Wikipedia co-founder seeks to start over

But he still harbored unease about how Wikipedia was so open to abuse. When a shaken Seigenthaler called him to vent about the incident with his bio, Sanger decided it was time for a fork.

A fork, in software-development terms, is when everything about Project A gets copied by Project B, and from there they follow separate routes. A fork of Wikipedia is allowed under its "copyleft" license that lets anyone use its content as long as they are equally generous with their output.

In other words, Sanger could cut the vastness of Wikipedia and paste it into a new site, then put it through his own meat grinder, complete with rules about real names and expert review.

Last year, Sanger began organizing Citizendium as a fork of Wikipedia. He raised $35,000 from a foundation and a private donor. But he found it hard to motivate the volunteers he recruited online.

"I didn't see the kind of excitement I saw in the early days of Wikipedia," he says. "You get excited about something if you've taken responsibility for it, if you've created it yourself. By conceiving of ourselves as a big mop-up organization for Wikipedia, we essentially lock ourselves into being a version of Wikipedia. ... In order to have a robust, distinct identity, it's important, I think, that we start over."

Citizendium has been operating in a limited manner that ends with this week's official launch. Its volunteer base numbers roughly 900 authors and 200 editors. The site has 1,100 articles, with 11 "approved" by editors, meriting them a green check mark. Volunteers can revise any article, though already-approved entries are labeled as separate "drafts" while they're being rewritten again.

Because the sign-up and other steps are the antithesis of Wikipedia's brazen ease, it's hard to imagine Citizendium garnering 3 million member accounts, like Wikipedia has.

Then again, many of those accounts sit unused. Wikipedia's own statistics show that in September, the most recent month for such data, 43,000 people were considered "active" — they each contributed to more than five articles for the English site. The category of "very active Wikipedians" — those who worked on more than 100 items — numbered 4,330.

"Let's say we only have one-quarter of the contributors of Wikipedia," Sanger says. "Would we be able to create a credible competitor for Wikipedia within not too many years? Yes, I think."

But Sanger allows himself an even grander dream — that Citizendium's professionalism and civility end up attracting more people than the self-organizing hue and cry of Wikipedia. "I don't see why not," he says. "This kind of thing hasn't been tested."

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