27. The system of claim 26 wherein the second knowledge comprises a plurality of assertions, and wherein the at least one computing device is further operable to inhibit use of selected ones of the assertions in the knowledge repository.
26. A computing system in a network, the system comprising a knowledge repository comprising first knowledge represented in a structured, machine-readable format that is distinct from natural language and is operable to store information about any entity that can be denoted in natural language, the structured, machine-readable format primarily comprising assertions of named relationships between pairs of named entities, the system further comprising at least one computing device operable to facilitate addition of second knowledge to the knowledge repository by collecting input from a plurality of untrained, general internet users via the network using natural language requests, and translating the input to the machine-readable format using a plurality of translation templates, each of the translation templates including a respective predetermined pattern for matching against one or more natural language strings included in the input, wherein addition of the second knowledge to the knowledge base includes determining whether the second knowledge is semantically contradicted by the first knowledge to promote consistency of the first and second knowledge across the knowledge base.