FeedsCitizendium One Year On: A Contributor's Perspective
Citizendium recently celebrated its first year. As a past Citizendium contributor, as well as a (mostly anonymous) Wikipedia contributor, I thought I would offer my insider perspective on the progress of the project and its utility/feasibility.
When Larry Sanger announced his intention to create the new project, I was attracted to its ideal of higher quality information, reviewed by professionals in the fields, as well as to its requirement to register with a real name - one of the significant downfalls of Wikipedia, at least from a contributor standpoint is that anonymous people tend to act like assholes.
How, then, has Citizendium, its awful name notwithstanding, fared the past year? It has 41 editorially approved articles and about 3,000 others. While the volume is by no means substantial, the quality is exemplary. Compare the article on biology from Citizendium and Wikipedia. The Citizendium article is much more readable, more directly informative, better structured, and better referenced. If Citizendium continues on this course and produces articles on every topic in the Encyclopedia Britannica, it will be an amazing resource. Wikipedia's sheer volume (there are currently just over 2 million English language articles), while impressive, does not make it more useful as anything other than a ready reference source.
That said, I think that Citizendium will have a hard time reaching the critical mass of contributors and editors necessary to produce all of those articles, as on the contributor side of things, the project falls into many of the same pitfalls as Wikipedia. On many fronts, despite requiring registration, Citizendium attempts to be more open than Wikipedia. For instance, acronyms, such as the ubiquitous NPOV or COPYVIO or WP:NOT are explicitly forbidden in comments, removing a substantial barrier that has formed between casual and "hardcore" Wikipedia contributors.
However, there are many of the same mechanisms that create an elitist attitude among regularly contributing Wikipedians: an off-wiki discussion forum, essentially unilateral policy decisions enforced by individuals with little oversight, and constables (administrators for Wikipedia) who undertake actions with little to no discussion. In Wikipedia, there are IRC chats and mailing lists. In Citizendium, there's an off-site forum, which kinda seems to defeat the purpose of a wiki, plus mailing lists. In Wikipedia and Citizendium, policies are enforced according to the will and interpretation of the person who happens to be there and constables/administrators in both undertake action immediately without discussion.
While these barriers to good contributions are annoying in Wikipedia, its sheer volume and exposure does not prevent a healthy influx of contributors. These problems are significant barriers for Citizendium, however, because there is little exposure, it requires more work, and demands higher quality contributors.
Other particular problems facing Citizendium are its licensing and copyright policies. As opposed to Wikipedia, Citizendium has decided to essentially not accept images based on fair use arguments. They (or at least the constables I interacted with), in fact, have decided to not accept images from public domain works that have been digitized. The site has also yet to decide what license to release the material under, yet continues to include Wikipedia material, which mandates GFDL, however extensively modified.
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Comments from site editors have a darker background than comments from everybody else.First off, thanks for talking about the quality of CZ articles
Secondly, it is pure unalduterated hogwash that the project has "decided to not accept images from public domain works that have been digitized." The only times where this is the case is for certain instances where, for example, for a photo of a piece of PD art that was created OUTSIDE of the United State, because such a photo does create a new copyright, or else a lower set of protections, depending upon where the photo is from. Surely your training in Library Science should have given you a more sophisticated view, such as I am saying. Even the Wikimedia Commons recognizes this sort of thing, see http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:When_to_use_the_PD-Art_tag
Please peruse http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:Public_Domain_media for the many instances of public domain media in CZ articles.
The instance you are talking about is of an image that originated in Japan. I deleted the image for a few days while researching what the scoop was with Japan in these regards, while you pushed strongly for a cavalier attitude, stating "We obviously cannot prove that there are not other laws that may apply without looking at every law in the jurisdiction at hand" - clearly a cavalier attitude, and false on its face, because one can quite easily determine the laws in nearly all countries.
The image in question is at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Image:Epikouros.jpg
As for you being a Citizendium "insider", your account was created on 7 June 2007 and you requested that your account be deleted, and it was on 21:58, 11 July 2007 D. Matt Innis (Talk | contribs | block) deleted "User:James A. Flippin" (user request). Why you would then call yourself a CZ "insider" after three months later after 1 month experience is a stretch by any standard.
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First, what you call cavalier, I call a statement of the principle that a negative cannot be proved. You wanted me to prove that it is not somewhere stated that digitizations of public domain works create new works in Japanese law - a completely useless and impossible task. The instance I'm talking about is actually a photo that originated in Italy several hundred years ago... its public domain status is unequivocal.
I made no claims as to how long I was involved and linked to my contributions in this article. I hid nothing. I experienced editing in Citizendium and am thus qualified discuss editing in Citizendium at least as much as you are.
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Yes, I think "cavalier" is a perfect description of your attitude, along with an apparent willingness to not learn what is clearly knowable about copyright. What you say reminds me of this image http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Louis_XIV_of_France.jpg at the Commons. Yep, the painting is PD, but under French law, unlike in the U.S., photographs of such art are routinely held to be copyrightable. The photo hosted as PD at the Commons is © R.M.N./H. Lewandowski, See this link .
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This is pointless. You want to continue the argument here that put the nail in the coffin that made me leave Citizendium. I'll do no such thing. Anyone who cares to examine the Japanese copyright act is free to do so. I'll debate it no longer.
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Excuse me, but you were the one who invited corrective postings when you made a false statement about CZ and/or me not accepting images from public domain works that have been digitized. You should be more responsible to check your facts - like I was doing, which you found offensive and left. CZ has around 1000 PD images and will continue to have more and more freely. We will at the same time be more careful than is, for example the Commons, to respect the limited cases where reproductions made in various countries creates a new right for the reproducer, will not falsify or conveniently omit source data as they routinely do, but instead obtain reproductions from where it is legal indeed, see for example the lede image here. What you ultimately encountered at CZ was the project's concern to make sure we host images that are free and clear indeed, nothing more. What this provides in the end is a database of images that people can better trust when they consider reusing them.
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I find it telling that you're not disputing a single thing in my actual post here. You're continuing a ridiculous argument from Citizendium in the same manner you did on Citizendium - round about, anecdotal evidence. Yes, there are countries that grant new rights to reproduced works, but it's absolutely moronic to apply this to all countries where you don't know the copyright law. Do some research, actually read the law (it's linked above). You want to continue the argument over the image, when the image is not even the point here. The point is how you acted on Citizendium and how you conducted yourself in a way that many potential contributors would find extremely off putting and it is exactly how you continue to conduct yourself.
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Let's be completely clear. What you did is assume an image was PD, when you did not know the copyright law in that country when asked, and rebuffed mightily at the idea of my taking a few days to find out. You instead wanted to just make an assumption based on ignorance.
Yes, "cavalier" is how I'd describe that.
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You complete misrepresent what actually happened. You wanted to seek permission from the site owner, despite my showing rather conclusively that Japan does not afford rights to the digitizer of a work.
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I can restore the page upon request.
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Please do and link to it here. We can let whoever wants read it and see for themselves and stop this completely useless, not to mention tangential argument. My post and the reasons I think Citizendium is facing significant obstacles still stand.
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So let's see, according to you it cannot be determined from reading Japanese copyright law and other works like Paul Geller's International Copyright Law and Practice whether photography or methods analogous to photographing of PD creates a new right for a user. According to you, that not only cannot be known, but is irrelevant whether it can be known or not, since the underlying work itself is in the PD. You state
thus confusing the PD status of underlying work and the reproduction of it by a Japanese organization ("they probably know no more than we do about Japanese copyright" is close to a direct quote from you about it).
In point of fact, the Japnese organization claimed copyright. Why? I did not know, so to me that meant it was time to research. I did, and two days later learned that the notice referred to their entire collection, which IS copyrightable under Japanese law, but we could take the image. And so we did.
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Further, my original statement that Citizendium has decided not to accept PD images when people assert digitization restrictions is entirely valid. There are 39 images tagged with "An entity or person asserts restriction rights over this public domain work," but the vast majority of these were created and digitized in the U.S., where it is known with complete certainty that no new rights are created with digital duplication of copyrighted works. Why such a bizarre stance on copyright?
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Again, all this does is show your own naivete. There is such thing as contract law and physical property rights that are seperate considerations from copyright and that do not touch upon the fact that the PD work PD. For one instance, if I enter Site A, I am bound by the terms of use (terms of service) of Site A. If Site A says that by entering Site A I agree to abide by their terms of service, and there stipulates that I must attribute them when I use an image they provide at Site A, then it is not copyright but the terms of use, contract law, that says I should. Copyright has nothing to do with it. On the other hand, I am free to get that PD work from another source where I am not bound by that terms of use--I can scan it from an old book, for example. Unlike some places, we inform readers when such is the case. That has no bearing on the fact that the underlying work is PD.
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I understand all of that, but that's not the case in the most of these images. Some examples:
Gulf Stream: the originating site doesn't even make a claim as to restriction, much less a license.
Joe Louis: The site specifically states that what restrictions there were went away in 1986.
The Kiss of Justice and Peace: This one is tagged simply because the site says "Images Copyright © the artist, their estate, and/or the Cleveland Museum of Art." That's not a license or a contract.
TV Ad: This site merely asks that you cite them a particular way. This is not a contract or license.
Arctic Sea: The summary here actually states that there is "no restriction on use for reproduction or publication"
Seminoles Massacring Whites: This site likewise merely has a copyright statement from the web site owner - that is not a contract or a license.
The notices there are at best misleading, and at worst could chill contributions of freely available images.
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Maybe, we have hundreds of images that need going over.
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This was tagged in a hurry with PD-butclaim before PD-butrequest was made. They request to be cited, see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Image_talk:BF_Gulf_stream_map.jpg/Permission
This was tagged in a hurry with PD-butclaim before PD-butrequest was made. They request to be cited, and also the donor has expressed several other concerns, see http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Image_talk:Joe_louis1.jpg/Permission
Yep. Probably would not fly. But we report that info rather than hide it to inform the reuser. Note CZ is using it as PD!
Tagged with PD-butclaim before PD-butrequest. Note these tags are highly generic. You have to click the link in it to see the nature of what its about.
This was simply tagged wrongly by the uploader. Thanks.
Again, the tags are generic - you have to click to see what they are about. The claim in this case is likely dubious, but we let the reuser decide rather than deciding for them. Meanwhile, you will note CZ decided to use it as PD!
On the contrary, what it does is honor reusers by reporting to them, rather than omitting, what the providers say about what they have provided - reusers can make up their own minds and don't need CZ making it up for them. Perhaps more importantly, what it does is honor providers by reporting what they say about what they have made available to you--material you would not even be uploading apart from their provision of it to you. In the end this means a much more reliable image commons develops - one that people can more solidly trust and reuse material from.
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Ooh, busted. No James Aaron but the bio marries up with a James A. Flippin. By 'insider' do you mean to say "tergiversator," "prevaricator," or maybe "fabricator"?
Enjoyed the piece though it tells us more about the lack of insight of the writer than anything about the on-line encyclopaedia.
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I fabricated nothing. Please investigate before attempting character assassination.
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Citizendium trolls. That's fucking awesome (also, hilarious).
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If it's out there, there are trolls for it.
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I'll not address who the troll is here, but it's fully conceivable that James is just going by James Aaron here. One can quickly Google up http://academic.reed.edu/classics/theses.html from info in his blog profile here, which meshes with the CZ username just fine.
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I, in fact changed my name after marrying and could not "prove" it was my name, so went with the old one.
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