. :-) Ok, kids, once and for all: "Cunctator" was the nickname of Roman general [Quintus Fabius Maximus]? (see the English word "cunctation" = "Procrastination; delay" in any good dictionary) because he defeated the Carthaginian general Hannibal by "delaying" tactics. (See britannica.com if you like). Our Wikipedian Cunctator chose this name just to tease us (I assume). |
One could argue that Wikipedia itself is a legitimate topic of an encyclopedia, and fartboy's opus seems to be an episode in Wikipedia's history which is worth of mentioning. "Why do people need to know" is a rather strange question IMHO. --AxelBoldt
An alternate perspective is the MIT hacking culture, where what most would call "vandalism" is there called "hacks", and celebrated. The law makes no distinction between the creative and witty hacks and ugly vandalism; the distinction is only cultural.
If such a record on Wikipedia serves in any way as a hall of fame, then what would most likely happen over time is that such vandalism would get more and more baroque and artistic over time, until we'd be talking about HomePage "hacks" in the sense of the beautiful projects the anonymous MIT hackers create. If there were a "hall of fame", then the kiddies motivated to play around with the home page would be shamed if their change was deemed puerile and dull.
MIT doesn't suffer because it allows such hacks to happen; rather, it flourishes. This attitude is foreign to most institutions, but it doesn't have to be foreign to Wikipedia, if we so desire. --TheCunctator
We need to focus on our primary goal: to build a free, comprehensive encyclopedia, and in the process build a community of people dedicated to this goal. You speak of the "beautiful projects the anonymous MIT hackers create". I consider all Wikipedians to be hackers in the grandest sense of the word, all in their different areas of interest. The beautiful projects I want to see here are ones that support our goal. Projects like Magnus' encyclopedia wiki software, and your own September 11 pages. Wikipedia vandalism does not fall into this catagory, no matter how witty or artistic it may be. --STG
[Vandalised Wikipedia HomePages]