Who writes these random Wikipedia articles?

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

Often I’ll come across a wikipedia article on an obscure or mundane subject, and think “who the hell actually sat down, decided to write this, looked up info in books, etc?”

I wish I’d have started saving topics, but I can’t remember any offhand.

Anyway, I came across:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamp_separation

and I’ve been perplexed at the thought process that lead to the writing of that article. There are thousands of others like that. Feel free to share your favorite “Why the hell would anyone write that?” wiki articles.

#2

The article is, unfortunately, no more, but my favorite odd-ball ones was “Homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck”.

It even had a picture.

#3

Postage stamp separation? Seems a fairly useful article to stamp collectors.

I’m not being facetious - many apparently-useless articles will be a small element of a larger field with more obvious purpose.

#4

Well going to the History tab for the article, I can see that a few Postage stamp enthusiast wrote and edited the article.
Clicking on Stan Shebs, I can get to a page he wrote about himself. He likes stamp collecting, no surprise.
He also happens to be one of the English Wikipedia Admins.
A lot of your questions can be answered in a few easy clicks.

Jim

#5

SenorBeef, you can participate in SDMB and still wonder who writes those articles? Come on, we’ve got folks here who are *still * arguing about what happens when you turn on your headlights as you approach the speed of light!

#6

I liked that preforations article. I love obscure crap like that.

#7

For your obscure and weird edification:

Wikipedia:Unusual articles, from Wikipedia of course:

#8

. . . I think the Wikipedia is now only a few iterations short of developing self-awareness! :eek:

#9

What ticks me off are the endless fanboy articles about Dragonball, Yu-gi-oh, anime, etc. Talk about a waste of server space.

#10

I do not like these either, but they are part and parcel of Wikipedia. I cannot complain as there is a huge number of articles on Middle Earth. It is the second best on-line reference I know of for Middle Earth.
There are many that would consider these articles worthless, but in the past I helped to maintain them.

Jim

#11

I don’t mind fanboy articles when there’s actually something there! When they make an article and it’s one sentence that’s a waste.

I also hate it when some anti-fanboy wants to delete a good article because they don’t think it’s signficant. There’s some person* trying to delete most of the webcomic articles. I won’t start into a rant about that, because it was covered, and better, by many, many webcomic fans.

  • noun replaced with generic to remain PG.
#12

Me, too! And would the first be the Encyclopedia of Arda?

#13

Of course. I love that site.

Jim

#14

Heh, following GIGObuster’s link, I found this tidbit of information in an article about Bill Gates’ house:

Don’t fuckin’ mess with the Silicon Mafia.

#15

In Soviet Russia, music listens to you.

#16

As one who contributed extensively to early drafts of the exploding sheep article, I resemble that remark.

#17

Too late! Wikipedia

#18

You notice, however, that it doesn’t refer to itself in the first person. =Whew!= Humanity is still safe… for now.