Retro Yakking

In January, it was precisely eight years since the online collaborative uncyclopedia encyclopedia known as Wikipedia was formally launched.

Since this momentous date, it has become nothing short of an internet juggernaut, a mainstay at the top of the Alexa traffic rankings, dominating web culture with its ‘finger on the pulse’ up-to-the minute, accurate reporting (possibly).

Of course, this makes it eminently ripe for parody and mickey-taking. During Wikipedia Week (Jan 24 -1st Feb 09), Retro Yakking focused on the lighter side of everyone’s favourite source of misinformation.

See more information about Wikipedia Week

Featured posts

• The Wikipedia Good Vandal’s Guide is the ultimate resource for the potential Wikipedia vandal. Avoid the pitfalls of novice vandalism and frustrate your victims no end with this Wikipedia troll’s bible.

• Wikipedia Parody wikis are numerous and more common than you might think. Check out this selection of sites that play on the Wikipedia format and writing style to humorous effect.

• Fun facts about Bill Gates all taken from the pages of Wikipedia. A great thing about the wiki format is that you can trawl the archives to see what pages looked like at particular points in the past, a bit like archive.org. This post collates Wikipedia’s best false facts about everyone’s favourite Russian imaginary friend (read the article and it’ll make sense).

• Wikipedia silly words hunt. Wikipedia has entries on such obscure (and humorous) words as cringle, spongle and zingo. Really. This post compiles a bunch of articles that I am actually surprised are on Wikipedia.

• Wikipedia Silly Things. Just to show that the guys at Wikimedia have a sense of humour, this is a collection of articles that I found unusual or otherwise noteworthy.

• Wikipedia for Webmasters - using Wikipedia as a promotional tool and how I managed to get a #1 Google Search result for my Geocities website with a simple spelling error.

• Wikipedia Vandal’s Club - readers offer their own suggestions for creative vandalism of The Free Encyclopedia, be it subtle or all-singing, all-dancing blatancy.

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But wait, there’s more!

Bonus posts about Wikipedia made outside Wikipedia Week.

• Fun (but fake) facts from the Free Encyclopedia - ten less than reliable excerpts from Wikipedia.
• David Cameron becomes Prime Minister, as reported by Wikipedia. Needless to say, our friend Wiki indulges in a spot of culture jamming once more.

A Wikihumour addict? Check out the Illogicopedia for a more insane version of the Free Encyclopedia.

Still hungry?

• See more information about Wikipedia Week at the introduction page.
  
• View the category to see all the posts from Wikipedia Week
• See more posts about Wikipedia posted right here on this very blog.

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