WikiPedia Founder Throws in Towel — Restarts With Citizendium

Published on January 23rd, 2007

Citizendium — In the Open Source game this is known as a fork. In the old days it would be called a splinter group. All I know is that I do not like the name — Citizendium? Cripes! — or the logo. The idea to control the Wiki a bit more is probably a good idea now that all the heavy lifting is over with.

The press release is officially tomorrow but the word is already out about this and the site is already swamped. Here is the announcment:

The Citizendium, a project aimed at creating anew free encyclopedia online, announced today that its pilot project has been a success, and that it is moving rapidly toward a public launch. For the first time, anyone can visit the website (www.citizendium.org), create a user account and get to work within minutes. The project, started by a founder of Wikipedia [Larry Sanger], aims to improve on the Wikipedia model by adding “gentle expert oversight” and requiring contributors to use their real names.

Since the Citizendium pilot project began in November 2006, over 150 expert editors and 350 authors have joined, creating hundreds of articles, testing the concept and software, and participating in lively discussion on the future shape of the project.

Gentle oversight? I think Wikipedia already does this.

Here’s is what is in the Wikipedia about this:

Citizendium (”a citizens’ compendium of everything”) is a proposed online encyclopedia first intended to begin as a “progressive or gradual fork” of the English Wikipedia.[1] On January 18, 2007 a change of plans was announced. The Citizendium project is spearheaded by Larry Sanger, co-creator and editor in chief of Wikipedia from its inception to March 2002, and will be carried out under the auspices of the Citizendium Foundation.[2]

Sanger said in an October 17, 2006 press release that Citizendium “will soon attempt to unseat Wikipedia as the go-to destination for general information online”.[3] The project began its pilot phase in November 2006; as of January 2007, no public launch date has been specified, though since January 22 it has accepted automatic user registration.[4]

On January 18, 2007, Sanger announced on the CZ mailing list that only articles marked “CZ live” (which have been or will soon be worked on by Citizendium contributors) would remain on the site, and all other articles forked from Wikipedia would be deleted. Not all Citizendium contributors were supportive of this change, but Sanger emphasized that this deletion was “an experiment” and a new set of Wikipedia articles could be uploaded if the experiment was deemed unsuccessful.[5]

17 users responded in " WikiPedia Founder Throws in Towel — Restarts With Citizendium "

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# 1 James Hill said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 1:46 pm

Looks like he’s trying to setup a competition: Experts vs. Commoners

I expect the Commoners to win, not because of the quality of content, but because of the perception that WikiPedia is more accurate since it can be edited by anyone… not to mention WikiPedia’s massive lead on the new project.

# 2 Larry Sanger said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 2:26 pm

It’s not experts vs. commoners. It’s more complicated than that.

It’s call the Citizens’ Compendium for a reason: most of our contributors are, in fact, nonexperts. It’s just that we have a role for experts to play.

If you’re the sort of person who sees a point in having experts having some special role in an encyclopedia–well then, we want you on board. Whether you’re an expert yourself or not!

# 3 Brucemlloyd said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 3:11 pm

Sounds like the exact same thing as Wikipedia.

This time next year: Wikipedia 1, Citizendium: who cares?

# 4 TJGeezer said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 3:17 pm

What I don’t understand is why it couldn’t simply be done through Wikipedia – a layer of continuing expert review. Why set up a new branch, given the Wikipedia’s huge body of (mostly) well researched and well written articles on everything under the sun?

Not to mention the fun little goofs that college kids (I presume) like to insert. My son sent me an email once, subject line “Wikipedia is teh bets!!!111,” that quoted a quickly altered line in a piece on native peoples of eastern Virginia: “Powhatan, who later got bigger man boobs, reportedly produced several English-made iron implements to back his claim.” I just don’t see where a branch run by experts can improve on such a place.

# 5 Jennifer said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:07 pm

It’s doomed. Maybe if you’d tried this a wee bit earlier…

# 6 Larry Sanger said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:42 pm

Wow–

It’s not the same as Wikipedia; see http://www.citizendium.org/ for the basics.

As to why it can’t be done by Wikipedia–see http://www.citizendium.org/essay.html (the section about Wikipedia)

And it’s hardly “doomed,” as it is growing like gangbusters and it hasn’t even had a public release yet.

# 7 James Hill said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 4:48 pm

#4 – I think what #2 is saying clarifys the story quite a bit. This isn’t supposed to be about enhancing WikiPedia, it’s about starting a new, more refined process for developing information.

#2 – I agree that experts should have a role, and I think both experts and non-experts can participate together in Citizendium, with both enhancing the site. A more defined process would be welcomed as to insure accuracy.

My question then becomes how do you sell it, or do you believe the concept will sell itself… as WikiPedia did?

Likewise, what is (and can be) done to reprogram people to start typing in Citizendium.org as opposed to Wikipedia.org? I needed to look up some information on FireWire a few hours ago, and directly went to WikiPedia… not even thinking of Citizendium.

(Note #2’s name: I don’t know why Mr. Sanger is looking for intelligence on Dvorak’s site. Maybe we can be a “what not to do” test case.)

# 8 Slappy said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 5:22 pm

#4 How did someone who wrote “Wikipedia is teh bets!!!111″ find wikipedia?

# 9 TJGeezer said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 6:00 pm

#8 – I know I’m going to regret this, but. The line is a riff on misspellings common in chat rooms. Start with “!” being the shifted “1″ and the idea of an excited teenie having finger stutters. Add typos for “the best”.

Humor is never funny when it is explained. Anyway, the satirical web-lingo subject line was a left-handed tip of the hat to whatever wag inserted the “man boobs” gag into an otherwise serious Powhattan article. (An insertion quickly removed by Wikipedia, by the way.)

Believe it or not, my son’s a pretty bright guy. Even if he does send me remarks, for example, about the latest Homeland Security policy gaffe, followed by “I feel safer already! W00t!!11″

#7 – Maybe we can be a “what not to do” test case.
Best idea you’ve had all day. Heh.

# 10 BgScryAnml said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 6:48 pm

Citizen is synonyms with Slave in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. This is a poor choice of titles for such a site.

# 11 Greg Allen said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 10:08 pm

I chedked the effort and I noticed they require you to use your real name to participate. (Even for minors!)

In this age of on-line harassment and surveillance, isn’t that unwise?

Are they going to allow nicknames?

# 12 joshua said, on January 23rd, 2007 at 11:25 pm

#10….Picked any cotton lately?

#11…..while I agree with you about security issues……think about Youtube and Myspace and what people put on those sites and I think you’ll notice that their are a LOT of dummies out there.

# 13 venom monger said, on January 24th, 2007 at 6:15 am

Dead-tree encyclopedias were (are?) around for many decades. And Britannica didn’t make World Book moot. Nor any of the other dozens of publications that were successful (and loved. I read World Book from A to Z before I was a teenager.)

Don’t look at CZ as an attempt to dethrone wikipedia… they should be able to co-exist, with some friendly competition, for the forseeable future, and each will have its place. Plenty of room for both (and more.)

I have found wikipedia incredibly useful, but it does require you to have the salt shaker handy sometimes. Addressing some of its limitations seems to be a worthwhile effort from my point of view, and can only help both users and contributors.

# 14 Greg Allen said, on January 25th, 2007 at 2:24 am

I double checked it — they insist that you publish under your real name, which will be publicly available, including a bio of you..

This is just not recommended in this day-and-age of on-line stockers and identity thieves. (Or smart personnel directors who google the names of job applicants to gather a candid insight into them!)

Sorry. I’m not doing it.

# 15 Stephen Ewen said, on January 25th, 2007 at 8:29 pm

I am curious if you would feel the same way if you published a book and it were available for sale on .amazon.com.

# 16 Dan F. said, on January 26th, 2007 at 10:37 am

I hope that both Wikipedia and Citizendium succeed. The competition will make them stronger and better. We will all benefit.

The contributors to Wikipedia and Citizendium are all trying to make the world better educated. I applaud them all and wish them success.

By the way, there is also another free encyclopedia out there called Scholarpedia. It is just getting started. It is not that extensive but hopes to grow and add more articles.

I also hope that World Book and Encyclopedia Britannica are watching and learning some lessons.

# 17 waso said, on March 13th, 2008 at 2:35 pm

hello world

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