CZ:Biology Workgroup/Biology Week planning/Shorter Press Release draft

Note: I'm not a Biology Workgroup person, but this Workgroup Week needs a press release. I'm starting this in the hope that we can write one quickly. --Tom Morris 16:02, 14 September 2008 (CDT)

Please get to work on this!

I will plan to send it out to various science and biology publications and blogs on Friday. Maybe I can get a little help with this from 43PR, who we have working on WatchKnow for us. I can't do it sooner, but I think Friday will be fine. Hopefully we'll see a few notes about it next week. --Larry Sanger 17:31, 15 September 2008 (CDT)

Title

Wiki Encyclopedia Invites Biologists to a Weeklong Open House

Contact

Larry Sanger (--add Larry's contact details)

Body

For the latest version, see CZ:Citizendium Press Releases/Sept192008.

Biology Week, an online "open house" for biologists, biology students, and anyone else interested, is happening next week on Citizendium (http://www.citizendium.org/) the next-generation wiki encyclopedia started by Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger.

During the week, biologists and anyone interested in the topic are invited test out the Citizendium system. Editors and authors from the project's Biology Workgroup will be on hand to meet and greet new people on the wiki.

Biology is one of the more active areas in the Citizendium, with nearly 1,000 articles in progress. Unlike the Encyclopedia of Life, it is a robust wiki and benefits from strong collaboration; for an example of the success of the system, biologists might want to see the article "Life" (http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Life).

Dr. Gareth Leng, Professor of Experimental Physiology at the University of Edinburgh, and Citizendium author and editor, described the project: "Our role will not be to tell readers what opinions they should hold, but to give them the means to decide, rationally, for themselves. The role of experts is critical—not to impose opinions, but to support accuracy in reporting and citing information."

The Citizendium, or "citizens' compendium," uses the same software as Wikipedia. It is a successful public-expert hybrid project. The community encourages general public participation, but makes a low-key, guiding role for experts. It also requires real names and asks contributors to sign a "social contract."

As a result, the project is vandalism-free and, despite its youth (its public launch was just 18 months ago), has steadily added over 8,000 articles, many of them of fine quality.