from the wikipedia tunnels
wikipedia vandalism is a constant annoyance, but sometimes funny.
Wikipedia Recent Changes patrolAt some point in the last half hour someone has claimed one of the languages the new Pope Benedict XVI can speak, in addition to Latin, English and French is “C++”. Is this obvious vandalism or is he a big computer wiz?
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Special:Contributions/151.197.38.159 just created a questionable article about Breast fucking.
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Please keep an eye on 24.19.6.250. S/he is adding articles about every single little character that ever appeared on Zena: Warrior Princess, and seems not to have any idea what the difference is between fiction and mythology.
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anon user 64.123.150.45 has been systematically changing the Simpson’s TV show articles. The latest stated that Marge’s twin sisters were in fact triplets…
May 15th, 2005 at 10:14
“Is this obvious vandalism or is he a big computer wiz?” And if the latter, would his programs be infallible now? (We could really use the help :-) I wonder if Wikipedia will ever go to an IMDb-style model, in which you must be a registered user to add or delete data. Mark Odell
May 15th, 2005 at 15:26
from what i’ve heard, mark, not only are the programs he writes infallible, but also those he merely compiles. astounding stuff.
y’know, those wiki admins seems kinda weird about preserving the unregistered powers. great thing to lure people into the wiki scene, but seems to me they should drop it after somebody’s been editing under an IP address for a month or so.
in one of my reverts, i used just a mildly disparaging term in the edit summary for two unregistered edits that sucked. the summary was later truncated w/o explanation.
there’s probably a document somewhere there explaining their philosophy about that. whatever it is, it seems to be working. wikipedia will probably be in the top 10 alexa ratings before long (for what that’s worth).