Wikipedia:We aren't Citizendium

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an essay; it contains the advice and/or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. It is not a policy or guideline, and editors are not obliged to follow it.
Shortcut:
WP:CITIZENDIUM

The good people at Citizendium have posted a comparison between the projects. We will here focus on the more interesting ideas, and respond to the criticism that we consider relevant and constructive.

Contents

[edit] Major differences

[edit] Expert editors

Citizendium relies on a number of expert editors who by submitting their CVs and list of publications will prove that they are experts in a given field. These editors make larger editorial judgements, have final say on content disputes, and approve stable versions. Authors are normal contributors, who should work side-by-side with the experts to produce the encyclopaedia. The idea is interesting and only time will tell how it will work out. Potentially, there are two things that make it less attractive:

  • If I'm an expert editor, why not write for, e.g., the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — what's the benefit in Citizendium?
  • If I'm a regular contributor who doesn't get a say in serious content issues, why should I bother with copy-editing?

The hope is probably that these two questions will answer each other, leading to a fruitful co-operation between expert and amateur. There's an additional point, though: there are experts working on Wikipedia. See, for example, Wikipedia:Wikipedians by Erdős number and WikiProject Russian History (though admittedly most of them don't use their real names and some of those claimed degrees may not be real). Each and every editor on Citizendium must provide concrete proof of their credentials before becoming editors. Wikipedia has no such mechanism. The question is whether giving some editors extra privileges, and creating an environment that encourages experts rather than grudgingly tolerating them, will help the aforementioned co-operation.

[edit] Division of power

The Citizendium power structure is that Constables and both Editors and Authors are divided, and constables only judge on behaviour but can not do so in articles where they have acted in any way as either an editor or authors. While we only have admins, they are not allowed to exercise their admin powers on articles where they are involved in a content dispute.

[edit] Stable versions

The way stable versions work on Citizendium is that the expert editors approve various versions and the latest approved version is displayed to the reader. When one tries to edit the page or discuss it, one is redirected to the draft version. The implementation seems actually very nice, and there is no reason why Wikipedia could not use a similar system. We could either elect editors or use a similar process to the Featured Article process. The question of stable versions has been discussed for a long time; the German Wikipedia will be the first to try it (see German version details). Somewhat related are the projects that attempt to release Wikipedia on CD.

Citizendium does not review the quality of its articles in the same fashion as Wikipedia's Featured Article process, but has an article approval process of its own. Instead of an open discussion of an article's merits by a large group of individuals, articles may instead be approved by a single Editor who had not contributed significantly to the article; alternatively, a group of Editors may agree to approve an article together, even if one or more of them had contributed to it heavily. Any other Editor with expertise in the field may veto the approval of an article; disputes on article approval are to be handled by the relevant Workgroup.

In addition, they are compared to an alternative set of guidelines. Once an article has been approved, the current version is protected and a draft created. Only this draft may be edited until it is ready to replace the current approved version, at which point the latter is updated.

[edit] A reliable source

Many of the changes at Citizendium are attempts to correct perceived flaws in the design and public image of Wikipedia that have led to problems with Wikipedia's acceptance as a valid and trustworthy resource. A number of academics have criticized Wikipedia for its perceived failure as a reliable source. Wikipedia prides itself on being "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," and there is no requirement that a contributor have any knowledge or expertise before editing an article on a given topic. Many Wikipedia editors do not have degrees or other credentials generally recognized in academia.[1] The use of Wikipedia is not accepted in many schools and universities in writing a formal paper. Some educational institutions have blocked Wikipedia in the past while others have limited its use to only a pointer to external sources.[2] University of Maryland professor of physics Robert L. Park has characterized Wikipedia as a target for "purveyors of pseudoscience."[3]

This perception is backed up by Wikipedia's own admission:

Wikis, including Wikipedia and other wikis sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation are not regarded as reliable sources.[4]

Regarding Wikipedia's oft-cited problems, Sanger wrote that "this arguably dysfunctional community is extremely off-putting to … academics" and as such appears "committed to amateurism."

There is no reason why Wikipedia could not make it a goal to produce articles that are considered stable and reliable sources by everyone. But could that happen without first revolutionizing its policies?

[edit] Differences in policy

[edit] Policy decisions by representatives

On Citizendium, anyone may propose policies which are then debated and refined on their forums. If support seems evident, the policy is then voted on by representatives. Some claim that representation is a less chaotic way of forming policy, while others prefer the somewhat democratic process of consensus as a way of setting policy.

[edit] Citing sources

Since Citizendium uses expert Editors, they don't rely on citations to resolve content dispute. Yes, this is indeed a problem on Wikipedia; we do sometimes cite sources needlessly just to appease other editors. However, that's not the ideal that we are striving for, and once quality assurance processes like Featured Article Nomination kicks in, these issues generally get resolved. See for example, the article on Intelligent Design, where the first two sentences used to contain some 10 references. The standard practise is that discussion pages are intended to be used for resolving conflicts.

[edit] Maintainability

Article inclusion at Citizendium is a matter of maintainability as opposed to our notability criteria. This is an interesting point: the question "can we maintain a high quality encyclopedia article on this topic" often is not considered when we decide whether to keep articles. On this issue, the German Wikipedia follows a much stricter standard.

[edit] Biographies of living persons

Citizendium has Policy on Topic Informants that allows subjects of biographies greater leeway[1] than does Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons.

[edit] Copyright policy?

Some Citizendium articles, e.g. astronomy, explicitly state "This article uses content that originally appeared on Wikipedia" and link to the article here. Other articles, like Jesus and Ciénaga, Magdalena, were obviously block copied from Wikipedia without attribution. This is in violation of the GFDL. However, the above examples were fixed only one day after this essay was written, so we thank the good people at Citizendium for paying attention. They have a simple checkbox for editors to set and this will automatically generate the attribution and link to Wikipedia, so it's obvious they do care about giving credit to our work when it is used.[2] Both Citizendium and Wikipedia have a strict copyright policy that includes potential banning of anyone who refuses to respect the copyrights of others.

[edit] Images and fair use

Wikipedia prohibits free-content images that disallow commercial use and derivatives. Citizendium allows them but says "the freer the better". Citizendium also allows fully copyrighted images, so long as proof of permission is displayed on an image subpage. Wikipedia uses all images uploaded to the project as well as to the Wikimedia Commons. Citizendium imposes a two-pronged test — the image must be attributable to a real-named person or official entity, and the image must have clear licensing data — before they may be used within its project.[3] Wikipedia has a well-defined and strict policy over "fair use" images. Citizendium currently has a fair use policy proposal that is in many ways much more liberal than Wikipedia's.[4]

[edit] "Family friendly"

Citizendium says they won't have as many articles about porn stars and sexual fetishes, that those they do have will be scholarly and tactful, and that none will contain graphic photos.[5] This raises questions of censorship because presumably "expert editors" will decide which sexual material is "acceptable".

[edit] Differences in community culture

[edit] Real names

The Citizendium idea is to have socially responsible encyclopedia where all contributors use their full names. The good thing is that they have experienced less vandalism. On Wikipedia, some of our highly respected editors use pseudonyms, while many others use their real name, see for example this list. Banning pseudonyms has certain problems as Wikipedians who edit controversial articles would be in risk of harassment or even lawsuits. Citizendium allows pseudonyms in cases when people have truly substantive reasons for one.

[edit] Respect for expertise

The lack of respect or even outright hostility toward expertise on Wikipedia is a criticism that Larry Sanger has levelled against Wikipedia ever since he left. Other current and former Wikipedians have made the same criticism (example). Adherence to our policies on attribution would imply reliance on expert opinion, though in practice those policies often are disregarded.

[edit] Wikipedia Administrators vs. Citizendium Constables

At Wikipedia, anyone may become an administrator who garners adequate "consensus" during a vote, which is tabulated to mean "community trust". This includes fully anonymous persons and high school students. At Citizendium, constables must go through an application process to its Personnel Administrators and the Chief Constable. Qualifications include the exhibition of mature judgment, achievement of at least 25 years of age, and achievement of at least an accredited bachelor's degree. Mature judgment is proven through past community interactions, and identity and degree status are proven by sending real-life records, i.e., a state-issued picture identification card and college transcripts.

[edit] Zero tolerance for trolls, vandals, and other problem users

Larry Sanger has also long argued that we are too tolerant of trolling and vandalism. This is indeed a difficult issue. The criticism is valid, but we also don't want to bite new editors.

[edit] Avoiding acronyms

The chief constable at Citizendium says that using acronyms is a serious offence, because it creates an unfriendly in-culture. Clearly, we have to acknowledge this criticism. It's much better to use a piped link, e.g. "this article is biased", than to throw acronyms around ("this article is POV" or "this article violates NPOV"). However, in some situations piped links cannot be used (such as in IRC chats). When we are in a content dispute with experienced editors we assume the other side will know the terminology, but we shouldn't forget that outsiders may also view our discussions and feel quite intimidated.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Youngwood, Susan. "Wikipedia: What do they know; when do they know it, and when can we trust it?", Vermont Sunday Magazine, Rutland Herald, April 1, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-04-04. "Perhaps the most important thing to understand about Wikipedia - both its genius and its Achilles heel - is that anyone can create or modify an entry. Anyone means your 10-year-old neighbor or a Nobel Prize winner - or an editor like me, who is itching to correct a grammar error in that Wikipedia entry that I just quoted. Entries can be edited by numerous people and be in constant flux. What you read now might change in five minutes. Five seconds, even."  — Susan Youngwood.
  2. ^ Lysa Chen (2007-03-28). Several colleges push to ban Wikipedia as resource. Duke Chronicle. Retrieved on 2007-04-02.
  3. ^ Bob Park (2007-03-23). Wikipedia: Has a beautiful idea fallen victim to human nature?. What's New By Bob Park. Retrieved on 2007-04-02.
  4. ^ Are wikis reliable sources? From: Wikipedia:Attribution/FAQ