User talk:Thomas Butler

Important links

• Paranormal Subgroup
• User:Thomas Butler/Tom Butler's paranormal sandbox

A welcome

Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start, and see Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any user or the editors for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun!

A few words about workgroups

We are indeed happy to have you in the community. We would also like to introduce you to Citizendium's Workgroups and encourage you to--

1. Join a workgroup if you haven't already
2. Help us add workgroup category tags to articles, especially any articles you create
3. Help us spread the word about workgroups within the CZ community

What are workgroups? To answer that question, I'd like to give you a quick tour.

• Start by checking the various workgroups we have at CZ: List of Workgroups. This link can also be found in the left navigation-bar in the 2nd box (Project Pages), 3rd link in that box (Workgroups). The Workgroup Home(s) can be found in the 2nd column in the List of Workgroups.

• For the purposes of this tour, please take a look at the Biology Workgroup Home: CZ:Biology_Workgroup.
• Now let's take a look at the first table on the Biology Workgroup Home (below).

Workgroups are no longer used for group communications, but they still are used to group articles into fields of interest. Each article is assigned to 1-3 Workgroups via the article's Metadata.

Biology article	All articles (1,623)	To Approve (0)	Editors: active (1) / inactive (46) and Authors: active (441) / inactive (0)	Workgroup Discussion
	Recent changes	Citable Articles (25)
		Subgroups (12.5)

Checklist-generated categories: Underlinked (753) Cat Check (506) Cleanup (0) Subpage categories: Definitions (1,562) Related Articles (1,441 to check 710) Bibliography (400) External Links (446) Gallery (30) Video (33)

Missing subpage categories: Definitions (34) Related Articles (15) Bibliography (32) External Links (33) Article statuses: 104 Developed (status=1) 673 Developing (status=2) 699 Stub (status=3) 105 External (status=4) 128 Advanced (status 0-1) 801 Nonstub (status 0-2) 1,500 Internal (status 0-3)

• In the 2nd column, find the link that says, "all articles," which lists all articles that users have placed [[Category:Biology Workgroup]] at the bottom of their articles.
• Now click on the "recent changes" link underneath the "all articles" in the 2nd column in the top table. This lists all recent changes in articles that have been tagged [[Category:Biology Workgroup]]. In one glance, you can view all the changes that happened while you were away! Feel free to click on all the links to get an idea how the information for your workgroup is organized. All these lists are populated by articles that have the categories properly placed at the bottom of their pages.

This completes your virtual-tour of CZ workgroups. I hope you can see the usefulness of having all articles in Citizendium tagged properly with your Workgroup categories. Make sure to add the Workgroup category labels to your new articles. This is an important part of the Approval process.

Be sure to join a workgroup and take part in this opportunity to collaborate with others who have similar interests as you. You can see what others are working on in the Workgroup recent changes and join in! Remember, we want you to be bold in your contributions at Citizendium.

To add yourself to a workgroup, use the form [[Category:Education Authors|Smith, Bob]], etc., and add it to your user page. Substitute the proper work group for "Education" in the example, and your name-Last, First for the names in the example.

Do not add yourself to the Editors list, only CZ staff add "Editors" to user pages after proper review of applications is completed. To apply to become an editor, please see Editor Application Review Procedure.

To add a workgroup category tag to an article, use the form [[Category:Education Workgroup]] at the bottom of the article. Substitute in the proper workgroup for "Education" in the example.

If you are from Wikipedia originally, you may want to check out this article:

• Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians

David Tribe 23:12, 31 March 2007 (CDT)

Paranormal Subgroup

Hi - although only the Citizendium Council can create new workgroups, articles can still be gathered under specific 'subgroups'. I have created a 'Paranormal Subgroup' that you may wish to use to keep related articles together and promote collaboration. You can see that you can track recent changes to these articles, edit the subgroup's pages and make yourself a member. To add articles, the easiest way is to hit "Click here to edit this metadata using the metadata form" at the top of an articles Metadata template (click the little 'M' in the bar at the top) and enter 'Paranormal' under "What is the first [/second/third] subgroup that the article belongs to?" I have added near-death experience to the subgroup. I find it sometimes takes a while for articles to show up in subgroup pages. John Stephenson 19:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

What workgroup would the paranormal subgroup be a subgroup of?

My next step was to determine if there was any interest amongst editors by posting in the forum. I am just waiting for confirmation to access the forum.

It is curious to me that there are no articles about the paranormal in evidence. My first thought is that it is not a subject that is welcomed here. Thomas Butler 19:47, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Subgroups can be 'affiliated' with any number of workgroups with the approval of Editors (i.e. experts) in those workgroups, but they can be started by any user. In practice, there is no barrier to this and many subgroups have no official affiliation. This allows for interdisciplinary work and for subjects that don't fit anywhere well to be assigned. With regard to the lack of articles, I can't recall anyone willing to do serious work in a representative way. (Whereas a lot of people have edited on alternative medicine.) As for the forums, I did approve your account - perhaps the spam filters killed the reply? You should be able to log in. John Stephenson 20:20, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

There was a fair amount of drama caused by the UFO article, as I recall, skeptics vs. less-skeptics.... Hayford Peirce 20:12, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

It is my intention that the articles will be fair and balanced, and that they will also include references that are not allowed when skeptics are in charge. Citizendium is not a place to advocate a point of view, only to explain concepts. Your help will be welcomed. 21:48, 17 January 2014 (UTC)