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That's what happens when you have an online encyclopedia run by a cabal of teenage nerds and fakeademics.
A guy removed all the cleanup boxes from an article I monitor the other day because "that many boxes is ridiculous." Found out he's an admin, and most of his edits are to Star Trek crap.
It's not called "the encyclopedia Slashdot built" for nothing
I'm at work explaining how I solved a minor issue with our group's mailing list on an old listserv box to a younger team member. He asked how I knew about all this weird mailing list stuff. I said I used to run some lists on majordomo. Him: "Majordomo? Why would they name mailing list software after a boss in WoW [World of Warcraft]?" Me: "No dude, it comes from the word for the head of a household staff. Wiki-up majordomo for a history lesson. No Warcraft is involved." (Main screen, turn on.)
* Majordomo (domestic staff), a head of a household staff
* Majordomo (software), a proprietary mailing list software project
* Majordomo Executus, a boss in the World Of Warcraft computer gameHim: "See?" Me: "Oh. My. God." I voiced my displeasure with the results to the wikigods. More displeasure.
Looks like they purged that embarrassing disambiguation page, I can't find a Majordomo Executus on there. Thank god for small favors.
So, let me see if I get this: popular culture is... popular?
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/5887295/515656) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jwz
Wed, 6-Jun-2007 10:58 PM (UTC)
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This wouldn't be funny if Wikipedia presented itself as an encyclopedia of pop culture. But they don't, and so it is!
damn. the entry for 1984 is bigger than that for the Big Brother TV show. i thought i was on to a dead cert there...
Some of the somethingawful article's list are in groups of three, which you incorrectly grouped in your post, thus also incorrectly grouping any interests until the next set of three. So 'pam beesly' vs 'paper, is incorrect, as is the run from 'fan fiction terminology' vs 'list of conflicts in the middle east' to 'nightmare (kirby)' vs 'bachelor party'.
Of course if people just read the list on SA it doesn't matter, but I assume you are providing the complete list here with good reason.
| From: jwz
Thu, 7-Jun-2007 1:03 AM (UTC)
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Yeah, I reformatted it because... I hated their formatting and giant fuckin' fonts. guess I missed some.
On the other hand, consider that without wikipedia (or something like it), the serious articles probably wouldn't exist at all. Whereas the groan-inducing ones would be just as extensive, but probably more redundant.
There's a little bit of Borkage at:
Fiction Fan fiction
Fan fiction terminology List of conflicts in the Middle East
List of furry role-playing games Nightmare
Nightmare (Kirby) Bachelor party
LAN party Bachelor Party (Angelepisode)
Though this juxtaposition is pretty accurate:
"List of furry role-playing games / Nightmare"
Also, I think the term "wikigroaning" is particularly apt, considering that there is probably a pretty strong relationship between the length of an article, and the number of people how spank it to that topic. How many groans of pleasure do you think Optimus Prime is responsible for in parental basements across the world?
Plus the fact that there are more people who know how to use a wiki than there were when most of the important things happened.
I find it especially amusing how people who suggest that the second list is less worthy than the first are labeled fascist and "non-postmodern". Apparently failing to be nihilist went out of fashion at some point.
| From: jwz
Thu, 7-Jun-2007 8:56 AM (UTC)
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Wouldn't it be a shame if someone were to just transpose those articles...
Along the same lines: I was trying to explain Esperanto to someone yesterday, and as an example of how unused it is, someone said, "It's like Klingon." And I had to stop them and say that no, sadly, there are definitely more speakers of Klingon than Esperanto.
| From: jwz
Thu, 7-Jun-2007 8:57 AM (UTC)
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I think my breaking point with Wikipedia was reached when I found that the article on the Yugo car did not acknowledge that the car was a total piece of shit and a joke in general because a small group of frentic Yugo enthusiasts kept reverting any edits that tried to mention this.
Oh, yeah, I'm working on a report about this. There's actually a very obvious (a head-slapper, if you will) reason this happens.
At the same time the topics on the left, being much deeper, will never be fully covered by Wikipedia (or any other such site) whereas the more popular subjects on the right can have more or less all available knowledge cataloged.
In this regard each serves the functional purposes. The serious topics are introduced, briefly explained, and the reader is free to explore any of the aspects of them in greater depth in another medium. The less serious topics, however, are exhaustively covered as they are often lacking in other commonly available resources.
I wonder how well this would work on Everything2.
On everything2 the serious topic is auto-noded from a project gutenberg source, and the reader is free to explore any of the aspects of them in hallucinogenic-influenced creative writing exercises, in-jokes, and personal memoir. The less serious topics, however, are exhaustively debated in the catbox.
ha.. yeah one of my pals blogged something similar awhile ago here: The Geek Shall InheritI love wiki. Just goes to show that there's only one John Locke worth caring about. ;-) | |
