>From: Susan Awbrey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "David Goodman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>CC: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: [Citizendium-l] Fwd: RE: Encyclopedia
>Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2006 08:29:07 -0400
>
>David and All:
>I certainly agree that citing a primary source is not research and that it
>should be allowed in articles that claim verifiability and accuracy.
>However, I'm not sure why original research has been banned? First, I ask
>this because I thought CZ was going to be different from WP and it looks
>like we are recreating the same thing. Second, if the goal truly is to
>allow as free an interchange as possible and CZ is going to have expert
>editors, why limit what can be posted? Guess if I take the open
>environment concept of CZ
Well that is the heart of the matter--just what is open source in the CZ?
Wikipedia lets it's content be open source.
So citizendium should feature the editorial stance of its editors as open
source.
The editors should publish each decision they take, give explicit reasons as
to why they allowed or rejected an article, what changes they had to make,
and what their editorial stance is on every issue.
Or to take it one step furthur, the the editorial community itself should
not be defined a priori, but it should be left open for anyone to define an
editorial board as they see fit, and their editorial decisions should
constitute the "wikipedia according to them" and be available for anyone who
chooses to subscribe to it. The net result will be everyone will be able to
fork any article they want, and eventually define their own version of the
CZ which still rides on top of the wikipedia.
This is the type of anarchy which leads to an explosion of creativity, and
will result in something new: an encyclopedia-ensemble, or a wiki-plex.
(Just as a google is 10 to the 100th power, a googleplex is 10 to the
googleth power. By similar reasoning, Just as a the wikipedia is a single
enyclopedia, a wiki-plex is an ensemble of encyclopedias where every article
has an infinite number of possible versions associated with it. (Anybody
can define their own version for themselves.)
A complex set of preferences could be defined that lets the invidual reader,
select whose version of the encyclopedia they want to see, subdivided by
section or individual article.
For example
# sample user configuration for the CZ
select latest version by "cambridge university philosophy department" for
articles on Philosophy
select latest version by nasa for articles on space
select latest version before 2006 by jimmy wales for articles on wikipedia
select latest modifications by citizendium_group for articles on anything
else
#etc.
With luck, the community will be able to regulate itself and there will not
be an N-squared explosion of versions defined by everyone and their dog.
One immediate benefit will be that the questions of fairness, censorship,
and credentials can be avoided in the near term, and these issues can be
pushed far into the future.
Everything I have seen in these discussions about the CZ seems to center
around clearing out the trolls, attracting new authors and defending the
realm with a new class of editors, essentially creating a moderated version
of wikipedia. Doing the things I mentioned above would truly make it a
citizens encyclopedia. Another way to understand this is that allowing
"private wikis" to coexist within the larger public wiki would be equivalent
to creating a merchant class in a medieval society, and it would be just the
thing to invigorate it with even more activity, and also solve all the
problems related to the lack of differentiation available in a monoversional
encyclopedia.)
Hasan
>to heart I would believe that all levels of articles (from high school
>through post doctorate) as well as all source levels of articles should be
>allowed....Why not, would be my question...what will it harm and it
>actually could add to both the learning and user mix. Susan
>
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