The Web site may eventually allow users to buy virtual items with real-world currency, just as Facebook users can charge their credit cards to send each other virtual gifts. Hudong users could pay, for example, to dress up the avatars that represent them on the site, Pan said.

Hudong has twice the number of articles offered in the online encyclopedia run by Baidu, China's far-dominant search engine.

Wikipedia, a would-be competitor long blocked from viewers in China, still suffers from spotty accessibility. Entries on most sensitive topics will not load in the country.

Content on Hudong appears to be monitored as well. There is, for instance, no entry on Falun Gong, a spiritual movement Beijing has banned as a cult, and Hudong's article on Tibet does not mention any calls for the region's independence.

But when asked whether Hudong faced censorship, Pan said the government is more open than many people think. Discussion in the site's forums can be free-ranging, he said.