Citizendium Blog

In an Inside Higher Ed column, “Professors Should Embrace Wikipedia,” Mark A. Wilson claims of Wikipedia, “The vision of its founders, Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger, has become reality…”  Wilson calls on college professors to get involved in Wikipedia, using their own real names.  One has to wonder if this is an April Fool’s gag, but it’s a pretty sober-sounding piece.

Here’s is my response, which I added to the IHE comments:

I’m Larry Sanger, and this is false. Please do not use my name to encourage professors to get involved in Wikipedia. My vision has always been for a maximally reliable information resource—not one that is controlled by faceless, often hostile, often irresponsible people, many of them teenagers and college students.

Over the years there have been repeated calls to professors to get involved and improve Wikipedia. Few have heeded the call, and those who have have come back pretty consistently saying, “This place is nuts.” Indeed, long ago—in 2002—I seriously considered starting up a Wikipedia “Sifter” project (you can still read about this in archives) in which experts would approve Wikipedia articles. At the time I was told by some of the more active Wikipedians, essentially: “Don’t expect those alleged experts to get any special treatment from us. They’re no better than the rest of us, and they shouldn’t get all uppity and act like they are!” It then became clear to me that Wikipedia simply had no place for experts. I could not in good conscience recommend that any serious knowledge professional participate in Wikipedia. I still cannot.

Inside Higher Ed and this columnist would do better to acquaint themselves with a project that actually gives college professors, and other experts, a modest but real stake in guidance of content decisions and management of content policy: the Citizendium. I can’t fault the author for not mentioning us, as we are new and, with only 5,800 articles, still unproven. But a positive passing mention would help to create a better alternative to Wikipedia. Please spread the word.

Sign up here. It’s a good time to sign up; tomorrow is our monthly Write-a-Thon, which is always very lively!

Let me temper the above comments with a few additional remarks:

• I have long maintained, and I still do, that Wikipedia is very useful, and that most of the people working on Wikipedia are excellent hands.  I do not mean to dismiss Wikipedia, or the work of most Wikipedians, wholesale.  I simply want to quash any notion that I can be associated with a call to experts to descend on Wikipedia, which I think is a bad idea.
• Perhaps I should also clarify that the significant advantage of the Citizendium is not merely that it makes a place for experts.  That is only one of our differences (and advantages).  But it is the difference that is relevant to any suggestion that experts get involved in Wikipedia.
• I understand that there are certain topics, especially more technical and mathematical topics, where Wikipedians behave themselves rather better and where expert knowledge is accorded an appropriate (not fawning, of course) respect.  I don’t mean to deny this, and well done to all involved for their success with articles on such topics.

From our new “Quick Start” page

Just arrived?

Want to get started, but don’t know how?

Well, don’t panic!^[1]

If you’re new to Citizendium, we’d love you to dive “write” in, whether you’re an author or an editor. We don’t want you to be discouraged, but you may imagine we have extremely high standards. Certainly we aim for high quality, but we also want participation to be easy and as fun as possible. We know that Rome wasn’t built in a day.

What is the first thing you should do after you join? While you can do whatever you like (it’s a wiki!), we recommend two things:

1. Start an article. How? Pick a topic. Then think of a good title for an encyclopedia article about that topic. Then go to Start Article, handily linked on your left–and do it the Easy Way™! Just write a paragraph or two introducing the topic neutrally, beginning with a definition of the concept, or a description of what a thing is notable for. We don’t mind very short articles, as long as they have a couple of sentences. They’ll be expanded later, trust us. Then…
2. Edit someone else’s article. How? Find an article on a topic you are interested in or know a lot about. You can use the search box, or navigate alphabetically, or enter via “top articles” or workgroups. When you’ve found an article you want to edit, press the “edit” tab. Add a few sentences. It’s OK. They just have to be a reasonably helpful addition. They don’t have to be absolutely brilliant. Brilliance happens later.

Are you still worried? Seriously, there is no need for that. Let’s cover some main worries.

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I rewrote our “Why Citizendium?” page.  Here’s the new draft.

“What is the point of the Citizendium,” you might ask, “when Wikipedia is so huge and of reasonably good quality? Is there really a need for it?”

To put it forcefully: there is a better way for humanity to come together to make an encyclopedia. So we make this appeal to you. If we can do better than Wikipedia—or more positively, if we can pioneer a truly effective way to gather knowledge—then shouldn’t we?

In response to this, a critic might argue: but you can’t do better than Wikipedia. It has millions of articles, it is ranked #8 in traffic, it has thousands of very active contributors, and Nature did a report saying the accuracy of its science articles was not far below that of Encyclopedia Britannica. As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

But to make our case, we don’t have to say that Wikipedia is broken. While different Citizens have different views about Wikipedia’s merits, we agree on one thing: we, humanity, can do better. But why think that the Citizendium, in particular, can do better?

Why think the Citizendium can “catch up”?

The Citizendium actually added about five million words in its first year—more than Wikipedia did in its first year. Our rate of article creation and average number of edits per day have increased—in other words, our growth has been accelerating. Moreover, we have many very active Citizens, including Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia and now Editor-in-Chief of the Citizendium, who are on making many improvements daily. It is only a matter of time before the Citizendium system is fully “tuned up” and out of beta status. Sanger believes that we might well enjoy explosive growth in 2008, and is working very hard to make it happen. Even if we merely continue to triple our rate of growth every year, we will have millions of articles ourselves after some more years.

In other words, we look to the long term—just as Wikipedia’s founders did in its first years. And the long-term outlook is positive indeed. In five to ten years, we can expect similar growth, similar numbers of active contributors, and a similar traffic ranking. So we need not worry that Wikipedia will “always be larger.”

We can do better

We do not think that Wikipedia is “good enough.” We think humanity can do better: Wikipedia is full of serious problems. Many of the articles are written amateurishly. Too often they are mere disconnected grab-bags of factoids, not made coherent by any sort of narrative. In some fields and some topics, there are groups who “squat” on articles and insist on making them reflect their own specific biases. There is no credible mechanism to approve versions of articles. Vandalism, once a minor annoyance, has become a major headache—made possible because the community allows anonymous contribution. Many experts have been driven away because know-nothings insist on ruining their articles. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales acts as a law unto himself, not subject to a written constitution, with no official position, but wielding considerable authority in the community. Wales and other Wikipedia leaders have either been directly involved in, or have not adequately responded to, a whole string of very public scandals. The community takes its dictum, “Ignore All Rules,” seriously; it is part anarchy, part mob rule. The people with the most influence in the community are the ones who have the most time on their hands—not necessarily the most knowledgable—and who manipulate Wikipedia’s eminently gameable system.

But even if you disagree with much of this indictment, you might still agree that we can do better.

Real names are better

By requiring real names, we give both our articles and our community a kind of real-world credibility that Wikipedia’s articles and community lack: if you look at our recent changes page, you will see nothing but real names. To Wikipedians, this must be a bizarre but refreshing sight. Real names also make it possible to enforce some modest, sensible rules, while Wikipedia’s anonymity policy allows anyone who is slapped on the wrist to come back immediately under a new pseudonym. This happens very frequently on Wikipedia. By contrast, the Citizendium has virtually no vandalism and very little abuse of any kind.

To this, you might say that real names also exclude too many people, so that the Citizendium will grow too slowly. But this is puzzling to say, considering that many thousands of people have signed up to the Citizendium under their own real names. A community that asks its members to use their real names is more pleasant, polite, and productive than one that allows abusive people to disrupt the community under the cloak of anonymity. We believe that in time, more and more people will come to see the merits of the Citizendium’s policy. The people driven away by Wikipedia’s governance nonsense—and there are many—are much more likely to find the Citizendium mature and to their liking.

A modest role for experts is better

We too permit very open contribution; the general public make up the bulk of our contributors, as “authors.” We agree that broad-based contribution is necessary to achieve critical mass as well as the broadest spectrum of interests and knowledge.

But we believe that it is merely good sense to make a special role for experts within the system. A project devoted to knowledge ought to give special inducements to people who make it their life’s work to know things. We believe—and we think our work so far bears this out—that a project gently guided by experts will in time be more credible, and of higher quality, than a project making no special role for experts. So we allow our expert editors to approve articles (creating stable versions, with a “draft” version that can be easily edited). Editors may also take the lead, when necessary, in articulating sensible, well-informed solutions to content disputes—disputes that sometimes go on interminably on Wikipedia.

To this there are a number of typical objections, all of which rest on misunderstandings of our policies. Sometimes critics claim that our editors will inflict their personal biases on authors and our readership; but this is incorrect, as we have a neutrality policy that is, if anything, more robust than Wikipedia’s. We are often asked, “But who will choose the experts?” Our answer is: why is this a problem? The “real world” has been solving that problem for a very long time, and our solution is typical. And sometimes people point to Wikipedia itself as evidence that no special role for experts is needed. We disagree: the amateurish and ever-vacillating quality of Wikipedia’s articles is an excellent reason to establish a system that gives a role to editors.

Sensible governance is better

New Citizendium members, called “Citizens,” must agree to our Statement of Fundamental Policies. Moreover, we have a group of mature, generally good-natured “constables” who rein in bad behavior on the wiki, and these community managers are limited in their authority. We moderate comments on the wiki in much the same way mailing lists and forums are moderated. If a Citizen is abusive, his comment is removed; if he shows as pattern of abuse, he is removed. Since we use real names, it is difficult for such abusive people to return under another name. The upshot is that the Citizendium features the rule of law, not anarchy and not mob rule. Indeed, our Citizens get along pretty well, despite being very free to do or say almost anything—as long as it is respectful toward others. To Wikipedians, the experience of seeing such a peaceful community must be, again, bizarre but refreshing.

In the long run, again, we expect that the Citizendium will be recognizing as having the gold standard of sensible governance systems.

The potential of the Citizendium is stunning

We have spent so much time comparing the Citizendium with Wikipedia largely because we know that the comparison will loom large in many potential contributors’ minds; we know that many people ask themselves, “Why work on the Citizendium instead of Wikipedia?” We hope we have answered that question adequately.

But the most important reason to get behind the Citizendium is not a comparative point at all: it is that a fully-developed Citizendium would be stunning. Not only would it have millions of articles, but it would have, at least, hundreds of thousands of expert-approved articles, all available for free, all being instantly updatable with the latest research and events, and all wonderfully well written. Imagine enormous quantities of content combined with the highest quality and exhaustiveness of scope, all achievable only by radical collaboration. Imagine, as well, a whole raft of supplementary reference materials.

The world has never seen anything like this. But we can create it. Our best chance to do so is by throwing our support behind the Citizendium.

Some personal motivations to support the Citizendium

But what about you—why should you get involved?

It’s mainly because it is fun and rewarding to share your knowledge with the world. Your contributions to the Citizendium are less likely to be degraded by poor edits later on: others will move your contributions forward, not backward. In time (we can’t say when—but eventually), the article you contribute to will be approved by an expert editor, and so represented to the world as containing a credible, reliable introduction to your topic. And all for free. We are accomplishing something truly worthwhile.

Many people, especially academics, are concerned that in a strongly collaborative project like this, they cannot get the individual credit they need. Well, you can already point people to the article history, where your real name will appear, crediting you with the specific edits you make. Also, we will soon probably start a pilot project that will allow people to be credited with their contributions on a “byline,” under certain circumstances. And we hope to start a program soon where we will prepare an official report about your contributions to, and roles in, the Citizendium that you can submit to decisionmakers. Already, you can have the Editor-in-Chief or an active editor in your area attest to your activity and the quality of your work.

Fun, rewarding, and worthwhile—what more could you want?

For immediate release

University Assignments Going Cyber

Citizendium Announces “Eduzendium” Initiative

January 24, 2008 – In a striking departure from traditional methods of teaching, a new way for students to gain course credits is emerging. As with so much else this decade, it is all down to the Internet.

Traditional teaching saw students laboring to produce essays that to them felt onerous and oftentimes pointless. Once read by the lecturer their writing was generally consigned to the dustbin.

For some students, that situation is now radically changing.

In a never-before-seen new initiative, the online reference encyclopedia project Citizendium (http://www.citizendium.org), in collaboration with expert teachers and lecturers, has launched Eduzendium. The Eduzendium project allows students to write their assignments online on the Citizendium on a given topic allocated by their teacher.

Read the whole thing.

Here is a post I made, with some trepidation, to the WikiEN-L mailing list, the main discussion list for the English Wikipedia project.

[Moderators: if you don’t wish to forward this post, I’ll understand. If you do, thanks in advance. –Larry Sanger]

All,

I saw this unfortunate article

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/04/wikipedia_secret_mailing/

and I felt inspired to reach out to the Wikipedia community and invite those of you who are seriously disaffected to give the Citizendium (http://www.citizendium.org/) another look. In case you took seriously a certain article about us in the Wikipedia Signpost last summer, let’s just say that wishful reports of our demise were greatly exaggerated. Since then, we’ve nearly doubled our number of articles and our activity; our growth has been accerating, and recently, we’ve had a great growth spurt. Obviously, we’re still small, but we’ve got an excellent opportunity to replicate Wikipedia-style growth.

I’ve never actually extended an invitation to Wikipedians before. I’ve always felt that Wikipedia and the Citizendium naturally attract different constituencies, and that that’s a positive thing. I have never wanted to appear to be competing with Wikipedia for people. I just didn’t think that’s necessary — and I still don’t.

But, especially to those people who are seriously disappointed with the management of the Wikipedia community, I feel it’s appropriate and important that I say: we all (humanity) might be able to do better than the Wikipedia model of production and governance. Maybe, for some of you, it’s time to explore the Citizendium model.

I know I’m going to make a lot of people angry or disappointed by my saying this here, in the lion’s den, so to speak. (Does it help that I started this list? I doubt it. ) I’m sure there will be no shortage of hostile response. But bear in mind, I am reaching out only to people who are seriously disappointed with Wikipedia or its management. I think this is within the properly critical spirit of the open source/free culture movement. After all, I am *not* trying to undermine Wikipedia, which I hope will always exist as a popular source of information. (I’ve always said that.) I’m merely trying to build *another* source of information. I hope that those who are contemplating exiting Wikipedia will consider joining the Citizendium.

If you want to know how (we think) we’re different, see this page: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:We_aren’t_Wikipedia

The present “scandal” is over the community and governance. So what’s special or interesting about the Citizendium community and governance? Here’s a summary.

The community as a whole is by and large a mature and pleasant place to work. But it’s still an open wiki.

We are ramping up an open, online representative republic. (We’re still drafting our rules!) Among other things, this means we’ve got an Editorial Council (a “legislative”), a Constabulary (a “police force”), an Executive Committee (an “executive”), and we will soon be adding an independent judiciary. These community components are rule-governed and being established with the well-known challenges of Wikipedia’s community in mind.

We take “the rule of law” seriously. “Ignore all rules,” which I originally proposed for Wikipedia as a sort of joke back in the spring of 2001, isn’t recommended. Boldness and not caring too much if you make beginner mistakes are strongly recommended. (But that was the original spirit of “ignore all rules,” in case you didn’t know.)

We require that contributors agree with a Statement of Fundamental Policies. (And, soon, a Citizendium Charter.) No endless arguing about our fundamental policies: we are all committed to them up front. We still argue about stuff that really matters. We take the notion of “cyber-citizenship” seriously.

We require real names. We actually check that there is someone with a particular (real) name and we try to match this name up with an e-mail address. Our methods of doing this are very fallible, but so far they seem to have worked just fine. So sockpuppetry, while in principle still possible, becomes much, much more difficult. (I’m not aware of our having any sockpuppet contributors on CZ.)

On the issue in question — should there be a “secret cabal” of people to deal with sockpuppets? –  well, it’s interesting. On the one hand, we don’t have a sockpuppet problem to speak of, because we require real names. On the other hand, we do have a “Constabulary,” and occasionally they deal with difficult cases, and indeed privately, but the constables are bound by certain rules. Among the rules are the right to appeal to a fully independent body. For example, recently one editor (a very kind University of Edinburgh professor who served in the same appeal function that we’ll soon formalize with the Judicial Board) “heard” an appeal and reversed my decision to ban someone. This is fine with me and I am glad to be able to demonstrate that I do *not* have the final say. No single individual should, in a republic.

The notion of a *secret* body that actually has authority to determine cases is, needless to say, anathema in a project committed to the rule of law. But, just as with closed police records, closed access is sometimes necessary to protect contributor privacy and interests, and to avoid libel issues needlessly. If a person wishes us to make our deliberations public, we will. We regard it as their *right* as a citizen. This guarantee of rights, however, would be rather more problematic if we weren’t using real names.

In terms of management, to set a positive precedent, I plan to step down as editor-in-chief and hand over the reins to someone else — within the next year or two at most. This will require that I do fundraising to pay this person’s salary, because I myself have been living strictly from writing, speaking, and consulting fees. I will at that time no longer play *any* role, formal or informal, in the governance of the Citizendium encyclopedia project. (I will try to behave like the traditional disinterested U.S. ex-president.) It just seems obvious to me that the leader of an allegedly democratic project should actually *step aside* when he’s handed over the reins of power.

Finally, we have a role for experts (only they are called our “editors”), who can approve articles and make content decisions where necessary, but who otherwise work shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone. In fact, anyone can join (as an “author”) and contribute, as long as they are 13 or older, write good English and otherwise make a positive contribution, agree with our fundamental principles, and help us establish that the name/identity they claim is their own real name.

If you are motivated to try something different, join here: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Special:RequestAccount

Coincidentally, tomorrow (Wednesday) is a good day to join. It’s our monthly Write-a-Thon (details linked from the front page).

By the way, I’m sorry to those who have been waiting, but I hope to announce our license before *too* much longer. The announcement will be accompanied by a very long essay, which I haven’t finished yet. Please don’t assume the license will be incompatible with Wikipedia’s…there’s a decent chance it will be compatible.

Also, by the way, I’m going to start up SharedKnowing (a new, “neutral” mailing list) soon. Some prominent Wikipedians are already subscribed. Join here:

http://mail.citizendium.org/mailman/listinfo/sharedknowing#more

In conclusion, I’m hoping sincerely for the best outcome for everyone. I hope Wikipedia can overcome its obviously difficult problems, and let me add that I don’t expect the Citizendium to be free of problems when it’s bigger, either. They’ll just be different, and I hope not so fundamental.

My best to the Wikipedia community,
Larry Sanger
Wikipedia ex-co-founder

—–
Lawrence M. Sanger, Ph.D. | http://www.larrysanger.org/
Editor-in-Chief, Citizendium | http://www.citizendium.org/
sanger@citizendium.org

UPDATE (late evening the same day): it’s Saturday, usually a fairly slow day on the wiki.  For whatever reason, however, we’ve had over 1,000 edits in the last 24 hours.  That’s pretty remarkable, I think.

In the wake of the mass mailing last Sunday/Monday, we’ve still got a lot of newer and returned people at work. I spent a little time this morning thanking some of the new people (who were doing work in the last 24 hours). There were 16 of them, by my count, in the last 24 hours, but I might have missed a few.

Of course, ongoing thanks are due to the “old hands.” These days, you can always expect to see something from Steve Ewen, Richard Jensen, Robert King, Yi Zhe Wu, Michael J. Formica (who is pretty new actually), Paul Wormer, Joe Quick, and many others who are clearly committed…or clearly should “be committed”… (Just kidding!)

I’m seeing many fewer “beginner faux pas” on recent changes, too…which is not surprising…it’s not like the basic rules are complex.

As a result, we’ve sustained our daily edit count and new article creation rate at very high levels the last few weeks, and passed 3800 live articles yesterday. That’s 500 articles, a 15% gain, in 18 days. For the sake of comparison: the previous 500 articles required 43 days.

UPDATE (evening): 500 edits in six hours, well over 50 articles today (it might be more like 75), and I’ve received dozens and dozens of mails from people who said, “Sorry, I’ll start contributing soon.”  It’s really great to have confirmation of so much deep support for what we’re doing here!

A huge number of new people, or newly-active people, arrived following my mailing to thousands of people with Citizendium accounts.  Apparently, they just needed a reminder.  (This isn’t a sort of reminder I’ll send regularly, though, trust me.)  Right now, there are more unfamiliar names than familiar ones on recent changes – that’s just how I like it.

Actually, I separated accounts into five categories:

1. People with bios who had made an edit
2. People with bios who hadn’t made an edit
3. People with well-formed usernames and blank userpages who had made an edit (there were some)
4. People with well-formed usernames and blank userpages, who hadn’t made any edits
5. People with poorly-formed usernames

(Actually, I’m about to send out #5 — with no small amount of nervousness.  )

Here is the letter I sent to #1:

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Here’s a recruitment post I made to IRTRAD-L, the main list about Irish traditional music.

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The Citizendium registration system, coded up by Ohio State student Aaron Schulz, is a remarkable success.  We have gone from a few days (on average) to get new contributors into the wiki last summer, to 24 hours in recent weeks, to (usually) minutes within the last week.

The reason for this is quite simple, and instructive for Web 2.0 project organizers: automation.

And, as a result, we are now enabled, and empowered, to start a serious recruitment drive!

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This is my kick-off mail for our new recruitment effort, sent to PHILOSOP and PHILOS-L.  It explains why philosophers should get involved with CZ, despite the existence of Wikipedia, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  Feel free to forward it to philosophers!   –Larry

Dear philosophers,

Larry Sanger, long-time listmember and Wikipedia co-founder, here. I’m now Editor-in-Chief of the Citizendium (http://www.citizendium.org/) and I’m writing, again, to invite you to join the project, which you can easily do
here:

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Special:RequestAccount

A human being will look over your (brief!) application and let you in typically within an hour or two. But why should you join? Read on.

================
Some differences

Some months ago, I announced here the start of the non-profit, free, international Citizendium (”the Citizens’ Compendium”). “CZ” as we call it is a wiki and a general encyclopedia project. Since first announcing the project, it occurred to me that many of you may have not seen its point. So I wanted to describe the project’s interesting niche. What makes it different from other projects, and why should philosophers join in?

* Unlike Wikipedia, contributors to our wiki are required to use their real names; experts have a role (they approve articles and can make decisions about content issues in their areas of expertise); and the community is managed by “constables” who ensure that contributors follow the rules. As a result, our open, but expert-led community is remarkably pleasant and virtually vandalism-free. It’s been called “Wikipedia for grown-ups.”

* Unlike the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy–both fine reference works, which I have used regularly over the years–CZ articles are not signed, and they are constructed collaboratively. Furthermore, CZ is considerably more open and interdisciplinary. These are “differences that make a difference,” as I’ll explain below.

=============
We’re growing

We’re about to celebrate the first year anniversary of the launch of our pilot project. In the intervening time, we have developed over 3,100 articles–three times what we had last spring. Every month, over 200 different people edit the wiki, and some 2,000 people have signed up with accounts, of which about 240 are expert editors. We continue to grow robustly and, recently, at an accelerating rate. Wikipedia started small, too. In a few years, we will have over a hundred thousand articles (my opinion of course). There is no reason that we cannot replicate Wikipedia’s sort of growth, which as Wikipedia’s organizer I engineered; our fundamentals are very solid.

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