Wikipedia:Things that should not be surprising
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What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. —Ecclesiastes 1:9 |
Some things can be surprising about Wikipedia.
Some things, given some thought, should not be.
Some examples of things that should not be surprising:
People
[edit]- Sometimes people who aren't vandals get blocked because they were behaving like assholes.
- Sometimes people who aren't vandals get blocked because someone doesn't like them.
- Blocks that are poorly justified may be reverted by another admin upon appeal.
- Blocks that are properly justified probably won't be reverted by another admin upon appeal.
- Not all users are on Wikipedia 24/7 and thus may not be able to respond immediately to personal requests.
- Idiots are just as common on Wikipedia as anywhere else.
Articles
[edit]- Naked people exist, and might be used to illustrate an article about, say, nudism.
- Any page will never be 100% correct (except List of Pokémon characters).
- Articles about ongoing ethnic feuds are subject to ongoing feuds between ethnic groups.
- Some articles are crap (but you can fix it, what are you waiting for?!).
- Sports teams hope to make the playoffs.
Seriousness
[edit]- Some people are way too serious about the tone of articles.
- Some people are too silly when writing or editing articles.
- Some people are way too serious about themselves.
- Sometimes the Internet is serious business.
- Sometimes the Internet isn't serious business, but some people refuse to believe it.
Vandalism
[edit]- Vandals get blocked.
- Vandalism on widely watched articles gets quickly reverted, while vandalism on minor stubs and other low-traffic pages is slower to be reverted.
- People will vandalize anything and everything.
- There is much more vandalism while school is in session.
Disagreements
[edit]- People can edit war about some really stupid things.
- People can argue over the smallest things.
- People can argue over the dumbest things.
- A large portion of the back end of Wikipedia is dedicated to resolving disputes.
- Being a dick doesn't resolve conflicts.
- Being a giant dick isn't a winning move in a conflict.
Conflicts of interest
[edit]- You (and your college garage band/vanity press novel) are most likely not notable.
- Sometimes people edit their articles to make themselves look better.
- Sometimes corporations/NGOs/governments edit their articles to make themselves look better.
- Sometimes people edit articles to make their enemies look worse.
- IP addresses can be traced back to their owners.
Miscellaneous
[edit]- People behave as if articles for deletion and requests for adminship are votes, and yet loudly declare they aren't votes.
- The MediaWiki software can be fucking weird sometimes.
- The "edit this page" link actually lets people edit pages.
- Shit happens.
- Shit OFTEN happens.
- Either way you look at it, you're screwed.
- Wikipedia is an encyclopedia.
- Wikipedia exists and is currently working (otherwise how are you here?)
- One day you will die and all of your contributions will be transcluded, erased, overwritten, invalidated, vandalized, or forgotten, but you will not be able to do anything about it.
- Most edits whose summaries contain variations on the word "accurate", especially ones by IPs or redlinked names, need to be reverted for being anything but "accurate".
And finally
[edit]- A page documenting obvious facts exists somewhere.
- People will actually look up and read a page documenting obvious facts, just like you are right now.