
Citizendium - Wikipedia founder's rival to wikipedia - immad
http://en.citizendium.org/
======
BrandonM
At first I was thinking, _Wikipedia is great as is. Besides, why compete with
a free product?_ Once I actually visited the site and read the philosophy,
however, I have to concede that it's at least worth a shot. This idea is
clearly the result of someone saying, "What is wrong with Wikipedia, and how
can we fix it?" The main problems, as I see it, are:

1\. Defacing of high-profile articles. \- This is potentially solved by
requiring the use of real names, and also by the oversight.

2\. Perceived inaccuracy. \- While Wikipedia does at times have inaccuracies,
the reality is that the media and others who do not often use it have an
exaggerated view of the extent of the inaccuracy. By adding expert oversight,
this should quell some of the cries regarding lack of reliability.

The only potential problems I see is that Wikipedia already has a lot of
inertia, which includes a much better name. Citizendium is just too hard to
say to become a buzzword. It will also see much slower growth, and I posit
that it will never be able to reach the size of Wikipedia, because its growth
function is inherently less steep.

That said, one could contend that the majority of quality articles on
Wikipedia are submitted by a very small minority of the users. If even some of
these authors move to Citizendium due to frustration with the constant
maintenance of their articles or the incorrect perception of inaccuracy, then
Citizendium truly has a chance. But someone still needs to change the name.

------
immad
Seems the same apart from harder to participate. Do you think it has a chance?
Here is a blog post about it: <http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-
blog/362949/rival-to-wikipedia-goes-live.html>

------
domp
<http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=6494>

There's also another post about this company.

~~~
immad
apologies, I tried looking but couldn't find anything in the newest and
figured this story was new enough. Is there a better way of checking for
duplicates where url is unlikely to hit?

~~~
domp
No biggie. I've done it too. Someone created a search tool for the YComb news.
Check it out.

<http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/>

