On 23/01/2008, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote: We should go through those 5000 articles, and compare them to the corresponding Wikipedia articles. (It would be good if we can get an independent body to do a sample of them too.) We should try and make sure our articles on subjects covered by Citizendium are at least as good as theirs - call it friendly rivalry. ;)

On Jan 24, 2008 5:51 AM, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote: Folks, There are 48 approved articles which are supposedly the creme de la creme. They are here. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Approved_Articles The Citizendium article on Australia for instance is skimpy and with a lot of red links. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Australia The Wikipedia article on Australia is a feature article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia In summary, I would say that not only is Citizendium not as good as Wikipedia but it is probably not as well developed as Wikipedia at a similar stage of its development. They have added 3,000 articles in their first year. Regards

On Jan 24, 2008 6:01 AM, Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com> wrote: Folks, OK, let's do a comparison by Citizendium random articles. Apple Inc. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Apple_Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc. Winner Wikipedia. More detailed, more references, lot less red links. Cleromancy http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Cleromancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleromancy Winner. Close victory to Wikipedia. More cultures mentioned. Planet http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Planet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet Wikipedia. Article is far more detailed and extensively referenced. Social Work http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Social_Work http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_work Wikipedia. Longer article with more references although one section flagged as needing references. Adam Ferguson http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Adam_Ferguson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Ferguson Both articles appear similar probably because they incorporate material from the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia article has more details. It is a relatively short comparison but a clear trend is developing. Of course, most Wikipedia articles do not have corresponding Citizendium. On this basis, you could not claim that Citizendium is of superior quality to Wikipedia at this stage. Regards *Keith Old* ** ** ** **

Keith Old schreef: That's not exactly true. After fourteen months, Wikipedia had 29,000 articles with an average size of 1768 bytes (http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm). At a comparable age, CZ has about 5500 articles in total, with a total size of 5,620,000 words; that is about 1000 words per article. (http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Statistics) Assuming about 7 bytes per word, WP was only 30% larger than CZ at the same point in their development; and in the first 4 or 5 months of CZ's existence, it was not public, so its equivalent age is probably less than 14 months. The problem with CZ is that it is growing linearly. Larry Sanger sees CZ accelerating, and points at the number of articles; the stats clearly show that this is because CZ now allows the creation of stubs. The number of articles grew strongly in November, but the number of edits and the number of contributors stayed the same; the average article size plummeted. Between October 2001 and March 2002, WP grew by 200% (in byte count); between July and December 2007, CZ grew by about 37% (in word count). CZ hasn't failed yet, but they seem to be heading for failure the way it goes now... Even if some of their content is very good, it will be a very long time before they can compete with Wikipedia. Eugene

I think we should just invite some journalist to do it. On Jan 23, 2008 10:56 AM, Nick <heligolandwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

On 23/01/2008, Nick <heligolandwp(a)googlemail.com> wrote: That's a good idea. I might look into that if I remember next time I'm bored.