Is Citizendium worth it? Options Rating

[Stephen Ewen]

I want to collaborate with people who are experts with specialized interests in subjects, without the infernal know-nothing crowd reducing the contributions. I don't want to read articles written entirely by high school students. Good encyclopedias are not generally written by high school students.

Better to have a small but accurate "collection of human knowledge" than a large but unreliable collection.

I completely agree that good encyclopedia articles are not generally written by high school students alone. Note that is the only such article and that it was APPROVED by a professor emeritus of history.

I also completely agree: Better to have a small but accurate "collection of human knowledge" than a large but unreliable collection.

Infernal know-nothings (and infernal know-it-alls) who reduce contributions, and the like, don't last at CZ, and there are plenty of experts with specialized interests in subjects that one collaborates with.

At Citizendium there are *authors* and *editors*:

* Authors: all contributors have "author" rights on the Citizendium. They can start new articles, edit existing articles, engage other contributors in discussion about articles, etc.
* Editors: editors, in addition, have the right to make (or work together with other editors in making) plans, policies, and decisions for particular articles, and eventually will have the right to designate particular versions of articles as "approved." As a rule of thumb, editors in traditionally "academic" fields will require the qualifications typically needed for a tenure-track academic position in the field, while editors in more "professional" fields require the usual terminal professional degree in the field plus significant experience and publishing.

See http://www.citizendium.org/cfa.html and http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Approved_Articles

This post has been edited by Stephen Ewen: Sun 22nd July 2007, 11:53am

[Firsfron of Ronchester]

See http://www.citizendium.org/cfa.html and http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Approved_Articles

There are only 31 approved articles. It's a good start, but I thought there would be quite a few more in 4 months of editing. It's sort of reminiscent of Nupedia's 24 articles.

The Citizendium article on The Crystal Palace is approved, but it's sort of anemic: there's only a passing mention of the very first dinosaur sculptures, which were a major attraction to the Crystal Palace.(BBC link) There don't appear to be any references, either. Pittsburgh, History since 1800 seems in much better shape, but what's with the "Renaissance I" heading? There's no "Renaissance II" heading, leaving the reader to wonder what happened to the second renaissance.

Are these "finished" articles (relatively complete and polished) or just samples of what's to come? Do editors regularly add material to approved articles?

[blissyu2]

I give up. Whilst its fine for someone to tinker with the work, someone is now adding inaccurate information to the article.

The date was not 28 April 1996, but was 27-29 (and this is incredibly important in relation to the person who ASIO labelled as the man who had committed the murders). To have a fire destroy the property at 8.25am on 29 April suggests that it lasted in to that day. Changing that is horrendous.

Stating that Martin Bryant did it, when the whole point of it is that it cannot be definitively stated that he was the murderer, as eye witness testimony, video evidence, and many other pieces of evidence disagree, is very incorrect. You can't legally do this.

To see this place agree to introduce lies is the end of my experiment. I will contribute no further to this project.

I added this to every piece that I had created:

I will leave this project as of now. Please delete my account and all contributions. I had thought that I would be helping to write an accurate assessment of material that I had expert knowledge of. To see critical information deleted, and an accurate article that I had spent years compiling turned in to nonsense is not something that I want my name associated with. I will no longer be involved in this project.

Seriously, there is no point in staying when they are going to do that. There is no advantage to Citizendium ahead of Wikipedia if it will agree to tell lies in the same way that Wikipedia does. Has CZ now accepted Wikipedia's version of the truth?

And yet CZ has the misfortune of additionally making it incredibly difficult to register and to create anything.

Experiment over - CZ sucks.

[LamontStormstar]

Citizendium lets you send a photoshopped fake driver's license with a fake bio and you can sign up.

12 year old kid + fake ID = Ph.D.

[blissyu2]

Citizendium lets you send a photoshopped fake driver's license with a fake bio and you can sign up.

12 year old kid + fake ID = Ph.D.

I'm not convinced that they do. They were very suspicious of me. But maybe I just look suspicious. It was very hard for me to get in.

[GlassBeadGame]

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Shirley_Chisholm was written almost entirely by a high school student, see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Shirl...&action=history

Note the complete absence among the above about having "to be an expert with some specialized interest in order to get in."

Hello Stephen. You're not really selling it to me, I'm afraid. I want to collaborate with people who are experts with specialized interests in subjects, without the infernal know-nothing crowd reducing the contributions. I don't want to read articles written entirely by high school students. Good encyclopedias are not generally written by high school students.

Better to have a small but accurate "collection of human knowledge" than a large but unreliable collection.

Welcome Stephen. I can confirm what you say to true based on my experiences on CZ. I hope you continue to post here at WR.

[Stephen Ewen]

hope you continue to post here at WR.

Probably not frequently at all. However, I'm not difficult to get hold of, see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Stephen_Ewen

[blissyu2]

Good o. I ask to have the account deleted all all contributions deleted and instead I am accused of vandalism and my account blocked: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Speci...Adrian_Meredith

The "Vandalism" that he refers to was my altering the content of the page that I had written to state my goodbye message, and request that the article I had written be deleted.

This request was ignored.

I do not think that it is right that my name is associated with something that I do not agree with. If they wish to write their own article then that is fine. Just delete all of my contributions please. You can have the same thing in there, just delete it, and then restore it with the current revision only.

I most certainly did not ask to be blocked.

I think that I can conclude from this little experiment that CZ is "Just as bad as Wikipedia, but it uses your real name and asks for copious amounts of ID to establish you". To have lies associated to your internet persona is bad, but to have those lies associated with your real name is horrendous.

I am currently ranking CZ below Wikipedia.

[BobbyBombastic]

it seems you have to be an expert with some specialized interest in order to get in.

Again, where are you folks getting this stuff? As it says at http://www.citizendium.org/cfa.html

To get on board the wiki, please send a mail to constables@citizendium.org providing three things:

1. Your real name. This is a strict policy that we take seriously. See below if you require a pseudonym
2. Your endorsement of the Citizendium Statement of Fundamental Policies. A statement that says not only that you've read and understood it, but that you support and endorse it.
3. A biography of 100-500 words, 50 words absolute minimum. This must, of course, be accurate. It should include information about your educational background and interests. This will be posted on your user page, and so should be written for public consumption. Can be written in either first or third person.
Also helpful, if at all possible:

4. A Web link or two that tends to establish your identity. E.g., a link to your CV online.
5. Send your request through a non-free email address that bears your name or a portion thereof.
6. (Optional) Tell us how you heard about the Citizendium.

Note the complete absence among the above about having "to be an expert with some specialized interest in order to get in."

It seems to be a frequent misconception that you need to be an expert, among other things. There is an idea that there is a large chance of being rejected when applying for a CZ 'membership'.

Add to that sending one person out with the idea that all driver's licenses are 'checked at the door', and people are left with the idea that this is a less than inclusive community, with a high chance of being rejected, whether this is fact or not. If I were blissy, I think I would be offended to find out that less than 1% are asked for their drivers license. Why ask at all if he is not claiming to be a published author or someone with high credentials? I would be happy to provide my real name, my academic history, profession, etc., but I would draw the line at providing a driver's license. There are a lot of people being excluded already, and that is why CZ has these policies, why exclude more?

In short, it does not really matter what your policies actually are when a large amount of people believe they are something different. I don't know if there is a way to combat this outside of what you are doing right now, but maybe it is something CZ should look at.

Hope to see you around more often, Stephen.

[blissyu2]

I don't have a PhD. I didn't even complete a degree. My highest completed qualification is a Diploma. I did claim to have done very well in Maths competitions, but I had those certificates destroyed in a fire, and as far as I know they don't give new ones 10 years later. So what was I claiming? Oh, I was claiming to be the owner of Wikipedia Review. I wrote this post to try to verify those claims. That's it really.

I did claim to be an authority on the Port Arthur massacre, indeed probably one of the leading authorities in the world. I think that probably the only 2 people that know more about it would be the person who actually did it (who is now dead) and Martin Bryant (who is locked up in prison and under suppression orders preventing him from talking to anyone). There are a number of others who know almost as much as me, but they don't know the lot. I mean Rob did tell a lot of people what he was going to do, and he wasn't acting alone. Martin Bryant wasn't one of the other gunmen that assisted him either. And the naked lady wasn't Noelene Martin - she was a younger lady. I know who it was, and I wrote on Wikipedia who it was. That woman is very much alive and well to this day. The fact that she shot at people but didn't kill them apparently means that she gets off. ASIO were only interested in Rob himself, not the people that assisted him. Or perhaps I should call him "Jamie".

Is it a conspiracy theory? Well, a conspiracy theory that starts with someone coming at you while you're sleeping, breaks in to your house and screams out that they are going to kill you tonight? A conspiracy theory where you get letters from the man telling you what he is going to do? A conspiracy theory that before the events begin there were numerous reports to police warning them about it? How the hell can you call that a conspiracy theory? That's something that happened.

The conspiracy theory is the one that Joe Vialls said, or at least his part about it being the work of Mossad secret agents. Most of what Vialls said was pretty close to the mark. Most of the theories out there were pretty much spot on, except for their conclusions. Because in the end only a few people knew the conclusions of what really happened. They all knew that what was supposed to have happened didn't add up, but they didn't know what really happened. I did. Wendy Scurr did. Andrew MacGregor and Stewart Beattie did.

I did feel for a long time that my life was in danger and that I would be targetted by ASIO if I put my name to these things, but since Rob was killed by ASIO in 2000 I no longer fear this. I had worried for some time that they might be confused, because I knew too much, and they might think that I was Rob. After all, he could change his identity quite well, so why couldn't he be me? This was why I kept anonymous about it for so long. This was why you don't see me being publicly interviewed in 1996 about what happened. This is why you see people that I talked to, people like Wendy Scurr, talking about it.

I talked to all of the people that were there, we all had a lot of counselling sessions. Not a single person got angry at me about it. They didn't tell me "Oh shut up about this conspiracy theory nonsense". To them, it put their mind to rest that they knew what had really happened and why. The angry part was that police hadn't managed to capture the person that did it. That was the big thing that upset everyone. That he got away, and that there was this stupid coverup going on. When is the government going to realise that pretending that you've solved a problem doesn't help, when the problem still exists?

There is no need to have a re-trial,and really no need for an appeal. Martin Bryant was guilty of assisting in multiple murders, and should be serving over 100 years of prison for the crime. He should be in prison for life. And the guy that did it is dead, so there is no point trying him.

So some sense of justice is served. While other people that were involved should also be arrested, perhaps that isn't all that important.

The only issue is that of truth. We have a thoroughly unbelievable story that is being pushed in some sections as fact, and we are told that all of the believable and logical and true stories are conspiracy theories. This is the problem.

It might not matter to most people out there whether we tell the truth about issues like this or not. But it matters to the people that were involved. To some people, like me, it really matters, an awful lot.

You can tell lies if you like, but don't associate my name with your lies.

[LamontStormstar]

Stephen Ewen posts on this forum. Maybe he can explain his admin abuse.

Oh and deleting all someone's contributions is a pain on a wiki.

[blissyu2]

Stephen Ewen posts on this forum. Maybe he can explain his admin abuse.

Oh and deleting all someone's contributions is a pain on a wiki.

Not really. I only edited one article.

Delete Port Arthur massacre.
Restore Port Arthur massacre (1 revision restored)

They can keep the current content, just don't attach my name to it. Simple.

They've done it for SlimVirgin on WP, to make out that she didn't edit the Lockerbie Bombing article, so maybe not.

I am not suggesting that Stephen Ewen was demonstrating admin abuse. He must have misinterpreted my request to have my account deleted (which he did) with an additional request to be autobanned, and not realised that I didn't want my name to be associated with an article that is currently factually inaccurate.

[Krimpet]

If you had a choice between a popular encyclopaedia and a good encyclopaedia, which would you pick?

If Wikipedia could be established as a great place to fiddle, while an alternative, such as Citizendium, could be established as a great place to actually use as a reference source, then we have 2 projects.

I actually don't see why Nupedia did fail. What was wrong with it? Its greatest problem seems to be that most of the people who started off working with Nupedia ended up tempted by "the dark side", Wikipedia. If Citizendium is nothing more than a resurrection of Nupedia, then perhaps that is a good thing.

I have no doubt that if Citizendium flourished, it would create a nice, credible, comprehensive reference source that would blow Wikipedia out of the water.

The problem is, though, that a collaborative project like CZ needs enough contributors to succeed. While their high standards for joining help their quality, I'm not sure that they will be able to find enough qualified people willing to volunteer their time and effort. Despite its flaws that open editing allows, Wikipedia wouldn't have taken off at all without the tens of thousands of bored students, office workers, kids, etc.

[luke]

".. After the fire began, an unidentified man left the Seascape Lodge under cover of smoke. Police were unable to track his movements, and believe that he may have re-entered the house. .."

Hiya - For sure and simply as a matter of courtesy if for no other reason the above shouldn't have been summarily removed, but briefly what's the evidence for it, if I can/may ask that here.

Thanks

[guy]

So, what if I present my credentials as an expert on the history of British Methodism, they let me in and then I write an article on rotifers. Would they wipe the article and throw me out?

Wipe the article and throw you out? Where have you gotten this stuff? Anyone in CZ can write whatever encyclopedia articles they want!

It's a frightening thought that anyone can write on Methodism. Look what a disaster that's been on Wikipedia. OK, let's put it this way. CZ engages me as an expert editor to sort out the mess on Methodism articles. I look at another article and see serious errors, but it's not something on which I have formal qualifications. Can I use my editor authority on tha tone?

[Stephen Ewen]

It's a frightening thought that anyone can write on Methodism. Look what a disaster that's been on Wikipedia. OK, let's put it this way. CZ engages me as an expert editor to sort out the mess on Methodism articles. I look at another article and see serious errors, but it's not something on which I have formal qualifications. Can I use my editor authority on tha tone?

Anyone may write on it but that does not mean they can write whatever they want. Editors have say over specific areas of their expertise. And no, it is not a roving thing. I think you would find the CZ system is designed to precisely remedy the issues at WP.

If anyone has serious questions, I'd be willing to respond. I can be reached as mentioned at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Stephen_Ewen

This post has been edited by Stephen Ewen: Mon 23rd July 2007, 2:52am

[blissyu2]

CZ is a failure. I got banned because I asked for my contributions to be deleted - and they didn't delete my contributions! A simple enough task.

I added in factual information, and it was changed to become inaccurate, in line with Wikipedia.

Citizendium has resulted, in this test, in producing something that is just as inaccurate as the Wikipedia article on the topic. They have changed truth.

[Nathan]

And even with the blocking admin participating in this thread and knowing what you've asked for, he still hasn't unblocked you.

*rolls eyes* Looks more and more like Wikipedia all the time.

[blissyu2]

The blocking element is less important than the deleting of the information. The fact is that if they refuse to have an accurate project, as demonstrated with that argument, there is absolutely zero point in the project's existence. I mean why go to lengths to have only the best of the best editors, and so forth, when you are then going to spout nonsense in articles, and get rid of key facts from an article in line with what Wikipedia has?

Wikipedia has a number of articles that are controlled, and these articles cannot be changed to include factual information. We know for certain that the following articles are controlled heavily, and are factually inaccurate:

- Lockerbie Bombing (Pan Am Flight 103) - controlled by SlimVirgin
- Cuba
- Port Arthur massacre - controlled by Robert Merkel, in turn to Longhair and Ambi etc
- LaRouche articles - controlled by SlimVirgin

There are many others that are factually inaccurate articles, that we know are factually inaccurate, that it doesn't matter what anyone does they will always be factually inaccurate, so long as they remain controlled on Wikipedia.

This is Wikipedia's greatest failing, that it allows people who are not experts to control the content of an article, prohibiting the people who actually know what they are talking about from contributing, in many cases banning them for being expert at the topic.

The fact that Citizendium claims to be aimed at having experts, then treats expert knowledge with disdain anyway, deleting proven facts to fall in line with the Wikipedia lie about the topic, then banning the expert, for being an expert, suggests that there is less than zero point in Citizendium existing.

For a small project to additionally refuse to acknowledge a request to delete contributions made by someone is worse than horrible. Its not like it is difficult to do. I just don't want my name associated with an inaccurate article. I don't want friends and family and people that know me, and all that I have done in the past 12 years in association with that issue to see my name attached to something that is completely false. I am sure that I'd get a phone call from my father to say that he was horrified at what I'd done. And he wouldn't understand that oh no they altered what I'd written. All he'd see was that it was something that I wrote.

27 articles and only 10 contributors is fine IF ITS ACCURATE. If its not, then its pointless.

[blissyu2]

Stephen Ewen is now slandering me on Citizendium: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=User_...oldid=100138131

"This fellow's account was created in full knowledge that he has long been problematic all around the Internet."

What the hell is that all about? Because I got banned from Wikipedia for being an expert in the field I am a problem user? No, Stephen, you are misrepresenting me. Again, using my real name when you are attaching lies to it is a big problem.

Again, remove all contributions by me and all is fine. Why can't you do this?

It is a lucky thing that I didn't contribute any more than this test. You can only begin to imagine the kinds of things that a place that operates just as badly as Wikipedia, yet enforces outing, is going to cause. Now, thanks to CZ, and in particular Stephen Ewen, I can have people at job interviews search for my name and see his lies. Thanks Stephen.