Encyclopædia Dramatica lets Swiss office lapse, loses domain
Internet drama website Encyclopædia Dramatica had its domain suspended late last week after letting its virtual office in Switzerland lapse, bureaucrat Zaiger reports:
I wish we could say there was an epic story regarding DDoS, hacking, doxing and pwnage, but the reality is we just didn't renew our virtual office in Switzerland, which was a prerequisite of having a .ch domain. We don't know when we will get it back, all we have gotten from the registrars office is that it has been frozen for legal reasons. This is not something that is generally vigorously enforced, but apparently the Swiss government has taken a shine to us.
The site, formed from a mirror of the original wiki, was hosted at encyclopediadramatica.ch. While it may be possible for operators to regain the original domain name, for now the site has moved to encyclopediadramatica.se.
Encyclopædia Dramatica hosts numerous articles about furry fans, activities and websites, typically focussing on dramatic incidents; however, their reliability is questionable, as editors often exaggerate or simply make up material in an effort to 'spice up' boring topics.
About the author
GreenReaper (Laurence Parry) — read stories — contact (login required)a developer, editor and Kai Norn from London, United Kingdom, interested in wikis and computers
Small fuzzy creature who likes cheese & carrots. Founder of WikiFur, lead admin of Inkbunny, and Editor-in-Chief of Flayrah.
Comments
And not a single fuck was given that day.
heaven forbid someone say something satirical about someone else online or anything
Goddamnit, I am tired of seeing this comment posted and reposted over and over again every time a site like this goes down.
It's bullshit, for starters; you all really, really, really care about what other people on the Internet tease you with way too much.
Second of all, we've got contributors (decent contributors) on this site who are also contributors to this and other such sites, and you can bet they care, and you are insulting them and me on their behalf.
Third of all, at least people not actively involved with Encyclopedia Dramatica know what the hell Encyclopedia Dramatica is and does, which cannot be said of a fandom who the outside world still thinks consists entirely of costumers, sex freaks and sex freaks wearing costumes, if at all.
Finally, and most damning of all, it is neither insightful, nor clever, so fucking stop it. Seriously, it's not a funny post, it was never a funny post, and it's not going to be a funny post when Oh!Internet or Cracked or whatever the fuck Internet humor site made fun of furries and has your panties in a wad goes down in the future, so could you at least come up with something new between then and now?
Whatever you might say about furries, they are not known for seeking out ways to make other people's lives worse.
ED is a community built around mockery; playground graffiti, writ large. It is not a healthy environment.
One day, the site's current editors will look back and regret the time spent entertaining themselves at the expense of others. If this seems unlikely, ask yourself: where are the founders of ED now? (Compare WikiFur's lead editors.)
In other news, I can apparently send private messages to myself.
You can email yourself on MediaWiki, too. It's an easy way to test whether it's working.
Spoiler alert: it is.
On the other hand other fandoms can handle mocking themselves and not lose their cool.
Furries enforce a "don't mock other furries or we'll take you out back and skull**** you" rule.
Other fandoms aren't like the furry fandom, their members do not need constant validation of themselves to survive.
So my point is, "It's not a healthy environment, but at least they don't need constant validation from others".
I think the fact that furries do things like this is, while handled poorly, is one of the things I like best about the furry fandom.
Don't get me wrong, I'd still be a furry if it weren't for that (I've always loved cartoon animals) but I sure as hell wouldn't be as engrossed in it as I am.
Despite my obsession with a certain SW:KotOR character, I'm not really active in the KotOR fandom at all (and, even in 2012, it's fairly massive for a Bioware game with an aborted arc). I never talk to other KotOR fans (well, I talked to one back when I used to play Neopets, but only to roleplay as a lion-man in a non-KotOR setting. huh.). I don't really read much fanfiction. I don't post to art sites dedicated to it, and I wouldn't go to a Sci-Fi convention hoping to meet up with a BNF.
Furry is different. We are a social fandom. People talk to, e-date, and draw art for each other on a regular basis. We know the names (or handles) of several fans almost universally (one name that comes to mind is 'neer, or, heck, maybe even GreenReaper). There's a reason there are umpteen-hundred furry facebooks, and there's a reason I can hit "random page" ten times on ED and get seven furry articles: because when a group of people is social, disagreements occur. And if that group of people is social enough, that disagreement can get huge.
You missed my point entirely.
There's a difference between being social and fishing for compliments. There is nothing wrong with being social, in fact I wish furries were more social in real life. However I have been in the fandom long enough to see that many furries can't handle disagreements. What I mean by that is take for example this post, chances are it's going to get 1 star(ps if this gets voted 1 star you just validated my opinion). You know why I know that? Cause unfortunately a massive portion of the furry fandom can't handle views that are different from their own and/or comments that aren't stroking their ego so to say.
A massive number of incidents of drama in the past within the furry fandom have been because of a furry over-reacting to negative comments or such. Many a number of times if a furry has a ED article written about them chances are they over-reacted by one of the following-
1)erased the article entirely
2)made a journal telling their members and painting themselves as a innocent victim
3)told users and linked to it in a attempt for the watchers to counter attack ED
4)told everyone they were leaving forever, most of the time they came back
5)threatened suicide and in a few rare instances actually committed suicide
6)threatened ED
7)edited the article about themselves
8)threatened legal action against ED
9)told Fa's staff to defend them... I'm not kidding you.
10)spammed the report function or trouble tickets even though no violation of the rules occured.
etc.
Honestly the best course of action whenever a ED article is written about yourself is to not care. If someone is trolling you don't care. If someone posted a negative comment to rile you, you shouldn't care, etc you get the point.
Tl:dr; for the lazy: "DON'T FEED THE TROLLS!", also don't over-react to negativity. The downside is that is what the furry fandom is known for outside the fandom, over-reacting.
I understood what you were trying to say; I just didn't want to make another stand-alone comment on this article even though it's not really directed at anyone, because it is still relevant to the discussion in that it is my two-cents on the matter. Yours was vaguely relevant so I chose it to respond to.
Also "lol if you downvote me you'll only prove me right" is one of the most annoying things one can do on a site where such a feature is available.
I know, but I brought it around center.
I only did that part of the comment to show how predictable reactions by people in general are.
The immediate response by people to "if you vote this 1 star you prove my point" is to immediately vote it 1 star. The immediate response by furries to a ED article written about them is just as predictable if not more so. Furries should not care if a ED article is written to them, but they do.
This article written by GreenReaper is extremely predictable.
In general furries reactions are extremely predictable when it comes to ED or any sort of drama or anything really. The reason why it's predictable is because the furry fandom is known for over-reacting, so if you immediately expect furries to over-react then you know what is going to happen in general.
What normally happens whenever furries are involved-
Furry drama -> over-reaction
Negative comments by people -> over-reaction
ED article about someone -> over-reaction
trolls -> over-reaction
Mocking of furries -> over-reaction
Mocking of the furry fandom -> over-reaction
ED forgets to renew their domain -> a flayrah article about it, aka a over-reaction
I'll even give you a little secret, 4chan, ED and the rest of the sites like it don't even troll furries anymore. They've gotten bored of it. You know who currently trolls furries? Other furries, for example lulz.net or idola or such.
You know what that means? This article is entirely pointless and a over-reaction, cause ED has next to nothing to do with furries anymore.
You seem to be implying that if someone dislikes something, it is an overreaction. You seem to be implying that the only emotions it is proper to feel are "don't care", and "I like it".
Bullshit.
If a comment is downvoted, it means at least one person didn't like it. That's why the feature is there; using it is not overreacting. An overreaction would be to stalk you to your house and punch you in the face.
The simple truth of the matter is most human beings are going to respond negatively to being made fun of. And furries are human beings, despite our avatars.
And as for ED "not making fun of furries anymore", that's a load, too: several new articles about furries have been written about furries recently, most of which not written by other furries. Loki Blackfang, for example.
I agree that an article here is completely pointless, however.
Actually what I was implying is that the article is a over-reaction.
I was going to type out a long reply, but I'll just summarize-
1)barely relevant to the furry fandom.
2)ED has about as much to do with the furry fandom as Microsoft anymore has to do with the halo franchise. It's past tense. Sure they make articles about people, but they make articles about everyone and everything and I mean everything, even advance wars isn't safe.
3)The most ED has to do with the furry fandom anymore is making articles about furries and that barely and I mean barely qualifies as relevant.
Please; saying "it's not relevant" and then saying "furries do this all the time" is a bit counterproductive. If we react this way all the time, so that it has become, as you say, predictable, it's a pretty damn big part of the furry fandom, and, QED, it's pretty damn relevant to the furry fandom, wouldn't you say?
Besides, it's the editor's dilemma in all news sources; the front page, whether in print or online, has gotta keep changing, otherwise why would the readers keep coming back? So, yeah, you run some fringe stuff, maybe that isn't really news or on the button relevant to the target audience, but back in the old days, Flayrah ran a story about a fox chasing golf balls about once a month (seriously, check the archives out sometime), so, you know, whatever.
I mean, if foxes chasing golf balls is your thing, I can see why you'd be upset and all.
Judging by the stats, we just need more reviews of bad movies – like The True Story of Puss in Boots, which is second only to this article in hits for the last few days, and is in the top three articles for this month. Of course, those visitors don't stick around for long . . .
(Why the hits? It ranks second only to IMDB in Google.)
Well, we're in luck; I've got something on the line.
Though, probably not going to be near as Google-icious.
Also, I just realized this is actually a surprisingly appropriate story to "preview" this particular movie.
That's all I'll say for now!
Disliking something isn't an overreaction but obsessing over it and ostracising people as is done in the furry fandom is an overreaction. The best examples are those involving the media where furs get hated for just giving their opinions. That's not even mentioning how obsessed furs got over their representation in a fictional crime show that makes no effort to even appear as a documentary. Getting upset about that is an overreaction.
"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."
~John Stuart Mill~
I'd don't think anyone is actually downvoting anyone on this article; I think we're all getting one stars automatically from someone. Which is what happened on all the "PoE is down" article comments, too. I think there's a lesson here.
It would be a brilliant troll, since it is probably making us all a bit defensive, and even more touchy than normal, but I'm guessing someone's just being a dick. Becaue, you know, ED; it's kind of their thing.
crossaffliction is correct in that one voter has consistently rated most of this article's comments as one-star. Of course, their motivations are not known, except by them.
"Everyone is crazy if you don't understand their motives." --Robert Anton Wilson
The problem is not with the fuhreh fandom; it is with human society in general. For some reason, most people in Western world have become increasingly touchy-feely in the 21th Century. We try to "build a world without problems or disagreements".
In other words, people search for Utopia now more than ever.
Encyclopedia Dramatica was built with the purpose of trolling YOU (don't forget to click on the link for "you").
As far as "unhealthy environments" are concerned, well, I used to not say fuck all the time.
Given my stances on certain issues, that should, ahem, fucking tell you something.
However, the big issue I had with the original post is the complete lack of thought or care. If you are going to bitch about careless, thoughtless mockery that isn't very accurate or clever, it behooves one not to use careless, thoughtless mockery that isn't very accurate or clever.
As an aside, fluffy has reached the one use of the word "satire" (or derivatives thereof) limit.
"It's bullshit, for starters; you all really, really, really care about what other people on the Internet tease you with way too much.
Second of all, we've got contributors (decent contributors) on this site who are also contributors to this and other such sites, and you can bet they care, and you are insulting them and me on their behalf."
The hypocritical irony of those two sentences taken together is so palpable someone could write a ED article on it... oh wait
Okay, since the first sentence was about hypocrisy, it's even more than that.
That being said, hypocrisy is a sin that, by it's nature, is sometimes hard for the sinner to be aware of. So you'll have to spell it out for me so I can work on it.
You said that we all care too much about people teasing us on the internet, then perform the very behavior of caring too much about teasing ED users that you just said was bad on our part.
I mean, trust me the "Not much of value was lost" was started by the ED like cultures at something's conclusion, it's only fitting it be used in this case because it is what they'd do right? Or can they be the only ones to be trollish?
I kind of thought that was it, and hoped it was, because I can defend that. I didn't call Bersi out for caring too much about ED; I called Bersi out for caring too much about ED while saying he didn't. There's a difference.
If I had said I don't care about Bersi's comment, that would have been hypocritical of me, as his comment obviously pissed me off. However, I never said I wasn't pissed off by the comment, and made it pretty clear I was.
Also, as I pointed out to Green Reaper, if we're going to be better than the trolls, we need to be better than the trolls, not exactly like the trolls.
That being said, I had no idea about the, uh, provenance of the phrase, so I guess that does become slightly more appropriate, though next time could we use one of the enemy's good jokes?
Admittedly, I am at a loss for a good joke from that quarter on any topic, so the "let's work on our material" critique still stands.
Whose panties are in a wad, again?
And no, I enjoy stale copypasta. Omnomnom.
lol. Just, lol.
it is still up at http://encyclopediadramatica.es
To say their reliability is questionable is a candidate for understatement of the year :D
Riveting tale, chap!
Fortunately, I don't have a furry ED article written about me.
But then again -- I'm not a convicted sex offender, a thieving recidivist with a history of violence, a lying, embezzling, obsessive-compulsive furryporn junkie, or a bat-shit insane, closet-case Christian fundie whose views on homosexuality make Rick Santorum look like Harvey Milk, am I?
(Please note: you can't down-rate this comment without tacitly endorsing the proven, egregious actions of those furries outlined above.)
While it is true that people you should stay away from often had ED articles, it was not always true that people with ED articles were worthy of staying away from. There were/are a lot of furs, and just people too, who end up with ED articles simply because they got involved in drama somewhere where there were people with too much time and an ED account.
(And more often than not, the people who edit ED are worse than the people they write about.)
for example, people like me >___< they made an ED page about a TWELVE YEAR OLD GIRL! and at the time that 12 year old was me. scared, confused ol me who didnt know the internet's power when i was young, and i hate that site ED with a passion.
Perhaps if Wikifur simply started pointing out those (few) furs who possess long and proven criminal records, there'd be less need for ED's hysterics.
You mean like Brown Leopard and Alan T. Panda? The records are there, at least as far as people care to edit them.
That said, recording old criminals is unlikely to prevent new criminal activity by others, especially as the fandom grows. Resolving such issues is a matter for society in general, not fandom. Thinking that we can deal with them ourselves is at best naive; equivalent to sending con security against someone who's waving a gun around.
The real joke is that sites like ED, and their symbiotic relationship with those they start e-wars with, are fast becoming irrelevant.
It is probably closer to truth that the peoples on both sides of those early generation internet battles were fringe nerds who had narcissistic personality disorders. Furries act crazy, furry trolls act crazy, you can't tell them apart except maybe for who is wearing the pin-on tails.
Irony: these days many furries who aren't a part of the old inner circles of furry culture aren't even clear on what sites like ED were / are and they don't care to find out. But they also don't care about what the old class of fringe furries are like or just avoid them. They smell the crazy.
The modern LOL internet doesn't need or want ED style sites anyway. The sites are for obsessed people who are compelled to read about one individual over and over and wank off to feeling superior. Modern lulz is about fresh meme being cycled through as fast as possible. Chan boards obsoleted overly complex drama sites years ago.
Encyclopedia Dramatica is in violation of the RICO statue. (RICO) They are asking for money to remove posts and alter posts and articles. That's called Racketeering and they are also in violation of invasion of privacy laws.
RICO is a US law, it would not apply if the organization is found outside the US.
That is not true, ED does not require money to add or remove articles.
The owner lives in the U.S. and ED lost it's domain due to non payment, soooo, I think it may apply. The Swiss government is getting pretty tired of ED and from what I've read Interpol is now involved.
If Wikifur only told the full truth, there'd never have been a need for any Encyclopædia Dramatica.
I'd love to see you have a debate with Xydexx on that topic, it'd be popcorn worthy.
Some of these ED articles give the appearance of immature adults or adolescence who don't have anything better to do with their time than to try and destroy the lives of others who have caused them butt-hurt or internet drama. It is ridiculous. I can not see why anyone would support ED financially, unless you are one of those immature, demented individuals I referenced above. Get a life, people. Making a four page article about handicapped or special needs people, because they do not conform to your idea of society should be illegal. I don't care where you are based out of. It's just not right. Also, trying to convince them to comment suicide, called them names and referring to them as a failed abortion should be punishable by law.
If you can protect individuals from words by law, then political leaders will use those very laws to protect themselves and their ideas (which they anthopomorphize as part of their identity) from the "blasphemous" individuals.
Your heart may be in the right place, but it doesn't take much thinking on why there should be no laws about words.
When those words are used intentionally to cause a person mental harm there should be some form of punishment. People who do these things to others who are handicapped or special needs are bullies. Pushing someone to suicide is just wrong. And if you think otherwise you have no empathy. Do we now have a society of sociopaths? This is sad. I'm praying that ED will just go away.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/199/6/520.1.full
I read a lot about empathy, and yes while a lack of it is likely to lead to cruelty the fourth part of this book explains two types of empathy zeros. Narcissistic VS Autistic. One has zero empathy and only wishes to bend the world to their whim, the later has no empathy but has an understanding that they share the world under rule sets which they must abide by (think Spock from Star Trek). So to call all people without empathy sociopaths is in it's own way kind of cruel; though it was a cruelty caused by ignorance.
From my experience making rules on language is something that should be done by the individual rather than the government. There are consequences for being cruel, if someone is clearly narcissistic then usually people are not going to like them. If there is laws protecting individuals from speech one must make sure that it goes no further, because laws like that can be used to bully if a government decides that they deserve the same kind of "protection", and more often then not do.
For instance in the US I can talk about the Kent State Massacre all day long, in China if I talk about Tiananmen Square Massacre that's considered bullying to the Chinese government and is censored.
agreed with this anon, they make a page about a 12 year old aspergers kid for having an extensive interest with a Disney movie, thats something to be ridiculed for?
i only know because five years ago, that 12 year old was me ;_;
So what if things get butt hurt. Besides doctor fox said"Ed is a small fish." How about furs that got put in the encyclopedia dramatic. There are somethings that did deserve to be butt hurt. For example Walmart. Why you asked. For bad working environment and no healthcare provided. That company need to be butt hurt for it.
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