A history of everywhere we've gone wrong by turning less inclusionist, and the rocky road back and beyond. As Wikipedia faced initial skepticism about its reliability compared to traditional academic encyclopedias, an unfortunate reactionary tendency has taken hold. With every positive step toward respectability, we have also often backed away from the wonderful eccentricities that make us a beloved community with a human face.

It is time to re-embrace the oddities, the excessive hyperlinked details, the stylistic flourishes and in-jokes. Popular culture represents a huge chunk of our readership, and we are not serving these audiences well with insufficient plot and ceding of territory to commercial platforms like Wikia/Fandom. We used to have a Featured Article on every single Pokemon on English Wikipedia, let's bring that back! Let's include all of the obscure references to theological history in the latest Hollywood horror film, and let's do it better and more thoughtfully and comprehensively than anywhere else. Let's include vital coverage of internet phenomena that are big on Youtube or Tiktok or webcomics but haven't yet hit the New York Times' critic column.

We should learn from the natural virality of so much of our content through campaigns like Depths of Wikipedia and the Cool Freaks Wikipedia Club. Instead of reacting by quickly editing out something a little ridiculous, let us be proud if we've managed to incorporate some fun into our educational project. It's a way to survive and stand out in the current media environment, and to recruit the next generation of wiki nerds.

Where Wikipedia or another existing sibling project isn't sufficient for a playful experiment, let us explore new platforms for piloting like Wikispore. Let's try out different games and stylistic larks. How many ways can we represent connections and trivia? Why not a Wikipedia where every article is just six words long? What new genres or fun modes of free knowledge might yet be possible?

Participants should come away with ideas on how to revitalize and develop new Wikimedia projects with a sense of joy and play.