14 DAY TRIAL // Larry Sanger, one of the wiz kids that founded Wikipedia along with Jimmy Wales in 2001, has recognized in a Citizendium mailing list that he's thinking about resigning as Editor-in-Chief from his current position to work more on his newest project, entitled WatchKnow.
After working and founding web-encyclopedias like Nupedia, Wikipedia and Citizendium, Larry Sanger, one of the masterminds that built the philosophy and policies behind the Wikipedia platform, is now getting ready to release a new website focused on educational and tutoring videos.
Very similar to what other companies are doing (see Expert Village, TeacherTube, About or eHow), the WatchKnow project concentrates on providing knowledge at the press of a button. A play button, to be more accurate. Larry was smart enough to see that technology makes people lazier, so instead of concentrating on providing miles of text, his new project will deliver information inside video tutorials or explanatory videos.
In the email sent to all Citizendium members, he admits the fact that he never intended to have a career at the project that many critics have labeled as a Wikipedia clone made out of spite on his old friend Jimmy Wales. The two are known to have fought a fierce media war about who actually came with the Wikipedia name and site policies.
“Quite frankly, is that I have felt I had less and less of a right to claim to be Editor-in-Chief of this community-run, collaborative, non-profit project.” said Sanger, “this is partly because I've been spending so little time on the project (WatchKnow) - and authority is earned by participation, I think - and partly because I promised close to three years ago that I would step down as Editor-in-Chief in 2-3 years.”
For now, WatchKnow is still in Beta development, already racking up more than 7,000 tutoring videos from various contributors. No mention has been made of Larry's resignation from Citizendium on the website's contributors page, but Wikipedia has already updated his profile with this piece of information.