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'''Citizendium''' ("CZ") is a pretender to the throne of [[Wikipedia]] as a free internet-based encyclopedia project.<ref>[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Citizendium Their main page]</ref> It was founded by Wikipedia co-founder<ref>Wikipedia says so, this week. The question is more than a little contentious, however.</ref> Larry Sanger in 2006 to remedy what he viewed as problems with Wikipedia.
 
'''Citizendium''' ("CZ") is a pretender to the throne of [[Wikipedia]] as a free internet-based encyclopedia project.<ref>[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Citizendium Their main page]</ref> It was founded by Wikipedia co-founder<ref>Wikipedia says so, this week. The question is more than a little contentious, however.</ref> Larry Sanger in 2006 to remedy what he viewed as problems with Wikipedia.
  
Citizendium aims to boost its reliability by having articles vetted by experts and requiring real names for contributions.<ref>Going so far as forbidding its editors from uploading free-to-use images and photographs from elsewhere if the artist works under a pseudonym and can't be convinced to reveal his or her real name: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AMGA73&action=historysubmit&diff=42395499&oldid=42392618 User talk:MGA73], Wikimedia Commons. (Note that the guy's first name is actually known ... and the image wasn't even his.)</ref> Articles are managed by "workgroups," including a workgroup on "healing arts," Citizendium's term for [[alternative medicine]]<ref>[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Healing_Arts_Workgroup CZ:Healing Arts Workgroup] &mdash; originally set up for people interested in native and traditional medical practice from an anthropological perspective, then taken over by present-day alternative medicine advocates.</ref> &mdash; distinct from the workgroup on "health sciences", [[medicine|medical treatment]] that actually works. Thus, alternative medicine practitioners manage their articles largely on their own terms, removing unwanted criticism and [[cherry picking]] references. This led to the first public sign that something had gone seriously wrong, when a ludicrous puff piece on [[homeopathy]] was featured on the main page. While advocates of homeopathy and other forms of [[woo]] have been protected by site policies, many of the recruited academic experts have left, driven away by the site administrators.<ref name="the2009" />
+
Citizendium aims to boost its reliability by having articles vetted by experts and requiring real names for contributions.<ref>Going so far as forbidding its editors from uploading free-to-use images and photographs from elsewhere if the artist works under a pseudonym and can't be convinced to reveal his or her real name: [http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AMGA73&action=historysubmit&diff=42395499&oldid=42392618 User talk:MGA73], Wikimedia Commons. (Note that the guy's first name is actually known ... and the image wasn't even his.)</ref> Articles are managed by "workgroups," including a workgroup on "healing arts," Citizendium's term for [[alternative medicine]]<ref>[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Healing_Arts_Workgroup CZ:Healing Arts Workgroup] &mdash; originally set up for people interested in native and traditional medical practice from an anthropological perspective, then taken over by present-day alternative medicine advocates.</ref> &mdash; distinct from the workgroup on "health sciences", [[medicine|medical treatment]] that actually works. Thus, alternative medicine practitioners manage their articles largely on their own terms, removing unwanted criticism and [[cherry picking]] references. This led to the first public sign that something had gone seriously wrong, when a ludicrous puff piece on [[homeopathy]] was featured on the main page. While pseudoscience advocates have been protected by site policies, many of the recruited academic experts have left, driven away by the site administrators.<ref name="the2009" />
  
 
From lofty ambitions and a hugely publicized start, participation has declined from a peak in early 2008 to a small core of 20-25 regulars and only 80 people making a single edit per month. June 2010 had the least number of users making 1, 20 or 100 edits per month since the project went public in March 2007,<ref>[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Statistics Citizendium:Statistics]</ref> and half the month's edits were made by just three people.<ref>49%, to be precise. [[:File:Pie-Citizendium-2010-6-20100728.png]] July 2010 was [[:File:Pie-Citizendium-2010-7.png|not quite as bad]], with only 70% of edits being made by ten people and 47% by four people. [[:File:Pie-Citizendium-2010-8.png|August 2010]] had almost the same numbers as June.</ref> Citizendium is a cautionary tale concerning inflexible top-down management of volunteer projects and the dangers of [[credentials|credentialism]].
 
From lofty ambitions and a hugely publicized start, participation has declined from a peak in early 2008 to a small core of 20-25 regulars and only 80 people making a single edit per month. June 2010 had the least number of users making 1, 20 or 100 edits per month since the project went public in March 2007,<ref>[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Statistics Citizendium:Statistics]</ref> and half the month's edits were made by just three people.<ref>49%, to be precise. [[:File:Pie-Citizendium-2010-6-20100728.png]] July 2010 was [[:File:Pie-Citizendium-2010-7.png|not quite as bad]], with only 70% of edits being made by ten people and 47% by four people. [[:File:Pie-Citizendium-2010-8.png|August 2010]] had almost the same numbers as June.</ref> Citizendium is a cautionary tale concerning inflexible top-down management of volunteer projects and the dangers of [[credentials|credentialism]].

Revision as of 03:28, 1 October 2010

Their logo as of July 2010. Hey, GMail was "beta" for five years.

Citizendium ("CZ") is a pretender to the throne of Wikipedia as a free internet-based encyclopedia project.[1] It was founded by Wikipedia co-founder[2] Larry Sanger in 2006 to remedy what he viewed as problems with Wikipedia.

Citizendium aims to boost its reliability by having articles vetted by experts and requiring real names for contributions.[3] Articles are managed by "workgroups," including a workgroup on "healing arts," Citizendium's term for alternative medicine[4] — distinct from the workgroup on "health sciences", medical treatment that actually works. Thus, alternative medicine practitioners manage their articles largely on their own terms, removing unwanted criticism and cherry picking references. This led to the first public sign that something had gone seriously wrong, when a ludicrous puff piece on homeopathy was featured on the main page. While pseudoscience advocates have been protected by site policies, many of the recruited academic experts have left, driven away by the site administrators.[5]

From lofty ambitions and a hugely publicized start, participation has declined from a peak in early 2008 to a small core of 20-25 regulars and only 80 people making a single edit per month. June 2010 had the least number of users making 1, 20 or 100 edits per month since the project went public in March 2007,[6] and half the month's edits were made by just three people.[7] Citizendium is a cautionary tale concerning inflexible top-down management of volunteer projects and the dangers of credentialism.

Impetus and ambitions

The project was founded in 2006 to create a "new compendium of knowledge" based on the contributions of "intellectuals," defined as "educated, thinking people who read about science or ideas regularly."[8] The ambition was to "unseat Wikipedia as the go-to destination for general information online."[9] It was launched with great fanfare, extensive press coverage and much newspaper and blogosphere opinionation.[10]

Citizendium began its closed pilot phase in late 2006 and went public on March 27, 2007.[11] It began as a fork of the English Wikipedia under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. Sanger soon decided that starting from a clean slate was the best way to motivate writers, and deleted all Wikipedia-sourced articles that had not been worked on locally.[12]

Growth and decline

Sanger stated in October 2007 that he expected "an explosion of growth,"[13] and that he expected the project to triple, or at least double, in size annually. This has not occurred.

Participation grew during Citizendium's first year, peaking in early 2008 and then settling in to a long-term decline. Word count added per day has declined from its peak of 8,400-26,000 in the first half of 2008 to 3,000-7,700 in 2010. During the same period the article creation rate increased slightly from around 14/day in late 2007 to 18-20/day in 2010. The word count per article has correspondingly gone down, with much of the increase in article numbers being very short stubs.[14] The median article length has declined from 468 words in October 2007 to just 147 words (roughly the length of the paragraph you are now reading) in July 2010.[15] In June 2010 there were about 12.9 million words in 20,000 mainspace articles (a mean of 645 words/article).[16][17]

As of June 2010 each month sees about 70-80 individuals making an edit to Citizendium, down from around 200 at the time of Sanger's "explosion of growth" prediction.[18] Compare this to RationalWiki, where over 150 people make at least one edit in a given week. Or Wikipedia, with 153,727 in the thirty days prior to 16 April 2010.

The project is now dominated by a small core of about 20 regulars with almost no new blood.

Community management

Signing up to contribute

Citizendium calls its contributors "Citizens." They are divided into "authors" (hoi polloi) and "editors" (the experts) — analogous to print publications. The class distinction is clear and comes from the top: if you're a mere "author", your opinions are worthless.[19] (As may be expected, this has left Citizendium a wiki of "editors" with few "authors" to supervise.[20]) This contrasts with Wikipedia, where everyone is an "editor". The difference in terminology sometimes leads to confusion when discussing Citizendium.


Join us! It's quick and easy!
—Citizendium Request Account, April 2010 (top of page)


Authors (i.e., most people): after submitting this form, a constable will review your information and likely reply within 24 hours (often much less)... [Use] the name on your driver's license or other identification card. First name (given name) and last name (family name). Use normal capitalization, punctuation, and spaces, e.g., John A. Doe. You may use middle names and initials if you wish. No pseudonyms: if you want to apply for a pseudonym, do not use this form. Instead, send your information to personnel@citizendium.org, addressed to the Chief Constable, explaining the reasons for your request. We grant pseudonyms only for very rare and exceptional reasons. Authors are required to provide only a statement about their personal interests and education, preferably a few hundred words, and not fewer than 50.
Editor applicants: fill out this form and include two further items: a CV or resume attached (or linked), as well as some links to Web material that tends to support the claims made in the CV, such as conference proceedings, or a departmental home page. Both of these additional requirements may be fulfilled by a CV that is hosted on an official work Web page. If you lack a current CV, lists of publications or other such documents that establish your expertise may be suitable. When your editorship is approved, you'll receive an e-mail to enable you to log in at Special:Userlogin. If you're not approved as an editor, you might still be approved as an author.
—Citizendium Request Account, April 2010[21]

Sanger's role

Apparently the only existing photo of Larry Sanger.

Sanger was Editor-In-Chief of Nupedia and Wikipedia until resigning in March 2002[22], the money having run out a month earlier. He resigned from the volunteer position because he did not have the authority from the community to deal with users he felt were being simply disruptive.[23] He later wrote:

To have real authority, I needed both to be able to enforce the rules and, for both fairness and the perception of fairness, there needed to be clear rules from the beginning. ... For months I denied that Wikipedia was a community, claiming that it was, instead, only an encyclopedia project, and that there should not be any serious governance problems if people would simply stick to the task of making an encyclopedia. This was strictly wishful thinking.[24]

Despite early claims that Citizendium would operate on an open "bazaar" model rather than a closed "cathedral" one,[8] Sanger had worked out in detail how he wanted Citizendium to work early on[24] and kept it under firm control from the start. He surprised prospective contributors who were used to room for opinions[19] and serendipity with such actions as shutting down the project mailing list, thus killing the main venue for community enthusiasm at the time, because he felt it had too much traffic.[25] He was not interested in the ideas of others and tended to react to them as if they were attacks[26] on his detailed plan.[27]

When establishing Citizendium, Sanger announced that he would be resigning as Editor-in-Chief after two or three years.[28][29] In July 2009 he stepped down from active involvement,[30] to pursue paid work on the WatchKnow educational video initiative. When he tried to report Wikipedia to the FBI over "child pornography" (line art drawings of lolicon) in April 2010,[31] he used the official Citizendium blog[32] to link to his reply to Slashdot commenters,[33] suggesting he still considered Citizendium his personal site and bashing Wikipedia as part of the mission. He finally stepped down after the Charter was ratified in September 2010.[34]

Sanger believes that any lack of participation in or readership for Citizendium is not due to his policies or the behaviour of himself or his "constables" (the wiki administrators[35]), but due to external attacks from Wikipedia.[36]

The concept of expertise on Citizendium

There's much to like in the idea of creating an environment that is welcoming to people who know what they're talking about, as compared with Wikipedia's grudging admission that "editing in an area in which you have professional or academic expertise is not, in itself, a conflict of interest."[37] But it didn't work out too well at Citizendium.

There's expertise and then there's certification as an expert, which is a social construct made of pieces of paper and (hopefully) accredited standards. All too often, the two don't quite overlap. In the quest for expertise — "This article is good and I can explain why" — Citizendium went for credentialism — "This article is good because I have the authority to say so."[38]

Attracting and repelling academia

My experience of CZ has not impressed me in terms of its chances of its reaching its laudable goals. People discuss and debate, but no matter what we say, Larry comes in and makes some executive decision without really consulting anyone outside of his inner circle.
—An early (18 January 2007) expression of frustration by a Citizendium academic.[39]

Wikipedia has plenty of academics and actual experts editing — you can hardly edit without bumping into someone who knows a hell of a lot more than you about a topic. It fails utterly, however, in keeping idiots out of the experts' faces.

So Citizendium promised they'd remedy this and attracted a good number of established experts (such as university professors) in its early days. But almost all have left — and it turned out that the people getting in the academics' faces were Sanger and his constables. Heavy-handedness, meddling in article content, censoring user comments, bullying and harassment of academic users were commonplace and extensively documented in the wider world.[5][36] Others grew exasperated over Sanger's penchant for micromanagement[40] and inability to acknowledge areas of academia he was not competent in,[41] often overruling or pushing out the very specialists he had recruited[42]. His credibility with experts was further damaged by his insistence (like Wikipedia) on accommodating fringe views in the name of "neutrality."

Sanger claims academic credentials, academic expertise, academic credibility and respect for and from academia, and loves the idea of academia.[43] But he has never held a position as professor or the equivalent, and he has no idea what actual working academics do for a living or how to work with them.[36] His idealized vision of academic knowledge production, in which philosophically robust propositions are put forth and formally debated,[44] bears no resemblance to reality, in which academic exchanges are more typified by snatches of hallway conversation, chatting on blogs or arguments over a beer at a conference — casual semi-social interaction the way humans have always done it. His inflexibility and the emulation of his worst behaviors by his acolytes did the rest. Having run off the recruited academics is not considered a problem by the remaining Citizens.[45]

Crank magnetism

Citizendium's expert approval is just as much a double-edged sword as is Wikipedia's open editing policy. The major downside to Citizendium's approach is that designated "experts" can take ownership of articles within their field. In some cases this is fine and combats the effect of Wikipedia's almost unguided editing that causes articles to degrade. But it also allows people of very dubious qualifications to obtain such ownership with relatively little opposition. Thus, the method lets supposed "experts" hijack pet articles and push their own point of view, making the articles as uncritical as possible of the topic at hand.

Citizendium's approval process means that once approved, an article is locked from further editing and all changes must be made to a draft version that is not presented to the public until it goes through the approval process again. And who controls the reapproval process? You guessed it — the same "experts" who approved the original article. This means that once a fringe enthusiast has managed to get an article approved in their preferred version, it is very difficult for reality-based individuals to undo the damage.

Whereas actual knowledgeable experts are more interested in their field itself than credentialism, cranks compensate for their lack of substance by faking expertise and working for status and perceived credibility. This means cranks will be attracted to and stay on a credentialist project, particularly if those of genuine expertise are driven out.

Citizendium also has a unique protective mechanism in place that makes it particularly crank-friendly: the rule against attacking other contributors includes pointing out problems with their claimed expertise. For example, an editor was banned for pointing out that Dana Ullman — a well-known and tireless advocate for homeopathy who was banned from Wikipedia for disruptive advocacy[46] but then became a Citizendium Healing Arts editor — has no medical or homeopathic qualifications and had been arrested for practising medicine without a license. [47] Even a non-personalized expression of frustration about homeopathy and other fringe topics will get the smackdown from a pro-altmed constable.[48]

Citizendium's greatest pseudoscientific hits

The Citizendium process has been critiqued in detail since before the launch. The Citizens quite reasonably replied that the proof would be in the resulting product. Unfortunately, the product did not turn out so well either.

It is certainly not the case that all, or even most, Citizendium contributors are cranks. Some have lamented the project's reputation[49] for fringe topics and point out that it has driven away potential contributors.[50][51][52] But overall the project has been excessively tolerant, even deferential toward such individuals — while driving actual academics away — and far too much questionable material appears for a site that prides itself on being "authoritative, error-free, and well-written."[53][54]

For example, Citizendium's horrific piece on homeopathy[55] was taken over by Dana Ullman. According to Ullman this was at Sanger's personal invitation.[56][57] Likewise the article on chiropractic[58] is "owned" by D. Matt Innis, a practicing chiropractor and acupuncturist, who as a Constable removes criticism of homeopathy.[48][59] Both of these pseudoscience advocacy articles appear to be fully embraced by the Citizendium community. They are both marked as approved articles, and the homeopathy advertisement — which Sanger called "a fine article" [60] — was even featured in January 2009 on the site's main page.[61]

Some more examples of awful pro-pseudoscience articles:

  • Alice Bailey — puff piece on the New Age author, relies heavily on her autobiography for sources on such matters as telepathic transmission of books and the hidden "Masters of Wisdom".
  • Apollo Moon landing hoax theory — Written by Luchezar Iliev Georgiev (former Wikipedia User:Лъчезар), who not only believes the moon landings were a hoax, but the entire Apollo program itself was a lie. The article was in this state until August 2009 and was later reduced to a stub by other editors. "Lucho" has also obsessively spread his dementia anywhere they won't delete it on sight.[62][63].
  • Cold fusion – largely written by proponent and advocate Jed Rothwell.[64] Rothwell had been previously banned indefinitely from Wikipedia for constantly removing criticisms of cold fusion as a pseudoscience, using an army of sockpuppet accounts.[65] Not fixed until September 2009.
  • Global warming — This 2007 version of the article was an appalling feast of climate change denial bad enough to attract the attention of experts in the field.[66] The article was an early harbinger of future colonization of Citizendium by pseudoscience advocates who had tried and failed on Wikipedia. It was fixed somewhat, but is still recommended by the Heartland Institute on their global warming denial site.[67]
  • Infant colic — relies on alternative and experimental medicine. Tone of article is dismissive of "scientific medicine." Still pseudoscience-based as of August 2010.
  • Intelligent design — a scary article, reminiscent of aSK.
  • Memory of water — as per homeopathy claims above. Library scientist Walt Crawford criticized the article as "deeply disturbing."[68] CZ Physics/Chemistry editor Paul Wormer had pressed from early on for it not to be made of complete woo, and eventually succeeded.[69] Following Wormer's departure the article is deteriorating again, with claims that "water can also be made to have different crystal forms, based on (its) memory of words and thoughts."[70]
  • Protoscience — The works of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin are treated on equal footing with the nonexistent substance/field/phenomenon/whatever-it-is Ormus. The woo paragraph had been sitting at CZ for over three years;[71] less than two weeks after the paragraph was noted in this RationalWiki article, it was deleted.[72] A chemistry editor who requested deletion of an article about Ormus itself that contained statements such as: "But it [Ormus] can't be labelled as a pseudoscience, as it is defined in terms of conventional physical tests",[73] met great resistance of (non-chemistry) editors, although at the end of the day the article was deleted.
  • Pseudoscience — May 2009 version, particularly the advocacy under "Astrology" (still present).
  • Unidentified flying objects[74] — The article treats two scientific classification schemes of UFOs: Hynek's and Vallee's. The first scheme distinguishes Encounters of the First through the Fourth Kind. The second separates Poltergeist Activity from Near Death and Out-of-Body Experiences (OBEs).
  • Vertebral subluxation — a pseudoscientific article on chiropracty, written mostly by an unpublished author without any verifiable medical background.
  • Young earth creationism — heavily (and "expertly") edited by Conservapedia sysop RJJensen.

Wikipedia, of course, also has lots of pseudoscience. But apart from having many more contributors to help better approximate reality, Wikipedia does not have mechanisms in place that actively promote pseudoscience.

Scientology

The Scientology article has been heavily edited by at least two well known members of that organization. On 1 May 2007, the article "Scientology" was moved first to "Scientology (the philosophy)" then finally to Church of Scientology. The word "cult" was deleted, as well as any mention of Scientology being banned in a number of countries, and the term "adherent" replaced with "parishioners" by Terry E. Olsen, a public member of Scientology well-known for his Internet advocacy on its behalf as "Terryeo" on Wikipedia[75] and elsewhere.

Shortly afterwards Steven Ferry joined Citizendium. Ferry did not declare his membership of the Church[76][77], nor his previous position working in public relations for the Church,[78] prior to editing and purging the article of criticisms.[79][80] Ferry was subsequently elected to the Citizendium Editorial Council unopposed in 2008,[81] leading to claims the project had been successfully infiltrated by the Church of Scientology.[78] Ferry ceased contributing in mid-2008 and the article was gradually cleaned up over the next two years.

Thank goodness for gentle expert guidance!

Even on less contentious topics, the supposed expert guidance appears worryingly absent at times, with basic errors that many a non-expert would spot.[82]

  • Jupiter — claimed for two and a half years that it has a surface. Gas giants don't have surfaces. Uncorrected despite complaints mailed to the project, corrected four hours and thirty-seven minutes after being added to this page.[83]
  • History of the United Kingdom — A conservative editor had rewritten British history by removing all mention of Labour governments from the timeline. The wandalism went uncorrected for over six months.[84]
  • William Bonham, William Bonham (outlaw) — claim Billy the Kid's name was William Bonham, a name he is not known to have used. The alias most famously used by Billy the Kid was William Bonney. Uncorrected since July 2009.

When errors are detected, more often than not they are detected by people outside of the project (or by edits to this RationalWiki article), bringing into question how qualified these CZ experts are[85] and whether CZ's expert oversight procedure can be claimed to work in practice at all[86].

Technical details

Citizendium defines itself so completely as the anti-Wikipedia that even technical decisions have been made largely on the basis of being different from Wikimedia (such as using PostgreSQL rather than MySQL for the database and incompatible changes to their MediaWiki installation).[87] It has been realised that forking when you haven't the technical resources is not such a good idea; the software is being brought back to mainline[88] and the technical staff now actively contribute to MediaWiki.

Rearranging the deckchairs

A Citizendium Charter was mentioned in the project's inaugural press release of October 2006[9] and intended to be implemented within the first twelve months. The charter was at last voted in and ratified on 23 September 2010.[89] The official version contains obvious typographical and grammatical errors (what was "dispute resolutions should be resolved" supposed to mean?) and some of these, when taken literally, reverse the intended meaning of the text. But the committee assigned to create the charter has been disbanded,[90][91] the former members seem pretty burnt out on the process,[92] and personal sniping between them remains a regular feature of the site forum.[93][94]

The regulars hope that approval of the Charter will bring a surge in activity to the site, as they can think of nothing else that will allow them to fix rules they know do not work[95] — despite their strong resistance to changing how things are done[96] and inability to keep what new contributors do show up[45][97]. Almost every issue brought up on Citizendium has been deferred or deflected with what amounts to "the Charter will save us". Not just site policy, but active users, press, even efforts at rewriting the help pages, have been left hanging in hopes the Charter will fix everything. Every conflict, such as the cranks in the healing arts group or the monstrosity that is their homeopathy article (Dana Ullman remains heavily involved in the supposedly more scientific new draft version,[98] stating he "will not sign as a Healing Arts Editor" any draft that fails to keep "a certain objective tone"[99]), gets pushed back waiting on the Charter to show them the way.

Even if these issues can be overcome, the charter gives no reason to think it would guide the project to a better future. The document[100] seems to violate every possible principle of parsimony and practicality, comprising a mind-numbing 55 Articles (with Article 24 promising "a minimum of bureaucracy"). It makes constitutional the real names policy, but fails to mention encyclopedias or freely-licensed content. It shows no evidence of awareness of the problems that killed participation and led to bad content, and literally contains more positions of authority than there are active participants in the project.[101]

The punchline

Sanger offers consulting services as an expert in policy formation for online communities.[102]

External links

Footnotes

  1. Their main page
  2. Wikipedia says so, this week. The question is more than a little contentious, however.
  3. Going so far as forbidding its editors from uploading free-to-use images and photographs from elsewhere if the artist works under a pseudonym and can't be convinced to reveal his or her real name: User talk:MGA73, Wikimedia Commons. (Note that the guy's first name is actually known ... and the image wasn't even his.)
  4. CZ:Healing Arts Workgroup — originally set up for people interested in native and traditional medical practice from an anthropological perspective, then taken over by present-day alternative medicine advocates.
  5. 5.0 5.1 Wikipedia founder's scholarly web venture plays host to a war of words (Times Higher Education, 2009-01-22)
  6. Citizendium:Statistics
  7. 49%, to be precise. File:Pie-Citizendium-2010-6-20100728.png July 2010 was not quite as bad, with only 70% of edits being made by ten people and 47% by four people. August 2010 had almost the same numbers as June.
  8. 8.0 8.1 Toward a New Compendium of Knowledge (longer version) (Larry Sanger, 2006-09-15)
  9. 9.0 9.1 Larry Sanger. "Co-Founder to Launch Edited Version of Wikipedia: Pilot Project for the Citizendium to Launch This Week", Citizendium.org, October 17, 2006.
  10. CZ:Press Coverage (archived)
  11. Citizendium Press Releases > Mar272007
  12. [1] Citizendium forum thread, "Would you contribute more if the wiki were blank?" (January 2007)
  13. Larry Sanger: The Citizendium one year on: a strong start and an amazing future
  14. This started with a call for stubs in November 2007 and has continued since.
  15. CZ:Statistics#Word_count
  16. The mean being much larger than the median suggests the distribution is strongly positively skewed: many very short articles and a much smaller number of long ones.
  17. By the way, this means the mean is slightly higher than Wikipedia's, which was 3655 bytes in January 2010.
  18. CZ:Statistics, graph Editing users.png
  19. 19.0 19.1 http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/07/citizendium-isnt-interested-in-your-opinion/
  20. http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,3299.msg31250.html#msg31250
  21. As of September 2010, the text has been considerably shortened.
  22. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/My_resignation--Larry_Sanger
  23. The Hive: The Cunctator (Marshall Poe, The Atlantic, September 2006)
  24. 24.0 24.1 Sanger, L. 2005-04-19. "The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia, Part II." Slashdot. This article sets out the basic ideas that he attempted eventually to put into practice as Citizendium.
  25. Citizendium — A study in momentum killing (Terrell Russell, blog post, 2006-10-13)
  26. "I won't point out the various examples of spuriousness but instead keep it to one observation: someone that inclined to perceive hostility where it isn't evident is not going to be a good community manager." (Response to a Larry Sanger blog post)
  27. [2] "I can tell you in two words why it failed: Larry Sanger. I found I had moved from anarchy to absolute monarchy. After two or three encounters with Larry's autocratic rudeness, I departed."
  28. http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2007/02/citizendium.ars/3 'No dictator for life'
  29. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Wikipedia-Co-Founder-Ready-to-Launch-New-Project-120175.shtml
  30. https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2009-July/001418.html
  31. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/09/sanger_reports_wikimedia_to_the_fbi/
  32. http://blog.citizendium.org/?p=575
  33. http://www.larrysanger.org/ReplyToSlashdot.html
  34. The Charter Ratification Vote is Over (Larry Sanger, citizendium-l, 23 September 2010)
  35. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Constable
  36. 36.0 36.1 36.2 University may be given the keys to Citizendium (comments) — quite vicious analysis in the story comments from academics burnt by Citizendium, frankly bizarre responses from Larry Sanger and senior Citizendium constables.
  37. Wikipedia:COI
  38. Larry Sanger, Citizendium, and the Problem of Expertise (Clay Shirky, Sep 2006)
  39. [3] Citizendium forum post by Professor Russell Potter, 18 January 2007
  40. ProfRAP (Russell Potter), blog comment
  41. http://www.kalital.com/archives/2006/11/racism_and_sexism_at_citizendi.html
  42. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Talk%3ACitizendium&diff=627280&oldid=627218
  43. http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/09/an_expertfocuse.php#c20557
  44. Detailed dispute watch rules and procedures
  45. 45.0 45.1 Citizendium failure Aleta Curry: "Do you realise that, the people spouting off on the talk pages you quote are, for the most part, disgruntled and vindictive ex-CZers and, unlike your respectable self, (and with a couple of notable exceptions) hiding behind pseudo anonymity?"
  46. Dana Ullman ban announcement
  47. Discussion of Dana Ullman's complete lack of any of the qualifications they claim experts are required to have, leading to the user in question, Adam Cuerden, being banned by Hayford Peirce.
  48. 48.0 48.1 Comment removed by D.Matt Innis from Talk:Memory of Water at 20:39, 20 September 2010 The offending words were "Oh, how I wish homeopathy [i.e., the homeopathy article] and its spinoffs would go away. I may just deal with the frustration by leaving Citizendium, as long as this is the main area of discussion. Desperately waiting for the Charter, hopefully ratification, and the Editorial Council..."
  49. Lessons from Citizendium (Slides and notes for HaeB's talk "Lessons from Citizendium" at Wikimania 2009)
  50. [4] Citizendium forum comment by Tom Morris, 26 April 2009
  51. [5] Citizendium forum comment by Howard C. Berkowitz, 1 October 2009
  52. [6] Citizendium forum comment by Daniel Mietchen, 9 May 2010
  53. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:FAQ#What_is_Citizendium_trying_to_achieve.3F
  54. http://reinderdijkhuis.com/wordpress/2009/02/12/citizendium-the-encyclopedia-only-pro-homeopathy-editors-can-edit/
  55. Citizendium:Homeopathy
  56. A NEW and GOOD Alternative to Wikipedia,especially on homeopathy! (Dana Ullman, otherhealth.com forum post)
  57. Talk:Homeopathy > Draft (revision as of 22:26, 14 September 2010)
  58. Citizendium:Chiropractic
  59. Although, in fairness, Innis has been a long-term dedicated participant in Citizendium in general, and insightful concerning its problems.
  60. http://www.mail-archive.com/citizendium-l@lists.purdue.edu/msg00894.html
  61. Citizendium main page, January 28th 2009
  62. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Moon_Hoax&action=history
  63. http://www.wikisynergy.com/w/index.php?title=Moon_hoax&action=history
  64. The Wiki-woes of Rothwell and Inept Cold-Fusioneers
  65. User:JedRothwell block log
  66. Citizendium: cr*p or what? (William L. Connolley, Stoat, 2007-05-14)
  67. http://www.globalwarmingheartland.org/
  68. http://citesandinsights.info/civ9i5.pdf
  69. Memory of water talk page
  70. Edit to Citizendium "Memory of water" article, 28 August 2010
  71. version of April 6, 2007
  72. Citizendium diff. of June 2, 2010
  73. [7]
  74. [8]
  75. User:Terryeo block log
  76. Truth About Scientology: Steven Ferry
  77. Scientology discussion
  78. 78.0 78.1 Scientologist infiltrates Citizendium (Operation Clambake Message Boards)
  79. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Church_of_Scientology&diff=prev&oldid=100247397
  80. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Church_of_Scientology&diff=prev&oldid=100314730
  81. 2008 Council Members
  82. Citizendium approved errors (HaeB, Wikipedia)
  83. RationalWiki edit; Citizendium correction.
  84. http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=25658&hl=Citizendium
  85. http://modernityblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/25/hagiography-and-citizendium/
  86. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:HaeB/Some_notes_on_Citizendium
  87. A look at Citizendium's Backend (Network Performance Daily, 2007-06-11) — "First, to be different from Wikipedia."
  88. Upgrading the MW extensions on the live wiki (Dan Nessett, forums)
  89. Charter vote (Matt Innis, Citizendium forums)
  90. Citizendium Forums: Comments on "final version"
  91. Citizendium Forums: Comments on "final version"
  92. Citizendium Forums: Comments on "final version"
  93. Forum thread, "Vote for Charter Ratification"
  94. Forum thread, "Vote for Charter Ratification"
  95. Re: Additions to the Constabulary page by Matt (Matt Innis, Citizendium forums, 2010-07-27)
  96. A writeup on how damn hard it is to even become a contributor, and the lack of incentive to continue
  97. Good bye and may you enjoy your little laugh fest at my expense (forum post)
  98. Homeopathy draft
  99. Talk:Homeopathy > Draft
  100. CZ:Charter (revision of 23 September 2010)
  101. What if we cannot fill all of the positions? (forum thread)
  102. Consultingimg (larrysanger.org)