Slashdot Mirror
Britannica Takes Over the Wikimedia Foundation
An anonymous reader writes "The Encyclopaedia Britannica has initiated a "semi-hostile" takeover of Wikipedia. Wikipedia administrators, members of the Wikimedia Board of Trustees, Arbitration Committee members and several other cabalists will receive free access. However, their adminship powers will be stripped permanently."
This april fools stuff is getiing really lame.
yes >
"Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
That actually describes slashdot with 100% accuracy for April 1st.
I hope Britannica does something about this bad language crap.
It was a joke!! Haha, oh Slashdot, you got us good!
These stories are just too easy to figure out this year.
This really really sucks. Especially timing it for April Fools Day when people won't believe it's a real story.
Haven't we had enough April Fool's jokes today already?
Did you really think anyone was going to fall for this? Mind you, it's probably got more truth in it than a lot of /.'s posts
Britannica taking over Wiki? Too bad it's only a fantasy. Short of Britannica putting its content on the Web free, this would be the next best thing.
And someone was futzing with our navigation earlier. But it's better now. For now.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I got a laugh over this one. I hope the future ones are funny.
I look forward to a salesman knocking on my door and selling me a 6 foot wide stack of Wikipedia volumes to fill my shelves.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
(Typing this in Opera, which seems to be fine)
I am trolling
come on you guys, don't troll them for having a bit of fun. Google and Yahoo! do it - with google slurp and yahoo slacker
It's also a pretty funny story if you read it through, at least some people still have senses of humour
Business Voyeur
One of the better ones I've seen so far today. Surely puts my weak attempt to shame.
Day's early though.
They're going to have throw out a few "dud" 4/1 stories if they want to fool us with the clever ones. People will think that only the "obvious" ones are jokes. Otherwise, readers would carefully inspect every article.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
We're in for one hilarious omelette!
Examine the story link. It's:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:April_1%2 C_2005/2005_Britannica_takeover_of_Wikimedia
April 1, right in the link. Obvious!
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Wouldn't life be boring if every day was the same and that there weren't days like April 1st to break up the monotony of reading timely real news?
The jokes are a bit tired, but it's good to have a little variety.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Actually, the next one that is coming up should have some great comments.
1. Reduce the number of articles online so that they will fit into a 27-volume set of printed books.
2. The person making this list will be sacked.
3. Reduce the use of fluffy language on Wikipedia, and make everything more stuffy.
4. The person who sacked the person making this list will be sacked.
5. More cheesey goodness!
6. Sack everyone else.
7. ?????
8. Profit!!!!
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Well, given that it is April Fools Day... I guess this was to be expected. It's a good way to chuckle about things, though. Now all we need is Intel taking over AMD or M$ taking over Google or somesuch and the day is complete!
Politics: "Through a glitch between Zimbabwe's election computers and Slashdot, Cowboy Neal was elected president of Zimbabwe yesterday."
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
When does an April Fools joke become libel? I can't see Encyclopedia Britannica seeing the humor in this one.
________________________________________________
suwain_2
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Oy! That was a good one!
Where do the editors come up with these wonders?
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Lawrence Lessig is my personal hero.
I don't believe anything I read today.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
I panicked for a full second before I realized that it was April fools day. Props to the moderators for picking such a bad jokes. Is there going to be any real news today?
I believe April fool's should be moved to a different date since everybody is already prepared for it and the jokes aren't being appreciated anymore. How about making it a random date each year chosen by a committee or something. I think October fool's would definitely be something.
I'm afraid it's true... The front page now reads:
Welcome to Wikipædia Britannica, the free-content encyclopædia that anyone can edit.
Where is the web-as-we-know-it heading? I sure hope that someone (maybe RMS and/or Lawrence Lessig?) can save us...
WTF, they publish this thing (i know it is funny) and they have just REJECTED my story about google increase in space (2GB) and Rich text format new features...
Cool! I guess that is not NEWS FOR NERDS... and really does not MATTERS....
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Here's the next joke article:
*Groan* I forgot what day it was... the longest day of the year for slashdot readers...
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
That would be a blessing any day of the year.
Damn you!
I almost went into cardiac arrest. Thank god it's april fools.
...And I won't believe it until I see the dupe posted. :-)
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
One April Fool's Story == Funny
A whole day of them == Annoying and Tedious
I'll be back tomorrow...
What do you know I wrote a novel
Microsoft buys Slashdot.
Linus Thorvalds buys Linux License from SCO.
Hubble Space Telecope observes Intergalactic Spaceship.
Space Probe Reveals: There is No Intelligent Life on Earth.
Harvard Researcher creates Dupe Detection Software. Soon to be Installed on Slashdot.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I work at an encyclopedia sales company and to think of how much all this Wiki crap is going to weigh is really pissing me off!
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
What a bad April Fools joke.
the date on /. is always April 1st
I am harvesting funny/good quotes. Please help by putting them in your sigs
I can't believe people think this is an April Fool's story. They even have a picture on their site to prove that their story is true. We must rise up against our British Overlords who wish to control our information and tax our tea. Please, think of the children!
--
Want a free Nintendo DS, GC, PS2, Xbox. (you only need 4 referrals)
Wired article as proof
I was sent some clever software that predicts the next slashdot story with amazing accuracy. I compiled it and ran it myself and it's currently predicting the next story will be "Paris Hilton Recruited to Publicize Linux".
We'll have to wait and see... but if this works, there will no longer be so much incentive to subscribe to slashdot...
nothing to see here, move along ;) It's probably time for all of this nonsense to end to time to move onto some real news. Meanwhile, here is a good list of sites pulling a few pranks. Via
- Teja
Actually, they doubled storage for GMail.
Have you already had some GoogleGulp?
http://www.google.com/googlegulp/
1st April are so looooooong (perhaps because I donn't written mine yet ?)
(Sorry my bad French) Je fais parler les Guignols de l'Info. Le pied, quoi.
Yeah, I waited 20 seconds, too.
I forgot it was April 1st.
Now time to start trickery of my own.....
the date...
...I hate April 1st...you actually had me for a second there...thats slight tinge of plausability.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Most of the apps I use regularly are more or less rock solid. I don't remember the last time one of them crashed -- before today. Today, Kopete has crashed at least 4 times, Firefox and Konqueror both crashed once each. And now neither Kopete nor Gaim will connect to MSN.
Coincidence?
Or maybe it was because I upgraded half of KDE's libraries without restarting KDE. An April Fools upgrade?
I think I am going to configure my computer to give me an electric shock every time I try to read Shashdot today...
(S(SKK)(SKK))(S(SKK)(SKK))
a couple of April Fools laughs is good, but to submit 10 stories of the same ridiculous nature is rather immature
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/01/ 141218&tid=163&tid=106.
cited from this wikipedia article.
If that isn't an april fool's joke, i don't know what else... oh, wait:
"See also:
- April Fool's Day
- Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense
"
Have you acutally read the Wikipedia article? It reads like a super special extended version of The Onion.
In Soviet Russia, asses suck this joke.
Ha haah! Made me look! Nice one.... Of course the sad thing is that stuff like this could really happen...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
We should be so lucky.
Best Slashdot Co
and they gave us pretty colours to annoy and blind our friends with when we email them!!! I mean uh... to highlight important part of our emails and uh...
Actually I'm young and easygoing. I enjoy April as much as you. I just expect something more clever from us nerds and geeks!
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion, It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, The hands acqui
You've pushed us too far, Britannica! Make ready the weaponry!
Monster Zero is the reason we cannot live on the surface, but must live forever live underground like this.
"Don't forget about the random people who come into your house to edit it." There is nothing like trying to sleep through the nightly gunfire coming from the den as editors duke it out over details of the George W. Bush entry. And there are always bits of burnt paper from the "G" volume all over the floor the next day.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Why Not?
E.B. could easily download all of Wiki-land, dump it onto their own servers, and then merge their own content with Wikipedia, and then sell advertising on their site to make $$$.
This isn't necessarily a bad idea. E.B. carries clout in the real world, and can have their own editors "Approve" modifications to articles before letting the rest of the world view them.
LongTail SSH Brute Force analysis tool is here!
Actually, I am working on this right now. It will take some time to get this printed but there is no need to hurry.
No, not an April's fool
The event caused an evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet to destroy innocent kittens from the Djibouti area. This kitten-eater was so enraged, due to its nature of editing constantly on Wikipedia (some say it is a bot) that it took it out on the younger feline population closest to its satellite probe. It is not yet known how many kittens perished due to this, but the Kitten Society of Djibouti and Upper Somaliland are planning on suing Britannica for this drastic event. Luckily, the region is home to giant amphibian groundhogs who are well known to be able to attack anything extra-terrestrial, such as Michael Jackson's breast implants or the feet of Godzilla. It was later reported that the kitten-eater was being fought off by the powerful Al Jazeera army corps who flew in from nearby Qatar. However, an argument erupted within the organization over how to pronounce "Qatar" leaving the kitten-eater oppurtune time to eat more kittens. The kitten eating is reported to have spread almost 200 miles away from the Eritrean capital, Asmara. Al Qaeda is of course, denying any relation to the event, however when quoted, Osama bin Laden stated "death to the American pig-dog infidels!"
After six hours of the insurgency, PETA horrified by the events added themselves to the long list of people and organizations wanting to sue Britannica. They are reported to have offered Mr. Wales $200 if he returns Wikimedia back to where it was.
The crisis was wrapped up when Commandante Meow-Meow (pictured at left) led the Djiboutian kitten's 543rd infantry division along with the Djiboutian Liberation Front to victory, by overpowering the kitten-eater in the plains of northern Ethiopia. It is reported that Commander Kitty and PETA are working out a deal to try and get Wikipedia back so as to prevent future space invasions.
Check journal for info on Anti-TextBook, an idea by me.
I would not be so quick to jump on thsi story. When you look at the figures it looks like it may be an April fools joke
Nice joke... here's another either really funny, or really scary one...
Who reads books now anyways?
Commit suicide Wait to see Commit suicide if membership payments are required
In America, you spam computers In Soviet Russia, computers spam you!
To bad Britanica isn't taking over wikopedia. It might make wikis worth using as a source. Right now they simply aren't reliable.
No---the return of Jon Katz!
"In this post-Iraq war society..."
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I agree....play along with the jokes. Maybe some first time reader will come along and not be sure what the hell is going on. 1/365 of a year devoted to humor should be managable for a carbon based life form with advanced mental capabilities. Buncha slashdots in the mud...... :)
Although this obviously applies in no way to posting comments on Slashdot, I find that going to the same store 3 dozen times in one day, buying the same shirt each time, and telling the cashier each time how much you really hate that shirt can get you laid one time in 100.
It's noon and April fools day is half over. Could we please stop with the joke posts already? You had me worried with this article until I remembered what day it is.
At least it's not a dupe. =)
That's about as crazy and unbeleivable as Slashdot deciding to change it's name to "My Computer"
I actually got pissed. This must be a joke.
No...it's okay...I wasn't using my Civil Liberties anyway