User:Jorgenev/reddit story

The page views of a selection of articles that were highly upvoted on reddit this September. The affect, as you can see, is obvious.

In August the page Cry Baby Lane was submitted to the TodayILearned subreddit with the title "TIL Nickelodeon released a TV Movie in 2000 that was so scary that they only aired it once. It is now considered a lost film" (which is now sitting at a score of +9708/-7493). Not long after a user commented "I have a copy of Cry Baby Lane that I recorded on VHS" and our article was quickly updated from "Despite the efforts of the fans, all attempts to find and upload a copy of the film online have thus far been futile" to "A user on Reddit, firesaladpeach, claims to have a full copy of the movie on VHS and has uploaded the introduction to YouTube as proof of its existence", winning some praise of Wikipedia. One user wrote:

I don't believe I've ever looked up something on Wikipedia that I found on Reddit, only to be directed back to the very same thread I started out in.

However, edit warring and discussions about reliable sources ensued: should Wikipedia list a fact citing a youtube video if that Youtube video makes the fact self evident, or should we wait for journalistic sources to cover the incident? Redditors were not amused, a "Reddit-4chan combined raid" was announced with the justification "Wikipedia is being dicks about Cry Baby lane being found." The talk page discussion could probably best be summed up in this exchange:

Come on guys, use your noggins. It's clearly relevant to anyone viewing this article. - IP
Relevant? Perhaps. Usable? No. [...] - Wikipedian

All such concerns were laid to rest with the publishing of a piece in The Daily though, the interest had gone full circle in just four days. The incident may have caused some degree of ill will though, one reddit user wrote "Wikipedia is sucking pretty hard right now for basically destroying everything that made the original article such a fun read."

"Because the reddit user community (which, admittedly, is smarter than the Digg user community) makes Wikipedia's look disgustingly intelligent."

http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/i3pmw/redditor_meetup_vs_wikipedia_meetup_discuss/

The one odd coincidence is that the annual Great American Wiknic coincides exactly with Global Reddit Meetup day, on July 25. Which has been noted on reddit in the thread "..the fuck, Wikipedia!? This was supposed to be OUR meetup day!" where one facetious comment therein read "Our meet up could consist of crashing a few picnics....". If anything the reverse has happened, if completely unsuccessfully. The 2011 Seattle Wiknic tried to do a joint meet-up with reddit with the idea that perhaps some new editors could be recruited and it would just be a rowdier party, however the redditors ended up being so numerous (in this picture they appear to number in the hundreds) we were lost in the crowed. One Wikipedian wrote despondently afterwards,

I showed up and a half hour or so trying to figure out where the Wikipedia people were, but I with so many people I didn't know how long it would take before somebody could tell me where you all were. Still not entirely sure I know what Reddit is, but they seemed enthusiastic about it. I'd still like to meet Wikipedians around Seattle if something can be set up.

In fact, it does not look like any of us were able to find each other that day, another Wikipedian reported:

I was there from 12 to 7, didn't meet any wikipedian's like the rest to you due to the size of the crowd. Had a nice time nonetheless. I would like to meet up again regardless, but with a little more cohesion as a wiki community.

Other of our meets-ups went successively though, of course, and a side by side comparison of photographs was later published on reddit in the thread Redditor meetup vs. Wikipedia meetup. Discuss. where the consensus was amicably that both pictures showed a bunch of nerds, with the Wikipedia community perhaps skewing a bit older, although not without trolls:

maybe how much COOLER redditors look than the positively laughible Wikipedia crowd who look like absolute bozos, how bout that

wrote one particularly hateful redditor.

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/In Event of Moon Disaster

http://www.reddit.com/r/wikipedia/comments/kxzs5/i_present_to_you_the_most_biased_article_on/

http://www.reddit.com/r/circlejerk/comments/kr1tk/til_if_you_press_random_on_wikipedia_you_get_free/

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/knpfj/20_years_from_now_how_will_we_regard_wikipedia/

Wadsworth constant

• Meme is made up on reddit: post
• Posted to Wikipedia where it was deleted quickly at AFD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Wadsworth constant
• Speedy deleted again
• Also at The_Wadsworth_Constant, Wadsworth's constant
• Many redditors seemed knolwedge about wikipedia and cautioned against posting it, even citing WP policy: mostly this thread

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Probability_theory&diff=454363772&oldid=452780639#Wadsworth_constant_theorem