CZ:Nomination page/Managing Editor/Daniel Mietchen

Preface

When the Charter Drafting Committee voted on whether the Charter should include the role of a decider, I voted against, for a number of reasons: First, the description of that role was very vague then. Second, from my perspective, a decider would be most needed until the governing bodies are fully functional (my suggestion for a Transition Manager did not find a majority, however). Third, once functional governance is in place, I consider the need for really quick decisions to be a rare case that could be handled by the members of the governing bodies in a more wiki-like way, i.e. similar to how the Constables deal with new user registrations and other tasks — first come, first decide, conscious that each action is up for review by the other members of the group, as well as the community as a whole.

Having said that, I do respect majority decisions and am thus prepared to serve as a Managing Editor under the terms of the ratified Charter.

Vision

Should I be elected, it would be in the spirit of the above-mentioned wiki approach to governance that I would try to fulfill this role: existing policy is to be applied as long as it is applicable, and subject to revision by the governing bodies if not. If no applicable policy exists, I regard decisions by the Managing Editor as essentially pointers to issues that the governing bodies (and the community as a whole) should take a look at. I do not see the identification of such issues as part of the role of the Managing Editor, and shall primarily act upon requests by fellow Citizens. This also applies to handling external relations.

Qualifications

I have experience with most aspects of the operation of this wiki: I have contributed to a number of articles, helped to approve some, worked on templates and bots (and dealt with the social ramifications these may have), filed and took on bug reports, and participated in a number of community activities that ranged from Write-a-Thons to Biology Week to the Charter process. I am running my own MediaWiki installation for testing and design purposes and I am also a contributor to other wikis and online networks, which keeps me informed about technical and community developments that may be relevant to Citizendium. I am an administrator for several blogs and mailing lists, and handled external relations for a number of non-profit organizations, which included contacts to the press as well as to professional bodies (mainly in academia) worldwide.