AI Summary
5 min readThe Most Viewed Penis in Human History
A listener named Leon sent in a question that had been nagging him for years. Growing up in the early 2000s, his sexual education came from Wikipedia. "When my gay ass looked at a vulva as a teenager, that genuinely became the first and last vagina I ever saw," he said. But he'd never stopped to wonder: who are the people who upload photos of their genitals to Wikipedia? And more importantly, who decides which specific penis becomes the Wikipedia penis? "Is there a committee? Is there a rubric? Are there debates?"
The Accidental Encyclopedia
Wikipedia's origin story involves a false start. In 2000, Jimmy Wales wanted to build an online encyclopedia where only experts could write articles, vetted by a seven-step peer review process. After eighteen months, the site had produced about twenty articles. So Wales and his colleague Larry Sanger tried a compromise: let regular people submit articles on a separate, quarantined site while the experts kept working. A month later, the civilian site had produced more articles than the experts had managed in a year. The experts soon gave up entirely.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:55) **Listener Question: Who is the Wikipedia Penis?** - Listener Leon asks who decides which penis appears on the Wikipedia page, who uploads it, and whether there is a formal selection process.
- 2 (12:17) **The Wikipedia Origin Story** - A brief history of how Wikipedia was founded and why its model of open editing succeeded where expert-only encyclopedias failed.
- 3 (14:18) **Meet Lane Raspberry, Professional Wikipedian** - Lane introduces himself as a Wikimedian in residence at UVA, a full-time Wikipedia editor since 2012.
- 4 (17:37) **The Central Mystery: Who Owns the Wikipedia Penis?** - PJ presents Leon's question directly to Lane, asking who uploaded the penis image and how it was chosen.
- 5 (21:46) **The Ponderous Distinction: "Penis" vs. "Human Penis"** - Lane points out that Wikipedia has separate articles for "penis" (including animals) and "human penis," a distinction not made for vagina.
- 6 (23:48) **The Most Viewed Penis in Human History** - Lane deconstructs the lead image on the "human penis" page, explaining its significance and estimated view count.
- 7 (27:20) **The Stakeholders: Who Cares About Wikipedia's Sex Ed Content?** - Lane identifies the key communities that police Wikipedia's sexual health and anatomy articles.
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Show Notes
A listener asks: whose penis gets the top spot on the Wikipedia page for penis?
Our quest for an answer takes us on a surprisingly philosophical journey — where we learn about the cutthroat fight to be number one and the extremely overthink-y debate that precedes the coronation.
Wikipedia page for Lane Rasberry.
Wikipedia page for penis.
Wikipedia page for human penis.
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