Biographicon (YC Startup) Wants To Be Wikipedia For The Non-Notable Masses

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/01/biographicon-wants-to-be-wikipedia-for-the-non-notable/

by mqt • 18 years ago

39 34 18 years ago

tokipin• 18 years ago

i can see this becoming very popular, particularly for students in school/college who could very quickly populate it with their circle of friends

one thing: what will happen with people who have the same names?

rrwhite2• 18 years ago

disambiguation pages of course!

eusman• 18 years ago

that feeback button is everywhere!

rrwhite2• 18 years ago

It's undeniably the hot trend if you're a responsive and loving site curator. :)

Then again I'm biased since I have a user feedback focused startup and we're hoping to be putting those tabs on a lot of people's websites.

example.uservoice.com

acangiano2• 18 years ago

I had this idea several years ago. I gave up on it due to the possible legal implications.

eb• 18 years ago

...and what would those be?

chengmi• 18 years ago

defamation, libel

alaskamiller• 18 years ago

you thought up wikipedia several years ago? should have went for it. aaron swartz did. twice.

dhouston• 18 years ago

congrats ethan & daniel!

mattmaroon• 18 years ago

Biographicon's interface is just plain slick.

I see the site being popular for people who care about celebrities.

gibsonf1• 18 years ago

Nothing like Scheme with flat files to make a web app :) (Why use a db when you don't have too?)

sarosh• 18 years ago

To the founders (Ethan and Daniel?): will you reserve any editorial control? I guess the most obvious factor that could led to the entire site's corruption is bad data (e.g., Han Solo, God, etc.) or particular data that a party may not want public (e.g. Oprah's home phone number). Or has there been some clever thinking done to resolve that problem? I've read the guidelines and they seem quite cogent.

staticshock5• 18 years ago

note to the developers: this initial prototype has some pretty severe client side glitches in Opera 9.26

herdrick3• 18 years ago

Thanks, staticshock. We're aware of it. That's Opera in Windows, right? We've seen it work fine in Opera on the Mac.

staticshock5• 18 years ago

it's safe to assume this will be more prone to vandalism, since each page will have less of an audience (and thus less chance of a vandalized page being fixed) than any given page on wikipedia

bobp• 18 years ago

I agree. Despite the guidelines, I can see this potentially being used to spread rumors, gossip, lie, or just stuff that's plain unflattering on people. I doubt many people will be actively monitoring their Biographicon profile and this content could go undetected for a while, causing the subjects real harm.

staticshock5• 18 years ago

i don't think it'll be particularly harmful. i think in the long term the wiki's reputation as a reliable source information may suffer. when something is well known not to be reliable, it doesn't have much of a way of inflicting harm.

vlad• 18 years ago

http://biographicon.com/view/l966v

There's somebody named Hairy Beaver linked to from a home-page featured profile listing.

vuknje2• 18 years ago

one of the simlplest and clearest web app interfaces i've seen so far. who did design? it's great!

herdrick3• 18 years ago

The great Devin Hunt of Fuzzwich.com (with contributions from the also-great Laurence Honderick of Fuzzwich). It's amazing, isn't it?

Was it only the visual design that you liked or did you like the workflow/feel of it too?

vuknje2• 18 years ago

i like both. for example, on the homepage when you click on input 'your name goes here', two new buttons appear.. that's just details, but details are what distinguish great design/interface from an average one.

slackerIII• 18 years ago

Are there any editors? I wonder if an inner circle will develop like on Wikipedia to keep the peace.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/wikipedia_secret_mai...

staticshock5• 18 years ago

well, there is no way that people who don't know you can monitor your profile and filter out the fiction from the truth, so a single unified "inner circle" is unlikely to be of much use

JaredRad• 18 years ago

This has been done: wikiyou.com Good luck guys!

whacked_new2• 18 years ago

"Who would most likely want to buy you?"

whacked_new2• 18 years ago

Hi comment feed readers. RIP Biographicon (WFP 08). http://blog.biographicon.com/2008/08/03/biographicon-closing...

I just don't feel like submitting it as a story.

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

I'd like to see a graph of the number of times someone has commented on techcrunch that is the equivalent of "how did this get funding?! no value". I wonder if there are spikes for YC company launches.

Who do these people think they are? Nobody, clearly, as they are usually anonymous.

Remind me to stop reading the comments there.

pchristensen• 18 years ago

Hey Ivan, stop reading the comments on TechCrunch (ValleyWag too)

ivankirigin2• 18 years ago

Ohh wow, thanks! I totally needed that.

marketer• 18 years ago

1) I'm not a big fan of the name, maybe it has subtle meanings that I'm not getting. It just doesn't flow. It sounds like a military term.

2) A lot of space is wasted in this site. The whole left column, which is about 40% of the site, is completely blank. I have mixed feelings about the little feedback bar, which, being a black log and over a yellow background, reminds me of ___.

3) Eventually you'll have to start making money, and thus putting up ads. The nice thing about wikipedia is it is non-profit and doesn't serve ads. If wikipedia did serve ads, I probably wouldn't bother contributing.

4) You should study the usage patterns of wikipedia, and what made it successful. I think there was an essay about that somewhere. The conclusion is that most of the edits come from a small minority of hyper-dedicated users, and the general high quality of writing on wikipedia can be attributed ot them. How are you planning to attract those types of people?

optimal• 18 years ago

I agree--at minimum make the bio the width of the name header, and put the navigation links above the bio. The "Feedback" link could be made the same color as the backing oak leaf/acorn cluster, or green for more contrast and consistency with the organic theme.

I don't mind the name so much. It's almost like "Biographic Icon." Or perhaps "Biography Con" (just kidding).

Biographicon (YC Startup) Wants To Be Wikipedia For The Non-Notable Masses

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