California: A new encyclopedia project is set to rival Wikipedia as the go-to destination for general information online.
Like Wikipedia, the Citizendium 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.
“Wikipedia has accomplished great things but the world can do even better," said Sanger.
"By engaging expert editors, eliminating anonymous contribution, and launching a more mature community under a new charter, a much broader and more influential group of people and institutions will be able to improve upon Wikipedia’s extremely useful, but often uneven work. The result will be not only enormous and free, but reliable," he added.
Professor of Experimental Physiology of the University of Edinburgh, Gareth Leng, has agreed to serve as one such Citizendium editor.
"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," Professor Leng said.
Comments
0 comment