[ WP ] As time travelers , 2 % of your job is to try and change the past to make a better future . The other 98 % is making sure you did n't fuck up doing so .

`` It's commonly known that Wikipedia, now a subsidiary of the University of St Louis, has been and continues to be the most effective monitoring tool for the Association of Registered Time Travellers. What is n't so well-known is the large and highly-educated and skilled team that tracks changes on Wikipedia and identifies sudden anachronisms. We have a rare opportunity to tour the Department of Continuity at UC Santa Cruz and meet some of these capable and focused personnel. Join me as we follow these intrepid, desk-bound travellers virtually through time. 
 
 `` We begin here, in the foyer of the Department of Continuity. It looks like any other generic university building, but a lot of happening behind these closed doors. Let's all get our visitor badges -- Yes, thank you Mrs Spatchcock -- and assemble together before we enter these hallowed halls. 
 
 `` Before we enter, I would like to tell you something about myself. I studied post-graduate at Oxford University before coming to UCSC for my post-doctoral research into temporal flux. A lot of lay people do n't know that there is a certain amount of flexibility built into our natural timeline, so that certain small events can be changed without directly affecting the future of that timeline. I have experience though my research in 1921 Yugoslavia, 1982 East Berlin, 1864 District of Columbia, and 1694 Paris. By comparing events in these places and dates that have linear connections, I was able to make minor changes and see *no visible change* in the future outcome of large events.'' 
 
 `` What about small ones?'' 
 
 `` Well, small events do n't matter in the grand scheme of things. It's the medium-to-large we have to be concerned with. Someone's vegetable patch being trampled in 1820 is n't going to prevent war breaking out in 1939, is it? No, of course not. 
 
 `` Anyway, the only way I could accurately judge any alterations in future timelines was with the support of the Department of Continuity. Without them, I could n't have completed my research and defined the Critical Index of Anachronistic Change -- that's all-capitals, if you're writing it down -- which has impacted on how time travellers conduct themselves in the field. Very important, epochal work.'' 
 
 `` So... you're saying anyone can travel back in time, do something small, and travel back to the present, and nothing will have changed?'' 
 
 `` Exactly. Well done, little girl. Are you going to be a time traveller when you grow up?'' 
 
 `` No. But my Dad will be.'' 
 
 `` Uh, I see. And are you here with your Dad?'' 
 
 `` He's not born yet.'' 
 
 ``... oh?'' 
 
 `` No, but he told me that you are a complete twat and should never have been allowed to experiment with time.'' 
 
 `` I think -- Mrs Spatchcock! -- that maybe we should go in now. Mrs Spatchcock... *Mrs Spatchcock! * Mrs Spatchcock will take you to get a lollipop, how does that sound?'' 
 
 `` My Dad says you screwed up everything, and the bees are all your fault.'' 
 
 `` The bees? Oh -- the *bees*! That explains it. Never mind, Mrs Spatchcock, we're going to get to the bottom of it right away. The *bees*, of course. Let's go in, everyone. 
 
 `` I want to introduce you first of all to Olive. Olive is our chief continuity overseer. She has been working here for twenty linear years. Her only role is to ensure historical continuity. Say hello, Olive.'' 
 
 `` Hello, everyone.'' 
 
 `` Olive has a team of twenty Wikipedia Monitors. They each then have a network of assistants based all over the world, whose job is to track changes to Wikipedia and confirm any anachronisms that pop up. It's a bit like playing Memory sometimes; you look at an article, then look at it the next day and notice that one little sentence has changed, or a date of birth or death, and then their job is to investigate any follow-on from that change. For example, if Oliver Cromwell lived for ten years longer than he was supposed to, England would have been a *very* different nation by now. 
 
 `` Now, I particularly want to introduce you to Steve. Steve, are you free? Good. Please come and join us. Steve, I'd like you to say hello especially to this young miss. She has a particular comment about the bees.'' 
 
 `` Oh, the bees! Yes, what did you want to say, young lady?'' 
 
 `` Well, *Steve*, my Dad says you are also a complete moron. He says that between the two of you, you have definitely doomed humanity. And that I should congratulate you both in a *very* sarcastic tone. So... congratulations.'' 
 
 `` Wait a minute, our research was formally approved by the faculty and peer-reviewed! We did nothing unethical or wrong. I'm not sure what you -- or your Dad -- are implying.'' 
 
 `` Your Wikipedia monitoring. You did n't even notice it, because you are so stupid and shortsighted. *He* went back to Paris in the seventeenth century and taught the gardener at Versailles how to make insecticide. And *you* failed to notice the gradual but obvious decline in bee numbers throughout Europe in the following two hundred years, and then a corresponding decline in Asia and the Americans in the two hundred years beyond *that*.'' 
 
 `` You are certainly precocious, are n't you. You. Little. Cutie.'' 
 
 `` Now here we are in our present, and no one has even realised that bees are *extinct*. Did you? Did you even notice?'' 
 
 `` Well of course we did! Climate change, habitat change...'' 
 
 `` No, you nitwit. That man, there, and his moronic allergy to bee stings.''
