CZ:The Editor Role

Not your usual editorship

Your role as Citizendium editor may not be what you expect.

This is a wiki, first of all. For that reason, it is very different from most publishing projects you might have been involved with. It is run almost exclusively by volunteers, articles aren't signed, and everyone works side-by-side. Maybe most importantly, everyone may improve any article at will: there is no central authority assigning work. This may sound like anarchy, but it isn't. Your presence as an editor is one reason that it isn't--it's a living, breathing online polity, which can be more or less civilized. We hope you'll become an active part of this polity, because it's also an extremely powerful publishing model.

Considering this, editorship in the Citizendium differs greatly from traditional editorship. You neither assign work, nor is work assigned specifically to you. Rather, your role is one of gentle oversight--village elders wandering the bazaar. (See Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar.")

What editors do

Editors are responsible for Citizendium content, not participant management (which constables handle). Editors can have a wide variety of special responsibilities too, but essentially, they guide the crafting of articles and they approve articles. Editors may also be involved in governance roles, if they wish. Editors are also authors, so many write articles both inside and outside of their area(s) of formal expertise.

Guiding articles

Editors are expected to guide articles, to ensure that they are accurate, representative of different views, balanced in their representation of those views, and sufficiently comprehensive as to be valuable encyclopedia articles. An editor who is a specialist on a given topic may thus make certain decisions about, and plan the articles on, that topic. Editors may list an article plan and guidance on particular issues at the top of an article's talk page, and should be willing to discuss article questions on the Talk page. The best method of keeping authors enthusiastic is to explain any editorial decisions clearly and very politely, to be (reasonably) responsive to questions from authors, and to be always encouraging and constructive in advice and guidance.

Obviously, editors must share this responsibility with other editors; but if there is anyone who is a genuine specialist on the topic, then, within reason, the other editors typically defer to that editor on issues relevant to that particular expertise. Authors, too, defer to editors responsible for an article to which they contribute on such issues. But this does not mean, of course, that the editor may flout Citizendium guidelines within impunity, or that we support "local dictatorship"; we don't. Any author who feels that an editor is acting unreasonably (and any editor who believes that an author is being unreasonable) may refer the dispute to the Citizendium processes of dispute resolution.

An editor should only exert "authority" rarely. If an editor is also acting as an author on a particular article, then he or she should take particular care to exert authority only on issues where his or her professional expertise is clearly relevant. Many issues about articles are not relevant to an editor's specialist expertise. Some (e.g. citation styles, naming conventions etc.) may be determined by the workgroup policy. Others (including issues of presentation, writing style, level, and tone) should be settled if possible by discussion between the collaborating authors and editors as equals.

Approving articles

Editors can also approve articles. This is a crucial step. The actual act of approval involves identifying a particular version of the article from the page history--often, the most recent one--and nominating that version for approval on a certain date. As editor, you can do this single-handedly for articles in your workgroup(s), if you have not made any significant contribution to the article yourself. If you have contributed, however, then the article can only be approved either by a group of three editors including yourself, or else by another (uninvolved) editor entirely. For instructions, see Approval Process. Your first time through, do ask for help--there are many people eager to help new editors with new approvals.

We are pioneering the combination of open, collaborative content development with expert approval. We think that the work we have done so far demonstrates the strength of this model, and well illustrates why your involvement in this process is worth your while.

Governance roles

Editors may participate in two different sorts of governance bodies: Workgroups and the Editorial Council. Workgroups, when active, will set some policy and settle some content disputes with regard to articles in their care. The Editorial Council is broadly responsible for content policy.

How to get involved

The main question on a new editor's mind is probably: "OK, but what exactly do I do?" In more concrete terms, here's how to get involved as a Citizendium editor.

Get started

1. REGISTER.

First, of course, you need to sign up. Once you have an editor account, however, you might not hear back from anybody if you do nothing. So you need to take the next steps.

2. SIGN UP FOR MAILING LISTS.

If you don't sign up for mailing lists, you'll essentially be "out of the loop." Citizendium mailing lists are generally low-volume announcement lists. They aren't usually filled with a lot of talk. We tend to do our discussion on the Forums instead. (Look in there from time to time, too.)

• Citizendium-L- for community-wide announcements (not discussion), averages less than one post per day
• Citizendium-Editors - it is essential that editors join; for editor-directed announcements only, very low traffic
• Workgroup mailing lists - again, it is essential that editors join the mailing list in their discipline(s). For example, if you are an editor in the Philosophy Workgroup, then join cz-philosophy. If you want help yourself, or you want to offer it, that's the list where to get it. (Another place is an article's talk page.)

Stay plugged in

Your general task as editor is to help improve Citizendium articles. But in particular:

Respond to workgroup review requests.

Anyone can request that workgroup editors review an article by posting to the workgroup mailing list. Review requests are not assigned to any particular editor; instead, anyone who is available goes to the page and offers his or her changes and comments. Similarly, authors (and other editors) may announce that they are trying to push an article toward approval. Please do respond to such announcements!

Look through articles in your area.

Look on Workgroups. Find your workgroup and then, to the right of the workgroup name, click "All articles." That will give you an idea of how many articles and of what sort we have in your area. Please help improve any of those articles.

Hunt for approvable articles in your area.

Look again on Workgroups. Find your workgroup and click "Workgroup Home." On the page that appears, notice, near the top, the links titled "Checklist-generated categories." Click on the first link after that, "Developed." This will give you a list of all the articles that someone--rightly or wrongly--has picked out as "developed." That's beyond the "stub" and "developing" stages. Those are articles that should be close to approval. (If not, then the "status" should not be "1"--simply tell someone on a talk page, if you don't know what this means.)

Monitor recent changes in your area.

Again, look on Workgroups. Find your workgroup and then, under the rightmost column, click "Recent changes." That should give you an idea of what--if anything--has been happening in your area. But note, if you're in an area that hasn't had so much activity, please don't give up. We're a new project; and other people will join and help you if you take the initiative. We've been graced with a number of such intrepid editorial pioneers in various fields.

Monitor project-wide recent changes.

From any page at all, look to the left, under "project pages," for the "Recent changes" link. You might need to scroll up to see it. Click that and explore the links you see. That will give you an idea of what has been going on on the wiki lately. Note that you can opt to view up to 500 changes at a time. This can be great fun: you can help others out and talk about what you're doing, either on the article's talk page or on the person's "user talk" page. (Go to the person's user page and then hit the "discussion" tab.)

Drum up support.

You can sometimes get people interested in what you're doing by using our usual channels (such as workgroup mailing lists). But in some cases, there just aren't enough people interested simply because we haven't found enough active editors. Please do feel free invite your colleagues to participate; if you are on a mailing list, feel free to introduce the Citizendium to the subscribers (as long as your mail will be regarded as a call for participation and not as spam). For help, see Mailing List Outreach, and bear in mind that Larry is willing to help you with this. Otherwise--be patient. We're expanding our roster daily and will probably have a full house before too long.

Write!

Our most active editors also write quite a few articles, too. Writing is hard but rewarding, and we need your leadership here. In writing, you act as an author. If you must make a decision, however, you essentially should declare--with our patented CZ "gentleness"--that you are acting in your capacity as an editor. For guidelines on good articles, see Approval Standards and Article Mechanics.

Have fun!

Why Citizendium? Creating a "Citizens' Compendium" can actually be a lot of fun and rewarding--not to mention very helpful for a global audience. We're doing something that could both greatly improve information online and serve as an example of a better sort of wiki project.

For more details about the editor role, see Editor Policy. For a list of our current editors, see CZ Editors.

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