Wikipedia pokes fun at itself

If you get a chance, you should check out Wikipedia:Silly things. If you think the behind the scenes work at Wikipedia is boring or irrelevant, think again. This page highlights minutiae like "bad jokes and other deleted nonsense," which displays the heights of (non-offensive) vandalism; "April Fools," which is the best humor posted April 1, and a "List of really, really, really stupid article ideas that you really, really, really should not create."

My favorite is probably Wikipedia: Deleted articles with freaky titles. Since I love lists, I always scroll right to the "list" section under the letter L and look at what gems this article features. Among them:

List of convicted drunk drivers who have become president of the United States 

List of Dads Who Make Other Dads Eat Bugs

The article itself was completely blank, but the talk page just read "my dad".

List of movie posters with lamps in them

          The list contained one item – Mission: Impossible – with a footnote saying "NB: does not contain lamps."

 And my favorite:

List of people who are alive or are dead

The most controversial Wikipedia pages

A few researchers from Oxford University just came out with a list of the ten most controversial topics on Wikipedia. You can read the 19-page report here, and skip to page six if you want to see the list. Also notable is that the report lists the ten most controversial articles in several other languages like French, Hungarian, and Arabic.

No surprise that articles about religion seem to cause the most heated arguments. Jesus appears on several of the lists, as do articles about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many European languages seem to argue about soccer (football) teams. These articles are based on research conducted up to 2010, I believe, so it's possible that the Arab Spring would be on many of these charts if updated lists were made.

These lists are fascinating to me because it introduces me to topics of debate in other countries. Why is homeopathy so controversial among Spanish speakers? And the Disney Channel among Romanians? Many of the topics I need to Google to even find out what they are: I'm not sure what Moravia is or why the Czechs don't like Ross Hedvicek, because Google tells me he's just a Wikipedia user. I don't know who Mircea Badea is, why Ash'ari is controversial, or who or what a Daphni Leef is. Interesting reading is certainly ahead.