CZ Talk:About

testing how to make links appear properly

approved articles

ok do you want me to insert this into your approved article (red) link?

Yes, please. Nancy Sculerati MD 19:37, 20 January 2007 (CST)

Good start

This is a good start. It does need some work and I'm glad someone got it going. I'd be very happy if others might join in and add some other general info about CZ for users (that's who the "about" page is for), not contributors. --Larry Sanger 20:02, 21 January 2007 (CST)

Previous "about" page

Citizendium is a growing resource of knowledge.

Its goal? To provide instant and free knowledge to anyone with on-line access, world-wide, at no fee.

Oh, and not just any kind of knowledge - but articles that are as accurate and as free of bias as we can make them.

Isn't there enough information on the web already? Well, there's certainly lots of everything on the web, generally unfiltered and chaotic (not to mention inflammatory and inaccurate), so much that finding anything useful quickly can turn into a big waste of time. We have joined together to create something new - and we very much hope, better- than what's now available. Our aim is to provide entry into a Compendium of Knowledge that is clearly written, entertaining, and, as far as we can make it, true. We are glad to have you join us, and share your own knowledge with others. If that knowledge is to be taken seriously, though, we have to know who is saying it and we want to check it over before we approve it on our site. That's why contributions of writing in our articles must be made under your real name, and that's why approved articles are reviewed by our editors before the approval template appears.

Right now we have many articles in the draft stage, and a handful of approved articles that we consider to be finished editions - that is, finished for the present. You can't make changes in those few finished approved articles, although (as you'll see when you go to them) each one has a draft page where a new edition is brewing. You are welcome to add to the draft page and edit what's there- as soon as you've signed up as an author.

We hope you'll see another thing about those approved articles. You can actually read them and make sense out of them, and - if you click the "history" tab at the top of each one, you'll see the amount of careful collaboration that has gone into making them. Each has been read and approved by experts educated in the field in an honest attempt to provide you with useful information. Now, we're running on refurbished everything at the moment, so you'll have to excuse the lack of bells and whistles. That's not the nature of our quality, particularly here in the pilot.

Our dream is have a resource which can provide an education on the spot, a reference that anybody can use and be enriched by, a global compendium of knowledge. It's a worthwhile dream, we think. We've found ourselves enriched by our attempts to make it real. Join us!

You might start with how to get started as an author.

A Direct Route?

This looks like an issue for a Constable: It appears that one cannot reach CZ:About (or CZ: About) directly from the Main Page. Searching for it with the Search field generates an invitation to create a page of that name. You can go to Citizendium Pilot:About and get automatically redirected to CZ:About, but the Pilot address still shows in the link window of my browser. Clicking on the About button appears to take the same route. It looks like something may need to be cleared up. Roger Lohmann 11:54, 31 January 2008 (CST)

Yes, it seems a prominent quick link to here would be a good idea. I added one in the toolbox on the left. Stephen Ewen 13:13, 31 January 2008 (CST)

an early problem

Right at the start, you say: "Yes! Most of our contributors are authors and some may have no degree at all" At this point you have not defined editors, authors, experts, or anyone else. To me (a *real* author) this sentence is intimidating for someone wanting to find out about CZ -- it seems to be saying that, "Well, you don't have to be an expert, BUT you have to be an *author*"! Most people understand "author" as being a published writer. Therefore you're (apparently) saying that CZ welcomes experts and published authors (writers), thereby excluding 99% of the population. Obviously this isn't your intention, in fact the contrary. But this should be *fixed*! ...said Hayford Peirce (talk) (Please sign your talk page posts by simply adding four tildes, ~~~~.)

Yep, fixed. BTW, what Hayford is referring to is CZ:About/Brief_version. Stephen Ewen 21:05, 4 February 2008 (CST)

This is an about page, not a FAQ

This is looking good. My main objection to it is stylistic/formatting: it's in the form of Q&A. Well, we have a FAQ for basic questions about the project. An About page in Q&A form would render a FAQ redundant. So I think this should be an introductory narrative, from our own point of view of course, about CZ.

Also, there are too many headings, and the headings are themselves too long.

The "Where can I find out more?" section needs to be completely gutted. The links included there might have made sense to include in 2006, but now they're pretty arbitrary. CZ:Home should contain links to the very most important pages in the project. I would also like to ask someone to move my essays, except for the essays specifically about CZ, elsewhere--perhaps we could simply delete the links.

The whole thing is a little too dry and matter-of-fact, actually. It could be changed in various ways to inspire people to get involved, and to support, the project. If you can't do a little propaganda on your own About page, where can you do it? Lee Berger should be consulted for that purpose... --Larry Sanger 19:43, 10 February 2008 (CST)

The "brief version" is more confusing than helpful, and it has nearly as many lines of headings as it has content. Steve, you really need to reread the section of CZ:Article mechanics about cutting down on the number of headings! It's a bad habit that Wikipedians got into (after I left...).

I don't think that two versions of the about page are necessary. One decent medium-sized one, with a decent first paragraph or two that brilliantly summarizes what we're all about, will do fine. --Larry Sanger 19:47, 10 February 2008 (CST)

Will someone rewrite this so it is not in Q&A form? If I do this myself, I'll simply revert to the pre-Steve version. --Larry Sanger 11:02, 13 February 2008 (CST)

Agree with your comments. I've put it on my (ever-lengthening :-) todo list, but since I may not get to it before I pass on, anyone else should feel free to tackle it! J. Noel Chiappa 15:06, 19 March 2008 (CDT)

Changes

I simplified CZ:About quite substantially, and I'd like to ask for your feedback. The page is now quite short (which isn't necessarily a bad thing), but perhaps it should have more links, or explain why we are the way we are?—Thomas H. Larsen 04:08, 17 December 2009 (UTC)