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|  ProfessorFate | Jan 27, 2007 11:16pm | | I think it's a little arrogant - I got the impression of "unless you're a scholar, get the fuck out of our way". |
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Sponsor |  Naruwan | Jan 28, 2007 6:26am | Encyclopedias do tend in the main to be written by scholars and experts. I don't think that's arrogance. It's just common sense that a body of knowledge would be written by people who know what they are talking about.
Anyone at all can contribute to CZ but the big difference with Wikipedia is that contributions must "pass muster". This makes a lot of sense otherwise anyone could write any old sh*t. |
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|  aRTy-nz | Feb 3, 2007 3:47pm | The problem in wikipedia is also that anyone can delete anything if they get numbers - and there are many more fools in the world than experts.
It is very early days yet for CZ, but I think that some of the changes they have made have every chance of solving the problems. |
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Sponsor | | Stevietheman | Feb 5, 2007 11:59am | | While CZ may solve the scholarship issue, I don't think they will ever solve the critical mass issue that Wikipedia has indeed solved. CZ will take a very long time to grow into something useful for the masses, while Wikipedia is already there. Yes, some esoteric topics are excluded, but how many individuals are looking up esoteric topics anyway? |
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Sponsor | | Naruwan | Feb 5, 2007 4:19pm | | I think it *should* take a very long time to put together a good quality encyclopedia. I wouldn't put too much faith in something that was thrown together in just six to twelve months. |
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| | aRTy-nz | Feb 11, 2007 8:53pm | 5, As far as I am concerned encyclopaedias are for uncommon knowledge - if it is common knowledge then I already have it :-)
One day about 10 years ago I had just been to the library and couldn't find some research info I wanted. In a shopping mall a guy was selling Britannica and asked was I interested. I told him that there were two things I wanted to look up right then and he had a sale if it had them. He got excited, but in one entry it had nothing that I didn't know and I could tell him more that wasn't there. In the other there was no entry. Useless. |
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| | EvanCarroll | Feb 28, 2007 11:18pm | I don't like the idea or attitude behind CZ. I'll continue to use Wikipedia. You don't fork a project just because you want more "expert oversight." You find a way to establish credentials without hindering or scaring away the masses. Wikipedia is fun, because the masses wrote it, and the masses learn from it. It wasn't made to establish absolute truth on any subject, and that isn't necessarily to it's detriment.
Personally, rather than "expert oversight," I would rather citizen oversight. I don't think anonymous users should get to edit anything only send "notes to the members" or the like.
With that said, Wikipedia's goals seem to becoming more and humble, and less ambitious. I'm all for an equal playing ground i.e. no collegiate benefits, but it seems as if more rules should be applied to the masses, like stricter citations and better integrations with third party sources openid, archive.org, google scholar.
I'd also like it to grow the ability for users to add their first-person accounts, and for those accounts to come under peer review, that is rated by the masses a la digg. |
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Sponsor | | Naruwan | Mar 1, 2007 3:29am | Evan - CZ is not going to fork Wikipedia - they decided to start from scratch instead. Last I heard anyhows.
Also, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about what CZ is. It is still going to be written by the masses. The difference is that there will be some oversight by people who can demonstrate they are knowledgeable in a particular field. How would "citizen oversight" be any different from WP? Requiring people to sign up to edit wouild just mean that your meddlers, trolls, point-of-view pushers or whatever are more dedicated to their cause.
Your 'peer review' idea sounded good until you said 'digg'. I had visions of a mass of ignorant nerds calling each other 'tards - not the sort of peer review that has any real value. Anyway, it's going to be interesting to see what transpires at both places. |
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| | EvanCarroll | Mar 1, 2007 4:26pm | Having people create accounts before they modify the encyclopedia allows changes to be tracked, and wholly reverted with ease. It also allows others to voice viewpoints and first-person accounts, and for the masses to decide whether or not they are credible. The way it should be.
If someone like Richard Dawkins wants to comment on an article about creationism, he should get to do so. Because he has established *personal* credibility. It shouldn't have to be hosted on an external blog, and pulled in through third-person citations in a linked-to article; but, rather as a ring of trust with some sort of digital post-it notes.
People should not establish expertise outside of the encyclopedia. It is a *stupid* idea. No one should be divinely qualified to accept or reject the first generation of "oversight-ers" and no one should be subjected to a rules by them. Especially when these rules are so blurry.
imho, Wikipedia thrives because it attempted to remove the elitist ideology behind creating an academic compendium. Decentralizing authority remains a good idea.
As for a "fork": While Citizendium might not be taking the data so to speak (as far as I know,) another hyped up encyclopedia will surely lessen the love that the current one gets. I agree with their FAQ, that it probably isn't the goal, but it will surely be the effect.
And all this, and the very questions that should be asked about Citizendium are not answered? Citizendium claims to be in development, and yet the basics, as in the rights of editors have yet to be established. Who gets to be an "expert" on biology, a creationist, or an evolutionist. And, who decides this? This whole idea makes me shout wtf... |
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