Comment by logicallee
20 hours ago
Thanks so much for sharing this. It looks fantastic. A couple of questions, if you don't mind: what license are you releasing this under, if any? Is there any way to download it? The reason someone might want to download it is for use as training data.
Wikisource has the original scans available in the public domain, and their enriched text under CC-BY-SA: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/EB1911
> Is there any way to download it? The reason someone might want to download it is for use as training data.
Another reason would be to able to keep running/using it even if the main site were to go down for whatever reason eventually; or, to operate a mirror of it, for redundancy (linking back to the original, of course).
Thanks!
The underlying text (1911 edition) is public domain, but the structured version here — the parsing, reconstruction, and linking — is something I put together for this site. Right now there isn’t a bulk download available. I’m considering exposing structured access (API or dataset) in some form, but haven’t decided exactly how that will work yet.
If you have a specific use case in mind (especially for training), I’d be interested to hear more.
I've wanted to do something like this for The Encyclopédie, a hugely relevant text to the Enlightenment. If you ever get around to adding a rough "How I (generally) Made This" section, that'd be appreciated! Site looks great :)
Regarding the specific use case, I was thinking this: I had Gemma 4 (a small but highly capable offline model released by Google) make a public domain cc0 encyclopedia of some core science and technology concepts[1]. I thought it was pretty good.
Separately, I've fine-tuned the Gemma 4 model[2], it was very quick (just 90 seconds), so I think it could be interesting to train it to talk like 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
I would use the entries as training data and train it to talk in the same style. There isn't a specific use case for why, I just think it would be interesting. For example, I could see how it writes about modern concepts in the style of 1911 Britannica.
[1] https://stateofutopia.com/encyclopedia/
[2] To talk like a pirate! https://www.youtube.com/live/WuCxWJhrkIM
That’s a fun idea — I can see the appeal of that style.
The underlying text is public domain, but the structured version here is something I put together for the site. I haven’t released a bulk dataset yet.
If you end up experimenting with it, I’d love to hear how it turns out — and I’m still figuring out what structured access might look like.