The Chronicle of Higher Education’s blog, The Wired Campus notes that Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales says that Wikipedia isn’t great for academic use. Great quote: “For God sake, you’re in college; don’t cite the encyclopedia.”

But I’m using that little semi-relevant link as an intro to how much I lurve Wikipedia.

Today, I looked up ad nauseam in Wikipedia. I was hoping it would lead me to some related Latin phrases, which it did. But the “See Also” section (hey, I should sue! “See Also” is totally my service mark!) led me somewhere unexpected: the entry for Chewbacca Defense.

Now, you really should go read the whole thing yourself. But to entice you, I’ll say that the “Chewbacca Defense” originated on a South Park episode where Johnnie Cochran represents a record company that brings suit against Chef. Cochran bewilders the jury with a nonsense argument involving Star Wars wookie Chewbacca.

The Wikipedia summary of the South Park episode is funny enough, but what really had me laughing out loud is the analysis section:

Chewbacca does not in fact actually live on Endor — though early drafts of Return of the Jedi did have the forest moon of Endor populated by Wookiees rather than Ewoks.
…
Also, Cochran calls for an acquittal, when such a result is impossible in a civil case (where there can only be a finding of liability or no liability).
…
Finally, the Emancipation Proclamation is not a verb, and cannot be conjugated.

I love that about Wikipedia: the neutral point of view combined with a fanboy‘s fisking of a fictional court case argument on a cartoon show. Hilarious. If that isn’t enough for you, see the talk page for Chewbacca Defense, where you will learn that the entry was at one time considered for deletion! Think of the loss to humanity.

I know that people say they do this with printed encyclopedias: follow up the cross-references just for the heck of it and have wonderful serendipitous finds. I like that idea, but practically, I never did it. With Wikipedia, I do it all the time.

I do love browsing the stacks, and I am one of those people who will pull down a book because I was attracted to its binding. But I’m with Steven Berlin Johnson when he says “I find vastly more weird, unplanned stuff online than I ever did browsing the stacks as a grad student.” Useful, helpful stuff, maybe not. But weird and unplanned, certainly.

Technorati tags: wikipedia, serendipity, chewbacca_defense