Veropedia

Infobox Dotcom company
company_name = Veropedia, Inc.
company_logo =
company_type =
foundation = October 2007
founder = Danny Wool
location = Florida, United States
revenue =
owner =
company_slogan =
url = http://veropedia.com


caption = December 2007
website_type = Encyclopedia project
language = fifteen languages, including: English, German, Dutch, Spanish, French
author = Wikipedia editors
registration = Not required to read, required to contribute
alexa = ~ 700,000 [ [http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main/veropedia.com veropedia.com - Site Information from Alexa ] ]
advertising = AdBrite
launch_date = late October 2007
current_status = Beta

Veropedia is a free, advertising-supported Internet encyclopedia project launched in late October 2007.cite web |author=Nicholas Carr|url= http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2007/10/veropedia_and_t.php |title= Veropedia and the Wikipedia mine |accessdate=2008-08-01|date=2007-10-29|]

The site is based around collaboration within Wikipedia, whereby Wikipedia articles that meet Veropedia's reliability criteria are chosen by its editors, scraped, and then a stable version of the article is kept on Veropedia. Any improvements required for articles to reach a standard suitable for Veropedia occur on Wikipedia itself. This model is intended to provide benefits to both projects with Wikipedia providing a large amount of free content suitable for potential improvement, and Veropedia contributors providing improvements and fact-checking within Wikipedia articles.cite web|url= http://www.veropedia.com/docs/faq.en.php | title=FAQ| publisher=Veropedia| accessdate=2008-03-08]

As of|2008|October the site, still in beta, has checked and imported over 5000 articlescite web|url= http://www.veropedia.com |title=Veropedia main page|accessdate=2008-03-09] from the English Wikipedia into its public database. [cite web|url= http://en.veropedia.com/index.php?action=allpages|title=All Articles| publisher=Veropedia| accessdate=2008-03-09] Although Veropedia intends to eventually support itself completely through advertising, as of January 2008 the project is run mainly from personal savings, investments and loans of those involved in the project.cite web |url= http://www.sptimes.com/2008/01/06/Business/10_people_to_watch_in.shtml |title=10 people to watch in 2008 |accessdate=2008-01-06 |date=2008-01-06|publisher=St. Petersburg Times]

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"cite news|author=Leslie Scrivener|title=It's called Veropedia. Its goal: To create something that students and teachers can rely on |url= http://www.thestar.com/News/article/273317 |publisher=The Toronto Star|date=November 4, 2007 |accessdate=2008-08-01] and was an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation until Spring 2007. As of|2007|November roughly 100 Wikipedia editors are involved in the project, which is also seeking the help of academics who have worked on Wikipedia.

The FAQ also states that similar projects in languages other than English may be launched in the future, and attempts to distinguish Veropedia from "expert-driven" projects such as Citizendium.

Management and legal status

Veropedia is operated by Veropedia, Inc., a for-profit corporation registered in Florida,cite web |url=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=
title=Filing information for Veropedia with Florida|accessdate=2008-08-01|publisher=Florida Department of State, Division of Corporations] cite web |url= http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/135639/wikipedia-spinsoff-another-rival.html |title=Wikipedia spins-off another rival |accessdate=2008-08-01 |author=Matthew Sparkes |date=2007-11-06| publisher=PC Pro] and founded by Daniel Wool, [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] a former co-ordinator at the Wikimedia Foundation, the parent organization of Wikipedia.cite web|url= http://www.wired.com/techbiz/startups/news/2007/11/veropedia |title=Wikipedia's Inner Circle Keeps Producing Competitors|publisher=wired|author= Dan Tynan| date=2007-06-11| accessdate=2008-02-07]

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

Contrast with Wikipedia

The Veropedia editorial community is far smaller than Wikipedia's, and is 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. [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] Other notable differences include:

* One-time uploads - Articles are uploaded when they reach a high quality and meet all current criteria. Articles are not edited once uploaded; instead at a future time, a further upload may be undertaken if the article on Wikipedia has since been improved. This is used to ensure reliable encyclopedic content, at the cost of far lower degree of responsiveness to topics where articles may change rapidly, or ad-hoc improvements. As a result, existing articles may be updated only after an extended period, or if there is a significant change to their content.
* Quality control system - Veropedia uses only experienced article editors, and also operates an automated system for uploading which checks proposed articles for a wide range of issues, and refuses to accept them if any are present. Independent human expert review of articles is planned for the final site, but not yet fully implemented.
* Editorship subject to approval - In contrast to Wikipedia, which allows almost anyone to edit, contributing to Veropedia is by approval (following a request) or invitation only.
* Smaller range of content - As a new project, Veropedia's content covers a smaller range than Wikipedia (some 5800 articles vs. 2.5 million ). The focus is explicitly upon articles that are likely to be widely useful, and are improved to a high quality standard. As of|2007|December, Veropedia's growth rate was around 300 articles per month. [based upon a total of 90 articles uploaded during the ten days 9 - 18 December 2007 http://en.veropedia.com/index.php?action=recentchanges]
* Prohibition of 'fair use' images - Another difference from the English Wikipedia is a number of tighter restrictions, for example, exclusion of fair use images and other content. The Veropedia FAQ states: "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."
* Funding - In contrast with Wikipedia's donation-based model, Veropedia's business model uses paid advertising. 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."

Role of experts

In Veropedia's own words:

Criticism and evaluation

Veropedia, newly founded in 2007 is still in its beta stage. It has an Alexa traffic rank over 1.5 millioncite web|url= http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/veropedia.com |title=veropedia.com - Traffic Details from Alexa |accessdate=2008-08-01 |publisher=Alexa Internet] – indicating it is significantly less popular than Wikipediacite web|url= http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/wikipedia.org |title=wikipedia.org - Traffic Details from Alexa |accessdate=2008-08-01 |publisher=Alexa Internet] , Citizendiumcite web|url= http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/citizendium.org |title=citizendium.org - Traffic Details from Alexa |accessdate=2008-08-01 |publisher=Alexa Internet] and Scholarpedia.cite web|url= http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/scholarpedia.org |title=scholarpedia.org - Traffic Details from Alexa |accessdate=2008-08-01 |publisher=Alexa Internet]

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. Carr has also stated that Veropedia has 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.cite web |url= http://www.gazette.uwo.ca/article.cfm?section=News&articleID=1116&month=11&day=07&year=2007 |title=Veropedia aims to be a legit wiki |accessdate=2008-08-01 |author=Mike Hayes |date=2007-11-07| publisher="The Gazette", University of Western Ontario]

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. [cite web|url= http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22786828-5013038,00.html |title=Slowing down spin in wikis world|author=Stephen Ellis|publisher="The Australian" |date=2007-11-20| accessdate=2008-08-01]

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.cite news |url= http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Would-Be-Wikipedia-Replacements-Stumble-61728.html |title=Would-Be Wikipedia Replacements Stumble |publisher=TechNewsWorld |author=Mick O'Leary |date=2008-02-20 |accessdate=2008-02-23] Dead link|date=August 2008

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

Further reading

*cite news |url= http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Would-Be-Wikipedia-Replacements-Stumble-61728.html |title=Would-Be Wikipedia Replacements Stumble |publisher=TechNewsWorld |first=Mick |last=O'Leary |date=2008-02-20 |accessdate=2008-02-23 |quote=Veropedia and Citizendium are like 20-volume encyclopedia sets with 19 volumes missing. In other words, they are now almost useless.Dead link|date=August 2008

ee also

*List of online encyclopedias

References

External links

* [http://www.veropedia.com/ Veropedia homepage]