Wikipedia Is Not Amused By Entry For xkcd-Coined Word

ObsessiveMathsFreak writes "Today's xkcd comic introduced an unusual word — malamanteau — by giving its supposed definition on Wikipedia. The only trouble is that the word (as well as its supposed wiki page) did not in fact exist. Naturally, much ado ensued at the supposed wiki page, which was swiftly created in response to the comic. This article has more on how the comic and the confusion it caused have put the Net in a tizzy. It turns out that a malamanteau is a portmanteau of portmanteau and malapropism, but also a malapropism of portmanteau. All this puts Wikipedia in the confusing position of not allowing a page for an undefined word whose meaning is defined via the Wikipedia page for that word — and now I have to lie down for a moment."

Comments

Simple Solution

[eldavojohn]

Add it to the list in the xkcd article under Inspired Activities and redirect the malamanteau page to that subsection and be done with it. And now for some humor directed back at Munroe:

*puts blanket over his head and grabs a webcam* How fucking dare anyone out there make fun of Wikipedia after all it has been through! It lost its father, it went through a fundraiser. It had two fuckin libel suits filed against it. Larry Sanger turned out to be a user, a liar, and now he's accusing it of hosting childporn. All you people care about is ... xkcd readers and making money off of it. IT'S A WEBSITE! Wahhhh. Ooooh. What you don’t realize is that Wikipedia is making you all this money and all you do is draw a bunch of crappy web comics about it. It hasn’t been featured in the news in years. Its slogan is “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” for a reason because all you people want is to EDIT! EDIT EDIT EDIT EDIT! LEAVE IT ALONE! You are lucky it even is hosted for you BASTARDS! LEAVE WIKIPEDIA ALONE! Please. Randall Munroe talked about a fancy neologism and said if Wikipedia was a professional it wouldn't delete malamanteau no matter what. Speaking of professionalism, when is it professional to publicly bash something that is going through a hard time? Leave Wikipedia Alone Please ... Leave Wikipedia.org alone! ... right now! ... I mean it! Anyone that has a problem with Wikipedia you deal with me, because it is not well right now.

LEAVE IT ALONE!

Re:Simple Solution

[negRo_slim]

TL;DR

Personally I've been done with Wikipedia for years, it takes itself too seriously... A lot of what humanity was, is and will be is nothing more than bullshit and tom foolery. And unfortunately Wikipedia has only nailed the bullshit part thus far!

Re:Simple Solution

[biryokumaru]

Ya, me neither. I just get on 4chan if I need to look stuff up these days. Much more reliable.

Re:Simple Solution

[spun]

Wikipedia articles and wikipedia 'personalities' are two different things. You can use the articles while ignoring the personalities. Of course, if you want to edit the articles, you have to deal with the personalities, but who edits articles? Antisocial, egotistical wingnuts with too much time on their hands, that's who. You don't have to join the Cult of Wales to use wikipedia.

Re:Simple Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

TL;DR

Then go watch the reference.

Re:Simple Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Badger badger badger

Mushroom

Re:Simple Solution

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

LEAVE IT ALONE!

Left to its own devices, Wikipedia would degenerate under the rule of deletionists until finally only one page--Wikipedia--remained on the site. This would then be nominated for deletion.

Actually, that sounds like a rather good outcome. Perhaps you're on to something.

Re:Simple Solution

[GameMaster]

Well, it makes sense. Once it got down to one page it would be so useless that it wouldn't be notable any more.

Re:Simple Solution

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

At least 4chan knows that the sum of the worlds knowledge is more than can be described in 3 million articles.

Re:Simple Solution

[Smauler]

Is bbcnewsamerica.com anything to do with the BBC? I'm guessing not.... My first reaction to this story was to wonder how the BBC had ever managed to produce such a fugly website to be honest...

Re:Simple Solution

[Pojut]

Snake?

Re:Simple Solution

[Hurricane78]

Hey, I still think Encyclopedia Dramatica and Uncyclopedia are more useful for non-political-correct things, than Wikipedia and its false moral rules ever can be.

Face it: Wikipedia is a monarchy. What does not please the gods, does not get in. And this is why it’s fundamentally flawed: It’s centralized. I mean the one who thought that up must have never looked back at history. Ever.
It needs to peer-to-peer. It needs to be built upon a trust network. Or it will never surpass what is essentially a dictatorship over mindsets and ideas.

Re:Simple Solution

[Lendrick]

I edited articles until the 'personalities' discovered them. I also removed from vandalism from a page once and was *accused* of posting that particular vandalism. I'm done there.

Re:Simple Solution

[urbanYeti]

No reason to do anything - it's entered our language now. End of story. It's in Wikipedia, so it's a perfectly cromulent word.

Re:Simple Solution

[therealmorris]

Nope, nothing to do with the BBC.. just seems to be reposts of BBC articles, although I couldn't find that one on the news site, don't know why the fuck its linked to that site.

Re:Simple Solution

[meuhlavache]

{{citation needed}}

Re:Simple Solution

[allo]

the page "Wikipedia" will be irrelevant by then.

Re:Simple Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the sum of 4chan's > 3 million articles rarely diverts from the topics of penises and lolcats.

Re:Simple Solution

[PopeRatzo]

It lost its father, it went through a fundraiser. It had two fuckin libel suits filed against it. Larry Sanger turned out to be a user, a liar, and now he's accusing it of hosting childporn.

Who cares about all that?

The most important thing about Wikipedia is that Old Uncle Lar's partner Jimbo Wales promised some wacky right-wing talk dame that he'd sanitize her (quite interesting) Wiki page if she'd tug on his johnson. That tells you everything you need to know about the dependability of Wikipedia, especially the biographical or political pages. It's good if you want to know the chemical symbol for sodium bromate or similar basic facts, you're probably OK, but letting armies of astroturfers loose to create a "comprehensive" encyclopedia which includes contemporary history is just not that great of an idea. You're better off at the public library, in the stacks of the New York Times. At least there you can adjust for the ideological windage with some degree of confidence.

It just goes to show what inevitably happens when a computer nerd gets in a position of wealth and power: First chance he gets he's gonna smoke some hay and beat up the coochie, preferably on his private Gulfstream G5. And if it means "being evil" in order to line up some third-tier wingnut poontang, well that's just a little speed bump.

Re:Simple Solution

[EsbenMoseHansen]

I also removed from vandalism from a page once and was *accused* of posting that particular vandalism.

Oh really. Mistakes happens, don't take it personally.

Re:Simple Solution

[MikeFM]

Way back when the Net was new to most people I'd do this to teachers. Simply make up words, add them to a couple online dictionaries, and sprinkle them around the web. Then i could include nonsense words in papers and when teachers called me on it I'd challenge them to go look it up. Lots of fun and soon I was credited with having an excellent vocabulary.

Re:Simple Solution

[Peach Rings]

Wikipedia is a successful project. You can read mostly well-written summaries of nearly every single area of human knowledge, and for the most part it's accurate and accessible with nice diagrams etc.

I'm also tempted by that decentralized approach, but when I think about it I know that I wouldn't want to deal with ridiculous one-off articles like malamanteau just because people are having fun dicking around. The internet should be free and decentralized, and Wikipedia's policies are arbitrary and stupid, but sometimes you just want something that works! A coherent high-quality project can't succeed with waves of Internet anarchy pounding at its foundations. If you want a project where only experts and trusted people can edit, then go buy the Encyclopedia Britannica. If you want a project that anybody can edit then you have to deal with people.

Re:Simple Solution

[Peach Rings]

Oh please, this isn't even in the realm of deletionism vs inclusionism. The malamanteau article is just disruptive. It's not serious. Randall has even done this before.

Re:Simple Solution

[spun]

Mistakes happen over and over again with regularity, and calls to fix these mistakes are met with paranoia and outright hostility. Any normal people were driven out of wikipedia long ago, all that are left are vicious, petty, power hungry control freaks. I don't take it personally, crazy people can't really be held accountable for their craziness. I just don't interact with them.

Re:Simple Solution

[jeremyp]

what an original idea. Let me offer you my most sincere contrafibularities.

Re:Simple Solution

[Green Monkey]

Yeah, you'd need over 9,000 million.

Re:Simple Solution

[DavidTC]

The problem I have with Wikipedia is that it refuses to create strict rules and follow them. It has stupid 'Notability' nonsense instead where it's just totally arbitrary.

For example, I'd be entirely okay with the idea that fictional things do not belong on Wikipedia, period. No fictional characters, no fictional places, nothing.

But that's not the rule. You can find, for example, 'Sunnydale California' on it, the setting of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

But I'm sure there are plenty of TV shows that don't have their setting on there, and if you tried to put them on there, you'd be removed for notability reasons. Why one fictional place is more notable than the other, I don't know.

The problem with Wikipedia is that the rules are totally arbitrary about what is and isn't on there. And enforced in a completely random manner.

Of course, this wouldn't be a problem if they weren't operating with a single namespace. But they are.

...yes, I know about wikia.

Re:Simple Solution

[DavidTC]

By definition, all contrafibulations are sincere. They have to be, they're the opposite of lies.

Re:Simple Solution

[Thinboy00]

The problem I have with Wikipedia is that it refuses to create strict rules and follow them. It has stupid 'Notability' nonsense instead where it's just totally arbitrary.

Do you know how many pages of rules (and whatnot) there are on notability?

Re:Simple Solution

[Peach Rings]

Well those rules aren't set in stone; if you have a legitimate problem with a policy then you can raise it in discussion and get it changed.

Also "enforced in a completely random manner" isn't really accurate. Nobody (including sysops) has the ability to unilaterally remove your edits. There aren't supposed to be higher echelons of users who get to decide whether to revert you or not; if someone reverts you, feel free to put it back immediately and ask for an explanation. If you just demonstrate that you know what you're doing then you'll get personal attention instead of just being the 19th person down on a list of stupid edits to be reverted.

Of course, while you can always ask for other opinions, if nobody is buying it then you won't get very far. Know the rules and work within the project and you'll be fine, and confidence and a high edit count go a long way.

Re:Simple Solution

[Achromatic1978]

Comprehension is not your strong point, is it? He said "is that it refuses to create strict rules and follow them". No-one said anything about an absence of rules. Indeed, there are legions of people whose sole contributions to Wikipedia are in the WP: namespace, rule-writing and wiki-lawyering...

Re:Simple Solution

[crossmr]

It all has to do with how much attention independent sources give to fiction. Think about the extremes like Star Wars and Star Trek. There are countless independent volumes of books dedicated to minutia. This is especially true for anything SF/Fantasy related. Geeks love that stuff. Some other random show, not so much.

Re:Simple Solution

[Mike Buddha]

Ya, me neither. I just get on 4chan if I need to look stuff up these days. Much more reliable.

Plus, you can always drop a "Tits or GTFO" on a thread if things get boring. The wikifiddlers frown on that.

Re:Simple Solution

[rvw14]

That is a very cromulent idea.

Re:Simple Solution

[Obyron]

Mistakes happens

Clearly. So I guess you're, like, a senior editor?

Re:Simple Solution

[imthesponge]

You can't win. Use "common sense" and you're being "arbitrary"; stick to a strict set of rules and you're "wikilawyering".

Re:Simple Solution

[imthesponge]

Can you be any more specific, or are you just making things up as you go along?

Re:Simple Solution

[pjfontillas]

Snake? SNAAAAAKE!?!?!?

Re:Simple Solution

[DavidTC]

Hey, moron, by that definition, everything is notable, as everything is capable of being noted.

And everything is noticeable. I'm pretty certain you notice the setting any story is set in.

I'm pretty sure that's not Wikipedia's definition of the word. Wikipedia uses the circular definition 'worthy of notice'.

Re:Simple Solution

[DavidTC]

You're confusing "totally arbitrary" with "judgment calls." Nerds have this problem a lot--if a rule can't be implemented by a computer, we don't think it's a real rule.

No, I'm pointing out that collective 'judgement calls' do not, in fact, work.

People cannot but disagree, and, what's more, it's something that's nearly impossible to be objective on. You can't just decide how 'relevant to the universe' something is...it's always what's relevant to you.

You can actually notice this lack of objectivity when it comes to sci-fi....nerds do a disproportional amount of editing, ergo, sci-fi is massively over-represented.

I.e., what you wish is impossible. Wikipedia cannot be 'more assertive' in judgment calls, because Wikipedia is a collective, and a somewhat skewed one at that, and members of the collective make judgment calls that they've certainly going to disagree on. Even in a magical ideal Wikipedia this couldn't work, much less one where poeple with too much time on their hands stake out positions and defend them.

They could solve this by splitting into namespaces or something, by having a 'fictional wikipedia' and a 'scientific theory wikipedia' and a 'place wikipedia', and let in anything no matter how obscure.

OTOH, I'm not entirely sure why they don't let everything in currently, but I'm sure there's a reason.

Re:Simple Solution

[moonbender]

Well you can parse that both ways: refuse (to create) and (follow) or refuse (to create and follow). Besides which, arguably the have fairly strict rules and they do follow them (maybe: as well as humanly possible). Those rules just create a situation where a fictional place from what is apparently a fairly popular show does have an article, while a fictional place from a less popular show doesn't.

Having a notability criterion where "one fictional place is more notable then the other" doesn't seem very unlikely or unreasonable. In fact, it seems almost mandatory. Otherwise, I could make up any number of fictional places and add them. Maybe give them the same name as real places and create disambiguation pages while I'm at it.

Re:Simple Solution

[imthesponge]

Wikipedia tries to establish notability with reliable sources. So if you had a couple articles written about said hill by reliable sources (for example a credible newspaper) you could probably get an article about it. That's why, for example, high schools are considered inherently notable even though most are only relevant to local residents.

Re:Simple Solution

[the_womble]

In almost every case you will find a better article on a specialist website on the topic - thats what search engines are for.

Re:Simple Solution

[Chuq]

Wikipedia used that format (sub-pages) originally - and soon changed.

Does the article about "History of Australia" come under the History article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History/Australia) or Australia? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia/History/)

In your example, what category would Isaac Newton go under? Science or history?

Re:Simple Solution

[dangitman]

Do you know how many pages of rules (and whatnot ) there are on notability?

No, I don't. Can't I just look that up on Wikipedia if I want to know?

Re:Simple Solution

[trytoguess]

During the dark ages, when the net was new, and most teachers never tried out the newfangled thing know as the internet, you somehow got your professors to look up and believe an online dictionary instead of a physical one?

Re:Simple Solution

[avilliers]

No, I'm pointing out that collective 'judgement calls' do not, in fact, work.

People cannot but disagree, and, what's more, it's something that's nearly impossible to be objective on. You can't just decide how 'relevant to the universe' something is...it's always what's relevant to you.

You can actually notice this lack of objectivity when it comes to sci-fi....nerds do a disproportional amount of editing, ergo, sci-fi is massively over-represented.

Actually your point was that they don't follow rules. You didn't mention "judgment" at all, not even indirectly; it was complaining about inconsistent application of rules.

If you now want to change your point to say that you question their judgment in applying rules, fine, but that's a different argument. I actually agree with the revised argument, at least the specifics, as I implied in my post (I'm the AC in the GP). I don't think an animated show deserves multiple entries, and I don't think an ideal encyclopedia should include implementations of algorithms in code just because a lot of editors are apparently undergrad comp sci majors.

But disagreeing with judgments being made doesn't mean they aren't being made, or even made consistently. "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with many worthwhile articles but, among other flaws, over emphasizes science fiction and popular television" is IMHO an accurate description. The 1912 Britannica was a good encyclopedia with its own emphasis problems, plus some incredibly embarrassing mistakes about non-western history (such as not knowing when the Mughals came to power in India) because of the biases in *its* editorial pool.

The problems don't invalidate either project, let alone in concept (as you seem to be arguing) or the idea of a "notability" standard. They do affect the utility and the enjoyment of both.

Empirically, your are probably right that if Wikipedia tried to be more assertive it would do a bad job. But they could certainly change standards from the ridiculous 'cite needed' when making critical judgments (which discourages people who actually *know* crap from editing, and encourages Dunning-Kruger sufferers who read one book on the subject once and believed it) and be more encouraging about cutting marginal articles to the bone. In the theoretical space for 'collaborative projects', this could reach a stable equilibrium of sorts, with people cutting stuff out and fixing bad claims. But in practice? I doubt it's worth trying.

OTOH, I'm not entirely sure why they don't let everything in currently, but I'm sure there's a reason.

I assume their reason is to mimic a traditional encyclopedia. Personally my preference for less is based on two things: A 200-word article is more useful than a 2000 word article if you want a short introduction; and, length in a traditional encyclopedia does convey valuable information about the overall importance.

Re:Simple Solution

[MikeFM]

I'd already had a net presence for several years thanks to friends from the BBS scene getting me an Internet connection way before they became generally available and was good at adding things to established sites. Besides online dictionaries often have a lot more words than the $10 one a high school teacher keeps in their desk. Not as if they're going to put up a big fight over it. When given the choice I'd write on geeky topics anyway which are rife with words not in standard dictionaries. To this day they still probably think all my words were real since so many strange words I used, Internet jargon, have become common.

Re:Simple Solution

[linhares]

At least 4chan knows that the sum of the worlds knowledge is more than can be described in 3 million articles.

I for one SUPPORT the deletionists and think they are doing a great job maintaining only high quality material on WP. You know, things like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictional_ducks

Re:Simple Solution

[linhares]

all fictional, and so are the three "prophets"; but that's fiery territory and wp will never go there.

Re:Simple Solution

[fractoid]

The problem I have with Wikipedia is that it refuses to create strict rules and follow them. It has stupid 'Notability' nonsense instead where it's just totally arbitrary.

Even if (as others argue) the 'notability' rules are quite well defined, they're vulnerable to race conditions leading to recursive self-referencing.

Re:Simple Solution

[Thanshin]

Sorry, I'm not big on memes. That entire post was a joke about the kid who supported Britney Spears, right?

Re:Simple Solution

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Clearly. So I guess you're, like, a senior editor?

I'm 35 and I have an account... so maybe? ;) Nah, though I did once start an article (on reduced cost in linear programming).

I have had bad experiences on the Danish wikipedia, but in my experience, the english one comes to each sense eventually. Well, at least the science&math section, which is where I occasionally prowl.

Re:Simple Solution

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Mistakes happen over and over again with regularity, and calls to fix these mistakes are met with paranoia and outright hostility. Any normal people were driven out of wikipedia long ago, all that are left are vicious, petty, power hungry control freaks. I don't take it personally, crazy people can't really be held accountable for their craziness. I just don't interact with them.

That is not my experience. I still contribute occasionally (maybe 10 times a year?) and read frequently. But maybe the math+science sections are more sane than whatever you interests are.

A free bit of advice: Almost *any* call for changes and fixes are going to be met with paranoia and outright hostility almost anywhere. Basic fact of life. So if you really want to change something, you either have to learn to insist and be convincing enough to actually convince people, or learn to just do rather than calling out. Or both. If you ever get in a position where you are administering something, you'll learn why hostility and paranoia is almost a sane response to fixes and changes :o)

Re:Simple Solution

[Tom]

That is doubly true for actual persons, locations and events that are not from the US.

I always found it amazingly stupid and saddly funny how a dozen jerks from the US have a heated debate about whether or not some place in Europe is "notable". Chances are, none of them has ever been within a thousand miles of it. All they know about it they must have from - gasp - third party sources. So there is enough info out there to build an intense discussion around, but it's not "notable"? Yeah, right.

Re:Simple Solution

[TheSpoom]

Some of the fundraiser money should be spent on new leadership.

Fixed that for you. The hard drives won't help if they're not willing to change their policies.

Re:Simple Solution

[aix tom]

Unfortunately the rules about notability had to be deleted, because they were not notable since they lacked reliable sources.

Re:Simple Solution

[weszz]

It’s a perfectly cromulent word. Any method that can embiggen his vocabulary is a wholanic goal.

Re:Simple Solution

[mdwh2]

And there'll be equal numbers of people saying that Wikipedia is bad, because it's full of nonsense/trivial articles, citing this "malamanteau" fiasco as a prime example.

(I love XKCD, but personally I find it tiresome that someone has to go adding something to XKCD - nevermind this example, there's someone who will do it for almost every single strip. XKCD has a strip about some topic? Bam, someone will add it to "In Popular Culture" under that article. I'm surprise that these sad obsessives haven't completely missed the irony by adding XKCD to the wood article...)

Re:Simple Solution

[mdwh2]

Wait - Wikipedia is bad, because the consensus might be to not allow articles on non-existent topics?

I guess you must really hate Britannica. Look at all the stuff they don't let in! Is that "political correctness" too?

It needs to peer-to-peer. It needs to be built upon a trust network. Or it will never surpass what is essentially a dictatorship over mindsets and ideas.

How would this work? Either you have a single version - in which case, you end up with it being like Wikipedia, where there will always be whiners who disagree with the decision made, no matter what decision that is - or we end up with numerous different versions, but for an encyclopedia this doesn't really work. (If you want a Wiki for your non-encyclopedic topic, then go and start one.)

Re:Simple Solution

[Smallpond]

I'll get to reading that after I finish the 2000 articles on Pokemon.

Re:Simple Solution

[DavidTC]

Ha, finally, someone understood it.

I think people missed the fact that I was using fictional things as an example of something that you actually could have hard and fast rules about inclusion. Fictional works, yes, things inside those works, no.

It was just a very specific and good example, as opposed to saying 'Only cities over 10,000 in the main Wiki, and everything else in an atlas Wiki', because you know someone would debate the number. Whereas 'people and things that exist solely in fictional works' aren't debatable.

Except, as some wag pointed out, religion, but it's simple enough to make an exception for that. Or, heck, that probably deserves its own Wiki.

Instead, you get a weird smattering of fiction...and that apparently crowds out rule for, you know, actually existing things. Like you pointed out.

And as TheSpoon already replied with, the problem isn't really space. The problem is that they think 'serious' encyclopedias don't have 'unnotable' articles, or something. But this is stupid...the way the real world deals with it is to have 'encyclopedias of...' that focus on categories of stuff. 'Encyclopedia of Television', 'World Atlas', 'Who's Who', etc.

No one can quite figure out why they have notability rules, instead of just having a dozen different topics and shunting things into the right one.

Except that if did that, the people at the top would probably have to reduce their power somewhat, or stop behaving how they want to behave. It's a leadership problem, not a space problem.

Re:Simple Solution

[Rysc]

This approach was tried and discarded early in Wikipedia history. For many reasons it does not work.

Re:Simple Solution

[DavidTC]

Actually your point was that they don't follow rules. You didn't mention "judgment" at all, not even indirectly; it was complaining about inconsistent application of rules.

No, my point was they didn't make strict rules. Their rules are, essentially, 'Whatever'.

Their rules are not actually rules. Their rules, as you said, are judgment calls. But you've missed the point that a judgment call is the opposite of a rule.

Yes, yes, you made a joke about implemented by computer. But that really is what rules are. Rules are things that anyone can look at and come to the same conclusion if something is in violation or not. That is the meaning of 'rules'.

Rules can have judgment calls and observer differences in the facts. Did the person bowling touch the line with their foot? Was the car going 55 or 56MPH?

But on Wikipedia, people aren't arguing about the facts of 'notability'. They're arguing about opinion, about unprovable things.

That's not a 'rule' at all.

Moreover, as I said, they're arguing about opinions that are pretty inherently subjective based on world experience. You can actually reach a consensus on sulfur smelling bad, for example, although that's an opinion and some people might think otherwise.

But how 'important' something is is, ipso facto, relative. People are myoptic. People think things they deal with are important, and things they don't are unimportant.

Which, as someone else pointed out, has resulted in notability discussions over locations, as just one of the many strange examples. There are moderately sized European towns that get deleted for lack of notability. And yet a town of 430 stays?

I assume their reason is to mimic a traditional encyclopedia. Personally my preference for less is based on two things: A 200-word article is more useful than a 2000 word article if you want a short introduction; and, length in a traditional encyclopedia does convey valuable information about the overall importance.

I think about half their problems are due to the fact they're mimicking a traditional encyclopedia, including the shortcomings of encyclopedias.

The other half is that editors make 'judgment calls' and then stand there and assert said judgment calls are 'the rules' and enforce them with an iron fist.

Re:Simple Solution

[ckaminski]

But if you wrote about Deadmans Hill, Yourtown, NM, how is that not notable? For your neighborhood, and maybe for other people doing research on hills that kill people?

Just because there are 50 ckaminski's in the United States doesn't mean we can't disambiguize to the one that is me.

HAND.

Re:Simple Solution

[laejoh]

[CITATION NEEDED]

Re:Simple Solution

[uncoveror]

Malamanteau is a perfectly cromulent word.

Re:Simple Solution

[spun]

Look, don't take it personally. There are just certain groups, such as wikipedians, libertarians, and Apple fans, that I can't help but troll mercilessly. It's an addiction, but I have not found a self help group for those addicted to offending the easily offended.

Re:Simple Solution

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Look, don't take it personally. There are just certain groups, such as wikipedians, libertarians, and Apple fans, that I can't help but troll mercilessly. It's an addiction, but I have not found a self help group for those addicted to offending the easily offended.

Very good. Did you notice that, as far as I can see, there are no wikipedians, libertarians or Apple fans in the above thread? Are you familiar with the term "epic fail"? ;)

Re:Simple Solution

[spun]

"Such as" means "Including, but not limited to." And, unless I am hallucinating, we were discussing wikipedia. It's safe to assume some of the people defending wikipedia might just be wikipedians. And we really don't know if anyone in the thread is a deranged Apple fanboy or a libertarded Randroid but based on the level of holier than thou reactionary idiocy, I'd say chances are good we have one or two with us.

Epic fail to you, good sir.

Re:Simple Solution

[jesset77]

I don't know about you, but until Africa and Middle East get their asses online, I don't have a problem going on quests without them.

Re:Simple Solution

[WolfWithoutAClause]

"Larry Sanger turned out to be a user, a liar, and now he's accusing it of hosting childporn."

Well... Wikipedia is a portmanteau made up of 'wiki' which means 'quick' and pedia which comes from encyclopedia which literally is the greek for children. So it literally means "Quick! Children!!!" a phrase guaranteed to warm the cockles of any pedobears heart.

And, no, I'm not making this up.

So what *would* you expect to find in it? ;-)

I'm sure that's what he was thinking.

Re:Simple Solution

[avilliers]

Yes, yes, you made a joke about implemented by computer. But that really is what rules are. Rules are things that anyone can look at and come to the same conclusion if something is in violation or not. That is the meaning of 'rules'.

I thought I was at least partly joking, but I guess not.

"Only people I like can come to my party" is a rule. Think that's too trivial? Consider that you can't kill someone--unless you are in a situation where you have a reasonable fear for your life, whatever that means. Jurors will argue about their opinion of what a reasonable person should fear, and the only answer is that a 'reasonable' man is what the jurors thought it was. But the anti-killing thing is still a rule.

Most human rules are like that, and not like simple algorithms at all. Some cases clearly on one side, some on another, and for some there's lots of arguments until the 'opinion' of the judge, prosecutor and jurors will eventually decide things.

I actually mostly agree on the results of the judgment, simply without finding it as severe or unusual flaw as you seem to. Except, as I said, cutting fluff from an encyclopedia *adds* value for me, since I enjoy browsing a concisely edited one.

Re:Simple Solution

[EsbenMoseHansen]

The only one slightly positive about wp in this thread was the OP, and me, and neither was wikipedian. While of course anyone, you included, could be an Apple fanboy, the fact that noone expressed sentiments such as might come from an Apple fanboy, wikipedians or libertarian, means your epic fail remains high and good :) And there was very little holier than thou in this thread, either, unless you want to go to siblings (and if you wanted this, you replied to the wrong parent). So that would be another fail, though not exactly epic :P

Enjoy!

Re:Simple Solution

[SL Baur]

What a bunch of self-righteous wankers. There's a reason that anyone with at least half a brain treats Wikipedia as an unreliable source. This is one of them.

Re:Simple Solution

[bhtooefr]

On the flip side, in the last example, Encylopaedia Britannica produces a dead-tree version, and is therefore limited on space. Wikipedia, OTOH, has much less limits on space, and therefore can use longer articles about subjects deemed notable.

Re:Simple Solution

[Troed]

I wouldn't want to deal with ridiculous one-off articles like malamanteau

Then don't read them.

Re:Simple Solution

[trytoguess]

High School teachers... Ah, now that's a different story. I figured you were talking about college.

Re:Simple Solution

[DavidTC]

The problem with your example is that 'reasonableness' is actually defined by law.

It might sound like some sort of opinion, but it is not. There are actually tests, based on facts, whether or not a belief that someone is trying to kill you is 'reasonable'.

Notablity, OTOH, while it is pretended to be defined, is not actually. That is, there are actual tests, actual lists of what do not belong on Wikipedia...and you'll find those things all over Wikipedia. Same with the inverse, things that clearly are notable under even the harshest interpretation of the rules...and yet get removed.

Instead of the rules, notability is actually 'What the guy with the most free time on his hands thinks is notable and willing to defend either way.'

Re:Simple Solution

[Hurricane78]

Wikipedia is a successful project. You can read mostly well-written summaries of nearly every single area of human knowledge, and for the most part it's accurate and accessible with nice diagrams etc.

I assume, you being an intelligent human being, assumed a “...for me” behind every sentence. Because else they don’t make sense. Since you can’t possibly know this for all the >6.5 billion people on the planet. ;)
And this again is the exact same problem that I meant in my above comment. Everything on Wikipedia is by definition hearsay from untrustworthy sources. We only accept it, because it fits our inner model. But most of that, let’s face it, is also based on hearsay. That’s how our society works, and it’s usually good, except for when it’s not.

but when I think about it I know that I wouldn't want to deal with ridiculous one-off articles like malamanteau just because people are having fun dicking around.

That’s the nice thing about my approach. See, the conflict is that 1. you want to decide what you want to see without effort, but 2. you do not EVER have the right to decide what others want to see. (Otherwise, point 1 would either fall, or make you a dictator [like Wikipedia now].)
And my approach is the following: Cascading trust relationships.
Imagine there being N versions of X articles. Now Jimmy Wales could choose specific versions of a specific set of articles, and call it “Wikipedia”. BUT: So could everybody else. AND: Your set could build on other sets, extending them. Including rules of priority. Like: General base from Wikipedia, quantum physics from HawKing, politics from StewBeef, and these couple of articles should be that version. Or generically:
myWiki = articleVersionSet(100% trusted,EMPTY_SET)
    where articleVersionSet($trust,$partialSet) = $newPartialSet ++ articleVersionSet($trust-1,$newPartialSet)
        where $newPartialSet = $partialSet ++ (articleVersionSet
            from (the one
                of $trustworthyPersons
                with $priorityOfTrustworthiness[$thatPerson] >= $trust
            )
            for $trustedTopics[$thatPerson]
            if (not already in $partialSet))
        )
As you can see, this means only a tiny set of decisions (min=1) is required, to get your individual Wikipedia. Without telling anybody else what to do. With maximum possible freedom (100%). The key factor is your network of trust. As in real life. Who’da thunka that? ^^
People could dick as much around as they wanted. If nobody trusts them in the first place, nobody will notice. If somebody does, either your friend will lost trust in him, or you will lose trust in your friend. Which counters *any* kind of abuse nicely. :)

LOL

[Jaysyn]

These guys take themselves waaay too seriously.

Re:LOL

[TheKidWho]

The guy who went about deleting the wikipedia entry initially.

Read his wiki entry, what a douche.

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

read the talk page on wikipedia last night, might have been one of the funniest things i've ever read. i do love wikipedia admins, never before in human history has anyone gotten so drunk on so little power.

Re:LOL

[TheKidWho]

Yes, UtherSRG is a douche.

Re:LOL

[BitZtream]

This is what happens when you let a bunch of random self absorbed schmucks think what they are doing is actually important to the world.

While I'll use wikipedia as a starting reference point but lets face it, if you use Wikipedia as any sort of authoritative reference, you're an idiot. I say this because every person I know that uses wikipedia as a reference is in fact an idiot.

Re:LOL

[MobyDisk]

I assumed the poster was referring to the XKCD readers who created the Wikipedia entry.

Re:LOL

[snarfies]

Indeed. See also http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Bureaucratic_Fuck

Re:LOL

[FooAtWFU]

This is what happens when you let a bunch of random self absorbed schmucks think what they are doing is actually important to the world.

Self-absorbed schmucks like the xkcd fans who think that Wikipedia needs an article on yet another joke about Wikipedia?

Re:LOL

[E IS mC(Square)]

>> This is what happens when you let a bunch of random self absorbed schmucks think what they are doing is actually important to the world.

All your arguments can easily be applied to xkcd community as well.


>> While I'll use wikipedia as a starting reference point but lets face it, if you use Wikipedia as any sort of authoritative reference, you're an idiot. I say this because every person I know that uses wikipedia as a reference is in fact an idiot.

Add to the list all the idiots who speak for everybody and state the very obvious every time they open the mouth.

Re:LOL

[Dunx]

Too right. Priggish to the point of idiocy. And yet so many of the articles in the 'pedia make no sense at all if you don't already understand the subject you are reading about.

Re:LOL

[schon]

All your arguments can easily be applied to xkcd community as well.

[citations needed]

Re:LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

except the xkcd community doesn't think what it's doing is important, they think it's funny, and there's a world of difference there.

Re:LOL

[Mister Whirly]

I say this because every person I know that uses wikipedia as a reference is in fact an idiot.

[Citation Needed]

Re:LOL

[TooMuchToDo]

Dude, this is Slashdot. No linky?

/lazy slashdot reader

Re:LOL

[TooMuchToDo]

Compared to the constant stream of Colbert Report fans screwing with Wikipedia?

Re:LOL

[Darkness404]

...And does it matter? You know, disk space and bandwidth is cheap. It would cost what? $.0001 to create an article about this? And the flamewars going on about it are costing more bandwidth and disk space than the article itself would have.

Honestly, Wikipedia editors are the worst, they take what should be an encyclopedia filled with -everything- and try to narrow it down to fit what they want.

Does Wikipedia -lose- anything if it accepts an article that is a word coined by xkcd? Of course not.

Re:LOL

[RevWaldo]

This is what happens when you let a bunch of random self absorbed schmucks think what they are doing is actually important to the world.

Funny, that statement could also be used to describe practically everyone involved in professional sports, including the fans.

/ducks

.

Re:LOL

[TheLink]

The wikipedia is important, not the most important thing in the world but it is important. However too many admins and editors seem to think they and their individual opinions are more important than they should be.

Have you seen those pages vandalized with dozens of [citation please]? Too often it's a result of an asshole or douchebag putting the numerous [citation please] tags, just because he (usually a he) either refuses to use his brains properly, or has some personal vendetta against the contributor. Because the asshole could easily have used: "This section may contain original research or unverified claims.".

Just because you're doing it for free doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't slag you off for not doing it properly. If you let your personal issues reduce the efficiency of a "soup kitchen" you won't be welcome for long, even if you're doing it for free and supposedly for a good cause. You're a voluntary cog in a wheel, you want to do your job? Leave your ego at the door. Few people like noisy wheels.

Re:LOL

[Duhavid]

Isn't there a wikipedia article on the fact that people that use wikipedia are idiots?

( page create in 10, 9... )

Re:LOL

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

if you use Wikipedia as any sort of authoritative reference, you're an idiot. I say this because every person I know that uses wikipedia as a reference is in fact an idiot.

While it may not be obvious at first glance, you have effectively just cited wikipedia as authoritative proof that people who cite wikipedia are idiots.

Re:LOL

[Tetsujin]

Compared to the constant stream of Colbert Report fans screwing with Wikipedia?

I wouldn't put the XKCD thing in contrast with Colbert Report stuff - to me, it's just two different examples of the same thing - people inciting vandalism on Wikipedia.

Basically, I think it's a pretty shitty thing to do.

Re:LOL

[Tetsujin]

Does Wikipedia -lose- anything if it accepts an article that is a word coined by xkcd? Of course not.

A small measure of dignity perhaps? I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to maintain some semblance of standards despite the site being constantly inundated by this kind of crap.

Re:LOL

[twidarkling]

http://forums.xkcd.com/index.php?sid=8c08665f1da236f070e4643112e61c0e

The name of the forums alone proves the rampant idiocy inherent in them. "Echo Chamber." Where you hear the same thing endlessly, reinforcing itself.

Re:LOL

[twidarkling]

No, Wikipedia is not proof in that statement. I suggest you go look up the meaning of "proof." It could be part of A proof, such as "Person + Citation of Wikipedia = idiot," but since it's not Wikipedia saying that people who use it are idiots, it, itself, is not proof.

Re:LOL

[Darkness404]

But what happens in the end? Either it is not notable and no one notices it thus eliminating any threat to "standards" or it is notable and therefore should have an article.

Seriously, how often do you go through obscure pages of Wikipedia and think "this encyclopedia would be better without this"? How often do you go through an encyclopedia and think that? The point is to have a reference for everything. If it is not notable, people won't search it therefore any complaint about "standards" is negated because no one is seeing it.

Re:LOL

[WoodenTable]

These guys take themselves waaay too seriously.

Who?

The XKCD fans who create a wikipedia page about a word that didn't exist until yesterday?

Or the Wikipedia admins who delete a page about a word that didn't exist until yesterday?

To be honest, I think both groups take themselves a bit too seriously. See that talk page in the summary? Yikes.

Re:LOL

[Twinbee]

Have you seen those pages vandalized with dozens of [citation please]? [citation needed] Too often it's a result of an asshole or douchebag putting the numerous [citation please] tags, just because he (usually a he [citation needed]) either refuses to use his brains properly [citation needed], or has some personal vendetta against the contributor [citation needed]. Because the asshole could easily have used: "This section may contain original research or unverified claims.". [citation needed]

There, fixed that for you.

Re:LOL

[BobMcD]

You're absolutely correct, but you're overlooking the meta-game of the ego war.

In your world people would slave over articles, post them, and they would never be looked at because they weren't notable.

In the Wikipedia world 'notability' is a standard and if the article survives, then it was worth writing in the first place.

In short, 'notability' is a cheap psychological tactic designed to get people to contribute free labor to the website, and little else. You're trying to buck that trend, which likely would either kill the site or at least kill the fervor with which the zealots maintain it.

Re:LOL

[BobMcD]

ymbnh

Re:LOL

[BobMcD]

Funny, that statement could also be used to describe practically everyone involved in everything.

Which would rather be the point the author was attempting to make, above.

Re:LOL

[BitZtream]

Does Wikipedia -lose- anything if it accepts an article that is a word coined by xkcd? Of course not.

Wikipedia doesn't. But some douche bag who doesn't like it does lose. He doesn't get his way. I know this one very well. I'm one of those douche bags rather often so I understand it.

I'm trying to work out that particular personality flaw, but I have a lot of them so its going to take a while.

Re:LOL

[BitZtream]

At one point in time I used it as a reference.

Or did you want me to point out an idiot other than myself? :)

Re:LOL

[Tetsujin]

Seriously, how often do you go through obscure pages of Wikipedia and think "this encyclopedia would be better without this"?

Oh, quite often, actually. People write some real crap sometimes - there's an unfortunate trend toward trivia hoarding on the site. Everyone has their own pet interests and wants to build up a little repository of what they've found. What's more, they believe that their interest is important enough that it deserves to be on a site people have heard of. Personally, I really believe Wikipedia is not the right place for that.

How often do you go through an encyclopedia and think that?

Well, to be honest, I haven't owned an encyclopedia set in years, and I haven't been checking the library's copy for anything, either. There's just been no need. I'm out of school and haven't needed that kind of reference.

It's an imperfect analogy, though: if you're talking about a printed encyclopedia, or even a computer encyclopedia delivered on digital media, then you're talking about some kind of professional effort - quality control and editing have already taken place. If I bought an encyclopedia set and it included a list of all the TV shows and movies to feature a giant, Godzilla-like monster destroying a city, then I might be a bit annoyed that valuable print space in my encyclopedia had been wasted with that. (And yes, this is another way in which the analogy isn't perfect - even an encyclopedia delivered on DVD-ROM would be much more limited in the amount of information it could contain than Wikipedia is.)

The point is to have a reference for everything. If it is not notable, people won't search it therefore any complaint about "standards" is negated because no one is seeing it.

If no one is seeing it, there's no point in having the article at all, and it doesn't matter if it's deleted. If someone is seeing it, then you're back to needing quality control.

Re:LOL

[Blakey Rat]

I hate [citation needed].

The message there is basically, "I think whoever wrote this is wrong, but I'm too fucking lazy to look it up my damn self. Therefore, I'll shit this tag on it so one of my slaves can look it up later." Except there aren't any slaves, so the damned [citation needed] stays up for 6 years.

Look, if the factoid sounds like bullshit, you have two options:
1) Look it up your damned self and add a citation
2) Delete it

Don't shit tags all over the place. That's not fixing the problem, that's just adding to it.

Re:LOL

[HungryHobo]

I think the [citation needed] ones are great.
far far better to highlight something questionable which isn't backed up than to delete the article(which seems far more popular)

Re:LOL

[Darkness404]

Oh, quite often, actually. People write some real crap sometimes - there's an unfortunate trend toward trivia hoarding on the site. Everyone has their own pet interests and wants to build up a little repository of what they've found. What's more, they believe that their interest is important enough that it deserves to be on a site people have heard of. Personally, I really believe Wikipedia is not the right place for that.

Such as?

The reason why Wikipedia is popular is because you can find nearly everything on there. From the War of the Roses to the latest South Park episode to an obscure J-Pop album. I don't know about you but I don't think I'd use Wikipedia that much if it wasn't for the fact that it has a large variety of things.

What to you might be a "pet interest" might be important to someone else. Importance is very subjective, as such the sane thing to do is allow almost everything if it isn't "important" it won't be read. If it is, then it is read, edited and improved.

It's an imperfect analogy, though: if you're talking about a printed encyclopedia, or even a computer encyclopedia delivered on digital media, then you're talking about some kind of professional effort - quality control and editing have already taken place. If I bought an encyclopedia set and it included a list of all the TV shows and movies to feature a giant, Godzilla-like monster destroying a city, then I might be a bit annoyed that valuable print space in my encyclopedia had been wasted with that. (And yes, this is another way in which the analogy isn't perfect - even an encyclopedia delivered on DVD-ROM would be much more limited in the amount of information it could contain than Wikipedia is.)

Exactly, Wikipedia really isn't limited by space or bandwidth. It makes very little difference if there is an article on giant Godzilla-like monsters in a city or not when it comes to space. However, such a list would be helpful for some people, it makes little sense to delete it.

If no one is seeing it, there's no point in having the article at all, and it doesn't matter if it's deleted. If someone is seeing it, then you're back to needing quality control.

The entire point of having an editable article is that people can revise and expand on it. If something is obscure and someone looks it up, the chances of them having higher-quality knowledge to edit and expand and revise it increase. For example, I'm not going to look up episode 134 of The Simpsons because I'm not a huge fan of the Simpsons, someone who will look that up generally watches the Simpsons and would be more likely to edit and help out the article.

Re:LOL

[demonbug]

I'm thinking wikidiots or wikidolts.

Maybe wookiedolts or wookiediots, just to get into the whole malamanteau thing.

Though I'd have to say, I'd probably just create it as a redirect to this.

Re:LOL

[HungryHobo]

what i don't get is why do the editors even get to decide what's notable?

Notable in this context presumably means "of interest to a reasonable number of people"

set a hit counter on every page and if they don't get hits they get deleted.

Re:LOL

[Kjella]

[Citation Needed]

Wikipedia has made me hate those two words. Not because citing sources is bad, but Wikipedia has turned it into a parody. If you look at a real encyclopedia, it will contain a rather original text written in encyclopedic style. If you took such an article and pasted into Wikipedia you'd get dozens of [citation needed] because not every other sentence has one. Meanwhile you can pretty much load it with all the bias you want just by using biased sources despite the NPOV policy. I liked it back when you could just contribute some knowledge about a topic you knew about, today that's frowned upon as "original research" even though it isn't very original or research. That and the very questionable concept of Notability, which manages to completely not mention point of view. For example if I study local history of [city], then there's tons of information that might be notable enough for someone to put in a book and thus have decent authoritative sources. Are they then notable from the point of view of wikipedia? Did they have an impact on world history? Hardly, but if so you could delete 98% of wikipedia. How local a notability is notable? The hard questions are really answered by policy, which is why you get the politics.

Re:LOL

[BobMcD]

Because this would discourage the authors.

It is far easier to convince a handful of Wikipedia editors of your worth than it would be the general public.

Re:LOL

[twidarkling]

Hmm. While they don't come right out and say it, yes, the implication is there. I suppose I stand corrected. I thank you, kind AC.

I agree with the online use. In a casual conversation or argument, Wikipedia is fine. Like many other tools, you must know how and when to use it.

Re:LOL

[Xtifr]

This is what happens when you let a bunch of random self absorbed schmucks think what they are doing is actually important to the world.

Wait, are you referring to the Wikipedia admins or the dickheads who tried to hijack Wikipedia to promote their little in-joke?

From the linked talk page: "No, it shouldn't be an article." -- Randall Munroe

I admit that I already knew what asses the WP admins could be, but this incident has really opened my eyes to what asses the xkcd fans can be. And I say that as someone who joined the Tautology Club the day it was announced. :)

Re:LOL

[commodoresloat]

never before in human history has anyone gotten so drunk on so little power.

I take it you don't work at a University....

Re:LOL

[LateArthurDent]

The message there is basically, "I think whoever wrote this is wrong, but I'm too fucking lazy to look it up my damn self. Therefore, I'll shit this tag on it so one of my slaves can look it up later." Except there aren't any slaves, so the damned [citation needed] stays up for 6 years...

Look, if the factoid sounds like bullshit, you have two options:
1) Look it up your damned self and add a citation
2) Delete it

Your first recommendation assumes its the responsibility of the editor to be an expert in every article. It's not. The contributors are responsible for doing the research, the editors are merely there to make sure the final article is of good quality.

Your second recommendation is actually sending the "I think this is wrong" message you dislike. "Citation needed" means just that: there are claims being made which are not supported by any given references. Leaving it untouched means that the editor isn't sure if this is, in fact, correct, so the information is left there for all to see with a reminder that if it is untrusted. On the other hand, if you just up and delete, that must mean that you know it's wrong.

I think the biggest problem with wikipedia are the people deleting shit. If it's vandalism, delete it. If you know for sure that something is wrong, and can post the factual information with citations, then delete it. Otherwise, leave it there (and add the [citation needed] tag where appropriate). I'm not sure why the tags would bother anyone, even if they are up there for six years. If nobody ever adds a citation, that means a citation is still needed, so the tag should stay there forever.

Re:LOL

[HungryHobo]

Somehow I have a feeling it might go the other way.
I use Wikipedia to find out about trivial subjects far more than I do for historic battles or grand world events.

the last few wikis I looked at?

Yorkie bars
list of all Dr who episodes
Some obscure types of paint
and a few algorithms.

In other words what a normal encyclopedia wouldn't touch.

not a Washington, Vesuvius or Blue Whale among them.

Re:LOL

[mysidia]

Dignity? You're talking about an "Encyclopedia" that displays entire eispode lists of series like "Friends" or Star Trek.

A reference to one word in XKCD is microscopic compared to the amount of junk that nobody dare submit for deletion.

Re:LOL

[mysidia]

Presumably the issue with non-notable pages is they waste editors' time working on them trying to populate them or make them fit Wikipedia's verifiability policies -- in vain.

Such that they should not be included in a high-quality encyclopedia. If the claims in an article are not verifiable, then the existence of the article takes away from the encyclopedia's credibility.

Re:LOL

[crossmr]

Friends and Star Trek have received heaps of coverage. Contrary to popular belief around here and at XKCD, it isn't near as popular.

Re:LOL

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

I suggest you go look up the meaning of "proof."I suggest you go look up the meaning of "proof."

Lolz at the kettle.

Re:LOL

[alvinrod]

Stop and think about the number of people that use Wikipedia as their first stop shop for information about a topic with which they're not familiar. Then think about the number of people that extend that just a little farther and use Wikipedia as their *one* stop shop for information. This is not a small minority of people in my best estimates based on real world observations. Alexa ranks them sixth, behind only Google, Facebook, Youtube, Yahoo, and Live.com. Search engines tend to give Wikipedia articles a high placement when they correspond to search terms. Their mindshare is such that people will say something to the effect: "Why don't you just Wikipedia it?" They've become a verb, much like how Google is synonymous with search.

Wikipedia admins have the power to shape the information that a decent size of the world's population trusts and relies on for various reasons. They're almost an unofficial Ministry of Truth. The amount of power which they wield is terrifying, and the fact that so few people recognize this is utterly horrific. If you're the type of person that thinks that either Google or Facebook is untrustworthy, you must realize the Wikipedia is several times worse.

Re:LOL

[imthesponge]

You're talking about Taelus right? I don't see anything objectionable there. Could you be more specific?

Re:LOL

[imthesponge]

How so?

Re:LOL

[imthesponge]

What a coincidence! Being a "starting reference point" is the purpose of an encyclopedia.

Re:LOL

[DavidRawling]

You're trying to buck that trend, which likely would either kill the site or at least kill the fervor with which the zealots maintain it.

I'm really trying to believe this is a problem, but I'm failing. Zealotry is rarely, if ever, a useful trait. It blinds people to the real world, to what the rest of the population want or believe. The sooner the sanity returns, the better.

Not that it ever will.

Re:LOL

[Ihmhi]

Or the Wikipedia admins who delete a page about a word that didn't exist until yesterday?

The thing that's (supposed) to be nice about Wikipedia is that it can create new pages regarding the latest and greatest stuff.

Read a subject specific wiki that isn't a part of Wikipedia (like Memory Alpha or Wookiepedia) and you're not going to see any of that [citation needed] or notability bullshit that gives the delitionists a rock hard boner. Honestly, is bandwidth and disk storage that expensive nowadays that you can't be an inclusionist entity?

Re:LOL

[TheLink]

A few tags don't bother me at all. I'm fine with that. That's usually proper use of the tag.

But a dozen or so tags in one section/paragraph is usually an indication that the tagger is doing something wrong[1]. The tagger should instead tag the entire section with: "This section may contain original research or unverified claims." and then take the whole thing to the talk page.

[1] When that happens, if you go and check the history or talk page, usually one or more are fighting some sort of personal war. And to the "wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a repo of OR/trivia" folks, guess what, encyclopedias should not be littered with [citation please] tags.

Re:LOL

[TheLink]

Actually I have no idea whatever happens to my edits, I don't track them. I don't have an account, so when I ever edit it's anonymously (minor corrections or whatever), and if the wikipedants don't like it, it's up to them.

However when I'm looking stuff up, I sometimes look at the talk pages and history, and from what I see the wiki-culture is alive but not so well...

Re:LOL

[MadUndergrad]

That's not true. I created that page when I was drunk. How can you accuse me of taking myself too seriously?

Re:LOL

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

A small measure of dignity perhaps?

We're talking about an encyclopaedia that has an entry for Autofellatio (NSFW). I think that's all that really needs to be said about the custodians of quality on the site.

Re:LOL

[dangitman]

Have you seen those pages vandalized with dozens of [citation please]?

What really shits me is those articles that have nearly every fucking common word linked to another Wikipedia article.

Seriously, we can search Wikipedia for words we don't understand. They should only be links if the term is specialized or specifically relates to the article.

Re:LOL

[CyprusBlue113]

Or in goverment offices that are not at the top of the chain

Re:LOL

[Chuq]

Are you sure you don't have that the other way around? Wikipedia admins think that a one off joke about Wikipedia is NOT notable enough to warrant a whole article. It seems they are placing Wikipedia's self importance at a lower level than what those creating the article do?

Re:LOL

[imthesponge]

So you're implying that Wikipedia should be censored for "gross" things, right?

Re:LOL

[Aceticon]

By reading the discussion on Wikipedia the impression that I have is that it suffers from a huge problem of "Petty Dictatorships".

A "Petty Dictatorship" is when you have somebody who gets a small power (say, a bouncer in a nightclub) and then proceeds to exercise it against other on any chance they have, probably because it makes them feel powerful.

Certainly, many of the Wikipedia admins on the discussion page seem to be being obstructionist for the sake of being obstructionisy (while hidding behind vague concepts - like notoriety - and obscure references to Wikipedia rules).

Re:LOL

[mdwh2]

Indeed - and if only that was all they did. But there's usually someone who'll add an XKCD "In Popular Culture" reference to just about every single topic that a strip covers.

The particularly sad thing is I don't think they got the message of XKCD's "In Popular Culture" Wood strip...

Re:LOL

[mdwh2]

Wait - you're claiming that deleting an article about a non-existent word makes Wikipedia unreliable?

if you use Wikipedia as any sort of authoritative reference, you're an idiot.

Yeah right, obviously Wikipedia would be much better if they included articles on made up words. Obviously those authoritative references like Britannica and the OED have entries for words that XKCD only just made up.

(Nice to see you prefer ad-hominems to reason, by the way.)

Re:LOL

[mdwh2]

The problem is not the cost, the problem is of including unreliable information, and misleadingly presenting made up words as having any notability or relevant to an encyclopedia.

Ironically, the very thing that the OP was also criticising Wikipedia for. He actually thinks that Wikipedia would be more "authoritative" if it included made up words from XKCD!

Re:LOL

[mdwh2]

The sad thing is that Wikipedia gets criticism from both sides.

In the real world, the fact that a joke article like this is found on Wikipedia is a reason to criticise and mock it.

Yet among the geek world, suddenly Wikipedia is also bad if they remove an article on joke topics, just because they're obsessed fanatics of XKCD (I like XKCD too, but let's not take a joke seriously). Ironically, you get people who even try to have it both ways - like the OP, who actually thinks that Wikipedia would be more authoritative by including joke articles on made up terms from XKCD!

Re:LOL

[BobMcD]

Well, it is only a problem if you want Wikipedia to be 'the' online encyclopedia. If you're looking at it as though it were something that would stand on its own merits, then you're absolutely right. Non-issue.

Re:LOL

[Blakey Rat]

Your first recommendation assumes its the responsibility of the editor to be an expert in every article. It's not. The contributors are responsible for doing the research,

Two points:
1) There's no concept of ownership on Wikipedia, so the "editor" (as you call them) owns the article as much as anybody.
2) In theory, everything posted to Wikipedia is look-up-able, so the "editor" is just as capable of looking up the factoid as anybody else

The reason editors shit [citation needed] tags all over is because they're lazy. It's a good way to appear to be fixing articles without actually doing any actual work... after all, looking up citations might involve getting their fat ass off the office chair and going to a library! Gasp!

the editors are merely there to make sure the final article is of good quality.

And adding [citation needed] tags increases the quality... how?

Oh right, it doesn't. It actually hugely decreases the quality substantially. All the possible crap is still in the article, but now it's hard-to-read as well. WHAT AN IMPROVEMENT!

On the other hand, if you just up and delete, that must mean that you know it's wrong.

No, what I'm saying is that a real "editor" (instead of someone who's just pretending to edit) would try to look up the factoid, and delete it if they can't find a reference-- without ever adding a [citation needed] tag.

If they come to the article, and they're too lazy to look up the factoid so they shit tags all over, they're not contributing to the project. It's just adding noise.

I think the biggest problem with wikipedia are the people deleting shit. If it's vandalism, delete it. If you know for sure that something is wrong, and can post the factual information with citations, then delete it.

I actually agree with you.

But since the Wikipedia elite have already decided to be deletionists, they might as well do it properly and consistently.

The website you and I want doesn't exist, and never will at the "wikipedia.org" domain. After all, if Wales added pop culture articles that people want to read, how would he get money from Wikia.com? He might have to get a job!

I'm not sure why the tags would bother anyone, even if they are up there for six years.

Real encyclopedias, which is the example Wikipedia is trying to follow, don't have little annoying tags after every fucking sentence.

Re:LOL

[LateArthurDent]

Absolutely, I agree with you. I was replying to the other guy who gave me the impression he hated the tag in general.

In fact, the whole, "wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a repo of trivia" folks are the ones that I was railing against when I mentioned that the problem are the people who just delete information. Just because that one editor doesn't think the information is useful, doesn't mean nobody else does.

In my opinion, Wikipedia should be a repository of all knowledge, and the only criteria the editors should have are organization and correctness issues. If the information is correct and organized in such a form that is easy to get to and understand, it stays.

Re:LOL

[LateArthurDent]

1) There's no concept of ownership on Wikipedia, so the "editor" (as you call them) owns the article as much as anybody.

It's not about ownership, it's about the role you take on when you edit an article. I don't see why you would think that just because anyone can edit the text, there's no place for a traditional editor role in wikipedia. In fact, I would say that's a very important role.

2) In theory, everything posted to Wikipedia is look-up-able, so the "editor" is just as capable of looking up the factoid as anybody else

Alright. I don't know if you're an engineer or in some other profession where your mathematics and control background is strong enough to understand this article, but let's assume you're not. Do you think that you'd be able to just look up information online and start verifying the mathematical equations and explanations?

I expect that your answer to that would be along the lines of, "if you don't understand the article, you shouldn't be editing at all," but I think you'd be wrong. In fact, as a grad student I frequently visited my school's English Center and had them help me with my engineering papers before I submitted them to be published. They couldn't understand the technical matter, but they were great at helping me with proper phrasing, organization, and yes, they even sometimes asked, "where did you get this information? Did it come directly from your research, or can you cite a reference for it?". They most certainly improved the quality of my papers.

And adding [citation needed] tags increases the quality... how?

It reminds other people reading the article that the information is unsourced. The original person who wrote the information might have overlooked the fact that the particular section needed a reference, considering it common knowledge, since he's in the field. It gives other readers of the article who might know a reference to that factoid an easy way to contribute to wikipedia...that's just what came immediately to mind, if I spent another 5 minutes on it, I could probably come up with ten or so other things.

No, what I'm saying is that a real "editor" (instead of someone who's just pretending to edit) would try to look up the factoid, and delete it if they can't find a reference-- without ever adding a [citation needed] tag.

If you write a textbook, your editor will most certainly not do any research for you. He will most certainly tell you when you need additional references. It's not the same job, and "because it's an the internet and anyone can write what they want" doesn't mean that job is obsoleted. It just means you can have multiple writers, multiple editors, and you get to choose which role you play when you contribute.

But since the Wikipedia elite have already decided to be deletionists, they might as well do it properly and consistently....The website you and I want doesn't exist, and never will at the "wikipedia.org" domain.

I'm not sure how doing the wrong thing consistently is better than doing the right think every once in a while. But yeah, it disappoints me that the deletionists tend to rule the wikipedia mindset for now. I have hopes that this might change.

Real encyclopedias, which is the example Wikipedia is trying to follow, don't have little annoying tags after every fucking sentence.

That's because they're not user-editable. You can be sure that the article writers got messages back from their editors with [citation needed] equivalents.

Re:LOL

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

It's true you would only use it for a starting point -- but that in itself is actually fairly important. Just having that starting point can save you hours of digging.

Re:LOL

[AthanasiusKircher]

Wikipedia has made me hate those two words. Not because citing sources is bad, but Wikipedia has turned it into a parody. If you look at a real encyclopedia, it will contain a rather original text written in encyclopedic style. If you took such an article and pasted into Wikipedia you'd get dozens of [citation needed] because not every other sentence has one. Meanwhile you can pretty much load it with all the bias you want just by using biased sources despite the NPOV policy.

I absolutely agree with this. The current policy makes it really hard to fight internet memes dealing with obscure topics, for example. There are some things that get discussed a lot on the internet, but mainstream scholarly views aren't as easy to find online, either because no real scholar much cares about the topic or because the standard interpretation is taken to be so self-evident that no scholar ever questions it. On Wikipedia, though, online sources tend to be the most common citations. If you're lucky, you might be able to find some readily available print resource with the right information, if you're unlucky, you might not even be able to find that... particularly if it's an assumption that scholars simply take for granted.

I've seen completely wacky ideas remain part of Wikipedia articles for many years, and when someone would come along and try to question them, they'd be shouted down by a bunch of editors who believed it because the article had always been that way. Outside of mainstream science and math, most obscure disciplines have lacked a lot of expert editors until the past 2-3 years, so there's still a lot of this crap in articles on history, the arts, etc.

If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[2obvious4u]

If by today's you mean yesterday's... How about xkcd number 739 published on Wednesday 5/13 introduced ...

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[2obvious4u]

From the TFA - This is what I was looking for yesterday when I checked the wikipage:

Malapropism means to use a word in place of another word that makes the same sound, but doesn’t deliver an appropriate meaning, for example, odorous for odious, comprehended for apprehended and auspicious for suspicious and benefactors for malefactors. All these are Malapropos of each other. Now the second word portmanteau means to merge two words with each other in such a way that the sounds of the two words become merged as well as their meanings. In this case malamanteau is a portmanteau of portmanteau and Malapropism, whereas malamanteau is also a Malapropos of portmanteau. The meaning of the new word is still to be created properly.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a very hirsute observation.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[SpeedyDX]

Some readers at the XKCD forums pointed out that the term may have originated from this MetaFilter thread back in 2007:

[blockquote]It's not spoonerism. More like a portmanteau combined with a malapropism. So I'd go with malamanteau or a portmanpropism.
posted by ludwig_van at 3:31 PM on July 17, 2007[/blockquote]

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[catmistake]

for example, odorous for odious, comprehended for apprehended and auspicious for suspicious and benefactors for malefactors.

I have a young cousin that loves to talk... and he does this all the time, nearly every other sentence he is using the wrong word for what he's talking about, yet it isn't difficult to understand what he's saying. I've noticed this more often on the reality shows (when I catch glimpses on talk soup), the reality stars are constantly doing that, replacing the wrong word for the word they mean.

What is a person that suffers from this linguistical malady called? There must be a more clinical and less pejorative term than 'idiot.'

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[kent_eh]

I've noticed this more often on the reality shows (when I catch glimpses on talk soup), the reality stars are constantly doing that, replacing the wrong word for the word they mean.

What is a person that suffers from this linguistical malady called? There must be a more clinical and less pejorative term than 'idiot.'

In the case of "reality" shows and daytime talk TV, I expect there is no more accurate word than idiot.
Who cares about pejorative? The truth hurts.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[Zerth]

What is a person that suffers from this linguistical malady called? There must be a more clinical and less pejorative term than 'idiot.'

I suppose you could backform from malapropism(the act) to malapropist(the person committing the act).

The original committer of these acts was Mrs. Malaprop, but people seem to use "malaprop" as the noun for the specific mistake instead of the person.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[kamochan]

Semantically challenged?

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[Kiaser Zohsay]

What is a person that suffers from this linguistical malady called? There must be a more clinical and less pejorative term than 'idiot.'

If you do it while singing, its called Chronic Lyricosis.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[rvw]

That's a very hirsute observation.

I pronose to subquit Malamantish as a new lanquish.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[need4mospd]

Quite cromulent as well.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[misexistentialist]

It's mostly due to getting most of one's vocabulary from infrequently heard words and never seeing them in print, so you could call them illiterates. Where this is not literally true, "ignoramus" would suffice, though as family your cousin is probably best described as "young" unless he resists correction, in which case "idiot" is indeed accurate.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[Jeremy Erwin]

The meaning of the new word is still to be created properly.

Psuedofluent. adj. Almost, but not quite fluent in a language.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[Arancaytar]

Malamanteau is not only a portmanteau of the neologisms "malapropism" and "portmanteau" and a malapropism of "portmanteau", it is, of course, a neologism for a malapropistic portmanteau as well.

Gah. My head is spinning more than it did after this strip.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[MadUndergrad]

You're doing the same thing the "idiots" are. You're being imprecise in your language. Why don't you find the proper word to express what they are?

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[caluml]

See if you can download Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show from somewhere. He's a funny old guy from the north of England, who talks like that.

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[kent_eh]

By making one up?

Re:If by today's you mean yesterday's...

[casio282]

Ha! Of course it's a ludwig_van. Love that guy.

Best. Joke. Ever.

[CAIMLAS]

This is the best example of why XKCD is an awesome web comic - a modern "funny" - I've seen in some time. In fact, I'd argue the societal commentary is often better - more cutting and intelligent - than you'll find most anywhere else (WSJ included). It's not always just "geeky" stuff, though Little Johny Normalization is a great example in that department, too.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

XKCD isn't funny per se. Most of them are like "Huh yeah, cool story bro"

Posted AC because xkcd has 10^3 kg of fanboys.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[bertoelcon]

Posted AC because xkcd has 10^3 kg of fanboys.

1000 kg is only a dozen people though.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[abigor]

Posted AC because xkcd has 10^3 kg of fanboys.

So that's like what, eight or nine Slashdotters.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Goaway]

All right then, since you find it so funny, could you explain the joke to me?

Because I have absolutely no idea what the joke is in the line "Ever notice how Wikipedia has a few words it really likes?", or even what it is trying to say. No, I haven't noticed Wikipedia having any words it particularly likes, whatever that means, and I have no idea what that has to do with a made-up funny word?

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[alexhs]

Little Johny Normalization is a great example in that department, too.

It's Little Bobby Tables, actually.

Fun fact (for some values of fun):

Searching for "Little Johny Normalization xkcd" without quotes on google points to this thread for the first result (congratulations !), and the correct xkcd page as the second result, which contains only xkcd (and little, but as an image): These search terms are highlighted: xkcd These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: little johny normalization.

Searching for the same on bing points to the same first result, but the xkcd page is nowhere to be seen.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[EdIII]

Posted AC because xkcd has 10^3 kg of fanboys.

1000 kg is only a dozen people though.

Or 5 Slashdotters in their mother's basement?

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Kiaser Zohsay]

All right then, since you find it so funny, could you explain the joke to me?

Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better when you're done, but the frog dies.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Tetsujin]

Posted AC because xkcd has 10^3 kg of fanboys.

1000 kg is only a dozen people though.

Maybe AC is more clever than you think... Maybe he was simultaneously ripping on XKCD for being fat, and saying that there's hardly any of them at all?

(Or, then again, maybe he just has no concept of powers of ten...)

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Tetsujin]

Posted AC because xkcd has 10^3 kg of fanboys.

So that's like what, eight or nine Slashdotters.

Or your mom.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Tetsujin]

Noticing that an encyclopedia likes two words.

Yes, biting social commentary.

Not every good piece of comedy is biting social commentary. Not every XKCD strip is biting social commentary. grandparent post's point was that social commentary was often among the strip's strengths...

In this case - I think it's one of those observations that probably could have been turned into a funny joke, but this time around in XKCD it was pretty much just presented as an observation...

I do think Wikipedia has a real hard-on for "portmanteau" at least.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[corbettw]

Or 6 sysadmins.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[bennomatic]

Johnny Normalization? Don't remember him. Are you thinking of Bobby Tables?

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[canajin56]

Ummm, you must not read many non-technical pages, if you haven't seen Malapropism, Portmanteau, and Neologism a billion times each. Also, Wikipedia is itself a portmanteau of wiki and encyclopedia, with wiki being both a very recent neologism, and also, a loanword from Hawaiian.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Humus B. Chittenbee]

@AC - I absolutely love C&H.

That said, what is done there is what is done in nearly all good humor/comics [including xkcd] -i.e. taking a shared experience and presenting it as viewed from a new angle. [We all have made or know about making snowmen - but Calvin!? I love his ability to take that 'simple' activity and use it as a medium to discourse on childhood/adulthood/angst/etc.] OTOH - Many people do not find Dilbert at all funny [or understand why some others find it funny], having never worked in a similar office setting.

You say "It is no longer about funny things, and more Randall's Personal Weblog In Pictures!" - he is supposed to write/draw about things he has not learned/experienced/observed?

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[twidarkling]

"What's the deal with airline peanuts?!"

That's damn near the exact same joke as the XKCD strip in question. Just rephrase it slightly to:

"What's the deal with Wikipedia and certain words?!"

If you're stooping to Seinfeldian-stand up materials, you're really starting to hit the bottom of the barrel.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[mooingyak]

with wiki being both a very recent neologism, and also, a loanword from Hawaiian.

It's not a loanword. English stole it and has no plans to give it back. It's a theftword.

Although on further thought it's not stolen as Hawaiian still has the word... it's a copyright infringeword.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[PitaBred]

So you're saying you liked XKCD before it got popular, but now that it's popular it sucks? Lemme guess... you like indie bands, too?

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[BenFenner]

+4 Informative for a "your mom" joke. =D

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason XKCD has gone down in quality. It is no longer about funny things

Right. It has gone down in quality due to being no longer about funny things.

So, basically, you think it needs to go back to those good old days where Randall dealt with such hilarity as spiders crawling on cubes, or some kid floating in a barrel, or drawings of flowers.

XKCD has never been about being funny all the time. If anything, it's funny now more often than it used to be. Basically, it's just silliness geared toward nerds. Always has been, and still is.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think you're talking about Little Bobby Tables:

http://xkcd.com/327/

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Miseph]

6, tops. And that's only if you hax and get all 5 skinny nerds in the sample size.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[mjwx]

1000 kg is only a dozen people though.

Or 1.6666 Americans, using the Clarkson scale.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[sartin]

Many people do not find Dilbert at all funny [or understand why some others find it funny], having never worked in a similar office setting.

Actually, I used to find Dilbert hilariously funny when I worked in a similar environment. Then I spent 2-1/2 years consulting at one of the RBOCs, and realized Scott Adams was not actually funny - he was just reporting what literally happened at work.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[MadUndergrad]

I used to find Dilbert hilarious as a kid, but now that I work in an office I die a little inside every time something reminds me of it. They're about to move us to the basement...

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[_Sprocket_]

So you're saying you liked XKCD before it got popular, but now that it's popular it sucks? Lemme guess... you like indie bands, too?

I hate all indie bands. Just in case.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Goaway]

Well, it is a shame, but we will just have to sacrifice this frog, then.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Goaway]

So the joke is that encyclopedia writers use words that categorize words a lot?

That's not really "Best. Joke. Ever:" material, I'm thinking.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Goaway]

Those are words I would expect to see a lot in an encyclopedia. I'm still not sure why this is a joke.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[hedwards]

Hey, I heard that the Velvet Underground is really cool. But surprisingly nobody else knows about them...

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Nesman64]

I used to like indie bands, but they suck now. Now it's all about preschoolers with xylophones.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[CAIMLAS]

It's not a "joke" in the traditional sense. There's a turn of phrase for what you'd classify this type of humor, but I can't recall what it is.

What makes it funny is that it's a humorous abortion of something we (some people) encounter in every-day life - it's hyperbolic. It takes the benign and exaggerates it to the point of absurdity, making people realize how absurd the benign is. At its crudest level, it's similar to something like stickdeath.com (that still around?) Far Side does this (commenting on the social events of dinosaurs, single cell organisms, etc.); Calvin and Hobbes did this (his wild forays into imagination).

Case in point: http://xkcd.com/705/

Yes, it's got a substantial cultural reference. But it just happens that I read this on a day after a marathon of "omg it's broken" and Die Hard is my favorite movie. So I laughed, because I could relate and the context soothed my soul.

Humor is funny: not everyone thinks the same thing qualifies as either.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Goaway]

I don't see any hyperbole in this comic, though. I just see a non-sequitur.

Re:Best. Joke. Ever.

[Liquid Len]

And this get modded informative. Only on Slashdot...

Love at first read.

[G2GAlone]

And this is why I love xkcd. Revolutionizing the way we think about things with comics.

Re:Love at first read.

[0racle]

This is also why Wikipedia should never be considered a good source of information. It's like two birds with one stone, a biavianlith if you will.

And now I need to go to go make a wiki page on biavianliths.

Re:Love at first read.

[jollyreaper]

This is also why Wikipedia should never be considered a good source of information. It's like two birds with one stone, a biavianlith if you will.

I know what two girls can do with a cup, don't know if a stone can make it much worse.

Re:Love at first read.

[Red Flayer]

I know what two girls can do with a cup, don't know if a stone can make it much worse.

You cannot squeeze blood from a stone, though two birds in a bush may have a cup that runneth over.

Does that help any?

Re:Love at first read.

[rvw]

This is also why Wikipedia should never be considered a good source of information. It's like two birds with one stone, a biavianlith if you will.

I know what two girls can do with a cup, don't know if a stone can make it much worse.

That would make a real hit! No shit.

Jorge Luis Borges

[Kupfernigk]

Salute your spiritual heir, xkcd.

The library is witness to both truth and falsehood
I'd check the quotation properly in my translation, but currently it's hiding somewhere in L-space, probably afraid to come out.

Re:Jorge Luis Borges

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Slashdot is probably that last place on the Internet that I'd expect to see quotes from Borges.

I'd need to restore a backup of my mind from 1983, but my favorite was something like:

The King outlawed fornication and mirrors, because both doubled the amount of idiots in his country

The most scary part is the number of googleresults

[TheSunborn]

I still think that the most scary(And interesting) part is that google now have 152,000 hits for the word. So a: Google is fast at picking up new words. It really generated a lot of interest and there are quite some spammers with some effective automatic page generation systems.

Real Power

[thepike]

And people say kids these days put too much stock in wikipedia. Come on, they won't even let an undefined word be added even after it clearly becomes defined by xkcd.

Now the power to change google search results, make new words, and cause spontaneous gatherings at random locations. That's power that only stick figures can be trusted with.

Re:Real Power

[Anonymous Coward]

cause spontaneous gatherings at random locations

Influencing Doctor Who storylines too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_arcs_in_Doctor_Who#Cracks_in_the_universe

Re:Real Power

[syntaxeater]

Spurious, semantic definitions for ontological terms isn't something the web supports... Yet.

Re:Real Power

[Areyoukiddingme]

Spontaneous. The strip ended by actually discouraging people from going to that location at that time. A bunch of people decided to do it anyway, independently of each other and directly contrary to the advice in the strip. If the strip had said "for a good time, go here", then it wasn't spontaneous. But it said the opposite.

ROFLCOPTER!!!!!

[quatin]

If ROFLCOPTER is cited in Wikipedia then so can malamanteau.

Re:ROFLCOPTER!!!!!

[spun]

Dude, that's a user page. Anyone can put up anything on their user page.

Re:ROFLCOPTER!!!!!

[PitaBred]

And in case anyone still thinks Wikipedia should be authoritative for anything, I quote from the linked wiki page, at 3:07pm MST:

Origins

The term ROFLcopter originated on forums such as Fark, and meant a newbie who continuously spouted faux-l33t h4x acronyms such as ROFL ("rolling on floor, laughing").

Still another is that a Counter-Strike map included a helicopter emblazoned with ROFL, but this probably alludes to the Something Awful usage.

Another one is from the popular machinima "Arby n' the chief", where in one episode the Chief says:"My ROFLcopter goes SOI SOI SOI".

Also more recently in some circles the use of roflcopter has been used to convey such amusement that the individual is "rolling on floor laughing" whilst spinning their penis round in circles thus indicating the heli "copter", this is of course only used in cases of excessive amusement as it may cause offence when used in public.

Re:ROFLCOPTER!!!!!

[imthesponge]

As has been pointed out already, that's a user page, not an article. A userpage can contain things that are unsuitable for an article.

Re:ROFLCOPTER!!!!!

[moonbender]

To quote the uncle (aunt?) post: Dude, that's a user page. Anyone can put up anything on their user page.

I Love xkcd

[invalid216]

he's so clever :P

I guess..

[malkavian]

He was wearing his black hat on Wednesday then.. :)
Silent hammers be damned, the invisible Wikipedia page trumps all the rest of the practical jokes..

Re:This is news?

[Jeng]

It might not be important, but it is still news.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News

Serves them right

[Sir.Cracked]

It serves them right for deleting all that porn. Karma's a bitch!

NOT BBC NEWS!

[molo]

The link in TFA: http://www.bbcnewsamerica.com/malamanteau-wikipedia.html

This site does not appear to be related to BBC News, it is actually registered to a guy in Pakistan:

Domain Name: BBCNEWSAMERICA.COM

Registrant:
        Digghost.net
        Shahbaz Ali (info@digghost.net)
        DHA Lahore
        Lahore
        Punjab,54000
        PK
        Tel. +092.3218830642

Creation Date: 16-Feb-2010

For reference, BBC World News America has this website:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/default.stm

-molo

Re:NOT BBC NEWS!

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Unfortunately, I only realised this mistake after I posted the submission. This particular story has in fact been copied around an endless list of such spam sites, but I was totally unable to find the original source, so I couldn't make a proper submission update in time. It'd probably be best if the link was taken out of the story altogether as the site linked to is essentially plagarising whoever initially wrote it.

Re:NOT BBC NEWS!

[RabbitWho]

I was just thinking that, I mean BBC would never be so unprofessional (I hope). The "article" was even copied and pasted from somewhere else. Loads of poor quality little websites made articles about Malamanteau yesterday to try and cash in on the fact it was the 4th most searched topic in Google trends in the hours following the posting of the comic.

Re:NOT BBC NEWS!

[Chardish]

I thought this was blindingly obvious based on the fact that the author of TFA is clearly a pseudonym, there's a very low hit counter at the bottom, and the web design looks like it's from six years ago. Slashdot editors must be out to lunch on this one.

Re:NOT BBC NEWS!

[alvinrod]

It's okay. This is Slashdot. No one reads the actual article anyhow.

wikipedians, take a chill pill

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

"whose meaning is defined via the Wikipedia page for that word"

it's not. it's defined by xkcd _pretending_ that it's defined by wikipedia.

now, wikipedians, chill out. IIRC, there's an entry on the wikipedia's rules saying that you can throw away all the rules if appropriate. this is one instance where this could be use, so stop being so anal about it, include the fucking word and move on.

munroe is trying to throw a classic mind fuck on you guys. the more you bitch and moan, the more childish you look, which will have the effect of every cartoonist out there trying to do the same. every kid in the world knows that it's a lot funnier to poke the bitchy guy, and everyone knows the best thing to counter is to just ignore.

Re:wikipedians, take a chill pill

[JustinOpinion]

every kid in the world knows that it's a lot funnier to poke the bitchy guy, and everyone knows the best thing to counter is to just ignore.

Well you can either ignore people by giving them what they've whining to get... or you can ignore them by sticking to your principles and not budging.

Wikipedia is supposed to be a collection of solid, sourced information. It's not supposed to be "a source of solid, sourced information... except when it's funny not to be!"

So Wikipedia is trying to stick to their principles and not let an entry degenerate into something funny but ultimately confusing. The only proper way to actually maintain the entry is to explain the origin and popularization of the word (specifically, that it is a word mentioned in an xkcd comic). Their current solution, a redirect to the entry on xkcd, seems reasonable until the term gains further notability and there's something to actually write about in the entry.

now, wikipedians, chill out. IIRC, there's an entry on the wikipedia's rules saying that you can throw away all the rules if appropriate.

The problem with the "chill out" argument is that the perpetrator of every joke-edit and piece of vandalism would like Wikipedia to "chill out"--but to allow all those joke entries to accumulate would seriously harm the quality and credibility of Wikipedia as a whole. Why does your joke-edit warrant the "throw away the rules" exception but all the other joke-edits do not? The fair and proper solution is to not allow joke-content, and to stick to Wikipedia's principles.

So, really, I think it is the joke purveyors (well-meaning vandals?) who should chill out, and accept that the jokes they are interested in do not warrant the "throw away the rules" exception.

Re:wikipedians, take a chill pill

[Securityemo]

No, the best counter is to "gracefully sidestep", but it's often misunderstood as "ignore". However, if you fail in this (which wikipedia now officially has), the next best counter is a swift sucker punch where it hurts. Unfortunately.

Re:wikipedians, take a chill pill

[BobMcD]

Wikipedia is supposed to be a collection of solid, sourced information.

I'd do a 'citation' joke here, but it's just too damn easy.

Wikipedia may or may not 'supposed to' be this. But it isn't. It is, at best, a loose collection of individual best efforts that may or may not have accessible sources at the bottom of the article.

Which goes back to the original advice about not being too full of oneself...

Re:wikipedians, take a chill pill

[CapnStank]

If Munroe is a troll then follow the rules. Stop feeding the Troll. He'll keep doing it as long as you* keep reacting.

*I say "you" not as a personal attack but meaning a generic finger-point to everyone getting up in a fluff over this.

Re:wikipedians, take a chill pill

[steelfood]

Wikipedia is supposed to be a collection of information.

There, fixed that for you.

The "solid, sourced" part is a relatively recent invention, conceived only after the people who run Wikipedia started to take themselves too seriously.

Wikipedia, being a "Free Encyclopedia" that's supposedly editable by anyone, isn't what you or any select group of individuals think it is. It is what the users think it is. And no matter how hard you try to force the "solid, sourced" part onto the user base, it's just not going to happen unless the users agree. Quite frankly, from the majority of the readers and potential contributors, they don't. So the more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

Their current solution, a redirect to the entry on xkcd, seems reasonable until the term gains further notability and there's something to actually write about in the entry.

The current solution, which should've been what happened in the first place, only came about because of the huge backlash at the page being deleted. Twice

Said admin should've been demoted or otherwise chastised for abuse of power, but no such thing has happened. When admins can do whatever they want with no negative consequence regardless of action, then you know there's an institutional problem present. And when you see that happen in real life, it's quite possibly time to jump ship.

Re:The most scary part is the number of googleresu

[yotto]

The answer is "Both"

Google is amazing at indexing new pages, especially if you know what you're doing.
Spammers are amazing at getting pages out quickly with "hot" words on them. And when it comes to getting those pages indexed, they know what they're doing.

Wikipedia Is Not Amused by Entry For xkcd-Coined W

[hellraizer]

i wonder if they even read the damn thing .... i did ...seemed pretty good :P

Objectionatory XKCD link:

[odd42]

http://xkcd.com/739/

would someone put up a wikipedia page for me?

[circletimessquare]

for the word

temppot

or

teapest

Re:would someone put up a wikipedia page for me?

[rubycodez]

I think you have your mixaphores metas

this is not new

[pilgrim23]

There is a possibly apocryphal tale of two gentlemen in England int he 18th century who made a bet that in 48 hours a new word could be entered into the English Language. One found every ragged street urchin in London, handed him some chalk and showed him how to write "quiz". Soon Graffiti adorned every wall and park bench and by the next day it was on every lip.

Re:this is not new

[Jhyrryl]

[citation needed]

Re:this is not new

[Jhyrryl]

[citation found]

Re:this is not new

[soliptic]

Here you go.

Protip: this was the first result of googling "etymology quiz", which is actually 3 fewer characters to type than "[citation needed]".

Re:this is not new

[D Ninja]

Unfortunately, the story itself does not appear to be a real one (although, it is a cool story). http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-qui1.htm

Re:this is not new

[theillien]

Protip: Speaking of people that take themselves too seriously, you may have missed the point.

Re:this is not new

[not-my-real-name]

What part of "possibly apocryphal tale" are you having trouble with. He already said that its veracity is questionable. For the record, I have also heard the same tale.

Re:this is not new

[UnixUnix]

Such an idea is part of the plot in Tom Stoppard's "Lord Malquist and Mr. Moon". A very amusing book!

QFTD.

[bmo]

"Your obscure Pokemon obsession is no more valid than my XKCD fetish" - Anonymous

--
BMO

Re:QFTD.

[gr3kgr33n]

http://xkcd.com/178/

The problem...

[KingSkippus]

The problem isn't really with xkcd. The problem is that there are tens of thousands of idiots out there who think they're as funny as xkcd. If the Wikipedia administrators only had to deal with the once-in-a-blue-moon comic vandalism by Randall Munroe or Stephen Colbert, this would be a non-issue. Unfortunately, when these idiots take it upon themselves to try to convince their buddies that they are as funny as the people who really are funny, it makes life awful difficult for people trying to maintain a useful site.

I'm GLAD they take themselves seriously. If we didn't have folks working on behalf of Wikipedia that did, looking up information on anything would be precisely as useful and informative as looking up information on malamanteau.

Re:The problem...

[tsm_sf]

I'd say that being able to create a reference page for a brand new word is probably one of the strengths of wikipedia.

And nobody sees the irony in commenting on a page's lack of notability?

Re:The problem...

[mujadaddy]

The problem isn't really with xkcd. The problem is that there are tens of thousands of idiots out there who think they're as funny as xkcd.

In my experience, those idiots are correct.

Who'd've ever thought that a stick figure comic would be guilty of trying too hard?

Re:The problem...

[Monkeedude1212]

No one is saying its XKCD's fault. I think just about everyone on slashdot would agree that since XKCD has poked fun at Wikipedia time and time and time and time and time again, that the comic has a reputation for this kind of thing and shouldn't catch anyone off guard.

The only thing that should have been unexpected was people flooding to Wikipedia to look it up, (in which case, Randall would have expected it surely, but not Wikipedia). Its not like it crashed the servers, people just got ridiculous about what it should say, and as such, the fault lies on those stupid individuals.

Had I coined a new word on Urban Dictionary, and it caught on, and people flooded Wikipedia as well to look it up, would I be blamed? I sure hope not.

Re:The problem...

[Anonymous Coward]

The OP sounds like a Wikinazi to me.

Re:The problem...

[interkin3tic]

The problem isn't really with xkcd. The problem is that there are tens of thousands of idiots out there who think they're as funny as xkcd.

While I agree that unfunny idiots are a problem, I don't see how -this current event- is a "problem." Whether or not the made up word is on wikipedia, it doesn't matter one bit. I suppose there are some editors who have made it their mission in life to keep wikipedia "pure" or something like that, but there is no -real- problem here.

Re:The problem...

[bennomatic]

I see the irony, especially because this is all regarding a perfectly cromulent word.

Re:The problem...

[gbjbaanb]

No one is saying its XKCD's fault. I think just about everyone on slashdot would agree that since XKCD has poked fun at Wikipedia time [xkcd.com] and time [xkcd.com] and time [xkcd.com] and time [xkcd.com] and time [xkcd.com] again

oh sh*t. Maths, you should be worried.

Re:The problem...

[Mike Buddha]

So the wikifiddlers can't tell the difference between xkcd and tens of thousands of idiots? They must suck.

Guess what? Those hoards of knuckle draggers can still mess with wikiality even if xkcd is purged.

As a matter of fact, those hoards of idiots might start right here, and rally anyone who wants to to sign on to be wikifiddlers right now and start changing things as a mildly amusing protest to the hegemony of the current self-righteous idiots.

Re:The problem...

[Ihmhi]

Insulting xkcd on Slashdot? You, sir, are a brave man. You may as well talk shit about Linux and Richard Stallman while you're at it. After all, if your karma is gonna go down the shitter you may as well make it worth it!

Re:The problem...

[KingSkippus]

...And this is why we can't ever have anything nice.

Hair Trigger

[trurl7]

I haven't followed the Decline and Fall of Wikipedia Editing Standards melodrama in close detail, but it seem that more and more agenda-pushing axe-grinders are dominating the editing process. To some extent, I think xkcd is culturally more significant than wikipedia - xkcd creates; wikipedia catalogues, and not quite impartially at that. It can be replaced, if not in immediate recognition, then certainly by any ambitious community builder (behold the glory of open source). I do hope Wikipedia's editors acquire at least enough humour and humility to recognize that their institution is not beyond, or above, a little gentle teasing before that turns into genuine vitriol-fueled outrage. Admittedly, it may already be too late.

Re:Hair Trigger

[twidarkling]

I don't think they care about teasing, but XKCD fans continually vandalize pages. Any time *anything* is even *tangentially* mentioned on XKCD, within minutes you have morons trying to edit related pages to add in the XKCD reference. It creates a lot of bullshit work for them, and by this point in time, I wouldn't be surprised if Wikipedia just auto-reverted any edit that mentioned XKCD. After years of bullshit from XKCD fans, I'm not surprised they don't have a sense of humour about this any more.

screw wikipedia

[bsDaemon]

So, I use Wikipedia on a daily basis for quick reference and as a jumping point to the sources. However, as a community/culture, I think its really just sort of gotten out of hand. Arguing for pages and pages about something which is really sort of inconsequential? Who do they think they are, Slashdot? (but seriously...). I first realized a few years ago that there was no point in trying to actually participate when I watched a revision war/flame fest between some random Swedish guy and an exchange student friend of mine who was from Georgia (the country), over stuff in the Georgia article. J. Random Swede decided that being born in a country, growing up there, and having had 20+ years of first-hand experience wasn't good enough to contribue some relatively minor points to the article, iirc. It turned into quite the little bru-ha-ha between Soso (my friend) and that guy, who wasn't exactly a Slavic languages and culture scholar himself, either. There is some value in wikipedia, but not enough to justify a bunch of bored, pissed-off nerds thumping around like some stiff-collar Britannica editors at the East India Club.

Re:screw wikipedia

[EkriirkE]

I've had a few pages deleted for being "non notable". While that may be true on a large scale, burying obscurities is never a good thing.
One page about a particular spyware was scrubbed completely (no history) and redirected to the general page for "Spyware" - all that work people put together on it was gone and the aspies at wikipedia refused to revive even the historical info.

Re:screw wikipedia

[Renevith]

First-hand experience is not appropriate for Wikipedia at all, regardless of how good it is. That's because there's no way for anyone later to verify your friend's level of experience. All information on Wikipedia is supposed to be cited (or common knowledge). Do you really think it would be a good idea to just trust all contributors who claim to have knowledge of some subject?

The official name of this policy is No Original Research. "The term 'original research' refers to material--such as facts, allegations, ideas, and stories--not already published by reliable sources."

Disclaimer: I don't know about the particulars of your friend's edits, nor do I have any particular association with Wikipedia (beyond having an account with a handful of trivial edits).

Re:screw wikipedia

[Anonymous Coward]

fyi Swedish is a Germanic language and not Slavic.. (+5 insightful )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_language

Re:screw wikipedia

[AthanasiusKircher]

First-hand experience is not appropriate for Wikipedia at all, regardless of how good it is. That's because there's no way for anyone later to verify your friend's level of experience. All information on Wikipedia is supposed to be cited (or common knowledge). Do you really think it would be a good idea to just trust all contributors who claim to have knowledge of some subject?

I noted your disclaimer at the end of your post, but your response makes certain assumptions that are often part of the problem in Wikipedia editor discussions. The GP didn't really say his friend was contributing "original research" (according to the Wikipedia definition), only that perhaps his friend who was actually from a country might be able to contribute something useful to an article on that country compared to some random guy from some random place who isn't an expert on the country. While it's inappropriate to cite first-hand experience in Wikipedia, it's also important to know a lot about a topic in order to sort through the best secondary and tertiary sources.

Again, like you, I don't know the specifics. But while I have seen plenty of fights happen on Wikipedia due to people asserting stuff that would fall under "original research," my sense is that those problems are less common now than they were when Wikipedia was new and "[citation needed]" tags weren't everywhere on most articles.

For the past couple years, the larger problem (in my experience) is little fiefdoms that some Wikipedia editors have created for themselves, where they view themselves as curators over a particular article or even a whole subdiscipline. The problem with many of these people is that they just happened to get on Wikipedia in the early days and happened to have a little more knowledge in a particular area than most. Then, in the past 2-3 years when Wikipedia has gone more mainstream, and more actual experts are trying to contribute, conflicts emerge between people who actually know about something and people who just have been around for a while.

This isn't something you see on the most popular articles, but in specialized areas, there's a real tension between these two groups. I don't know for sure about the GP's situation, but it sounds more like one where two editors are just fighting over content without proper references or whatever, and the GP was asserting that one person actually had more experience with the topic. For all we know, the random guy could have been the one doing "original research" in this situation, and the Georgian friend could have been correcting misinformation.

I find your assumptions about this situation to be interesting, though.

Re:screw wikipedia

[b4dc0d3r]

If it were an article on USA and a Republican wrote it, being a citizen I'd expect his perspective to be biased. On the other hand, if a Democrat wrote it, I'd expect it to be biased. You're correct about assumptions being made, but if I'm a "social studies" major for lack of a better generic term, I'm going to think my objective conclusions are more accurate than some guy who lives there. Especially if he protests.

Countless times I hear how no one likes some politician or pop star, but there are piles of blogs and photos where these people are getting rock star welcomes. Nickelback? No one likes them, except the 90,000 people in Alberta, 2007.

In order to be objective and print all of the facts, not just selected ones, you have to have a detachment that someone passionate and experienced may not have. I have countless arguments with people who switch between valid points and emotional pleas quickly enough that I either ignore the emotional points or say "Too emotional, you're not being objective." And that pisses them off, making them more emotional and it falls apart. Yes there are assumptions involved, but if it went on for pages at least one of them had emotional involvement, if not both.

Awesome.

[pclminion]

This is hilarious. It's like hundreds of people are experiencing a mental stack overflow. "Whoa... We didn't ever... uh... You can't do that... Well... Wait a second, are we in some kind of loop?"

Re:The most scary part is the number of googleresu

[Zerth]

Yup, odds are most of those are spam, but I note that portemanteau gets about 400,000 hits, as does neologism.

Malaprop gets 150,000 and malapropism only gets 76,000

Malamanteau is already more referenced than one of its parts.

What about a petition ?!?

[ctrl-alt-canc]

Filing a petition could possibly give more relevance to the case for malamanteau to exist in wikipedia...

Slashdot members could solve the problem...

[damn_registrars]

... since several slashdot members seem seldom (if ever) hesitant to use undefined terms.

Problem solved

[qmaqdk]

Now it has a legitimate page because of the controversy and the /. entry.

And then it gets even better...

[damn_registrars]

Apparently the malamanteau page may (or may not) be the place to pre-order battletoads. I was wondering what happened to the other battletoads pre-order site, now I know!

Re:And then it gets even better...

[CorporateSuit]

You can make your own pirated version of Battletoads at home or work! If you need them, buy a hammer and a permanent marker at a dollar store. Write "Battletoads" on the side of the hammer. Now strip down, lay your penis on a hard surface, and then start smacking it with the hammer as hard as you can, repeatedly and consistently. Do this until you either succumb to the pain and give up or pass out. This is known as "Level 3". This has been scientifically proven to give the exact same experience as playing the retail version of battletoads.

Re:And then it gets even better...

[romerom]

Hahah!! i had something to do with that :P In case anyone is curious since it got deleted; screenshots below:

http://i.imgur.com/SlJ4O.png && http://i.imgur.com/NsfPR.png && http://i.imgur.com/boKgs.png

Re:This is news?

[wood_dude]

Yes, it is. I think you misunderstand what is at the driving end of the universe. !

Another XKCD link

[MSG]

All this puts Wikipedia in the confusing position of not allowing a page for an undefined word whose meaning is defined via the Wikipedia page for that word

...which makes it a tautology!

Re:Another XKCD link

[ambrosen]

a tautapropism?

Like "False Fact On Wikipedia Proves Itself"

[fondacio]

Cool. It's like a new and improved version of the prank involving the lengthy name of the new German Foreign Minister last year.

Wikiality

[Itninja]

Is that not the entire point of Wikipedia? If most people agree that something is a fact, then it is so. Period. Unless it offends some revert-or-ban "moderator's" delicate sensibilities...then it's shot down pretty quick.

Malamanteau

[unwesen]

Just use the damn word; if it happens often enough, then Wikipedia can rightfully include it and the discussion is over.

Re:Malamanteau

[Tetsujin]

Just use the damn word; if it happens often enough, then Wikipedia can rightfully include it and the discussion is over.

Is that really a word I want to use? I mean, I'm not even entirely sure what it's supposed to mean. I never use the word "malapropism", and I rarely use "portmanteau"...

I mean, do people really care about this word that much, that they'd wedge it into their own everyday language, just for the sake of trying to get it to catch on? Seems like a waste of effort to me.

Re:Malamanteau

[unwesen]

The discussion about whether or not is a word is what seems like a waste of effort to me.

But my previous comment wasn't meant to be a call for people to use the word "malamanteau", it was a call for people to use whatever words they like. That's what keeps language alive and kicking.

Everyone is wrong for partaking in this

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

Yes, I checked wikipedia right after reading xkcd when the comic came out. I was pleasantly reassured when I saw that wikipedia did not have an article for Malamanteau prior to the xkcd comic being published. Simultaneously and unsurprisingly, I was saddened by the fact that some xkcd fan had decided that since Randall said it, it shall be so, and created the page. And then I was even more saddened the next day when a co-worker sent me the link to the talk page... Holy crap, what is wrong with you people? Just because it happened on xkcd doesn't mean it gets an encyclopedia entry. No, the wikipedia editors aren't being assholes, they aren't killjoys, they're doing what editors do (slashdot editors should take a note: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1651380&cid=32198120).

Also, it seems like half the people commenting here are saying that because this article even existed, however briefly, it shows how bad wikipedia is and that they'll never use it again (or have already abandoned it). Completely ignoring the fact that the article was deleted. While the other half is denouncing that very deletion. They claim it shows how bad wikipedia is because the editors don't have a sense of humor by not allowing the article to exist. If you want a wiki with a sense of humor, the sites are out there for you. Go add an entry to Uncyclopedia or Encyclopedia Dramatica or Everything2.

Re:Everyone is wrong for partaking in this

[soppsa]

But but slashdot says XKCD=funny and Randal gets laid once or twice so its SO FUNNY that he draws stick figures having a very awkward take on normal sex.... XKCD FUNNAY, U MUST NOT DISAGREE!!!!11

Re:Everyone is wrong for partaking in this

[Hogwash McFly]

XKCD mentioned databases and I like databases so therefore XKCD is the funniest webcomic in the world. If you don't like XKCD it's just because you don't get the humour.

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

xkcd exhibits no creativity.

http://xkcd.com/195/
http://xkcd.com/249/
http://xkcd.com/426/
http://xkcd.com/681/

These seem reasonably original.

Care troll cares a lot.

[spun]

I wanna be a Care Troll
Oh It will be so great to when I'm a Care Troll
Oh I can hardly wait to be a Care Troll
And do the things Care Trolls do.
Oh I wanna be a Care Troll like you!

Seriously, care troll, we all know about the leak. It's not news. And here in America, we don't care what government some washed up ex-empire elects. Jon Stewart is always on about something, how is that news? This isn't the beeb, this is Slashdot, and you know what we care about? Xkcd and douchebag wikipedia editors, that's what.

Kind of life "protologism"

[brettz9]

Kind of like when I tried making a space at Wiktionary for entirely newly coined terms, in the event that proposals could be made, categorized, and discussed (an actual interesting use of a wiki-based dictionary, imo), and then someone (apparently Mikhail Epstein) came up with the word "protologism" to define this concept of a just-coined neologism (which I had earlier called, far less attractively, a "nowism" or "neo-neologism"). The word then at that time was self-describing (and maybe still is given that, while it kind of gained a little life of its own, it has to date not been used all that much outside of Wikipedia).

Meh

[ciaohound]

It's clever and all, but to really put it over the top with the slashdot crowd he'd have to make his new word a recursive acronym, or at least a palindrome.

Re:This is news?

[wood_dude]

Words !!!

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[schon]

People don't find xkcd funny because the comics themselves are funny. People find it funny because it makes a direct reference to something that somebody else has made funny in some way. xkcd is nothing more than a pointer to funny material.

Please cite specifically the "funny" sources that these comics reference:

http://xkcd.com/727/
http://xkcd.com/724/
http://xkcd.com/719/
http://xkcd.com/37/
http://xkcd.com/562/
http://xkcd.com/239/
http://xkcd.com/225/

(And yes, these are funny, not only to me, but to other people I show them to.)

Can I order the discussion page?

[Statecraftsman]

YES! I just ordered the discussion page as a book! It's going to look great next to XKCD Volume 0 that I just put on its own shelf.

We Are Now At XKCD DEFCON 4

[jalefkowit]

The XKCD threat has officially been upgraded from "Unfunny But Harmless" to "Somewhat Annoying".

Luckily for them, the Internet doesn't scramble its bombers until DEFCON 2 ("Almost As Problematic As 4chan").

Re:We Are Now At XKCD DEFCON 4

[twidarkling]

Wait, are you saying that being equal to 4chan is defcon 1?

Re:We Are Now At XKCD DEFCON 4

[CyprusBlue113]

Clearly you haven't been targeted by 4chan.

Re:We Are Now At XKCD DEFCON 4

[mjwx]

The XKCD threat has officially been upgraded from "Unfunny But Harmless" to "Somewhat Annoying".

Luckily for them, the Internet doesn't scramble its bombers until DEFCON 2 ("Almost As Problematic As 4chan").

However ROFLcopters fuelling up as we speak

Re:We Are Now At XKCD DEFCON 4

[AndreR]

Clearly you haven't been targeted by Stephenie Meyer.

Re:We Are Now At XKCD DEFCON 4

[laejoh]

I'll wait for "Mostly Harmless" )

Way to kill the joke

[zill]

The entire joke rests on the fact that there's no such wikipedia article. Even Randall admits there shouldn't be article on the word.

Re:This is news?

[osu-neko]

You are not the center of the universe. "News" does not mean "events that *I* am interested in reading about." There are other people in the world who are interested in other things. The hallmark of a good news site is that it contains many articles you don't care to read. Someone else will. A great news site is like a buffet. If you're smart, you look it over and take the stuff you like. If you're a complete and utter fucking moron, you take a heaping pile of beans because it's there, then complain to management that beans shouldn't be on the buffet because you hate them, rather than simply skipping them because you don't any of that, but not resenting the fact that other people are allowed to eat them if they like them even though you don't.

Simpsons did it!

[SoundGuyNoise]

It's perfectly cromulent.

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[Azureflare]

creativity

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

From our good old friend wikipedia:

Creativity is a mental process involving the discovery of new ideas or concepts, or new associations of the existing ideas or concepts, fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight.

How can you say that after reading this comic: http://xkcd.com/368/

That's pretty fucking creative.

Also a lot of his "to-scale" maps are really fun to look at.

Oh the irony.

[owlnation]

Every time I think of Wikipedia, I am reminded of this quote:

"It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence. [...]

Comrade Ogilvy, unimagined an hour ago, was now a fact. [...] Comrade Ogilvy, who had never existed in the present, now existed in the past, and when once the act of forgery was forgotten, he would exist just as authentically, and upon the same evidence, as Charlemagne or Julius Caesar."

George Orwell: 1984, pp 46-48.

It's really odd the wikiadmins should be complaining about someone else making up things to put on their site. All things considered, it seems somewhat hypocritical.

Re:Oh the irony.

[swillden]

It's really odd the wikiadmins should be complaining about someone else making up things to put on their site. All things considered, it seems somewhat hypocritical.

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

It's precisely because it's so easy for random people to document made-up stuff on Wikipedia that the wikiadmins take such a hard line about removing it. Without a serious focus on removing such articles, the encyclopedia would be flooded with them.

Re:Oh the irony.

[owlnation]

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

It's precisely because it's so easy for random people to document made-up stuff on Wikipedia that the wikiadmins take such a hard line about removing it. Without a serious focus on removing such articles, the encyclopedia would be flooded with them.

No, it does mean what I think it means. The problem with wikipedia is that the wikiadmins CHOOSE which articles get to go, and which stay -- regardless of truth. There is a massive abuse of power. Hence the Orwell quote. Hence "hypocritical".

Re:Oh the irony.

[swillden]

The problem with wikipedia is that the wikiadmins CHOOSE which articles get to go, and which stay -- regardless of truth. There is a massive abuse of power.

[Citation needed]

(Especially on the "massive" part).

Re:Oh the irony.

[Burlador]

The Comrade Ogilvy plot doesn't appear in Orwell's 1984. I made up the quote some time ago to make a point in some Usenet discussion. Interestingly, the quote got reposted a lot, and Ogilvy now even has his own Wikipedia article.

Correct response

[Enderandrew]

The correct response is "Good one. That was very funny! We are a project that lives and dies on the contributions of our users. You just demonstrated how quickly people on the internet can be motivated and organized to a single goal. We're hoping some of that energy can be directed towards making Wikipedia a better place. Thanks. -- The Management"

Wiki page redirected.

[w0mprat]

Wiki page has been taken down and redirected to xkcd or the discussion. Can someone post a link to the original Malamanteau page for the convenience of /. readers? Best I can do is http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Malamanteau&diff=361617885&oldid=361617427

I hate the prevalence of "portmanteau" on wiki.

[rta]

It's just a strange word that people don't normally use yet every such wiki page is prominently labeled and wikified in the introduction. This particular word has bugged me for years. It is pretentious and out of place even though it is correctly used. I don't have a problem w/ the parallel word "acronym" when it is used correctly, but that's because normal people actually USE the word.

(I was similarly rankled recently, but nowhere to the same degree, by an article that described a fictional character as a "gynoid". WTF? It's supposedly the feminine form of "android". Ok... gender warriors... you keep on fighting the good fight...)

You people have no patience!

[Tetsujin]

TL;DR

Oh, come on, it wasn't that long. I'm sick of people being so short in their attention span that they have to complain about any piece of text not short enough for Twitter.

Re:You people have no patience!

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I didn't know what TL;DR meant until I saw your post. Can we all agree that anyone whose typing speed is so slow they have to make up acronyms like that isn't worth listening to?

Re:You people have no patience!

[PitaBred]

TL;DR

Sum it up for me? ;)

Re:You people have no patience!

[maxwell demon]

ITYM:
IDNW TL;DR MUISYP. CWAATAWTSISSTHTMUALTIWLT? :-)

(Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
Answer: No it isn't. It's acronymising.)

Re:You people have no patience!

[Hal_Porter]

TL;DR doesn't always imply literal verboseness. I find it to commonly mean one of the following:
1) unnecessarily long-winded posts, i.e., 6+ paragraphs for something non-interesting. GP doesn't fit here.
2) badly-formatted posts of larger-than-average size.
3) uninspired, or boring, droll language that stops you at the second sentence; usually 3 or more paragraphs in length.

GP fails both #2 and #3. It's not only terribly written, it comes across as forced humor.

TL;DR

Re:You people have no patience!

[Digital Vomit]

When boobies are a mouse-click away, you gotta make your point quickly.

Re:You people have no patience!

[Tetsujin]

TL;DR doesn't always imply literal verboseness.

I know, and it's certainly true that some of us (myself included) are given to particularly long-winded arguments. And the real kicker is that, often, a post that's too long quite simply fails to make the point as well as a shorter one could.

But I really think people take it too far. They've apparently lost all patience for reading (or even skimming) long messages, and the knee-jerk reaction for all such cases has become "tl;dr"

GP fails both #2 and #3. It's not only terribly written, it comes across as forced humor.

Actually, as someone else has noted - that's because you apparently missed the joke. I was never hugely into the whole "leave Britney alone" thing, so I didn't immediately get it myself... So I just skimmed enough to get the idea. :)

Re:You people have no patience!

[silverglade00]

This is the most insightful comment I have seen on /. since last August. Come to think of it, I think that one had the same topic...

Re:You people have no patience!

[KC7JHO]

Hummm... http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Acronymising&action=edit

Re:You people have no patience!

[Actually, I do RTFA]

What the hell does any of that, absent the retort to the correctly-applied lameness filter, mean? I get "TL;DR", but only because of an earlier post.

Re:You people have no patience!

[JWSmythe]

I see that a lot in regular emails. Well, not "tl;dr", but I type at over 100wpm, so my dialogue can get rather verbose. from a slow typer, I may just get "thx". What's more annoying is when they do that where I'm asking a bunch of questions.

In conversation, is it presumed that an articulate speaker trying to convey a lot of information should have their questions responded to with "ok."? It only indicates that the listener (or reader) has the attention span of a 2 year old, and they cannot focus on a spoken or written conversation long enough to form a decent response.

At one job, they requested me to establish where our new datacenters were to be, and with what carriers. I gave them the 5 minute speech about connectivity, major peering locations, and locations that were most beneficial to the company. The COO didn't like that, and just wanted a short list. I repeated the city names that I had just said. He then said that he required "proof", rather than just my opinion. I put together an informative presentation of where all the major pops were in the US and international areas of focus for our customer base. I reviewed the access logs for one year and built a Google Earth model with vertical lines showing the density per area. I gave a list of what connectivity providers were in what hosting environments. That list got pretty big until I eliminated those who didn't have peerings in at least 4 diverse cities (i.e., San Francisco and San Jose don't count as diverse cities). I then showed what transoceanic fiber existed, their entry points to North America, and who operated those lines. I also showed the network maps for each provider. For the high ranking providers, I contacted them and got pricing from most. Some wouldn't give out any pricing information without a commitment.

With all of that information gathered, I suggested the space provider (with street address), bandwidth provider with how much connectivity they had at the location. There were 4 primary suggestions, one due to a particular large customer demand. There were two secondary suggestions based on a large minority of our customer base. My data spanned hundreds of pages. I compiled it into a well written 30 page document formatted for the attention challenged. The first page summarized everything. The supporting information contained all the important information gathered, including the maps and Google Earth images of the customer density.

He read the first few lines of the summary page, threw it down and said "It says the same thing you told me before. I don't believe you." i.e., how could my opinion be correct. I reminded him that I had already been doing this kind of work for over a decade, and had been paying attention to the providers almost constantly.

30 pages detailing the requested information, and all I got was two sentences calling me a liar.

He sent my report to someone who hadn't worked for the company for a decade. He was just doing freelance IT work, mostly repairing servers for small companies. He told me, "Your report looks good. I don't know why they asked me." For that, he was paid a few hundred dollars.

A few days later, a crappy provider called in. It was just a cold call. We had providers doing that all the time, so it wasn't anything new. They made huge promises that couldn't be delivered on. I referenced how far down they were on the list of suggestions. They were second to last. Their sales guys came in, made a winning presentation, and they got the contract. I had no financial interest in it, other than keeping my job. Either way, I was making the same salary. My only goal was to serve the interest of the company.

We were provided two GigE fiber drops into each cage. That implied that they had enough bandwidth to support them.

After the migration, things didn't go as well as they would h

Re:You people have no patience!

[PhunkySchtuff]

I'm sorry, I lost you at

Oh, come on, it wasn't that long. I'm sick of people being so short in their attention span that they have to complain about any piece of te

Re:You people have no patience!

[JWSmythe]

    Sorry, this window only takes up half my screen. I have streaming porn on the other side. I only got as far as "boobies". Can you explain what you were saying again?

    Oh look.. boobies..

Re:You people have no patience!

[RealGrouchy]

Oh, come on, it wasn't that long. I'm sick of people being so short in their attention span that they have to complain about any piece of text not short enough for Twitter.

So presumably you read it, then? And you saw it was a parody of the "Leave Britney Alone" speech?

Are you seriously suggesting that that's worth reading, at any length?

- RG>

Re:You people have no patience!

[Thinboy00]

Answer: No it isn't. It's acronymising.

In this case, I'd call that "initializing". Too bad an angry mob of developers and linguists would lynch (oops that's not PC...) me for saying that.

Re:You people have no patience!

[imakemusic]

Haha! It's funny cause it's

Re:You people have no patience!

[chudnall]

So.... Can you sum that up in a couple of sentences for me?

Re:You people have no patience!

[DigitalReverend]

May I have your permission to use this as my signature?

Re:You people have no patience!

[EnsilZah]

I think it's more about formatting than length.

Personally I stopped reading after a few lines because I recognized it to be a take on the Leave Britney Alone speech but also because it's an unbroken wall of text (alright, more like a fence), point being that after a certain length of text I need line breaks and paragraph breaks for the eyes to rest.

Re:You people have no patience!

[JWSmythe]

    Decision makers shouldn't have the power to make decisions.
    Decisions should be left up to their advisors (staff) with expertise in their field.

Re:You people have no patience!

[JWSmythe]

    Ooohhh, you don't know how strong my BOFH-foo is. It was better to play nice there though. Otherwise, most of the senior management would have been disappeared.

    "Hello Homeland Security? We have a target that needs to be on a rendition flight ASAP."

    Where did Bob go? I have no idea. And I don't know what those guys in suits and dark sunglasses were doing with all the stuff from his office. They said something about "National Security", but I wasn't really paying attention.

Re:You people have no patience!

[JWSmythe]

    Well, I couldn't shorten the report much. It included detailed information that was actually requested. Consider just the network maps. The maps themselves were a dozen pages. Anything smaller became unreadable. Well, it didn't matter since he didn't go past the first page. It was to be a comprehensive report of all the available providers, from the ones who distinctly met our criteria, to the ones who barely made it.

    If you want a comprehensive report, it won't fit on one page. The executive summary was all of like 3 paragraphs taking up about 1/3 of the first page.

Re:You people have no patience!

[__aanmys7397]

Ok.

Re:You people have no patience!

[L4t3r4lu5]

It took you a decade and someone else telling you to figure out that the top brass don't want to read 30 page reports and have their decisions made for them? Wow.

The way this is supposed to work is:
1. You do the donkey work. Your 100 page report is handed to your boss, he hears your presentation, and he goes "Good work, very informative. I'll be sure to remember this during contract negotiation."
2. Your boss cuts out the long words, the technical jargon, uses words like "tubes" and lots of car analogies, and makes his own presentation. He takes that to his boss, who says "Good stuff! Well, I was lead to believe there's a free lunch... Let's discuss it while we eat."
3. That guy writes a 3 minute power point speech, a couple of presentation slides with swooshing sounds on the transitions to illustrate how fast the thing will be (No, he doesn't know what thing that is) and he goes to the COO. He says "We should go with this plan. I'll make it look like it was your idea. SHINY SHINY SHINY!" and it happens.

</tongueincheek>

Re:You people have no patience!

[Rysc]

Always provide two options, one so hideously awful that he won't ever pick it, and the other being the one you want.

That said if my boss told me "I don't believe you, prove it" I'd have just told him "You are paying me because of my knowledge and experience. My knowledge and experience tell me that this is the correct answer. You can either rely on the expertise you hired and take my recommendation or you can fire me and I'll go work for someone who doesn't second guess experts."

But yeah, I'd definitely be fired for that.

Re:You people have no patience!

[JWSmythe]

And no, I didn't really make it past the second paragraph. You didn't look like you were going anywhere, and the journey looked dull.

    That's fair enough. :) At least you got to the second paragraph and decided that for yourself.

    Most of the tl;dr crowd don't even read the entire subject. I guess they're the same ones that read the title of stories on here, and then post something stupid without even reading the summary, and of course not the linked articles.

    When I'm hunting for solutions online, I frequently don't get past the first few paragraphs, because it's obvious that I'm only getting an elementary overview without the answer I'm seeking. I usually skim the rest to see if my guess is wrong, but it usually isn't. By the time I have to go looking for further information, it means I'm looking for more advanced help than 99% of the answers out there.

Re:You people have no patience!

[Jozza The Wick]

30 pages is too much information for a senior executive, even if they think they want it, and ask for it.

I would start trying to 'manage up'. I used with work with an executive who had a very short attention span, would frequently request changes, and then request that they be changed back when he saw them during the next review. He would always focus on format - we'd discus fonts of the number in a report rather than the numbers themselves.

So, you do the research, figure out what the best option is, and then present a 4 page power point outlining why. Keep the information in the ppt to a minimum, don't share too much - it'll just open opportunities to questions that he really doesn't understand and shouldn't care about - but have the detailled report ready if he asks for it.

Perhaps let him make the decision on trivial things - (e.g. what color should the network cables be? blue or green), but present your chosen option on the big decisions (where to locate the data center) as the 'recommended' choice, and imply serious shortcomings of the alternatives.

It's very Dilbert-esque, but there are shades of truth in those strips.

Re:You people have no patience!

[Areyoukiddingme]

Shades? I've worked for companies that took Dilbert as a How To manual. Sounds like he does too.

Re:You people have no patience!

[Areyoukiddingme]

That sounds like a very valuable paper. Do you still have it? I'd read it. And possibly act on it, when the time comes.

Re:You people have no patience!

[DinDaddy]

You have succinctly coined a law of the internet there.

Re:You people have no patience!

[Tetsujin]

Nah, I understood the joke. I still think his post was badly written, even if it mimics the original material. I also think it was forced humor, because it was just not funny... at all. Whatever. I'm being a douche by continuing to complain about it. :)

Well, then, I'm glad I stuck the word "apparently" in there instead of just assuming... :)

Re:You people have no patience!

[JWSmythe]

    Nope, it was company property, and stayed with them when I left. Sorry. I'm a believer in intellectual property, so when I leave a company, anything I did for them is theirs.

Everyone is so ready to hop on the hate-wagon

[Luke has no name]

"Wikipedia sucks! Ya man, they're not COOL enough to let my favorite webcomic make shit up on its website!"

I think XKCD has the right to make whatever jokes it wants to. I also am more of the opinion that Wikipedia should allow the article to be published. For the sake of avoiding confrontation, Wikipedia should probably chill and let it through. In reality, though, all the thousands of people who vandalize Wikipedia every day who think they're SOOO funny just mess things up for everyone else.

Wikipedia has done more for humanity's accessibility to knowledge than most of us will individually in our lifetimes. So quit being so damned rough on a website with such a huge task at hand: creating an accurate, universal encyclopedia while fighting ignorance, stupidity, and malice.

Re:Everyone is so ready to hop on the hate-wagon

[DragonWriter]

I also am more of the opinion that Wikipedia should allow the article to be published. For the sake of avoiding confrontation, Wikipedia should probably chill and let it through.

Since when is "avoiding confrontation" a key component of Wikipedia's mission?

It's the 21st century all right.

[professorguy]

That this discussion is even possible shows how far into the future we've traveled:

An internet forum is debating the proper formalism for creating neologisms on a user-edited encyclopedia.

Would I even be able to give my grandmother the slightest glimmer of what this is about?

Is this wikipedia?

[Tei]

Is this wikipedia? I don't see the Edit option.

Maybe I have browse to a different site. It looks different!.

Maybe is IblockAnonymousEditsAndDeleteNewArticlesPedia.com

XKCD wins again!

[rickb928]

Allow me to be among the first to welcome our new comedic overlord.

Well played, sir!

And Jimmy, please, just suck it.

New Malmanteau: "Wikador"

[LaminatorX]

"Wikador" --A malmanteau combining "Wikipedia" and "Matador," the latter standing in semantically for "Editor."

Re:New Malmanteau: "Wikador"

[glwtta]

I like it! Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikador

Re:New Malmanteau: "Wikador"

[LaminatorX]

Sadly, some Wikador has flagged it as vandalism.

Re:New Malmanteau: "Wikador"

[PPH]

Now you've gone and done it. That one will really gore Jimmy Wales' ox.

Search

[TheLink]

On the subject of looking stuff up, is there an easy way for me to blacklist many of those sites that appear in Google when I search for that word?

To me the "offending word" is useful for finding sites that I do not want in my google search results ever.

Just Google search for that word and you'll see evidence that Google is not providing good search results...

Yes, I tried using Google's custom Search engine feature, and no it doesn't seem to allow excluding of websites. And no, inserting -sitename for dozens of sites is not what I want to do.

Re:Search

[jack2000]

Just use the customize Google extension for Firefox.

Re:Search

[TheLink]

Doesn't work with Firefox 3.6.3. :(

Re:Search

[TheLink]

OK, thanks, now I can go blacklist those sites that give useless/spammy info about malamanteau.

There are so many autogenerated spam sites nowadays cluttering up Google search.

With this search term I hope to get most of the high ranking ones.

The comic was spot on

[glwtta]

Gods, the number of Wikipedia pages with ridiculously tortured sentences just to work in "neologism" or "portmanteau" - what is the goddamn fascination?

Here's a hint: if you have to provide a link for people to look up the meaning of a word, then it's not a useful word in explaining some other topic.

Here's a typical specimen:

Metrosexual, a portmanteau of metropolitan and sexual, is a neologism of the 2000s one definition of which is a man (especially one living in a post-industrial, capitalist culture) who has a strong concern for his appearance or a lifestyle that displays attributes stereotypically associated with homosexual men.

Yes, awkwardly using obscure words makes this sound extremely professional.

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[squidfood]

The Far Side is, as well. Dilbert is somewhere in between them and xkcd, where it makes references to other funny material, but does have significant originality and creativity. Then there's xkcd, which is unoriginal,

My test is this. I work in a scientific establishment - not a super-geeky-web type place but an "old established science" type place. Over the last 2-5 years, "xkcd's on the door" have largely replaced the yellowing Far Sides... maybe about 1/4 of the doors around here are thus infected independent of each other.

On my own door is this and let me tell you I get more people just stopping to say how funny that is -old guys nearing retirement shaking with laughter and saying "how true" - than with any cartoon I've had up over the years.

Get thee to E2

[tepples]

they take what should be an encyclopedia filled with -everything-

Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia filled with everything. If you want that, there's always E2. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia ideally filled with everything verifiable to a consensus of scholarly and mainstream media sources.

So when does it happen?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

At what threshold does a word officially exist?

mixaphores metas

[circletimessquare]

is one of the most beautiful, of the greek islands that i have visited

If you don't get the reference, turn in your card.

[Tetsujin]

LOL. That story is in wikipedia's article on quiz...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiz

And, according to wikipedia, the tale is indeed appocryphal.

Or, at least, wildly inaccurate...

The Irony

[secretplans]

There kind of HAS to be a malamanteau page now, doesn't there?

Truly ...

[Alastair]

This is "News for Nerds". Well done. It's almost "meta" ...

Re:Truly ...

[blair1q]

metamalamanteau - importune discussion of a combination of a malaprop and a portmanteau word

hypermalamanteau - the combination of a malaprop and a portmanteau word to describe the combination of a malaprop and a portmanteau word

dismalamanteau - ill-advised removal of the definition of a word that is the combination of a malaprop and a portmanteau word

antidismalamanteau - running counter to the ill-advised removal of the definition of a word that is the combination of a malaprop and a portmanteau word

antidismalamanteauzomgponies!!1! - running counter to the ill-advised removal of the definition of a word that is the combination of a malaprop and a portmanteau word and a text from a middle-aged smartass

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[twidarkling]

then congratulations, you're a fucking moron. XKCD hasn't been even so much as clever in hundreds of comics. Any time it's not contrived and poorly set up, it's poorly executed. Sure, there's concepts that could be funny, but Munroe needs an editor, or an assistant. Someone to point out the retarded edges in his work, and get him back up to the standard he was at in his early work.

Re:Why delete information?

[Tetsujin]

Wikipedias relevancy criteria is retarded. What is wrong with having more information on there?

The issue is quality control. The goal is not just to have a bunch of information, but for it to actually be useful, reliable information.

More than that, though, I think this sort of thing - someone with a bit of an audience inciting vandalism on Wikipedia - has gotten a bit too common. I can understand why they'd be a bit touchy about it happening again.

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[allo]

the current xkcds suck, but in the archives are some good ones. hope there will come good ones again sometime ...

Re:Why delete information?

[twidarkling]

While the relevancy criteria is retarded, the problem is joke entries in any collection of knowledge damage the collection as a whole. I doubt XKCD-tards would be willing to have it labelled clearly as a joke, which it would need to be, in order to not confuse people.

bullshit

[edittard]

It turns out that a malamanteau is a portmanteau of portmanteau and malapropism, but also a malapropism of portmanteau.

Wrong. A malapropism is where you use a real word in the wrong situation, not one where you make a new word up. That already has a name - it's called being stupid.

Wikipedia is not a dictionary

[jonnat]

Without getting into the argument about the notability of the term (I think it's quite notable, but I'm biased), "Malamanteau" should not have a Wikipedia entry because Wikipedia is not a dictionary, as Wikipedia will gladly point out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:NOTDICT

Re:Wikipedia is not a dictionary

[blair1q]

Wiktionary is a dictionary. Which means that any discussion of the word beyond its definition and usage is not needed there. Articles on the history and social effect of the creation of the word deserve to be in Wikipedia.

Re:Wikipedia is not a dictionary

[jack2000]

Have a Wiktionary article and a page redirect on wikipedia then.

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[squidfood]

Ah, you work in academia.

Nice try. But actually, think non-academic (though Ph.D. filled) biomedical-type private, staid, serious lab environment with scientists who don't go in for the overt "geek == games == internet == star wars posters" ethos. Not up on the internet geek memes. Generally older, wife, kids, watch sports/BBQ on the weekends, not "social rejects" at all. But as scientists they look at these cartoons and say "how true."

That said, I'll be the first to admit to the percentage of meme-driven XKCDs that aren't that funny to me. But being hit-or-miss is a sign of originality, not the obverse, when the hits are true hits.

Not that confusing.

[Golddess]

All this puts Wikipedia in the confusing position of not allowing a page for an undefined word whose meaning is defined via the Wikipedia page for that word

When you put it that way, I fail to see what's so confusing about that. The No Original Research policy and/or [Citation Required] would seem to apply here. Of course, it won't be original research and un-cited for much longer I suspect (if it hasn't already passed that mark).

Not BBC!

[hrimhari]

The link in the article is a blog. It has no ties with the "real" BBC. This is the real one....

Poor Wikipedia...

I give 6 months until

[unity100]

that word becomes mainstream. people make languages, and internet is people.

Re:I give 6 months until

[7 digits]

> that word becomes mainstream. people make languages, and internet is people.

So is solyent green.

Re:I saw three of those four ideas elsewhere.

[naasking]

Link 4: Again, this is merely "informational", and isn't funny in any way. Most undergraduate-level astronomy textbooks have similar graphics.

Someone clearly missed the yo mama joke...

As for the rest, I think you're seriously lacking in imagination if you don't find them funny.

The nice thing about Internet

[ivoras]

... is that you have all those other places to put stuff if they don't fit in just one place. Personally, stuff I like either goes into Wikipedia or tvtropes :)

Re:This is news?

[eln]

And none of the stories you mention matter even a little bit to the vast majority of the 6.7 billion people on this planet, and yet we still talk about them ad nauseum.

True, but...

[N0Man74]

You are right that it's a great starting point, and I'd never do any kind of scholarly research relying only on Wikipedia. For some subjects, it's probably comparable in quality to an "authoritative reference", but that's by no means universal.

However, I disagree with the implied sentiment of many here that seems to be, "you can't depend on Wikipedia to be useful, accurate, and relevant, so why are these pompous editors trying to make Wikipedia more useful, accurate, and relevant!?"

The word is completely made up as a joke, that while very current, hasn't really proven itself to be noteworthy beyond a few days.

Just because the joke is related to Wikipedia doesn't make it anymore relevant to Wikipedia than other made up joke words such as "Witchalok" (from Penny-Arcade).

Really? No, seriously. . , REALLY??

[Fantastic Lad]

"2 : a meaningless word coined by a psychotic"

That's from Merriam-Webster?

I don't know what to say. I'm at a loss for words. Which, come to think of it, is probably a good thing.

-FL

Re:The most scary part is the number of googleresu

[Jake Griffin]

I only see "About 3,790 results (0.38 seconds)" in my search results...

Re:I saw three of those four ideas elsewhere.

[TuringTest]

Link 1: It's a map of the Internet. I remember seeing similar IP address distribution diagrams in the 1970s and 1980s. Up until about 1990, anyone working in IT at a university or large corporation would've seen similar diagrams daily. So this comic isn't even funny. Informational, perhaps. But there's no humor there.

So you didn't read the ALT text on mouseover?

Re:Citation Provided

[Mister Whirly]

Well, technically I didn't reference Wikipedia. I referenced a phrase very commonly seen on Wikipedia.

BBC = military barracks in in Pakistan. Uh, yeah.

[Jim Efaw]

Of course real BBC World News America doesn't have any results for "malamanteau" at all. Not only is that alleged "BBC America News" at bbcnewsamerica.com fake, but its alleged postal address is "DHA Lahore" (that's military barracks) with no further detail.

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[Azureflare]

Your problem is that you think he needs standards. The lack of standards is part of the funny. The freedom that imagination has when you don't constantly watch yourself to make sure it looks polished is what makes reading xkcd exhilarating.

If you don't get it... you never will. That's fine. Don't read it. You don't read stuff you don't like do you?

Re:I saw three of those four ideas elsewhere.

[Chess Piece Face]

Or the "Sirens of Titan" joke, which took me a while to get and I've read the book.

That's nothing...

[Megane]

Search wiki for articles containing the word "vidya". 4chan /v/-ers have been sneaking "vidya" references into many obscure articles. These aren't your typical meme-spamming assburgers /b/-tards either, these guys are subtle and have been doing this for months.

Less in America

[SimonInOz]

I guess it's the non-metric units they use.

New words daily?

[Waccoon]

Welcome to English!

Re:The most scary part is the number of googleresu

[Pteraspidomorphi]

When I type "mal" in my google search box in Firefox, Malamanteau is one of the suggestions.

Tough Luck, Wikipedia

[Greyfox]

Perhaps you can blag angrily about it on your blag.

In case

[JustOK]

In case it's already been said elsewhere, it should be redirected to the recursion page.

And, whatever, I think this is certainly a sticky wiki.

Wikipedramatics

[starling]

That talk page is full of them.

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[MartinSchou]

And Watchmen isn't all that funny, even though probably half or more of the population would call it a comic book, simply because it's using drawings.

But humour me - what would you term XKCD then?

Web-drawing? Web-strip (but there are no strippers, sadly, and strip is termed from comic-strip)? Web-doodling? Web-log?

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[account_deleted]

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Re:not funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not suitable for Arts Majors.

Re:Really? No, seriously. . , REALLY??

[moonbender]

It's not as bizarre as it first seems, that sense of the word is only used in the context of psychiatry. The M-W entry should have indicated that, though. Other dictionaries do mark it (and even the M-W Medical entry is more explicit).

Re:It exhibits no creativity.

[wall0159]

I really liked this one:
http://xkcd.com/482/

Not particularly funny -- but very cool :-)
Particularly the way objects' vertical axis is mapped to log space also (eg the pyramids and Eiffel tower)

That's not a BBC site

[fiddlesticks]

The site ("BBC News of America") mentioned isn't a BBC site.

It's registered to an individual in Pakistan, is full of odd typos, doesn't have the BBC logo and seems to only have one contributor

get a life, Wikipedia

[Tom]

Wikipedia (or rather, the people running it) is taking itself way too serious, and has for a long time now. Just read the comments of any edit war, or most of the delete request discussions.

Some seriousness is good and necessary, but when you're running a community project, you should never forget that there are only three base motivators for people to contribute stuff: Money, Fun and Fame. Since money is out, that leaves the other two. If you remove the fun by becoming too serious, you're left with a bunch of low-lifes who are trying to get the fame real life denies them in your community, usually through extended power trips. Ooops, did I just describe the average Wikipedia admin?

Wikipedia as a tool

[Tattoo Designs]

In my opinion Wikipedia is a great tool to quick check up on word or sentences that meaning you are not sure. Not always you gets a reliable information but good thing to do is just cheep up those info with other source and thats it. If it covers than you good to go. Wikipedia never let me down so I'm pretty happy with using it. But we can t forget that everywhere where the people are involved there will be mistakes and errors.

Re:not funny?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Does *anyone* think xkcd is funny?

No. I think XKCD is rather witty, a more grown-up thing.

Re:The most scary part is the number of googleresu

[TedRiot]

I just tried and had 190 thousand hits from google. And it was the first word suggested in my Firefox after typing mal.

Self-Contradiction

[Narcogen]

"All this puts Wikipedia in the confusing position of not allowing a page for an undefined word whose meaning is defined via the Wikipedia page for that word — and now I have to lie down for a moment."

The meaning was not defined by Wikipedia. It was defined (or, more accurately, coined) by xkcd by way of a mockup of a nonexistent Wikipedia page that was then later created. Only those going out of their way to try and create a situation where Wikipedia is contradicting itself see it that way. Which is not to say that Wikipedia doesn't constantly contradict itself; merely having a page that cites a frame of xkcd citing a fictional Wikipedia page (that is then later created) does not constitute a self-contradiction.

I haven't laughed this much for ages

[cheros]

OK, maybe I ought to get out more, but I cannot be the only one laughing his head off because of the mini storm that cartoon has set off. It's so perfectly circular there's no hope of getting a simple answer, which is part of the fun.

My take: it SHOULD be on Wikipedia, simply because it's the only way it stops the arguing. But hey, why bother with logic? The current situation is even more fun than the comic itself.

Thank you, XKCD, you made my day once again :-).

Once again ...

[Rambo Tribble]

... the dark side of recursion rears its ugly head.

Re:if it's the information you want..

[EkriirkE]

Excellent google of my nick, but that's just a sliver of the info we wrote about it. It's been years anyway, thanks though!

Been there, seen this - Antaviana

[trastomatic]

In the 70-80's there was Pere Calders, a catalan writer, who wrote a tale about a kid looking to give a word a meaning. The kid, trying to avoid the boredom of his school homework, invented that word, and he was playing with the magic of trying to find out what could it be: a lost continent? a thing? a person? tall, fat, smart? The fact that he invented the word and that it wasn't in the dictionary allowed him to spend that much time playing with it in his imagination.

After publishing the book, and passing time, the word became popular. Companies used it as the comany name, or product name. It was used as a reference to something unknown. To name a show. A public school. A collection of books.

It was used for so many things, that the people doing dictionaries started to discuss about whther it should be included in future editions. Should it? The word was in use in catalan, so it should be defined. But it was an artistic creation. But it became something useful. But the origin was precisely to find a word that doesn't exist. But...

Just like know, but it took years then. Remember there was no Internet in the 80's.

Re:not funny?

[anyGould]

Does *anyone* think xkcd is funny?

No. I think XKCD is rather witty, a more grown-up thing.

I'd even file it as thought-provoking (particularly some of the earlier strips, which I wish he'd do more of.)

Is it everybody's cup of tea? No, of course not. But no-one should be surprised that the Venn diagram of life shows significant overlap between /. and XKCD readers.

Typical Wikibureaucracy

[J'raxis]

Typical Wikipedia bureaucracy nonsense. Nothing to see here...

The part that really amuses me...

[dbug78]

...is the thought that Malamanteau will ultimately end up with an article on Wikipedia anyway, only as part of an article on the international protest marches and riots that resulted as a result of the attempted creation of the original page.

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[account_deleted]

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Time Heals All Mods

[SeinJunkie]

Timing is a big issue with enforcement. I started an article documenting the history of the OSP mods a few years ago and I remained the primary contributor for a couple of months. I then received notice about it being flagged for deletion for various reasons, one of which was notability.

I used to remove the flags quickly and posted some discussion topics on how to resolve the issues. I remember a flag for notability at some point, but can't find it, now. For the last few years, I've just left the flags on there, as the article seems to be left alone by the mods and the community has taken it upon itself to contribute more frequently.

I'm now pretty sure that all of the articles on WP need some flags at the top to ward off the deletion mods from axing the page entirely. If there's a flag there, leave the page alone.

Re:not funny?

[Bigjeff5]

I have to be very careful not to casually check it at work, lest I burst into laughter and alert my coworkers to the fact that I am not working.