Updated Fount-of-dubious-knowledge Wikipedia has gone down around the world, prompting a Twitter frenzy from people struggling to remember how to open books.

The anyone-can-try-to-edit encyclopaedia won't serve a page at all beyond a placeholder "error" message, but an announcement on the Wikimedia Foundation's site stated that servers are having one of those uninformative "technical problems".

The status page for Wikimedia also lists service disruptions across the organisation.

The outage prompted a torrent of (hopefully) tongue-in-cheek tweets about the end of civilisation as we know it as well as warning of plummeting IQs and unfinished homework (for those in summer schools, El Reg guesses).

BREAKING NEWS: Wikipedia is down - Homework completion around the world grinds to a halt. — Andy (@AndyNico_) August 6, 2012

Fights are breaking out everywhere. I hear sirens in the background. A house down the street is ablaze. # Wikipedia # WikipediaIsDown — Simon Jessey (@scjessey) August 6, 2012

oh my god, Wikipedia is down. WHERE IS ALL THE KNOWLEDGE? WHAT ARE WE TO DO WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE? — Lex (@lexcanroar) August 6, 2012

Others reminded fellow twits that there used to be these things called a library, and some of them might even still exist, but you'll have to go outside to find one. Where the sun is likely shining. ®

Updated to add

According to the Wikimedia Foundation status page, Wikipedia is almost back to operating normally.