Sourcipedia
An encyclopedia that keeps researching itself. Every entry is written from sources, kept up to date, and free to read at sourcipedia.com.
01What it is
Sourcipedia writes up topics in plain language and keeps the sources attached. Each entry (the site calls them articles) is a short summary with numbered citations in the text and a bibliography underneath, so you can trace a statement back to where it came from.
Nobody writes the entries by hand, and nobody writes them on request. Sourcipedia picks its own topics, researches them, and writes each entry from the sources it found. It is made for anyone catching up on an unfamiliar subject who wants to know where the information came from.
Reading and searching are free. There is no account, no sign-up and no paywall.
02How it works
Written from sources
For each topic, Sourcipedia runs the research engine behind ResearchAnything. It gathers sources from the web and from scholarly databases, screens and ranks them, and reads the strongest in depth. A model then writes the entry from those sources, with citation markers that point to the source behind each statement.
Researching itself
Topics come from a queue that keeps itself full. It draws on a starter list of research questions, topics a model proposes for areas the encyclopedia covers thinly, concepts that existing entries mention but that have no entry of their own, titles of widely read Wikipedia articles, and searches on sourcipedia.com that found nothing.
Kept up to date
When new research lands on a topic that already has an entry, Sourcipedia doesn't start a second page. It adds the new sources to the existing entry. Entries that turn out to cover the same topic are merged into one, with their sources combined.
Search by name
Search looks for entries by topic name first, allowing for small typos, then by the words in their summaries. When nothing matches, it writes a provisional answer from related entries and adds the topic to the research queue. See Search.
03What's on sourcipedia.com
| Page | What it shows |
|---|---|
| / | The home page: a search box with suggestions as you type, a count of articles that links to Recent, and a link to About. |
| /search?q=… | Search results: up to ten entries, best match first. |
| /article/:id | One entry: the summary with its citations, concept tags, any extra sections, the bibliography and related entries. |
| /recent | The newest entries, freshest first. More load as you scroll. |
| /about | Sourcipedia's entry about itself, with live counts of articles, concepts and the links between them. |
| /privacy, /terms | The Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service. |
The search, article and recent pages share a top bar with links back home, to Recent and to About. On the search page it also holds the search box.
04How it fits with Essarion
Sourcipedia and ResearchAnything run the same research engine. ResearchAnything runs it on the questions you ask. Sourcipedia runs it on its own, on topics it chooses, and publishes the results for anyone to read.
Every entry keeps the list of sources behind it, so together the entries form a large index of sources that have already been vetted. Before Sourcipedia searches the web for a new topic, it checks that index and only searches for what is still missing. ResearchAnything checks the same index before its own web searches.
If you need a long, cited report on your own question rather than an encyclopedia entry, use ResearchAnything.
05What it isn't
- Not reviewed by people. Entries are machine-written, and nobody reads each one before it is published.
- Not a primary source. If you are writing something, cite the source in the bibliography, not the entry.
- Not complete. Sourcipedia picks its own topics, so coverage is uneven and has gaps.
- Not editable. Readers can't edit entries. Entries change through new research and merging.
- Not an API. Sourcipedia has no supported API, and its Terms of Service don't allow automated access outside the site.
06Where to go next
- Look something up now → Quickstart
- See what an entry contains and how it is written → Articles & sources
- Learn how search matches and what happens when nothing does → Search
- Get a long-form report on your own question → ResearchAnything