AboutUs
| [{{{URL}}} {{{logo}}}] | [{{{URL}}} AboutUs] [{{{recentchanges URL}}} Recent changes] [No WikiNode] [No About] [No Mobile URL] |
|---|---|
| Founded by: | |
| Status: | [[:Category:{{{status}}}|{{{status}}}]] |
| Language: | [[:Category:Wiki {{{language}}}|{{{language}}}]] |
| Edit mode: | [[:Category:{{{editmode}}}|{{{editmode}}}]] |
| Wiki engine: | [[:Category:{{{engine}}}|{{{engine}}}]] |
| Wiki license: | [[:Category:Wiki {{{license}}}|{{{license}}}]] |
| Main topic: | [[:Category:{{{maintopic}}}|{{{maintopic}}}]] |
Description
AboutUs is a wiki of websites that anyone can edit. It is currently in Beta.
| Wiki size: | unknown size |
Criticism
AboutUs has been criticized for displaying public whois data information from websites. The website has a bot which scrapes information from a website and uses it to make a starter AboutUs wiki page. The initial seeding of the wiki had a bot that disregarded websites protected by a robots.txt. Websites are still vulnerable due to the fact that the wiki encourages AboutUs users to add information about the website to it.
Response
AboutUs uses publicly available information to create a starter wiki page on every website that is searched for on its system. (after the initial 2+ million seeding) Unlike weblogs, or the whois system, it is very easy to change or request removal of information (from the history).
The initial seeding of the wiki had a bot that disregarded websites protected by a robots.txt. That was quickly fixed and efforts are ongoing to revert the edits that are in conflict.
It is a bit jarring to people who are not used to an open edit internet, that anyone, anywhere can write about them or the things they care about in such a manner. I suppose it was also jarring to people when weblogs exploded on the scene.