CZ:We aren't Wikipedia

How does the Citizendium differ from Wikipedia? Let us count the ways.

1. We've got editors. They are experts in their fields, and we respect them for that. They work shoulder-to-shoulder with everybody else on the wiki, but in their specializations they have the right to approve articles, to settle content disputes when necessary, and articulate article plans. They can also participate in editorial decisionmaking bodies.
2. We use our own names. Not only do we require people to sign in, we require them to use names that they attest are their own real names. We also go to some lengths (without making absolute guarantees) to verify identities--and greater lengths for editors.
3. We don't use "userboxes." User pages are biographies.
4. We expect professional behavior and have very low tolerance for disruption. Our Constabulary has some pretty firm rules which requireprofessionalism. This means that not only do we have rules against personal attacks, blatant violations of the neutrality policy, and so forth, we actually enforce them. We enforce our rules by warnings (in most cases) followed by permanent bans, which can be rescinded only through appeal or application for reinstatement. We do not have "24 hour bans" which do nothing but annoy and antagonize.
5. We have no vandalism. Excluding the short period in which we permitted self-registration, we have had zero vandalism--none.
6. Our constables are not high school students. They are required to have a bachelor's degree and to be at least 25 years old.
7. Unlike Wikipedia administrators, constables do not make editorial decisions. We have a "separation of powers." Constables oversee behavior and adherence to basic policies; editors oversee content.
8. Unlike Wikipedia administrators, constables are held to a conflict of interest policy. If they have engaged in a dispute or are otherwise at work on an article, they may not exercise their constable authority with respect to that article.
9. We don't use zillions of acronyms. The Chief Constable has made this a bannable offense. We're not sure whether she's kidding or not. Using a lot of acronyms for every small point of policy creates a sort in-group cant that makes the community only more insular.
10. The license differs. We are using [check this!] the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial (CC-by-nc) license for our original articles.
11. Contributors share their copyright with us. Contributors give to the Citizendium Foundation a nonexclusive right to relicense their work. This allows the Citizendium Foundation to be the sole entity that licenses the entire Citizendium corpus.
12. Our policies differ.
    • We use an older version of the neutrality policy. Wikipedia has added all sorts of bells and whistles to its original neutrality policy. We've gone back to one of the original versions. And we don't use "NPOV" and "POV"; we use the old-fashioned English words "neutral" and "biased."
    • Since we've got experts on board, we don't make a big deal of citing sources. The editors we have on board create the sort of sources that Wikipedia cites. We do cite sources, of course, but we have a sensible approach to doing so. We cite sources because doing so helps the reader: we do not cite sources in order to settle internal disputes.