Tell me, have any of you read this: http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/07/citizendium-isnt-interested-in-your-opinion...
I was shocked when I read it... that is, until I read Sanger's response beneath it... then I was absolutely dumbfounded. With a guy with that attitude at the helm, I'm expecting the CZ project to fizzle out VERY quicky.
Glen S wikiglen@gmail.com wrote:
http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/07/citizendium-isnt-interested-in-your-opinion...
I was shocked when I read it... that is, until I read Sanger's response beneath it... then I was absolutely dumbfounded. With a guy with that attitude at the helm, I'm expecting the CZ project to fizzle out VERY quicky.
I'm not saying it's correct, or non-biting, or good-faithy, or open, but Wikipedia takes the same approach as CZ when it comes to publishing internal issues on your blog or otherwise making them public. In fact, if you read the recommendation on this list regarding how to keep Microsoft-like pay-off incidents (known as wikilobbying) quiet, it would be fairly obvious that WP and CZ share far more in common than they differ.
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On 2/11/07, Cheney Shill halliburton_shill@yahoo.com wrote:
I'm not saying it's correct, or non-biting, or good-faithy, or open, but Wikipedia takes the same approach as CZ when it comes to publishing internal issues on your blog or otherwise making them public. In fact, if you read the recommendation on this list regarding how to keep Microsoft-like pay-off incidents (known as wikilobbying) quiet, it would be fairly obvious that WP and CZ share far more in common than they differ.
Maybe true, but comparisons of that kind will inevitably lead to comparisons
of personal character, in which case I have to agree with Glen that the tone
seems inappropriate, even if the methods are similar.
Besides, theres nothing wrong with taking a few bucks to edit out some criticism, or put some dimming star's article on the front page. ;)
The whole point of CZ is greater reliability, but:
The article below may contain errors of fact, bias, grammar, etc. The Citizendium Foundation and the participants in the Citizendium project make no representations about the reliability of this article or, generally, its suitability for any purpose. We make this disclaimer of all Citizendium article versions that have not been specifically approved."
Sort of says it all.
-SV
On 2/11/07, stvrtg stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
The whole point of CZ is greater reliability, but:
The article below may contain errors of fact, bias, grammar, etc. The Citizendium Foundation and the participants in the Citizendium project make no representations about the reliability of this article or, generally, its suitability for any purpose. We make this disclaimer of all Citizendium article versions that have not been specifically approved."
Sort of says it all.
Add it to this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-Wikipedia_disclaimers
Stephen Bain wrote:
On 2/11/07, stvrtg stvrtg@gmail.com wrote:
The whole point of CZ is greater reliability, but:
The article below may contain errors of fact, bias, grammar, etc. The Citizendium Foundation and the participants in the Citizendium project make no representations about the reliability of this article or, generally, its suitability for any purpose. We make this disclaimer of all Citizendium article versions that have not been specifically approved."
Sort of says it all.
Add it to this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Non-Wikipedia_disclaimers
Put Citizendium in that list alongside a whole lot of sources that people have actually heard of? A list of "places which are often regarded as reliable"? I think that's giving them a bit more credit than they deserve.
I'm inclined to think that even mentioning them on this list is giving them more credit than they deserve, but I'll be tolerant for now.
-- Tim Starling
On 2/11/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Put Citizendium in that list alongside a whole lot of sources that people have actually heard of? A list of "places which are often regarded as reliable"? I think that's giving them a bit more credit than they deserve.
I'm inclined to think that even mentioning them on this list is giving them more credit than they deserve, but I'll be tolerant for now.
Well, some of them - or at least, Britannica - are groups that get press for bragging about how much more reliable they are than Wikipedia, while at the same time disclaiming their reliability to the maximum extent permitted by law in similar language to our own disclaimers.
Citizendium is not on the same scale, but its hubris is.
Glen S wrote:
Tell me, have any of you read this: http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/07/citizendium-isnt-interested-in-your-opinion...
I was shocked when I read it... that is, until I read Sanger's response beneath it... then I was absolutely dumbfounded. With a guy with that attitude at the helm, I'm expecting the CZ project to fizzle out VERY quicky.
Wow. That makes me sad. I was rooting for them, hoping that they would make a useful competitor. "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another," and all that. When I read the linked post, I was suspicious, as David Still's quoting clearly doesn't present the full picture. But then I read this bit from Sanger:
If I “micromanage everything,” it is because no one else will actually step up to do any of the relevant managing at all.
How unfortunate.
For those wanting more background on the link, here is daveydweeb's original post, which has a lot of apparently sincere content along with some inconsiderate and overdramatic language:
http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/03/and-yet-still-so-far-to-go/
Here's where he posts on the Citizendium forums, apologizing for the language and trying to get more discussion about the content:
http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,514.msg4122.html
Of course, that did get me to go look at Citizendium again, only to find they won't show me anything. Sadder still.
William
On 2/11/07, Glen S wikiglen@gmail.com wrote:
Tell me, have any of you read this: http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/07/citizendium-isnt-interested-in-your-opinion...
I was shocked when I read it... that is, until I read Sanger's response beneath it... then I was absolutely dumbfounded. With a guy with that attitude at the helm, I'm expecting the CZ project to fizzle out VERY quicky.
What instantly struck me when reading that post (and a few more) was how lucky we are to have gotten Jimbo instead of Larry. We love you, Jimbo!
We are obviously only hearing one side of the story, but even so it's pretty crazy. Hearing from the former CZ editor in the comments backing him up helped, of course. It does really help to show the difference between Wikipedia and Citizendium; if someone put up a page listing something that needed to be done on wikipedia, it would be a helpful contribution; if he/she did that on citizendium, it's an arrogant teenager who doesn't know his place and should let the grownups do all the decisions.
Another thing, about that "if I don't micromanage things, it won't get done!" attitude, has he never heard of wikipedia? If nothing else, wikipedia has shown that there are plenty of people that are willing to step up and manage things, and work together. I mean, wikipedia is a hell of a lot bigger than citizendium (article, community and policy-wise), and we can manage it fine. It isn't an anarchy, it's a quite well ordered society, with very little input from Jimbo.
Makes me glad I'm a contributor here, and not there, s'all I'm saying.
--Oskar
Disclaimer: I'm the same David Still that wrote the blog post being discussed. :)
We are obviously only hearing one side of the story, but even so it's pretty crazy. Hearing from the former CZ editor in the comments backing him up helped, of course.
On this note, I strongly suggest that you read through as much of the thread as is available. The relevant links, in chronological order, go like this:
1. My original post at Ars Technica, under the username 'stigmata', in which I make many of the same points. I was responded to by Mike Johnson of the CZ Executive Committee ('johnsonmx'). http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/174096756/m/691002192831?...
2. The (criticism-only) blog post that followed: http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/03/and-yet-still-so-far-to-go/
3. My suggestions for change, based on the previous two posts, and the rejection email from Citizendium-L (be sure to read the forum thread I linked to): http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/03/and-now-the-suggestions/
4. My announcement that I'd put a proof-of-concept online, demonstrating one idea for improving the Approval process: http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/06/making-approval-not-suck/
5. My bitter response to Larry's rejection of the above idea: http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/07/citizendium-isnt-interested-in-your-opinion...
Those five links provide as close to the full story as is publicly available. I should note that a number of Citizendium contributors have taken a very agreeable stance toward me, as you'd see at my Citizendium talk page and the CZ forum thread linked above -- especially Mike Johnson, who's been very moderate and civil throughout the debate.
I'll try not to argue my point too much, here. I just sensed a need to point out a little more of the story.
Cheerio, David
On 2/11/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
What instantly struck me when reading that post (and a few more) was how lucky we are to have gotten Jimbo instead of Larry. We love you, Jimbo!
It is certainly the case that Jimbo has proven to be a very effective head of the project.
We are obviously only hearing one side of the story, but even so it's pretty crazy. Hearing from the former CZ editor in the comments backing him up helped, of course. It does really help to show the difference between Wikipedia and Citizendium; if someone put up a page listing something that needed to be done on wikipedia, it would be a helpful contribution; if he/she did that on citizendium, it's an arrogant teenager who doesn't know his place and should let the grownups do all the decisions.
That isn't quite true. If someone turns up saying "I think wikipedia should be run like this" they will at best be ignored. We tend to expect people to have some serious editing under their belt before getting involved in that side of the project.
Another thing, about that "if I don't micromanage things, it won't get done!" attitude, has he never heard of wikipedia? If nothing else, wikipedia has shown that there are plenty of people that are willing to step up and manage things, and work together. I mean, wikipedia is a hell of a lot bigger than citizendium (article, community and policy-wise), and we can manage it fine. It isn't an anarchy, it's a quite well ordered society, with very little input from Jimbo.
Partly because nine times of ten it is less effort to directly solve whatever the problem is rather than try and manage solving it.
On 2/11/07, Glen S wikiglen@gmail.com wrote:
Tell me, have any of you read this:
http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/07/citizendium-isnt-interested-in-your-opinion...
I was shocked when I read it... that is, until I read Sanger's response beneath it... then I was absolutely dumbfounded. With a guy with that attitude at the helm, I'm expecting the CZ project to fizzle out VERY quicky.
Glen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Glen_S _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Glen,
Thanks for posting this.
It confirms my belief that Citizendium is having serious problems. In a Citizendium post announcing that they would no longer be forking Wikipedia, Larry Sanger claimed that they had 24 active contributors as I recall. That isn't very many and it seems that a couple of those are no longer active. Sanger's claims about micromanaging suggests that many of the senior people aren't contributing much. Twenty odd people aren't terribly many people for a project of Citizendium's claimed ambit.
He seems to have annoyed many of the experts that have signed up as shown by the post by another contributor and the problems over Afro-American literature discussed previously on the list.
Larry Sanger has been talking about how Citizendium will be much better than Wikipedia. It hasn't gone live yet and I doubt that it will for some months. If it does, I am predicting that I will fall well short of Wikipedia in both quantity and quality.
Regards
Keith Old
On 11/02/07, Keith Old keithold@gmail.com wrote:
It confirms my belief that Citizendium is having serious problems. In a Citizendium post announcing that they would no longer be forking Wikipedia, Larry Sanger claimed that they had 24 active contributors as I recall. That isn't very many and it seems that a couple of those are no longer active. Sanger's claims about micromanaging suggests that many of the senior people aren't contributing much. Twenty odd people aren't terribly many people for a project of Citizendium's claimed ambit.
[...]
Larry Sanger has been talking about how Citizendium will be much better than Wikipedia. It hasn't gone live yet and I doubt that it will for some months. If it does, I am predicting that I will fall well short of Wikipedia in both quantity and quality.
I'd say that comparing it to English Wikipedia is not really fair - most other Wikipedias would lose out badly in such a comparison.
Instead, compare it to a new language Wikipedia. What's the typical ramping-up curve for those? Contributors over time, articles over time, word count over time.
- d.
I haven't read many of the links, but I think this comment from Larry sums it all up:
"Authors are not welcome to engineer editorial policy."
From reading the introduction info to Citizendium, I understood that
Editors were there to lend expert advice on their subject area only, in other areas they are just like Authors. They weren't meant to have any power beyond that. There is certainly nothing there to suggest that policy decisions will lie with the editors. Their expertise is in their subject area, not policy making.
I have nothing to do with Citizendium because I don't like having the jump through hoops signing up to a site before I can even read it. I was considering getting involved once it was out of beta and it could be read without signing up. I very much doubt I'll bother, now.
Glen S wrote:
Tell me, have any of you read this: http://daveydweeb.com/2007/02/07/citizendium-isnt-interested-in-your-opinion...
I was shocked when I read it... that is, until I read Sanger's response beneath it... then I was absolutely dumbfounded. With a guy with that attitude at the helm, I'm expecting the CZ project to fizzle out VERY quicky.
ROTFL
Ec