Not “jumping ship,” but stepping down–eventually–as planned
I thought I would link to this blog post from FT’s Richard Waters, which dramatically claims, to my surprise, that I am “ready to jump ship” from the wonderful Citizendium, which I continue to love, and which I would never intentionally harm. In fairness, I think Waters reported the main facts pretty much accurately and fairly. But I did have this to say in reply (comment #1):
Richard, “jump ship” carries the wrong connotations, however eye-catching it might be. A less dramatic and more accurate statement would be that I have reiterated — once again — to carry out my promise to step down as Editor-in-Chief after 2-3 years, to ensure that the project proceeds as a bona fide constitutional republic. This does not mean I will be “abandoning” the project. If I sincerely believed that my departure would mean the end of CZ, I would make sure I stayed on board in some keyed-down capacity.
I have not updated my personal website (larrysanger.org) for many months. I’ve been very nose-to-the-grindstone with WatchKnow.org. Once it is off the ground I plan to return to CZ to help a transitioning process.
As for the Wikipedia article about CZ, its coverage of the “issue” is inaccurate and biased, as I explained on the article’s talk page. There’s no “scoop” there. It’s actually very old news.
I should add that I apologize (again) to the CZ community for my recent silence. My excuse is that I am starting up yet another non-profit educational project, this time for preK-12 videos. Don’t look at it now…it’s about to undergo a big design and software change, and will probably be under wraps for several weeks as we lead up to a (hopefully!) big launch.
(And…uh…speaking of inaccuracies on the blogosphere…I am not Jewish. But I like and admire many Jews and support the right of Israel to exist. Also, if Jimmy Wales is Jewish, that is news to me.)
So, you are part of the Evil Jewish Conspiracy AND Citizendium is turning into “Nupedia 2.0″ (as one tweeter put it). And Wikipedia scooped Citizendium on news about Citizendium!
Is it just me, or do tech bloggers report more on their own prejudices than the actual news of what’s going on?
Comment by Tom Morris — September 2, 2009 @ 11:17 am
It’s not just you. The world of media is slowly going crazy, if you ask me. Once proud news outlets feel they must be “realistic” and pander to lower interests, because they’re competing with the Internet. Many pundits, who have always used rhetorically dodgy tactics, have become increasingly shrill, resembling nothing so much as the bloggers they love to hate. U.S. cable news networks, which began life with more or less straight news reporting, have become wall-to-wall opinionizing. And it seems like everybody with a megaphone, online and off, has become radicalized leftward or rightward, with the facts and intelligent discourse being the real victims.
Comment by Larry Sanger — September 2, 2009 @ 12:44 pm
Who will continue to write the Citizendium blog after you, Dr. Sanger?
Comment by Chunbum Park — September 13, 2009 @ 2:09 pm
Good question! I hope someone will be willing and able to do it.
Comment by Larry Sanger — September 13, 2009 @ 11:00 pm
“Also, if Jimmy Wales is Jewish, that is news to me”
Yea, I thought Jimmy Wales worshiped himself.
Comment by Catnip Clover — September 23, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
Maybe. Maybe not.
Comment by Chunbum Park — October 8, 2009 @ 4:32 pm