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Uncyclopedia is the name of several forks of
satirical Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...
online encyclopedia An online encyclopedia, also called an Internet encyclopedia, is a digital encyclopedia accessible through the Internet. Some examples include pre-World Wide Web services that offered the '' Academic American Encyclopedia'' beginning in 1980, Enc ...
s that
parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
. Its logo, a hollow "puzzle
potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...
", parodies Wikipedia's globe puzzle logo, and it styles itself as "the content-free
encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...
", parodying Wikipedia's slogan of "the free encyclopedia" and likely as a play on the fact that Wikipedia is described as a " free-content" encyclopedia. Founded in 2005 as an
English-language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...
wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...
, the project spans more than 75 languages as well as several subprojects parodying other wikis. Uncyclopedia's name is a
portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.
of the prefix ''un-'' and the word ''encyclopedia''. Various styles of
humor Humour ( Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids i ...
are used as vehicles for parody, from pointed satire to light sarcasm, along with structured in-jokes and frequent non sequiturs. The site has attracted media attention for its articles on controversial subjects including
religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
, prominent people, places,
politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...
, and
pseudoscience Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable cl ...
. Many Uncyclopedia articles contain
graphics Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of the data, as in design and manufa ...
with a link to the corresponding Wikipedia article; Uncyclopedia often denotes the corresponding Wikipedia article to its content as being listed "for those without comedic tastes", and Wikipedia's article written by "so-called experts".


History

Uncyclopedia was launched on January 5, 2005, by Jonathan Huang, known online as "Chronarion", and a partner known online as "Stillwaters". It was originally situated at uncyclopedia.org. In July 2006, it was acquired by
Fandom A fandom is a subculture composed of Fan (person), fans characterized by a feeling of camaraderie with others who share a common interest. Fans typically are interested in even minor details of the objects of their fandom and spend a significan ...
, then known as Wikia. In January 2013, some Uncyclopedia editors and administrators set up a fork of Uncyclopedia at en.uncyclopedia.co, in response to Wikia's censorship, insertion of advertising, and the imposition of content warnings. Fandom ceased hosting its version of Uncyclopedia on May 14, 2019, and the Fandom site (colloquially known as the "spoon", a play on "fork") moved to uncyclopedia.ca, and in September 2021 to uncyclopedia.com. In 2023, each of these English-language versions had approximately 37,000 content pages, second only to the Portuguese. The Fandom version of the site now shows only a "Not a valid community"
landing page In online marketing, a landing page, sometimes known as a "lead capture page", "single property page", "static page", "squeeze page" or a "destination page", is a single web page that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized s ...
. A third site, at mirror.uncyc.org, functions only as a
mirror website Mirror sites or mirrors are replicas of other websites. The concept of mirroring applies to network services accessible through any protocol, such as HTTP or FTP. Such sites have different URLs than the original site, but host identical or near-id ...
with backup copies of some Uncyclopedia pages.


Structure

Uncyclopedia is built on the same
MediaWiki MediaWiki is free and open-source wiki software originally developed by Magnus Manske for use on Wikipedia on January 25, 2002, and further improved by Lee Daniel Crocker,mailarchive:wikipedia-l/2001-August/000382.html, Magnus Manske's announc ...
software that Wikipedia uses. However, during Fandom's (Wikia's) hosting of Uncyclopedia, Fandom extensively modified its version of MediaWiki version 1.19, making the Fandom Uncyclopedia site incompatible with later MediaWiki versions. In May 2018, Fandom dropped support for the Monobook
skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different ...
that its Uncyclopedia site had used to mimic Wikipedia, claiming this was necessary to achieve
GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679), abbreviated GDPR, is a European Union regulation on information privacy in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area (EEA). The GDPR is an important component of ...
compliance, and warned that local work-arounds could not be extended to new visitors and editors by default. Since all Uncyclopedias split off or were removed from Fandom, they mostly switched to using
Vector Vector most often refers to: * Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction * Disease vector, an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematics a ...
instead (with MinervaNeue on mobile), in order to continue parodying Wikipedia. Uncyclopedia projects are run independently by their own members, though some users have accounts on multiple Uncyclopedias. They contain interlanguage links to each other, but there is no global governing organization comparable to the
Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...
that oversees Wikipedia as well as its sister projects.


Content

Uncyclopedia's content is
license A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...
d under the
Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) license, although some content, notably images, is copyrighted. Different Uncyclopedias sometimes have different licenses; for example, dÉsencyclopédie (French Uncyclopedia) is dual-licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 and the
GFDL The GNU Free Documentation License (GNU FDL or GFDL) is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights ...
. As of May 2024, the English-language Uncyclopedia contains approximately 37,700 articles. Many articles on Uncyclopedia link to corresponding Wikipedia article on the subject, and they often designate Wikipedia's content as being written by "so-called experts"; this is most often denoted by Uncyclopedia articles with a corresponding Wikipedia article having a graphic located to the side of an article linking the related Wikipedia article to be used for "those without comedic tastes".


Articles

Uncyclopedia encourages satire that is close to or resembles the truth. However, many articles employ absurdist humor and little, if any,
fact A fact is a truth, true data, datum about one or more aspects of a circumstance. Standard reference works are often used to Fact-checking, check facts. Science, Scientific facts are verified by repeatable careful observation or measurement by ...
ual accuracy remains. For example, Uncyclopedia's article about Wikipedia claims that Wikipedia is a parody of Uncyclopedia, not the reverse. Many articles on the site contradict each other, even articles on the same subject. Like Wikipedia's "Five pillars", Uncyclopedia has "Five pliers", including "Satirical point of view". Its code of conduct follows from three main rules: "Be funny and not just stupid", "Don't be a dick", and "Dance like you've never danced before!" Parodying Wikipedia's article review service
peer review Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work (:wiktionary:peer#Etymology 2, peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the ...
, Uncyclopedia has a "Pee Review" where authors seek review by other Uncyclopedians on humor, grammar, spelling, use of images, and overall presentation. Users can post to other wiki pages to solicit coding help and review or request user-edited images. Like Wikipedia, Uncyclopedia features articles and images on its front page. A system of user voting decides which articles and images to feature, usually deciding based on humor and writing quality. The site also welcomes
audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of sound ...
contributions such as
narration Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the ...
of articles. Uncyclopedia's articles often begin with quotations, usually misquoted, fictitiously attributed or entirely fabricated. Among the most recurrent themes is the invention of quotes attributed to
Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...
, prompted by an article stating that inventing Wilde quotes was the "national sport of
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
", and themes such as "kitten huffing" (the inhalation of the souls of cats as a form of
drug abuse Substance misuse, also known as drug misuse or, in older vernacular, substance abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods that are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder, differing definitions ...
). Much like Wikipedia, Uncyclopedia has policies concerning vanity articles, which are articles written by an individual associated with the subject of the page. Vanity articles were disallowed after many of them produced flame wars. Uncyclopedia does not police
conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates t ...
but may delete submissions as non-notable on a case-by-case basis, using an AfD-like system called "Votes for deletion" (VfD) and a CSD-like system called "QuickVFD". One of Uncyclopedia's most popular articles, "AAAAAAAAA!", is a nonsensical page, with its content completely consisting of the upper case letter A with images and some punctuation marks.


Site-wide pranks

Some jokes involve the entire website, sometimes including a re-skin of the main page, such as with holiday themes. In 2012, as a parody of Wikipedia's black-out protest against the
Stop Online Piracy Act The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a proposed United States congressional bill to expand the ability of U.S. law enforcement to combat online copyright infringement and online trafficking in counterfeit goods. Introduced on October 26, 20 ...
(SOPA) ''et al.,'' Uncyclopedia blocked all content for a day with a notice claiming to support the bills. A tradition of
April Fool's Day April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day (rarely called All Fools' Day) is an annual custom on the 1st of April consisting of practical jokes, hoaxes, and pranks. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fool " at the recipient. Mas ...
front page pranks occurs on the wiki, including a "blood donation" plea banner to spoof wiki donation banners on April 1, 2014. For one week in 2013, the Wikia fork interrupted viewing with a claim that the site was unavailable, spoofing a notice on the
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
website during the
United States federal government shutdown of 2013 From October 1 to October 17, 2013, the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government entered a Government shutdown in the United States, shutdown and curtailed most routine operations because neither Appropriations b ...
.


Traditions

Each year, Uncyclopedia writers create a list of ''100worst reflections'' of that year, marking website milestones or simply news. Most years, the creators of the list reveal that they have once again put off the list until the last second, and simply skip a large chunk to get to a hundred in time. Other Uncyclopedia traditions include creating a "top10" list of articles for each year, chosen by popular vote.


Subprojects

As well as housing many articles designed to satirize Wikipedia-style content, Uncyclopedia contains several secondary projects (known as "UnProjects"). As of 2017, there were sixteen such subprojects, each of which specializes in parody of a different information style. Many of these are directly analogous to Wikipedia's sister projects, while others such as UnTunes and HowTo parody projects completely unrelated to Wikipedia.


Press coverage

Uncyclopedia has been referenced in several well-known news publications from around the world, in addition to numerous local and regional newspapers and periodicals. In 2005 the Flying Spaghetti Monster entry from Uncyclopedia was mentioned in a ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' column reporting the spread of "
Pastafarianism The Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism, a Parody religion, parodic new religious movement that promotes a light-hearted view of religion. The parody originated in oppo ...
", the
religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...
that worships the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The column was then reprinted in other newspapers, including the ''
Taipei Times The ''Taipei Times'' is an English-language print newspaper in Taiwan published by the Liberty Times Group. Founded as the third English-language newspaper on 15 June 1999, it is currently the last surviving English-language print newspaper i ...
''. The magazine ''
.net The .NET platform (pronounced as "''dot net"'') is a free and open-source, managed code, managed computer software framework for Microsoft Windows, Windows, Linux, and macOS operating systems. The project is mainly developed by Microsoft emplo ...
'' featured an interview with Huang about Uncyclopedia in May 2007. A number of other articles have been centred on specific entries on Uncyclopediamost notably the article in the ''
Arizona Daily Star The ''Arizona Daily Star'' is an American daily newspaper based in Tucson, Arizona, and owned by Lee Enterprises. It serves Tucson and surrounding districts of Southern Arizona in the United States. History 1877–1925 L. C. Hughes was the ...
'', which focused on the
Tucson, Arizona Tucson (; ; ) is a city in Pima County, Arizona, United States, and its county seat. It is the second-most populous city in Arizona, behind Phoenix, Arizona, Phoenix, with a population of 542,630 in the 2020 United States census. The Tucson ...
parody, and the article in the ''
Cyprus Mail The ''Cyprus Mail'' is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. Established in 1945, it is published every day except Monday, and most of the local articles are available on its website. History With the demise of the '' ...
'', which focused on the
Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...
article. In addition to articles about specific entries on the wiki, several papers speak of the website in generalusually in a section devoted to
technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...
or the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
. This was the case when Uncyclopedia was referenced in the ''
Boston Herald The ''Boston Herald'' is an American conservative daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarde ...
'' and ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''. Although most articles mentioning Uncyclopedia are specific to the site, there are other articles about
Wikia Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities and Wikia) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e., video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). The Privately held company, privately held for-profit Delaware ...
or Wikipedia that just mention its name briefly. These include the editorial in ''
The Register ''The Register'' (often also called El Reg) is a British Technology journalism, technology news website co-founded in 1994 by Mike Magee (journalist), Mike Magee and John Lettice. The online newspaper's Nameplate_(publishing), masthead Logo, s ...
'' discussing the Seigenthaler incident, in which Uncyclopedia was named only once. It has also been listed as one of the "Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites" in ''
PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...
'', as well as among the "101 most useful websites" on the internet by ''
The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, first published on 5 February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Tele ...
''. ''
Seattle Post-Intelligencer The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. Th ...
'' considers Uncyclopedia to be the wiki site equivalent of ''
The Onion ''The Onion'' is an American digital media company and newspaper organization that publishes satirical articles on international, national, and local news. The company is currently based in Chicago, but originated as a weekly print publication ...
''.


Criticism and controversy

At various times, articles on Uncyclopedia have been subject to criticism from King's College (School, Auckland) the '' North-West Evening Mail'', Northern Irish politician James McCarry, civic leaders of
Telford Telford () is a town in the Telford and Wrekin borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Shropshire, England. The wider borough covers the town, its suburbs and surrounding towns and villages. The town is close to the county's eastern b ...
,
Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...
, UK, the '' Sioux City Journal'', ''
Hawke's Bay Today ''Hawke's Bay Today'' is a daily compact newspaper published in Hastings, New Zealand and serving Hastings, Napier and the Hawke's Bay region. It is owned by NZME. The ''Hawke's Bay Today'' is New Zealand's youngest newspaper, founded on 3 May ...
'', and ''Lochaber News''. In January 2008, the
Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...
n Internal Security Ministry issued a directive alerting newspaper editors not to trust Uncyclopedia. It said the article concerning Malaysia contained "untruths, insults and ridicule" and was demeaning to the country. The site uses a layout that looks similar to
Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...
's, which may confuse inexperienced users who misinterpret the content as factual. In November 2012, the page "HowTo:Commit suicide" on Absurdopedia, the Russian-language Uncyclopedia, was legally prohibited by the Russian
Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare Rospotrebnadzor (Роспотребнадзор), officially the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare () is the national public health agency of the Russian Federation, and is the federal service responsible for t ...
(Rospotrebnadzor). Absurdopedia administrator Edward Chernenko unsuccessfully sued them under his
right to science and culture The right to science and culture is one of the economic, social and cultural rights claimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and related documents of international human rights law. It recognizes that everyone has a right to freely part ...
guaranteed by the Russian Constitution. During the proceedings, the Russian government and its experts claimed that Absurdopedia is intentionally trying to increase the number of child suicides in Russia by providing children with instructions for killing themselves.How we went to court against Rospotrebnadzor
abrahabr, April 3, 2013.
, the case is currently in the ECHR. In 2014, the page "HowTo:Make a bomb at home" on Absurdopedia was included in the Russian list of extremist materials. In August 2014, the logo displayed for Greggs on its
Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...
profile was mistakenly temporarily switched to the logo used on Uncyclopedia's article on the subject at the
Wikia Fandom (formerly known as Wikicities and Wikia) is a wiki hosting service that hosts wikis mainly on entertainment topics (i.e., video games, TV series, movies, entertainers, etc.). The Privately held company, privately held for-profit Delaware ...
site due to a caching issue, causing a PR crisis for the company. In 2017, two pages of Absurdopedia were banned in Russia: "HowTo:Bathe a cat" for "calls to violence against animals" and "HowTo:Make a nuclear bomb" for "information on manufacturing weapons".Absurdopedia of real life
oscomsvoboda, February 13, 2018.


See also

*'' Bigipedia'' *'' Dickipedia'' * Encyclopedia Dramatica


References


External links


Uncyclopedia "Fork"Uncyclopedia "Spoon"Uncyclopedia "Mirror"
{{Wikis American comedy websites Internet properties established in 2005 Parodies of Wikipedia Wiki controversies Fandom (website) wikis American online encyclopedias Cultural depictions of Oscar Wilde