Dumb Shit on Wikipedia

[Darwin Watterson]

"Noteworthy" by virtue of being married to someone who can't make videogames.

Hey, to be fair, at least Frank's actually accomplished shit and won awards (being friends with the people giving the awards notwithstanding).

 

[Baby Pom]

This doesn't even exist.

 

[Pigeon On A Stick]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_20th-century_BCE_lunar_eclipses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_19th-century_BCE_lunar_eclipses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_18th-century_BCE_lunar_eclipses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_17th-century_BCE_lunar_eclipses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_16th-century_BCE_lunar_eclipses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_15th-century_BCE_lunar_eclipses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_14th-century_BCE_lunar_eclipses


And on and on and on...

 

[Hellfire]

This was produced, approved, and defended by some of the highest echelon within the wikipedo "community" aka the arbitration committee, some of which have been around for nearly a decade and clearly didn't want to get off their fat asses to write these articles years prior, but now want to waggle their fingers and shame the community since it's le <current year>. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-17/Op-ed

This month in systemic bias, we had to write a whole bunch of shit that should have been written forever ago and generally made the world a better place. Go read these articles and learn about some badass people.

They are, of course, badgering others that are complaining about this expletive-riddled attention whoring in The Signpost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2016-02-17/Op-ed

Spoiler: Excerpts

Language
Please keep your language civil. I can't believe you included swear words in your headline. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 21:33, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Michael, with all due respect to someone of your tenure, history and contributions to the movement:
You are an ass, sir.
I have the honor to be Your Obedient Servant,
O. Keyes Ironholds (talk) 21:43, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
You donkey. I feel that this type of language is inappropriate in this context (although there are plenty of other current situations where it is appropriate), and it was the first time I ever felt the need to remove the Signpost from my talkpage. I'm not going to object further (I have other things to be doing!), but I am sad that this happened. Mike Peel (talk) 21:52, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

That's nice. I feel that it's inappropriate it took 15 fucking years to get this content written. I feel it's inappropriate that women, particularly in the sciences, are so systemically underrepresented, downplayed and poorly treated both during their life and as part of their legacy. I feel it's inappropriate that there even needs to be an op-ed to highlight this work because we've had a decade and a half to get it right and still suck. I feel it's inappropriate to tell people expressing their totally legitimate frustration at this state of affairs that they're reacting incorrectly. I feel it's inappropriate you haven't listened to the Hamilton musical and so totally missed my excellent reference.

But, sure. The language is the problem here. Ironholds (talk) 21:54, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Discussing Wikipedia's content (and its gaps) is discussing "stuff about Wikipedia," and in my opinion is a very valuable use of Signpost space. As for your comment about "making infantile fun of individuals," perhaps you should reread the article. Keilana is using a casual (and sometimes profane) style, but she is celebrating these individuals, not making fun. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:59, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
It's been written above that serious people won't see the point through the mist of the blowed-up language. Even when I forced myself to explore what this was all about, it took me considerable time to identify the mentioned "systematic bias" as "gender gap". I am not against articles about more notable women being created, but I would await that they are presented in the same way as those in the featured content section and the like – by citing from them or elseway writing about them in neutral language. I agree that content of Wikipedia is what we are all concerned about here, but you cannot await a calm and general discussion about the quality of content to disvolve if you start it by dividing the readership. The Signpost is not a tabloid to need to this (I hope) and what sense does it make when you perhaps get the attention of a few more people to your point, but at the same time lose reputation and wake opposition among many others? Even woman rights can be discussed and brought attention to in a civilited manner. (What comes next? Naked pictures in the Signpost to attract even more readership? If so, ask yourself what kind of readers and what their motives are going to be…) --Blahma (talk) 23:56, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Perhaps two more articles to read in your exploration: "Tone argument", Slippery slope. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:01, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Stop tone policing
The complaints about swearing above are nothing short of tone policing, and should stop. Tone policing is a derailing tactic, which takes away from the very important point that women are underrepresented on Wikipedia, and suffer from both conscious and unconscious bias against them not just in how their achievements are recorded, but in how they are treated in day to day life. Tone policing is not acceptable, it privileges the complainant's comfort over the author's expression of oppression, and it acts to dismiss the very real problems identified in the article. Minxette (talk) 00:19, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

The point being?
What was the point of this article - to shock? To inform? To entertain or perhaps to even sort the prudes from the self-acclaimed intellectuals? As it was written without humour, wit or even an attempt at satire, it merely comes across as puerile and childish. I fail to see how that is serving Wikipedia at all. I would genuinely love to know the answers to these questions because it seems an extraordinary piece of work. Giano (talk) 14:04, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

I am unhappy that the following comment has been removed on the most dubious of grounds. If writers of Op-Eds can't face a critical comment, then they need to think about whether to post or not. I'll point out that this comment is now made by me, not any other user, so there is absolutely no excuse for anyone to revert. If you don't like the comment below, you can open an ANI thread, but I will not put up with my comment being deleted on spurious grounds: "Privileged white woman promotes articles about privileged white women, so progressive. Please tell us how hard you have it white woman, my blackness prevents me from understanding your suffering." – SchroCat (talk) 20:57, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Arrogant
@Emily Temple-Wood (NIOSH): For an op-ed it was self-indulgent and childish; not thought provoking, not a parody, not healthy social disruption for a cause. Historic women's biographies are great examples of what we should be doing more for, especially encouraging editathons in Universities and schools. As an organizer of the first UK LGBT editathon, supporter of several women's editathons and a creator of many basic women scientist biographies, I find this an off-putting let down. You are trusted as the paid Wikipedian in Residence at NIOSH, I doubt this type of embarrassing chaff aligns well with the goals of that position. --Fæ (talk) 23:55, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

 

[DykesDykesChina]

Oh when the Weens come marching in...

 

[AnOminous]

The moronic phrase "tone policing" is a good identifier of someone who should be utterly ignored. It's basically 12 year old level hurr durr ur not da boss of me, a pathetic excuse for acting like an utter asshole.

 

[WhoopieDoo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Weasel_word&oldid=704045057

That image. *Groan*. What is this, a serious encyclopaedia or a textbook for 11-year olds?

 

[Ebisumaru]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Living_people

The following 200 pages are in this category, out of 753,002 total.

 

[Chris did nothing wrong]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars
There’s gold in these mines, copypasted the weirdest ones below:

2006 Hurricane Season: Should a tropical cyclone that formed on December 30, 2005 and lasted until January 6, 2006 (Tropical Storm Zeta) be placed in the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season article? The debate eventually explores the terms of hurricane season, how long it lasts, why hurricane followers are so tied to the concept of a hurricane season, and even whether a stapler moved from one desk to another is considered to be on the other desk. It was a truly stunning debate that spanned seven months, drew comparisons to civil unions and gay marriage, and could restart at any moment.

Caesar Salad: Was this tasty salad invented in Mexico in 1924, or in ancient Rome? Is it named after Caesar Cardini or Julius Caesar? Is it spelled Caesar, Cesar, or Cesare? If you add tomatoes is it still a Caesar or is it something called a "Letchworth salad"? A slow motion edit war stretching out over a year two years is surely the best way to find out!

Clover (creature): The creature from the movie Cloverfield was never explicitly named in the movie, or was it? Is "Cloverfield" the name of the military casefile, or the monster, or both? Some reporter referred to the creature itself as "Cloverfield" so let's go with "Cloverfield (creature)" Wait, shouldn't we follow suit with Frankenstein and call it "The Cloverfield creature"? Or wait, maybe it should just be "Cloverfield creature"; maybe it should be "Cloverfield (monster)"? No, we can't do that, it shows bias and isn't NPOV. Rumor has it that the production staff just called it "Clover", but that's just a nickname, it doesn't count, does it? No matter, we can't use that until we find a source confirming that they call it Clover....OK, now we have one. How's about we skirt all naming conventions and call it "The Monster/Clover (creature)" to make everyone happy. Nah, that's no good, back to "Clover (creature)". But wait, that's still not the true name of the creature, so we shouldn't use that. Followed by and interspersed with a cavalcade of "Alright how about we just compromise and set it back to <editor's favorite name>." It's extremely important that an article on a fictional topic which only narrowly escaped AfD be properly named. Rather amusingly, considering how much edit warring there was/is on the page, it's been awarded "Good Article" status

Death Star: Is it 120 km (75 mi) or 160 km (99 mi) in diameter? Even 900 km (560 mi)? How shall they word that? Is the hyperdrive class 3 or 4? Who really cares? George Lucas apparently doesn't. Sure, HE's not the one stuck with the life-or-death decision of picking the right caliber torpedo to blow it up. But to a Rebel pilot, it's very important! This is war, after all.

Eastern Gray Squirrel: Native species in North America where the dominant spelling is gray. Invasive species in the United Kingdom where they call it grey. Nationalistic tempers simmer for two years in slow and remorseless edit war after a content request for comment supposedly settles the issue in favor (favour) of the Americans. Dissatisfied Brits continually tiptoe back, changing a to e, without ever actually proposing a title change for the article.

Futurama: Was protagonist Fry cryonically frozen or cryogenically frozen (or even crygenically frozen)? Why don't we just say he was frozen? Seeing as it has been changed nearly daily since the creation of the article (occasionally accompanied by a bit of text on the talk page uncovering some new evidence gleaned from an audio commentary), we may never know...

Grand Thief Auto IV: Is Niko Bellic (the main character) Serbian, Slovak, Bosnian, Croatian, Russian, or from some unnamed Eastern European country? Normally reliable sources do not agree on the matter (with those written pre-launch suggesting the character is Russian, and post-launch Serbian or Croatian), and the actual game itself is just ambiguous enough about the subject to create dissent (and of course this is a part of the world where nationalist feelings run high, see Balkanization - even the order that Croatia and Serbia are listed also offends some.). At one point, the article contained five consecutive citations, repeated each of the three times the character's nationality is mentioned, totalling a whopping fifteen citation numbers throughout the article to justify the purported nationality of a fictional video game character. The article reached eventual consensus on the nationality issue (unknown) and the name of the war (an unknown war in Eastern Europe) based on the author(s) having not revealed the information about the character. Despite it now being seven years since the game's release, and despite edit notices and warning text in the article body and an FAQ on the talk page, the subject still receives many edits a year, and the subject is repeatedly raised on the article talk page.

Kanto (Pokemon): A huge discussion broke out regarding the notability of a particular truck appearing in some iterations of the Pokémon series and whether the accompanying images fell under fair use. The article's talk page ballooned over ten times from 12,000 bytes to 140,000 bytes and spilled over onto several users' talk pages.

List of fictional ducks: You read that right; edit warring over nonexistent waterfowl. Page protections, admin interventions, accusations of vandalism and sockpuppetry fly like...well, like things that fly, anyway.

Lucky Charms: A long-running, slow-motion edit war between anonymous users seeks to address the big issue: Are they or aren't they sold in Ireland?

My Little Pony: Is Baby Cuddles blue or green? Is Fizzy blue or green? Editors resorted to uploading photos of their own ponies to debate the point, possibly indicating 10 year old girls are more computer savvy than ever...

Raven Riley: Is this porn star Italian? Native American? Puerto Rican? Cypriot? Does she have Indian blood? Who cares? But make sure that, when you change it, you don't even think about citing any source; please feel free to insult whoever put in the previous ethnicity. Anonymous editors: be sure to insert multitudes of her different "real names," with no sourcing whatsoever.

Stegosaurs in popular culture: Two admins disagree over the inclusion of a paragraph mentioning several Stego-like cartoon characters. The dispute eventually dissolves into slow wheel-warring over several days, with a careful attention to the magic number, leaving other users scratching their head as they attempt to understand what makes that particular paragraph such an obvious target for dispute.

Talk: Tyrannosaurus: Perhaps one of the most truly bizzare edit wars ever, this was a short but tense edit war where an anonymous user apparently argued with themselves over whether Tyrannosaurus rex was a predator or a scavenger. It later turned out that it happened to be two anonymous users who shared the same IP address.

 

[ZehnBoat]

List of fictional ducks: You read that right; edit warring over nonexistent waterfowl. Page protections, admin interventions, accusations of vandalism and sockpuppetry fly like...well, like things that fly, anyway.

THIS IS SERIOUS

Lucky Charms: A long-running, slow-motion edit war between anonymous users seeks to address the big issue: Are they or aren't they sold in Ireland?

not like we could ask someone from ireland

My Little Pony: Is Baby Cuddles blue or green? Is Fizzy blue or green? Editors resorted to uploading photos of their own ponies to debate the point, possibly indicating 10 year old girls are more computer savvy than ever...

yeah, 10 year old girls... if it helps you sleep at night

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_the_world
DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE NAME OF EVERY BIRD IN THE WORLD?

 

[neverendingmidi]

I'll admit to wandering through the various cusine sections looking for the scariest thing people deliberately put in their mouths as food. I think the rotten shark was up there, but there was some food from Eastern Europe/Central Asia that was just "smoked fat from a horse's neck"

 

[Mark Corrigan]

View attachment 80709

 

[norrington]

Ego Death is one of my favorite articles on Wikipedia because it's just an absolute clusterfuck of a Jungian psychology article mixed in with vague pseudo-Westernized East Asian religious appropriation/"spiritualism" and a shitload of editors who were likely tripping on shrooms when they added in various edits about tripping on shrooms.

It looks deceptively similar to a normal article at first until you realize none of the bullets or sub-categories hold any fucking meaning whatsoever and that the whole read is one big mess of repetition and incomprehensible drivel.

 

[Pigeon On A Stick]

why

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

why

Because old memes are funny? Fuck if I know.

 

[Type 99 light machine gun]

Take a peep at this section on a list of assassination attempts on Barack Obama: the 2013 Albany death ray plot.

The best part of this is how the FBI conducted a fifteen month long investigation before somehow deciding that these nuts were a credible threat. American Kiwis: our tax dollars at work.

 

[RepQuest]

People arguing over whether Alberta has no rats and multiple reverts of an image file. There's not all that much drama here, but it's still dumb.

File:Brown rat distribution.png
Wikipedia: File talk:Brown rat distribution.png
Wikimedia Commons: File talk:Brown rat distribution.png

 

[Mrs Paul]

The article for fisting, if only because of the illustration. The expression on her face just kills me -- I don't think most people look that contemplative when performing any sort of sex-act, solo or otherwise.

 

[AnOminous]

The article for fisting, if only because of the illustration. The expression on her face just kills me -- I don't think most people look that contemplative when performing any sort of sex-act, solo or otherwise.

I note they still have that fucking artist who draws all the gross shit in Wikipedia sex articles. His name is "seedfeeder." He is a fucking lolcow.

 

[GandT]

There was also an unsuccessful extreme pornography prosecution in 2012 where it was argued by the prosecution that images of anal fisting constitute extreme pornography and thus are illegal to possess because the act is "likely to result in serious injury to a person's anus, breasts or genitals".

I'm pretty sure that you're doing it wrong if it results in serious injury to someone's breasts.