The Russian federal state budget should be the main sponsor who help to realize the intention. The Russian ministry of communication and digital development has already drafted the rules of such “sponsorship” in the form of law. The beneficiary of this sponsorship would be the Russian publishing house “The Big Soviet Encyclopedia”. This publishing house would receive money from state budget to found and maintain the “national interactive encyclopedic portal”.
This portal should be the main competitor of Wikipedia in Russia, such “Russian Wikipedia”. So as it seems the main difference between both encyclopedias is the principle of content fulfillment. The Wikipedia is some kind of “live encyclopedia”, where the people can participate in writing Wikipedia pages. But Russian Wikipedia could be the Wikipedia doppelganger. Who would write content for it? “Special” team under strict control.
The Russian publishing house would receive funds not only to form payroll fund for its employees and to cover administrative expenditures, but also for creation of content, like:
1) paid subscriptions for technical, scientific and any other literature necessary to write a content for Russian Wikipedia, to receive access to different paid internet “platforms” in order to obtain necessary information;
2) production of audiovisual material in the premises of cultural bodies (theatres, museums etc.);
3) exploitation of archive materials;
4) digitization of material.
For example, EU developed strategy for copyright issues in order to digitize cultural heritage and comply with rights of authors and other types of right holders, the Russian strategy has only one purpose – to create Russian Wikipedia and fulfill the new portal with content. That’s the main purpose. Let see what the encyclopedia will be in demand among Russian internet audience.
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.