We know Wikipedia is screwed beyond recognition but it's not clear what the precise issue is - I think this article shows us.
The article is question is regarding the musician Jandek, who is beyond description (and the wiki article no longer tries to really describe him, either). In absolutely most big picture summary:
A guy gives himself the stage name Jandek in 1978 and self-records an album via tape. The music is him singing with acoustic guitar and it is indescribably weird, and not at all accessible music. It barely even is music. Here is a sample of his 1978 album:
. He has hundreds of hours of music like this.He continues to records tape of himself playing this atonal, creepy, and barely even music "songs" over the course of many, many, many, albums in the coming decades. His identity is never revealed, even when the tapes start getting an ironic undergrounds following. Eg. DJs would phone up the 'company' associated with his self-released tapes (his home phone) and he'd identify himself as a representative of Jandek, not the artist himself. This is despite everyone knowing this music is definitely produced and released by one guy at the very most.
he's kind of a music nerd/outsider art trivia questions - Kurt Cobain talks about his music in interviews for example - but the vast majority of people don't and never would listen to his music let alone enjoy it.
in the 2000s, people start to realise Jandek is some 60/70 year old dude in Texas and Jandek stops denying it so strongly. He ends up being invited to play live for the first time and is captured on film (he never clarifies directly, but the guy in these concerts is a dude named Sterling Smith). Live concert from 2004:
Anyway that's the most necessary background, onto the wikipedia article.
For most of it's life, the Wiki article for Jandek has been similar to any article for a niche interest - way, way too long and detailed for something such a small number of people know about. I remember it as recently as a few years ago going into detail of every major attempt to unmask Jandek, listing all of his hundreds of tapes and album, music criticism, and then lists of post-2000 public appearences. The wiki page had theories, mysteries, rabbit-holes within itself. It was terrible as ana encyclopaedia but interesting as a story re some random guy who can't sign or play guitar well getting mysteriously semi-famous. If you go into the article's historical edits you can see the unwieldy version of the page back then: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jandek&oldid=976435895
This is worth noting because the only truly compelling thing about Jandek is the context - who is this guy, where did he come from? Which is what the wiki article leant into. No one was a 'fan' of Jandek, unironically, or listened to his music for the love of the sound. There's simply no way. People were inviting him to perform live because then they could say they performed with the mysterious Jandek, and people went to his shows for the same reason. The wiki article was microcosm of this very state of being.
So what happens? Some uppity Wiki editor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ILIL) posts this on the article's talk page in 2021:
When someone points out that the reason Jandek is notable is the talk and mystery around him -- thus that probably needs to figure into the article somehow, ILIL disagrees strongly.
The autism runs so deep on Wikipedia that the editors truly can't comprehend how most humans absorb information. The above statement is true re: an article about a scientific theorem. It's not how people engage with entertainment. Nonetheless, soon after, the article is wittled down to two sections - a very brief introduction where a music publication is quoted calling Jandek "mysterious" with no other context (because that would be editorialising), a handful of sentences with chronology of his first release and later live shows, and maybe two quotes re: his lack of widely known identity. His strange lack of musical talent is barely mentioned with a statement saying: "an idiosyncratic and frequently atonal form of folk and blues music,". If you think this captures the music i linked to in this post, you're a moron.
Someone who, say, hears someone talking about Jandek and wants to know what the big deals searches up this article and comes away with more questions - why so much mystery around what is apparently a fairly normal blues singer from the 70s? Unless they dig through old versions of this article they'll never know.
In one very minor article, the core issue of Wikipedia is summarised: in a fight between normies and autism, the autism is more powerful.
For the drama, go into the article's edit history and see warring editors making changes to the article post-2021: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jandek&action=history
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I liked it better when wikipedia was uncensored, unreliable, and poorly moderated
now it's just censored, unreliable, and poorly moderated with a leftard nauseating agenda who flip the frick out when you put the real name of a real person in their real wikipedia but continue to disgrace
the artist formerly known as prince with his dead name
Rules for wannabe Shes but not rules for
Ζ¬ΜΜ΅Μ¬
Frick you jimbo
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Legal name? Self styled name? Birth name? How about names that friends call us? Names our parents had considered before birth?
Maybe you should learn the first thing about names before you open your peepee holster you FRICKING R-SLUR. They are a reference to you for the world. But it also is a pointer to the-self-that-is-constructed (and it is constructed, over time, with experiences).
You whiny c*nts never complain about not being able to use previous titles of married women, or sequels, or changing the title of concepts between different framings, or people with speech impediments choosing to use less difficult words than the formal title, or informal address. I will twist your head off if you about names in front of me ever again.
And this is about names, if that wasn't clear. Names are useful, and contextual, and real.
Your name is TNT. And that is real. Unidentified male corpse is real. That's the premise of one of transphobes most famous copypastas. Then you go and insult names like that. Frick you.
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oh my god, pings you?
!cuteandvalid !nonchuds
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it doesn't
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Help help! The chibbies are leaving my head!
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Your recent posts inspired me. I'm thinking of making a ping group for rare marsey sightings, creative marsey usage, new marsey appreciations and general marsey related wholesomeness. Any ideas for a name? !friendsofmarsey seems too samey. !marseyenjoyers might be too susceptible to subversion by marsey coomers. Thoughts !marseyartists !pinggrouplovers?
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!marseyappreciators
!marseyfans (this one has a domain bought already too )
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Marseywatchers?
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!cockenjoyers
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Yeah, had the same idea for awhile. Just don't know what to call it.
Maybe !marseyposters
I love Marsey so much it's surreal!
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!marsee, b-word?
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!marseymarsey - Lil B
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Nooooooo chibbies come back don't go to that big trans brothel in the sky
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@jesus you've got competition
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Support*
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@MoonMetropolis @BWC
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MFW a wingslet is talking
@duck chads ONLY
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Why do none of your emotes SHAVE
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Is that the guy that ended up actually going to Japan and getting married
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I don't really have an issue with people choosing their names (would be hypocritical given that Catholics entering religious vocations do) but I wish they exercised better taste in selecting them. If the goal is to pass where are my Johns and Charles and Helens at? When's the last time you heard of a MtF Margaret or Joan?
Or if the goal is to have fun and be unique why be another Aidan or Zoey instead of Athanasius or Perpetua. Trans culture influences these people to choose so poorly.
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A names a name right? Sometimes they don't do other things well. To be free to choose poorly, some might argue, is to be human
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Sure, my criticism would apply equally to parents who choose awful trendy names. Go with some classic imbued with cultural meaning or at least make it interesting like sometimes manage to do when it's not just a weird spelling variant of an otherwise popular choice. Growing up I had a friend named Jupiter and that's unusual in a fun way.
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I like that one darn. Good name good friend
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He really was a good friend, wicked smaht and an amicable trustworthy guy who @Grue up in East Baltimore (my parents wouldn't let me visit his house) and got into private school on scholarship. I think he's a lawyer now but we lost touch years ago. We were on the tennis team together for years and he really loved playing Halo 2/3 with us.
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He sounds like the main character of a courtroom procedural.
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You literally can, I've never seen anyone care
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Current wikipedia approved format for bios:
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