CZ:Charter drafting committee/Position statements/Daniel Mietchen
Why do I contribute to Citizendium?
As a scientist, I am working towards integrability of research and teaching workflows with online environments, and in my eyes, Citizendium is currently well positioned for both of these activities because it is designed to host the necessary background knowledge. It also needs expert participation, and integration with expert workflows (not just in science) would facilitate this. Eduzendium as a teaching environment is a very good start and I see a lot of potential in it.
Why does Citizendium need a charter?
Citizendium is meant to harbour knowledge. Knowledge needs structure, and coherent structuring across different knowledge domains needs rules. These fundamental rules are to be laid out in the charter, much like in the constitution of a country, though adapted to online environments (some of which have already started likening themselves to countries).
What are the most important points to me with respect to the charter?
I was born in a country whose constitution was wonderful in most parts but which does not exist any more. I see two major links between these two of its properties - failure of proper implementation of the constitution, and failure of the resulting system to adapt to changes in the real world. Citizendium is, at present, an online village rather than a country, and its charter should reflect these differences, while providing a framework that allows for a sustainable growth of both content and population. With this in mind, I would like to keep an eye on the implementability and adaptability of the propositions of the charter, while generally encouraging contributors to be bold in areas neither covered there nor in derived policies. I would also like to keep the charter short, so that newcomers have a chance to actually read it and actively decide whether it befits them or not. Since some people have objections to part of the current policies here but still might wish to contribute their ideas and comments to the process, I have set up a document that anyone can edit anonymously and without registration, which I will consult when working on the charter draft (either by editing directly if I am elected, or by commenting on the talk page if not). Finally, I would like to see the charter as a test case for a document being embedded in background knowledge. That is, I would engage in linking central terms and concepts used in the charter to the respective articles in the main namespace.