In any case, the encyclopedia element of the project is the one that is the most similar to Wikipedia. But where Wales' project has just one kind of article--those created and vetted by users--the Digital Universe's encyclopedia will have two separate and distinct tiers: publicly written articles that are not certified by the experts as accurate, and those that are.
"Both categories are specifically labeled as such," Firmage said. "People (will) know what they're looking at, so they know if it's been looked at or reviewed by someone who knows what they're talking about."
That dynamic, as well as a line on the Digital Universe site that refers to itself as a project that "will become the largest reliable information resource in history" might lead one to think that Firmage and his team are taking indirect digs at Wikipedia.
Firmage, in fact, said the line is unapologetically direct.
"In the Digital Universe, a Ph.D. matters, and in the Wikipedia universe, a Ph.D. does not matter," Firmage said. "I believe that is a fundamental problem with the Wikipedia model. I'm all for public contribution, and Digital Universe will invite content contributions from the general public.
"But in terms of editorial supervision, we would all agree that a Ph.D. matters, whether it's history, sociology, physics or environmental science," he added. "Surely you would want to be operated on by an M.D. when it comes time for surgery."
For his part, Wales said he finds what he's seen of the Digital Universe project "interesting" and isn't too concerned about whether it will undercut Wikipedia.
"We're a community and we do what we do, and we don't think in terms of whether something's competing with us, or whether it's complementary," Wales said. "It sounds like a cool thing on the Web. (But) it doesn't really affect us."
To be sure, when Digital Universe launches in January, it won't have anywhere near the depth and breadth of Wikipedia's information. But like Wikipedia--which launched in January 2001 with just 20 articles and has expanded steadily since--Digital Universe founders expect their project to grow slowly and organically.
It will launch with about a dozen subject-area portals, Firmage said, but will add a new portal every two to three weeks.
According to Firmage, experts, many of whom have already been lined up, will be paid to work part-time vetting articles. The initial funding will come from US$10 million raised over the last three years from angel investors and others.
To Sanger, the experts will want to be involved in the project because of its vision of being "a free, nonprofit and authoritative information resource (that has) never before been tried."
Some of those involved agree.
"It will be the first Web-based information resource that combines the trustworthiness and authority of scientific review and governance with the power of Web-based collaboration, all enabled by a state-of-the-art technology platform," wrote three Ph.D.s, Cutler Cleveland, Jim Lester and Peter Saundry, the chair and vice chairs, respectively, of the project's Environmental Information Coalition.
"As such, the (Digital Universe)," they wrote in an open letter, "will be a direct conduit of objective information from scientists and educators to decision makers and civil society at large."
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Posted by dustin collett on Thursday, December 22 2005 11:00 AM