Submissions/Online Encyclopedias in China

From Wikimania 2014 • London, United Kingdom

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 1059
Title of the submission
Ecology of Online Encyclopedias in China
Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop)
presentation
Author of the submission
燃玉 (Ranyv)
E-mail address
guanhao007@gmail.com
Username
燃玉
Country of origin
Dalian, China(PRC)
Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)
Dalian University of Technology
Personal homepage or blog
My User page on zh.wikipedia.org
Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

I am working on a study about the online Encyclopedia in China. As is known to us all, there are practically half a dozen websites attempting to become the Wikipedia of China, such as BaiduBaike, Hudong, Soso, 360, etc. Baidu is regarded as the leading website in China; Soso belongs to Tencent who owns QQ and WeChat and who is dominant in Chinese communications; Qihoo 360 is considered as an authority on antivirus software and computer security in China; Hudong developed their own Mediawiki, named HDWiki, which is equipped with better UI design, Visual Editor and an additional Wiki-farm but with less functions. BaiduBaike updated their Visual Editor after we commenced to test ours.

As we can see, those online Encyclopedias have A-Class Network Company as backing. Each of them is trying to become the Wikipedia of China. Those Encyclopedias have more than half a billion users in total, having more than 10 million articles, but in Poor quality, some even copied from Chinese Wikipedia. They have User group from SNS, search engine and popular software, having strong technical strength.

Few people in Chinese commons know Wikipedia, and they are used to get information from BaiduBaike. However, Chinese Wikipedia is still the best for now. Everyone who has academic background would agree with that.

As for BaiduBaike and Hudong, each of them has about 7 million articles, while Chinese Wikipedia only has 0.7 million. Still, BaiduBaike and Hudong are just information websites, not Encyclopedia, having a big gap comparing with Wikipedia. They are trying to become another Wikipedia by adding element redirect and better interface. They are working on new ideas, e.g., BaiduBaike and 360 are trying to provide Medical Services by inviting Health care professionals to their projects.

Some Specialized encyclopedias, such as moegirlpedia, who is based on Mediawiki and have developed many new features, are quite different from their colleagues outside of China, which is impressive.

Staffs of BaiduBaike and Hudong believe that there are a lot to learn from Wikipedia. Should we Wikipedians learn things from them either?

A offline event of Chinese wikipedians in Dalian, April 2014. Most of them once used BaiduBaike.

As we know, Wikipedia had been blocked by China goverment once, which caused the fact that most people in China use BaiduBaike. Since 2008, Wikipedia started to spread among Chinese commons again, and we were and we are in a different WikiCulture which is growing with strong competitors. After six years of growing, our competitors started to respect us, and learn from us; they developed new features in their products to match Wikipedia. New culture & Communities are growing fast, and we should learn about it and thought about it.

Track
  • WikiCulture & Community
Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long)
30 minutes
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
Yes
Slides or further information (optional)
Special requests


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