User:Peter Schmitt/Charter

Draft as of end Nov. 12 [1]

Mission statement

I still prefer: The Citizendium is a collaborative effort to compile an online encyclopaedia that presents human knowledge organized and structured in a way to serve as a convenient, reliable, and well-written source of information.

Fundamental policies

Professionalism

Contributors to the project — henceforth Citizens — are required to behave professionally. This means acceptance of guidance from experts and from the wider Citizendium community and the obligation to remain civil and constructive even in cases of dispute. A set of persons of mature judgment — hereafter the Constables — shall be specially empowered to enforce rules laid out in this Charter or its accompanying documents. The enforcement of these rules — up to and including the ejection of participants from the project — is to be carried out with reasonable pragmatism and leniency, including in those situations where the applicability of existing rules may be unclear.

Real names

All Citizens must register using their real names, which will define their user name.

Expertise

Expertise will be respected. It shall be recognized through publications (including contributions to the Citizendium), credentials or employment, or through any other means established by the Editorial Council.

Collaboration

The Citizendium is a collaborative project, open to constructive contributions by any Citizen to any of its content at any time. The Citizendium also allows collaboration with non-Citizen partners on any matters relevant to the project's mission, provided that the interaction does not conflict with this Charter.

Accessibility

The content provided at the Citizendium is intended for an audience with completed high-school level of education. As far as possible, special needs of visually or otherwise impaired users and of machines will be taken into account.

Being Bold

Should Citizens be unsure that their planned contributions are in conformity with the Charter and its subordinate policies, they are advised to seek comments from Editors and the wider community. In the absence of disputes, they may reasonably proceed.

Governance

The Citizendium is devoted to transparent and fair governance at a minimum of bureaucracy. Special roles will not be created without excellent reason.

Authors

Any Citizen can act as an Author, i.e. contribute or modify content, unless blocked from specific articles or topics by an Editor or Constable. Blocks may be appealed through the Dispute Resolution procedure.

Editors

Editors are Citizens who — because of their recognized expertise in specific areas — are responsible for the scope and quality of the content presented by the Citizendium. Specifically, in their areas of expertise, they are entitled (1) to make decisions about specific questions or disputes concerning particular articles, and (2) to approve high-quality articles.

Management Committee

A Management Committee shall be responsible for matters concerned with the non-editorial policies of Citizendium, such as finance, external alliances, communications, administration, and behavior. To this end, it may appoint Administrators and Task Managers whose activities it will oversee. It will also appoint Constables and oversee their activities.

The Management Committee shall consist of thirteen Citizens, who may not simultaneously serve on the Editorial Council. They may, however, be Constables or Task Managers. A quorum shall consist of seven members. The members of the Management Committee shall be elected by vote of active Citizens and Authors, with two-year renewable terms. The Management Committee will appoint one of its members as the Management Lead, who will represent the Citizendium externally on all matters except content.

Editorial Council

An Editorial Council will be responsible for guiding content and establishing policy. It will be made up of active Citizens, no less than one half of whom shall be Editors, the remainder shall be Authors.

The Editorial Council shall consist of thirteen Citizens, who may not simultaneously serve on the Management Committee or be Constables. They may, however, be Task Managers. A quorum shall consist of seven members. The members of the Editorial Council will be elected by vote of active Citizens and Authors, with two-year renewable terms. The Editorial Council will appoint one of its members as the Editorial Lead, who will represent the Citizendium externally on matters of content.

During deliberations on a matter covered by specific workgroups, the Chief Editor of that Workgroup, or another member, may be part of a quorum if that individual is not a Council member. If, however, the matter under discussion involves a dispute with such an Editor, that Editor may state positions to the Council but not vote on them unless already a member.

Workgroups

The Editorial Council may create and reorganize workgroups to organize areas of content, and to encourage collaboration among authors and editors in areas of expertise. Workgroup members will build top-level articles and knowledge structures for the articles in a discipline.

The Editorial Council shall elaborate a strategy and policy on topic-specific collaboration, chiefly based on CZ:Workgroups and some accepted ontology or other knowledge categorization scheme. In addition to subject specific Workgroups, there shall be a General Workgroup with jurisdiction over general issues of style and content, and for articles of very wide scope. There may be, in addition, interdisciplinary or specialized Subgroups. In addition, there may be Area Groups, as for (e.g., Science or Science & Technology) to deal with broad issues affecting many but not all workgroups (e.g., units of measurement).

When there are disputes on content issues, assuming there are multiple Editors in a workgroup, they will attempt to resolve the dispute. Failing agreement, the matter will be taken to the Editorial Council.

Administration

The Citizendium's administration handles the legal, financial and technical operations necessary for the project to fulfil its mission.

Dispute resolution

Disputes will be settled at the lowest possible level, such as by bringing in peer Editors or Constables. Next, the Ombudsman will be contacted for non-binding mediation. Should that fail, the matter will go to the appropriate body — the Editorial Board/Council for content matters and the Management Council for behavioral and administrative matters. As a last resort, both Councils may appoint members to an arbitration panel, for Final arbitration as defined below.

Ombudsman

The role of Ombudsman shall be vested in a Citizen with substantial CZ experience and widely respected judgment, who may appoint up to two other Citizens to support his/her work. The Ombudsman will be elected by simple majority vote of each of the Editorial Council and Management Council, for a term of 4 years. An Ombudsman may be recalled by a supermajority (75%) of each of the Editorial and Management Councils.

Final arbitration

In the event of a dispute that cannot be resolved at a level below that of the Editorial Council or the Management Committee, appeals boards may be constituted on an ad hoc basis. They will consist of three members nominated by the Editorial Council and three members nominated by the Management Committee, who shall not have been involved in the specific dispute. An Ombudsman will preside; that official shall direct the Board and will be non-voting other than to possess a tie-breaking vote vote. Should no Ombudsman be available who is not a party to the matter, the Councils shall appoint a special presider from the Citizenry.

Electorate

All Authors are entitled to vote on the adoption or modification of this charter.

License

The content of the Citizendium will always be free to use, reuse, and redistribute. Content originating at the Citizendium is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Content that originated elsewhere may also be incorporated into the Citizendium if such reuse is permitted by the copyright owners.

Legal status

The Citizendium will be owned and ultimately controlled by a non-profit organization.

Languages

The official language of the Citizendium is English. Branches in other languages require approval by the Editorial Council and have to be based on this English-language charter or an approved translation.

Final clause

Ratification

If this Charter has been ratified by two thirds or more of the votes validly cast in a referendum for this purpose, it shall be certified by the Editor-in-Chief within a week after the closing of the referendum. For future amendments, a certifying official or officials shall be agreed upon by the joint Management Committee and Editorial Council.

Entry into force

This Charter shall enter into force on the day following ratification.

Interim guidance for the transition period

As long as the administrative prerequisites for implementing the charter are not entirely fulfilled, the rules listed in this section shall provide interim guidance to the Editorial Council, Management Council, and other bodies. Such material may be modified by those bodies by their normal procedures, without a full Charter amendment.

Editorial Council and Management Committee

For both bodies, the intention is to elect half of the members each year, so of the first group, a number corresponding to the quorum will be selected, by lot or personal agreement, to serve one-year terms.

Citizens with pseudonyms

Citizens currently registered with a pseudonym will be granted up to one year of time to re-register for a new account under their real name. One year after the entry into force of this charter, all pseudonym accounts shall be locked by the Constabulary.

Inactive Editors

CZ:Editorial Council Resolution 0012 will be extended such that newly registered Editors who have not yet contributed to the project shall be regarded as Inactive Editors.

External partners

The Management Council shall elaborate a strategy and policy on collaboration with external partners, paying particular attention to fostering the collaboration with instructors by way of Eduzendium, and with external experts or professional organizations for the purpose of reviewing content at the Citizendium or providing content to it.

Future amendments

This Charter shall be open to amendment at any time subsequent to its ratification. The Management Council is hereby vested with the power to act upon proposals for amendment originating from any Citizen or Citizendium institution. The process of Amendment requires the Management Council initially to consult with Citizens (including via the Forum) and subsequently to draft an appropriate amended text. The decision to accept the amended text will be taken by popular vote of the Citizenry, and requires a two-thirds majority of votes validly cast.