Wikipedia, Groaning, and The Shape of the World Around Us

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Have you ever seen one of those fancy educational world maps, where the size of its countries are adjusted to proportionally represent their populations? We had one hanging in my sixth-grade class, and while all of the facts on the map were arguably correct enough, the curiously out-of-whack proportions -- a tiny sliver of Canada, and an India threatening to devour the entire Asian mainland -- were enough to make me stare.

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Wikipedia is, I think, the abstract equivalent of a population-adjusted map of the world. On paper, compiling facts from myriad voluntary sources around the globe is simple and perfect, and as such, it has as recently as this week been touted as the premiere one-stop information shop on the intertubes. Not to even mention that it is, indeed, a indisputable and vast wealth of facts. It isn't the facts themselves that make the übersite such a curious thing; it's the potential for skewed scope and distribution of the information within that makes it (much like a population-adjusted map) not so much my primary resource for any future cross-continental hiking trips.

If anything, Wikipedia should probably be viewed less as an objective font of knowledge and more like a mirror held up to the priorities of modern society. Oh, it's a scathing indictment of our society all right, but there is solace in this: it is worlds of entertainment. Which brings us to today's topic, the fine art of Wikigroaning.

Wikigroaning, named for the "aw, gawd" or equivalent interjection you are likely to make while playing, was born in the murky depths of Something Awful, and it is the ultimate time-wasting hunting sport of the internet. It is quite simple, really, combining creative thinking and competitive spirit with that special feel-good erudite thrill that comes from knowing you're only on the outer boundaries of a truly bizarre world.

The premise is quite simple. First, find a useful Wikipedia article that normal people might read. For example, the article called "Knight." Then, find a somehow similar article that is longer, but at the same time, useless to a very large fraction of the population. In this case, we'll go with "Jedi Knight." Open both of the links and compare the lengths of the two articles. Compare not only that, but how well concepts are explored, and the greater professionalism with which the longer article was likely created. Are you looking yet? Get a good, long look. Yeah. Yeeaaah, we know, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. (We're calling it Wikigroaning for a reason.)

Though the game has spread like wildfire within the past month or so, even garnering fancy illustrated write-ups in The Wall Street Journal, it might cross your mind that, somehow, these entries are being taken totally out of context and used unfairly. Stop that. From an entirely objective viewpoint, is it not impossible to look at the data and come to the conclusion that Jedi Knights are a larger part of modern literate Western culture, more important and revered, than the knights of the medieval era? This is the heart of Wikigroaning. As seriously as the writers and editors of Wikipedia tend to take themselves, in the end it is an amateur endeavor -- that's the whole point of it, after all. The "experts" are mostly only experts inasmuch as they can inject the sum of knowledge of their own trivia-filled lives into digital form. So what we're asking through this game is: with what do we, a culture that seems to be comprised of absolute nerds, fill our lives? What do we hold most dear?

Pop culture, of course. As if it wasn't obvious. A favorite comparison to quote is that of John Locke: the philosopher's entry logs 3,800 words, while the character on Lost has 7,400. Meanwhile, a 11,000 word entry for The Sopranos dwarfs the Mafia's 6,300, Emperor Palpatine crushes Emperor Constantine, and the entry for C.A.T.S. and the gang is more comprehensive than pretty much any other definition of the word "base." (Not that we necessarily want to delve any deeper into our Wiki-writers' psyches than pop culture, anyhow: after all, this is a place where love is no match for masturbation.)

It's a fun game, no doubt, but troubling nonetheless in the same way that making fun of someone's bad fashion is fun. An article in Globe and Mail tries to make sense of why it's so bothersome, and it makes a lot of sense.

I suspect that what really irks us about Wikipedia is that, as a user-written encyclopedia, it doesn't reflect ourselves with very much gravitas. Whatever its other merits, you have to admit that the Enyclopaedia Britannicamakes us out to be a Very Serious Race. The joy of wikigroaning formalizes the act of reminding ourselves that we're not.

Perhaps also, along the same lines, what's kind of irksome is that, even as we're turning that indicting mirror sardonically on the material, we're also kind of turning it on ourselves every time we think of a new potential pairing, secretly hoping that we will be perversely proven right.

Who knows, but it sure is fascinating. Today, for example, I discovered that TRON is bigger than the whole internet by two hundred words. It's a funny thing, that internet. So, what can you find? Shock and depress me. Do your best. (Or your worst.) It will only make it all the more fun.

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