Contents:

1. New categories added; editors and peer reviewers for them wanted
   
2. Peer reviewers particularly desired for Archaeology and Religion
   
3. More review groups now functioning
   
4. Writing begins
   
5. Article assignment system in place
   
6. Flyer available for printing & posting
   
7. Press page and links page to appear shortly
   
8. Sanger earns Ph.D. (finally!)
   
9. Thanks
   

In a major change to the Nupedia constellation of review groups we have added the following: Aerospace Technology; Communication; Games; History of Science and Technology; Hobbies; Library and Information Science; Neuroscience; Public Affairs (i.e., Public Policy and Public Administration); Sports; Critical Theory; Tourism; Transportation; and Urban Planning.

If you're interested in helping out as a Peer Reviewer or as the Interim Editor of any of the new (or old) groups, click here.

I have communicated with a number of people interested in each of these categories -- particularly in Communication, History of Science and Technology, Library and Information Science, Critical Theory, and Public Affairs.  I hope those people, particularly candidates for the editorial positions, will be back in touch.

In two understaffed categories, we are lucky to have two very distinguished Interim Editors -- Trevor Watkins (Archaeology) and Munawar Anees (Religion).  We have not, however, located any Ph.D. archaeologists and religious studies experts to join them as peer reviewers.  Your assistance in locating people to staff these categories would be much appreciated.  We'd sure like to start employing the talents and training of these gentlemen! 

3. More review groups now functioning

Recently we've gained editors and peer reviewers in a number of groups sufficient for them to begin work.  The newly-functioning review groups include Zoology, led by Prof. Gaytha Langlois; Computers, led by Dr. Michael Witbrock; and Literature, led by a distinguished writer, Prof. Gary Lehmann.  We expect to have a functioning group in Philosophy by the end of the week, and the Education group should be functioning within a week or two as well.  If your interests lie in these areas, please join us on the relevant mailing lists!

The list of groups in which we are, as of this writing, now accepting article proposals includes: Biology; Classics; Computers; Engineering; Health Sciences; Literature; Music; Psychology; and Zoology. Philosophy and Education should shortly be added to the list.

4. Writing begins

About twenty articles have been assigned so far -- primarily in our most active fields, viz., Classics and Music -- and a few articles have appeared on review groups.  We are exploring methods of peer review and encouraging participation, and a policy on this should be set within the next month.

Those of you who are interested in joining in the peer review process are strongly urged to give your input both on submitted articles and on the peer review process itself.  As summer begins, I hope many more of us will have more time to contribute.

5. Article assignment system in place

Our article assignment system is now in place thanks to the hard work of Jason Richey (jasonr@nupedia.com) and Jimmy Wales.   The system is being improved daily.  Please see the member area and follow the links in the "Assignment Menu."   There you may view a list of articles that have been assigned officially, and you may volunteer to write articles.  Please have a look! 

We have created a number of useful resources for editors as well.  They have access to a special table that they may use to look over article proposals, which they may then accept, edit, or delete.  For purposes of making this decision, they (unlike rank-and-file members) may click through directly to a volunteer's Nupedia member profile, or do more general searches for key words in all Nupedia member profiles.  They may also both create and change topics for which they would like writers. 

6. Flyer available for printing & posting

Please see the front page of the website for a link to a flyer, in RTF format (compatible with Microsoft products), that you can print out and post on bulletin boards (e.g., in university departments).  If you would like to help out in this small way, we would appreciate it greatly. 

7. Press page and links page to appear shortly

Editorial assistant Elizabeth Campeau has been preparing a links page which we expect will be both an interesting resource for readers and a way for us to generate reciprocal links.  She's also been working on a press page that lists links to mentions of Nupedia in the online press.  In the regular press, we had a very nice mention in Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association, on May 15, 2000.  After describing the project, Deborah Rollins concludes: "Will it work?  Is there a substantial likelihood that Nupedia will become one of the most important reference works in the world?  Although we'll just have to wait and see, precedents for this type of cooperative scholarly work have certainly been set in many field-specific sites all over the Internet.  The Board's interest is piqued, and we'll check in from time to time on Nupedia's progress.  In the meantime, we wish Sanger and his staff of volunteers all the best!"

8. Sanger earns Ph.D. (finally!)

Editor-in-chief Larry Sanger successfully defended his dissertation in mid-May, and the completed, approved document has been handed in.

9. Thanks

Special thanks are due to G. B. Lane, Interim Editor of the Music category, and Robert Dyer, Interim Editor of Classics, for their extremely active involvement in all aspects of the Nupedia process.  Their involvement has made the project much more credible, interesting, and likely to succeed.  Thanks also to the many others who have contributed their time and expertise.  We still have a long way to travel, of course.  Hope you're enjoying the journey.

1. Selected categories now ready to accept article proposals
2. Chief copyeditor sought
3. Version 2.0 of policy statement posted
4. Report on growth of editorial review groups
5. Editorial assistant Liz Campeau begins work
6. Two programmers hired
7. Discussion burgeoning on Nupedia mailing lists
8. New subject areas to be added

Here's the news:

We are now accepting article proposals and making assignments in those categories that have functioning steering committees.  These categories include Biology, Classics, Engineering, Health Sciences, Music, and Psychology.  For information on how to volunteer to write on a topic, please see here.  In future Nupedia updates we'll let you know as categories gain functioning steering committees.   Meanwhile you may check for yourself.   See whether there is an interim editor as well as two peer reviewers in any given category listed on the editors and peer reviewers page.

2. Chief copyeditor sought

We are hereby soliciting applications for chief copyeditor.  This person will manage the many dozens of volunteer copyeditors on the copyedit-l mailing list and coordinate and keep track of specific Nupedia copyediting policy.  This person must be also quite willing to enforce the relevant items of Sect. VI of the policy statement ,particularly VI. A-B.   Just to be clear, I should add that the purview of copyedit-l and thus also of the chief copyeditor is limited to matters of grammar, punctuation, usage, and style; matters of completeness and accuracy are left to the relevant review groups.   This is a part-time, volunteer position.  To apply, send to lsanger@nupedia.com a resume or CV as well as writing samples (in HTML, plain text, Wordpad, or MS Works format; web pages will do nicely as well).  We also request a means of establishing bona fides, or at least that you are who you say you are.  Either a public web page or references will suffice. 

3. Version 2.0 of policy statement posted

Please see this page for a much-expanded (but still incomplete) version of the policy statement.  This statement will soon receive some small updates, e.g., an accessibility statement, and more extensive updates as we work through the editing process with our first article submissions. 

4. Report on growth of editorial review groups

The growth of the Classics review group has been explosive, due to the wonderful efforts of our interim editor of Classics, a distinguished classicist, retired Prof. Robert Dyer.  Robert has collected a group of truly distinguished academics that seems poised to become one of the most active of Nupedia review groups.  The Music review group has added another member and continues to be the largest of Nupedia groups; they'll be getting some serious work done soon as well.  (We're looking forward to meeting the interim editor of the category, Prof. G.B. Lane, here in San Diego next month.)  The Psychology review group is now functioning, headed by Prof. Charles Peyser, former department chair at the fine southern liberal arts college, Sewanee.  Other groups have been adding members as well.  We fully believe that once Nupedia begins posting articles, we will staff all Nupedia categories rapidly -- particularly now that we have Liz's help (see next item below). 

If you are qualified and interested in joining any functioning review group as a peer reviewer, please contact the group's editor; for still-nonfunctioning groups, please write lsanger@nupedia.com .; Please see here for e-mail addresses.

If you have been waiting to express your interest in joining these or any groups, a brief note: come on in, the water's fine!  We have a lively, interesting, and remarkable group of scholars here who are committed to doing a superlative job.  Moreover, the time you spend with this project, particularly if you are a peer reviewer, will depend largely on your own level of interest, so you needn't fear being roped into something that eats up more time than you intended.  (The interim editor positions will, of course, require a bit more of a solid time commitment.) 

5. Editorial assistant Liz Campeau begins work

Nupedia now has a full-time editorial assistant, Elizabeth Campeau.  Liz has been posting announcements about Nupedia on mailing lists and has also been making adjustments here and there on the website.  Recently she has rearranged the left- and right-hand links (and added links) on the website.  We're happy to have her help.  If you have ideas about how we might promote the project, please share them with Liz at ecampeau@nupedia.com. 

We now have over 1,800 members -- the recent increases are in large part due to Liz's efforts.

6. Two programmers hired

Bomis has hired two programmers, Andrew McCague and Jason Richey, to work on Nupedia and on other projects; they began work last Monday.  We're excited about this development and hope soon to develop more of the tools we need to make the project a success.

7. Discussion burgeoning on Nupedia mailing lists

Discussion on all manner of topics has been heating up on various Nupedia lists including nupedia-l, copyedit-l, tools-l, and various subject area mailing lists such as classics-l and music-l.  You're encouraged to join any lists that address your specific interests; please go to the member area for instructions on how to subscribe and unsubscribe.

8. New subject areas to be added

We will soon (within the next few weeks) be adding top-level editorial groups devoted to library science, aerospace technology, public policy, and critical theory.  We are also working on ways to attract communications-related people; we may simply add a "communications" group, or in some way reorganize the Publishing and Writing as well as the Film and Television groups.  Expert input on how to arrange these editorial groups efficiently, and in a way that would be most attractive to potential participants, is requested.

Nupedia news archive

Thursday, April 27, 2000

Work is proceeding apace on several levels now. 

The advisory board (including most members of the steering committees listed on this page) has been discussing extensive additions to the Nupedia Statement of Editorial Policy and a few other issues.

Nupedia's new editorial assistant, Elizabeth Campeau, has been hard at work posting announcements about Nupedia.  As a result, new potential steering committee members are arriving every day, and Nupedia membership is now over 1,600.

The music editorial review group has started discussions, and members of various other groups have introduced themselves.  The classics editor, Robert Dyer, has posted a draft article about classics to classics-l; he reports that he has commitments from several of his colleagues, that they will join him in the classics steering committee soon.  Also, the category formerly described as "parapsychology" will instead be known as "anomalous phenomena."

Copyedit-l has over 70 members now, presently discussing just what copyediting process would be best.

Monday, April 17, 2000

We have set up a new mailing list for proofreading Nupedia articles: copyedit-l.  If you would like to help ensure that Nupedia articles are written in excellent English, do subscribe.  Curmudgeons welcome!  To subscribe, send an e-mail to majordomo@nupedia.com with the following two words in the body of the message:

    subscribe copyedit-l

Notice that that's an "L" at the end, not an "I" and not the numeral "1".

Last Thursday and Friday, we offered steering committee positions to some 45 people in a wide variety of areas.  Most of these people hold Ph.D.'s and are experienced scholars.  Perhaps three are very close to having their Ph.D.'s; three more are M.D.'s; and there are a number of very experienced engineers.  A few among our distinguished steering committee members are Trevor Watkins, archaeologist; Robert Dyer, classicist; and Munawar Anees, an expert on Islam.

Among the review groups we expect to be active first are biology, health sciences, engineering, and particularly music, which has more than its fair share of volunteers.  Quite a few steering committees, however, particularly in arts and literature, are still totally unstaffed.  If you are interested in joining Nupedia's steering committees -- especially if you are a generalist who possesses the highest credentials in your field -- please contact Larry Sanger at lsanger@nupedia.com with a CV or resume and some way (such as a web page or references) to help establish bona fides.  For more information on the responsibilities involved, please see this page.

While we hope soon to gain the assistance of another paid employee to help publicize the Nupedia project among arts and literature experts (and others), your help in this regard would still be much appreciated.  Regardless, we are in this for the long haul and we are very confident that, once the project has been properly publicized in mailing lists and via web links (as it definitely has not been yet), we will have more than enough people to staff all categories.

Steering committee members have been introducing themselves on Nupedia's advisory mailing list and will soon begin discussion of a variety of practical issues surrounding Nupedia policy and procedure.  We expect that the first articles will be assigned as early as this week, and it seems quite possible that the first drafts of articles will appear in Nupedia review groups as soon as next week.

In other news, we have not yet decided on a Nupedia logo.  We received a number of nice designs that we posted on this page, but some of the best entries weren't posted on that page and it's likely that we're going to use an entry that wasn't posted.  We'll let all entrants know of our final decision when we've made it.

We also have some bad news, I'm afraid.  The Perl programmer we hired has decided to stay at his present job (he got a counteroffer he couldn't refuse, apparently).  So we will continue to look for a programmer for Nupedia.  Please have any candidates you know of contact Jimmy Wales at jwales@bomis.com.  

Monday, April 10, 2000

At the end of today, deadlines for both steering committee applications and logo submissions will be past.  So, in addition to developing more of the usual technical (often behind-the-scenes) tools to run the website, we plan to start making decisions on some of the steering committees this week and on the logo.  A major new addition to the Nupedia policy statement is also planned.

We received several dozen applications for a wide variety of interim editor and peer reviewer positions, enough to get some Nupedia groups up and running.  We are fortunate to have the involvement of some distinguished scholars and I think most of us are very eager to get the process started.  One of the first things we'll be doing is discussing some proposed policies and procedures for the steering committees.

Some categories are still understaffed.  Consequently, in those categories, we simply will not yet start writing articles.  We're going to focus on getting qualified staff for these categories soon (once the other groups are up and running).

The editor-in-chief will be contacting applicants individually and once this is done the new staff assignments will be posted on the website.

We're impressed with the logos we've received.  Have a look!

We are now soliciting applications for the positions of interim editors of subject areas and initial peer reviewers.  These people will make up subject area steering committees and will be important in getting work started.  For more information, go here.  Application deadline is next Friday, April 7.

We're inviting anyone and everyone to submit designs for the Nupedia logo, which will be practically ubiquitous on Nupedia-related stuff, we figure.  Here's the deal.  The winning design will grace Nupedia web pages and prominent credit (e.g., on the Nupedia "about" page) will be given to the designer, including a line or two of text and a link to a website.  As to the losers, we will, if you desire, post any serious logo submission on a web page with the submitted logos linked to the designer's webpage.  As Nupedia increases in popularity, which of course we all fully expect, you can expect to get a number of hits from us this way.  So you have an incentive to send in a logo in any case -- even if you lose, you win (sort of).  One concept that we think is particularly neat is a medieval manuscript-style illuminated letter "N", but we're very open to other concepts too.  Feel free to submit as many logos as you like, in whatever format you like.  Send your submissions to lsanger@nupedia.com as an attachment.  The deadline is next Monday, April 10.

Nupedia now has over 1,400 members and over 400 people have filled out their member profiles.  (Member profiles are now editable, by the way -- have a look.)  We now have hundreds of very experienced researchers involved, and we should feel very fortunate for that.  Of particular help was an announcement someone made on a half-dozen musicology mailing lists; as a result, we are now stronger in music than any other field, it appears. 

I want to ask again that you help promote the project by posting an announcement on a list, telling friends, etc.  Some ideas on doing so can be found further down on this page.  In terms of numbers, we are weaker at present in the arts and humanities than I would like, so those areas in particular could use help.  The more qualified people are involved, the better the encyclopedia will be. -- Of course, this sort of promotion will be easier and more credible once we have tested and demonstrated the quality of our review process, which I'm eager to start doing.

In recent weeks my main tasks have been to increase the member base and to greet new members.  Many people have written to ask how they can get to work writing.  Once we can keep track of topic assignments (which should be soon) and editorial mechanisms are in place, we'll post an announcement that we're ready (or, more likely, that certain groups are ready) to start assigning topics to people who volunteer for them.  This could be short as two weeks away, and perhaps as long as a month -- it depends on a lot of uncertainties.

Jimmy Wales, who has been doing the programming for Nupedia, assures me that within a matter of a few days -- when it's needed -- we can have a very basic but quite usable system up and working for the actual serving of articles.  Of course, we can get to work writing even before the system that accepts articles into a database exists.  Work should also speed up once our just-hired, full-time programmer starts, sometime within the next month.  To discuss any aspect of the process, please do subscribe to Nupedia-l (instructions in the member area) and start or join a discussion.

-- Larry Sanger, Nupedia editor-in-chief

Monday, March 27, 2000

Nupedia membership is now rapidly approaching 1,200.

Last week a gentleman posted a Nupedia announcement to a half-dozen musicology mailing lists and as a result we have been flooded with expressions of interest from music professors and graduate students from around the world.  Music-l, the Nupedia music review list, now has more members than any other review list.

Member profiles (follow "edit profile" link in the member area) are now editable; i.e., you can now see and edit what you have inputted into the system.  This is just one of many small improvements we hope to make over the coming months.

After we have made one or two other such small improvements, we will be posting the second Nupedia "broadcast" to members, soliciting serious applications for general subject area interim editors and initial peer reviewers.  We expect to get to this finally sometime this week.

I am assured by our programming staff that a very basic but entirely functional encyclopedia article database system can be set up in a matter of days.  So, by the time we have an editorial mechanism in place, it's not implausible to say, we might be ready to start inputting and serving actual articles.  Of course, we'll be keeping you updated.

-- Larry Sanger, Nupedia editor-in-chief

Monday, March 20, 2000

As of this writing, Nupedia has approximately 800 members.  A surprising number of these are from Europe and other non-U.S. countries; this may be because the Nupedia story was widely picked up by the foreign tech press.  We're very happy about this!

Mailing lists about top-level subject areas are now available.  Please go to the member area and click on the link to the mailing list page for more information. We want to encourage members interested in contributing to the encyclopedia to sign up to the lists.

We are also now officially encouraging members to help increase our contributor base.  Some tips:

• Some points you might mention in an announcement, letter, or discussion about Nupedia: it's open content (and thus free to use and distribute, in accordance with our license); there are already 800 members, and very many of these are Ph.D.'s, doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc.; the international interest in the project; our ambitions, which are looking more credible as we add more members; the planned peer review process; the editorial policies, e.g., lack of bias; and how you feel about the project.  And that you would like your message to be forwarded to anyone potentially interested!
• Kinds of forums to consider posting to: your favorite specialized and general mailing lists; departmental, research institution, etc., mailing lists; Usenet newsgroups; and web-based discussion areas.  People you know who may be interested: family; friends; professional colleages you work with; other professional colleagues; former professors; former students; people presently offline who might be interested.
• If you're not quite sure that a posting about Nupedia would be welcome on some forum, please ask the moderator or listowner for permission first.

We've decided that Nupedia software is going to be open source.  So we hope to attract programmers to help our own Nupedia programmers develop the best system possible for serving Nupedia articles.  In exchange, we agree to make the source code that runs Nupedia software freely distributable on an open source basis.  We've set up a mailing list for this (send "subscribe tools-l" to majordomo@nupedia.com); interested software developers are strongly encouraged to subscribe.

We are still working on designing the topic assignment database, which will allow editors to input new topics and assign topics to particular authors.  When this is done we'll be closer to the point where we can get people to work writing articles.

Another thing we'll be doing soon -- though we haven't started -- is soliciting and selecting interim editors and the initial peer reviewers (which together can operate as an area steering committee).  Interim editors will agree to do editing work for the next few months, while we (with the help of review groups) conduct searches for permanent subject editors.  Not that there aren't already some members who could be (and have been) wonderful encyclopedia editors for general subject areas -- there are indeed.

-- Larry Sanger, Nupedia editor-in-chief
 

Monday, March 13, 2000

Last Thursday, March 9, we issued a press release announcing the existence of Nupedia.  The story was picked up by a wide variety of (mainly technical) online media, including the Newsbytes newswire and PC World, as well as publications from France and Brazil, among other places.

Serious work began on Nupedia only last month (I arrived in San Diego for my new job as editor-in-chief of Nupedia on February 7).  So you can understand that we're still in the beginning stages of the project.  One of our top priorities for the coming week is to blanket Usenet and selected mailing lists (once we have obtained permission to post) with announcements about Nupedia.  The few announcements we've already made on newsgroups and mailing lists have attracted a surprising number of new members.  A substantial minority of these have filled out membership profiles; we have a rapidly-growing fund of Ph.D.'s and otherwise highly-qualified members.

I and the others (at Bomis, Inc.) working on the Nupedia project find the interest our announcements have generated to be very exciting and gratifying.

We have two other top priorities for this week:

(1) To set up the top-level discussion groups, invite members to subscribe to the groups that address their interests and areas of expertise.

(2) To design the system permitting the inputting of article topics and who they're assigned to (and related information).

We will also, sometime in the near future, be soliciting applications for interim editors of the top-level categories.  Our intention is to build up the membership in each category until a certain critical mass is achieved -- until there are sufficient numbers of bona fide experts in each, so that we can draw on their help and advice in selecting category editors.  That may be a months-long process, however; we want to find really top-rank editors.  In the meantime, interim editors will be useful in directing the composition of brief articles.  (The first articles we'll write will be essentially one to four paragraphs long; we want breadth before we go for depth.)

I want to extend a very warm welcome to everyone who has signed on.  I think we can expect great things from our collective efforts.

-- Larry Sanger, Nupedia editor-in-chief