[WikiEN-l] Friday's featured article

Thu Mar 31 05:03:34 UTC 2005

I regret not getting to this thread earlier.  This is not just about
one poll, or one joke.  It is important for us all *as editors* to
maintain a sense of humor and perspective when making editorial
decisions for the encyclopedia.  Both larger decisions like this one,
and the smaller choices we make every day.

Those of you who have not delved into the Britannica may not know this
(check out our Category of 1911 Britannica content for examples), but
it is peppered with subtle wit.  An April Fools' hoax is by its nature
something different -- a hoax!  an attempt to pull a fast one on the
very people we set out to inform!  -- and this too has a long and
noble tradition within the academic and scientific community.  The BBC
(both radio and TV), Nature, Discover,  and Scientific American have
all run regular April Fool's hoaxes (with, I might add, a straight
face -- never acknowledging it was a hoax until the following
day/issue).

And it is a tradition beyond just the English-speaking world.  When
the Soviet daily /Izvestia/, for the first time ever, ran an April
Fools' column in 1988 about Maradona being offered $6M to join Spartak
Moscow, do you think it was "for nothing more than some type of
thrill" ?   Do you think they were relying on their long tradition of
reliability and accuracy to tide them through the resulting
"misgivings about their reliability"?  Certainly not.  If anything,
they were suggesting to the rest of the world that they had a newfound
sense of perspective and balance, and could be expected to exercise
common sense and not blindly  adhere to their earlier biases.  We
could do worse than suggest the same.

A good joke makes readers smile, gives them reason to browse around,
hints that the rest of this fantastic work we are building contains
other gems worth searching out and savoring.  In this sense, it also
fulfills the role of a good FA.  The ability to fool around says
something subtle but important about the editors and their other work.
 I don't *want* to read articles edited by humorless geniuses, no
matter how factually complete they are.

The above are general comments on taking ourselves too seriously.  As
to the subject line: I voted for putting the disputed article up.  I
think the joke would be very well received.  The academic tradition of
April Fool's hoaxes is *not* to give them away by anything other than
the outlandishness of their content; but a nice "Featured Article for
April 1, 2005" banner at the top and bottom might be in order.

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:45:17 -0800 (PST), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I will not let any mob of people subvert our goal of creating an encyclopedia
> just because it it is popular in part of the community.

Luckily, that isn't at stake here.  Our community exists because it
wants to create the world's *greatest* encyclopedia, not just another
Britannica.  Every single person who voted to put this article on the
Main Page wants that.  They also recognize that this wouldn't detract
from that goal.  Not taking ourselves too seriously actually improves
the quality of the encyclopedia.  Taking oneself too seriously leads
to the Britannicas of the world, which are excellent... but limited.

-- 
+sj+