|
All, I have a few concerns over this proposal. For one, it depends on how intrusive it is for the "encyclopaedia" section. Would they be separate? How would it affect the normal pages of the project? i.e. would there be links or a box on each page that may possibly have some product or service connection? (I am thinking of everything from dog breeds, to detergent, to cars ,to medical drugs here.) How would the inclusion of such material and it's wiki nature effect people's impressions of the Citizendium and its neutrality? How do we guard against companies with a wish to present themselves in a good light from skewing the information, say by getting employees to post up favourable reports? I think that the notion of the Citizendium truly being a compendium of everything is just silly. Are we also going to have every book ever published available through us? Every new piece of research and knowledge on chemistry, ala Chemical Abstracts? The entire proceedings of the South Cape Butterfly Club? No. We could have links to such information of course and in that way attempt to link up with the idea of a compendium of everything. But unless we are talking financing in the tens of millions, we do not have a hope in hell of aspiring to such notions...especially relying on the general public to supply it. The public are our greatest asset and also our greatest weakness. The weakness we are attempting to address by using a real names policy...but that very policy will no doubt deter a lot of people from being contributors...the very people we would need for a service and product database to be as inclusive and extensive as the backers would no doubt wish.The idea requires that we radically expand the notion of what is included in an encyclopedia, to encompass, well, *anything* of general interest. It would really put the meat on the bones of "the citizens' compendium of everything." It would involve information about every product (and, perhaps in time, every business, and every movie, and every song...) that someone wanted to be listed. This is crazy, of course. But there is a major player who might provide truly significant support to help us bring it into being. The *only* way to make this feasible, I think, is to create a groundswell of public support for the project. For that to happen, there must be, as well, a *credible non-profit* organization behind it; the development of the database must be maximally open and transparent; the results must be open content, of course; and the system whereby information is input is as simple as possible. Suggesting that contributors to the data base are not required to be contributors (under their own name) of CZ also? But the *first and most important* constraint on this project that came to my mind when I started thinking about it is that the information must be neutral, and there must be effective (but still efficient!) ways to make sure that the information remains neutral. We must tread *very* carefully if we want to become a purveyor of consumer information, because the financial interests who might want to get involved could make it *so* easy, of course, to corrupt the fairness and reliability of the database. But the best way to secure this is precisely for the project to be maximally public, open, and transparent. See points raised above. Another constraint is that entries for products should not be flat wiki pages, but database entries, with preassigned fields, and of course with fields differing depending on product type. In every other respect, however, it could be a wiki. So who gets to add the information? And just how do you judge it to be neutral? You can't because there would be too much to cope with and much of it is likely to be people with an axe to grind because their you-beaut product turned out to be a lemon for them...or whatever. There is no *good* reason that I can see why this should not be part of the same database that is the Citizendium. What is needed, for articles about Kings and philosophers, and for products, is a neutral source of general information. Well, from the limited amount of information I'm dealing with, there are LOTS of reasons I can think of as to why we should reject this offer. One last thing to mention is that, in negotiating with this major online player, we walk a fine line. We want to provide this entity an incentive to support the Citizendium. But we cannot do that and compromise the neutrality of the database. The question that I will be thinking a great deal about is why they should support a non-profit organization that is committed to neutrality. What reason can I give them? Of course, if I can give them no persuasive reasons, then we won't pursue the opportunity. --Larry Neutrality is the key here I think....and I cannot see us being able to guarantee that unless we would have the resources necessary and the planning in place to counteract the very non-neutrality that such a data base would encourage. Cheers, Phil. |
_______________________________________________ Citizendium-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/citizendium-l
