Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It is currently the 15th most popular site on the Internet with over 1.2 million articles. Each day, it randomly selects a new Featured Article to be posted on the front page.

 

I participate in three, separate humor websites and can say –without reservation– that wikipedia is funnier then all of them and the only site I visit daily. Why is an online encloypedia so funny- because, once an article at wikipedia is selected as the ‘Feature’ of the day, it is immediately vandalized in the most childish and hilarious ways, making it read like the wall of a mens restroom, rather then a learned reference piece. For example, one of the first ‘edits’ to a Featured Article typically involves replacing a common word, like “time”, with “penis”. Often, the entire article is simply deleted and replaced with the single sentence, “boobies are cool”. Plus, each defacement has to be reversed by a registered user, who angerly wonders why anyone would want to joke around about “The British House of Commons”. Some of my favorite examples of vandalism, in recent weeks, include:

• An article on the Bill of Rights had all amendments erased and replaced with, “Matt was HERE- bitches!”
  
• Some one completed every sentence in an article on The Australian Flag with the phrase “while posing naked”, e.g. “The final version of the flag was approved by King Edward VII in 1902, while posing naked”.
  
• The chorus to “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, in a Beatles article, was changed to “I Want to Hold Your Bum- LOL!!”
  
• Every image, in article on Julius Caesar (mostly photos of statues, coins and ancient maps), was replaced with a photo called “dog with a huge boner”.

Vandalism at wikipedia seems to be peaking, with last week’s feature of “Hurricane Floyd”, providing what may have been the best example yet. Moderators, besides having to delete the constant attempts to call Hurricane Floyd “gay”, encountered the single greatest defacement yet- replacing a satellite image of the storm’s path, with ‘Mr Belvedere writing in his diary’:
 

 
 
Wikipedia is not, however, a one trick pony- it is hilarious, beyond the vandalism, because its contributors –a group consisting entirely of awkward cyberdorks– have created the most poorly prioritized encyclopedia on Earth. For example, wikipedia’s article on “Klingon” –the alien race in Star Trek– is one of the longest, most detailed works on the site, at over 12,000 words. “Plants”, by comparison, are explained in under 9,000 words. “Electricity” (9,500) , “love” (6,200), and “the ice age” (6,000) all receive less attention then “Klingon” - even, real  “outer space” is dwarfed by “Klingon” :
 

Table of contents for Outer Space * * the body in which all life exists- plus the inspiration for “Klingon”

Table of contents for Klingon * * boney aliens in a William Shatner TV show

31/08/2006
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