Encyclopedia Dramatica
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About
Encyclopedia Dramatica (or ED, for short) is a satirical internet-culture based wiki created in late 2004 dedicated to documenting and categorizing internet memes and other cultural phenomenon. It is famous for having NSFW content that is largely uncensored. Originally hosted at encyclopediadramatica.com, the original page was turned into a "safe for work" Semantic Mediawiki OhInternet.
Most of the articles and images were salvaged from the original ED website and are available for download [6], and a new wiki site Encyclopedia Dramatica (previously EncyclopediaDramatica.rs, .es, .se, and .ch) was subsequently set up containing most of the old articles. In early January 2020, the .se site went offline and the site was subsequently relaunched at encyclopediadramatica.wiki by several ED staff[23]. After a split between the owner of the .wiki fork and the ED community, a large amount of the ED staff and community switched over to a new domain/site: dramatica.online[24] (.online domain is now offline). Currently the ED site is hosted at edramatica.com[30] .
Origin
Girlvinyl created LJ Drama to document controversies and flame wars occurring in the Livejournal community. Eventually LJ Drama expanded into ED covering the internet as a whole.
Relating to Internet Censorship
ED brought internet censorship to the forefront of internet discussion when the page for "Aborigines" was removed from the Google search engine, prompting heavy criticism from supporters of Net Neutrality.
Controversy
Many critics of ED have expressed concern over the site, and its content. In 2010, an article on Australian Aboriginals was put in the media spotlight when it was removed from the Australian-localized Google's search results[9] after a complaint by the Australian Human Rights Commission [10].
In 2013, a game called "Bullet To the Head of The NRA" was created by an Encyclopedia Dramatica Forums ("EDF2" at the time) member, and posted on the website. The game was the the subject of scrutiny from various media souces such as The Blaze[11], and Shawn Hannity[12].
OhInternet
On April 10th, 2011, ED was taken down and given a front page with a cat saying "hang in there!" with a field to enter your email address for updates. It linked to the OhInternet blog [1] that had several interviews and posts on various Internet culture related topics.
The ED_Official Twitter account [2] tweeted the following on April 13th, 2011, "Update on downtime. Move and new installs done by Friday morning. Hang in there. Check the blog [1] & follow @O_Internet." (The "ED_Official" account is no longer active, and Encyclopedia Dramtica now tweets updates from @LulzWeTrust.)[7]
On April 14th, 2011, ED.com began redirecting to the OhInternet main page [3], and described itself as a Semantic Mediawiki [4] that would cover everything about the Internet:
OhInternet covers anything related to internet culture from people to memes to websites and more. Our aim is to be a complete guide to the internet's past, present and future and we want you to participate.
The OhInternet site has been offline since October 14, 2013.
Operation Restoration
After OhInternet was created, some fans of Encyclopedia Dramatica were not pleased with it. The OhInternet facebook page was flooded with porn[13] by some who were angry with the replacement. IRC network AnonOps opened a channel called "#OpSaveED"[14] to organize those who wished to recreate the site (Encyclopedia Dramatica.) AnonOps and Anonymous launched "Operation Restoration,"[15] an operation devoted to restoring ED by using backups from various sources such as backups/archives made by "Web Ecology Project"[16], "ArchiveTeam"[17] and Google Cached versions of the website. A URL, "encyclopediadramatica.ch," was bought[18] by those involved in "Operation Restoration," which was used[19] to host the restored/mirrored ED.
Domain Changes (post .com era)
The site has had to switch domains several times, similar to The Pirate Bay. The first time was after a DNS Block due to the operators of encyclopediadramatica.ch not keeping an address in Switzerland[20], after which the domain was changed to encyclopediadramatica.se. The second time, the .se address was seized by the registrar, resulting in ED being down for over 5 days in September 2013, before moving to encyclopediadramatica.es, an address previously used to experiment with translating ED into Spanish. In October 2014, the .es domain was social engineered and hijacked by an unknown party,[21][22] and ED moved back to the .se address. In early 2020, after a series of ownership changes, and various server troubles, the .se website went offline. In February 2020, the website was resurrected at encyclopediadramatica.wiki from various image database and mediawiki dump XML backups. However, in November of 2020, after various quarrels between the .wiki incarnation's staff (who for the most part had come over from the .se incarnation), the site community split off into two sites: the majority at encyclopediadramatica.online [24] and the separate .wiki site. In 2022, encyclopediadramatica.online was the official domain/community for ED, but after the .online incarnation was abandoned by its' owner in May 2024 and went offline, the site was relaunched by a group of wiki sysops at a .top[26] (later at .win [29]) domain. A splinter site[30] was later split off at a .gay domain [28], now at edramatica.com[30], and this one [30] became the ED site (after .win closed up in September of 2024.[31])
External References
[1] OhInternet Blog / Created 1/24/2011
[2] Twitter – @ED_Official
[3] OhInternet / Went live on 4/14/2011 – offline since 2013.
[4] Semantic Mediawiki – Help: Introduction to Semantic Mediawiki
[5] OhInternet – Encyclopedia Dramatica
[6] Reddit – Mediafire links (download and torrent) of Encyclopedia Dramatica backup! / 4/15/2011
[7] Encyclopedia Dramatica – Main Page
[9] The Inquister – Aus Media Gets Encyclopedia Dramatica Story Wrong, Only Some Search Links Removed
[10] The Sydney Morning Herald – Google agrees to take down racist site
[11] The Blaze – Photos From New ‘Bullet To The Head Of The Nra’ Computer Game Are Graphic And Horrifying
[12] YouTube – Bullet To The Head' of NRA Video Game Debated: Katie Pavlich vs. Tamara Holder – Sean Hannity
[13] Geekosystem – Notorious NSFW website cleans up its act
[14] AnonNews – OpSaveED – You can't throw Encyclopedia Dramatica away!
[15] YouTube – Operation Restoration
[16] Web Ecology Project – Archiving Internet Subculture: Encyclopedia Dramatica
[17] Internet Archive: ArchiveTeam Collections – Encyclopedia Dramatica January 2010 Mirror
[18] Daily Dot – Encyclopedia Dramatica's drama-filled comeback
[19] AnonNews – A formal status update on the Encyclopedia Dramatica revival movement
[20] Daily Dot – Encyclopedia Dramatica suffers minor outage
[21] Twitter – @ED_Updates status
[22] Twitter – @ED_Updates status
[23] Encyclopedia Dramatica (.wiki) – NEW YEAR NEW ME
[24] Encyclopedia Dramatica.online - Main Page
[25] Encyclopedia Dramatica.online - Main Page
[26] Encyclopedia Dramatica – Main Page
[27] Encyclopedia Dramatica – Main Page
[28] Encyclopedia Dramatica – Main Page
[29] Encyclopedia Dramatica – Main Page
[30] Encyclopedia Dramatica – Main Page
[31] EncyclopediaDramatica win- It's over .. for now
