CZ:Managing Editor Announcements
Real Names for Citizendium Users
We still-active veterans of Citizendium’s launch lost something precious: time. Time to devote to family and livelihood work. Yet we did it to join a project we felt had an important mission, one in line with our own sense of purpose. And we joined using our real names, partly a requirement, partly because we had no hesitation in doing so, as Citizendium was a scholarly project, and scholars have no need for anonymity or pseudonymity when sharing their knowledge. In the early years after Citizendium’s launch, swarms of individuals joined the project agreeing to use their real names.
So it saddens me somewhat that I feel I must allocate time and effort to respond again to the issue of Citizendium's requirement that all who request to join the project must do so using their real names, which Citizendium will verify.
I call your attention to a draft proposal, by Christine Bush, to allow Citizendium to create accounts for individuals using a pseudonym rather than their real name: Why Citizendium Needs to Modify Its Real Names Policy. Christine claims that Citizendium’s real names requirement restricts enrollment, suggesting that many people want to share their knowledge but do not want to be identified as to who they are. Moreover she contends that pseudonymity is an alternative to anonymity and all that anonymity brings with it.
The requirement for registering using your real name did not restrict enrollment during the Citizendium first two years of operation, when swarms of new users appeared. So nothing intrinsic to Citizendium’s real name requirement restricts enrollment. We continue to enroll 3-4 new users with verifiable real names each month (34 new users between January first and September 30, 2014). Just because enrollment is low does not with certainty result from the requirement for real names.
Pseudonymity cannot be defended as an alternative to anonymity for Citizendium, unless the applicant also gave us their real name, which would defeat the purpose of the pseudonym. Even if we could verify the real name of the person using a pseudonym, the question would arise, who would be privy to that knowledge? Could the enrollee ever have confidence that his or her real name would not be leaked?
Why would anybody want to use a pseudonym anyway, in a scholarly project like Citizendium? If I had a law practice and wanted to blog about politics but not want to reveal my identity for fear of losing clients, I might want to blog under a pseudonym. But Citizendium is not a blogging service. Nor is Citizendium a social network, where the use of pseudonyms might be appropriate in certain circumstances.
There is no need for the chaos anonymity or pseudonymity would bring Citizendium. The Citizendium’s real name requirement is part of the core of Citizendium’s creation.
I quote from our founding Editor-in-Chief, Larry Sanger, written in 2006, when the Citizendium started its pilot program:
- Toward a New Compendium of Knowledge (longer version)
- September 15, 2006
- Obviously, you want to know how the Citizendium editorial system will differ from Wikipedia's system. There will be three main areas of dissimilarity. First, the project will invite experts to serve as editors, who will be able to make content decisions in their areas of specialization, but otherwise working shoulder-to-shoulder with ordinary authors. Second, the project will require that contributors be logged in under their own real names, and work according to a community charter. Third, the project will halt and actually reverse some of the "feature creep" that has developed in Wikipedia.
- Toward a New Compendium of Knowledge (shorter version)
- September 15, 2006
- There will be no logged-out editing and no anonymous editing. Anyone may participate, but all must be logged in under their own real names (we will use the honor principle to begin with), and with a working e-mail address. Where Wikipedia shares the culture of anonymity found in the broader Internet, the Citizendium will have a culture of real-world, personal responsibility.
Let’s stay real in solving our recruitment problem. -Anthony.Sebastian 21:24, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
Response from Christine Bush
I appreciate Managing Editor's interest in my work and this effort to make others aware of it. Thank you. It is helpful to be reminded of past traumas. It is also useful to move past them and to continue evaluating best practices. The web is nothing if not dynamic and much has changed since 2006. I met with Larry Sanger earlier this year because he is working on a new project that I found interesting and he was in town fundraising so we had Chinese food one day. His new project is called InfoBitt, a crowdsourced newspaper. All you need to participate is an e-mail address. Larry's projects evolve with the web.
Digital identity is a core concept of the online experience and scholars are deeply engaged in discussing it. There is currently a MOOC being offered through edX on the topic of Open Knowledge and I will be integrating many of the materials from it into this exploration of our policy. Most of the discussions about the course materials occur using social media and blogs. These are vibrant discussions that do not require anyone to use their real name; in part because they do not. But it is also true that the practice of pseudonymity, unlike a real names policy, does not prevent the use of your real name and some choose to do so. The point is to give people a choice, to empower their participation on their terms.
To suggest that CZ is not a social media platform seems to willfully ignore the fact that we have already begun to become one. We have a Twitter account (through which Managing Editor's announcement of my draft was delivered to 71 followers---far more than have seen it here, I suspect). We also have a Facebook presence, a Google+ Community, and another Google Group to supplement this wiki-based forum. We are going down this road, as we should. Surely we can find a way to enable people who find CZ on these numerous, highly-connected platforms to take the next step towards contributing to our project by using modern identity credentialing systems.
To this end, an open invitation remains extended to anyone interested in the topic to continue to monitor and contribute to the discussion of this draft, not only on the article's talk page (where there have already been some very insightful and constructive comments made) but also through your social media networks of choice. You can include me using Twitter, tumblr, WordPress, or Google+. Christine Bush 18:35, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
CZ Council passes motion to replace the existing Forums with a wiki-based Forum [20-Sep-2014]
The Citizendium Council has passed a motion to replace the existing Forums with a wiki-based Forums. The text of the motion can be found at: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Council#2014.
I repeat the text below for your convenience:
- The Citizendium Council moves to authorize Constable John Stephenson to develop on the main wiki forum boards to replace those of the current non-wiki Citizendium forums. The old archives of the existing forums should be kept as a read-only archive until an alternative is found.
- The Council directs John to comply with the existing rules regarding the structure of the forums as delineated by the ruling of the previous Management Council.
- Also the Council directs John to mimic the current non-wiki Citizendium forums as closely as possible. Notices should be placed at the top of Council boards to prohibit non-members posting, on pain of Constabulary sanction. (Two strikes = ban)
- Regarding the issue of providing for input from non-users, Council requests John to set up a venue for that using Google Groups.
- The Council also moves that the Constabulary monitor the new forums on the wiki for abuses that they currently monitor on the main wiki.
- The Council directs the technical staff to create a Space on the wiki for the forum so no forum functionality will be lost (advisory by John Stephenson).
- When John has completed the development of the forums on the wiki, the Citizendium Council will evaluate and approve or make suggestions for improvement.
Because only a small fraction of active users utilize the existing forums, the Council hopes that more users will avail themselves if the forums are available on the main wiki.