Monday, 14 July 2008

Illogicopedia questions: What is the oldest article?

It's the question on everybody's lips... what was the first article on Illogicopedia? Well, nobody actually asked this but I decided to do a bit of research to satisfy my own curiosity anyways. So merrr.

You'd think that Illogicopedia's Special:Ancientpages would reveal the answer. The page lists 'M' as the first ever Illogicopedian article - problem solved, you may say.

But it's not as simple as that - when Illogicopedia moved from Editthis in January 2007 a bunch of glitches and errors in the software meant that when the articles were moved to the new server some data was lost.

A look at the Editthis wiki (which is still in existence) reveals that its equivalent Special:Ancientpages claims 'The Really Big Button that Does Something' was the actual first article, created on 18 January 2007.

But wait! What of Example Article, which was created prior to Illogi's move to Editthis (when ?pedia was but a Wikia scratchpad wiki)? A look at the page's history reveals that indeed, this article was created on the 8th of January 2007. Why doesn't it appear in the oldest pages page? Well, I don't actually know but it is probably another porting issue.

But is that the earliest article? Well, no - that accolade goes to 'Conversation', the very first article under the name of Illogicopedia in any of its forms. The article is dated 8th December 2006 (as pictured in the foot of this post), a month prior to the Example Article. A complete list of the most ancient of Illogicopedia's pages along with their histories can be found at the Wikia Scratchpad.

Buuut wait! Listed in that category is 'Talk:The Cursed wiki article', a page that originated at Uncyclopedia and was created on 31st December 2005. This isn't exactly a true Illogicopedian article but worth a mention for its earliness nonetheless.

So what is the actual earliest article? Well, it depends on what you mean by 'earliest'. Here's a quick summary:
  • "Earliest" Uncyc port: Talk:The Cursed wiki article
  • Earliest on Illogicopedia (full wiki): The Really Big Button that Does Something
  • Actual, proper, genuine earliest article on Illogicopedia (Any format): Conversation
Phew. Well, that was fun. So here's to Illogicopedia's oldest articles. I now need a beer.


  1. The Cursed Wiki Article doesn't count as the oldest since it wasn't an Illogicopedia original. "The first Illogicopedia article" - it goes without saying that title refers to the first original Illogicopedia article.

  2. That's true, Nerd, and there may be even earlier Uncyclopedia imports so I suppose that reckoning was flawed. I just wanted to highlight the fact The Cursed Wiki Article was one of the very first pages on Illogicopedia.