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Active Distributed Computing Projects - Collaborative Knowledge Bases

These links take you to other project categories on this site:

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Mathematics   Language   Art   Puzzles/Games   Miscellaneous   Distributed Human Projects
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See the bottom of this page for a description of the icons on the page.

Project Information Project % Complete Major Supported Platforms
 
Collaborative Knowledge Bases
Help build "the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web" in the dmoz Open Directory Project.

dmoz also maintains collections of links to other knowledge bases:

ongoing:
4,579,437 sites; 84,327 editors; 590,000 categories 		N/A
The WWW Virtual Library is "the oldest catalog of the web, started by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of HTML and the web itself." It is compiled by volunteers who make lists of links for areas in which they are expert. ongoing N/A
Contribute to Nupedia, the open content encyclopedia, the world's largest international, peer-reviewed encyclopedia. The project needs writers, editors and peer reviewers, copy editors, programmers, translators, graphic and audio artists, and casual participants. ongoing N/A
Contribute to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, "a collaborative project to produce a complete encyclopedia from scratch." In January, 2003, the project reached its first goal of making over 100,000 encyclopedia articles. On February 2, 2004, the project reached 200,000 articles. On July 7, 2004, the project reached 300,000 articles. On September 21, 2004, the project reached 1 million articles. On September 9, 2007, the project reached 2 million articles. On August 17, 2009, the English Wikipedia reached 3 million articles. "The three million articles have emerged through the contributions of more than 10 million registered users, who have in turn created more than 17 million pages and performed more than 326 million edits on the English Wikipedia's database." Everyone is welcome to contribute to the project. The encyclopedia is available in many non-English languages. ongoing:
content pages;
total pages 		N/A
Contribute to Wiktionary, "a collaborative project to produce a free and complete multilingual dictionary and thesaurus in every language. Wiktionary is the lexical companion to the open content encyclopaedia Wikipedia." ongoing:
content pages;
total pages 		N/A
Contribute to Wikinews, "a free content news source" which will "collaboratively report and summarize news on all subjects from a neutral point of view." Everyone is welcome to contribute to the project. Wikinews is available in many languages. ongoing:
content pages;
total pages 		N/A
Contribute to Wikibooks, "a collection of open-content textbooks that anyone can edit." Everyone is welcome to contribute to the project. Wikibooks is available in many languages. ongoing:
content pages,
total pages 		N/A
Contribute to Wikispecies, "an open, free directory of species. This will cover animalia, plantae, fungi, bacteria, archaea, protista and all other forms of life to the extent that our users allow us." Everyone is welcome to contribute to the project. Wikispecies is available in many languages. ongoing:
content pages,
total pages 		N/A
Help to Wikia Search create an open-source search engine which allows users to search the Internet with an open, objective, accountable search tool. This project is based on the following 4 principles:
  1. Transparency - Openness in how the systems and algorithms operate, both in the form of open source licenses and open content + APIs.
  2. Community - Everyone is able to contribute in some way (as individuals or entire organizations), strong social and community focus.
  3. Quality - Significantly improve the relevancy and accuracy of search results and the searching experience.
  4. Privacy - Must be protected, do not store or transmit any identifying data.
ongoing:
16,143 content pages 		N/A
Contribute music CD or MP3 meta data to MusicBrainz, an "an open music encyclopedia" which "contains numerous facts, specifically about artists, their albums, and tracks." The meta data can be used freely by any individual or company, and is owned by no one. ongoing:
6,014,462 tracks,
509,867 albums catalogued 		N/A
FreeDB is another database that stores meta data about music CDs. It is a free, public database equivalent to the proprietary CDDB database. You can access FreeDB through a web interface or through FreeDB-aware software over the Internet. You can also contribute information about new CDs to the database through FreeDB-aware software.

German The FAQ and general information about the project are also available in German.

See the project's discussion forum.

ongoing:
2,071,000 albums catalogued 		N/A
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online, web-based, free database with all the information you could ever want about movies and anything related to movies. It is available on servers in the U.S. and the U.K., and is available in Italian Italian and German German. You can contribute new information via a web interface or email. Disclaimer: this database is owned by amazon.com and its knowledge is not in the public domain. The project had its 15th anniversary on October 17, 2005.

See the project's message boards.

ongoing N/A
Everything2 is [quoting from the website] "a very complex online community with a focus to write, publish and edit a quality database of information, insight and humor. When you make an account here you join not only a team of dedicated writers but an entire micro-society and community with its own pop culture, politics, beauty and blunders. It's not perfect. In fact, it can be pretty messy. It's cool as hell, though..." ongoing N/A
JoeAnt.com is a search engine of hand-picked links and is maintained by a volunteer online community. Join the project and help build the database. ongoing N/A

Logos is a "multilingual e-translation portal." It offers:
  • Verba, a universal verb conjugator
  • Wordtheque, an online library which contains 18,000 texts downloadable for free, in 113 languages
  • a Logos Web ToolBar for Windows users which provides access to the Logos features listed above via Internet Explorer
  • a Logos Word ToolBar for Windows users which provides access to the Logos features listed above via a Microsoft Word file
  • and many other features
Volunteers can become registered users and can then expand and correct the dictionaries and verb conjugations. Guests can recommend corrections and additions to the dictionaries. 		ongoing N/A

Contribute to Open Site, the open encyclopedia project, a collection of knowledge contributed and edited by volunteers. The site is something between a dictionary and an encylopedia. All information in the project is freely available to anyone under an open contract. 		ongoing N/A

Contribute new word definitions to Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary. The project is documenting changes to the English language. 		ongoing N/A

Help Where's George? track the geographic movement of U.S. dollar bills. Participants enter the denomination, series, and serial number of any U.S. dollar bill and their current U.S. ZIP code or Canadian Post Code and they can see where the bill has been if it has been entered before and see where it goes if it is entered again. The project is only for fun and does not track participants' personal information. Participants do not have to register unless they want to see where a bill they've entered goes next. Although the project is for fun, it is generating useful scientific knowledge: mathematical models derived from the project are also being used to show the geographic spread of infectious disease. 		ongoing:
currently tracking bills totaling 		N/A

Help Where's Willy? track the geographic movement of Canadian bank notes. Participants enter the serial number of any Canadian bank note and their current Canadian Postal Code or U.S. ZIP code and they can see where the note has been if it has been entered before and see where it goes if it is entered again. The project is only for fun and does not track participants' personal information. Participants do not have to register unless they want to see where a note they've entered goes next. Although the project is for fun, it is generating useful scientific knowledge: mathematical models derived from the project are also being used to show the geographic spread of infectious disease. 		ongoing:
currently tracking 2,747,908 notes totaling $41,266,190		 N/A

Help EuroBillTracker track the geographic movement of Euro notes around the world. Participants enter the serial number of any Euro note and information about where and when they had the note and they can see where the note has been if it has been entered before and see where it goes if it is entered again. The project is only for fun and does not track participants' personal information. Participants do need to register to participate in the project. 		ongoing:
currently tracking 42,898,804 notes totaling €887,545,780		 N/A
Contribute to WikiProfessional's life sciences knowledge bases, such as WikiProteins. The goal for the WikiProteins knowledge base is to build the base "by importing a huge amount of data from existing databases, such as PubMed, Swiss-Prot, and the Gene Ontology database" and to encourage life sciences professionals to edit and contribute to the base. ongoing:
unknown pages		 N/A
Help Forvo build a database of the proper pronunciation of every word in every language. Users submit a word or a name they'd like to hear spoken in its native tongue. Volunteers then record MP3 audio clips of themselves speaking one of these words and other volunteers review each pronunciation for correctness. ongoing:
371,520 words;
308,180 pronunciations;
221 languages		 N/A
Help OpenStreetMap create a map of the world. "OpenStreetMap is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you. OpenStreetMap allows you to view, edit and use geographical data in a collaborative way from anywhere on Earth." See more information about the project in the project's wiki, beginner's guide, and FAQ. ongoing N/A

The following icons may appear in the Supported Platforms section of the table:
dialup-friendlythis project is good for users with dialup Internet access
paid projectthis is a for-pay project
Windows 32this project runs on the Windows 32-bit platform
Linuxthis project runs on the Linux platform
MacOSthis project runs on the Mac OS platform
Solaristhis project runs on the Solaris platform
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