2007-06-22

Citizendium: a scholarly wikipedia

Some of you may have heard that Wikipedia is not suitable for serious research, for many reasons. That's true. Here is the article where they officially agree with this fact. And here are some replies to the most common objections perceived, such as it being prone to e-vandalism, and being written mostly by non-experts.

Despite this fact, I personally have for quite some time considered it a valuable source of pointers for further reading. Its articles often provide succint introductions to common or modern terms, facts or people, making it also a useful (IMHO) definitions dictionary (besides Google's 'define:' label, of course). Also, in my experience, most articles have valid links to useful reading, supporting at least most of the article claims.

So, one might think it would be enough to make it reputable to assign qualified editors to each section or area (by some definition of qualification), and have them moderate edits, while still accepting general public contributions. Guess what, our wait might have ended. As per this hint from Science I just found out, some people (formerly?) tied to wikipedia created a fork project

Bookmark this:
http://citizendium.org/

And, yes, citizendium has an article on wikipedia and vice versa, just like Uncyclopedia has one. Not as funny, though.

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