Wired.com Citizendium

Here's a disturbing one for you. Sometime after publication of the Citizendium article, the following grafs were inserted into the story right after the graf noting that Wales refused comment:

(Editor's note: Following publication of this article, Wales offered the following on-the-record comment in an e-mail to NewAssignment.net editor Jay Rosen:

"'Instigator' does not mean 'founder' is the main other comment I would make. My claim in this matter is quite simple, and this is on the record:

"Larry Sanger was my employee working under my direct supervision during the entire process of launching Wikipedia. He was not the originator of the proposal to use a Wiki for the encyclopedia project -- that was Jeremy Rosenfeld. And Larry has himself publicly stated, 'To be clear, the idea of an open source, collaborative encyclopedia, open to contribution by ordinary people, was entirely Jimmy's, not mine.'

"His role in the early days of Wikipedia was important -- he was considered the 'editor-in-chief' -- but it was not the role of founder. Larry was never comfortable with the open wiki process, and he has been critical of it from the beginning and to this day.")

I commented before about the inherent conflict of interest in our taking on a Citizendium story. I believe that the original story was as even-handed as you could get it, and thankfully, we were blissfully ignorant of Jay's involvement on the Wikimedia Foundation's advisory board (remember, for emphasis, that this board is advisory in nature only, not involved in the day-to-day running of Wikipedia). But now, post-publication, we've got changes being made to the story based on an e-mail from Wales to Rosen.

I have serious issues with the modification of any story after its publication, particularly when the modifications involve allegations that are central to the story itself.

It's a fact that Wales refused comment on the story pre-publication. Now re-read this sentence from the inserted copy:

"'Instigator' does not mean 'founder' is the main other comment I would make. My claim in this matter is quite simple, and this is on the record:

This is quite simply a smoking gun; by saying that he has an "other comment" that is "on the record," it is quite clear that there's more to this e-mail, and that what appeared above it was "off the record." This makes it even more obvious that there's some kind of communication going on behind the scenes.

I believe that if you don't vote, you lose your right to bitch about the government. And if you refuse to be interviewed for a story, you lose your right to have the story reflect your views. Them's my guns and I'm sticking to them.

A person involved on the project commented to me, privately, that knowing about the conflict of interest left a lingering "dirty" feeling. At the time, I knew that our team had done its due diligence. I didn't share this feeling, and replied as much. Until now. Now I feel dirty too.

So it's in the can -- the Citizendium team survived the "forking" of the CZ story, and as I post this, we have a piece up on wired.com. If you care to, read on for my take on the "making of."

First off, let me tell you some secrets that are no longer secret and perhaps never were:

1. I don't think radical transparency is always the amazing force of good that it's made out to be.
2. I think that the role of "gatekeeper," used judiciously, is justified.
3. I'm a big-picture guy and need help with the details.
4. I'm prone to hyperbole.

You just read those forward; now read them once backward. Fume a little, if you like, as I know that the first (last) two aren't popular here. Keep them in your head as I share my tale of the Citizendium.

Many of you will remember my e-mail in which I addressed over-transparency as gently and tamely as I could. This got a response directly from on high, point by point. I felt pretty important, but really exposed, at that point. One just carries on carrying on after such a squabble. (It's also not my first "transparency" discussion with Jay, as we had engaged each other on the MediaShift blog as well, back when I had time to read it faithfully.)

Of all the AZ projects, why did I choose the Citizendium? Because its structure seemed to mirror AZ's structure well. I figured this story had the best chance to succeed, what with the "upstart challenger to Wikipedia" angle and the parallels to what we're doing. It's relevant, it's timely, it has David-vs.-Goliath aspects -- in short, it's us. If we're going to navel-gaze, let's go all the way.

AZ has been criticized in the blogosphere for that navel-gazing; I think it's a fair criticism. To start a crowdsourced journalism project and then have it cover crowdsourcing itself... that stinks a little, kind of like the Tribune covering the Cubs. (Right now the Tribune doesn't have time to cover anything but its tracks and its behind; as I write this, the axe-on-a-pendulum is headed for the L.A. Times's newsroom -- but I digress.)

I'm not a hard-core blogger. I'm not all that web-savvy. I'm from the classic journalistic broad and shallow pool -- show me a ramp and I'll run up it as fast as I can, but I've got to be shown the ramp first.

Enter the crowd. We're a self-selected bunch here. It seems there were two ways in; pros answered a Romenesko casting call, and frankly, I don't know how the crowd heard about it. I came in through the Romenesko gate but declared myself an amateur as I don't work in the field.

I do think that gatekeepers are needed for lots of things. In particular, yes, I do think that knowledgeable editors play a valuable role. On today's Internet, with everyone blogging their unsourced opinions and their cats' eating habits, someone with a trained eye needs to sort the news from the fishwrap. In short, I don't Digg It. But mine is a very old-school way of thinking, and I know most of the folks here disagree, especially in the crowd.

In a project like this, we the amateurs aren't expected to have the AP stylebook on the shelf. We're just supposed to be enthusiastic and willing to scrounge around for info. At the end, a pro will appear to save the day, turning all of this raw material into good journalism.

Journalism is a craft. There are aspects of it that really do have to be learned, like writing and interviewing skills. Writing a story for publication isn't like writing a novel or a blog. I'm convinced that the writing of a final article is a "pro" function, and it was an honor for me to be involved in the writing process for as long as I was.

I owe a special shout-out to Anna Haynes; I was totally reliant on her reporting for making sense of the Sanger-Wales history and for patiently correcting key details that I struggled to get right. She rhetorically offered her kingdom for a wiki; someone should give her a kingdom so that it's not rhetoric.

I leaned heavily on Anna and my personal friends for advocating positions on transparency that aren't my own, to help ensure they weren't given short shrift. In keeping with the protection I afford to my real-world friends in this "archived forever" Googleborg, I can say only this: To the Cyber-Utopian, and to the Canary in the Coal Mine, thank you for helping, either with edits, leads, or just being there.

But here's my lamentation: Why did we even cover this story? Very late in the game, for reasons I won't go into and for which I can't take credit, it was revealed that Jay is a member of the Wikimedia Foundation advisory board. The Wikimedia Foundation is the umbrella organization that includes Wikipedia and about ten other projects.

And we're writing a piece on the Citizendium? It seems to me that this is a fundamental conflict of interest that should have disqualified the entire AZ project, myself included, from doing a Citizendium story at all. It can be done -- and it was -- by avoiding direct involvement from anyone who has a personal conflict of interest, be it a competing product, a strong opinion, or simply a sharp axe. But it has the potential of tainting, for some, the piece that carries my name as part of "possibly the longest byline in publishing history," as Lauren jokingly put it.

Why didn't I know that I was covering a project that was a direct competitor to my sponsor? Why did I not do deeper investigations into the Wikimedia Foundation and into the Tides Center, which is sponsoring the Citizendium? I felt like my inattention to detail had let me miss the big story behind the story.

Time has allowed me further research. I now know, for example, that Clay Shirky, another "anti-CZ" source in the story, is on the same advisory board. I believe the story absolutely needed his critique, but had I known of the connection, I would have disclosed it in the story and added another "anti" source who didn't have this fundamental conflict of interest. (As it turns out, the editors did insert this for me.) There are thousands of bloggers hating on gatekeepers; finding another wouldn't have been hard. I just liked Shirky's the best because it seemed the most influential and had lively commentary.

Live and learn. It's what we're all doing here, here in this place that I always liken to an incubator. The first time I referred to "a chick" in IM with Lauren, her response was, "We're raising poultry?"

Yes, I think we are -- AZ is nothing if not poultry in motion.

from Citizendium Editor Lauren Sandler:

Mike Ho has filed his draft of the Citizendium piece, for publication on Wired.com. Now it’s your turn to have at it. Keep in mind that we haven’t given this an edit yet… and that Mike has worked his tush off. So be gentle, but don’t be shy.Citizendium team: You filed a ton of good research. Mike picked through it and used what he thought worked best. But you know your reporting better than he does, and if there’s something you think is crucial and missing, here’s where you can make a case for it.

Visitors from other teams: Larry Sanger is adding a structure of experts to his encyclopedia. Are there examples from the topic you’re covering (like unconferences or politics) where crowdsourcing is being similarly professionalized?

Feel free to email Lauren with questions at lauren.newassignment@gmail.com.

Hats off to Mike and to everyone who filed reporting!

First, there was Wikipedia: the anarchic, anything-goes, Wild-West style of information gathering and dissemination on the crowdsourced frontier. Now, there's Citizendium, where authors are named and editors shape the entries (we might even call it "pro-am"), marrying together open source culture and the culture of academe. It's an encyclopedia written by the crowd, but on very different terms. As with most all things, it starts with a story of conflict.... Go here to read more about the story and how you can get your name on Wired.com's byline.

First, there was Wikipedia: the anarchic, anything-goes, Wild-West style of information gathering and dissemination on the crowdsourced frontier. Now, there's Citizendium, where authors are named and editors shape the entries (we might even call it "pro-am"), marrying together open source culture and the culture of academe. It's an encyclopedia written by the crowd, but on very different terms. As with most all things, it starts with a story of conflict -- a story of disagreement between two people. Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia) and Larry Sanger (Citizendium) shared a vision of free and accessible information, an ever-growing self-refining encyclopedia of whatever the crowd could imagine. There was a split, or as contributor Michael Ho has written "Citizendium became less of a fork, and more of a knife."

This week Assignment Zero contributors will be investigating this split before publishing on Wired.com a definitive piece on the emergence of Citizendium. Can you volunteer time over this next week to help cover the story? Everyone who participates will be included in Wired's byline. Just visit the Citizendium homepage and 'join the team' (it's a link in the left-hand column under "team members." There' you'll also find an outline of the story and a list of what's been done and needs to get done.