THE SHINE JOURNAL

 

 

 

Rumble in the Wiki

 

by

 

John Frank Weaver

 

 

The Wikipedia entries for both

the Wii and Playstation 3 were locked. No one

could edit them without special permission. From who,

I couldn’t imagine and didn’t care. I was killing time

in class, speculating on the future of video games instead

of focusing on the past of trusts and estates. With any luck my tuition

money goes only for wireless internet connection, and the professor’s

salary is paid by someone who listens in class. And in

the name of getting my money’s worth, I tuned out the second parentela

and imagined why those entries were locked.

 

Were dueling, video game, net-guerilla factions having a war of

wikiality, contesting who could make their machine superior in an unsubstantiated battlefield?

 

Maybe they traded opportunities to spread vicious lies, libel, and slander –

Oh sh**, which is printed and which is spoken? I really should have paid more attention in first amendment class.

 

Maybe they wrote pages of yellow journalism crap to convince

casual readers like me that there was nothing of worth in the opposing machine.

 

Maybe they had war rooms full of young, acne-scarred writers, dedicated to

meta-propaganda,

explaining to a reader why the propaganda of the other side

that he just read was inferior to the propaganda of their side that he was about to read.

 

Maybe I should go back to my notes. I think she’s talking about the exam.

 

(Seriously,

libel or slander?)