20:30 31.10.2005 | All news from "Internet"
Wikipedia may go to print, says founder
He said content from the Web site may also be burned ontoCDs and DVDs so computer users in places like Africa, who lackaccess to high-speed Internet, could consult parts of thereference work offline.
Wales also described as incorrect reports, one of them fromReuters, that certain pages of the Wikipedia could be subjectto tightened controls or "frozen" for good to prevent vandalsand pranksters from tampering with them.
"We are talking to several agents and publishers about whatthey would be interested in," Wales said of the book project.
He cited health, football and histories of World War Two orrock 'n' roll as examples of how entries could be grouped intosubjects.
"I have always liked the idea of going to print because abig part of what we are about is to disseminate knowledgethroughout the world and not just to people who havebroadband," Wales said by telephone from St. Petersburg,Florida.
Issues like funding, distribution and topics were stillbeing discussed but a first printed work could be ready frommid-2006, he added.
Wales, a 39-year-old former options trader, set upWikipedia in 2001. The site operates through the WikimediaFoundation, a nonprofit organization that relies on donationsto pursue its goal of spreading knowledge for free.
The reference work uses "Wiki" software, which gives anyonewith access to the Internet the opportunity to edit any page.
NO PLANS TO FREEZE PAGES
Some 350,000 people have contributed terms, background,context or simply corrected spellings for more than 2 millionWikipedia entries in more than 25 active languages. About800,000 entries are in English.
Wales, an American, said a core group of around 2,000contributors did the bulk of the work and formed the backboneof the Wikipedia "community."
In August, Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quotedWales as saying that "controls" could be tightened to protectpotentially sensitive pages of Wikipedia. Reuters picked up thereport and, in translating sections of it, said some pagescould be "frozen" in perpetuity.
"The idea that we are going to tighten our editorial'rules' is completely not correct (and) the articles would notbe frozen in perpetuity," Wales said. He said he had beenmisinterpreted and mistranslated.
Wales said new software would be deployed from the end ofthe year that would allow changes to very active pages whichmight be prone to vandalism to appear on the site with a timedelay, so members of the community could review them.
Enthusiasts had also been discussing whether to create"stable" versions of certain pages that would stand as the mostrecent reliable entry on a given topic. These would beavailable behind the latest contributed version and would alsobe updated as necessary, Wales said.
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