I'd never heard this story before, so thanks for the well-written rendition. It would have made a good example in my previous opinion piece about Wikipedia's missing sense of fun, 'A Little Fun Goes A Long Way'.
Incredible story. This is the sort of thing I do think about a lot, and it's a balance impossible to hit. For some websites, oldfashioned jokes could've been grandfathered in, and on Wikipedia too we have some lovely old pages to look back on. But comedy doesn't scale, in a way. The more people there are, the more confusion and frustration is caused. It's a tragedy of the commons if every user can post their own jape. But there's still little tidbits of humor to be found even on Wikipedia (this was mine)! And I think more importantly, cyberspace still does have a million small nooks and crannies to have fun in. As long as people continue to create their own communities, the noosphere will be fine ^_^ ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would also suggest that Wikipedia humour is still not completely gone. The beloved High five#Too slow image set is famous, and we've all run into similarly amusing items that happen to be correct and useful as well. If you can make a joke that also works as an effective way to explain a concept, then all the praise to you! Sometimes people just need to know whether Gadsby is a novel or not. ~Maplestrip/Mable (chat) 14:40, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That remains the single most bull-headed level of obstinance I've ever seen, even dealing with longevity and caste issues never quite rose to that theater of the absurd. The Blade of the Northern Lights (話して下さい) 21:12, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is my favorite olde-timey Wikipedia story. It was amazing to see live. ― biggins (talk) 05:07, 17 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Oh my, I might've seen this when I was still a lurker. :) Double sharp (talk) 22:35, 21 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
