Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2019-03-31/Humour
The Epistolary of Arthur37
Signpost exclusive: The National Archives is expected to announce an astounding discovery of a cache of 19th century e-mails stored on an early-format CD which was previously thought to be unreadable. A sample of the e-mails from a pioneer Wikipedia editor, Arthur37, follows.
My Dearest Brunhilde,
I write to you now that I am finally settled in the mines of the New Pages Feed. My accommodations are humble, but sufficient here at the reviewer's village. The work is long, but we have been making good progress ever since we got through the cluster of lists about events that occurred to various branches of the Armed Forces of the United States of Central America (1821). The pay is abysmal and not worth mentioning. I miss you with all my heart, and cannot wait for the day that we are reunited.
Sincerely,
My Dearest Brunhilde,
Things have become more difficult since I wrote you last. We were drilling deep into the bedrock of the Feed when suddenly a series of articles about individual startups in Serbia collapsed onto us. They each had exactly one source that wasn't blatantly promotional, and we had to search in both Cyrillic and Latin. Three reviewers haven't been seen since, and the Feed has grown a thousand pages in the meantime. We have been forced into double shifts to compensate. Despite all of these hardships, my love for you endures.
Sincerely,
My Dearest Brunhilde,
I am afraid that this has been a difficult two months. Two reviewers got in a fight about something inconsequential at the village and ended up both getting slapped with temporary blocks. The work has piled on so high that it now takes me at least forty minutes just to clear my watchlist at the beginning of each day. Still, we approved a wonderful group of well-written articles about women who fought against slavery in the 1850s. The Feed is an unpredictable place. It is bright moments like this that bring a shine to the otherwise dull life that I have had to lead since your father banished me to this place.
Sincerely,
My Dearest Brunhilde,
Forgive me for being so long since your last missive, I assure that I have read every one of them and treasure them dearly. You are a far better writer than I could ever hope to be. These months have been terrible, and the Feed has been long and cold. Some idiot kept swapping the content of articles about North Africa with articles waxing nostalgic about the Roman Empire and the Garibaldi era before accusing everyone of being anti-Italian and Maltese on the talk page. Then I had to spend weeks cleaning up in the AfD because an editor kept sending sockpuppets to blank discussion pages for articles they started but then it turned out that actually it was their little brother all along. The editor says that their brother is an orphan and is trying very hard to learn English, but despite these assurances I have yet to see any improvement in their writing abilities. Rations have been cut and several reviewers appear to have caught scurvy. The backlog is piling up so high that some of the editors have confessed that they don't always search for coverage in languages other than English before applying PROD. Your love is my only light in these darkest caverns.
Sincerely,
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