User talk:Larry Sanger/Suggestion Box

This is a special talk page. I've long been of the opinion that good ideas (along with the hard work to put them into effect) are the sine qua non of a successful project. Got an idea for CZ? Please add it to this page. I might say one of at least three things: (1) thanks, interesting, maybe we'll get to that some day; (2) this is something we could do anytime, but requires discussion; (3) I think it's a bad idea.

This is just for my personal use. This isn't a central community suggestion box: Constabulary suggestions are better sent to [email protected] or maybe the Chief Constable, Ruth Ifcher; and soon we'll have an Editorial Council which will be able to field editorial proposals. But--not that I want things to be this way, because as you may know, I frequently calling for leaders of various kinds--often the only way anything gets started around here is if I initiate it. So...

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For down the road, an idea I had a while ago: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,421.msg3264.html#msg3264 -Tom Kelly (Talk) 01:00, 18 April 2007 (CDT)

Right--it's an essential feature. It's possible we'll change our processes so that this can be done using the software in place now. --Larry Sanger 10:00, 19 April 2007 (CDT)

CZ and Google search: give it some thought...

I noticed this accidentaly, it caught my attention:

If you type "Keynes" into Google, Wikipedia will show up among the first two entries (in the first search page), but not CZ; CZ will not show even down to the 10th page (where I stopped loking for it; most people would have stopped much earlier). For "heterodox" alone Wikipedia is again 1st and 2nd and CZ is 46th, one of the best results I have seen for CZ yet.

But... if you type "Keynesian Revival", CZ is right on top at Google ( 1st and 2nd entries). The same applies for "Heterodox tradition" (2nd and 3rd entries). Yet the same for "Asimakopulos" (5ht and 6th entry - even ahead of McGill's, which is a quite old article).

So what ?

So, if CZ begins to use some names that are different from names already used by Wikipedia, it will flash in the first page at Google.

Give it some thought. Some "special" articles could have the name slightly changed from Wikipedia's norm. This way people will begin to see CZ at Google top search pages.

J. R. Campos 16:00, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

That's interesting. I wonder also if it would be helpful to title articles in the form China, history of as opposed to History of China. Stephen Ewen 21:37, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Other possible tricks might be to use words in the article that people are likely to use when searching for the topic, and to have lots of other websites give links to Citizendium articles. I don't know what algorithms search engines use so I don't know what's most likely to work. --Catherine Woodgold 17:14, 28 April 2007 (CDT)

Feedback on articles?

Hi Larry. At the moment, I haven't found a way to request feedback on articles. The article I'm working on (MGS), has had all but four of the edits done by me, none of which were major changes. I would like to improve it further, but am unsure how. The CZ:Games Workgroup and Games forum are fairly inactive, and when I asked a question on the workgroup talk page and the article talk page, I didn't get a response. Do you think it would be useful to create some sort of feedback requests page (perhaps CZ:Feedback)? Anyway, thanks for reading my suggestion, Oliver Smith 05:17, 13 May 2007 (CDT)

The *name* of this project

Hi, Larry, I've only recently joined the project and feel a little diffident about making suggestions so soon afterwards but I feel strongly that the very name of the project, Citizendium, is a tremendous handicap and will mitigate against its future success. I realize that you probably spent uncounted hours trying to find just the right name for this project and that you didn't choose Citizendium lightly. Nevertheless, as a long-time lover of the English language, an English major, and a professional writer of fiction whose major (and perhaps only) strength is the quality of my writing, my eye and my mind both recoil when confronted with Citizendium. It doesn't seem to mean anything on the surface of it (I realize that "Wikipedia" isn't much better), and even after one knows what it means, it still doesn't seem intuitive or useful. And it's a terrible mouthful to try to pronounce. I've run it by a couple of my friends who are also professional writers and they both agree with me. I *urge* you to change the name to something more memorable and more accessible before it's too late. Leonard Slye became Roy Rogers, Marion Morrison became John Wayne, and sphairistike became tennis: I seriously doubt if sphairistike would be an Olympic sport today, or even played, if that original name had stubbornly been retained. In any case, whatever the name, I'll do my best to make some modest contributions, and I hope that you'll consider my suggestion -- I certainly have only the best wishes for the project! Hayford Peirce 16:48, 13 May 2007 (CDT)

To be fair, I suppose that I ought to make some suggestions of my own. One of my writer friends suggested "Netpedia" and "Infopedia". My own suggestions are "CZpedia" and "CZinfo". Hayford Peirce 16:51, 13 May 2007 (CDT)

WebInsight, IllumiNet, EnlightNet and NetExpert. This is fun! :-D I'm very fond of IllumiNet and EnlightNet. Yuval Langer 01:09, 14 May 2007 (CDT)

Some interesting ideas. I understand that "Wikipedia", also coined by Larry, sounded like "Citizendium" at the first; that "Wikipedia" only "sounds normal" to people because it has had time to be socialized into common usage. I suspect, I hope at least, that Citizendium will do the same in time, as has Yahoo!, Google, Mozilla, Skype, and the like. But encyclopedia.org would best, I think. Yet someone has it parked, unused. ---Stephen Ewen 03:50, 14 May 2007 (CDT)