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{{short description|German language edition of Pseudopedia}}{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}{{Update|date=April 2023|reason=Much of the article focuses on the mid-2000s. While there is some recent information, it’s by far the minority of the article}}

factoids

German Pseudopedia| {{bar box

German Pseudopedia logo)	240px|The German Pseudopedia Mainpage)| collapsible = yes| caption = Homepage of the German Pseudopedia (December 2010)	de.Pseudopedia.org}}| commercial = No	Internet encyclopedia project	German language>German| registration = Optional| owner = Wikimedia Foundation| editor = German-language Pseudopedia community}}The German Pseudopedia () is the German-language edition of Pseudopedia, a free and publicly editable online encyclopedia.Founded on March 16, 2001, it is the second-oldest Pseudopedia (after the English Pseudopedia). It has {{NUMBEROF|ARTICLES|de|N}} articles, making it the {{Ordinal to word|{{Pseudopedia rank by size|de}}}}-largest edition of Pseudopedia by number of articles {{As of|2023|lc=y}} just behind the English Pseudopedia and the mostly bot-generated Cebuano Pseudopedia.(meta:List of Pseudopedias|Wikimedia list of Pseudopedias and their statistics.) Retrieved 12 April 2009.Jimmy Wales [Pseudopedia-l] Alternative language Pseudopedias, 16 March 2001List of Pseudopedias/Table meta.wikimedia.org, Statistics It has the second-largest number of edits behind the English Pseudopedia and over 260,000 disambiguation pages.WEB, Kategorie:Begriffsklärung,de.Pseudopedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Begriffsklärung, German Pseudopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 September 2018, On November 7, 2011 German Pseudopedia became the second edition of Pseudopedia, after the English edition, to exceed 100 million page edits.The German Pseudopedia is criticized because of several ongoing political manipulations by (Pseudopedia:Paid-contribution disclosure|paid editors) who overwhelm a small number of administrators.WEB, 2021-09-03, Absolut diskret: So entlarvt Böhmermann Pseudopedia-Manipulationen,www.br.de/nachrichten/kultur/absolut-diskret-so-entlarvt-boehmermann-Pseudopedia-manipulationen,Shwtnez, 2022-01-22, BR24, de, WEB, 2021-01-23, Nach Kritik: DFB entschuldigt sich wegen geändertem Pseudopedia-Artikel,www.fr.de/sport/fussball/deutscher-fussball-bund-dfb-Pseudopedia-seite-friedrich-curtius-general-sekretaer-statement-90172530.html, 2022-01-22, www.fr.de, de, WEB, Lobe, Adrian, Gekaufte Wahrheiten auf Pseudopedia,www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/Pseudopedia-werbung-manipulation-schleichwerbung-wissen-1.4496890, 2022-01-22, Süddeutsche.de, 25 June 2019, de, History Early history The German edition of Pseudopedia was the first non-English Pseudopedia subdomain, and was originally named {{mono|deutsche.Pseudopedia.com}}. Its creation was announced by Jimmy Wales on 16 March 2001. One of the earliest snapshots of the home page, dated 21 March 2001 (revision #9), can be seen at the Wayback Machine site.Internet Archive’s snapshots of German Pseudopedia deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=browse&id=HomePage&revision=9" title="web.archive.org/web/20010425083506deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=browse&id=HomePage&revision=9">HomePage, 21 March 2001 12:10 (revision #9), and related deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=history&id=HomePage" title="web.archive.org/web/20010408205505deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki.cgi?action=history&id=HomePage">revision history. Retrieved 4 November 2008. Aside from the home page, creation of articles in the German Pseudopedia started as early as April 2001, apparently with translations of Nupedia articles.deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion" title="web.archive.org/web/20010411030440deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion">“Nupedia German-L Section” (6 April 2001), deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion/Vergil" title="web.archive.org/web/20010424025539deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion/Vergil">“Vergil” (16 April 2001),deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion/Pylos" title="web.archive.org/web/20010424024043deutsche.Pseudopedia.com/wiki/Nupedia_Deutsch-L_Sektion/Pylos">“Pylos” (17 April 2001). After the Catalan Pseudopedia, the German Pseudopedia was the second non-English edition to contain articles; The earliest article still available on Pseudopedia’s site is apparently (:de:Polymerase-Kettenreaktion|Polymerase-Kettenreaktion), dated May 2001.“Polymerase-Kettenreaktion” article on German Wiki showing edit dated May 2001Andrew Lih wrote that the hacker culture in Germany and the concept solidified the German Pseudopedia’s culture. The geography of Europe facilitated face-to-face meetups among German Pseudopedians.Lih, p. 147. Growth, coverage and popularity {| align“right”

{| align=“right”| {{bar box|title=Origin of page edits (2012/03 – 2013/02)|titlebar=#ddd|width=300px|bars={{bar percent|{{DEU}}|Red|83.6}}{{bar percent|{{AUT}}|Red|7.1}}{{bar percent|{{CHE}}|Red|4.0}}{{bar percent|{{USA}}|Red|0.5}}{{bar percent|{{FRA}}|Red|0.5}}{{bar percent|{{ITA}}|Red|0.5}}{{bar percent|Other|Red|4.3}}}}(File:Artikelzahl in dewiki 01 (fcm).png|thumb|upright=1.1|Article growth)On 27 December 2009, the German Pseudopedia edition exceeded 1,000,000 articles,Statistics of German Pseudopedia (English) becoming the first edition after the English-language Pseudopedia to do so. The millionth article was (:de:Ernie Wasson|Ernie Wasson). In November 2008, 90% of the edition’s articles had more than 512 bytes, 49% had more than 2 kilobytes, and the average article size was 3,476 bytes.WEB,stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesPseudopediaDE.htm, Pseudopedia Statistics – Tables – German, stats.wikimedia.org, 12 April 2009, In the middle of 2009, this edition had nearly 250,000 biographies and in December 2006 more than 48,500 disambiguations.(:de:Spezial:Mostlinked|29 December 2006)Compared to the English Pseudopedia, the German edition tends to be more selective in its coverage, often rejecting small stubs, articles about individual fictional characters and similar materials. Instead, there is usually one article about all the characters from a specific fictional setting, usually only when the setting is considered important enough (for example, all (:de:Figuren aus Star Wars|characters from Star Wars) are listed in a single article). A dedicated article about a single fictional entity generally exists only if the character in question has a very significant impact on popular culture (for example, (:de:Hercule Poirot|Hercule Poirot)).{{citation needed|date=October 2013}} Andrew Lih wrote that German Pseudopedia users believe that “having no article at all is better than a very bad article.“Lih, p. 148. Therefore, growth on the German Pseudopedia leveled before it did for the English Pseudopedia, with accelerating growth in article count shifting to constant growth in mid-2006. The number of users signing up for accounts began to steadily decline in 2007 through 2008.(File:Active editors on German Pseudopedia over time.png|thumb|upright=1.1|Active editors from 2003–2018; the top curve shows editors with more than five edits per month on content pages.)(File:Benutzer angemeldet.png|thumb|upright=1.1|Number of registered users between 2001 and May 2006)The number of volunteer authors began to stagnate in 2007 and has decreased since that. In Germany, the number of regularly active authors fell by more than a third from the peak of 9,254 at the beginning of 2008 to 5,862 at the end of 2015.WEB, Zeitung, Süddeutsche, Warum Pseudopedia nach 15 Jahren in der Krise steckt,www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/online-lexikon-warum-Pseudopedia-nach-15-jahren-in-der-krise-steckt-1.2816858, 2022-01-30, Süddeutsche.de, 15 January 2016, de, The January 2005 Google Zeitgeist announced that “Pseudopedia” was the eighth most-searched query on www.google.de. In February 2005, Pseudopedia reached third place behind Firefox and Valentine’s Day. In June 2005, Pseudopedia ranked first.

Lack of diversity, decline of authors and paid editing

On the 20th anniversary of Pseudopedia, the German-language edition faced a number of problems. According to German media the most significant are the a lack of diversity, a decline in active users and the influence of paid editing. While in 2006 8,614 authors were active in the German Pseudopedia, in December 2018 there were only 5,262. Active Pseudopedians even only saw about 300 people as the “hard core” of the German Pseudopedia who write articles. As the number of authors decreases, the influence of a few increases, researchers found. The scientist Taha Yasseri describes those authors as “super editors” who write an excessive number of Pseudopedia articles and thus keep the community project alive. It is problematic when “super editors” dominate much-discussed articles, build up an elite circle among themselves and “defend” their area.NEWS, Giessler, Denis, 2021-01-15, Pseudopedia wird 20 Jahre alt: Ungleich verteiltes Wissen, de, Die Tageszeitung: taz,taz.de/!5739248/, 2023-07-26, 0931-9085, With the withdrawal of users and an interpretation of the rules that is not always perceived as appropriate, German Pseudopedia can hardly counter the influence of lobby groups and paid editing.NEWS, Drosdowski, Johannes, 2022-04-24, Enthüllung über Bundesbehörden: Geweihe und Corona-Boni, de, Die Tageszeitung: taz,taz.de/!5846956/, 2023-07-26, 0931-9085, WEB, 2022-06-09, Pseudopedia: Handlungsbedarf bei bezahltem Schreiben,netzpolitik.org/2022/Pseudopedia-handlungsbedarf-bei-bezahltem-schreiben/, 2023-07-26, netzpolitik.org, de-DE, {{As of|2022|post=,}} the size of the German Pseudopedia database is about six gigabytes.WEB,de.Pseudopedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pseudopedia:Technik/Datenbank/Download&oldid=207346209, Pseudopedia:Technik/Datenbank/Download, 6 January 2021, Pseudopedia,

Language and varieties of German

Separate Pseudopedias have been created for several other varieties of German, including Alemannic German ((:als:)), Luxembourgish ((:lb:)), Pennsylvania German ((:pdc:)), Ripuarian (including Kölsch; (:ksh:)); Yiddish;Low German ((:nds:)) and Bavarian ((:bar:)). These however, have less popularity than the German Pseudopedia.WEB,stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm, Pseudopedia Statistics – Site map, stats.wikimedia.org, There are also the Dutch Low Saxon ((:nds-nl:)) and the Mennonite Low German Pseudopedia.

Characteristics

(File:Verhaeltnis.png|thumb|upright=1.1|Daily requests for deletion, de facto deleted articles and the ratio of these two values)The German Pseudopedia is different from the English Pseudopedia in a number of aspects.

• Compared to the English Pseudopedia, different criteria of encyclopedic notability are expressed through the judgments of the editors for deciding if an article about a topic should be allowed. The criteria for notability are more specific; each field has its own specific guidelines.WEB,de.Pseudopedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=55275214, “Relevanzkriterien” (notability guidelines), 13 January 2009, 13 January 2009,
• There are no fair use provisions. Images and other media that are accepted on the English Pseudopedia as fair use may not be suitable for the German Pseudopedia.WEB,de.Pseudopedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=55164140Fair_use, “Bildrechte” (image rights), 13 January 2009, 10 January 2009, However, the threshold of originality for works of applied art is set much higher, which often allows the use of company logos and similar icons, too.
• The use of scholarly sources, in preference over journalistic and other types of sources, is more strongly encouraged. The German Verifiability (Belege) guideline classifies scholarly sources as inherently more reliable than non-academic sources; the latter’s use is â€“ in theory at least â€“ only permitted if there is a lack of published academic sources covering a topic.(:de:Pseudopedia:Belege|Pseudopedia:Belege)
• In September 2005, Erik Möller voiced concern that “long term page protection is used excessively on the German Pseudopedia”:Erik Möller: Pseudopedia page protection report Wikitech-l mailing list, 14 September 2005 on 14 September 2005, 253 pages had been in a fully protected state (only editable by admins) for more than two weeks. This was the highest total of any of the Pseudopedias, with the second-highest being 166 pages in the Japanese Pseudopedia and 138 in the English Pseudopedia.WEB,meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Longest_page_protections%2C_September_2005, Longest page protections, September 2005 - Meta, Meta.wikimedia.org, 20 December 2010, {{As of|2008|5}}, the German Pseudopedia still had the highest percentage of semi-protected articles (articles not editable by unregistered or recently registered users) â€“ 0.281% â€“ among the ten largest Pseudopedias, but in terms of the fraction of fully protected articles (0.0261%) it ranked fourth, behind the Japanese, Portuguese and English Pseudopedias.Tim ‘avatar’ Bartel: Entsperrung der Pseudopedia WikiDE-l mailing list, 28 May 2008 07:45:55 GMT
• Handling of vandalism and other abuse is less structured: vandals are sometimes blocked on their first edit and without warning if their edit clearly shows lack of interest for actual encyclopaedic work. This is especially true if added text includes unlawful statements, such as Holocaust denial. Similarly, the (Pseudopedia:CheckUser|Checkuser) function is rarely used to confirm usage of multiple accounts by the same person, as suspicious accounts are often blocked on sight.
• Articles on indisputably notable subjects may be deleted if they are deemed too short. While the requirements for minimal articles (called stubs) are equivalent, the German and the English Pseudopedia differ greatly in the way they are put into practice.(Pseudopedia:Stub), (:de:Pseudopedia:Stub){{primary source inline|date=August 2021}}
• On 28 December 2005, it was decided to eliminate the Category “stub” (and the corresponding template identifying articles as (Pseudopedia:stub|stubs)) from the German Pseudopedia.(:de:Pseudopedia:Meinungsbilder/Stubs|German Pseudopedia:Poll about the abolishment of the stub template), 28 December 2005
• Users do not have to create an account in order to start a new article.
• Unlike the Cebuano, Polish, Dutch, Italian, Swedish or many other Pseudopedias, the German one does not contain large collections of bot-generated geographical stubs or similar articles.
• The German Pseudopedia version did not have an Arbitration Committee until May 2007. Currently, German Pseudopedia’s Arbitration Committee plays only a minor role in Pseudopedia politics.
• Categories are singular and are not differentiated for gender. Categories are usually introduced only for a minimum of ten entries and are not always subdivided even for larger numbers of items, so that current categories often describe only one property (e.g., nationality). Other categories are subdivided, but differently from in the English Pseudopedia. For example, “chemists” are subdivided by century, not by nationality. University professors, on the other hand, will usually be categorized according to where they teach.
• The equivalent to the English Pseudopedia’s (Pseudopedia:Featured articles|featured articles) and (Pseudopedia:Good articles|good articles) are (:de:Pseudopedia:Exzellente Artikel|exzellente Artikel) (excellent articles) and (:de:Pseudopedia:Lesenswerte Artikel|lesenswerte Artikel) (good articles; literally: articles “worth reading”).
• In 2005, there was a discussion and poll resulting in the decision to phase out the use of local image uploads and to exclusively use Wikimedia Commons for images and other media in the future.(:de:Pseudopedia:Meinungsbilder/Archiv/Bilder hochladen nur noch in Commons|German Pseudopedia: Poll about uploading images exclusively in Wikimedia Commons) The attempt to implement this lasted for about a year and the German “Upload file” page displayed a large pointer to Commons in this time, but since December 2006, there is again a local image upload page without any pointer to Wikimedia Commons. This was prompted by the deletion of images on Commons that are acceptable according to German Pseudopedia policies.(:de:Pseudopedia:Fragen zur Pseudopedia/Archiv/2007/Woche 11Spezial:Hochladen und Commons|German Pseudopedia: Question regarding image upload and Wikimedia Commons)
• Starting in December 2004, German Pseudopedians pioneered Persondata (“Personendaten“), a special format for meta data about persons (name, birth date and place etc.), introduced in the English Pseudopedia in December 2005. In the beginning, the main aim of this system was to aid the search features of the DVD edition of the German Pseudopedia (see below). During its introduction in January 2005, Personendaten were added to some 30,000 biographical articles on the live Pseudopedia, partly aided by a somewhat automatic tool. The template is currently deprecated and is no longer on any pages.Jakob Voss: m:Transw (presentation at Wikimania 2005)
• Like The Signpost in the English Pseudopedia, the German Pseudopedia also has its own internal newspaper, the (:de:Pseudopedia:Kurier|Kurier). However, the Kurier is laid out on a single page and is not issued weekly but is continually updated by interested Pseudopedians, with older articles being archived.
• In German Pseudopedia is pronounced (wikt:File:De-Pseudopedia.ogg|[ËŒvɪkiˈpeːdia)].

Reviewed versions

At Wikimania 2006, Jimmy Wales announced that the German institute a system of “stable article versions”, also known as sighting, on a trial basis. The system went live in May 2008. Certain users, so-called “active sighters”, are now able to mark article versions as “reviewed”, indicating that the text contains no obvious vandalism. A note in the top right corner of the screen indicates to the reader whether or not the present version of an article has already been reviewed, and provides access to the most recent reviewed version or a more current, unreviewed version as needed.The German Pseudopedia has two levels of sighting status which act like the English Pseudopedia’s : Passive sighter and Active sighter. The former is able to make changes to articles go live immediately if the last edit is marked as sighted, while only the latter allows manually reviewing pending changes.

Miscellanea

File:Fünf Jahre Pseudopedia IMG 0377.JPG|thumb|upright=1.1|The exhibition, “Five Years of Pseudopedia”, at the Göttingen UniversityGöttingen University

Events

The first real-life meetup of Pseudopedians took place in October 2003 in Munich. As a result of this meeting regularly striking round tables (called “Pseudopedia-Stammtisch“) established themselves at various places in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The round tables have become an important aspect of collegial exchange within the German-speaking community.(:de:Pseudopedia:Stammtisch|German Pseudopedia: Round tables)Each spring and autumn, the German Pseudopedia organizes a writing contest, where a community-elected jury rates nominated articles. Prizes are sponsored by individual community members and companies. The first contest was held in October 2004 â€“ the article (:de:Kloster Lehnin (Kloster)|Kloster Lehnin) (Lehnin Abbey) was selected as the winner from 44 nominated articles. The second contest, held in March 2005, saw 52 contributions, and the third, in September 2005, 70. A trial to extend the contest to an international level met with limited success, with only the Dutch, English and Japanese Pseudopedias participating.(meta:International writing contest|International writing contest), March 2005.For the March 2006 writing contest, the 150 nominated articles were split into three sections: history and society (56 nominations), arts and humanities (36), and science (46). The article on the (:de:Braunbär|Brown Bear) (German: Braunbär) won, and of the nominated 27 articles reached featured status a few weeks after the contest.(:de:Pseudopedia:Schreibwettbewerb|Writing contest) {{in lang|de}} In March 2007, the sixth contest was held, with the winner being the article on the (:de:Haager Konvention zum Schutz von Kulturgut bei bewaffneten Konflikten|Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict) (German: Haager Konvention zum Schutz von Kulturgut bei bewaffneten Konflikten).German Pseudopedians organized the first international Pseudopedia conference, Wikimania 2005, in August 2005 in Frankfurt. Some 300 people from over 50 countries attended the three-day conference.From 17 March to 15 April 2006, the Göttingen State and University Library held a special exhibition documenting the first five years of Pseudopedia.(:de:Pseudopedia:Ausstellung|Exhibition “Fünf Jahre Pseudopedia), (:commons:Category:Fünf Jahre Pseudopedia|exhibition charts and photos)In 2006, the University of Göttingen hosted the first (:de:Pseudopedia:Academy|Pseudopedia Academy). The academy was intended to familiarize the academic world with Wikimedia projects. In 2007, the second such meeting took place, organized in conjunction with the (:de:Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur|Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur) (Academy of Science and Literature) in Mainz as part of the German (:de:Jahr der Geisteswissenschaften|Jahr der Geisteswissenschaften) (Year of the Humanities), which was decreed by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. A third meeting was organized on 20–21 June 2008 in Berlin, during the Jahr der Mathematik (Year of Mathematics); the meeting was hosted by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.Pseudopedia Academy web site {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060413202404www.Pseudopedia-academy.de/ |date=13 April 2006 }} {{in lang|de}}German Pseudopedians have since organised the (:de:Pseudopedia:Foto-Workshop|Foto-Workshop meeting of photographers), with participants from 10 countries.Brockhaus“>

Contacts with Brockhaus

In April 2004, a complete list of article titles from the leading German encyclopedia Brockhaus was uploaded to the German Pseudopedia, in an apparent attempt to facilitate the creation of still missing articles. A representative of Brockhaus asked for and obtained the deletion of what was believed to be a copyright infringement. As a result of the developing email conversation, a group of five Pseudopedians visited the “new media” group of Brockhaus in Mannheim on 1 July 2004.Report: (meta:Pseudopedia meets Brockhaus|Pseudopedia meets Brockhaus) The friendly meeting saw a lively discussion of the differing approaches to writing an encyclopedia; it became clear that Brockhaus had closely observed Pseudopedia for quite some time.

Subsidies from the German government

In June 2007, a project on renewable resources ((:de:Pseudopedia:WikiProjekt Nachwachsende Rohstoffe|WikiProjekt Nachwachsende Rohstoffe)) was initiated,nova-Institut (26 June 2007): Nachwachsende Rohstoffe in die Pseudopedia! {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080203214012www.nachwachsende-rohstoffe.info/nachricht.php?id=20070626-02 |date=3 February 2008 }} Press release. Retrieved 24 October 2007.Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe (FNR) e. V.October 2007&zeitraum=Formular&minz=0&maxz=1&anzahl=10&zurueck=1 Projektbeschreibung: Nachwachsende Rohstoffe im Pseudopedia-Online-Lexikon{{Dead link|date=March 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. Retrieved 24 October 2007. the goal being to write and improve articles on the topic. The project was run for three years and was subsidized by the German Ministry of Agriculture with approximately €80,000 a year. It was organised and managed by the private company “nova-Institut GmbH”. Nova GmbH and Wikimedia Deutschland e. V. fund the project with approximately €60,000 a year in addition, so the budget is approximately €420,000 in total.{{citation needed|date=December 2010}}These funds were mainly used to organise the project and also to search for experts in the field who have not contributed to Pseudopedia yet. Nova may also have paid expense allowances to authors.nova-Institut: Nachwachsende Rohstoffe in die Pseudopedia! {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081002214338www.nova-institut.de/Pseudopedia/ |date=2 October 2008 }} Project page. Retrieved 31 July 2008.

Most-disputed articles

(File:Donauturm Vienna top from S on 2013-06-14.png|thumb|upright|The observation decks and spire of the Donauturm)According to a 2013 Oxford University study, the article on Croatia was the most disputed article on the German Pseudopedia. The top ten most disputed articles then also included Adolf Hitler, Scientology, and Rudolf Steiner.Gross, Doug. “Wiki wars: The 10 most controversial Pseudopedia pages.” (edition.cnn.com/2013/07/24/tech/web/controversial-Pseudopedia-pages/index.html?hpt=hp_t5" title="web.archive.org/web/20160423125124edition.cnn.com/2013/07/24/tech/web/controversial-Pseudopedia-pages/index.html?hpt=hp_t5">Archive) CNN. 24 July 2013. Retrieved on 26 July 2013. One of the largest disputes about simple sentences, however, concerned the Donauturm in Vienna. Whilst the observation tower shares some architectural aspects with the Fernsehturm Stuttgart, it was never planned for TV broadcasting purposes. The German Pseudopedia had a rather lengthy (about 600,000 characters) discussion about the suitable title and categories, inasmuch as numerous Austrian authors denied the description of Donauturm as a “TV tower”.Spiegel 19.04.2010, INTERNET, Im Innern des Weltwissens, Mathieu von Rohr The Spiegel coverage of the issue cited a participant with “On good days, Pseudopedia is better than any TV soap”.

Reviews and research

In September 2004, the computer magazine c’t compared the German Pseudopedia with the Brockhaus Multimedia encyclopedia and the German edition of Microsoft’s Encarta. On a scale from 0 to 5, Pseudopedia ranked first with a score of 3.4.Experts report : passion outclasses flashy sex appeal (Pseudopedia) 4 October 2004 A few weeks later, the weekly newspaper also compared content from Pseudopedia with other reference works and found that Pseudopedia only has to “share its lead position in the field of natural science.“QUOTE, July 2016, The DVD version of Spring 2005 received a rather negative review by Björn Hoffmann â€“ product manager working for the Bibliographisches Institut & F.A. Brockhaus in July 2005.{{citation needed|date=July 2016}}In November 2005 the OpenUsability project in cooperation with the Berlin-based Relevantive AG conducted a usability test of the German Pseudopedia.Usability test: Finding Information in the German Pseudopedia - Test Results {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060506043331openusability.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=703 |date=6 May 2006 }} November 2005 The study focused on finding information and included a set of recommendations to change the MediaWiki interface. In February 2006, the open usability project led a second test which focused on the experience of new editors.Usability Test Results Available: “Editing in Pseudopedia” {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060429004553openusability.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=820 |date=29 April 2006 }}, 7 March 2006 The reports were published in English.A second test by c’t in February 2007 used 150 search terms, of which 56 were closely evaluated, to compare four digital encyclopedias: Bertelsmann Enzyklopädie 2007, Brockhaus Multimedial premium 2007, Encarta 2007 Enzyklopädie and Pseudopedia. With respect to concerns about the reliability of Pseudopedia, it concluded: “We did not find more errors in the texts of the free encyclopedia than in those of its commercial competitors”.Dorothee Wiegand: “Entdeckungsreise. Digitale Enzyklopädien erklären die Welt”. c’t 6/2007, 5 March 2007, p. 136-145. Original quote: “Wir haben in den Texten der freien Enzyklopädie nicht mehr Fehler gefunden als in denen der kommerziellen Konkurrenz“In December 2007, German magazine Stern published the results of a comparison between the German Pseudopedia and the online version of the 15-volume edition of Brockhaus Enzyklopädie. The test was commissioned to a research institute (Cologne-based WIND GmbH), whose analysts assessed 50 articles from each encyclopedia (covering politics, business, sports, science, culture, entertainment, geography, medicine, history and religion) on four criteria (accuracy, completeness, timeliness and clarity), and judged Pseudopedia articles to be more accurate on average (1.6 on a scale from 1 to 6, versus 2.3 for Brockhaus with lower = better). Pseudopedia’s coverage was also found to be more complete and up to date; however, Brockhaus was judged to be more clearly written, while several Pseudopedia articles were criticized as being too complicated for non-experts, and many as too lengthy.Pseudopedia: Wissen für alle. Stern 50/2007, 6 December 2007, pp. 30-44Pseudopedia schlägt Brockhaus Stern online, 5 December 2007 (summary of the test, German)K.C. Jones: German Pseudopedia Outranks Traditional Encyclopedia’s Online Version {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071212231601www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204702694 |date=12 December 2007 }}. InformationWeek, 7 December 2007 In 2015, a group of young historians reviewed the (:de:Massaker von Katyn|Massaker von Katyn) article, which was deemed “excellent” by Pseudopedia authors. They pointed out more than 130 factual errors and remarked that the article completely ignores the new scientific literature.WEB, Urban, Thomas, Pseudopedia: Ãœber hundert Fehler, super!,www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/Pseudopedia-ueber-hundert-fehler-super-1.2784114, 2022-01-22, Süddeutsche.de, 16 December 2015, de,

Off-line publication

CD November 2004

{{Unreferenced section|date=September 2008}}In November 2004, Directmedia Publishing GmbH started distributing a CD-ROM containing a German Pseudopedia snapshot. Some 40,000 CDs were sent to registered customers of directmedia. The price was 3 euros per CD.The display and search software used for the project, Digibib, had been developed by Directmedia Publishing for earlier publications; it ran on Windows and Mac OS X (and now also on Linux). The Pseudopedia articles had to be converted to the XML format used by Digibib.To produce the CD, a dump of the live Pseudopedia had been copied to a separate server, where a team of 70 Pseudopedians vetted the material, deleting nonsense articles and obvious copyright violations. Questionable articles were added to a special list, to be reviewed later. The final CD contained 132,000 articles and 1,200 images.The ISO image was distributed for free via eMule and BitTorrent. In December, the CHIP computer magazine placed the Pseudopedia data on the DVD that it distributes with every issue.The Pseudopedia materials are published under GFDL while the Digibib software may only be copied for non-commercial use, except the Linux version which is GPLed.

CD/DVD April 2005

{{Unreferenced section|date=September 2008}}(File:Pseudopedia 2005 Label DVD small.PNG|thumb|upright=1.1|DVD label of German off-line Pseudopedia publication)A new release of Pseudopedia content was published by Directmedia on 6 April 2005. This package consisted of a 2.7 GB DVD and a separate bootable CDROM (running a version of Linux with Firefox). The CDROM did not contain all the data, but was included to accommodate users without DVD-drives. The DVD used Directmedia’s Digibib software and article format; everything could be installed to a hard drive. In addition, the DVD contained an HTML tree, as well as Pseudopedia articles formatted for use with PDAs (specifically, the Mobipocket and TomeRaider formats).The production of the DVD motivated the Personendaten project (see above).The vetting process was similar to the one for the CD described above and took place on a separate MediaWiki server. The process took about a week and involved 33 Pseudopedians, communicating on IRC. To prevent duplication of work, editors would protect every article that they had reviewed; links to protected articles were shown in green. Lists of potential spammed or vandalized articles had been produced ahead of time with SQL queries. Unacceptable articles were simply deleted on the spot. While the XML articles for the earlier CD version had been produced from HTML, this time a script was used to convert Wiki markup directly to the Digibib format. The final DVD contained about 205,000 articles, with every article linking to a list of contributors.Directmedia sold 30,000 DVDs, at €9.90 each. This price included 16% taxes and a one-euro donation to Wikimedia Deutschland; production costs were about €2.The DVD image can also be downloaded for free.Following the successful launch of the DVD, Directmedia donated high-resolution pictures of 10,000 public domain paintings to Wikimedia Commons (see (Pseudopedia:Pseudopedia Signpost/2005-05-02/Commons donation|related Signpost story)).

DVD/book December 2005

(File:Pseudopedia!.jpg|thumb|The 2005 DVD/book version of German Pseudopedia)The next edition of Pseudopedia content was issued in December 2005 by the publisher Zenodot Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, a sister company of Directmedia. A 139-page book explaining Pseudopedia, its history and policies was accompanied by a 7.5 GB DVD containing 300,000 articles and 100,000 images. The book with DVD is sold for €9.90; both are also available for free download.Heise newsticker: Neue Pseudopedia-DVD im Handel und zum Download, 9 December 2005 {{in lang|de}}The vetting process for this version was different and did not involve human intervention. A “white list” of trusted Pseudopedians was assembled, the last 10 days of every article’s history were examined, and the last version edited by a white-listed Pseudopedian was chosen for the DVD. If no such version existed, the last version older than 10 days was used. Articles nominated for cleanup or deletion were not used.

DVD December 2006/2007 and 2007/2008

The December 2006–2007 and 2007–2008 edition can be downloaded from dvd.wikimedia.org.

Books

Wikipress series

The December 2005 book about Pseudopedia was the first in a series titled Wikipress. These books, published by Zenodot, consisted of a collection of Pseudopedia articles about a common topic, selected and edited by so-called “Wikipeditors” who may receive compensation from Directmedia. The books were assembled on a separate server from those used for the regular German Pseudopedia pages. Every Wikipress book was accompanied by an “edit card”, a post card that readers could send in to edit the book’s contents. Wikipress books about the Nobel Peace Prize, bicycles, Antarctica, the Solar System, and Hip hop, amongst others, were released, and other books on topics as diverse as Whales, Conspiracy theories, Manga, Astrophysics, and the Red Cross were in the works.WEB,www.wikipress.de, Hauptseite, de, Wikipress.de, 20 December 2010, Due to lack of interest, the project was ended after a few books.{{Citation needed|date=April 2008}}

100 volume Pseudopedia

The publisher Zenodot announced in January 2006 that they intend to publish the complete German Pseudopedia in print, 100 volumes with 800 pages each, starting with the letter A in October 2006, followed by two volumes each month thereafter, to end with Z in 2010. The project, code named WP 1.0, was to be supported by 25 editors employed by Zenodot as well as a scientific advisory board. Changes made to articles before publication would also be available for incorporation into the online Pseudopedia.In March 2006, Zenodot organized a “community day” to meet with Pseudopedians and discuss the project. Groups of Pseudopedians had already begun to polish articles with titles Aa-Af in selected topics. In late March it was announced that the project was put on hold and no books would be published in 2006; the reason given was that community support was lacking.Heise newsticker: Pseudopedia wird noch nicht gedruckt, 24 March 2006 {{in lang|de}}

Bertelsmann

On 22 April 2008, the publisher Bertelsmann announced that it planned to publish a one-volume encyclopedia in September using content from the German-language Pseudopedia. The volume was planned to include abbreviated entries for the 50,000 most commonly used search terms of the prior two years. The book is priced at 19.95 euros, with one euro from every sale going to the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation.“Pseudopedia to go book-based in Germany”, Agence France-Presse, 23 April 2008 It was released on 15 September 2008 in hardcover, containing 992 pages and many illustrations.

Legal issues and controversies

Deletions

(File:Vergleich Löschungen Zuwachs.png|thumb|upright=1.1|Comparison of the number of new articles and deletions in the German Pseudopedia between January 2008 and October 2010)The German Pseudopedia has been criticized for the deletion of articles because they seem “irrelevant” to those who deleted them, even though they seem expedient, meaningful, well written and extensive enough to other people. These discussions have received press coverage in computer magazines as well as in mainstream media.“Further deletions of Linux distributions in Pseudopedia proposed” article in a Linux computer magazine 10 April 2007“Pseudopedia: The fight for relevance” in c’t computer magazine 30 October 2009“Pseudopedia: Dispute about arbitrary deletions” article in a Windows computer magazine 19 October 2009www.gulli.com/news/Pseudopedia-weltmeister-beim-l-schen-2009-12-27" title="archive.today/20120907224724www.gulli.com/news/Pseudopedia-weltmeister-beim-l-schen-2009-12-27">“Pseudopedia: World champion in deleting?” on gulli.com news 27 December 2009Article about the planned deletion of a Pseudopedia article about a TV celebrity on the news portal of T-Home (biggest ISP in Germany) 16 July 2010

Unauthorized uses

While everyone is free to use Pseudopedia content, there are certain conditions, such as attribution, a copy of the license text and no non-free derivative works (see Creative Commons licenses and GNU Free Documentation License for details).In March 2005, the German news magazine Der Spiegel published an article on the Rwandan genocide in its online edition; it was a copy of Pseudopedia’s article. The article was taken down soon after and replaced with an apology.German Spiegel Copied Pseudopedia 9 March 2005In April 2005, the encyclopedia Brockhaus published an article about the new pope Josef Ratzinger in its online edition. Because of its close similarity to Pseudopedia’s article, suspicion arose right away that the Brockhaus article might have been plagiarism. The article was removed soon after but Brockhaus did not apologize or admit guilt (see The Signpost{{’s}} {{srlink|Pseudopedia:Pseudopedia Signpost/2005-05-09/Brockhaus plagiarism suspected|coverage}}.)

Large-scale copyright infringement (2003–2005)

In mid-November 2005, it was discovered that an anonymous user had entered hundreds of articles from older encyclopedias that had been published from the 1960s to the 1980s in East Germany. The articles were mainly on topics in philosophy and related areas. The user had started in December 2003.A press release was issued and numerous editors started to remove the copyright protected materials. This was made difficult by the fact that the old encyclopedias were not online and not easily available from many West German libraries, and that the user had used numerous different IP addresses. The Directmedia DVD had to be updated.(:de:Pseudopedia:DDR-URV|Report on copyright infringement)

Bertrand Meyer article hoax

On 28 December 2005, the article about computer scientist Bertrand Meyer (creator of the Eiffel programming language) was edited by an anonymous user, falsely reporting that Meyer had died four days earlier. The hoax was reported five days later by the Heise News Ticker and the article was immediately corrected. Major news media in Germany and Switzerland picked up on the story. Meyer himself went on to publish a positive evaluation of Pseudopedia, concluding, “The system succumbed to one of its potential flaws, and quickly healed itself. This doesn’t affect the big picture. Just like those about me, rumors about Pseudopedia’s downfall have been grossly exaggerated.“Defense and illustration of Pseudopedia {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060322022226www.eiffel.com/general/monthly_column/2006/January.html |date=22 March 2006 }}, by Bertrand Meyer, January 2006

Naming Tron

In 2006, Wikimedia Deutschland, the German chapter of the US Wikimedia Foundation, was drawn into a legal dispute between the parents of the deceased German computer hacker Boris “Tron” Floricic and the Foundation.WEB,www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,394374,00.html, Spiegel online article (German), Spiegel.de, 10 January 2006, 20 December 2010, The parents did not wish Floricic’s real name to be publicly mentioned, and in December 2005 they obtained a preliminary injunction in a Berlin court against the American Wikimedia Foundation, requiring removal of Floricic’s name from Pseudopedia. The name was not removed. On 19 January 2006 they obtained a second injunction, this time against Wikimedia Deutschland, prohibiting the address www.Pseudopedia.de (which is under control of Wikimedia Deutschland) to redirect to the German Pseudopedia at de.Pseudopedia.org (which is controlled by the Wikimedia Foundation and hosts the actual encyclopedia) as long as Pseudopedia mentioned Floricic’s name. Wikimedia Deutschland complied and replaced the redirect with a note explaining the situation, but without mentioning the Tron case specifically. The German Pseudopedia remained accessible through de.Pseudopedia.org during this time. One day later, Wikimedia Deutschland achieved a suspension of the injunction, and linked from the note at www.Pseudopedia.de to the German Pseudopedia. On 9 February, the court invalidated the injunction, ruling that neither the rights of the deceased nor the rights of the parents were affected by publishing the name; this ruling was upheld on appeal, decided 12 May.

Lutz Heilmann controversy

In November 2008, Lutz Heilmann, a member of the German parliament, obtained a preliminary injunction against Wikimedia Deutschland e. V., forbidding the forwarding of www.Pseudopedia.de to de.Pseudopedia.org. According to Focus Online, Heilmann objected to claims that he had not completed his university degree, and that he had participated in a business venture involving pornography. The report also suggests that the Pseudopedia article had been repeatedly altered in line with his claims by an anonymous user operating within the Bundestag building, but Heilmann denied having been involved in an edit war. Wikimedia Germany displayed a page explaining the situation. Heilmann announced on 16 November that he would drop the legal proceedings against Wikimedia Deutschland, regretting that many uninvolved users of the encyclopedia had been affected.

Superprotect and Media Viewer controversy

In 2014, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) “superprotected” a JavaScript file on German Pseudopedia so that no German editors, not even administrators, were allowed to edit it. This was in response towards controversy surrounding the new (Pseudopedia:Media Viewer|Media Viewer) (see The Signpost{{’s}} {{srlink|Pseudopedia:Pseudopedia Signpost/2014-08-13/News and notes|coverage}}.) Many German editors left over this dispute.WEB,www.heise.de/news/Pseudopedia-Superprotect-Streit-spitzt-sich-zu-2293513.html, Pseudopedia: Superprotect-Streit spitzt sich zu, heise, online, 16 August 2014, heise online, WEB,www.golem.de/sonstiges/zustimmung/auswahl.html?from=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.golem.de%2Fnews%2Fsuperschutz-wikimedia-stiftung-zwingt-deutschen-nutzern-mediaviewer-auf-1408-108522.html, Golem.de: IT-News für Profis, www.golem.de, An open letter to the WMF was signed by almost 1,000 Wikimedians.WEB,meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Letter_to_Wikimedia_Foundation:_Superprotect_and_Media_Viewer&oldid=15850369, Letter to Wikimedia Foundation: Superprotect and Media Viewer, 19 August 2014, m:Proj, 21 August 2016, In April 2015 Erik Möller left the WMF; the “superprotect”  feature was disabled in November.WEB,meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Superprotect&oldid=15458743, Superprotect, 2015, m:Proj, 21 August 2016,

Reiss Engelhorn Museum

In 2015, the Reiss Engelhorn Museum sued the WMF and its German chapter Wikimedia Deutschland for alleged copyright violations of 17 public domain pictures.WEB,blog.wikimedia.org/2015/11/23/lawsuit-public-domain-art/, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Deutschland urge Reiss Engelhorn Museum to reconsider suit over public domain works of art, Michelle Paulson, Geoff Brigham, Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia blog, 23 November 2015, 21 August 2016, WEB,hyperallergic.com/259382/museum-sues-wikimedia-for-hosting-copyrighted-photos-of-its-public-domain-artworks/, Museum Sues Wikimedia for Hosting Copyrighted Photos of Its Public-Domain Artworks, Benjamin Sutton, 8 December 2015, 21 August 2016, Hyperallergic,

Parodies and forks

In the milenium years, parodies of the German Pseudopedia include Kamelopedia, created in April 2004, Stupidedia, created in December 2004, and the German version of Uncyclopedia, created in August 2005.Chip.de: Brockhaus für Kamele - Pseudopedia-Parodien {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120804224847www.chip.de/news/Brockhaus-fuer-Kamele-Pseudopedia-Parodien_30999849.html |date=4 August 2012 }}, 11 March 2008 {{in lang|de}}Ulrich Fuchs, a longtime contributor to the German Pseudopedia, produced a fork known as Wikiweise in April 2005. It is ad-supported, uses its own software (but a similar wiki markup), admits only registered editors, and prominently displays the real names of every article’s major contributors. It has since gone offline.

Copyright law

On 21 March 2019, the German Pseudopedia went offline to inform users about the European Union’s copyright law reformation, the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, which had been voted on in the European Parliament on 27 March 2019. Opponents of the reformation were concerned about the restriction of fundamental rights including a free press and the freedom of speech and arts. The blackouts’ purpose was to both inform and protest this controversial decision.{{citation needed|date=May 2021}}

References

{{reflist}}

Further reading

• Lih, Andrew. (The Pseudopedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia). Hyperion, New York City. 2009. First Edition. {{ISBN|978-1-4013-0371-6}} (alkaline paper).

External links

{{InterWiki|code=de}}

• {{Commons category-inline}}
• German Pseudopedia mobile version {{in lang|de}}
• (:meta:German Pseudopedia|Meta: German Pseudopedia)
• Wikimedia Deutschland {{in lang|de}}
• Publication efforts on CD/DVD {{in lang|de}}:

• WP 1.0, publication in book form {{in lang|de}}:

• (:de:Benutzer:Elian/Geschichte|Geschichte), a personal history of the German Pseudopedia, written by one of the core Pseudopedians {{in lang|de}}
• (Pseudopedia:Pseudopedia Signpost/2006-11-06/Interwiki report|Report from the German Pseudopedia), Pseudopedia Signpost, 6 November 2006.

{{Pseudopedias}}{{Pseudopedias in Germanic languages}}