Wikipedia Alternatives?

After writing my last post (Maybe I Should Be More Skeptical About What I Read On Wikipedia), I thought, "Hey! Why not go see if I can find me some alternatives to Wikipedia!" just in case it ever comes up and also as it would be something else to write about here. So, I did.

When I Google'ed "alternatives to Wikipedia", the first page returned was "Top 7 Alternatives to Wikipedia". Wow, that was easy, right? I guess Wikipedia isn't so high and mighty - there are at least seven other choices out there! I decided to do a little research to see which of the substitutes was best. Below are my findings - first the name of the website, then the description provided by the Online Education Database, then my review/analysis/critique and finally a rating out of 10.

Scholarpedia

• Scholarpedia is a site made from the same MediaWiki software as Wikipedia. It almost appears like a mirror site, but there are some significant differences. Scholarpedia is written by, you guessed it, scholars. Experts must be either invited or elected before they are assigned certain topics and, although the site is still editable by anyone like a wiki, updates must first be approved before they are made final. This not only ensures that all information added to the site is accurate and attributed to an author, vandalism never becomes an issue.
• Sounds good in theory. I threw it some softballs for starters - "pneumonia", "cancer", "Egypt", "Hinduism", "baseball" - and didn't get a single result. I was starting to question whether the site was actually functional at all. Then, I saw the "Random Article" link. After a few clicks, I had been directed to pages with the following headings: "Stiff Delay Equations", "Burst Synchronization", "Evolving Fuzzy Systems", "Neuronal Synchrony Measures", "Stochastic Models of Ion Channel Gating". Ah, so that's why "baseball" wasn't returning anything! This seems like it might be worthwhile if you're in a pretty intense field and need detailed information on obscure topics. Aside from that, though, completely useless.
• 3 / 10
  

Citizendium

• Citizendium is a wiki that seems to be a compromise between the free-for-all that is Wikipedia and the strict supervision that accompanies Scholarpedia. One of Wikipedia's founders, Larry Sanger, created Citizendium in the hopes of improving on Wikipedia's model. With what the site refers to as "gentle oversight", all articles are subject to approval by the site's editorial team. Articles that haven't been approved will have an accompanying disclaimer, which helps to prevent people from taking potentially false information to heart. Also, you must register under your real name to become a contributor, unlike Wikipedia. Although the site is still in beta form, it is quickly becoming a popular alternative to Wikipedia, one that Sanger feels will "probably succeed".
• Alright, this one seems like a winner. The public contribution of Wikipedia with more controlled censorship. Perfect, right? Well, not yet. I ran the following queries: "Sigur Rós", "banjo", "Photoshop", "sodium", "pine", "napkin", "iPod". No results, at least none that were relevant. On the bright side, "apple", "pear" and "banana" has decent articles that seem to be half as good as Wikipedia. Although this one is practically useless now, it's still in Beta mode, and with a system of this nature, it needs visitors and contributors to be successful. I think that if this is marketed properly and people can be weened off of Wikipedia and onto this, it could be great.
• Current: 4 / 10 | Potential: 10/ 10
  

Encyclopedia Britannica Online

• When it comes to trusted and unbiased facts, this site is your best option. Here, every volume of the Encyclopedia Brittanica has been transferred to Web format, in addition to multimedia features and an easy search tool. Updates to the site's entries are made by professionals, as this isn't a wiki community. The only drawback to this site is that it isn't free. To have full access to Encyclopedia Britannica Online, one must pay a subscription fee of $69.95 a year. This is a sound investment for students, however, as the yearly fee is substantially cheaper than buying the encyclopedic set in book form. Also, major universities will accept the site as a reliable source when citing information in a research paper, something Wikipedia can't claim.
• The information will be quite accurate, but compared to Wikipedia, the articles are probably limited and slow to adjust to current events. More importantly, though, it's not free (unless you're looking up very basic terms, which usually isn't the case). This justifies an instant failure.
• 0 / 10
  

MSN Encarta

• MSN Encarta is another online encyclopedia that bypasses the problems that plague Wikipedia. All entries have been written and fact-checked by professionals and the site will never be vandalized. However, like Encyclopedia Britannica Online, this site requires a subscription fee. For $29.95 a year, you can access MSN Encarta in its entirety, including the site's accompanying thesaurus, world atlas and other research tools for students.
• See Encyclopedia Britannica.
• 0 / 10
  

Infoplease

• Infoplease is a free online encyclopedia that is a part of Pearson Education, the largest educational book distributor in the world. All of the information found on the site is gathered from trusted sources, such as the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary. Although entries may be limited in size when compared to Wikipedia, you can be sure that all the information is accurate and incapable of being influenced by outside users. Also, Infoplease has many multimedia features that assist researchers, particularly students who are attending distance education courses.
• I searched the same terms as I did for Citizendium:

"Sigur Rós" - fail
"banjo" - pass, inferior to Wikipedia
"Photoshop" - fail
"sodium" - pass, inferior to Wikipedia
"pine" - pass, comparable to Wikipedia
"napkin" - fail
"iPod" - fail

As you can see, not up to par as far as quantity or quality of articles. Moreover, the site is slow, requires more clicking than is necessary, and there are annoying advertisements from time to time. It does offer dictionary entries for most words, but if that's what you want, then use dictionary.com.

• 3 / 10
  

Conservapedia

• Conservapedia is a conservative, Christian-influenced wiki encyclopedia that was created as a response to Wikipedia's alleged left-wing bias. The information found on this site is free of foul language, sexual topics and anything else deemed offensive by the site's editorial staff. If you feel that Wikipedia shows a strong bias toward liberal views, then this site may suit your needs. All Conservapedia users are asked to follow the site's seven Commandments.
• Of all the 7 entries, this one actually holds up the best compared to Wikipedia. Still, it's not as good. For any entry ("God", "Jesus" and "Catholocism" included), Wikipedia has more content, and while Conservapedia does have a significant number of articles, it doesn't have more modern terms (like band names or "iPod"). Regardless of how it might look quantitatively, I would never use this as a reference for anything related to politics, religion or anything of the like. The name alone implies how slanted the entries are, and the video below illustrates that pretty well (wait until about a minute into it).
• Functionally: 5 / 10, but out of principle: 1 / 10

Uncyclopedia

• Uncyclopedia is an ambitious spoof of Wikipedia. It could be seen as an over-the-top response to Wikipedia users, also knows as "Wikipedians", who seem to take the site much too seriously. From the home page's logo to the formatting of each entry, the parallels between the two sites are uncanny and well-executed. Make no mistake, however. Nothing on Uncyclopedia should be taken as fact, which may be another dig at Wikipedia's occasional inaccuracy. If you are fed up with Wikipedia's many faults and want to have a good laugh, check out this satirical site.
• Funny, and a good resource for boredom, but not so much research.
• N/A

Wikipedia alternatives? I suppose not, at least not yet. If something ever happened to Wikipedia, I'm sure someone (most likely Citizendium) would step up and fill the role. As mentioned before, popularity is crucial to the success of sites like these, and since Wikipedia is practically a unanimous favorite, people typically don't use any alternatives at this point. If we ever need them, they'll be there. But for right now? Not worth the time to type the URL's.