WEEKLY WHINE

Please report all exploding whales

As you know, Wikipedia celebrated its tenth anniversary this past weekend. There have been many incredible happenings over that time, such as the tripling of Babar publications over the last six months. But the most exciting and consistently wacky events have been the lame edit wars. If you can’t agree on who invented the Caesar salad, or what nationality U2 are [or indeed whether bands can accurately be said to have nationalities at all], or why “California State Route 1” is an inherently superior title to “State Route 1 (California)” to the extent that anybody who would dare title an article “State Route 1 (California)” is clearly unfit to edit articles, then why are we all here?

But there is still plenty of room for newer and lamer edit wars on Wikipedia. So, the GoobNet Special Projects Enhancement and Enforcement Division [SPEED] has reviewed all 3,530,766 articles on the English language Wikipedia, and each member has selected a subject that should be edited in a lame, warring fashion.

RICH: CATEGORY:NUMERIC MEMES

A fantastic edit war would be over the existence of the Numeric Memes category. Is it necessary to have an entire category devoted to 42, 87, 69, 420, and all the numbers that have significance above and beyond their numeric values? If so, does -40 qualify on account of its being equal on the Fahrenheit and centigrade temperature scales? What about 47, given that it is only notable to Pomona alumni and the rest of us don’t give a shit?

GABY: GREASED UP DEAF GUY

The Griffins of Family Guy each warrant their own pages on Wikipedia, as do Quagmire, Mayor Adam West, and Herbert. Attempts to create a page for the Greased Up Deaf Guy result in an immense edit war, during which the page is frequently replaced with a redirect to the Citizens of Quahog section of the list of characters, reverted, re-reverted, blanked, unblanked, vandalised, and eventually arbitrated with the decision that anyone with a sobriquet does not merit a page. This then starts another edit war about Ernie the Giant Chicken, Asian Reporter Tricia Takinawa, and even Futurama’s Number 9 Guy.

WEN: EDGWARE ROAD TUBE STATION

For the moment, there is a calm over the articles on the two London Underground stations called Edgware Road. The “Edgware Road tube station” article will take you to the station that services the Circle Line and two others, with a hatnote pointing out the article on the nearby Bakerloo Line station and even the similarly named Edgware station. As proposals to change the Bakerloo Line station gain traction in the coming years, it would be awesome for an edit war to erupt over which station “Edgware Road tube station” should redirect to, or if it should simply be a disambiguation page.

NINA: TRIVIA SECTIONS

Trivia sections have long been a point of contention on Wikipedia. Any article about any sort of famous person will invariably include a trivia section. Any article about well-known films, television shows, books, landmarks, cities, clothing articles, images, or shoe sizes will invariably include a list of other films and television shows in which the article’s subject has appeared, been referenced, been mentioned, or been spoofed. As a result, the Great Trivial Edit War will erupt, in which trivia sections are summarily deleted and replaced many times over, and the guidelines on trivia questions are modified to allow lists of cultural references, not allow them, or allow them for certain types of articles. In the end, the community will reach a consensus that articles should only make note when a particular item has not been referenced by either The Simpsons or Family Guy.

JHONNY: LIST OF ARTICLES THAT DO NOT APPEAR ON A LIST

I heartily recommend creating this article and seeing how long it lasts before Wikipedia undergoes a total existence metacrisis.