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Trivial topic: Wikipedia has lost it

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William Posted: Wed, Aug 11 2010 5:22 PM

I don't know what "it" is, but Wikipedia has lost it.  An in depth synopsis of "Baby Got Back":

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

This has to be a joke, but than again Wikipedia is a joke.

"I am not an ego along with other egos, but the sole ego: I am unique. Hence my wants too are unique, and my deeds; in short, everything about me is unique" Max Stirner
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I for one am impressed. On the one side I learned something about culture I didn't expect, on the other side, it shows the dedication of some people to topics of little to absolutely no consequence. Hundreds of edits, man. Respect.

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David. replied on Wed, Aug 11 2010 6:40 PM

I thought this was funny...

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Apparently he didn't know that there is no such thing as targeted weight loss.

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Bert replied on Wed, Aug 11 2010 9:27 PM

Wikipedia can surprise me sometimes.  I remember years back they kept removing the Tourettes Guy page, even though he was pretty famous as an internet persona, but they have a page of racial slurs, which somehow passes as "ok".

I don't find this page as unorthodox though, since it was a pretty well known song.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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Vitor replied on Wed, Aug 11 2010 9:39 PM

Well, isn't the abundance of information a good thing? And values aren't subjective?

 

You sound like a marxist talking.  wink

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Praetyre replied on Wed, Aug 11 2010 9:41 PM

I think, regardless of whether you are a religious fundamentalist or an atheist fanatic there's something deeply, deeply, deeply wrong with an encyclopedia where an article on a creature from a children's cartoon is longer than the article on God.

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Bert replied on Wed, Aug 11 2010 10:06 PM

Maybe the creature can spit fire and electricute things.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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William replied on Wed, Aug 11 2010 10:07 PM

 

"I am not an ego along with other egos, but the sole ego: I am unique. Hence my wants too are unique, and my deeds; in short, everything about me is unique" Max Stirner
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Apparently he didn't know that there is no such thing as targeted weight loss.

Liplosuction is targeted weight (fat) loss.

"I cannot prove, but am prepared to affirm, that if you take care of clarity in reasoning, most good causes will take care of themselves, while some bad ones are taken care of as a matter of course." -Anthony de Jasay

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Bert replied on Wed, Aug 11 2010 10:28 PM

Ha, it seems like it should be on EncyclopediaDramatica.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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Praetyre replied on Wed, Aug 11 2010 10:34 PM

Nah, there's not enough references to the promiscuity of the readers mother and the spelling is too good. Might fit on Uncyclopedia, though, assuming you added 50 references to Oscar Wilde and Doctor Who.

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Liplosuction is targeted weight (fat) loss.

I guess you are trying to be a smart ass.  I obviously meant metabolically.

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I wouldnt've believed it... till I clicked. I guess there's pretentious fucks everywhere these days.

Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...

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Bert replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 12:02 AM

Remember, this is all a series of tubes.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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Bert replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 12:31 AM

Also, since we are on the discussion of trivial topics, Craigslist keeps removing my post.  Hopefully this will last longer than 7 hours.

I had always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way. - Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols
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I. Ryan replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 7:11 AM

Jon Irenicus:

I wouldnt've believed it... till I clicked. I guess there's pretentious fucks everywhere these days.

Uh, either that, or they were just kidding.

If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.

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z1235 replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 9:36 AM

Apparently not too many knitting or pumkin-chunkin aficionados here. A lot of believers in the subjectivity of values, though. 

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William replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 12:01 PM

 

Uh, either that, or they were just kidding.

I really hope they weren't kidding, id doubt it, but it's fun to dream.  Still though, it's odd that the article has been allowed to maintain that style.  It may be only a matter of time before "dude humour" and fanfic articles takes over wikipedia.

 
"I am not an ego along with other egos, but the sole ego: I am unique. Hence my wants too are unique, and my deeds; in short, everything about me is unique" Max Stirner
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Praetyre replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 4:00 PM

I shudder to think of a fanfiction wikipedia. "Today's Featured Article: The Forbidden Love Affair of Megatron and Sailor Moon. But Will Darth Vader Object To This Betrayal?"

A "dude humour" wiki would probably be hilarious, though. The only trouble would be deciding whether ridiculously over the top masculinity, frat boys, surfers or stoners would make a funnier basis for the whole thing.

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William replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 6:03 PM

And another one for the rap song "regulators"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulate_(song)

Yeah, wikipedia has gone over to the tards

"I am not an ego along with other egos, but the sole ego: I am unique. Hence my wants too are unique, and my deeds; in short, everything about me is unique" Max Stirner
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Azure replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 6:09 PM

I think, regardless of whether you are a religious fundamentalist or an atheist fanatic there's something deeply, deeply, deeply wrong with an encyclopedia where an article on a creature from a children's cartoon is longer than the article on God.

Easy. In our culture, cartoons are more important than unanswerable philosophical questions. I say this is an improvement.

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Azure replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 6:20 PM

I shudder to think of a fanfiction wikipedia. "Today's Featured Article: The Forbidden Love Affair of Megatron and Sailor Moon. But Will Darth Vader Object To This Betrayal?"

A "dude humour" wiki would probably be hilarious, though. The only trouble would be deciding whether ridiculously over the top masculinity, frat boys, surfers or stoners would make a funnier basis for the whole thing.

 

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Doubtus replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 8:35 PM

Regardless of how much people criticize wiki, I think its one of the best things ever to happen on the internet. Its just terribly convenient to have such a large repository of knowledge and information on pretty much every topic you can think of, whether or not you think its "valuable".
 

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A large repository of disknowledge.  Hm.  Sounds a lot like the internet.

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I. Ryan replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 10:01 PM

Caley McKibbin:

A large repository of disknowledge.  Hm.  Sounds a lot like the internet.

I find tons of good information on Wikipedia and from other parts of the internet.

Dondoolee:

Yeah, wikipedia has gone over to the tards

You are making it sound like Wikipedia is centralized, which means we can fault the entire thing for a couple sarcastic articles. Well, Wikipedia isn't a monolith; it has good parts, and it has bad parts. The distribution of the good and bad articles isn't random. It is systematic. In some fields, the articles tend to be useless. In others, they tend to be great. If you know what Wikipedia is good at, it can be a great tool; but, if you don't, if you just aimlessly surf it, you might hit a particularly bad patch, and conclude, without justification, that the whole thing is worthless.

I consider Wikipedia to be one of the greatest innovations ever, and I use it almost everyday. I don't understand why so many people attack it, and I especially don't understand why I also find hate for it in this sort of forum. Wikipedia is a marvel of decentralized order. It still amazes me even nowadays, when I step back and think about it. Before it came around, I guarantee that most people wouldn't even think that it would be possible, if you were to ask them. I even meet people nowadays, who, though they haven't spent much time getting to know what they are criticizing, or seeing it in action, tell me that it is worthless, because anyone can edit it, and what sort of misinformation do you expect, when any idiot can change whatever they want!

If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.

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The article is hilarious, but not inaccurate. 

Freedom has always been the only route to progress.

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William replied on Thu, Aug 12 2010 10:18 PM

I consider Wikipedia to be one of the greatest innovations ever, and I use it almost everyday. I don't understand why so many people attack it, and I especially don't understand why I also find hate for it in this sort of forum

I was mostly joking, I actually consider wikipedia a great spring board and use it almost like search engine.  I still don't think I would call it an encyclopedia though, as much as it is a reflection of computer culture and mass amounts of  almost unfiltered info comming in.

"I am not an ego along with other egos, but the sole ego: I am unique. Hence my wants too are unique, and my deeds; in short, everything about me is unique" Max Stirner
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I find tons of good information on Wikipedia and from other parts of the internet.

How would you know that it is good?  It could be like some parts of the entry for AE.

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One good lesson Wikipedia teaches is that information is never impartial, or automatically trustworthy. Accept that there may problems, and be amazed that the quality on general articles is very high. It is not without reason compared to "regular" encyclopedias in quality and far beyond them in quantity of topics.

But if we just have to bash Wikipedia here, let the classic say: "I wouldn’t trust Wikipedia with the truth any more than I would trust the government with my money." :)

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The problem with wikipedia is the idea of it, not the particular case.  A book/journal/etc. stays the same and has the same one author.  Wikipedia is neither a record nor valid reference nor impartial.  That limits it strictly to "WTF is an X?" situations.

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The problem with wikipedia is the idea of it, not the particular case.  A book/journal/etc. stays the same and has the same one author.  Wikipedia is neither a record nor valid reference nor impartial.  That limits it strictly to "WTF is an X?" situations.  Basically, it's the same as Google.

A journal or book is not impartial either - and its references can be similarly valid or not. Of course, Wikipedia changes and that can be hard to get used to, because it is an entirely different medium. That doesn't change its usefulness to a vast number of people, it is in fact one of its major advantages, that it can be dynamically changed and improved.

(For the record, there are projects based on Wikipedia selecting 'stable' versions of important pages. Try to lookup one of those - you may find it more to your liking.)

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