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July 07 2008

In Popular Culture. Webcomic xkcd uses Firefly and Buffy (among others) to illustrate the wonderful world of editing Wikipedia.

megaloo | Fandom&Fun | 08:48 CET | 19 comments total | tags: xkcd, fandom, firefly, buffy

xkcd doesn't usually make me smile but I was pleasantly surprised :)

flak | July 07, 08:56 CET

At the very bottom it says "In the 2004 TV Series Battlestar Galactica". I'm hoping it says something like, "The original Cylons in the pilot episode were actually wooden puppets."

Calleyzkat | July 07, 09:01 CET

'In the 2004 TV series Battlestar Galactica, there were many trees. Which were shot by Cylons. Being the first to discover this, I name the smashed bits wood!'

flak | July 07, 09:23 CET

Awesome! my love for xkcd keeps on growing.
BTW,Jayne gets the rain stick in "Our Mrs.Reynold",not "Jaynestown". How many people will post here and in the xkcd forums noticing that?

[ edited by okelay on 2008-07-07 06:36 ]

[ edited by okelay on 2008-07-07 06:38 ]

okelay | July 07, 09:33 CET

okelay, I was about to post about that. But hey, it's Wikipedia, what do you expect? :)

jlp | July 07, 10:07 CET

Jayne gets the rain stick in "Our Mrs.Reynold",not "Jaynestown". How many people will post here and in the xkcd forums noticing that?

I wanted post that but you were faster.

Urui | July 07, 10:08 CET

I heart xkcd

tabin | July 07, 10:20 CET

I heart xkcd

Me too.

theonetruebix | July 07, 10:59 CET

haha..i want to know what they were going to say about bsg

the FAT indian | July 07, 16:09 CET

Yep, their comics are often hilarious

GVH | July 07, 16:10 CET

Yeah but! What about the only Sunnydale High School principal to actually survive Sunnydale!?

ShadowQuest | July 07, 18:19 CET

BTW,Jayne gets the rain stick in "Our Mrs.Reynold",not "Jaynestown".

It's just like the real Wikipedia!

Sunfire | July 07, 18:27 CET

Heh. Last month, someone tried to change Willow's Wikipedia entry to move Tara's death from "Seeing Red" to "Two To Go" Ironically, the articles that many Wikipedia editors refer to as "fancruft" often have the most eyes watching them for errors, unlike, say, chemical compounds. :-)

jclemens | July 07, 19:43 CET

Yeah, but then again: I'd have no problem with fixing a whedon-related article, but even though I'm a Msc in astrophysics, I'd be scared to edit any of the (astro)physics pages which, accidentely, are used by lots of students as supplements to the official curriculum. So I guess only people who truly know their stuff, edit those pages anyway.

I wouldn't have passed at least 3 exams if I didn't have wikipedia to clear up complex or unclear language in books (yes, I could've gone to the professor instead, but still ;)). Wikipedia rocks :).

GVH | July 07, 19:54 CET

xkcd doesn't usually make me smile but I was pleasantly surprised :)

Same here. :)

Last month, someone tried to change Willow's Wikipedia entry to move Tara's death from "Seeing Red" to "Two To Go" Ironically, the articles that many Wikipedia editors refer to as "fancruft" often have the most eyes watching them for errors, unlike, say, chemical compounds. :-)

I find that kind of stuff really funny. It's stupid for them to think that we won't notice. :)

Astoria_Potter | July 07, 20:13 CET

Ha! And now the top of the actual ,"wood" entry on Wikipedia reads "Editing of this article by new or unregistered users is currently disabled until July 10, 2008 because a mention in a webcomic is causing significant disruption in the form of useless "in pop culture" sections."

yellowcrayon | July 08, 01:21 CET

heh, now that is truly funny :)

GVH | July 08, 06:57 CET

Yeah, there's been the usual flood of people editing the article after it was referenced and the subsequent editorial lockdown.

Also xkcd's author writes:

In today’s comic, I have the rain-stick thing happening in Jaynestown, when it actually happens in Our Mrs. Reynolds. I lose three nerd points.

When writing the comic, I actually compiled a list of references to wood in Firefly by searching the scripts. They included Badger serving Jayne wood alcohol and Inara likening Mal’s sword technique to ‘chopping wood’ (both in Shindig). I should put it on Wikipedia so nobody has to duplicate my efforts.

Sunfire | July 08, 19:33 CET

In case anyone's interested - the author has since edited the comic to reference the correct episode.

highandrandom | July 09, 06:48 CET

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