Comments on the charter drafting

[Hayford Peirce]

I think the process should be that everyone is reviewed by a constable and accepted if eligible as an author and then the constable can forward editor requests to the Editorial Personnel who can then take their time reviewing qualifications (and might even consider wiki activity as a criteria?)  Either way, we would need to alter the Confirm Accounts pages to allow constables to approve an account AND THEN FORWARD THE EDITOR REQUESTS (currently the application is removed from the queue once we create an author account and we have no further access to it).

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

[Hayford Peirce]

On the Charter discussion page for the charterists, I read:

I think authors though should be given the option for applying to have an article deleted provided they are the sole editor. Once someone else contributes, it's no longer possible to delete. The decision to delete an article should be up to the editorial council for consideration. Meg Ireland 05:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

To me that flies in the face of everything that Citizendium is supposed to be, a clear declaration of "ownership" of an article, although, admittedly, only in certain cases.  I recall a couple of cases from when I first joined that a Contributor wanted to completely withdraw one or more articles that he/she had written because he/she was withdrawing (angrily, almost certainly) from the project.  Larry very *forcefully* refused to do so.  And, if the article in question had already been deleted by the Contributor, restored it.

If the charterists want to change this, then they have the perfect right to do so, but they will, in my opinion, be making a pretty major change to the project.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

On the Charter discussion page for the charterists, I read:

I think authors though should be given the option for applying to have an article deleted provided they are the sole editor. Once someone else contributes, it's no longer possible to delete. The decision to delete an article should be up to the editorial council for consideration. Meg Ireland 05:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

To me that flies in the face of everything that Citizendium is supposed to be, a clear declaration of "ownership" of an article, although, admittedly, only in certain cases.  I recall a couple of cases from when I first joined that a Contributor wanted to completely withdraw one or more articles that he/she had written because he/she was withdrawing (angrily, almost certainly) from the project.  Larry very *forcefully* refused to do so.  And, if the article in question had already been deleted by the Contributor, restored it.

If the charterists want to change this, then they have the perfect right to do so, but they will, in my opinion, be making a pretty major change to the project.

It will not have my support: I agree with Hayford.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

On the Charter discussion page for the charterists, I read:

I think authors though should be given the option for applying to have an article deleted provided they are the sole editor. Once someone else contributes, it's no longer possible to delete. The decision to delete an article should be up to the editorial council for consideration. Meg Ireland 05:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

To me that flies in the face of everything that Citizendium is supposed to be, a clear declaration of "ownership" of an article, although, admittedly, only in certain cases.  I recall a couple of cases from when I first joined that a Contributor wanted to completely withdraw one or more articles that he/she had written because he/she was withdrawing (angrily, almost certainly) from the project.  Larry very *forcefully* refused to do so.  And, if the article in question had already been deleted by the Contributor, restored it.

If the charterists want to change this, then they have the perfect right to do so, but they will, in my opinion, be making a pretty major change to the project.

It will not have my support: I agree with Hayford.

I agree with both of you.

[Daniel Mietchen]

I think the process should be that everyone is reviewed by a constable and accepted if eligible as an author and then the constable can forward editor requests to the Editorial Personnel who can then take their time reviewing qualifications (and might even consider wiki activity as a criteria?)  Either way, we would need to alter the Confirm Accounts pages to allow constables to approve an account AND THEN FORWARD THE EDITOR REQUESTS (currently the application is removed from the queue once we create an author account and we have no further access to it).

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

We could also think of modifying the RequestAccount page such that only requests for authorship are possible. Then we could include in the welcome message a link to a page which provides instructions on application for editorship.

[Daniel Mietchen]

On the Charter discussion page for the charterists, I read:

I think authors though should be given the option for applying to have an article deleted provided they are the sole editor. Once someone else contributes, it's no longer possible to delete. The decision to delete an article should be up to the editorial council for consideration. Meg Ireland 05:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

To me that flies in the face of everything that Citizendium is supposed to be, a clear declaration of "ownership" of an article, although, admittedly, only in certain cases.  I recall a couple of cases from when I first joined that a Contributor wanted to completely withdraw one or more articles that he/she had written because he/she was withdrawing (angrily, almost certainly) from the project.  Larry very *forcefully* refused to do so.  And, if the article in question had already been deleted by the Contributor, restored it.

If the charterists want to change this, then they have the perfect right to do so, but they will, in my opinion, be making a pretty major change to the project.

It will not have my support: I agree with Hayford.

I agree with both of you.

Same here.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I think the process should be that everyone is reviewed by a constable and accepted if eligible as an author and then the constable can forward editor requests to the Editorial Personnel who can then take their time reviewing qualifications (and might even consider wiki activity as a criteria?)  Either way, we would need to alter the Confirm Accounts pages to allow constables to approve an account AND THEN FORWARD THE EDITOR REQUESTS (currently the application is removed from the queue once we create an author account and we have no further access to it).

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

We could also think of modifying the RequestAccount page such that only requests for authorship are possible. Then we could include in the welcome message a link to a page which provides instructions on application for editorship.

We are into "interim guidance" anyway, but this, in a way, is an argument for getting a bit of author experience before editing.  I'm just now trying to decide what to do about some articles by an instant editor, which have bias and the author of which will not respond to comments by email or talk page..

[Matt Innis]

I think the process should be that everyone is reviewed by a constable and accepted if eligible as an author and then the constable can forward editor requests to the Editorial Personnel who can then take their time reviewing qualifications (and might even consider wiki activity as a criteria?)  Either way, we would need to alter the Confirm Accounts pages to allow constables to approve an account AND THEN FORWARD THE EDITOR REQUESTS (currently the application is removed from the queue once we create an author account and we have no further access to it).

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

We could also think of modifying the RequestAccount page such that only requests for authorship are possible. Then we could include in the welcome message a link to a page which provides instructions on application for editorship.

We are into "interim guidance" anyway, but this, in a way, is an argument for getting a bit of author experience before editing.  I'm just now trying to decide what to do about some articles by an instant editor, which have bias and the author of which will not respond to comments by email or talk page..

We still need to be able to allow "instant editors", but some author experience can only be a good thing. 

Just edit the article as you would any other - it's a wiki.

[Hayford Peirce]

I've just added a lot of text to the Be Bold policy page at

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Be_bold#Being_Bold.2C_and_being_Overly_Bold.2C_a_couple_of_examples:

I've been mulling this over for a while now, and think, as long as Being Bold is being discussed by the Charterists here and there, that I might as well add it.

Being bold, right?

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I think the process should be that everyone is reviewed by a constable and accepted if eligible as an author and then the constable can forward editor requests to the Editorial Personnel who can then take their time reviewing qualifications (and might even consider wiki activity as a criteria?)  Either way, we would need to alter the Confirm Accounts pages to allow constables to approve an account AND THEN FORWARD THE EDITOR REQUESTS (currently the application is removed from the queue once we create an author account and we have no further access to it).

Yes, that makes perfect sense.

We could also think of modifying the RequestAccount page such that only requests for authorship are possible. Then we could include in the welcome message a link to a page which provides instructions on application for editorship.

We are into "interim guidance" anyway, but this, in a way, is an argument for getting a bit of author experience before editing.  I'm just now trying to decide what to do about some articles by an instant editor, which have bias and the author of which will not respond to comments by email or talk page..

We still need to be able to allow "instant editors", but some author experience can only be a good thing. 

Just edit the article as you would any other - it's a wiki.

The problem is that it's questionably maintainable, and the author hasn't responded to any requests. It presents one side of a criminal argument yet I can't find the government position online -- that suggests unmaintainable.

[Daniel Mietchen]

The problem is that it's questionably maintainable, and the author hasn't responded to any requests. It presents one side of a criminal argument yet I can't find the government position online -- that suggests unmaintainable.

Editors still have the option to move it to his user space if he does not cooperate in unbiasing the article.

[Hayford Peirce]

Editors still have the option to move it to his user space if he does not cooperate in unbiasing the article.

Can Editors move it outright or do they have to ask a Kop to do it?  Not concerned about prerogatives here, just curious.  I would say that in this case, if, after, oh, a week or ten days have gone by without response, then it should be moved, if that is the Editor's judgment.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Editors still have the option to move it to his user space if he does not cooperate in unbiasing the article.

Can Editors move it outright or do they have to ask a Kop to do it?  Not concerned about prerogatives here, just curious.  I would say that in this case, if, after, oh, a week or ten days have gone by without response, then it should be moved, if that is the Editor's judgment.

I think an Editor can do it. Since the George Swan case, Daniel did it for Neil Brick, and actually got cooperation in userspace -- I'm not sure if the articles ever were improved enough to move back.

[Peter Schmitt]

There are two quite different types of "workgroups":

* those well-known workgroups using some classification of knowledge/content for editing purpose

* those dedicated to some technical or administrative task

e.g., "Media workgroup" versus "Media Asset workgroup"

It might be a good idea to distinguish these types of collaboration by different names.
(No, I have no good suggestion - probably not: Task Force ??)

[Daniel Mietchen]

Just a brief mention that some of the issues we are discussing for the charter right now are also discussed over at the WP Strategy Project, e.g. at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Emerging_strategic_priorities/ESP_3_key_questions . Also interesting are some of the interviews they made for this project, particularly those with external experts: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Interviews .