[Overview]
Citizendium was launched in October 2006 as a pilot project to build a
new encyclopedia, at the initiative of Larry Sanger, who was the
cofounder of Wikipedia (with Jimmy Wales) in January 2001, but resigned
later on over policy and content quality issues. Citizendium - which
stands for a "citizen's compendium of everything" - is a wiki project
open to public collaboration, but combining "public participation with
gentle expert guidance." The project is experts-led, not experts-only.
Contributors use their own names, not anonymous pseudonyms, and they
are guided by expert editors. "Editors will be able to make content
decisions in their areas of specialization, but otherwise working
shoulder-to-shoulder with ordinary authors." (Larry Sanger, Toward a
New Compendium of Knowledge, September 2006) Constables make sure the
rules are respected. Citizendium was launched on March 25, 2007, with
1,100 articles, 820 authors and 180 editors.