Talk:Encyclopedia Dramatica

On referring to the site in past-tense

Al-Jazeera mentions ED here [1] and the context appears to refer to it as a presently existing wiki, rather than one that is defunct. If enough sources refer to ED.ch/se simply as "Encyclopedia Dramatica", or discuss Encyclopedia Dramatica as something that presently exists, will the intro section be changed to reflect this? My own subjective assessment is that virtually everyone across the internet who had been interested in ED, including the site's userbase, readerbase, and even arch-enemies, presently perceives the site that is up now as, simply, "Encyclopedia Dramatica", rather than a mirror of a defunct site (the only serious exceptions being Sherrod DeGrippo herself and her inner circle). Adlerschloß (talk) 03:29, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

It isn't a mirror (anymore), it's its own separate site that decided to use the same name. But that doesn't change that it's a different site with different people in charge. The issue is that if we're really going to consider ED to be still active, then we would consider it to be Oh Internet, as a new incarnation, since that's where both the owner is and where the URL redirects to. But it was decided on this talk page that it was better to just consider them both separate, new sites that will, for now, be kept as sub sections in this article. Once either of them achieves true independent notability, they will be spun out into their own articles. Silverseren^C 03:35, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

This gets rather tangly, perhaps even something sort of like a Ship of Theseus problem -- the only relevant parallel I'm able to find at the moment seems to be the article on History of the Washington Senators which notes the Senators team from 1901-1960 becomes the Minnesota Twins, while a new and separate franchise also called the Washington Senators was created in 1961 (this team later moved as well and became the Texas Rangers); the Washington Senators stub article itself does not give any real priority to either team as being the "real" Senators, although we might wonder: if the expansion Senators never moved to Texas and retained the same name to this day, how would we deal with that on Wikipedia? I'd imagine that the Washington Senators article would refer to the current team. If, positing an alternate history, the owner and franchise moved and changed their name but otherwise there had been a very high amount of continuity between the 1960 Senators and the 1961 Senators (let's say the owner was different and the "franchise" technically new and separate, but that through a special deal all of the players from the old Senators remained on the new Senators team [we see deals somewhat along these lines in sports history]) and aside from changes in ownership and certain specific legal changes there was a general perception among fans that it was "the same team", how would we deal with that in charting the history of "that team"? The case of the Cleveland Browns (whose owner moved his team to Baltimore but gave up the "franchise" to the NFL who resurrected the Cleveland Browns name several years later) also appears interesting in these contexts. Essentially, if ED.se can be shown to be clearly notable in its own right, and is referred to across the media as "Encyclopedia Dramatica", should it have some priority over the defunct site and URL? And, given the overall continuity between the two sites (which is extremely high), in that case would it really benefit readers to have two separate articles (Encyclopedia Dramatica (2004-2011) and Encyclopedia Dramatica (2011-))? I think the question here is, what is this "thing" Encyclopedia Dramatica to which the article refers? When media refer to "Encyclopedia Dramatica", do they mean the exact site that existed at ED.com, or something larger than that (a wiki associated with Anonymous which has a complicated history involving multiple incarnations over time)? Adlerschloß (talk) 04:16, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it would be easier to just wait to deal with this until independent notability is shown. At this point, it doesn't seem like ED.se or Oh Internet will get to that point for at least a year, if not longer, unless a burst of coverage comes around for some reason. Once it does get notability, then we can figure out how we're going to work the naming system. The most neutral way might be to move this page to Encyclopedia Dramatica.com and the other one to Encyclopedia Dramatica.se and then put up a disambiguation page here at Encyclopedia Dramatica that can then direct people to either spot (and we could throw up a link to Oh Internet that will link to the section in this article, unless it gets independent notability as well). Silverseren^C 16:37, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

When this issue becomes more relevant as ED.se receives the necessary amount of media coverage over time, I honestly think we'll need to revisit this all on this Talk page again, and that the issues are not as simple as you state. Another parallel that comes to mind is Andrew Sullivan's blog. While we only have a page on Sullivan himself and not a separate page for his blog, if somehow Sullivan himself were less notable outside of his blogging activity and didn't have his own article but if we did have a Daily Dish article, would we assert that each time the blog changed to a new server (from independent to Time to Atlantic to Daily Beast) that we would call it a "new and separate" blog? If the blog received enough media attention at each location to warrant notability, would we have four separate articles detailing each? Of course not. Also, the content of FiveThirtyEight was moved to the NYTimes server, and there aren't two separate articles about the two locations of that blog. A difference here is that in each case, the content creators were the same people who had control of the domain name, and so andrewsullivan.com and fivethirtyeight.com always redirect to wherever the blog is located at that time. What if either Sullivan or Nate Silver had some legal issue involving transferring the domain rights, but were able to still transfer all of the content, and kept the same or similar names for their blogs? Would that warrant multiple Wikipedia articles, or just clear explanations within one Wikipedia article? And so, in the case of ED, we may be privileging the importance of DeGrippo's ownership vis-a-vis the continuity in the content and community behind the content on ED. My thought is that there's a difference between site and domain, and I look forward to a more extended discussion on these issues at the appropriate time. Also, perhaps somewhere this has already been addressed, but I wonder if those individuals who were admins on ED.com and today maintain admin accounts on both OhI and ED.se (Meepsheep and Hipcrime) might have useful ways to describe this problem. Adlerschloß (talk) 15:51, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

As a lurker of encyclopediadramatica.com, and an avid user of encyclopediadramatica.se, I can honestly say that .se is the current incarnation of ED. Oh Internet bears no resemblance to ED, and very few EDiots migrated to it. .se is certainly not just a mirror of .com; it has a large userbase, and the Wiki is still very much in active development. I don't understand how ED can be considered defunct at all, especially considering the huge amount of admins and sysops that migrated to .se/.ch. --Yutsi ^Talk/ Contributions 14:28, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Someone has submitted an academic thesis to Baylor University citing encyclopediadramatica.ch as Encyclopedia Dramatica.[2] Adlerschloß (talk) 07:00, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Two things. 1) The reliability of theses is rather specific. It's a PhD thesis, so that's one better point, since Master's theses are generally not accepted, but we usually only use them as sources if they are theses that have been widely cited elsewhere. Since writing a thesis isn't really, by definition, being published. It would help if you could find a copy of it on an actual university website or something, rather than a random upload on Scribd. By the way, I haven't read it yet, does it have any new, usable information?

2) I'm fairly certain we already discussed this above, but the name ED.ch has chosen is Encyclopedia Dramatica, that doesn't mean that it is Encyclopedia Dramatica.com. At this point, this article is about the .com site. Both ED.ch and Oh Internet are not that site, so they are separate and require their own notability to be spun out into their own articles. I mean, at this point, there hasn't really been any major articles on ED.ch outside of The Daily Dot (and the same author that writes all of them). And, other than the initial burst of stuff about Oh Internet, there hasn't been any more news for it either beyond mentions here and there, like ED.ch has been getting. Silverseren^C 07:37, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The thesis does not directly discuss Encyclopedia Dramatica but does cite it as a source in numerous places. There is discussion of Lulzsec (aspects of that case are tangential to issues around ED, although not discussed in that context in that thesis; perhaps those connections are so obscure that they generally receive no academic or media mention to this point despite relevance to subjects which each have received media attention in the past). It's an interesting read and it's good to see academic attention around such sociological phenomena but I think more in-depth treatments on related subjects are likely still forthcoming. My own interpretation of realities would be that Encyclopedia Dramatica is a wiki associated with Anonymous which was originally located at encyclopediadramatica.com and is now located at encyclopediadramatica.se. Saying that because ed.com redirects to Oh Internet that ed.se is not "the real ED" would be like saying that the People's Republic of China is not really China -- specifically, on that, I believe that for many years on Wikipedia the article for "China" was not about the PRC, even though whenever anyone says "China" they always are referring to that country and government. Note that the China article now deals with the present People's Republic of China but also discusses past regimes through Chinese history. The "thing" China does not find continuity through a specific "regime" (otherwise we'd do something stupid like have the article on China just be about Taiwan) and a change in ownership or leadership did not change realities of what China is; anytime anyone says "Encyclopedia Dramatica" they mean something rather specific, and are not referring to the defunct location ed.com -- no one would ever say "ED was great/terrible, I'm sad/happy it's gone, although there are forks of the site still up" -- everyone acknowledges that the wiki itself is still up but at a different location. Also, isn't Encyclopedia Dramatica (ed.se) a sponsor for ROFLCon this year, and could that warrant a mention in this article? Adlerschloß (talk) 17:24, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

It would warrant a mention, yeah. Your best bet for a reliable source on it would be something directly from the ROFLCon website.

As for the rest of what you're saying, I don't think comparing a website to a country is a very proper argument. Especially not China, when Wikipedia has been having naming issues with it for the longest time. The difference in opinion we're havbing is that you think ED is the community, while I think ED is the website. Though the article, as written as a whole, seems to agree more with me, in that ED.com was a specific wiki that, in itself, is no longer operational, though its name has been taken up by a new site. Silverseren^C 18:37, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Past tense agenda....

I just came across this article and noted immediately that it's a load of hot air. Firstly why is EA referred to in the past tense, when its website the first choice before this link in a google search? Secondly why does it purport that "several mirrors" exist when there are actually none of note, only the Encyclopedia Dramatica.se site? Thirdly, as I can see from the talk archives, whenever this point is raised there seems to be a POV-derived campaign to deny the existence that EA existed after DeGrippo pulled the plug in favor of OhInternet?

In my view the logic on show here is nothing shy of POV pushing. Firstly just because something closes and then restarts does not mean it does not exist. Secondly the fact is does exist but is not in use/manufacture does not preclude it from being talked of in the present tense. For example, people no longer ride horses to work, they therefore were not beasts of burden because they remain beasts of burden. Likewise the ending of a TV series does not it "was" a TV series because it will always exist as long as no one destroys all the copies. However a lost film could be referred to as "was" because it really is "was" as there is nothing else like it.

On reading this article, it could be surmised that EA existed, was withdrawn and then "several mirrors" (i.e. many pale imitations were spawned) began but they were not the original EA. Hardly, the EA.se website is just as much like the old one. It therefore seems completely misleading and ridiculous to suggest that the original was the only one. TBH after reading EA's article about WIkipedia, I have to admit beyond the hate and bile, there are some very fair observations about this site, its users and its creator Mr Wales. I can only concur that with such criticism even Wikipedia is not immune to altering history a la totalitarian regime.

The point of this article seems to be, there was only one EA created by DeGrippo and anything else is not real! EA is a meme, it exists to troll and it does not matter how many portals, or reincarnations of it exist. I suggest the people who defend this article's slant take their high horses over to pages on religions, for instance Christianity. I would like them to use their logic to decry sectarianism, for surely the Church established by Christ has absolutely nothing to do with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism because all the latter denominations were all created long after the original church ceased to exist.

It makes me think that DeGrippo is being treated like a messianic figurehead whose ownership of an idea far outweighs the subscribers to that idea! Go on, trot over to Christianity and tell all those believers that their churches are false as they worship versions that were not created directly by Jesus. DeGrippo lost control of the thing she created, that does not mean the idea she spawned ended with her too. Until you get your heads around that this page will be permanently blocked from editing. Not because of stupid swearing but because it is patently not true.! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.145.117.223 (talk) 10:48, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

This has been discussed many times before. Sherrod DeGrippo created the ed.com site in 2004, but lost interest and stopped hosting it in 2011. There is now an accurate mirror of most of the old ed.com content at encyclopediadramatica.se, but this is not the same website, any more than mirrors of Wikipedia content are the same as Wikipedia.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:12, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

• Slap of the forehead heard around the world*. Just because DeGrippo started the site does not means that she owned the idea. Benz created the gasoline engine, does that mean all cars that use a petroleum-piston-driven engine must be referred to in the past tense. It seems to me that again the POV pusher rears their head. This perpetual argument seems to derive from ownership. DeGrippo invented a site called Encylopedia Dramatica (e.g. Thomas Edison invented the light bulb, Louis Pasteur invented innoculations; Voltaire invented the electronic circuit; the Earl of Sandwich gave his name to the sandwich). All of things had a creator but none their creations are referred in the past tense because their creator is no more. The keepers of the sacred seal on this article seem to be unable to seperate ownership from usage! This logic befuddles me. The whole story of this site is thus: DeGrippo created the site, she walked away, the site continued. The content of the site has not changed, neither has the way to edit or its purpose. In fact unlike the examples of invention, I have made, EA remains exactly as it has always been !! So what is the problem?? POV pure and simple. The lede should be something like this: "Encyclopædia Dramatica is a satirical open wiki that was launched on December 10, 2004. The site, which uses MediaWiki software, lampoons both encyclopedic topics and current events, especially those related or relevant to contemporary internet culture. It was created and managed by Sherrod DeGrippo until she relinquished control in 2011." This is not rocket science. Just the facts. 109.151.217.23 (talk) 09:36, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• A better analogy would be if you were referring to the specific engine that Benz built, in which case you would be referring to it in the past tense, because you are referring to the one single, specific engine. Similarly here, we are referring to the specific satirical wiki Encyclopedia Dramatica.com, which I think we can all agree is not in use anymore. Just typing in the URL would tell you that (and you'd end up at Oh Internet). Silverseren^C 18:59, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

• The title of this article is Encyclopedia Dramatica, not encyclopediadramatica.com. --83.101.2.92 (talk) 11:59, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

"Just because DeGrippo started the site does not means that she owned the idea."

Actually it does. DeGrippo owns the intellectual property for the idea, and she retains ownership of the content. The ED copyright license for contributed content was not free. The mirror sites are infringing. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Really? we would love to hear her to claim ownership herself. This whole time she has been distancing herself from taking responsibility for the entire site's contents, but now she retains ownership? Please, it would be an honor to hear that from Sherrod's own mouth. --Zaiger (talk) 12:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I also think it shouldn't be presented in the past tense. It doesn't matter if the owner walked away or that it now says ".se" instead of ".com". Do we need to resort to a vote in order to resolve this? Acoma Magic (talk) 22:43, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not about votes on what people want. The problem is that a large amount of the sourcing refers to the ed.com site, not ed.se. Although the current round of edits is unhelpful, there is no "past tense agenda".--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:09, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

You can easily find sources referring to the current Encyclopaedia Dramatica. Acoma Magic (talk) 05:26, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Also, the sources refer to Encyclopaedia Dramatica, not Encyclopeadia Dramatica.com. Acoma Magic (talk) 05:33, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

True, but ed.se did not exist in 2004, and there is less sourcing referring directly to the .se era than .com. I've tried to avoid setting off circular editing on this, but the article needs to accept that .com and .se are not the same sites.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:35, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Well it's a good thing that the article isn't named "EncyclopaediaDramatica.com". Acoma Magic (talk) 06:07, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but just because the title doesn't specifically say .com doesn't mean that isn't what it is talking about. The first line says that ED is a satirical open wiki that uses MediaWiki software that was launched on December 10, 2004. Was ED.se launched in 2004? Silverseren^C 06:21, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Was ED.se created by Sherrod Degrippo? Does ED.com go to ED.se? Silverseren^C 06:22, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

The real risk is confusing a first-time reader who is not as clued up on all of this as the regular editors. The article should make clear that there have been two main eras for the site: ed.com (2004-2011) and ed.ch/se (2011-present). The "is or was?" debate is becoming stale, but unfamiliar readers should not be given the impression that ed.se was launched in 2004.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 07:49, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

I completely agree. Really, I don't feel the current sectioning of the article is really the best way to do it anyways. Really, we need to split the content section into content and then a history section, which are completely separate things. And then Oh Internet and ED.se could go as subsections under the history section. I think that's a better way to do it than the way the article currently is. Silverseren^C 08:20, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

• Regarding "a large amount of the sourcing refers to the ed.com", that is...I don't even know what to call it. Sources refer to "Encyclopedia Dramatica", period, full stop; what its URL happens to be is not even secondary, it is simply irrelevant. When sources discuss ED material in the present day, as Ars Technica does, that pretty much confers legitimacy on the present-day website. Things move, things fork. They don't become illegitimate once they do as long as they meet our notability guides. If "Oh Internet" someday gets reliable source attention, then it will qualify for an article of its own too. We'll note the split in the history section here and provide a pointer to that article. ED is a functional, active website, here and now. That fact ruffles some feathers, but life ain't fair. Tarc (talk) 13:14, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Boing Boing

BoingBoing has referred to ED [dot] se as "Encyclopedia Dramatica", without any qualifier, such as "fork", "unofficial continuation", etc. it seems like everyone has now acknowledged ED [dot] se as Encyclopedia Dramatica except Wikipedia. -badmachine 08:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

That's because referring to a mirror as a mirror over and over again is a bit redundant. 120.59.35.191 (talk) 11:48, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

You don't get to interpret what a source means when it states something, unfortunately. So that's one source so far, and IMO if we see it referenced this way in another then all the "past tense" and "defunct" bullshit is coming out of this article. Tarc (talk) 14:08, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

ED.se chose for its name to also be Encyclopedia Dramatica, so it's proper to refer to it as that, but that doesn't make it this Encyclopedia Dramatica. An example is if Wikipedia shut down and a new site was created that decided to also use the name Wikipedia. While, in the beginning, news sources might called it mirror or fork, eventually, they would just call it Wikipedia. But that doesn't make it this Wikipedia.

And i'm not going into copied content and userbase and all of that, because then you have to bring in Oh Internet and it's a big mess. This is just a simple example. Silverseren^C 15:28, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

A recently published book on the subject of Anonymous appears to discuss Encyclopedia Dramatica in some substantial manner, but as of this moment I have only seen the book's index here: [3]; the book has already been reviewed by big media sources, and I'll make some efforts to find and include any information that may be relevant to this article, although someone else could go ahead and do the same. As far as the discussion above, I would argue that ED.se is the same site as ED.com, which just moved to a new server after a bunch of wacky drama. The fact that the original server address now points to Oh Internet isn't as messy as one would think really, and I think the article's present structure would only need to be moderately modified. (Oh Internet only appears notable in itself through its association with Encyclopedia Dramatica, and so it's justified to keep it as a section in this article relevant to ED's total history.) Adlerschloß (talk) 16:18, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

It's really not that simple. You also have to factor in that the owner changed the site to Oh Internet and that some users went and made the other site and, no matter how much it's protested that its not, illegally copied the content from Oh Internet. I mean, that's why it's on servers like .ch and .se, you can't get it taken down easily from those places. Not to mention that the userbase did split, some of the userbase is still at Oh Internet, which really does count more for being a continuation if we're going that route. But we're not. The situation is already complicated enough without involving all of that. Silverseren^C 23:19, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Though that book looks like it's going to be good for a number of article subjects. It has a good publisher and a rather notable author, good find. The question is whether it's discussing the beginning history of ED, which means it's discussing .com or if it's discussing stuff since the server switch. If the latter, I think that info would be more than enough to finally split out ED.se into its own article. If the former, well...that's useful for that and just that. We'll have to see. When's it coming out? Silverseren^C 23:25, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

source plz? especially the 'illegal' part. imo this seems like a non-neutral opinion. -badmachine 07:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

It is just my opinion, though I think a few early on sources (maybe it was one of the Daily Dot ones?) mentioned how ED was under copyright and that DeGrippo had been sending takedown notices for ED.se (.ch back then) because of the violation. Not sure how that all turned out. If i'm remembering correctly, the takedown notices worked at one point, but they just changed service providers (or servers) to get out of it. Along with changing who was the registered owner, I believe. It would certainly be nice if a news source made a clear timeline of it all, but alas. Silverseren^C 08:30, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

In addition to the BoingBoing mention, pp. 317-318 of Parmy Olson's book We Are Anonymous states that Ryan Cleary helped host Encyclopedia Dramatica, and "served as an administrator" of Encyclopedia Dramatica. The book says nothing about Cleary hosting "a mirror". I don't know if this is relevant, but more and more sources show that the new site is accepted, at least by this group, as Encyclopedia Dramatica. 8nate (talk) 22:45, 16 June 2012 (UTC)

It's interesting to note that Olson's book generally refers to ED in the past-tense (in the style of this Wikipedia article), but then also mentions that Cleary hosted ED on his servers and was also an admin -- does anyone recall offhand whether he had been an admin on ED.com or just ED.ch? There's no description at all regarding the circumstances behind his hosting the site, no indication that he hadn't hosted the site over a long-term period, and the lack of detail could confuse a reader of the book unfamiliar with the subject especially as there's no specific discussion of the domain transition. That is, most references to ED in the book would appear to refer specifically to ED.com, except then there's that passage about Ryan which makes it murky. If we're referring to ED as something that Cleary hosted, we shouldn't also be referring to the site as if it were defunct (which would be the limited interpretation of ED.com as a "real ED"), so that's a sort of inconsistency in the book to note. Adlerschloß (talk) 16:43, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Actually, in the glossary of the book, ED is described in the present tense. 174.254.228.241 (talk) 14:09, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

We Are Anonymous

http://books.google.com/books?id=ncGVPtoZPHcC&q=dramatica

Thank you, Adlerschloß. This looks somewhat promising. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 12:45, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

• Here's another ed.se mention, this time relating to Luka Magnotta - Alison ^❤ 07:18, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

• I don't think a mention is useful for much of anything. But the book is...interesting. Not very much direct discussion about ED though, from what I can see. Michael, what do you think is usable from there? Silverseren^C 08:57, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
  • Other than having Ryan's involvement referenced by a book in addition to the current news articles cited, I'm not sure. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:46, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

SilverserenC is POV pushing beyond the bounds of incredulity

I have just read the posts on this talkpage...and can only conclude that the aforementioned "holier-than-thou-stick-in-the-mud" is deliberately trying to keep their version: the one where EA died for good after De Grippo left. However this is irrespective of the reality, EA.se et all lives on.

Will some registered user who actually can get passed the block on this page please WP:BOLD and change the page to reflect the realpolitik. The EA article just gets the tone so right regarding Wikipedia editors like SilverserenC whose only possible reward from being so obtuse and pigheaded, is "unwarranted self importance".

Note the fact that SilverserenC just uses misdirection and fallacy (shifting the burden of proof) to hang on to their tenuous version. They state this article is about EA.com not EA.se. Then someone else points out, hang on, this article is just about encyclopedia dramatica (no mention of .com) therefore any "encyclopedia dramatica". Then its a problem with the content? What has got that to do with anything, another fallacy (Moving the goalposts). It just goes on and on.

When is someone with the balls and the brains going to override this person and do the right thing? We have now reached the point where the content in this article is so far from being factual, its like demanding this: water is wet !!

EA exists...get over it!86.145.5.23 (talk) 20:35, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Interesting editorial. Got sources to back it up? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:57, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Press release from Daniel Brandt

http://cryptome.org/2012/07/cloudflare-watch.htm – Daniel Brandt apparently sent a press release about a new website of his to Cryptome, which is a website for privacy advocates. He also talks about why he became interested in Encyclopedia Dramatica in the release:

My interest in CloudFlare came from my battle with Encyclopedia Dramatica. This started in mid-2010 with a bio on me on encyclopediadramatica.com that Sherrod DeGrippo refused to take down when I asked her nicely. So I helped a friend start the site josephevers.blogspot.com to research the anonymous admins behind ED. It had some impact -- ED.com was abandoned by DeGrippo in April 2011, in favor of a mild meme site at ohinternet.com.

I've added this information to article. Feel free to look over the changes.

One thing to keep in mind is that in the press release, Brandt claims that Sherrod "refused" to take the article down, but according to a post blog that Brandt published on the Wikipedia Review, Brandt said,

I was informed by [an] insider that the Queen [Sherrod] got my email, didn't recognize my name, and then informed this insider that she (the Queen) had decided not to reply to me.

It seems to be a case of Sherrod not caring ("didn't recognize [Brandt's] name") or not wanting to interact with Brandt rather than outright refusing to delete the article. As a result, I used the words "chose to ignore" in the article. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 13:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Right now that section heavily implies that Brandt was the reason ED.com got closed down. Didn't DeGrippo dispute this? If so, we should probably mention that in the paragraph. --Conti|✉ 14:11, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't believe that Sherrod ever mentioned Daniel Brandt in public. The paragraph only mentions the original ED's closure once, so I wouldn't call it "heavily implies". --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:22, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

That's kind of my point: It offers the reader one single possibility for ED's closure. If we talk about ED's closure, we ought to mention all the possible reasons. It's just a minor quibble, but that's what caught my eye. :) --Conti|✉ 14:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Done. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 14:47, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I have emails from her where she admits it if anyone is interested. She was literally scared for her life. --Zaiger (talk) 03:35, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

FunnyJunk

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/finding-the-mystery-man-behind-funnyjunk/ – Encyclopedia Dramatica apparently played a role in outing FunnyJunk's owner. One thing that the Ars Technica article hints at but doesn't meation is SuperIrene's earlier ED account "Mightyirene", which was active in late August 2011. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 20:51, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

A sentence mention or so seems appropriate. Just about how they were involved in revealing the identity of Funnyjunk's owner. Silverseren^C 21:54, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Mightyirene / SuperIrene used ED to publish some information (or maybe it's only gossip) on Admin:

• https://encyclopediadramatica.se/index.php?title=FunnyJunk&diff=236739&oldid=236667 (August 2011)
• https://encyclopediadramatica.se/index.php?title=FunnyJunk&diff=237541&oldid=237097 (August 2011)
• https://encyclopediadramatica.se/index.php?title=FunnyJunk&diff=324440&oldid=322835 (January 2012)

The Ars Technica article mentions a bit of this under the "IRL" heading. --Michaeldsuarez (talk) 01:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)