Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger has finally taken Citizendium (a new & improved Wikipedia) into beta, but the question remains—will the experts follow?

Early this month, Vermont’s Middlebury College banned Wikipedia citations in history papers after several students were found citing incorrect information. Because Wikipedia is user-generated, professors chastised the site for its inaccurate articles; however, with Wikipedia being one of the top ten most visited sites worldwide, the site is more than accessible regardless of whether or not the information is correct. So why start a new site? Why not just teach academics to edit articles?

Simple: vested interest

I could care less about Citizendium’s policy to show users’ real names. Let’s look at their conflicts of interest. According to a Sci-Tech Today article, Forrester Research VP Josh Bernoff, noted that corporations are extremely frustrated with Wikipedia’s policies. Said Bernoff, “Companies have had real challenges getting their perspective on the facts addressed in Wikipedia.”

Well Josh, companies don’t actually have perspectives- principals and stakeholders who are too lazy to write Wikipedia articles do. Perhaps you should learn to value consumer input OR at the very least, embrace a true democracy and write articles rather than building a series of online gatekeepers. Yes, professor, that’s mud in your eye too.

Wikipedia is popular, REALLY popular, and whether or not traditional institutions want to believe it, this makes it relevant as a social meme. The real question is, if words like “meme” and “irregardless” can become normative simply via common usage and consensus, can inaccuracies become accurate over time? God I hope not.

In the 60’s, famed Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan challenged Dr. Timothy Leary to come up with a memetic catch phrase. The result was, “turn on, tune in, drop out.” My call to action is much less poignant. Directed to academics, progressives & anyone who has ever wanted a voice: THE REVOLUTION IS YOU. QUIT WHINING & GET TO WORK.

THE EVOLVING MEME:
Andrew Schlafly, son of conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, started Conservapedia.com, a site he describes as “a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American.” Given that hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia viewers and editors are neither Christian nor American, it’s probably true that there is a partiality towards more secular beliefs including the infamous Flying Spaghetti Monster.