Slashdot Mirror
GNUPedia Project Starting
Hector Facundo Arena writes: "The Free Universal Encyclopedia and Learning Resource (GNUPedia) Web page is online today. GNUPedia is a project for the development of a free encyclopedia. You can read more in the Richard Stallman's project announcement document. We invite you to participate in the project and join the mailing lists"
Why limit it to non-fiction!? Take a look at http://www.baen.com/library/ where you can download some great fiction for free. Make no mistake, Jim Baen and the authors want to make money off this little project, by spreading the word and getting the mid-list author's names out there, and they are bound to do better than the music industry, since they are embracing the web instead of denying its existence.
Why not just use everything2? It's a perfect medium to generate such a database.
Checkout taccom my worl war II simulator
But a traditional encyclopedia is written by experts in the field, or at least people who know how to research stuff. While existing encyclopedias may not be perfect, they are pretty close. The problem I see with gnupedia is that any kid can add some half-baked stuff and have that submitted as equally correct as something written by somebody who really knows that stuff.
And I don't understand how pointing out an error in one article in another would be useful. First, you have to find all the articles that talk about the one you are currently reading. And second, which one do you trust? If I want to look something up, I don't want to start doing lots of research to decide which of the different articles is the correct ones. That's not what I use encyclopedias for.
So in conclusion, I believe that an encyclopedia is about the last thing the open source idea is useful for. That's just a different kind of beast.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
Dear Ben Crowell,
Two points:
As for prohibiting linking to non-free articles:
Easy enough to understand. It's a self-restriction. It's so that we don't get lazy, give 3 details, and then say, "For the other 100 details, go check out these 15 web pages."
It also ensures that it's Free, through and through. I really don't mind, all that much.
Again, no argument. What's your point? That ALL proprietary software is GNU derived? Because RMS is against ALL proprietary software.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
A website called The Vines Network" handles content control in a karma-like method.
/.
Users of their online encyclopedia rate the articles from 1 to 10. Articles are sorted in order of the authors' karma ranking.
Seems like a pretty good way to keep trolls out of the encyclopedia without limiting their ability to post.
Just like
-----
You should hear my father's rant about the Encyclopædia Britannica. You won't hear the word "unbiased" in it. He'll tell you that while the current online version calls Albert Einstein a "German-American physicist", which I suppose is fair enough, his printed version just says "American physicist". (Can someone check their old E.B. and see if this is really true? As I'm writing this, it seems unbelievable.) I wonder though. If Albert had been a bad guy, would he still have been a "German-American physicist" or just a "German physicist"?
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
The GPL is not like a virus.
I don't claim it's an exact metaphor, and I certainly don't claim to have invented it. Here (1,2) are a couple of discussions of the topic; you can find plenty more by searching in Google for "gpl virus."
Often times, people pin RMS as a "lone" worker, who somehow makes terrible things happen.
My beef is with his very unethical behavior toward the Nupedia folks. I couldn't care less whether he's a loner, or whether he's popular or unpopular. Unethical behavior is unethical behavior.
The Assayer - free-information book reviews
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What's the point in starting such a project if
you allow linking to restricted materials? The
point of the project is to make a free encyclopedia,
and so it's necessary to do this kind of thing.
It's not GNU-sanctioned learning, it's
GNU-licensed materials. There's a difference.
It'd be possible for someone to write critical
materials of RMS, and make it GNU-Licensed. The
same materials probably wouldn't ever be considered
GNU-Sanctioned..
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
There will be a segment of the population who will endeavour to do what is done on public forums such as slashdot: Troll and destroy the integrity of the project. On slashdot it isn't that much of an issue. Sometimes trolls don't get moderated down but usually it's just inane banter which is easy to detect. I also don't put much stock in slashdot as an information resource. It's entertainment to me. There is some useful content on some subjects and some insightful commentary (and some inciteful commentary as well!) but I wouldn't be caught dead citing slashdot in any meaningful report.
I've seen in other projects where credibility is more important, such as mindpixel (the projects thesis is that a system can be developed that reflects the average mind of an internet user) flooded with bogus information. Some of it may just be people answering outside of the area of their expertice, some of it was obviously malicious.
I know I sound very negative, I really hope the project succeeds and I'm airing these observations in the hopes that they're already addressed. I will contribute to this project in the areas that I consider myself well versed in.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
But honestly I'd work on a farm, for free, and give away everything I didn't need. I'm not a very good farmer, yet, but I know I can learn. And I know there are many people out there who feel the same way. Not everyone has to be a farmer or rancher. I think I'd rather be a rancher anyway...
But my point is, if they need to make money to pay taxxes on the land they work and pay for supplies they can't make themselves, they can't possibly give away anything they work on. At least not on a large scale. But with web content we can... I am currently a Sr. UNIX admin, I started moving sand bags, but this makes me 10x what moving sand bags did. If I could afford to live moving those sand bags I'd still be doing that to this day. I know I felt a hell of a lot better after a day in the hot sun sweating and getting a good workout than I do sitting browsing the web all day. Its not hard labor that is the problem its the current pay scale and cost of living.
Now maybe YOU would never do an honest days work if you didn't get paid. But for me work is work and I like to work. Helping people with computer problems is simple. I go to work at noon and leave early half the time, excellent benefits, excellent pay, etc, etc. But I'm not happy about this. I would much rather be living on my own ranch or farm. All I would ask is for a good net connection, supplies, seed, etc. and I'd still give everything I didn't need for myself away.
PS. True I have never put in the amount of work a farmer does, but I current do a job that no farmer could. So what does that mean? We gotta give the farmers everything they want and hope they see things this way... or else you'll always be paying for your food. Hope you have enough money when the price of food increases, I know I will!
If you take a look at the content provided by universities, the movie or music industries or most software companies you will notice that most content is licensed under very strict terms that do not promote the freedom of information, but instead promote their own financial benefit at the cost of their customer's rights. Even today you will notice how the music and movie industries are working diligently to remove our rights to fair use of their content through the use of encryption, macrovision and other proprietary standards.
There should be NO proprietary standards... This is an opinion I share with many techies. Joe user probably doesn't come in conflict with proprietary standards, but network and system engineers often have trouble getting various systems to communicate effectively because they only support their own set of protocols. Proprietary software and licenses are fine, but when something becomes mainstream enough to be considerred a standard, it should be open, no exception! Closed software leads to corruption via internal corporate politics. And I think we all know how much political bullshit happens on the upper management levels of corporations. These people have let the power of their position go to their head, much the same way government officials do, but at least the government is kept partially in check by the people. Who watches the corporations. Its almost illegal to write something bad about corporations today. What will it be like in 10, 20 years when more and more of your rights are stripped away by the standards you helped put in place? You don't ever have to agree with RMS, but I strongly agree after what I've seen in the valley in the last 3 years. I've watched people be bought and sold by corporations without ever asking what the people wanted, etc. We are nothing to these entities.
So from what I've seen and what is happening now, no matter what we think. All proprietary software is conciderred the enemy of open source software based on its licensing restrictions and WILL be replaced by an open source solution. Since that is already happening if you have money you get a choice. Those who don't only get free solutions. My money is going to programmers, not lawyers and management.
So RMS may be saying that all proprietary software is bad. And maybe he would like laws to give a little money back to the people... that's how I see open source software anyway. I feel like I own my copy of linux I burned at home for less than $2 more than I own my copy of windows I paid $50 for. I certainly can't browse the windows source code in my leisure. But the question the is it wrong to dislike proprietary software?
you have my vote for best sig of the year.
awesome.
Drop me a line at:
Key ID: 0x54D1D809
Lets see, anyone can create a page - about anything - there is no central control - people may later catalogue them and collate them its the. So its basically the web (well Internet) but with a GPL. (I wonder if it could be patented...)
Special Relativity: The person in the other queue thinks yours is moving faster.
There should be NO proprietary standards... This is an opinion I share with many techies.
But it is not an opinion shared by general public. Getting back to the original topic, an article in GNUpedia written/edited by RMS that said "there should be NO proprietary standards" would be extremely biased.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Yes, but why do you think RMS would write such an article, and how do you think it could possibly be moderated to be of any relevant status? Wouldn't such an article, written by RMS or anyone, be discarded by the general public. Better than RMS being on some governing board overseeing which articles get published in this thing. Unless of course the only people using and moderating this encyclopedia are techies.
At least RMS practices what he preaches, more than I can say for most advocates of anything else.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
the current online version calls Albert Einstein a "German-American physicist", which I suppose is fair enough
I suppose that "Encyclopædia Hebraica" could call him "an Ashkenazi physicist, born in Germany and dead in the United States". I won't dare to guess about "Encyclopædia Sovietica".
It's all about your target audience.
__
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
I'm beginning to think that DMOZ is sufficient. Anyone else?
If you want to see hot steamy GNUpedia action, visit the GNUPedia page at http://www.teamslack.net
Isn't the internet already an encyclopedia of sorts? Whenever I need information, I just go to Google and I'm able to find out what I need. The only thing that could be better is if the info was organized more efficiently, but doing that would be worthless effort in my opinion.
I like their copyright:
Copyright © 1997 by TheReference.
All rights reserved. No part of this site may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.
Richard is famous for his lack of tact, but come on, GNUpedia? Why choose this name when the Nupedia project (same concept -- free online encyclopeida) exists and is already very well established? This seems like either (1) a blatent attempt to confuse would-be users and steal audience through confusion, (2) a remarkable failure to do the required homework before starting a project (remarkable because Richard is supposedly so bright), or (3) just plain insensitivity. It's enough to drive any feeling, thinking person as far away from GNU as possible. Geesh...
--------
meta4
dw2-dont-spam-me-@opencontent.org
http://davidwiley.com/
English is a language from England. A country that 'steals' this language cannot make changes to it and then claim they are right. Color is incorrect spelling.
The Internet is global. The English language is also global. Colour is how it is spelt in all but one nation.
Will this 'GNUpedia' (which already has a spelling mistake in the title just due to ASCII issues) be biased towards one man's (RMS's) native flawed spelling, or will it be correct for a wider, if non-US, audience?
Anonymous because this will come across as a troll to anyone that thinks I am wrong.
We won't. It'll be up to other articles to point out inaccuracies.
Forgive me, but WTF?!?
An encyclopedia is meant to be a "comprehensive collection of knowledge", not information which is incorrect and left untouched, because (to quote RMS' announcement) "we dare not let any organisation have control over the content".
This sounds ripe to be a disaster, or calamity. Imagine the slashdot trolls getting into it.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
That was supposed to be a joke. Guess I'm not as funny as I thought...
ENCYCLOPAEDIA
Yes, with an A. Dammit. This bararism of the English language must stop.
Stuii!
Instead of beotching, go make it better. Memes have a habit of catching; maybe, just maybe, if you wrote a bunch of good, basic, informative, descriptive nodes, people would look, think "gee, that's not such a bad idea", and follow.
- Kaatunut
But honestly I'd work on a farm, for free, and give away everything I didn't need
... I grew up on a farm, and everybody except Cyno, just trust me on this one: Only a person who has ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING CLUE WHATSOEVER what farm work is like could say that with a straight face. I'd accuse Cyno of trolling, but *sigh* I do routinely meet city-raised kids that actually are this utterly ignorant, so the chances are pretty good that Cyno probably means it.
... ok, you keep thinking that.
... a modern farmer is more wired than probably two-thirds of the so-called 'geeks' on /.
Ohhhh-kayyyyyy
but I current do a job that no farmer could.
*raises eyebrow*
Ahhhh
Now, in the REAL world, everybody except Cyno, farmers are using software to optimize stock growth, calculate fertilizers needed, monitor soil conditions, pull down weather forecasts from the 'net, protect their incomes by hedge investing against the prices they expect to be getting down the road
The difference is the farmers are using their software and their software-writing abilities as a TOOL, not as some pathetic attempted assertion of self-worth like the typical freak around here.
Didn't you just describe everything2?
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Real encyclopedias are controlled by editorial boards that provide unbiased, fair and reasonable content. Judging from slashdot, and RMS' personal opinions I would conclude that is encyclodepia would be quite biased. In order to be of any use, it will have to be unbiased. If stallman is any judge of why people write free software, contributors will not want to write for it unless they can influence others opinions. We can see this right on the page with the comment about the "GNU system", sometimes called linux. Is this really the type of encyclopedia that you would want?
Anyone ever read the Foundation series?? Maybe RMS thinks that he is Hari Seldon!! ;)
It's kinda like everything then...
--
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
Also, there will prolly be a volume dedicated to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and yet another volume full of Katzian rantings.
I can hardly wait.
Explosive.
screams for something more than html. are there any existing xml dtd's or schemas for organising such information?
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
The very first thing that popped into my mind when I read GNUPedia is a project for the development of a free encyclopedia. was Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. This sounds like it could easily become the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Earth. Start producing Don't Panic stickers to slap on the front of your Palm III.
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
It's sure to have much more updated and technically accurate than any print encyclopedia I've personally seen, but the main point of an encyclopedia (IMO) is to concentrate knowledge of any given field of knowledge and give a solid, accurate portrayal. Sure, there can be many different points of view presented, but ultimately, it needs to wrap up conclusions and points in at least *some* manner. Ever seen a Usenet thread do this successfully?
*Pictures Johnny 11th grader trying to write a HS paper with this encyclopedia, with every paragraph starting like this: "However, Professor John Doe believes that...", "Dr. Paul Denton disagrees...", "Laura Croft, PHD, flamed Paul, however, and..." *
Anyhow, this is a really cool experiment.
Right. No, your other right. No, the other other right.
Existing encyclopedias have a review process. Difference is, factual errors, once pointed out, will be corrected in the entry. Not by "corrective other articles" which will end up being someone's energy in going and verifying. Which is no more different than people to do. An encyclopedia is meant to be a collection of knowledge.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Stallman has claimed dibbs on the chapter devoted to personal hygine and grooming.
In order to maintain editorial review & allow the authors some peer-review, why not setup a site running Slashcode or PHPNuke and post the incoming articles there? Separate them into 'volumes' (ala Gardening, AutoMechanics, SubParticlePhysics) separated into Topics or Sections. People who are interested in editing and 'fact checking' can surf by - at their leisure - and read the articles. If a person is knowledgeable in the subject they can comment on factual, technical or language problems in the 'proposed' article - the comments and the article are then sent back to the author for review/editing. Maybe a karma system could be developed where good reviewers/commenter/editors/fact checker types are rewarded so that they have some kind of increased 'voting' rights in 'approving' the article for inclusion. Meaning, the better you are received or recognized by your peers (through this karma hack) would empower these people to finally approve the articles.
/. that the best thing to end the present IP grab is to simply make the Patent, Copyright and Trademark systems run the gauntlet on a Slashcode/PHPNuke site... the idea that a Patent, Copyright or Trademark application should be secret is absurd - their worth should be self-evident and with merit... otherwise they should not be granted.
I really think this type of 'web-log' has allot of very valuable application -- without sounding like a twit, the idea that you can mechanize a 'karma' system and allow for open conversation where 'experts' are given proper weight is interesting....
Ive said allot here on
Good articles bubble to the top by receiving endorsements of respected individuals and by being included into respected catalogs (which are produced by third parties). But even the bad articles remain part of the encyclopedia.
--
It's not free in the sense RMS and many others would prefer it to be: you can't freely modify or mirror the material. Basically, as soon as the corporate dickheads decide that some downsizing would be appreciated by Wall Street, the material vanishes from the web without a trace, just like Eric Weinstein's World of Mathematics.
--
Stallman has started the First Foundation to build an encyclopedia. Yah right.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
This structure has indeed been tried, with some success, in a classic, 66(?) volume omnibus of information: The Talmud.
I would like to believe it was #2 (didn't do homework) or #3 (insensitivity), but I'm sorry, I just don't buy it. He couldn't possibly have gotten to the stage of proposing this whole project without already knowing about Nupedia.
What's really odious about his behavior is that he doesn't even acknowledge that Nupedia already exists.
If he has a gripe against Nupedia's license, he should say so. If he has a gripe against Nupedia's structure (and the fact that Nupedia has editorial control), he should say so.
The only reason I can think of for using a nearly identical name, and never referring to Nupedia at all in his proposal, is that he is trying to be deceptive and sneaky. Just how stupid does he think people are?
I guess it's the destiny of every zealot to end up being his cause's own worst enemy.
The Assayer - free-information book reviews
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Most likely the license that will be used would be the GNU Free Documentation License.
You'd think they would have picked a different name. Something innocent sounding, like "The GNU Foundation", organized on a remote continent, where a bunch of scientists, researchers, and writers could work on it.
They could have even set up a second one, but I'm not sure where that'd be or what they'd do... ;-)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Or get information? I understand the fact that people get more done when everybody has thier say then the person in charge take the information adn runs with it. This project will only succed if everyone contributes and if there is a strong leadership somewhere. I hope this projects succceds good luck.
I had this idea a while ago. Good thing somebody else had it and actually did something about it.
Now, if I can just find the time to implement my idea for a whole new kind of porn site that will revolutionize the industry...
what happens if some pages are erroneous, or even deceptive?
What happens if the title of the encyclopedia is deceptive? -- Nupedia, GNUpedia
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I'm just going to call it pedia. This will get RSs goat!
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Allowing links to non-GPL'd sites would not dilute the freedom of the encyclopedia. Look, everybody knows that when they surf someone's web site, there may be outgoing links. I'm sure that I can start on my local PTA's web site and, within six clicks, wind up on a page about goat sex. Does that mean the PTA shouldn't have had outward links? Of course not. People can normally tell when they've left one site and entered another. As long as every page on GNUpedia had some kind of consistent logo or banner, this wouldn't be an issue. The only reason for trying to pretend it's an issue is because RMS thinks it's his destiny to make everybody else do what he wants.
This policy has all the same ridiculous problems as the DeCSS ruling -- prohibiting people from linking is just plain stupid, and they'll just work around it. The announcement says:
- If a page on the web covers subject matter that ought to be in the encyclopedia or the course library, but its license is too restricted to qualify, we must not make links to it from encyclopedia articles or from courses.
In other words, an article on C# can't contain a link to MS's pages about C#? How pathetic!BTW, who's going to enforce this rule, and who's going to decide what sites are not free enough to link to ("too restricted to qualify"), or what sites "ought to be in the encyclopedia"? I suppose RMS will make pronouncements, and then there will be endless arguing with people who disagree with him, since there is supposed to be no central control.
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Yes it would.
Also, on due consideration, inside everything there is actually a rather eratic but occasionaly brilliantly informative encyclopedia struggling to get out. However the mission statment of everything (ie *Everything*) swamps it most times.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
The GNU System is a POSIX layer. It can run on Linux (producing GNU/Linux aka the Linux OS), HURD (still in development), or Win32 (producing Red Hat Cygwin).
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
# man hallway
HALL(1)   House General Rooms Manual   HALL(1)
NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
DIAGNOSTICS
BUGS
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
1st Snowfox Home Distribution October 13, 1999
#
I'm sure the editors of Slashdot have never heard of this site, but there's a site called Everything2. The GPLed encyclopedia sounds an AWFUL lot like E2 while reading the description of what will go in to the encyclopedia. People submit articles about thier area of expertise. Sub-encyclopedias (meta-nodes), etc. make this sound like a souped of version of E2. I'm glad Nate already thought of this. Way to go, RMS
GNUPedia looks a bit like Everything. Everything is a flexible web database run by the people who used to run Slashdot and written and edited by the world. (Ever wonder what those [?]s are on /. articles? That's E2.) Copyright doesn't stop people from adding song lyrics to the database.
All information generated outside of the free software community is under perpetual copyright anyway.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
The famous 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica is not only in the public domain now, but it has been entered into ascii form as part of the Gutenberg project. They can't CALL it the Britannica, because that's still under trademark, but a comparison of the articles to the 11th edition on my shelf shows that's what it is. Good encyclopedia if a bit dated---and a great place to start.
Because of britannica.com and Microsoft Cut and Paste Technology
There is of course h2g2 -- Douglas Adams' famous guide. But it's more a practical encyclopedia. So maybe we really need something like a "free as in free speach" clone of Britannica.
[--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
Articles, and especially courses, will often include software--for example, to display a simulation of a chemical reaction, or teach you how often to stir a sauce so it won't burn. To ensure that the encyclopedia is indeed free, all software included in articles and courses should meet the criteria of free software (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) and open source software (http://www.opensource.org).
</i>
<p>
Good for RMS, not launching into a rant about Free Software vs. open source software, but instead embracing both philosophies as acceptable in this case. Since every time he gest sidetracked, he gets massively criticized, let's see a massive groundswell of positive feedback this time...
Can your IM do this?
It's a cool link, but aren't the works copyrighted? The whole idea of a free encyclopedia is that it is copylefted or public domain. You might as well use the online Britannica.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Are there any other encyclopedias around for linux? Even so, there's room for open source one with user generated (and checked) articles. The problem with some of the major ones (like a certain one starting with En and ending with Carta) tend to get things wrong, especially regional, non-american stuff.
Uhm, the OED was developed not by committee, but by volunteers who sent in unsolicited contributions. Duh. Just... like... GNUPedia.
That's my point. That's all I said. And it is the truth, fact. Not some biased "Left Wing Wacko" thing.
So bite me.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Sorry about that-- I did say "committee," didn't I? Sorry. I was on crack.
In my original post, I meant to say "volunteers," not "committee."
You can still bite me, though. ("Left wing wacko." Yeah, you're real fuckin' unbiased, yourself.)
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I suppose any GNUpedia user who wanted to could make a hobby out of cutting and pasting every single Nupedia article into GNUpedia as soon as it appears on the web. This would be legal, but extremely antisocial for several reasons:
The Assayer - free-information book reviews
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goatse, babaoye, beowulf, portman..and a few thousand first posters.
I'm glad to see this. It has potential.
:-)
:-(
I've pondered the idea of having Open Travel Guides. People that are familar with a given location can add all the details they can on cities, hotels, transportation, things to do, etc. It would all be stored in an open XML and all kinds of clients could be written to display and search and print relevant items.
Sort of like Lonely Planet only better.
I'm not sure I have time to start this, but I wish I did. There are too many other things to work on.
i'm not sure if it would be better to get a headstart in getting information into the system, and probably have to encode it (in XML or whatever), or to wait until the encoding standard is available. considering that many entries will be updated, i think the headstart is the better option. but it's going to be hella mundane encoding things after the fact.
Everything, which (it appears) GNUPedia is trying to copy, allows no outward hyperlinks; otherwise, it would degrade into yet another Yahoo!.
Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them?
Will I retire or break 10K?
~ The Irony is, The only reason I'm not at Berkeley right now is because I was on acid during my SAT's..
it would be a continually evolving document, just like print encyclopedias. the advantage would be that those that detect the errors could fix it themselves instead of waiting a year for the next edition. eventually, certain articles would get to the point of being static and would get to the level of accuracy we desire.
In some ways this shows some promise for GNUPedia -- the real content is already coming from distributed individuals, usually people for whom writing is not a profession. OTOH, I think it shows the weakness as well -- what makes a bunch of articles an encyclopedia is the editorial influence. The web already has lots of articles, but it doesn't have the editorial influence.
Most of what the editors do is bitch at the contributors who are late submitting their articles. This is because an encyclopedia that covers 90% of the necessary material is a bad encyclopedia. Who's going to do the bitching for GNUPedia? And how would they possibly have any authority to bitch? They aren't paying anyone anything...
I think GNUPedia should place more emphasis on compiling and cataloging. Most of the content already exists. That's what OpenDirectory is all about... that's what the web is all about... and a lot of the content is from people who wouldn't mind giving up control, because they aren't receiving anything in return anyway. A little flattery could go a long way...
If already-existing resources were compiled and editted, released under a copyleft-license, GNUPedia could really be successful. But as it seems stated, it feels like GNUPedia is just a rephrasing of what the web already is.
Also, GNUPedia or some subset needs some exclusiveness. I think a lot of people who contribute to these encyclopedias do it because in a small way it makes them a published author. In academia the greatest rewards are things you can say about yourself, not things you have. If GNUPedia can make people rightfully proud of being contributors, then it can definately succede.
Add moderation and multiple entries,and it would basically be everything2 (www.everything2.com)
The whole project should be rated -1: redundant
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
As you can see, the working method is very simple. People send us articles, and we add them to the encyclopedia. That's all.
Really? No peer review? What about multiple entries? Who will determine which articles get published, and what criteria will be used? Who will check the validity of the factual information presented, and who will check the checkers?
As best as I can tell, the only answer that the GNUpedia page gives is
Although there are lot of things waiting to be defined. We want to hear from you....just send it to hf@gnu.org. He'll post it on the enclopedia.
I tip my hat to Mr. Arena, who has taken charge of a potentially very important project. However, neither he nor any other single individual is qualified to judge the content value of the entire sphere of human knowledge. The world of the intellect is not a democracy, and not every writer's entry will be of equal value when it comes to mastery of the subject and ability to convey ideas. Without a moderation system, this project could be fatally doomed to posting poor, or worse yet, signficantly inaccurate material.
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yeah, but the point of the Baen Library is that the authors who have stuff posted on there might not be the most popular ones in existence. This gets their works out to more people, and since the idea is to put the first book (or two) in a series up, you get readers more interested in the series, and they go out and buy the books.
Besides, they have to know that people will print out the text of the books. They accept it. Unlike the music idiots who can't seem to contend with the idea of duped CDs or mp3s. (You ever notice we didn't hear any screaming about duped tapes?)
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Well the article does mention this point, to wit:
I personally think that this is the correct answer. The plain fact is that, try as they might, existing encyclopedias are not perfect. They contain erroneous information, authorial and editorial bias, and plain old opinion. You can't really trust a single article on any topic no matter who wrote it, because nobody is perfectly informed and free of bias. The only practical alternative is to let many well informed people write articles so that reviewers and readers can form their own judgments.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Seriously, how does the accuracy check compare to something released by Encyclopedia Brittanica? Will there be any sort of verification, or am I going to be sifting through a few thousand "First post!" articles doing research?
My mom is not a Karma whore!
Do we really need a encyclopedias now that we have the web and great search engines like Google? An encyclopedia on the web seems especially ironic.
I know what you're trying to say, but generally you're wrong. The links you refer to that link to unrelated things are "soft-links." They are not part of any of the writeups in the node, and they do not purport to define anything in the node. They are merely automatically created links that show what nodes people came from and what nodes people go to to and from the node where the soft-links are. In the nodes 'Linux,' 'RMS,' and 'Microsoft' there are sufficient "cursory definitions," which you later say is what you want in an online encyclopedia. In addition, especially in 'Linux' and 'Microsoft' there are a number of writeups that are highly factual and full of content.
Still, any dearth of encyclopedic information on Everything2 and, indeed, in any other online user-generated reference source, the information all comes from unpaid volunteers. They don't focus on things that they don't like and, because no one's getting paid, you're of course going to find flimsy information and a complete lack of information for some areas.
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
"(You ever notice we didn't hear any screaming about duped tapes?)"
Actually, we did. It was just so long ago and it was very quiet compared to what was going on now. Plus, a number of the bands that are screaming about duped CDs and MP3s are ones that benefited from duped tapes. The message changes significantly when the money starts to roll in.
Eric Gearman
--
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!
FUELeR, Hell it even conjures images of providing mental fuel for the masses! Try a bit of positive marketing, come on, you'll enjoy it!
mv
The online version of Britannica has several good features. The text is generally written by experts in the field (for example the article on China was produced by about a dozen professors of Chinese history and culture). There is an extensive bibliography (a pre-web way of linking
content between paper documents), and there are
hyperlinks in the text to other parts of the text.
Unlike software, an online encyclopedia already presents it's 'source code' to the world, so one
of the types of 'free' is irrelevant to this type
of medium. Britannica.com is making the data available without cost to web surfers, and at a reasonable cost in CD-ROM form, given the editorial workload in keeping the thing updated.
So the other type of 'free' isn't relevant either.
A new encyclopedia project should be better
in some way than the existing ones (or what's the
point of doing it). With software, you get cheaper and better code by going open source.
How could a new encyclopeida be better?
- Better contributors: unlikely in my opinion
- More total content: Britannica's bibliography
points to a lot of stuff that isn't online. Work
on making it available.
- Links to best content on the Web: possible,
but Open Directory Project is already trying to
do this.
- Stability of good content: get permission to
keep mirrors of good stuff so it doesn't go away
like so much on the web does
I don't have a clear answer, but the question of
how this project will be better than what's out
there already deserves consideration.
Daniel
I'm will to write the html content in Microsoft Frontpage!
Ok, well the fact that people are keeping an online fucking tally suggests to me there are a lot of people out there not gettin' any...
My comments were mostly aimed at the FSF community however
"Smart companies save money by deploying MySQL instead of Oracle." - slashdot post
I would love to see a copyleft law library. The information would be a nice *addition* to the copyrighted sources already available.
The advantage is not having to pay to review case law.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Does anyone really believe they can produce rational, bias-free entries for Microsoft and Linux? and who the hell will be able to write an entry about sexual intercourse?
"Smart companies save money by deploying MySQL instead of Oracle." - slashdot post
Close, but not exactly. An encyclopedia is informative and factual, whist many of the most highly rated nodes on Everything are subjective, funny and contrafactual, creative, or personal accounts and fiction about human experiences. And lots of-meta discussion of E2.
For instamce, cool nodes right now on E2 include "Step away from the fridge, lardass!", "just give him the damned fish", "How to annoy a fast-food worker on counter", "Could you please be more specific and less annoying?"
Hardly encycolpaedia material.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
"All derivative works..." I guess so
--------------------------------- Born Again Bourne Again Believer: New Life, GNU/Linux Be Free!
I can't get into the page (slashdotted?), but does this have entries in only English, or is there a mechanism for making it multi-lingual?
"As you can see, the working method is very simple. People send us articles, and we add them to the enclopedia. That's all."
I hope this is just an oversight, but it seems they don't plan to edit/moderate the articles. I bet you end up with hundreds of submissions on hot topics and nothing on less well know subjects.
Speaking of moderations, may they should use Bender! I think it is about time Slashdot contribute something to make up for all those sites we /.ed ;-)
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
If you have strong editorship you can have external links without degrading into Yahoo.
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
-- Eat your greens or I'll hit you!
But what happens if some pages are erroneous, or even deceptive? We cannot assume this won't happen. But the corrective is for other articles to point out the error. Instead of having "quality control" by one privileged organization, we will have review by various groups, which will earn respect by their own policies and actions. In a world where no one is infalliable, this is the best we can do.
This seems like a community-based system similar to that used by slashdot. However, I think particularly for very detailed technical articles, allowing everyone in the world to decide who will earn their "respect" (quantified as a numerical value like slashdot kharma?) may be quite problematic at best, and fundamentally flawed at worst. The truth of the matter is that democracy does not work in polling the entire world about intellectual matters. Polling 10 million Americans about two conflicting articles about Elementary Particle Physics will not produce a more accurate result that polling 2 or 3 expert High Energy Physicists. Who decides whether those individuals are experts? A slightly larger, though still small, community of peers.
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Easy, try looking up "Free Software Foundation", "GNU" or "Open Source" in the online Britannica. There you have plenty of reasons for this :-)
I think this can be an excellent idea, if an article can be modified by others in a way so that the valueable modifications are read by the casual reader. However, it's a difficult project, which *should* have clear guidelines to creating articles and a database back-end to make things easier.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
One more (slightly OT) thing, lets hope http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/ is just a temporary address and is not the project official site.
I just don't understandard why they don't have sites like http://encyclopedia.gnu.org? There must be some reasons why the GNU people don't create more virtual domains, is this mentioned anywhere.
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
Perhaps, but a nice solution for this would be to allow multiple entries for subjects. You write one, I write one, RMS writes one, MS writes one. The reader has the opportunity to read them all and parse accordingly.
Think this is crazy? That's how the Internet works *right now*. I know enough to take everything I read with a grain of salt; I research, I compare, I put facts together and compare motives. I make my own, informed opinion.
You can't do something like this with paper books because it is cost-prohibitive and ineffective, but on the internet where expansion is not only easily compensated for, it is expected.
Rami
--
rJames.org - illustration
I think this idea is very good. I think that most of the comments agree on one thing though : Stallman's article doesn't give enough details on the practical side to make it seem real. He (as usualy) defends the ethical side of the problem, and rightly enough describes the way the content should be free (speech) but he leaves a huge blank area in the field of the practical (and technical) implementation of GNUpedia.
/. readers are probably the most qualified to talk/think about this if not to implement it themselves...
I think that Internet and the Open Source community is somehow ready to start such a project (and I don't think it was the case anytime before).
What we need to make it real is a deep deep thinking on the technical/practical side of it. And while we are here, why not talk about how you would technically do it ? I mean,
Here is how I would see it : I think that what we realy need in terms of encyclopedia is something that would sit between Shaslcode and QuestionExchange. Something where anyone could post comments, articles, pictures and all the shit, but where every willing people could also judge the pertinence of the content. Say for example that this article is a troll, this other one is "insightfull" and so on. People could also say "this article was usefull to my knowledge". So we would have two level of moderation : one on the "editorial scale" (troll/interesting), and one on the content quality/usefullness.
Why ? Because I think that Stallman is right on one point at least : it needs to be completly free (speech) to be interesting. Doing else would be doing something that has already be done (say britanica for example) and that perhaps doesn't need to be done again.
Making GNUpedia an "open to any post" system is a nice idea, but it also implies that we will have to face A LOT of content submissions. Even if we wanted to create an "editorial board" to decide what would be included and what would not (which we cannot if we want to remain free as in speech) it would be too much work for (volunteers) individuals to "separate the good from the evil".
So what we need is a system that allows anybody to feed it with his/her particular bit of knowledge, and them let the individual reader make the content "worth reading" by moderating it up or down.
Then, after a while, we might (might) have something interesting for anyone. In that case I'm sure it would be the greatest success of Open Source movment (aren't we talking about free knowledge, free information since the very beginning of Open Source ?)
Another thought I have too : why make it web (http) based ? Any rational reason for it ? I think we have now in our hands a better technical way to do it : why not build it as a peer-to-peer network (based on this or that) with a client/server program using Gecko to render the documents ? What do you think ? That was my 2 cents worth thoughts...
PS : Please forgive the english, it's not my mother tongue.
Isn't asking for the general public to submit articles asking for trouble, all it will take is one or two pieces of plagiarised information to cause a possible legal problem for GNU
That being said, I would love to see it work :)
NO CARRIER
man pages!
"Smart companies save money by deploying MySQL instead of Oracle." - slashdot post
Anyone who pronounces GNU like NU doesn't deserve to use GNUPedia!
Please refrain from using any term derived from ancient Latin(c). Latin Language(c) is copyrighted by Roman Empire, and only its certified descendands can use it or any work derived from it.
Ciao
----
FB
I've never used docBook but your right. users would need an easy to use interface and it doesn't have to be web based.
what I was trying to allude to was architecture. with a solid architecture you can do lots of neat things with data.
here are a few things I'd like to see
- editors
- trawlers
- data mining tools etc...
and so it can be pumped out to different interfaceswml etc
searching - needs a suitable search engine for searching. lots of data, a lot of users.
multi-lingual support - dont just want english.
it's important that anyone can add data, but it's critical that the underlying structure can handle the complexity and volume of the data required.
for these reasons xml is a nice starting point.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
No wonder you have problems with really big words like colour and aluminium.
Or maybe you're referring to the spelling of people named Britt?
Deleted
I really think that XML is the best. It paves way for formatting of the information in many different ways and allows much more to be done with it. Everybody knows the weeknesses of HTML so I don't need to re-stress them.
The problem is, if they devise an agreed upon DTD that the XML should follow, it is essentially going to produce a new language that authors are going to have to learn. Every Tom, Dick and Harry knows HTML these days. Even my Mum created some web pages. Therefore it is easy for people to submit things in HTML. However, to give them something new to play with, you need to give them some nice tools to do the job. I mean they would need a decent GUI editor. That is one of the problems with DocBook. DocBook is great, but there is still a learning curve there before people can go out and use it. I think they should concentrate on building tools for writing documents that fit an XML DTD that they come up with. Preferably something that is similar to HTML or DocBook so that there aren't so many tags to learn.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
They NEED to have editors, and lots of them.
(A) to filter out the crap which they will most assuredly get.
(B) to check that submissions aren't ripped off Britannica or Encarta or Funk & Wagnall or whatever. It may balk RMS to have his editors use Encarta, but they'll need to. If it turns out an entry in this is ripped off, they will have their arses sued off before you can say 'Zygote'.
(C) To check spelling and grammar. Really.
How they're going to reward all these editors is another thing. Professional editors don't work for free...
Hacker: A criminal who breaks into computer systems
"Information wants to be paid"
Hehehe, it's not even "GNU/Linux (often called 'Linux')" anymore.
You will be assimilated!
(I'm just having a bit of lighthearted fun, to be honest I don't really care what any one calls it.)
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I was reading through, thinking "What a dammned great idea", thinking "This is suprisignly rational from RMS", untill I read the restrictions on linking outside of documents.
Before I complain about the theory of it, here's the problem:
Scenario 1: You can not link to pages that contain links to pages that aren't under the appropriate license.
Result: You cannot link to anything, because nearly every site will eventually link out.
Scenario 2: You can link to pages that aren't under the same restrictive license, as long as it's "free enough". This effectively makes the rule useless, and IMHO is the way to go (ie lose the rule).
But why at all? Why does RMS feel it's his place to effectively censor the viewer from further non GNU-sanctioned learning? And yes, it's possible to find things without links, but it's a lot harder.
Why oh why do you have to do shit like this RMS? Your zealotry gets in the way of your ideals, and their acceptance, which is a shame, because they are truly great aspirations.
--Gfunk
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
Real encyclopedias are controlled by editorial boards that provide unbiased, fair and reasonable content. Judging from slashdot, and RMS' personal opinions I would conclude that is encyclodepia would be quite biased. In order to be of any use, it will have to be unbiased. If stallman is any judge of why people write free software, contributors will not want to write for it unless they can influence others opinions. We can see this right on the page with the comment about the "GNU system", sometimes called linux.
Is this really the type of encyclopedia that you would want?
But the real question is, whatever happened to the Interpaedia? Remember, the web-based, user-written, free encyclopaedia? Sound familiar? It's what RMS is proposing, and it's what failed before. What is different this time? The only links I could find to the Interpaedia were a gopher link and an old broken link to an archived discussion.
I am currently reading a book about a major contributor to the OED, a homocidal lunatic. Very good book. Not my point, though.
My point is this: the OED, one of the greatest reference works in the English language (or, *the* greatest reference work *on* the English language) was constructed by commitee. *Very* interesting, the parallels between the OED and GNUPedia.
Of course, the OED did have an editor who could control content.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Will it be GPL'd? Does that mean that if I print out the article on Phylum Nematoda and hand it in for my Biology report, I have to GPL my report card?
What if I just use a bit of the information in a report? Must it be GPL'd?