Sperglords

Some people are passionate about a hobby of theirs. Some people are collectors, trying to own everything related to a hobby or artist.

Some people are sperglords, intent on spunking all over the Internet with massive amounts of completely irrelevant information. This is where we laugh at them.

To start, let's play a game of Guess What Song Wikipedia Sperglords Are Describing!

Quote:

The song begins with a distinctly Vivaldian style, as the fast tempo and classical-style chord progression anticipates the lyrics to follow. The opening chords and the melody emphasize the tonic of the leading notes: Fm–E♭–D♭–Cm–D♭–E♭–Fm–D♭–E♭–Fm, resembling a Baroque work. This is followed by the sound of dance music, produced by a powerful beat from the instruments.

Spoiler:

Papa Don't Preach by Madonna

Quote:

<song> is an uptempo dance-pop song, and follows the footsteps of the previous single <other song>. Whereas <other song> was predominately electropop, <song> carries a dark sound with clear vocals on the chorus and a pop hook while combining the synths from <other song> and the more dance-oriented beat of the next single <yet another song>. According to Kerri Mason of Billboard, the composition "carr[ies] the pleather-and-sequins vibe of the downtown New York scene out of the underground and onto the FM dial without losing its smut and sass." The song is set in common time with a moderate tempo of 120 beats per minute and is written in the key of G-sharp minor. <artist>'s vocal range spans from F♯3 to B4. It begins with a medium tempo followed by electronic chord arrangement and the "Mum-mum-mum-mah" hook. The chords follow in this order, G♯m—E—F♯—G♯m—E—F♯.[12] This is followed by the sound of dance music, produced by a powerful beat from the instruments and a stuttering hook following the chorus.

Spoiler:

"Poker Face" by Lady Gaga

I am relatively confident that even though I am very annoyed/disgusted by the amount of shit people are willing to write on Wikipedia, I'm confident the rest of you know of even bigger examples of oversharing on the Internet.

Oh here we go, how about A detailed list of all the things that happened to Captain Archer's dog Porthos on Enterprise, complete with this explanation of his eating habits

Quote:

Captain Archer would regularly provide Porthos with dog food. This was stored in foil-wrapped packets that Archer poured into a bowl and gave to the dog. Porthos whimpered and complained to the captain if he missed any of his meals. The dog was fond of cheese, although it occasionally caused him to visit Dr. Phlox (in sickbay) for gastrointestinal distress.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

The only problem I see here is that both passages are written in a retardedly heavy-handed style. Are you seriously suggesting that information like key, tempo, and chord progressions is "completely irrelevant" in an encyclopedia entry about a song?

Also, the whole point of fanboy hiveminds like Memory Alpha is that you get the obsessive types to do all the work for you just in case you do want to find some random bit of trivia for whatever reason. The more disturbingly comprehensive, the better, as long as it gets split out into separate pages. God bless the sperglords.

EDIT: Okay, that Porthos link did give me a laugh:

Spoiler:

There's nowhere I can't reach.

There are degrees of relevancy, Worm. Wikipedia has, for example, an article on Tusken Raiders. It's about three paragraphs. In the external links section, it directs you to Wookieepedia's article on the same topic, which is 30 paragraphs or longer. There is a REASON why Wikipedia does not include the vast, choking slabs of beefy Tusken Raider data that Wookieepedia contains, and the reason is this: 99% of that information is absolutely irrelevant to anyone except obsessive hobbyists.

If the Madonna song entry were in a wiki specifically designed for banal information about chord progression, that data would fit there. It doesn't really fit Wikipedia's general-purpose model for exactly the same reason 50,000 words of Tusken data doesn't fit.

(Referring to a pop song as "Vivaldian" is always pretty banal regardless of the context, though)

V too slow lardfat

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The thing is, Worm, there's a certain level of detail that Wikipedia is intended to have, and these paragraphs are WAY beyond the scope of "general overview of something" and into "obsessive fanwank by people with too much time on their hands".

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

No the problem is that there's encyclopedia entries for songs.

Additional Spam:
They should have a mandatory section for every song entry that lists the people who have lost their virginity to that song.

How ya doing, buddy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bang_the_Drum_All_Day&action=edit

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I agree with the point about scope and that Wikipedia should be limited to a general overview, but I did say that splitting information into separate pages is important. An external link to a specialized wiki is not much different from a link to another page on Wikipedia itself.

What I don't get is the idea that you can have too much information, unless you're transitioning to a complaint about the environmental impact of server farms or something. It's not hard to think of a situation where you would to learn about a particular song, especially if the information helps you learn to play it.

FELIPE NO

If I'm looking for information about a historical building, chances are I want to know a bit about when it was made and who lived there, not detailed plans on how to make one myself. The problem with putting such intricate detail down about everything is that it lessens the general usefulness of the whole article. If you were looking up sales figures for a game for example, you'd want the basic page to just have the global and regional figures, you wouldn't expect to find a day by day breakdown of teh figures from each branch of Gamestop.

Often, too much information can be a bad thing if it's presented in such a way as to obscure the basic facts.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?