Before any IPO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_public_offering I suspect they might try and clear up their intellectual property issues. Otherwise some investors might be wary.
But in the medium term I can see one or both of them becoming a major competitor to us, provided of course that translation software continues to improve (I'm not sure that we are particularly close to having translation software good enough to give unassisted automatic translation, but we aren't far off the point where it could do it providing people manually resolve ambiguities in the source material, and a large volunteer wiki is a good environment for doing that sort of thing). WSC On 25 August 2011 09:35, Fred Bauder <fredb...@fairpoint.net> wrote: > Nevertheless I wouldn't be surprised to see a billion dollar IPO for > either of them. > > Fred > > > I think that it is also worth pointing out that, in my experience, > > articles > > on Hudong are pretty bad. They are poorly formatted, poorly written, > > generally lack inline referencing, and often have copyright violations. > > Baidu Baike is of somewhat higher quality, though I think that both pale > > in > > comparison to the best of Wikipedia. We definitely shouldn't be viewing > > this > > in number terms alone. > > > > I admit that I am not an editor on either of the Chinese online > > encyclopedias, but my impression is that editors there lack a sense of > > ownership over what they write. I don't mean ownership in the negative > > sense > > of owning individual articles, but in the positive sense of feeling like > > they have a say in how things are run. Nameless, faceless administrators > > censor politically objectionable content without explanation, and things > > like notability standards, template formatting and Manual of Style type > > issues don't seem to be addressed by the community. As has been noted > > many > > times, there is a point system in which frequent editors can gain higher > > rankings, but these rankings seem to confer mostly prestige, and not much > > concrete beyond that. I'm not convinced that this model will produce a > > better encyclopedia in the long run. > > > > Of course, I freely admit that I am a Wikipedia guy, and don't go over to > > the Chinese encyclopedias much, so if I am missing some strong sense of > > purpose that is actually felt by editors there, someone else should chime > > in > > and let me know. > > _______________________________________________ > > WikiEN-l mailing list > > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
