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Citizendium After One Year

Posted by kdawson on Tue Oct 30, 2007 07:21 PM
from the 3,200-articles dept.
Larry Sanger writes "Citizendium, 'the Citizens' Compendium' — a free, non-profit, ad-free, wiki encyclopedia with real names and a role for experts — has just announced that it's celebrating the one-year anniversary of its wiki, an occasion for which I wrote a project report. Make up your own mind about whether 'we've made a very strong start and an amazing future likely lies ahead of us.' We have been the subject of a lot of misunderstanding, but we've still proven a lot, such as that a public-expert hybrid wiki is consistent with accelerating growth and leads to high quality, or that eliminating anonymity helps remove vandalism. Signs are good that we are starting into a serious growth spurt. Might the Web 2.0 umbrella be expanded to include real name requirements and roles for experts? It's looking that way."
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[+] Technology: The Role of Experts In Wikipedia 266 comments
Hugh Pickens writes "Episteme, a magazine about the social dimensions of knowledge, has a special issue on the epistemology of mass collaboration, with many of the articles focusing on Wikipedia. One of the most interesting articles is by Lawrence M. Sanger on the special role of experts in the age of Wikipedia. Sanger says the main reason that Wikipedia's articles are as good as they are is that they are edited by knowledgeable people to whom deference is paid, although voluntarily, but that some articles suffer precisely because there are so many aggressive people who 'guard' articles and drive off others (PDF), including people more expert than they are. 'Without granting experts any authority to overrule such people, there is no reason to think that Wikipedia'a articles are on a vector toward continual improvement,' writes Sanger. Wikipedia's success cannot be explained by its radical egalitarianism or its rejection of expert involvement, but instead by its freedom, openness, and bottom-up management and there is no doubt that many experts would, if left to their own devices, dismantle the openness that drives the success of Wikipedia. 'But the failure to take seriously the suggestion of any role of experts can only be considered a failure of imagination,' writes Sanger. 'One need only ask what an open, bottom-up system with a role for expert decision-making would be like.' The rest of the articles on the epistemology of mass collaboration are available online, free for now." Sanger was one of the founders of Wikipedia, and of its failed predecessor Nupedia, who left the fold because of differences over the question of the proper role of experts. Sanger forked Wikipedia to found Citizendium, which we have discussed on several occasions. After 2-1/2 years, Citizendium has a few tenths of a percent as many articles as Wikipedia.
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  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 30 2007, @07:26PM (#21178491)

    Might the Web 2.0 umbrella be expanded to include real name requirements and roles for experts? It's looking that way.
    You can have my anonymity when you pry it from my cold dead hands!
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      You can have my anonymity when you pry it from my cold dead hands!
      This is a good comment, it's not off-topic, and is indeed the reason why many experts will choose not to contribute to a wiki that reveals their identity.
    • Just tell us who you are and where we can find you and we'll be right over with a crowbar!
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      I wholeheartedly agree. The fundamental problem with "experts" in the wiki-sense is that they are self-appointed. And invariably self-aggrandizing.

      Citizendium has the advantage, perhaps, that it's clear from the start that there is a hierarchy. At least potential cabals are the more transparent.

      Wikipedia is rife with cabal-ery, and in many cases admins are deeply involved in that. This has been exposed time, after time, after time, after time, after time, all the way to the top - and even then it's pr
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Interesting, you try to put value on his argument based on the fact that it's a popular blog. So much so that you mention it in your post. You want us to value his words not because they are right in their own sense but because of the person who wrote them (ie: popularity of a person makes what he says true).

        Your very own post highlights why some people prefer anonymity online, it makes everyone equal and prevent counter-productive social safeties (ie: popularity) from clouding the arguments in play.

        I alrea
        • by smilindog2000 (907665) <bill@billrocks.org> on Wednesday October 31 2007, @02:15AM (#21180609) Homepage
          The reason I post as smilindog2000, rather than put my full name out there, is also not listed. My poorly thought-out opinions can be embarrassing, and I don't want it to rub off on my employer.

          Anyway, I'm not allowed to be completely honest on Citizendium. I just tried to sign up for an account... it wont let me because my name is so common that someone else has already used it. This has been a problem for me since I started my career. The day I started working at National Semiconductor, fresh out of college, I was issued a subpoena that accused me of some serious wrongs, and told me that I was being sued for millions in damages. I had to call the lawyers and tell them they had the wrong guy. Just to add insult to injury, I shared a cube with a great then-young engineer, but the a-hole next door had just expanded his cube at our expense, and I had to crawl over my desk just to get into my chair. My chair had only 3 wheels, with the fourth missing, and the stuffing in the seat was long-gone, so my first task was rebuilding the damned thing. I was told I couldn't just go buy a chair, as it was against company policy (National was later sued into submission on this point, after some serious back injuries occurred). Later, while working at HP, another guy on the floor above me had the same name, and he had the obvious e-mail address that I should have had (first.last@hp.com). He was a serious a-hole who spammed the whole building with hate-mail, and I had a hard time being around co-workers simply because they thought I was him. My credit reports have been semi-trashed by at least three a-holes who happen to share my name. Retailers who get screwed will spam whatever credit report they can semi-match.

          So... I seriously recommend making up a name that has never been used, and sticking with it :-) You can just call me Smilindog2000 in public. Will that work on Citizendium?
          • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 31 2007, @07:23AM (#21182045)

            ...Just to add insult to injury, I shared a cube with a great then-young engineer, but the a-hole next door had just expanded his cube at our expense, and I had to crawl over my desk just to get into my chair. My chair had only 3 wheels, with the fourth missing, and the stuffing in the seat was long-gone, so my first task was rebuilding the damned thing. I was told I couldn't just go buy a chair, as it was against company policy...
            ...so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time...
  • Wikipedia (Score:3, Interesting)

    by nlitement (1098451) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @07:31PM (#21178519)
    Compare both wikis' articles on "tennis":

    Tennis is a sport played between either two players ("singles") or two teams of two players ("doubles"). Players use a stringed racquet to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court.
    Citizendium

    Tennis is a game played between two players (singles) or between two teams of two players (doubles). Players use a stringed racquet to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court.
    Wikipedia

    Just an interesting note. Also, Wikipedia had started out as Nupedia, based on the same idea as Citizendium. In the end, it's really up to the end-user to weed out bad information.
    • And.... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by djupedal (584558) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @07:41PM (#21178567)
      Citizendium: Wikipedia

      Wikipedia is a peer-directed project to create a group of online encyclopedias in every major language. Founded in 2001, Wikipedia grew exponentially in its first 4 to 5 years. It is the world's largest encyclopedia project and one of the most popular sites on the Internet.[1] The English-language Wikipedia is the world's largest single wiki and contains more than two million articles.

      ========

      Wikipedia: Citizendium
      Citizendium: The Citizens' Compendium

      The Citizendium homepage in Firefox
      URL http://en.citizendium.org/ [citizendium.org]
      Commercial? No
      Type of site Internet encyclopedia project
      Registration Optional (Required to edit pages)
      Available language(s) English
      Owner Larry Sanger
      Created by Larry Sanger
      Launched October 23, 2006 (pilot)
      March 25, 2007 (public)
      Current status Beta

      Citizendium (pronounced /stzndim/ "a citizens' compendium of everything") is an English-language online wiki-based free encyclopedia project spearheaded by Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia.[1][2] The project aims to improve on the Wikipedia model by requiring all contributors to do so with their real names, by strictly moderating the project for unprofessional behaviors, and by providing what it calls "gentle expert oversight" of everyday contributors. A main feature of the project is its "approved articles", which have each undergone a form of peer-review by credentialed topic-experts and are closed to real-time editing. The project was first (late 2006) envisioned as a complete "fork" of the English Wikipedia,[3] but the project abandoned that idea prior to its March 2007 public launch to emphasize its own original articles. As of October 2007, the project had over 3,000 articles.[4]
    • Re:Wikipedia (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jd (1658) <imipak@yahCOFFEEoo.com minus caffeine> on Tuesday October 30 2007, @07:49PM (#21178619) Homepage Journal
      Both encyclopedias would be wrong if that is the only definition, as that only defines one form of Tennis. There are actually multiple variants of the game - no great surprise given that it's actually quite an old sport. One of the problems with any "flat file" article within an encyclopedia is that it cannot possibly include all of the relevant context. It can only include a small fraction and refer/link to related information in the hope that the reader compiles all of the important links in their mind into one meta-article. This rarely happens - very few humans have the memory or time to create a world-view perspective on something, then eliminate the extraneous.

      Ideally, then, you'd want the encyclopedia to do this. You'd specify what you want to know and some information about what sort of context would matter. This would mean a system with far smaller article fragments, which could be compiled into actual articles on demand. It would also mean a system with far more sophisticated natural language processing ability and superior weak natural language AI than currently exists, so don't expect a meta-encyclopedia any time soon.

    • ... In the end, it's really up to the end-user to weed out bad information. ...

      A lot of the wikipedia's success is because it's a lot easier to revert or delete than to create.

      And because there are more people who want it to be right than want it to be wrong.

  • Real Names (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rakishi (759894) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @07:32PM (#21178529)
    uhhhmm...how about no.

    Are you going to require SS, driver's license or passport numbers as well? After all my high school alone had 50 Chans in it, for example. I mean if you want people to be accountable you need to tie their identity to a person and a name does not tie to a person. A name ties to many people quite often.

    However if you're not blessed enough to have a generic name that means that anyone can find everything you ever did under your real name. Anything online (and often even not online) you use your real name for is possibly tied to you, irrevocably and forever. This is the real world, not some fantasy world where everyone is nice and happy and non-prejudiced. People are petty and selfish and biased. I don't want to lose a potential job because some HR person decided they don't like my hobbies. Neither do I want to find myself in jail because some idiot policeman or prosecutor decided that my hobbies make me guilty of some crime (lots and lots of cases of innocent people getting shafted for being in the wrong place or time).
    • My user name on Wikipedia (and Citizendium) is my real name. My first edits to Wikipedia were on neo-Nazis and Scientology. Somehow I remain employed. I wonder how that is.
      • Re:Real Names (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Rakishi (759894) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @08:08PM (#21178773)
        Oh joy, someone who can't understand an argument based on possibilities and sees the world as only black or white.

        First of all I never said I'd get fired but that I may lose a potential job or a potential promotion or a potential networking ooprtunity. Those weeding out employee resumes google their names and who knows why they may not like someone.

        I gain pretty much nothing from using my real name in many online situations. Nonetheless I may lose quite a bit by doing so. Or I may not but I'm slightly paranoid.

        If you want to use your real name for something then you are free to do so right now. If you don't want to then you're free as well. That's how I prefer things.
        • What the hell do you do on the internet that's so "dangerous"? I'm trying to see your side, but I'm really struggling. If you're posting legitimate content (eg not trolling), who cares if your future employer finds it? What're they gonna say? "This guy strives for accuracy and correctness, let's keep looking"? or maybe "This guy is a little too knowledgeable"?

          Even if they discriminate against you, who cares? Do you really want to work for somebody who wouldn't have hired you because they disagree w

          • "Dangerous"? No I simply don't assume that people don't judge others for the most inane of reasons. We usually can't help it, how we perceive people depends on tons of essentially inane reasons. I support the war in Iraq, I oppose the war in Iraq, I support Bush, I oppose Bush, I support gun control, I oppose gun control and the same things on hundreds of other topics. Maybe you contribute to topics of competing companies? Maybe you contributed a lot to topics about bi-polar disease. Maybe it was bondage. M
      • My user name on Wikipedia (and Citizendium) is my real name. My first edits to Wikipedia were on neo-Nazis and Scientology.

        Considering you can be put in jail [nytimes.com] for thinking the wrong thoughts in certain countries in Europe, I would be very, very careful what you write on those subjects.

        This is not theoretical -- people can, and are, put in jail for writing the wrong things in supposedly free countries in Western Europe.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      That's exactly the point. If you're not prepared to stand by your contribution under your real name, and have it be part of the public record that you wrote it, then you can't add it to Citizendium. (You can of course post on thousands of other websites such as this one.)

      IMHO, using your real name isn't so much about hard accountability, having someone to sue, or other legalistic FUD. It's more about setting an appropriate atmosphere for discussion, where you remember that the Internet is a part of the r
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        It's more about setting an appropriate atmosphere for discussion, where you remember that the Internet is a part of the real world rather than separate from it, and that online discussion is a conversation between real people and not avatars or cyber-personalities.

        You assume that this makes a discussion better, I say it may make it worse. Historically a lot of writing has been anonymous or quasi-anonymous. Also there is reputation as within any single forum or discussion board or wiki (or across many in some cases) there are reputations attached to people's usernames. There is as a result accountability IF you value such a thing.

        When I debate online I don't see names but only arguments. If I knew these people I couldn't help but be biased yet online I can't be. Like

    • Re:Real Names (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mgrivich (1015787) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @08:05PM (#21178747)

      Anything online (and often even not online) you use your real name for is possibly tied to you, irrevocably and forever. This is the real world, not some fantasy world where everyone is nice and happy and non-prejudiced.
      http://www.xkcd.com/137/ [xkcd.com]
      • Amazingly being quasi-anonymous online let's me both prevent annoying excessively-sensitive people in RL and let's me express my thoughts without bounds.

        Also idealism attached to your real name is great, it caused two of my grandparents to get a government sponsored all expenses paid trip to Siberia and another to die relatively poor. And they were the lucky ones from that generation.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      I see: because perfect accountability is impossible, no attempt at accountability can ever succeed, even partially. It's just not possible for there to a cumulative effect that raises the overall level somewhat, even if there exist failures of its accountability scheme.
      • Uhhh... I can't help but wonder what your hobbies are, that you think some "idiot policeman" is going to throw you in jail for. Bicycling? Parcheesi? Stamp Collecting?

        I can easily imagine a police officer under certain circumstances deciding that someone whose hobby is playing D&D (or other FRPG) is guilty of a crime. Or to take another example, I could see a policeman going: "You go to Renaissance Faires in costume (correct terminology would be garb). You wear a sword as part of that costume. One of your neighbors was killed with a sword. You must be the killer." Never mind that the sword that you wear as part of your garb is a never sharpened western style sword a

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        Uhhh... I can't help but wonder what your hobbies are, that you think some "idiot policeman" is going to throw you in jail for.

        How about going to watch soccer?

        From the Observer (British Newspaper):

        Tickets to a Manchester United game found during anti-terrorist raids sparked fears of a suicide attack on Old Trafford. But they were for an old match and had been kept as souvenirs by the suspects, who were fans of the club.

        The revelation will lead to further criticism of the operation which led to th

  • Only Way Way Way Smaller and Your Contributions Can And Will Get Shitcanned by Anyone Who Signed Up Pretending That They are an Expert in That Subject!

    Mmm, catchy!

    • Your Contributions Can And Will Get Shitcanned by Anyone Who Signed Up Pretending That They are an Expert in That Subject
      And this is different than Wikipedia how...?
  • I am intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

    My name is Anonymous Coward, I'm just posting anonymously.
  • no, not yet anyway (Score:4, Insightful)

    by wizardforce (1005805) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @07:52PM (#21178645) Journal

    Might the Web 2.0 umbrella be expanded to include real name requirements and roles for experts? It's looking that way."
    That doesn't have any more of a chance than Slashdot doing that. The only thing that I can see causing the entirety of the "Web2.0" projects adopting such a system is through new restirctive laws passed by many governments across the world. Proably under the guise of preventing terrorism or some other nonsense.
    • I don't know if it is just me, but I get turned off the moment I come across any reference to "Web 2.0". For some reason, this raises the snake-oil and marketeerspeak warning flags in my mind.
      • yep, buzzwords like "web2.0" are just code for "vaporware" or any eqivalent
      • I don't know if it is just me, but I get turned off the moment I come across any reference to "Web 2.0".

        Yes, agreed. As far as I can see Web 2.0 -- and most especially Wikipedia, and Citizendium too for that matter -- only exist because "search" is really not good enough for most people's needs.

        It's been 10 years since Google, and what innovation has happened since then? Nothing much.

        If search worked as desired you could go straight to the primary sources of data and not need to have it filtered a

  • Who? What? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by allcar (1111567) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @08:04PM (#21178741)
    I'm afraid I had never heard of "Citizendium" until I RTFA. And that, it seems to me is the biggest problem that it faces: Wikipedia is ubiquitous, whilst Citizendium is obscure.
    In addition, Wikipedia now has enormous scope. On almost any topic, I can feel confident that Wikipedia will have something to say. In spite of what many detractors will say, Wikipedia is usually informative and reasonably accurate. It should not be= seen as definitive, but it ia frequently a useful starting point. Citizendium has a long way to go before it can make such claims.
    Whilst writing this, I could not help thinking about the fictional comparison between the entries for alcohol in the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and the Encyclopedia Galactica [uni-tuebingen.de]. That led me to check what each of the sources had to say about Hitchhikers itself. See for yourself: I think we have a clear winner!
    Don't get me wrong. Citizendium sounds like a great idea and I hope it is successful. It may be that they would be better off not trying to compete so directly with Wikipedia and to aim for a different niche. In that case, I think it's a shame that the article spent so much time addressing the inevitable comparisons.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Right, Citizendium should aim for "The Definitive Resource On Everything" niche instead of "The Usually Informative And Reasonably Accurate But Not Definitive, Although It Is Frequently A Useful Starting Point, Resource On Everything" that Wikipedia currently inhabits...

      Yuval Langer.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      Heck, of the top 20 [wikimedia.de] most viewed articles on Wikipedia, the following are missing from Citizendium:
      • #3: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
      • #4: Naruto
      • #5: Guitar Hero III
      • #9: Harry Potter
      • #10: Halo 3
      • #11: Transformers (film)
      • #12: Heroes (TV series)
      • #13: Vanessa Hudgens
      • #14: Luciano Pavarotti
      • #15: Bleach (manga)
      • #17: 50 Cent
      • #18: Sex positions
      • #19: World Wrestling Entertainment
      • #20: Sex (PC terms like homosexuality, AIDS, contraception, etc. are mentioned, but any sort of anatomy isn't there... possibly d
      • Heck, of the top 20 most viewed articles on Wikipedia, the following are missing from Citizendium:

        I had never seen the list you linked to before, but it is just a ton of Slashdot articles waiting to happen:

        • Wii ranks higher than xbox, ps3
        • Halo 3 ranks higher than Bioshock
        • Global warming ranks higher than Bush
        • SSBB ranks higher than GTA IV
        • Masturbation ranks higher than porn

        Not that these topics or any of thousands of others you might generate this way are particularily interesting, but come on, this is Slashdot. Hey, if we can get two articles on Wiki forks on the same day, I can't believe that s

  • The problem with citizendium is the basic premise that the masses aren't "qualified" to contribute. This is what made the wikipedia so much fun-- all of us dilletantes had a place to put in our smattering of knolwedge about history, geography, or punk rock. But only a minority of the population graduates college, and an even smaller minority have the advanced degree in place to be a qualified 'authority' to speak authoritatively on a given subject. Citizendium depends on this minority, and frankly wikipedia is migrating the same direction.

    As a result, the masses are moving toward what they know: TV shows, pop culture, and fictional universe wikis. The Lyric wiki [lyricwiki.org] is 6th on the http://wikindex.com/ [wikindex.com], and the TV wiki [tviv.org] is 13th overall. World of Warcraft, Star Trek, and Battlesar Galactica are bigger than many non-european language wikipediae.

    People go where they feel smart. When citizendium makes things tough, only the tough will remain.
    • The problem with citizendium is the basic premise that the masses aren't "qualified" to contribute. This is what made the wikipedia so much fun-- all of us dilletantes had a place to put in our smattering of knolwedge about history, geography, or punk rock.

      A lot of knowledge is available to the masses that doesn't require higher education. The problem is when people start contributing "information" when they 1) have none of the real world experience/knowledge needed to contribute useful knowledge. 2) FU

    • Citizendium isn't trying to create a feel-good community where everyone feels smart, they're trying to create a compendium of knowledge. They want only the tough to remain, basically, because they're working from the premise that the tough can contribute much better information than everyone else.
    • As a result, the masses are moving toward what they know: TV shows, pop culture, and fictional universe wikis. The Lyric wiki is 6th on the http://wikindex.com/ [wikindex.com], and the TV wiki is 13th overall.

      IME, TVIV is less complete and up to date than Wikipedia itself. Compare the articles on last week's episode of House on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] and TVIV [tviv.org]. As for the Lyric Wiki... I'd be surprised if they actually have permission to post the lyrics to popular songs. Meanwhile, Wikipedia manages some very detailed articles [wikipedia.org] on popular songs without including the lyrics themselves. (That song happens to be on the front page of Lyrics wiki at the moment.)

    • "The problem with citizendium is the basic premise that the masses aren't "qualified" to contribute."

      I'm sorry, but this is wrong. It's even in TFA.

      I'm honestly getting a big FUD vibe from /. here - oh noes, real names! Citizendium will be a failure just like that other site that uses real names, Facebook! Oh noes, Wikipedia is already too big, it'll never be a credible source of information like Wikipedia is - or Encyclopedia Britannica is, or Encarta is, or mass media was, or, or, or...

      It's an ambitious i
  • Curious if there was any religious bias in pages, I looked up evolution. There I saw the following odd sentence:

    Fossils are xxxx.

    Citizendium uses the same history tracking as Wikipedia, so I was able to go back many version to find that this was originally:

    Fossils are critical evidence for estimating when various lineages originated.

    There may be more instances of vandalism to Wikipedia, but I've never seen such a blatant example last through so many edits.

  • Myth debunkery (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Larry Sanger (936381) on Tuesday October 30 2007, @09:37PM (#21179311) Journal

    A lot of the sort of negative comments above were anticipated and shown to be myths in TFA, right here [citizendium.org].

    Also, hey, think of this. On the one hand, (1) I have nothing whatsoever against anonymity online; there is a right to anonymity online. But (2) I also think that certain projects--like encyclopedia projects--can greatly benefit by requiring people to identify themselves. If you bring yourselves to realize that (1) and (2) are compatible, maybe you anonymity advocates won't be so hostile to CZ.

    In short, I don't think that the right to anonymity requires that you have the right to be anonymous everywhere. You have the right to have sex with other consenting adults, too, but you don't have the right to have sex with other consenting adults everywhere. (Hey! Get off my car!)

    • Oh please (Score:3, Insightful)

      In short, I don't think that the right to anonymity requires that you have the right to be anonymous everywhere. You have the right to have sex with other consenting adults, too, but you don't have the right to have sex with other consenting adults everywhere. (Hey! Get off my car!)
      You have built a hotel with a sign out front saying "NO FUCKING", and now there are bugger all guests. Now there's a surprise.
  • So do you have to be a citizen to contribute to this project? I take it illegal aliens aren't welcome. What about legal aliens who have yet to become citizens?
  • I am sorry but slashdot is probably the only place I actually read the word "citizendium", one year later I only find wikipedia links everywhere, and no single citizendium link. And I browse the web a lot.
    • Wow, something went wrong there. That should read "but it should be worth it in the end".
      • Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at. In the short term it'll have lots of holes because it's a slower process than what Wiki had, but in the long term it'll be better quality than Wikipedia. Seems like a win-win situation to me.