Online encyclopedia Wikipedia bans sarcasm.

[reddragdiva]

Computer simulation of the Wikipedia "Co-Civility Sphere" crushing all vestige of unseemliness beneath its cultured might. Source: Wikimedia.

FLORIDA, Tuesday (Wikinews) — In a move to enhance the civility of the editing environment on top-10 collaborative social networking site Wikipedia, sarcasm has been banned from all Wikipedia editing spaces as incivil.

"I was voicing my strong disapproval of a bad policy, as it was obvious that the proponents were absolutely acting as Hitler would have," said editor Harrison Bergeron. "Then they started quoting Uncyclopedia article web addresses at me! Even after I'd alerted them to their violation of Godwin's law! Well. That sort of thing is unacceptable. It creates a bad working environment for everyone. We obviously needed a new rule immediately."

Wikipedia God-King Jimbo Lear was quick to back the move. "We already have a guideline against stupidity, which actually worked to abolish all stupidity on Wikipedia and therefore removed any reasonable motivation editors may have had to resort to sarcasm, even in cases of extreme provocation, as all editors are now extremely clueful and on the ball. *ahem*"

The move has been hailed in vigorous, blunt, strident, robust and bold tones by many Wikipedians.

"I must say, I'm glad I have this rule to helpfully point out to those rude assholes whenever they tell me that some say that critics hold my writing to be excessively verbose, convoluted, overly redundant and also tautological as well," said an editor who deleted his name from the original version of this page. "They should just shut the fuck up."

Wikipedia User:JSwift1729 added important proposals against other antisocial behaviour on the wiki, such as smarminess, passive aggression, satire and humour. Humor is also under consideration. "It's really helpful that we can change people's thoughts, opinions and behaviour by changing text on a policy page," Swift modestly said. "We're also looking into banning smarty-pants who use paper books as references, anyone who assumes bad faith by saying that a deletion nominator needs to learn about the world outside Google, and people who make the grossly offensive personal attack of saying that Michael Crichton novels and Rush Limbaugh radio shows aren't as good reference sources on global warming as peer-reviewed scientific papers. And it's against neutrality, too. After we're done with them, we'll be taking on the people who think they're better writers than others."

Some have resisted the changes. "Fortunately," said Bergeron, "edit-warring the policy page back to my community consensus version pending the discussion I started put paid to them. Edit-warring is considerably less damaging to editing than saying something someone thinks is mean. Your rights end where my feelings begin. We're building a social networking site here."

Sources

• Harrison Bergeron "Mommy! He was mean when I called him a Nazi!". WT:BLP, October 8, 2006
• Harrison Bergeron "No, really! Really mean! Punch the shit out of him, Mommy!". WT:CIVIL, October 9, 2006

Yeah, Uncyclopedia again; cc-by-nc-sa 2.0. It probably won't make any sense unless you read the source links.

Comments

[redcountess]

Good to see they're keeping you busy at work ;-p

[arkady.livejournal.com]

Good grief. You couldn't make this shit up.

[shamus9999.livejournal.com]

As if reading source links could make Uncyclopedia understandable. :)

(I have two cows... in Soviet Russia, two cows have you!!!)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

It is my goal to set up a thing like Wikipedia but on which you almost never have to waste your virtual breath on these loons...

[baljemmett.livejournal.com]

Ah, about:blank then?

[reddragdiva]

I fear baljemmett is correct. Politics starts with two people in a room; with thousands, it's amazing when you get anything but politics.

(And don't try to tell me expert idiots are less annoying; it's just that academia has evolved ways of dealing with them. In which case you basically need to wait a hundred years for the wiki environment to evolve.)

As I noted in the old version of Don't be a dick, open source software projects tend not to have the same sort of problems. Not the ones that survive, anyway. Specialisation and a benevolent dictator attitude may be the go, if you can do that and still keep the community.

But if you can set up a collaborative encyclopedia site that is somehow able to keep idiots out, I predict the entire non-idiot population of Wikipedia will flock to it. At which point I predict you will discover how good apparently non-stupid people are at acting stupid when they put their minds to it.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

But we already have Uncyclopedia....

[loosechanj.livejournal.com]

FLORIDA, Tuesday

This post is obviously utterly false. Not a god damned thing happened here today.

[ajohnymous.livejournal.com]

FLORIDA, Tuesday

Wikipedia headquarters isn't too far of a drive from my house. You should come visit and you can visit the mothership.