Citizendium

The Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), a "citizens' compendium of everything", is an experimental new wiki project created with a goal to build a "better free encyclopedia". The project, started by Larry Sanger(a founder of wikipedia), aims to improve on that model by adding "gentle expert oversight".

Origin of Citizendium

The first recognized wiki was created by Ward Cunningham, who began development of WikiWikiWeb in 1994. Since then, other wikis were created to serve various purposes; wikipedia being the most popular, was created to be the world's first "open encyclopedia". Despite the openness of the wiki model, Wikipedia entries have often succumbed to vandalism, falsehood, "revert-wars", sockpuppetry, and other forums of abuse.

In an effort to create an improved encyclopedia, Larry Sanger announced the concept for Citizendium on September 15, 2006 at Berlin's Wizards of OS 4 conference. The project moved on to a pilot phase in October, and formally launched on March 25, 2007.

Fundamental Principles

To aspire to its ultimate goal, the project adheres to the following organizational principles:

Open Collaboration

Citizendium is similar to Wikipedia in that it is an open wiki: the public is invited to participate and edit most pages.

Expert Contribution

As Sanger has put it, "people who know a great deal about a subject, who are recognized by various societal mechanisms for that knowledge, can add a great of value to Web 2.0 projects, if they are given special roles that recognize their expertise." This principle envisions most edits happening in a bottom-up fashion but certain specific decisions being placed in the hands of subject experts.

A metaphor often cited to describe the project is an extension of Eric S. Raymond's story about The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Sanger suggests that we "Think of editors as the village elders wandering the bazaar and occasionally dispensing advice and reining in the wayward. Their presence is merely a moderating, civilizing influence. They don't stop the bazaar from being a bazaar."

Article Approval

Citizendium implements an article approval process where particularly good articles may be nominated for approval, pending a review by subject experts. Articles thus approved become the default article served to readers (though people are encouraged to keep improving the article on a "draft" page).

Real Names

A key component to maintaining a standard of accuracy is the ability to attribute credibility to the information contained therein. Thus contributors are required to login, and to do so under their real names. This may be a hurdle to participation (see Criticisms section) but it's seen as a necessary step for fostering a culture of accountability and professionalism and thus attracting experts to the project. A significant part of the rationale for this is the theory that people act in a much more responsible manner when their good name is on the line.

Neutrality

Like other encyclopedic wikis, Citizendium has it's own Neutrality Policy. Although the current neutrality policy is adapted from Wikipedia's Policy circa December 2001, it sets a precedent for what constitutes neutrality in the context of the project.

The policy asserts the following conclusions about neutrality:

• Reduction of Bias: It is accepted that there are many different viewpoints of topics all around the world by different people, and as such there is no "Correct" viewpoint but "accurate" viewpoints. In this sense it's the responsibility to provide comprehension and fairness to all topics and viewpoints regardless of personal belief or feelings. Unfortunately it is impossible to reduce the amount of bias to zero, but the policy does indicate that recognition of bias is beneficial to the project.

• Facts vs Opinion: The project has a responsibility to produce articles based on established and attributable fact. However it also should be noted that while this dissuades opinion, the guidelines deem it not irresponsible to produce facts about all opinions on a subject, provided they can be resourced, acknowledged, and attributed by fact.

• Fairness and Sympathy: Every position must be represented as plausible. It is recommended that this be implemented by use of a consistently positive tone when representing viewpoints. Conceptually, it's suggested that it is unfair to highlight one viewpoint over another, exclusively represent one viewpoint, or to exclusively not represent one viewpoint. Omission of viewpoints can have the same effect as exclusivity.

Responsibility

Responsibility covers a broad scope within this project. Not only do members have responsibilities to the project and it's contributors, but they also are responsible for the content they produce. The project has created policy that determines it will maximize attribution, either to an author or a source.

Additionally, the Citizendium guidelines propose that editors and authors alike have a responsibility to the public at large. It is the duty of all contributors at CZ to ensure that information on an article can be attributed to fact, and does not contain any questionable or unauthorized/copyrighted material, unless that required permission has been specifically granted for our use.

There is also a great importance of projecting reliable information; if Citizendium articles are not accurate then how can the project be credible? The goal is to create a "better free encyclopedia", and it's users and content should aim to fufill that.

Should there be any incident of irresponsibility or abject behavior or content, CZ has processes and policies in place that are able to deal with these in the most professional manner available, and those should be exercized first to prevent user conflict and infighting.

Family-Friendliness

Citizendium has several differences that seperate itself from Wikipedia. In the preceding article, there are several points that illustrate this aim:

• We will never have nearly as many articles about porn stars and sexual fetishes. We aim to be family-friendly.

• We take defamation seriously. We believe defamation is a horrible thing, and we have zero tolerance for people playing fast and loose with people's reputations in their biography articles. This is why we have a Policy on Topic Informants and a Topic Informant Workgroup.

• We expect professional behavior and have very low tolerance for disruption. Our Constabulary has some pretty firm rules which require professionalism. This means that not only do we have rules against personal attacks, blatant violations of the neutrality policy, and so forth, we actually enforce them. We enforce our rules by warnings (in most cases) followed by permanent bans, which can be rescinded only through appeal or application for reinstatement. We do not have "24 hour bans", which do nothing but annoy and antagonize.

All of these serve to indicate that Citizendium does not wish to harbor content that is morally questionable, or allow disruptive or abusive behavior toward its contributors or against its own community.

Additionally, there is a primer for those who have chosen to migrate from Wikipedia to Citizendium located here. A summarized version of the family-friendly policy can be found here. It is CZ's aim to ensure that all articles about sexual topics will be scholarly and tactful, and none will contain graphic photos.

Governance

The Citizendium's Fundamental Policies describes five guidelines for the governance of the project within it's community. They are as follows:

• All contributors to the Citizendium must do so using their real names, unless special and unusual permission is granted by project management.

• The Citizendium will be open to contribution by anyone (tentatively, "authors") who is able to make a positive difference and who is willing to work collaboratively under the policies and management of the project.

• The Citizendium will invite subject area experts to serve as editors.

• The Citizendium will have a set of persons of mature judgment specially empowered to enforce rules, called (at least tentatively) "constables."

• There will be a separation of powers: enforcement officials ("constables") will not be able to make editorial decisions, and editors will not have the ability to enforce their own decisions, though they will be able to make recommendations.

The combination of these guidelines result in a project that while still existing as an "open system", must have attribution, accuracy, and the unbridled freedom for subject matter experts to be a part of the project. However, the problems of pre-existing systems have been acknowledged and solutions to those are qualified by responsible individuals not encompassed by total empowerment.

Online Republic

Sanger has said that he envisions Citizendium as a new sort of internet community, one that contains all the elements of a traditional democratic republic: a constitution, inclusive participatory governance, and an executive, legislative, and judicial branch. A "constitutional convention", has been proposed, and is under consideration for creation when there are sufficient stakeholders involved.