Would be nice if it was true. The marketing line "a free, online encyclopaedia you can rely on" is very premature. ... We are still just beginning to build our content.
I agree we're not there yet - but to get there, we need to recruit content contributors, and that slogan will help recruit them too: editors, real-names, etc are just means to an end, not an end in themselves. Where's it all
going, what's the
point, that's an important part of what people will want to know before they come work here.
And of course, making greater use of Wikipedia content (suitably worked over) will of course speed us on the way to that goal - which we are yet, as you rightly point out, nowhere near.
The content that we do have is of dubious reliability. Only a very small fraction - and I emphasis very small - has been approved by experts. Much of our continent hasn't even had so much as a comment by an expert.
A definite - but different - problem. Sigh, we aren't knee-deep in allligators, we are neck-deep. I have some ideas about that particular issue, but I want to whack away at the existing ToDo list before we extend it even more... :-)
A copy of wikipedia is not going to make an acceptable product no mater how many experts sign off on it's reliability. For people to buy into the idea of Citizendium, this site must, like my book, be it's own work.
A good point, but I don't think we're that far apart. I did say, originally, "start with the Wikipedia text, and bang on it to produce an a) reliable, and b) readable article", which did not mean 'as a general rule, take the Wikipedia article, make a few minor tweaks, and go with it'.
I understand - and agree - that WP content
often had major structural problems, that they have no systematic procedures in place (or proposed) to rectify those failings, and that CZ needs to have a system that produces content without those failings. That will inevitably produce content with its own unique nature. (But notice that tthat uniqueness comes from a particular, and I think important, goal - it's not simply 'be different for the sake of being different'.)
We're not completely throwing out all the work of Wikipedia. A we say is be choosy. If something is really good on wikipeida, use it. Don't copy form wikipedia just because you can, copy because you believe that is the best content and only copy the bit that is the best, don't copy more than you need to.
That I am all completely OK with.
All I was really trying to do, in my original post, was to get everyone to
consider using WP text as a
resource, to be mined for our advantage - and to not feel, reflexively, that they can't ever use it, and
always have to write
everything from scratch. That is, I think, an attitude that I see to some degree developing; let's not fall victim to 'Not-Invented-Here' disorder. That will result, as I pointed out, in basically having to completely replicate the work done on Wikipedia - for which we will rightly be criticized, I think.
Noel
