Wikipedia:WikiImp



A WikiImp is a wiki user who, while not harming Wikipedia, leaves the real work of improving Wikipedia to other users, such as WikiDragons, WikiGnomes and WikiFairies. Some WikiImps hire WikiMercenaries to do their work for them. WikiImps are content with making fly-by passes, sometimes leaving multitudes of tags in their wake flagging places where other more conscientious wikifauna can make improvements.

WikiImps rarely harm an article, although their seemingly endless fact tags can leave WikiFairies in a tizzy.

A WikiImp is someone who, if you've just been in a serious car accident, will stop and say:"'Your windshield is broken. Both fenders need repair. The engine block is cracked. Your axles are bent. There's blood on the dashboard.'" The WikiImp will then drive off without summoning help, leaving you dazed and bleeding, but at least with a complete inventory of the problems facing you.

WikiImps are often accused of "drive-by tagging", an accusation that does not bother WikiImps in the least. WikiImps see their job as pointing out current flaws to WikiReaders and WikiEditors. If a fact tag left by a WikiImp sparks a WikiGnome to locate a citation or a cleanup tag brings in a WikiFairy to edit, so much the better – if not, the WikiImp has reminded the Wikipedia user that the information in the articles is only as good as the source – and a WikiImp considers that a good enough job.

Ironic economic WikiImps
Ironic WikiImps have become tainted by the economic principle of comparative advantage, believing that it's often better to drop a flag when lacking the expertise to properly fix the problem, so as to dart along more quickly into making some other leveraged contribution, more within their own self-perceived wheelhouse. (It's unclear how ironic WikiImps can have a deep theory of comparative advantage within the ecosystem of Wikipedia, while lacking much sense of competitive advantage in the rest of their personal affairs, as evidenced by their sometimes lofty edit counts.)

Often highly experienced, they may combine the traits of the WikiEagle in spotting errors that less experienced editors don't see, the WikiSloth in marching to their own hedonistic drummer, the WikiNecromancer in their ability to perceive necrotic tissue (faced with an extreme case, an ironic WikiImp might briefly mutate into a WikiDragon to restore blood flow), or a WikiHunter to put necrotic tissue properly out of its lingering misery.

Ironic WikiImps are principally concerned with combatting blockage and barriers to entry. They will often aim to replace a bad skeleton of poor but vaguely tolerable flesh with a good skeleton with a few good muscles attached and hardly any skin, so as to expedite participation rates among the many other Wikifauna, who frown over how the ironic WikiImp leaves behind so many obvious problems, in need of fixes from so many different directions, all so easily perceived.

Ironic WikiImps are a specific subtype of WikiPlatypus.

How to identify WikiImps
If you would like to advertise your WikiImpish qualities on your userpage, you can add the handy WikiImp userbox which lets other fauna on Wikipedia know when they have spotted a WikiImp: