The SciFi Channel website has launched SCIFIPEDIA, a science fiction wiki. Oddly, they didn't grab the scifipedia.com domain name. Although I can't seem to see the RSS feeds, other functionality is there, like categorized wiki browsing and This Day in History (on the main page). Like all wikis, content can be updated by anyone.
It'll be interesting to see how this compares over time with Wikipedia which, right now, has way more content. As an example the Isaac Asimov Wikipedia enrty has much more information the Scifipedia Asimov entry.
[link via Locus Online and Slush God]
Comments (6)
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Posted by John DeNardo at Thursday April 13, 2006 at 9:30 AM
© 2008 SF Signal
Isn't there already a SciFiPedia?? It's called SFSignal.com!!
Posted by Peter on Thursday April 13, 2006 at 12:06 PM at 12:06 PM
They seem to have locked it down--perhaps they hadn't intended it to be public yet. When you try to go to it now, all you get is a prompt asking you for a username and password.
Posted by The Slush God on Thursday April 13, 2006 at 5:48 PM at 5:48 PM
My link was premature; I got an email from a certain Scifi.com official that it's not quite ready for prime-time.
Posted by Mark Kelly on Thursday April 13, 2006 at 10:47 PM at 10:47 PM
D'oh! Word spreads quickly, eh? I wonder if this was one of those planned "accidental" leaks? Oh well. We'll keep watching for it! Thanks, Mark!
Posted by John on Thursday April 13, 2006 at 11:13 PM at 11:13 PM
Yes, they've locked it down. One of the beta testers (not me!) must have let the cat out of the bag early.
Unfortunately, their licensing terms allow for barely more than fair use (it's a little vague to this non-lawyer, but it sounds like their intent is that you can publish one or more articles as long as it's not part of a "dictionary, encyclopedia or other research tool"). If they had chosen the Free Documentation License or an open Creative Commons license then they would have been joining one of those huge pools of knowledge. As it is, it's just another silo.
So, i recommend we all ignore it and keep using Wikipedia.
Posted by John Abbe on Friday April 14, 2006 at 1:27 AM at 1:27 AM