Nine Theses on Wikipedia: A Special Feature
I submit these nine theses to Wikipedia’s community and to the world. I do this, as Martin Luther said when he posted his famous 95 theses, “Out of love for the truth and the desire to elucidate it.”
My Blog
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Reply to Slashdot about my report to the FBI
On April 7, I posted the text of a report I made to the FBI to the EDTECH mailing list, in which I stated that, in my opinion, the Wikimedia Foundation may knowingly have posted “child pornography,” by which I meant “obscene visual representations of the sexual abuse of children.” In short, the Wikimedia Commons…
2 comments on Reply to Slashdot about my report to the FBI11 minutes -
Should Science Communication Be Collaborative?
Plenary address at PCST-10 (10th conference of the International Network on Public Communication of Science and Technology), Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden, June 25, 2008. A slightly abbreviated version of this was delivered. I. The question, and some distinctions Should science communication be collaborative? There are two ways to understand this question, and so also two…
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A Defense of Modest Real Name Requirements
Lunchtime speech at the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology 13th Annual Symposium: Altered Identities, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 13, 2008. I. Introduction Let me say up front, for the benefit of privacy advocates, that I agree entirely that it is possible to have an interesting discussion and productive collaborative effort among anonymous contributors,…
23 minutes -
Citizendium: A New Vision for Online Knowledge Communities
Speech delivered at Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan, Feb. 7, 2008, as part of the College of Arts and Sciences Lecture Series, “Wikipedia – Democratization of Knowledge or Triumph of Amateurs,” hosted by Marshall Poe. Contents Familiar territory The problem of quality and relevance Three principles A role for experts Why real names The rule of…
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How the Internet Is Changing What We (Think We) Know
This speech is included and fully revised and updated in my 2020 book, Essays on Free Knowledge.
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An explanation of the Citizendium license
Preliminary notes (please read): Purpose: this long essay explains in depth why we have chosen CC-by-sa as the license for our own original collaborative content. Summary: this probably isn’t an easy read. You can skip ahead to the license decision, and here is asummary of the reasoning behind it. About links: links to places within…
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The Citizendium one year on: a strong start and an amazing future
Contents: Debunking some myths What we have demonstrated in our first year Our new initiatives Short-term plans Longer-term plans The coming explosion of growth Essential reading in bold above. A possibility you may not have considered It’s been exactly one year since work on the Citizendium wiki started ramping up. I said then that I…
27 minutes -
The New Politics of Knowledge
Speech delivered at the Jefferson Society, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, November 9, 2007, and at the Institute of European Affairs, Dublin, Ireland, September 28, 2007, as the inaugural talk for the IEA’s “Our Digital Futures” program. I want to begin by asking a question that might strike you as perhaps a little absurd. The…
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What Strong Collaboration Means for Scholarly Publishing
Keynote delivered at the Annual Meeting, Society for Scholarly Publishing, “Imagining the Future: Scholarly Communication 2.0,” San Francisco, California, June 7, 2007. When I was asked to speak to you, the Society for Scholarly Publishing, I have to admit that I found this puzzling, because I don’t know anything about scholarly publishing. Why should someone…
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Why the Citizendium Will (Probably) Succeed
This essay argues that the Citizendium is feasible. The wiki is in public view, or will be within a few days. You can join now. 1. So far, so good. The Citizendium pilot project wiki got under way privately at the start of last November. In the intervening months, we have steadily grown to some…
21 minutes
Support the Knowledge Standards Foundation:

- An open reply to Jimmy Wales. He's wrong: Grokipedia won't necessarily be biased; and, obviously, the Trump article is badly biased. First of a series of replies to Jimmy's remarks in this Reason exposé: https://reason.com/video/2026/02/23/can-you-trust-wikipedia/
- I invited my X peeps to ask me questions and then "like" the various questions, and I would upload the answers in video form. Here it is! Christian identity – 1:10 "Call no man teacher" – 9:25 Role of government – 15:45 Authority & resistance – 19:15 Wikipedia labor – 24:20 Net value of Wikipedia […]