David Black posted on April 10, 2007 13:05
The summary of the comparative differences in the two services caught my attention:
And with that, Sanger has thrown down the gauntlet. He’s banking on
the idea that the public will rather have a resource that’s more
authoritative than comprehensive. No doubt, that goal is going to
resonate among many educators, and it will be interesting to see if he
can attract teachers and students alike to participate in the project.
It’s a worthy goal, and I’d love to see groups of students take up the
challenge of contributing to Citizendium, especially if there’s a
chance they can interact directly with subject experts who are also
contributing.
Having said that, I’m not giving up on Wikipedia either. Yes, the
site is not without its problems, but it’s still the most massive
knowledge-gathering endeavor in human history. If the site could find a
way to be more welcoming to scholars and other experts, while striking
the right balance between anonymity and credibility, it could still win
over critics and solve some of its problems. But Wikipedia is more than
just a project - it’s also a cause. And causes don’t compromise easily.
Wikipedia will continue to evolve, no doubt, but most likely in fits
and starts, as has been the case so far. It’s way too early to
speculate if Larry Sanger’s Citizendium can come anywhere close to the
success of his former project. Will the online public be willing to
jump through a few hoops for the sake of a more accurate encyclopedia?
Only time will tell.
Where do I stand? Here are a couple of thoughts:
- How will Citizendium be able to keep up with the incredible changes that take place in the world daily with their current model. Sure Wikipedia has accuracy concerns, but it is also very relevant to many people because it can be edited quickly.
- As an educator, I do not believe the answer to the challenges brought forward by Wikipedia is to dismiss it. Rather, it should be used as a teaching tool for analyzing sources and information. Isn't that what each of us have to do in real life every day?
- How is having constables monitoring content going to ensure that information is accurate? Book editors constantly miss errors before publication. It seems pretty haughty to assume that this process is going to be any better. In other words, Citizendium articles are still going to need to be analyzed for accuracy and bias just as those articles in Wikipedia.
In summary, I'm skeptical that
Citizendium can really be what its founders intend for it to be because it appears to eliminate those things which are the strengths of wikis in general -- widespread participation and immediacy.
What are your thoughts on this topic? Share your opinion as a comment to this post.