In just six years, Wikipedia has mushroomed into one of the Web's most
astonishing successes, with 1.7 million articles in English alone. The
downside is that the free encyclopedia has its share of errors and
juvenile vandalism, and sometimes the writing is incomprehensibly
arcane.

To Wikipedia fans, these blemishes are an unavoidable — and relatively
small — price to pay for the dazzling breadth spawned by its "anyone can
edit" open design.

But Larry Sanger doesn't buy it. To Sanger — who was present at the
creation of Wikipedia (in fact, call him a co-founder, although that,
like many things within Wikipedia, is disputed)— its charms seem to
outweigh its warts simply because it has no competition.

And that's precisely what Sanger hopes to change.

This week, Sanger takes the wraps off a Wikipedia alternative,
Citizendium. His goal is to capture Wikipedia's bustle but this time,
avoid the vandalism and inconsistency that are its pitfalls.

Like Wikipedia, Citizendium will be non-profit, devoid of ads and free
to read and edit. Unlike Wikipedia, Citizendium's volunteer contributors
will be expected to provide their real names. Experts in given fields
will be asked to check articles for accuracy.

"If there's going to be a free encyclopedia, I'd like there to be a
better free encyclopedia," says Sanger, 38, who has a doctorate in
philosophy and speaks slowly, as if cautiously choosing every word. "It
has bothered me that I helped to get a project started, Wikipedia, that
people are misusing in this way, and yet the project itself has little
chance of radically improving."

Citizendium is hardly the first Wikipedia alternative. But this is
different — not only because of Sanger, but because of the questions at
its core: Would Wikipedia be better if its contributors fully identified
themselves? Would Wikipedia be better if it solicited guidance from
academics and other specialists?

The rest of the article is HERE:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/webguide/2007-03-25-wikipedia-alternative_N.htm

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I use the wiki on a daily basis. I love it and have a link set up in my
browser. How can anyone improve on it? It sounds right, what this guy
says and having real names and credentials would make a difference, I
guess. I don't know though, read the article and see what you think. It
is long but worth it.

OH, wiki is Hawaiian for "fast". Something I had wondered about but did
not know. It is in the article.

I have been using the wiki almost since it's inception, I guess I
started at the end of the second year and met some nice folks there
too... just a tidbit!

Have a great day all,

Verb

How much do you realy know about wikipedia though? Did you know that
it's servers are housed under Stamford University main campus. Did you
know the servers themselves are provided by Bill Gates. Did you know
that Bill Gates actually owns most of the University? Ever wonder how a
guy who drops out of high school would get a PHD from Stamford? Money
talks in America. Ever wonder where Bill Gates got the idea for Windows
in the first place. He stole it and patented it. It was contrived by him
highering programmers to build a program to compete with Apple years
ago. Their interpetation of the Apple system is windows.

Programmers write the world end users live in.

Bill Gates and Microsoft's history is well documented. Most of us
(geeks) have been well into that. Plus the history of Steve Jobs and
Steve Wozniack, the Apple co-founders.

HA! So true about programmers!

All interesting stuff...

Here is something I just learned about on wikipedia you might want to
take a gander at.

http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Introduction_to_PHP

Hi Kevin - yes, I have seen this and also the w3schools pages too. The
w3schools is where I first started learning some web based languages. I
am no where near as proficient as I should be but keep plugging along
anyhousen.

Thanks a bundle - it is good info for everyone. I did get the books and
since I can carry the books around with me to drs/dentist appts and
everywhere else I keep putting them back in my book bag so I don't
forget them. ALWAYS have to have something to read.

I need a new laptop...
any Santa Clause's here wanting to
HOOK ME UP????? LOL.

have you also seen the webmonkey tutorials as well. They are pretty
cheezy but might get an idea or two accross a bit clearer as well. They
are part of the lycos system if you google them. Also there is a
magazine with online publication that is free php architect to subsribe
to the print format is pretty expensive so I would suggest reading it
onlin for a few months and see if it is worth it to you.

http://www.phparch.com/

It might be a bit overwhelming at first and it is slow loading here but
usually has alot of info in it.