description Citizendium Overview
Citizendium is an English-language online encyclopedia founded by Larry Sanger, who had earlier helped establish Wikipedia. It began in 2006 as a separate collaborative reference project intended to combine wiki-based editing with contributor accountability and subject-matter oversight. The project encouraged contributors to use their real names and introduced editorial review practices designed to support reliability while retaining open participation.
help Citizendium FAQ
Who founded Citizendium and why?
Citizendium was launched in 2006 by Larry Sanger, who had earlier co-founded Wikipedia alongside Jimmy Wales. He created it because he wanted a wiki encyclopedia with real-name accountability and expert oversight rather than anonymous editing.
How was Citizendium different from Wikipedia?
Citizendium required contributors to use their real names and split the community into 'authors' who wrote and 'editors' with subject expertise who could vet content. Wikipedia, by contrast, allows anonymous editing with no formal expert approval step.
When did Citizendium officially launch to the public?
The project ran as an invitation-only pilot starting in late 2006 and opened to the general public with its full launch in March 2007. It grew quickly at first, reaching several thousand articles, but never approached Wikipedia's scale.
Does Citizendium still exist and is it active?
The site is still online, but it has been largely inactive for years, with only a small fraction of the article count and editing activity it had at its 2007 peak. It is generally remembered as one of the best-known post-Wikipedia wiki encyclopedia experiments.
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