Debating information control in Web 2.0: The case of Wikipedia vs. Citizendium

Abstract

Wikipedia is continually being scrutinised for the quality of its content The question addressed in this paper concerns which notions of information, of collaborative knowledge creation, of authority and of the role of the expert are drawn on when information control in WP is discussed. This is done by focusing on the arguments made in the debates surrounding the launch of Citizendium, a proposed new collaborative online encyclopaedia. While Wikipedia claims not to attribute special status to any of its contributors, Citizendium intends to assign a decision-making role to subject experts. The empirical material for the present study consists of two online threads available from Slashdot. One, "A Look inside Citizendium", dates from September, the second one "Co-Founder Forks Wikipedia" from October 2006. The textual analysis of these documents was carried out through close interpretative reading. Five themes, related to different aspects of information control emerged: 1.information types, 2.information responsibility, 3. information perspectives, 4. information organisation, 5. information provenance & creation. Each theme contains a number of different positions. It was found that these positions not necessarily correspond with the different sides of the argument. Instead, at times the fault lines run through the two camps.