Veropedia

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Veropedia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Veropedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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Veropedia
Veropedia screenshot.png
URL veropedia.org
Commercial? Yes
Type of site Wiki
Registration Not required to read, required to contribute
Available language(s) English
Owner Veropedia, Inc.
Created by Wikipedia editors
Launched October 2007
Current status Inactive

Veropedia was a free, advertising-supported Internet encyclopedia project launched in late October 2007. It was taken down in January 2009 pending creation of a new version.

Veropedia editors chose Wikipedia articles that met the site's reliability standards; information was then scraped, or chosen by an automatic process, and thereafter a stable version of the article was posted on Veropedia.

Any improvements required for articles to reach a standard suitable for Veropedia had to be done on Wikipedia itself. This model was intended to provide benefits to both projects: Wikipedia's open-nature and large volume, and Veropedia's stability and perpetuity.[1][2][3]

As of October 2008[update] the site, still in beta, had checked and imported more than 5,800 articles[4] from the English Wikipedia into its public database.[5] Although Veropedia intended to eventually support itself completely through advertising, the project was mainly financed by those involved in the project,[6] and in January 2009 it disabled articles and advertisements and announced a coming "Beta2".

Contents

[edit] History

Veropedia was started by a group of experienced Wikipedia editors, including founder Danny Wool, who had prior experience editing a variety of reference works including Encyclopedia of the Peoples of the World[7] and was an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation until Spring 2007.[8] As of November 2007[update] roughly 100 Wikipedia editors were involved in the project. The help of academics who had worked on Wikipedia was also being sought.[1][7]

An explanatory page on the site stated that similar projects in languages other than English might be launched; it distinguished Veropedia from "expert-driven" wikis such as Citizendium.

[edit] Management and legal status

Veropedia is operated by Veropedia, Inc., a for-profit corporation registered in Florida,[3][9] and founded by Daniel Wool,[10] a former co-ordinator at the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia.[8]

As required by its use of Wikipedia material, all Veropedia content was licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.[4]

[edit] Contrast with Wikipedia

The Veropedia editorial community was far smaller than Wikipedia's, and was intended to be geared towards quality article writing, seeing involvement in Veropedia as a means to return to the roots of knowledge building by focusing upon articles rather than editorial difficulties.[11] Other notable differences included:

  • One-time uploads - Articles were uploaded when they met Veropedia's criteria. Articles were not edited once uploaded.
  • Quality control system - Veropedia used only experienced article editors, and also operated an automated system for uploading which checked proposed articles for a wide range of issues, and refused to accept them if any were present. Independent human expert review of articles was planned for the final site, but was not implemented.
  • Editorship subject to approval - In contrast to Wikipedia, which allows almost anyone to edit, contributing to Veropedia was by approval (following a request) or invitation only.[2]
  • Smaller range of content - Veropedia's content covered a smaller range than Wikipedia: at its height it had some 5800 articles vs. 3 million for Wikipedia. The focus was explicitly upon articles that are likely to be widely useful,[2] and are improved to a high quality standard.[2] As of December 2007[update], Veropedia's growth rate was around 300 articles per month.[12]
  • Prohibition of 'fair use' images - Another difference from the English Wikipedia was a number of tighter restrictions, for example, exclusion of fair use images and other content. The Veropedia FAQ stated: "We have decided to... go back to the core principles of the project by focusing on free content. Only by insisting on free content can we revert the current trend of extending copyright and encourage people to release their content to the public."[2]
  • Funding - In contrast with Wikipedia's donation-based model, Veropedia's business model used paid advertising.[3] Danny Wool commented: "I was in charge of fundraising for Wikipedia, and I feel a lot more comfortable taking ads from Amazon than the donations of high school students."[7]

[edit] Role of experts

In Veropedia's own words:[2]

"Each article will be given to recognized academics and experts to review. These experts can either provide their stamp of approval or make suggestions as to how the article can be improved further. In that way, users will know that the article is reliable.

Our material is written by Wikipedia contributors. The role of experts and academics will be to check it and, ideally, approve it. Their comments will be given back to our contributors to incorporate back into the articles to make them even better."

[edit] Site taken down

In January 2009, the encyclopedia contents were removed and replaced with a message stating that "The original version of Veropedia has been taken down for now while we work on a new Veropedia. This new Veropedia will have a superior method of handling articles and introduces an improved interface."

[edit] Evaluation

Veropedia, founded in 2007, is still in its beta stage. It has an Alexa traffic rank over 1.5 million[13] – indicating it is significantly less popular than Wikipedia[14], Citizendium,[15] and Scholarpedia.[16]

Nicholas Carr, a critic of Web 2.0 in general and Wikipedia in particular, has criticized Veropedia as trying to "scrape" the "cream" of Wikipedia.[1] Carr has also stated that Veropedia has an unclear interface with clicks bouncing one back and forth between Wikipedia and Veropedia.[1]

Tim Blackmore, an associate professor at the Faculty of Information and Media Studies of the University of Western Ontario, expressed scepticism toward the project, since there are already encyclopedias in existence where "content is checked and articles are reviewed". The main lure of the internet, according to him, is "free information" and Wikipedia has already emerged as a pioneer in open content information resources.[17]

A different evaluation in The Australian said Veropedia "seems more likely to succeed" than Citizendium, another recently founded online encyclopedia, because "it is less directly competitive" with Wikipedia. The story opined that both Veropedia and Citizendium "should in theory help improve the fairness and accuracy of available online information about many contentious topics although the academic bent to each raises questions over what, exactly, they will construe as fair when it comes to coverage of corporations and their actions.[18]

A story in Wired News discussed whether Veropedia (and Citizendium) could avoid some of the same problems that Wikipedia has supposedly encountered: "Though office politics and internecine bickering abound at the Wikimedia Foundation – one former insider described the atmosphere as "MySpace meets 'As the World Turns' for geeks" – both Wool and Sanger deny that internal squabbles were why they started their own encyclopedias. Whether their ventures fall prey to the same turf wars, bureaucratic quagmires and academic catfights as the site that spawned them remains to be seen."[8]

In a review of various Wikipedia alternatives, TechNewsWorld argued that Veropedia's estimation of 5000 articles was not credible, as "many of these articles are small and insignificant almanac-type entries that serve mainly as filler". It thus argued that like Citizendium, Veropedia avoided "the tough challenge of handling controversial and time-sensitive subjects" that Wikipedia had taken on. The article also stated that most Veropedia articles were identical to their Wikipedia counterpart.[19][dead link]

In January 2008, the St. Petersburg Times, a well known Florida newspaper based in the town from which Danny Wool operates Veropedia, listed Wool and Terry Foote, a Veropedia investor, as "people to watch in 2008".[6]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Nicholas Carr (2007-10-29). "Veropedia and the Wikipedia mine". http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/10/veropedia_and_t.php. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  2. ^ a b c d e f "FAQ". Veropedia. http://www.veropedia.com/docs/faq.en.php. Retrieved 2008-03-08. 
  3. ^ a b c Matthew Sparkes (2007-11-06). "Wikipedia spins-off another rival". PC Pro. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/135639/wikipedia-spinsoff-another-rival.html. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  4. ^ a b "Veropedia main page". http://www.veropedia.com. Retrieved 2008-03-09. 
  5. ^ "All Articles". Veropedia. http://en.veropedia.com/index.php?action=allpages. Retrieved 2008-03-09. 
  6. ^ a b "10 people to watch in 2008". St. Petersburg Times. 2008-01-06. http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/06/Business/10_people_to_watch_in.shtml. Retrieved 2008-01-06. 
  7. ^ a b c Leslie Scrivener (November 4, 2007). "It's called Veropedia. Its goal: To create something that students and teachers can rely on". The Toronto Star. http://www.thestar.com/News/article/273317. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  8. ^ a b c Dan Tynan (11 June 2007). "Wikipedia's Inner Circle Keeps Producing Competitors". wired. http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/11/veropedia. Retrieved 2008-02-07. 
  9. ^ "Filing information for Veropedia with Florida". Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations. http://sunbiz.org/scripts/cordet.exe?action=DETFIL&inq_doc_number=P07000100571&inq_came_from=NAMFWD&cor_web_names_seq_number=0000&names_name_ind=N&names_cor_number=&names_name_seq=&names_name_ind=&names_comp_name=VEROPEDIA&names_filing_type=. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  10. ^ Daniel Wool is referred to as the founder and sole officer #_note-UWOgazette http://www.newser.com/story/11048/wikipedia-insiders-launch-competitors.html http://blog.edu-cyberpg.com/2007/11/05/What+Is+Veropedia.aspx #_note-company_filing with Veropedia described as "his startup"#_note-Wired
  11. ^ For example, Terry Foote, a long-standing Wikipedian who is also part of the Veropedia community, has been quoted as saying, "When we first signed on with Wikipedia our goal was to build a citadel of knowledge. But now it's more like ancient Rome, and the Visigoths and the Vandals are coming over the walls." See #_note-Wired
  12. ^ based upon a total of 90 articles uploaded during the ten days 9 - 18 December 2007 http://en.veropedia.com/index.php?action=recentchanges
  13. ^ "veropedia.com - Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/veropedia.com. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  14. ^ "wikipedia.org - Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/wikipedia.org. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  15. ^ "citizendium.org - Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/citizendium.org. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  16. ^ "scholarpedia.org - Traffic Details from Alexa". Alexa Internet. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/scholarpedia.org. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  17. ^ Mike Hayes (2007-11-07). "Veropedia aims to be a legit wiki". The Gazette, University of Western Ontario. http://www.gazette.uwo.ca/article.cfm?section=News&articleID=1116&month=11&day=07&year=2007. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  18. ^ Stephen Ellis (2007-11-20). "Slowing down spin in wikis world". The Australian. http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22786828-5013038,00.html. Retrieved 2008-08-01. 
  19. ^ Mick O'Leary (2008-02-20). "Would-Be Wikipedia Replacements Stumble". TechNewsWorld. http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Would-Be-Wikipedia-Replacements-Stumble-61728.html. Retrieved 2008-02-23. 

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links

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