Anonymous

Caliornia

writer

Although I've contributed three featured pages to Wikipedia, I won't join Citizendium as long as it requires people to reveal their real-world names. Wikipedia has seen instances of real-world harassment. If Citizendium becomes half as successful as Wikipedia it's going to have a much more serious problem.

This article overlooks the similarity of Sanger's project to the unsuccessful Nupedia experiment that preceded Wikipedia. It also overlooks several non-technical solutions that Wikipedia has adopted to address accuracy: the German language edition is experimenting with a stable versions system, the English language edition has adopted a new Disruptive Editing guideline to streamline blocking and banning of problem users, and the Wikipedia 1.0 project is expanding on Wikipedia 0.5's CD release of featured content and important articles. Wikipedia's Expert Retention discussion is brainstorming new ways to make articles more reliable.

While I wish Sanger well, and I've read and sympathized with his complaints, many of those concerns are gettting addressed within the framework of the existing project. The situation at Wikipedia isn't the same as it was when he left the project - and I see gaps in his plan that will likely create projects of equal or greater magnitude for Citizendium.