One of the founders of Wikipedia has announced a new online encyclopedia that he hopes will embody the foundation of Wikipedia while overcoming some of its shortcomings. Larry Sanger’s new project, called Citizendium, will use a number of tactics to elicit credible, useful content from a community of volunteers while avoiding the kinds of intentional distortions that have been a problem for Wikipedia. On Citizendium, contributors must register with their real names, and a team of editors will enforce a set of community rules. Sanger said that Wikipedia is an “amazing” resource but believes that “an even better massive encyclopedia” can be produced by overlaying a system of “gentle controls” on how content is developed and edited. The creation of Citizendium will involve a “fork” of the existing Wikipedia content.
All current content from Wikipedia will serve as the basis for Citizendium. From there, the two collections will evolve and diverge based on their different approaches.
ZDNet, 16 October 2006
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6126469.html
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