Stanford's Authoritative Alternative To Wikipedia 355
eldavojohn writes "For decades, Stanford has been working on a different kind of Wikipedia. It might even be considered closer to a peer-reviewed journal, since you have get submissions past a 120 person group of leading philosophers around the world, not to mention Stanford's administration. It has several layers of approval, but the authoritative model produces high quality content — even if it only amounts to 1,200 articles. Content you can read straight through to find everything pertinent — not hop around following link after link like the regular Wikipedia. You might question the need for this, but one of the originators says, 'Our model is authoritative. [Wikipedia's] model is one an academic isn't going to be attracted to. If you are a young academic, who might spend six months preparing a great article on Thomas Aquinas, you're not going to publish in a place where anyone can come along and change this.' The site has articles covering topics from Quantum Computing to technical luminaries like Kurt Friedrich Gödel and Alan Turing. The principal editor said, 'It's the natural thing to do. I'm surprised no one is doing it for the other disciplines.'"
It is getting pretty popular, actually (Score:5, Informative)
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is pretty great. A lot of young academics and Ph.D's in philosophy are writing stuff up for it. Really great resource.
It isn't really an alternative to Wikipedia though: Wikipedia is about more than just philosophy. Similarly, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy - the big printed encyclopedia on philosophy - isn't an alternative to Britannica. It is a subject-specific encyclopedia. The two have different roles.
Awesome site but it's not new... (Score:4, Informative)
I've been going to plato.stanford.edu for years.
Re:Wrong model. (Score:3, Informative)
Fool-proof method to fool that...
Step 1: Use wikipedia for information
Step 2: View cited sources for wikipedia.
Step 3: Cite cited wikipedia sources.
Step 4: ???
Step 5: Profit!
Re:Awesome! (Score:4, Informative)
No, it's not legal to copy the articles to Wikipedia, since they grant no other right than free view. See their copyright [stanford.edu]: basically the author retains the copyright, and grants Stanford the right to publish the article electronically.
Re:Awesome! (Score:3, Informative)
I think facts can be copied with a citation to the source?
It's been tried: Nupedia. Citizendium. (Score:4, Informative)
I wish them luck, but it is certainly not the first time it's been tried. In fact, Wikipedia originated as Nupedia [wikipedia.org], "an English-language Web-based encyclopedia whose articles were written by experts and licensed as free content." After three years, perhaps 100 articles were close to completion. Wikipedia was originally conceived as a source of draft articles to be reworked into Nupedia.
The assignment of credit for Wikipedia between Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger is a matter of dispute. The two, sometimes described as co-founders, have squabbled publicly. Sanger is probably responsible for some of the cultural foundations of Wikipedia that have led to the surprisingly high degree of accuracy it has.
In 2006, Sanger, unhappy with Wikipedia's undervaluing of expertise, launched Citizendium [citizendium.org], an expert-approved wiki-based encyclopedia, which is said to currently have "We currently have 14,722 articles at different stages of collaborative development, of which 148 are expert-approved."
I am not saying Stanford's experiment can't succeed. I'm not saying Citizendium has failed. But I know where I got for answers, and it's not Citizendium. (And it's not Knol, either). The traditional encyclopedia--Encyclopedia Britannica--was able to pay contributors, using money it earned by selling print volumes. The social ecology of free web encyclopedias is tricky. There is probably more to success than saying "We'll be just like Wikipedia, but we'll restrict participation to experts." Experts usually want to be paid in something more than ego-boosting.
Re:tags are correct (Score:3, Informative)
Dave's a little too into World of Warcraft. He's been poopsocking for about 12 hours now.
Dammit, casual players can't get anywhere in this game. The good stuff is all camped by poopsockers
SpawnSlayer13 is such a poopsock. He got from level 1 to 60 in the space of a day.
And to think there are people who would be so bold as to claim that the Internet has never done anything good for the English language...
Re:It's been tried: Nupedia. Citizendium. (Score:3, Informative)
I wish them luck, but it is certainly not the first time it's been tried.
Actually, given that it originated in 1995, it probably is.
Re:tags are correct (Score:1, Informative)
I believe in his proposed system it would not work like slashdot; the ratings would be based on actual peer review, not semi-random allocation of modpoints. In other words, people stated who are reviewing and approving articles would be the only /moderators/
Re:Sokal affair (Score:2, Informative)
Anyone heard of the Sokal affair [wikipedia.org]?
I think they might [stanford.edu] have.