CALIFORNIA: A new encyclopedia project is set to rival Wikipedia as the go-to destination for general information online.  Like Wikipedia, the Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), or "the Citizen’s Compendium," will be a wiki project open to public collaboration.  But, according to the new venture, " unlike Wikipedia, the community will be guided by expert editors, and contributors will be expected to use their own names, not anonymous pseudonyms".

The initiative has been started by Wikipedia’s co-founder, Larry Sanger, who, after leaving the well-known wiki project, became one of its more vocal critics.  Sanger first announced the effort on September 15 at the Wizards of OS conference in Berlin.  Sanger, who holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Ohio State University, has taken a leave of absence from the Digital Universe Foundation in order to lead the new project.

This week, the fledgling Citizendium Foundation will launch a six-week pilot project open to potential contributors by invitation

Gareth Leng, Professor of Experimental Physiology of the University of Edinburgh, has agreed to serve as one such Citizendium editor.  Professor Leng said, "Public understanding of science needs scientists to help to explain, clearly and objectively, what science can do and what it can’t, its weaknesses as well as its strengths, its failures as well as its promise.  At the Citizendium, our role will not be to tell readers what opinions they should hold, but to give them the means to decide, rationally, for themselves."

Email This   Print This   Comments   RSS