MeFi Projects

Guess the Wikipedia article from the categories it’s in. Every day there are 10 articles to guess, from a pool of about 2,500 notable, diverse and interesting people, places and things. It's free and there are no ads. [more inside]
posted by Klipspringer on Jul 1, 2024 - 6 comments

I find TreasuryDirect.gov fascinating and frustrating. It's an aging web application that dates back to 2002, and for many years it was used by relatively few people, mostly US citizens who wanted to buy or redeem savings bonds — which heavily declined in popularity over the past few decades, since they had relatively low interest rates. TreasuryDirect suddenly got millions of new users over the past year because of high interest rates on inflation-protected Series I bonds, and the system and its customer support team have been struggling. I wrote an in-depth Wikipedia article covering the history of this service since it started in 1986, including details about a replacement web application that the Treasury has been working on since 2014. [more inside]
posted by dreamyshade on Aug 23, 2022 - 10 comments

Guess which Wikipedia articles are most popular and win big! I made a game that mashes up Wikipedia data with Deal or No Deal's mystery briefcase gameplay. [more inside]
posted by oulipian on Mar 9, 2020 - 27 comments

A Twitterbot that posts freely-licensed photographs of clocks. [more inside]
posted by Vesihiisi on Aug 17, 2018 - 1 comment

Wikinaut is a compendium of intriguing, unusual and extraordinary Wikipedia excerpts.
posted by Operation Afterglow on Jan 10, 2017 - 3 comments

@goddamn_factbot delivers you facts, wrapped in some consarn curses, because that's the goddamn way you want to hear them! [more inside]
posted by ignignokt on Dec 30, 2015 - 4 comments

A handful of new puppety Media Show episodes for your entertainment, and possible use in helping friends, family, and students understand media and technology better: [more inside]
posted by gusandrews on Sep 18, 2015 - 1 comment

This Tumblr consists of the earliest extant versions of various Wikipedia articles. It's easy to overlook what an ambitious project Wikipedia is in its design, and the way in which its articles have been built bit by bit into extraordinarily useful resources from often very modest and unpromising beginnings. It's interesting as well to see how the editorial voice and organizational structure common on current articles have evolved over time. If you have suggestions for interesting articles to examine, let me know.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Oct 16, 2014 - 2 comments

I just co-self-published my second collection of hilariously bad Wikipedia writing. It's over 200 of our favorite entries, with our own original commentary, plus a foreword by Mike Nelson of RiffTrax & MST3K! [more inside]
posted by JoeGoblin on Jun 26, 2013 - 4 comments

When I am bored, I hit "random article" on Wikipedia. These are the oddities, murky byways, and amazing facts I have discovered.
posted by Bunny Ultramod on Jan 24, 2013 - 1 comment

If you were one of those kids who used to enjoy browsing the encyclopedia for random stuff, this may be of interest. Punch the big blue WAK!, and WikiWak will pop six pages from Wikipedia in separate windows (you gotta allow popups from WikiWak). Unlike Wikipedia's "Random Page" link, WikiWak pulls articles from Wikipedia's "Featured" and "Good" categories. So your liklihood of coming across something interesting to read is quite a bit higher. Why six pages? Well, that appears to be enough for a single sit upon the porcelain pedestal. [more inside]
posted by gregor-e on Sep 3, 2012 - 2 comments

[Citation Needed] - The Best of Wikipedia's Worst Writing is a collection of some of our all-time favorite entries from the blog of the same name. It has over two hundred examples of so bad it's funny Wikipedia writing with commentary from me and Josh Fruhlinger (from the Comics Curmudgeon blog.) And best of all, it's free for the Kindle for the next few days!
posted by JoeGoblin on Apr 18, 2012 - 0 comments

Read on Wiki creates a timeline of your wikipedia browsing history. It includes a chrome extension and a place to host the timeline. Right now, it just shows one user's data (myself), but if enough people think it's cool, I'll release the extension and open the service to the public.
posted by philosophistry on Nov 21, 2011 - 2 comments

For the past two years, Josh Fruhlinger and I have been running a blog collecting our favorite examples of hilariously bad writing from Wikipedia, (seen here in the blue.) After expanding to do a podcast, (seen here in projects), we decided the only logical next step was to write a book - and now it's out! Over 200 entries, with our commentary on each one. Available in paperback, or on Kindle, and you can download a free PDF of the first fifty pages on our site!
posted by JoeGoblin on Oct 23, 2011 - 0 comments

For over a year now, I've co-edited a blog collecting the best hilariously bad entries from wikipedia (previously discussed in the blue here.) Now I've decided to try and turn it into a comedy podcast! The first episode is up now.
posted by JoeGoblin on Feb 9, 2011 - 2 comments