Earlier this year, I made a difficult decision to temporarily remove a critical feature Urban Dictionary has had since 1999: voting on definitions.

As the internet changed, our voting system had become increasingly vulnerable to manipulation. What worked in 1999 doesn't work in 2025.

When the feature went offline, we heard from many of you: Urban Dictionary's democracy doesn't function without voting. You were right.

One person, one vote

As of election week, voting is back, but it works differently. We've rebuilt the system with modern anti-bot verification to ensure that every up and down vote comes from a real human, not from a machine.

The new voting process is a little slower, but it's worth it to ensure votes are real. The internet is flooded with AI-generated content. Urban Dictionary will continue to choose human authenticity over inflated numbers.

Urban Dictionary has always been about documenting modern language, and responding to the needs of the people who use it. Thank you for caring, noticing that something was missing, and for telling us about it.

Go vote!

Aaron
Urban Dictionary