In yet another diatribe Dr Sanger informs us about the differences between Wikipedia and Citizendium.
The thing that struck me most are two things; contributors have to give a non-exclusive license to Citizendium AND the license is now to be the Creative Commons CC-by-nc license. The consequence is that only the Citizendium organisation can license commercial use, obviously for a price. They assume that as it is to be written by experts it will have value. It also means that once licensed, the licensee can do whatever.
When you compare Citizendium with Wikipedia, you have an English only versus a multi-lingual project. You have a project that covers almost everything and a project with a few thousand articles. You have a Free project and a project that is increasingly restrictive. You have a project that informs the world with NPOV information and a project that is to be written by experts.
Really I think Dr Sanger is doing a great job promoting Wikipedia by increasing the differences.
Thanks,
GerardM
7 comments:
Aren't you now confusing the ND (non-derivatives) and NC (non-commercial) extensions to the CC-license?
By the way, do you also have a link or reference to the original 'diatribe' (hah, new word learned ;-) by Sanger?
It is nc non commercial..
The original stuff by Dr Sanger is at http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/03/21/we-arent-wikipedia/#more-146
Thanks,
GerardM
I have updated the text to remove the confusion.
Thanks,
GerardM
OK, so let it be more clear : Citizendium is a clone of ScholarPedia, more than a kind of Wikipedia.
The only true difference I can see is that Citizendium sometimes use a really free license, and that it has less good articles...
Nojhan, you are right. The problem Dr Sanger has is that he is known for his Wikipedia background and it does not help him when his "Wikipedia done right" is best compared to a project that pre-dates his Citizendium.
Thanks,
GerardM
We've been talking about Citizendium over at Highbrid Nation. Personally I use Wikipedia a lot and I don't see anything knocking it off its top spot. The features that make Citizendium better may just be the features that keep it from having the same sucess as Wikpedia. There can only be one. Who will it be?
I do not buy into the notion that there can be only one. Because that does not give Citizendium a reason of being; Scholarpedia was there first.
If Dr Sanger wants to make Citizendium a success, it has to be because of its own virtues. At the moment it is sold as "doing Wikipedia right". If this is how it is sold they are dead meat.
Thanks,
GerardM
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