Comments on: February Write-a-Thon is on–the Independent notices http://blog.citizendium.org/?p=403 Weblog about the Citizendium project and its Citizens. Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:01:49 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.3 By: Eugene van der Pijll http://blog.citizendium.org/?p=403#comment-195928 Eugene van der Pijll Mon, 09 Feb 2009 12:22:27 +0000 http://blog.citizendium.org/?p=403#comment-195928 Rereading my comment, it is a bit more negative than necessary. My apologies for that. I hope you're right, that it will get better, but without new initiatives specifically aimed at getting new users and new authors, I'm just a bit pessimistic. Rereading my comment, it is a bit more negative than
necessary. My apologies for that.

I hope you’re right, that it will get better, but without new initiatives specifically aimed at getting new users and new authors, I’m just a bit pessimistic.

]]> By: Larry Sanger http://blog.citizendium.org/?p=403#comment-195299 Larry Sanger Fri, 06 Feb 2009 17:02:22 +0000 http://blog.citizendium.org/?p=403#comment-195299 Eugene, first, I stand by what I said about explosive growth. Nothing that has happened since has pointed to anything wrong with my reasoning. It hasn't happened yet--but I think it will. Second, you've painted an unduly pessimistic and puzzlingly unfair picture based on a single dipping statistic. The entire page, <a href="http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Statistics" rel="nofollow">CZ:Statistics</a>, shows a lot of good news too. Besides, we have many tricks up our sleeves as well. It's not as if this project is without a rudder and dependent entirely on the whims of fate; we can improve our chances in many ways, and I'm very confident we will do so. If you do support us, Eugene, I wish you'd try a little harder to see the whole picture. Eugene, first, I stand by what I said about explosive growth. Nothing that has happened since has pointed to anything wrong with my reasoning. It hasn’t happened yet–but I think it will.

Second, you’ve painted an unduly pessimistic and puzzlingly unfair picture based on a single dipping statistic. The entire page, CZ:Statistics, shows a lot of good news too.

Besides, we have many tricks up our sleeves as well. It’s not as if this project is without a rudder and dependent entirely on the whims of fate; we can improve our chances in many ways, and I’m very confident we will do so.

If you do support us, Eugene, I wish you’d try a little harder to see the whole picture.

]]> By: Eugene van der Pijll http://blog.citizendium.org/?p=403#comment-194798 Eugene van der Pijll Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:15:37 +0000 http://blog.citizendium.org/?p=403#comment-194798 While you didn't expect to eclipse WP by now, you do have a habit of making predictions about the growth of Citizendium. Take for example your one-year report at http://www.citizendium.org/oneyearandthriving.html, written in October 2007. "At some point, possibly very soon, the Citizendium will grow explosively--say, quadruple the number of its active contributors, or even grow by an order of magnitude." In reality, the number of regular editors has fallen by about 30% since October 2007, according to [[CZ:Statistics]]. That 2007 report has a lot of promises and ideas on how to make Citizendium work better, but very few of them have come into reality. Judging from the list of long-term plans, not a lot of progress seems to have been made since that time. There are a number of good ideas there to make CZ easier to use, which is essential if you want to attract more people. Citizendium has created some very good content, but if it can't turn around its present decline, I fear that there's not much future for the project. While you didn’t expect to eclipse WP by now, you do have a habit of making predictions about the growth of Citizendium. Take for example your one-year report at http://www.citizendium.org/oneyearandthriving.html, written in October 2007. “At some point, possibly very soon, the Citizendium will grow explosively–say, quadruple the number of its active contributors, or even grow by an order of magnitude.” In reality, the number of regular editors has fallen by about 30% since October 2007, according to [[CZ:Statistics]].

That 2007 report has a lot of promises and ideas on how to make Citizendium work better, but very few of them have come into reality. Judging from the list of long-term plans, not a lot of progress seems to have been made since that time. There are a number of good ideas there to make CZ easier to use, which is essential if you want to attract more people.

Citizendium has created some very good content, but if it can’t turn around its present decline, I fear that there’s not much future for the project.

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