"Wikigroaning"

Reading this week's articles, I was reminded of a humorous article from years ago that brought up the concept of "Wikigroaning". It's a game you can play with your friends using Wikipedia as the playground.

Wikigroaning, according to the initial article (to which I would prefer not to link), posits this idea for the game:

First, find a useful Wikipedia article that normal people might read. For example, the article called "Knight." Then, find a somehow similar article that is longer, but at the same time, useless to a very large fraction of the population. In this case, we'll go with "Jedi Knight." Open both of the links and compare the lengths of the two articles. Compare not only that, but how well concepts are explored, and the greater professionalism with which the longer article was likely created. 

This really resonated with me when reading about the collaborative nature of these articles; in order for them to be truly informative and thorough, the collaborators must have an inherent (fanatical) interest. This concept is also explored in the myriad of different "wikis" that are all their own, independent universe from Wikipedia as a whole (see: Bulbapedia, penned by Pokemon masters).

If you want to see some stellar examples of wikigroaning, I'd like to point you to wikigroans.com. It's equal parts fascinating and unsettling.