Wikipedia:Wikipedia in webcomics

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Wikipedia in the media
Wikipedia as a topic:
In the press
In academic studies
In blogs
In books
In cartoons
In press releases
In webcomics
In comics
On TV and radio
Heaps of praise
Wikipedia as a source:
In academic studies
In books
In conference
In court cases
In the press
In webcomics
On TV and radio
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This is a page listing webcomics which feature Wikipedia. It is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all the ones that merely use the word "Wikipedia". Instead, these are a compilation of those strips whose topic centrally relates to the encyclopedia and its perception in popular culture.

Common themes in the comics reflect Criticism of Wikipedia—especially jabs at its vulnerability to vandalism and accuracy as a source. Frequently people who edit or read Wikipedia are mocked as the butt of the joke, with the insinuation that Wikipedia enthusiasts lack social skills and are "nerds", thus using the site is something one should be embarrassed about. The existence of this list creates an additional recursive topic for those authors that discuss Wikipedia for the mere purpose of seeing if their comic can be mentioned here.

A topic which has particularly heated coverage from webcomic authors is that Wikipedia will not allow entries describing many webcomics in the encyclopedia. This determination is made using guidelines for notability, which is a subjective process that—although democratic at some level—is ultimately in the hands of Wikipedia administrators. Another wiki has been established which welcomes coverage of all webcomics regardless of fame (see Comixpedia).

Contents 1 Series that always involve Wikipedia 2 2005 3 2006 4 2007 5 2008 6 2009 7 Undated 8 Comics that mention the page on Wikipedia about comics that mention Wikipedia 9 Comics that merely use Wiki terminology or cite Wikipedia 10 Resources 11 References & footnotes

[edit] Series that always involve Wikipedia

• Each instance of WikiWorld webcomic gives an illustrated summary of little-known articles in Wikipedia.

[edit] 2005

• 2005-05-27 : Jerkcity — "Wikipedia" — A character complains about her name as listed in Wikipedia.
• 2005-07-02 : Bunny — "not sufficiently clear" — A character makes a headstone for webcomic author Jeph Jacques before learning that the death was a prank on his Wikipedia page.
• 2007-09-14 : Nukees — "Comic 20050914" — On a character's To-Do list, an item for doing Quantum Chromodynamics homework is followed up with another item to "Wikipede" Quantum Chromodynamics.
• 2005-10-18 : The Angriest Rice Cooker in the World — "on the power of knowledge" — An obscure fact is shared about Christian Rock artist Jonathan Schneck, then attributed to the button on Wikipedia which picks articles at random.
• 2005-11-07 : The Adventures of Brigadier General John Stark — "untitled #12490" — The author had used a Wikipedia article containing a factual error as the basis for a comic about Texas and Vermont, and then follows up with the corrected information and the epithet "Stupid Wikipedia."
• 2005-11-18 : Goats/Machall — "comic strip from Nov 18 2005" — After receiving extended explanations with diagrams about how alcohol arrives from another dimension, characters describe a conversation as being like "watching Wikipedia have sex with a Sommelier".
• 2005-12-16 : Penny Arcade — "I Have The Power" — Shows a case of extreme editing bias when an editor alters He-Man's glowing Wikipedia entry to say that he is "not really that powerful"...but turns out to be He-Man's arch-enemy Skeletor.
• 2006-12-21 : Applegeeks — "Noodliness" — Insinuation that Wikipedia presents the Flying Spaghetti Monster as factual serves to suggest that reading Wikipedia shouldn't be used as a substitute for traditional schooling.
• 2005-12-27 : Irregular Webcomic! — "No. 1066" — Wikipedia is likened to a version of Google that just "makes up" information when there are no search hits on a topic.
• (date needed) : Diesel Sweeties — "No. 1349" — A girl trying to hit on a programmer suggests he write her on Friendster, and the tech-savvy guy responds that as she admits to using the site he's unsure whether to edit his wiki article for "adorable" or "naive".

[edit] 2006

• 2006-01-30 : Jerkcity — "It Must Be True I Read It On Wikipedia" A character asserts that users of Wikipedia are pedophiles because that's what he read on Wikipedia.
• 2006-02-23 : Kernel Panic — "The Senator Wore Teal" — Character is accused of impersonating a U.S. Senator to post inappropriate material to Wikipedia.
• 2006-03-02 : General Spite — "2006-03-02", "2006-03-03", "2006-03-04" — A character expects a huge prize for writing the Millionth Wikipedia Article, but an e-mail (signed "love, Wiki") informs him that the only reward is an article written in honor of the event.
• 2006-04-06 : User Friendly — "for April 6th, 2006" — Though dissatisfied with results comparing Wikipedia favorably to the Encyclopedia Britannica as covered by Nature magazine, Brittanica admits Wikipedia is good for something when Nature magazine's entry is vandalized to say "Stuck up nasty little cuss".
• 2006-04-20 : Roadkill Bill — Roadkill Bill in Wikipedia — Six-panel parody about the Seigenthaler controversy and the Reliability of Wikipedia, and the large amount of human effort/time spent on the web site, often in conflicts, as compared to the medium-quality results. Local copy at User:Avidor.
• 2006-05-19 : Applegeeks Lite : "Applegeeks Lite 010" — An anthropomorphic final-exam chides a student to drop out of school and instead study "Wiki Pedia" (the test-taker points out that the exam might not know what it's talking about, as Wikipedia is one word and not two).
• 2006-05-19 : Cat and Girl — "Cat and Girl versus Legitimacy" — Contrasted with a physical encyclopedia, characters note that in Wikipedia "the more voices that shout, the less legitimacy each voice has"—and the Catch-22 is that they cannot speak out against this trend to fight it.
• 2006-06-17 : Funny Farm — "2006-06-17" — A character memorizes the Wikipedia entries on Transformers to try and qualify him to act in the movie, and argues that although the authors of the article would be more qualified they're not desirable as actors because people who actually edit the articles are "nerds".
• 2006-06-23 : Natalie Dee — "wait i have a wikipedia entry maybe thats my poop" — A dog's owner establishes a house rule that only those with Wikipedia entries are notable enough to poop on the floor.
• 2006-06-23 : Flintlocke's Guide to Azeroth — "Episode 17: If a Tree Falls..." — A character's insistence that she is not pregnant with a tree is countered with a statement that Wikipedia says she is.
• 2006-07-18 : Jerkcity— "With Your Mom Dot Com" — Criticism of the capitalization of one of the character's names in the comic's wikipedia entry.
• 2006-07-21 : Punks and Nerds — "strip 07212006" — Suggests that Wikipedia vandalism is rampant when one character urges another to vandalize the Pringles article by adding "buttsex" to it, but she reports that it was already there.
• 2006-07-25 : Dinosaur Comics — "#816" — Character decides to play a prank and substitute the word evil on Wikipedia to Irish evil, and instead of being chastised is praised by Jimbo Wales for his contributions to the Irish Evil article.
• 2006-09-09 : Irregular Webcomic! — "No. 1322" — Given the existence of Wikipedia's list of webcomics that reference Wikipedia, author ponders whether there should be a "page about comics that mention the page on Wikipedia about comics that mention Wikipedia."
• 2006-09-28 : Yourmometer No. 164 'Wikipedia' — Hobbes is shocked to find Keaton hunched over a computer on a Friday night, editing Wikipedia.
• 2006-10-01 : Carbon Alley No. 1 — "I confess! I saw it on Wikipedia and I guess the general consensus is that it might not be totally true!"
• 2006-10-26 : Ninja Verses — "Regular Ninja vs. Irregular Webcomic" — Character is overwhelmed by recursion while reading the 9/09 Irregular Webcomic! mentioning Wikipedia.
• (date needed) : Shortpacked! — November 6th, 2006: Character at first vehemently denies to have been getting information about Power Rangers movie from Wikipedia, and then sheepishly confesses that he actually was reading Wikipedia.
• 2006-11-08 : Dinosaur Comics — "#879" — Suggests that Wikipedia vandalism can be eliminated if there is agreement to vandalise only the chicken article, and that this will have little consequence because chickens are well-understood (and thus no one should be looking them up anyway).
• 2006-12-15 : Questionable Content — "Also Certain Webcomics" — Character attempts to argue that her life as a single person has meaning, but this is undermined when she reveals that she spends her free time arguing this viewpoint on the DeBeers Wikipedia entry.

[edit] 2007

Wikinews has related news: Wikimedia fundraiser highlights webcomic community's frustration with Wikipedia guidelines

• 2007-01-24 : xkcd — "The Problem With Wikipedia" — Suggests that a simple search for information starting at Tacoma Narrows Bridge can lead to wasting hours on tangential topics (mentions articles suspension bridge, structural collapse, William Howard Taft, 24-hour analog dial, Lesbianism in erotica, Batman→Fatal hilarity, Taylor Hanson, Cotton→T-Shirt→Wet t-shirt contest).
• 2007-01-14 : Sheldon — "Comic 070114" — When a character's response to a question is characterized as "a long, rambling answer that didn't really make sense" and likened to Wikipedia, this comparison deeply offends the speaker.
• 2007-01-17 : Sconeborough — "the horror of Wikipedia addiction" — Characters suggest they failed to achieve life's goals because of a website even more addictive than Google (namely Wikipedia).
• 2007-01-18 : BoxJam's Doodle — "Comic 20070118" — In a mock commercial for the "National Meat Council", characters tout meat's importance by pointing out that it has its own Wikipedia article.
• 2007-01-22 : F@NBOY$ — "Wikipediatics" — As a response to the deletion of this webcomic's Wikipedia page, a character retaliates violently against an unflattering caricature of a Wikipedia editor who is portrayed as being impossible to torture due to lack of a life, genitals or brains.
• 2007-01-27 : Bunny — "it's either an issue of redundancy or an opportunity to say 'impalement' over and over" — Pokes fun at the redundant use of impalement in Vlad III's article.
• 2007-02-07 : Help Desk — "The Wrong Course of Action" — Hints at the anti-copyright (and anti-webcomic) bias of Wikipedia's editors, who delete a company's Wikipedia entry after they start a webcomic to combat software piracy.
• 2007-02-09→2007-02-13 : The Beevnicks — "February 9", "February 12" and "February 13" — Demonstrates the obscurity of Wikipedia among the general public when a character asks staff at McDonald's if there's a discount for Wikipedians, and they don't know what he's talking about.
• 2007-02-13 : Cat and Girl — "Those Who Forget History..." — Suggests that with Wikipedia, it's no longer the case that "victors write history" but rather the I.T. professionals.
• 2007-02-14: God Mode — "strip 20070214" — Kraig looks up why Clippy is not in Office 2007, and is led to believe a fanciful story of his death posted on Wikipedia (the feature was removed in that release due to user dissatisfaction).
• 2007-02-15 : Achewood - Comic 02152007 - Ray writes a fake entry for "Ray's urine".
• 2007-02-20 : PartiallyClips — "King and Jester" — A debate on deletion policy is played out as a Wikipedia administrator (portrayed as a jester) argues that a King can't accept his article being deleted because of a fear of democracy, yet does not see himself as hypocritical by preventing the king from recreating it freely.
• 2007-02-21 : Joe and Monkey — "#701" — Parodies guidelines for notability of a subject to have a Wikipedia page by suggesting Earth shouldn't have a page, since "the only people who give a crap about the world are the people on it".
• (date needed) : 2007 Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards — "Outstanding Artist" — Suggests a double-standard when Wikipedia has an article about Lighting Farts on Fire, but deleted ones for Dandy and Company, Zortic, Krazy Larry, The Class Menagerie, and ExtraLife based on non-notability of those webcomics.
• 2007-03-03 : Halfpixel — "Wiki of the Future" — Characters travel to the future where they every webcomic is considered notable enough to have an article on Wikipedia—but are horrified to find that Wikipedia is also how the society of the future decides who to execute.
• 2007-03-14 : Overcompensating — "L Ron Harbl" — When asked how he knows so much about Scientology, a character responds that he actually "only got Wikipedia knowledge" and they should find an actual expert in the subject.
• 2007-03-15 : Achewood — "Comic 03152007" — While trying to enact revenge on a sender of an email they've accused of advance fee fraud, characters are shocked to find the sender has an entry on Wikipedia supporting his story (the punch line of following strip indicates that the entry is probably legitimate).
• 2007-04-13  : Wondermark — "In which Notability is determined" — Mocks the requirement of a printed source as the only way to verify a fact, by showing people pleading to be saved from Barbarians being asked if they have a printed reference proving they are under attack.
• 2007-04-22 : Wellington Grey - "WikiPopes" - God is forced to intervene in an edit war between succeeding Popes.
• 2007-05-02 : xkcd — "Online Communities": A geographic map of various online communities depicts Wikipedia as being located among those which are more intellectual than they are practical.
• 2007-05-02→2007-05-16 : Irregular Webcomic! — "Strip 1557", "Strip 1571" — An internet-savvy youth helps Martians take over Earth by creating the article 2007 Martian invasion of Earth on Wikipedia, and labeling the the statement with the {{fact}} tag.
• 2007-05-05 : The Weirdo(s)! — "The Decline and Fall and Rise of Richard Nixon and Wikipedia": Character writes a romantic song about Wikipedia, in defiance that the comic is not notable enough to warrant Wikipedia's mention of it.
• 2007-06-13 : Fit and the Conniptions — "Blowing My Own Trumpet" — Character wonders if "defacing your own Wiki" might be a euphemism (ostensibly for masturbation).
• 2007-07-04 : xkcd — “Wikipedian Protester” — Shows a protester at a political rally holding a sign saying “[citation needed]”. The tooltip of the image says “SEMI-PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION”.
• 2007-08-20 : Penny Arcade — "Delight Your Friends With These Fun Facts" — A character studies a report on modifications to Wikipedia from his household's IP address, and finds his roommate has been making self-serving edits (this alludes to the August '07 controversy surrounding WikiScanner).
• 2007-09-07: Home on the strange — "Party Party, Part 3" — A character's job is to "keep the Dokken entry pure".
• 2007-10-14: No Apparent Reason — "Wiki-ing It Up" — A character looks up the cure for Vampirism on Wikipedia, stating that "Wikipedia never lies. Much."
• 2007-10-23" Scary Go Round — "Ch. 40: Most Haunted" — Ester derogativly suggests the reason Ryan is panicking is that he read the Wikipedia article on gout.
• 2007-10-23: xkcd — Getting Out of Hand — Looking up foreplay while in bed with his partner.
• 2007-11-28: Questionable Content - "Part Of This Balanced...Something" - Wikipedios, a different article in every can.
• 2007-12-05 - Help Desk by Christopher B. Wright — "Climbing On The Banwagon" — A news reporter covers the Durova / secret mailing list incident, while a scrolling banner reports that Wikipedia has classified the tomato as a vegetable.
• 2007-12-18 - Girly (guest artist Diana Knox of Jinxville) Autumn 'n' Chuy - A Time For Love - A character looks up Wikipedia for dating advice and his girlfriend tells him never to trust Wikipedia. A stereotypical fat, lonely nerd is shown plotting to break up happy couples by editing Wikipedia.
• 2007-12-31 – History's Cup by Ryan Estrada — Emelio Largo mutters to a henchman, "You know, when I ask you to get information for me, I don't mean to check Wikipedia."

[edit] 2008

• 2008-02-03 - Shadowgirls - "Late Night Studying" Lindsay looks up the history of Innsmouth, the town she lives in.
• 2008-02-14 - Irregular Webcomic! — "Strip 1845" — Kurt Gödel expresses frustration that "no matter what anyone does, there always remain statements which are true, but which cannot be proven within the system", implicitly referring to Gödel's incompleteness theorems. It turns out he is frustrated at "citation needed" tags on the Wikipedia article for elementary arithmetic.
• 2008-03-26 - Fans! - #1645 - A person interviewing for a job with Aegis lists his greatest success as deleting all webcomic articles from Wikipedia.
• 2008-05-01 - Applegeeks - Issue 445 - Eve looks up the Treaty of Versailles on Wikipedia over the campus Wi-Fi and is able to give the basic facts about it, but she is unable to get the ramifications of the treaty.
• 2008-05-13 – Achewood – [1] – Searching for "anything good" about Finland.
• 2008-05-15 - Married to the Sea - "Survival of the Spitefullest" - A Woolly Mammoth (skeleton) expresses his surprise that humans can survive despite their relatively frail bodies, and a human (skeleton) remarks that we survive on spite...and he is going to edit Wikipedia to make the Mammoth "go down in history as the animal with the smallest dick".
• 2008-05-27 - Dinosaur Comics - "phallocentric euphoria sounds like regular sex?" - JOEY COMEAU - Utahraptor claims Wikipedia is an acronym for "We Illustrate Kinks Involving Phallo-centric Euphoria During Intercourse. Awesome", and that drawing pictures of kinky sex is Wikipedia's unstated objective.
• 2008-06-14 - Unshelved - 2008-06-14 Dewey alludes obscurely to three comic book characters, prompting Mel to wish for "one conversation with you where I don't have to access Wikipedia."
• 2008-07-06 – xkcd — In Popular Culture — Poking fun at the typical "In Popular Culture" header that many Wikipedia articles have.
• 2008-08-06 – Dinosaur Comics - t-rexor mact-rexor - T-Rex tells about Gregor MacGregor as though Poyais was an actual place and not a fictional one, because he didn't read the whole Wikipedia-article since it got boring.
• 2008-08-18 – Wigu – [2] — an unnamed character calls out "Somebody check Wikipedia!" for exorcism instructions.
• 2008-09-27 – Achewood – [3] – Ray asks Téodor to search for "commodore sex act", but Téodor gets redirected to "Guild of Purpose-Driven Commodores".
• 2008-10-09 – Fall - Writer's Block & Wikipedia A character describes wikipedia as brain candy.
• 2008-10-17 – Questionable Content – Does this look infected? – A character refers to the alleged habit of humans to post pictures of their body fluids onto Wikipedia.
• 2008-12-27 – Slow Wave – "Competing Churches" – In a dream, a man discovers that scraps of Wikipedia are the only knowledge left in a dystopian world.

[edit] 2009

• 2009-01-13 – Charliehorse: Reaganomics – [4] – "Are you going to spend every computer lab vandalizing Wikipedia?" "Wikipedia is a scourge that needs to die!"
• 2009-01-16 – Two Lumps – [5] – Snooch justifies a logically unsound statement with "You have no cited source for proof! So I'm right!" Eben notes: "...I should never have shown you Wikipedia."
• 2009-03-24 - Laugh-Out-Loud Cats - #1090 "ur not supposd to add originl resrch"
• 2009-04-21 – Charliehorse: Reaganomics [6] — American Civil War is vandalized to include steam-powered walking armor.
• 2009-06-20 - Unshelved - [7] - Colleen objects to using Wikipedia to answer a patron's question.

[edit] Undated

• Unspeakable Vault (of Doom) – Vault #231 – Nyarly finds an easier way to deceive humanity.

[edit] Comics that mention the page on Wikipedia about comics that mention Wikipedia

• 2006-09-09 - Irregular Webcomic! – [8] – The Author, in a "Real Life" comic, mentions this exact page, and suggests adding a page about "Comics that mention the page on Wikipedia about comics that mention Wikipedia..."

[edit] Comics that merely use Wiki terminology or cite Wikipedia

• 2005-11-27 : Ghastly's Ghastly Comic — "Blinded Me With Hentai" — (contains cartoon nudity and sex acts) A character's knowledge of cartoon pornography is expressed as encyclopedic by calling him a "Wikipedia of Hentai".
• 2006-06-23 : Real Life — "Friday June 23, 2006" — A character comments that he read about space elevators on Wikipedia.
• 2006-07-02 : the noob — "strip 197" — The developers of Clichequest quote a Wikipedia article when devising their advertising strategy.
• 2006-12-15 : Penny & Aggie — "20061215" — Invokes term "wikiality".
• 2007-06-06→2007-06-08 : Questionable Content — "Angus looks ridiculous in that shirt", "Maneuver and Subterfuge", "Maybe at a Swinger's Party" — In the backdrop of the comic, "Wikipedia Vandalism Espresso" is offered as a daily special in the coffee shop.
• 2007-04-22 : Jerkcity — "Original Research, Citation Style" — Text of comic invokes the Wikimedia Markup language.
• (date needed) : Diesel Sweeties — "strip 1681" — Cites Wikipedia as a source for a definition of viral marketing.
• 2006-06-09 : Quirk's Evil Little Webcomic — [9] — Uses Wikipedia entry on metal fatigue as a source, links to it, in noting the statistics and experiments cited on Wiki and the lack of such data on the websites for "defense of marriage" groups.
• 2007-07-20 : Quirk's Evil Little Webcomic — [10] — References finding this Wikipedia page as incoming link in web server log, and creating a web comic about it, thereby causing a recursive effect.
• (date needed) : Mild Mannered Jerks — "comic 120" — Author thanks wikipedia for letting him look up something.

[edit] Resources

• Oh No Robot search for wikipedia

[edit] References & footnotes