May I present to you: The Wikipedia Star Trek Into Darkness Debate

From December 1, 2012, until January 31, 2013, a stylistic disagreement unfolded between editors on the English-language Wikipedia as to whether the word “into” in the title of the Wikipedia article for the 2013 film Star Trek Into Darkness should be capitalized. More than 40,000 words were written on the article’s talk page (a page for editors to discuss changes to the article) before a consensus was reached to capitalize the “I”.

Edit: I should add that I got there from this page, which I’ve been enjoying immensely this morning-

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars

The Star Trek one was definitely a favorite, but it can’t beat the edit war over the entry for ‘feces.’

Revert wars, alleged sockpuppetry, and page protection: should the article on feces include this picture of a large human turd? As of early July 2005, the discussion on this issue alone had reached 12,900 words. Someone commented “Seriously, guys. You’re arguing about poo.” Brace yourselves for a second round when the editor who contributed the ejaculation video (see above) gets the idea of a companion video for this article.

dual_sport_dork, (edited )
@dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world avatar

Uh. Just render it however it is rendered on the movie poster, or if push comes to shove its trademark filing. Then go do something with the rest of your life.

It is astounding that Wikipedia editors somehow don’t know that Star Trek fans are The original nerds bickering on the internet. Don’t kick the beehive. Kirk vs. Picard, Enterprise vs. Star Destroyer, Death Star vs. Borg, every single continuity gaffe, every letter of technobabble, every single page in Mike Okuda’s manual on the NCC-1701D. Trek nerds have been arguing about this and even more minutiae for far longer, and they’re better at it than anyone else.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve been involved in various Star Trek forums for many years and this is the first time I’ve heard about anyone arguing over whether or not to capitalize a single letter on a Star Trek Wikipedia page title.

That is, by far, the most petty argument about Star Trek I have ever heard of, more petty than I could possibly have come up with if I was asked to come up with a petty Star Trek argument.

VindictiveJudge,

Star Trek movie posters are always all caps, so that’s out. Trademark filing would definitely be an easy solution, though.

Klear,

Uh. Just render it however it is rendered on the movie poster, or if push comes to shove its trademark filing. Then go do something with the rest of your life.

So simple! Why didn’t they think of that? Oh, wait.

Also worth pointing out that said wikipedia editors were almost certainly 99% Star Trek nerds. Who else would be discussing something like that on the talk page?

muzzle,

See also: xkcd.com/1167/

grue,

Jeez, there really is an XKCD for everything.

zloubida,
@zloubida@lemmy.world avatar

It took 40,000 words to take a bad decision. Wikipedia is really broken.

JWBananas,
@JWBananas@lemmy.world avatar

I’m with Shatner on this one.

sxan,
@sxan@midwest.social avatar

A month after the discussion had ended, the dispute was still interfering with Google searches for Star Trek Into Darkness

LO fucking L!

Deceptichum,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

The 2016 Christian Science Monitor article “The Source Code of Political Power”, by Simon DeDeo of Indiana University, used the debate as one example of how Wikipedia is an evolving system of ideas and found comparison to the Talmud. Accordingly, DeDeo opined that Wikipedia was moving towards increased complexity, refinement, and bureaucracy.

Why? Why come to such a useless conclusion and why add such useless information to the article.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah, that was pretty odd. But then the fact that there’s an article at all is pretty odd.

mp3,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

Yeah I agree it should be capitalized like how the film displayed it, but on the other hand this goes against the Title of works capitalization guide on Wikipedia.

possiblylinux127,

Take it up with the author

mp3,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

I’m not suicidal 😅

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I can’t imagine a Wikipedia rule less important to enforce or argue about.

Gork,

Are you really a Wikipedia editor if you aren’t willing to endlessly banter about the trivialest of minutiae?

mp3,
@mp3@lemmy.ca avatar

When you deal with millions of articles, it’s necessary to have some baseline or else it becomes an absolute mess, but yeah…

negativenull,
@negativenull@lemmy.world avatar

That is fantastic!

Blackout,
@Blackout@kbin.run avatar

I was looking for a new hill to die on. I have found it thanks to you. I think into should be spelled with 2 O's and a silent h. Intooh <--correct way

Deebster,
@Deebster@programming.dev avatar

I think anyone who argued for a lowercase i was ignoring the context, but it’s interesting to think of it as Star (Trek into Darkness).

cerement,
@cerement@slrpnk.net avatar

(article even includes relevant xkcd)

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