Prabook
 | |
 The main page, on 19 November 2018 | |
Type of site | Online encyclopedia |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | The World Biographic Encyclopedia, Inc |
| Website | prabook.com |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional (required to edit pages) |
| Current status | Active |
Prabook /prʌˈbʊk/ is an English-language, web-based, open-content collaborative biographic encyclopedia. Founded by Valery Tsepkalo[1], Prabook is owned, developed and supported by World Biographical Encyclopedia, Inc., located in New York, United States[2]. Prabook claims to be the largest biographic encyclopedia comprising over 3 million people.
Prabook presents its mission as “to discover, digitize and preserve information on any individual, sufficient data on whom can be found in different books, magazines, newspapers, directories, and archives”, with the ultimate goal to preserve information about any person ever lived.[3] It states that other encyclopedias only feature celebrities and famous people, even though ordinary people also deserve to be remembered, despite being unknown to the public. Thus Prabook states itself as a platform for the preservation of biographical information and self-promotion of relatively unknown or little-known people, including local artists, scholars, lawyers, architects, etc. The motto is "You don't need to be famous to be unforgettable".[4]
Etymology
The prefix 'pra' goes back to the earliest Indo-European languages. In Sanskrit it means beginning, before and at the same time forward, forth, in front of. In Latin and later in English, 'pra' was split into two prefixes: 'pre' (prehistoric, precondition) meaning before, going back to the roots, and 'pro' (proactive, provision) meaning forward.
'Pra' is still used in various Indo-European languages. In Hindi and Urdu it means ahead, above. In Russian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, and other Slavic languages, it means something that goes back to its very roots (pra-babushka, pra-mati, pra-babcia, as a grand grandmother, pra-rodina as a prehistoric homeland, etc). 'Pra' in Sanskrit also means super, great, prime and is used as a divinity prefix to any object.
Prabook can be considered as the Book of Life where people's names and deeds are recorded.[5]
Website
Initially, Prabook was created to test technologies to find, extract, parse, refine, and merge information on people from numerous Who’s Who editions, biographical dictionaries, and other publicly available sources. In 2015 a test version of the site became public.
Later a special structure of a person biography was presented. The idea was to divide information into two types of fields – descriptions and tags. Description fields contain detailed information put into regular order, tagged fields are specified key features of a person used for arranging biographies. The list of tagged fields includes Geographical Locations, Activity, Nationality, Ethnicity, Alma Mater, Awards, Political Party, Religious Affiliation, and Membership. These fields form catalogues of the same name, where Activity catalogue, for example, includes entities like writer, educator, lawyer; Nationality catalogue includes entities like American, German, Nigerian, and so on. By clicking on any of such entities the user receives a list of biographies that contain them as values of their tagged fields. This structured approach allows searching people on the site based on collateral features (e.g. searching for Nationality: American, Activity: Actor, Political Party: Democrat will result in a list of American actors who support the Democratic Party).[6]
In 2017 the Library of Congress added Prabook to the Standard Identifier Source Codes list.[7]
The current version of Prabook appeared in 2018. One of the features added to the site is Works section which allows architects, artists, writers, innovative engineers and others to upload all their creative works, such as books, scientific papers, paintings, pictures of buildings they designed, electronic devices, cars, machines, etc. Any user can create a gallery of a person by adding images and descriptions of works, as well as direct links to them in case they are already located on other sites like Amazon.
Prabook also encourages users to upload detailed photo albums describing life journeys. It serves as the platform which allows preserving old photos, since social media sites like Facebook or Instagram are meant for active people who are still alive, and posting detailed photo albums on behalf of deceased parents, grand- or even great-grandparents there would be inappropriate.[8] Prabook declares not to claim ownership of any materials located on their site, and does not intend to sell or commercialize them in any way.
The web-interface of Prabook allows anyone to contribute by providing information on a person, whose profile already exists in the database, or by creating an entirely new profile. It is not necessary to provide any personal information while making a user’s account, and creation of own Prabook’s profiles for its users is also not mandatory.
Controversy
Prabook has been criticized for exposing personal information of people, such as dates of birth and mother's maiden names, without their knowledge or consent.[9] To its defense Prabook claims that it only allows information from open sources and that according to Chapter 2014-189 of FIPA “personal information excludes information already made public”. Prabook declares that if someone considers the material inappropriate or violating somebody’s individual or intellectual property rights, the information will be immediately deleted from the database. It removes requested personal information from the site in accordance with the Right to be forgotten.[10] The site also states that personal information of contributors (such as name or email) is not shared with other companies or individuals and advertising companies are not allowed to collect data through their service for ad targeting.
References
- ↑ "Валерий Цепкало, экс-глава ПВТ, представил свой стартап Prabook — всемирную биографическую библиотеку". Bel.biz (in русский). 2018-11-23. Archived from the original on 2019-04-11. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
- ↑ "Trademark Mark Application, Principal Register". tmsearch.uspto.gov. Retrieved 2018-11-19.
- ↑ "Экс-глава ПВТ создает альтернативу Википедии и даже Гуглу". Стартовая страница Беларуси. 21.by (in русский). Retrieved 2019-04-11.
- ↑ "Prabook". www.facebook.com. Retrieved 2018-11-19.
- ↑ "Prabook". Retrieved 2018-11-19.
- ↑ "United States Patent Application: 0190102470". appft.uspto.gov. Archived from the original on 2019-09-18. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
- ↑ "Library of Congress". Retrieved 2018-11-19.
- ↑ "О цифровом бессмертии, перспективах ПВТ и криптовалютах. В Минске прошла лекция Валерия Цепкало". KV.by (in русский). 2018-11-25. Retrieved 2019-04-11.
- ↑ LLC., WOT Services. "Is prabook.org safe?". WOT (Web of Trust). Retrieved 2018-11-19.
- ↑ "Hosting Solutions International Inc | Complaints | Better Business Bureau® Profile". www.bbb.org. Retrieved 2018-11-19.
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