User talk:Peter Schmitt/Charter

I put this page on my watch list. D. Matt Innis 22:48, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

RE deleting user pages

This is our current policy on user page deletion. We're particularly concerned that an editor who has been involved in article creation and approval not be able to remove their user page without very good reason, though we leave the door open in case someone has a very good reason, ie. liability or reputation. D. Matt Innis 23:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

your opinion please

WOuld appreciate your feedback on this addtion to the Professionalism section of the charter as a result of the conversation from this section of the talk page. D. Matt Innis 00:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I hope I have answered, at least partially, in the comments. Peter Schmitt 17:06, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

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My own draft

• The following was my own attempt during the drafting period. It is in part parallel to the official draft, but offers alternate formulations and structures in some cases. Not quite "up-to-date" because I am not sure if it is worth the effort to still work on it. --Peter Schmitt 17:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Mission statement

The Citizendium is a collaborative effort to compile an (public domain) online encyclopaedia that presents (a compendium of) human knowledge organized and structured in a way to serve as a convenient, reliable, and well-written source of information.

Fundamental principles

The Citizendium shall be an online community where volunteers, the Citizens who are known under their real name, cooperate with the intention to create a high-quality online resource for the full range of human knowledge.

Content

The Citizendium shall be useful for all (for a broad audience), its structure shall reflect the different needs and provide both basic and in-depth information on different levels (in s suitable way).

Authors shall strive to (carefully) present all topics clearly organized, correct and comprehensive. They shall honestly describe the current state of knowledge and not conceal problems like gaps, unresolved questions, or fundamentally different positions. Equally, the relations among topics and fields shall be shown by appropriate means.

(The Citizendium is not a place for advocacy or for advertisement.)

Collaboration

The Citizendium shall be a collaborative project. Everybody shall be invited to participate as a Citizen registered under his real name.

Citizens shall (be able to) freely contribute as colleagues sharing a common esprit de corps, and in an atmosphere of mutual trust, according to their opportunities, abilities and competence. But in order to guarantee correct and reliable content, it shall be reviewed by experts, their advice and their evaluation shall be respected.

All Citizens are expected to be considerate and to settle any dispute in a civil and constructive manner. However, Citizens need not be reluctant to contribute — even boldly — to the project because any accidental mistake can be repaired.

License

The content of the Citizendium shall always be free to use, reuse, and redistribute.

All contributions to the Citizendium shall be a permanent part of the collaborative effort of which the history shall remain available, but no individual credit shall be expected.

Personnel and governance

The Citizendium shall be devoted to transparent and fair governance and simple procedures.

Special roles will not be created without excellent reason.

Registration

Access to the Citizendium shall be free and unrestricted (to all Readers).

All Readers shall be invited to send in comments after a quick process of self-registration as a Visitor.

All contributors shall be required to register as Citizens — using their real names which will define their user name — and thereby agree to the core values of the Citizendium as stated above as fundamental principles.

Citizens — who have applied or have been nominated — shall be appointed Editors if they meet the criteria set by the Editorial Council.

Citizens

All Citizens have equal rights, with exception only when acting on behalf of an office according to this Charter.

(A Citizen is active as long as he contributes to the Citizendium in any form.)

An Author is any Citizen who is contributing content.

A Technician is any Citizen who contributes to the development and maintainance of software (templates, scripts, bots).

Editors

Editors are Citizens who — because of their recognized expertise ;— are responsible for the scope, the quality, and the structure of the content presented by the Citizendium.

To this end they are — within the limits set by the Editorial Council — entitled to evaluate articles and to make decisions about specific questions or disputes concerning particular articles.

Constables

Constables are Citizens of mature judgment who have been appointed to enforce the Citizendium's rules concerning behavior and following/applying procedures as specified in this Charter and by adopted guidelines.

Editorial Council

The Editorial Council shall be responsible for guiding content and establishing content policy. To this end, it will oversee the work of the Editors, organize the reviewing process, and establish general principles and guidelines (on quality, structure and style).

The Editorial Council shall consist of at least seven active Citizens — $n\geq 4$ Editors and $n-1$ Authors who are not Editors. A quorum shall consist of $n$ members.

Members of the Editorial Council may not simultaneously serve on the Management Committee or be Constables. The members of the Editorial Council will be elected by vote of active Citizens, with two-year terms renewable once consecutively.

The Editorial Council will appoint one of its members as the Editorial Lead, who will represent the Citizendium externally on matters of content.

Workgroups

The Editorial Council shall elaborate a strategy and policy on topic-specific and task-specific collaboration. To this end, it shall create workgroups in order to arrange and organize collaboration in specific fields of content or for specific tasks.

Management Council

alternatively: Administrative Council

The Management Committee shall be responsible for matters concerned with the non-internal policies of the Citizendium, such as the legal, financial and technical operations necessary for the project to fulfill its mission, and for external alliances and communications. To this end, it may appoint Administrators and Representatives whose activities it will oversee.

The Management Committee shall consist of at least five Citizens, who may not simultaneously serve on the Editorial Council. A quorum shall consist of three members. The members of the Management Committee shall be elected by vote of active Citizens 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.

The Committee, with advice from legal and audit advisers, shall designate those members that can enter into contracts or expend funds on behalf of the Citizendium. Substantial expenditures will require more than one signature.

Editor-in-Chief

An Editor-in-Chief shall have the duty to ensure day-to-day smooth functioning of the Citizendium by making interim decisions (if needed) and acting as mediator/Ombudsman in case of dispute.

Furthermore, he shall represent the Citizendium externally. (?, replacing the Managment and Editorial Lead)

The Editor-in-Chief shall be nominated by the union or the Editorial Council, the Managment Committee and the Constable Council, and shall be appointed by vote of all active Citizens, for a term of office of four(?) years (renewable once.

Constable/Governing Council

The group of Constables are responsible for upholding (enforcing) the rules and procedures of the Citizendium. (Constables shall not intervene in matters of content.) To this end it may establish rules and procedures. As a last resort, Citizens in persistent breach of the spirit of the Citizendium's spirit principles can be expelled from the project.

The enforcement of these rules shall be carried out with reasonable pragmatism and leniency, and without prejudice as to Citizen status or official position. Constable authority covers all Citizens including those with official positions.

On a temporary basis only, a Constable may act to avoid damage even if this action is not explicitly covered by a rule.

Constables may not simultaneously serve in the Editorial Council or the Managment council Constables may be nominated by any Citizen(?) and are appointed by vote by active Citizens.

Dispute resolution

Any decision of an official or of a body may be appealed.

Disputes shall be settled at the lowest possible level, such as by bringing in peer Editors or Constables. Next, the Ombudsman/Editor-in-Chief shall be contacted for non-binding mediation. Should that fail, the matter shall go to the appropriate body — the Editorial Council for content matters and the Constable Council for behavioral and administrative matters.

As a last resort, both Councils together may appoint members to an arbitration panel, for final arbitration:

They shall consist of three members nominated by the Editorial Council and three members nominated by the Constable Council, who shall not have been involved in the specific dispute. An Ombudsman appointed by the Councils shall preside; that official shall direct the Board and shall be non-voting other than to possess a tie-breaking vote.

External partnerships

Content that originated elsewhere may also be incorporated into the Citizendium if such reuse is permitted by the copyright owners.

The Citizendium invites collaboration with non-Citizen partners on any matters relevant to the project's mission, provided that the interaction does not conflict with this Charter.

In particular, collaboration shall be established

• with instructors by way of Eduzendium,
• with external experts for the purpose of providing or reviewing content
• with professional organizations for the purposes of providing content.

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.

Legal status

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

Legislation

Rules and guidelines

The official bodies are required to restrict rules and guidelines to the necessary minimum and keep them simple and clear.

Citizens may demand that rules and guidelines are submitted to approval by vote by all active Citizens.

Election

Members of the Councils (or Committees or Boards?) shall be elected by vote of (active?) citizens.

The term of office shall be two years and be renewable.

Replacement

Should an official become inactive his replacement shall be a close-runner-up of the previous election, or a new election takes place.

Expansion

Any Council may propose its enlargement. Additional members shall be elected by the same rules.

Amendment

Any amendment of this Charter shall require ratification by two thirds or more of the votes validly cast in a referendum.

If an amendment is proposed, the Editor-in-Chief shall organize the open discussion of the proposal, the drafting of the amendment, and the final vote.

Final clause

This section of the Charter shall be removed from the Charter when it has lost its significance.

Ratification

This Charter shall be adopted in a referendum.

All Citizens who have registered before the start of the election period shall be entitled to vote on the adoption of this charter.

This Charter shall be ratified if it is accepted by two thirds or more of the votes validly cast in the referendum.

It shall be certified by the Editor-in-Chief within a week after the closing of the referendum, and enter into force on the day following this certification.

Interim guidance for the transition period

After the Councils according this Charter have been elected, they shall review all existing guidelines and rules. Current practice shall remain in force until it has either been confirmed, revised or removed.

Editorial Council and Management Committee

For both bodies, the intention is to elect half of the members each year. To allow this, 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

All existing pseudonym accounts shall be closed (by the Constabulary) a month after the entry into force of this Charter, and the respective user pages shall be protected. The Citizens concerned may, of course, reapply under their real name.

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EiC

The office of "Editor-in-Chief" is controversial. I do not like it, at least in the form as proposed:

• 4 years is much too long
• a separate office for temporary editorial decisions is not needed:

such decisions can be made by any member of the EC, as any Constable can decide if needed

(editorial decisions are unlikely to be as urgent as Constable decisions that may concern vandalism or legal matters)

What is needed is a representative of CZ. Thus I suggest to replace the EiC by an

• (elected) Ambassador (or "Representative") who is to represent CZ externally

(instead of the two EC and MC "Leads")

--Peter Schmitt 20:27, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• Main reason: for voluntary contributing Citizens this office is demanding too much continuous presence

Granting single members of the EC with the power to decide on a temporary basis does not exclude the option that the EC delegates this power to a particular member (for a restricted period of time, renewable).

--Peter Schmitt 00:23, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Workgroup

The concept of workgroups needs to be thoroughly reviewed. At the moment it is used for three different purposes:

• to structure content according to fields and subfields of knowledge
• to define areas of competence for Editors
• to organize and administrate collaboration

These three purposes are related, but they need (almost completely) different structures. Only the last fits the term "workgroup".

--Peter Schmitt 18:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)