Baidu Baike

Infobox website
name = Baidu Baike



caption = Baidu Baike's website on 28 April, 2008
url = http://baike.baidu.com/
commercial = No
location = Beijing
type = Internet encyclopedia project
language = Chinese
registration = Compulsory
owner = Baidu
author = Robin Li

Baidu Baike (zh-cp|c=|p=bǎidù bǎikē; translation: Baidu Encyclopedia) is a Chinese language collaborative Web-based encyclopedia provided by the Chinese search engine Baidu. It initially prospered in the wake of the blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China on October 19 2005. The test version was released on April 20, 2006, and within three weeks, the encyclopedia had grown to more than 90,000 articles, surpassing that of Chinese Wikipedia. By November 2006, Baidu Baike held more articles than any edition of Wikipedia with the exception of English Wikipedia, rivaling those of German Wikipedia. At that time, its growth rate was approximately 50,000 articles per month.

Baidu Baike is the second largest online Chinese encyclopedia after Hoodong.

Conception

Baidu's William Chang said on WWW2008 'No reason for China to use Wikipedia', 'It's very natural for China to make its own products.' [cite web |url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-13908_3-9926474-59.html |title=Baidu's William Chang: 'No reason for China to use Wikipedia' |accessdate=2008-06-22 |author=Graham Webster |date=2008-04-22 |publisher=CNET News]

Functions of the website

The site is an open Internet encyclopedia espousing equality, collaboration, and sharing. [cite web| url=http://baike.baidu.com/lemma-php/dispose/view.php/1.htm| title=百度百科| accessdate=2006-05-11| publisher=Baidu Baike] The encyclopedia, with two other services provided by Baidu ("zhidao" and "post") would form a trinity to complement the search engine.

The articles are written and edited by registered users and reviewed by behind-the-scenes administrators before release. There is no formal way to contact the administrators. Registered users' contributions are rewarded in a credit point system. Although the earlier test version was named "Baidu WIKI", official media releases and pages on the encyclopedia itself state that the system is not a wiki. The site does not use MediaWiki. But it's still using the concept "wiki" now in reality, one of which is in the url [For example, whena keyword is entered and the button "search" is clicked then, it would give a page of a url like this

http://baike.baidu.com/w?ct=17&lm=0&tn=baiduWikiSearch&pn=0&rn=10&word=%B0%D9%B6%C8%D5%E6%C0%C3&submit=search

, which has the concert "wiki" included. "Re-valid at June 22nd, 2008."] .

tyle and interface

The visual style of the encyclopedia is simple. In articles, only boldface and hyperlinks are supported. Comments are listed at the bottom of each page.

Amongst its wiki-like functions, the site supports editing, commenting, and printing of articles, as well as an article history function.

Editing

Users can access multiple extended editing functions, including:
* An image uploading system where files less than 2 MB can be added to articles in the Encyclopedia.
* A keyword tagging system called "open category" (similar to folksonomy). One article can be tagged with at most 5 categories.
* A separate edit box for references and external links.

Principles of the encyclopedia

Articles or comments containing the following types of content would be removed [cite web| url=http://www.baidu.com/search/baike_help.html#n7| title=百科原则| accessdate=2006-12-24| publisher=Baike Baidu] :
# pornographic or violent text or images
# advertising
# personal attacks
# unethical content
# malicious, meaningless content

Copyright

Baidu Baike's copyright policy is outlined in the 'terms of use' section of its help page. In it, Baidu Baike states that by adding content to the site, users agree to assign Baidu rights to their original contributions. It also states that users cannot violate intellectual property law, and that contributions which quote works held under the Creative Commons and/or GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) must follow the restrictions of those licenses. [cite web| url=http://www.baidu.com/search/baike_help.html| title=百度搜索帮助中心-百度百科帮助| accessdate=2006-05-11| publisher=Baike Baidu]

Growth

The number of articles exceeded 10,000 in two days of its launch, and reached 40,000 in six.

Criticism

Baidu Baike has been critized for violating the GFDL when using Wikipedia content. The project has been criticized for violating GFDL copyrights as well as other copyrights such as those belonging to Hoodong.com and encouraging plagiarism. [cite web |url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135550-c,copyright/article.html |title=Baidu May Be Worst Wikipedia Copyright Violator |accessdate=2008-03-29 |author=Dan Nystedt |date=2008-08-26 |publisher=PC World] cite web |url=http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/nov2007/gb20071113_725400.htm|title=Baidu's Censored Answer to Wikipedia |accessdate=2008-03-29 |author=Eva Woo |date=2007-11-13 |publisher=Business Week ] The project has also been criticized as heavily censoring content critical of the People's Republic of China government and the official government positions.

See also

* Chinese encyclopedias
* List of online encyclopedias

References

External links

* [http://baike.baidu.com/ Baidu Baike] Languageicon|zh|Chinese
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4761301.stm "Site launches 'Chinese Wikipedia"'] (BBC News)
* [http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/11/1841224 Slashdot comments on Baidu Baike]