Wikipedia:Sarcasm is really helpful
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This page is intended as humor. It is not, has never been, nor will ever be, a Wikipedia policy or guideline. Rather, it illustrates standards or conduct that are generally not accepted by the Wikipedia community. |
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| “ | Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded. | ” |
When dealing with a particularly difficult editor or situation, you will never be tempted to resort to sarcasm. But if you somehow are, that's a really great idea. Sarcasm works well in online media, because it's easy to pick up on without all of those pesky nonverbal cues. It's hard to see how the employment of sarcasm could possibly be counterproductive.
Sarcasm is especially useful in controversial debates, where a sarcastic comment often has the effect of calming the situation. Don't worry about offending people; simply appending a smiley emoticon or humorous XML tag (</sarcasm>) to your comment will assuage any hurt feelings, and doing so exempts you from the strictures of civility and good faith.
Despite the use of the above measures and your inherent, undeniable cleverness, your sarcastic remarks may still be unrecognized or unappreciated by their target audience. This should be interpreted as immediate confirmation of your superior intellect and wit, as well as a corresponding deficiency of those qualities in your audience; you should not hesitate to emphasize this, as it will enable further discussion to proceed productively. It also allows the discussion to stray away from well-known contentious issues towards the beautiful landscapes of hermeneutical disputes on the possible or indisputable subjective and objective meanings of the semantical structures used in the various contributions to the debate.
In rare cases, users have been singled out for special recognition of such demonstrated superiority.
While one could, of course, employ sarcasm from one's registered Wikipedia account, sarcasm is more effective and better appreciated if you have the fortitude to post it from an IP address.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
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Look up sarcasm in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
- How To Be Sarcastic: A tutorial from the Sarcasm Society.
- Policy against sarcasm: A policy proposal on Wikipedia to forbid sarcasm (no, seriously!).
- Wikipedia bans sarcasm: an UnNews story about the above.
