Talk:Digital Universe

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Digital Universe was a good articles nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There may be suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
September 23, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed

Cleanup

This article is very badly organized and is overeliant on the passive tense. ---CH 01:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New version

OK, I think I have now greatly improved the article.

However, I was about to attack the one remaining "dirty" section, on Encyclopedia of the Earth, when I gave up in disgust. Reason: the preceding version was so badly organized, incoherent, unclear, ... that I can't even tell if Encyclopedia of the Earth is different from the previously mentioned Encyclopedia! Needless to say, I find this degree of obscurity utterly unacceptable. Someone else will have to figure this out and figure out how to remove currently redundant information on the two wiki system, comments by Larry Sanger on the Wikipedia versus Digital Universe, and so on and so forth.

Here is a summary of changes I have made: in addition to reorganizing information and generally trying to make this godawful mess a bit more readable, I also tried to improve the "compare and contrast" with Wikipedia. There is plenty of evidence in Sanger's writings and innumerable newstories (see the Signpost) for the criticism of Wikipedia which I mention; some kind editor should try to cite some of it. I greatly dislike the footnote system for technical reasons, since it makes it harder to use citation templates. I request some kind editor to carefully convert this so that all the cited news articles are listed in the External links section, always with some context, i.e. distinguish betweeen a press release written by someone at DU with a newstory bylined by some hopefully independent reporter.

As always in a WP article which discusses Wikipedia, all editors of this article should review WP:SELF. In my reading of this policy, in this article it is not inappropriate to discuss media criticism of Wikipedia since the shortcomings of WP (whether real or perceived) seems to be a major motivation for some features of Digital Universe.

Last but not least, I should point out that at least in WP project pages, I am one of the critics within WP who has expressed views similar to those of Sanger regarding the problems which flow from allowing anon edits, and the contradictions between WP's populist values and scholarly values, which are neccessarily elitist. See User:Hillman/Wikipedia quality control for some semi-organized thoughts.

Please note that Bernard Haisch edits the WP as Haisch (talk · contribs) (and sometimes as an anon using the pltn13.pacbell.net and pltn13.sbcglobal.net domains from Southwestern Bell in the Bay area). He has recently been very unhappy with my wikibiography of himself and with other articles, and he is likely to complain here about my drawing attention to a (predictably) sore point: his credibility may have been damaged by his scientifically unorthodox interests in the UFO phenomenon.

Be aware that on my user talk page, without any prompting from me, Haisch raised an issue which gravely concerns me: POV-pushing edits motivated by a financial incentive. For example, I have been tracking evidence that inventors of dubious "energy from the vacuum" schemes have been trying to slant WP articles on their work in a way which might attract private investors, which I think violates Wikipedia is not an advertisement. And raises many moral and perhaps even legal issues.

To wit: Haisch wrote, in part:

You are attacking my competence to lead a major initiative that will compete with the Wikipedia... Wikipedia articles are taken at face value by many readers. If I go and seek funding from a philanthropic organization for the Digital Universe Foundation, as I am doing, and they look me up on Wikipedia, your negativity may cost me a grant... and I will never know that. Make no mistake about it. Wikipedia has tremendous influence, and that is precisely why must be both accurate and fair. The Wikipedia is perceived as no mere gossip sheet. Your words could deprive my organization of a million dollar grant because of your implicit judgment of my scientific career.
— Haisch (talk · contribs)

He may complain that I have taken this out of context, but I think his words speak for themselves.

At present, WP appears to lack a policy prohibiting someone from editing an article on a topic in which they have a substantial finincial stake, but I think that given human nature, such a policy is sorely needed. In the mean time, I ask other Wikipedians to join with me in asking Haisch not to himself edit this article, although of course he is welcome to express on this talk page any concerns he may have, and I will try to address these concerns fairly and promptly.

The sad irony here is that I have (mostly independently) come to pretty much the same conclusions as Larry Sanger regarding the shortcomings of the current WP political system, admin system, and so forth, so I would be a natural enthusiast for Digital Universe. I fear my comments here might prompt DU proponents to conclude that I trying to sabotage DU, and might also prompt angry criticism from Wikipedians offended by my criticism of Wikipedia. This isn't the place to concern such general issues, but let me just say in advance that I have no wish to torpedo either DU or Wikipedia. Please read my remarks here in the spirit of WP:AGF. TIA ---CH 03:11, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

rsm 2006 June 17 -- I would be helped by information about the privacy policies of Encyclopedia of Earth, which seems to involve a login. How much privacy am I giving up by logging in? Encyclopedia of Earth does not seem to provide a FAQ to address this issue.

I think you are extremely ungenerous to people who have edited this article. It is hard to write on this subject because the DU project has hardly started and from what they've put on the net so far, it is next to impossible to grasp what they are planning to do in any concrete way. It is not Wikipedians' fault that everything about DU apart from the slogans presently appears confused. 62.31.55.223 22:08, 24 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah. The lack of clarity in the article reflects, to an extent, lack of concrete info about, and evolution of, of the DU project itself, which is really only in its infancy. Hillman says, "I can't even tell if Encyclopedia of the Earth is different from the previously mentioned Encyclopedia! Needless to say, I find this degree of obscurity utterly unacceptable". Sure, but that's really Digital Universe's fault: in their pronouncements, the distinction has not been made clear (my best guess at the moment is that the EoE is a small-scale trial run for the larger DU encyclopedia). But refactoring an article is good, and I heartily thank Hillman for his work. A healthy Wikipedia editing cycle is 1) add a bunch of facts with sources; 2) rearrange facts into a more helpful prose. My only real complaint about Hillman's refactoring is that he's removed citations for some facts and added unsourced information, particularly quotes. Unlike DU, Wikipedia's approach to trustworthiness lies in its references, not in the authority of its editors. — Matt Crypto 00:52, 25 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What's going on?

They were supposed to be having a big launch in June (to follow up the big launch in January, when next to nothing actually appeared), but currently according to Alexa they are getting no discernible traffic at all. 62.31.55.223 00:13, 8 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For regular updates do see my blog: http://www.dufoundation.org/blog/ --Larry Sanger

I like the idea in principle...

because after reading too many userpages of experts leaving because they've had to put up with vandalism, I'm convinced some sort of process needs to be introduced to deal with that. But it seems to me that DU is TOO reliant on experts - parallel wikis seems like a bad idea and will turn people off. What seems a better idea for both is that experts are given separate status after an examination of their credentials, and are given their area of expertise to "govern" if you will. No user has the right to delete their content except in the purposes of cleanup and copyediting, and if an editor adds untrue content to an article, the expert should be able to call them on it, and then immediately order them to cease editing the page in question or have them short-term blocked. There are too many editors suffering burnout from dealing with endless circular arguments (as I found out on Islam, and I think a system that recognises experts, but doesn't tip the balance in their favour at the expense of the amateur contributor, is going to be the only way we don't result in utter chaos. For Wikipedia and Digital Universe (which will fail like Nupedia did unless it's made more open to the casual registered editor). Dev920 23:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If no-one has the right to delete their content they will be free to impose their own agendas and it doesn't take a genius to work out which school of thought most of them will espouse. That will mean most of the project will simply be a parroting of American academic liberal orthodoxy, which will hardly engage a global audience. I can think of few people who need to have their smug certainties challenged more than American academics do. Wilchett 20:16, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Reasons for not promoting

Hi all,

I have decided not to promote this article because I feel the article fails to give a clear view of what the Digital Universe project is. The article also needs to focus more on what Digital Universe is now rather than what it may become. The article should avoid saying things like "so it may be difficult to give a fully self-consistent explanation..." and instead be more direct (e.g. say something like "reports on the goals of the project have been conflicting..." instead).

Specific problems that also need to be addressed include:

The infobox is not filled in properly (the owner is missing and "sortof" isn't a word).
The "see also" links are probably not relevant to the article.
Some sections consist of one or two sentences - these are too short to be sections on their own.

Feel free to renominate the article once these issues are addressed.

Cedars 07:38, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at the official site, and frankly is don't think giving a clear view of what the project is now is really feasible. It would belike trying to give a clear view of what an acorn is if no-one had ever seen an oak tree. I don't think the people behind it really know where it is going, and that's its main problem (I wonder why Larry Sanger jumped ship?). The roles and purpose of the overlapping "things": universe/portal/browser/community/new service/"encyclopedia of earth" seem to be very poorly thought out and not at all intuitive. If they want to produce a general encyclopedia they should focus on that, and not on an "environmental" encyclopedia, that somehow also potentially (but not yet actually) covers the arts and society. I think it is literally impossible to provide a "a clear view of what the project is now" within Wikipedia's policy, because such an article would have to be a review, which breaches WP:NOR. Therefore your main criticism seems to me to be unsound. NB I'm not one of the authors of the article, the only thing I have done is to add a link. Wilchett 20:12, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Created by"

Created by Larry Sanger, Bernard Haisch, and Joe Firmage

Completely wrong. Firmage and Haisch are co-founders of the Digital Universe Foundation. Most of the content of the DU, however, is created by the combination of ManyOne Networks and the Environmental Information Coalition, which is behind the Encyclopedia of Earth. I never had very much operational authority in the DUF, so it is simply factually incorrect to say that it was "created by" me. In fact, Joe Firmage and Joakim Lindblom are together more responsible for the design of the Digital Universe as a Web application than anyone else. Furthermore, most of the original content of the DU website was provided by none of these people but, instead, various other people.

Wikipedia, you have a special obligation to get facts about living people and existing projects right. If you don't know something, you shouldn't guess; you should do your homework.

--Larry Sanger 00:23, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mr Sanger, it is not Wikipedia's fault, it is mine. I was guessing as to who started it, as I wanted to fill in the infobox and get the article to GA status, but I made a mistake on that point. I'll fix it up. Judgesurreal777 00:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You aren't disguising your hostility to Wikipedia very well today Larry. You will do a much better job on your own projects if you try to cut out the bitterness, stop seeing them as "not-Wikipedia" and just get on with them. Your problem is that you have a basic lack of respect for people you don't think are on your level. You might have pointed out the problem in a constructive manner, but no, you had to be condescending as usual. 82.18.125.110 00:06, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

*chuckle* I agree with anon: the commentary is a little condescending. You're correct, Larry, but people do make mistakes when editing Wikipedia. It's not like Citizendium is going to be free from error. — Matt Crypto 17:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unverified fact

and Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger. Until this has a source please don't re-add. —— Eagle (ask me for help) 18:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Terribly funny, the toadying conversation that preceded this move. 68.20.211.21 14:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Update tag

Is anyone in a position to update this article? So far as I can see from the complete lack of updates to the site in recent months, the lack of press coverage on google news, and the almost complete lack of traffic as per Alexa rankings, this project is comatose and possibly dead. Does anyone know what is going on? Wilchett 22:29, 8 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Three years later we know nothing more, I can find nothing post-2007. Fences&Windows 22:22, 23 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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Defunct?

IP changed "is" to "was" encyclopedia. Is it true? The website is open. And as such the encyclopedia "is" available? Just as software always "is". If you can't add or nobody is adding to it, even then is "was" the correct term? I came here from List of online encyclopedias where "defunct" has not been added to its entry. Should it? comp.arch (talk) 10:37, 23 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]