Barnstar
A barnstar[1] is thinly-veiled plagiarism by which the creators of the Wikipedia humor web site elected to make sport of ninjastars, the venerable reward system of Uncyclopedia. The legal staff of Uncyclopedia is studying an appropriate response to this rip-off for crass commercial gain.
Awarding barnstars[edit | edit source]
Awards of barnstars are patterned after awards of ninjastars in Uncyclopedia. Namely, authors who have advanced beyond the level of actually doing stuff and now simply tell other people how to do stuff give out ninjastars to tell those poor scrubbers that they followed directions correctly, and may have contributed to a high-quality web site.
The problem with barnstars is that there is no pretense that Wikipedia is a high-quality web site. Nevertheless, barnstars may be awarded to users for creating articles with the following attributes:
- Tables coded so tediously that any effort to bring them up-to-date will break the formatting.
- Photographs featuring naked penises and other not-safe-for-work images, in the name of "defense of art".
- The ability to bore a normal reader to sleep.
- Insinuating political bias as though it were objective fact. Everyone who disagrees with me is either ignorant or demented.
An article that especially insults Uncyclopedians may receive the coveted "Purple Barnstar".
History[edit | edit source]
The colonial United States tied a barnstar to the national flag to celebrate each state that joined the new union. When Francis Scott Key wrote, "O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave?" he was dead serious, as he could see nothing atop Fort McHenry but a lumpy mass hugging the top of the flagpole. Fortunately, it was the U.S. flag, barnstars and all, and soon afterward, Betsy Ross replaced the metal with cloth stars so flags would actually unfurl.
The Confederate States of America did not adopt this convention. (Least ways, not once we bunt they's cotton fields.) Troop assembly during the Civil War was hampered by the fact that they could not see the flag – nor could hear it clanging until they got real close, put-near on toppa it.
Josef Stalin publicly denounced both the barnstar and the ninjastar as superfluous to life – a statement he also famously made to ten million Siberians about food and heating fuel.
In the early 1940s Adolf Hitler had several trivial disputes with the Jews, but a particularly intractable one was over Jews' use of barnstars, because Hitler's own collection of them was laughably puny. The Jews tried several innovations to sidestep the conflict, ultimately adding a sixth point and claiming they weren't barnstars at all. "I got mine from David," they would say. Hitler wasn't buying it, and the dispute ultimately had to be settled by The Allies.
The European Union has now come full-circle and is adding barnstars to its flag whenever an Eastern European nation joins the union, especially as it is no longer possible to manufacture cotton to EU standards. The clanging of the barnstars as the EU flag arrives prepares citizens for an episode of begging. On the same subject, the world's biggest collection of barnstars now belongs to Kim Jong-un.
Frequently asked questions[edit | edit source]
- Q: What are barnstars?
- A: (Sigh.) See above.
- Q: Can I have one?
- A: No.
- Q: Please?
- A: Yes.
- Q: Really?
- A: No.
- Q: Damn ...
- A: That's not a question.