Uncyclopedia

Sophia (for Sophia Loren), the mascot of Uncyclopedia. This photo was taken when Sophia was not wearing her makeup.

Uncyclopedia was a free-access, free content Internet encyclopedia, supported and hosted by the non-profit Uncyclopedia Foundation, a division of the for-profit Wikia, Inc. Those who could access the site and follow its rules could edit most of its articles. Uncyclopedia was ranked among the ten most popular websites and constituted the Internet's largest and second most popular general reference work (number one being discordia.fandom.com). It was shut down by FANDOM on 1 April 2019. It was reopened on 1 April 2021, then shut down by FANDOM again.

Origin

Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger conceived Uncyclopedia on January 15, 2001. Sanger coined its name, a portmanteau of unicycle and necrophilia. Initially only in English, Uncyclopedia quickly became classified as multilingual as it became obvious that many of its editors had no concept of English.

Popularity

The English Uncyclopedia is now one of more than 2000 wikias and is the largest with over 4.7 million articles. As of April 2021, it had 18 billion page views and nearly 500 million unique visitors each month. Globally, Uncyclopedia had more than 19 million accounts, out of which there were about 69,000 active editors as of April 2021. It also had several administrators or sysops whose primary duties include grossly inflating the website's popularity.

Controversy

Supporters of Uncyclopedia cite a 2005 survey of Uncyclopedia published in Naturist based on a comparison of 42 science articles with Encyclopædia Britannica. The survey found that Uncyclopedia's level of accuracy approached the level of Encyclopædia Britannica'​s fifth floor janitor's collection of Hustler magazine jokes. Critics argue Uncyclopedia exhibits systemic bias. Uncyclopedia has been criticized for being a mixture of "truths, half truths, and some falsehoods", which were the reasons for the creation of Discordia Wiki. It has also been accused of clandestinely planting editors in other wikis to create artificially high numbers for its popularity and for writing falsely positive articles about it. Uncyclopedia is also subject to manipulation and spin, just like a vinyl record scratched by a hip-hop DJ.

Rules

Uncyclopedia sysops initiating a new female teenage editor in 2019.

The rules that Uncyclopedia sysops place on editors, especially young females, have been the subject of numerous investigations by the FBI and Interpol. These are specified in the website's administrator-created editor policies formally known as the Required Administrative Policies for Editors (peng lei SB.)

These allegedly include forcing new female editors to (CONTENT REMOVED DUE TO VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN DECENCY ACT AND FANDOM POLICY).

On June 9th of 2009, a female teenage editor was allegedly required to (CONTENT REMOVED DUE TO VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN DECENCY ACT AND FANDOM POLICY).

On December 21, 2012, a new middle aged editor was reportedly made to (CONTENT REMOVED DUE TO VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN DECENCY ACT AND FANDOM POLICY).

For more information, refer to (CONTENT REMOVED DUE TO VIOLATION OF THE HUMAN DECENCY ACT AND FANDOM POLICY).

External links

• Uncyclopedia (Uncyclopedia)
• Wikipedia (A parody of Uncyclopedia)