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Wikipedia's New Archnemesis
euniana writes "Forget about Britannica, and meet Uncyclopedia. Formally the adoptive first cousin of Wikipedia, Uncyclopedia stands for everything Wikipedia cannot have: misinformation, satire, and lies. Does this prove that satire and humour can take off in a collaborative environment, a possibility often contested by grumpy Wikipedians? What many people don't know is that the Wikipedia article on the Flying Spaghetti Monster was partly copied from the FSM article on Uncyclopedia. Will the confusion ever end?"
Ralph: "Where do I learn everything? The Uncyclopedia!"
Chief Wiggum: "Ha ha ha! That's my boy!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Good to see the fine folks at uncyclopedia are participating in Talk Like a Pirate Day.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
This makes sense. A lot of people who help moderate Wikipedia have their own opinions on what should and shouldn't be articles on the wiki. They also have some questionable policies on doing your own research. While I can see the point of not accepting information from non-verifiable sources. It also prevents Wikipedia from growing beyond a certain amount of information. I would think that one of the great things about Wikipedia would be to provide a NPOV and extensive information for a lot of subjects that are not covered by a standard encyclopedia.
On another level. Wikipedia covers only a part of information space (if you will, Wikispace). Mainly, the global part. So it mostly only allows people, ideas, places and things that are known globally. Meanwhile, sites like Bloomingpedia, which is a city wiki for Bloomington, IN is like a local part of wikispace. It doesn't make sense for Wikipedia to cover local information, nor should it. But City Wikis (like Seattle Wiki) can cover this more specific information.
Likewise, Uncyclopedia can cover all the global information that Wikipedia cannot. So I think there is a place for the content of Uncyclopedia, or as they say Arr, Pirateopedia.
Colaborative effort to spread misinformation and confuse lies? I thought that had already been done: http://www.rnc.org/ ?
Yeah, but it's the first I've heard of it. And worth talking about even if I hadn't.
I visit wikipedia mainly because it is the perfect "pop culture" encyclopedia. Its great for quick searches on things traditional sources wont have for years. However, when doing detailed academic research, I avoid it because I'd rather have information from EXPERTS. Same with this "Uncyclopedia" I'd rather get my humor from EXPERTS (like the onion) and actual funny people than just any AOLer with a fart joke to tell.
Also collaborative humor is nothing new either. Most comedians will admit to blatantly stealing other people's funny and using it, so I don't find it suprising it's been wikized.
"For years, I struggled with reality... but I'm happy to say I finally won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd
Sadly, I believe the Uncyclopedia could quickly turn into some kind of meta-statement on itself, with every urban legend having "supporters" and detractors. I mean, if I turn to it for real information about bullshit, then aren't they obligated to obfuscate the truth?
blarg.
check here
what about Encyclopedia Dramatica? :)
Actually, according to the Uncyclopedia, the confusion is scheduled to end 5 Dec 2014. Though I am confused why.
I've been reading it since way before I got fired, and that was ages ago, so definitely not new.
I believe you drastically over-estimate the reliability and objectivity of traditional encyclopedias. It's astonishing how willing people are to trust anything thats closed and opaque, simply out of the assumption that someone must have said it was okay.
on uncyclopedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncyclopedia
and uncyclopedia article on wikipedia:
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
Or just link to the site itself. http://www.venganza.org/ It doesn't need an explanation.
But FSMism isn't satire. It's real.
(I can't be the only one to have had an instant associative link between "Uncyclopedia stands for everything Wikipedia cannot have: misinformation, satire, and lies" and the "Don't Panic! logo.)
- David Stein
Computer over. Virus = very yes.
" Uncyclopedia's been around since the start of the year. In Internet terms, this does not exactly make it new...
Yeah, but this is Slashdot. My running theory is that this post was submitted 5 years in the future, but ran through some sort of wormhole to appear in our time. Didn't know you could do that with basic HTML.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
First, I don't see how the two projects conflict with each other, since their objectives are simply different and not in any way opposing.
Second, I'd like some pointers to "Grumpy Wikipedians" contesting the possibility that "satire and humour can take off in a collaborative environment". If this statement comes from the fact that satire and humor in Wikipedia are not allowed in the compiling of articles, it seems to me a case of complete non-sequitur.
Third, I don't see any confusion here: Wikipedia is an encyclopdia, Uncyclopedia is a satire of an encyclopedia (more or less); it doesn't seem confounding at all to me that there can be some content exchange between the two, especially in the context of humor-related articles and net folklore.
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Slashdot
The Sovereign State of Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/ is an independent nation roughly located between the Republic of Sourceforge and Jesus Ocean. Formerly a member of the UN, Slashdot left and joined the UN's arch-enemy, NATO, following its invasion by Oprah in the Gulf War.
That Flying Spaghetti Monsterism article is an example of what bothers me most about Wikipedia. If something gets a lot of attention online generates a lot of Google hits, it gets a big Wikipedia effort -- even if it's of limited reference value. Same goes for TV shows -- popular ones have detailed summaries of every episode. Meanwhile, the basic work of building an encyclopedia, like researching obscure historical subjects and even basic fact-checking, is largely neglected.
When I was participating in Wikipedia editing, I considered making a project of correcting the time zone articles, which have factual errors in their very titles. Part of that would have meant researching how time zones are drawn up in Canada. I could have done it myself, but it would have been less work for somebody with access to a Canadian public library. So I asked a conspicuous Canadian Wikipedian to lend me a hand. He declined. Not because he didn't want to do the work -- he spends a lot of time working on Wikipedia. But because he "never goes to libraries"! Not something that encourages you as to the quality of the information Wikipedia supplies.
I wonder if trolls are going to vandalize it by inserting useful information into the articles.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Don't forget Wickerpedia and Wiccapedia! List of Wikipedia parodies
Evil sig is livE.
Not all Christians are Creationists or ID advocates, so clearly it is not directed at Christians, merely at the heretical subset that advocate nonsensical interpretations of the Bible or, even worse, try to deceive by pushing their a Creationism Lite.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Everything2.
Avast! Pure Hilarity Spotted Dead Ahead! Arrrrrrrrr.
music lover since 1969
...misinformation, satire, and lies. Does this prove that satire and humour can take off in a collaborative environment, a possibility often contested by grumpy Wikipedians?
Slashdot, but of course! We've got Uncyclopedia beat by miles.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
I trust encyclopdias because I know that they were written by reputable people (look at the list of authors), I know that they have editors
I know of one very senior academic who wrote a detailed entry for Britannica. The editors, reasonably enough, reserve the right to edit for style, and did so, sending the revised version back to the academic for approval. Unfortunately, the style changes had altered the sense of the article to the point where it was no longer accurate. The academic pointed this out and asked for the text to be corrected. The editors refused. Rinse. Repeat. Ultimately, the text went out in its factually incorrect form, and the academic refused to let them put his name to it.
Sh*t happens everywhere.
Wikipedia [...] can be done at absolutely no cost.
It can also be corrected at absolutely no cost. There's a trade-off here.
I believe you drastically over-estimate the reliability and objectivity of traditional encyclopedias. It's astonishing how willing people are to trust anything thats closed and opaque, simply out of the assumption that someone must have said it was okay.
This is a strange argument. Traditional encyclpedias are published in book form, and now also on the web. Historically, respectable encyclopedias documented their sources; has this changed? (Seriously, I'd like to know.)
I am mystified by the suggestion that traditional encyclopedias are "closed and opaque". The information they contain is available to anyone who owns a copy, or has access to a public library. There is no obfuscation of the information encyclopedias contain in a way that one could describe as "opaque".
The model for wikis and traditional encyclopedias is similar, except that in the case of the traditional encyclopedia there are trained writers , reviewers, and editors paid by the publisher, whereas wikipedia depends on the training and editorial reliability of the world at large.
It is certainly possible that the staff of an encyclopedia publisher could have an editorial bias, but the same is true for the editors of different content areas in the wikipedia.
Congradulations, you've just melted down wikicities. Thanks guys, you've just proved that slashdot > a whole bunch of squids and a few rackmounts.
Tired of legitimate data sources? Try UNCYCLOPEDIA
I believe you drastically over-estimate the reliability and objectivity of traditional encyclopedias.
Accepting anything that you can't verify yourself as being 100% reliable is always unwise. And even if you can verify something yourself, there's still a chance your verification process is wrong. Bottom line, documented information can never be 100% reliable, and objectivity is a matter of opinion.
But traditional encyclopedias do have a stronger incentive to be reliable/objective than online collaborative ones. With a price tag of usually several hundred dollars, an encyclopedia set would hurt its market share if it became too unreliable or biased.
So what's the difference between a paying audience and a non-paying online audience as far as keeping an encyclopedia honest? Both audiences are democratically guiding the quality of the encyclopedia in some way, but money will always be the stronger incetive because its part of core of how our societies run.
The Uncyclopedia has the advantage that it is slightly cheaper and has a cover with the words "Don't Panic" in large friendly letters.
It looks like the uncyclopedia needs to be updated to include an article on this
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Not long ago I was having a conversation with some friends. All of us were stoned and couldn't remove ourselves from where we sit, we were all stuck, some very high quality shit we were smoking (took everybody by surprise because it didn't cost all that much.) Anyways, I started an argument over whether or not the moon was flat, stating that it was not a sphere/globe like everybody believes.. more or less I argued it was a solid carbon disc floating above earth created by an ancient race of silicon based alien insects... I'm not sure how long it took but everybody ended up agreeing with me...
That's pretty much how wikipedia operates AFAIK
But I DO know for a fact that Wikipedia's policy of allowing ANYBODY to edit something virtually *guarantees* that a good bit of articles will be factually wrong at any one point. The "masses" coming to a "consensus" on "facts" is by definition, the very opposite of a quality, peer-reviewed academic article/paper, etc. It's the lowest common denominator, which is generally the least educated, and the least likely to have anything factually correct.
I find that it does a terrific job of demonstrating one thing: It's damn hard to be funny in written text.
There are those who find Ferber amusing, others who laugh at Hunter S. Thompson. Still others are tickled pink by Christopher Buckley or the scrbblings of Patrick McManus or George Carlin. Many sci-fi nerds swear by Douglas Adams, while would-be hobbits worship at the shrines of Peirs Anthony or Terry Pratchett...
But unless you happened to be this guy, you are not likely to ever be universally recognized as funny by the English-speaking world.
Simply coming up with a quip that gets a giggle and a "+1, Funny" mod out of the Slashdot crowd is a challenge. To write an actual work of satire which is not tiresome and sad is simply nigh impossible for the vast majority of people who think they are able to do it.
If you disagree, go read the Uncyclopedia a little while and you will quickly be joining my camp in this debate. There are a lot of people out there who think they are funny enough to write for The Onion or something very much like it, and they simply are not. They desperately need a "Simon Cowell" type to bluntly urge them to direct their energies elsewhere.
YMMV, obviously. Who am I to tell other people what they should or should not find amusing?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Ok, but on the other hand, it also has Cracky-chan!
^_^
How much karma do I whore by... posting links to Uncyclopedia from Slashdot? The standard average for Wikipedia is about +3, so is Uncyclopedia -3?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Simply coming up with a quip that gets a giggle and a "+1, Funny" mod out of the Slashdot crowd is a challenge.
It's really not.
Hm. Any student of any age who relies soley on google hits to write any sort of homework etc deserves firstly an F and secondly a you shall check ALL sources lecture ;)
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
Silly news can be fun sometimes, but it can also get you into trouble.
I guess that's what you get when you link a wiki from Slashdot...