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Citizendium

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Citizendium, whose name is a portmanteau of citizen and compendium, is a project proposed by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger on September 15, 2006, intended to begin as a "progressive or gradual fork" of the English Wikipedia. [1] The Citizendium project will be carried out under the auspices of the Citizendium Foundation.[2]

Nature of the project

Fork of Wikipedia and project goal

According to statements and essays on Citizendium.org, the project will start as a fork of Wikipedia, carrying a copy of each article — under the rules of the GNU Free Documentation License — as it exists on Wikipedia at the time of Citizendium's launch. Although no final decision has been made, recent statements by Sanger indicate that he prefers to fork all English-language Wikipedia articles immediately at the launch of Citizendium, rather than only selected articles.[3] However, in response to comments from other members of the Citizendium mailing list and web forum about the allegedly poor quality of most Wikipedia articles, Sanger has said that a complete fork at launch is not a "foregone conclusion".[4] Periodically, all articles on Citizendium that have not been updated on the fork project will be automatically updated from the live version of the same article on Wikipedia. Any article on Citizendium that has been altered or edited will remain going forward with the forked Citizendium version. [5],[6]

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."[5] 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 a so-called "gentle process of guidance", though specific editing rules and dispute-resolution procedures governing that process have yet to be developed). Experts will be required to verify their qualifications openly, by an as yet to be decided process, for transparency and publicly accepted authority.[7] This contrasts with the open and largely anonymous nature of Wikipedia, where subject specialists have no agreed special status.

Proposed policies and structure

Citizendium will not allow anonymous editing, with the possible exception of textual proof reading, i.e. trusted copywriters, who have low-level authority to amend the texts for typographical, syntactical and grammatical errors etc. People will be asked to register under their real names with a working e-mail address, in order to participate (details of this process are still to be worked out. Problems with online safety and privacy are currently being addressed). 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. In regarding Wikipedia's oft cited problems, Sanger has been quoted as saying that Wikipedia is an "arguably dysfunctional community," which appears to be "committed to amateurism." [5]

Sanger has stated that Citizendium administrators, or sysops, will be called "constables", and will need a four-year college degree to qualify. Sanger has also suggested a minimum "maturity" requirement—twenty-five years of age—for constables. The "head" constable will be the Chief Constable, and the head editor will be the Managing Editor.[2] Recent comments by Sanger envision an Editor-in-Chief who will be the "main individual in charge", and who will be part of and answerable to a Board of Directors. There will also be Chief Subject Editors selected for each discipline treated in the encyclopedia. Sanger states that final decisions about management structure will not be made "until more of the (future) primary stakeholders are on the scene".[8]

Recent comments by Sanger appear to indicate that Citizendium articles may be subject to a two-fold "approval" process after they have achieved reasonable quality. Both the subject expert "editor" and a stylistic expert "copyeditor" would agree on a version of the article to be identified in some way as "approved". However, further editing of the article would be allowed, at least to some extent. If those further edits were judged by the two editors to be improvements, they could choose a newer version of the article as the approved version. This approval process appears to be a response by Sanger to criticisms from some members of the Citizendium mailing list and web forum that the new project would not be sufficiently controlled by experts. Again, specific rules for further editing of approved versions and dispute-resolution processes for disagreements about which version should be selected as "approved" have yet to be developed.[9]

History

Initial proposal

The project was announced by Sanger on September 15, 2006, at the Wizards of OS 4 conference in Berlin. No hard deadlines are currently given for the set-up of the hardware platform, the start of a beta test, or the full launch of the wiki.[10] However, on October 2, 2006 Sanger released a pilot project announcement that envisions a functioning wiki within "one to two months".

Pilot project announcement

In an apparent attempt to quicken the pace of the project, on October 2, 2006 Citizendium web forum moderator Peter Hitchmough suggested what he called an "alpha test" of the concept. Hitchmough proposed the forking of a limited number of Wikipedia articles to a site where Citizendium web forum and mailing list members could "rewrite a complete section" of Wikipedia content.[11]

Larry Sanger reacted enthusiastically to the idea and at first suggested his already existing Textop wiki as the site for the alpha test. Sanger later posted that Textop would not be a good choice, but showed continued interest in the proposal. He envisioned a "restricted-access" wiki where the idea could be tried and requested further discussion.[12]

Late on October 2 Sanger released a more detailed proposal for the alpha test. Sanger proposed a "password-protected MediaWiki... on a very small scale". He would give technical personnel permissions to "fiddle with various settings". The wiki would be opened to select members—readable and writable only by them—and a limited number of imported Wikipedia articles could then be edited. Sanger would gradually open the wiki to more and more members, including current subscribers to the Citizendium mailing list and web forum. Sanger characterizes the final step in the process in this manner:

"Only after we have "privately" prepared everything for the deluge, we open the project to public contribution. Of course, we'll try to do that quite soon, within several weeks, and (I propose) one to two months."

Apparently the plan is to broaden the test into what will more or less amount to the final functioning version of Citizendium, complete with editors, authors, constables, the article approval process, and all the other features of the full-blown wiki envisioned by Sanger in various statements since the original announcement of the project. Whether content developed from Wikipedia sources can be held "privately" for the duration of the test away from general distribution under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License is not clear.[13]

In an October 3 follow-up to the detailed proposal, Sanger discussed various issues, including the optimal size of the technical team, which editors and authors should be invited to the pilot project and who should authorize admission to the pilot, how publicity about the pilot should be managed, the drafting of policy pages to govern the pilot and subsequently the fully functioning encyclopedia, and the eventual ("but presumably not in the first week or so of the pilot project") upload of all English-language Wikipedia articles to the wiki.[14]

A subsection of the Citizendium web forum was opened to allow member comment on the proposed pilot. The general response was enthusiastic and occasionally humorous. Forum member Phil Wardle commented:

"If we were to choose a doable number of articles in a fairly broad but none the less recognisably important range of subjects, we may well be able to show not only significant improvement in content, but also in style. In a sense though it is like taking candy from a baby, and we should be aware of that. I can think of any number of articles on the Wikipedia right now that we could easily improve out of sight by the people we have on board at present (probably including all of today's featured articles without even bothering to see what they are) any such group of like minded and educated people could do so. It's not just individual improvements to individual articles we have to demonstrate a capability for, but rather a systemic capability that clearly shows an improved process in place for all articles that flow through the Citizendium."[15]

In an October 7 post on the Citizendium mailing list, Sanger announced that, due to difficulties in negotiating for a host for the pilot, Citizendium would pay for dedicated server space out of the $1,100 in donations already received. Sanger also said that he would personally select the editors ("a relatively small, high-quality group") who would participate in the pilot.[16]

Appointments

Sanger announced on 27 September 2006 that he had asked Bernard Haisch to be the project's acting managing editor.[10] However, on October 7 Sanger wrote that Haisch had decided not to accept the position. Sanger commented: "To replace him, I am hoping to find a tenured (or emeritus) academic or a senior scientist who is well respected in his or her field, or a retired encyclopedia editor, and who fully supports the mission of the Citizendium."[16]

Linguistic spread

No announcement has yet been made on Citizendium in languages other than English, but Sanger has stated in his essays that they will be forthcoming after the English language version is established and working successfully.

Comments

Brad Patrick, General Counsel and interim Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said "A great strength of the free culture movement is in the freedom to experiment. It is good to see Mr. Sanger continuing to push forward with freely licensed content in his new project." [17] According to published reports, Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales "noted that the content of Citizendium will also be available under the GFDL, so if the new site is successful, Wikipedia will be able to incorporate the changes back into its own site." Wales was quoted as saying that he and Sanger had a "difference of vision" but the two are "still friends".[18]

References

  1. ^ Andrew Orlowski. "Wikipedia founder forks Wikipedia, More experts, less fiddling?", The Register, September 18 2006.
  2. ^ a b Larry Sanger. "Constables, editors, and the Citizendium Foundation", Citizendium-l mail list, September 23 2006. Cite error: The named reference "SangerEmail092306" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  3. ^ Larry Sanger. "Why we should fork all at once", Citizendium-l mail list, September 29 2006.
  4. ^ Larry Sanger. "Forking argument summary", Citizendium forum, September 29 2006.
  5. ^ a b c Larry Sanger. "Toward a New Compendium of Knowledge (longer version)", Citizendium.org. Cite error: The named reference "Sangeressay" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  6. ^ Jack Schofield. "Wikipedia reaches a fork in the road - and takes it ", The Guardian, September 21 2006.
  7. ^ Ken Fisher. "New Citizendium to correct Wikipedia's wrongs?", Ars Technica, September 19 2006.
  8. ^ Larry Sanger. "How should we manage growth?", Citizendium forum, October 2 2006.
  9. ^ Larry Sanger. "Approval and copyeditors", Citizendium-l mail list, September 30 2006.
  10. ^ a b Larry Sanger. "Citizendium launch plan as of September 26", Citizendium-l mail list, September 27 2006.
  11. ^ Peter Hitchmough. "Proposal: Fork Wikipedia and launch with some A1-class model subjects", Citizendium forum, October 2 2006.
  12. ^ Larry Sanger. "Administrivia: interesting pilot project proposal", Citizendium-l mail list, October 2 2006.
  13. ^ Larry Sanger. "Citizendium pilot project announcement", Citizendium-l mail list, October 2 2006.
  14. ^ Larry Sanger. "Citizendium pilot project announcement", Citizendium-l mail list, October 3 2006.
  15. ^ Phil Wardle. "New pilot project plan", Citizendium forum, October 2 2006.
  16. ^ a b Larry Sanger. "Update: managing editor; other editorial positions; and our server space", Citizendium-l mail list, October 7 2006.
  17. ^ Wikinews. Larry Sanger announces Wikipedia fork September 15, 2006
  18. ^ James Niccolai. "Wikipedia to fight vandals in Germany", IDG News Service, September 27 2006.
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