...a lot of people who have been calling for an expert review of Wikipedia.
Why would someone write an article for Digital Universe instead of Wikipedia?
I see the Digital Universe encyclopaedia — which will be just one part of a much larger whole — and Wikipedia as occupying socially complementary niches. Together they will provide the broadest opportunities for people of all sorts to contribute to encyclopaedias. But now, a whole new group of people, who were — for whatever reason — not willing to work on Wikipedia, might find a home in the Digital Universe encyclopaedia. Wikipedia will and should always exist as a radically unconstrained alternative.
But the Digital Universe will be more attractive to those members of the public who actually want to work with and under the direction of experts. There are many such people, I think — probably more than are willing to work in the wild-and-woolly atmosphere of Wikipedia. The Digital Universe will require the use of real names, and will be initiated under an enforceable community charter. We hope it will be a more civil project.
Who will the experts be?
We're currently initiating a peer-to-peer to campaign to attract leading researchers in every field. We will be consulting with some of the old Nupedia people — I have the ear of a third of the old roster of editors and peer reviewers — and with some of the new people who arrive, in order to determine when a "critical mass" of leading people in each discipline have expressed their interest. We will construct those leading researchers and luminaries as steering committees, and the whole collection of them will be our initial board of stewards. Each steering committee will be responsible for further attracting and aggregating individuals and organisations for a new coalition in their field.
So the short answer is that these Digital Universe coalitions will determine who the Digital Universe stewards are. It will not be up to the Digital Universe Foundation. There already is a group of very distinguished scientists and scholars, including arctic environment expert Robert Corell, the Encyclopedia of Energy's editor-in-chief Cutler Cleveland, and the organisation of the well-known primatologist Jane Goodall.
And why would someone want to be a Digital Universe expert?
There are three broad reasons. First, the Digital Universe vision is of a free, non-profit, and authoritative information resource, never before tried, and we hope that will appeal to many academics. Second, the Digital Universe Foundation will be well positioned to receive grants, and will be the recipient of monies from an ISP service; this we will pass on to stewards. Third, we expect that, once the influence of so many intellectuals is aggregated in a single place, leadership positions in the Digital Universe will quickly gain value in tenure and advancement committees. It may take time for all of this to happen, of course. But we are certainly working hard to make it happen.
Obviously, you're aware of the news that Jimmy Wales has admitted editing his own Wikipedia biography and cutting references to you. What do you think of that?
I have to say it's not a good feeling to have my role minimised on something I spent so much time and energy on. I still distinctly recall the dinner in which a friend told me about wikis, and I thought, "We should use wiki software to run an encyclopaedia." Very soon after, when a blank wiki was set up, I proceeded to write the initial pages, publicise the new project in the Nupedia community and elsewhere, welcome new contributors, write and elaborate policy, and point out policy violations. In short, I started the habits that have made Wikipedia a qualified success today.
