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Doublespeak

From Wikitruth

[edit] Learn to speak Wikipedian!

The road is long and hard, but with our guide you'll be speaking like a Wikifreakjob in no time.

The intense editing atmosphere and the scads of conflicting personalities on Wikipedia have led to a pretty involved language. To the casual observer, this language reads like a union negotiator high on caffeine trying to describe bridge weight restrictions to a preschooler. Even as Wikipedia has grown out of control and there are now serious concerns about what "makes" a person a true "Wikipedian", the language is there to shut out the newbies, keep control with those who were there "first", and to lock out changes to articles that don't go with the "flow" of whichever God King is ruling the roost that evening.

While the language is ever changing, there are some basic terms that everyone seems to glom onto once they've been living under the Wikicult for a while. Use this handy guide and you can see through the terms.

[edit] Yes, We know it is impossible to read

Like every other group of people who cover the same ground constantly, Wikipedian editors have resorted to using abbreviations and terms throughout their writing. While Wikipedia has a better advantage than most since these terms will often link to pages explaining them, it becomes a constant game of whack-a-mole trying to keep track of what the terms mean. As one might expect, Wikipedians don't even use the terms correctly in a dependable fashion, which leads us to this page. Here, we'll tell you the "official" and the "actual" meaning of the jargon that infests nearly every discussion on Wikipedia.

Cruft - Someone else putting in too much detail about an entry before you get a chance to. Used as a suffix, i.e. "fancruft".
NN - An acronym for "not notable". Often used as justification for deleting an article. [1]
NPOV - An acronym for "neutral point of view". Articles on Wikipedia are supposed to maintain a neutral tone. Used by Wikinerds as an all-purpose excuse for deleting edits.
POV. A disease everyone else has but you'll never catch. "That's POV" is Wikinerd code for "I don't agree with that."
Prod - An abbreviation for "proposed deletion", a sort of limpwristed speedy deletion.
Speedy delete - To delete something unilaterally without bringing it up for community discussion beforehand.
Troll. Someone a Wikipedian disagrees with. Or an ugly fairytale creature.
Userboxes, small, often gaily covered boxes that tell the world important information about the user whose page it adorns, like that they like cheese or the Cleveland Clowns or they don't like Mondays. Mostly harmless fluff that have become Wikipedia's hottest battleground after the God-King set off a deletion spree by deprecating them.
Editor Notes - Like Userboxes, but they sit on an article and scare everyone the fuck away.
CheckUser. A tool with which empowered administrators can look at users' patterns of usage and compare them, allowing them to reveal sockpuppets with a greater or lesser degree of certainty. Used without transparency, some consider that it is a breach of users' privacy, although it should be noted that many websites routinely log IPs.
Diff. A link that reveals the changes made between two versions of a Wikipedia article. Diffs are often employed in disputes as proofs of past misdemeanors.
Edit war. I say potayto, you say potahto. You fucker!
Revert. You say potahto, I change it back to potayto. You fucker!
Featured article. Wikipedia's best articles, chosen by "consensus", better known to his friends as Raul. Articles are nominated and undergo rigorous bickering until Raul is either sick of it or feels they have been tested with fire and need to be featured. Featured articles get a run on the front page of Wikipedia.
Talk. Wikipedia articles have attached discussion pages, on which the real business of wikifiddling is done. Throw six monkeys into a sack, beat it with sticks, and shake it up: transcribe the resulting yowling caterwaul and you have the talkpage of a controversial article.
User space - Any page on wikipedia that is prefaced with "User:" is considered in 'user space'.
Wikipedia. Looked at from one angle, a wonderfully ambitious project to create a free information resource. Looked at from another, a big bulging bag of bullshit, perpetually being polished by the dumber monkeys in the zoo.
Wikipedian - One who participates in the Wikipedia process.
WP:AGF - an acronym for "assume good faith" a meaningless phrase used primarily to allow vandals to continue editing. Why Wikipedia is doomed to failure. Often used by someone who's acting like a fuckhead to mean "I know I'm acting like a fuckhead; you know I'm acting like a fuckhead; but the rules say you have to pretend I'm acting like a decent human being so bite me, motherfucker!"
WP:AUTO - Wikipedia has long established guidelines on autobiographical articles. These rules apply to everyone, except, of course, Jimbo.
WP:BEANS - Short for "Don't stuff beans up your nose", this is Wikipedias way of throwing problems under the rug. Don't discuss them and they will magically disappear on their own! [2]
WP:NOT - Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. A policy that states what Wikipedia is not, often used as criterion for deleting an article. [3]. Wikipedia is usually not whatever you don't want it to be.
WP:OFFICE - WP:OFFICE is a policy created by Jimbo Wales to empower the office workers of Wikimedia. Actions made under this policy can be used as a verb, i.e. "This article has been officed". You'll see the abbreviation used when Jimbo or a minion has had a phone call or email from a person who has brandished legal terminology at him, and, running scared even though he is convinced Wikipedia can't be sued, has cut the article to a sentence or two without any explanation. WP:OFFICE can be interpreted as "Censored and I will not explain why".
WP:V. The criterion for inclusion in Wikipedia is, this policy boldly states, verifiability not truth. However, the criterion for not losing a libel case is truth not verifiability. Hilarity ensues.