Join us!

Help build the world's largest encyclopedia.

The Nupedia encyclopedia is a public endeavor; its articles will be publicly accessible and distributable in accordance with our open content license, and it will be constructed by qualified members of the international public. 

We at Nupedia.com aim to provide the structure, direction, and mechanisms, agreeable to all (or almost all) participants, whereby this public endeavor can be pursued in a professional manner.  Our goal is to create the largest encyclopedia the world has ever seen.  This will no doubt require years of work, but we are committed to that scale of endeavor.  We hope the encyclopedia will be distributed widely through electronic and print media, again in accordance with the open content license.  Consequently, we expect the work of our contributors to receive worldwide attention.

Membership is free, of course.  But the success of this endeavor crucially depends on our attracting and retaining highly qualified contributors--hence the need to clarify why participation in Nupedia is, or can be, attractive to potential contributors of such caliber.

This page answers the following questions:
I. What do contributors do?
II. Why should I join Nupedia?
III. What is membership anyway, and is it free?

You may also wish to review the Nupedia about page, since it explains in greater depth our goals, methods, etc.

Jump immediately to the sign-up form.
 

I. The roles of our contributors.

Depending on your qualifications, you may assist us as

• editor,
• writer,
• peer reviewer,
• copyeditor,
• programmer,
• translator, or
• casual participant.

Writers are responsible for the creation of the articles themselves.  Hence, with the exception of brief articles, writers are expected to be experts on the subjects about which they write; in most cases they will possess advanced degrees or other such credentials (whatever is appropriate to the topic).  Particularly for certain kinds of articles, e.g., about cities and countries, they will be expected follow a particular format, for the sake of uniformity.  Writers will receive bylines and, if desired, biographical pages on Nupedia.  For further information on writing for Nupedia, please see our instructions for prospective writers.

Peer reviewers will be part of moderated discussion lists (called "review groups") to which prospective articles on a given subject are posted -- anonymously, if desired.  Posting of critical comments to these discussion lists will be focused on (if not restricted to) peer reviewers, who will be selected based on qualifications.  From among the peer reviewers a moderator or (more likely) several moderators will be chosen.  For further information on becoming a peer reviewer, please see our invitation to participate.

Copyeditors staff groups to which writers post requests for help copyediting articles that have been approved by the relevant review group(s).  There are two copyediting groups at present: copyeditame-l, for copyediting American English articles, and copyeditbre-l, for copyediting British English articles.  Instructions on copyediting procedure and policy can be found in Nupedia's Editorial Policy Guidelines.  At present we have no restrictions on who may join and offer assistance on copyeditame-l and copyeditbre-l.  For further information on becoming a copyeditor, please see our information for copyeditors.

Programmers work on Nupedia's software, which is open source.  We have set up a mailing list for discussing Nupedia's software.  We also have CVS repository.  Please join us in making Nupedia's supporting software the best it can possibly be.  You will be participating in creating possibly one of the most powerful open source software systems for peer review processes.  You might be interested to know that Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation has agreed to support Nupedia by sending programmers and others our way.  In short, our credentials with the open source/free software movement are impeccable.

Translators help translate articles and Nupedia pages from English into their target languages.  We have set up a mailing list for general Nupedia translation planning: Interpret-L.  We have groups set up to help provide translations into German, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese (Deutsch-L; Espanol-L; Francais-L; Italiano-L; Portugues-L).  Information on these projects can be found on our translation page as well as by subscribing to one of the above lists.

Casual participants do not become an official part of Nupedia in any of the above capacities; there are a number of ways in which you can help while remaining "in the background."  Read more about how to help out as a casual participant.

Many more details about Nupedia's editorial procedure are available; see the Nupedia.com Statement of Editorial Policy.
 

II. Why you should join us.

Nupedia cannot succeed without a motivated volunteer base, therefore it is a good idea to explain why it's important to join and work on the project.  The Nupedia encyclopedia is a public endeavor; its articles will be publicly accessible and distributable in accordance with our open content license, and it will be constructed by qualified members of the international public.

A. Nupedia has the resources and a plan that make its success possible.

Quite a lot comes under this heading.

First, there is financial backing behind the project.  In particular, there is a full-time paid editor-in-chief; the assistance of other paid employees; a modest budget for advertising; and a strategy for getting the word out in general.

Bomis, Inc., the owner of Nupedia.com, is committed to building the website on a long-term basis, and the present editor-in-chief, Larry Sanger, is committed to making a serious career out of fostering its development.  Larry recently received his Ph.D. in Philosophy, with a concentration in Epistemology (the theory of knowledge), from one of the better departments in Epistemology, that of Ohio State University.  He has years of experience organizing Internet projects (including academic projects) and interactive websites.  He has also been an avid, prolific writer nearly all his life. 

We have been soliciting highly qualified editors, writers, and peer reviewers through a variety of means, and we make a point of inviting the best-qualified people we can find.  Hence, qualified contributors are encouraged to contact us.  Others who have active areas of interest (if not bona fide areas of expertise) are encouraged to become members of Nupedia as well and help in appropriate ways.

We hope that, in time, Nupedia will grow to superlative breadth and depth.  We plan to initiate processes to keep the articles up-to-date.  Strict Nupedia policy, combined with the ongoing processes of peer review and public feedback--executed on a huge scale made possible by the Internet--has the tremendous potential to make this the most unbiased, balanced encyclopedia that has ever existed.

The directors of Nupedia are on a philosophical mission.  We are determined to uphold the standards of breadth, depth, timeliness, and lack of bias in large part because we are morally committed to the mission of creating something of clear, significant, and lasting value.  Exactly how much value it could prove to be to the world in general can be understood only by grasping the implications of the fact that the encyclopedia may be distributed freely under our GNU free documentation license.

B. The fact that Nupedia is an open content encyclopedia means there is an excellent chance, particularly given the foregoing points, that it will succeed enormously.

The implications of our license are complex but important for our potential contributors to understand.

The content of Nupedia is "open content" in approximately the same way that the source code for Linux is "open source."  This means, in brief, that anyone can use the material from Nupedia on web pages, in books or pamphlets, on CDs, etc., for profit or not, for educational purposes, etc.  You may do this at your discretion, so long as you credit Nupedia prominently as the source and you do not try to deny others the right to distribute Nupedia material; for more details read the Nupedia GNU Free Documentation License.  In a very real sense, then, the articles that make up Nupedia will be public resources, created by what we believe will eventually be an enormous body of volunteer scholars.

Hence, since the standards the encyclopedia follows are high, we can expect that it will, if not immediately then eventually, receive heavy use from all manner of persons and entities who need freely-citable information.  Features we intend to add later will increase its value; e.g., we will provide the structure whereby translations of articles are freely available, thus increasing the international value of the project.  Therefore, because of this expected wide use, the values both of a contribution and of being known as a contributor to the encyclopedia are expected to become--eventually, at least--high.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that editors and others will be able to release print versions of Nupedia articles, in for example single-volume subject encyclopedias, whenever they choose, without the permission of Bomis, Inc. or any other entity.  The Nupedia license obligates the project to allow you to do this.  You may, therefore, use Nupedia resources to develop the content of projects you are working on.

We think there is, thus, a clear incentive for experts to become involved, particularly as editors, writers, and peer reviewers.  They will receive proper credit for their contributions on Nupedia, which will (in time) become one of the most important encyclopedias by virtue of its size, peer review mechanisms, editorial policies, and other features.
 

III. What is membership in Nupedia and does it cost anything?

Membership is free, of course.  As a member, you will have access to a variety of resources, including:

• Nupedia discussion groups.  For more information on these mailing lists, go here; to join, go to the member area.
• Member area.  You may view assigned topics and volunteer to write on topics in this area.
• E-mail.  You can set up a Nupedia e-mail address and read your mail on the website.

When you register as a basic member, you will have to give us your e-mail address.  When you sign up, you can easily opt out of a mailing list in which occasional announcements regarding Nupedia will be made.  For contributors, this announcement list is of considerable importance for logistical purposes, so if you plan to contribute, please specify your e-mail address.  We will absolutely not sell your address or in any other way make it easier for you to receive "spam."  We value your help, and so of course we are concerned about staying in your good graces.

After registering, you'll be presented a couple options: you may return to Nupedia, log in and explore our member area and continue to your user profile, which is the best way to inform us of your interests and qualifications, express your interest in becoming a contributor, give us your thoughts on the project, etc.  Also, we'll send you an e-mail (if you gave us your e-mail address) with your UserID and password; please save this information.