Letters to the Editor: Spambots Edition

Thanks to a recent upsurge in site activity, the Illogicopedia inbox has been overflowing with messages of praise, criticism and the promise of free prescription drugs for low, low prices. Nah, only joking - we'd be lucky to get one email a month.

But the Illogiblog's comments queue is literally filled with walls of text from the processors of spambots eager to peddle their Russian dating sites scribbled in semi-Engrish nonsense that wouldn't look out of place on the pages of Illogicopedia. To that end, here's a selection of the latest waste products fresh from the Illogiblog spambox.

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Always nice to be praised by a (fellow?) pornographer. At this rate, it looks as though we'll be a firm favourite from Hugh Hefner's bookmarks list before too long. Playboy, here we come baby!

Greetings We are very happy I discovered your site My partner and I actually discovered you through mistake, while I was searching upon Askjeeve regarding something else entirely, -- Flash websites

Whilst I am pleased by your enthusiasm for the Illogiblog, I wonder where you learned your punctuation. Was it the School of Placing Random Commas Wherever it Looks Nice? Or perhaps the Institute of Full Stop Loathers? Anyway, I shall pass your message to Askjeeve, whoever the eeble sonk he is.

It really is difficult to get informed persons for this matter, but you sound like you doubt know exactly what you are speaking about! With thanks -- Vernon

Aha, I see your usage of the Cloak of Doubt there, and as such I am not fooled by your excessive butteriness. Incidentally, you'll have a hard tasking finding persons more informed on the subject of sheer nonsense, so don't even try or we shall dispatch Bcbkye to place a pox upon your servers.

My partner and i knew I was appropriate. My buddy and My spouse and i placed a bet in relation to which web site was superior. I imagined your web site was superior created, but the lady believed this kind of post upon trendy design ideas was far better. We rounded up 5 family members memebers who had not seen often website prior to to study them each more than. Majority chose your internet site. Thanks regarding maintaing an incredible site. -- How to get rid of cellulite

This one was just creepy. To round up three family members is foolish; to round up five is tantamount to creative suicide, especially where Illogicopedia is concerned. On that rather disturbing note, I shall leave you for now.

Illogicopedia users "a bunch of illiterates": Alexa

In a scathing attack on Illogicopedia's userbase, internet ranking site Alexa.com has blasted the site's editors as a load of infertile slackers with no education:

Based on internet averages, illogicopedia.org is visited more frequently by males who are in the age range 18-24, have no children, have no college education and browse this site from home. -- Alexa.com entry for Illogicopedia

Users became outraged upon hearing the news, which was reported some time ago but hasn't reached the Illogicopedia community until now because we couldn't get anyone to read it out loud for us. Thanks to Microsoft Sam, I was able to decipher these sticks and squiggles known as 'letters' that go together to form 'words' to bring you this belated exclusive.

In response, it must be said that most workplaces immediately put Illogicopedia on the internet blacklist due to its nonsensical, brain-melting content. We would otherwise access the site at work, but the computers are generally more than 20 years old and still on dial-up connections; to rub it in, we struggle to control those horrible one-button mice from the late 80s.

The remaining accusations are somewhat fair, so I shall gloss over them and try to tempt you with the promise of a free online diploma for all Illogiblog readers here. Well, what have you got to lose? Illogicopedia has already deprived you of your sanity.

The Dark Side of the IllogiCast. Or something.

I made another podcast yesterday. I was bored OK?



On this episode, we hear about Illogicopedia's take on Mozart, Lincoln, zombies, The moon! and astronomy.

Peter Piper picked an Illogic Pickle

After a two year absence, the Illogic Pickle, Illogicopedia's premier writing competition has returned to taunt users with the promise of fame, fortune and the opportunity to be kicked up the backside by fellow competitors. Do not let this put you off entering, however, for it is not the winning but the irritating of judges that counts.

Enter the Illogic Pickle 4.1: Details here

For those of you new to the Pickle, you basically have four weeks to craft the most fantastic, earth-shatteringly wondersome article you can possibly muster. Then lose. But do not be downhearted if the judges don't select your article as the winner, for this year you shall have a second chance in the form of VFF. The best entries will be put to the public vote for a place on the front page, which, after all, is a million times better than winning some giant pickle that smells as if it's been sat at the back of a cupboard for a few decades. So yeah, erm, enter the Pickle. Go on, it'll be fun.

From the Illogiblog archives: This month through the years: June

It's time to go all nostalgic as we take a brief look through the Illogiblog archives (pictured right) to see what we were all up to in the month of June in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

June 2008

The month began with an ode to Does this bus go to Orpington, a prominent 'meme' from the early years of Illogicopedia. Well, it wasn't really as notable at the time, not until Does this bus go to Orpington: The Game was featured on Illogicopedia in 2009.

Both IllogiNews and the blog underwent some format changes, the latter of which followed a semi-successful logo competition won by Robomilk. At the time of writing, the very same 'Underground Sky Blue' theme remains in place at the Illogiblog.

The Illogic Pickle 2.2 was launched, heralding a fervent period of activity before the inevitable visitor drop-off. Illogicopedia wouldn't experience that until July, however, so for now we were revelling in our own squalor.

After a bit of moaning about Wikia and a quick look at some other Wikipedia parody wikis, the month closed with a tribute to Silent Penguin, who became the first entrant into the Illogicopedia Hall of Fame. He remains the only inhabitant of said corridor to this day, suggesting there were ulterior motives behind this award...

June 2009

Illogicopedia played its part in an Uncle Pete featured article, destroying the world in spectacular fashion in Uncyclopedia Brown and Wikipedia Brown...

In politics, some Member of Parliament edited Wikipedia or something, and Jimbo Wales stuck his nose into the 'paid-to-edit' wiki debate. The two articles were 'humorously' brought together in a piece of image juxtaposition that might have made the odd person chuckle. I doubt it, though.

We got a brief update on Illogicopedia's status on 15 June, and oh yeah, Readmesoon became an Illogiblogger. Happy 2nd birthday, dude!

June 2010

The Uncyclopedians staged a mini-invasion. A battle raged over Skype and spilled onto Illogicopedia, where much drama took place... and then we forgot all about it. Probably just as well, really.

The recession began to bite, resulting in a series of painful cuts announced by Lord Testistocles. The long term effects of this are still to be witnessed, though I'm pretty sure somebody pinched my packet of Mini Cheddars from the fridge drawer. That was annoying.

June 2010 also saw the start of the football (soccer) World Cup, which proved a damp squib despite the Illogico World Cup party. Not much interesting happened, and the tournament only served to reinforce the general view that all soccer players are pansies that fall over upon the slightest bit of contact with an opposition player or blade of grass.

June 2011

We took a brief look back upon June of the previous three years. And brings us right up to date with the sentence I am typing right now.

The gnomes plotting your death: Real life evidence emerges

It's official: the gnomes are out to get you. Well, if you live in Argentina, anyway. The Sun's exclusive footage would seem to suggest there is a rather creepy creature prowling the streets of the country, startling locals and whipping wildlife into a frenzy. This video, purportedly capturing the feral elf, was shot in 2008:


The very latest pictures of the gnome suggest he's still at large, and seem to back up reports of an elf-like being, known as 'The Shorty Eared One', terrorising the town of Suncho Corral.


This proves to the Illogiblog, once and for all, that the gnomes really are plotting our death. We advise you immediately dispose of all garden gnomes and other such ornaments, for they are likely to come alive and punch you to the ground at any given time. Bcbkye, eat your heart out, for there is a new challenger, and it's pretty bloomin' awesome.

My Quite Serious Opinion

This wiki has a problem and I am really fed up with it.

I think all this Holier-Than-Thou, anti-corporate "We don't have the backing of large organizations" talk has a major flaw in it's reasoning.

It's Roberto!

I would call this, "The Roberto Fallacy."

The Roberto Fallacy is the idea that anything is better than what everybody else is using, even if it doesn't actually work. This is why Ubuntu has been erroneously called "Linux for Normal People."

In case you don't get it: he's been spending all weekend digging through forum posts and getting trolled on IRC channels trying to get his Linux box to do simple tasks that it should do automatically by default without having to deal with any of that crap.

Anyway, the point is that clearly, independent hosting is not working for us. It has too much independence and not enough hosting. The site seems to be down more than it's up!!

Carib is a great guy and it's wonderful that he's been willing to donate the use of the servers and whatnot and I'm not being critical of him. This is not his fault at all. But something needs to be done to get us to a point where our site works regardless whether it's independent or looks exactly the way we want it to look or whatever other crap. Functionality: being UP and RUNNING must trump every other consideration.

Something's got to be done here. We've got to get the site running reliably, all the time. That might mean going back to Wikia or some other less than perfect outcome. But anything beats having no site.

BTW, I have an old, seldom-updated blog where I've written down some pointless rants in favor of a more balanced view of the free software and free culture movement.

Illogicopedia: Writing for the Banana since 2007

It seems our friend Roberto is once again wreaking havoc upon our favourite nonsense wiki, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to speak seriously for a moment. Euthanasia. There, that was serious enough. With that out of the way, here's a ramble on the state of the wiki.

I was pottering about on Uncyclopedia the other day, which got me thinking. I wondered how much Uncle Pete differs from Illogicopedia in its fourth year of existence. It soon occurred to me that this would have only been a couple of years ago, since Uncyc is 24 months older than Illogico. Surprising to think, really.

In some ways, we've learned from Uncyclopedia's mistakes. We've shamelessly half-inched ideas for projects etc. whilst always maintaining a sense of individuality - Illogicopedia may seem quite similar, but in reality it's a hugely different prospect altogether. For starters, there isn't the problem of deletion-hungry admins that used to prowl Uncyc in its early days (not naming any names). There isn't the backing of a multi-million dollar charitable organisation or its associated wiki farm (and thank goodness for that).

Whilst I'd welcome any interest from large organisations and we would most likely accept should the right backing emerge, it isn't that big of an issue if it doesn't. Illogicopedia is about the content, and always will be. It's proudly small-time, a community of creative types that like to mess around with writing styles without fear of recrimination.

Illogicopedia is still going places. There's another Pickle contest around the corner, and with a steady stream of new users trickling into the fray, we may be set for an exciting one. Enter, and take part in a landmark event in the history of Illogicopedia.

Mr T Says: Ignore it and it will go away

Now listen up, fools. It may be hard to turn a blind eye something as blatant as a man parading the streets with a seven-foot afro, or a kid at the cat rescue centre in a dog suit, but pay them no mind. The attention seeker, upon being ignored, will naturally move on to somewhere new, where they may be annoying a whole new audience, but at least they're not pestering you. Besides, it's funny to see other fools get pissed off. That's why we watch those Simon Cowell shows or Ultimate Fighting Championship. But not me, I pity those suckas beating each other up for sport. When you hit a man, it should be out of hate for him.

Heed the words of B.A. Baracus and you won't go far wrong, children.

Representing its users and content?

Uncyclopedia's Sophia begins rottening! I'm right: now there is something that represents its rotten humour and users. By the way, maybe the EHEC-bacteria has something to do with it, rearing its head on the Internet. After six years, Sophia (now also already beaten by the Brazíliânhios) suffers under the Wikia-cancer, which has spread its sickness around the articles.

Perhaps you didn't notice yet, but all Uncycs should work normally now. After five days, Carolus Magnus caught Roberto, forced him to eat his beard, and eventually sent him away back to Mexico. Once over the Canadian border he was stopped, the border customs nabbed him on Marihuana, so he couldn't cross over (neither he could stay in Canada). Therefore, he had to bricolate a float, navigate the St. Laurence River down, etc...

And eh... Sony is hacked... yay!