Cult of Bob pt. 3

A little while ago, I posted that Bob the Builder on Wikipedia was described as being “inspired by the Kafka short story, ‘A Departure’” Telling my sister about this the other day, it was there no more, so today I had a look at the history of the page.

Let us marvel at the wonder that is Wikipedia.

The history lists all the changes that people have been made to the page, and when you make a change, you can add a comment. And here are a few:

 

12:20, 28 October 2008 Surturz   (add Lofty and Farmer Pickles to Morrisey’s credits)

Surturz clarifying some info on the voiceover. Fair enough.

12:34, 30 October 2008 Lost Number  (Other media: added appearance on The Daily Show)

19:54, 30 October 2008 Gladys j cortez (Reverted 1 edit by Lost Number; Rm unencyclopedic info.)

20:22, 30 October 2008 Ism schism (restore pop culture reference by Lost Number)

21:00, 30 October 2008 Gladys j cortez (Reverted 1 edit by Ism schism; Oddly enough, just because Jon Stewart deigns to mention something does NOT make it encyclopedic. Take it to the talk page.. )

Or in English, Lost Number added a reference to Bob The Builder being mentioned on The Daily Show (saying “Yes we can” I expect), then Gladys Cortez took it out, describing it as being “unencyclopedic”, Ism Schism put it back, and Gladys Cortez took it out again, with a rather sniffy comment.

At 01.42 on 19 October, someone replaced the whole page with “‘if u search this up, then u are no00b! w00t w00t” and the same minute Flewis put the page back.

And back on 29 September, the dearly beloved Gladys Cortez, protector of all things Bob, made a change and commented “I can’t believe that we’ve had “Bob the Builder” based on a Franz Kafka story since AUGUST. Jeez louise!!!!”

Thanks Gladys.

And the amazing thing is this. Do you know how many people actually work full-time for Wikipedia? In January 2007 it employed five people, according to New Scientist. I heard somewhere that it’s up to twenty now. Gladys Cortez, dedicated to the integrity of information about Bob the Builder, is a volunteer.

Amazing.

Tags: Bob The Builder, wikipedia