Wikipedia plumbs the filthy depths of plumbing

It always cheers us up when some wag gets right in there down at Wikipedia and sabotages the world's leading provider of balanced, objective and unfiddled info. It's thanks very much then to Mick McCarthy who's just spotted an nice addition to the encyclopedia's entry on plumbing: Wikipedia's entry on plumbing, or rather the …

[Tom]

Brings to mind

an old joke about McEnroe and a visit to a fertility clinic.

On an entirely unrelated note, is there something a little goatse about this icon? No? Hmm.

[Aortic Aneurysm]

well...

That just had me giggling away to myself, As half the office looked at me like I was losing my marbles.

well played El Reg! Kudos to the finder (whom i Suspect was the one who edited it)

[Anonymous Coward]

Wiki jokes now?

Perfect, so I can go an edit any wikipedia page and providing it is funny enough, it'll appear here?

What I'm trying to say is - viewing the revision history for that article....bet I can guess Mr. McCarthy's IP Address.....

[Mark Menzies]

Made me fall off my chair....

... quality.

The Reg is mint. :P

[Dominic Kua]

It's not the first time I've seen things like that on Wikipedia

They're often terrible at punctuation and homonyms. Shocking.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is just

Someone trying to get "Roger's Profanisaurus" on to Wikipedia, so it can be accepted as fact by certain newspapers and courts of law.

Personally, I need to see tw@dangle in there.

Paris... Plumbing... Insert your own innuendo... <oh err>

[Anonymous Coward]

Pulled

It's been pulled, obviously, but the old version is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plumbing&diff=prev&oldid=245218102

[Z]

Too late

aaannndd some spoil sport has edited it out...

[Anonymous Coward]

Plumbing

They removed it from Wiki. Still in the history though.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, so that's what's meant ...

by the term "plumber's mate" ... ???

Plumber's bits often tend to come in male and female versions. Perhaps there ought to be a warning about not leaving them in the same box overnight.

[Alan]

Students

Don't they teach grammar at school any more - someone has managed to get all the way to Dundee University and doesn't know how to spell in and how to punctuate.

Mind you it was done at 13:41, so either they had a bit too much to drink with their lunch, or they'd only just got up...

[Michael B.]

Slightly Depressing...

..is that the edit came from a University of Dundee IP address, according to a Geoip lookup.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wiki censorship

I once filled in an entry for Saint Vitas dance, (the dance displayed when you need a piss) The wiki 3rd riech soon had it removed, even though it's a fair enough description, so i'm sure it won't be long until this gem is also gastapo'd.

[Gav]

So El Reg is reporting graffiti now

If you want to look I'm sure you'll find many gems on a par to this on the wall of your nearest pub. Perhaps you could report them too?

Wikipedia gets 100s of edits like this every day. They get removed every day. What exactly is the point again?

[cphi]

what the hell's this doing in the Reg?

slow news day, huh?

[Jeremy]

Oh come on...

Wikifiddling stories are often funny but this one was put there repeatedly by one pillock and each time stayed there for less than sixty seconds before being yanked. If it had been there for 4 days before anyone noticed, then it would have been funny but 1 minute? Pah...

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor effort at vandalism, though

adding article text below the "External Resources" section? Why not add a whole "Vandals' Playground" section and bold the text up a bit, it wouldn't be any less subtle. Amateurs.

Much more entertaining, IMHO, is creative vandalism such as editing articles in such a way that the first letter of each sentence spells out a profanity, a message destroying the precious NPV of the article or, most heinous of all, some criticism of Wikipedia. I'm still waiting for the Wikifiddlers to track down any of my efforts in this arena...

[Mark Broadhurst]

1 minute

thats all it was up for look at the history.

[Anonymous Coward]

So now I know what to expect...

... from the book with the ISBN 0875099807.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re Pulled by AC

Pulled

By Anonymous Coward Posted Tuesday 14th October 2008 15:37 GMT

"It's been pulled, obviously, but the old version is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plumbing&diff=prev&oldid=245218102"

I think you must be getting confused with w@nking... See seperate Wiki entry

[Vincent]

Wikifiddlers

I remember looking at the Microsoft page on Wikipedia a few years ago. Someone had. Replaced the entire article with "MICROSOFT ARE EVIL!"

I don't use Wikipedia much (if at all) now though, so I haven't seen many shenanigans as of late.

Paris because I bet she calls in the plumbers.

[Anonymous Coward]

I see there is an external reference

To Plumbing on The Register ;)

PH - do we have to refer to her as a plumbers mate now :p

[Lol Whibley]

blinding

but we need a name for this sport...

[censored]

subtlety is more fun

Stuff like that gets removed pretty quickly. Far more fun to be subtle. I added an unusual yet plausible hobby to a US Christian rock singer's entry that's still there two years later.

Of course, since Wikipedia's arbitary rule is that if it's referenced in print, it must be true, simply reference "plumbing" to the printed Profanisaurus.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tut tut

With Wikipedia you are supposed to cross-reference everything. It might have been more acceptable if he'd (I presume it was a "he") had cross referenced the appropriate words e.g.,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunt

[Anonymous Coward]

Really clever...

So, someone from the University of Dundee makes an edit at lunchtime, emails El Reg to brag about it and gets his name in an article about it a few hours later? Genius. I wonder if he'll post something inspirational at Have Your Say and send you a message about that too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Plumbing is mint

fuck, I might set up my own rival site to Wikipedia to allow such blatant stupidity.

Thank you, Reg :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh, He. Check out the edits

First, they removed the offending text:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plumbing&diff=245254659&oldid=245254475

THEN, they removed an offensive reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plumbing&diff=245264038&oldid=245255203

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of...

There was a young plumber from Leigh,

Who was plumbing his girl by the sea.

Said the girl, "Stop your plumbing",

"There's somebody coming".

Said the plumber, still plumbing, "It's me".

[rlow]

Removed from wikipedia?

What a plumbing shame.

[Chris C]

Am I the only one

Am I the only one who thinks such tripe is childish and immature? Seriously, if you think this kind of crap is funny, you need to get out of your mother's basement a little more. Is it any wonder the IT profession carries such a stigma? I used to think it was unwarranted. I now know that I'm just in the minority.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Mr. McCarthy from Leicester by any chance?

~ $ nslookup 86.13.33.209

Server: croy-sm-1-l0.network.virginmedia.net

Address: 194.168.4.100

Name: cpc2-leic8-0-0-cust464.lei3.cable.ntl.com

Address: 86.13.33.209

~ $

[Anonymous Coward]

@ChrisC

Of course it's childish and immature. If it wasn't, it wouldn't be funny :-)

Paris - because surely her plumbing's in order....

[Joe]

Drop the dead donkey!

I'm surprised you didn't report the wikifiddling event which happend a few weeks ago - unverified Wiki nonsense appeared in a daily national newspaper...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mediamonkeyblog/2008/sep/23/mirror.digitalmedia

[MarkJ]

Far better

The wiki-cognoscenti (if such a thing were possible) edit articles on practices that might be termed NSFW by hyper-linking to articles where the suggested combination would be amusing. The one on 'gigolos' pointing to the evangelical preacher under 'See Also' for instance...

Or creating empty categories or articles such as 'List of French Military Victories'.

There's also the circular logic reference. Make an unsubstantiated claim. Reference a blog/feed etc that you can edit to point back at the article on Wikipedia. Job done.

Paris, because according to a blog I'm about to reference she is a world expert on the written language of Easter Island.

[sauerkraut]

to all those who asked...

why this thing was on el reg. simple: it was there to save my night, my sanity, my life.

thank you, el reg, you did. God bless you!

[Anonymous Coward]

My wikifiddle is almost 12 months old now

Hehe, even though it is obvious bollocks, the wikifiddlers haven't found it yet.

However, my attempts at English are somewhat better.

Yabba Dabba Doo!

[Scott]

Humour

I think everyone seems to of lost there humour bone around here? could be to do with the credit crunch maybe, I find it funny so keep up the good work El Reg! as i ain't going to go surfign that sh*t wiki looking for things like this, so having the funny ones pointed out i think your doing us people (still with a sense of humour) a service.

Thumbs up El Reg. and go back to your DBs you boring peeps.

[Steve Kay]

The bigger question is...

Will someone make the change at Conservapedia too?

[Gianni Straniero]

Re: My wikifiddle is almost 12 months old now

You are Ryan Coombes and I claim my ten pounds.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh cum cum now!

Don't take life so seriously .............................. No one ever gets out alive.

[Miss B]

ooops

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Plumbing

'you've missed a bit.....'

[Riccardo Spagni]

Yet Another Humorous Wikipedia Article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_of_the_road

Did give me my morning lol, though.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Oops

Not any more ;)

[Mark Eccleston]

Training?

I'm curious as to what sort of training one would receive in Canada as shown in the external link, "Plumbing Training in Canada", in the pic.

Paris cause well.....