Originally posted by
[email protected] 26, 2007 05:49 pm
Have you heard of the more interesting alternative formed by the co-founder of Wikipedia (something which Wales contests)
In just six years, Wikipedia has mushroomed into one of the Web's most astonishing successes, with 1.7 million articles in English alone. The downside is that the free encyclopedia has its share of errors and juvenile vandalism, and sometimes the writing is incomprehensibly arcane.
To Wikipedia fans, these blemishes are an unavoidable — and relatively small — price to pay for the dazzling breadth spawned by its "anyone can edit" open design.
But Larry Sanger doesn't buy it. To Sanger — who was present at the creation of Wikipedia (in fact, call him a co-founder, although that, like many things within Wikipedia, is disputed) — its charms seem to outweigh its warts simply because it has no competition.
And that's precisely what Sanger hopes to change.
This week, Sanger takes the wraps off a Wikipedia alternative, Citizendium. His goal is to capture Wikipedia's bustle but this time, avoid the vandalism and inconsistency that are its pitfalls.
Like Wikipedia, Citizendium will be nonprofit, devoid of ads and free to read and edit. Unlike Wikipedia, Citizendium's volunteer contributors will be expected to provide their real names. Experts in given fields will be asked to check articles for accuracy.
Wikipedia co-founder starts new wiki project (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070326/ap_on_hi_te/wikipedia_alternative;_ylt=ArF.loXCEt7kQmnA6oCbEzY jtBAF)
Actually, that was how the project that became Wikipedia was initially supposed to look.