Retro Yakking

Greetings, fellow miscreants! I humbly welcome you to this, the Retro Yakking Wikipedia Week Reader Special. During the next (looks at watch) half an hour or so… [People leave auditorium] …I shall be highlighting my very favourite reader comments from the past seven days. It appears that inside all of us, there’s a raging Wikipedia vandal screaming to get out. I can’t exactly put my finger on it, but it most likely boils downto the fact that humans love to muck things up, and royally to boot.

“Where am I going with this?”, you may ask. Well, the answer is “the toilet”, so here’s my good friend Mr. Harry Yack to bring you this edition of Reader Comments.

Small but deadly

Thank you, Dave. On Sunday, I posed the question: “what would be the most creative way to vandalise Wikipedia?” Well, I’m pleased to say that hundreds of people phoned our exclusive hotline to suggest their own revert proof vandal edits to Wikipedia.

• If I were to change something it would probably be subtle…like adding a Jackalope to the endangered species list or something. — VE
• For me this is easy. I would change the name Wikipedia to Wikipedea. Very subtle change, but enough to make people wonder what’s going on. It would be interesting to see how many mails and comments they received wondering about the spelling change. — Red Raider, Beyond Left Field

I am in agreement that the best method of vandalism is the subtle change, one that is very small but makes a huge difference to the meaning of the sentence. The smaller edits are also less likely to be detected by the thousands of vandalism patrollers.

All out brazen craziness

Of course, the opposite to the subtle minor adjustment is the full-on stupidity angle. This is the method chosen by so many wannabe vandals, but is rarely seen to be applied in a creative manner.

• I would replace the Pope’s page with images of Chris Hansen from NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” screwing Emmanuel Lewis. Again. — Moooooog35, Mental Poo
• For pages about people, I’d add mentions of crazy secret societies that they “belonged” to. You know, like Michael Douglas was a free mason, or Ben Franklin was in some S&M clan. — Unfortunate Names
• I would like to tie random entries to unlikely famous persons. Like peta protesting chicken slaughter linked to Camila Parker Bowles planning a festive dinner party or Americans landing on the moon linked with Mother Theresa simultaneously walking in lockstep through a Mumbai landfill. – David

Harry Yack: Wikipedia vandalism is an artform that takes time to craft, but with a bit of effort, you too can create a Wikipedia edit that you’re proud to display in your contribution history. “I’m a Wikipedia vandal and I don’t care what anyone says.” The best edits, the ones you can tell your grandchildren about, really stand out.

The reliable encyclopedia

• I luv Wiki - I believe every word - I use it everyday - but I had a reality check late last year, when Jimmy Wales posted a plea for funds to keep Wiki in the black. I’d almost forgotten that this is the web! You know - you don’t really believe the stuff I/we/they post - do you? — Kate Rawlins, Kate’s Window

Harry Yack: Of course, much like television, everything you read on the Internet is true. It stands to reason, and everyone who ever posts here on the interwebs should know they have a duty to be sincere, honest and true. (If you noticed, I didn’t say anything about lying)

• I haven’t done anything, but I knew someone who did, back at my college. His creative edit was to the article on Java–the computer language, not the country. Slipped in a sentence near the end of one of the paragraphs about how the language offended people by contributing to the objectification of women. To someone not familiar with the language, this would just seem random, but it comes out a lot funnier when you consider the fact that Java treats everything fed into it as an object. Needless to say, the edit didn’t last too long. — Ravyn, Exchange of Realities

HY: Ah, geek humour - the staple of Wikipedia vandals worldwide. It’s like an encyclopedia made by geeks, for geeks.

Everyone featured in this post gets a place on my recommended links page.

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