From: Mark Williamson <node.ue(a)gmail.com>
Reply-To: Mark Williamson <node.ue@gmail.com>,wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org
To: wikipedia-l(a)wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Wikimedia Foundation Internal Radio
System(Re:Foundation news)
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 01:14:32 -0700
I propose
it be entirely in Klingon so that there are approximately
equal numbers of people from each Wikipedia who can understand it.
Rather than what you propose, why not a full-time internet radio? We
can have programs such as "Let's trim our hair in the Wikipedian
fashion", "Jimbo Wales' Birthday Celebration", "Biography of
Jimbo
Wales" (who was born atop Encyclopedia Mountain, and who has never
lied and always lived in accordance with the Wikipedian ideal),
newsfeeds (with such news as "Imperialist Britannicans planning
nuclear attack on Wikipedia, Jimbo Wales counters with declaration of
the Wikimedia Foundation's nuclear capabilities"), and slogan hour
(where prominent Wikipedians shout out Klingon-language slogans about
Wikipedia, Jimbo, and related topics)
Mark
Funny Mark, but you're going too far. You are comparing Jimbo with Kim
Yong
Il or some other absurdly glorified dictator.
Moreover, I think this
attemp
is not as moribund as you suggest.
First of all, it's "Kim Jong Il".
I appreciate most of your contributions and I
share your sympathy for
demographic minorities, but I can't really get your point in this. It
reminds me very much of your earlier e-mail in which you requested two
kinds
of American English, Jimbonian and Nodelian.
What's your point with
jokes
like these?
Since you may be excluded from the tradition practiced in some
countries on April 1 (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools_Day
), I shall bring to your attention that not only does this tradition
exist, but the message in question was sent on April 1 (or at least
timestamped as such - it certainly wasn't April 1 in all timezones),
and it was all in good fun (and it did appear to provide a bit of
amusement for some other listmembers).
These jokes don't have a "point". If you scour the list for all
messages, you will find that I am not the only one who has a sense of
humour and knows how to make jokes. In fact, this extends to Ant, Mav,
Jimbo, etc. who can occasionally be found to be making a joke on this
list.
I don't know how it is with you, but as far as I know the point of
humour is to lighten up a situation, and only occasionally to make a
point.
Mark
Sorry, I quite overlooked it was an april fool's joke, since I had laid my
mail box to rest for a few days. I am not excluded from this tradition (many
Dutchmen even think it was born in the Netherlands in 1572, quod non),
moreover, I put a non-news fact myself on the "Curent Events" page of "my
own" Limburgic Wikipedia, namely the just declared independence of the
Republic of Limburg. Moreover, the hostile takeover by Brittannica made me
laugh, not smile, as well. But after April 1st I am no longer expecting
anyone to make Apil Fool's jokes, three guesses why.
Second, as long as humor is pointed at any person, I expect them to be
intended to make a point, certainly since you pointed two against the same
person within one week. To me it looked like there was a serious tone in
both of them, namely that Jimbo was too authoritarian. Certainly on e-mail,
where nuances can be expressed merely by words, there is a big risk that
people take you more seriously than you yourself.
Finally, however it was intended, your joke was too hard in my view, to
compare our very arch father with the most rotten dictators on earth.
Suppose, by comparision, that I suggested for fun that orthodox Muslims were
right in saying homosexuals should be executioned. I don't think that would
make you smile; in your position, I would ask for immediate removal of the
offender from the mailing list and permanent blocking on Wikipedia.
Wouter
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