User:Geo Swan/my first experience on the citizendium

__NOINDEX__ See User:Geo Swan/Stale drafts I decided to try out the Citizendium today. (why am I considering defecting? Briefly, the routine breaches of WP:CIV and other policies over on afd

I've been asked to give a short write-up of the experience.

I read about the Citizendium in a recent article in The Times. Larry Sanger, who The Times described as the wikipedia's co-founder, is one of the people behind the Citizendium.

The first difference between the Citizendium and the wikipedia you will encounter is that it doesn't allow anonymous editing. One has to apply for an ID first. One's ID is normally one's name, although one can request a pseudonym.

The application isn't onerous -- you have to write a short bio, which becomes the first text on your User page.

Many things work exactly the same way as they do on the wikipedia. Geo Swan 11:19, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Differences I have discovered so far are:

why I am considering defecting
In my experience breaches of policy are routine in the wikipedia's deletion fora. I have no problem, in general, in abiding by the consensus of the community.


 * But the policies of WP:CIV, WP:AGF and WP:NPA are routinely breached in the deletion fora.
 * Nominators routinely nominate articles for deletion for criteria for reasons that are counter to the wikipedia policy for what should be nominated for deletion
 * In particular, a perception that an article violates WP:NPOV is not grounds for deletion. I write on controversial topics.  That makes it more difficult to comply with WP:NPOV.  So I take extra effort to comply.  I don't expect to succeed 100%.  So I do my best to take every challenge to my conformance with policy seriously.  What I have found is that about half of those who have a concern that something I have written has breached WP:NPOV don't make any attempt, or don't make a meaningful effort to engage in a civil discussion of their concern -- instead they nominate the article in question for deletion.
 * In my experience an alarming percentage of those expressing an opinion for delete, or keep justify those opinions with reasons that do not comply with policy, or use arguments to avoid.
 * In my experience closing administrators don't always comply with policy, and aren't always civil.

In my experience a small fraction of the wikipedia's administrators act as if being trusted with administrator authority has freed them from any obligation to comply with WP:CIV. Geo Swan 11:43, 19 October 2007 (UTC)