Interpedia

Template:Short description Template:Infobox website Interpedia was one of the first-proposed online encyclopedias which would allow anyone to contribute by writing articles and submitting them to the central catalogue of all Interpedia pages.

History

Interpedia was initiated by Rick Gates, who posted a message titled "The Internet Encyclopedia" on October 25, 1993 to the PACS-L (Public-Access Computer Systems Forum) Listserv.<ref>PACS-L Listserv message "The Internet Encyclopedia", Oct 25, 1993 (archived)</ref> That message included the following musings:

In November 1993, discussions moved to a dedicated mailing list,<ref>PACS-L Listserv message "Internet Encyclopedia (Interpedia) group project and mailing list", Nov 17, 1993</ref> supplemented later by Usenet newsgroup Template:Mono.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Interpedia FAQ (February 1994)</ref>

Several independent "Seal-of-approval" (SOAP) agencies were envisioned which would rate Interpedia articles based on criteria of their own choosing; users could then decide which agencies' recommendations to follow.<ref>Interpedia FAQ 15-MAR-94, section 4.2: "What are Seals of Approval (SOAP)?"</ref>

The project was actively discussed for around half a year, but never left the planning stages, perhaps partly due to the unprecedented growth of the World Wide Web.<ref>Joseph Reagle: Wikipedia's heritage: vision, pragmatics, and happenstance — section 3.2, Interpedia</ref>

See also

• Online encyclopedia
• List of online encyclopedias

Further reading

• Template:Cite book

External links

• Interpedia's disclaimer by John Hunt
• Template:Cite web