Baidu Baike

Baidu Baike
百度百科
The main page, on 1 February 2016
Type of site
 Internet encyclopedia project
Available in Standard Chinese
Headquarters Beijing
Owner Baidu
Created by Robin Li
Website baike.baidu.com
Commercial Yes
Registration Optional (required to edit pages)
Current status Active
Baidu Baike
Chinese 百度百科

Baidu Baike[1] (/ˈbaɪduː ˈbaɪkə/; Chinese: 百度百科; pinyin: Bǎidù Bǎikē; literally: "Baidu Encyclopedia") is a Chinese-language, collaborative, web-based encyclopedia owned and produced by the Chinese search engine Baidu. Its test version was released on 20 April 2006, and within three weeks the encyclopedia had grown to more than 90,000 articles, surpassing the number in Chinese Wikipedia. As of August 2018, Baidu Baike has more than 15.4 million articles.[2]

Baidu officially states that Baidu Baike serves as an online encyclopedia as well as information storage space for netizens. Baidu Baike claims "equality", "cooperation", "sharing" and "freedom" spiritually, and connect this online platform with search engines technically in order to fulfil the needs of the users for information of different levels.[3] Critics of the encyclopedia note that it censors its content in accordance with the requirements of the Chinese government.[4][5][6][2]

Conception

Baidu's William Chang said at WWW2008, the conference of the World Wide Web Consortium, "There is, in fact, no reason for China to use Wikipedia ... It's very natural for China to make its own products."[7] When searching with the search engine Baidu, the link of the corresponding entry in Baidu Baike, if exists, will be put as the first result or one of the first results.[8]

Content restrictions

Articles or comments containing the following types of content are removed:[9]

  1. Pornographic, violent, horrible and uncivilized content
  2. Advertisement
  3. Reactionary content
  4. Personal attacks
  5. Content against morals and ethics
  6. Malicious, trivial or spam-like content
  7. Personal facts

Censorship

Being in the jurisdiction of the Chinese government, Baidu is required to censor content on their encyclopedia in accordance to relevant governmental regulations. All editors need to register accounts using their real names before editing, and administrators filter edits before they go public.[10] Users on microblogging platforms generally perceive Baidu Baike as similar to a governmentally sanctioned information source due to the censorship of its content.[11] As of August 2013, no articles on the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests, the Xinjiang independence movement, or the Falun Gong appear on the encyclopedia.[5]

PCWorld states that complying with Chinese censorship laws gives Baidu Baike an advantage over its competitors. Since the Chinese version of Wikipedia does not censor its own content, the government may block it while keeping Baidu Baike accessible.[10]

Formation

Front page

The current front page of Baidu Baike was put into use on 6 September 2012. At the top of the page the slogan "Let all humanity learn the world equally," as well as current information on the number of users and entries. On the bottom-left of the front page selected contents are presented; the bottom right contains announcements, plans and projects, etc. The front page information usually includes current hot topics, often related to featured news. Beside those hot topics, there are also one-sentence summaries of the news. Other than the front page, Baidu Baike also includes channels such as nature, culture, geography, and special topics such as core-users, digital museums, etc.

Registration

All editors need to register an account before editing, and administrators filter all but the simplest edits before they go public.[10] A phone number registered in mainland China is needed to register a new an account.

Entries

The entry pages of Baidu Baike include calling cards, texts, and other supporting information. An earlier version allowed users to comment on pages, but this feature was removed after September 2008.[12] The main language used is Chinese, written using the Simplified script; posts written in Traditional Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, or Japanese are automatically translated.

Calling cards and texts

Baike calling cards contain two parts - the description of an entry and the basic information. The former is similar to the preface of an article, which provides a general introduction to the whole text; the latter uses a table to summarize basic information and statistics. Both are edited separately from the main body of the article. The main texts are limited to 40 thousand bits, which is equivalent to 20 thousand Chinese characters. At the end of the article is the declaration of exemption. The earlier version of the entry can only contain one image, but now 20 images and 20 albums can be included in an article. The entry can also link to a Baidu map, dynamic screenshots, and videos. Information cited is listed beneath the main text, which does not distinguish footnotes from other details. However, the images cited do not specify the source, but contain image directories.[13][14]

Supporting information

Most pieces of supporting information are located at the bottom or the right of the page, except scientific terms, which are pushed to the top. Usually, supporting information is automatically generated by the system, with some edited by hand. Supporting information on the right of the page contains personal information, statistics, today in history, contribution of honor, current trends, and pop-links. Statistics include the number of page views, the number of editors, latest updates, creators information, etc. Editors who contribute complex articles are also mentioned and honoured.[15]

A user can see a database, the Baidu Dictionary, and related entries at the bottom of each article. Celebrities' articles have appended databases that list their single songs, albums, and videos. The user recommendations section is used to collect feedback about the article.

Encyclopaedia Titles

When an editor makes a edit that is approved, the editor's account receives a certain amount of experience points based on the complexity of the edit, (1 for the simplest edits, 5 for a complex edit). When an editor successfully completes a requested task, the editor receives experience points and a predetermined number of wealth points, which can be used to make purchases on Baidu. Editors are divided into 15 levels with corresponding 'Encyclopaedia titles' (百科头衔) based on their accumulated experience points. In 2012, the names of the titles were changed from modern corporate sounding titles to titles reminiscent of the Chinese Imperial examination and Confucian scholarship.[16]

Scope

Contents and categories

Unlike a traditional encyclopedia, the information on Baidu Baike is broader, similar to Chinese Wikipedia and Hudong.com. Baidu Baike also includes food recipes, film products, internet programs, and video games as well as its encyclopedic content. However, unlike Chinese Wikipedia, Baidu Baike never gives a strict definition of the difference between an encyclopedia entry and a dictionary entry. There are also many explanations on diction and common phrases.

In addition to articles, Baidu Baike includes several special pages:

  • A Sandbox (编辑实验) entry, which gives users a chance to practice editing.
  • Help, which provides terminologies, basic settings, regulations, user titles, etc.
  • User page, which is called "Baidu Authorized ID", and is similar to the one on Wikipedia. However, these are viewed as an encouragement for advanced users, and rarely does anyone have the privilege to make their own page.[17]

Baidu Baike holds open policies on the addition of entries, and support categorized search functions. The categorization is based on the characteristics of an entry but not the quality,[18] and there is no limit to categorization. Baidu Baike now has an elementary categorized page and tree. Part of the open categorization can be set according to levels, but catalogs having similar meaning can not be merged or redirected.

Numbers of entries

According to the latest list of entries, Baidu Baike has an increase of about 3,800 entries per day. Here are some milestones:

Time#MilestoneReference
16 Jan 20081M故事海 (Kathasaritsagara)[19]
8 Feb 20102M章启群 (A professor in Peking University)[20]
12 Jan 20113M222年 (AD 222)[21]
22 Nov 20114M乌天麻 (Gastrodia elata f. glauca)[22]
13 Jun 20125M桦南白瓜 (a cultivar of pumpkin planted in Huanan County)[23]
15 Mar 20136MNot announced[24]
See also: Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks/Baidu Baike and zh:Wikipedia:百度百科對維基百科的侵權

Baidu Baike's copyright policy is outlined in the "Terms of Use" section of its help page. It states that by adding content to the site, users agree to assign Baidu rights to their original contributions. It also states that users cannot violate intellectual property law, and that contributions which quote works held under the Creative Commons and/or GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) must follow the restrictions of those licenses.[25]

Criticism and controversy

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The Baidu Story." Baidu. Retrieved on June 3, 2011.
  2. 1 2 "百度百科_全球最大中文百科全书". baike.baidu.com.
  3. ↑ "百度百科是什么". 百度百科帮助. Retrieved 2015-05-30. (Chinese)
  4. ↑ Eva Woo (2007-11-13). "Baidu's Censored Answer to Wikipedia". Business Week. Archived from the original on 18 March 2008. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  5. 1 2 Jason Q. Ng, August 28, 2013, Who’s the Boss? The difficulties of identifying censorship in an environment with distributed oversight: a large-scale comparison of Wikipedia China with Hudong and Baidu Baike, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto
  6. ↑ Han-Teng Liao, (2013). How do Baidu Baike and Chinese Wikipedia filter contribution?: a case study of network gatekeeping. Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Open Collaboration. doi:10.1145/2491055.2491082
  7. ↑ Graham Webster (2008-04-22). "Baidu's William Chang: 'No reason for China to use Wikipedia'". CNET News. Retrieved 2008-06-22.
  8. ↑ "《互动百科诉百度"垄断"》". 孙超逸. 网易. Retrieved 2011-02-23. (Chinese)
  9. ↑ "Baidu Baike User Agreement". Baidu Baike. Baike Baidu. Retrieved 2018-04-09.
  10. 1 2 3 Dan Nystedt (2008-08-26). "Baidu May Be Worst Wikipedia Copyright Violator". PC World. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 2008-03-29. " Anyone wishing to publish entries on Baidu Baike must register first, giving the site people's real names, and site administrators review all entries before posting, a way to ensure compliance with Chinese censorship laws."
  11. ↑ Liao, Han-Teng. "What do Chinese-language microblog users do with Baidu Baike and Chinese Wikipedia? A case study of information engagement" (PDF): 9.
  12. ↑ "《词条浏览页升级啦》". 百度百科公告. Retrieved 2009-09-14. 在这次升级中评论被读者推荐代替，这篇文章后的评论中即有用户询问评论区为何取消，例如31楼、37楼和39楼
  13. ↑ "百度百科：词条名片". Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  14. ↑ "百度百科：基本信息栏". Retrieved 2018-03-10.
  15. ↑ 参见 复杂编辑的定义。
  16. ↑ "百科头衔".
  17. ↑ 百科领航员 (2011-01-20). "2011年百科权威认证ID名单公示" (in Chinese). 百度贴吧. Retrieved 2011-02-20. 这次一共有15名同学进入公示名单
  18. ↑ "百科词条结构". 百度百科帮助. Retrieved 2010-08-15.
  19. ↑ "《第1000000个词条诞生了》". 百度百科公告. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
  20. ↑ "《百度百科词条数量突破200万》". 百科船长. Retrieved 2010-02-08.
  21. ↑ "《【公告】百度百科词条突破300万啦！》". 百度百科公告. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  22. ↑ "《【公告】百度百科词条总数突破400万大关，感恩有你！》". 百度百科公告. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  23. ↑ "《百度百科词条突破五百万！》". 百度百科公告. Retrieved 2012-06-14.
  24. ↑ "<祝贺> 百度百科词条超过600万". cjycp32. Retrieved 2013-03-28.
  25. ↑ "百度搜索帮助中心-百度百科帮助". Baike Baidu. Retrieved 2006-05-11.
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