Citizendium Blog

From a grant proposal.

In some ways, the Citizendium works similarly to Wikipedia: an open, bottom-up wiki, a wide variety of people may join and contribute to whatever topic they want, whenever they want. The interface, using MediaWiki software, is fairly simple and easy for any reasonably technically adept person to learn. This system has allowed the Citizendium, like Wikipedia, to create thousands of articles in a short time. Yet the project is truly a by-the-bootstraps operation; when first announced, the project had a zero budget, and has been able to survive for a year on little more than $40,000 in donations and with one full-time employee.

But Citizendium’s differences with Wikipedia have proven extremely consequential and successful. Because the Citizendium requires the use of real names and biographies, there has been virtually no vandalism; furthermore, the community is mature and collegial, yet still dynamic. Because the Citizendium has a guiding role for experts, articles tend to be of remarkably high quality. Moreover, there are over 40 approved articles and over 600 “developed” articles, i.e., articles close to approval.

In addition, the Citizendium has recently enabled contributors to add various other kinds of reference information: bibliographies, external links, tables, image galleries, timelines, and much else. There is a particular need for an enhancement to MediaWiki that would incorporate these different types of information into the software. With support, the Citizendium Foundation could hire a programmer who would transform the text-oriented MediaWiki platform into something that handles all different sorts of information intelligently. The Citizendium, in turn, would show the world how to use the software.

Support for an administrative assistant would also help the project to do a serious recruitment drive; until now, most people have arrived via the many mentions of Citizendium in the technical press. Similarly, support for a development director would help the project tap into the no doubt millions of dollars that are available for a project that has already proven itself in this way.

In short, while the Citizendium has already shown that it has the potential to solve Wikipedia’s problems, further support would make this assured.