Wikigroaning II: The New Batch

It's been a really weird couple of weeks around here. The last article I put together, The Art of Wikigroaning, apparently got linked to on a bunch of blogs, a few news sites, and several fishing journals. Wikigroaning became very popular. It looks like "Dr." David Thorpe and Mark "pre" / "Street Cactus" / "The Late Prince of Falcons (Rest in peace, baby)" D'Arensbourg have created something truly great.

As you probably know, Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anybody can edit and change. If you weren't around last time, Wikigroaning is the game of finding pairs of similar Wikipedia articles-- one nerdy, one not. Then, you take a look at both and see how informative, long, and complete they are. Is the nerdy one quite a bit moreso? Did you just groan audibly out of frustration, sadness or disbelief? You've just found a wikigroan!

For example:

Yamato class battleship - The largest battleships ever constructed. They were built and used during the deadliest conflict in human history.
Galaxy class starship - The entire Enterprise crew turned into animals once, but thankfully a pregnant cat saved the day. Notice that this article is much longer.

Most folks can see how this might be a fun diversion. The occasional person, though, got a bit butthurt. At least one guy posted a blog comment saying this game is ridiculous because we should be using all of our wasted time making Wikipedia articles better. I wanted to ask that guy why he was wasting his time posting blog comments about my article when he could be helping make my articles better, but I didn't feel the need to front.

After all that business happened, a whole bunch of email came in and my inbox was blowing up for days. I wanted to do a follow-up to share some of them, because lots are just fantastic. Here we go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achondroplasia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_$hort
Thanks, Joanne

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogfighting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gun_(film)
Thanks, Kevin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_Mexico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Chavo_del_Ocho
Thanks Max

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefiroth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephiroth_(Final_Fantasy_VII)
Thanks, Melissa

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_the_Hedgehog
Thanks, Mike

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft
Thanks, Dave

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_election
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall
Thanks, Jesse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krypton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptonite
Thanks, Joshua

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherboard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberchase
Thanks, Tony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatulence
Thanks, again Tony

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_on_a_Plane
Thanks, Dan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Girl_Squad
Thanks, Beau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feline
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garfield
Thanks, again Beau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Men
Thanks, yet again Beau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Skellington
Why, if it isn't Beau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallica
Buenos dias, Beau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobby
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bong
Beau's not here, man

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Deep_Space_Nine
Live long and prosper, Beau

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimming
What the hell, Beau?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robocop
Thanks, Keith

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Movie
Thanks, notastalker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent_Children
Thanks, Christine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda
Thanks, Bobby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toad
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battletoads
Thanks again, Bobby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_period
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rouroni_Kenshin
Thanks once more, Bobby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oedipus_Rex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Gear_REX
Bobby!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf_(hero)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He-Man
That's Bobby for you!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existential_quantifier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Awful
Okay, get the hell out of here, Bobby.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extracurricular_activity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychoactive_drug
Thanks, Curtis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltron
Thanks, Lee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_personality_disorder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fight_Club_(film)
Thanks, Patrick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Dew
Thanks again, Patrick

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_(narrative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_of_Naruto
Thanks, Sam

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backdoor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_hat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2600:_The_Hacker_Quarterly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_horse_(computing)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encryption
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film)
Thanks, Mike

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gundam
Thanks, Mark

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._John_the_Evangelist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelion
Thanks, Jason

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_in_the_British_Isles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ancient_Jedi
Thanks, Evan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_arts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anything_Goes_Martial_Arts
Thanks, Epox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Juan_Hill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_of_the_Hill
Thanks, Brian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimlock
Thanks, Evan

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollaback_Girl
Thanks, Lori

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania:_Symphony_of_the_Night
Thanks, Cliff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ric_Flair
Thanks, Fab Boner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Biblical_figures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Characters_in_24
Thanks again, Fab Boner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends
That is quite a Fab Boner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_Gabriel_Rossetti
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante_(Devil_May_Cry)
Thanks, Olewithmilk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Gladiators
Thanks, davebug

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_umlaut
Thanks, Negative_Earth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goku
Thanks, A SPIDER BABY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paracingulate_cortex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car-boat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_John_VI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikigroaning
Damn you, Wikipedia! Damn you!

If this game has taught me anything nerdy, it's that the Wikipedia is like the Staff of Ra. It sure looks neat at first glance, but it's basically useless until you do this one certain thing with it, at which point it casts a funky new light and reveals all sorts of scary crap you didn't know about. Later on, your head melts.

– Jon "@fart" Hendren (@fart)