Citizendium

The Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), a "citizens' compendium of everything", is an experimental new wiki project. The project, started by a founder of Wikipedia, aims to improve on that model by adding "gentle expert oversight" and requiring contributors to use their real names.

History

Larry Sanger announced the concept for Citizendium on September 15, 2006 at Berlin's Wizards of OS 4 conference. The project moved on to a pilot phase in October, and formally launched on March 25, 2007.

Founding Principles

The fundamental goal of Citizendium is to create the largest and most reliable encyclopedia in the world. To that end, it has standardized on the following organizational principles:

Open Collaboration

Citizendium is similar to Wikipedia in that it is an open wiki: the public is invited to participate and edit most pages.

Real Names Policy

(and accountability in general) (help foster a culture of professionalism)

Online Republic

Sanger has repeatedly stressed that he envisions Citizendium as a new sort of internet community, one that contains all the elements of a traditional democratic republic: a constitution, inclusive participatory governance, and an executive, legislative, and judicial branch.