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‘Wacky’pedia: 10 things you never knew about Wikipedia
Wikipedia may have been on the receiving end of some blunders, hoaxes and outrageous lies, but it is also a platform that inspires a cult-like following, vehement opposition and a rich stream of topics for water-cooler conversation .
Here are 10 wacky facts about the crowdsourced encyclopedia that you almost certainly didn’t know.
- Jimmy Wales breaks up with his girlfriend via Wikipedia
- You can’t actually change anything on Wikipedia.
- Conservapedia
- Uncyclopedia
- Wikipedia speaks Banyumasan.
- Wikipedia has a theme song.
- There is a Jimbo’s Prayer
- Wikipedia has a DAFT list
- Wikipedia:Last topic pool
- You may want to go live in Wikitopia.
In 2008 Wales announced to the world, via Wikipedia, that things with TV-celeb girlfriend, Rachel Marsden, were over. In return, she auctioned off all his personal items on eBay. The internet hath no fury like a woman dumped publicly on Wikipedia.
No you can’t, all you can do is add more information to existing content. According to the site — “Wikipedia is a database with a memory designed to last as long as we can make it last. An article you read today is just the current draft; every time it is changed, we keep both the new version and a copy of the old version.”
US Conservatives are so convinced that Wikipedia has a liberal bias that they’ve launched their own competing editable encyclopedia called Conservapedia. The site is dedicated to spreading a conservative outlook on life and includes a list of “examples of bias in Wikipedia“. It also encourages readers to email Jimmy Wales and tell him to fix them.
Wikipedia really ought to be flattered, after all imitation is the highest form. Another site inspired by Wikipedia is the Uncyclopedia — a Wikipedia parody filled with commanding appeals from “Jimbo Wales.” This site is actually lethal because you could get lost in the hilarity and forget you have a real job. Take a look at this particular page, which might interest South Africans.
Confused? Clearly you haven’t been “wikiing” enough. Banyumasan is a dialect of Javanese which is spoken on the island of Java in the Hesperonesian area. There is a whole entry on Wikipedia about this language.
Yes it does. “Hotel Wikipedia” is apparently the official theme song of wikipediaholics, the single was supposedly released in 2004, and is allegedly “one of the best-known songs of the wiki-oriented rock era”. Take whatever you will from that, but you can find more wiki-oriented rock here.
Wikipedians like to pray and who better to pray to than their ‘fearless leader’ good old Jimbo. Jimbo’s Prayer is pretty precise, in 11 languages and asks Jimbo to forgive those who vandalise and to not lead them into deletion. This makes sense after all he is the King of Wikipedia. All hail King Jimbo I.
Wikipedia keeps a list of “deleted articles with freaky titles” also known as DAFT. Some of the titles include: Briefsism, Editing Wikipedia while drunk, Jellyfish who have stung notable people and Attack of the fifty foot Hitler.
What would the very last article uploaded to Wikipedia be? This pool is considered “important” because, you know, the internet (the Earth as we know it) may end in some catastrophic fashion. Some interesting topic ideas in this pool include The Day of Many Improbable Events, The end of World War III, Understanding Women and Jimbo Wales dies…taking Wikipedia’s servers with him.
When Jimbo Wales dies and takes Wikipedia’s servers with him, all that is good and right with the world will be gone, and there will be nothing left to do but go and join him in Wikitopia. Yes, that’s where he will be the distant planet in the far reaches of space. The Wikipedia entry on Wikitopia is very thorough and a good place to start your migration plan.
