Urban Dictionary

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**Urban Dictionary**

URL	http://www.urbandictionary.com/
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Slang Dictionary
Registration	optional
Owner	Aaron Peckham
Created by	Aaron Peckham

Urban Dictionary is an online Internet dictionary whose definitions are written by users. Most words and phrases featured on Urban Dictionary are slang, particularly new, urban, or ambiguous terms. With an Alexa ranking as one of the 2000 highest web traffic sites, Urban Dictionary is the "Internet's unofficial slang authority" for definitions.

The dictionary was founded by Aaron Peckham and went on-line in October 14, 2001. As of December 2005, it had more than 300,000 definitions and was growing daily by 1,500. Words with multiple definitions are listed in order of users' thumbs-up or -down votes. Votes, limited to one per user for each entry, are tallied simply by clicking a thumb next to the definition. Poor definitions are effectively buried under higher ranked definitions. Often, thumbs-up votes are influenced as much by a daffynition's humor as by its accuracy. For many, the site is primarily a form of entertainment. Besides slang, Urban Dictionary also contains Internet jargon, neologisms, politicians, bands, and school rivalries (65% of the users are under 25).

Urban Dictionary is a self-edited online resource, but unlike some dictionaries, it allows for many truths, rather than an authoritative guide. Despite its low signal-to-noise ratio, Urban Dictionary is a valuable resource for lexicographers looking for information on cutting edge slang.

1 Quality control
- 1.1 Volunteer reviewers
- 1.2 Reviewer guidelines
2 Publication
3 References
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Quality control

The quality control system reduces the number of hateful, personal, or inaccurate definitions as well as spam.

[edit] Volunteer reviewers

Originally, a user that objected to a definition could submit a complaint. Deletion requests were added to a pool that was reviewed by users to choose whether "it stays", "it goes", or "don't know." However, this approach was abandoned because many volunteer reviewers approved definitions based on whether they agreed with the tone or opinions expressed.

Under the revised reviewing system, newly submitted definitions are entered into the editing queue before appearing on the site. Volunteer editors vote to accept or reject definitions in the queue based on the guidelines below. Words with no other definitions on the site go to the front of the queue. Conversely, words with many definitions (such as emo, which has over one thousand entries) wait longer before being reviewed by editors. This system allows new slang, such as the latest Bushism, to appear within a day or two.

Each submission is reviewed by a number of volunteers (the exact number varies, but lies between two and nine), with controversial definitions being viewed by more people. Definitions with more accept votes than reject votes appear on the site. Urban Dictionary claims to have 40,000 volunteer reviewers. Volunteer reviewers are Urban Dictionary users who choose to 'edit'.

[edit] Reviewer guidelines

Publish racial and sexual slurs (as a small side note sexual content/slurs makeup a very LARGE percentage of what UD, the common abbreviation of urbandictionary, has to offer) but reject racist and sexist entries. Entries can document discrimination but not endorse it. People use slurs in everyday speech, so they should be published.
Publish opinions. Opinions can be useful to readers who are unfamiliar with a topic. Don't reject an entry because you disagree or are offended. Don't reject an entry because you think it's inaccurate.
Publish place names.
Publish non-slang words. Ignore misspellings and swearing.
Publish jokes and sarcastic entries. Reject inside jokes.
Publish celebrity names but reject friends' names.
Reject made-up sexual violence.
Reject nonsense. Be consistent on duplicates.
Reject ads for web sites.
Finally, publish if it looks plausible. You might not have heard the word, but it could be the next hyphy.

Many definitions not meeting these guidelines remain on the site because the guidelines are not consistently applied by volunteer reviewers or because the definitions were added before editorial review was required. There currently is no publicized method available to report offending definitions that already exist.