From: Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com Reply-To: Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com,wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org To: wikipedia-l@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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