Citizendium After One Year

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Posted by kdawson on Tuesday October 30, 2007 @12:21PM from the 3,200-articles dept.

Larry Sanger writes "Citizendium, 'the Citizens' Compendium' — a free, non-profit, ad-free, wiki encyclopedia with real names and a role for experts — has just announced that it's celebrating the one-year anniversary of its wiki, an occasion for which I wrote a project report. Make up your own mind about whether 'we've made a very strong start and an amazing future likely lies ahead of us.' We have been the subject of a lot of misunderstanding, but we've still proven a lot, such as that a public-expert hybrid wiki is consistent with accelerating growth and leads to high quality, or that eliminating anonymity helps remove vandalism. Signs are good that we are starting into a serious growth spurt. Might the Web 2.0 umbrella be expanded to include real name requirements and roles for experts? It's looking that way."

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Re:Who? What? by interiot · 2007-10-30 14:02 · Score: 2, Informative
Heck, of the top 20 most viewed articles on Wikipedia, the following are missing from Citizendium:
- #3: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- #4: Naruto
- #5: Guitar Hero III
- #9: Harry Potter
- #10: Halo 3
- #11: Transformers (film)
- #12: Heroes (TV series)
- #13: Vanessa Hudgens
- #14: Luciano Pavarotti
- #15: Bleach (manga)
- #17: 50 Cent
- #18: Sex positions
- #19: World Wrestling Entertainment
- #20: Sex (PC terms like homosexuality, AIDS, contraception, etc. are mentioned, but any sort of anatomy isn't there... possibly due to the family friendly policy)
Granted, popularity isn't the metric that academians should necessarily go by, but the avoidance of certain types of anatomy is a bit weird.
Re:Real Names by Reality+Master+101 · 2007-10-30 15:10 · Score: 2, Informative

My user name on Wikipedia (and Citizendium) is my real name. My first edits to Wikipedia were on neo-Nazis and Scientology.

Considering you can be put in jail for thinking the wrong thoughts in certain countries in Europe, I would be very, very careful what you write on those subjects.

This is not theoretical -- people can, and are, put in jail for writing the wrong things in supposedly free countries in Western Europe.

--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Re:Real Names by McFadden · 2007-10-30 15:41 · Score: 2, Informative

Uhhh... I can't help but wonder what your hobbies are, that you think some "idiot policeman" is going to throw you in jail for.
How about going to watch soccer?

From the Observer (British Newspaper):

Tickets to a Manchester United game found during anti-terrorist raids sparked fears of a suicide attack on Old Trafford. But they were for an old match and had been kept as souvenirs by the suspects, who were fans of the club.

The revelation will lead to further criticism of the operation which led to the arrest of 10 people by armed Greater Manchester police in dawn raids last month. All have since been released without charge.
These men (I believe they were members of the British Iraqui Kurdish community) were arrested under suspicion of planning a terrorist attack on live television at a major British football (soccer) ground. Except they were just fans going to watch a game, and it turned out to be total bullshit.