Wikipedia alternative aims to be 'PBS of the Web'

A new online information service launching in early 2006 aims to build on the model of free online encyclopedia Wikipedia by inviting acknowledged experts in a range of subjects to review material contributed by the general public.

Called Digital Universe, the project is the brainchild of, among others, USWeb founder Joe Firmage and Larry Sanger, one of Wikipedia's earliest creators.

By providing a service they're calling "the PBS of the Web," the Digital Universe team hopes to create a new era of free and open access to wide swaths of information on virtually any topic.

News.context

What's new:
Digital Universe, a new online repository of articles, will have two tiers: publicly written articles that are not certified by the experts as accurate, and those that are.

Bottom line:
The founders of Digital Universe say they're creating a unique online information resource that combines Web-based collaboration and scientific review. The challenge will be finding the money to back up an endless supply of no-cost and ad-free articles.

More stories on this topic

"The vision of the Digital Universe is to essentially provide an ad-free alternative to the likes of AOL and Yahoo on the Internet," said Firmage. "Instead of building it through Web robots, we're building it through a web of experts at hundreds of institutions throughout the world."

Their idea is particularly timely given recent questions about Wikipedia's accuracy and credibility. A frequently raised criticism of the constantly growing repository of information has been that the millions of articles created by a worldwide community of contributors are not verified by experts.

Of course, that has always been Wikipedia's modus operandi--that its articles are written and vetted by its community, not by an elite corps of Ph.D.s. Yet there are some who feel that while the site has a satisfying populist appeal, and may be on par with the Encyclopedia Britannica when it comes to accuracy, it still suffers from a lack of true accountability.

By including articles that have been approved by experts, Digital Universe will have such reliability, its founders say.

The problem that Firmage and his colleagues are trying to solve is finding a financially viable way to back up an endless supply of no-cost and ad-free articles written by the general public with review and certification by subject-area experts.

There have been previous attempts at this. In fact, Sanger and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales were behind the last major attempt, known as Nupedia. But that effort died when it failed to generate the kind of critical mass that Wikipedia has--more than 45,000 active users and nearly 900,000 articles in English alone--over the last couple of years.

Avoiding past pitfalls
But Firmage, Sanger and Digital Universe President Bernard Haisch think their project can avoid the pitfalls of its predecessors. They've created a system built around the idea of portals--one for each major subject area, such as climate change, energy, education, the solar system and so on. Each portal will contain many different kinds of resources.

"There will be a lot of resources of different kinds that are actually prepared by experts and the general public under the management of experts," Sanger explained. "So this would include an encyclopedia, but also public-domain books, participatory journalism, forums of various kinds and so forth."

While the Digital Universe will be free to anyone, it has a business model, Firmage said. The idea is that it will partner with nonprofit organizations including NASA, the American Museum of Natural History and U.C. Berkeley and sell Digital Universe-branded Internet service to their members. He said subscribers would pay no more than what they currently pay for Internet service, and would get the benefit of knowing that some of their fees are going to supporting the organizations, as well as the Digital Universe itself.

[cjohn17]

Not Another P-BS? No Thanks

"PBS of the Web", huh? Well, the P-BS we have now is a haven for
hate America first programming and left wing ideologues. Why do
we need another one? It's ironic that Wiki is filled with inaccuracies
and left-slanted material. Just like P-BS.

The time has long passed for P-BS to fold and Wiki to be ignored.
Neither can be trusted.

[Earl Benser]

It's an idea....

.... but any sort of group grope to create any collection of real
and imagined knowledge is going to inherently contain serious
pitfalls. Wikipedia failed in achieving key objectives because no
effective documentation control could be developed. In fact.
someone in charge had the dim bulb idea that Wikipedia would
be self controlling. For the most part, it probably is, but you
never know ant any given moment what parts are correct and
what parts aren't.

By comparison, EB's errors are fixed, and usually identified, with
corrections in the next edition. Wikipedia just wanders around
truth, or a round what is currently proposed as truth.

We already have Wikipedia. It probably is adequate for casual
information finding, and perhaps as a starting point for serious
research. No matter what, of course, Wikipedia information
needs verification before using it. But another version of
Wikipedia seems like a major waste of time and effort. Let's stay
with what we have. We already know what you can, and cannot
do with it.

[kmslogic]

Well, this is one approach...

Create entirely new online encyclopedias to incorporate expert certification...

Or, I suppose you could just add that feature to Wikipedia (and have a view last certified version option for articles).

[nicmart]

Look out for Microsoft!

Eventually Microsoft will figure out that the online up-to-the-
moment reference can be lucrative, and Encarta is the place to
make it happen. And Microsoft will add the credibility of "expert"
review. As the new Nature study suggests, no source is infallible,
but the oversight of specialists improves accuracy.

[Blito]

Who needs a Phd. and Big Gov. on the web???

PhD and things like NASA are old hat on the Internet. The government complex doesn't rule here anymore. When you have entities like that controlling outcomes there is going to be a negative bias overall. Wikipedia may be biased here and there but even in contoversial articles like Bill O'Reilly and Nuclear Fusion you get strong balance troughout the article as to dissentions and dangers not found in Britannica. Not perfect though since I think they should put a timer or review by piers on that thing but nothing like 'government experts.' No thanks. Non-Profit is the future. You may think I am too liberal here but this is the way I see it now.

[bobby_brady]

How many more stories on Wikipedia?

Several months ago it was all about the next virus. Now it seems everyday there is a story on Wikipedia.

[mickmca]

Nice to see anti-intellectualism alive and well

How nice to see that America's love affair with no-nothing militant stupidity is still steamy.

I had a forum argument about St. Paul the Apostle ended by being told I was totally wrong, witness the Wikipedia!!! It did no good to point out that the Wikipedia entry on Paul was written in 1899 by a Protestant minister.

The Wiki is worthless, for the simple reason that this service will remedy. It publishes opinions abd fantasy as fact, regardless of the source. Expertise is not a dirty word when you need brain surgery....

Wiki is no better than the advice given a demented friend of mine after she told one of her illiterate friends she had been diagnosed with emphysema. "That's just a fancy doctor word for lung cancer!"

So she called me hysterical, to say good-bye. Good-bye, Wiki. Your friends deserve you.

M

[TV James]

What expert?

What really makes someone an expert? We're still searching for this impossible dream: learning without discerning. Only now are schools starting to realize that they must teach children how to analyze a source and make more educated guesses about why it might or might not be a valid source.

If we're going to let someone else do the work for us, what will ultimately win out will be a collective process (like Wikipedia) with editors (like About.com) and a technological backend that's smart enough to give more weight to one thing over another, but on a constantly shifting basis measured both by the popularity/frequency of consultation and the relevance of current events (like Google).

And as long as government or academia are directly involved, there will always be people who distrust it, always be people who perceive a real or imagined slant.

And as long as we're talking about communications, it goes back to what we learned on day 1 of COMA123 my freshman year... 1+1=3. What I said, what you think I said and what we together take away as shared communication from the process.

As long as we allow someone else to do our thinking for us, it will always be a flawed process.

[PCCRomeo]

Not more pledges >:-(

That's all we need..."If you make a donation to Digital Universe you will get this crappy Alan Jackson CD which will do nothing more than make your life more depressing and pathetic than it already is...". No thanks, I'll stick with Wikipedia

[ralahinn1]

Good to have "Experts", but does a paper make an"expert"

I think it's good to have experts put their input in projects, but I don't think a "paper" should be the end all and be all. I have seen "experts" give out false information in the past, and I have seen where"everyday" people had more knowlege about somethings than the expert did.
Also,I'm not sure it would be as popular, because everyone and anyone can submit info to Wikipedia, while a service which makes it a point to be like"Pbs" is already asking to fail.When I go to Pbs, its for British Comedy, and Dr Who, shows that entertain me. I don't go there for most opera and programs which I think will bore me because the people that host them seem asinine.
I think an all "expert" Wikipedia would be the same way.
Especially in the areas I'd be most interested in"Video Games". Someone can call themself an expert, and talk about the mechanics of the game and pick the game to death...but to me, an expert is a person who has played a game, and "lives it" as if it was a way of life. I would rather read an entry from someone who says "The town of Yargos is located on the edge of the Paladial Mountains. There You will find Magiana, a valuable addition to your party." Than to read" The game system utilizes the ram compressor,and will store 30% more ram than it's predecessors"says Dr. Vergil Climmons of the Tras-Tech Institute (both just examples)I don't want to know the technology used most times, I just want the back story for the game;)

No it didn't

It was considerably worse - and the study only at science stories.
Most of Wikipedia isn't science, it's half-assed fan drivel - so you
have to be a true believer, or have very low quality standards, to be
impressed.

But to each his own.

No it didn't

It was considerably worse - and the study only at science stories.
Most of Wikipedia isn't science, it's half-baked fan drivel - so you
have to be a true believer, or have very low quality standards, to be
impressed.

But to each his own.

[Marc Myers]

Cutting out the middle man

It sounds like Digital Universe will be re-creating Wikipedia and
than adding another level to it. That's a waste of effort. Let
Wikipedia be what it is and have an online encyclopedia with
articles by certified experts as a stand-alone creation. Why have
publicly-contributed articles vetted by experts when you could
have articles in their area of expertise written by the experts
themselves?

[kxmmxk]

Much Ado

Talk about taking much ado about nothing and running with it.

1. So if a so-called expert doesn't agree with something does it make it wrong? Not even in science do all the experts agree on the details of much. And the more social/cultural topics that have been in the news even more so. Say there is something that is well known but the "experts" choose to deny it or pretend it isn't happening/happened. They can just veto the subject? We all know OJ did it, whether he was found guilty or not, for example. Censorship it sounds like.

2. How many experts? Can just one say an article is good, even if he/she is wrong?

3. The thing about community created things is they end up with everything in there. Stuff an expert may overlook or not think is important or not be what he/she wants to slant it to (his own agenda). And everyone has their pockets of info, no expert knows or thinks of everything.


It just smacks of something getting blown out of proportion in the news and someone else seeing an opportunity they want to take advantage of before people come to their senses.

Experts are not infallible. Experts have agendas. Experts keep secrets. No source is infallible. There should be several sources before you come to a decision about anything.

Just use a little common sense!

[zed_awol]

link

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_talk:Story_preparation/Wikipedia_class_action_lawsuit_linked_to_possible_earthquake_charity_fraud/Wikipedophilia

[zed_awol]

Backgound check

Your original sources have the problems.

See Baou Inc., Greg Lloyd Smith,
Officewire, Kestrel trading

B is for broadcasting - and nobody's doing it yet

Nobody on the internet is doing true public-broadcasting. Blogs come close (for some definition of broadcast), but true public broadcasting on the internet will come from the video providers like http://www.vobbo.com/ who allow you to share not only text, but live/recorded video, quickly and easily, without installing any software.

[w1234cj]

Pay for information?

For some reason people are missing the beauty of Wikipedia, anyone can access it no matter what class or culture they are from - plus they can do it spontaneously and instantly. Obviously there is a problem with falsifying information, but I would take the chances with getting false information (and confirm it with a google search or go to the library if it was that important) before I would ever pay a subscription. Why? Not because I'm cheap, but I'm a busy college student who doesn't have time to rush to the library everytime I'm curious about something, and I'm too poor to pay another internet subscription.

[mahurshi]

Make it ad supported

It'd be good if Wikipedia runs on ads and uses that money to pay for the qualified reviewers. I don't know how this would work out, but it'd be a good start.

[vaxorcist]

UFO entries in this encyclopedia?

we all might enjoy:

http://dmoz.org/Society/Paranormal/UFOs/People/Firmage,_Joe/

http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id307/pg1/

http://skepdic.com/refuge/firmage.html

http://www.geocities.com/saufor/otherpapers/joefirmage.html