For 25 years, Urban Dictionary has been the home of modern language. Now, with Urban Dictionary Promote, we're launching a simple way for you to advertise here.
How it works:
No confusing pricing or complicated targeting. Just pick a word and go.
We built this for indie brands, creators, and anyone who wants a straightforward way to advertise. Every ad is reviewed by our team.
When you're ready to try it, click here: promote.urbandictionary.biz
❤️ Aaron and the Urban Dictionary Team
Urban Dictionary is not affiliated with any cryptocurrency, token, or blockchain project.
Recently, we’ve seen “Urban Dictionary” used as a category label for various meme coins and tokens on trading platforms. While we appreciate the role Urban Dictionary plays in internet culture, we do not endorse, support, or participate in any cryptocurrency projects.
We encourage everyone to exercise caution with speculative assets, especially those that reference popular brands or cultural platforms without authorization.
If you see any token claiming an official association with Urban Dictionary, please be aware that it is unauthorized and has no connection to us.
- Urban Dictionary Team
As a member of the Urban Dictionary team, I am incredibly frustrated and angry at the failure of political leaders to recommend masking to protect the immunocompromised and prevent the spread of long covid.
Masking has been shown to be effective in preventing the spread of covid-19, yet many political leaders continue to ignore the evidence and put people’s well-being at risk. This is unacceptable.
As an online-only web site, it may seem like the issue of covid-19 doesn't directly affect us. However, the reality is that the virus affects us all, whether we are online or offline. The spread of covid-19 can impact the overall health of our community.
Therefore, it is important for us to do our part in preventing the spread of the virus. This means wearing high-quality, well-fitting masks whenever we are in public.
Let's not wait for political leaders to do the right thing. Let's take action and protect ourselves and each other by wearing high-quality, well-fitting masks.
Sincerely,
Aaron Peckham
Urban Dictionary
Last year we blogged about Urban Dictionary’s focus on content moderation. We knew that sustaining the unique spirit of Urban Dictionary would require big changes. Here’s what we’ve changed, and what we haven’t changed, so far.
Definitions are no longer moderated by volunteers. Under the old system, a definition was published when a majority of volunteer moderators decided it was worth publishing. We appreciate our volunteer moderators’ work over the years. Over time, this system had become dominated by a loud minority who published abusive definitions and didn’t publish the good stuff.
We updated our public content guidelines, and detailed content guidelines, to clarify what’s okay on Urban Dictionary. Generally, a definition that describes an offensive or violent term is okay, but a definition that endorses or promotes an offensive or violent term is not okay.
We redeveloped our moderation system. Our own moderation team now reviews all newly-submitted and flagged definitions, and rejects definitions that violate our content guidelines. If you see a definition that violates our content guidelines, please flag it, and our moderation team will review it quickly.
This project is ongoing and we welcome your feedback. And if you’d like to join the moderation team, let us know.
Thank you,
Aaron Peckham
Urban Dictionary
This summer we posted Rethinking The Dictionary and invited your feedback. To the thousands of users who wrote in, we heard you and we want to address your concerns:
A user from New York said:
The world is full of diverse thoughts and languages. Solving "hate" or "abuse" will not be accomplished by selectively deeming slang words to be unacceptable for a dictionary that attempts to keep up with colloquial language as it becomes popular.
A user from Missouri said:
You provide a service that helps people identify and inform themselves [...] While some words are offensive, they NEED to be defined so that people can arm themselves with information and understanding. Children ask parents what bad words mean. Pretending those words don't exist doesn't help them or anyone. Informing them and educating on meanings DOES.
A user from Florida said:
You don't defeat evil by hiding it away, you expose it to the light, because only then can people see how bad it is, and only then can their minds be changed on it.
We agree with you. We know that the real world can be offensive and is full of offensive words. Urban Dictionary is an important tool to understand what those words mean. Knowing an offensive word's meaning can combat inequality and abuse. But there is a difference between using Urban Dictionary to document the meaning of an offensive word and using it to celebrate or endorse an offensive meaning.
We will not ban certain words, and we can't solve hate and abuse in the world (who can, really?). But we will clarify Urban Dictionary's community guidelines and build better tools to enforce them. Our goal is to help users write better definitions, and empower users to flag definitions that do not meet our community guidelines. We hope this will improve the overall health of Urban Dictionary.
A very small number of users are responsible for the abusive content we want to remove. Right now their behavior has an outsized impact on the rest of the site — it harms the community and often silences other voices. We want to change that. But the things you love about Urban Dictionary will not change: the irreverence, creativity and humor will remain. The work we are doing now aims to preserve that.
We want to keep hearing from you and welcome your comments in the form at this link.