Thursday, October 11, 2007

Laugh riot

Not sure exactly how it happened, but I've gotten sucked into editing the recreation article. You'd think this entry would be a quiet backwater that receives little attention and less vandalism. You'd think wrong.

The problem is that "fun" is redirected to this article. Sure enough, various jolly souls drop by to share their ideas of fun. These often involve hot chicks and unusual sex positions. Nothing wrong with them, as Seinfeld might say, but they make the article a little less authoritative.

An especially persistent jolly soul named Erudecorp has shown up at the article. His major, actually only, contribution: "An example of fun could be that some people are having fun viewing this article, amusing themselves over the fact that this article even exists." This is not rib-tickling material, at least to my ribs, but Erudecorp gets touchy over any attempt to remove it. See this edit summary if you don't believe me.

The article already lists "using the Internet" as a form of recreation. This would seem to cover any amusement a reader might get from the existence of the recreation article. I've pointed this out to Erudecorp on the talk page, to no avail. He's blitzed me with acronyms to show that his opinion on the article's amusement value is protected by Wikipedia policy, the Bill of Rights, and Billy Mays' money-back guarantee.

So I've surrendered. In fact, I kind of like Erudecorp's irreverent attitude towards WP. Oh sure, nobody's really going to get any chuckles over the existence of an article on recreation. By objective standards, Erudecorp's edit is nonsense.

But the sheer goofiness of his idea is a helpful corrective to the solemnity of much Wikipedia rhetoric. I cringe whenever Jimbo invokes the famous African kid that we're supposed to be writing the encyclopedia for. Maybe we need a little nonsense sprinkled here and there.

UPDATE: Another editor removed Erudecorp's attempt at humor. I have to agree with the removal, though I still think WP could lighten up a little.

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