The Office Jester… every office needs one to find humour in using Wikipedia at work
Our last Office Jester post revolved around a video that tried to depict what it would be like if Google was a live human being. Google has always been known for being the go-to source if you want to look for something. However, half the time, the top item in Google search results is from Wikipedia. While Google is known for being a tool with directions to all the knowledge in the world, Wikipedia is known as that encyclopaedia that is useful for all but professional purposes. What does that mean? It means that criticising Wikipedia at work while secretly using it is a norm.
Let’s just accept it. As much as everyone loves criticising Wikipedia for its factual incongruities, everyone uses Wikipedia at work when no one’s looking. Posturing aside, Wikipedia can be quite dangerous. It will give you the right facts for a few times in a row to get you off your guard and then drop the faulty one just when you think that you can rely on it. This is the story of Wikipedia everywhere. Such are the dangers that journalists in many countries are taught not to use Wikipedia at work.
Coming back to the recent trend, though; what if Wikipedia was depicted as a human being just like Google was depicted as a human being in the video of our last post. Enter “Professor Wikipedia”.
Professor Wikipedia at Work
This video of professor Wikipedia at work actually ends describing all the quirks of Wikipedia. Directly or indirectly, it shows the inherent flaw in Wikipedia and the reasons why it isn’t recommended by professionals and experts in various fields. Take the opening for example.
The opening begins with professor Wikipedia talking about chemical bonding but suddenly deviating to Ryan Seacrest within the content. This is supposed to depict typos and gross mistakes in Wikipedia. To be fair to Wikipedia, though, these kinds of mistakes have been mostly edited out. Wikipedia is a lot more reliable now.
What haven’t completely disappeared are opinions. Its tone isn’t always neutral which makes Wikipedia at work a little more suspect. The video shows this side of Wikipedia through the name of Wilhelm Kühne (stated as Wilhelm Cool), someone it says is “a total badass”.
Then, there is the element of faulty facts. The facts on Wikipedia aren’t always completely accurate, especially when it comes to the obscurer examples. The video also refers to the earlier days of Wikipedia when anyone and everyone could make funny edits to any page. In the video someone suggests “anus” so Wikipedia says “Buettner used enzymes to ferment sugar deep within the confines of anus”. This was quite funny.
There are also references to how Wikipedia doesn’t discriminate between “useful” and “random” facts but that is only because the definitions for these categories various from person to person. The video does this by taking references of X-rays to X-ray vision and superheroes.
The obvious stuff in the video about criticising Wikipedia at work is how one kid says that he came to Wikipedia “for education” and that he hasn’t “learnt a single useful fact”. There’s also a shout out to personalities on Wikipedia in this video. It comes in the form of a random girl asking Wikipedia to talk about her only from someone else to say that she isn’t “notable”. This is in direct reference to how you can’t create a page for any personality without the personality featuring in mainstream, reliable media.
Finally, the reference to professor Britannica was special. Watch the video till the end for it.
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