【09.10.15CNN】维基和其它网络百科在中国处境艰难
【原文标题】It's tricky for wikis and online encyclopedias in China【译文标题】维基和其它网络百科在中国处境艰难
【登载媒体】CNN
【原文链接】http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/14/wiki.china/index.html
【译者】满仓
中国最大的百科全书网站互动百科的CEO潘海东：我不是Jimmy。
Jimmy Wales（译者注：吉米•多纳尔•威尔士，维基百科创始人）上个月在参观互动百科总部的时候，向互动百科的创始人提了一个问题：维基百科有没有可能成为中国最大的在线百科全书？
“绝对不可能！”互动百科的CEO潘海东这样回应。互动百科是全球最大的中文百科全书网站。
潘对CNN说：“因为有互动百科在中国。当然，我们算是维基百科的一个效颦者，但是我们做了许多创新和很多中国本地化的东西，所以我们是完全不同的。”
一年前，中国政府取消了对这个来自美国的维基百科中文版网站的封锁。到现在为止，维基百科是否获得了中国互联网浏览量的任何份额尚不明朗。
自从维基百科在2002年进入中国后不久，这个国家的网络监察机构就开始间歇性地封锁其中文和英文版的网络百科地址，最长的一次封锁期长达3年。
最近几个月，Wales和负责中国网络监管的国务院新闻办公室的官员召开了一系列的会议，试图在维基社区和中国政府之间建立对话关系。
他说双方还没有谈到网站被封锁的原因。
Wales对CNN说：“我们之间的关系不错。但是有关事情的具体细节我还不大了解，这其实不算是个大问题。”
Wales所关心的大问题是，维基百科能否与在其被封锁期间成长起来的中国本土的两个百科全书网站相竞争——互动百科和百度百科。后者是中国搜索引擎老大百度的一个网络知识分享平台。
维基百科面临的一个挑战是，它在中国缺少品牌认知，而实际上它有全球性的品牌认知度。
“我（在北京）有一个导游，他讲英文、大学毕业。他问我是做什么的。” Wales对CNN说。
“我说：‘我是维基百科的创始人。’他的表情茫然，他不知道维基百科是什么东西，而这种情形在世界其它地方不会发生。使用互联网的所有人都知道维基百科是什么。”
Wales说他准备动员中国本地的维基百科人员来吸引对网络百科全书更广泛的关注，但是他没有描述如何击败越来越根深蒂固的本地竞争对手的具体策略。
Wales说：“我想我要经常来中国，与人们交谈，这样人们可以更了解维基百科。人们的理解对我们的事业会有帮助。”
“中国没有理由使用维基百科”
Wales的明星效应目前还无法把中国的3亿网民转化成维基百科的用户，也无法让他们成为支持网站运行的志愿者（译者注：指志愿向网站贡献词条知识的人）。
百度首席科学家William Chang在2008年北京举行的一个互联网会议中说：“事实是，中国没有理由使用维基百科这个‘舶来品’，中国自然要开发自己的产品。”
中国人使用本土的百科全书网站也是很自然的一件事情，有人说它们更适合这个国家呈爆炸式增长的网络用户们的使用习惯和信息需求。
互动百科创始人潘说：“我们更了解市场，所以才会占据更大的市场份额。”
根据网站统计的数据，互动百科有300万词条、170万注册用户，百度百科有将近200万的点击率。而中国维基百科只有28万点击率和70多万注册用户。英文维基百科有超过300万个词条和1000多万的网络志愿者。
潘对CNN说：“我们这里有最庞大的团队，他们对维基理念和维基在中国的运作方式更加了解。”
“当然我们更加关注维基社区，这意味着我们需要让更多人加入我们，来让互动百科更壮大。”
互动百科使用了一系列社交网络功能来吸引中国网络用户，包括聊天室、粉丝群、短信息服务和论坛。据中国互联网信息中心提供的数据，有将近1亿中国网民定期浏览在线论坛。
网站使用级别评判系统来回报用户，用户是否可以升级到更高的级别要取决于们在网站中得到的点数。用户高度参与网站的活动还可以得到奖品，比如笔记本电脑和iPod。百度百科也使用类似的运作模式。
维基百科使用的是一个声望系统，根据用户对网站的参与度和所贡献内容的质量来提升其声望。提升要得到集体批准，网站的志愿者管理员是由社区选举出来的。
潘说：“中国用户使用维基百科的门槛的确很高。我们没有层次分明的组织结构来规定谁管理这个，谁管理那个。”
互动百科和百度百科都有一个集中化的管理结构。员工的薪酬取决于鼓励社区对特定话题的贡献量，以及过滤调或许会冒犯中国政府的内容数量。
“对监管说‘不’”
Wales拒绝服从中国的监管条例，这意味着那些包含敏感信息的英文和中文维基百科网页依然无法被访问。
Wales说：“问题在于中国是否喜欢单纯的事实描述。”
“有些问题现在还不是很清楚，所以目前维基百科的有些页面依然被禁止访问。我们不同意这样的做法，但是束手无策。但是这毕竟比封锁整个网站好了许多，对中国、对我们都好了很多。”
互动百科和百度百科都是在中国进行商业运作，所以它们要么遵守政府的政策，要么面对维基百科一样的命运，没有其它选择。
潘说：“政府不喜欢的内容我们绝不会涉及，我们单纯地遵守法律。”
这就是为什么很多中国的维基人说长久来看维基百科会胜出的原因。
一名中国维基人、博客写手Isaac Mao说：“我不相信它们会成为像维基百科一样的参考资源，因为它们没有一个严肃的、关注改善内容质量的、试图尊重中立观点的社区队伍。它们不得不遵循那些你从来也不知道是什么的潜规则。”
但是潘说，如果中国政府继续逐渐放松对网络的控制，互动百科中的内容会及时得到改进。
潘说：“我亲眼见过很多方面的改进，所以我们理所当然地对此表示乐观。”
Wales也说，维基百科重新在中国开放，尽管有时还不稳定，但也是北京的网络政策正在变化的一个迹象。
Wales说：“我们满怀希望。维基百科已经重新开放了一年多的时间，我们希望这能够持续下去。我们盼望维基百科在中国也能产生在世界其它国家一样的影响力。”
潘对此表示不相信。
潘说：“不可能。我不想成为中国的Jimmy Wales，我只想说我们要为社会做些好事。这实际上是我们的梦想。”
原文：
Don't call me Jimmy: Pan Haidong, head of Hudong.com, the largest Chinese encyclopedia website.
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- When Jimmy Wales visited the headquarters of Hudong.com last month, he had one question for its founder: is it possible for Wikipedia to be the number one online encyclopedia in China?
"Absolutely not," was the response of Pan Haidong, head of Hudong.com, the world's largest Chinese encyclopedia website.
"Because there is Hudong here in China. Of course we are a copycat of Wikipedia but we have a lot of innovations, and we do a lot of work here in China so it is totally different actually," Pan told CNN.
It's been a year since China's government lifted its ban on the Chinese version of U.S.-based Wikipedia yet it remains unclear whether Wikipedia has gained any share of the country's massive Internet readership.
Shortly after Wikipedia was launched in China in 2002, the country's Internet censors began to intermittently block access to both Chinese and English versions of the online encyclopedia with the longest ban lasting around three years.
In recent months, Wales has held a series of meetings with officials from the State Council Information Office, the government body charged with internet censorship in China, to establish a dialogue between the Wikipedia community and Chinese government.
He says they have not discussed why the website was banned.
"We have a friendly relationship," Wales told CNN. "But in terms of getting down to the nitty gritty of what happened, I have no idea. It is not really a big concern."
What is a big concern for Wales is whether Wikipedia can compete with the country's two homegrown encyclopedia websites that emerged while Wikipedia was blocked: Hudong.com and Baidu Baike, an online knowledge sharing site launched by Baidu, the No. 1 search engine in China.
One challenge Wikipedia faces is it lacks the brand recognition in China that is otherwise nearly universal.
"I had an English-speaking, college-educated tour guide , and he asked me what I do?" Wales told CNN.
"I said, 'I am the founder of Wikipedia.' He had a blank stare. He had no idea what Wikipedia was. This would not happen anywhere else in the world. Everyone knows Wikipedia if they are using the internet."
Wales said he is trying to mobilize the local Chinese Wikipedia community to spread more awareness about the online encyclopedia but otherwise has not outlined a specific strategy to beat its more entrenched domestic competitors.
"I think I am going to have to come to China a lot and do interviews so people can learn about Wikipedia," said Wales. "Once people come to understand it that will be helpful for our cause."
'No reason for China to use Wikipedia'
Yet Wales' star power alone may not be enough to convert China's 300 million internet users into Wikipedians, or volunteers who run the website.
"There's, in fact, no reason for China to use Wikipedia, a service based 'out there,'" Baidu's chief scientist William Chang said at a 2008 internet conference in Beijing. "It's very natural for China to make its own products."
And it is also very natural for Chinese to use domestic encyclopedia websites that some say are better suited to the online habits and informational demands of the country's exploding population of internet surfers.
"We know the market better," said Pan, founder of Hudong.com. "That is why we can get a bigger share of it."
Hudong has more than 3 million articles and 1.7 million registered users, according to its website. Baidu Baike has nearly 2 million entries; Chinese Wikipedia has just 280,000 and over 700 thousand members. English Wikipedia has more than 3 million articles and over 10 million volunteers.
"We have the largest team here who are more familiar with the wiki concept and wiki operations in China," Pan told CNN.
"Of course we are more focused on the wiki community, which means we need to get a lot of people involved to make it grow."
Hudong.com utilizes a range of social networking functions to attract Chinese internet users, including chat forums, fan groups, short messaging services and bulletin boards. Nearly 100 million Chinese netizens regularly visit online bulletin boards, according to research from China Internet Network Information Center.
The website rewards members through a ranking system where users are upgraded to a higher status on the site based on the points they earn. Members also can win prizes, like laptops and iPods, for high participation on the site. Baidu Baike has a similar model.
Wikipedia uses a reputation system to promote its members based on their participation on the website and the quality of the content they contribute. Promotion is subject to peer approval, and the site's volunteer administrators are elected by the community.
"The entry barrier is really high on Wikipedia for Chinese users," said Pan. "We don't have a very hierarchical structure to say who is managing this or who is managing that."
Instead both Hudong.com and Baidu Baike have a centralized management structure. Paid staff are charged with mobilizing the community to contribute to certain topics as well as filter out content that might offend the Chinese government.
Saying 'no' to censorship
Wales has refused to comply with Chinese censorship rules, which means certain pages containing sensitive information on both English and Chinese Wikipedia remain inaccessible.
"The question is how comfortable is China about just describing the facts?" said Wales.
"In some cases that is not completely clear, so right now there are certain pages that are filtered from Wikipedia. We don't support that but we also can't do anything about it. But it is far better than just blocking the entire site. Far better for China and for us."
Since Hudong's and Baidu Baike's business operations are based in China, the companies have little choice but to comply with government policy or face the same fate as Wikipedia.
"If there is something that the government doesn't want, we don't talk about it," said Pan. "We just follow the law."
Which is why in the long run many Chinese Wikipedians say their website will win.
"I don't think they can become a reference book like Wikipedia because they don't have a serious community focusing on improving the quality of content as well as trying to respect neutral point of view," said Isaac Mao, a Chinese Wikipedian and blogger. "They have to follow the hidden rules and you never know what those are."
However Pan said Hudong's content, in time, will improve if the Chinese government continues to gradually loosen its grip on the internet.
"I have been seeing a lot of improvement," said Pan. "So we should be glad for that, of course."
Wales also said Wikipedia's reemergence in China, albeit at times unreliable, is a sign that Beijing's web policy is changing.
"We are hopeful," said Wales. "Wikipedia has been open for more than a year, and we are hoping that will continue. We would like for Wikipedia to have as much impact in China as it has in other places around the world."
Pan's doesn't believe it will happen.
"There is no way," said Pan. "I don't want to be the Jimmy Wales of China. I just want to say that we want to do something good for society. That is our dream actually." 百度才是神、 从战略角度讲：互联网今后发展潜力超级巨大，绝对不能让美国佬染指。应该接受微软的教训 支持 百度 维基百科有时提供的信息驴头不对马嘴或者少的可怜，因为它不了解中国。维基百科摆出一副神的样子像到中国来招摇撞骗。 没想到维基百科傲慢的可怜，维基不懂中国，更不懂中国人的需要。
百度比较厉害。 本帖最后由 忧心 于 2009-10-23 16:43 编辑
wiki中文都是港台编的，和大陆语言习惯不符，不过它的语言种类多多了，可以当专业字典使。
另外，专业知识wiki要更准确。而且wiki也不是没有管理，ac有网友想在tibet上加点中国方面的观点，账号就被禁了。
我不是特别看好wiki，大陆本土网络很有自己的特点，msn也好，facebook也罢，都不愿为了中国人而改变，自然竞争不过qq和开心网。 在百度和维基之间选择，我会选择百度 维基百科根本就是为西方政府服务的，很多地方都歪曲描述中国。
去年西藏暴乱时，居然只允许藏独份子修改百科不允许中国人改！还敢吹嘘自己保持中立态度~~
自从去年开始我再也不用维基百科了！ 相对来说现在想了解世界的中国人还比较少，等什麽时候想了解世界的中国人多起来了，百度等国产百科也早就走出国门了，还用得着维基吗！ 支持百度，维基真搞笑，你来我们就得喜欢你吗 我知道维基啊，但不用，百度就很好。 支持百度 听说维基把西藏农奴的真相删除了，真的吗？ 什么都看看......
反正自己能分辨～ 自然科学看wiki 支持咱们的百度，腾讯。 整个啥都想在中国畅销起来
自恋 反正我喜欢用百度 其实我觉得政府之前封维基3年以上~其中有一个原因~就是让百度这些本土百科~成长和提高知名度
至于是否中立我就不清楚了~我也没关注维基~所以不知道楼上诸位说维基偏帮是不是真的
百度用我用得最多~维基也用过~互动也用过~~但是很明显三者模式都是一样的~
而且百度很多专业词条和许多词条都是照着维基来的~
而且百度没有的~维基还有些可能有~
只要找自己需要的就好了