Yellpedia.com
| Yellpedia.com | |
|---|---|
Wiki of the Month May 2013
| |
 | |
| Statistics (2013/03/18) | |
| Pages: | 10000000 |
| Users: | 21 (3 active) |
| Properties: | 193 |
| Categories: | 20000000 |
| Templates: | 202 |
| Forms: | 49 |
| Table of Contents | |
Yellpedia is the world's first complete Geo-Social Encyclopedia/Yellow Pages. It contains the entire set of United States Yellow Pages data, uploaded via a special script to create over 10 million pages of listings.
About Yellpedia[edit]
Yellpedia was one of the largest wikis in the world even as of its beta launch in March 2013, with over 10 million pages (listings). The theory behind Yellpedia is the assumption that other wiki yellow pages never got off the ground due to a lack of usefulness and no sense of "ownership" over a listing. Since all the pages are already created, Yellpedia can be used as a general purpose yellow pages and appeal to business owners, who never would have thought of adding a page to a wiki, but who will edit a page about their business to make it more interesting and informative.
What's the point, with Yelp and Facebook in existence? Both of those platforms fail to give a complete informational picture about social organizations. Every doctors listing should have their medical schooling, the insurance they accept, and the names and duties of their staff and the ability to download any paperwork one may need to fill out. Shouldn't every restaurant list their menu, nutritional guides, wine lists, hours, etc.? Before one goes to a hardware store, a department store, or a grocery store, shouldn't one be able to look at a map of the inside of those stores? Shouldn't every church be able to create their own internal directory within the larger Yellow Pages? Why doesn't every golf course have a map and a page describing every hole? All that and more can be entered into Yellpedia.
Article format[edit]
Each listing is formatted in a very simple way: an infobox to the right-hand side of the page,an about section, a comment section, and at the very bottom a table to create sub-pages underneath the listing. The infobox contains the basic facts about the listing: map, name, address, phone, type of organization, etc. A user can edit the infobox to add an image, a video, and other details. The "about" section is the normal text area, except that it includes a template called {{Stub --Erase This!}}, which renders to the page as a stub announcement and should be erased the first time someone edits the page. We're using the Disqus commenting system to allow end-users the ability to rate and review any listing, providing a functionality similar to Yelp, but with the added benefit that users can post video reviews about any listing. At the very bottom of the page is a table of options to create specialized sub-pages underneath the listing, such as: Galleries, Video Galleries, Embed Documents, Calendars, Employment ads, Shopping Pages, Coupons, and more.
Adding embedded forms[edit]
One of the most unique aspects of Yellpedia is the ability to embed forms into wiki pages. Not to be confused with the ability to edit pages with Semantic Forms, Yellpedia allows editors (who register) to embed forms from Jotform and Wufoo. These forms can be used to create contact forms, appointment forms, restaurant reservation forms, etc. Additionally, since secure forms can be embedded actual transactions can be done from a page allowing merchants to create shopping pages. And by combining the wonders of Semantic MediaWiki search with embedded secure forms, we're in the process of adding fee-less crowd coupons, which should make Yellpedia a serious problem to Groupon.
Our audience[edit]
Since we just beta launched we have no clue if we'll get an audience, but we do hope to find a mass audience. Time will tell...
Some of the Semantic MediaWiki extensions used[edit]
| Extension "Page Forms" | In addition to using the forms to capture data, the RunQuery feature is used to help users search events, menus, wine lists, nutritional guides, employment ads, travel guides, and more. |
|---|---|
| Extension "Semantic Forms Inputs" | The datepicker is used to allow users to enter date information graphically instead of just entering a date. |
| Extension "Semantic Result Formats" | Several different result formats are used to display information. |
Other extensions used[edit]
- Extension "Maps"
- Extension "Maps"
- Extension "Semantic Internal Objects"
- WidgetsFramework
- SemanticACL
- SphinxSearch
and a lot more...
Special note about statistics[edit]
As we stated, a special script was used to upload the data into the system, but no matter the method chosen to perform the page count, as stated in the LocalSettings.php file, the statistics in Special:Statistics are wrong. No doubt this is a "hang-over" effect from the way we added the data since we did not record to all the tables. For example, every page as it was created was assigned to four different categories:
- Category 1: The City, State, USA
- Category 2: Zip Code USA
- Category 3: Sic Description City, State USA
- Category 4: Sic Description Zip Code USA
Those categories show up the bottom of each listing, but they do not record to the Categories table until the page is edited and saved for the first time. (Which also leaves us clueless on how many categories we actually have.)
The page count stated, of over 10 million pages, comes from directly reading the MySQL tables.
