Why did Citizendium fail? Options Rating

[Peter Damian]

One of the worst things Sanger did was to start Citizendium. It failed, and Wikipedians now have a wonderful argument to add to their armoury. It failed, because of the policy on attracting experts. Ergo, crowdsourcing is the only way to build a comprehensive and reliable reference work.

Here are some reasons I think Citizendium failed:

1. There was only ever room for one Internet encyclopedia, for Google and 'network effect' reasons.

2. Experts have a limited attraction for any such project as this. I remember Larry claiming that when he advertised on the philosophy lists, philosophers would come flocking in. They didn't. I was working with one other philosopher (aka Mel Ititis on Wikipedia) at Citizendium. He left due to some petty dispute with Sanger, and I left not wanting to be the only philosopher.

3. Sanger was unspeakably rude to many of the participants.

4. After he realised that it would be hard to attract experts, the bars were lowered and all sorts of strange pondlife registered.

Just my thoughts. Or am I wrong? Is crowdsourcing the only real way to create a comprehensive and reliable reference work?

[Casliber]

In this wonderful age of economic rationalism, the staffing of many institutions for research in botany, zoology etc. museums, zoos, has been well and truly gutted, and the folks who still have paid work are overwhelmed by the amount of work they have to do.

Hence any project relying on experts would be doomed to fail by their lack of free time. It strikes me as naive not to have considered this.

I speak of one who's had to nag and beg experts to write for laypeople in the past.

furthermore, many experts are not overly enthusiastic to write on their work topic in their free time...too much like...work really.
Cas

[Kelly Martin]

furthermore, many experts are not overly enthusiastic to write on their work topic in their free time...too much like...work really.

Hammer, meet nail. This is the gist of it.

I do write articles from time to time in my area of expertise... as advertising material, posted on my blog, my company website, or on topical discussion forums. Such articles are, of course, deliberately incomplete, because I want to leave the reader with the impression that I know what I'm talking about, but at the same time not give away so much information that people who read them and who have a need for the rest of the information will actually pay me to get it. If I write a full and complete article, the reader won't need my services, and I don't get anything for the exchange.

Wikipedia wants experts to give away for free what they already know is worth money, in some cases a great deal of money, and that's not a good deal for the expert. Citizendium offered the same bargain, and thus also got few takers. And Citizendium is not even remotely comparable to Wikipedia as a self-publication venue. It doesn't have anywhere near the reach.