Unofficial Opensource Star Wars Encyclopedia(need writers, editors)

http://www.swpedia.r8.org

That is the site for the Unofficial, Open Star Wars Encyclopedia. You can immediately start creating pages, editing them, ect.

Basically, I was frustrated that the Star Wars Encyclopedias did not contain all the information I seeked, so I decided, if there was an encyclopedia where everyone could add on, with registration(registration is free), or not. You can edit information, and see the changes immediately.

The Encyclopedia needs writers, and I know you guys, at the Literature section know about Star Wars a lot. Why not share the info?



You can see the original post about the website here:

http://boards.theforce.net/Star_Wars_Community/b10012/17618392/?14

 

Fascinating, Jim.

There are several very comprehensive Star Wars articles on Wikipedia that I know of, especially the one on the Sith.

 

There are somethings about Star Wars NOT in Wikipedia, and which will never be there.

Such as:

fanfilms
exact locations
charater names
fan film makers


You get the point. Plus you need to look through a normal encyclopedia to find out about Star Wars stuff.

 

Oh, yes, of course, I agree completely. I was just noting a single site that contains a lot of information applicable for your own encyclopedia.

 

I will volunteer to write for this.

 

Sweet!

TC

 

I think I can contribute a few pages.

 

I will help as well.

 

Doesn't TFN already have an Encyclopedia?

 

Yeah, but it's not opensource.

EDIT: I may write or edit a few, depending on what I see.

 

What is opensource?

 

Anyone can add an entry or edit an entry if they so choose, making it easier to fix ommissions or errors.

 

But if you have literally hundreds / thousands of people updating whenever they feel like it, isn't that in itself bound to cause errors, considering everyone's knowledge and understanding of the EU and continuity varies from person to person?

The Unofficial Encyclopeida at TFN is exhaustive as it is, I don't see the need for another, but good luck to you all!

Allie.

 

Sadly, it's hardly exaustive, and there are many, many errors. It's still and excellent resource, though.

TC

 

The deal with any encyclopedia is that it is almost always missing information, and not just the most recent information to come out after the last publication. This is as true of SW resource material as it is for encyclopedias such as the World Book or Britanica. Some things are always going to be omitted and it ecomes the users job to be willing to go further than what is in that encyclopedia.

On the web there are porbably hundreds of unofficial SW encyclopedias. It's something that fans seemingly just have to do, share what they know with those who may not know as much. It can also be a way of having the info one needs in a fairly readily available place without having to go back through all their resources. On both notes it is not a terrible idea to add your own.

 

TalonCard: Sadly, it's hardly exaustive, and there are many, many errors. It's still and excellent resource, though.

Are you referring to Bob Vita's Encyclopeida? Why do you think it has many errors? Perhaps if it does, you should point them out to him?

Knight1192: On the web there are porbably hundreds of unofficial SW encyclopedias. It's something that fans seemingly just have to do, share what they know with those who may not know as much.

I guess that is the same for Timelines... there seems to be many out there!

 

But if you have literally hundreds / thousands of people updating whenever they feel like it, isn't that in itself bound to cause errors, considering everyone's knowledge and understanding of the EU and continuity varies from person to person?

AFAIK, the way wikipedia works is that although anyone can submit updates, these updates are still usually reviewed before being permanently added. At some point it would probably be a good idea to appoint some of our own fan experts (if they're willing) to act as sort of a review board (a Jedi Council perhaps ) to do these reviews. I think it would also be nice to put in a system to log and maintain credits for the contributors for entries.

I think open source is definitely the way to go for Star Wars resources in order to account for the expertise of those who know more than the writers for Del Rey and so forth. If this idea takes off, maybe you should propose to Bob Vitas that you make his current encyclopedia the 1.0 version as a starting point, then allow fans to fix and add to that.

I believe that JediMasterED was also working on a similar idea, but limited to a Jedi/Force user open source online encyclopedia. You may want to contact him and potentially join forces.

Are you referring to Bob Vita's Encyclopeida? Why do you think it has many errors? Perhaps if it does, you should point them out to him?

I believe that he probably has been informed of many of the errors, however, it's just too much stuff to keep on top of for a single person doing it as a hobby.

 

>Are you referring to Bob Vita's Encyclopeida? Why do you think it has many errors? Perhaps if it does, you should point them out to him?<

Yes. I think it has many errors because I've seen them. He sometimes makes assumptions that the source meterial doesn't call for, there is missing information, and some things that are just plain wrong. I do drop him a note when I run across errors, and he's very gracious about fixing them. He's not afraid to admit that he's wrong. (Unlike a certain doctor we all know and love.) So don't get me wrong, I am certainly not trying to attack Bob or the Encyclopedia, it's just that many people seem to think that both are completely infailible. (I've seen people say "Well, it's in the CUSWE, so it *must* be true!") Whenever one uses a fan-based reference work, such as CUSWE, TimeTales, the Technical Commentaries, or Timeline Gold it's a good idea to check the original source if there's doubt, rather than relying on the author's word alone.

TC

 

Have you had any doubts about the other fan made works?