JeffRubinJeffRubin.com

Last week, I wrote about a page and a half on Lostpedia’s article of nicknames Lost characters have given each other.

Recap for those who are just joining us: Lostpedia.com is a Wikipedia all about Lost, and it’s contributors have seen fit to make an entire page that meticulously catalogs every instance of a Lost character calling another character by anything other than their given name.

I found the whole thing fascinating. Who does this? Thankfully, commenter Margeeka ran the numbers.

There have been a total of 597 edits to the list of Lost nicknames by 230 people. I theorized that while many people contributed, most of the heavy lifting was probably done by only a handful of uberdorks. I was wrong. To drop a buzz word, the workload has a long tail. The top 10 contributors only made a combined 168 edits, about 28% of the total.

Those top 10 are -
Jackdavinci (35)
Sockmonkey (28)
PandoraX (18)
Tricksterson (17)
Marik7772003 (14)
CTS (12)
Deming (12)
Eags (12)
Blue eagle islander (11)
Amberjet11 (9)

I find the process behind this and other well developed wiki’s fascinating. The tools for worldwide collaboration are so well developed that several hundred people were able to work together just to create this, a document of stunning unimportance. Think about all the things that could come from this system, the possibilities are infinite. If we get enough people, we might even figure out what the smoke monster is before season 5.

Margeeka, how did you get that data out of Lostpedia and crunch the numbers? I’m embarassed to admit it, but I wouldn’t mind running this on a few other ‘pedias I know of.

I usually resist just posting Wikipedia articles I find interesting, but I thought you guys would want to know about platypus venom.

Now I know what to call my metal band with a sense of humor.

I love finding the corners of the Internet.

As well all know, sometimes Wikipedia’s Lost pages just don’t cut it. Thankfully, someone started a Wikipedia that’s just about Lost - lostpedia.com

Just to test the site, I thought I’d see if they have a list of every nickname Sawyer has ever given anyone. For the uninitiated, Sawyer is a wiseass who works a pop-culture reference into a degrading nickname for one of his fellow cast-aways in nearly every episode. Lost enthusiasts are famous for combing through every detail of the show for clues, but is someone tracking even this level of minutiae?

Not only is the answer yes, but Lostpedia has a page with every nickname every character has ever called anyone. Remember when Hurley called Desmond, “Desmondo”? Or when Charlie called Jack, “Mr. Haha”? It’s all here! It even notes pet names, like the time Kate called Claire, “honey.” Think about that. Someone was (presumably re)watching Lost with a pen and paper, paused the show when Kate called Claire, “honey,” and then made sure to update Lostpedia.

For the three months Lost was new in the Spring, I would plan Thursdays around the 60 minutes the show was on but this is a level of fandom I just can’t understand. There’s no explanation as to why anyone would do this. The page simply says, “The characters often give each other nicknames.” Who is responsible? Is someone on quote duty?

Thankfully, because Lostpedia is running on the same platform as Wikipedia, we can find out. The entire update history is transparent.

Okay, so. Unscientifically scrolling through the update history I see a a wide variety of names. I’d say there’s at least 100 people who have contributed. I noticed two names that seem to show up more often than others. Now, I don’t mean to belittle the contributions of all the men and women who worked hard on this list of every time a Lost character has called someone else a nickname. If I knew a way to put this information in a spreadsheet and break down how many people contribute how much, I would*. But two names seemed to really stand out to me. They are
*If anyone knows how to do this, let me know in the comments.

CTS - No detective work needed here. CTS has a profile page that tells you everything you might want to know about the guy. Favorite episode of Lost so far? “The Shape of Things to Come” (the Ben flash forward from this season. Interesting selection since this was his least favorite season!). CTS boasts 2,000 edits to Lostpedia, so he definitely works on more than just nicknames.

Sockmonkey - Sockmonkey has made only 500 changes to Lostpedia, mostly to the nickname page and to the list of “regularly spoken phrases” (which is a great way to tell how many times someone on Lost has told someone else, “I’m not going anywhere with you.” Seven.)

If you’re still reading, you’re probably interested to hear that this goes on. Like all wiki pages, there’s an area where people discuss potential changes. Sample conversations:

-Topic: Well, there you go.

Sawyer didn’t look too surprised when he found out Ana-Lucia’s last name was Cortez. Perhaps that’s because Cortes was an explorer, and since Sawyer already nicknamed Ana “Ponce de Leon”, he probably would’ve played this up as well, if he’d known about it

-Topic: Nicknames for Driveshaft [a band one of the characters was in before the crash]

Johnny called it “Suckshaft” and Lily called it “Drive-through”. Would these belong in this article? -Sloths 18:49, 11 October 2007 (PDT)

Yeah I think it does, although i am starting to think this article should be seperated between flashback characters and island characters.. Anyone agree? - Lewis

The nickname list is so unwiedly Lewis thinks it needs to be split into two. He can’t even use it when it includes minor characters like Howard L. Zuckerman!

To give you an idea how important Howard L. Zuckerman was on Lost, when you Google his name the first link is a urologist with the same name. The Lost Zuckerman is the producer who Nikki and Paulo killed for a diamond in their only flashback episode. He’s included here because, in his 2 minutes of screen time, he called Paulo, “The Wolfgang Puck of Brazil.” I’m no longer surprised to discover that Howard has a page of own.

I thought I’d be lucky to find a list of nicknames Sawyer called Hurley, so stumbling on a resource like this did something few web pages do - it surprised me. I’m glad someone is always willing to dig a little deeper to the level nobody really cares about. It means they’re already past what I might want to know.

It really blows my mind to consider that none of these pages just appeared. Nobody was paid to create them. They were organically built by crazy fans, for crazy fans. I love Internet people who are unreasonably passionate about things. In a way, they are my passion.

Kanye West recently performed at the annual Bonnaroo Music Festival and, for assorted reasons, he didn’t go on until 4:30 am (he had been scheduled for the much more reasonable 2:30 am spot). Even worse, according to Internet music nerds, is that once he did take the stage Kanye didn’t even acknowledge the late start. This caused a minor uproar in the Pitchfork-osphere, but Kanye has finally used his own website to respond -

…. This is the most offended I’ve ever been… this is the maddest I ever will be.  I’m typing so fucking hard I might break my fucking Mac book Air!!!!!!!! [emphasis ours - ed.] Call me any name you want…. arrogant, conceited, narcissistic, racist, metro, fag whatever you can think of….  BUT NEVER SAY I DIDN’T GIVE MY ALL!   NEVER SAY I DIDN’T GIVE MY ALL!  THIS SHOWS NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY  TO BE GOOD AT SOMETHING THERE WILL BE PEOPLE THERE TO LIE ABOUT YOU AND BRING YOU DOWN!  LIKE WAYNE SAYS PLEASE DON’T SHOOT ME DOWN CAUSE I’M FLYING!  I’M FUCKING HURT BY THIS ONE. ALL I CARE ABOUT ARE THE FANS.  JUST SAY THIS OUT LOUD IN  A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE, “KANYE DOESN’T CARE ABOUT GIVING A GOOD PERFORMANCE.”  CAN ANYONE HONESTLY SAY THAT ?????????

I would like to tell you how many more paragraphs of all caps there are, but Kanye is way too pissed off for paragraph breaks. I’d estimate it’s three.

Bottom line - I’m subscribing to Kanye West’s blog.

(via Aziz)