Features
Wikipedia uncovered
A new approach
Maybe we don't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Sanger's Citizendium combines Wikipedia's Wiki-based approach with a more rigorous policy on identity - users are known by their real names and have to be approved by Citizendium's "constables". Most interestingly, it ropes in qualified experts to guide discussions and settle debates. "You can't have genuine consensus if people are constantly disagreeing with each other," Sanger notes, explaining that at Citizendium, if participants can't agree, "the issue won't be decided by whomever is most persistent."
The problem is that it will take time - maybe too much time - for Citizendium to achieve anything like Wikipedia's critical mass of articles
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So in lieu of something better, why not take a good long look at Wikipedia and celebrate it for what it is, while making damn sure we know what it isn't. "Sensible criticism can only do Wikipedia good," says Gerard. "We have plenty of growing pains - no-one outside is more painfully aware of Wikipedia's defects than those of us inside." But the key thing for Gerard is that "every obvious criticism of Wikipedia happens all the time, and we deal with it - trolls, vandals, POV pushers, obsessive nutters, obnoxious idiots, people who mistake it for a video game and so on. We deal with this in the normal course of events, and the site remains good enough to use."
Bury agrees. For him, the problem isn't so much the reliability of Wikipedia's content as the way in which it's used. "It's already become the first port of call for the researcher," Bury says, before noting that this is "not necessarily problematic, except when they go no further." The trick to using Wikipedia is to understand that "just because it's in an encyclopaedia (free, web or printed) it doesn't mean it's true. Ask for evidence for this, that or the other. And contribute, especially if you disagree."
