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Penrose Tribar
Penrose Tribar

Rafał Pocztarski[edit]

Administrator of the English Wikipedia since 2004 (original nomination)

My Contributions: All · Articles · Talk · User talk · Wiki · Wiki talk · Page Deletions · Current rights

Quick links[edit]

Administration[edit]

I am proud to announce that I have been nominated by Quadell to become a Wikipedia administrator on December 3, 2004. The voting ended on December 10, 2004 with the result of 12 Support votes by: Quadell, jni, 172, JOHN COLLISON, M7it, Dittaeva, Grunt, Lst27, GeneralPatton, Andre, RedWordSmith and ffirehorse. There were no Oppose and no Neutral votes. I have been promoted by Cecropia. Now I am also an administrator on Wikimedia Commons. Having one Support vote by Quadell, no Oppose and no Neutral votes, I was promoted by villy on December 20, 2004.

If you have any opinion, positive or negative, about my administration-related contributions—mostly reverting anonymous vandalism, protecting pages and posting comments to vandals in their IP talk pages—please post a comment on my talk page.

My contributions: all · articles (look for reverts) · user talk (look for IPs) · deletions

In the news[edit]

Current events: Wednesday · June 12, 2024 · 08:02 UTC

Saulos Chilima in April 2022
Saulos Chilima
Ongoing:

Selected anniversaries

June 12: First day of Shavuot (Judaism, 2024); Dia dos Namorados in Brazil; Loving Day in the United States (1967)

Boeing 777
Boeing 777
More anniversaries:

Links[edit]

Featured articles[edit]

Featured articles · candidates · collaboration of the week

June 12[edit]

Interior of Incapillo
Interior of Incapillo

Incapillo is a Pleistocene-age caldera – a depression formed by the collapse of a volcano – in La Rioja Province, Argentina. It is part of the southernmost volcanic centre in the Andean Central Volcanic Zone (CVZ). Subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate is responsible for most of the volcanism in the CVZ. Volcanism commenced in the Incapillo region 6.5 million years ago, forming the high volcanic edifices of Monte Pissis, Cerro Bonete Chico and Sierra de Veladero. Incapillo is known to have erupted the Incapillo ignimbrite 0.52 ± 0.03 and 0.51 ± 0.04 million years ago; this has a total volume of about 20.4 cubic kilometres (4.9 cu mi). A caldera with dimensions of 5 by 6 kilometres (3.1 mi × 3.7 mi) formed during the eruptions. Later volcanism generated more lava domes within the caldera and a debris flow in the Sierra de Veladero. The lake within the caldera may overlie an area of ongoing hydrothermal activity. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

April 12[edit]

A Caesar cipher with a shift of 3

In cryptography, a Caesar cipher is one of the simplest and most well-known classical encryption techniques. It is a type of substitution cipher in which each letter in the plaintext is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions further down the alphabet. For example, with a shift of 3, A would be replaced by D, B would become E, and so on. The method is named after Julius Caesar, who used it to communicate with his generals. The encryption step performed by a Caesar cipher is often incorporated as part of more complex schemes, such as the Vigenère cipher, and still has modern application in the ROT13 system. As for all single alphabet substitution ciphers, the Caesar cipher is easily broken and in practice offers no communication security. (more...)

Recently featured: Garry Kasparov – Ryanair – Government of Maryland

March 12[edit]

Charles II of England
Charles II of England

Charles II was the King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 30 January 1649 until his death. Charles II's father, Charles I, had been executed in 1649 following the English Civil War; the monarchy was then abolished and replaced with a military dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell, who had named himself "Lord Protector". In 1660, shortly after Cromwell's death, the monarchy was restored under Charles II. Unlike his father, Charles II was skilled at managing Parliament. It was during his reign that the Whig and Tory political parties developed. He famously fathered numerous illegitimate children, of whom he acknowledged fourteen. Known as the "Merry Monarch", Charles was a patron of the arts and less restrictive than many of his predecessors. By converting to Roman Catholicism on his deathbed, Charles II became the first Roman Catholic to reign over England since Mary I's death in 1558. (more...)

Recently featured: League of Nations – Comet Hale-Bopp – San Jose

February 12[edit]

Portrait of Albert Einstein taken by Yousuf Karsh in 1948
Portrait of Albert Einstein taken by Yousuf Karsh in 1948

Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist who is widely regarded as the greatest scientist of the 20th century. He proposed the theory of relativity and also made major contributions to the development of quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and cosmology. He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect and "for his services to Theoretical Physics." After his general theory of relativity was formulated, Einstein became world-famous, an unusual achievement for a scientist. In his later years, his fame exceeded that of any other scientist in history, and in popular culture, Einstein has become a byword for great intelligence or even genius. His is also one of the world's most recognizable faces. (more...)

Recently featured: Economy of the Republic of Ireland – Coconut crab – Jonathan Wild

January 12[edit]

Lottie Dod excelled in tennis, golf, hockey and archery
Lottie Dod excelled in tennis, golf, hockey and archery

Lottie Dod was a British athlete. She is best known as a tennis player, winning the Wimbledon championships five times. She won her first victory when she was only 15 years old, remaining the youngest player ever to win the tournament for over a century until Martina Hingis won the title in 1996 being three days younger than Dod. In addition to tennis, Dod competed in many other sports. Among others, she won the British amateur golf championships, played for the British national field hockey team, and won a silver medal at the 1908 Summer Olympics in archery. The Guinness Book of Records has named her as the most versatile female athlete of all time, together with track and field athlete and fellow golf player Babe Zaharias. (more...)

Recently featured: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – President of Ireland – Pet skunk

December 12[edit]

Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom
Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom

Victoria was a Queen of the United Kingdom, reigning from 20 June 1837 until her death. Her reign lasted more than sixty-three years—longer than any other British monarch. As well as being Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, she was also the first monarch to use the title Empress of India. The reign of Victoria was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. The Victorian Era was at the height of the Industrial Revolution, a period of great social, economic, and technological change in the United Kingdom. Victoria was the last monarch of the House of Hanover; her successor belonged to the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. (more...)

Recently featured: Flag of the Republic of China – Saturn V – Paragraph 175

November 12[edit]

A batter follows through after swinging at a pitched ball
A batter follows through after swinging at a pitched ball

Baseball is a team sport that is popular in the Americas and East Asia. In the United States, baseball has often been called the national pastime, and the total attendance for Major League games is more than that of all other American professional sports combined. In Japan, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, South Korea, and several other countries, baseball is the most popular sport by any measurement. Among American television viewers, however, it has been surpassed in popularity by American football and, in the South, car racing. Although the three most popular team sports in North America are ball games (baseball, basketball and American football), baseball's popularity was once so great that the word "ballgame" in the United States specifically refers to a game of baseball, and "ballfield" or "ballpark" to a baseball diamond. Baseball is played between two teams of nine players each on a baseball field, usually under the authority of one or more officials, called umpires. The game is played in nine innings in which each team gets one turn to and try to score runs while the other pitches and defends in the field, attempting to get three players of the batting team out. (more...)

Recently featured: Sarajevo – Japanese toilet – Shrine of Remembrance

October 12[edit]

Political graffiti, in Vulgar Latin, found at Pompeii
Political graffiti, in Vulgar Latin, found at Pompeii

"Vulgar Latin" is a blanket term covering the vernacular dialects of the Latin language spoken mostly in the western provinces of the Roman Empire, starting from the second and third century AD, until its direct merging with the early Romance languages in the ninth century. This spoken Latin differed from the literary language of classical Latin in its pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Some features of Vulgar Latin did not appear until the late Empire. Other features are likely to have been in place in spoken Latin, in at least its basilectal forms, much earlier. Our knowledge of Vulgar Latin comes from three chief sources. First, the comparative method can reconstruct the underlying forms from the attested Romance languages, and note where they differ from classical Latin. Second, various prescriptive grammar texts from the late Latin period condemn linguistic errors that Latin users were likely to commit, providing insight into how Latin speakers used their language. Finally, the solecisms and non-Classical usages that occasionally are found in late Latin texts also shed light on the spoken language of the writer. (more...)

Recently featured: Hebrew calendar – First Amendment to the United States Constitution – Io

September 12[edit]

Anatoly Karpov in 1996
Anatoly Karpov in 1996

Anatoly Karpov is a Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He is considered one of the greatest players in chess history, especially in tournament play: he is the most successful tournament player in history, with over 140 first-places to his credit. His overall record is 1,118 wins, 287 losses, and 1,480 draws in 3,163 games, and his peak Elo rating is 2780. Karpov's "boa constrictor" playing style is solidly positional, taking no risks but reacting mercilessly to any tiny errors made by his opponents. As a result, he is often compared to his idol, the famous José Raúl Capablanca, the third World Champion. (more...)

Recently featured: Nineteen Eighty-Four – Mains power plug – Milgram experiment

September 6[edit]

Polish boy scouts fighting in the uprising
Polish boy scouts fighting in the uprising

The Warsaw Uprising was an armed struggle during the Second World War by the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from German occupation and Nazi rule. It started on August 1, 1944 as a part of a nationwide uprising, Operation Tempest. The Polish troops resisted the German-led forces until October 2. An estimated 85% of the city was destroyed during the urban guerrilla war and after the end of hostilities. The Uprising started at a crucial point in the war as the Soviet army was approaching Warsaw. Although the Soviet army was within a few hundred metres of the city from September 16 onward, the link between the uprising and the advancing army was never made. This failure and the reasons behind it have been a matter of controversy ever since. (more...)

Recently featured: Anno Domini – PaX – Behistun Inscription

August 12[edit]

The tectonic plates of the world
The tectonic plates of the world

Plate tectonics is a theory of geology developed to explain the phenomenon of continental drift. In the theory of plate tectonics the outermost part of the Earth's interior is made up of two layers, the outer lithosphere and the inner asthenosphere. Plate tectonic theory arose out of two separate geological observations: seafloor spreading and continental drift. Tectonic plates are broadly divisible into two groups: continental and oceanic plates. The distinction is based on the density of their constituent materials; oceanic plates are denser than continental plates due to their greater mafic mineral content. As a result, the oceanic plates generally lie below sea level, while the continental plates project above sea level. (more...)

Recently featured: MKULTRA – Middle-earth – Great Mosque of Djenné

July 12[edit]

York Minster — historically, city status was associated with the presence of a cathedral.
York Minster — historically, city status was associated with the presence of a cathedral.

City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the British Monarch to a select group of communities. The status does not apply automatically on the basis of any particular criteria, although it was traditionally given to towns with diocesan cathedrals. Normally, city status is conferred by Royal Charters, but there are some British cities which predate the historical monarchy and have been regarded as cities since "time immemorial." There are currently sixty-six officially designated cities in the UK, of which eight have been created since 2000 in competitions to celebrate the new millennium and the Queen's Golden Jubilee. (more...)

Recently featured: Saxophone – Weather lore – Separation of powers under the United States Constitution

June 12[edit]

Colophon from Razi's book on medicine

Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi was a versatile Islamic philosopher who made fundamental and lasting contributions to the fields of medicine, chemistry (alchemy) and philosophy. He is credited with, among other things, the discovery of sulfuric acid, the "work horse" of modern chemistry and chemical engineering; and also of alcohol and its use in medicine. Razi was a prolific writer, having produced 184 books and articles, in several fields of science. According to historian Ibn an-Nadim, Razi distinguished himself as the best physician of his time who had fully absorbed Greek medical learning. As a medical educator, he attracted many students of all levels. (more...)

Recently featured: Bullfighting – The Foundation Series – Tea

May 12[edit]

Broncho Billy Anderson, from "The Great Train Robbery"
Broncho Billy Anderson, from "The Great Train Robbery"

The Western is one of the classic American film genres. Westerns are arts works (films, books, television shows) devoted to telling romanticized tales of the American West usually involving cowboys and outlaws. The fundamental plots of Westerns are simple. Life is reduced to its elements: there are none of the complications and technology of modern life. You have the clothes on your back, your gun, and possibly a horse. The art of the Western takes these simple elements and uses them to tell simple morality stories, setting them against the spectacular scenery of the American West. (more...)

Recently featured: Taiwanese – Chess – European Union

April 12[edit]

A soap bubble
A soap bubble

A soap bubble is a thin film of soap water that forms a hollow spherical shape with an iridescent surface. Soap bubbles usually last for only a few moments and burst either on their own or on contact with another object. Due to their fragile nature they have also become a metaphor for something that is attractive, yet insubstantial. They are mostly used as a children's plaything, but their usage in artistic performances shows that they can be fascinating for adults too. Soap bubbles can help to solve complex mathematical problems of space, as they will always find the smallest surface area between points or edges. (more...)

Recently featured: Origins of the American Civil War – Heavy metal – Dreyfus Affair

March 12[edit]

The Parthenon
The Parthenon

The Parthenon, the most famous surviving building of Ancient Greece and one of the most famous buildings in the world, has stood atop the Acropolis of Athens for nearly 2,500 years. It was built to give thanks to Athena, the city's protecting goddess, for the salvation of Athens and Greece in the Persian Wars. It replaced an older temple which had been destroyed by the Persians. As well as being a temple, the Parthenon was used as a treasury, and was the location of the treasury of the Delian League, which later became the Athenian Empire. (more...)

Recently featured: LEGO - Leonardo da Vinci - bathing machine

Featured pictures[edit]

Featured pictures · visible · candidates

I just saw the Mandelbrot set above generated by Evercat as Picture of the day for September 2, 2004 (see the archive) which inspired me to uploading three pictures of my own. They will be located below just next to the Picture of the day template so if anyone asks me whether my pictures had ever been Picture of the day, I’ll be able to say: “No, but they were really close.”

Calm Mandelbrot Cool Mandelbrot Hot Mandelbrot Shot Mandelbrot

See also: other pictures I have contributed to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia is written by volunteer editors and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization that also hosts a range of other volunteer projects:

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