Geekery gone mad - Star Wars fans dominate Wikipedia

 

I don’t know about you, but the ultimate arbiter in a trivia battle with friends is Wikipedia. That was until we found that the online encyclopaedia isn’t as comprehensive as our obscure questions requires. Apart from on one thing - Star Wars.

The wealth of knowledge Wikipedia has on Star Wars far outweighs that of, some would say, more important subjects.

For example, the Wikipedia article on lightsabre combat is bigger than the one on Shakespeare. The article on the Great Jedi Purge is just bigger than the one on the Stalinist purges in the former USSR. And the article on Chancellor Palpatine dwarfs the one on our Chancellor, Gordon Brown.

Have a better example of Wikipedia geekery gone mad?

Murad Ahmed

Comments

[Mr Eugenides]

This post really should have been entitled, "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed"...

[Wunderbear]

Nothing to add (although the Unusual Articles section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unusual_articles) is a good read), but I must say that this is why I like Wikipedia so much.
No other encyclopedia would have as much interesting information in a simple manner on such a range of explicitly nerdy topics than wikipedia. I imagine that encyclopedia Britannica or Encarta would have little or no information on Star Wars other than a brief patronising entry, whereas wikipedia has loads.
Sure, there's not much on shakespeare; but you can learn about shakespeare from any other encyclopedia. But could you learn about Zerg Rushes (a fast attack at the beginning of the game. In this context, it is also known as swarming, goblin tactics or Zerging) or 13375p34k (a writing system used primarily on the Internet, but nowadays also in most online video games as well, which uses various combinations of alphanumerics to replace proper letters)? I don't think so. And that is why I love wikipedia.

[Revan]

You should see Wookiepedia ..

[dr venables preller]

As pointed out, it's horses for courses.

The knowledge resource for topics that have long been around is established and well documented elsewhere. There is also a provenance where paid research and academic scholarship are key ingredients.

In the case of the Wiki, enthusiasm of the amateur professional variety is the driver for a more up to the minute database of recent information which could be out of date by the time it reached the press of conventional publication.

That said, the quality of such information is variable, and whilst the ongoing editing process should be a filter, there is scope for mischievous mis or dis information.

[Wainwright]

Consider this story about the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-ladowsky/pedophilia-and-star-trek_b_5857.html

It says that 'of the more than 100 (pedophile) offenders the unit has arrested over the last four years, "all but one" has been "a hard-core Trekkie" '

Wikipedia is very popular with kids.

[Chris H]

While the fact that Gordon Brown is a Chancellor is pretty cool the question remains, is he a Sith Lord? No? Then why are we talking about him?

[Utkarshraj Atmaram]

There are a lot of Star Wars fans on Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean Shakespeare is being ignored. The information on Shakespeare is split over many articles, including articles covering topics such as "List of English words invented by Shakespeare" and "Shakespearean authorship question": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:William_Shakespeare

Also, fictional things are always easier to study and write about. The information on the Star Wars or other films is easier to accumulate and verify. On the other hand, addition of information about real incidents and people, esp. the controversial information, has to be verified from a lot of sources.

Not to deny the presence of geeks at Wikipedia, but there's more to this than you think. Oh, by the way:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedians_by_geekness

[Rsdio]

In addition to the usual suspects like Star Wars, Star Trek, Family Guy or The Simpsons, there are dozens of very detailed and well-researched articles on:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Scouting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Machinima
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:BDSM

And just about every article about someone who was slightly eccentric and/or intelligent has a section speculating that, although there isn't any documented evidence supporting it, maybe, just maybe (cross your fingers!) they may have had http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assburger%27s_syndrome

hey don't be trashing star war! this is a part of thw wrold histroy and its a great out late for kid and adults alike. for me it has made me a very happy person if a very boring exsitance so u start trashing it u r asking for troble