Retro Yakking

When people hear “wiki” they immediately think of Wikipedia, the world’s largest free online encyclopedia. However, the term has come to refer to any sort of online collaborative project that allows users to freely edit content pages.

Wikipedia has gained something of a reputation for being ‘unreliable’ and ‘inaccurate’. Comedians poke fun at it, deriding its free-for-all nature and pointing to the fact people can easily insert untrue facts and unfounded information about celebrities or authority figures. Ian Hislop sarcastically branded it “that reliable, accurate source for all of us” and Stephen Fry said he was startled to learn that he was once “in a ballet in China“.

However spurious these claims these may be, the fact remains that Wikipedia is the best we have for free. Or is it? What if there were some wikis that deliberately paraded nonsense as fact? Sites that set out to purposely mislead in the name of satire, parody and humour? Well, guess what? They’re out there, and have been misleading the public for years.

Trollpedia

I personally do not recommend ED, as it is distasteful and highly unsafe for work. Also, their logo is copyrighted so I can’t reproduce it here. 

The first, and some might say Grandaddy of them all was Encyclopedia Dramatica, a ‘Punkd’ style encyclopedia of trolling and internet memes. Revelling in controversy, it deliberately set out to cause ripples in the very fabric of internet culture, with a snarky, highly satirical and offensive style.

The UnWiki

However, Dramatica was more of an independent free spirit, and not technically the first Wikipedia parody. That accolade must go to Uncyclopedia, a full-on spoof complete with identical page layout and its own “misinformative” news source. Uncyclopedia had its origins within the pages of Wikipedia itself, and was born out of a “deleted facts and nonsense” section of The Free Encyclopedia.

The site continues to lampoon Wikipedia and its Wikimedia projects to this day, offering daily featured articles about such subjects as the Creepy guy who lives across the street, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Midget cockpunching terrorists.

Unintended mirth

Meanwhile, other wikis hit upon comedy gold without even realising it. Conservapedia’s heavy right wing bias never set out to be funny, but its agenda-ridden, well-meant encyclopedia entries mean that, for a neutral outsider looking in, it is often regarded as very clever political satire. And who knows, maybe its irony is at such a level that the mere proletariat unquestionably accepts it as fact.

All-out nonsense

Fighting the case for the illogical, the Illogicopedia emerged from the Wikipedian stable to be the most successful Uncyclopedia spin-off to date. Focusing on the surreal and the nonsensical, it proved the most artistic Wikipedia parody yet, ensuring the Dadaist ethic lives on through the medium of collaborative wiki projects.

The just plain stupid

Stupidity is a way of life for some, and their bible is the Encyclopedia of Stupid. Glorifying the wonderfully elaborate complaint, this encyclopedia of enraging subjects prompts editors to argue why they think an item, person or random object is stupid. A novel twist on Wikipedia, it introduces a new level of mundane to the humble wiki.

Further reading

• Wikipedia parody wikis you may not have heard of - Illogiblog
  
• The best wikis on the web, from Wikipedia to Illogicopedia - Associated Content
  
• Hoax, Wiki-style: Internet encyclopaedia spoofs mock reality - Bad Salzufen

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