A passel of recent mentions
There’s a rather positive description of the Citizendium, and especially Eduzendium, in an April 28 article in Inside Higher Ed. Eduzendium co-ordinator Sorin Matei is quoted. The project is compared to Wikipedia, Scholarpedia, and Knol. The question is: which system is best for scholars? Well — let a thousand flowers bloom and we’ll see in 5-10 years which are prettiest.
CZ is also positively mentioned in a well-reviewed new book by Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It.
As many people have pointed out and discovered, Encyclopedia Britannica has been made free for bloggers and wiki writers. (Here’s a take on that from a Citizendium editor — John Dennehy, who is also behind a CUNY experiment with Eduzendium that seems to have gone pretty well. Do we have microbes? We’re absolutely disease-ridden.)
The notorious Valleywag blog reported that the Wikimedia Foundation is “gerrymandering” its board, and as my name came up, I appeared on the scene, Voldemort-like (at least to read the post). It seems that the Wikimedia Foundation has reserved a seat for a “Community Founder.” Hmm. As Valleywag says, “Here’s an amusing thought: Why not have Larry Sanger, whom some say has a better claim to founding Wikipedia than Wales, bid for the spot in December, when Wales’s term expires?”
Yeeah. Well, I’ll be busy. Very, very busy. We’re going to announce a major new educational content project in the next month or two, and between that, the encyclopedia project, and other stuff, my plate is full. Besides, Wikipedia will be small, disreputable, and unimportant compared to CZ in a few more years. Uh, 
I am an user of Britannica since I can remember and owner of the books
for 20 years, even the Ultimate reference DVD for 48Euro since it came
out. It was always my main source of basic reference and standard of
excellence.
I applied and stated that I already own it. I got no reply. Anyone with
the same experience? They seem to view this perhaps as a marketing
strategy to get Britannica sold and as a main reference in ‘Wikis’,
de facto as thé reference. We should surpass the standard Britannica sets,
especially as the post about “Citizendium is different” indicates,
a democratisation of knowledge. Be also aware that Britannica,
even for it’s excellence, is biased to a western frame of mind.
Citizendium should move beyond this barrier.
Furthermore we should consider the obligation and moral responsibility
we have to bring education in its broadest sense to all of humanity at a
cost each could afford, even for those who cannot get a formal
education. Projects like Eduzendium is a good start, but could have the
main focus not at increasing Citizendium’s content, but the education of
all. The content will come by itself, like the philanthropists mentioned elsewhere.
Most of western tertiary educational institutions have become dependent on
corporate financing, thereby slanting its efforts to get people
‘trained’ for industry and commerce. Rather, we should work together
with projects like one laptop per child (OLPC ) and universal flaterate
internet hotspots for all, free wifi for all in larger communities and cities
(like Paris and San Francisco) and free access over mobile networks in
rural communities in Africa, South America and Asia.
I grew up in Africa, which experiences a boom in communication by
mobile phones for very remote areas where no one will ever lay cables
and provide landline telecommunication access, theoretically making
internet available to almost all of humanity. Affordability is still a problem.
Ultimately I wish to work toward a tertiary education for all, an ‘open
source education’. No one should be prevented from the highest available
education he/she can master, just because they can’t afford it or live
in too remote areas (i.e. a closed source education). Those who can
afford it may pay, those who can’t shouldn’t; nobody must - it is a
human responsibility of all to carry the burden together; social
justice?. Paying for education is just another frontier of human
oppression by others who have no natural rights to be more privileged
than any other human being to reach their highest potential, like
apartheid and slavery was. I believe Citizendium can be one element to
address this need of liberating people from ‘illiteracy’. I am aware of
using an ideological language here, do it intentionally because it
should inflame our conscience and liberate us from the general
‘innocence’ we in affluent western cultures have. We need to say
farewell to our innocence (”Farewell to Innocence” ISBN 0-88344-130-6,
Title of a remarkable dissertation by Alan Busak against apartheid,
which also liberated me from my innocence as oppressor).
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0883441306/ref=dp_olp_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1209720885&sr=11-1]
My warmest regards and thanking you all for the great work you all do in
Citizendium (CZ = freedom from Wikipedia innocence),
Lando L Lehmann (also posted in CZ:Forum)
Comment by Lando — May 2, 2008 @ 11:26 am
It would be nice if Citizendium could one day rank in Google for everything like Wikipedia does. The approved Citizendium articles are certainly more worthy of ranking than Wikipedia pages based on content.
Comment by Will — May 4, 2008 @ 3:17 pm