The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Wikipedia plumbs the filthy depths of plumbing

Tom

Brings to mind 

Black Helicopters

an old joke about McEnroe and a visit to a fertility clinic.

On an entirely unrelated note, is there something a little goatse about this icon? No? Hmm.

Aortic Aneurysm

well... 

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That just had me giggling away to myself, As half the office looked at me like I was losing my marbles.

well played El Reg! Kudos to the finder (whom i Suspect was the one who edited it)

Rob Holmes

Wiki jokes now? 

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Perfect, so I can go an edit any wikipedia page and providing it is funny enough, it'll appear here?

What I'm trying to say is - viewing the revision history for that article....bet I can guess Mr. McCarthy's IP Address.....

Mark Menzies

Made me fall off my chair.... 

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... quality.

The Reg is mint. :P

Dominic Kua

It's not the first time I've seen things like that on Wikipedia 

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They're often terrible at punctuation and homonyms. Shocking.

Anonymous Coward

It is just 

Paris Hilton

Someone trying to get "Roger's Profanisaurus" on to Wikipedia, so it can be accepted as fact by certain newspapers and courts of law.

Personally, I need to see tw@dangle in there.

Paris... Plumbing... Insert your own innuendo... <oh err>

Anonymous Coward

Pulled 

It's been pulled, obviously, but the old version is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plumbing&diff=prev&oldid=245218102

Z

Too late 

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aaannndd some spoil sport has edited it out...

Anonymous Coward

Plumbing 

They removed it from Wiki. Still in the history though.

Anonymous Coward

Ah, so that's what's meant ... 

Happy

by the term "plumber's mate" ... ???

Plumber's bits often tend to come in male and female versions. Perhaps there ought to be a warning about not leaving them in the same box overnight.

Alan

Students 

Don't they teach grammar at school any more - someone has managed to get all the way to Dundee University and doesn't know how to spell in and how to punctuate.

Mind you it was done at 13:41, so either they had a bit too much to drink with their lunch, or they'd only just got up...

Michael B.

Slightly Depressing... 

..is that the edit came from a University of Dundee IP address, according to a Geoip lookup.

Anonymous Coward

Wiki censorship 

Unhappy

I once filled in an entry for Saint Vitas dance, (the dance displayed when you need a piss) The wiki 3rd riech soon had it removed, even though it's a fair enough description, so i'm sure it won't be long until this gem is also gastapo'd.

Gav

So El Reg is reporting graffiti now 

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If you want to look I'm sure you'll find many gems on a par to this on the wall of your nearest pub. Perhaps you could report them too?

Wikipedia gets 100s of edits like this every day. They get removed every day. What exactly is the point again?

cphi

what the hell's this doing in the Reg? 

Dead Vulture

slow news day, huh?

Jeremy

Oh come on... 

Wikifiddling stories are often funny but this one was put there repeatedly by one pillock and each time stayed there for less than sixty seconds before being yanked. If it had been there for 4 days before anyone noticed, then it would have been funny but 1 minute? Pah...

Anonymous Coward

Poor effort at vandalism, though 

adding article text below the "External Resources" section? Why not add a whole "Vandals' Playground" section and bold the text up a bit, it wouldn't be any less subtle. Amateurs.

Much more entertaining, IMHO, is creative vandalism such as editing articles in such a way that the first letter of each sentence spells out a profanity, a message destroying the precious NPV of the article or, most heinous of all, some criticism of Wikipedia. I'm still waiting for the Wikifiddlers to track down any of my efforts in this arena...

Mark Broadhurst

1 minute 

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thats all it was up for look at the history.

Anonymous Coward

So now I know what to expect... 

Happy

... from the book with the ISBN 0875099807.

Anonymous Coward

Re Pulled by AC 

Joke

Pulled

By Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 14th October 2008 15:37 GMT

"It's been pulled, obviously, but the old version is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plumbing&diff=prev&oldid=245218102"

I think you must be getting confused with w@nking... See seperate Wiki entry

Vincent

Wikifiddlers 

Paris Hilton

I remember looking at the Microsoft page on Wikipedia a few years ago. Someone had. Replaced the entire article with "MICROSOFT ARE EVIL!"

I don't use Wikipedia much (if at all) now though, so I haven't seen many shenanigans as of late.

Paris because I bet she calls in the plumbers.

Anonymous Coward

I see there is an external reference 

Paris Hilton

To Plumbing on The Register ;)

PH - do we have to refer to her as a plumbers mate now :p

Lol Whibley

blinding 

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but we need a name for this sport...

censored

subtlety is more fun 

Happy

Stuff like that gets removed pretty quickly. Far more fun to be subtle. I added an unusual yet plausible hobby to a US Christian rock singer's entry that's still there two years later.

Of course, since Wikipedia's arbitary rule is that if it's referenced in print, it must be true, simply reference "plumbing" to the printed Profanisaurus.

Anonymous Coward

Tut tut 

With Wikipedia you are supposed to cross-reference everything. It might have been more acceptable if he'd (I presume it was a "he") had cross referenced the appropriate words e.g.,

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

Anonymous Coward

Really clever... 

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So, someone from the University of Dundee makes an edit at lunchtime, emails El Reg to brag about it and gets his name in an article about it a few hours later? Genius. I wonder if he'll post something inspirational at Have Your Say and send you a message about that too.

Anonymous Coward

Plumbing is mint 

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fuck, I might set up my own rival site to Wikipedia to allow such blatant stupidity.

Thank you, Reg :-)

Alacrity Fitzhugh

Heh, He. Check out the edits 

Happy

First, they removed the offending text:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plumbing&diff=245254659&oldid=245254475

THEN, they removed an offensive reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plumbing&diff=245264038&oldid=245255203

Anonymous Coward

Reminds me of... 

There was a young plumber from Leigh,

Who was plumbing his girl by the sea.

Said the girl, "Stop your plumbing",

"There's somebody coming".

Said the plumber, still plumbing, "It's me".

rlow

Removed from wikipedia? 

What a plumbing shame.

Chris C

Am I the only one 

Am I the only one who thinks such tripe is childish and immature? Seriously, if you think this kind of crap is funny, you need to get out of your mother's basement a little more. Is it any wonder the IT profession carries such a stigma? I used to think it was unwarranted. I now know that I'm just in the minority.

Anonymous Coward

Is Mr. McCarthy from Leicester by any chance? 

Pirate

~ $ nslookup 86.13.33.209

Server: croy-sm-1-l0.network.virginmedia.net

Address: 194.168.4.100

Name: cpc2-leic8-0-0-cust464.lei3.cable.ntl.com

Address: 86.13.33.209

~ $

Anonymous Coward

@ChrisC 

Paris Hilton

Of course it's childish and immature. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be funny :-)

Paris - because surely her plumbing's in order....

Joe

Drop the dead donkey! 

I'm surprised you didn't report the wikifiddling event which happend a few weeks ago - unverified Wiki nonsense appeared in a daily national newspaper...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2008/sep/23/mirror.digitalmedia

MarkJ

Far better 

Paris Hilton

The wiki-cognoscenti (if such a thing were possible) edit articles on practices that might be termed NSFW by hyper-linking to articles where the suggested combination would be amusing. The one on 'gigolos' pointing to the evangelical preacher under 'See Also' for instance...

Or creating empty categories or articles such as 'List of French Military Victories'.

There's also the circular logic reference. Make an unsubstantiated claim. Reference a blog/feed etc that you can edit to point back at the article on Wikipedia. Job done.

Paris, because according to a blog I'm about to reference she is a world expert on the written language of Easter Island.

sauerkraut

to all those who asked... 

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why this thing was on el reg. simple: it was there to save my night, my sanity, my life.

thank you, el reg, you did. God bless you!

Anonymous Coward

My wikifiddle is almost 12 months old now 

Happy

Hehe, even though it is obvious bollocks, the wikifiddlers haven't found it yet.

However, my attempts at English are somewhat better.

Yabba Dabba Doo!

Scott

Humour 

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I think everyone seems to of lost there humour bone around here? could be to do with the credit crunch maybe, I find it funny so keep up the good work El Reg! as i ain't going to go surfign that sh*t wiki looking for things like this, so having the funny ones pointed out i think your doing us people (still with a sense of humour) a service.

Thumbs up El Reg. and go back to your DBs you boring peeps.

Steve Kay

The bigger question is... 

Will someone make the change at Conservapedia too?

Gianni Straniero

Re: My wikifiddle is almost 12 months old now 

Happy

You are Ryan Coombes and I claim my ten pounds.

Anonymous Coward

Oh cum cum now! 

Alien

Don't take life so seriously .............................. No one ever gets out alive.

Miss B

ooops 

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Plumbing

'you've missed a bit.....'

Riccardo Spagni

Yet Another Humorous Wikipedia Article 

Joke

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

Did give me my morning lol, though.

Anonymous Coward

@Oops 

Stop

Not any more ;)

Mark Eccleston

Training? 

Paris Hilton

I'm curious as to what sort of training one would receive in Canada as shown in the external link, "Plumbing Training in Canada", in the pic.

Paris cause well.....