Talk:Citizendium/Archive 3

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Links of interest

To the best of my knowledge, I was first described as co-founder of Wikipedia back in September 2001 by The New York Times. That was also my description in Wikipedia's own press releases from 2002 until 2004. With my increasing distance from the project, and as it grew in the public eye, however, some of those associated with the project have found it convenient to downplay and even deny my crucial, formative involvement. In fact, in the early years of the project, my role was not in dispute at all.

The following links have come to light, and they should dispel much of the confusion:

http://www.larrysanger.org/roleinwp.html

--Larry Sanger 22:55, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Discussion moved to talk:Wikipedia. -- Zanimum 19:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey, Larry, why not introduce yourself like Al Gore does:

• "My name is Larry Sanger, and I used to be the co-founder of Wikipedia." --Uncle Ed 01:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Article Citizendium needs update

According to the mailing list "Citizendium-l", the project is currently pretty much dead:

We've got a few more articles that are dipping their toes into approval waters. Hurray to them! I know we're in the middle of "the dead zone". I can tell because THERE IS NO ONE AT WORK.

-- 217.51.4.143 14:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Uh, I would not go singing Ding-dong the Wicked Witch is dead just yet. Note the entry's date, Dec. 29, 2006. "The dead zone" is clearly referring to "the zone" between two major holidays. Like most people with a real life, they probably did not spend time writing CZ articles between Dec. 25th and New Year's. Sorry. CyberAnth 17:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, sorry to disappoint you, but Sarah was exaggerating the lull, actually, and we've bounced back from the predictable holiday lull...and will soon be growing much stronger than ever. I personally have been out of pocket, moving across the country, but I'll be back in the saddle later this week. --Larry Sanger 06:26, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

In a pre-Christmas blog entry Larry estimated the project was getting 300-400 edits a day, with 600+ articles being worked on. He gives many other numbers on contributors and workgroups - 400+ registered users, 136 editors. I'd put them in the article, but they'd probably just get deleted as "excessive detail". So I'll put them on the talk page.

Other posts indicate that three articles have now reached approved status. Two of them are "Biology" and "Chiropractic" - an intriguing combination. Another interesting note from Larry was that editor contributions far outweigh those from grunt-level authors. There's no specific date yet on a public launch of the project. Casey Abell 18:14, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I want to see chiropractic. That is a touchstone article we've had a lot of trouble with over the years. Fred Bauder 04:40, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

In my reading of it, it was throughly gone through from top to bottom; re-organized; much of it re-written; the bog from the WP version was cut out; it is much more encyclopedic, and the experts' hand prints are clearly evident; an excellent product. The Biology article--the best description is that it is simply fabulous, authoritative, with truly compelling prose to boot. CyberAnth 09:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

With respect to the chiropractic article, I had to check its history to confirm it had been imported it is so much changed. It is an excellent article. However it avoids the problem we have grappled with so intensely here by severely limiting criticism in the main article with creation of a subpage titled "Criticisms of chiropractic" which itself is not that good, consisting mostly of self-criticism by the profession. Writing a good "chiropractic" article is not a trivial problem. Fred Bauder 16:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

There are four approved articles: Chiropractic, Biology, Barbara McClintock, and Metabolism (Links to WP articles) Making PDFs of approved articles is on my ToDo list, but so are about a dozen things. Bonny Hicks is up for approval soon I think, and Nuclear Chemistry is another fine article, but is still short of approval. The medical and scientific workgroups have the most active editors at the moment, which explains why the approved articles are either medical or biological. Disclaimer: I'm on the CZ Executive committee. --ZachPruckowski 08:05, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

BTW we've put up a PDF of our first approved article on http://www.citizendium.org/ --Larry Sanger 04:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Citizendium is not forking after all

• The Citizendium unforks

-- nyenyec ☎ 22:34, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

The non-forking is experimental. It is not final. CyberAnth 00:59, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

same is everything else at CZ :) -- 217.51.7.233 08:10, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Correct. The "unfork" is currently in progress (good old rebuildall.php post-erasure) and is a trial for the time being. --ZachPruckowski 02:51, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Fork of Citizendium announced

Well, actually, a fork of the Wikipedia article on Citizendium.

My proposed re-write of the current overgrown article is posted on the Citizendium sub-page of my user page.

Some of the reasons for the re-write have been discussed in depth above (excessive detail section). In addition, the current article exhibits a number of instances of redundancies resulting, in my opinion, from poor organization. Just one example: the new self-registration policy is mentioned in three different places in the current version of the article.

Another major flaw is that the current article has very little discussion of the background motivation for the creation of the Citizendium project, and what there is is buried amidst other material. I suspect that the reason for this is due to the fact that many of the folks most interested in this article have imbibed this material so thoroughly that it is simply (for them) part of the general background and hence not in need of explicit presentation. But the article needs to be writen for those for whom knowledge of such material cannot be taken for granted.

Since this is a major re-write I am proposing, I have chosen to carry it on my user page rather than just plunge in and start hacking away. I understand that in such cases the proposed re-write, even though it is on a user page (actually, a sub-page), is editable both technically and ethically, though I would expect that discussion of same would take place here.

JFPerry 23:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

In general, writing about a project that is in its infancy is very difficult: the rules, even the nature of the project (a fork or not?), keep changing. I'm not sure if the current version is so poor that it needs to be thrown away and begun from scratch, but by all means give it a go. The excessive detail problem seems to be have been much improved in recent versions (although further trimming of the blow-by-blow stuff wouldn't hurt). — Matt Crypto 00:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

That is a significantly better Citizendium article, JF, and I think it should replace the bloated blog of a page that currently exists. Elijahmeeks 06:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Very nice work, JFPerry. Just one copyediting issue I see: it overuses parenthetical statements. Everywhere possible, work them into the text instead. CyberAnth 07:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

JFPerry, I think your proposed version goes overboard on the problems of Wikipedia, and doesn't disuss Citizendium in sufficient detail. There's no mention of constables and their role, the proposed dispute-resolution procedures, the executive committee running the project, or even the actual size of the pilot project so far. The proposal looks more like a Reader's Digest version of Criticisms of Wikipedia than an account of CZ's development. Also, footnotes should be added to the various assertions in the article. I would at least trim back the overly long section on WP's faults - it would be better to eliminate the section altogether and include a brief summary in "Proposed policies and structure" - and use the freed-up space to get more meat into the article on just what CZ has done to this point. Casey Abell 13:58, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Hello Casey. I will replace the footnotes. They were initially removed solely to facilitate the textual editing. I kept cutting them in half, orphaning them, or leaving them hanging with other material. And I will trim the laundry list of WP faults. I really look at the proposed re-write as a draft version of what should go here (main CZ article) once the CZ goes fully public. JFPerry 19:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

James, thanks for taking my grumpy criticisms in stride. If the article is to have a second haircut, it probably makes sense to get as much about Citizendium into the shortened version as possible. Which means a severe cutback on material about Wikipedia, including WP's faults. An even briefer version of the current article's nod towards those faults, plus the link to Criticisms of Wikipedia, should be plenty. As for the footnotes, you might want to consider Matt's suggestion to invite some third parties to the, er, party. Although outside media stories about Citizendium generally haven't been very specific, there may be enough comments on the role of experts in CZ and some other details to furnish a note or three. Casey Abell 20:53, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Your critque was basically spot on. And if anyone wants to help with restoring the refs, they are more than welcome to! Truth is, having started that task, I'm finding it perhaps even harder than editing with the refs in place. Chalk it up to experience! JFPerry 21:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Reader's Digest version of Criticisms of Wikipedia or not, I think it is crucial to get into them to give solid context as to why CZ has even been proposed in the first place. The project did not crop up in a vacuum. It exists very largely because of the criticisms against WP. One cannot know CZ without knowing this basis of it. CyberAnth 00:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. One of my main criticisms of the current article is that it doesn't explain the why behind Citizendium. Still, the bulleted listing was pretty poor and I recast it to highlight just a couple of what I see as the really important points. I have also re-written (greatly expanded) the section on CZ policies and structure in accord with Casey's suggestion. JFPerry 03:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

General agreement with others: Background good (though some points of style I'd love to copyedit), but it certainly needs refs and detail. --Malyctenar 12:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

James, thanks for taking my criticisms so well. I feel a little guilty about continuing to criticize exactly because you've been so patient with me. But the new version of the proposed article now seems to go overboard on criticism of...Citizendium. While I agree that skeptics have expressed doubts about many aspects of the project, I think your proposal gives the skeptics too much space that could be better devoted to actual details of the project, like the size of the pilot so far, the role of constables, the executive committee, etc. And again, I would eliminate completely the "Background" section and compress its material into a brief reference to Wikipedia's perceived faults and CZ's attempt to remedy them - much as the current article does. This would also free up more space for actual discussion of what CZ has done.

And again (sorry to sound like a broken record) the proposed article remains under-referenced. I'm not a fiend for footnotes - in fact, I hate 'em - but on such a touchy topic we should err on the side of caution and footnote thoroughly.

The new proposed article is about 1100 words, as opposed to the current article's 1700 words (exclusive of footnotes). So there's not a great deal of difference in length. And I confess that the current article seems better to me because it gives so much more detail on what CZ has actually done, with much less space devoted to opinions of the faults of Wikipedia and Citizendium. I only hope you take these criticisms as well as you've accepted my other grumps and whines.

By the way, I reworded the reference to vandalism on the pilot project to eliminate any possible glorification but still record the occurrence, which is important. This is the kind of detail that I think is valuable to any article on CZ. Casey Abell 13:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I've splattered too much verbiage already, but the vandalism issue is a good example of what I'm chattering about. James' proposed article contains opinions about vandalism on Wikipedia and its possible causes, and whether CZ's 'real names" policy will prevent such abuse. But you could read the entire proposed article and not learn whether any vandalism has actually occurred on Citizendium. The current article gives you the facts, with an authoritative reference - CZ's main page history. Of course, facts and references can and do become outdated. But my personal preference is to be as specific and factual as possible in encyclopedia articles, supported by careful references. Casey Abell 14:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

No, you haven't "splattered" too much verbiage, as you say. Your comments have been very helpful in leading to major improvements in the proposed article. I have expanded the material on the CZ proper, as best I can. Also, it is likely that in the long run there will be a WP article on Citizendium as well as one of Criticisms of Citizendium (same as with WP). Anticipating this, I removed altogether the critical and skeptical material since it would likely go into a criticisms article.

On the "vandalism reference" in the present article, I have no intention of getting into a revert war with anyone, but I'm wondering: when you restored it, you did so in two different places. I believe this raises questions about the organization and structure of the present article. And that does not count the three occurrances of the reference to the new, self-reg process on CZ.

I think the issue of vandalism as it may develop on CZ is important, but I don't believe this can be proprly examined until a statisticaly significant amount of data is available. Besides, I am no longer sure the "Chris Nguyen" incident was vandalism! Can you be sure that one of the high muck-a-mucks in CZ did not do it as a test to see how it would be dealt with, or maybe just to raise the alert level before the self-reg policy was formally announced?

Now it is probably time for me to stop (if I haven't gone too far already ;-) ) JFPerry 02:58, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Looks great, JF! One small note, I think there's too many external links. Are they supposed to be used as references? They should be inline, if that's the case. Do you know about Citizendium's licensing? I read in a forum post it may be dual-licensed: GFDL and Creative Commons. Secondly, don't forget about categories. On a slightly related note, why is Category:GFDL in this article, anyway? I just noticed some anon removed it, but he/she was reverted. One other touch-up, maybe you should include an image of Larry Sanger? Just some things to consider. :) Again, good work! 70.104.16.217 19:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Sources

We use, if I'm correct, only one third-party source (The Register, hmm), and the rest are a bunch of web forum posts. As a result, the current article sails very close to the wind with regard to WP:RS and WP:OR. Whether we rewrite or not, we should think about moving to better sources. — Matt Crypto 00:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

There were a number of third-party sources - The Independent, The Guardian, The Financial Times, and IDG News - that were eliminated as too Wikipedia-related. We could try slipping them back into the article, but they might just get reverted out again. It's difficult to find third-party sources for details about Citizendium, because the project hasn't launched publicly yet, and third parties have mostly concentrated on 35,000-foot opinion about CZ instead of the nitty-gritty. Anyway, it would be hard to find a more reliable source than Larry for the facts about Citizendium. And the article doesn't contain any original research, but only reports what Larry and others have said about the project. Casey Abell 15:16, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

We are not following our rules regarding reliable sources, almost all of the information is original research, but that Ok; this is an appropriate exception. Fred Bauder 13:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Removal of "first vandal" material

I have just deleted the two (redundant) references to the first vandalism on Citizendium. While the issue of vandalism and CZ's policies designed to minimize or otherwise deal with same are important, I find this focus on careful detailing of this first instance to be objectionable. It is almost as if you are awarding barnstars for the first such act!

It is also interesting that the people who first posted the "information" (more like needless trivia) saw fit to mention only the vandal and not the person (myself, to tell the truth) who first reverted the vandalism.

The result (almost certainly not intended, but nevertheless resultant) is to glorify such vandal behavior.

Eventually, once CZ has a more extensive track record on the matter, a more careful examination of the issue of vandalism in light of CZ policies will be in order. Citizendium certainly does need to be subject to honest and meaningful scrutiny and will benefit from same. But the article's almost voyeuristic interest in the "first vandal" doesn't promote this.

JFPerry 21:19, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed encyclopedia?

Is that phrasing still accurate? The project is going pretty good. 74.38.35.171 08:40, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's accurate (I worked for some months on Citizendium). Especially since all the WP content was dumped, what CZ has right now amounts only to a few thousand articles revised in some degree (from a few words to being entirely rewritten) on a limited array of subjects -- not an Encyclopedia yet, at any rate.

Rapotter 13:29, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for the response. How good do you think CZ is, anyway?

Well, it may very well be quite good -- the quality of the 3-4 approved articles is excellent -- we'll have to see. Rome wasn't built in a day, and if CZ eschews WP content, it will take an extra few days. I am glad to see that the WP article, so far, has been remarkably accurate and regularly updated.

Rapotter 03:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Question

Who "owns" Citizendium? Is there a board of trustees or something? Or does Sanger have all authority?

What are the major criticisms that have been made of CZ, other than the fact that it doesn't amount to much yet, and the controversy over the role of experts?

Thanks! Dawud

I'm not sure who 'governs' it in a legal sense, but Sanger runs most of it, though he has said that he plans to hire a Managing Editor to assume most of his wiki duties. There is also an editorial board at present which votes on governance issues. It will take some time to see whether it's going to 'amount to much,' but after dumping WP content, it's certainly more distinct.

The expert model had irked some, and will probably make growth slower, but the plan is that in the long run the overall content will be much stronger. I think the CZ entry here in WP would be best served by leaving judgments open when there is not yet any clear consensus.

Rapotter 14:47, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

New Biology Article

Has anyone seen the new Biology article on Citizendium - it's actually really crazy (as in good). I think that Wikipedia may have a very legit rival in this website - especially since our Biology article pails in comparison. Well hey - hopefully Wikipedia's strong sense of equality continues to make it stand out.Daniel()Folsom |\^T/|\_C/|\^U/|^{(Can you help me with my signature?)} 00:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

• On the other hand, it also reflects the nature of its contributors--it's Euro-centric with a strong emphasis on historical development. That's not a problem, necessarily, but it's a different article than what we have. Mackensen (talk) 17:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Login required to view articles

Citizendium now requires that people log in to view articles. At the same time they have deleted the vast majority of the articles they were hoping to fork from Wikipedia - even more that they did when they "unforked". Now you have to email them with your real name to even look at the articles. If you don't provide your credentials on your user page they bwill delete your account. Not only is this a gross disregard for people's online privacy it also seriously diminishes the notability of Citizendium. I'm not calling Wikipedia perfect but seriously... Citizendium is an ill-concieved non-notable project. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.215.200.145 (talk) 09:58, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

This has been the case for some time now, actually. Whatever your opinion on individuals' rights to privacy, it doesn't diminish the site's notability; if anything, it would affect its credibility, a concept which is very much up for debate. -- Daveydweeb (^chat/_review!) 23:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

This was because the project was still in its pilot phase. The real launch is today, and from now on, anybody can read articles on Citizendium. --84.103.5.98 20:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC), former wikipedian and future citizen.

license?

Anyone know what license they're using? Last I heard, it was going to be Creative Commons-NonCommercial. Seems kind of silly they waited this long to decide this longstanding issue. Mahanga^{Talk to me} 21:00, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

"Articles that originated in part from Wikipedia are available under GNU Free Documentation License 1.2. All new articles will be available under an open content license yet to be determined. Fred Bauder 21:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

That's outdated. See Sanger's blog post. Plus, they're not using Wikipedia's article. Mahanga^{Talk to me} 21:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I am not closely following it, but apparently the debate continues. Some articles did originate at Wikipedia. I wrote one myself like that. I edit on 3 Wikis, an original article gets to be linked to from the other two. Fred Bauder 21:32, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I was going to make a link to that article, but they have gone done, apparently overwhelmed by traffic. Fred Bauder 21:44, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I wonder how much longer it'll take until they decide on a license. Btw, for those interested, here are the arguments. Mahanga^Talk 03:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that the fact they have not yet decided should be mentioned in the main text of the page! Do you agree?--Popopp 08:25, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding vandalism

Ok, so I have an issue with how this is sourced - the article says that the vandalism that caused Citizendium to shut down self-registration came from Slashdot, and although the source only makes a passing mention at Slashdot, I know there are better sources out there, having read them. My issue is with the source itself: is Larry Sanger really qualified to judge where the vandalism is originating from? Are there any third-party sources to back this up, ones that don't come from the people running the project? THe pattern of vandalism observed makes this especially dubious to me, but that may just be my opinion - however, I think the problem with first-party, unqualified sources is one everyone can relate to. Milto LOL pia 08:56, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

That's a logical fallacy there, Mil. Third party sources by definition rely on internal sources. That's how they get information to create stories. But you can also see http://www.daveydweeb.com/wordpress/?p=114 and https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2007-February/ C.m.jones 09:12, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I can tell you with unshifting confidence that the vandalism screenshotted in that first link was not a result of slashdotting, but I suppose the article must go based on what the sources say. I'll hunt for some dissenting sources later, hopefully there are some or the article will be wrong :-O Milto LOL pia 09:26, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Gah, can ignoring all rules apply to sourcing? The source is wrong about the cause of vandalism, maybe it would be best to just leave out any speculation regarding the causes and disregard the incorrect source? That's what I've done just for now... Milto LOL pia 23:14, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Is there something to learn from Citizendium?

I started an essay Wikipedia:We aren't Citizendium, please edit it heavily and boldly. I will have to leave my computer and won't be here to discuss anything, so really, just be brutally bold, or even delete it. But please don't turn it into a polemical piece, I hope that when I look at it, it will still be focused on the interesting ideas and on what we can learn from Citizendium, not an attempt to refute the more irrelevant criticism. --Merzul 12:58, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Nature of the project

"Fork of Wikipedia"

Is this a pun? :-) Axl 17:10, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't get it :( Milto LOL pia 23:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

"Fuck off Wikipedia". :-D Axl 07:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh. LOL. Milto LOL pia 01:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Citation for business model comes from forum - is not definitive and not a filing that indicates a change in non-profit status

The citation mentions a business model that will pay for the foundation but does not mention the non-profit paperwork to change the license has been filed. In addition, the citation, while coming from Sanger, is in a forum which is blog-like. It could be here today (the reference); changed tomorrow. Wikipedia:Attribution#Using questionable or self-published sources does not allow this citation as it has not been published in a reliable third publication or source. Morenooso 04:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, people can say one thing in a blog or even public speech and retract tomorrow. No mention of an actual change to the license is mentioned - meaning the filing of paperwork to change status. Talking about a business model, which is a direct quote does not equate to a filing either online or with the state the project is licensed in. To use "logic" involves WP:OR which also is not allowed. Morenooso 05:00, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe you are misrepresenting WP:ATT. In particular, ATT is critical of using such sources for claims about third parties. By omission it indicates that a parties claims about themselves are fine taken from less perfect locations. I would not expect otherwise, because refusing to accept a persons claims about himself would be patently ridiculous. Furthermore, that Citizendium engages in commercial activity is mostly independent from its legal status (non-profits can and do engage in commercial activity). In any case, our standing article makes no claim that citizendium is legally a non-profit because it is not currently, although it claims to intend to become one.

At a minimum the non-commercial claim should be removed, it is not sourced and is obviously a matter of contention.

Is your logic comment a reference to this edit summary? --Gmaxwell 05:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

You invoked "logic" in your revert. That involves solving an edit by usage of WP:OR. I do not misrepresent anything. There is nothing definitive in that blog or forum. If you wish to remove the non-profit claim, you need to place a citation request by it. Morenooso 05:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I should add, that citation requests that are not cited properly within a reasonable period can then be disallowed. Morenooso 05:11, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

... --Gmaxwell 05:17, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Gmaxwell, regarding "our standing article makes no claim that citizendium is legally a non-profit because it is not currently, although it claims to intend to become one" you should do a little research before declaring error. http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/01/24/second-press-release-is-out-2/#more-111 http://citizendium.org/faq.html#funding http://www2.tidescenter.org/directory/project_detail_new.cfm?id=60306 http://www.tidescenter.org/news-events/news-room/single-news-item/index.html?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=88&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=535&cHash=68a497f377 http://www.mail-archive.com/citizendium-l@lists.purdue.edu/msg00369.html - C.m.jones 05:28, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

C.m. CZ isn't, they are being sponsored by a non-profit incubator. CZ isn't a non-profit itself, yet. This is totally normal and no big deal because the paper work is a huge pain. Go read your own source. :) --Gmaxwell 06:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The edit war has begun. I placed a reasonable citation request by the disputed claim. I will now remain WP:COOL while still disputing the questionable source and "logic" jump used to avoid a 3RR situation. Please see proof theory. Morenooso 05:42, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

"The edit war has begun." is not a nice way to encourage colaboration. :( --Gmaxwell 06:21, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, shouldn't the "Commercial?" question in the infobox state whether the website is commercial right now, instead of stating what might come in the future? Then it should be a clear "no", maybe with a footnote that it is planned to change in the future. --Conti|✉ 16:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I've tried to steer a middle course by quoting the exact words CZ is currently attaching to its main page and articles. The encyclopedia is using the GFDL for all content derived in any way from Wikipedia, as required by the license. For new articles, there's a glaring "to be determined" notice. At this point, we can only wait and watch what happens with the site's new non-WP-derived content. Casey Abell 17:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

difference between this and wikipedia?

I fail to understand the difference between it and WIkipedia. Can we have a section that debates the pros and cons of both? Or how they diverge or are different in some aspects?--Sonjaaa 07:32, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Only if third parties make htose ocmparisons, editors making them would be original research. Milto LOL pia 01:51, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

We have something on that outside of the article; see CZ:We aren't Wikipedia for Citizendium's side, and Wikipedia:We aren't Citizendium for Wikipedia's side. --cesarb 15:35, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

more limited scope?

Do these guys plan to limit their scope to subjects that have actual experts? I'm not sure what their idea of an expert of, say, [Computer Game X] or [Movie Y] is. Does this mean they will just ban those subjects? 217.136.130.104 15:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Goal to become a reliable source

For some reason this is deemed unworthy of inclusion,[1][2] so I'm placing it here:

Many of the changes are attempts to correct perceived flaws in the original design and present public image of Wikipedia, that have led to problems with Wikipedia's acceptance as a valid and trustworthy resource. A number of academics have criticized Wikipedia for its perceived failure as a reliable source. Many Wikipedia editors do not have degrees or other credentials generally recognized in academia. The use of Wikipedia is not accepted in many schools and universities in writing a formal paper. Some educational institutions have blocked Wikipedia in the past while others have limited its use to only a pointer to external sources. University of Maryland professor of physics Robert L. Park has characterized Wikipedia as a target for "purveyors of pseudoscience."

This perception is backed up by Wikipedia's own admission:

Wikis, including Wikipedia and other wikis sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation are not regarded as reliable sources.

Regarding Wikipedia's oft-cited problems, Sanger wrote that "this arguably dysfunctional community is extremely off-putting to … academics" and as such appears "committed to amateurism."

I think the point about becoming a reliable source is a very (most?) significant difference and should be included. -- Fyslee/talk 16:21, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

There's no reason to duplicate material from Criticism of Wikipedia that has nothing to do directly with Citizendium. An explicit reference to Criticism of Wikipedia is now included in the article, for any readers who want to read further about, well, criticism of Wikipedia. The focus of the Citizendium article should be on Citizendium, not on Wikipedia's supposed faults. Casey Abell 16:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, it seems that some of the changes at Citizendium are made in response to Wikipedia's faults (which are not "supposed", but self-admitted). If any negative mention of Wikipedia (in this case made by Wikipedia!) is to be kept out of this article (not very NPOV behavior), then at least leave in the main positive point about Citizendium, which is its attempt to create articles that are stable and reliable sources. Right now the baby is being deleted with the supposed bathwater. This is one area where we can learn from them, and even beat them at it. -- Fyslee/talk 16:48, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify my comment, the following is the word-for-word copy from Criticism of Wikipedia:

A number of academics have criticized Wikipedia for its perceived failure as a reliable source. Many Wikipedia editors do not have degrees or other credentials generally recognized in academia. The use of Wikipedia is not accepted in many schools and universities in writing a formal paper. Some educational institutions have blocked Wikipedia in the past while others have limited its use to only a pointer to external sources. University of Maryland professor of physics Robert L. Park has characterized Wikipedia as a target for "purveyors of pseudoscience."

Since all this material, word for word, is already in Criticism of Wikipedia, and none of it pertains directly to Citizendium, it seems completely unnecessary to duplicate it here. Casey Abell 16:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, remove just the part that isn't relevant to the point, and keep what's relevant. That's all I'm asking. -- Fyslee/talk 16:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

That's exactly what I did. The article now notes that CZ hopes to overcome perceived flaws in WP, and quotes Sanger on the issue. An explicit reference to Criticism of Wikipedia is provided to readers who want to read more about those perceived flaws. There's no reason to duplicate a large swatch (or any-sized swatch) of Criticism of Wikipedia in this article. I should know - I wrote part of the section of Criticism of Wikipedia that was, completely unnecessarily, copied word-for-word into this article. Casey Abell 17:01, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

We seem to be going in circles here, with the heading making clear my main point, while you continually object to a duplication (you should feel complimented that your good work is worthy copying!) of some material.

Here is my proposed barbered version that concentrates on the point of this thread:

Many of the changes are attempts to correct perceived flaws in the original design and present public image of Wikipedia, that have led to problems with Wikipedia's acceptance as a valid and trustworthy reliable source. This perception is backed up by Wikipedia's own admission:

Wikis, including Wikipedia and other wikis sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation are not regarded as reliable sources.

How's that? -- Fyslee/talk 17:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

This eliminates the unnecessary copying, but the language about WP's "admission" is POV-ish and still unrelated to Citizendium. In fact, Wikipedia:Attribution/FAQ, where the quote originates, may not be adopted at all. The straw poll shows no consensus for adoption, at any rate. The current language in WP:RS reads: "Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or comments on blogs, should generally not be used as sources." Which would include Citizendium, as well!

I would let the article stand as is, with Sanger's quotes and the comment about CZ trying to fix WP's perceived faults. This is completely NPOV and accurate. Casey Abell 17:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a new one. When a site is being discussed, it is allowed to quote from that site. I get the feeling that you believe you own this article. Am I correct? -- Fyslee/talk 18:26, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

No, you are not correct. I'm just pointing out that you are quoting from WP:ATT, which has not been adopted as Wikipedia policy and may well never be adopted due to lack of consensus. In fact, another editor tried to shorten this section even more by eliminating not just the copied material from Criticism of Wikipedia and the quote from WP:ATT, but also the Larry Sanger quotes on WP's perceived problems. I did restore the Sanger quotes, and I hope this doesn't lead to more "ownership" charges. Casey Abell 18:46, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not quoting from WP:ATT. I haven't even studied it. I still use the old Big3. -- Fyslee/talk 18:59, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

The footnote you attached [3] to the quote "Wikis, including Wikipedia and other wikis sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation are not regarded as reliable sources" referred to WP:ATT, and that's where the quote does come from. Okay, the quote actually comes from the attached FAQ page for that proposed policy. But the quote is definitely not in the approved policy WP:RS, which only contains a general caution against all wikis, including Citizendium. Casey Abell 19:16, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Here is some code so we can see the references:

It's number four that's the relevant one, and you're right! I wasn't even conscious it was from there. I thought it was a Wikipedia FAQ. Whatever the case, it's still the long-standing position of Wikipedia. Only closed wikis are considered possibly reliable sources, and they do exist. -- Fyslee/talk 20:08, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

The guideline from WP:RS is that all wikis are to be used with great caution. There's nothing in WP:RS about "closed" wikis as opposed to, I guess, "open" ones. Actually, the key quote from WP:RS - "Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or comments on blogs, should generally not be used as sources" - would be relevant to Citizendium.

By the way, QuackGuru has copied back some of the same stuff from Criticism of Wikipedia into the article. You're right, I should be flattered that this material, which I helped write, is considered so indispensible even when it's irrelevant. My guess is that sooner or later a respected admin will come along and clean all the irrelevant Criticism of Wikipedia stuff out of this article. Last I checked, the title of the article was Citizendium, not Copy of Criticism of Wikipedia. Casey Abell 21:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Admins don't/shouldn't force content changes. Anyway, most of the section doesn't mention Citizendium at all... since the top of this page says this is an article about Citizendium, the section either needs to be refactored to discuss Citizendium a little more, or it needs to be removed.

Also, regardless of what WP:RS says, tertiary sources (which Citizendium and Wikipedia both are) are broadly considered not-very-reliable in the academic community, correct? --Interiot 21:23, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I've been trying to remove the irrelevant material copied from Criticism of Wikipedia, and it keeps getting put back in. I don't think there should be a separate section for this at all. See the version I tried to create here. Anyway, I'm tired of the dispute and I figure the article is headed for the lockdowns I've seen on Essjay controversy. Casey Abell 21:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Reliability as a reference

I added refs and a tidbit. This is a central issue and highly relevant. Thanx. :) - Mr.Gurü (^talk/_contribs) 19:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Does Nature of the Project need updating in light of some recent discussion by Larry?

Fork of Wikipedia

According to statements and essays on Citizendium.org, the project was initially intended to ....fork of Wikipedia, However, after initiating the idea of not forking, and then soliciting comments on the matter from Citizendium members, Sanger said that a complete fork at launch was not a "foregone conclusion." As to abandoning 'fork of Wikipedia CyberAnth has commented -The non-forking is experimental. It is not final.- Of course forking can be resumed at a later stage, and much concern has been raised of the volume of articles that can otherwise be produced.

About the Citizendium: http://www.citizendium.org/about.htm

Why necessary

In short, we want to create a responsible community and a good global citizen.

What's our goal?

As to quality, our goal is to capture humanity's multivarious understanding of reality, and thereby to paint a maximally broad and detailed portrait of our universe as accurately as we understand it. An indispensible means to this end is the involvement of many experts ..... the potential of participation by ultimately millions of people, means that we can capture humanity's understanding of reality....

Historically, many states limited citizenship to only a proportion of their population, thereby creating a citizen class with political rights superior to other sections of the population. Citizendium, as noted in the article differentiates itself from wikipedia through editing policy and by the requirments for initiation as a constable.

Sanger has stated that Citizendium administrators, or sysops, will be called "constables," and will need a bachelor's degree to qualify. Sanger has also suggested a minimum "maturity" requirement — 25 years of age — for constables.[11] The "head" constable will be the Chief Constable (Ruth Ifcher), and the head editor will be the Managing Editor. The stated aim of the project is to create a "new compendium of knowledge" based on the contributions of "intellectuals," defined as "educated, thinking people who read about science or ideas regularly." Citizendium hopes to foster an expert culture and a community that encourages subject specialists (presently named as "editors") to contribute, and "citizens" (to be called "authors") to "respect" the expert contributions (by what he referred to as a "gentle process of guidance").

it doesn't matter what percentage of material, published or unpublished, is secret; if there are indeed important organizational activities and documents that are held in secret, to that extent it at least resembles a secret society.... --Larry Sanger 09:54, 2 May 2007 (CDT)

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."

Recently in his role as Editor-in-Chief, Sanger has also questioned some of the new members of Citizendium, who , though without bachelor's degrees are advanced experts in the field of scientology...

Scientology is quite secretive about information available at the higher levels. Terry, as it appears you are a Scientologist, let me ask you this: do Scientologists actually deny that they are secretive? Also, can I purchase all the Scientology material and descriptions of Scientology practices without being a high-level Scientologist? Isn't there quite a bit of higher-level stuff that is members-only? --Larry Sanger 19:51, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

Some also draw attention to the seemingly sinister sound of citizendium as -cities end (EE - um)- however such associations are not recognised by prominent universities and are consequently disregarded.

""Surely we aren't asking the average CZ reader to believe that any serious "secret society" is engaged in pursuing "global domination."" --Larry Sanger 08:59, 21 April 2007 (CDT)

Surely not, but then Citizendium would not want the average reader to contribute, or beleive writing without some gentle guidance

I do not claim any sort of editorship other than being Editor-in-Chief, I'm afraid, not even in philosophy or the Internet. -Larry Sanger

As to the suggestion that Larry introduces himself as Al Gore does: My name is Larry Sanger, and I used to be the co-founder of Wikipedia He plans to re-invent and possibly found the next internet all in good time.

If there is some big sweeping change or project or idea that probably ain't gonna happen if I don't get behind it, please let me know at Suggestion Box. - Sanger auto-biopage at citizendium ==

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Larry_Sanger

---Amreading 03:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Five hundred edits a day?

Citizendium#Citizendium_goes_live reports 500 edits a day. Seems more like much less than that... Recent changes. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:37, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

That's related changes for the Main Page, not recent changes for the whole wiki. I count 1152 edits from yesterday. Fredrik Johansson 01:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Ahh... thanks. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

There were 589 edits in the main space in the last 24 hours ending at 5:05 GMT. So 500 is more like the right value. Tintin

• The correct link for last 500 changes (including minor) in CZ namespace is [4]. The link for major changes is [5]. Pavel Vozenilek 20:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

• Not true at all. The site is receiving far more than a few dozen edits per day. [6] CZ's Alexa rating has fallen since launch, but that was only to be expected. [7] Casey Abell 20:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

And still falling as of June 22. HelenWatt (talk) 02:59, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:SYN

This edit, which I have removed twice, very clearly violates WP:SYN. The two reference cited do not even mention Citizendium! It is clearly editor synthesis and thus original research. C.m.jones 03:59, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The Wiki rules is that if position A is favored over B we do NOT erase A, we add more on B. Blanking a well-cited relevent statement is not called for. Rjensen 04:44, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you need to carefully read WP:SYN. This is not the place for you or anyone else to "make connections" between published sources that do not themselves make the connections. Re-add the material and I will bring it up as an incident at the WP noticeboard, although I'd rather not waste either your or my time. ---C.m.jones 22:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfair statement

I do not want to make a big case out of an essentially marginal comment. However, someone on Citizendium asserted here that he always hated a certain WP article. It is unfair that he stated this, and it is unfair that no one on Citizendium asked for the deletion of this statement. Notice that he said hate, not just dislike, or the presentation is not appropriate etc..

I repeat: this is marginal. But I believe that it is not a good start! --Popopp 08:39, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

It reads to me that all he really is saying is that he thinks the WP-sourced article there is not a good start. C.m.jones 09:46, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems that your comment is a way of messing the whole thing up! When I say I love you to some woman, and she replies I hate you, she usually does not mean this is not a good start. I am not talking about the intended meaning of hating some WP article, I am talking about what he actually said, and about politeness.--Popopp 15:12, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Replace entirely, or not?

I hope they don't delete Wikipedia, I much prefer Wikipedia. I also think that many people will prefer Wikipedia as well. --zzo38(<font color=#7799FF face=Wingdings>[[User_talk:Zzo38|*]]</font>)[[User:Zzo38/sand|?]] 06:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Noone is planning to delete the Wikipedia. CZ is simply an alternative project having an alternative approach. Instead of seeing the Citizendium as a competitor the two projects should see themselves as partners. Many people contributing at CZ feel more welcome as they do at the WP. The WP has a very distinctive community and some users prefer to have guidelines and not "anarchy". Personally I think the CZ is a great idea and I also think that WPedians should at least have a look at their policy before stating that the WP will be deleted, which is thankfully impossible.

Both projects have a different way of reaching their goal which is very much the same, just the path is different. I recomend you to go to the CZ website and have a look at its Rules and Regulations and decide then. It cant hurt —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.240.26.127 (talk) 17:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

Owner

Is not Tides Center. We have a legal relationship with them, but that doesn't make them our owner.

Similarly, this sentence is false: "The Citizendium Foundation is currently run by Tides Center, a non-profit organization." It is run by me and a bunch of volunteers. The Tides Center has our money, approves the very rare checks we write. But it doesn't "run" much of anything. --Larry Sanger 21:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Censorship and "Family Friendly"?

I'm really surprised to see no mention here of the whole censorship/"family friendly" issue with CZ. After reading through the 20 page forum thread over at the CZ forums, and Larry Sanger's very strong opinions on the issue, I expected to at least find mention of it here. The whole thing was enough to put me off of even applying for an account over there, and from the information in that thread, seems to have been enough to cause the resignation of a few "high ranking" individuals from the CZ project. Fehrgo 03:12, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I added it. I think something about this should most definitely be added to Encyclopedia Britannica, too. They too avoid words, phrases, and articles like shit, fuck, cum shot, blowjob, and rimming. C.m.jones 21:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a good point. Though, it is not censorship. Just a different type of encyclopedia. Citizendium is "children friendly" too. :) - Mr.Gurü (^talk/_contribs) 23:32, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it goes beyond this. The part that prevented me from getting involved was the apparent veto power of a central individual over article content and policy, despite the claim being made that the site is peer reviewed articles by academics who are specialists in the associated fields. I wasn't necessarily referring to shock content articles on assorted curse words, sexual positions, etc, but the problem I have is that CZ is representing its self as "a better free encyclopedia", however the definition of "better" is left entirely up to Mr. Sanger and his views of what, as a Middle American white male with English as a first language, constitutes the best interests of the majority (with the interests of the majority being how he feels on a subject on that day). He has no problem telling people that if they don't agree with his view of how things should, no, will be run, they can just leave and should not have signed up in the first place. There is very little room for negotiation, even on the subject of getting the rules into a policy document that states anything more than "family friendly". The CZ tag line should really be "Building Sanger's Encyclopedia". Fehrgo 01:33, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

On Wikipedia everything is very relaxed. There are policies here but there is way too many thunderstorms. Wikipedia is a never ending wheel war. Larry's project runs on a known path. They will not deviate from that path. Thats right. No negotiations or compromises. No wasting time talking about edit after edit. CZ editors add their work and experts review it. Simply and easy. Established consensus means nothing. I say, it is the experts who will create a better encyclopedia. End of discussion. Or will Wikipedia prevail in the end. Hmmm. It is yet to be determined. _-Mr. ^o G-_ 02:17, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The experts write other pedias. Wikipedia is not based on a few experts, but on the knowledge and good will of million of users. Both these type of pedias can and will coexist. As for which one is more popular and most accessed, well that there is no dispute about that, is it? Does Wikipedia works? sure it does. Does Citizendium works? We shall see. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 20:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be missing my point. What I am trying to get across is that CZ to me does not look like experts having final say. There are "special" member(s) of the project who work outside the system and can step in and enforce arbitrary restrictions on content, and who refuse to lay out written enforceable guidelines about what will and will not be permitted. From the message board thread that I refer to above, it would seem that Sanger has given himself the privilege to step in and control content, and no users or editors would have any recourse or policy statement to defend themselves with. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of CZ with specialist editors, the problem I have with it is the god-like powers which seem to be granted to a select few, who are not themselves experts in the subjects at hand. Sanger has a PhD, yes, but it is in philosophy. He does not have a PhD in every subject that the site could possibly have articles on. If CZ is to be portrayed as a product of a community of academics, it does not work in my mind to have users with special executive power, especially to the extreme level that Sanger openly proclaims within the CZ forums. To me it looks like a god complex.

I'd gladly participate in a community project with more enforceable rules along the lines of CZ, as long as the same community has the rights to control the content, rather than a central entity who has the power to make sweeping changes to the site, such as removing the fork, seemingly on a whim. Sanger needs more publicly documented checks and balances to control his own behavior if he really wants to convince his potential editors and writers that the project is worth their time.Fehrgo 15:26, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not going to be tempted into a 3RR violation on the inclusion of completely irrelevant links to Wikipedia articles on sexual practices. The language and footnote I have crafted in this version of the article are completely adequate to the discussion of CZ's family-friendly policy. I'll leave the dispute to other editors, two of whom have previously reverted the inclusion of links to Wikipedia articles with no relevance to CZ. Casey Abell 21:26, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

• If there is a CZ censorship and 'group friendly' - the situation is even worse with Wikipedia. Any administrator can block any author's account under just formal excuse like - POV-pushing, disruptive editing, uncooperative editing, sockpuppeteering, etc. Moreover, a contributor of an expert knowledge many times has to deal with ignorants, their self-importance, their wish to have last word, which at the same time, are lacking even ability to carry the discussion rational.
• The sheer nonsense is the Wikipedia's notion of 'sockpupeteering' - which gives unlimited rights to the check users and administrators to ban i.e. to close anyone's account under claim that the same person uses two or more different accounts. The truth is - if a person does not provide the data identifying him/her, and if the identification data (if provided) are not verifiable - there is no technical and legal way (here in the USA) to say that behind the same IP address (assigned to a Wikipedia account by the ISP) - is the only one user. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.252.101.51 (talk) 18:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Citizendium and Web Ranking

At what point is Citizendium's constantly decreasing traffic notable? I agree with Casey that a drop from the initial web ranking is to be expected, but its fallen out of the top 100,000 websites according to Alexa and it seems to be tracking a steady decline. I realize this is a very tender subject, but its existence as a website naturally means its popularity or lack thereof is an important bit of related information, isn't it? Elijahmeeks 03:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

As a kook inclusionist, I'm not a big fan of "notability" as a criterion. But CZ will probably always be notable as an attempted competitor to Wikipedia, even if its Alexa rankings fade into obscurity. The project raises too many significant questions about the reliability of user-produced content. Which has become a notable subject of Internet controversy, regardless of what happens to Larry's site. Casey Abell 17:10, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but shouldn't its fading into obscurity be noted in the article? Elijahmeeks 02:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The decline in hits after the Beta launch needn't be construed as "fading into obscurity" -- this happens with many new site launches of this sort (e.g. Conservapedia). Alexa tracks the top 100,000 sites, but with the WWW at its current size, the tracked sites are only a small minority of existing sites, any one of which could suddenly boom into prominence (as an example, check their tracking of catstevens.com, which shows an enormous spike when he was detained in Maine). Clevelander96 16:22, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind a note on the project's fall in the Alexa ratings in the article, but others might see it as Wikipedia's captious and biased criticism of a competitor. Maybe we should just leave the discussion of the Alexa ratings here on the talk page. Casey Abell 16:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

It is not notable to include this trivia. No thanks. :) - Mr.Gurü (^talk/_contribs) 16:50, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Alexa ratings are considered non-trivial enough to be mentioned and footnoted in the Wikipedia article. The ratings are relevant, but mentioning them in the Citizendium article would look biased and unfair. Similarly, Conservapedia's declining Alexa ratings aren't mentioned in its article. Casey Abell 16:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you, Casey (As noted by my acknowledgment that this is a tender subject), that's why I phrased it as a question of "when". Perhaps we could set a benchmark now and if it falls below that benchmark we can make note of it. I think the same info would be useful for the Conservapedia article. After all, these websites are referenced in news and blog posts and I, for one, would think that a lay observer would be better informed by such information. I also realize that the Alexa rankings are popularity and not significance, however, as per my earlier note regarding projects on Sourceforge, Wikipedia does not have articles about every project on the Internet, regardless of participation or heft, and Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not simply a collection of various wiki-powered projects, so we should not censor or preference a project simply because it is Wikipedia-like. Elijahmeeks 22:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Please see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Statistics for a full array of Citizendium statistics. Stephen Ewen 06:39, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Please help improve a 'critiques of Citizendium' section

I haven't been following citizendium and don't know much about it, I came to the wikipedia article to learn more. I was disappointed by the lack of a section on critiques so I created one. It would be great if others who are more knowledgeable on published critiques could rewrite this section, what I put there is more of a placeholder. However, please don't delete it entirely if you're not going to rewrite it, I think it's important that there be a short, careful, concise summary of the major criticisms that have come up. Thanks.S.chock 09:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Citizendium is not big enough yet for there to be any "major criticisms." Bramlet Abercrombie 09:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Didn't know there was a size requirement for criticism. Of course, no project is above criticism regardless of size. I've reformatted the critique section as a subsection with correct footnotes. The criticism is hardly given undue weight, and the article doesn't endorse the criticisms, just notes their existence. Casey Abell 12:21, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not a requirement, it's just a fact. Notable sources haven't bothered yet to do any substantial criticism of Citizendium, since it's too early to make judgments while it only has 2,300 articles. The section cited Kali Tal, who seems to be entirely non-notable, and Clay Shirky, a borderline-notable person associated with Wikimedia. That's not useful. If you can find criticism published in major media rather than random blogs, you can cite it. Bramlet Abercrombie 12:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The existence of criticism isn't dependent on your personal opinion of notability. There's absolutely no reason to coddle CZ from a reasonable criticism section that's not given undue weight. Casey Abell 12:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

No one wants to "coddle CZ". There just is no notable criticism out there at this point. We don't include random people's opinions just to have a criticism section. Otherwise anyone could put his opinion on a webpage and then cite it in Wikipedia. Bramlet Abercrombie 12:54, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

In fact, it's not "just anybody." Clay Shirky is notable enough to have his own Wikipedia article, and Kali Tal was offered a position on the CZ board by Larry Sanger. At any rate, the small, neutrally phrased and well-sourced criticism section is hardly objectionable. Casey Abell 12:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Being offered a position on the CZ board at this point doesn't make you notable, since CZ itself is only moderately notable. Shirky is associated with Wikimedia and thus inherently biased. We wouldn't mention criticism of a product coming from a direct competitor either. Bramlet Abercrombie 13:05, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course, we would mention criticism from a competitor if it was properly sourced and discussed in a neutral manner. The Criticism of Wikipedia article contains criticism from Larry Sanger, who's a competitor of WP. At any rate, I've rewritten the criticism section with quotes from sources anybody would consider reliable – sources that are, if anything, quite sympathetic to CZ. Casey Abell 13:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Sanger's criticism of Wikipedia is notable since he was a co-founder of Wikipedia. Your new sources are OK, but of course the criticism is still just speculation that the concept might not work. There's no substantial product to evaluate yet. It remains to be seen if Citizendium really "takes off" and achieves the exponential growth necessary to get to a serious size in a reasonable time. Then the next question would be if its content is substantially more accurate than Wikipedia's. Time will tell. Bramlet Abercrombie 13:51, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The inclusion of criticism doesn't depend on a disputed "co-founder" status. We can and should include criticism from competitors of a project if it is well-sourced and discussed in a neutral manner, which is the case with Sanger's comments in Criticism of Wikipedia. In fact, the criticism of CZ from IWR and Ars Technica strikes me as dead-on. Is there a compelling incentive for experts to contribute to CZ? And will would-be contributors who are not deemed "experts" willingly submit to "gentle expert guidance"? As you say, time will tell if the criticisms were prophetic. Casey Abell 14:02, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The only one disputing his co-founder status is Wales, and of course it is notable if someone criticizes the development of the thing he himself co-founded and becomes a competitor. As to your question, well, there's at least as much of an incentive for experts to contribute to CZ as there is for non-experts to contribute to WP. Wikipedians aren't paid either, and they also could use the time they spend editing for money-making pursuits instead. But obviously there are still many (after discounting the trolls, self-promoters, POV pushers, etc.) who contribute to WP just to do something useful for mankind. Experts are only more likely to do so, since they know they have so much more to contribute than the dilettantes, and they are inclined to go to a place where their expertise is recognized. The second question is more interesting - how many non-experts will accept expert guidance? The more sensible of them probably will - if it's done right. I think Sanger tends to give too much to formal credentials. There are many non-credentialed experts, and many fools with academic titles. There should be a process to identify the real experts based on their edits. Any reasonable user will gladly accept the guidance of someone who knows things better. It's a different matter when, for example, you're a self-taught expert and have to submit to someone of lesser competence who has been given special authority just because he has a PhD and you don't. Bramlet Abercrombie 16:19, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there a "wikipedia is not a crystal ball" phrase thrown around a lot here? I think that is the point Bramlet is making above. David D. (Talk) 14:57, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the entire section is way, way too premature, and every "criticism" I have seen is based upon either pure conjecture (crystal ballism) or blatant misunderstandings (criticisms of a straw man Citizendium and not the actual thing). C.m.jones 16:44, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

This whole article is way too premature. Elijahmeeks 17:26, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a place for speculation. We are not a magical crystal ball. We can not predict the future. There is also clearly no consensus. Understand?  QuackGuru  talk 20:41, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not speculating. I'm not predicting anything. I just think the size of this article as well as its content greatly exaggerates the current scope of this project. That's supported by easily acquired information, such as Alexa or even the Citizendium stats that were just posted (Showing that Citizendium is, at best, currently a minor Wiki project). This whole article is 99% emotional involvement of pro and anti-Wikipedia folks and, maybe 1% by actual noteworthiness. Of course there won't be any consensus when there's a room full of opposing zealots. Elijahmeeks 00:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Elijahmeeks said in part: Of course there won't be any consensus... I agree. And thats the end of this discussion.  QuackGuru  talk 02:18, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

And you're kinda creepy. I mean, what's up with the talk-page wiping? And the "thats the end of this discussion" claptrap? You're not exactly presenting a well-reasoned and stable position, you know? Elijahmeeks 03:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Feel free to report my talk-page blanking. So what! You said, basically no consensus. Anyhow, I support your position of no consensus. Agreed?  QuackGuru  talk 05:44, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Why would I report it, I just think it's creepy. Speaking of which, did you just purposefully follow your real edit with a fake minor edit to make it look like you didn't change anything? My complaint was not that there was no consensus, but that there were too many zealots.Elijahmeeks 01:16, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Creepy? Fake edits? Zealots? Lets stick to the point. There is no consensus which is to be respected.  QuackGuru  talk 02:18, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The very reasonable criticisms of CZ from IWR and Ars Technica are hardly crystal-ball predictions. They are simply observations about two key features of the project: the incentive (or lack thereof) for experts to participate, and the difference between the two classes of CZ contributors – those deemed "experts" and those deemed "non-experts." It's obvious that any criticism of CZ in this article will set off dispute, and I'm not inclined to edit war on the issue, or any other issue. I'm no "zealot" on Citizendium, but it's amusing that even the briefest and most reasonable criticism section meets with such, well, zealous opposition. At any rate, the criticism is now in the article's history for the interested reader.

As for the general question of CZ's notability, it's true that the project has sunk steadily in the Alexa rankings, and the rate of approved article production is not awe-inspiring. However, the project has received a great deal of media attention and continues to function as a competitor to Wikipedia. Sanger's status as WP "co-founder" – which of course is disputed, even if some apparently think Jimbo's view doesn't count – also adds to the project's visibility and notability. Casey Abell 18:37, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

You've been admirably dispassionate with this article the entire time, Casey. I wonder, though, (and I've stated this since the article and the project's inception) how much we're conflating visibility with notability. It's a concern, but there's more than enough hard drive space on Wikipedia and there's obvious interest among the contributors, and so I'm just voicing this concern to keep it in everybody's mind. Not so much for Citizendium, but for articles like it, that are extremely interesting to Wikipedia contributors but have little or no impact on the world at large. Elijahmeeks 19:30, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment. I agree that CZ is much more interesting to Wikipedia editors than to the world at large. However, the project has received a lot of publicity in the outside media, even if we're not allowed to put some of that commentary in the article (rueful smile). So I think CZ meets reasonable notability guidelines. Casey Abell 20:05, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice crystal ball

Or did that read of the future come from some channeled other worldly entity? "It will be carried out under the auspices of the Citizendium Foundation."

Now somebody salve the bruise by insulting me for seeing the problem but not fixing it. Clue: I wouldn't apply pressure if Wikipedia were bleeding to death, but I probably would step over the body and take a picture with my cell phone to post on the Web site of my choice. Bubblegum wrap 22:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Current Event Template

I propose putting something like: {{Future Product}} up to show that this isn't a done deal. Because it's not. Hires an editor 11:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that already obvious from the article? David D. (Talk) 17:47, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Interwiki

I've put a request at m:Talk:Interwiki map for an interwiki to Citizendium; if you've any thoughts or comments on the advisability or practicality of this - and especially if you know what they're going to be doing with language subdomains - please leave a comment there. Shimgray | talk | 01:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

"citizendium:" now works as an interwiki prefix; citizendium:Netherlands. Shimgray | talk | 12:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Messing around with irrelevant Wikipedia material in article

I don't want to get into an edit war over this, but the fiddling with the (already irrelevant) material on Wikipedia's faults should stop now. QuackGuru added a phrase to the material [8], then fact-tagged his own addition. [9] He had previously fact-tagged an item already covered in a footnote cited in the following sentence [10]. When I pointed this out, he added a footnote to the same article, so there were two separate footnotes to the same article in successive sentences. [11]

I have no idea what all this is supposed to prove, if anything. The material on Wikipedia's faults doesn't even belong in this article, so maybe an effort is being made to attract attention to this stuff. But let's stop playing these kinds of useless games, please. Casey Abell 17:06, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

This may be an attempt to draw me into a 3RR violation, but I'll assume good faith. I will note that previously QuackGuru had twice deleted brief, reasonable, well-sourced and relevant criticism of Citizendium from this article [12] [13] on what I regard as spurious WP:CRYSTAL grounds. Now he seems intent on drawing as much attention as possible to the (in my opinion, completely irrelevant) criticism of Wikipedia in the article. These actions are unfortunately consistent with the ideological tendencies and editing patterns noted in QuackGuru's Request for Comment.

It's obvious that such actions only create wikidrama and contribute nothing to the writing of better encyclopedia articles. A number of other editors have commented on similar problems at QuackGuru's talk page, though he has systematically removed their comments. Quack, if you're reading this, I only ask that you cease such counter-productive behavior and contribute to the writing of an encyclopedia. That's what we're here for. Thank you. Casey Abell 18:19, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Really?--Tom 23:13, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I would not assume good faith based on a cursory examination of all the comments and warnings he's removed from his own talk page. I don't know what the procedure is, but I'd recommend having someone review all of this. Elijahmeeks 01:30, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that Citizendium will find it tough to meet up with Wikipedia's comprehensiveness and breadth of knowledge. Experts with cirriculum vitae and professors are fewer in number than the general population, and they often have work to do themselves. Moreover, Wikipedia already has two million articles, in spite of the rampant deletionism that goes on all the time. Since many more people are invited to edit Wikipedia, many more people are involved with Wikipedia than with Citizendium, and thus Citizendium might wind up a flop. Besides, the Encyclopaedia Britannica is already expert written and it's out there. — Rickyrab | Talk 04:36, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

for example of a Wikipedia alternative that seems to be flopping, try Wikinfo. — Rickyrab | Talk 04:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Intro

Intros should stand alone and sum up the whole article. I made it so. 74.233.157.219 08:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it does now (Sep 30, 07). We don't need minor details, for example, on who Larry Sanger is. -- Taku 00:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Joining Citizendiun

To join Citizendium you have to submit information of at least 50 words, and up to 500, about yourself. I imagine that this is to deter the ill-educated and/or semi-literate people who have indeed made Wikipedia "an arguably dysfunctional community....committed to amateurism". In addition they insist on real names only.

In the case of Wikipedia, it is simply not scholarly to come forward with phrases such as "fucking list" (IamLondon on Irish American Presidents) "anglo-saxton heretics" (see Bobby Sands discussion), or, in the context of St Patrick's Day, "the British invaded Wales". Yes, it could well be that Citizendium will find it tough to meet up with Wikpedia's comprehensiveness and breath of knowledge, but since these are flawed, an attempt needs to be made. Millbanks 22:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Some people will frown upon you using this talk page to discuss the merits of the website. The talk page is primarily meant to be a place to discuss improvements to the article, but I personally don't think some chatting on talk pages every now and then harms anyone. A.Z. 04:22, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Pilot project date

We started inviting people generally to the pilot project on Oct. 28, but because of immediate server problems, it really didn't get started rolling until Oct. 31 or Nov. 1--which, as far as I'm concerned, is the real pilot project launch date, because that's when things finally settled down so that people could get to work. See http://blog.citizendium.org/category/project-growth/page/6/ Oct. 23 wasn't the start of much of anything important. --Larry Sanger 00:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review

The article has been placed On hold. When the point explained below is corrected, the article will be passed.

Prose

There was only one point I could come up with from the prose

• "On January 19, Sanger announced the formal organization of Citizendium as a legal non-profit."" A legal non profit what?

Verifiability

The article is well referenced and uses reliable sources.

Coverage

The article covers most of the aspects of the topic.

Neutrality

The article is neutral.

Stability

I noticed a small edit war, but it appeared to be an editor who wanted to remove the images in the infobox.

Images

It is relatively hard to come up with good pictures for an article like this, but all the images are licensed correctly. An extra picture would improve the article, but it would not be essential.

Please leave a note on my talk page when this point is corrected, and I will change the status to pass.

Thanks, themcman1 _talk 14:27, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Related to this, it would be nice if the following points are clarified (they are not most essential but still of minor importance):

• When was the pilot project launched exactly? What the article says and the comment (very gracefully) given by Larry Sanger himself are (a bit) inconsistent.
• What's the difference between live and non-live articles? (The article gives the definition, but I'm not so sure about, for example, if there is still any non-live article today.)

-- Taku 15:09, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

I've clarified that "non-profit" refers to a non-profit organization and linked the term to the WP article for readers who want more information. I've left a note on themcman1's talk page about the change. As for the launch of the pilot project, it appears that work on the pilot became possible on October 23, 2006, but the exact date is a little hazy. All we can do is give sources on the issue from CZ people, even if the sources don't always agree exactly. Finally, the article says that CZ has encouraged the deletion of articles which aren't "live" in the sense of receiving significant work. Again, this seems to be the best we can say from the CZ sources themselves. The limited number of articles currently on the site suggests that "non-live" articles have been substantially eliminated. Casey Abell 16:04, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I also added a picture of Larry Sanger. Should have added it months ago, but I forgot! Casey Abell 16:10, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Congratulations, Citizendium is now a good article! themcman1 _talk 19:01, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the GA recognition. Casey Abell 21:05, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

It is so cool! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.183.7.10 (talk) 00:19, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

--- It's actually pretty bad. The article simply screams that it was written from the POV of Wikipedians, and first for Wikipedians, both within their stance. 74.233.86.110 (talk) 09:33, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Would you be more specific? What kind of problems in the article do you have in mind? I and the others will be happy to address the concerns. (By the way, to me, the tone of the article looks quite neutral.) -- Taku (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Comment: I am not sure whether it is good idea to nominate Citizendium - a quickly changing website - as a Good Article. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 03:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Non-profit status, and updating graphs

In response to a question about Citizendium's status as a legal non-profit, we currently hold non-profit status via association with the Tides Foundation, which is sort of a non-profit incubator. (As is, I believe, briefly noted in the article.) Once we have project governance firmed up (we're planning out the assembly of a board of directors, a prerequisite for 501c(3) status) we'll most likely form a Foundation of our own.

This is my understanding of the situation, and it may not be set in stone.

I was going to update some of the activity graphs and throw in a few more graphs from our statistics page (http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Statistics), but doing so may skirt rather close to the conflict of interest line.

--Johnsonmx (talk) 19:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Lead

Bramlet, why isn't this a more neutral description? I'm not trying to take a stance on it here (I have no stance), but it's a disputed issue so it shouldn't really be stated as a matter of fact in the lead. My wording avoids the need to strike up a position. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 00:22, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It is a matter of fact, not disputed by anyone except Jimbo. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 00:51, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

That means it's disputed, and we have an obligation to be neutral. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 12:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Nope, that doesn't mean it. Who gave Jimbo a magical power to make things "disputed"? There is objective evidence, there's no need to rely on anything either Jimbo or Larry says. If Jimbo says 2+2=5 we don't have to change our mathematical articles either in order to be "neutral". Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 12:48, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I see you've been focusing on this issue for some time, making the same arguments, reverting anyone who disagrees with you.

The fact is that none of us knows "the truth," and there probably is no "truth," just a series of perceptions, with one person feeling the idea was his and he was in control of it (paying for it), and the other feeling he was doing all the work because he'd been given so little guidance. It certainly seems that Sanger acknowledged Jimbo as founder when he wrote:

To be clear, the idea of an open source, collaborative encyclopedia, open to contribution by ordinary people, was entirely Jimmy's, not mine, and the funding was entirely by Bomis. I was merely a grateful employee; I thought I was very lucky to have a job like that land in my lap. Of course, other people had had the idea; but it was Jimmy's fantastic foresight actually to invest in it. For this the world owes him a considerable debt. The actual development of this encyclopedia was the task he gave me to work on. [14]

Still, it depends what's meant by "founder." I can see that the person who does most of the development work would end up seeing himself as a co-founder. What we do in a situation like this is simply note the dispute, according to reliable sources. We don't use words that imply one or the other side is correct. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 13:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I see when you're out of arguments you try to make it personal. If I make the same arguments, it is because they have not been contradicted, while your side keeps repeating long-refuted arguments. Your suggestion that Sanger "acknowledged Jimbo as founder" in the very memoir in which he counters Jimbo's revisionist history is the height of absurdity. From the same text: "I have also been quoted, as co-founder of Wikipedia, in many recent news articles about the project, ..." and "I guided the project through force of personality and what 'moral authority' I had as co-founder of the project." As evidenced from the words "to be clear," in the paragraph you quote he describes the entirety of Jimbo's role precisely to indicate that it was not more than that. Jimbo invested in it, while Larry actually developed it. Paying for the creation of something isn't equal to creating it yourself. If it were a business, you might call Jimbo the founder. For a cultural entity, that attitude makes no sense. But such abstract discussion isn't even necessary - who were the founders of Wikipedia can be easily looked up in documents from the time, first in all of Wikipedia's and Wikimedia's own press releases up to 2004 (you aren't going to suggest Jimbo might not have read any of those?) and secondly in various press reports such as the New York Times story of September 2001 (which was based on interviews with Jimbo and Larry and which Jimbo most certainly read, making it perfectly clear he supported the co-founder view at the time). Thus it is not a matter of "Jimbo says this, Larry says that, so it's disputed". There's objective evidence dating from 2001 up to today of Larry being called co-founder. The view Jimbo adopted in 2004 (of being "sole founder"), on the other hand, is not backed by any evidence or supported by any notable authority whatsoever. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 14:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

My point is that there's no sense in arguing the issue out on talk, because neither of us was there, and we don't know the truth. And I suspect even if we had been there, with cameras trained 24 hours a day on all the players, we still wouldn't know the truth, because there is no "truth." There are simply different perspectives, different uses of the word "founder," different emphases on various aspects of who did what.

What we do here is try to find neutral wording wherever possible, and describe the dispute where appropriate. We don't take sides, or take part in it. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 15:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

You apparently haven't read what I just said. The truth was determined at the time, between Jimbo and Larry and the community - all were in consensus that Jimbo and Larry were co-founders. Then in 2004, Jimbo tried to unilaterally change history. This patently self-serving manoeuvre does not make the matter suddenly "disputed". We don't take sides in a dispute, we do take side with the objective evidence. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 16:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

What sides are there to take? Sanger has been refered to as the co-founder of Wikipedia by numerous reliable sources in the past. Wales started to dispute this a while back. Wales disputing this fact means what? Anyways, --Tom 16:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter when a dispute began. It now exists. I'm not suggesting that we write Sanger wasn't the co-founder. I'm suggesting we choose wording that avoids the issue entirely, as with Jimmy Wales. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:40, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It certainly does. If Wales didn't object before 2004, and then suddenly did, it means his objection has nothing to do with reality. And his say-so by itself is as irrelevant as anyone else's. It is not up to him to define who founded Wikipedia. The original official press releases and independent press reports closest to the actual founding define it. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

You're being a little inconsistent, Bramlet. On Talk:Jimbo Wales, you argued for neutral wording. You wrote: "Actually the consensus was precisely the version I reverted to, namely to mention his "role in founding" or that he was "involved in founding" rather than either calling him founder or co-founder." Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Why argue one thing there, and the opposite here? SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Because that's the best consensus achievable there with all the Wales groupies watching that page. I think "co-founder" should be used there too, but people like SqueakBox keep on pushing "founder", so avoiding either term seemed the best possible settlement. But that has no bearing on other pages. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 21:06, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not interested in involving in the debate. But I want to point out that this talk page is not a place for this kind of debate. Wikipedia or History of Wikipedia should settle the matter, and this article should follow the two when defining Larry Sanger. -- Taku (talk) 22:23, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Credit for the success of Wikipedia is being used by both Wales and Sanger to provide credibility for their current projects, one of which is the subject of this article. It is relevant to this article. Claiming to be sole founder of Wikipedia, rather than sole founder of the Wikimedia Foundation was a mistake on Jimmy's part. He makes lots of mistakes, as do we all. WAS 4.250 (talk) 18:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's irrelevant. What I was saying is that it doesn't make sense to have this kind of editorial dispute in this particular article. I quote this from the history section of Wikipedia:

"Larry Sanger and Jimmy Wales are the founders of Wikipedia."

If anyone has a problem with Sanger being the co-founder, he or she needs to challenge this language before editing this article. What is irrelevant here is what Jimmy is claiming. It doesn't concern this article. -- Taku (talk) 23:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I reverted to co-founder but left the other changes. Can this be looked at and corrected in regards to the references. I sort of agree with Slim that "sides" should not be taken as far as how the sources are given/read, but I disagree that we should not refer to Sanger as co-founder since that is clearly sourceable and relevant. Anyways, --Tom 18:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Tom, what is sourceable is that there is a dispute, and we can't take sides in it. Here is the Bergstein (Associated Press) quote, which I used as a source: "The nascent Web encyclopedia Citizendium springs from Larry Sanger, a philosophy Ph.D. who counts himself as a co-founder of Wikipedia, the site he now hopes to usurp. The claim doesn't seem particularly controversial — Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder. Yet the other founder, Jimmy Wales, isn't happy about it ... Wales insists that Sanger was a subordinate employee of his, and by that measure, 20 other people would deserve co-founder status. Wales claims Sanger wrote those early news releases to inflate his role; Sanger responds that Wales approved the releases."

So -- there you have it -- the issue is disputed, according to a reliable source, which was reproduced by many different media outlets, including ABC News. SlimVirgin ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:12, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Um, no. What you have is that WALES disputes this. This does not mean "the issue is disputed". Any established fact can of course be "disputed" by any crackpot, but that doesn't make such a fact disputed per se. You can only say it is "disputed by crackpot X". An issue being in dispute means there are two sides with multiple notable proponents on each side. Here there is only Wales. In fact your reliable source explicitly says that the claim "doesn't seem particularly controversial" - it says the very opposite of what you read into it! Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 20:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Bramlet, please don't let facts get in the way of a good story ;). Slim, I have to agree with Bramlet here that the passage you cited shows that they are both co-founders and that it is Wales who disputes that and that the claim really is NOT controversial(expect for Wales of course). Anyways, --Tom 20:52, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone other than me notice that stating Larray Sanger anyone but the co-founder of Wikipedia would not be consistent with the rest of Wikipedia, such as the article Wikipedia? I'm not against the having the debate at all, but this talkpage is not clearly for the place because the issue isn't specific to Citizendium. Can we move the discussion to the places like Village Pumps, where we can get more feedbacks. -- Taku (talk) 21:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC) For the reference, here are some quotes from reliable sources.

"Wikipedia". New York Times. Founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, Wikipedia has grown rapidly.

"Open, but not as usual". Economist. After Mr Wales and the project's co-ordinator, Larry Sanger, heard about so-called "wiki" software—which makes it easy for people jointly to compose and edit web pages—they changed course.

"White bread for young minds, says university professor". Times. Even one of its own founders, Larry Sanger, described it as "broken beyond repair" before leaving the site last year.

"Wikipedia a force for good? Nonsense, says a co-founder". Times. But Larry Sanger, who helped to found Wikipedia in 2001, said

"Why does Google want to compete with Wikipedia?". Guardian. or else follow the footsteps of Citizendium (the brainchild of Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger), which "forks" the Wikipedia content towards confirmed expert-written articles.

"It's a Wiki, Wiki World". Times magazine. Therein lies the rub. Larry Sanger, Wikipedia's former editor in chief (and now a lecturer at Ohio State) still loves the site but thinks his fellow professionals have a point.

"Google aims at Wikipedia with Knol service". Financial Times. said Larry Sanger, a founder of the online encyclopedia who split with that project over its failure to apply stricter editing policies.

-- Taku (talk) 23:14, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Citizendium community

[15][16] Here are two articles that can be used to improve this article. A section or text about the community may be a good idea to improve this article. Thoughts. Quack Guru 02:47, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Criticism

69.120.118.244 (talk · contribs) keeps adding the following paragraph:

One of the major shortcomings of Citizendium is its failure to maintain its initial policy of "expert" oversight. Although contributors are required to use their real names, those "real" folks are often college students or people contributing to topics outside of their area of professional expertise, and moreso within their areas of "interest". This seriously compromises the integrity of the project, as it is contrary to its stated policy.

Not only does this read like an op ed and fail the original research bar, I'm not sure it is even true. As far as I'm aware, (my own original research) the CZ web site claims to be "gentley guided by experts". This is not the same as having experts only. If it was college students approving the articles then that would be different, but isn't it only the experts that approve the articles? David D. (Talk) 17:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

This has OR problems. QuackGuru (talk) 17:28, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Clearly, and not very good OR at that. David D. (Talk) 17:49, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

The Citizendium project has a limited future IMO, and will go the same way as the now defunct Nupedia. Only people with university degrees who are "published" can become editors. This is no incentive for people who work tirelessly contributing articles and doing good work within the encyclopedia, who wish to be recognised as an editor on merit achieved. They can never be anything more than an author. It reeks of an unworkable elitism, which is misleading from what the website name "citizen" implies. HelenWatt (talk) 02:59, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. It seems then that they've been trying to fight the "anti-elitism" perceived in Wikipedia ("contempt" for expertise) with elitism, which is also ungood. This extreme or that extreme, black or white, yin or yang, plus or minus, scorching hot or freezing cold, elitism or anti-elitism... it sucks... 70.101.144.162 (talk) 08:14, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Screenshot

You guys should update the screenshot. We no longer use the default (monobook) css-skin. Also I write the monthly newsletter, The Citizen @ http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:CZ if it's worth noting. --RWilliamKing (talk) 15:33, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Assuming from your diction you are a member of Citizendium, why not add a current screenshot of your own? That would be helpful to the article. VolushGod (talk) 10:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

unreliable references have no place in this article

Adding unreliable refs anywhere to this article is a joke. QuackGuru (talk) 21:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, "did you read my comment at all"? So, I'm going to repeat myself here. (a) The site is not reliable. (b) Further reading section "may" contain links to unreliable web sites (c) Therefore, the issue of reliability is moot. If it's a joke, you need first prove why it's a joke. -- Taku (talk) 21:18, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no Wikipedia policy stating we can add unreliable refs. The reference is an attack piece. QuackGuru (talk) 21:21, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

No, you are misunderstanding the policy (or whatever guideline pertinent to this matter). We are not using this source to back up any claims that are made in the article. It's a link for the convenience of the readers. We link blogs or personal pages for all the time, if they are relevant, regardless of their reliability. I agree it's an attack piece; if you read it carefully, you find it's biased and not even accurate on some mechanics of cz. On the other hand, as far as I know, that post is one of widely read opinion pieces on cz. In short, the question is of "relevancy" not "reliability". -- Taku (talk) 21:33, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

What policy am I misunderstanding? That blog is trash. According to what policy we can add trashy unreliable nonsense to mainspace? QuackGuru (talk) 00:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you are responding to my post. If you read it, you would know that I'm not referring to any specific policy. Besides, policies or guidelines don't say what you can do; they talk about what is not acceptable. No policy says the links to blog or personal pages are off-limit. Wikipedia:Reliable sources, for example, summarizes "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." That's exactly what we are doing here. We are not writing this article, "based on materials that can be found on Clay Shirky's piece". "Further reading" is not equal to "sources". Why is this distinction so hard to grasp? -- Taku (talk) 07:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

How about you go to the RS noticeboard and tell them what you want to do or another place to get a third opinion. WP:RS/N QuackGuru (talk) 08:24, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I can certainly do that. But what do you think? This isn't a terribly important matter. We are just talking about whether or not to link a blog. What bothers me is that I'm not hearing your argument. -- Taku (talk) 09:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Taku that RS does not apply to the "Further reading" section. However, that doesn't mean that we should link to it (I don't know, and frankly, I don't really care). I think that Wikipedia:External links may be used as guidance on whether to include a link. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 09:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:EL#AVOID Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority. Further reading is like an external link. We have policy on this. QuackGuru (talk) 19:36, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Again, I don't think you are listening to what I said. I'm interested in "what you think". As Jitse Niesen pointed out, the issue is "if we think linking to this blog post enhances this article or not". You haven't made any argument on this. By the way, since Clay Shirky is a recognized author. Additionally, if you like doing wikilawying (right word?), I would point out to you that since Wikipedia:External links is just a "style guideline", we editors may choose to ignore it. Like said above, no policy or guideline is applicable to this issue. All maters is what we think. -- Taku (talk) 20:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Clay Shirky is NOT a recognized authority on Citizendium. QuackGuru (talk) 21:46, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Even if he is not that's not an issue here. -- Taku (talk) 22:10, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

This issue issue here. Per WP:EL#AVOID, the blog is not a recognized authority. QuackGuru (talk) 23:38, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, WP:EL#AVOID is merely a guideline. -- Taku (talk) 05:47, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:EL#AVOID is a guideline we should comply with. QuackGuru (talk) 06:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

And I have already responded to this. Please, I'm getting tired of repeating myself. -- Taku (talk) 06:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Policy or the guideline is applicable to this case. We should comply with Wikipedia policy and not ignore it. QuackGuru (talk) 09:28, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Which policy? -- Taku (talk) 21:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:EL#AVOID QuackGuru (talk) 22:03, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

But it's not a policy :) -- Taku (talk) 22:10, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

We should comply with this guideline. QuackGuru (talk) 22:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we should, because we are required to do. Maybe you want to make it a policy so that you can enforce everyone else to follow it. But that's not an issue here. What it is is for us to determine whether linking to this blog post enhances the article or is detrimental to it. I think I have made my case. You haven't. Until you have, we can't go anywhere. -- Taku (talk) 22:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Linking to a gossip blog website does not benefit this article in any way. No argument has been made why we should ignore this guideline in this specific case. QuackGuru (talk) 01:42, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

For the first, I said it is a widely read piece, and it is possible that readers may find it interesting to read. Why do you think it does not benefit the article? Because it's not relevant? Also, I disagree that it's a gossip blog. Many-to-many is more legitimate than that. Clay Shirky is a well-known critic on web 2.0 stuff and in the piece he is trying to make a point. (Like I said above, in my opinion, he doesn't seem to quite understand how cz works or is supposed to work.)

For the second, no argument has been made why we should follow the guideline. As I'm saying repeatedly, guidelines are not laws. They don't have to be enforced stringently. I believe having the link to the post benefits the article, and that's a good enough reason to opt to not follow the guideline in this particular case. (Policies are more like laws, though.) Reading from your comments, I suppose you might want to advocate the change in guidelines or policies so that no article is allowed to have links to blogs because such and such reasons. That's a perfectly valid argument. But that's, like I said, another issue. -- Taku (talk) 06:53, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Linking to a blog is okay in some circumstances such as when a notable expert is an authority on the subject. This blog is an attack piece and not written by a notable expert on Citizendium. No valid argument has been made yet. I think it is inappropriate to link to the gossipy blog. QuackGuru (talk) 07:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Clay Shirky is a member of the Advisory Board of the Wikimedia Foundation, so his opinion on Citizendium is predictable and not particularly interesting. Bramlet Abercrombie (talk) 10:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't know about Shirky's connection with wikipedia. In light of that, I agree that it is probably appropriate to link the piece. (I don't think this make his opinion uninteresting, though. His focus is on cz.) -- Taku (talk) 11:33, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

The bog is a boring attack piece. In light of his connection to Wikipedia, it is even more inappropriate to link to the blog. QuackGuru (talk) 17:28, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that even Larry Sanger, in his response to the blog piece, identifies Shirky as a "respected expert about online communities"[17]. Shirky may be wrong (personally, I think he's right, but for the wrong reasons), but that's different from being "unreliable". BTW, Sanger makes some good points in his response, too, and this is all relevant to the Citizendium article. GregorB (talk) 10:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure about what to discuss. But I don't think the piece is boring at all. Shirky tries to attack the very heart of the premise behind the cz; that is, giving experts more controls can solve the perceived problem of the reliability of wikipedia. Shirky's thesis is, basically, that the notion of expertise is hard to define and the cost for incorporating expertise into an encyclopedia outweights . From this follows this the strongest charge again the cz; that is, theoretically speaking, the cz would not work. This is different from other arguments against the cz, and I found it to be quite interesting.

Now, I don't agree with his argument at all. I said he doesn't quite understand how the cz works because as far as I know the cz operates more like wikipedia than he or others think. Non-experts can still contribute to the project, and the editorial process there is more or less like one here. Sanger wants to create a mechanism to ensure the quality of the content; in particular, reliability. Shirky's argument is based on the premise that the cz is "expert-driven wikipedia" but that's simply untrue, and his argument is thus severely flawed. Please excuse me for ranting. -- Taku (talk) 23:46, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

You are spot-on in most of that, Taku. One thing I beg to differ on, is that CZ is still Sanger-driven. Although he retains a key role, increasingly our formal institutions are independent of the Editor-in-Chief and behave accordingly. This means that expert oversight, and formal "policing" of the wiki, are now more accountable to authors than before. The result is that while in certain respects CZ looks more like WP than it did before, in terms of quality control and standards of wiki behaviour it is miles apart. Check out the emerging institutions: these will play the key role for the future. 85.75.253.203 (talk) 20:01, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Owner

I am not "owner" of Citizendium. --Larry Sanger (talk) 19:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Who is the head honcho? Someone over there must be in charge...for that matter, who is the top brass of Wikipedia? The Congress of Malastare (talk) 13:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

List of approved articles

This list was trivia, and I have removed it. Citizendium maintains its own list, and this is referenced in the article.-gadfium 08:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Citizendum quality assessment?

Given articles such as the one found here: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Dinosaurs I'm surprised there isn't more discussion/criticism about the success or quality of the project... (The full text reads "Dinosaurs were a widely distributed and diverse group of large reptiles that were once quite dominant on Earth. Many believe that they were wiped out by a meteor's collision with the planet around 65 million years ago, while others believe they are simply the name given by modern science to dragons, whose co-existence with human beings is attested to by the Bible[1].") highlunder (talk) 12:25, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

This was a piece of mischief designed to 'test' CZ's neutrality rules: the last clauses have since been removed. Rothorpe (talk) 15:34, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

NPOV at Citizendium

I don't know much about Citizendium, what criticisms have been leveled against it in the past, or how exactly things are done there. In fact, I first learned of its existence today, through the discussion here. This discussion, regarding the objectivity of articles about Japanese activist Debito Arudou on both Wikipedia and Citizendium, includes allegations that Citizendium, by allowing Mr Arudou pre-approval or approval or "gentle expert oversight" of the article about him, allows a distinctly pro-Arudou (i.e. non-critical, not reflective of criticisms which have been leveled against him, and thus non-objective) POV to dominate.

I realize this is an obscure topic, and only one single example, but I am nevertheless surprised to see no Criticism section on this here Wikipedia article about Citizendium. Has this sort of thing been a problem in the past? Have reliable sources ever discussed this criticism? If so, I think some Criticism section needs to be added to this article. Thank you. LordAmeth (talk) 11:06, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I came here to ask exactly the same question. Where is the criticism section? It's not without it's failings that's for sure. Something needs to be dug about it in order to balance the article out. Utan Vax (talk) 13:21, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Nowadays we integrate criticism into the article rather than rely on a big criticism section. Obama doesn't have a criticism section, but he does have criticism. WhisperToMe (talk) 14:19, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia vs Citizendium

I wish to pose a question to everyone here. Who here is loyal to Wikipedia? Who would leave this for Citizendium. Despite their public words, it's obvious Mr. Sanger wants Citizendium to destroy Wikipedia. So I ask all who read this to tell me, who here is loyal to this project? I know I am. AdirondackMan (talk) 18:13, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

This is the most important question to improving this article. Editors can be very loyal to Wikipedia. This can lead to editors making their own perception about what is good article content and what should or should not be a title of a section. The section is not specifically about criticism. We should change the section to be more neutral. I made this change to tag the disputed part of the title. QuackGuru (talk) 20:08, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

"Flaws" doesn't really work either. "Contrast to Wikipedia", or something along those lines, would work - it describes the topic without making the (POVish) assumption that Citizendium as a project is inherently opposed to WP. Shimgray | talk | 20:15, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes it is difficult coming up with a better word but it was clear "Criticism of Wikipedia" was not neutral. "Contrast to Wikipedia" is more neutral than the preview versions of "Flaws of Wikipedia" or "Criticism of Wikipedia". Another idea could be "Image of Wikipedia". QuackGuru (talk) 20:21, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Wikipedia vs Citizendium is an appropriate topic for Wikipedia. Chillum 23:03, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the compromise works for me. QuackGuru (talk) 23:16, 15 March 2009 (UTC)