[WikiEN-l] Citizendium

[Oskar Sigvardsson]

On 9/17/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
> > Assuming that good content (if any) in sangers project will be added
> > to wikipedia, why would potential editors prefer to edit these
> > articles that are copied back to wikipedia too on sangers project,
> > rather than on wikipedia? There has to be some added value to editing
> > on sangers project, rather than on wikipedia, for his project to
> > flourish. What is it? I genuinely want to know.
>
> If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine
> expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the
> social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of
> whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying.
>
> We try, as a community, to be welcoming and respectful of experts.  We
> have good people in the community who try to help experts deal with the
> trolls, vandals, and general nonsense that is likely to come up from
> time to time.  But we can also all easily admit that sometimes it does
> not go perfectly, and that genuine experts end up leaving rather than
> wasting time arguing with idiots.

Yes, this is unfortunatly very true.

That is why I think we should look at this as an opportunity, since
Sanger is going to use an open license (I'm assuming, since he is
going to import from wikipedia, the GFDL forces him to) this could be
a great source for wikipedia articles. The experts are left in peace
to develop their articles, and the wikipedians will fight the battles
over our content.

If he really does deliver on what he says he will, I see no reason to
consider Citizendium the competition, we should consider them
partners!

--Oskar