Interpedia Homepage

Index

• The Interpedia FAQ
• Interpedia Coordinating Committee
• Goals
• Design specifications
• Other sources of information
• About the Interpedia section of the HMC Web server

The Interpedia FAQ

There are currently two versions of the FAQ available. The first is the canonical plaintext version, maintained by Alan Reynard <medalan@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu>. This version is more up-to-date. Also available is a hypertext version, which is unfortunately based upon an old version of the plaintext FAQ. The hypertext version is maintained by Robert Armstrong <ttknock@bronze.lcs.mit.edu>.

Goals

The last several years have seen the arrival of the Information Age. The growth of the Internet has resulted in a rapidly increasing amount of resources freely available for users worldwide. One resource lacking, though, is an encyclopedia. This lack of a unifying document is symbolic of the lack of a unifying structure to the resources available on the Internet.

The mission of the Interpedia is to be much more than an online encyclopedia. Its mission is to be a primary source of information for Internet users, and a guide to many of the online resources avaliable. The Interpedia will provide a unifying structure to the resources available, and be a resource of first-resort for people looking for information on any number of subjects.

1. The Interpedia Project will create an online, publically-accessible information resource available to all users of the Internet at no fee. A prototype of this system will be in place within one year of the finalization of a planning document, and a full-fledged system within two years of the prototype.

2. The Interpedia will take advantage of advances in hypermedia whenever it is possible to do so without hindering the access of those limited to basic text displays.

3. The Interpedia will strive to be more than simply an encyclopedia on a network: it will take advantage of Internet resources whenever possible.

4. The Interpedia will not adopt a centralized editorial policy; rather, it will provide tools to permit any interested user to be his/her own editor. The Interpedia may create its own editorial board, however, to provide default recommendations to new users and those users who do not wish to use these editorial tools.

5. The Interpedia will adopt a management structure that will permit all interested individuals to take part in the management and decision-making processes of the Interpedia.

Design specifications

There has been some discussion about the whether to Interpedia could be usefully implemented on top of the current World Wide Web architecture. Axel Boldt <boldt@math.ucsb.edu> has posted a message entitled "Proposed anatomy of a WWW-based Interpedia" that may be useful. Tim Berners-Lee <timbl@ptpc00.cern ch>, a founder of the WWW, provided an explanation of the technical aspects of using WWW as the basis of the Interpedia.

Additionally, a number of people are working on prototype software to form the technical basis for the Interpedia.

• Douglas Wilson <dwilson@crc.sd68.nanaimo.bc.ca> has published some design specs for his prototype software.

Other sources of Information

Gopher archives

R L Samuell <samuell@cis.uab.edu> has a gopher site serving a variety of archived Interpedia information.

Digest Archives

A great deal of the discussion about the Interpedia has taken place on the Interpedia Digest mailing list. All of the digests are archived here, if you would like to browse them. There are plans to make these searchable via a gateway, but until that time, this may be a useful resource.

comp.infosystems.interpedia

The Interpedia project recent got its own Usenet group for general discussion.

Return to HMC Web Homepage