Camelopedia

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Camelopedia
Kamelopedia logo
kamelopedia.net
description Satire wiki with keyword articles, dictionary, news page, forum, internal chat and various projects
Registration Optional
languages German
owner k. A.

The Kamelopedia is a German-language satire wiki and is characterized by the fact that camels appear as a running gag in many contexts . It is seen as a parody of Wikipedia, which is cultivated there in a variety of ways. Like Wikipedia, Kamelopedia is based on MediaWiki software.

properties

The Kamelopedia primarily functions as a reference work with a search function, similar to Wikipedia, but has a different focus in terms of content. While Wikipedia sees itself as a serious knowledge database, Kamelopedia deals with the terms in a satirical way. As in Wikipedia, it is possible to register under an author's pseudonym, but users who are not registered can also access large areas and participate in articles and various projects.

In addition to the buzzword articles that are common in the encyclopedia, some of which deal with bizarre topics, other content areas have been established over the course of time that correspond to the associated Wikipedia projects. These include the Kamelionary , a parody of the Wiktionary , KameloNews , a satirical news site - similar to Wikinews - and Kamelobooks , the satirical counterpart to Wikibooks . In addition, other concepts are parodied, such as question and answer forums such as gutefrage.net and COSMiQ , which find their less serious counterpart in the question content area . From April 2012 there was the good question page . Not? as a parody of gutefrage.net. Since then, this sub-project of the Kamelopedia has enjoyed the greatest popularity at times, while the other pages often did not receive as much attention if they did not have a highly topical discourse vocabulary on the topic. Because spam, flood and hacking protection measures have now been implemented, the full facial expressions of the question and answer input masks are only available to registered users. In another namespace project there are various community projects and games, for example the “bureaucrat game”, a parody of both official bureaucracy and bureaucratic processes in Wikipedia. As of August 18, 2013, Kamelopedia had over 12,000 articles, 2,000 project pages and 10,000 media files. The platform also offers a chat and a user forum.

According to its name, the Kamelopedia often uses camels as a satirical stylistic device and describes in this context their attempts to adapt to human culture (the cell phone has its equivalent in "Hufy") and their often hidden work among people (e.g. in politics ) or their point of view to the people. It is not uncommon to find puns that consist of “caramelized” names ( Kennedy becomes Kameldy , Jesus Christ becomes the camel of Nazareth ). Other target objects are the ambiguity of terms or headlines that sometimes arise, and sometimes original misspellings. With the increasing publicity of the platform and the growth of its users, the culture of humor changed from a strong camel-relatedness towards general satire.

Some processes and features of Wikipedia get their equivalent - albeit stylistically modified - in the Kamelopedia: The "users" are referred to as "camels". To test the wiki, there is the “play desert”, corresponding to the local “playground”. Newcomers can also be greeted with a ready-made (but ironically phrased) text module on their user page. The deletion of articles corresponds to the "transfer to the burial chamber". The blocking of users is called "tying up" and is done by "camel drivers", the counterpart to the administrators of Wikipedia. Instead of voting for excellence or worth reading, there are “personal recommendations”, a list that is available to registered users and to which the title of the article can be added with a click. In the post itself, a counter shows how many users recommend it. " Like " using a Facebook account is also possible and is displayed in a separate counter.

In the Kamelopedia logo there is the passage "E Pluribus Kamelum"; it is a modification of the Latin phrase E pluribus unum . The Kamelopedia logo changes on special occasions and depending on the category. A redesigned logo is also used as a humorous element in individual articles.

history

The Kamelopedia was created in April 2004 from a private test wiki. The level of awareness increased rapidly; in February 2008 the project had grown to over 11,000 articles. In particular after the presentation in Chaosradio auf Fritz (April 2004) by the founder “Fire” and an article at Telepolis (May 2004), the number of employees and the number of articles rose sharply. This also increased the need for administrative tasks for quality assurance and regulation, which is carried out by experienced contributors who, similar to the administrators of Wikipedia, are equipped with extended rights.

The satirical encyclopedia is now a popular part of online culture. The concept as a whole, references to individual articles or quotations from it are mentioned at irregular intervals in the media, including highly frequented web platforms.

Headings of the portal

More humor wikis

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c The free encyclopedia "Kamelopedia" in Telepolis from May 11, 2004
  2. ^ Online encyclopedias: Silly Wikipedia copies storm the Internet in Die Welt on March 10, 2008
  3. ↑ Lothar Lemnitzer: From Aldianer to Zauselquote: new German words, where they come from and what we need them for . Gunter Narr Verlag, Tübingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8233-6351-4 , p. 50 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  4. ↑ Maximilian Sterz: Not rule of work but consensus: The "Hidemann" case . In: Maximilian Sterz: collective writing on the net . Munich, 2005.
  5. ↑ a b Stephanie Seller: Kamelopedia & Co .: Nonsense to look up on lehrer-online.de from March 1, 2008
  6. ^ Projects in the Kamelopedia
  7. ↑ World of Wikis - Knowledge on the Web in Der Spiegel from September 7, 2004
  8. ↑ "Frog: Google lists 2670 hits for this wonderful word creation, to which the satire wiki Kamelopedia even dedicates its own entry." Creative typing errors on the web: Jugend froscht an der Lesegräte , Spiegel.de on April 24, 2009
  9. ↑ Overview of the variants of the Kamelopedia logo
  10. ↑ Statistics page of the Kamelopdia ( Memento of the original from January 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / kamelopedia.net
  11. ↑ Chaosradio episode 91 of April 28, 2004 - The web as a reference work (telephone interview in the final of the program)
  12. ↑ ftd.de: Home children of capitalism ( Memento from February 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) (February 10, 2010)
  13. ↑ gratis.de: Kamelopedia: Funny knowledge of a different kind
  14. ↑ macnotes.de: Apple obtains an injunction against koziol: An eiPott is not an iPod - or is it? (August 21, 2010)
  15. ↑ 3sat.de: Anniversary - 10 years Wikipedia (January 14, 2011)