The Cooperative Devil's Dictionary Project

Introduction

In the latter half of the 19th century, Abrose Beirce had a regular column, where he would provide cynical, satirical definitions to common words. They were collected into a book called The Devil's Dictionary, which is a personal favorite of mine. Some of the work is dated, but it is still quite amusing.

This project is to collect new definitions for an updated Devil's Dictionary.

The Plan

In my copious free time, I plan on putting together a web page that will accept new definitions, submitted by users. I will then act as editor, adding them to the dictionary, for all to enjoy online.

The rules will be:

  1. Entries will only be accepted from "registered" users. That means I have a confirmed e-mail address for them. This allows them to be attributed to the proper person, for better or for worse.
  2. All entries must be original; no quotes of other people, and no old jokes.
  3. Entries will be judged according to the following criteria:
    1. Humor. The entry must amuse.
    2. Satire. The entry must mock some common aspect of society, and should mmaintain a cynical attitude towards humanity.
    3. Universality. The entry should be understandable and amusing to a broad audience (no in-joke.)
    4. Appropriateness. No racism or sexism. Note that an entry that is explicitly prejudiced but implicitly mocks that prejudice is fine.
    5. Originality. A definition that mocks in an insightful way is better than one that mocks in a familiar way.
    6. Language. The entry must be written in decent English. I will rewrite entries that otherwise pass on request.
  4. It's my project, so I am the judge. I might put entries I am unsure of up for debate, if I choose.
  5. All entries become property of the project, so I can publish them on the page if I want. I will probably copyleft the contents; there will be a final decision on that before we get started.
  6. Claims of plagerism will be investigated with the resources at hand (specifically, my spare time.) Hopefully, that will never be an issue.

Updates to the rules and progress reports on the code as I get around to them...