Citizendium

Citizendium
Screenshot
The Citizendium home page with default format (2018)
Type of site
Online encyclopedia
Available inEnglish
Created byLarry Sanger
URLen.citizendium.org
CommercialNo
RegistrationOptional (Required to edit pages, via request of account)
Launched23 October 2006; 18 years ago (2006-10-23) (pilot)
25 March 2007; 17 years ago (2007-03-25) (public)
Current statusactive, but with few editors[1]
Content license
CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Citizendium (/ˌsɪtɪˈzɛndiəm/ SIT-i-ZEN-dee-əm; "the citizens' compendium of everything")[2] is an English-language wiki-based free online encyclopedia launched by Larry Sanger,[3] co-founder of Nupedia and Wikipedia.[4]

Larry Sanger had worked as paid staff with Jimmy Wales to make Nupedia and Wikipedia, though Sanger left for financial reasons.[5] He had been the editor-in-chief of Nupedia, which had a editorial review process similar to what he founded at Citizendum.

It was first announced in September 2006 as a fork of the English Wikipedia,[6] but instead launched in March 2007 with an emphasis on original content. The project's aim was to improve on the Wikipedia model by providing increased reliability.[7] It planned to achieve this by requiring virtually all contributors to use their real names, by strictly moderating the project for unprofessional behavior, by providing "gentle expert oversight" of everyday contributors, and through "approved articles" which have undergone a form of peer-review by topic experts with credentials.[8][9]

Active contributors increased through the first quarter of 2008 and then declined; by 27 October 2011, the site had fewer than 100 active members.[10] The last managing editor was Anthony Sebastian,[11] until the office was vacated in 2016. As of 21 July 2023, it had 17,956 "live" and 6,322 "lemma" articles (lemmas are undeveloped articles which contain little more than a definition).[1]

  1. ^ a b "Welcome to Citizendium", Citizendium. Retrieved 2023-07-21.
  2. ^ "CZ:About – Citizendium". En.citizendium.org. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  3. ^ Bergstein, Brian (25 March 2007). "Sanger says he co-started Wikipedia". NBCNews.com. Associated Press.
  4. ^ Volpicelli, Gian (16 April 2019). "Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales wanted to save journalism. He didn't". Wired News.
  5. ^ Sanger, Larry (1 March 2002). "[Wikipedia-l] My resignation". Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  6. ^ Andrew Orlowski."Wikipedia founder forks Wikipedia, More experts, less fiddling?", The Register, 18 September 2006. In software engineering, a project fork occurs when developers take a copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software.
  7. ^ "The Citizendium's Statement of Fundamental Policies". Citizendium. 6 September 2007. Retrieved 25 February 2008.
  8. ^ McCarthy, Caroline (23 January 2007). "Citizendium: Wikipedia co-founder Sanger's Wikipedia rival". CNET News. Archived from the original on 30 July 2009. Retrieved 13 April 2009.
  9. ^ Anderson, Nate (25 February 2007). "Citizendium: building a better Wikipedia". Ars Technica. Retrieved 13 April 2009.
  10. ^ Lee, Timothy B. (27 October 2011). "Citizendium turns five, but the Wikipedia fork is dead in the water". Ars Technica. Retrieved 27 October 2011.
  11. ^ "[Citizendium-l] New Managing Editor and reduced Council sizes". The Mail Archive. 1 July 2012. Archived from the original on 21 May 2016. Retrieved 1 July 2012.