Comments on: Wikipedia Co-founder Visits UVa, Describes New Project

By: Charlottesville Podcasting Network » Blog Archive » Wikipedia co-founder talks about his new project

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 02:57:55 +0000

[...] addressed the Jefferson Society about his efforts to create a successor called Citizendium. The Virginia Sentinel has a write-up on the event. Listen [...]

By: Seth Goldin

Seth Goldin — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 04:27:42 +0000

I love how the Internet can give us feedback so quickly.

Yes, Dr. Sanger, I love Citizendium’s premise, and I hope it does very well. I suppose that I should have read into your talk that indeed, Citizendium’s purpose was to cover the primary flaw of Wikipedia, but the other motive, fear of the state, even if minor, leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I fear that Citizendium may have excellent accuracy, but it will take much longer for content to be added. It’s a sacrifice.

To David Gerard, you may be right; I’m unfamiliar with the case, and I thank you for the correction, but the point still stands that there are examples where the government has stepped in on some online communities. It is undoubtedly a dangerous trend.

By: David Gerard

David Gerard — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:03:46 +0000

“Germany shut down the German Wikipedia temporarily for a scandal involving the naming of a deceased computer hacker” – this turns out not to be the case. The judge ordered wikipedia.de (the Wikimedia Deutschland site) not to link to de.wikipedia.org (the German-language Wikipedia, containing the article). The site wasn’t taken down, the article stayed up on de.wikipedia.org, which is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation under US law.

By: Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:03:52 +0000

Thanks for the article, Seth. I would just like to respond to one thing in your final paragraph. Perhaps my talk’s focus on the politics of knowledge might have given someone the impression that the main motivation for the Citizendium is to prevent government interference, but if so, let me say that that isn’t in fact the point of the project. It’s just an advantage. The point of the project is to create a giant and reliable repository of free knowledge. The desire to create such a thing is our most fundamental motivation, and it is, I think you’ll agree, anything but cynical.