Invitations to Register

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I'm considering inviting some people in the field of which I'm doing some articles, not people I know personally. Is there any benefit for the Constables, or,  in relevant cases, the Editorial Personal Editors, to know about the invitation? Would it speed acceptance?

In other cases, it's simply "Hi, this is the niece of my ex-wife's husband, but I know her very well and I think she can contribute; I vouch for her even if she uses a freemail address."

[Hayford Peirce]

I'm not the Constable in Chief or whatever she's called, just a Kop on the Beat, but my understanding of the application and registration process is that it exists merely to ensure that whoever applies to be an Author really is who he/she says they are. We Kops are NOT checking people's credentials -- obvious spammers and crazies are rejected, all others are admitted providing their identities seem verifiable.  If a Citizen tells a Kop, "My niece, Mary Glazooski, wants to join but all she has is an email address called Kutie@gmail.com," I will accept that Citizen's vouching of her identity.  If Mary later turns out to be the Citizen's cat, then I think that certain repercussions would fall upon the Citizen.... Remark: there is a tremendous different between Authors and Editors -- Constables are ONLY checking potential Authors, we have nothing to do with vetting potential Editors.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I'm not the Constable in Chief or whatever she's called, just a Kop on the Beat, but my understanding of the application and registration process is that it exists merely to ensure that whoever applies to be an Author really is who he/she says they are. We Kops are NOT checking people's credentials -- obvious spammers and crazies are rejected, all others are admitted providing their identities seem verifiable.  If a Citizen tells a Kop, "My niece, Mary Glazooski, wants to join but all she has is an email address called Kutie@gmail.com," I will accept that Citizen's vouching of her identity.  If Mary later turns out to be the Citizen's cat, then I think that certain repercussions would fall upon the Citizen.... Remark: there is a tremendous different between Authors and Editors -- Constables are ONLY checking potential Authors, we have nothing to do with vetting potential Editors.

No, the individual concerned is cat, but a human with a freemail. It was simply my hope to circumvent the runaround with freemail credentialing for authors.

My Internet connected felines have paid emails. They may yet get web presence. Rhonda, at the very least, more than once kept a telemarketer on the speakerphone for 10 minutes, so don't underestimate the power of meow-to-speech conversion.

[Tom Morris]

I think the issue isn't the vouching, it's the speed. If I'm at a conference and am talking up Citizendium to someone and they say "that sounds interesting", it'd be great if I could vouch for them to a constable who could then approve their account very quickly. I still think that what's keeping us from collaborating is lack of a real-time backchannel - IRC or something equivalent. If I could hop on to IRC and find a Constable there to do it in real-time, we could collaborate on things faster, and approve users quicker.

Alternatively, just have a system where those who have made over 1,000 edits to the wiki (say) could basically opt-in to serve the registration role that Constables serve - in the UK, we have the Police Community Safety Officer role, or the "budget bobby".

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I think the issue isn't the vouching, it's the speed. If I'm at a conference and am talking up Citizendium to someone and they say "that sounds interesting", it'd be great if I could vouch for them to a constable who could then approve their account very quickly. I still think that what's keeping us from collaborating is lack of a real-time backchannel - IRC or something equivalent. If I could hop on to IRC and find a Constable there to do it in real-time, we could collaborate on things faster, and approve users quicker.

Alternatively, just have a system where those who have made over 1,000 edits to the wiki (say) could basically opt-in to serve the registration role that Constables serve - in the UK, we have the Police Community Safety Officer role, or the "budget bobby".

Well said. Being able to send reviews and comments (i.e., not exclusive to Approval) is an interim step.

Consider an Approval-related scenario, however. I have an article, Torture, that may well be close to Approval, and, I believe, is an important and topical subject. No current Editor has wanted to take on the approval process.

When I was actively writing it, I happened to correspond with an academic specialist in the field, who was quite pleased to have looked at the article and found some material that was new to him. We discussed by email, since we obviously could not on the talk page.

Now, what if he wanted to move to a higher level of participation? He happens to work for a degree-granting U.S. government research institution, so his articles are public domain. Even if he wanted to take an existing paper and adapt it into a CZ article, he'd have to get registered, and, while his papers are public domain, I can easily see him wanting to use a personal email so as not to get into bureaucratic politics.

Of course, I'd like to get him involved in Approval, which would require Editor status. I'd like to be able to say to him that even if it took a few days for Editor approval, he could send his immediate thoughts to the Approval Manager, and there would be some commitment to use them. 

The latter, however, remains an unsolved problem. If we get a detailed review from a specialist, will a Workgroup Editor in the general area, who is not a specialist who can nominate for Approval based on personal expertise, progress the process?

[Tom Morris]

I think the issue isn't the vouching, it's the speed. If I'm at a conference and am talking up Citizendium to someone and they say "that sounds interesting", it'd be great if I could vouch for them to a constable who could then approve their account very quickly. I still think that what's keeping us from collaborating is lack of a real-time backchannel - IRC or something equivalent. If I could hop on to IRC and find a Constable there to do it in real-time, we could collaborate on things faster, and approve users quicker.

Alternatively, just have a system where those who have made over 1,000 edits to the wiki (say) could basically opt-in to serve the registration role that Constables serve - in the UK, we have the Police Community Support Officer role, or the "budget bobby".