Did wikipedia pull an epic nerd cheat?

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 3:52 am

Sometimes it feels like wikipedia did a bait and switch by encouraging nerds to blather endlessly about their favorite Pokemon and comic books and whatnot, which is what made the website popular.

Then when it did, the administrators backstabbed all of the nerds and tried to make the place Serious Business by scrubbing the contributions of the people who made the website popular.

Thoughts?

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:08 am

I completely agree.

I don't actually have anything substantial to add here, something that would normally make me avoid posting completely. But this has been bothering me for a while.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 4:56 am

Wait, they haven't scrubbed all their pop culture trivia have they?

Because the main thing I used the site for was stuff like looking up obscure Inspector Gadget lore.

(Gadgetinis? WTF?)

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 6:22 am

you know, of all the things a picture named "penny2" linked to by "gadgetinis" could have been, that was by far the most confusing and least expected...

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 10:47 am

I haven't yet seen a reduction in pop culture content that I care about. I also googled for "wikipedia overhaul" and "wikipedia purge" and everything that comes up is the upcoming change of user interface and the 2007 webcomic ban, now lifted.

A clean-up seems to be a reasonable course of action. Have you seen tvtropes recently? All the charm of /b/, but without peer pressure to keep the retards in line and without 404 to flush it down the drain.

Also, sort of unrelated: are non-English Wikipedia versions any good? The Russian one contains such gems as "Thus, SSC VVC has to consider the hisstorical image of the city and its deterioration and paying attention to it in the process of reconstruction must definitely consider it" that has weathered eight edits with people fixing spelling and ignoring the bullshit. This in a general interest article, supposed to attract more serious editors. Pop culture articles are simply atrocious.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Mon Mar 29, 2010 8:25 pm

Links?

I actually argued against purging of 'useless trivia' because that's exactly what I find most useful about wikipedia: That I don't have to remember all this shit about who people are or what something is from.

Although, if you have that view, you should donate. There are still limits to how many hard-drives and routers they can afford.

-Crissa

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:18 am

Wikipedia's search engine has become essentially useless because of the purges. But the rise of separate, genre-oriented wikis has more than taken its place. You just go out and pull up a Google search when you want that knd of information. And yeah, if you want porn information you go to boobpedia and if you want Pokemon info you go to Bulbapedia

It seems to work out.

-Username17

Count Arioch the 28th · Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:32 am

I have linked to articles from Boobpedia before. It's actually a pretty good reference.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Apr 09, 2010 11:24 pm

Bulbapedia is a great reference for pokemon by the way. I was one of hte founding members who worked on the 'pedia before leaving within a couple months of it opening. I lost interest in pokemon as it started to stagnate. This can definitely be seen by the next generation of POkemon games that are about to come out -- Pokemon White and Pokemon Black.

The Gaming Den

Did wikipedia pull an epic nerd cheat?

Did wikipedia pull an epic nerd cheat?

Re: Did wikipedia pull an epic nerd cheat?