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7 of the best, weirdest edits from Wikipedia’s sandbox

Wikipedia's Sandbox is a place for folks to test their editing skills before making real changes to the site, and now there's a Tumblr that captures all their weird, experimental edits.

 

Aja Romano

Internet Culture

Posted on Jan 21, 2013   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 3:08 am CDT

One little known but awesome corner of Wikipedia has its own little known but awesome corner of Tumblr.

“The Best of Wikipedia: Sandbox” does what it says on the tin, bringing you the best of edits made to Wikipedia’s Sandbox, a testing page where users can tweak the code for whimsy and practical use to their hearts’ content.

Like any sandbox, Wikipedia’s is regularly wiped so new testing can begin. But every test attempt is saved in the history of edits. Now bestofwikipediasandbox on Tumblr has done the grunt work of combing through the submissions of wacky edits, bringing us the most interesting changes, from the creepy to the amusing, to every penis joke known to man.

Below are some of our favorite highlights from the highlights.

1) Looking for Lenny in all the wrong places

Godspeed in your quest, noble searcher of Kravitz.

2) Whose line is it, anyway?

The “please leave this line alone” section of the sandbox is the line that creates the Sandbox header. Naturally, it’s just begging for editing—like so:

…and like so:

Sometimes, things turn violent.

And sometimes, there are tears.

3) Ascii Amazing

Whether they’re celebrating free love

Wikipedia itself…

or Moth men

The ASCII artists of the sandbox never disappoint.

4) What is a sandbox, really?

In which someone attempts to define a sandbox by defining an hourglass…

Did you know that sand is magic?

…and bonus points for this edit, which shares ancient wisdom:

5) Miss Indonesia is the fairest of all…

From this Sandbox edit, we learn that Miss Indonesia is not over 9,000, as the famous Dragonball Z meme goes, but over 5,000. Still, impressive. We’d like to see that bathing suit.

6) The Toilet Code

Some edits speak for themselves, really.

7) The Milkshake War

Hostilities ended when the two parties realized that Daniel Day-Lewis had already drunk everyone’s milkshakes, everywhere.

All images via bestofwikipediasandbox/Tumblr

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*First Published: Jan 21, 2013, 3:48 pm CST