CZ:Approval Process

Overview

Here, in broad strokes, is how the approval process goes:

An article is so well developed that it gives the Citizendium reader a good introduction and overview to its topic. An editor in the article's workgroup will be needed to nominate the article for approval.

• If the editor has worked on it herself as an author, she asks another editor to approve it; or, if there are several editors all doing significant work as authors on the article, then at least three of them can agree to approve it. (These rules are to prevent a single person from approving his or her own work without involving review by experts who were not authors.)

1. So then (one of) the nominating editor(s) places a {{ToApprove}} template on the article's talk (discussion) page. That "to Approve" template will be marked with a date, usually several days to a week from the date that it is placed - but at least 24 hours. (That rule is to alow copy edits and final development. A longer lead time is appropriate for articles that are complex and may need the intensity of scrutiny that occurs with nomination to be properly completed. For artices that are already complete, a short lead time is appropriate.)

• This template acts as an announcement -- if the approval template remains there, approval will occur on that date. The list of articles nominated for approval can be found at Category:Articles to Approve.
• Meanwhile, discussion and edits continue on the article. When an article is nominated for approval, this status often draws new eyes to the article, and it can be expected that revisions will occur. In the culture of Citizendium, edits at this stage by novices to the subject are discouraged. The important role for non-experts is to make recommendations and critcisms on the talk page. (This guideline is based on the disruption that is caused by, say, a person who does not know physics well making edits in an article on physics in this "finishing" stage. That person, however, is vitally important in terms of critiqueing which parts of the artice are clear, and which cannot be followed by a novice to the subject.)
• If another editor in the article's workgroup finds that the article is so objectionable that approval, in his considered opinion, should not be granted, then the template is removed by this editor, who puts his reasons for this action on the talk page. (This is a fail safe rule, to prevent the approval of articles that are inaccurate or misleading.)
• If the nominating editor notes that the discussion on the talk page that has occurred since the nomination for approval template was originally placed brings up important objections, then the editor may delay the date for approval on the "to approve" template,to allow for work to continue before the stable version is generated. The nominating editor(s) may also change the version nominated for approval on the "to approve" template to an updated draft that is considered superior to the one first nominated. (This rule is designed to allow the best version to be the approved one. It is common that articles change quickly in a short time before approval, and so choosing "which version" is an important part of the process)

Unless the template is removed, on the designated date, a sysop (a person with "sysop" administrative rights on the wiki) then freezes the approved version of the article on the main article page under an {{Approved}} template. At that freeze, a draft form of the article is generated. This draft is not frozen, but is open to edits as are all unapproved articles on the wiki.

When a user calls up the article, the approved (frozen) version appears. At the top of the article is a notice to users who would prefer to write or edit, redirecting them to the Draft page. Work on the article continues on that "Draft" page. Discussion about the article in progress is made on the Talk:Draft Page, and eventually it may be nominated to replace the approved version. Then the procedure repeats.

addendum: after approval, copyediting may be performed by a nominating editor with the help of the approvals editor. This may occur at any time. (The reason for this rule is that sometimes, even when the article has been religiously scanned for mistakes by many eyes, even a major mistake- like, say 1 1= 2 instead of 1+1=2 is missed. That sort of error does not require a new approval process to correct.)

The provisional nature of this process

This process is provisional and probably temporary in this form. The use of templates, in particular, may be regarded as a temporary stopgap measure. Eventually, we will want to integrate certain procedures into the software itself. But it is actually desirable to test out the process first "by hand" before stabilizing it in code.

Who may approve

For any given topic, only editors who may be considered experts on that topic may approve an article on that topic, at a minimum, these experts must be editors in the article's workgroup.

Expert editors may approve articles in either of two configurations: individually or as part of a group.

Individual approval. Editors may approve articles if they have not contributed significantly to the article as an author. In other words, if an editor reviews an article that is fully developed by others, perhaps an author, he or she may suggest changes or even add edits, but strictly in the role of an editor. In this way, there is a kind of peer review. No single editor may approve an article that this individual editor actually authored. In other words, no editor may approve his or her own work singlehandedly.

Group approval. If there are three editors, all of whom are expert in the topic of an article, and all of which have been at work on an article as authors, then any one of them may approve of an article with the concurrence of the other two.

An author may trigger the approval process simply by writing a note to several relevant editors, drawing attention to the page, or by contacting the current approvals management editor [1]. The responding editors may then approve according to the same rules above.

If the article has already undergone an approval and is noted to need typographic corrections, correction of spelling, spacing, or punctuation, that is, a 'bug fix' or proof - which commonly occurs with version (1.1), then one-editor approval is acceptable, as long as these copyedits are carried out with one of the original editors who nominated that article for the just approved version (1.0). Copyedits are carried out with the sysop aid of approvals management.

Developed articles that need editors to evaluate them for approval, articles newly nominated for approval, and the most recently approved articles, will be announced, as time and space allow, on the approvals notice board [2].

When and how to use the {{ToApprove}} template

Once an editor is of the considered opinion that the article satisfies the Citizendium article approval standards, he/she may nominate the article for approval placing the ToApprove template on the top of the article talk page. Note that if the editor has made significant content edits to the article, the group approval guidelines (see the above section) are used and there must be two other editors who agree to approve the article. This identifies to the community and the appropriate workgroup that they approve the article and it is ready for review by others. The template is set up to allow others to copyedit and suggest content edits for three days before the article is protected from further edits. However, this time can be changed to suit the particular article according to the editor's best judgement.

Here is an example of the template as it appears on the talk page:

Nancy Sculerati MD has nominated this version of this article for approval. Other editors may also sign to support approval. The Biology Workgroup is overseeing this approval. Unless this notice is removed, the article will be approved on December 14, 2006.

Here is the code that produces that template:

{{ToApprove
|url = 
|now =
|editor=
|editor2=
|editor3=
|editor4=
|group=
|group2=
|group3=
|date =
}}

To prepare the template, simply copy the above code and paste it to the top of the article's talk page. Then make the following replacements:

url = the location in the page history where the version-to-approve lives. The sysop will paste this and only this version into the main page

now = the date and time when the template is added. Use ~~~~~ (five tildes) to let the computer generate it automatically.

editor = the username of the person who did the approval (or who nominated the article on behalf of a group of people)

editor2 = second editor (optional but must use before editor3 if only two editors approved)

editor3 = third editor (optional but must use before editor4 if only three editors approved)

editor4 = fourth editor (optional)

group = must be an existing workgroup

group2 = second workgroup (optional but must use before group3 if only two workgroups)

group3 = third workgroup (optional)

date = format yyyymmdd

If you have made all the correct replacements, then all the links in the template should appear blue. None should appear red.

Updating the {{ToApprove}} template after revision

It is all right if the article undergoes significant revision in the days following the initial placement of the {{ToApprove}} template. If after such revision the nominating editorr is still willing to approve the article in its revised state, she should update the URL in the template to point at the most recent satisfactory version of the article, found under the "history" tab. At any given moment it might or might not be the most recent version.

If an article is undergoing group approval, it must be the sense of at least two other editors, in addition to the approver, that the newly-revised version is also worthy of approval.

Involving other editors from a workgroup

• Discuss your impending approval on the forum for the relevant workgroup(s). This isn't required but it's a good idea.

Involving copyeditors (informally)

• Post a note to the Copyedit Board on the forums. Not required, but an excellent idea.

Sysops make it official with the {{Approved}} template

Anyone with "Sysop" permissions on the wiki--that is, personnel administrators, constables, and technical staff--may go through the following steps when initially marking an article as approved. An important exception is that no person with "Sysop" permissions on the wiki who has done any significant work on the article, or who is an editor in any workgroup to which the article is assigned may "do the honors." That means that Editors at work on the article who are also Constables must call another Constable to "do the honors." We thus hold a hard line against appearances of conflict of interest. To ask a Constable to "make it official," simply send an e-mail to constables@citizendium.org. The following steps may be followed on or after the date (and time, if any) given by someone with "Sysop" permissions:

1. Examine the talk page. Make sure it's clear that there are three editors who are in agreement about the approvability of the article, or, if it seems there is an individual approval going on, make sure that the person approving the article has not worked much on the article. (For that, examine the article's history.)
2. Make the Draft page:
   • Copy the current version of the article (i.e., the one you see by simply clicking "edit"), and paste it into a new "Draft" page. If the article name is "XYZ" then the draft page name is "XYZ/Draft".
   • At the top of that page, make a link back to the approved version of the article:

     "Most recent approved version: [[XYZ]]"

   • On the Article/Draft page, comment out the article's categories. To do this, simply surround the template code with

     <!-- [[Category:Foo]] ... -->

   • Create a category link to the workgroup for the Draft page by adding a category to the bottom of the Draft page:

     [[Category:{{{Group}}}_Workgroup_Draft]]

   • Save. You're done making the Draft page.
   • Move the corresponding talk page Talk:XYZ to Talk:XYZ/Draft with the reason "moving further discussion to draft" or similar.
3. Protect the approved version of the main namespace copy of the article:
   • On the talk page of the article to be approved, where you find the article's {{ToApprove}} template, click through to the URL supplied by the approving editor. Copy the text there.
   • Edit the main namespace version of the article. Delete whatever is there, and replace it with what you copied from the approved page.
   • At the very top of the article, put in the {{approved}} template. This requires that you copy the exact editor username and group name. Here is the form:

     {{approved|editor=APPROVER USERNAME|group=GROUP NAME}}

     For example:

     {{approved|editor=Nancy Sculerati MD|group=Biology}}

     In some cases other fields, such as group2 and abc, will have to be used in the form:

     {{approved|editor=APPROVER USERNAME|group=GROUP NAME|group2=GROUP2 NAME|abc=ARTICLE NAME SORTED}}

     The group2 field should be used when a second workgroup has oversight.

     The abc field should be used for all biographies so they are sorted by last names. For example, the Barbara McClintock approval template is written as abc = McClintock, Barbara so the article is sorted under M rather than B. This field can be useful for non bigraphical articles too; a hypothetical example is 'List of Biologists' that that would use the abc field in the following formatt: abc = Biologists, List of.

   • Save.
   • Press the "protect" tab. Change both "Edit" and "Move" options to sysop only. Explain why you're protecting the page: "Article version approved." You're done making the Approved article copy.
4. Now, go to the article's Talk/Draft page, and "comment out"--do not delete--the template. To do this, simply surround the {{ToApprove}} template code with

   <!-- [template code here] -->

   • Change the Article Checklist status to "0" for approved.
   • Leave a note saying that you've approved the article.
   • Insert this template at the bottom of the talk page to separate the before approval article discussion from the after approval discussion.

==APPROVED Version 1.0==

<div class="usermessage plainlinks">Discussion for [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=PAGE ID Version 1.0] stopped here. Please continue further discussion under this break. </div>

Make sure to put the current version in the PAGE ID space. An example should look like this:

Discussion for Version 1.0 stopped here. Please continue further discussion under this break.

• Click on the XYZ talk page Move tab. Type in the new location of the new talk page [[Talk:XYZ/Draft]]. A redirect will automatically be made so that all discussion will remain together on the talk draft page.

Finished!

Approval and protection process for templates used in approved pages

Editors and sysops need to be aware that a protected approved page draws on templates which contain text. Consideration should be given to subjecting key subject-specific templates for banners, boxes and footers to protection and editorial approval in step with major pages.

Re-approving revisions to approved articles

Re-approval is the process of approving the replacement to an approved article. These replacements are called versions (XYZ version 1.1, 1.2 and so on) for clarity here.

The process of re-approving a revision to an an approved article is in its essentials the same as for the first version, but as two article pages (approved and draft page now exist), a mode of operation needs to be established to minimize confusion.

A suggested approach is to continue all edit discussions leading to re-approval on the XYZ/draft talk page, and provide a section at the top of that talk page for the approval templates of the sucessive versions, which can be referred to in the text of the talk page as V1.1, V1.2 etc.

e.g.

==Article re-approval and version record area== ====Reserved for a log of event re-approval of XYZ article and template records==== See [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Approval_Process#Re-approving_revisions_to_approved_articles here] for help. ====Version 1.1 approval events==== (Earlier details of V 1.1 commented out for clarity) <!--{{ToApprove|editor= BLAH BLAH BLAH--> (Approval V 1.1) confusing text commented out but log details retained. ====Version 1.2 approval events==== Approval V1.2 ----

which will look like this:

Article re-approval and version record area

Reserved for a log of event re-approval of XYZ article and template records

See here for help.

Version 1.1 approval events

(Earlier details of V 1.1 commented out for clarity)

(Approval V 1.1) confusing text commented out but log details retained.

Version 1.2 approval events

Approval V1.2

---

It will be necessary for a sysop to transfer markup text to the protected main page to create a new approved version ( i.e. V1.1) by code copy, paste and save, and at such time annotate such re-approval save events with the approval version (e.g. V1.2 ) and source of code ("permanent links to source code are at the top of XYZ/draft talk, commented out") descriptions to clarify the source of the text.

Again, as with initial approval, an important exception is that no person with "Sysop" permissions on the wiki who has done any significant work on the article, or who is an editor in any workgroup to which the article is assigned, must "do the honors." That means that Editors at work on the article, who are also Constables, must call another Constable to "do the honors." We thus hold a hard line against appearances of conflict of interest. To ask a Constable to "make it official," simply send an e-mail to constables@citizendium.org.