CZ Talk:Charter/Archive 2

This talk page and its main page are dedicated to drafting a charter for Citizendium and should only be edited by those eight Citizens elected to the drafting Committee. Other Citizens, please comment on the dedicated thread at the Citizen Forum. Non-Citizens can comment in a separate thread at the non-Member Forum. The drafting period shall end when November 12, 2009 is over all around the globe.

Please vote on #Voting procedure.

Auxiliary pages

The following subpages of this page have been set up to help the drafting process. The same editing restrictions as to this page apply there.

Definition:Encyclopedia ·	Things to address ·	Things to address but not in charter ·	Ecology-Economy ·	Editors, authors, and approval ·	Another subpage ·	Another subpage ·	Another subpage

Getting started

According to CZ:Charter drafting committee, we are supposed to base the drafting on CZ:Fundamentals. It's first point is "The nature of the project", which I have thus pasted into the draft page in order to get things rolling. Once we have agreed on the essence of this point, it will be more easy to proceed to other matters. I also think that, to reduce confusion in the interpretation of the terms used in the document, we should add links to appropriate pages in the main or CZ namespace, and if these pages do not exist yet, we should strive to create them. Keep in mind that any other Citizen can join the drafting of these pages, thus helping to clarify matters should we be unable to do so on our own (or vice versa). --Daniel Mietchen 21:08, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's some useful links to CZ:Home and the CZ:Policy_Outline page for reference. D. Matt Innis 00:22, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Point 6 should go, for several reasons. First, and I will elaborate on this, it is defining CZ with respect to being not-Wikipedia. Second, it's too fine-grained to be talking about specific markup and indexing concepts such as categories. Instead, we should be thinking of functional goals, such as better knowledge navigation, rather than features.

While there are those that believe the recent Nobel Peace Prize was awarded for the accomplishment of being not-Bush, we really have to break away from the idea of being not-Wikipedia, and state what we uniquely want to do. Point 1, therefore, is a little ambiguous, because there's no definition of "encyclopedia". We may well want to talk about the attributes of an ideal online encyclopedia, before trying to make it into draft text -- such an effort need not be lengthy. Perhaps a subpage, analogous to the CZ wishlist, talking about functions would be useful here. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:45, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

That's brings up a good question. Now that I look at it, we're supposed to be drafting "based on the Fundamentals". Maybe we should not be concentrating on whether we like the specific statements, but using them to draft how to make future policies such as "How to change the Neutrality policy", or "How the EIC will be elected", etc.. D. Matt Innis 00:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

redacted my false start! D. Matt Innis 00:57, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"Based on" means, to me, that the Fundamentals are a guide. After all, the Fundamentals contain the statement, "The Charter will supersede the present Statement of Fundamental Policies, and it will include information about how it may be amended."

That being said, we need not rewrite everything. It may be, for example, that we agree completely with the spirit of the Neutrality Policy, but the experience of two years can give us ideas how to explain it in a manner both more clear and more effective. Howard C. Berkowitz 01:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(EC)

Okay, I see what you mean. See below the section that I saw. I emboldened the "develops the ideas". I think we could spend all four weeks debating just these 6 points, but maybe our time would be better spent building on them and changing things as we find contradiction.

• Committee members will be given broad latitude to define which specific issues the draft engages and how it does so but they are expected to create a document that develops the ideas encoded in the current statement of fundamental policies and those that are implicit in the day-to-day operation of the wiki. The committee will also be allowed to determine the way it divides its work among its members and other logistical matters.

After the EC, it looks like we're still on the same page. D. Matt Innis 01:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) We could start by figuring the way that the community can change this draft, ie. do we trust it to popular vote or design it in such a way that it can only be changed by those with a working knowledge of its purpose - a committee chosen by the community, etc. I think we all agree that it shouldn't be too easy to change, but not impossible. It needs to be a "living" document, I would think. I'm willing to hear from all you political editors! D. Matt Innis 01:26, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it should definitely be a "living" document. For that reason, I think it is to our advantage to stay away from prescriptive language and overly specific details on certain points. Things will certainly change over time, so we would do best (I think) to draft a text that may be interpreted in novel situations; it must be clear about how it is to be interpreted yet not constrain future initiative. It should make crystal clear the intentions, purpose and vision of the project and how the members of the community are meant to work together toward that goal. I also think we should provide for other policies and documents to build off of the charter but be careful about how they are to do so. I do think we should be specific about the rights and responsibilities of people in each different position (author, editor, E-i-C, etc.) I agree with Howard that we should seek to craft an identity that does not simply define Citizendium as different from other projects. --Joe Quick 02:16, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Good. Let's add the judicial process in there as well. And it all needs to be done in such a way that no one group has all the power or the responsibility; checks and balances. Are you taking notes? :) D. Matt Innis 02:24, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Committee chairperson?

I'm thinking that we could use someone to keep us on track. D. Matt Innis 01:12, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I thought that too. But it seems we've started without one. Russell D. Jones 14:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Don't think we really need one but in case we do, here is my proposal: Have the role shift each day (measured in UTC), according to the following scheme (names sorted in reverse alphabetical order of the third letter of the given name, as discussed on the forum):

Name	Term 1	Term 2	Term 3	Term 4
Howard Berkowitz	10/16/2009	10/24/2009	11/1/2009	11/9/2009
Matt Innis	10/17/2009	10/25/2009	11/2/2009	11/10/2009
Russell Jones	10/18/2009	10/26/2009	11/3/2009	11/11/2009
Martin Baldwin-Edwards	10/19/2009	10/27/2009	11/4/2009	11/12/2009
Daniel Mietchen	10/20/2009	10/28/2009	11/5/2009
Meg Ireland	10/21/2009	10/29/2009	11/6/2009
Joe Quick	10/22/2009	10/30/2009	11/7/2009
Shamira Gelbman	10/23/2009	10/31/2009	11/8/2009

Daniel Mietchen 15:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Started subpages off draft

These can be informal, but I think will cut the edit conflicts. The first is CZ: Charter drafting/What are we?, which addresses the eternal question, "what is this thing called love encyclopedia?" (Hari Seldon, where are you when we need you?) Howard C. Berkowitz 02:32, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Good idea. We were stepping all over each other earlier. I've got some additions to that page.D. Matt Innis 02:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Here's another place to put our "things to address in the new Charter" CZ:Charter drafting/Things to address

We need a place to keep all these links organized... Daniel, any ideas? D. Matt Innis 03:13, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

My first shot at structuring is the #Auxiliary pages section I added on top of this talk page. --Daniel Mietchen 08:58, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

On a second thought, it may be better to define all crucial terms that are used in the text on dedicated definition pages, e.g. CZ:Charter drafting/Definitions/Encyclopedia, to which I just moved CZ:Charter drafting/What are we?, and to link to these definitions from the text. --Daniel Mietchen 10:25, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Deciding on the structure of the Charter

I don't have a problem starting with what's there, and also debating in some detail what should be defined as the nature of the project. I agree with Howard that some things are too detailed (we need concepts here) and negative definitions are "out". I do not wish to see any mention of "the other place" in the Charter, except perhaps parenthetically that refugees and tourists are welcome.

However, for the rest of the Charter I really do advocate deciding fairly soon what sections there will be, what those sections address, and why we will have them. That way we can start to build the skeleton, and later add some joints, muscles, flesh etc./.. So, let's not get into details, but focus on fundamental principles and institutional arrangements that (in our experience) CZ has needed in the last years. It has to be really conceptual at this point, so let's not rush it and allow everyone to speak.

For the above reason, at this point I am deferring my own suggestions for structure until we have more comments. Martin Baldwin-Edwards 03:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree and suggest that we decide within one week (i.e. until Oct 21 is over) about the phrasing of the Statement of purpose and of the nature of the project as well as about the names and hierarchy of the other points that should be in the charter. We would then have three weeks to flesh out the latter. I also think that we should document our agreement on the points that come up in a formalized way. As a test case, please indicate below (by signing with four tildes) whether you agree with the schedule I proposed in this paragraph, or whether you disagree or abstain:

Agree	Disagree	Abstain	Comments
Daniel Mietchen 10:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)			The table is not user-friendly, Daniel.Martin Baldwin-Edwards 14:07, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. --Daniel Mietchen 10:49, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, no time for arguments on this one. A more simple way to go about voting is to create three subsections, and to allow people to add comments to their votes. I'll try this below. Daniel Mietchen 15:09, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Tracking changes

I have made some changes to the text. To make it easier to follow, I have used the rule of strikeout for text to be deleted, and bold for text to be inserted. Do we have agreement on this as a protocol? Of course, we could just use the compare facility between different versions, but this seems more transparent to me. Also, we could have another page with the text appearing without markups: is it possible to do this automatically in some way? Martin Baldwin-Edwards 03:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Distribution of Content

Regarding the line: "The Citizendium will make and keep useful information about its projects available free of charge and in perpetuity."

I take this to mean the content of the site not information about the content of the site. Russell D. Jones 14:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Voting procedure

I hereby propose that if we have to reach an agreement on some sort, we use a simplified voting — just adding our names (optionally with a comment) into one of the three following subsections within a section that briefly describes the scope of the vote. Simple majority counts, and the current or most recent chairperson in case of ties. --Daniel Mietchen 15:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree

Well, I made the proposal. --Daniel Mietchen 15:47, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Inspiration for keeping things short

Can be found here. --Daniel Mietchen 15:56, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

CZ as a Wiki

The salient point is not that it uses a particular software technique, but that preapproval is not always required.

Saying The Citizendium will be a wiki. potentially rules out databases, semantic networks, and other kinds of software that have been discussed for adding, to the compendium, things as diverse as gene maps and political relationship networks. The Charter should not limit the software. Howard C. Berkowitz 16:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)