CZ:Proposals/Approval system for CZ: pages

This proposal has been assigned to the Executive Committee, and is now in the Executive proposals queue.

This is a reasonably important proposal and should be generally vetted by the community, not just the Executive Committee. Therefore, there must be broad (if not unanimous) support for the proposal before it moves on to the Executive Committee.

Complete explanation

I think we just extend the Approval/Draft system to all CZ pages. They become approved once approved by executive committee members (or by another relevant group nominated by the executive committee), and then a draft is open to revise. I think an approved version should remain editable for minor things without re-approval. But there will be two versions, a formally approved version, and an evolving draft alternative.

Proposed Approval process for CZ: pages. A member of the executive committee (or relevant group) places a "ToApprove" template on the article's talk page. That template will be marked with a date, usually several days to a week from the date that it is placed.

If the approval template remains there, approval will occur on that date. Meanwhile, discussion and edits continue. Edits at this stage should be made only by executive committee members, involved authors and relevant parties (e.g. constables). Other members of Citizendium should make recommendations and criticisms on the talk page.

If another member of the executive committee (or relevant group) objects to approval, then the template is removed by this member, who explains why on the talk page.

If the nominator notes that the discussion on the talk page that has occurred since the nomination for approval brings up important objections, then he or she may delay the date for approval to allow for work to continue. The nominator may also change the version nominated for approval on the "to approve" template to an updated draft.

Unless the template is removed, on the designated date, a sysop then freezes the approved version of the article under an Approved template. At that freeze, a draft form of the article is generated. This draft is open to edits as are all unapproved articles on the wiki.

After approval, copyediting and minor changes may be performed by any member of the executive committee (or relevant group) with the help of the approvals editor. This may occur at any time.

Who may approve: For any CZ page, only members of the executive committee (or nominated relevant group) may approve.

Reasoning

Below is copied the discussion from an earlier, discarded proposal (See [[CZ:Proposals > CZ Community pages should be revised for simplicity]]), that led to the present proposal.

That proposal was justified thus: "....Part of what is keeping our "elitism shield" up is that many (if not all) of the community pages are overly complex. A campaign to heavily review and edit the pages will give us leaner, easy-to-comprehend documentation and improve our external appearance."

Implementation

As far as I can see this just needs Executive Committee endorsement.

Discussion

See CZ:Proposals/CZ Community pages should be revised for simplicity

I assume that this approval system is only proposed for CZ: pages with rules, and not for pages like CZ:Monthly Write-a-Thon or indeed this page itself. -- Jitse Niesen 13:42, 15 February 2008 (CST)

I can't see us ever wishing to approve any page unless there is a need to maintain a stable version of the page while changes or tried out on a Draft.Gareth Leng 03:57, 16 February 2008 (CST)

This is needed in a very major way, in my mind, just to prevent people from changing policy pages wily-nilly. Stephen Ewen 02:40, 24 February 2008 (CST)

The approving body of a rules page should be the one that is authorized to make changes to the rules documented therein. Content and editor policy pages should be approved by the editorial council and other pages by the executive council. I think something along these lines is worth a try. See this forum thread for an example of the slightly awkward and informal approval process for policy pages currently in place. Warren Schudy 11:37, 24 February 2008 (CST)

I think that this is an excellent suggestion, and will modify the proposal. Rather than list now the pages against relevant bodies, I suggest that the executive committee be free to assign any page to a relevant group.Gareth Leng 03:26, 27 February 2008 (CST)

The proposal is looking good. Why not submit it to the Executive Committee, Gareth? --Larry Sanger 12:20, 27 February 2008 (CST)

Executive Committee evaluation

Looks good to me, as I said. I think it's worth a try. My only worry is that it will slow down the updating process, but slow updating is better than no updating at all (or only by me), which is the problem at present. If this system emboldens people to propose changes, that's all the best.

I think it should be stated explicitly, however, that if anyone significantly changes policy in the course of editing a page, the changes need to be approved by the relevant group(s). --Larry Sanger 07:30, 28 February 2008 (CST)

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