Wikipedia:Whacking with a wet trout

Whack!

The above is a WikiTrout (Oncorhynchus macrowikipediensis), used to make subtle adjustments to the clue levels of experienced Wikipedians. To whack a user with a wet trout, simply place {{trout}} on his or her talk page.

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• For newcomers (or for a less spammy version), use a {{minnow}}, {{diet trout small}} or {{diet trout}}.
• For a styleable version that can, e.g., be floated the right of talk page posts, use {{minnow}}.
• For not-so-subtle adjustments, try a {{whale}}.
• Any Wikipedian who wants to advertise an openness to being trout-slapped can add {{trout me}} to the top of his or her user page for a topicon or {{Wikipedians open to trout slapping}} for a banner.

History

The following is not intended to be reliable encyclopedic information, although it is as accurate an explanation as we could find.

Trout slapping originated in 1995 with internet relay chat (IRC). While in an IRC chat room, the IRC client mIRC would allow users to enter the command:

• /slap Sam

which would trigger the chat room to announce something along the lines of:

• Steve slaps Sam around a bit with a large trout

The trout as the standard weapon-of-choice for slapping users in IRC can probably be attributed to the surreal humor that computer programmers are known to appreciate. There is additionally an old saying that some personal experience is "better than a slap in the face with a wet fish." A 1971 Monty Python sketch called The Fish-Slapping Dance may be partly to blame, even though this sketch did not specifically involve trout (sardines and a halibut). Also, in the Tintin books, the character Jolyon Wagg frequently quoted his uncle Anatole in saying that some situation was “better than a smack in the eye with a wet kipper”.

In any event, this phenomenon proved to be inordinately popular, and so the "trout-slap" became a kind of Internet meme of the generation, though at that point only cyber-geeks were aware of such things. Trout-slaps have endured in the hearts and minds of those individuals to the present day, and since those were the people to form Wikipedia's early user-base, the trout made its way into regular use here — with the notable and possibly mistaken change in wording to "whack", which was here from the beginning, and went unnoticed long enough to become commonplace.

Today, getting whacked with a wet trout can be compared to when your mother said she was "hitting you over the head with a wet noodle", and it makes about as much sense. When someone does something inadvisable that they had the experience and intelligence to avoid, you may likely see the suggestion that they be "trouted" — or "trouts all around", as it has recently become more stylish to blame all parties in a dispute instead of one.

Versions

• {{Trout}} – The original trout
• {{Trout small}} – A replacement reasonably-sized, left-aligned trout, suitable for trout victims to replace a regular trout after getting the message. {{Diet trout}} is identical
• {{Diet trout small}} — An smaller trout than {{Trout small}}
• {{Minnow}} – A even smaller trout, though still centered and nicely intrusive by default, but can be floated to the side on talk pages, and custom-styled
• {{troutme}} – a small auto-trout icon for the top of your userpage
• {{self-trout}} – a {{facepalm}}-style trout for when you realize that you've done something silly yourself
• {{Whale}} – For larger jobs
• {{Troutalt}} – A barnstar-style trout-in-a-banner
• {{OverdoneTrout}} – A response to use against Wikipedians who tend to overuse the {{trout}} template
• {{Small Overdone Trout}} – a more reasonably-sized, less-intrusive, left-aligned overdone trout, suitable for overdone trout victims to use as a replacement after getting the message
• {{whalemeat}} – if the Wikiwhale is overzealously used too often
• For someone who doesn't like fish, but does like Monty Python, you could ask the {{colonel}} to stop things if they're getting too silly.
• {{Stink bomb}} – similar to the trout

Real life trouting

• Accrington, England – 25 February 2014.

See also

• Category:Wikipedia administrators open to trout slapping
• Category:Wikipedians open to trout slapping
• Wikipedia:A Side of Chips
• Wikipedia:Oops Defense
• Wikipedia:Stop that, it's silly
• Wikipedia:Village stocks

Further reading

• Friedman, Linda W.; Friedman, Hershey H. (August 2002). "Computer-Oriented HUMor (COHUM):'I get it.'". Zicklin School of Business, Baruch College, City University of New York. #CIS-2002-10.