Thursday, March 29, 2007

Citizendium - project from the other Wikipedia guy goes live

Citizendium - project from the other Wikipedia guy goes live
Tuesday March 27 2007
By Bobbie Johnson / Internet 06:21pm

Larry Sanger has already gone down in history for some web wonks as the other guy from Wikipedia (the one who isn't Jimmy Wales). But, as we reported in our interview with him last year, he wants to make a new impression with a new version of Wikipedia.

Looks like things are moving forward, with Citizendium. It is, so the site claims an attempt to "improve on that model by adding "gentle expert oversight" and requiring contributors to use their real names."

First impressions aren't bad - but they're not that good either. Not only does it have a god awful name (which is at least as bad as Wikipedia) but it's decided to opt for the basic wiki look, and therefore bears a striking resemblance to its major rival.

A quick browse around showed the articles were OK - but plenty of them seemed remarkably close to the Wikipedia version (cf this Geoffrey Chaucer and that Geoffrey Chaucer).

It's more likely that the real test will really come after a longer period of time when the public's allowed in to muck around.

What do you think?

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