Function of CZ

[Hans-Josef.Heck]

As a newbie to CZ, I scanned first through the explaining parts and then
trough the forums. What I am missing is an explicit statement/declaration of
the function of CZ.

By 'function' I mean the Whys, why something will be done. They establish
the purpose of what is going to be done.

  The function points to the domain of knowledge in question, too, and makes it
  possible to derive criteria to decide wether something belongs to the domain
  of knowledge, wether something is important, ...

The Whys are present, I think, but more or less "undercover". There are
different parts and forums, where they can be detected, especially under the
topic "Neutrality".

  If the function is stated first, I think, it's much easier to derive and
  understand the rules of "neutrality" and other problems.

  For example: "it is clear to readers that we do not expect them to adopt any
  particular opinion, this is conducive to our readers' feeling free to make up
  their own minds for themselves, and thus to encourage in them intellectual
  independence."

  Or: "Neutrality subverts dogmatism."


I suggest to start a discussion here, wether CZ is going have such explicitly
stated functions.

  If so, there could perhaps be a second "About ..": "About us":
  ... and "About Citizendium": Function

  If so, I am prepared to scan through CZ again, to collect what I think is
  problably a Why. And this can be discussed then in a further thread.


I fully agree to the way, CZ has been established and is working - in contrast
to Wikipedia.

Hans-Josef Heck

[Larry Sanger]

Welcome, Hans-Josef!

I'm afraid I don't understand the post.  Partly the language is used confusingly, partly I am confused about your confusion.  What is the purpose of an encyclopedia?  Is that what you're asking?  I fail to see what philosophizing on that topic would accomplish...not that, if I had more time, I would be game to explore it.

[Hayford Peirce]

Hi Han-Joseph,

This Forum page is exclusively for members of Citizendium.  There are other pages for non-members to post to -- please use those instead.  A better solution, however, would be for you to join the Citizendium project as a full member! It's easy enough to do, so why don't you apply?

Best,

Hayford Peirce, Constable

[geneshackman]

Hi Hans-Josef

Actually, I think you ask a reasonable question: Why citizendium, why another encyclopedia.  But you (and anyone else interested) may find the information here, in the CZ about page

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:About

CZ "is an open wiki project aimed at creating an enormous, free, and reliable encyclopedia."

If you look on the left side of the CZ home page, it's in the "About Us" section.  Maybe this section "about" should go higher up in the first section so it is more prominent.

Gene

[Hayford Peirce]

I have removed a message here from Hans-Josef Heck. He has a clear choice, which has previously been made clear to him:

1.) He can join CZ and then become a member of the Forums.

2.) He can post messages in the non-members' part of the Forums.

He is not allowed to, and will not be allowed to in the future, post any further messages in the members' Forums until he becomes a member.

Hayford Peirce, Constable

[Hayford Peirce]

Hmm, have I removed that message of HJH's  *after* Matt had posted this whole topic into the Non-members's discussion area?  It sure looked to me when I logged on that and looked at the list of "unread posts since last visit" that the Forum I clicked on was the original Members-only Forum -- from which I then deleted his message and wrote the above post.

It was only *after* I did that that I discovered there was a *second* "unread post" Forum, that for the non-Members. And that HJH's latest message had disappeared from there as well.

Or so it seems to me.

I freely admit that I might be wrong about this, that I did indeed delete his message ONLY from the non-Members' Forum. If I did, it was done inadvertently and I apologize.

And I hope that Matt Innis or some other technician will be able to restore it.

Hayford Peirce, Constable

[Matt Innis]

No, unfortunately there is no saved history for forum posts    But, Hans is surely invited to say it again...

[Hayford Peirce]

I conducted a number of thought experiments about this as I took my evening stroll a few minutes ago, and my conclusions are, in chronological order:

1.) Matt came to the discussion at the Members' Forum and decided to do a cut and paste or sometime similar in order to move everything to the non-Members' Forum.

2.) While he was thinking about this, or preparing to do it, I myself came into the Members' Forum, just as I thought I did, saw HJH's message, and deleted it. And then wrote my message below explaining why I did it. And then left.

3.) Then, about a nanosecond later, or maybe even 10 or 15 seconds, Matt did his cut and paste and put everything into this non-Members' discussion area.  Without, unfortunately HJH's message, which I had already deleted.

4.) A few seconds after that, I came over here, saw that the message was missing and began to wonder what the devil was happening.

The answer: an Edit Conflict, as we say.  Sorry about that!

[Hans-Josef.Heck]

Hi,

thanks for moving this discussion to the non-member area where - I hope - it will get as much attention as in the forum it has been transferred from.

I might become an author, but I am not sure, if my English has the appropriate level.
For the time being, I am short of time,  as all of us, but I am interested very much in questions like OpenAccess, SoftwarePatents, Knowledge Achieving (Science Theory), Democratic Education. But my English in these subjects is not yet  adequate.

To post my reply again is no problem ->next reply.

To clean up this thread, I think this reply as well as Nr.4, 5, 6 and 7 could be deleted, so that only the discussion itself is to be found here.

Hans-Josef

[Hans-Josef.Heck]

Hi,

thanks for the Welcome.

What I want to discuss is not at all a philosophical question.

And I am not asking
  "What is the purpose of >-an-< encyclopedia?"
but
  "What is the purpose of >-this-< encyclopedia?".

As I tried to point out, the answer(s) to this question is/are hidden under the topic Neutrality (and perhaps elsewhere):

 On asking "What does Neutrality mean?" there are explanations. These
 explanations state the Whys of this encylopedia, e.g.:

  (1) We want readers to be able to make their own decision
      (intellectual independence).

  (2) ...

An encyclopedia presents "knowledge". But which knowledge will presented in >-this-< encyclopedia and how it is presented and ... depends on (1), (2), ...

  From (1) can be derived / followed: Citizendium is opposed to dogmatism.
   
I think, these Whys, purposes or functions (as I call it), should be presented as a "first level information".

And this is not an academic / philosophical question, but of basic importance how Citizendium is run.

I don't think, that stating the Whys first, will change anything Citizendium is run now. But it seems to me, that it is more obvious, more "scientifically honest", why it is run in the way, it is run now.

And it makes it possible to use these Whys as criteria to decide on further questions.

The Whys express a certain view / way of life. For instance, that individuals should have the right to take their own decisions.

These Whys are the "general agreement of understanding" and thereby the basis / the fundaments of the common / joint project. And that's, why they should be stated explicitly and in the first place.

Hans-Josef

[Matt Innis]

Well, you've obviously put a lot of thought into this and I agree that purpose can be an important feature to determine direction (if this is what you are trying to say). 

I'm not sure how you've arrived at the conclusion that "Citizendium is opposed to dogmatism" from the Neutrality policy (if that is what you are saying), because I don't see anything in the Neutrality policy that suggests that Citizendium opposes or supports any particular belief system, including dogmatism.  *Not* endorsing or opposing any position, but explaining them to the best of our ability (while not being a 'purpose' per se) certainly provides some direction for us.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Hi,

thanks for the Welcome.

What I want to discuss is not at all a philosophical question.

And I am not asking
  "What is the purpose of >-an-< encyclopedia?"
but
  "What is the purpose of >-this-< encyclopedia?".

As I tried to point out, the answer(s) to this question is/are hidden under the topic Neutrality (and perhaps elsewhere):

 On asking "What does Neutrality mean?" there are explanations. These
 explanations state the Whys of this encylopedia, e.g.:

  (1) We want readers to be able to make their own decision
      (intellectual independence).

I will admit that I don't completely understand some of your questions, but they may well be relevant because variants of them appear to have come up in situations where there were multiple interpretations othe meaning of neutrality. Some of these questions came from CZ people and some came from outside sources. There were other issues about maintainability (the CZ position) and notability (a WP term).

There have been arguments about their interpretation that suggest to me that there may be a definite mutual understanding among several people who have discussed them for a long time, but that particular understanding may not be completely clear to committed Citizens who were not party to all those discussions. In some other cases, the original goal may be clear, but people who were not involved in the original discussions may feel that the goal is not a practical one, or not practical with limited volunteer resources.

Your point about "We want readers to be able to make their own decision" is a good and controversial one. I think I understand one of our ideals, but external criticism may indicate that it's not clear to outside readers. For example, I think it is agreed that we try to present all sides of an argument, but we simultaneously make it clear, from an expert standpoint, where the majority expert opinion may be. The best example, from our standpoint, is the homeopathy article. It makes it clear what homeopaths believe, but also, I think, makes it clear that mainstream medical science thinks that homeopathy has not made a case for being effective. Nevertheless, there has been outside criticism that the article is perceived as too pro-homeopathy.  Internally, there was much concern about the amount of time and effort needed to make the article neutral by our prevailing standards.

In some more recent cases, some authors have brought in material that others feel is biased and unsupported, with words to the effect of "giving a voice" to the people that believe in that material. To me, there is a difference between "giving a voice", which requires being persuasive, and representing a view that possibly might have some truth but is generally accepted as inaccurate.

Yet in other cases, there has been an emphasis on the indignities suffered by particular international prisoners, without any context of why they were in custody or, if indeed their treatment violated international norms, who ordered the treatment, how they justified it, and precisely what that treatment involved and what were its goals.

[Hans-Josef.Heck]

Hi,


at first I ask for patience with my English. I am not sure, if I find the correct terms. I never intend to insult anybody or to belittle any ideas. I am sure, that in every thought uttered, there is something worth to be considered. If you think, I got the wrong term or that there were an expression more usually used or some grammar is missing, it would be helpfull, if somebody would make a suggestion how to put it - directly into my text - perhaps with capital letters.


The following lines may seem to be intended to be sophisticated, but I can assure, that all what I am putting forward has very practical reasons.

There is a very long and elaborate article on "CZ:Neutrality Policy".
It starts with

  # 1 Introduction:
      the basic concept of neutrality and why the Citizendium must be unbiased
                   
I hope you won't think, that I am about to drive someone crazy when asking:

  How can you establish a 'concept'?
  What do you mean by 'concept'?

And

  How can 'neutrality' be proofed / verified / justified / approved / tested ?

  If you state a criterion, haven't you taken a stand then - giving up
  neutrality thereby ?

Does this perhaps mean, that that, what we intend by 'neutrality', is impossible.

Could it be, that what we at citizendum agree as 'neutral' would be regarded by an Iranian writer as very biased?

The length of the discussion, which also includes "Dispute Resolution" and perhaps some more articles (I haven't been able, to read all articles on CZ, yet.) show, that the underlying problem hasn't been solved. You will find the same problem at Wikipedia, where there is a special talk-page, accompanying the "approved" page, with interesting arguments. They haven't solved the problem, either.


Another topic:

Howard has presented a lot of different examples, asking how a certain kind of knowledge may be presented in a 'neutral' way. He used the term "true" in apostrophies, which indicates a basic problem, the problem how knowledge can be verified / approved / justified / ...


I have been working on these questions intensively for more than four years now, the first questions dating back 40 years, when I had to write my diploma-thesis (in economics).


I think there are >-two-< basic problems, hidden in the dispute over
"neutrality":

  1. Why do we do Citizendium?  What is it going to serve? (the function)

  2. How can we present, what we present, so that it is "acurate"?
     
I am still only asking, if we should discuss these issues.


Hans-Josef