Veropedia
Encyclopedia
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, which never arrived.
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.
the site, still in beta, had checked and imported more than 5,800 articles from the English Wikipedia
into its public database. Although Veropedia intended to eventually support itself completely through advertising, the project was mainly financed by those involved in the project, and in January 2009 it disabled articles and advertisements and announced a coming "Beta2". The "Beta2" never arrived and the articles were not restored.
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
.
, and founded by Wool, a former co-ordinator at the Wikimedia Foundation
, the parent organization of Wikipedia.
As required by its use of Wikipedia material, all Veropedia content was licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License
.
over 1.5 million – indicating it was significantly less popular than Wikipedia
, Citizendium
, and Scholarpedia
.
Nicholas Carr
, a critic of Web 2.0
in general and Wikipedia in particular, criticized Veropedia as trying to "scrape" the "cream" of Wikipedia. Carr has also stated that Veropedia had an unclear interface with clicks bouncing one back and forth between Wikipedia and Veropedia.
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.
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."
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."
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.
In January 2008, the St. Petersburg Times
, a well known Florida
newspaper based in the town from which Danny Wool operated Veropedia, listed Wool and Terry Foote, a Veropedia investor, as "people to watch in 2008".
Internet encyclopedia project
An Internet encyclopedia project is a large database of useful information, accessible via the World Wide Web. The idea to build a free encyclopedia using the Internet can be traced at least to the 1993 Interpedia proposal; it was planned as an encyclopedia on the Internet to which everyone could...
launched in late October 2007. It was taken down in January 2009 pending creation of a new version, which never arrived.
Veropedia editors chose Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
articles that met the site's reliability standards; information was then scraped
Web scraping
Web scraping is a computer software technique of extracting information from websites...
, 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.
the site, still in beta, had checked and imported more than 5,800 articles from the English Wikipedia
English Wikipedia
The English Wikipedia is the English-language edition of the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Founded on 15 January 2001 and reaching three million articles by August 2009, it was the first edition of Wikipedia and remains the largest, with almost three times as many articles as the next...
into its public database. Although Veropedia intended to eventually support itself completely through advertising, the project was mainly financed by those involved in the project, and in January 2009 it disabled articles and advertisements and announced a coming "Beta2". The "Beta2" never arrived and the articles were not restored.
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 and was an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation until spring 2007. By November 2007, roughly 100 Wikipedia editors were involved in the project. The help of academics who had worked on Wikipedia was also being sought.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
Citizendium
Citizendium is an English-language wiki-based free encyclopedia project launched by Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001....
.
Management and legal status
Veropedia was operated by Veropedia, Inc., a for-profit corporation registered in FloridaFlorida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, and founded by Wool, a former co-ordinator at the Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is an American non-profit charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, United States, and organized under the laws of the state of Florida, where it was initially based...
, the parent organization of Wikipedia.
As required by its use of Wikipedia material, all Veropedia content was licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License
GNU Free Documentation License
The GNU Free Documentation License is a copyleft license for free documentation, designed by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU Project. It is similar to the GNU General Public License, giving readers the rights to copy, redistribute, and modify a work and requires all copies and...
.
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. Other notable differences included:- Articles were uploaded when they met Veropedia's criteria. Articles were not edited once uploaded.
- 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.
- In contrast to Wikipedia, which allows almost anyone to edit, contributing to Veropedia was by approval (following a request) or invitation only.
- 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, and are improved to a high quality standard. , Veropedia's growth rate was around 300 articles per month.
- Another difference from the English Wikipedia was a number of tighter restrictions, for example, exclusion of fair useFair useFair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders...
images and other content. The Veropedia FAQFAQFrequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...
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." - In contrast with Wikipedia's donation-based model, Veropedia's business model used paid advertising. Danny Wool commented: "I was in charge of fundraising for Wikipedia, and I feel a lot more comfortable taking ads from AmazonAmazon.comAmazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
than the donations of high school students."
Role of experts
In Veropedia's own words: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."Evaluation
Veropedia, founded in 2007, was still in its beta stage. It had an Alexa traffic rankAlexa Internet
Alexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
over 1.5 million – indicating it was significantly less popular than Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
, Citizendium
Citizendium
Citizendium is an English-language wiki-based free encyclopedia project launched by Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001....
, and Scholarpedia
Scholarpedia
Scholarpedia is an English-language online wiki-based encyclopedia that uses the same MediaWiki software as Wikipedia, but has features more commonly associated with open-access online academic journals....
.
Nicholas Carr
Nicholas G. Carr
Nicholas George Carr is an American writer who has published books and articles on technology, business, and culture. His book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction.-Career:Carr originally came to prominence with the...
, a critic of Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
in general and Wikipedia in particular, criticized Veropedia as trying to "scrape" the "cream" of Wikipedia. Carr has also stated that Veropedia had an unclear interface with clicks bouncing one back and forth between Wikipedia and Veropedia.
Tim Blackmore, an associate professor at the Faculty of Information and Media Studies of the University of Western Ontario
University of Western Ontario
The University of Western Ontario is a public research university located in London, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus covers of land, with the Thames River cutting through the eastern portion of the main campus. Western administers its programs through 12 different faculties and...
, 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.
A different evaluation in The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
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."
A story in Wired News
Wired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...
discussed whether Veropedia (and Citizendium
Citizendium
Citizendium is an English-language wiki-based free encyclopedia project launched by Larry Sanger, who co-founded Wikipedia in 2001....
) 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."
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.
In January 2008, the St. Petersburg Times
St. Petersburg Times
The St. Petersburg Times is a United States newspaper. It is one of two major publications serving the Tampa Bay Area, the other being The Tampa Tribune, which the Times tops in both circulation and readership. Based in St...
, a well known Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
newspaper based in the town from which Danny Wool operated Veropedia, listed Wool and Terry Foote, a Veropedia investor, as "people to watch in 2008".