Varjojenkirja
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Type of site | Virtual community |
|---|---|
| Available in | Finnish |
| Owner | Private property |
| Created by | Unenkulkija and Karhuntassu |
| Website | http://Www.varjojenkirja.com/ |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | 2004 |
Content license | Partially copyrighted |
Varjojen Kirja (Varjojenkirja.com) is an online information and society networking site for the Finnish pagan (Paganism) community. It is a non-profit organization run by married couple Unenkulkija and Karhuntassu and has been operated since late 2004.[1]
Originally released as an online library for herbs, charmstones, witchcraft rites and horoscopes, it soon gained popularity among Finnish pagans. Most of the site content is wiki-styled user-editable, which has enabled the site to expand its content 5 to 10 times from the original content.[2]
Popularity
The site receives over 300,000 page loads per month, making it one of the most popular and best-known Finnish pagan sites.[3] In Google alone there are 128,000 hits, which is mostly because of the large article content.[4] Most of the site visitors are non-registered users who find the site from search engines, although the site has an active userbase of nearly 2000 registered users since 2004. Currently there are nearly 500 active users, of which the site receives 100 to 200 logins per day.[5][6]
The site has been cited in many Finnish print-medias and sites as an information source for horoscopes, witchcraft, and it is one of the most quoted Finnish pagan sites online. Due to the popularity of the content, there have been several copyright issues between site-owners and third-party site owners who have copied the content without referencing the original. This has led to Cease and desist styled contacts to the content copiers from the owners and original authors of the articles.[7]
Content
When started in 2004, the site contained 200 – 300 different articles,[8] a number which has steadily increased thanks to user-contribution driven content. Originally most of the articles concentrated on Wicca as a pagan religion, but later, especially in summer 2009, main articles were fully rewritten and changed to aim at the most known natural-based belief-systems currently active in Finland. The site contains nowadays almost 2000 different articles on paganism, witchcraft, and different kinds of religions. The site also has a quite large discussion board and active online society.[9]
In 2006, the copyright of the content was changed to a Creative Commons license, but due to a major update of the site in summer 2009, all newly written content on the site has been partially copyrighted. Content is said to be free to use for personal use and also for third-party websites as long as the source is mentioned in the form of a quote.[10]
Controversies
During its operating years, there have been several controversies. Most of these have been caused by the site's user-verification policy, which demands registering users to identify themselves by using SMS verification. Users’ names and addresses must be recognizable from the phone records.[11] As this is unlike most registration demands of online pagan resources, it has started flame wars on hundreds of other more open-access Finnish internet communities.
The method of registration has changed several times during operating years, although SMS identification has always been mandatory. During years 2005–2007, identifying using phone records was not mandatory, and identity confirmation was done by requiring HETU (National identification number), but this was ended by complaints to the National Data Protection Supervisor. Finnish law permits HETU inquiring only in the case of credit services.[12]
In 2006, the site was under police investigation because of a Denial-of-service attack that was made against the site using a vulnerability in the registration verification system by a Finnish individual.
References
- ↑ http://www.varjojenkirja.com/veekoo.html
- ↑ http://www.varjojenkirja.com/tietoa.html
- ↑ http://www.varjojenkirja.com/mediatiedot.html
- ↑ https://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=varjojenkirja.com
- ↑ http://www.varjojenkirja.com/noitapiiri.html
- ↑ http://www.varjojenkirja.com/tilastot.html
- ↑ http://www.varjojenkirja.com/copyright.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.varjojenkirja.com
- ↑ http://www.varjojenkirja.com/veekoo.html
- ↑ http://www.varjojenkirja.com/copyright.html
- ↑ http://www.varjojenkirja.com/rekisterointi.html
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20071016043104/http://www.varjojenkirja.com
External links
This article "Varjojenkirja" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Varjojenkirja. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
