CZ:Policy on Topic Informants

For a general introduction to topic informants and interviews, see this section of the Policy Outline. The following provides details and processes.

The Topic Informant Workgroup

The Citizendium shall set up a workgroup, with specific, designated members with specific terms, who will have oversight over biographies of living persons, and other articles that make representations about living persons. In particular, this workgroup will be empowered to enforce the policies on this page.

Composition of the workgroup will include at least 2/3 editor members. Members will be selected by sortition among volunteers, who must be Citizendium editors or authors in good standing. The workgroup cannot be considered active unless there are at least three members, and should not have more than twelve members.

The workgroup itself shall select its own group leader(s). Workgroup members will serve yearlong terms.

Topic informants, their rights and role

Right of privacy. We officially recognize that the fact that we have started an encyclopedia project does not give us the right to subject private individuals to unwelcome public exposure. We recognize the right to privacy of persons whose lives are, in fact, mostly private.

Right of deletion. Therefore, unless a person is a well-known politician, celebrity, or other luminary, the subjects of biographies may, at the discretion of the Topic Informant Workgroup, request that any biographies we have of them--for example, those sourced from Wikipedia--be deleted. These requests may be made privately, by e-mail, directly to the workgroup [ADDRESS TO BE SUPPLIED], or else on the talk page of the person's article. This decision is to be made at the sole discretion of the Topic Informant Workgroup, not of any (other) editors or editorial workgroups, although the workgroup may consult anyone they wish in making the decision.

Right to become a topic informant. All subjects of biographies, and major informants about important topics in the Citizendium, may either (1) request an interview, which will be transcribed (and subject to approval by the subject of the interview), or (2) submit remarks relevant to the articles that concern them personally. The Citizendium will then:

• post these remarks on a special (protected) part of the wiki
• link to these remarks from the relevant article pages
• take these remarks very seriously, and, as appropriate, cite them
• update these remarks as necessary at the request of, or with the assistance of, the topic informant

Definition of "topic informant." Persons who give interviews or remarks in this fashion are called topic informants. A person is considered a topic informant only the Citizendium has published his or her remarks, with his or her permission.

Scope. The scope of interviews and remarks is specifically restricted to comments on the article or articles in the Citizendium that directly concern them, or that concern events of which they have some special experience (e.g., sole eyewitnesses).

Rejection of "vanity" interviews and remarks. The Topic Informant Workgroup reserves the right to reject requests from persons to become topic informants on biographies about themselves that do not yet exist, or on account of remarks that they inserted into articles themselves. Such requests may be rejected on grounds of unseemly self-promotion.

Relevance, legality, and consistency of format. The Topic Informant Workgroup also reserves the right to edit these remarks both for relevance to the content of specific Citizendium articles, for their tendency to violate copyright and libel law, and for consistency of format with other topic informant remarks.