--- Matt R matt_crypto@yahoo.co.uk wrote:
Grrr. Please stop declaring "how things will be" unilaterally, it's not very Wikipedia-like.
It would be very un-wikipedia-like to intentionally mislead readers given our goal of informing them. The fact that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia is non-negotiable (although in truth we are redefining what an encyclopedia can be) no matter how popular notions to the contrary are.
Moreover, I don't really think an April Fool's hoax on the main page is quite "subverting the goal of creating an encyclopedia". It's certainly tangential, but what harm are you seeing here? It's a minor diversion, not a major subversion.
Given the traffic we get on the Main Page, this is anything but minor. It serves as a very bad example. The suggestion by Stan of creating hoax articles in a contest that people would need to spot on the new page list really went over the line. Many of these articles would not be cleaned up afterwards and would persist in the article namespace.
Don't be so patronising! I'm sure everyone is quite as aware of the goals of this project as you are.
Old hands yes, new hands have to be often reminded that we are first an encyclopedia project and the community aspect is aimed at supporting that.
I just think it's quite unfortunate if Wikipedia takes itself so seriously that it fears to do what institutions like, say,
the BBC
are quite happy to do.
Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. Give me one example and I�ll stop complaining. Wikipedia in particular needs to be sensitive to this type of thing due to our high profile and given the many misgivings about our reliability.
-- mav
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On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. Give me one example and I'll stop complaining.
There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]].
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Seth Ilys wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. Give me one example and I'll stop complaining.
There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]].
Sheesh, if there is so much resistence over [[European toilet paper]], how about if we were to nominate a real topic, like [[Wankers Corner, Oregon]] for Friday's FAC?
Unless none of you trust my word that it actually exists?
Geoff
Geoffrey Burling wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Seth Ilys wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. Give me one example and I'll stop complaining.
There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]].
Sheesh, if there is so much resistence over [[European toilet paper]], how about if we were to nominate a real topic, like [[Wankers Corner, Oregon]] for Friday's FAC?
Unless none of you trust my word that it actually exists?
Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April Fool's, we run the risk of people actually believing that the article is a fake, when in fact, it's not.
Cheers,
DPh
Deathphoenix wrote:
Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April Fool's, we run the risk of people actually believing that the article is a fake, when in fact, it's not.
Yeah, the "did you know" section taken entirely from [[Wikipedia:Unusual_articles]] is a good idea along these lines (exploding whale was already a featured article in November 7, 2004 so we'd want to pick a new one anyway). People believing they're fake could almost be a sort of meta-hoax, even. Wonder if we could add a poll for new readers at the end of each - "do you believe this article?" - to gage our street cred. :)
Bryan Derksen wrote:
Deathphoenix wrote:
Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April Fool's, we run the risk of people actually believing that the article is a fake, when in fact, it's not.
Yeah, the "did you know" section taken entirely from [[Wikipedia:Unusual_articles]] is a good idea along these lines (exploding whale was already a featured article in November 7, 2004 so we'd want to pick a new one anyway). People believing they're fake could almost be a sort of meta-hoax, even. Wonder if we could add a poll for new readers at the end of each - "do you believe this article?" - to gage our street cred. :)
That's an excellent point! Wikipedia could play an April Fool's joke on the reader by presenting a particularly fine article from [[Wikipedia:Unusual articles]], in the fashion of [[exploding whale]], and having them believe the article is a joke. That should also satisfy other people who believe that Wikipedia should not post hoaxes on the main article space.
Cheers,
DPh
Deathphoenix wrote:
Geoffrey Burling wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Seth Ilys wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. Give me one example and I'll stop complaining.
There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]].
Sheesh, if there is so much resistence over [[European toilet paper]], how about if we were to nominate a real topic, like [[Wankers Corner, Oregon]] for Friday's FAC?
Unless none of you trust my word that it actually exists?
Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April Fool's, we run the risk of people actually believing that the article is a fake, when in fact, it's not.
Sounds like some kind of reverse April Fools. Something perfectly true that nobody in his right mind would believe. I like that idea.
Ec
A good alternative, now Bishonen seems to object to the article from his user page to be used.
-- MacGyverMagic
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 21:37:49 -0800, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Deathphoenix wrote:
Geoffrey Burling wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005, Seth Ilys wrote:
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:02:33 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. Give me one example and I'll stop complaining.
There are several examples of this in [[nihilartikel]].
Sheesh, if there is so much resistence over [[European toilet paper]], how about if we were to nominate a real topic, like [[Wankers Corner, Oregon]] for Friday's FAC?
Unless none of you trust my word that it actually exists?
Or perhaps [[exploding whale]]. There are plenty of articles we could use. The problem is, with an article like that posted on April Fool's, we run the risk of people actually believing that the article is a fake, when in fact, it's not.
Sounds like some kind of reverse April Fools. Something perfectly true that nobody in his right mind would believe. I like that idea.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
I have to say, I agree with Mav on this one. When the BBC posts fake news, it's funny. When Fox News does it, it's less funny. We want to be the BBC. A lot of people still see us as Fox News. We should therefore expect that posting actually fake articles on the main page would not be funny.
If we wanted to put VfD on the main page, that would, to my mind, be fine and funny. If we wanted to do other hoaxes like last year's RFA for Jimbo, that would be fine and funny. But fake content is not the way to go with the public perception of the project being what it is, and I'll certainly be among the first to speedy any fake articles I see. At least, any that Mav hasn't gotten to first.
-Snowspinner
I, too, agree with Mav. "April Fools" is not particularly funny anyway and is exactly the problem that we're trying to fight.
Yours,
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:06:25 +0100, James D. Forrester james@jdforrester.org wrote:
I, too, agree with Mav. "April Fools" is not particularly funny anyway and is exactly the problem that we're trying to fight.
This seems precisely at issue... in a community discussion touching on levity and humor, when some of the conversants don't appreciate or get the humor in question, how should we reach consensus? A number of people in this conversation seem to imply that anyone without a sense of humor has a moral upper hand over others, because anything which is not completely expected by some readers (which encompasses a great deal of humor) is a Bad Thing.
Should people who find April Fools in general a terrible tradition, be able to naysay anything that happens to commemorate that day? I feel pretty certain that a supermajority of our audience enjoys April Fools and appreciates a good joke.
SJ
I just think it's quite unfortunate if Wikipedia takes itself so seriously that it fears to do what institutions like, say,
the BBC
are quite happy to do.
Again, I have not seen a single example of a respected encyclopedia doing this. Give me one example and I'll stop complaining. Wikipedia in particular needs to be sensitive to this type of thing due to our high profile and given the many misgivings about our reliability.
-- mav
Britannica is proud of its new articles but these are long overdue. The whole point of Wikipedia is listing stuff as it changes. Real life "book-encyclopedias" can't do April Fool's jokes because they don't update daily.