First, Wikipedia, now Citizendium
p2pnet.net news:- Wikipedia founder Jimmy ‘Jimbo’ Wales is still taking heavy flack because one of his most prolific contributors and editors, who’d also become a friend, turned out to be a fake.
Now, enter the Citizendium, a "citizens, an open wiki project, "aimed at creating an enormous, free, and reliable encyclopedia," says the founder, Jimmy Wales.
He says the plan is to improve on the Wikipedia model by adding "gentle expert oversight" and, "requiring contributors to use their real names".
"We have over 1,000 articles and hundreds of contributors," says the site. "But we will avoid calling the Citizendium an ‘encyclopedia’ until the project’s editors feel comfortable putting their reputations behind that description."
And ‘constables’ will be on hand to make sure everyone toes the line.
What’s a constable? There isn’t an entry for the word in the Citizendium, at this point, but the Wikipedia says it’s a, "person holding a particular office, most commonly in law enforcement."
The "modest success of our pilot project shows that there is hope that we can correct exactly the sort of abuses that people demonize Web 2.0 for," says project editor-in-chief and Wikipedia co-founder Dr Larry Sanger. "You don’t have to choose between content and accountability. We have shown that we can create open and credible content. We can, in fact, be open to all sorts of participants, but still hold people to higher standards of content and behavior as a community."
Citizendium is now officially online and, "To date, over 180 expert editors and 800 authors have joined the project and have already worked on over 1000 articles," it says.
The Citizendium community comprises:
Authors: Citizendium authors constitute the majority of Citizendium’s population. Authors can start new articles, edit existing articles and talk things over on the discussion page.
Editors: Editors, who are experts in their fields, work shoulder-to-shoulder with authors and other editors. Editors, however, have two special functions over authors – they may make decisions when needed about how an article should read and may approve specific versions of articles.
Constables: Constables are friendly, hard-working folks who make sure the community runs smoothly. If you break a rule, a constable might gently tap you on the shoulder and explain what’s wrong. Constables make decisions solely about behavior, not about content, which is the domain of editors.
Also See:
heavy flack – Wikipedia prof was a ‘fake’, March 7, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the end (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
