Wikipedia:Village stocks

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This page contains material which is kept because it is considered humorous.
It is not intended, nor should it be used, for any remotely serious purpose.

Wikipedia's village stocks, found a short distance from the village pump

It is a truth universally acknowledged that intelligent and otherwise sensible editors and administrators occasionally engage in acts of extreme stupidity.

Based on the fundamental principle that such blatant disregard of sensibility, however unintended, is best punished by humiliation, the village stocks have been built to identify the wiki-idiots in our midst.

1 Hall of shame
2 Nominations
3 See also

[edit] Hall of shame

A foolish administrator receives a ritual ducking from the Wikipedia community

[edit] AmiDaniel for the revert the right page award

Who succeeded in reverting vandalism, but posted the reversion to the Main Page instead of the article.

[edit] Animum for the lèse majesté award

Self-confession – Was somehow overly impetuous and reverted Jimbo; also accidentally blocked ClueBot.

[edit] Dan100 for the most understated use of "OOPS!" as an edit summary award

On 12 December 2005, did, with shocking lack of situational awareness, block WP founder and chief honcho Jimbo.

[edit] east718 for the it sounded like a good idea... award

Who used an unapproved bot to add over 1200 useless revisions to the main page in order to make it undeletable for curious individuals. He failed to hit the necessary 5000-revision mark, but did succeed in taking up lots of time and server resources.

[edit] Ed Poor for the boldness award

On August 1, 2005, Ed Poor, one of Wikipedia's senior editors, boldly decided to delete the entire VFD deletion process. The whole episode is described in the Signpost article "Deletion deletion".

[edit] Majorly for the Commons Era award

As a wikipedia admin moonlighting at Wikimedia Commons, he managed to delete the deletions request page on 30 October 2007.

[edit] Maxim for the "what does this button do?" award

Who managed, on 3 February 2008, to delete the Main Page, because someone told him it could not be done. He/she nobly confessed all at AN/I. Moral of the story: Don't delete the main page.

[edit] Scientizzle for the baby and bathwater award

Who succeeded in locking the servers for half an hour on January 16, 2008, by deleting the sandbox, as discussed at AN/I; other editors, thankful for the unexpected wikibreak, offered various Wikitrouts and barn stars.

[edit] Veinor and MBisanz for the "You said it wouldn't work!" award

Saying he had heard of a recent anti-vandal update that would prevent moving the Admin's noticeboard, even from admins, MBisanz managed to convince Veinor to try moving the noticeboard. With a momentary memory lapse, the noticeboard was sent to Wikipedia:BWAHAHAHAH [1] on April 22, 2008. Fortunately, this did not crash the servers.

[edit] Nominations

"Fair cop, guv!" declares the administrator as he is arrested. "Let that be a lesson to us all."

Any editor perpetrating an act of extreme but logical stupidity can be nominated for this page, if the act or result is outrageous or amusing, but it is advisable to get their agreement, to avoid unnecessary and inappropriate distress.

Please note this is NOT a pillory. Its purpose is to amuse, and in essence is a type of cautionary tale, warning us all of the pitfalls waiting to lure us all in. It should never be offensive or accusatory, and anyone posted is free to remove themselves at any time.

Admins deliberately performing reckless acts in order to win admission to the page and gain the coveted Stocks "barn star" will be subjected to crushing by elephant.

Sentences can be confirmed by posting Template:Stocks on the recipient's talk page. Consider also using the following barnstar for serious Wiki-breaking offences: