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Gaming:The WTF World of Wikipedia - 15 unbelievable "truths"

gamesradar.com — Problem is, the nerds and dorks tend to have a lot more free time - and passion - than the teachers and professors. The end result? A hilariously skewed, terrifyingly twisted view of the world in which all the wrong things are deemed "important" and worthy of serious academic discussion. Here are 15 mind-boggling examples.

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  • noof, on 07/03/2008, -9/+354Those are just silly. Did he even click the theatre links to the right on the WWII-page? There are LOTS of links embedded in the text that leads to other WWII-topics.
    • hmunkey, on 07/04/2008, -1/+21If he did check it all, there would be 100s of 1000s of words.
    • Konstantino, on 07/04/2008, -5/+150Besides that, does it really matter how long an article is? Aren't we going for quality vs quantity here? Let's be honest, Pokemon is a bit more complicated than Poker.
    • XBSHX, on 07/04/2008, -2/+25Yeah this is so ridiculous. There are so many different articles relating to WWI but he ignores them yet counts all the different CoD articles. Same with poker. he should have counted all the different types of poker there is.
    • soogy, on 07/04/2008, -2/+82Wikipedia has length guidelines. When an article or section gets too long, it needs to be split off into separate articles so as to not confuse the ***** out of the reader. Relevant information is what should be kept in one article, while extra details on particularities are put into other (often smaller, sometimes even larger) "child" articles, if you will.

      The Pokemon article is also not just that one page. It has hundreds if not thousands of pages dedicated to the subject. Poker is just poker, but there are hundreds of articles on card games, probably still not as many as Pokemon though, as there are not nearly as many playing cards as there are Pokemon cards. Doesn't mean Pokemon is more important, it's just a more vast subject.

      Just because Tolstoy's book is a behemoth doesn't mean the summary of it needs to be.

      Basically, yes, there are more young people than academics who spend time editing Wikipedia. This is why I no longer edit there, you eventually get tired of dealing with kids who have little or wrong information about the article(s) you are trying to improve. But an article's length has nothing to do with its importance nor quality.

      And the Starship Enterprise is more important than automobiles. Duh.
      • widgetmaker, on 07/04/2008, -0/+9Dugg for Starship Enterprise
      • allthosemoments, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1Basically your first four paragraphs were unnecessary, but I still dugg it.
    • Browzer, on 07/04/2008, -0/+36Yeah, it's a dumb story. Wikipedia articles about huge subjects like WW2 often provide a high level summary, but have branches that go to more detailed articles (i.e. The "Background" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#Backgrou ... section of the WW2 article is only a page, but you can click a link to go to the "Causes of World War II" article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_I ... which is huge).

      I always have the same response to people who make this criticism: if you think a really important subject is getting short-changed on Wikipedia, go expand on it yourself. Otherwise, if you can't be bothered to do that, stop complaining that someone else hasn't done it for you.
    • Laiden, on 07/04/2008, -4/+23He equates words from a main article (which have tons of links to explanitory articles for brevity) as importance.

      Rediculous. Buried.
    • 42Vindictive, on 07/04/2008, -0/+16I buried this because if you were to actually write EVERYTHING about World War II (like Wikipedia has in it's child articles) I have no doubt it would be approaching the millions of words. Having a million word article would a) take way too long to load b) be quite confusing c) be needlessly in-depth for people searching for only an overview or specific topic

      Quantity =/= Quality. C'mon, does this guy know anything?

      Also, think about this: Who uses the internet most? Gamers. They created the internet phenomenon as we know it today, they perpetuated pornography, video games, discussion about these topics. So of course game articles are going to be quite popular. It's like saying Bed, Bath and Beyond has more stuff about interior design than video games.
    • LightSpeed4, on 07/04/2008, -0/+7The Call of Duty comparison is fallacious for one simple reason:

      "On an encouraging note, we did have to add all the Call of Duty games' individual pages together to reach the crazy number above. "

      Guess what? If you add together all of the World War II articles on the Wikipedia, you will have enough words to sink a small ship. Wikipedia articles are not meant to be gigantic - when they get to be too big, smaller sections are split out into other articles.

      Word count on any given article is hardly an indication of its importance. There are a lot of other factors. You need ton consider child articles, word count on those child articles, number of editors, number of edits... etc. I know this is just for humor, and some of the trends are interesting - but I would hardly call any of these a WTF.
      • sickanimations, on 07/04/2008, -1/+5It's called "cherry picking" and it's bad journalism. *tuts*
  • xcolonel, on 07/03/2008, -77/+6i agree what noof said
    • Rosh37, on 07/03/2008, -4/+55that's why you can click the green "thumbs up" button ...fail
    • bradleyland, on 07/04/2008, -1/+38That's nice honey. Now please sit down and stop throwing your potatoes at daddy.
    • EvilFerret, on 07/04/2008, -0/+28I'm posting a comment.
    • Zihuatanejo, on 07/04/2008, -13/+1Judging by the replies to this comment, I guess it's much easier to be smarmy than to recognize sarcasm.
    • grumpyrain, on 07/05/2008, -1/+4I am a banana.
  • freekylaugh, on 07/03/2008, -11/+416i didn't know word count was what made things important.....
    guess i was wrong.
    • mohsenxp, on 07/04/2008, -3/+33I completely agree. Useless article.
      • prophetpimp, on 07/04/2008, -6/+9Might be useless but it was funny.

        PS: Knuckles > God
    • punkcat, on 07/04/2008, -3/+11worthless, took me awhile to even understand what they were getting at it made such little sense.
    • AyaJulia, on 07/04/2008, -3/+13Sadly, it will make top ten anyway, just because it's about games.
    • The0, on 07/04/2008, -3/+14Word count hasn't been important since high school essays.
    • sysop073, on 07/04/2008, -4/+15Your comment: 14 words
      My comment about the word count of your comment: 26 words
      Absolutely ridiculous. Clearly this comment should also make the front page
    • rpgmaker, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4It doesn't and I'm sure the writer knows this too. It was a funny article, I'm not use to clicking through 5 pages articles but I did with this one. Dugg.
    • dstz, on 07/04/2008, -0/+8Word count is fine. BUT ARTICLES IN ALL CAPS ARE THE BEST.
    • t0x2c, on 07/04/2008, -0/+6You obviously haven't been to high school lately.
    • CptBuck, on 07/04/2008, -0/+6By this guy's metric J.K. Rowling>Hemingway.
      • allthosemoments, on 07/05/2008, -2/+1Ok lets be honest, Hemingway kinda sucks and Harry Potter is kinda awesome.
    • bentrinh, on 07/05/2008, -0/+4Tell that to my English teacher...
    • allthosemoments, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1I miss the days when importance was based on Googlefight and not wordcount on Wikipedia.
  • Sverre, on 07/03/2008, -11/+117This is silly. Comparing word counts says very little about the information content of the articles, or how they link up with other articles on similar subjects.

    And, even if we accepted that measurement, the article is still a big "So what?". Of course there are many gamers who love to spend time writing up on their favourite game, and fewer academics who bother to write a lot about their passions. But this is an online encyclopedia, and one article does not push other articles out because of limited space. There is no reason why articles on more obscure topics shouldn't exist.
    • bradbeattie, on 07/04/2008, -9/+4"There is no reason why articles on more obscure topics shouldn't exist."

      So I can have an article in Wikipedia about my pet turtle? C'mon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability
      • radsprack, on 07/04/2008, -2/+10He said "more obscure" not totally obscure. The obscurity he was talking about was the difference between what this article was comparing not something completely off base such as said turtle.
      • mistermaster, on 07/04/2008, -3/+2Yes, you can. On your personal page.
    • radsprack, on 07/04/2008, -1/+6"Of course there are many gamers who love to spend time writing up on their favourite game, and fewer academics who bother to write a lot about their passions."

      Well, in Wikipedia that is. Academics has a different medium in which they "write a lot about their passions." They're called books.
      • mchisari, on 07/04/2008, -2/+3
        Well, maybe they should get with the 21st century and stop shaking their cane at the kids on their lawn.
      • Kzoo, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2Not to mention the massive amount of journals. Encyclopedias are for overview. 'Academics discussing their passion' are in going to go into much deeper detail and assume more background knowledge than the encyclopedic level covers.

        Wikipedia allows much more detail than the typical encyclopedia format, but it's still a starting point, not an end point.
      • Sverre, on 07/06/2008, -0/+1@radsprack: Sure, but that wasn't the topic under discussion. :)
    • Gutterpunk, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2Exactly. Pitting the "Final Fantasy soundtrack VS Rock and Roll"? Could they be more generic? They could (and did) write a library of books on Rock and Roll, but it is not a reason to expect them all to be on Wikipedia, nor is it the place where people go when they want info about it.

      By their own account "WWII > Humans" and "Serial killers > Founding Fathers". Gotta love an article that ridicule itself.

      This was written by someone who would would be describe in about 3 words on Wikipedia.

      • PoSSeSSeDCoW, on 07/10/2008, -0/+1To be fair, World War II did indeed own humans. World War II killed approximately 60 million humans. Humans only killed two world wars. That's a slaughter.
  • AstroLemon, on 07/03/2008, -7/+190Something tells me they ran out of actual news to make this *****...

    They combined the word count of all the Call of Duty games, and compared it to a single WWII page? C'mon, that's like comparing apples to chainsaws.
    • slimscane, on 07/04/2008, -0/+57You're right!

      Apples: 4155 > Chainsaw: 1747
    • Harbinger67, on 07/04/2008, -0/+14There's plenty of news, it's just that GR is desperately trying to become the Cracked of the gaming world.
      • Fafnir43, on 07/04/2008, -0/+9Nah, Cracked has more editorial integrity than this. Yes I went there. (They actually stole the idea from Something Awful, which tells you something... especially when the Something Awful version was better.)
    • biznatch11, on 07/04/2008, -3/+9What's so different about apples and chainsaws anyways? Pft nuts to you. Now I shall enjoy this delicious app....ohhh my god it's slicing off my face!!!
  • PhailQuail, on 07/03/2008, -19/+5It could be that America is the only country that cares about its presidents. Not a valid comparison IMO.
  • Chomprel, on 07/03/2008, -18/+5Thanks for all the pop-up ads, ass.
    • bosssmiley, on 07/04/2008, -1/+10*Psssst* Adblock. ;-)
    • misilman, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3Pop-up? Wow, what browser are you using dude??
  • Xezial, on 07/03/2008, -10/+96The list is just comparing wikipedia articles by the number of words per article:

    -Call of Duty (first three)(13069 words) > WWII (11884 Words)
    -Pokemon (5721 words) > Poker (1857 Words)
    -Master Chief (4463 Words) > 23% of U.S. Presidents (3334 Words)
    -Starship Enterprise (8507 Words) > Automobile (6935 Words)
    -Metal Gear Solid 4 (6818 Words) > War and Peace (5041 Words)
    -Electronic Gaming Monthly (4429 Words) > Time Magazine (2274 Words)
    -Compilation Final Fantasy albums (8058 Words) > Rock and Roll (3911 Words)
    -Mega Man X Bosses (8058 Words) > Serial Killers (5602 Words)
    -Minor Star Wars Characters (22463 Words)(!!!) > The Founding Fathers (3046 Words)
    -Legend of Zelda Races (10611 Words) > European Ethnic Groups (4282 Words)
    -Superman(10818 Words) + Batman(10641 Words) = [21459 Words] > Human (10835 Words)
    -Umbrella Corporation (3384 Words) > National human Genome Research Institute (509 Words)
    -Characteristics of Kirby (1512 Words) > Characteristics of a Dog (1148 Words)
    -Mario's Legacy (444 Words) > Jesus' Legacy (418 Words)
    -Knuckles (7832 Words) > God (3726 Words)
    -Knuckles and Work (16457 Words) > God and Work (14330 Words)
    • Haoie, on 07/04/2008, -8/+10Well we all know more people believe in Knuckles than God, right?
      • bosssmiley, on 07/04/2008, -2/+17Yea, verrily. The actions of God are a mystery unto me, but I have seen the glory and majesty of Knuckles with mine own eyes.

        @Xezial: cheers mate. Your efforts are appreciated.
      • Fubarepublic, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3Depends what part of Dublin you come from...
      • zulfy26, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2this is dumb, there's 53,000 articles containing the word Jesus alone.
  • caddyalan, on 07/03/2008, -12/+1Perhaps this is a case where what's popular -- or considered true -- is what a large number of relatively intelligent people with internet access consider popular/true. If they think "casual games" are encroaching on their turf, then they might repeatedly attempt to persuade other people that their beliefs are unrefutable truth. Or if they think Fill-in-the-Blank Genre is shallow or unartistic, then they might do their best to bash that genre, and demean the minority of people who like it.
  • aznegglover, on 07/04/2008, -20/+2Broken link o________0
  • dunktim, on 07/04/2008, -7/+25Truthiness is alive and well.
  • Premier, on 07/04/2008, -11/+4"Mind Boggling" Really?
  • Myonosken, on 07/04/2008, -5/+38Wasn't this stolen from Somethingawful?
  • p13t3rm, on 07/04/2008, -17/+72Lame ass article. Buried.
  • Kanele, on 07/04/2008, -10/+0protip: the more words you add to the search, the more result you get
  • MopTop650, on 07/04/2008, -11/+9May I also note that, the Call Of Duty page talked about in this article, has more words then the France article (~8800).
  • hhswatkins, on 07/04/2008, -16/+111To save you time reading the article:

    Knuckles > God

    The End.
    • casuallyevil, on 07/04/2008, -10/+3Trick question. Knuckles IS God.
    • theword12, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4I was actually more surprised that Knuckles had a larger entry than Mario
  • Nekura20x6, on 07/04/2008, -6/+21Yeah - this is a bankrupt premise. They say the USS Enterprise is written about more than "automobile", but they mean the generic term and not everything written about every make and model. Plus, wouldn't it have made more sense to compare the fictitious spacecraft to some real ones (the Space Shuttle, for example)?

    I guess even gaming blogs have slow news days...
    • twinklyJesus, on 07/04/2008, -8/+4You win at missing the big picture!
      While USS Enterprise is a fictitious space ship, it is also the name of many infamous real ships. Don't you think it odd that if you search for USS Enterprise there would be more information on a fictiional ship than say on the most important ship in WWII, the "Big E"? It shows a huge flaw in wikipedia slanted toward pop culture, mythos and opinion rather than actual fact. It makes wikipedia a reflection of our own modern culture in a way, more shallow and emotional than logical and factual. You know, emo-fag-nerd-geeky like.
      • aethelberga, on 07/04/2008, -1/+6But that's what I use Wikipedia for, pop-culture, mythos and opinion. If I want real, hard facts about a legitimate subject, I'll read a well researched piece by someone considered an expert in the field.
      • twinklyJesus, on 07/05/2008, -0/+2So it should be "Wikopinon" then, right? I think the point of the article, which you seem to verify, is that it advertises itself as an encyclopedia but isn't. While you seem to be able to differentiate, the majority of the users of Wikipedia bandy the information provided through it as unquestionable fact. Especially when it denigrates conservatives, those who are not subscribers to who is responsible or can change climate issues, etc.

        it is too easy for this tool to be used for propaganda and dis-information.
      • Stevanoski, on 07/09/2008, -0/+2@twinklyJesus, damn well said.
  • gothicform, on 07/04/2008, -3/+60Misleading though... you add CoD 1,2, and 3 together and then say it has more than WW2. Why not add the battles of WW2 together, then you'll find that WW2 has enough to fill books.
  • RyeBrye, on 07/04/2008, -2/+62The Call of Duty comparison is fallacious for one simple reason:

    "On an encouraging note, we did have to add all the Call of Duty games' individual pages together to reach the crazy number above. "

    Guess what? If you add together all of the World War II articles on the Wikipedia, you will have enough words to sink a small ship. Wikipedia articles are not meant to be gigantic - when they get to be too big, smaller sections are split out into other articles.

    Word count on any given article is hardly an indication of its importance. There are a lot of other factors. You need ton consider child articles, word count on those child articles, number of editors, number of edits... etc. I know this is just for humor, and some of the trends are interesting - but I would hardly call any of these a WTF.

  • TheAuditor, on 07/04/2008, -13/+3Sorry, but that's commercialism for you. Why should people be interested in history and life when it is so bound, wheras fiction is much more attractive to them? Imaginary friends are so much cooler than real friends. (Satire)
    • Acglaphotis, on 07/04/2008, -0/+3I was going to digg you up until i read (Satire).
    • RonaldLovegood, on 07/04/2008, -3/+2Too bad others didn't read that. Poor guy. :P
  • tr0y85, on 07/04/2008, -6/+36Dugg for Kirby being made out of "gloop" hahaha
  • calebian, on 07/04/2008, -1/+12This doesn't mean anything. At one time the value of words meant more than the quantity.
    • bosssmiley, on 07/04/2008, -2/+2It still does. One pithy, well-crafted phrase beats any amount of unfocused verbiage.
  • dsheinem, on 07/04/2008, -0/+45This has already been done much better (and many times) by Something Awful:

    http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/wikigroaning. ...

    http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/wikigroaning- ...

    http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/wikigroaning- ...
    • Enfenestrate, on 07/04/2008, -0/+4If nothing else the delivery on SA is much more amusing that this garbage.
  • Hypersapien, on 07/04/2008, -2/+6The number of words in the wikipedia entry has nothing to do with the importance of the subject. It has only to do with how much there is to write about and who is doing the writing.

    If this guy thinks that some articles deserve to be longer, let HIM add more content to them.
  • pcwdigger, on 07/04/2008, -4/+1Not sure it really is that surprising... Wikipedia is very good at doing what the official cannon doesn't (5721 words on Pokemon). But I might turn to other reference material for info on WWII. Turn this insight on its head and I bet you'll find Starship Enterprise (1000 Words) < Automobile (12000 Words) in a stuffy old encyclopedia.
  • lostformat1125, on 07/04/2008, -7/+1Self-improvement is Masturbation....something that these nerds (including myself) do at least twice a day.
  • P522, on 07/04/2008, -11/+4More on Napoleon Dynamite than Napoleon Bonaparte. Wikipedia is just a vanity publication for teens and twenty somethings.
    • Jesse, on 07/04/2008, -3/+1I completly agree with you. I agree with the author's premise: The amount of energy nerds expend at promoting their own, mostly irrelevant, interests is pathetic. It skews with their perception of reality. Four months ago, you'd think Ron Paul was about to be elected King of the Universe. These days, you think XKCD is a smidgen better than sliced bread.
  • theImmodiumGuy, on 07/04/2008, -8/+3Summary of War and Peace - "Napoleon invades Russia. ***** happens."

    There, I did it in 5 words, which beats even Wiki's 1,922. FTW!
  • AlanFang, on 07/04/2008, -3/+21This article has one serious flaw, word count is a terrible way to gauge the importance of the something.
    • NathanielJ, on 07/04/2008, -0/+11Oh, it's got more serious flaws than that.
    • jameshales, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5Your argument has one serious flaw. It has fewer words than mine, and thus it is less important than mine.
  • SuckMyDigg, on 07/04/2008, -3/+7This article is what is unbelievable. I wasn't aware articles were trying to be the biggest to be the best. That doesn't even make sense.

    Another thing that doesn't make sense is comparing information about a video game which was released to great acclaim very recently to a war that happened so long ago that most of the people who experienced it in one fashion or another are too old to a) care about writing on a wikipedia page that already has pertinent facts and b) even know how to get to wikipedia, much less know what it is.

    I would guess there is 500 times + more information about world war ii than there will ever be about all the call of duty games combined, but most of it is written in BOOKS, not a website.
    • NathanielJ, on 07/04/2008, -0/+5The information about WWII is also split up into several pages, because Wikipedia has a "don't make ridiculously long-ass articles" policy.
  • Doomsan, on 07/04/2008, -4/+11gamesradar sinks to a new low again.
  • alpha94, on 07/04/2008, -4/+4Why would anyone bother to collect this information? It's not even relevant.
  • mickhead, on 07/04/2008, -1/+8I hereby establish the church of knuckles.
  • pakakapa, on 07/04/2008, -1/+22ads and misc banners (60% of page) > content (30% of page)
  • redfred18t, on 07/04/2008, -2/+4dugg for nonfictional dragons
  • Tinendo, on 07/04/2008, -5/+2OK. The count of Words means nothing. Nice Idea but pointless.
  • ndseifi, on 07/04/2008, -2/+2It's not Snake's fault that he owns Pierre Bezukhov.
    • bosssmiley, on 07/04/2008, -0/+2Pierre = whiny, solipsistic navel-gazer. Snake ftw!
  • sourceholder, on 07/04/2008, -1/+3MIRROR:
    http://tinyurl.com/6n47vr
  • NewZeta, on 07/04/2008, -6/+5This is silly. Anyone could describe something of least importance with thousand words and describe the most important with concise manner.
    So, according to the article, words = importance?
    Hm, then how about this?
    Food = what we eat. necessary for survival (6 words)
    Crap = This is what we get after we digest consumed food. Generally smells and exposure to this would cause general disgust (20 words)
    So Crap > Food.
    I see. What a flawless logic.(laughs)
  • FrankTheTank17, on 07/04/2008, -0/+13Dugg for the pictures describing the anatomy of a dog and kirby.
  • Jack9, on 07/04/2008, -2/+8More words must mean it's more important. Obviously an article by an idiot.
    • allthosemoments, on 07/05/2008, -0/+1More words really does equal more important and the article was certainly by an idiot. My comment has more words so I > you. bahaha.
  • gasoline, on 07/04/2008, -3/+3*****. Just look how many separate subtopics with their own pages WWII has.
  • UnknownHero, on 07/04/2008, -4/+2This got Dugg by me because he used the pictures of the Bruce Timm Superman and Batman, the best Superman and Batman ever.
  • RationalXubrnce, on 07/04/2008, -0/+9 All this means is that normal Wiki posts aren't as full of useless minutia as the topics that nerds like are.
    • blanketfury, on 07/05/2008, -0/+0Kinda like the topics at Digg

      DOOOOOOOOOOOOH
  • ndseifi, on 07/04/2008, -7/+5Why take it so seriously? Lighten up.
    • Aitese, on 07/04/2008, -2/+3If it was just a joke why did it take 5 pages? He sat and typed out all those words (words = importance btw) so it must have meant something to him.
      • picalicious, on 07/08/2008, -1/+1looks like someone can't lighten up. All those articles on that site are long, many more than 5 pages.
    • H0rAti0, on 07/04/2008, -2/+2I agree, if he wanted to make a joke why not post it on a joke site rather than a highly viewed information site..... besides, i have yet to come across a knock knock, or blond joke that spans 5 pages
  • Porbeagle, on 07/04/2008, -4/+6It's silly, but pretty funny. That's all it's supposed to be - mild entertainment on the net.
  • breakdancecrew, on 07/04/2008, -4/+7People takes things too seriously on Digg sometimes. This is one of the few GamesRadar articles that actually got me laughing and made me forget that the majority of the page is filled with ad-spam.
  • rationalist, on 07/04/2008, -3/+12Word count not equivalent to information value.
    See: Digg.
  • rmeddy, on 07/04/2008, -4/+13Dugg for Jesus bicycle kick.
    • misilman, on 07/04/2008, -1/+0Amazing!
      Wonder if he goes to the World Cup in 2010
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