Some questions I've been thinking about recently...

Questions: For those that are still spending most of their time editing on Wikipedia, I would like to ask you, why have you not switched to editing Citizendium? What are the factors that are keeping you from switching? And if there are any who have tried Citizendium who have since returned back to Wikipedia, can you explain what made you go back?

References:

• CZ:We aren't Wikipedia (Citizendium perspective on Wikipedia)
• Wikipedia:We aren't Citizendium (Wikipedia perspective on Citizendium)
• Critizendium (Jonny Cache's perspective on Citizendium)

I suspect it's because CZ hasn't reached critical mass yet... and it won't for at least a year.

Anon,

From what I've heard on the grapevine, many old hands in Wikipedia have had prior experience with Larry Sanger and would probably prefer a root canal without anaesthesia to dealing with him again. And when it comes to root canals without anaesthesia, I should think that Wikipedia makes a pretty good approximation.

When I was shifting my energies out of Wikipedia midsummer last, I put a heaping helping of work into Larry's Text Outline Project (Textop), where he distributed his first manifesto on what later became the Citizendium Project, and I naturally became one of the early adopters on that, proceeding to throw my time and efforts into that vision. Reviewers who reviewed my early reviews on that startup will tell you that I was initially about as enthusiastic as a semi-experienced but ever hopeful knowledge worker can be.

But I have already reported here what happened along the way, and it makes me tired to think about going through all that again.

I understand about collecting one's own knocks — there's that need to believe, that willing suspension of disbelief that gets me damn near every time, too.

So I will leave it at that ...

Jonny

Citizendium is not the proper solution to Wikipedia-- it solves none of the problems of the website, and their acupuncture article (discussed earlier on this forum) proves that. On May 1 I'll explain this in detail.

I think Sanger is trying to build a Cathedral and I'd rather work in a Bazaar. I just want the Bazaar to have some responsible oversight that will provide some reasonable protection to editors and the public. I don't think this can be done at WP. WP needs a fork to provide this, but I don't think CZ is that fork.

I applied to be a... what do they call the "lower" level of contributor at CZ ?...not "editor that's something higher. They "accepted" me. Mostly I was just curious if they would. I haven't logged-in since shortly after that. I don't seem to get any emails. I just kind of forgot about it.

Who wants to make the obvious pun on WP and "Bazaar"?

MAY-DAY! MAY-DAY! (I'll be quivering with antici... pation! )

Anyhoo, CZ's structural "fixes" probably won't solve the inherent content-related problems WP has, I'll grant you that. But often we see people underestimating (if not outright ignoring) things like PR problems, media criticism, psychological effects on users, the fortress mentality that develops as a result of having to "defend" against vandals and various bitter/nasty enemies... it looks like CZ is hoping that by solving those problems - and personally I think their setup will indeed solve them - the content improvements will just come naturally. So the question becomes, "will they?"

There are obviously a lot of areas where expertise can't be measured by academic degrees or even life experience, and it may be they'll just fall short in those areas... Moreover, I suspect they underestimate the attraction WP has to certain people, some of whom are quite talented editors, who are really in it purely for the gamesmanship, and the sheer thrill of winning a heated argument, if not just being in one. It might result in an early leveling-off of interest in contributing there, even.

Ultimately, I suspect CZ content will be just as "spotty" as WP's, even if it might tend to be more stable and accurate, and produce a few articles that are far better than their WP equivalents... But it's really too soon to tell, and I do think they should be given every opportunity to succeed at it.

I've been writing about Bazaaro World for quite a while now, but it's obviously a much bigger planet than WP alone.

Jonny

International Brotherhood Of Obvious Punmanship
IBOOP Local # 31415926535

Look, if NE1 wants to sign on with Prisoner-o-Zendium, and sign off on the LSPOV Loyalty Oath, then I'll be interested in hearing about their actual experiences there, but I'm personally getting a bit bored with hearing about people's virtual experiences with things that they have Zip experience with — we get enuff of that Blog Sky BS via our RSS Feedbags.

Jonny

Have any of you worked on Citizendium and interacted with the people in any meaningful way yet? If you have, how much of the mudslinging crap from Wikipedia is there? Is it worth it?

I had contributed to some of the CZ mail lists and mailed with Sanger directly a tiny bit in the early days of pre-planning. I made an account early on, but never used it.

This forum has a search tool ...

Jonny

Interesting. Is another Wiki-clone being released or is a major Jimbo-initiated Wikipedia policy change in the works? Like Somey, I am quite curious now.

PS. I have started to track in a rigorous fashion the number of edits made per day to Citizendium as well as the number of new editors that sign up. This should allow me to track its growth with some degree of accuracy. Of course there is also the public number of existing articles which is also a rough figure.

Well, do share your statistics, please! I feel that with Centiare (getting close to 5,000 pages -- but many are "root" pages that load with Mediawiki), I'm probably experiencing the very same growing pains as Citizendium.

By the way, about 6 months ago, I offered to Larry Sanger to try to take the "lead" in generating content related to businesses and organizations. Because I couldn't guarantee that all such content would be based exclusively on "unpaid editing", he kind of shoved me off, saying he didn't want to have me be a lightning rod within his project, at least in the early stages.

I was a little put off by it, but I can also see Sanger's point. After all, Jimbo's called my work "an incredible PR risk".

Anyway, if CZ ever gets to the point where it doesn't take months to get a "baby steps" answer to a simple question, I might consider helping out there.

I prefer pseudonyms over real names. I don't use the cover of the pseudonym to go after and try to slander a BLP or go dive into something extremely controversial, but I like not using my real full name anyway. I have never been exasperated with vandalism as I never do RC patrol and it isn't much work to watchlist and revert vandalism on a select few ones. I am also a student in college and am not an expert in any field.

Aha - an ideal Wikipedia editor.

more like an ideal arbcom member...

anything good that CZ does will inevitably be absorbed and tweaked by WP. by this i mean structural changes and certain policy changes. i believe wales have said as much.

it's on that basis that i find it nearly pointless to participate. EN wikipedia is "the wiki" for the english speaking world.

a pessimistic view, i admit.