Okay, we admit it: Here at News.com we're huge fans of Wikipedia, never mind details like
politicians' aides using our favorite encyclopedia to make snide comments about each other's bosses. False reports of comedians' deaths and
J.F.K. assassination rumors have done little to mitigate our unalloyed fandom.
We're especially fond of Wikipedia's extensive collection of entries on pop culture figures. Who knew, for instance, that there was once an A-Team comic strip that chronicled the further adventures of those wacky crime-fighters from the mid-1980s? It's also a pleasure to note that a television show featuring TV babes Alyssa Milano and Rose McGowan as demon-fighting witches has received a more extensive Wikipedia entry than one on the actual Salem witch trials. Mundane history is hardly as thrilling as watching the Charmed Ones battle evil--and their own frustrating inability to get dates on Friday nights.
To illustrate this point, here are the word counts for some pairs of Wikipedia entries on historic events and some related terms:
Salem witch trials: 7,737
List of Charmed episodes: 8,832
Visigoths: 2,725
Goth subculture: 5,238
