

Modification and deactivation
In 1962, the US Air Force started using modified A-models as drones; following the October 1962 tri-service redesignation of aircraft and weapons systems they became CQM-10As. Otherwise the air defense missile squadrons maintained alert while making regular trips to Santa Rosa Island for training and firing practice. After the inactivation of the 4751st ADW(M) on 1 July 1962 and transfer of Hurlburt to Tactical Air Command for air commando operations the 4751st Air Defense Squadron (Missile) remained at Hurlburt and Santa Rosa Island for training purposes.

In 1964, the liquid-fueled Bomarc-A sites and squadrons began to be deactivated. The sites at Dow and Suffolk County closed first. The remainder continued to be operational for several more years while the government started dismantling the air defense missile network. Niagara Falls was the first BOMARC B installation to close, in December 1969; the others remained on alert through 1972. In April 1972, the last Bomarc B in U.S. Air Force service was retired at McGuire and the 46th ADMS inactivated and the base was deactivated.

In the era of the intercontinental ballistic missiles the Bomarc, designed to intercept relatively slow manned bombers, had become a useless asset. The remaining Bomarc missiles were used by all armed services as high-speed target drones for tests of other air-defense missiles. The Bomarc A and Bomarc B targets were designated as CQM-10A and CQM-10B, respectively.

Following the accident, the McGuire complex has never been sold or converted to other uses and remains in Air Force ownership, making it the most intact site of the eight in the US. It has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Sites. Although a number of IM-99/CIM-10 Bomarcs have been placed on public display, because of concerns about the possible environmental hazards of the thoriated magnesium structure of the airframe several have been removed from public view.

Russ Sneddon, director of the Air Force Armament Museum, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida provided information about missing CIM-10 exhibit airframe serial 59–2016, one of the museum's original artifacts from its founding in 1975 and donated by the 4751st Air Defense Squadron at Hurlburt Field, Eglin Auxiliary Field 9, Eglin AFB. As of December 2006, the suspect missile was stored in a secure compound behind the Armaments Museum. In December 2010, the airframe was still on premises, but partly dismantled.

Canada
The Bomarc Missile Program was highly controversial in Canada. The Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister John Diefenbaker initially agreed to deploy the missiles, and shortly thereafter controversially scrapped the Avro Arrow, a supersonic manned interceptor aircraft, arguing that the missile program made the Arrow unnecessary.

Initially, it was unclear whether the missiles would be equipped with nuclear warheads. By 1960 it became known that the missiles were to have a nuclear payload, and a debate ensued about whether Canada should accept nuclear weapons. Ultimately, the Diefenbaker government decided that the Bomarcs should not be equipped with nuclear warheads. The dispute split the Diefenbaker Cabinet, and led to the collapse of the government in 1963. The Official Opposition and Liberal Party leader Lester B. Pearson originally was against nuclear missiles, but reversed his personal position and argued in favour of accepting nuclear warheads. He won the 1963 election, largely on the basis of this issue, and his new Liberal government proceeded to accept nuclear-armed Bomarcs, with the first being deployed on 31 December 1963. When the nuclear warheads were deployed, Pearson's wife, Maryon, resigned her honorary membership in the anti-nuclear weapons group, Voice of Women.

Canadian operational deployment of the Bomarc involved the formation of two specialized Surface/Air Missile squadrons. The first to begin operations was No. 446 SAM Squadron at RCAF Station North Bay, which was the command and control center for both squadrons. With construction of the compound and related facilities completed in 1961, the squadron received its Bomarcs in 1961, without nuclear warheads. The squadron became fully operational from 31 December 1963, when the nuclear warheads arrived, until disbanding on 31 March 1972. All the warheads were stored separately and under control of Detachment 1 of the USAF 425th Munitions Maintenance Squadron at Stewart Air Force Base. During operational service, the Bomarcs were maintained on stand-by, on a 24-hour basis, but were never fired, although the squadron test-fired the missiles at Eglin AFB, Florida on annual winter retreats.

No. 447 SAM Squadron operating out of RCAF Station La Macaza, Quebec, was activated on 15 September 1962 although warheads were not delivered until late 1963. The squadron followed the same operational procedures as No. 446, its sister squadron. With the passage of time the operational capability of the 1950s-era Bomarc system no longer met modern requirements; the Department of National Defence deemed that the Bomarc missile defense was no longer a viable system, and ordered both squadrons to be stood down in 1972. The bunkers and ancillary facilities remain at both former sites.

Variants

 * XF-99 (experimental for booster research)
 * XF-99A/XIM-99A (experimental for ramjet research)
 * YF-99A/YIM-99A (service-test)
 * IM-99A/CIM-10A (initial production)
 * IM-99B/CIM-10B ("advanced" )
 * CQM-10A (target drone developed from CIM-10A)
 * CQM-10B (target drone developed from CIM-10B)

Operators

 * 🇨🇦 / 🇨🇦
 * Royal Canadian Air Force from 1955 to 1968 / Canadian Forces from 1968 to 1972
 * 446 SAM Squadron: 28 IM-99B, CFB North Bay, Ontario 1962–1972
 * Bomarc site located at 46.42944°N, -79.47111°W
 * 447 SAM Squadron: 28 IM-99B, La Macaza, Quebec (La Macaza – Mont Tremblant International Airport) 1962–1972
 * Bomarc site located at 46.41139°N, -74.76889°W (Approximately)

 * 🇺🇸 United States
 * United States Air Force Air (later Aerospace) Defense Command

 * 6th Air Defense Missile Squadron, 56 IM-99A
 * Activated on 1 February 1959
 * Assigned to: New York Air Defense Sector
 * Inactivated 15 December 1964
 * Stationed at: Suffolk County Air Force Base Missile Annex, New York
 * Bomarc site located 3 miles SW at 40.83333°N, -72.68083°W

 * 22d Air Defense Missile Squadron: 28 IM-99A/28 IM-99B
 * Activated on 15 September 1959
 * Assigned to: Washington Air Defense Sector
 * Reassigned to: 33d Air Division, 1 April 1966
 * Reassigned to: 20th Air Division, 19 November 1969
 * Inactivated: 31 October 1972
 * Stationed at: Langley AFB, Virginia
 * Bomarc site located 3 miles WNW at 37.09917°N, -76.47972°W

 * 26th Air Defense Missile Squadron: 28 IM-99A/28 IM-99B
 * Activated 1 March 1959
 * Assigned to: Boston Air Defense Sector
 * Reassigned to: 35th Air Division, 1 April 1966
 * Reassigned to: 21st Air Division, 19 November 1969
 * Inactivated: 30 April 1972
 * Stationed at: Otis Air Force Base BOMARC site, Massachusetts
 * Bomarc site located 1 mile NNW at 41.68222°N, -70.53917°W

 * 30th Air Defense Missile Squadron: 28 IM-99A
 * Activated on 1 June 1959
 * Assigned to Bangor Air Defense Sector
 * Inactivated: 15 December 1964
 * Stationed at Dow AFB, Maine
 * Bomarc site located 4 mils NNE at 44.85306°N, -68.78639°W

 * 35th Air Defense Missile Squadron: 56 IM-99B
 * Activated 1 June 1960
 * Assigned to Syracuse Air Defense Sector
 * Reassigned to: Detroit Air Defense Sector, 4 September 1963
 * Reassigned to: 34th Air Division, 1 April 1966
 * Reassigned to: 35th Air Division, 15 September 1969
 * Inactivated: 31 December 1969
 * Stationed at: Niagara Falls Air Force Missile Site, New York
 * Bomarc site located at 43.1175°N, -78.94694°W

 * 37th Air Defense Missile Squadron: 28 IM-99B
 * Activated 1 March 1960
 * Assigned to 30th Air Division
 * Reassigned to: Sault Sainte Marie Air Defense Sector, 1 April 1960
 * Reassigned to: Duluth Air Defense Sector, 1 October 1963
 * Reassigned to: 29th Air Division, 1 April 1966
 * Reassigned to: 23d Air Division, 19 November 1969
 * Inactivated 31 July 1972
 * Stationed at: Kincheloe AFB, Michigan
 * Bomarc site located 19 miles NW at Raco 46.34806°N, -84.805°W

 * 46th Air Defense Missile Squadron: 28 IM-99A/56 IM-99B
 * Activated 1 January 1959
 * Assigned to New York Air Defense Sector
 * Reassigned to: 21st Air Division, 1 April 1966
 * Reassigned to: 35th Air Division, 1 December 1957
 * Reassigned to: 21st Air Division, 19 November 1969
 * Inactivated 31 October 1972
 * Stationed at: McGuire AFB, New Jersey
 * Bomarc site located 4 miles ESE at 40.035°N, -74.44139°W

 * 74th Air Defense Missile Squadron: 28 IM-99B
 * Activated 1 April 1960
 * Assigned to Duluth Air Defense Sector
 * Reassigned to: 29th Air Division, 1 April 1966
 * Reassigned to: 23d Air Division, 19 November 1969
 * Inactivated 30 April 1972
 * Stationed at: Duluth International Airport, Minnesota
 * Bomarc site located 10 miles NE at 46.93222°N, -91.88333°W

 * 4751st Air Defense Missile Squadron
 * Activated 15 January 1959
 * Assigned to 73d Air Division (Weapons)
 * Reassigned to: 32d Air Division, 1 October 1959
 * Reassigned to: Montgomery Air Defense Sector, 1 July 1962
 * Reassigned to: Air Defense, Tactical Air Command, 1 September 1979
 * Inactivated 30 September 1979
 * Stationed at: Eglin Auxiliary Field #9 (Hurlburt Field), Florida
 * Bomarc site located on Santa Rosa Island at 30.38833°N, -86.80778°W
 * Bomarc site located at Eglin Auxiliary Field #5 (Piccolo Field) at 30.59361°N, -86.62167°W

 * Air Force Systems Command
 * Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
 * Launch Complex 4 (LC-4) was used for Bomarc testing and development launches 2 February 1956 – 15 April 1960 (17 Launches). 28.46639°N, -80.53556°W
 * Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
 * Two launch sites, BOM-1 and BOM-2 were used by the United States Navy for Bomarc launches against aerial targets. The first launch taking place on 25 August 1966. The last two launches occurred on 14 July 1982. BOM1 49 launches; BOM2 38 launches. 34.80056°N, -120.59917°W

Locations under construction but not activated. Each site was programmed for 28 IM-99B missiles:
 * Camp Adair, Oregon 44.70222°N, -123.2°W
 * Charleston AFB, South Carolina
 * Ethan Allen AFB, Vermont 44.51056°N, -73.16361°W
 * Paine Field, Washington 47.91194°N, -122.26528°W
 * Travis AFB, California 38.48722°N, -121.88528°W
 * Truax Field, Wisconsin 43.19083°N, -89.15417°W
 * Vandenberg AFB, California 34.72972°N, -120.50417°W

Reference for BOMARC units and locations:

Surviving missiles
Below is a list of museums or sites which have a Bomarc missile on display:
 * Air Force Armament Museum, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida
 * Air Force Space & Missile Museum, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. It is on display Hangar C.
 * Alberta Aviation Museum, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
 * Canada Aviation and Space Museum, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
 * Hill Aerospace Museum, Hill Air Force Base, Utah
 * Historical Electronics Museum, Linthicum, Maryland (display of AN/DPN-53, the first airborne pulse-doppler radar, used in the Bomarc)
 * Illinois Soldiers & Sailors Home, Quincy, Illinois
 * Keesler Air Force Base, Biloxi, Mississippi
 * Museum of Aviation, Robins Air Force Base, Warner Robins, Georgia
 * National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico
 * Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum (former Chanute Air Force Base), Rantoul, Illinois; the museum closed on December 30, 2015
 * Peterson Air and Space Museum, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado
 * Strategic Air and Space Museum, Ashland, Nebraska
 * USAF Airman Heritage Museum, Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas
 * Vandenberg Air Force Base (Space and Missile Heritage Center), California. Bomarc not for public access.
 * Vandenberg Air Force Base (Space and Missile Heritage Center), California. Bomarc not for public access.

Impact on popular music
The Bomarc missile captured the imagination of the American and Canadian popular music industry, giving rise to a pop music group, the Bomarcs (composed mainly of servicemen stationed on a Florida radar site that tracked Bomarcs), a record label, Bomarc Records,  and a moderately successful Canadian pop group, The Beau Marks.

title: CIM-10 Bomarc


text:
Branco River

The Branco River (Rio Branco; Engl: White River) is the principal affluent of the Rio Negro from the north.

Basin
The river drains the Guayanan Highlands moist forests ecoregion. It is enriched by many streams from the Tepui highlands which separate Venezuela and Guyana from Brazil. Its two upper main tributaries are the Uraricoera and the Takutu. The latter almost links its sources with those of the Essequibo; during floods headwaters of the Branco and those of the Essequibo are connected, allowing a level of exchange in the aquatic fauna (such as fish) between the two systems.

The Branco flows nearly south, and finds its way into the Negro through several channels and a chain of lagoons similar to those of the latter river. It is 350 mi long, up to its Uraricoera confluence. It has numerous islands, and, 235 mi above its mouth, it is broken by a bad series of rapids.

Discharge
Average, minimum and maximum discharge of the Branco River at near mouth. Period from 1998 to 2022.

Water chemistry
As suggested by its name, the Branco (literally "white" in Portuguese) has whitish water that may appear almost milky due to the inorganic sediments it carries. It is traditionally considered a whitewater river, although the major seasonal fluctuations in its physico-chemical characteristics makes a classification difficult and some consider it clearwater. Especially the river's upper parts at the headwaters are clear and flow through rocky country, leading to the suggestion that sediments mainly originate from the lower parts. Furthermore, its chemistry and color may contradict each other compared to the traditional Amazonian river classifications. The Branco River has pH 6–7 and low levels of dissolved organic carbon.

Alfred Russel Wallace mentioned the coloration in "On the Rio Negro", a paper read at the 13 June 1853 meeting of the Royal Geographical Society, in which he said: "[The Rio Branco] is white to a remarkable degree, its waters being actually milky in appearance". Alexander von Humboldt attributed the color to the presence of silicates in the water, principally mica and talc. There is a visible contrast with the waters of the Rio Negro at the confluence of the two rivers. The Rio Negro is a blackwater river with dark tea-colored acidic water (pH 3.5–4.5) that contains high levels of dissolved organic carbon.

River capture
Until approximately 20,000 years ago the headwaters of the Branco River flowed not into the Amazon, but via the Takutu Graben in the Rupununi area of Guyana towards the Caribbean. Currently in the rainy season much of the Rupununi area floods, with water draining both to the Amazon (via the Branco River) and the Essequibo River.

title: Branco River


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership

As far as our server can handle it, we like to increase traffic to Wikipedia: it helps improve the quality and quantity of the content and increases the total amount of joy and other utility it has for people. This page lists ways of doing this.

Let's talk about how to increase traffic to Wikipedia, of both readers and writers--that is now going to become one of the main focuses of my Wikipedia work. So I want your help! How can we increase "membership" in Wikipedia--both readers and new writers?

Let's brainstorm. Please, add an idea below, or help develop ideas. (Sometimes, a really great new idea is a slight variation on a just-OK old idea.)

Also, if you do any work that you think someone else might inadvertently replicate, can you please write it down here somehow (as on the Encyclopedia links solicited page)? Thanks! --Larry Sanger

Urban poster campaign
See Wikimedia urban postering campaign!

Brainstormin'
203.59.117.99 08:35, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
 * How about we do something like Spread Firefox? We could start our own publicity campaign, and if we ever get something like the NYT ad or the Firefox coins (see article) then I get the feeling wikipedia use would go WAY up! :D
 * Solicit links from (mentioning Wikipedia banners and logos):
 * Websites with substantial traffic, like About.com (see Big traffic links solicited)
 * People with lists of encyclopedias (see Encyclopedia list links solicited)
 * People with encyclopedia-type websites (see Encyclopedia links solicited)
 * Best-of websites and similar resources (see Best of sites links solicited)
 * Web sites for authors, films, whatever. There's always a list of links. Add a link to the Wikipedia Stephen King page to Stephen King web sites, to the Japan page on Japan web sites, and so on.

 * for individual articles, solicit links from:
 * related resources (particularly if we mention them in external links)
 * directories such as LookSmart, Open Directory Project and Yahoo!

 * Get people to add article review requests to User:Larry Sanger/Review requests; find reviewers for those articles.

 * Approach websites that might want free content, and help them to get their hands on Wikipedia's; this is something Bomis programmers and volunteers could work on. Maybe after we're running Magnus' PHP code?

 * Post announcements on mailing lists. But of what sort?  Obviously, we want to avoid spam.
 * Start and continue discussions about Wikipedia articles (for this, the help of Wikipedians will be necessary)
 * Simply announce the existence of Wikipedia, soliciting help. I think this is actually plausible.
 * Recruit fans for specific areas of Wikipedia. For example, someone could drop by a Star Trek newsgroup and mention that our pages need work. I bet we'd have a huge Star Trek section in no time...

 * Possible solicitation letters:
 * /Sample solicitation
 * /Another sample solicitation
 * /Sample solicitation 3
 * /Skeptical solicitation

 * Post announcements on newsgroups. But try to be careful to go slowly through them--make sure the post is specially-tailored to whatever group you post to.  A good strategy is to pick a Wikipedia article, point out a few problems with it, and post a link to the article, inviting people to make changes.  If you have posted an announcement to a newsgroup, will you please list it here: Newsgroups. If you don't know much about newsgroups, go to http://groups.google.com.

 * Contact webmasters who have content-rich sites. Get them excited about Wikipedia, and invite them to make their content part of something great.

 * Increase production of pages that are of interest to the search engines. Look at the Lycos 50 and the Google Zeitgeist and make sure that there are articles on all those topics.  I would say that writing some simple short biographies of famous people would help. It will help when we have reliable and regularly updated stats on what is popular.  One interesting thing about this is that other people may follow suit so that there is a "trend" on the site.

 * Increase the standing of Wikipedia with Bomis. (There is a bug in the system which means that Wikipedia articles are not returned as often as they could be.  We're working on this.)

 * Work to get additional press coverage, following up on the NYT article as best we can. Ideas for articles about Wikipedia and other press events.

 * Write a scholarly article about "Empirical studies in social epistemology" and get it published.

 * Write to authors of good books on subjects we need help on and invite them to write an article on Wikipedia.

 * Schools. Speak to any teachers you know and have them set up an exercise where their students write on various topics that are untouched. Students get school credit for their work, obviously and also get excited about participating. I've told my mother (who teaches grade 4), and her students are planning to do articles about Australian mammals, some as-yet-untouched countries, etc.

 * Promote free content: Whenever you make a post on other content sites, include a statement that your content is GFDL, public domain, or whatever...

 * Get slashdotted once in a while. For example, submit article to Slashdot when we reach 150,000 articles, 200,000, etc...  dave 15:48 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Add an RSS feed to syndicate the content. See RDF spool

 * Would it be possible to make a subscription to an "Article of the Day" email. So someone subscribes and then every day they get a different entry in their mailbox. This is something that websters.com and dictionary.com do for "word of the day" definitions. It would probably need someone to take charge of it and select which entries go out (the random link too often goes to a stub or a disabmiguation page) I'll (user:MrWeeble) volunteer. It shouldn't be too hard to do - there's plenty of free (as in speech as well as in beer) software for this kind of thing

 * Just tell people about Wikipedia- like one-on-one

 * Suggest publications that came with CD or DVD to include converted static dump of Wikipedia (including viewer applications, if required) in their CD or DVD. Even better, suggest them to write an article about Wikipedia too.

 * Allow contributors to make highlights and notes on existing pages allowing them to keep track of their learning. This will help develop user retention strengthening the sight for other potential users.

(The above is just a start! Please add to the list!)

Moved from Village pump on Tuesday, November 26th, 2002:

Wikipedia Evangelism
Hi, I've mentioned this before and thought I'd mention it again. As I'm browsing the pedia I find articles that might interest friends/coworkers. I pop them a link in a quick hello message and ask them if they confirm the accuracy of the content...the response so far has been first one of wonder, then awe, then enthusiasm! And it's been a nice way to relate to some folks I'm not often in contact with. Anyway, I searched for evangelism and came up with nada around the 'pedia. Is there a place for sharing an evangelical/ 'help us' message of wikipedia? --dgd

There's some stuff at Building Wikipedia membership. (Hint which wouldn't help here but may in general: after searching, go to the "Power search" box at the bottom of the screen and check the box for the 'Wikipedia' namespace. You'll get various about, help, documentation, etc. pages that aren't supposed to show up when you're searching for encyclopedia articles.) Also check the Meta-wikipedia where we keep general project discussion and misc stuff. --Brion 20:42 Oct 22, 2002 (UTC)

How about doing what a lot of news web pages do? They have a box at the bottom, "Send this article to a friend" with some kind of java mailer to ship it off and a box for you to add a signed message. Ortolan88
 * I like that idea too. Especially, and I know this would require more overhead, but a way to keep my list of folks in memory so I don't have to open my email client (which may not be available esp, as I'm a student and working on diff. machines).
 * How about mailto:root@localhost?Subject=Main%20Page&Body=Look%20at%20http%3A//www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page] ? The text needs to be changed, but it takes no more work than the Edit this page link to add at the bottom. Use a form with input text or a JavaScript inputbox to an e-mail, then add subject= &body=Look%20at%20 to the mailto. Geoffrey 23:27 Mar 21, 2003 (UTC)

Hemanshu 22:48, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)
 * Add Wikipedia pages to ODP and Yahoo directories
 * Add Wikipedia to your Yahoo profile's favorite sites

 * Develop software like Google toolbar to reach Wikipedia articles and browse Wikipedia Hemanshu 23:31, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Wikimedia should run a Wikipedia advertisement competition. As far as I can tell, WikiPedia has no advertisements. I am on a college campus and one group I am associated with advertises for lots of free software (Firefox and OpenOffice mostly) that is useful to college students. We would definitely put up some Wikipedia posters if there were a couple simple advertisements we could print out. This should be done similarly to how the logo contests were. If the contests are run, the purpose should be to get at least four advertisements: fliers for letter/A4 paper in both black & white and color and posters for tabloid/A3 paper in both black & white and color, so that it is easy for people to print them off and put them up on bulletin boards and the like. (If advertisements are available and I cannot find them, they should be made much more obvious.) --Jamethknorth 02:25, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Invitations
requesting permission to re-use somebody else's content in Wikipedia:
 * Boilerplate request for permission
 * Standard email texts

 * Use Social Networks as a way to communicate.

Moved from Village pump on Wednesday, June 9th, 2004:

Invitation Letter
Last weekend, I went to a number of places where there were guided tours, and that got me thinking...it would be nice if this person could contribute their knowledge of this place to Wikipedia...

I think there should be a standard letter to invite people to share their knowledge with Wikipedia, for when you come across someone who knows a lot about something.

Or does a simlar thing already exist? What do you think? RealGrouchy 00:03, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I think it's a great idea. There's some sample solicitation letters linked from Building Wikipedia membership. — Matt 02:02, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Okay, so obviously I checked it out. Can someone draft a copy that can be printed out and handed to people (maybe like two to a page?). If nobody does, then I'll probably make one in time. RealGrouchy 17:39, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Don't lose new and existing members!
There are a lot of great ideas for bringing in new members here. But don't forget that, once they're here, we want to keep them! America Online is a great case study of how focusing too much on new members and not enough on serving existing members can actually lose overall membership. Wikipedia must be a useful, easy, and pleasurable experience for new users. The droves of contributors ensure that "useful" is not a problem, at least as far as content goes. To make it "easy", more attention needs to be paid the initial interface learning curve for newbies. Both "pleasurable" and "useful" are significantly impacted by outrageously long response times and frequent server down time, so we must be careful not to bring in new people faster than we can fix these ongoing problems. Give a person a bad taste in their mouth from their first experience with Wikipedia, and we may not see them again. (That's why I never went back to Ask Jeeves!, Encyclopædia Britannica, and many other search and reference sites after finding more reliable ones.) -- Jeff Q 17:55, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I know what you mean. I still consider myself a 'new member', but I spend a lot of time just looking through the hordes of confusing help pages before I made my first edit (I have never used the sandbox).  Luckily, I added an entry to my user page telling people that I am a new user, and asking for suggestions, and someone told me what they felt was the most important tips and links.

 * Now, I do things with more ease, because I can look at pages I've created (esp images) and see how others have edited my work, and I can adapt to that format in new pages. However, I'm a follow-the-instructions kind of guy; we should have procedural stuff to tell people what they need to know about different things, like editing a page, and adding an image, etc. Picture tutorial is a good example. - RealGrouchy 23:14, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * I think Wikipedia does a pretty good job of explaining all the pieces that one needs to do various things. The problem is perhaps more the sheer size and quantity of things one should learn to feel truly Wiki-knowledgeable. I'm always coming across useful pages by accident. I just ran into Style and How-to Directory, some items of which I've read before, and some I've picked up by Wiki-osmosis, but I suspect this will give me another boost along the learning curve. I have two tips about the Sandbox I hadn't noticed mentioned anywhere:
 * Most of the time, what you're testing is completely demonstrated in "Show preview", so you don't even need to worry about overwriting the main Sandbox — just keep your Edit window open until you're done, then Cancel or just close it.
 * I ran across another Wikipedian (I forgot who) who had created their own Sandbox at User: /Sandbox. It's easy to create such a page, and you never have to worry about what's in the main Sandbox or that someone might overwrite it, plus you can save stuff for extended testing.
 * I'll bet there are similar "best practices" tips scattered around, maybe even not so scattered. It's hard to know with some much to learn and find. But that's a Good Thing, mostly. -- Jeff Q 00:05, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

 * There is a real need to make inforamtion about the project, especially help pages more ordered and useful. To give an example although I can find many pages which tell me that I can have a personal Sandbox there is no documentation on how to achieve this. There isn't even a forum where newbies can post a question and get an answer to their problem/request from someone more experienced, or if it exists it is not well publicised.--ChemRad 13:56, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Publicity
There are numerous ways you can help publicize Wikipedia, and thereby get more people to edit your work and make this into a real live encyclopedia. Just think--in a few years, Wikipedia is probably going to be amazing. (Feel free to add to this list.)

 * Ask people to read and help:
 * If you've done a lot of work in some particular area, post an announcement to a mailing list or newsgroup telling people about your work and asking them to help.
 * If there hasn't been a lot of work in a particular area, post an announcement telling people about Wikipedia and asking them to help!
 * Tell friends and colleagues. E-mail an announcement to them.  Ask them to check your work, or to write pages on their areas of specialization, or their hobbies, or whatever.

 * Publicize wiki pages:
 * Submit particular wiki pages (e.g., your "baby" pages) to search engines.
 * Link to Wikipedia from your websites. Linking to articles helps people find them and improves their ranking on search engines.
 * Ask other people to link to Wikipedia.

 * Publicize Wikipedia as a whole:
 * Observe (in writing and smugly) on other wikis that Wikipedia is easily the fastest-growing wiki in the world.
 * Add a link to Wikipedia to your e-mail or message board signature.
 * Share your joy of using Wikipedia with your friends and other people.

Hard to find help on how to publicise the Wikipedia
So, I got it into my head that I wanted to add a link to the Wikipedia from my blog...easier said than done! It took me quite a while to find the right graphic. That is weird. I ended up finding

 * Banners and buttons
 * Building Wikipedia membership

But nowhwere from the Main pages or the "Community Portal" is this or an alternative page listed!

An shouldn't the first one above be linked from all over the place? With instructions on how to create the links? —iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 21:35, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

 * PS: before I come out sounding self-important, I wasn't looking to do the 'Pedia any favours; my blog is new and I am trying to make it a home for good wholesome thought and content. I feel the Wikipedia is an important thing to point to. —iFaqeer (Talk to me!) 21:40, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)

I do agree!!
Hello, I do agree with Ifaqeer. The link to Banners and buttons should be more accessible. Bye Java

Targeting publicity efforts
Wikipedia is now one of the top 30 web sites on the net, period. It seems that anyone in the developed world who hasn't heard about us yet soon will, either through word of mouth or the inevitable media coverage for such an important site. Wikipedia is also currently dominating Google and other search engines, so there's really no need to solicit links anymore. At this point, I think publicity efforts would be more useful if they were targeted. For example, we would like to recruit:
 * Experts for fields where articles are languishing
 * Translators
 * Editors from cultural minorities not well represented here
 * English-speaking residents of non-English-speaking countries

The amount of publicity that Wikipedia gets from media outlets is very large. Even if we could muster enough posters and volunteers to distribute them to compete with sheer volume, we have little direct control over what the media will say about us (though Jimbo has been doing a good job acting as a spokesperson, at least for those outlets who ask us for our point of view). The best way I think we can make sure that the large amounts of free publicity we are getting is good publicity, is to improve what it is people see when they visit the site. Given that most criticism recently has been about accuracy and trust and the site claiming to be more than it's not (since people assume an "encyclopedia" is professionally reviewed), an excellent first step would be to make sure anything that's in an unacceptable state is clearly marked, even if we can't fix it right away. Category:Wikipedia maintenance catalogs the hundreds of different ways this can be done. -- Beland 21:40, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

 * Good points. I'm doing something like this - I have started WikiProject International development and:
 * have tried to make it useful for people new to Wikipedia
 * have provided "Jumping off points" so that task-oriented people can get right into editing
 * am now starting to contact organizations (e.g. these ones):
 * to let them know about the resource
 * to ask them to put it in their newsletters
 * to let them know that it is easy to edit Wikipedia, that if they do want to share their expertise, that would be great
 * to let them know that if they don't want to get into editing, they are still very welcome to post suggestions or feedback on the Wikiproject talk page
 * to suggest that reading and working on articles in Wikipedia is a great way for students to learn, and a great way for development volunteers to prepare for a placement
 * we can contact relevant experts to ask for suggestions on resources and feedback on articles (at the same time ensuring that they know about Wikipedia's articles in their topic area)
 * we can post a brief notice on development-oriented discussion lists
 * I have added a section on translating to the project page - and as I travel in Asia I will be on the lookout for keen people to help (partly through my contact with local NGO's and development professionals). -- Singkong2005 04:26, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

title: Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership/Encyclopedia links solicited

Links solicited (and pending):
 * Animal Rights Encyclopedia
 * Encyclopedia Mythica
 * The FREE Internet Encyclopedia
 * Encyclopedia of the Orient
 * Cyberlaw Encyclopedia
 * Encyclopedia of Psychology
 * Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics
 * Chico Instrument Encyclopedia
 * Symbols.com

Links obtained:
 * Refdesk

Jumping-off points:
 * http://www.google.com/search?q=encyclopedia&hl=en&safe=off&start=40&sa=N

 * Sample solicitation
 * Another sample solicitation

 * See also : Building Wikipedia membership


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership/Sample solicitation

Hello! I would like to exchange links with you, if that's possible. Wikipedia and Nupedia are free, open content encyclopedias. Wikipedia now has about 10,000 articles, including many in the life sciences, and Nupedia's (peer reviewed) biology category is its most active.

Wikipedia would be happy to include a link to the Encyclopedia of Life Sciences on our "Friends of Wikipedia" page. Wikipedia now receives something like 2,000 unique visitors a day, and we started in January; this e-mail is part of a drive to increase traffic, and so we expect traffic will increase greatly, particularly as we are growing by over 1,000 articles per month.

(These articles, both Wikipedia's and Nupedia's, are, by the way, free for you to use as you wish, with no fee--see our open content license.)

Best regards,

Larry Sanger

 * See also : Building Wikipedia membership


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership/Another sample solicitation

I am only now starting to publicize Wikipedia, a wiki-based free (open content) encyclopedia project. We started last January and already have about 10,000 articles. Perhaps you have seen us by now--we're located at http://www.wikipedia.com. I'm the person responsible for organizing and leading Wikipedia, as well as Nupedia (which has been moving *much* more slowly).

First things first: it would be fantastic if you would like to link to any or all of our articles. They're free, of course. I'd like to make this as easy as possible for you, if you're interested.

If you have any free articles we can use, I would like to know about it!

More interestingly, perhaps, for you, is the idea that you can actually use our content as part of your website. It's free. The cream of the crop can be found at http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki.cgi?Brilliant_prose , but there's a *lot* more than that. Also, the quality of Nupedia articles is guaranteed; see http://www.nupedia.com/newest.phtml. (There just isn't much there yet.)

One thing we're working on is a program that will make it extremely easy to mirror Wikipedia's content. We're not done with that yet--but is that something you might be interested in?

I certainly would like to hear back from you about how we might be able to support each other. I do not regard your website as a competitor in any sense at all.

 * See also : Building Wikipedia membership


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership/Ideas for articles about Wikipedia and other press events

Article ideas (feel free to contribute--yes, you!):
 * 1) Press release (this is on hold for the time being)
 * 2) Response to, an article critical of MIT's project and name from the perspective of GNU-style "freedom", free speech versus free beer and all that good stuff.
 * 3) Article discussing the meaning and possibility of unbiased writing, using Wikipedia as an example.  A number of websites might be interested in this, including Kuro5hin.
 * 4) "How is Wikipedia possible?"
 * 5) "Why should anybody trust what is in Wikipedia?"  An interesting study in applied social epistemology: for many Wikipedia articles, we have zero information about the credentials of the people who wrote the article.  Should we give the article zero credence?  No.  Why not?  Might be good for an e-zine about computers and philosophy...I think there is one.
 * 6) The history of free online encyclopedia projects
 * 7) Why an encyclopedia?  Why not just use Google?
 * 8) Done: Kuro5hin article reporting: RMS endorsement; 10,000 articles; NYT coverage; Tech Review coverage.  (LMS plans to write this as soon as gnu.org puts up a link to Wikipedia.)
 * 9) submit Wikipedia articles on controversial issues to discussion sites to show off our neutral point of view (maybe a stupid idea)

 * See also : Building Wikipedia membership


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership/Encyclopedia list links solicited

Solicited and pending:
 * Access Place Library
 * Encyclopedia Proteus
 * Free Online Encyclopedias
 * Student-manual.com
 * informationsphere

 * See also : Building Wikipedia membership


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership/Big traffic links solicited

OK, folks, what are some websites that get lots and lots of traffic, and which might link to us? Ideas???

 * Wired (no links; might take an article though)
 * ZDNet (no links; might take an article though)
 * About.com
 * Slashdot articles could link to Wikipedia articles under a "Related links" section.

Links to lists of popular websites:
 * The Media Metrix list
 * econsultant.com

 * See also : Building Wikipedia membership


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership/About.com

Hey, we can probably get a lot of traffic from About.com. The way About.com works is this: they have a bunch of people working independently building guides to the Internet. They don't have to make their guides consistent with each other. They don't know if other guides are or are not accepting links from Wikipedia. In short, in principle, we could get huge numbers of links from different pages on their website. They'll love us because we're content-rich, and they like that.

So, if you feel so inspired, please go to or for that matter, any page about any subject, and ask for links either to http://www.wikipedia.com/ or to the relevant part of Wikipedia. They've got a huge (no kidding--huge) number of pages on about.com that link to encyclopedias. Wikipedia should be linked from every one of them, but for that we've got to start asking! :-)

But if you do this, could you please indicate, below, what guide/area you've solicited? Thanks.

 * Marcy Zitz, Family Internet
 * Cathy Spalding, Homework Tips
 * Shauna Lee De Feyter, Penpals for Kids
 * Dave Fisher, Puzzles
 * Steve Lenhert, Nanotechnology
 * Kevin Elliott, Web Search
 * Gwen Schertel, Net for Beginners
 * Rich Gray, Philosophy
 * Theresa Husarik, Salt Lake City
 * Write to others! See http://www.about.com !

Sample solicitation 3

 * See also : Building Wikipedia membership


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership/Sample solicitation 3

I'm the main organizer of Wikipedia, a free, open content encyclopedia. Please have a look, at http://www.wikipedia.com/. I would be delighted if you would link to it from

http://kidspenpals.about.com/cs/dictionaries/

We've got 10,000 articles, growing by 2,000 per month. It's pretty amazing, really. Here is an article about it in the MIT Technology Review:

http://www.techreview.com/web/heim/heim090401.asp

We're also soon going to be the subject of an article in the New York Times.

Thanks!

Larry Sanger, Ph.D. Wikipedia chief organizer

 * See also : Building Wikipedia membership


text:
Wikipedia:Building Wikipedia membership/Newsgroups

Newsgroups are a form of mass mailing list.

Although there are many providers of access to newsgroups, one of the major and more well known sites is Google Groups

Google Groups is really easy to use, I've discovered--if you don't have a newsreader set up, it's a more than adequate substitute.

Groups we have posted to:
 * soc.history.moderated
 * soc.religion.christian.bible-study
 * humanities.classics
 * humanities.lit.authors.shakespeare
 * sci.physics.relativity
 * sci.stat.math
 * sci.econ
 * sci.anthropology

Here are a couple of direct Google links that may be of interest:

 * Search Google groups for all mentions of Wikipedia
 * Search specifically for mentions of English Wikipedia

 * See also : Building Wikipedia membership