“Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users” – one problem being that some people have more time to collaborate than others.
Unfortunately this lends itself pretty well towards a somewhat distorted view of the world in which wicked priorities reign supreme.
Gamesradar compiled a frightening list of 15 examples of nerddom gone wrong:
Call of Duty (13069 words) VS World War Two (11844 words)
See what we mean? When the deadliest, costliest war in the history of mankind has been trumped by a videogame franchise about that war, you know something’s off. One involved over 50 countries and took over 70 million lives; the other involves button mashing and tea bagging.
On an encouraging note, we did have to add all the Call of Duty games’ individual pages together to reach the crazy number above. On a discouraging note, we didn’t have to add Call of Duty 4 and its non-WWII setting, which would have brought the total word count to an even crazier 18,927.
Oh, and on a simply ridiculous note? Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare beats “modern warfare“… 5,858 to 2,873.
Also less important than Call of Duty!
• American Revolutionary War = 8,078
• American Civil War = 11,729
• English Civil War = 8,030
• Napoleonic Wars = 7,951
• Hundred Years’ War = 7,992
• War on Terrorism = 10,674
• War on Drugs = 7,628
• Cold War = 10,117
• “War” = 9,233
It get’s worse though:
Knuckles (7832 words) VS God (3,726 words)
At last, we reach the ultimate showdown. In this corner, we have God, who Wikipedia describes as:
“… the principal or sole deity in religion…” ”…the creator and overseer of the universe…” ”… omnipotent and eternal…” ”… the source of all moral obligation, and the greatest conceivable being existent…”
His opponent? Knuckles of Sonic the Hedgehog fame, who Wikipedia describes as:
“… a red, teenage, anthropomorphic echidna…” ”… the fourth most popular character in the series…” ”… shy around girls…”
This is exactly why I don’t have the slightest problem with quoting Wikipedia in my Ph.D. when it comes to obscure videogame references.
-Jens
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While it’s somewhat amusing, there isn’t much that Wikipedia can do about it. Most Wikipedians recognize this as a bit of a problem, but when hundreds of nerds love Knuckles and don’t care an iota about theology, what do you expect would happen? It’s not so much that Wikipedia is setting priorities, it’s merely that more people care about Knuckles than God when it comes to writing online.
It’s an annoying problem certainly, but what’s the alternative – being forced to edit certain articles? Wikipedia’s an ongoing project, and the inclusion of pointless trivia about videogame characters doesn’t preclude or lower the priority of more serious topics.
It should be noted that not only does Wikipedia rate the quality of the God article higher (it is a “Good article”, while Knuckles the Echidna is merely “C-class”), and Knuckles the Echidna is rated “Low importance” while God is a “vital article” for its importance as, well, *the* major topic of most theology.
That’s hysterical. Loving that Knuckles is still considered important enough for wikipedia despite only ranking as the FOURTH most popular character from Sonic. There were more than two characters??
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