Forum:TL;DR

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I already know what the response to the below is going to be. It's a conceptual idea, and while I had a few ideas in mind previously in regards to the how to do this, I realized that it would be better for the community to decide firstly if the concept was valid, and then work on the strategies. Of course, I already know what the majority of response will be here, so I've given this forum an appropriate title.

A brief history of Uncyclopedia

In 2005ish, Uncyclopedia was built as a pardy of Wikipedia. One of the inspirations for this (possibly) was that Wikipedia was getting a lot of wonderful entries that had been deleted, but memorialised in Category:Wikipedia Bad Jokes and Other Deleted Nonsense.

This meant that Uncyclopedia became a repository for a lot of vandalism that would have been deleted from a more self-respecting wiki. And in those heady early days, many pages that were of, shall we say, less than sparkling quality were not just enjoyed, but also featured. Many one-liner pages were protected or raised to the status of in-jokes, which became a staple of the Uncyclopedia readership, and revered as the highest quality of wit.

At the same time many trends appeared in the style of articles. Adding invented quotes to the start of articles by Oscar Wilde, Steve Ballmer, Kanye West, Caption Obvious/Oblivious/Obstinant and variations on this theme became the norm. A well crafted parody of the text based computer game, Zork, took the membership by storm, and expanded into a goliath that introduced the idea of Grues that didn't look like the Japanese TV character Domokun at all, but somehow ended up having him as their visual representation invaded many articles, and created a myriad of annoying spin-off games.

Over time, however, the general nature of articles has changed, and there has becoming two divergent groups of aticles. In one direction we have more of the same or traditional articles, which continue with these same themes that the site started with. On the other hand we have newer style of article, where wit, satire and parody are considered more valuable than repeated memes and random humour.

Neither of these styles takes precedence over the other in the case of an individual article. However, when you read several article in a row, as is likely to happen when you come across a new site, seeing the same joke repeated again and again gets very tiresome.

So what is needed is not to purge the site of the older style of article, but to build the site so that it has a wider variety of article. This means trying to encourage people writing more in the newer style rather than building more articles in the older style, but at the same time trying to preserve a core of older style of articles as they are part of the site, and they do attract new readers searching through search engines.

At the same time the focus for those writing articles should be to bring people to the site who are looking for humourous articles, or looking for articles written about encyclopaedic topics, or looking for articles about popular topics.

So, what I'm wanting to do is create out of Uncyclopedia a comedic encyclopedia in English that takes the best of the old, the best of the new, and increases web traffic by having superior articles of topics that people would be likely to look for, or stumble across via external searches.

What this would look like

• Having feature quality articles on the topics in the listing at Wikipedia's 10 most vital pages
• Having good or better quality articles on the topics in the listing at Wikipedia's 500 popular pages
• Having good quality articles on the topics in the listing at Wikipedia's 100 most vital pages
• Having fair quality articles on the topics considered vital listed at Wikipedia's 1,000 most vital pages
• Having okay quality articles on the topics in the listing at Wikipedia's 10,000(ish) most vital pages

Pup 02:17 14 Mar '12

Good list, I've never seen this. They fluke-up on the numbers of the popular 500 - United States gets more views than Wikipedia but isn't even listed on the 500. Aleister

Is this worth doing? How would we do this? That sort of stuff below

I just want to stick with original content instead of rehashed memes and in-jokes. I've seen the phenomena of people only wanting to churn the same crap over and over all across the web, and it's time I believe that this site should be different. This place is already smothered with shit as is.--98.197.4.248 18:14, March 14, 2012 (UTC)

Well, the obvious problem here...

...is that a lot of what Wikipedia considers "vital" is not necessarily a fertile nesting ground for comedy.

For example, Wikipedians have identified what they consider the eleven most important musicians in history:

1. Johann Sebastian Bach
2. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
3. Ludwig van Beethoven
4. Frédéric Chopin
5. Giuseppe Verdi
6. Richard Wagner
7. Igor Stravinsky
8. Bing Crosby
9. Elvis Presley
10. The Beatles
11. Michael Jackson

As you can see, Uncyclopedia has already done ten of them. Some of these are absolutely fertile ground for satire.

But I can't say I'm even remotely impressed by the Giuseppe Verdi article, which frankly fails HTBFANJS and should go to VFD. But what's there to say about Giuseppe Verdi? He was born, he wrote a bunch of operas, he did a really good job of it, and then he died. Any controversy he generated within his life hasn't really survived to today, and he hasn't really acquired a role in our cultural consciousness, other than "the guy who wrote a bunch of operas."

I wouldn't envy the Uncyclopedian nominated to write that article. Sure, there's probably a way to write it so that it doesn't suck - but does anyone actually really want to read it? pillow talk 18:27, March 14, 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Which is why I suggested pulling the focus away from the 1,000 most vital (which is what Isra1337's list is based on) and putting more emphasis on the 10, 100 most vital and 100 most popular. A good article on Lady Gaga would attract more attention than the same on Bing Crosby, for example. So rather than spending an hour of creative time on Guiseppe Verdi, spend 50 minutes of that instead on Lady Gaga.

I would also like to see your VFG becoming more official as well. The Verdi article you mentioned is, imnho, okay as it is - not feature able at all, and probably not good, but above delete on site. Lady Gaga on the other hand is poor at best (or at least was when I last looked at it). Of the two of those, I know which is the more likely to appear in searches on site. I'm also assuming it would be the one that is more commonly found on here in a text search or link count. That was one of the reasons I've pulled back somewhat on trying to get those top 1,000 as a priority, and focusing on the top 10 to start with. (I'm partway through redoing Math/Mathematics at the moment, as more in line with a Wikipedia spork. I still can't fathom why we have those as two separate articles, and neither of them with much in the way of quality content.) Pup 12:05 15 Mar '12

Bing Crosby? Wha? And Michael Jackson, yes, on the same level as Bach, Beethoven and Mozart, no doubt. Bing Crosby? Aleister 00:05 Ides of March

Okay, Lady Gaga isn't on the popular list. Ignore that point, but same can be said for Metallica. Red link? Pup 12:10 15 Mar '12

Zombiebaron's Idea: More Conservation Weeks

• It turns out that Conservation Week is an absurdly simple contest. It puts a spotlight on the users here who rewrite pages, and then rewards them. Depending on the outcome of this week's conservation, I'd like to propose that we hold Conservation Weeks on a monthly or bi-monthly basis. We can introduce themes each time. For example, the next one could be focused solely on rewriting music-themed articles, or WWI themed articles. -- The Zombiebaron 20:34, March 14, 2012 (UTC)

  A lot of pages don't even really need a "full rewrite" whatever that is. A lot of them just need someone with some ability to edit to check the page history, and read through the article, cutting out the carp and sorting out the formatting and such. Not really a total rewrite, but more of a good going over. If we can reward users who do that it would be good. MrN 20:42, Mar 14

  That seems like the sort of thing that would count towards winning a Conservation Week. Perhaps we could promote users using their own judgment to determine whether their rewrites are "full" or "partial", and then score accordingly (such as 1 for a full, and 0.5 for a partial). -- The Zombiebaron 23:36, March 14, 2012 (UTC)

  Scoring a good partial over a rewrite seems unfair, as the partials are the bread and butter of the breakfast fix. The key is finding a medium-quality vital or semi-vital page and making it much better, so all of these ideas meld. Aleister 23:46 omygod, almost the Ides of March!!!

  Vital Vital! Vital! Possibly the best way to manage the scoring would be for the user to choose how much credit they think they deserve. I'm thinking you should be able to claim 1, 0.5 or maybe even 0.25 of a credit for each rewrite/fix. This would then give you a running score for the contest. However, everyone else can see what you have done in your contributions, and so can the closing sysop who will actually make a judgement and decided who wins. The decision would not necessarily be based on who had the highest score at the end, as this could be open to interpretation (but still a fair guide) but would be based on factors including how vital the articles were which were fixed, or... Whatever. MrN 00:16, Mar 15

  Der Unwehr? Pup 12:23 15 Mar '12

  Although we don't have a "rewrite" category any more, but I do like that page. :-) MrN 14:28, Mar 16

How about...

THIS THING I'm proposing that this (or something like it) be created as a... Village Dump forum. It would hopefully run forever like Forum:Count to a million. Yes, this "Is not what the VD is for" and yes this could be made as a project page which then gets a few links added here and there and then gets forgotten about along with all the others or... We could use the VD for generating good edits to important articles. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm getting that good feeling that this might work nicely. If ya want to edit it go for it. Any suggestions? What do ya think? MrN 14:28, Mar 16

vote:PUT FIX TAGS ON ALL THE FEATURED ARTICLES AND DELETE THEM. REVIVE ALL THE GOOD ARTICLES KILLED IN THE FIXOCAUST

1. Because we have enough.-- WELCOME TO UNCYCLOPEDIA HELL!!!! 05:30, March 20, 2012 (UTC)

This isn't a vote - this is a discussion. I'd suggest that the rest of the discussion be held by people with IQ higher than that of the average glass of water. Nominally Humane! 07:09 20 Mar

Although having said that, any good articles that have been deleted should be restored (hence what I was talking about above about having traditional articles as well). Do you have any examples of good articles that should be restored? Nominally Humane! 07:33 20 Mar

• 2005Cruft, The Game, Retard, Paris Hilton_(person), Captain Planet, Fetish, yiff and more. Find for yourself on the huff log.--WELCOME TO UNCYCLOPEDIA HELL!!!! 09:11, March 20, 2012 (UTC)