[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's a job?

[phoebe ayers]

On 6/1/07, Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> --- phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The aforementioned Jeffrey O. Gustafson, who I'm sure is an entirely
> admirable
> Wikipedian, instructs us that, "our collective creative energies really
> should
> go to writing an encyclopedia rather than preserving and expanding on this
> garbage [BJAODN] - want to screw around on a wiki? Go to Uncyclopedia" --
> Gustafson's "clarification for the idiots out
> there"(
> http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Bad_Jokes_and_Other_Deleted_Nonsense_3&diff=prev&oldid=134814735
> )
>
> Sure, the aim is to write an encyclopedia, and BJAODN perhaps wasn't the
> funniest thing in the universe ever, but I think the project is becoming
> increasingly humourless and bizarre these days.



Indeed. Note that ironically enough, I counted 9 !votes to "move to BJAODN"
on other MfDs for completely unrelated articles... BJAODN is a stronger part
of Wikipedia's culture than many people realize. In general, things that
make people feel like they are part of a community are useful, including
open in-jokes. If we are busted for not following the GFDL (by whom,
exactly? with what interpretation?) it's not going to be for this part of
the site.

I suspect that many casual contributors who have been around a long time --
long enough to care about this, and remember that BJAODN predates 90% of the
content and most of the policies in today's Wikipedia -- either didn't hear
about it in time or won't notice until the next time they go to put
something in. The deletion was just too quick, and while many of the people
who contributed to the first few versions back in 2002 and before are still
around, they might not be following en:wp with the eagle eye it takes to
catch this stuff nowadays.

-- phoebe