Forum:The "Random Page" button: a discussion of, and a vote there on

Forums: Index > Village Dump > The "Random Page" button: a discussion of, and a vote there on

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As this subject has been broached on Forum:Uncyclopedia: The Play (itself, an amusing and vaguely homo-erotic treatise on whateveritis that it's about), I'm wondering how much Uncylopedians love or hate the Random Page button. Personally, I hate it, as it's generally a good way to find pages that aren't worth my valuable time. Mostly, I find, it's good for locating pages to put on VFD (I will admit, however, that I occasionally find a page that isn't bad. Once or twice I've even found good pages. Also, I almost caught a fish thiiiis big. True story).

Do people actually use it for good? Do n00bs click on it, find crap, and leave? Is this another question to fill space? It is possible to kill the button site-wide, right, as its hit-miss ratio is too random (and there's always manually putting Special:Random in the address bar if that's your thing)?

I say, put it to a vote. And I am attempting to do just that. I also started a sentence with "And", just to piss off my high school english teachers, who were against such things. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc!

Teh current vote stuff, just so no one's confused. The first vote's clearly in favor of keeping and I think that's pretty much settled. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 18:44 Nov 25, 2007

Do we keep the Random Page button, or do we banish it to Button Island?

Keep it

Score: 20000

1. It's not doing anyone any harm. --Sir OCdt Jedravent CUN UmP VFH PLS ACS WH 16:22, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
2. The first Uncyclopedia article I ever found via Random Page was Grue. It inspired me. --The Acceptable  Cainad  (Fnord) 17:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
3. Keep it, I said why I think so below. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 18:35, Nov 23
4. Definitely a keeper. When you're bored you can use it to find articles in need of proof-reading. RabbiTechno 18:42, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

   You have to be very bored to do that, obviously...RabbiTechno 18:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

5. Keep it, I love it I really love it. I really do love it. I mean I really love it. mAttlobster. (hello) 19:26, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
6. Keep it. -- Hindleyite Converse 20:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
7. Keep it, but only because it's so useful in finding crap to huff. --Sir Starnestommy (Talk • Contribs • CUN) 21:33, Nov. 23, 2007
8. Keep. I once clicked it an went to footsex. It changed my life. -- Kip > Talk • Works • • 21:35, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
9. Keep. --Hotadmin4u69 ^[TALK] 23:12, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
10. Keep. I use this to find shit articles for VFD. -->:( 01:37, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
11. My number one source for VFD material. Very helpful stuff, hard to think where I'd be without it -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 21:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
12. Built in mediawiki feature. It's good enough, and sometimes is useful and fun. ~

    Jacques Pirat, Esq. Converse : Benefactions : U.w.p.

    24/11/2007 @ 21:49
13. Good way to find VFDable material. --Capercorn FLAME! what? UNATO OWS 02:47, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
14. Keep. I use it all the time. ----OEJ 17:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
15. Keep.   Le Cejak • <-> Nov 27, 13:05
16. Keep. Keeps things fresh and entertaining. MNM5150 Nov 27, 2007
17. keep. although it would be good if you could change your preferences to have it "weighted" i.e. display small articles, featured, long, etc. --Fou-Lu03:41, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Lose it

Score: 5

1. Don't find much use for it, I reckon. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 05:32, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
2. Get rid of it on the sidebar. The page, I'm sure, will remain at Special:Random for us smart fellows to use. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 05:34 Nov 23, 2007
3. Ix-nay'd, por favor. It's stupid. I hope it gets a sick. </jokes i wasn't here for> ∞SysRq_∞Talk?∞ 22:46, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

   Actually, it's "I HOPE HE GETS SOME SICK. "A sick" could be a simple type-o, but it takes a special kind of moron to write "I hope he gets some sick". - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 04:05, Nov 24

4. Out, damn spot! If I want random humour, I will write it myself! Pieface 09:51, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

   Man, everyone is reading MacBeth right now, aren't they? - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 15:43, Nov 24

5. Though I generally think we should be as similar to Wikipedia as possible in this case, it has the potential to drive N000000bs away. And we all love noobs. -- petrifying Ape (enumerate) (Riot Porn) 21:19, 24 November 2007 (UTC) Strike that - I have an idea! -- petrifying Ape (enumerate) (Riot Porn) 21:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC) Actually I don't YES I DO! -- petrifying Ape (enumerate) (Riot Porn) 21:21, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Nobody cares

1. 

Discussion about it

I like using it to find articles to test scripts. --Andorin Kato 05:32, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Why not replace it with something that brings up a random featured article? -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 07:10, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

It's like genius, only it's Savethemooses. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 07:12 Nov 23, 2007

I was thinking more along the lines of links to VFH/VFP. Both of which seem to have suffered from voterus interruptus since the "change". Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 07:30, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe we should include those, but a random featured article link would really direct people away from the crap enough to be interested. I think we should hook 'em first, then put 'em to work and make 'em vote. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 07:33 Nov 23, 2007

Blimey, I was just about to suggest the exact same thing. Underneath "Random Page" on the sidebar would be "Better Random Page," or something to that effect. This would have the hilarious effect of inviting IPs and n00bs to come here and post forum topics about how they think the supposedly better random pages they find are actually suckier, thus prompting another side-splittingly funny discussion of "Quality vs. LOL, Internet."

Also, in Re: Dr. Skullthumper's suggestion, maybe a "New To Uncyclopedia?" page is in order, easily seen and accessed from the front page. It would include a cheesy-yet-practical guide for leading newcomers by the nose through only the best parts, like a really good tour guide in a foreign city who knows how to show you the famous parts while avoiding the slums. --The Acceptable  Cainad  (Fnord) 17:55, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

No, because noobs will never go for that. They'll hit "Random Page" before they do anything. Who wants to come to a website and be told what to do by some page? This is the tragic flaw of the noob: They want to work it out for themselves. So we let them, except the link on the sidebar, instead of taking them to a totally random page, takes them to a random Featured Article. Sneaky, eh? And we all know how to get to Special:Random, and they'll learn how to get to Special:Random later, but first impressions are vital. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 19:33 Nov 23, 2007

Wow - Modus proposed something serious. /me blinks a lot, wondering if this is a dream. Although if I'm dreaming of sitting in front of my computer, I think I need help. -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 09:25, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I dunno if it should be removed, it's like, always been there. But changing it somehow to only pick a random featured article would be the best thing. I've knocked up a random featured article thing at User:Spang/random, it'd be easy to link the random page link to something like that, rather than special:random. There's a few bugs, like if a featured page has special CSS or uses the {{title}} template, those won't show up, and the talk and history etc tabs all link to that page, rather than the featured page it's showing. But those could be easily fixed with JS or something. Unless someone wants to write an actual modified version of the random page extension, it's the best you're going to get with that. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 18:04, 23 Nov 2007

I'm not very good with this stuff, but is it possible to make a list of links via DPL, and use JavaScript to randomly select a page from that list of links? Maybe something like that. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 19:36 Nov 23, 2007

Figured I'd C+P from that other forum about this, so...

“ You guys are totally missing the point. I talk with kids from my town all the time about uncyc (got three of them to join) and they love the randompage button. The thing is, nobody clicks it a bunch of times and carefully reads each page they find. I'd watch kids skim through a few pages and have a quick laugh at whatever funny was there before the teacher came over and they had to minimize the window and bring up wikipedia again. It's those little bits of comedy that people going to special:Random will find, and love. Oh, and before I joined, I read featured pages and the wikilinks on them. ”

So there you go, there's my personal experience n' stuff. Oh, and I agree with sannse about how randompage is important. 'Cuz I think it is. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 18:34, Nov 23

So.....you go round talking to kids, telling them all about Uncyclopedia....am I the only one who finds this creepy? -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

Every time he gets a feature, it makes the local paper. Don't insult him, or his entire town will materialize on your front lawn. With a rope. --THE 19:14, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, Mhaille, I'd like to point out that it was largely people from my town that helped me write my first page, (don't click it please it sucks) Baby-snatching. We're a pedo-friendly community. Oh, and we don't materialize. We sort of...drift... - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 21:52, Nov 23

That's good, TLB, but we're dealing with people who have heard of Uncyclopedia and someone — you — has told them that it's good. It's easier to hook newbies who have heard about it in a positive manner, harder to hook those who have stumbled across it. Unless they've heard something beforehand, how probable is it they'll sit there clicking Random Page before they go off in boredom? Maybe three or five pages? Sure, there are some that might sit there for a while and realize that not every page is up to standard on there, but it just leaves too much up to chance. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 19:38 Nov 23, 2007

What I find good about it is this, I found a lot of old and unfunny articles that people have forgotten, These articles will be deleted soon. I suggest an official Uncyclopedia Deletion Raid of 2008. Where users can use Random Page and find stuff for deletion. Why, I mean come on. Look at all the crap I found just lying there. I nominated it for deletion. --NXWave 21:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Insane! We'd never do such a thing! – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 21:21 Nov 23, 2007

Discussion about that odd smell in your bathroom

• I believe it's related to some stale meat balls I was preparing there not a week ago. ~ 08:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Random yet annoyingly relevant comment

IIRC from Wikia's experiments, the random button is the most clicked on any wiki. It's basically the one thing that lost newbies find and click. Now that may mean that we don't have good enough navigation so that people can actually find links to click on, or that may mean it's a vital part of the wiki that shouldn't be messed with. Whatever -- sannse<staff/> (talk) 17:38, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Probably because they miss Recent Changes.... :) -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

The fact that it's what newbies click is what makes it bad. We don't want them to go to the crap and be bored. We want them to navigate, find the good stuff, and laugh. Then discover the crap the next day. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 19:17 Nov 23, 2007

Which is why we should keep it, but only with good pages in the pool of randomness. That way, noobs can not only be entertained right out of the gate, but also see firsthand what we expect out of an article. I think part of the reason we get so many crap articles is noobs clicking on random page, thinking Yoyo man (randomly selected page) is the standard, and putting in enough effort to make a page of similar unquality. -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 19:28, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking: Keep Special:Random, but remove it from the sidebar. We all know where it is. Users will learn where it is. And then put a featured-article randomizer on the sidebar. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 19:29 Nov 23, 2007

A brilliant idea that may or may not have been said before

Instead of getting rid of random page or making it all featured articles we make it random BUT with a weighting towards featured articles. Like this:

k = Total No. Of Articles/ Total No. of Featured Articles
P(Normal Article) = 1/((k - 1)*Total No. of Featured Articles + Total No. of Articles)
P(Featured Article) = k/((k - 1)*Total No. of Featured Articles + Total No. of Articles)

-- petrifying Ape (enumerate) (Riot Porn) 21:26, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Vote:

Score: 2

1. -- petrifying Ape (enumerate) (Riot Porn) 21:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
2. --Sir OCdt Jedravent CUN UmP VFH PLS ACS WH 00:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Comments

I wish I knew what that algebra meant. --Sir OCdt Jedravent CUN UmP VFH PLS ACS WH 21:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

This is a good idea, if it's plausible. -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 21:36, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

P(E) is the probability of an event E occuring. So P(Normal Article) is the probability of a certain non-featured article appearing when you press Random Page. -- petrifying Ape (enumerate) (Riot Porn) 21:38, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it has been said before by someone or other below. Anyway, I just had another thought about it related to a certain other thread in parallel to this one - does random pages include the other namespaces? And could we make this hypothetical new one include them, or at least the good ones? -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 23:44, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Also, are you absolutely sure those probabilities add up to one? Because I can't make them go there... As I'd say to my tutees, what were you trying to do here? :-) -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 00:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't matter, all math is meaningless now that 1=2. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 00:09, Nov 26

Meh, I'm not sure if they add up to 1. We could just fill in the gaps with goatse anyway. -- petrifying Ape (enumerate) (Riot Porn) 22:23, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Without Random Page

How could anyone play this? -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

Or the Uncyclopedia drinking game? Ж Kalir, Crazy Indie Gamer _{(missile ponies for everyone!)} 18:43, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

We played that once - you had to down a shot of Scotch every time a page mentioned Chuck Norris. We only lasted a few articles, then had to go for liver transplants. RabbiTechno 18:45, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

New votage!

So let's get opinions on this idea: We replace the "Random page" button on the sidebar with "Random feature". Newbies are likely to press "Random page" according to sannse, which for us is a bad thing. Yes, it's likely they'll hit a not-crappy-article, but why leave that up to chance? It's also very possible they get utter shite more than five times and leave. (I think there was a forum topic somewhere about hitting the "Random page" button 10 times or more and only getting 1 halfway-decent article out of it. Sounds pretty bad to me.)

Special:Random would remain for all of us to use, because there's no denying that it's a useful tool to have for script testing, finding articles to VFD, finding articles to tag, even for bits of inspiration. And naturally newbies who stuck around would be familiar with it. For the entirely clueless, we could even add it to UN:HAX. But there would no longer be a link on the sidebar. (If you don't like that, even, maybe we could hide it in CSS, and people who want to see it could add a line to their personal CSS? Dunno. That's a fine detail, though.) "Random feature" would give newbies a much better idea of what Uncyclopedia aims for in quality. By taking away the portal to the bad, we might hook a few more people that stop by, scratching their heads and wondering what the deuce an "Uncyclopedia" is anyhow.

So?

Yes

1. Well, I think it would work. Then again, I'm hopelessly biased. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 21:32 Nov 23, 2007
2. Yeah, I think it would work. And if it doesn't, I'm sure it could easily be reversed. I just like something that generates a page that you've never seen before, and that's why I like random page. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 21:39, Nov 23

   I like "Random page" as well, that's why I'm proposing we leave Special:Random be, just get rid of the link, or at least hide it. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 21:41 Nov 23, 2007

   Seconded. --Sir OCdt Jedravent CUN UmP VFH PLS ACS WH 22:54, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

3. Eh, why not? Maybe footsex will be featured. -- Kip > Talk • Works • • 21:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
4. Anything is better than a page that takes noobs to non-goodness, thus telling IPs, effectively, that we, collectively, are non-funny. I'd rather they laughed with us, than at us. But, then, I'm hopelessly paranoid. Also, I wasn't meeting my punctuation quota, specifically commas, for the month, and had to jam some in this comment. Don't tell the foreman. Sir Modusoperandi ^Boinc! 21:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
5. And I expect full credit and some sort of award. -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 22:18, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
6. YES, this is what we need! Random page should be used by people looking for crap, not the general guy who wants a laugh. - UnIdiot | | Talk | Contribs - 01:15, Nov 24
7. Yes, thank you. Is doubleplusgood idea, comrades. --The Acceptable  Cainad  (Fnord) 01:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
8. Okay, so I can find and use better articles for examples instead of waddling through crap. My galoshes are starting to wear out. -->:( 01:43, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
9. 5/8ths of a yes. I'd prefer a sort of a weighting towards good articles with some truly random ones thrown in just to give people something to go to work on (we may get a lot less improvements to the more obscure pages under this system). But failing that this isn't a bad idea, although I think we should review it after it's been in place a while to see if the brackety bit has come true. But 1/8th of that yes is just because it might stem the tide of people saying "I clicked on random page five times and didn't laugh, from which I conclude that (IPs should be banned/VFD should be expanded to five times the size of the moon/Uncyc doesn't isn't funny)." -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 02:23, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
10. Yeah, if it can be made to work well enough. Also throwing a certain amount of truly random articles in there would be good. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 02:31, 24 Nov 2007

    Yeah, I second that idea. It'll be a randompage like Chex Mix! Mmmm, chex mix. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 04:10, Nov 24

    What if these "truly random" articles were secretly the ones with their Pee Review templates posted on their talk pages (which is common practice, I think), thus ensuring that only articles which somebody gives a crap about get thrown into the mix? Just because it's been Pee'd doesn't really mean much, it just means VFD/QFVD-caliber articles don't accidentally frighten someone into believing that Uncyclopedia is the worst. --The Acceptable  Cainad  (Fnord) 04:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

    But Uncyclopedia is the worst. On a related note, you and your goddamn shitty site should go die. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 04:21, Nov 24

    I think we need to work out a weighting system. Something like, "Out of 10 articles..." for example, 5 which are featured, 3 which have Pee Review templates on them, 2 which are truly random. Dunno what the actual weights would be, but I think half featured works out nicely. Probability dictates you shouldn't have to click more than twice to get a featured article, then. That takes care of the "I want a random feature button" bit. The other half, not so sure about. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 04:39 Nov 24, 2007

    Is there a way to factor in the number of pee reviews a page has? Pages with more reviews are sometimes a little bit better than pages with only one, if only because the author has had input from more people. - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 05:23, Nov 24

    I'm a noob at DPL, so I'm going to say no, not that I can see. Besides, I don't think the numbers matter. Some of the funniest articles have stemmed from just one Pee Review, and some of the shittiest have tons of reviews on them. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 05:24 Nov 24, 2007

    So really, we don't need a Pee Review bias at all? I've never put anything on Pee Review, and I like to think my articles aren't bad. And while I'm here: yay! I hads gud idea! -- (but) Untrue  Whhhy?Whut?How? *Back from the dead* 11:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

    A pee-reviewed article bias, is not only nearly impossible, it's kinda a bit pointless, when the pee review result could be anything. (Though we all know it would be 36) • Spang • ☃ • talk • 01:26, 25 Nov 2007

11. Definitely. Coding it could be a problem though. -- 12:54, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
12. Agree. Random page should be algaebraecally altered in such a way as to sweep the unfunny stuff under the carpet for the admins to deal with. Users should have the option to submit articles for consideration to a Random page judging committee. If the article contains the words Chuck Norris, Oscar Wilde, kitten huffing, or Grue, someone with special scripting skills will automatically send these articles to the sandbox, dumpster, or village shredder. --AnonymousIP 05:15, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

    I shudder at the word "committee" and really hope you're joking about that bit. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 05:17 Nov 25, 2007

    Correction. Users can submit articles to the RPJG (random page judging group). If the article fails to pass certain criteria, such as no references to kittens, grues, oprah, huffing, and Jesus then the user gets to keep his account.--AnonymousIP 02:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

13. Agreed, If only Special:Random can be used by the admins to delete old crappy articles. --NXWave 09:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

    The idea is that we can all use it, but put a different random page on the sidebar that directs noobs to better places. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 18:42 Nov 25, 2007

No

1. I don't see why we can't have both. Random Page seems sort of like a staple, no? -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 21:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

   Of course we'll have both! It'd be silly to modify such a useful tool. Just the modified one on the sidebar, though. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 02:01 Nov 25, 2007

   I meant both on the sidebar. -- T​K​F​​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​U​CK 23:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

   Ahh okay, I understand your "no" now. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 01:02 Nov 26, 2007

2. Yeah, both on the sidebar would be nifty. I use "special:random" to find articles for VFD, and also to find articles to randomly fix up or rewrite. --THE 20:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

   I seriously need to get this topic off my watchlist so I'm less annoying. But, if this ends up happening, and you miss it so much, I believe someone's Javascript can add it back for you. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 01:13 Nov 27, 2007

Pie

• Y'know what else would be great? A link to RTFM and HTBFANJS under "community". But I suppose that's another forum topic. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 22:01 Nov 23, 2007
• Mmmmm, Ceridwyn's Pie.
• Mmmmm, Ceridwyn's Pie.
• Mmmmm, pie in general.
• Mmmmm, Julie's pie.
• Mmmmm, good idea Dr. I came across those a couple of times and there should be a TYATU namespace. I've came across that at least 3 times clicking the random page button--Æ 19:45, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

List of articles I found by clicking Random Page just this very second

• British Olden Tymes Grand Post-Renaissance Hullabalo Sir Francis Drake McCloud English.
• Credit Card Model of Physics
• Yogi Bear
• Mogwai
• What Nazis will do after They killed all Minorities
• Mrs J
• Jupiter
• Castration
• HowTo:Prepare Instant Jihad
• Not Funny Template

--L 04:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Ew. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 04:42 Nov 24, 2007

Here, have a theoretical random sample 'till someone gives me some weight values: User:Dr. Skullthumper/random Ta-da! – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 04:55 Nov 24, 2007

That's nothing. I have a lot of orphaned articles at User:NXWave/VFD

Take your time and huff what you think is necessary. --NXWave 20:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Some of those are actually not bad. Just clicking down from the top, Angst-roms and Figs are all right. Not exactly feature material, but not every page has to or can be. And the one you marked as vanity is about a TV channel. But yes, many are delete worthy. But that's what VFD is for. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 21:50, 25 Nov 2007

I'd just like to point out that Dr. S's 10 pages are different for whoever looks at them, and change every time.... - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 23:54, Nov 25

I was talking about NXWave's list! But yes, all the pages the good doctor listed are terrible, and should be deleted right away. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 18:37, 26 Nov 2007

Oh, ok. I just assumed you were talking about Dr. S's because I didn't see any figs or Angst Roms on this forum. Little did The Man of Led know, back in NXWave's Secret Userspace Volcano Lair, something sinister and deletion-worthy was brewing... - P.M., WotM, & GUN, Sir Led Balloon (Tick Tock) (Contribs) 21:45, Nov 26

Pages I found this very second:

• Pwn War 2
• Michael Ball
• Supermodels
• Egotism
• Johnnie Walker
• Homing pigeon

Crap articles all (with the exception of Homing pigeon, a QFA). This is useful for crap purging, what is there to loose? --Æ 19:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

On a related subject...

Since Zork, Zork 2, and Grueslayer are so large, we need a random page thing just for their categories.

Vote Here, and stuff.

Score: -2 people who aren't idiots

• For. --SPY Administrator (Complain|I rock|In memoriam) HMRFRA WH 13:51, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
• Against. Yea... I don't think the game namespace needs its own random page function. It has the game namespace. Unsolicited conversation Extravagant beauty PEEING 04:16, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
• Against. Kinda seems like a bad idea for games, where you're supposed to go one page at a time, not skip around. You'll end up somewhere and not know what happened beforehand, or what you have, or anything. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 04:18 Nov 27, 2007
• A☭AINST, That's like watchin' a TV serious for the first time with random episodes. I just can't do it. I have to start at the beginin'.

So is this like, happenin', or what?

What I mean is — is this a technically feasible idea? Can someone whip up the code powerful enough to save Uncyclopedia? Or are we doomed to have an unweighted Special:Random forever? – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 23:06 Dec 03, 2007

It is, yes, but wikia need to make DPL work properly first. There's one specific bug that's holding it all back, but I haven't been able to find anyone to report it to. For those interested, the problem is that DPL won't give you more than 500 results. This shouldn't be a problem, as you can offset it to choose the next 500 results instead, allowing you to work through the limitation. But DPL here is either buggy or badly configured, as you can't even offset past the first 500 pages of a category to read them. So currently it is impossible for DPL to even know that result 501 is there, which makes picking properly from categories like Category:Featured impossible, which is a big part of what we want. There might be other ways to doing it, like manually creating a page with links to <500 articles we do want to appear in "random" results and picking from that set, or make lots of such pages and pick a random one of those to choose from for extra randomness. Or we could have it just pick from articles Savethemooses created, which still works. In theory the "pages with links to choose from" would work now, and you could weight each page of links differently, but no way am I finding and linking the hundreds and thousands of random-page-worthy pages needed to make it work. • Spang • ☃ • talk • 23:49, 03 Dec 2007

Where there's a will there's a way. Maybe you could appoint rating privileges to proven contributors. If they rate an article a four or five out of five then it stays in the random page pool. Anything less than 3.75 is on its own! It doesn't have to be all on one person. --AnonymousIP 04:45, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

There's maybe three or four Uncyclopedians that actually understand numbers. So, interesting idea, but I, for 3, don't think it'll work. – Sir Skullthumper, MD (criticize • writings • SU&W) 22:02 Dec 04, 2007

Is wikia open source? Can I get the source so I can just fuck with it a little (I don't have the expertise to do it from scratch) -- petrifying Ape (enumerate) (Riot Porn) 23:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

You mean mediawiki? Wikia is a company. Mediawiki is the software that runs on wikipedia and wikia etc. Mediawiki is open source, from here somewhere. You may play with that all you like, if you know about PHP and SQL and stuff. All the stuff wikia added and modified to make it wikia, as far as I know, is closed source. (But it is an open company! Though they're not quite truthful about their neutered, customer-only bug ghetto, so maybe not. But I digress.) I suppose you could aks them for all their code, but I'm guessing they might not acquiesce to that request. But if you do find something that works that involves changing mediawiki any other way than JS or CSS, you'll have to convince them it works well and is bug-free enough to add it in. So good luck there! • Spang • ☃ • talk • 02:13, 05 Dec 2007