User-generated encyclopedia hits Net

A local nonprofit has given birth to an online encyclopedia, hoping it will become the most comprehensive, user-friendly source for information about Albemarle County and Charlottesville.

Charlottesville Tomorrow, an online nonprofit media organization that covers local government and development issues, launched “Cvillepedia” in May. Information on the site is user-generated. It details, for example, how Sally H. Thomas was first elected to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors in 1993 as a write-in candidate, and that the University of Virginia first opened in 1825 with only 123 students.
“Information is key,” said Charlottesville Tomorrow Program Officer Sean Tubbs, adding that Cvillepedia will allow the community to publish facts about virtually anything related to Charlottesville and Albemarle. “We want our community to know itself better.”
Cvillepedia uses “Wiki software.” As with Wikipedia, Charlottesville Tomorrow Executive Director Brian Wheeler said, the challenge of a Web site in which anyone can post and edit information is ensuring accuracy. Wheeler said that users would be required to register — that means no anonymous posts — and all information must be cited.

As Cvillepedia becomes more popular, Wheeler said he expects the online community will mostly police itself to ensure accuracy, as seen with Wikipedia.
“We’re not standing behind every article,” Wheeler said, noting that Charlottesville Tomor-row cannot guarantee no factual errors on Cvillepedia and that readers have to judge the accuracy of information for themselves.
Creators say the site is designed to provide nonpartisan, fact-based information.

Local businesses can also use the site to post free information. Restaurants, for example, are allowed to list facts — such as their locations, menu items and history — but would be prohibited from creating a vanity post, such as claiming to have better spaghetti than their competitors.
Already, more than 650 articles are on Cvillepedia. The site’s creators expect that number to drastically increase as word spreads.
Neil Williamson, executive director of the Free Enterprise Forum, a local business advocacy and government watchdog organization, said he expects the site will attract a “small- to medium-sized” number of contributors “and a large audience of readers.”

The site is a “new and exciting channel” for information, Williamson said, but added that giving almost anyone freedom to post information is risky. Whether Cvillepedia becomes successful will be determined by how well Charlottesville Tomorrow manages the content, he said.
But after preparing the site for more than a year and a half, Cvillepedia’s creators said they have controls in place to resolve many potential problems. Wheeler and Tubbs can freeze Web pages and block users, for example.
Wheeler, who is also chairman of the Albemarle County School Board, said the community would ultimately determine whether Cvillepedia catches on. The groundwork has already been done, but users will have to add useful content — something Wheeler said is likely, considering how engaged Charlottesville and Albemarle residents are in their communities.

Charlottesville Tomorrow is funded by private donations. The Web address for Cvillepedia is http://www.cvillepedia.org.