Where is everyone?

[Milton Beychok]

I am astounded! In the month and a half that I have been a member of Citizendium, I have authored 31 articles. With exception of one of them, not  a single person has edited any of the other 30 articles or left any comments on the article Talk pages.

As I said, I am astounded! Where is everyone? Are there any other engineers in Citizendium?

Let me hear from some of you. The silence is deafening.  (:>)

Milton Beychok

[Bryan Pilati]

I'm here, but I'm not sure what is going on.

[tkjazzer]

link some of your articles in this thread and people will read them and hopefully comment.

[Bryan Pilati]

I'm an editor not an author.

[Hayford Peirce]

Editors are quite welcome to be authors also!

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I'm an editor not an author.

I'm a little confused, as we had a new member join today, with particular interests in surveying, but also, as we found, an interest in things including geospatial intelligence and MASINT, which have content in the Military Workgroup. He asked for guidance on the Engineering mailing list, got enthusiastic response, and is actively creating a starting article.  To me, that's good.

You sent a message to that mailing list referring to spamming. Were you serious that you considered that spam?  To me, seeing activity, on the mailing list, for the first time in my nearly a year  here is a very good thing.  Some of the discussion was article-specific and appropriately moved to a talk page, but a mailing list seems a very good way to "get organized". Personally, I prefer it to the Forum, but that's me.

You have mentioned "getting organized". What specific steps would you like to have taken, and by whom?

[Bryan Pilati]

Can authors be editors, because I was told there were definitive roles.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Can authors be editors, because I was told there were definitive roles.

There's Editor, a formal role, and anyone who edits.  I certainly author, edit, and Edit.  When I am in Editor role, I'm making formal rulings on content. In such cases, I may still be able to write, but I would be restricted as being the only Editor to approve an article to which I contributed significant content.

Let's take a simple example: drill (tool). I created it as an author, and, at the back of my mind, an Editor setting up core articles. Anyone could add to the article, but, if I determined something was wrong, I could rule on it. I could not, by myself, approve an eventual Drill article to which I had contributed.

If you were to create an article on a specialized drill used in aviation maintenance, and my comments were limited to the Talk Page, I could eventually approve it.

[Milton Beychok]

Bryan, I see on your user page that, when you joined, you were approved as an Engineering author, which means you can write new articles and make edits (revisions, additions and deletions) in existing articles ... and you are not limited in that role to just Engineering articles. If for example, you wanted to make some changes in a sports article, you can do so.

To become an Editor (like Howard Berkowitz and others), you must make application for that role in some specific field such as Engineering, Physics, History, Economics, etc. If your application is approved and you are granted Editorship, then you can make rulings about the content and/or formatting of articles ... but only in the field for which you were granted Editorship. Of course, you can still be an author as well., just as you are now.

To make application for an Editorship, send an email to personnel@citizendium.org and present your qualifcations for being an Editor in the discipline you consider to be your field of expertise ... or you can, I believe, email Larry Sanger directly.

Milt Beychok