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Landed gentry

The landed gentry, or the gentry (sometimes collectively known as the squirearchy), is a largely historical British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. It is the British element of the wider European class of gentry. While part of the British aristocracy, and usually armigers, the gentry ranked below the British peerage (or "titled nobility") in social status. Nevertheless, their economic base in land was often similar, and some of the landed gentry were wealthier than some peers. Many gentry were close relatives of peers, and it was not uncommon for gentry to marry into peerage. With or without noble title, owning rural land estates often brought with it the legal rights of the feudal lordship of the manor, and the less formal name or title of squire, in Scotland laird.

Generally lands passed by primogeniture, while the inheritances of daughters and younger sons were in cash or stocks, and relatively small. Typically the gentry farmed some of their land, but leased most of it to tenant farmers. They also exploited timber and minerals (such as coal), and owned mills and other sources of income. Many heads of families also had careers in politics or the military, and the younger sons of the gentry provided a high proportion of the clergy, military officers, and lawyers. Successful burghers often used their accumulated wealth to buy country estates, with the aim of establishing themselves as landed gentry.

The decline of the gentry largely began with the 1870s agricultural depression; however, there are still many hereditary gentry in the UK. The book series Burke's Landed Gentry records the names of members of this class.

The designation landed gentry originally referred exclusively to members of the upper class who were both landlords and commoners (in the British sense)—that is, they did not hold peerages. But by the late 19th century, the term was also applied to peers, such as the Duke of Westminster, who lived on landed estates.

Origin of the term
The term gentry derives from gentrice, a word indicating high birth, high status, or gentleness. The term gradually came to be used for the lower ranks of the aristocracy, which along with the peerage had previously been considered part of the nobility. In the 16th and 17th centuries, writers referred to the peerage as the nobilitas major (Latin for "greater nobility") and the gentry as the nobilitas minor (Latin for "minor nobility"). Eventually, the terms nobility and gentry came to refer to completely separate classes.

Definition and ranks
The gentry were aristocratic landowners who were not peers. According to historian G. E. Mingay, the gentry were landowners whose wealth "made possible a certain kind of education, a standard of comfort, and a degree of leisure and a common interest in ways of spending it". Leisure distinguished gentry from businessmen who gained their wealth through work. The gentry did not work; their income came largely from rents paid by tenant farmers living on their estates. By the 17th century, the gentry was divided into four ranks:

 * 1) Baronet: a hereditary title created by James I in 1611, giving the holder the right to be addressed as Sir.
 * 2) Knight: originally a mounted warrior who fought for the king and his barons during the Middle Ages. Knighthood eventually lost its martial connotations and was awarded to civilians in honour of service to the Crown. Like baronets, knights are addressed as Sir; however, the rank of knight is not hereditary.
 * 3) Esquire: originally a knight's attendant or squire. In the 14th century, this rank could be conferred by the Crown. Certain officeholders, such as justices of the peace, were considered to be esquires. It was also applied to the sons of peers and the firstborn sons of baronets and knights.
 * 4) Gentleman: the lowest rank within the gentry. Gentlemen ranked above yeomen or landowning farmers. The Statute of Additions of 1413 recognised gentlemen as a distinct social rank, but the line between the lower gentry and the yeomanry remained blurred.

In a historiographical survey, Peter Coss describes a number of approaches to deciding who was gentry. One is to view the gentry as those recognised legally as possessing gentility. However, Coss finds this method unsatisfactory because it "seems certain that gentility was widely felt and articulated within society long before legislation was in place to tell us so". Other historians define gentry by land ownership and income level, but there is still the problem of whether this should include professionals and town dwellers. Rosemary Horrox argues that an urban gentry existed in the 15th century. For some historians of early modern England, the gentry included families with coats of arms, but Coss notes that not all gentry were armigerous. Coss proposes that the gentry had three main characteristics: (1) landownership, (2) a nobility or gentility (shared with the peerage) that distinguished them from the rest of the population, and (3) a territorial-based collective identity and power over the larger population.

Occupations
From the late 16th-century, the gentry emerged as the class most closely involved in politics, the military and law. It provided the bulk of Members of Parliament, with many gentry families maintaining political control in a certain locality over several generations (see List of political families in the United Kingdom). Owning land was a prerequisite for suffrage (the civil right to vote) in county constituencies until the Reform Act 1832; until then, Parliament was largely in the hands of the landowning class.

The gentry ranked above the agricultural sector's middle class: the larger tenant farmers, who rented land from the landowners, and yeoman farmers, who were defined as "a person qualified by possessing free land of forty shillings annual [feudal] value, and who can serve on juries and vote for a Knight of the Shire. He is sometimes described as a small landowner, a farmer of the middle classes." Anthony Richard Wagner, Richmond Herald wrote that "a Yeoman would not normally have less than 100 acres" (40 hectares) and in social status is one step down from the gentry, but above, say, a husbandman. So while yeoman farmers owned enough land to support a comfortable lifestyle, they nevertheless farmed it themselves and were excluded from the "landed gentry" because they worked for a living, and were thus "in trade" as it was termed. Apart from a few "honourable" professions connected with the governing elite (the clergy of the established church, the officer corps of the British Armed Forces, the diplomatic and civil services, the bar or the judiciary), such occupation was considered demeaning by the upper classes, particularly by the 19th century, when the earlier mercantile endeavours of younger sons were increasingly discontinued. Younger sons, who could not expect to inherit the family estate, were instead urged into professions of state service. It became a pattern in many families that while the eldest son would inherit the estate and enter politics, the second son would join the army, the third son go into law, and the fourth son join the church.

A newly rich man who wished his family to join the gentry (and they nearly all did so wish), was expected not only to buy a country house and estate, but often also to sever financial ties with the business which had made him wealthy in order to cleanse his family of the "taint of trade", depending somewhat on what that business was. However, during the 18th and 19th centuries, as the new rich of the Industrial Revolution became more and more numerous and politically powerful, this expectation was gradually relaxed.

Landed gentry and nobility
Persons who are closely related to peers are also more correctly described as gentry than as nobility, since the latter term, in the modern British Isles, is synonymous with peer. However, this popular usage of nobility omits the distinction between titled and untitled nobility. The titled nobility in Britain are the peers of the realm, whereas the untitled nobility comprise those here described as gentry.

David Cannadine wrote that the gentry's lack of titles "did not matter, for it was obvious to contemporaries that the landed gentry were all for practical purposes the equivalent of continental nobles, with their hereditary estates, their leisured lifestyle, their social pre-eminence, and their armorial bearings". British armigerous families who hold no title of nobility are represented, together with those who hold titles through the College of Arms, by the Commission and Association for Armigerous Families of Great Britain at CILANE. Through grants of arms, new families are admitted into the untitled nobility regularly, thus making the gentry a class that remains open both legally and practically.

Burke's Landed Gentry

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the names and families of those with titles (specifically peers and baronets, less often including those with the non-hereditary title of knight) were often listed in books or manuals known as "Peerages", "Baronetages", or combinations of these categories, such as the "Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage". As well as listing genealogical information, these books often also included details of the right of a given family to a coat of arms. They were comparable to the Almanach de Gotha in continental Europe.

In the 1830s, one peerage publisher, John Burke, expanded his market and his readership by publishing a similar volume for people without titles, which was called A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, enjoying territorial possessions or high official rank, popularly known as Burke's Commoners. Burke's Commoners was published in four volumes from 1833 to 1838. Subsequent editions were re-titled A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry; or, Commons of Great Britain and Ireland or Burke's Landed Gentry.

The popularity of Burke's Landed Gentry gave currency to the expression Landed Gentry as a description of the untitled upper classes in England (although the book also included families in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, where, however, social structures were rather different). Burke's Landed Gentry continued to appear at regular intervals throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. A review of the 1952 edition in Time noted:

"Landed Gentry used to limit itself to owners of domains that could properly be called 'stately' (i.e. more than 500 acres or 200 hectares). Now it has lowered the property qualification to 200 acre for all British families whose pedigrees have been 'notable' for three generations.

Even so, almost half of the 5,000 families listed in the new volume are in there because their forefathers were: they themselves have no land left. Their estates are mere street addresses, like that of the Molineux-Montgomeries, formerly of Garboldisham Old Hall, now of No. 14 Malton Avenue, Haworth."

Contemporary status
The Great Depression of British Agriculture at the end of the 19th century, together with the introduction in the 20th century of increasingly heavy levels of taxation on inherited wealth, put an end to agricultural land as the primary source of wealth for the upper classes. Many estates were sold or broken up, and this trend was accelerated by the introduction of protection for agricultural tenancies, encouraging outright sales, from the mid-20th century.

So devastating was this for the ranks formerly identified as being of the landed gentry that Burke's Landed Gentry began, in the 20th century, to include families historically in this category who had ceased to own their ancestral lands. The focus of those who remained in this class shifted from the lands or estates themselves, to the stately home or "family seat" which was in many cases retained without the surrounding lands. Many of these buildings were purchased for the nation and preserved as monuments to the lifestyles of their former owners (who sometimes remained in part of the house as lessees or tenants) by the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. The National Trust, which had originally concentrated on open landscapes rather than buildings, accelerated its country house acquisition programme during and after the Second World War, partly because of the widespread destruction of country houses in the 20th century by owners who could no longer afford to maintain them. Those who retained their property usually had to supplement their incomes from sources other than the land, sometimes by opening their properties to the public.

In the 21st century, the term "landed gentry" is still used, as the landowning class still exists, but it increasingly refers more to historic than to current landed wealth or property in a family. Moreover, the deference which was once automatically given to members of this class by most British people has almost completely dissipated as its wealth, political power and social influence have declined, and other social figures such as celebrities have grown to take their place in the public's interest.

title: Landed gentry


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Battle of Bramall Lane

The "Battle of Bramall Lane" is a name used by the British press to refer to an English First Division football match played between Sheffield United and West Bromwich Albion at Bramall Lane, Sheffield on 16 March 2002. It is the only match in English professional football history to have been abandoned due to a shortage of players. Going into the match, Sheffield United were comfortably mid-table with neither promotion or relegation possible, while Albion were fighting for promotion to the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The two clubs were not historically seen as rivals, and the fixture was not a local derby, but there was history between United midfielder Georges Santos and Albion midfielder Andy Johnson due to an injury Santos suffered from a collision with Johnson in a previous meeting.

United goalkeeper Simon Tracey was sent off in the 9th minute for deliberately handling the ball outside the area to stop a shot at goal. Albion striker Scott Dobie gave his side the lead going into half-time, and midfielder Derek McInnes doubled the lead in the 63rd minute, prompting United manager Neil Warnock to make two substitutions; Santos and Patrick Suffo came on, but both received red cards within moments. Santos committed a dangerous two-footed tackle on Johnson, and Suffo headbutted McInnes in the ensuing melee. Down to eight men, United conceded a third goal, with Dobie scoring his second of the afternoon. United midfielder Michael Brown and defender Robert Ullathorne suffered injuries that meant they could no longer take part in the match. Because United had already used all of their allowed substitutions, referee Eddie Wolstenholme, who had already declined to send off both Brown and captain Keith Curle for clear red-card offences, was forced to abandon the match in the 82nd minute, as dictated by the rules of the game.

A week later, Albion were awarded a 3–0 victory by The Football League, while United, Warnock and several United players received bans and fines from The Football Association. Warnock faced allegations of cheating from Albion manager Gary Megson, sparking a long-lasting feud between the two managers. Neither Santos nor Suffo ever played for United again, departing the club in the following months.

Background
With eight league matches of the 2001–02 season remaining, West Bromwich Albion were in third place in the First Division on 67 points, 11 points behind their Black Country rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers, who occupied the second automatic promotion spot. Meanwhile, Sheffield United were in 15th position on 50 points, safe from relegation but not threatening the playoff places. Albion manager Gary Megson had nearly been appointed United manager in 1999, following a spell at Stoke City, and had a meeting with chairmen Derek Dooley and Bernard Procter; he turned down the role, citing his long-time affinity towards rivals Sheffield Wednesday, and United instead turned to Neil Warnock, who was manager going into the match.

In a First Division fixture on 10 March 2001 between United and Nottingham Forest, United midfielder Georges Santos was substituted off early in the match, with what was believed to be a concussion. Warnock revealed his disappointment that the referee took no action against Forest midfielder Andy Johnson, who had caused the injury. Santos underwent a five-and-a-half-hour operation on a double fracture of his eye socket, and spoke with his lawyers about the possibility of taking legal action. Johnson defended himself, saying he was "totally blameless", as it was Santos who was late in the challenge, but Warnock accused him of lying. Later in the year, Johnson moved to Albion.

The first fixture of the season between United and Albion was decided by a last-minute goal from Carl Asaba that gave United a 1–0 victory despite having Shane Nicholson sent off.

Match
Nine minutes into the match, United goalkeeper Simon Tracey was sent off by referee Eddie Wolstenholme for deliberately handling the ball outside the penalty area and denying Albion an obvious goalscoring opportunity. Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock sent on the substitute keeper, Wilko de Vogt, in place of striker Peter Ndlovu. Albion defender Lárus Sigurðsson received a yellow card shortly after. Albion opened the scoring in the 18th minute, when striker Scott Dobie headed in a cross from Andy Johnson.

Albion were unable to take further advantage of having an extra man until the 62nd minute, when captain Derek McInnes scored their second with a powerful shot, struck first-time from outside the area, that De Vogt was unable to reach. Warnock responded by making two substitutions, the last of his allowed three, in an attempt to make his team more attacking, taking off Gus Uhlenbeek and Michael Tonge for Georges Santos and Patrick Suffo.

The match quickly turned ugly; a stray ball from McInnes in midfield, later described by United striker Laurent D'Jaffo as a "pass from God", led to Santos being sent off for a high and poorly timed lunging tackle on Johnson, the studs of his boot connecting with the Welsh midfielder's shin. The two teams then began a mass brawl on the pitch, and amid the ensuing melee, Suffo headbutted McInnes in full view of referee Wolstenholme, an action so violent it caused the Albion player to bleed, and Suffo was also sent off. Albion defender Darren Moore was visibly angered by the actions of the United players, and had to be physically restrained by D'Jaffo; Johnson said it was like Moore "had the devil in him". By the time play resumed, United had been reduced to eight men, and had none of their three allotted substitutions remaining. Soon after, United captain Keith Curle was fortunate to avoid a sending off after appearing to throw punches at McInnes, as was Michael Brown for a foul on the same player, clambering over him as Albion made a breakaway. Wolstenholme later admitted to not awarding red cards and keeping both players on the field in order to finish the match.

In the 77th minute, Albion added a third goal when Dobie tapped in his second of the match from close range after United's defence were unable to clear an Albion corner kick. Two minutes later, Brown limped off for United with a suspected groin injury, and was soon followed by Robert Ullathorne, who went off injured in the 82nd minute suffering with muscle spasms, and reducing the team to six men. In accordance with Law 3 of the Laws of the Game, which states "that a match should not continue if there are fewer than seven players in either team", referee Wolstenholme abandoned the game with Albion leading 3–0, marking the first time a match in English professional football had ever been abandoned through the implementation of this law in the history of English football.

Aftermath
After the match, Albion manager Gary Megson said: "There will be no replay. If we are called back to Bramall Lane, we shall kick-off and then walk off the pitch. I've been in professional football since 16 and I'm 42 now. I've never ever witnessed anything as disgraceful as that. There is no place for that in any game of football, let alone professional football."

Football League spokesman John Nagle released a statement saying, "The Football League have the authority to allow the result to stand, or to order the game to be replayed", and confirmed there would be a meeting the following Thursday to discuss the matter. Writing for the BBC, journalist Phil McNulty said he believed Neil Warnock and Sheffield United should face heavy punishment, and argued for a points deduction. Warnock, though, echoed Megson's comments, saying, "there is no place for that in any game of football, let alone a professional match", but joked that he'd "have brought a deckchair out on the pitch to keep one of [the injured players] on" had he known the match would be called off. In the changing room, Megson told Moore that if a replay was necessary, he would bring Albion's youth team. Speaking to the Lancashire Telegraph, referee Eddie Wolstenholme said he was correct in sending off all three of the United players, and knew immediately that, once Ullathorne was leaving the field due to injury, he would be forced to abandon the match.

Warnock faced accusations of cheating from Megson, who claimed that Warnock was telling his players to find a way to come off the field. Warnock described the comments as "disgraceful" and accused Megson of hypocrisy, drawing comparisons between his situation and that of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, which had occurred six months earlier. Brown and Ullathorne's injuries were legitimate, however; Brown missed the rest of the season, and Ullathorne missed the following four matches; Warnock was ultimately not mentioned in Wolstenholme's match report, declaring that his fourth official had not informed him of any remarks. Warnock placed Santos on the transfer list, and told Suffo he would never play for United again, and it marked the final time either player appeared for the club. Johnson accused Santos of deliberately attempting to hurt him or possibly end his career; he was forced to miss several matches with an injury. Less than two months after the match, Suffo left United and joined Spanish club Numancia, while Santos was released in the summer and ultimately signed for Grimsby Town following a trial period.

Albion were awarded a 3–0 win and the three points by The Football League. The decision was unanimous, and Nagle said "any other decision would be grossly unfair and set a precedent that would not be in the best interests of the game". United were fined £10,000 by The Football Association, Santos was given a six-match ban (four, plus two for violent conduct), Suffo paid a £3,000 fine and received a six-match ban (three for the dismissal, three for violent conduct), and Keith Curle was made to pay a fine of £500 and received a two-match ban, while Warnock was made to pay £300 for "improper conduct towards the fourth official", but no evidence was found that either he or any player had made a deliberate attempt to have the match abandoned. Following the verdict, Albion chief executive John Wile said there was no "bad blood" between the clubs, and said the decision to award the points was correct. Following United's midweek victory against Millwall, Warnock expressed his displeasure regarding the reaction he had received in the media, saying, "I thought in this country people are innocent until proven guilty, but some of the comments in the papers were out of order", and said he and his family had endured an "absolute bloody nightmare".

United ultimately finished the season 13th in the league table, while Albion finished second and were automatically promoted.

Legacy
The next meeting between the clubs came at Albion's stadium, The Hawthorns, on 14 October 2003, during the 2003–04 season. United won 2–0 to go top of the table. Warnock received an abusive reception from the Albion supporters and refused to shake Megson's hand before the match, but joked afterwards that he had a crash helmet in the event of a repeat. The return fixture came on 21 February 2004, and the away side again emerged victorious as Albion recovered from a goal down to win 2–1, with the winning goal coming five minutes from time. Megson praised his team for overcoming the negative atmosphere, in which both sets of supporters "exchanged derogatory chants with even greater fervour than is customary", according to The Guardian journalist John Ashdown; Albion midfielder Johnson was particularly targeted. The feud between Warnock and Megson continued when Megson moved to Nottingham Forest, and on one occasion Warnock was quoted as saying, "I wouldn't shake his hands in a million years. I wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire". In a 2022 interview with The Mirror, Megson described the name Battle of Bramall Lane as a misnomer as it "suggests there were two teams battling" and apportioned the blame solely to Warnock.

Speaking in 2020 to the Sheffield Star, Suffo explained that his actions were solely in defence of teammate Santos, and described it as a highlight of his career on par with winning the 2000 Olympics and playing in the 2002 FIFA World Cup for Cameroon, but also spoke of his regret of the incident as he had begun to feel settled at the club. The close relationship between United club executive Derek Dooley and Megson was said to be severely damaged by the event. Suffo's teammate Michael Brown later described the match as "bizarre" and "crazy", and spoke of his regret about being involved in such a match while appearing on BT Sport in 2020. Curle has described the match as "surreal" and "farcical", while Albion striker Bob Taylor believed it was unforgettable for those involved and in attendance.

Other instances

 * 4 January 1977, Estadio Centenario, Montevideo: Uruguay 1–1 Ecuador, match abandoned after 78 minutes due to Ecuador receiving five red cards.
 * 14 November 2001, Estádio José Alvalade, Lisbon: Portugal 5–1 Angola, match abandoned after 67 minutes due to Angola receiving four red cards, and a player being injured after Angola had used all their substitutions.
 * 10 March 2013, Harry Abrahams Stadium, London: Wingate and Finchley 0-1 Thurrock, match abandoned after 85 minutes due to Wingate and Finchley receiving five red cards.
 * 18 February 2018, Estádio Manoel Barradas, Salvador: Bahia 3–0 Vitória, match abandoned after 80 minutes due to Vitória receiving five red cards. Bahia also had four red cards.

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

title: Battle of Bramall Lane


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Waterhouse

Waterhouse may refer to:

Places

 * Waterhouse, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
 * Waterhouse Island (disambiguation)
 * Waterhouse district of Kingston, Jamaica
 * Waterhouse F.C., a football club based in the Waterhouse district of Kingston, Jamaica
 * Waterhouse Museum in New Jersey

Other uses

 * Waterhouse (surname), including a list of people with such name
 * Waterhouse Company, a coachbuilder located in Webster, Massachusetts
 * Waterhouse Natural History Art Prize, an annual prize awarded by the South Australian Museum

title: Waterhouse


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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Amazing Spider-Man 21

The Amazing Spider-Man 21 was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was 15 delete, ~6 keep. Consensus weakly to delete. Cool Hand Luke  22:35, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Delete - a long description of one comic book. Nobody's more of a fan of early Spidey that me, but this is ridiculous. - DavidWBrooks 13:59, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete —Rory ☺ 14:17, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. This is nonsense. Also quotes so much of the text of the comic that it borders on copyvio :-) Lupo 14:19, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete, or I will post synopses in separate articles of each issue of Prez: First Teen President of the USA. Smerdis of Tlön 14:34, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * don't forget individual articles on relevant items of furniture, translation of chapter titles in different languages etc. --Ianb 15:47, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm so tempted to say keep just to get all of those articles. Snowspinner 14:15, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)
 * Comment. It seems a shame that the amount of effort here is being wasted on a non encyclopaedic (and potential copyvio) article. Someone obviously loves their comics! - Anon. 14:38, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)
 * I think we should make an effort to ensure that the work isn't lost, just in case this contributer doesn't have another copy. It would be a shame to go and delete it on him if he hasn't saved it elsewhere. This shouldn't stop us from deleting it though—Rory ☺ 16:22, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. This is getting plain silly. --Ianb 15:47, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, we have articles on individual TV episodes, so why not comics. - SimonP 16:27, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I think it should be preserved in some form, unless it is considered copyright violation. I found the article quite interesting, and the contributer went to a lot of effort with it. Possibly move it to a more general article on The Amazing Spiderman, with other spiderman comics covered in a similar format, if the contributer or others wish to do so. This way the information can be preserved, but we won't be innundated with pages for every seperate 'episode' (is that the correct term?) of the spiderman comicbooks. - Darksun 16:39, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * It's "issue", or, for the very informal, "Ish". [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 17:20, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC)
 * Delete: Indeed, I think single episode TV shows should not have articles.  I have long argued that once we let one person's "It's not paper, and this meant something to people" preference get in, we were opening the door to individual articles on every baseball trading card ever, every TV show, ever, possibly every small town newspaper article.  I would say that this material should go into the user's private page.  If it is an anon, then he or she is taking the risk of losing the material.  If there is a dedicated Spiderman fan among the Wikipedians who wants to preserve this in user pages until such a time that a rational scheme for issue descriptions can be worked out, then that's fine.  However, long articles on issues of serials are not warranted. Geogre 17:19, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * There's a fine line. Famous comic books should certainly get in (for instance, the issue where Superman first appeared, which has all kinds of trivia and such attached to it). This? I would say not. That said, I think large, notable story arcs like Age of Apocalypse or Crisis on Infinite Earths deserve coverage. Not individual issues. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 17:23, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC)
 * This really is a fine line. A lot of work went into this article, but I don't see anything notable about the subject other than the fact it's an early work.  IMO, we should draw a line and this might be a good place to start.  Individual issues, no.  Notable individual issues, yes.  Ditto television episodes.  Moving this one to a user page is an excellent idea. - Lucky 6.9 17:55, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Comment. I copied the article onto my personal page, which I have decided to use to store articles like this - since the contributer was an anonamous user, he obviously can't keep it on his own unless he registers before it is deleted (if it is deleted). Darksun 18:40, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Elf-friend 19:25, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * No reason to delete. Keep, send to cleanup.   —Kate | Talk 20:09, 2004 Aug 2 (UTC)
 * Delete. Fancruft, waste of time & resources; WP is not paper but its resources are finite all the same, and should be preserved for deserving content. Wile E. Heresiarch 21:25, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * An absurdity. Delete instantly before it starts a trend.  Hayford Peirce 00:16, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I don't much care for the way this particular article is done (a synopsis and a bit of analysis and/or context would be much better), but I don't have a problem with such an article existing.  Send to cleanup if we must.  Jgm 02:20, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete - this does not appear to be a particularly significant issue of Spider-Man. Note that I am not averse to articles on landmark/important issues of comics. Snowspinner 14:15, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Keep this and there is precedent for every issue of every magazine (comic book or otherwise) having its own article. That is not encyclopedic. Such information is not without value. To make a comparison, tt would be quite enjoyable and useful to skim through low level summaries of nineteenth century pulp fiction and dime novels, scholarly journals, children's magazines, and so forth, issue by issue, book by book. What was Varney the Vampire doing that month of that year? Perhaps we should have a record of every episode of the Howdy Doody show of the 50s. But if wiki is to be used for this kind of thing, it seems to me it should be another kind of wiki project, not an encyclopedia project. Jallan 19:56, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. Historie Pete 19:15, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. I don't see the harm in articles like these--if Wikipedia's foundations are to crumble, it won't be because of an excess of information (so long as it's accurate and well organized, like this article seems to be). Conversely, I think it does a great deal of harm to just thoughtlessly zap away the painstaking labor of a new contributor--poof! Wikisux 00:57, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. A one-sentence synopsis of this issue on the The Amazing Spiderman entry should suffice. Also possible copyvio. Luvcraft 00:53, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. I realise a fan wrote this, but it's not like it's an article in a longer series, and it's not like this episode had a huge effect on the Spiderman universe! - Ta bu shi da yu 03:30, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Very fine line, as Lucky 6.9 has said.  Looks like an anon user really tried hard on this article.  It's pretty bloated, so it should be condensed (cleanup). -Frazzydee 02:40, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.


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Wikipedia:Send in the clones

There are now a large number of clones of Wikipedia's content on the World Wide Web, with various degrees of licence compliance. This is fine if they are in compliance with the GFDL; indeed, it was one of the original goals of the project. Some of them are high-quality mirrors, whilst others are poor-quality bags of spamdexing search-engine fodder.

What seems clear is that many of these clones are using search engine optimization techniques to achieve higher rankings on search engines than the original Wikipedia pages.

The question is: should we start to try to compete with these sites in terms of search engine rankings?

Option 1: Yes, we must, or we will lose traction
Wikipedia needs to keep its traffic up to maintain its momentum, to continue growing (both in breadth and depth) its userbase, editorbase, and content. Most mirrors are significantly out of date. The majority fail to properly comply with the GFDL. Some wrap Wikipedia's content with questionable ads or associate it with content that doesn't match our high NPOV standards. Many selectively include articles that support their agenda and omit those that don't. More traffic brings us more editors - we're still very short of editors with knowledge outside the western world, of medicine, fine arts, the "soft" sciences and in many other areas. Many current editors came to Wikipedia from internet searches - if Wikipedia continues to slide down the search result rankings, our growth may slow. Our userbase and editorship may even decline. It won't matter how good an encyclopedia we've written when all the casual internet user ever finds is some old, incomplete mirror. The longer we wait to fix things, the more deeply entrenched the mirrors become.

 * more to add

Option 2: No, we need not compete with our own clones
Our purpose is to write the best encyclopedia we can, for distribution by ourselves and others, electronically and otherwise. Our purpose isn't to get good Google rankings, high Alexa ratings, or lots of traffic. Compliant mirrors help us in our goal to educate and inform; non-compliant mirrors should be encouraged, pressured, and cajoled into becoming compliant.

If we do directly compete, we shouldn't use their questionable tactics (e.g. putting all the subheadings in the page title as http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com does). We should just do "good" optimisation; if search engines don't report our pages, we should take that as a cue to improve the navigability of our site.

 * more to be written

Option 3: Yes we should, but only when we can bear the traffic
We agree that most internet users are best served by getting Wikipedia content "from the horse's mouth", and Wikipedia certainly needs more visitors and editors. In practice, however, we're constantly limited by our infrastructure. We should therefore try to improve the accessibility and search-engine friendliness of our site without "heroic measures". Instead, improve it in a moderate, controlled way, so that our infrastructure growth can keep pace with the demands placed upon it by our success.

Other options?

 * 1) We could ensure that we use all the search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that are ethically acceptable and improve our user experience, e.g. proper use of META tags (see )
 * 2) We could try to negotiate something with Google that would put Wikipedia ahead of its clones in search results

How do we compete?
Clearly we should only use legitimate tactics to try to increase our ratings with search engines. These generally mean making sure that our information architecture is clean, our design is simple, well laid out and easy to navigate. All of these are good goals we should be working on in any case.

Keywords
Currently, the meta tags added to Wikipedia articles list ten arbitrarily chosen internal links from their article. For example, this article currently includes:

 *

The meta tags for Wikipedia include:

 *

The keywords are usually alphabetized, but, as with this article, there are some exceptions. The keywords generally exclude most of the alphabet. No effort has been made to ensure links containing commas are treated as multiple keywords (as they are recognized by browsers); Rex, North Carolina has been inserted as one keyword, but will be interpreted as the two keywords Rex and North Carolina ( this is probably beneficial, however ). This leads to poor optimization if the components of a list are also linked separately:

 * <meta name="KEYWORDS" content="Dublin Core,Google,GFDL,Meta tag,North Carolina,Wiki,Yahoo,Toad,Spamdexing,Rex, North Carolina" />

Edits which neither add nor remove links often change an article's keywords, with unpredictable results.

Possible improvements

 * including names of pages which link to the current page
 * including names of categories which the page belongs to
 * ordering the keywords according to their articles' size or popularity as measured by Wikipedia's usage statistics
 * ordering the keywords according to how often users follow each link from the article
 * restricting the keywords to the article's namespace (i.e. User:Ahoerstemeier should not be a keyword for the Wikipedia: namespace)
 * alphabetizing the keywords after extracting them from the article, so the entire alphabet may be represented, including relevant links which occur in the latter part of the alphabet (i.e., wiki should be a keyword for Wikipedia)
 * This is T2570 on Wikimedia Phabricator.

Description
The first paragraph (or perhaps first sentence) of an article could be included as the value of a "description" meta tag.

Others
For example including http://www.geourl.org headers where appropriate.

Is there a list of standards for meta tags anywhere, or is this pretty much ad hoc? anthony (see warning) 14:48, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * How about Dublin Core? [ alerante | “” 15:05, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC) ]

Meta-tags and Google
Note, however, that Google is supposed to ignore meta tags completely. -- The Anome 14:58, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Well it certainly reads the descriptions, because if your search term is in the description it displays the description along with the search results. We don't know if it uses them for placement, but it might, even if they only contribute to "keyword density". Richard Taylor 14:41, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Have the mirrors link to us
How about, it's legal to mirror WP, but we do not have to make it easy for the 'non-compliant' ones. There could be a blacklist of the IPs of the bots they use. To these bots, rather than blocking them (which would be pointless), feed an additional statement "the original page is here", with a link to WP. Now I know that some of these mirrors filter out anything even containing the string "wiki". In order for the message not simply being filtered out, the statement would have to be rephrased/replaced in irregular intervals. Also, the link to WP could be a link to a naked IP, or to a rather domain with a friendly sysop who is prepared to place a redirect (so the links will not be recognized by the mirrors as WP-related). This would keep them on their toes if they really don't want to acknowledge that they are just mirroring. dab 13:45, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Include Names of the Article in Interlang Links
Currently, if someone links from, say, English Wikipedia to Japanese Wikipedia with the same version of the article, all you'll get is a link that says: 日本語. What we should do is have the link say 日本語 - フィクション (language - title of article in the language). More contextual, and helps boost rank for that title via context-sensitive links.

Methods we can't/shouldn't use
It's at least enlightening, if not useful, to note some of the methods clones have used to increase their search rankings that are either technically unfeasible for Wikipedia, or undesirable for other reasons.

 * Vastly increasing the number of inter-article references. Although Google et al. value links from one site to another more than links within a site, a huge pattern of non-random links within the site to the same article may still increase that article's ranking. Many WP clones have large sidebars or footers on every page that link to many other articles, sometimes by alphabetic proximity or category, sometimes by "what links here". This may be a useful feature, but would probably be an unacceptable performance drain on WP servers (clones can prepare it all in advance when they download the data, but our articles are dynamic). ←Hob 08:01, 2004 Sep 7 (UTC)
 * This should not be rejected. We can use such approaches. The Squid caches server almost 80% of all hits to the site and a higher percentage of those from search engines. Placing the leading what links here items in the sidebar is one which seems eminently possible. Placing some items from the same categories would also be doable. They would increase database load, but probably not enough to be very problematic, assuming that the queries were efficient. Jamesday 21:38, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree with Jamesday, there's nothing dirty about this (although including more than one link in each direction alphabetically wouldn't be such a great idea). Of course, simply taking "what links here" off of robots.txt would accomplish pretty much the same thing. anthony 警告 22:34, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Proliferating subdomains. Whether or not this is still the case, at one point Google's algorithm considered subdomains to be different sites: e.g., bar.foo.com and baz.foo.com would be two sites, while foo.com/bar and foo.com/baz would be two pages on the same site. If they're separate sites, they can give each other a bigger ranking boost; also, having the search term in the domain name may boost the ranking. At least one clone, wikiverse.org, puts every article on a separate subdomain. Besides looking funny, this would probably require a major redesign to Wikimedia software. ←Hob 08:01, 2004 Sep 7 (UTC)
 * Google is aware of this technique and I've speculated that these links are reducing our rank rather than increasing it - there was a clear drop in rankings when Google implemented new measures to reduce the benefit of this method of site promotion. However, this is speculation. Jamesday 21:38, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * While I don't think we should do this solely to try to boost google rank, and I don't think we should make every single article a different subdomain, I think using separate subdomains for different topics within the same database is acceptable. It would be one way to compromise between the people who want to split out things like rambot articles and those who think they should stay in Wikipedia, for instance.  anthony 警告 22:37, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * Minimizing links to content on other sites. For clones, this generally means keeping the number of links back to Wikipedia to an absolute minimum, and using nondescriptive text for all such links (i.e. "this article is based on Wikipedia: click here" boosts WP's ranking for "toad" less than "this article is based on Wikipedia: toad"). If clones did not use these techniques (or even more evasive ones, such as using Javascript instead of real links), their copied articles would boost WP's rankings as much as their own and they'd lose much of their advantage. We can't do much about this, although we can be more aggressive in requiring mirrors and forks to at least link to us from every article rather than on a single acknowledgement page. ←Hob 08:01, 2004 Sep 7 (UTC)
 * Neither a link here from one page nor a link from every page complies with the GFDL requirements, so how would this be enforced? Remember that completely complying with the GFDL involves no link at all - do we want to encourage that? Perhaps - if Google is penalising it. Jamesday 21:38, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how this relates to being something that Wikipedia should or shouldn't do. Personally, as a mirror, I refuse to participate in Wikipedia's googlebombing scheme, and so I link to wikipedia using javascript.  I don't do this for normal external links, only for the links which some claim are mandated by the GFDL (they aren't actually mandated by the GFDL, but it's easier to give in than to fight that, besides, having the link is useful when I'm browsing McFly and come across an article I want to edit).  anthony 警告 22:40, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Finding of facts
Please make sure these are facts

 * 1) For a typical Google search, Wikipedia ranks lower than many of the other GFDL licensees of the content.
 * 2) Search engine traffic is an effective source of new contributors.
 * 3) New blood can offer contributions that old blood can't.
 * 4) Wikipedia has always grown very fast, and is continuing to do so, regardless of Google rank for particular articles.
 * 5) Most other GFDL licensees attempt to minimise their GFDL obligations, usually are less compliant with the GFDL requirements than the Wikimedia Foundation, and often don't follow the non-compliant suggestion of a link to the Wikimedia project either.
 * 6) The other GFDL licensees are assisting with achieving a key goal of the project.

Comments
We don't yet know how option 1 might be gone about. For instance, I am not sure that becoming a spamdexer ourselves is a great idea, but using contacts that Jimbo, for example, has with Google, might be extremely helpful if we want to change the results from that search engine.

 * I don't know how much truth there is to "Fact 1". I tried a couple random searches of articles on WP:FA, and if there was wikipedia information in the first 10 hits, wikipedia almost always came up higher than clones:
 * "British East India Company" (WP is 2nd, after another legitimate source)
 * update, wikipedia is #1 --Msoos 14:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
 * "LZW" (WP is 4th, after other legitimate sources)
 * "Horatio Nelson" (WP is 4th, after other legitimate sources)

 * Wikipedia has since dropped to ninth, following mirrors WordIQ.com, fact-index.com, explanation-guide.info, and the extremely weird http://horatio-nelson-1st-viscount-nelson.wikiverse.org/. This highlights a much more serious problem: a site with unique content (http://freemasonry.bcy.ca/, which contains biographical information about Freemasons) is seventh, totally obscured by redundant Wikipedia articles.  -- η  [[Image:Venus symbol (blue).gif|♀]] [ υωρ ] 09:33, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * I read an article recently (outside of WikiPedia, within the last 2 weeks - I wish I had the link still) about how someone found a way to bomb Google's search engine for higher page ranking. The author noticed a number of sites returned by Google did not contain any of the words in search query.  By investigating this puzzling occurrence, he noticed that in the anchor (a href...) tags contained TITLE attributes to list keywords.  Also, in image (img src...) the ALT attribute was used the same way.  By doing so, it doesn't improve the page ranking of the current site, but it does improve the site it links to (if in different domain).  This may already be covered in Google bomb. Guy M. 00:00, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)

 * This might be a small problem, but it certainly is not that widespread yet. I know that a lot of wikipedia contributors are incensed to see so many clones that do not give proper credit, but I don't think we need to do any SEO ourselves at this time. -- DropDeadGorgias (talk) 15:33, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

 * I believe that Google may penalize content that is found in many near-identical copies on the net. It might be a good idea to let Google know that where other sites are found that mirror Wikipedia's content, that we are the original source, and not part of a spamdexing network. -- The Anome 09:30, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * If you search for "vote swapping united kingdom" you will notice that Wikipedia is not in the first pages. However, miore clearly try searching for a unique phrase in the same page "greater chance of winning in their district exchange" you can see exactly one result; wikipedia is ruled out as a "similar page". Duplicate material is simply excluded. Interestingly, the first listed clone has a direct link back to the original live article, which can be seen as above average. Incidentally, I just found this discussion whilst trying to find out why Wikipedia isn't listed.  Mozzerati 20:08, 2004 Sep 26 (UTC)

 * I'm a noob to Wikipedia cloning but as a concerned netizen may I say, Aaargh! I was doing a couple of math searches from google.ie involving specific math terms like hyperreal and so on. Wikipedia appears 7th below (i hate even using their names now that I have become acquainted with their tactics...) thebestlinks, freedictionary (twice), asinah, tutorgig and informationblast in the hits. What I find annoying is that I thought at each click I was getting new content and it took a while for me to twig that Wikipedia was being cloned. Mirroring is fine if links to Wikipedia are given and respect is shown where respect is due but these sites all have Google ads and their raison d'etre stinks somewhat. I thought the whole point about the content being free was that mere mortals such as myself could use it no probs but cloning thwe entire site goes against this premise, ethos, whatever. Anyhow, I think you all should be serious about your google ranking, love it or hate it Google rules the web but furthermore I think you should try to get the Clones silenced becaused they not only affect Wikipedia they force Googlers to wade through duplicate info. This is not necessarily a Wikipedia only problem. -- unregistered happy wiki user.

 * Hi.. thanks for your comment; if you do see something like this, please simply complain to google by pressing the button which is normally at the bottom right of your first results page ("Dissatisfied? Help us improve"). Google are the people who are probably best equipped to fix the problem.  The more users complain, the more they know to take it seriously.
 * Oh, and as far as it goes, I'm happy to have all my work cloned as much as possible as long as the GFDL license is followed. Much better that than have it lost if wikipedia ever disappeared or got closed down.  Mozzerati 21:30, 2005 Mar 8 (UTC)

 * Unfortunately, Google has done a poor job of fixing this problem, even though they have been informed of it. The exclusion of duplicate content is really hit or miss. For some searches, Wikipedia clones will make up 6 to 8 out of the top 10 results. It's gotten so bad that sometimes I have to specifically exclude Wikipedia from my searches. Wikipedia may now be the worst offender on the Internet for this, though eBay, Cnet and Epinions are terrible when searching for products. I don't care about the cloning of my work, but burdening the Internet like this is inappropriate. Also, it is unfair for Google to be forced to cleanup Wikipedia's mess (Google may intentionally or unintentionally "punish" Wikipedia when/if they fix the problem by removing or lowering it in search results). Finally, the issue may cause resentment for Wikipedia among Internet users (I know I hate eBay for its clones).
 * I'm not sure what the solution should be. Of course, the clones could be stopped completely (my favorite), but maybe there's better solutions. Perhaps Wikipedia's clones should be instructed to turn off search engine indexing for the Wikipedia portions of their websites. That would get the information out there and provide content for the sites, but prevent the clogging of search engines. Maybe the herd could be trimmed by stopping those websites that violate the license, requiring approval of a website before cloning or collecting a fee for doing so. I don't know if that violates Wikipedia's license/spirit, though. Kjkolb 10:18, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Fact 1
I've tried to do my own small part for this. I hit "random page" a few times and googled the title of the result. I've charted the results below:
 * 1) Tanaka Memorial--thefreedictionary.com places 4th and 15th; Wikipedia is not in the top 30.
 * 2) Kommando Spezialkräfte--thefreedictionary.com places 1st in an English search; Wikipedia is not in the top 20
 * 3) Edmund Pevensie--neither one shows up
 * 4) 1749 in music--thefreedictionary.com dominates the top ten, with a few scattered hits from other clones; Wikipedia clocks in at #17.
 * 5) Rex, North Carolina--the first encyclopedia hit, # 8, is from www.fact-index.com. thefreedictionary.com is #29. Wikipedia is not in the top 60.

I think it's safe to say that fact one is largely true. Meelar (talk) 19:34, 2004 Aug 3 (UTC)

 * Interestingly enough, on Yahoo!, Wikipedia comes up fairly high for all of these, even Edmund Pevensie. OK, fine, bring on the SEO, as long as it's tasteful... - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 20:21, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

 * Two issues:

 * 1) Didn't we reach some sort of agreement with Yahoo? What are the details of that? Could we do something similar with Google?
 * 2) What is meant by "tasteful" SEO (or not)? Maybe I'm not tech-literate enough, but as long as your tactics still result in a relevant result (and those of thefreedictionary seem to), then what's wrong with it?

 * Best, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 20:25, 2004 Aug 3 (UTC)

 * A lot of SEO tricks these days are nothing more than dirty tricks used to deceive search engines, i.e. redirecting known search bots to pages with lots of relevant keywords, or spamming blogs with links to the targeted page. When the search engines find out, there's a chance they could remove from their results the site which is known to be doing this. Johnleemk | Talk 09:43, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * The Yahoo deal does not involve Yahoo inflating the rankings of Wikimedia sites. It's Yahoo getting regular updates of Wikimedia-hosted content and feeds, with more work on feeds for the future. If Google becomes a portal site we could make a similar deal with Google. I've used my own contacts with another largish portal site to get contacts for Jimbo there. Jamesday 21:38, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Another example. Quantum circuit. I couldn't find the wikipedia article anywhere on Google, but the WordIQ clone was number 3. It sucked. None of the TeX was rendered. CSTAR 19:02, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I finally did find it --- on page 11 ! CSTAR 23:48, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I just did a search for quantum circuit (no quotes) and Wikipedia was the top-ranked encyclopedia site, at number 13. The highest other licensee was at 68. Searching for "quantum circuit" en was at number 4. The highest other licensee was at 53. Worth us considering that Google does regular "google dances" and may have tweaked this. Or not.:) Jamesday 21:38, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

maybe
How about we let Google handle this: each person can go and verify the listing details for a handful of pages, and use the complaint link for each one where Wikipedia ranks lower than the clones. If a lot of people did this, then perhaps Google might sit up and take notice of this. Dysprosia 10:00, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Google says: "The only sites we omit are those we are legally compelled to remove or those maliciously attempting to manipulate our results." So in the case of sites "maliciously" manipulating the results that might work, but most of the sites in question are not doing that. anthony (see warning) 13:01, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * I believe Dysprosia is referring to the "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" link at the bottom of all Google's search results pages, which let you make general comments on results. They say: "Thanks for helping us improve our search. While we aren't able to respond directly to comments submitted with this form, the information will be reviewed by our quality team. (...) Please tell us what specific information you were seeking. Also tell us why you were dissatisfied with the search results. (...) Were you looking for a specific URL that wasn't listed in the search results? If so, please enter the URL here:". Jomel 09:35, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * But what can the google engineers do about it to improve the situation without introducing any Wikipedia-specific code (which they have said they won't do)? To borrow what someone else said on the pump, from google's perspective many of these clones are actually better results than Wikipedia.  They generally present the information in a way best suited for someone who wants to read an encyclopedia, rather than build an encyclopedia.  anthony (see warning) 13:44, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Maybe. Google also has an interest in encouraging the development of good resources and that interest is best served by rewarding the primary sites instead of spam or other licensee sites. It may be that Google has improved its handling of this in one of its more recent updates. Or not. Jamesday 21:38, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * One thing I think we all agree on is that google shouldn't be displaying the clones and the original all on the same results page (unless maybe someone clicked on "see clones" or something). But I assume Google is aware of this problem, it's just a hard problem to solve (as clones are never exact duplicates). anthony 警告 22:46, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * The primary purpose of many of the cloned sites is to display Google Ads. The sites make money for Google, so removing them, or reducing their ranking would not be entirely in Google's interest, there is a greater effect from their point of view than simply removing duplicate content from the results. 80.4.3.240 13:55, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Another problem?
Look at these search results:. Wikipedia comes up first in the results, but there is no blurb or summary... If I were a user, I would think that that was a paid search result. The wikipedia clones come up with normal blurbs. What is causing this? - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 15:45, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

 * The real answer can only be given by google - but I suspect these happen when the google bot has problems crawling our site, and thus just notes the existence of the URL, but cannot store the content (maybe it received a timeout). andy 19:46, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Wikipedia error pages have meta tags which request google not to cache the results. If the DB is acting flaky, google might download the page with such a tag.  It's unclear how long google waits before attempting to redownload the page. anthony (see warning) 13:04, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * OK, that explains the empty listing. But at least for my pet google check (monthon) it seems it takes a month till it is updated - and apparently the google bot has a preference to check in the wrong time, as after one month without a cached copy it worked and even was the top hit, about a week later it was back to the empty one. andy 10:16, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * It could be that google checks cached pages more frequently. But really this is all just speculation.  I'm not really sure what could be done to solve it, either, other than of course to have better uptime.  It also could be that this isn't the problem at all.  It's probably best for someone to contact google and ask them about it, preferably someone who can actually get through to someone who knows what they're talking about it. anthony (see warning) 13:36, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Our google guardian angel must be watching, because this problem has been resolved. --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 02:56, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

 * As of today, en is number one complete with a summary. Jamesday 21:38, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * As of today, en is number one with no summary. anthony 警告 22:48, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedians must link!
I entirely agree about the annoyance of the clones. Perhaps Wikipedia should introduce a formal notice to wikipedians advising them to link to Wikipedia (and to their own articles within) from their own personal websites. I believe this is one of the best ways for a site to improve its Google rankings. --mervyn 09:02, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * I think this is a great idea! I just did this myself; I now have links to all of the articles I have made significant contributions to on my web page.  Samboy 19:02, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * These types of google bombs do work. See the talk page for the full discussion. anthony (see warning) 14:22, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * There's no law against linking to appropriate Wikipedia articles when you write elsewhere on the net. It's useful and effective. If you're a blogger, take particular note...:) Jamesday 21:38, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fact 5
I agree that allmost all clones don't give anything back, but there are interesting counterexamples. One is this mirror of the German wikipedia. The site operators don't use Mediawiki, but wrote their own software, including a search engine (in Free Pascal) which they claim is much faster and more powerful than WP's mySQL search. And they are offering to release it under the GPL for Wikipedia to use it.

Others at least add useful functionality which might inspire WP back. For example encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com uses the nice idea of displaying a part of a linked article as a tool-tip when the mouse cursor hovers over the link. regards, High on a tree 01:30, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Many of the other licensees don't give much back but I wouldn't be surprised if some have provided donations or good ideas which we can learn from. Their producers may also be contributors here. They do all provide some load offloading from us and a useful resource for the times when we're unavailable. Jamesday 21:38, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I feel that I've given something back with the 6,556 edits I've made to the main namespace, many of which were based on scripts I've run on my local copy of the database (see also User:Anthony DiPierro/Broken categories for something I've created based on that local copy). I think there's a lot of room for the mirrors and Wikipedia to work hand in hand. It bothers me that so many people see the mirrors as competition. I have no intention of competing with Wikipedia. In fact, I think Wikipedia should run a mirror of itself. anthony 警告 23:24, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A potential solution: persuade clones to include editing links
Why are clones bad? One reason: they reduce the number of potential editors per page view of Wikipedia material. We could solve this if we persuaded the clones to include links to the Wikipedia editing page. It would seem to be in their interest, because it would lead to improved content. --erauch 04:53, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * "In their interest" for some, not for others. The ones that are just trying to pull page hits for banner ads presumably don't care what the content is, and won't be persuaded. And even the good guys probably don't want to call attention to the fact that their snapshots of articles are days/weeks/months old. "Hey, I clicked this thing to add some more facts, and it says 20 other people already added them 6 weeks ago! This encyclopedia is broken!" ←Hob 08:10, 2004 Sep 7 (UTC)

 * It's worth trying, though. Some of the larger ones, which pull in a lot of the page views, probably do care. --Erauch 14:17, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Well, everything is worth trying. But if their main concern is page views, they're probably not eager to do anything that encourages people to use our site rather than theirs. Once someone gets turned on to WP editing, they're likely to stay on WP rather than the clone site. ←Hob 03:16, 2004 Sep 8 (UTC)

 * Most of their page views come from random web searchers, so it wouldn't have much of an impact on page views. But better content would produce more page views. --Erauch 03:46, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * This is something I plan to do at some point. I think it is in my best interest, as a mirror site, to encourage people to edit on Wikipedia.  Sure, maybe some people will get hooked on Wikipedia as a result, but even this is a good thing.  I'd rather the person gets hooked on Wikipedia than not, and I'm not interested in merging contributions made on my site with those made on Wikipedia.  The only stopping point right now is that I want to implement it so that people can edit my site for articles which have been deleted from Wikipedia, but the edit link goes to Wikipedia for articles which have not been deleted.  So this involves finding some way to parse Deletion log.  Providing some way for me to easily do this would greatly facilitate things. anthony 警告 22:55, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Possible reason why Wikipedia is forced down
Not that I know anything but... is it possible that the fact that the mirrors link to Wikipedia cause a reverse effect of a Google bomb since it is exactly the same content? Someone stated before that because the Wikipedia article is exactly the same, it turned up to be a similar page. Is it possible that because it is turning up as a similar page so often that it is pushed below the PageRank? I'm only exploring an idea... don't know if this is true. --AllyUnion (talk) 06:43, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Google will be forced to fix this eventually
As Wikipedia content proliferates, Google users are going to get more and more annoyed when they do a search and find 15 URLs of cloned material in the top 30 results. As a result, Google will have no choice but to fix this problem eventually (and I doubt that their fix could be anything except to push WP clones far down in the rankings). Moreover, in the long run external sites are going to link preferentially to Wikipedia, which will push its rankings up. Until then, relax and remember that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. —Steven G. Johnson 21:56, Dec 3, 2004 (UTC)

 * Our Main Page already has a PageRank of 9, while http://www.answers.com/library/Encyclopedia has only 7. Seahen 11:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

External link

 * Google Information for Webmasters - Webmaster Guidelines

title: Wikipedia:Send in the clones


text:
Anodorhynchus

Anodorhynchus is a genus of large blue macaws from open and semi-open habitats in central and eastern South America. It includes two extant species, the hyacinth macaw and Lear's macaw also known as the indigo macaw, and one probably extinct species, the glaucous macaw. At about 100 cm in length the hyacinth macaw is the longest parrot in the world. Glaucous and Lear's macaws are exclusively cliff nesters; hyacinth macaws are mostly tree nesters. The three species mainly feed on the nuts from a few species of palms (notably Acrocomia aculeata, Attalea phalerata, Butia yatay and Syagrus coronata).

While blue macaws have been known from taxidermic and captive specimens since at least 1790, location of the Lear's macaw's endemic habitat wasn't known until 1978. The glaucous macaw was extirpated in the 1800s by clearance for agriculture and cattle grazing of the yatay palm (Butia yatay) groves upon which it fed, though rumors of its continued existence persist. Lear's macaws have made a comeback from near extinction in the early 1980s (about 60 birds) to over 1000 as a result of conservation programs. Hyacinth macaws remain locally common within parts of their range, but their range has become fragmented into three known distinct populations in southern Brazil, eastern Bolivia and northeastern Paraguay; populations are declining due to extensive trapping for the pet trade as well as habitat loss.

All Anodorhynchus macaws are listed on CITES Appendix I.

Taxonomy
The genus, Anodorhynchus Spix, 1824 is one of six genera of Central and South American macaws in tribe Arini of macaws, parakeets and closely related genera. The macaws and parakeets comprise the clade of long-tailed parrots which with sister clade the short-tailed Amazonian parrots and allies make up subfamily Arinae of Neotropical parrots in family Psittacidae of true parrots. There are three currently recognized species (two extant and one probably extinct), all monotypic:

Some recent commentators have suggested that the allopatric Lear's macaw and glaucous macaw should be considered conspecifics.

Besides the three recognised species, there is the violet macaw, Anodorhynchus purpurascens, which was described by Rothschild and featured in his book, Extinct Birds published in 1907, but there is very little evidence to support it as separate species and it should be regarded as a hypothetical extinct species. In the absence of a specimen, Rothschild scientifically described and named it as a separate species based on the evidence that violet macaws were said to have inhabited the island of Guadeloupe; however, they were probably hyacinth macaws imported from the mainland of South America.

title: Anodorhynchus


text:
Talk:King's Lynn

Apostrophe
I've seen spellings of King(')s Lynn, both with and without the apostrophe. Which is actually correct? (It's been a long time since I was in the area so I can't just check a street sign. ;-) It was originally named Bishop(')s Lynn, which is more likely to indicate the possessive form... but I'm not sure. Kinitawowi 15:01 02 Aug 2004 (BST)

I'm a local and I've always been taught that the town's name is spelt with the apostrophe, however due to the modern world we live in, people just get lazy about it. Istabo 00:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Apostrophe required
As the name comes from royal possession, it should have the apostrophe, but not even the road signs are consistent. Many computer systems seem unable to cope with the apostrophe and people are terrible with possessives, so that's probably why it's so common without.

Even today, I get mailmerged letters with the S capitalised... how do these people cope with the really strange place names like Westward Ho! and similar?

Interesting question: what will happen to the name after the revolution?

I'm a local, and I can assure you it's with the apostrophe. However, I do understand that some people are just bone idle (Frequent of people from King's Lynn) and choose to leave it out. Paul Norfolk Dumpling 12:16, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Walpole
Walpole is listed as a famous resident, on the strength that he was MP for King's Lynn...this seems potentially problematic - very often MPs in the unreformed parliament had no connection whatsoever to their constituency. William Pitt the Elder certainly didn't live in Old Sarum. john k 00:14, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

CCTV
When did King's Lynn get its first municipal CCTV system? I know it was an "early adopter", but can someone provide the actual date? --80.3.179.56 14:36, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
 * 1987, according to this :) Collard 16:38, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Entertainment
I put this section in because I think that it is something worthy that people want to read about. Not many people know King's Lynn if they're not local... Istabo 16:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that the Festival Too content should be expanded into its own article. I'm drafting one here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Robertshippey/Festival_Too Robertshippey (talk) 14:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Hanseatic warehouses in Lynn
It would be nice to have pictures taken to illustrate the article and Steelyard, Hanseatic League.--Kresspahl 09:29, 18 August 2007 (UTC) I have inserted the existing Hanseatic warehouses JPG and moved the associated paragraph to a more appropriate location.Greenpenwriter (talk) 16:24, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

1708 Hanging
The article notes [citation needed] for the claim that an 11 year old girl was hung for theft in 1708. The following link makes reference to this event:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/20711/The-Bloody-Code (on page 11 of 25 within that site).

That website references a 1907 book which is said to document the event. The name of that book does not appear to be mentioned.

The source lists the victims as 11 year old Ann Hammond and her 7 year old brother Michael Hammond. The execution date noted is Wednesday, September 28, 1708. As of this writing, we are approaching the 300th anniversary of that sad day.

While there were many hangings in those days, the referenced source notes that these may be the two youngest persons ever executed in England. Wekeypedia (talk) 13:00, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

King's Lynn Branch Motor Neurone Disease Association
Hi,

I've had the two links placed here removed, something about 'advertising'?. I have added a link to our website because we are local to King's Lynn and I would like to raise awareness to MND (also known as ALS in the USA) and help people affected in the local area !!!. The last thing i want to do is 'advertise' and i thought just adding a link and description would be OK.

I feel offended that you think I would just add links for the fun of it, please would you reconsider adding a link on this page and also one on 'norfolk' to our website?

thank you. regards Steve Webmaster www.mndlkingslynn.org —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mndkingslynn (talk • contribs) 00:54, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * One has to read WP:ORG as to charities. - Adam37   Talk  10:47, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

DTZ Marina report
I have tracked down and referenced the DTZ report which has been recently been quoted in the article. However, I don't think the report is noteworthy enough to warrant being the subject of its own paragraph; especially since the topic of the report (the viability of the marina project) is not mentioned in the paragraph. Instead I think the report should be used to improve sections on the economy, the marina and perhaps elsewhere. Alanpritt (talk) 17:15, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Walter Dexter
I've added Walter Dexter to the list of notable people. Unfortunately he doesn't as yet have a wikipedia page of his own.Greenpenwriter (talk) 10:24, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Local Beardie fashion
Theres a weird fashion, that I accidentally started, of owning bearded dragons. Should this be put on this article? Kaasci (talk) 18:03, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
 * No, it's not notable. But good luck with it as a hobby. Euryalus (talk) 20:44, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

merger
Dear Users I have merged List of events in King's Lynn to this article .The merger was proposed since May 2010 on the page category "Articles to be merged from May 2010".List of events in King's Lynn consisted of year of major events in King's Lynn.Anyone who feels that List of events in King's Lynn should be a separate article can create it providing necessary reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skr15081997 (talk • contribs) 07:38, 14 December 2013 (UTC)

Notable person to add to the page - Karl Penhaul
He's a journalist - with CNN I think. He was embedded with the armed forces in the (second) Iraq war I think.
 * He needs to have a Wikipedia article before being added to this page. Whether he qualifies as notable can be gleaned from Notability (people).Charles (talk) 10:49, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Notable person to add to page - James Eldridge
I think the name is james Eldridge. He was convicted of spying for the Russians in the early 1980's.

He went to King Edward VII school in the late 1970's. I think he ended up working for the MOD - certainly for an organisation with access to classified documents. He sent a photocopy of the cover page to the Russian embassy to try and get a deal where they would pay him. In order to signify their interest, the embassy was asked to place an ad in The Times which said something like "Spider, we love you. Mum." This happened. He was caught before he actually handed over any secrets. He was found guilty. I seem to recall that at the time the stories talked about him being a rebel at school and singing in a band where the most popular song was something like "I don't want to go to war." This is all 30 years ago so my memory is a bit hazy.

I've googled for this but can't find anything. I guess it is sitting in the Lynn News & Advertiser archives but hasn't been digitised and put on the web.

School merge
I have suggested that Eastgate Academy should be merged to here as it is a non-notable primary school, as per WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. Any comments appreciated. CalzGuy (talk) 13:09, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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List of Events (removed from article)
This is just - as it states - a random list of events in the town. It serves no purpose except to offer the casual reader a list of historical Trivia.

 * List of events
 * Most of the events there are not trivia. The Hanseatic League for example will be important in the town's history. It needs to be written as prose with decent citations.Charles (talk) 12:30, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Village with similar name in Sweden
In Sweden there is a village and a parish with a similar name, Kungslena, https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kungslena_socken,

The name Kungslena means Kings-Lena, where "Kings" states that it was part of the kings domains and was added already in the middle ages. "Lena" goes back to an old Norse word "len" referring to the slopes of the hills where the village is located. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.254.151.136 (talk) 21:07, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Article lead
This is rather a nice article, with decent sourcing and appropriate images. But, for me, it's rather let down by the lead. This is only two sentences long, and the second of these is a list of the town's distances from a random list of other places. Why on earth would readers care that it's 36 miles from Peterborough, when the lead offers nothing on its history, economy, culture, sport etc.? KJP1 (talk) 11:34, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:King's Lynn


text:
Bridgewater Four

The Bridgewater Four are four men who were tried and found guilty of killing 13-year-old paperboy Carl Bridgewater, who was shot in the head at close range near Stourbridge, England, in 1978. In February 1997, after almost two decades of imprisonment, their convictions were overturned and the three surviving defendants were released; the fourth defendant had died in prison two years into his sentence. Bridgewater's murder remains unsolved.

The investigations were carried out by the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, which was later disbanded after an inquiry into corruption and mismanaged investigations.

Murder
Carl Bridgewater (2 January 1965 – 19 September 1978) was shot dead on 19 September 1978 at Yew Tree Farm near Stourbridge, West Midlands, while delivering a newspaper to the house. The occupants of the house, elderly cousins Mary Poole and Fred Jones, were not home at the time. Police believed that Carl Bridgewater had arrived at the house and disturbed an intruder or burglar, and was subsequently forced into the living room of the house where he was shot once in the head at close range with a shotgun.

Conviction and sentencing
The Bridgewater Four were Patrick Molloy, James Robinson and cousins Michael and Vincent Hickey. They came to the attention of police working on the murder investigation following further armed robberies later in 1978. On 24 November, Robinson, Hickey and an unidentified third man carried out an armed robbery at a Tesco supermarket on the Castle Vale estate in Birmingham. Hickey and Robinson raided the safe while the third man held several terrified shoppers at bay with a gun. When the store manager tried to intervene, a shot was fired over his head.

Six days later, Robinson and the Hickey cousins robbed an elderly couple at Chapel Farm, Romsley, near Halesowen. Vincent stayed in the car while Robinson and Michael charged into the house wearing balaclavas, brandishing a shotgun and shouting for money. The victims of this robbery displayed great courage but the robbers got away with £200. Robinson took the lead, hitting one of the victims with the gun but not firing it.

Molloy was the first to be arrested. During questioning which also covered the murder, Molloy told police that he had been in an upstairs bedroom at Yew Tree Farm while robbing the house when he heard a gunshot downstairs. Shortly afterwards, the other three men were arrested.

All denied committing murder, but three of them were convicted of murder at Stafford Crown Court on 9 November 1979. The fourth, Molloy, was found guilty of manslaughter. They were sentenced on 12 November.

James Robinson (aged 45) and Vincent Hickey (aged 25) were both sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommended minimum term of 25 years, which would have kept them behind bars until at least 2004 and the ages of 70 and 50 respectively. Michael Hickey (aged 18) was sentenced to be detained indefinitely at Her Majesty's pleasure, though it was anticipated he would serve a shorter sentence than the two others convicted of murder due to his age. Patrick Molloy (aged 51) received a 12-year prison sentence on the manslaughter charge, but he died of a heart attack in prison, two years later.

Case quashed
An appeal in March 1989 was rejected, but on 21 February 1997, the convictions of the men were overturned after the Court of Appeal ruled that the trial had been unfair, due to certain areas of evidence fabricated by police in order to persuade the now-deceased Molloy to make a confession. The Appeal Judges noted that there might still be sufficient evidence to convict Vincent Hickey, but the Crown Prosecution Service chose not to apply for a retrial or to prosecute him on another charge of armed robbery.

The campaign to free and absolve the four men was led by Michael Hickey's mother, Ann Whelan, and campaigning journalist Paul Foot. Preparations were made for a case against four police officers in the Staffordshire force on charges of fabricating evidence, but the case was dropped in December 1998.

The Court of Appeal agreed with a Home Office-appointed assessor that the Hickey cousins should lose a quarter of loss-of-earnings compensation for their free food and accommodation inside prison.

Robinson died on 30 August 2007 of lung cancer at the age of 73.

Bert Spencer
Over the years, convicted murderer Bert Spencer (born 1939) has been mentioned in the media as a possible suspect for the murder. Spencer, a uniformed ambulance driver who worked at Corbett Hospital in Stourbridge lived in Wordsley and was a neighbour of Bridgewater, living five houses away. He was investigated by police in the immediate aftermath of the murder, not least because he drove a blue Vauxhall Viva – the same type of car which had been seen at the farm on the afternoon of the murder. Witnesses also said that the driver of the car was a uniformed man. Spencer had a shotgun licence and was regularly allowed to shoot at Yew Tree Farm. However, he was eliminated from police inquiries within a few months after the arrest of the four other suspects. In December 1979, at a party at neighbouring Holloway Farm to celebrate Spencer's 40th birthday, Spencer shot dead 70-year-old Hubert Wilkes. He admitted to this, while claiming it was a case of manslaughter and not murder. Like Carl, Hubert Wilkes had been shot while sitting on a sofa. Spencer was imprisoned for life in 1980 and served 15 years before being paroled in 1995.

Spencer is featured in a book, Scapegoat for Murder: The Truth About the Killing of Carl Bridgewater (D&B Publishing), written by true crime author, Simon W. Golding. The author invited criminologist David Wilson to interview Spencer, and in June 2016, Channel 4 screened a television documentary, Interview with a Murderer. In the course of the "interview of the year", Spencer's daughter revealed that she felt that her father was at Yew Tree Farm on the day of Bridgwater's killing "and possibly saw something". An ambulance station secretary (who was also a friend) who had provided the "cast iron" alibi that he had been "at work all day", admitted that she could not be sure that Spencer had not left at some point. Prof. Wilson, in his final meeting with Spencer, told him that he saw through Spencer's "kindly old grandfather schtick", adding that a P-scan test indicated Spencer was a manipulative and callous psychopath. The documentary concluded with Wilson interviewing Spencer's former wife, who had not spoken publicly before. She said that the day after the murder, Spencer told her he was disposing of his shotgun. She added that, Spencer having chosen to revive the issue to protest his innocence, it seemed likely that the police would reopen the case. However, in March 2017, after looking at the allegations in the television programme, the police told Spencer they would not be taking any action against him.

To date, neither Spencer nor anyone else other than the Bridgewater Four has been charged with the murder of Carl Bridgewater.

title: Bridgewater Four


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Richard Walter

Very odd page, reads like its by someone who knows him, possibly vanity, and Google test reveals various persons of this name. Dunc_Harris|☺ 14:06, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete: Prank, twitting, trolling.  I don't even have a third floor. Geogre 14:48, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * perhaps the author meant third density? --Ianb 14:56, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete Investmant Banker for reasons stated above. --Ianb 14:56, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * Delete. - Eisnel  (on the 4th floor doing Java)