En/Wikipedia/Wikidrawal

OpenFacts, the Open Source Knowledge Database

Wikidrawal is a term coined by the renowned medical practitioner Givamebek Mewiki. It refers to the inexplicable behaviour that Wikipediholics exhibit when not being granted access to Wikipedia for a certain period of time. Dr. Mewiki claims that time period in which people exhibit these symptoms increases exponentially with the number of edits one makes in a given day.

While Dr. Mewiki initially claimed that Wikidrawal only occurs when one is not granted access to Wikipedia, the Great Wikidepression of 2005 proved that symptoms are actually worse when one is allowed to view Wikipedia, but not edit it. "What really tickled my pickle is that some of the worst symptoms, most notably ranting about the cabal, only occur when Wikipediholics can view the site, but not edit it. It gets dramatically worse when they get an 'internal database error' (IDE), as this usually comes as an unexpected surprise. I attribute this to the fact that while the Wikipediholics can view the sum of all human knowledge, they cannot edit it, which is one of the main benefits of a wiki. What results is horrifying. Some of my worst patients have actually developed severe cases of pachyderma after 48 hours of no editing."

Symptoms

The symptoms of Wikidrawal vary from patient to patient, and they depend on whether the lack of Wikipedia was gradually reduced, or if it was quickly snatched away from them.

Anorexia
Bulimia
Drunkenness
Uncontrolled sobbing
Nausea
Cardiac arrest
Ranting about widespread conspiracies and the existence of the cabal
Bitching about the developers (potentially fatal)
Spending time obsessively up-dateing the wikipedia status page
Writing an articel on wikidrawl

Treatment

The only known treatment for Wikidrawal is to expose the patient to as much Wikipedia as possible. They must view the site for at least 15 hours per day. Some experimental treatments include NotWiki, available here. Early trials have shown NotWiki to be an exeptionally powerful treatment method. Some patients have recovered within hours of using NotWiki.

It should also be noted that, for many people suffering from Wikidrawal, communication with the Wikipedia community is essential. There are helpful counsellors available at #wikipedia on irc.freenode.net to aid Wikipediholics suffering from wikidrawal.

Also,be aware that natural disasters, such as hurricanes, can cause outages to the servers in Florida that serve Wikipedia. If all else fails, check with news sources to see if this has happened.

Societal implications

Reknowned psychologist Sigmundo Freudundant has repeatedly asserted that the societal implications of Wikidrawal are horrific, resulting in millions of tax dollars in healthcare being donated to the Wikimedia Foundation.

As a result of the bitching at developers, life insurance agencies worldwide almost always have mandatory higher insurance rates for MediaWiki developers due to the fact that MediaWiki developers are 100 times as likely to be shot by angry Wikipedians as other people are.

Schizophrenia

A relatively small number of wikipediholics have developed symptoms that bear a stark resemblance to schizophrenia. These wikipediholics develop delusions about developers trying to take over their lives. If immediate medical attention is not received, most will have peculiar hallucinations. One patient had a hallucination about Jimbo Wales ripping their soul out of their body. Their soul had the physical appearance of the Wikipedia logo.

It is clear that these symptoms need immediate medical attention. If left to manifest themselves completely, the patient will become a mindless zombie bent on destroying both the developers and Jimbo Wales himself. This problem has become so serious that Mr. Wales has hired three professional bodyguards to protect him. The bodyguards are not permitted to use Wikipedia for obvious reasons.

One radical cure for Wikidrawal is to actually do what you were supposed to be doing, before you put it off for "just a few minutes" in order to fix wiki -- or get your wiki fix, as the case may be.