Wednesday 30 July 2008

Illogicopedia WikiHow article

If you weren't sure about how to edit Illogicopedia, WikiHow have provided a handy guide on how to create an Illogicopedia article. As with all wikis, it's editable so we invite members of Illogicopedia to contribute. Remember, though, WikiHow is a serious website and you'll get banned for doing stupid stuff.

Alternatively, refer to the following video, which I felt it appropriate to dig out once more:

Sunday 27 July 2008

Featured website: Feeling mischievous?

This post goes out to all the budding Dennis the Menaces out there.

A bit of a pranker? Mischiefpedia is just the site for you. It's a directory of general cheekiness including tips on how to fool your friends into thinking the dog can talk and much more.

This will fool anyone who can't resist to pick up a coin.

Example prank... Take any coin and some glue. Go to a sidewalk that alot of people walk on and glue the coin to the sidewalk. Wait. Many victims will fall for your trick, as they try to pick up the coin you have fixed up with some glue.

Another project by one of our users, it's a wiki like Illogicopedia so you can contribute your own pranks and stuff. Unfortunately it wasn't accepted into the Wikia community (a very difficult process, as we can testify) but with your help maybe it could.

So, do stuff!

Friday 25 July 2008

The Aliens

Billions of light years from Earth, there is yet another planet on which intelligent life has developed. The planet is called "The Other Planet that has Life." It isn't a very creative name.

The Other Planet that has Life was populated by a population of creatures far more technologically advanced than human beings. One night, Xvorg Smith, a researcher on the planet, was peering through a superpowered telescope at the stars, when he spotted something. A blue spec. He zoomed in on it, and gasped. He was looking at a city.

"COME HERE, QUICK!"
he bellowed to his peers, "I've found life! LIFE!!"

The other scientists in the observatory ran over to the telescope to see for themselves. Sure enough, there was a city on this strange planet. They zoomed in closer, and saw weird pink beings wearing bright pink clothing.

"Those are some weird-ass aliens,"
said one scientist, "Look at the primitive vehicles they drive around in." He was looking at a car.


Read more...

Tuesday 22 July 2008

Illogicopedia's quest for independence - update

Illogicopedian Peoples' Front flag.

It seems that Illogicopedia's independence is going to be delayed for a while longer whilst cost issues are taken into account. More specifically it's being considered whether the move would be worth the money - after all, we the community will be the ones that have to fund it. Advertising would bring in a negligible amount of cash so it has been decided that is not the way to go.

At a cost of around £125 a year, Illogicopedia's new host would be a lot more expensive than Wikia, which costs 32p. Er, I mean it's free. Illogicopedia, however, will not be free until something is sorted finance-wise.

This is not an appeal, so don't donate your book tokens and Monopoly money. This ain't Wikipedia, you know.

Wednesday 16 July 2008

Cake versus Gateau - Clash of the squidgy Titans

It was the third of Serpeniver, some years ago. A horse passed by. One chocolate cake and one gateau appeared in my brain. It was to be a fight with only one winner, but who? The cake had chocolatey goodness whilst the gateau was creamalicious... your guess was as good as mine: these were two fine specimens of cakeyness.

The cake dealt the first blow, smashing the cream from the gateau. The gateau retaliated by dealing a severe blow which knocked the very currants out of the cake! A fish broke wind whilst the audience (three cherries and a lettuce) roared wildly. Getting up from the canvas, cakey picked up a knife and sliced the gateau in half. However this just made it stronger, with twice the attacking power. With an almighty swipe, the gateau took a chunk out of the very heart of the cake.

In the end, it didn't matter. I ate them both.

Read more here

Monday 14 July 2008

Illogicopedia questions: What is the oldest article?

It's the question on everybody's lips... what was the first article on Illogicopedia? Well, nobody actually asked this but I decided to do a bit of research to satisfy my own curiosity anyways. So merrr.

You'd think that Illogicopedia's Special:Ancientpages would reveal the answer. The page lists 'M' as the first ever Illogicopedian article - problem solved, you may say.

But it's not as simple as that - when Illogicopedia moved from Editthis in January 2007 a bunch of glitches and errors in the software meant that when the articles were moved to the new server some data was lost.

A look at the Editthis wiki (which is still in existence) reveals that its equivalent Special:Ancientpages claims 'The Really Big Button that Does Something' was the actual first article, created on 18 January 2007.

But wait! What of Example Article, which was created prior to Illogi's move to Editthis (when ?pedia was but a Wikia scratchpad wiki)? A look at the page's history reveals that indeed, this article was created on the 8th of January 2007. Why doesn't it appear in the oldest pages page? Well, I don't actually know but it is probably another porting issue.

But is that the earliest article? Well, no - that accolade goes to 'Conversation', the very first article under the name of Illogicopedia in any of its forms. The article is dated 8th December 2006 (as pictured in the foot of this post), a month prior to the Example Article. A complete list of the most ancient of Illogicopedia's pages along with their histories can be found at the Wikia Scratchpad.

Buuut wait! Listed in that category is 'Talk:The Cursed wiki article', a page that originated at Uncyclopedia and was created on 31st December 2005. This isn't exactly a true Illogicopedian article but worth a mention for its earliness nonetheless.

So what is the actual earliest article? Well, it depends on what you mean by 'earliest'. Here's a quick summary:
  • "Earliest" Uncyc port: Talk:The Cursed wiki article
  • Earliest on Illogicopedia (full wiki): The Really Big Button that Does Something
  • Actual, proper, genuine earliest article on Illogicopedia (Any format): Conversation
Phew. Well, that was fun. So here's to Illogicopedia's oldest articles. I now need a beer.

Tuesday 8 July 2008

Nerd42 on moving away from Wikia

We appear to be moving towards the very very end of our association with Wikia Inc due to the fact that they are moving to a "new style" while the rest of the world isn't. This is my (Nerd42's) first post on IllogiBlog, but some of you may know that I was one of the founders of the site and I was the one who spoke out strongly in favor of our going with Wikia and negotiated with Wikia staff to get us on there. At that time I was against independent hosting for the following reasons:
  1. Independent hosting would mean we have less "centrality" thus we get fewer Google hits / a lesser PageRank.
  2. Independent hosting means we would have to pay money ... forever ... in order to keep the site running. People would be hesitant to take the time to register and contribute because they would doubt that we would be able to sustain ourselves.
  3. Independent hosting could mean that we would be responsible for installing updates to MediaWiki and any other software or plugins we use ourselves, rather than having someone else who is paid to do it (a Wikia staffer) do it for us. We would have to figure technical things out for ourselves. (Or self if one person is going to be responsible for that)
Those were the factors that influenced my thinking on that at that time. Wikia is 1. popular, 2. free and 3. reliable. But also I liked the way the interface looked exactly like Wikipedia because it used the Monobook skin. With the Monobook skin we could make fun of Wikipedia in a nonsensical way, as Uncyclopedia does in a more (or more recently in my personal opinion, in a less) humorous way.

But now, I want to make it clear that my position has changed. Those advantages would still be advantages if we stayed at Wikia but now the disadvantages of Wikia being able to tell us what to do, what our site address is going to be and what our site is going to look like far outweigh the benefits I listed. Therefore, as of now, I support the move.

But I realize that this move is going to come with all the disadvantages of independent hosting. We are going to be obscure, have technical problems and if our piggy banks get too empty, we may have trouble keeping the site online. We may want to start a non-profit foundation or somesuch just to cover hosting costs, or we may need to be funded by ads. I'm not sure but these are options we can explore in the future.

But as one of the few Americans on the ?pedia crew, I've always been more of a John Adams than a John Dickenson so let me just add my voice: I'm for declaring independence!

Best of "Ask a silly question..."

A mere Illogic Classic entry does not do justice for this forum topic. That's why we've decided to dip back into the archives and bring you this, an extended tribute to Ask a silly question, get a silly answer.

Now with added silly pictures for effect!

Q: What is Sally?
A: The effect achieved when light reflected from venus is refracted by some swamp gas, distilled then bottled and sold at an outrageous 256% mark-up.

Q: Does leaving water bottles out in the sun actually make the water EXPLODE?
A: No, but you can actually do that with ants.

Q: Guess who's back?
A: Bcbkye's back. Tell your friends.

Q: Do mannequins talk?
A: It's a huge conspiracy involving invisible trains, potatoes, Eastenders and the Elmo Corporation.

Q: Eh?
A: Death is a symptom of life.

Q: Does the Socratic method ever work?
A: Ask a Socratic question, get a Socratic answer.

Q: What is the point?
A: Something very sharp.

Q: Shall I proceed to eat my computer?
A: I hear Macs are tasty this time of year.

Q: How many Seppys does it take to fix a lightbulb?
A: One, because he can change it with the power of his mind! You wouldn't believe some of the other stuff he can do...

And on that note, I leave you with major spoilers.

Indie-logicopedia

It only seems like yesterday when we were welcoming our new Wikia Overlords, but now Illogicopedia is all set to go independent for the first time in its history. The New Monaco saga was the straw that broke the llama's back and key members of the Illogicopedia community have agreed that the site should go it alone, severing its 1-year long ties with Wikia.

New Monaco has been generally regarded as "not very good" amongst Illogicopedians: Asema refuses to edit until a move is complete, while Silent Penguin reckons a new home will bring him more fish. I mean, er, users.

We anticipate problems and hurdles in the coming month or so and it's going to be hectic. Of course going independent will mean custom skins and no more Google ads (oh yeah). Loading times should be increased and downtime decreased but, best of all, the community will be in charge of any major decisions taken.

As a result of the move we may (or may not) put the pickle judging back a while... we'll get back to you on that.

We'll bring you more news on the move as it happens but we anticipate that, in a week's time, the people of Illogicopedia will be free. To do what they want. Like cook socks in the microwave without Sannse nixing it at the last minute.

Aid Epoc Igolli, fellow Illogians.
Hindleyak

Saturday 5 July 2008

Illogi Classics - #15, Ask a silly question, get a silly answer

The Illogic Classics series breaks the mould with its first featured article from the Forum name space.


Where's Wally-style task: In the following paragraph, try to spot the tenuous link to the image I grabbed randomly from my hard drive. Well, you have to forgive me cos what picture would aptly illustrate a page as random as this?

One of the most contributed to pages in Illogicopedia history, this forum topic started life on the Proboards forum. Thankfully it would not fade into obscurity in the same way as its fellow 'Top Gear' thread, rather grow larger and larger to the extent it needed its own archive pages. Erm, it's so popular, even yaks have contributed.

In the past contributors have feared the number of questions in existence left to ask have been running low. As a result there may be one or two duplicate questions but for the most part, some of the stuff contained in this forum page has deserved a main space page all of its own:
Q: Why do clouds suddenly appear...?
A: ...every time you are near? It's because you're so fat you have your own atmosphere.

Q: When is crazy?
A: Twenty eight past forty two.

Q: Paper... or plastic?
A: Peanut!
Plus more! So if you need a question answered, forget Yahoo! Answers and get on down to the Illogicopedia forums. Now, why is Spam fritter so tasty?

Thursday 3 July 2008

The Hitchhikers Guide

Hey look, another featured website. This ought to be a more regular feature, methinks.

The Hitchhikers Guide wiki is a parody of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by some writer or other. It contains vital information for Earth's tourists: what you might tell a Martian if he'd just landed and wanted to know where the petrol station is.

Set up by one of our very own users, this is another brand new Wikia wiki that needs help getting off the ground. So if you're feeling generous, you might want to lend a hand and write a few biased/opinionated articles there.

As always, have fun and don't do anything your dog wouldn't do.