Talk:Encyclopedia Dramatica/Archive 11

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Conflict

Ok, I know I'm opening a huuuuuuuge can of worms here. But remember, we are supposed to assume good faith here. Anyways, shouldn't there be a section on the long running controversy surrounding the very creation of this page? The relationship between Encyclopedia Dramatica, Wikipedia, and, by extension, the broader participatory internet culture often called "Web 2.0" is illustrated by this conflict. Wikipedia, as one of the most visible manifestations of web 2.0 serves as a lightning rod or touchstone wherein many of the conflicts related to web 2.0 are played out.

Furthermore, the archives of the various RFD's demonstrate many of the accusations leveled against the culture of wikipedia, such as double standards regarding site policy and cronyism among site admins. This conflict marks a significant, if not important, moment in the ongoing growth and development of wikipedia both as an authoritative collection of knowledge, and as a community. I do not think this should be included to make wikipedia "look bad." Rather I think it shows a moment where the community recognized that personal biases were unduly influencing some articles and subsequently took steps to overcome these deficiencies. Additionally, the conflict has heavily influenced perceptions of wikipedia within the Encyclopedia Dramatica community. In sum, the conflict surrounding the creation of this article is important for a proper understanding of Encyclopedia Dramatica and (to a lesser extent) wikipedia. The cataloging of such information is the central goal of Wikipedia.

As I said, I know this is touchy which is why I have decided to bring it up in the discussion page rather than editing the article itself. What does everyone think? Velvet Llama (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Having edited the Essjay Controversy allows me to repeat what I learned there. Short answer: unless an independent, third-party reliable source has written about it (internal Wikipedia citations are largely unacceptable), we shouldn't be (and can't be) writing about it either. To do so, would constitute original research. Please remember: Wikipedia is a tertiary source. It's really that simple. J Readings (talk) 22:07, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia

I changed the front section because quite frankly Encyclopaedia Dramatica (it is meant to be ae, not e) has precious little Wikipedia-related content, and that is certainly not the main purpose of it.

Historically, Encyclopaedia Dramatica started up as a spin-off to LJ Drama, which was related to discussion of Live Journal. Before expanding to its own wiki, LJ Drama had expanded to include discussion of Blogger as well as furries and 4chan. When Encycloapedia Dramatica began, these were their main topics. They have now expanded further to include Habbo Hotel and Wikipedia. Indeed, there are no rules as to what can be discussed there. It is in fact a discussion of *everything*.

The page that ED has about itself says:

"Encyclopedia Dramatica is a central catalog for organized reference pages about drama, memes, e-pals and other interesting happenings on the internets. ED is also the final arbiter of truth and human destiny, and can be used to settle any dispute, anywhere, evar."

I was reverted for removing the part about Wikipedia being the focus because, according to the reverter, "that's not what the reference says". Actually, that *IS* exactly what the reference says. It says quite clearly that Wikipedia is not the focus of their pages.

Some people confuse Encyclopaedia Dramatica with Wikipedia Review and Wikitruth because ED is often quoted on Wikipedia Review and Wikitruth, and they cross reference each other. But ED mentions Wikipedia in passing. I believe that they have around 1.5 million articles, of which less than 1,000 have anything at all to do with Wikipedia. Compare that with Wikipedia Review's 100,000 posts, of which about 90,000 relate to Wikipedia.

The 1,000 or so that ED does have on Wikipedia do tend to get a lot of publicity in various Wikipedia mailing lists; however that doesn't mean that ED focusses on Wikipedia at all.

I hope that the correction that I made can remain.

Note that in the rest of the article it also says that Wikipedia is not the focus, so it is extremely odd that that is in the opening statement, especially when the reference says otherwise. Dyinghappy (talk) 11:06, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

We should stick to what reliable third-party sources say about ED. I notice that anyone can edit the "About" page for ED (and have done so), thus it's not really a reliable source for our purposes. If we continually cite ED's About Us page, that will invite instability as people will constantly be making bold changes to the ED "About" page then crossing over to change the Wikipedia page. That's not good either. J Readings (talk) 11:43, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Considering that it has said that since its very beginning, and has not changed on that focal point, I would say it was reliable. It is also mentioned all through the wiki. Dyinghappy (talk) 12:06, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Along with further comments from other editors here, we can always bring the question before the Reliable Source noticeboard. I would be interested to read what they have to say on the matter of ED's "About Us" page reliability. J Readings (talk) 12:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I bet that the people that have pages on ED talking about them have a lot to say about ED's reliability.

— J_Readings — continues after insertion below What are you implying, Enric?

I'm implying that there are several pages on ED that talk about WP editors, and that those WP editors are not happy at all about the distorsions of reality that those pages make in the benefit of making a good joke, and that those WP editors are going to put the shout on the sky if someone says that ED is reliable because ED is saying a lot of crap about them. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Anyways, the description was changed, but the referenced source was still pointing to the about us page, where the "ED is a parody of wikipedia" bit comes from. As I say on my edit summary, for self-descriptions of companies we usually resort to either the About US page, to press releases from the company or to declarations from its CEO. In this case we don't have press releases or CEO declarations, and we have the extra possibility of sourcing from ED's article on itself. Notice that the lead on ED's article is basically parroting what the about us page says (Dying was getting his info from there, not from the main page like he said on the edit sumary, the main page would be at www.encyclopediadramatica.com and the info was from www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Encyclopedia_Dramatica) --Enric Naval (talk) 14:31, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

ED is a wiki, not a corporation. We should bear that in mind. The whole concept of "facts" and "reliability" on ED (even about itself which keeps being edited, I notice) is a sort of vague, amorphous concept, wouldn't you agree? It's one thing if the owner or editorial board or some legal entity with a reputation for fact-checking defined and ultimately maintained the site's legal structure. But that's not the case here. As it is, the "About Us" page continues to be edited and re-edited and changed and will likely always be in flux. Is it any wonder why we generally avoid citing Wikis on Wikipedia? It's common sense, actually. We should stick to reliable third-party sources in their descriptions of ED (that was the whole point of the AfD in the first place). But I'm waiting to see what the consensus will be on this subject over at the noticeboard and here on the talk page. J Readings (talk) 14:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Please allow me to quote the entire page that is on "About Us":

"Done in the spirit of Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary, Encyclopedia Dramatica's purpose is to provide a central catalog for the e-public to view parody and satire of drama, memes, e-pals and other interesting happenings on the internets. The goal is to provide comprehensive, reference-style parody, to poke fun at everyone and everything on the internet.

While the articles themselves are mostly satirical jabs at Internet users (both individually and in groups) and phenomena, bear in mind that the Encyclopedia Dramatica itself is a parody of a much less funny online encyclopedia. As such, ED articles tend to make fun of the supposed objectivity and accuracy, elitism, and stupid edit wars of such sites. In other words, expect blatant, biased lies, and expect boring truths to get deleted quickly.

ED's third purpose is to catalogue Internets phenomena. In this role, it's actually a fairly good reference for dramatic events and things like memes and netspeak, provided you bear in mind the first two purposes and take what you learn with a Girlmecha-sized grain of salt. "

Given that this is what it actually says in the quote, it is pretty clear that their aim is NOT specifically aimed at Wikipedia, which is the point of this whole dispute. It is misleading to suggest that their primary aim is Wikipedia, when it does not even mention Wikipedia by name in this article. Yes, the way that they do things is meant to be a parody of the way that Wikipedia does things, but that is where it ends. They are writing about people, memes, MySpace and so forth, hardly at all about Wikipedia. It is incredibly misleading, to the extent of leading to false representation of the truth to suggest that they are purely devoted to Wikipedia. They are not, never have been, and never will be. Look for Uncyclopedia for that. Dyinghappy (talk) 05:47, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd just suggest going by the amount of articles on the site. As someone pointed out in the Deletion Review, the Wikipedia content is by far outweighed by anything else. It's one of the smaller content groups at ED, well after deviantArt, LJ drama and Furries, which do make up a lot of articles on their own, nevermind together. Like has been said, the about us page can be edited at whim to say whatever someone wants. To recat everything on the site to reflect some deception would be a tremendous effort, one which would get: 1. reverted quickly and 2. your ass b&. Howa0082 (talk) 14:00, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Whoah, wait a minute. I never said that ED has a focus on wikipedia, I said that it's a parody of wikipedia, as in making a parody of wikipedia's articles and procedures. That's a different thing, and it has nothing to do with the amount of articles talking about wikipedia. It does have to do with ED copying how wikipedia works, including stuff like "Arbchat", the ED version of Arbcom, see http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Skuee/Arbchat_log, the existance of admins and bureaucrats, the "Article of the now" which correlates to "Today's Featured article", "Picture of the now" to "Today's featured picture", the same type of navigational templates at the bottom of the pages, some similar rules for admins (similar, but perverted to fit ED's focus) like protecting pages only when necessary, being nice to new users, etc, see http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/ED:SYSOP, etc.

There are some similarities that are explained by both sites using the same software, but others can only be explained by ED trying to be a parody of WP. --Enric Naval (talk) 02:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

You misunderstand. I was not implying that you were saying anything. Just intimating that the hard fact of numbers would be better than the About Us page, which is not widely trusted here because it runs off MediaWiki software, as you say. Anyway, I would argue that ED is more satire than parody. It just uses MediaWiki, that's all. Copying the look-and-feel of WP is more due to laziness than any desire to mock Wikipedia or whatever. Howa0082 (talk) 14:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Uh, no. That's not a coincidence. The "About us" was created on the second day of existance of ED by Girlvynil herself and it said that ED "Sparked after several people were denied from posting to wikipedia.org. (...) ghettofinger and girlvinyl were outraged and amused by the ill-treatment of internet celebrity jameth by the moderators and idiots at wikipedia.". The currently-standing "parody of wikipedia" bit was added a few months later by Hardvice, or 3 years ago.

You can't just go and say that the similarities to wikipedia are just due to a combination of using Mediawiki and lazines. At least, not after seeing the site founder saying that the site was directly created due to frustration with wikipedia, and the parody thing being up on that page for 3 frigging years (maybe someone should warn Girlvinyl that the "About us" page got vandalized 3 years ago and that nobody has noticed it even after the vandalism was dragged all over the wikipedia article on ED and edit-warred about on the lead. Hell, maybe I should remove that statement myself and leave a note on Girvynil's talk page just to see how long my change lasts).

There's a difference between not trusting a source and making a broad-sweep dismissal of everything it says without using some sort of common sense approach. Sorry to be harsh, but I think that the idea that ED is not a parody of wikipedia at all is just your original research and personal analysis.

And sorry for getting so frenetic over this :D --Enric Naval (talk) 18:18, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Since Hardvice was a sysop at the time of his edit, it would not be vandalism. This was the intended style of "parody of Wikipedia", which, over the years has been subverted - but it's a wiki, that's what happens. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

hey, you know, Wikipedia:General_disclaimer and Privacy_policy are also hosted on wikis but they have legal value and all :D ED's about page is not fully protected, but I'm sure that it would be protected if people started trying to distort Girlvynil's version in a way that she didn't approve of. (Oh, yeah, and there's also Wikipedia:About, which Jimbo wouldn't worry about at all if it was changed to misrepresent wikipedia :D ) --Enric Naval (talk) 17:20, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

need new reference for relationship with Project Chanology

When doing this change I realized that the sources didn't relate directly Project Chanology with ED, so I had to remove its wikilink. This means that ED's article currently makes no reference to Project Chanology. Please find an adequate place to re-insert a wikilink to Project Chanology --Enric Naval (talk) 05:37, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• [1], [2], [3], and more at topix.net. Additionally, if you go to Encyclopedia Dramatica there is a list of references to ED in the mainstream media that I am not allowed to directly link you to. It's at Encyclopedia_Dramatica:ED_in_the_News. Ninja337 (talk) 03:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• Uh, I remember people complaining at the AFDs about using those sources, and, anyways, they don't define a direct link from ED to chanology. For example, the University Register only says that ED has a page that taks about Chanology. Bostonist says that Anonymous members come from internet message boards such as 4chan and ED, but it doesn't mention Project Chanology anywhere. The citypaper link apears to be down. I didn't check topix.net throughly, but the sources there appear to have the same problems that the three you gave. Adding "chanology" to the topix.net search words returned only 5 links [4], and one of them appears to have the info about Anonymous getting it's information from ED "the so-called “Project Chanology” website, an open source of information and direction for those within Anonymous, [tactics and methods of attack] (...) [ED] also has a similar page devoted to “Project Chanology”." [5], but it's a post on a personal blog, even if it has a name that looks like some sort of newspaper, I'm not sure about using that source :( .... --Enric Naval (talk) 17:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

There are multiple pages on ED to do with Chanology coverage, as well as a number of discussions through out these pages about the project. Would it not be possible to use them as citations? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.13.127 (talk) 19:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

just because it exists doesn't mean it needs an article

Encyclopedia Dramatica stems from 4chan's /b/ image board, which I personally don't think should have an article. This site is still fairly obscure and I am quite certain that no one is interested in it that doesn't already know what it is and therefore it does not serve the purpose of providing information, which is the purpose of any good wikipedia article. I personally think this is a waste of space and that Encyclopedia Dramatica isn't worthy of an article simply because of the nature of the content found on that website. I hope someone who doesn't care about lulz being killed as long as nazism isn't revived (and yes that is an exaggeration) hears me out. I also hope that other users can be mature enough to not delete this comment in spite of the fact that it may clash with their personal views. radrigosan 10:40, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, ED has some very rude and vicious content, as well as plenty of X-rated material. I don't see how this page does "not serve the purpose of providing information" — it's a well sourced, neutral article detailing the major aspects of the site. ED does have content that is pretty much guaranteed to stir some s***, but the site does meet the criteria of having received coverage in third party sources, so it is a notable website (even if you think it's "obscure"; obscurity is relative), and deserves a page on Wikipedia. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps)} 12:14, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

• At the top of the page, one of the boxes contains past deletion discussions. To avoid repeating the same arguments, I suggest reading at least the last two discussions: the Deletion Review that allowed re-creation of the article here and the Articles for Deletion discussion that closed with "keep" here --Enric Naval (talk) 18:10, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

• Encyclopedia Dramatica does not stem from 4chan and you are woefully incorrect for thinking so. The sources prove its notability, and the rest of your statement is merely a WP:IDONTLIKEIT argument or a bias against things that dare to be politically incorrect. Dance With The Devil (talk) 00:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
• I am surprised we got anything done in the last discussions. Anyway, due to the altogether too frequent and disorganised discussions in past, the next calm, collected deletion review and deletion discussion is scheduled to happen around May 15, 2018. Please save your arguments until then; any discussion before that date is simply wayyy too premature. =) Seriously, though, didn't we just go through this... about billion times? What does yet another (previously too often heard) argument accomplish? --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 08:01, 4 July 2008 (UTC)
• I've been following all this talk about deletion of ED article, and I have noticed only one thing. The wikipedian's hatred to ED. It's strange how couple of gee** can't take all those jokes and satirism inside ED. Go read WP:idontlikeit bladez (talk) 10:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
• Holy crap, since when did mentioning ED on wikipedia become something that won't subject you to an instaban? Comradeash (talk) 22:21, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
• The one constant around here is that if there's an article about ED, people will be agitating to delete it, and if there isn't an article about ED, people will be agitating to recreate it. There is no way to end the raging debate; it only goes temporarily dormant occasionally only to flare up again once somebody decides to restart it. *Dan T.* (talk) 23:13, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
• Said before, but we'll say it again. Just because YOU think it's non-notable, doesn't mean it doesn't deserve an article. With over 250,000 hits on Google, it's certainly something that exists. Under your logic, I find the following articles boring, non-notable, and "waste of space" deserving to be deleted: Cuffley_Brook, Bydgoszcz_Synagogue, Raitis_Grablovskis, List_of_ship_commissionings_in_1923. Also, because we should delete articles where we don't like what they stand for, I believe we should delete Esperanto for being too pretentious of a language ("Lol I'm gonna solve all the problems with the current worlds language") and Che_Guevara because I think he was just some random guy who did stuff in the past and ended up having his legacy mocked by Hot Topic. That is, if we followed your criteria for deleting pages. Also, "I am quite certain that no one is interested in it that doesn't already know what it is". If you don't know what Arlen, Texas is, why would you look it up? Someone may hear of it, then look up the Wikipedia article to see what it is. tl;dr: dumbass. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.168.71.168 (talk) 05:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Question marks

"The intended style for Encyclopedia Dramatica is to figuratively place topics in a humorous and opinionated way."

1. Is this sentence necessary? What does it add that's not covered in the previous sentences?
2. "Humorous" and "opinionated", according to whom? These are POV adjectives. Which reliable third-party source did the editor get it from? It's unclear.
3. "to figuratively place topics" is a split infinitive. It's best to avoid it.
4. For style, overall, maybe we can consider re-writing it by deleting the wordiness and avoiding the split infinitive -- provided that the sentence can be sourced.

What do others think? J Readings (talk) 07:37, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Adding another sentence with several question marks:

"The website has served as a "virtual" Thing for Anonymous to visit[6] and learn new words, or memes, from.[18]"

1. The sentence ends with the preposition "from." Stylistically, we should avoid ending sentences with a preposition.
2. Do we really need to say "virtual Thing"?? "Thing" itself seems to be an archaic piece of jargon divorced from current mainstream usage in the English language. At least, that's what the linked text indicates. Second, the cited source does not make any mention of a "virtual Thing".
3. Couldn't we simply cite what the third-party reliable source actually says here -- "favorite haunt"? What would be wrong with that?
4. Is there any way we can cut down on the conjunctive "and" in this article? Whoever originally helped write the first article (I wasn't part of that editing), did a good job of keeping the sentences simple and clear. Speaking only for myself, it would be great if we could maintain that structural clarity.

Last sentence with question marks:

"Evidence suggests that Anonymous now uses Encyclopædia Dramatica as a planning hub for the majority of its strategic management operations."

1. Evidence suggests...? That smacks of original research and original synthesis, no?
2. The citation for this sentence is an improperly sourced TV program that cannot be verified per WP:V. We need an exact date so one of us can go to the library, etc., in order to verify that the source directly supports the claims made in the sentence. Right now, it doesn't work.
3. It could be the sentence is fine with a little polishing, but the source is inappropriate, in which case we should remove the citation to the talk page (or just completely from the article) and replace the citation with the previous one.
4. If that's the issue, this sentence and its preceding would then seem redundant. Do we really need both in that instance? If so, why?

Thanks for reading, J Readings (talk) 10:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

'a much less funny online encyclopaedia'

--does not refer to Wikipedia, but 'Uncyclopedia.' If you've ever been to the latter, you'd know that Wikipedia is a lot lulzier. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christf**k (talk • contribs) 18:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

it does, the quote directly links to EDs Wikipedia page in the ED:About page--Kip Kip 20:20, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

About time

This is just to say it's about damn time this article came back to WP. Honestly, getting involved in this debate a couple months back was probably a good part of reason for me not coming around here very often afterwards. I'd like to share this quote from my talk page: "Reality check: ED? It's not getting an article on Wikipedia, period/full stop, no matter what legalisms you try to bring to bear. It be dead, and you can't breathe any life into its corpse."

Thanks for finally coming to your senses. No thanks for acting like whiny children. Seriously, this is the most prevalent research site in the world for every subject imaginable (yes, I said research, as in even scientific research), and yet a handful of powerful people successfully censor it for years because they were cyber-bullied?

To comment on the article itself, removing the brackets around the d in "[d]one in the spirit of..." would be in order, as changing capitalization at the start of a sentence is not something that needs to be clarified as a correction, unless WP has a drastically different style guide. SamuelRiv (talk) 03:28, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

There's no need for rudeness. There are many nuetral editors on Wikipedia willing to take a look at things if you have a dispute. Lots42 (talk) 04:08, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah dude. Thems the breaks. It's nice to talk a good game about being even handed, but what did you expect? ED gets part of its notoriety from crapping all over Wikipedia. Did you honestly think that it would be treated like any other site by this community? I stopped getting fired up about that stuff when I was 17. People are people. The system is designed to not be censored (hence ED is here after a long process), but that doesn't stop people from pushing back against the article for their own reasons. Just because the system is designed to be a certain way doesn't mean all (or even most) of the users will behave in that fashion. Protonk (talk) 04:21, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Start to 'C' class

Sections or no, this article gives a clear understanding of the subject (given the sourcing limitations), sources verify the text, there are no copyedit problems and the article is stable. Protonk (talk) 03:49, 5 August 2008 (UTC)