Talk:Uncyclopedia

"Encyclopedia of silliness" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Encyclopedia of silliness. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 23:34, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I dont think its mentioned under this phrase. ProStop! (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

uncyc.ca or uncyc.co (or both)?

Apparently the page is now locked because of an edit war. I think we should include both URLs as they both are Uncyclopedia. Aasim 23:33, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

@Alison: ISTR you understood this topic (please ignore if I'm wrong) so perhaps you could comment on the recent edit war. I noticed this article and File:Uncyclopedia screenshot.png at WP:RFPP where full protection was requested due to a dispute over which website to feature. The meta:interwiki map uses en.uncyclopedia.co for Uncyclopedia, and there is an old (June 2018) request for removal at meta:Talk:Interwiki map#Uncyclopedia. The competitor apparently is uncyclopedia.ca. Johnuniq (talk) 07:04, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think there is any competition; what happened was that Uncyclopedia was forked in 2013 over fears of being shut down. Then the Fandom Uncyclopedia site was being shut down in April 2019 because of Fandom terms of use violations. Before the Fandom site was shut down, it was forked again.

BTW I just found this on what used to be a redirect to FANDOM uncyclopedia. Aasim 19:48, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The original site was hosted at Wikia/FANDOM. A small group of editors forked from this site and started uncyclopedia.co. These users were known to be trolls in the wider Uncyclopedia community, who did not authorize this fork and some of these trolls have since been blocked for their behavior. So the original site stayed until Wikia/FANDOM closed it down and at this point we moved to uncyclopedia.ca. .ca is the original site moved from Wikia and is therefore the most notable.

Forks are made all the time. There's forks of Android that aren't noteworthy. There's forks of other wikis that are not noteworthy. Just because a small group forks a website doesn't make the fork "official", when the official site still exists. Therefore, uncyclopedia.ca is the site that should be mentioned and not .co. BFDIBebble (talk) (sockpuppet of PKHilliam) 22:10, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I would like to know if you have any sources confirming that the users who started uncyclopedia.co are "known to be trolls in the wider Uncyclopedia community", especially considering that uncyclopedia.co has about six times the amount of active users as uncyclopedia.ca(see here and here), making it by far a majority of the "wider Uncyclopedia community", especially if it is only the English language Uncyclopedias that are being considered. I would also like to know if you have any sources confirming that some of the many users who facilitated the site move "have been blocked for their behavior". RAGentry (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

One of the administrators, Spike, has blocked several users from Uncyclopedia.co and claimed they are trolls. BFDIBebble (talk) (sockpuppet of PKHilliam) 00:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The sockpuppet accounts banned by Spike today do not have counterparts on uncyclopedia.co, they are all copies of account names from en.wikipedia.org -- Zombiebaron (shout) 00:32, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The site at uncyclopedia.org was made by a troll and should not be taken seriously. Anybody who writes anything such as Uncyclopedia.ca is not affiliated with en.uncyclopedia.co - in fact they are not speaking to each other is obviously trolling. BFDIBebble (talk) (sockpuppet of PKHilliam) 22:12, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

The site at uncyclopedia.org was in fact made by one of uncyclopedia.ca's three active bureaucrats, I'm not sure if that individual would be considered a troll at uncyclopedia.ca. RAGentry (talk) 22:32, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

As the situation currently stands, and considering BFDIBebble's active edit-warring, it is perhaps best to find a neutral solution that puts an emphasis on the activity level of each respective site, instead of individual editors' claim to any Uncyclopedia website's legitimacy. If the situation escalates further, it would be best to remove any and all links to Uncyclopedia from the article. Kevindongyt (talk) 22:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

uncyc.ca is the real one and the one you should mention. i have never heard of .co and it sounds as legit as a camrip dvd.— Sircaustix (talk (sockpuppet of PKHilliam) • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. The preceding unsigned comment was added at 00:35, 28 April 2020 (UTC) (UTC).

Uncyclopedia.ca has received extensive media coverage within the press and this dates back to the Wikicities/Wikia/Fandom days. Uncyclopedia.co on the other hand has not had any press coverage and is quite a small project in comparison. I believe with this in mind, Uncyclopedia.ca is the site that should have the sole link mention and not Uncyclopedia.co. Susborne (talk) (sockpuppet of PKHilliam) —Preceding undated comment added 00:38, 28 April 2020 (UTC) — Susborne (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Hello Susborne, would you mind pointing me to some of the "extensive media coverage" that uncyclopedia.ca has received since its creation in May 2019? Also I am not sure how uncyclopedia.co is "quite a small project in comparison" to uncyclopedia.ca, considering that uncyclopedia.ca (19 active users) has only one sixth of the active userbase of uncyclopedia.co (123 active users). RAGentry (talk) 00:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I am strongly suspecting sockpuppetry here. Several newly created accounts are editing this talkpage in order to increase .ca's validity. Kevindongyt (talk) 00:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Should we open up a request for comment for .co vs .ca? Both? Neither? Aasim 00:46, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I would prefer not starting RfC immediately, however if this doesn't resolve itself soon, then it would be a good idea - RfC can be a potentially lengthy process. Kevindongyt (talk) 00:50, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I recommend opening up an RFC to settle this matter once and for all. BFDIBebble (talk) (sockpuppet of PKHilliam) 01:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

And... it's posted! See below. :) Aasim 01:39, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Or not... we have to wait a bit... Aasim 04:35, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Drafting an RfC (old)

@Johnuniq: Now that the dust has settled can we start an RfC to try to achieve consensus towards .co, .ca, both, neither, etc.? Aasim 07:36, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

An RfC is only needed if someone has a proposal for changing the article. Prior to this subsection there have been no comments on this talk, and no edits to the article, for a week. Is someone proposing a change? Johnuniq (talk) 07:43, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't think so, but I do think that both domains should be included in the article. I have not implemented the change yet because I am not sure if there is consensus for or against having both domains listed there. Even then, there is an edit notice that says "Due to an ongoing dispute regarding which domain "uncyclopedia.ca" or "en.uncyclopedia.co" to use as the main page URL, any attempt to modify it without prior talk page discussions and subsequent consensus will be met with sanctions." At least the sock puppetry was dealt with for the most part. By listing both, we are not favoring one fork over another, but giving readers options.... but then, there is a question as to whether the .ca domain is notable. So maybe we may not need an RfC. It seems like it is just about changing the URL, not adding it back in anyway. Aasim 18:44, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

We generally don't bother holding RfCs in case a dispute arises; let's wait till then when issues will be more focused. Meanwhile, if you think there should be a change in the article, I suggest posting a new section with a reasonably concrete proposal: what would you include where? Then see what response occurs. If none, try editing the article. Johnuniq (talk) 00:45, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay. The end. You can close this thread now Johnuniq :) Aasim 09:11, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Just to add that the user here using the handle 'Romartus Imperator' is not me. My registered name at wikipedia is Gepid. I am known as Romartus on both uncyclopedia.ca and uncyclopedia.co --Gepid (talk) 08:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Please hold off on this until the comments below are handled (should an RfC occur?) and until some background is posted to allow people unfamiliar with the topic (which is the point of an RfC) to understand the issue without being lost in "see old discussions". This is in accord with the close at the edit warring noticeboard (permalink). Johnuniq (talk) 04:00, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Should we include uncyclopedia.co or uncyclopedia.ca or both in the "Official site" section? Aasim 01:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Uncyclopedia.co Uncyclopedia.ca Both Some other site?

General Discussion

• @Awesome Aasim: I believe this topic was already settled last August, I don't see any reason to discuss it further. -- Zombiebaron (shout) 01:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with Zombiebaron, we have already been through this and discussed this and a settlement was reached. We do not need to restart this discussion. RAGentry (talk) 02:59, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
• Per the links in the hat note above (including the permalink), would anyone favoring a particular URL post a new section and edit it to taste in order to explain the background as you understand it. There are some good comments at the permalink and it would be very desirable to have them condensed into a clear statement here. There is no point holding an RfC to attract new editors if they are unable to readily see the issue and the arguments. Johnuniq (talk) 04:05, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
• How do we determine that Uncyclopedia.co is notable enough to be mentioned? It is a fork of a website. So is mirror.uncyc.org and that is not notable and probably also not worth mentioning either. BFDIBebble (talk) (sockpuppet of PKHilliam) 17:37, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I believe my edit should be restored. .ca is not an official site, it's just a mirror created by editors with personal vendettas. Rocko (say hi!) 21:52, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 28 April 2020

Please revert all edits to the page made by BFDIBebble (talk · contribs), as they have been indefinitely blocked for abusing multiple accounts, and this appears to be the only topic for which the account was meaningfully used to begin with. While we don't know the purpose or the extent of this abuse, leaving the edits intact will only serve as incentive to continue such activity in the future.

For the same reason, I would also recommend treating any other edits with extreme skepticism as well. Basically, if you want to go through and you can find any other contributions that aren't clear antivandalism to other topics, reverting those as well would also probably be helpful, but I didn't find anything from a cursory look. -— Isarra ༆ 21:27, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

This is the revision we want instated I think. Aasim 00:54, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Please confirm the post above mine, namely that the revision at 21:38, 23 April 2020 should be restored. Ping me once two editors other than Aasim have agreed and I'll implement. Johnuniq (talk) 09:49, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the revision at 21:38, 23 April 2020 should be restored. Also, this image should be reverted to the upload from 24 May 2019. -- Zombiebaron (shout) 21:36, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

This. @Rock-O-Jello: That was your edit, what do you think? -— Isarra ༆ 21:57, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

RAGentry what do you think of restoring revision 952743675? https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Uncyclopedia&oldid=952743675 Aasim 21:32, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the aforementioned revision should be restored, as per statements by Isarra and Zombiebaron. I also agree with Zombiebaron that this file should be reverted to its version from May 24, 2019. RAGentry (talk) 22:26, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks like we may have a consensus to reinstate this revision, so pinging Johnuniq and reopening this edit request. Aasim 23:25, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Per the above, I reverted the article to revision 952743675 from 21:38, 23 April 2020. Please check it's as wanted.

@JJMC89: An outstanding request from above concerns File:Uncyclopedia screenshot.png which you edited to reduce the resolution of the current image. If you can't see a reason to the contrary, please restore the 21:18, 24 May 2019 revision of that image. Johnuniq (talk) 00:57, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 10 May 2020

Please revert all edits to the page made by Romartus Imperator (talk · contribs), as they have been abusing multiple accounts in a targeted harassment campaign. Please see above section for further information and consensus. -- Zombiebaron (shout) 07:59, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I have reverted recent edits due to their failure to comply with the edit notice. Please be patient and do not use article talk pages to make allegations about other editors regardless of the provocation. Johnuniq (talk) 09:49, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, sorry if my request came across as impatient and I didn't mean to misuse this page for making allegations, I'm much more familiar with the way things work on Uncyclopedia and your way of doing things here is quite different. -- Zombiebaron (shout) 16:00, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

It may help to note that anyone editing under an uncyc username who already has an account here under another name (especially that they're already using to contribute to the discussion) is almost certainly not contributing in good faith, as they are obviously not who they claim to be. Maybe see if there's a place to report impersonators (even if it's just ANI), as even if they manage to vpn around showing up as a sock, that definitely isn't proper regardless? Also recommend anyone who hasn't create doppleganger accounts for their other names to do so in order to prevent this. -— Isarra ༆ 16:35, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Drafting an Rfc

The edit warring is continuing. Per the edit notice I will block any editor who again changes the URL without first gaining consensus here. An RfC is required for a long-term decision regarding what URL or URLs should be used in the article. The purpose of an RfC is to attract other editors who would probably not be aware of the background. Accordingly, would anyone interested please edit the appropriate subsection below and add a brief and neutral statement giving the history and a reason for your preferrred outcome. By "neutral", I mean without flamboyant language or talk about the evils of the other side. Take care to comment on article content only. You must not use this page to comment on other editors. Some information is at the edit warring permalink but it should be condensed and paraphrased here. Johnuniq (talk) 10:01, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Background

• Uncyclopedia has existed since 2005, but both .co and .ca were founded at different times, both having been forked from uncyclopedia.wikia.com. Uncyclopedia.co was forked from it in January 2013, and Uncyclopedia.ca was forked from it in May 2019.

• Within the .co community, Uncyclopedia.co is simply known as ".co", and Uncyclopedia.ca is known as ".ca". Within the .ca community, although that applies too, some users call Uncyclopedia.ca the "spoon", and Uncyclopedia.co the "fork", suggesting that .ca is the "legitimate Uncyclopedia". Sometimes, Uncyclopedia.co is known as "English", and Uncyclopedia.ca is known as "British English". KevTYD (talk) 17:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Uncyclopedia is a humour wiki that was founded in 2005, and the founders of the wiki sold it to Wikia in 2006. After years of Wikia reneging on agreements made when they first began hosting Uncyclopedia, the vast majority of the community organized over IRC in 2012 and moved the contents of the wiki to en.uncyclopedia.co in January 2013. Wikia refused to stop hosting a copy of Uncyclopedia, which meant that a small portion of the pre-2013 community stayed behind to maintain the Wikia copy of Uncyclopedia. In 2019 Wikia decided that because of the amount of content on Uncyclopedia that was not suitable for their service (specifically the racist content), they would no longer be hosting Uncyclopedia. Historically the Uncyclopedia project has been governed by direct democracy, and the Uncyclopedian Wikia community held a vote as to what to do with their project after Wikia stopped hosting it. It was agreed that the project would move to the same hosting as en.uncyclopedia.co, however a group of admins acting independently of the community created and now host uncyclopedia.ca. -- Zombiebaron (shout) 16:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Reasons to use en.uncyclopedia.co and not others

• Many Uncyclopedia projects are in existence, spanning many languages under many different names. Most of these projects are held together under the "Uncyclomedia Foundation" umbrella, including related wikis like Illogicopedia, Encyclopædia Dæmonica, Zombiepedia, and others. en.uncyclopedia.co is referenced as the English-language Uncyclopedia project on all of these wikis, and interlanguage links point to the site using [[en:]]. It has been recognized as the English Uncyclopedia since 2013, when it took the place of the former Wikia url. When uncyclopedia.ca was founded in 2019 as a fork of the post-2013 Wikia site, it was categorized as the British English ([[en-gb:]]) Uncyclopedia to distinguish it from the existing English wiki, and all of the above websites refer to it as such.

The main subject of this article is about the English-language Uncyclopedia first and foremost, so I would suggest using en.uncyclopedia.co as the primary link in the infobox and gearing the opening paragraphs and the "History" section toward it. Specifically the creation of Uncyclopedia in 2005, the acquisition by Fandom in 2006, moving to the .co domain in 2013, the closure of the Fandom copy in 2019, and the remaining Fandom community's vote to rejoin the English project the same year. A previous revision more or less reflected this before it was lost to vandalism and edit warring.

As with the other languages and related projects, the history of the British English wiki should definitely be included where necessary, but documented on its own, either within the "History" section or under "Uncyclopedia in other languages." Supergeeky1 (talk) 07:26, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

• I think this is a very elegant solution for how to display the history of both URLs in this article. -- Zombiebaron (shout) 10:17, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Reasons to use uncyclopedia.ca and not others

• Uncyclopedia moved to Wikia and then when it was closed down, it moved to Uncyclopedia.ca. This is the official Uncyclopedia as far as I am concerned and should be the sole URL in use. Forks are made of websites all the time; it does not mean they are noteworthy. 220.123.235.96 (talk) 18:24, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Reasons to use more than one URL

• I think both URLs have a place in a page about the history of the project, but they should be described in a factual way: a small team maintains uncyclopedia.ca against the wishes of the Wikia Uncyclopedia community, while en.uncyclopedia.co has thrived for years. I know this comment is under the section for using more than one URL, but maybe we should use neither as the "official" URL and instead just present the history of each URL. There is no way that uncyclopedia.ca, a website created in 2019, is the "official" URL, but likewise its hard to make the claim that en.uncyclopedia.co is "official" because it has always existed alongside at least one other Uncyclopedia. -- Zombiebaron (shout) 16:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Personally, I believe that while uncyclopedia.co definitely has more significance than uncyclopedia.ca, both URLs and how they came to be should be explained within the "History" section of the article, because there is a possibility that someone who is uninvolved within the Uncyclopedia edit-war and who is reading this article here might want to know about why there are several Uncyclopedias that can be found on search engines. There is absolutely no justification to why uncyclopedia.ca can be considered the "official" URL, but the claim that uncyclopedia.co is the "official" URL is weak, because (as Zombiebaron explained) for the history of .co, either uncyclopedia.wikia.com or uncyclopedia.ca has existed along it: while the interwiki for Uncyclopedia on a default MediaWiki installation (with the Interwiki extension) points to .co, the first search result for Uncyclopedia on various search engines (Google, Bing, Duckduckgo) points to .co, and .co has more active users, these points by themselves cannot designate .co as the "official" URL for Uncyclopedia. Therefore, both domains should be explained within History. By extent, the infobox URL, seemingly the prime target for these edit-wars, should be either left blank (See History) or point to whichever Uncyclopedia the community determines is most significant. KevTYD (talk) 17:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

  To clarify, I presume by 'community' as used here refers to wikipedia? Is that correct??--Gepid (talk) 10:01, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

  • Yes, I'm refering to Wikipedia. The precise wording used and the URL could be determined here, so we can have this settled once and for all. KevTYD (wake up) 11:17, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

    • Agreed. --Gepid (talk) 15:37, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

• History/disputes aside, the Uncyclopedia page should reflect the current reality of two uncyclopedias as they exist as of this time of commenting. The info box should also either show both active sites or just have the links in the main copy. Once this is agreed and monitored, any user coming here to remove links to either site or favour one over the other should be reverted. I am registered as Romartus on both Uncyclopedias. --Gepid (talk) 08:54, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
• This would be the ideal solution. I did add the ".ca" domain over a year ago when UncycloWikia got shut down (it got reverted), and now no one can decide which URL is the good URL. Because of that, I think (for the time being until we can come to a consensus) we need either a filter and/or a spam blacklist entry until we can come to a consensus as to what domain should be used. Johnuniq do you want to do that for now? Aasim 02:13, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
  • (didn't see the header carefully, so here is my reason) Both domains are of importance to readers. There is no competition. Both URLs are important in the history of Uncyclopedia. Aasim 02:15, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't think a filter is needed as consensus appears to be that both URLs should be mentioned. See discussion below. Johnuniq (talk) 05:04, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

@KevTYD, Zombiebaron, Gepid, and Awesome Aasim: (and anyone else watching this page). Given the responses above, no RfC appears to be necessary at the moment—both URLs should be mentioned. Have any reliable sources commented on Uncyclopedia and mentioned a particular non-wikia URL? Is there any source for the description above that uncyclopedia.co has thrived for years and uncyclopedia.ca was created in 2019? I assume such sources would be hard to find which will make writing about the URLs difficult per Wikipedia's procedures. The trick will be to devise some text that mentions both URLs, preferably using wording that is sourced or which can scrape by as potentially verifiable. That would probably mean not using much detail (unless a source for the detail is available). The article is currently protected to allow editing only by accounts with 500 edits and 30 days age. I propose changing that to require only 10 edits and 4 days (EdJohnston: do you have a view on that?). If any disruption occurs, I would either restore the protection or block problematic users after a warning. The aim would be to allow editing for a week or so until there is some reasonably stable text about the URLs. Then I think there should be an RfC with a question like "Should [this version] of the article be accepted as the consensus description of the URLs used by Uncyclopedia?". In the future, attempts to significantly change the description could be reverted per the consensus of the RfC (assuming it passed). Please do not edit war. If disruption breaks out, just leave it after a single revert and ping me. Any thoughts about this process? If there is agreement, I will alter the protection although anyone with 500/30 edits/days is welcome to start slowly editing now as far as I am concerned. Johnuniq (talk) 05:03, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Ok done. I listed them in the order created (older fork first, newer fork second). Hopefully no one deletes or changes either of the links. Aasim 05:19, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Awesome Aasim. Regards protection of the uncyclopedia page and infobox, I would suggest the current limited lockdown should deter people creating accounts deliberately to cause drama here. --Gepid (talk) 11:08, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Personally, I do fear that diminishing the level of protection on the Uncyclopedia article will definitely aid any sockpuppets, if any are found (two sockmasters have been touching this article throughout the past twelve months). I think finding a consensus on a "good version" via draft versions and an eventual vote would be a better idea. This would allow less drama to happen now, and any drafts created with malicious intent could be disqualified later on during the RfC. The lack of sources on Uncyclopedia, especially on or after 2013, is definitely discouraging - we'll need to use the Wikipedia community's judgement then. For now, I'll be working on a draft at User:KevTYD/Uncyclopedia, with the intent of maintaining the neutrality of the article. KevTYD (wake up) 13:15, 13 May 2020 (UTC)