pedia obscura

February 8, 2005 5:52 PM

Pornocracies, sterile atomic flies, intellectual property absolutism, and the heavy metal umlaut. Plus an amazing amount of information about people who went up against the laws of thermodynamics and lost. All this and much, much more in the Wikipedia unusual articles category.
posted by ontic (24 comments total)

Speaking of pornocracy, did you know that the founder of wikipedia also runs a porn site?
posted by delmoi at 5:58 PM on February 8, 2005

One day, in the future, there will be no such thing as "pornography."

Just people, doing things.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 6:01 PM on February 8, 2005

delmoi, no, the founder of wikipedia was hired for an earlier encyclopedic venture, by the porn company, which now underwrites wikipedia (at least, according to your wiki link--i simply read it & don't know anything else, so don't hurt me.)

so to rephrase: Speaking of pornocracy, did you know that wikipedia is underwritten by a porn business?
posted by gorgor_balabala at 6:18 PM on February 8, 2005

Am I missing something here? Did we (royal we, BTW) just discover the beauty of Wiki?
posted by snsranch at 6:49 PM on February 8, 2005

No, delmoi was essentially correct. The co-founder of Wikipedia is Jimbo Wales, owner of Bomis, who continues to take an active hand in the site (although 90% of the administration is done by delegates and committees elected from the community). Larry Sanger was hired for the Nupedia project before having the bright idea for Wikipedia, and is considered a co-founder, but now works at OSU.

Thanks for finding this, ontic -- there are many nooks and crannies at Wikipedia and I haven't found nearly all of them yet. Be sure to note the Department of Fun as another light-hearted starting point. A really terrific article (being considered for featured article status, actually) is John Titor -- even tinfoil hat weirdness can receive a top-notch, serious encyclopedic treatment. There's a page for Cascadia, one for the Hutt River Province and even one for Emperor Norton I, and many other eccentrics.

I'd like to again note that I'm collecting names of MeFites who hang out at Wikipedia; leave me a message.
posted by dhartung at 6:54 PM on February 8, 2005

The former countries list is one of my own favorite corners of wikipedia.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:55 PM on February 8, 2005

hah, mr bucket
posted by GleepGlop at 7:25 PM on February 8, 2005

I recently came across the various Star Trek civilizations, and was utterly astonished at the amount of research that had gone into their entries as well as the sheer (mind-numbing) comprehensivenss of them. I had always heard of such people, now I have seen their work.

• Romulans
• Cardassians
• Vulcans
• Klingons
• Maquis Rebels

posted by psmealey at 7:41 PM on February 8, 2005

Pornocracy is a term that has been used to mean government or domination of government by prostitutes.

See also: Parliament of Whores by P. J. O'Rourke.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:42 PM on February 8, 2005

How awesome is it that there is an actual language that has an umlaut over the letter n? Thank you, Eastern Jacaltec, and thank you, Wikipedia...
posted by tss at 7:52 PM on February 8, 2005

Where can I get the font pack for that, tss? I'm thinking of potential band names... like, for example:

egadeth
posted by psmealey at 8:10 PM on February 8, 2005

Galambosianism is hilarious! It sounds like a religion that Kurt Vonnegut would have made up, both in name and content. Thanks, ontic.
posted by painquale at 8:28 PM on February 8, 2005

I thought you'd like that PQ. Kind of a capitalist, intellectual Shaker-ism. I think I'll submit a paper about it to the APA next year.
posted by ontic at 8:43 PM on February 8, 2005

thanks a lot ontic. i've been using wikipedia for a few months now and had no idea that page was there. thanks, but i just wish i could have the past 2 hours back.
posted by daHIFI at 8:48 PM on February 8, 2005

collecting names of MeFites who hang out at Wikipedia

My entry linking archeogenetics, pubic lice, and cannabilism is my personal favourite.

You know if you are unwilling to go for the full umlaut, but wish to, you know, maybe have some darkish emo music band name or something, then you could use the old pre-Official Standard Irish, (ie, pre-Caighdeán Oifigiúil). That had a single dot above a letter (see B/b (1E02 and 1E03 in Unicode)).

In the Irish language it has the effect of softening the consonant. So for example, the common name Maeve is spelled in the older script as "Med?".

? ?

posted by meehawl at 8:50 PM on February 8, 2005

weird thing, the single-dotted-Bs show up on the preview, but not on the final rendered text.

Anyway, in HTML they are & #7682; and & #7683;
posted by meehawl at 5:23 AM on February 9, 2005

Don't miss the Swedish child named Brfxxccxxmnpcccclllmmnprxvclmnckssqlbb11116!

MeḂḃ?
posted by languagehat at 8:22 AM on February 9, 2005

? ?

Well colour me impressed
(scurries off to the HTML to see how it's done!)
posted by meehawl at 7:26 PM on February 10, 2005

Ah...

??
posted by meehawl at 7:28 PM on February 10, 2005

Okay, I'm impressed now. How *do* you reproduce quoted html literals in Metafilter?
posted by meehawl at 7:31 PM on February 10, 2005

Heh. It's the dreaded MeFi Preview Monster. What you have to do is copy any special characters before you hit Preview, then past them back in before you hit Post. If you decide to preview again, paste them in again -- the originals, not the previewed versions, which will give you nothing but pain and question marks. Watch:

Ḃ
?

I'll replace the first on preview and leave the second.
posted by languagehat at 2:19 PM on February 12, 2005

Et voilà!

By the way, I think the first dotted letter in Maeve/Medb is a d rather than a b, Unicode 1E0B, HTML & #7691; -- like so:

Meḋḃ
posted by languagehat at 2:34 PM on February 12, 2005

Quite true about the ?! Brain fart. But it does give *another* letter for the not-quite-so-dark band namers to play with.
posted by meehawl at 2:53 PM on February 12, 2005

Hey! I tried the preview-paste thing and it still crapped out! No fair!

In passing, with reference to Galambosianism, my most recent wacky religion discovery on Wikipedia is Yazidi, an obscure Mosul-based Kurdish sect. Their God or Gods (it seems to be unclear on the exact pantheon) have proscribed lettuce as an unclean food. WHich is a proscription I can really agree with!
posted by meehawl at 2:56 PM on February 12, 2005