Citizendium injects professionalism to Wikipedia’s flaws
By Triston McIntyre
After the recent rush of debacles that have arisen around the popular Wiki encyclopedia site, Wikipedia, many people have been working hard to identify and improve the site’s flaws on new websites. The last group to vie for internet encyclopedia dominance was Conservapedia, and well…just go take a look.
However, the newest flame that has risen is a site called Citizendium, and it is most promising, indeed. Citizendium, started by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger, who has made some very simple changes that might just tie up all the loose ends hanging around at Wikipedia.
Sanger has designed Citizendium, tagged, “The Citizen’s Compedium,” to be more professional, more critically moderated, and most imporantly, more accountable. Citizendium will do this by demanding users’ register their full accurate names, not vague user names that Wikipedia allows.
Secondly, though anyone may contribute, the site will be much more aggressively moderated. Not only that, the only people that can moderate and edit articles, called “CZ Constables,” must be 25 years of age and must have attained at least a bachelor’s degree.
Though many might not see the need for a tightly moderated, Wikipedia-styled site, the academic and professional realm have been screaming for such an entity for quite a while. Those in academia know Wikipedia cannot be considered a valid site due to the blatant flaws and errors.
How easy is it to get a solid group of educated individuals to volunteer their time to moderate such a site? Well, maybe not easy, but Sanger has made good headway; thus far, Citizendium has 820 authors, 186 editors, and over 1,100 articles posted. Good progress for a site that has been in development only since last November.
As the public beta was opened today, it will be interesting to see how many users join up. To all those who have woed the shortcomings of Wikipedia, rejoice! Perhaps the encyclopedic savior is here…
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March 26th, 2007
We’ve been talking about Citizendium over at Highbrid Nation. Personally I use Wikipedia a lot and I don’t see anything knocking it off its top spot. The features that make Citizendium better may just be the features that keep it from having the same sucess as Wikpedia. There can only be one. Who will it be?
March 26th, 2007
I would have to say I must disagree. Just as Facebook and MySpace exist and existed for a while, they tend to cater towards different audiences. Though facebook recently allowed non-collegiate networks to join (something that most collegiates are unhappy about), it still tends to exude a slightly more professional air than its direct competitor, MySpace. It might very well end up that Citizendium draws the academia and professional crowd, and Wikipedia keeps plugging along at the average citizen who isn’t necessarily looking for a strong factual basis, just common knowledge articles. Agree to disagree :)
October 26th, 2009
Isn’t Sager the guy who called people the “unwashed masses”? I think this guy is confusing schooling with intelligence!