Wikipedia rival on its way

One of the co-founders of Wikipedia is planning to set up a rival to the popular, open online encyclopedia.

The man behind it is Larry Sanger, who after helping create Wikipedia in 2001 turned on the site, criticising its failure to control those who contributed and edited the entries.

Now he plans to launch Citizendium, which will begin a six-week pilot project soon. Citizendium, like Wikipedia, will welcome contributions from the public, but will not allow people to post under pseudonyms and editors will rigourously scour any new content added.

"By engaging expert editors, eliminating anonymous contribution, and launching a more mature community under a new charter, a much broader and more influential group of people and institutions will be able to improve upon Wikipedia’s extremely useful, but often uneven work," said Sanger.

Citizendium will mirror the content on Wikipedia, which contributors will then be able to edit. Citizendium's editors will then be able to approve the content, though this does not mean that further edits of the content will not be accepted.

Professor Gareth Leng of the University of Edinburgh will be one of the editors. "Our role will not be to tell readers what opinions they should hold, but to give them the means to decide, rationally, for themselves," he said.

Invitations to take part in the six-week pilot project are available on the Citizendium website. After the pilot, the plan is to open Citizendium up to all.

http://www.citizendium.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/

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