The Digital Universe; Bringing The Media To The People Who Already Have It, for $10 million.

Oddly, while Wired Magazine slams Jimbo¹, the New York Times article has some balance in, 'Insider Editing at Wikipedia':

...Mr. Sanger left Wikipedia, he said at the time, because it gave too much power to "difficult people, trolls, and their enablers." He says his latest endeavor, Digital Universe, will combine the strengths of Wikipedia with those of a traditional reference work. With $10 million in backing, Digital Universe, called "a Wikipedia for grown-ups" by The Register, a technology news site, will go online next month (digitaluniverse.net). It will allow anyone to contribute and edit entries, but experts vouching for the accuracy of entries will oversee major areas of content, according to ZDNet Asia.

Whether such a product will be as wide-ranging as Wikipedia, or as trustworthy as Britannica, is unclear. But between all those, and the thousands of other available sources out there, nobody can complain that information is hard to come by...

OK. DigitalUniverse.net. While I'm a big advocate of the Wikipedia - it is really what the Wikipedia makes available to the entire world with internet access which makes me an advocate, not the name or dubious articles. It's the ability for people to participate globally. So DigitalUniverse inspired me to look. The big selling point that they are pushing? Stewards; shepherds of information. Frankly, Myths of Accuracy and Reliability of Written Media explains some of my concerns of traditional systems:

...But these words are not infallible. Indeed, there are problems with these media - foremost, the further back in time we read, the less people who could write. In the grand scheme of things, we have only started scribbling effectively in the last few centuries - not because we were incapable, but rather because we have had more to write of. Somewhere, we mysteriously jumped from cave drawings to quantum electrodynamic physics on a digital media that would certainly confuse our ancestors. Our lives have changed our language. And our society has exploded from the few that could write to the new and untested majority who can not only write, they can publish themselves.

Those that wrote over the last centuries and left behind bound books - some hand transcribed, others printed - these people were a minority. Being published such that we may read the books now was - and is - an arduous process, one which even today is dependant on who you know more than what you have written. The human social network for publishing has ever censored, though we have read no complaint. And yet, how would we read such a complaint if the books themselves weren't published - or worse, if the books were burned, or rewritten to present certain perspectives? That is censorship, and where there is censorship, there is always a question of accuracy. But that accuracy - or lack of it - can never be assured because we don't know what is missing. If we're lucky, we may have hints as to why it is missing - if we even know it is...

The bottom line is - if we wanted to learn things, we had to think instead of blindly trust to books, or - by extension - any other form of written media.

Consider the case of Galileo Galilei. He left the University of Padua for 'financial reasons', but fortunately became part of the faculty. His writings upset the Roman Catholic Church - and the cornerstone of publishing during that period was none other than the Church - and his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was placed in the <Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Of course, fortunately for all of us (including Sir Isaac Newton), this did not remain so. And because it did not remain so, because this information is on public record - we do know.

What don't we know? Are we basing accuracy on only what we know? Are
we basing reliability on only what has been published, that which has
met the criteria for being published?...

...So while we speak of accuracy, we have to consider: How does one measure accuracy? When we speak of reliability, we must consider: How does one measure reliability? With guns and equipment, accuracy and reliability have been made to be common terms, common ways of discussing things - but when it comes to knowledge, these terms cannot be used in the same manner because there is no absolute truth to measure by.

But here's a truth. Freedom of Speech is only for those who can speak. Freedom of Expression is only for those who can express. Freedom of the press - belongs only to people who have a printing press. Freedom of the Digital press belongs to people with internet access and a virtual page.

Every truth we hold dear is based on previous truths, proven or debased. Every theory is another manner of trying to hold the world together within our minds. So how can we sensibly discuss accuracy and reliability when we have no way of measuring; how can we compare the accuracy and reliability of two separate systems when we don't know how accurate or reliable either one is?...

But oddly, it's not the potential for censorship or questionable reliability of experts that really got my attention - after all, the same potential exists in the Wikipedia, yet more people get to participate unfettered - which is a philosophy I agree with². And while the fact that not all of it will be open content is indicated here, which I do have a problem with ('must have credit cards this tall to ride this website'), I also recognize that as self-limiting. There's something else.

What got me going was how little the site actually said - especially about who is funding the DigitalUniverse.net project. The New York Times article indicates that the project has $10 *million* in backing. *cough*. $10 million? Who? For what? Especially if it's not all going to be free! A WhoIs points to ManyOne.net, as expected. And ManyOne's 'About Us':

... ManyOne Networks is a for-profit company backed by individual and institutional investors. The company will become wholly owned by the non-profit ManyOne Foundation in 2006. Thus, the company is structured to ensure that its activities and assets remain dedicated to public benefit, while providing financial partners with a responsible, capped return on their capital. Through this groundbreaking socially responsible business architecture, ManyOne will become the Internet’s first truly public information service, designed to serve the needs of citizens worldwide, and the world’s most trusted institutions...

Umm. But wait. You can subscribe. For how much? And the derived question: Who gets access?

In the end, they are just doing an online version of Brittanica - which puts them more in competition with Brittanica itself than the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia, wisely, isn't trying to sell people things at a price. It's trying to mix the two. But what's to stop someone from reading either and correcting either simply by rewriting it?

Oh. So it basically means that some people continue to get paid, some people continue to pay, and some people can't afford to get access to what one has to pay for.

Nothing changed. $10 million? Be a sport. Toss some at the Wikipedia, since it will continue to save DigitalUniverse.net bandwidth... from all those people who don't subscribe, and are more interested in sharing with peers than being censored by potential academic dictators.

Image at top is one of mine, and on closer inspection you will see why it is appropriate.

¹ Some observations here, but it seems like a smear campaign in the context of this article... Is this what Wired does when the Wikipedia is having a funding drive? Finish reading this entry...
² The only people that seem to have a problem with this are the people who have been the gatekeepers of information. I wonder if there were systems that tried to keep people from reading and writing... no, I don't. History is full of that hubris.