Shut Out from Citizendium
I've written a number of times about Citizendium, Larry Sanger's fascinating project to create a new kind of user-generated online repository of knowledge. Well, it's now officially open to the public - sort of. As the press release puts it:For the first time, anyone can visit the website (www.citizendium.org), create a user account and get to work within minutes. The project, started by a founder of Wikipedia, aims to improve on the Wikipedia model by adding "gentle expert oversight" and requiring contributors to use their real names.
The catch is that you not only need to create a user account to "get to work", but even to view what's already there, as far as I can see. I can't help feeling that the best way to get people to join this worthy venture is to let them see what's going on. To lock out casual visitors from anything but the home page seems counterproductive.
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2 comments:
Glyn, I appreciate the links you've given us over the last several months.
I really wish we could open the website up to visitors as well as contributors. The problem is that we'd be inundated with traffic (as we already are) and we lack the hardware to keep up. We're certainly working on that, though--I hope that with this funding drive and our new nonprofit status we'll soon have the funds, or in-kind donations, to open the site up.
Thanks for the explanation: I can see your point. I suppose it's a nice problem to have.
I wish you well in your fund-raising, and look forward to the site being opened up.
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