Baidu Baike
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Baidu Baike's website on 28 April, 2008 |
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| URL | http://baike.baidu.com/ |
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| Commercial? | No |
| Type of site | Internet encyclopedia project |
| Registration | Compulsory |
| Available language(s) | Chinese |
| Owner | Baidu |
| Created by | Robin Li |
Baidu Baike (Chinese: 百度百科; pinyin: bǎidù bǎikē; translation: Baidu Encyclopedia) is a Chinese language collaborative Web-based encyclopedia provided by the Chinese search engine Baidu. It initially prospered in the wake of the blocking of Wikipedia in mainland China on October 19, 2005. The test version was released on April 20, 2006, and within three weeks, the encyclopedia had grown to more than 90,000 articles, surpassing that of Chinese Wikipedia. According to the BBC, the site is "heavily self-censored to avoid offending the Chinese government".[1]
Baidu Baike has more than 1.5 million articles. Its major competitor is Hudong.
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[edit] Conception
Baidu's William Chang said at WWW2008, "There is, in fact, no reason for China to use Wikipedia ... It's very natural for China to make its own products."[2]
[edit] Functions of the website
The site is an open Internet encyclopedia espousing equality, collaboration, and sharing.[3] The encyclopedia, with two other services provided by Baidu ("zhidao" and "post") would form a trinity to complement the search engine.
The articles are written and edited by registered users and reviewed by behind-the-scenes administrators before release. There is no formal way to contact the administrators. Registered users' contributions are rewarded in a credit point system. Although the earlier test version was named "Baidu WIKI", official media releases and pages on the encyclopedia itself state that the system is not a wiki. The site does not use MediaWiki, but its operation is akin to a wiki and they occasionally use the word "wiki" internally.[4]
[edit] Style and interface
The visual style of the encyclopedia is simple. In articles, only boldface and hyperlinks are supported. Comments are listed at the bottom of each page.
Amongst its wiki-like functions, the site supports editing, commenting, and printing of articles, as well as an article history function.
[edit] Editing
Users can access multiple extended editing functions, including:
- An image uploading system where files less than 2 MB can be added to articles in the Encyclopedia.
- A keyword tagging system called "open category" (similar to folksonomy). One article can be tagged with at most 5 categories.
- A separate edit box for references and external links.
[edit] Principles of the encyclopedia
Articles or comments containing the following types of content are removed:[5]
- pornographic or violent text or images
- advertising
- personal attacks
- unethical content
- malicious, meaningless content
The project has been criticized as censoring content critical of the People's Republic of China government and the official government positions. However, others argue that access to an online reference is more important than a few restrictions on politics.[6]
[edit] Copyright
Baidu Baike's copyright policy is outlined in the 'terms of use' section of its help page. In it, Baidu Baike states that by adding content to the site, users agree to assign Baidu rights to their original contributions. It also states that users cannot violate intellectual property law, and that contributions which quote works held under the Creative Commons and/or GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) must follow the restrictions of those licenses.[7]
Baidu Baike has been criticized for violating the GFDL when using Wikipedia content as well as other copyrights such as those belonging to Hudong.com and encouraging plagiarism generally.[8][6]
[edit] Growth
The number of articles exceeded 10,000 in two days of its launch, and reached 40,000 in six.
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[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Site launches 'Chinese Wikipedia', BBC News Online, May 11, 2006
- ^ Graham Webster (2008-04-22). "Baidu's William Chang: 'No reason for China to use Wikipedia'". CNET News. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13908_3-9926474-59.html. Retrieved on 2008-06-22.
- ^ "百度百科". Baidu Baike. http://baike.baidu.com/lemma-php/dispose/view.php/1.htm. Retrieved on 2006-05-11.
- ^ Entering a keyword as of 2009-07-18, such as 猫 (cat), and clicking the button "search" will gave a page with a URL like http://baike.baidu.com/w?ct=17&lm=0&tn=baiduWikiSearch&pn=0&rn=10&word=%C3%A8&submit=search, which has the word "baiduWikiSearch" in it.
- ^ "百科原则". Baike Baidu. http://www.baidu.com/search/baike_help.html#n7. Retrieved on 2006-12-24.
- ^ a b Eva Woo (2007-11-13). "Baidu's Censored Answer to Wikipedia". Business Week. http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/nov2007/gb20071113_725400.htm. Retrieved on 2008-03-29.
- ^ "百度搜索帮助中心-百度百科帮助". Baike Baidu. http://www.baidu.com/search/baike_help.html. Retrieved on 2006-05-11.
- ^ Dan Nystedt (2008-08-26). "Baidu May Be Worst Wikipedia Copyright Violator". PC World. http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,135550-c,copyright/article.html. Retrieved on 2008-03-29.
[edit] External links
- Baidu Baike (Chinese)
- Site launches 'Chinese Wikipedia' (BBC News)
- Slashdot comments on Baidu Baike
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