Good Morning, My name is Susan Awbrey and I am a vice provost at Oakland University, a public institution of about 17,000 students. Since I am new to all of this, my suggestions may already have been considered. If so, feel free to disregard them. I've been thinking about how you could recruit people to use the site and about some of the issues arising from Wikipedia. Here are the suggestions that I came up with: 1. Have three "areas" on the site....an open archive of approved articles, a place for working papers, and a talk page for the articles 2. Allow authors to post an article in the working papers section but don't allow anyone else to change it...others would make suggestions for improvements of the article on the talk page...the author would decide if the changes were warranted. However, if the author did not make good decisions that paper would never be entered into the archive of approved papers. That would keep people from being distressed by changes made without consultation and would still give authors an incentive to make improvements to have papers accepted. It would also use the system instead of having "cops" or causing so many arguments between people. 3. I have also been frustrated by not being able to find articles on the web that were presented at conferences in the past. They don't get published many times and the conference sites only keep them up for a short period of time. If you invited people to enter conference papers that are no longer on the web into the open access archieve of approved articles, then having their articles available on the web might give them incentive to use and particpate in the site. Hope these comments are helpful. Susan
---- Original message ---- >Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 20:03:17 -0700 >From: "Larry Sanger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: [Citizendium-l] Editorial dispute resolution >To: <[email protected]> > >Dear all, > >I want to start a discussion about how to resolve disputes among editors, a >topic we haven't really hashed through yet. It is one of the most important >topics that I *haven't* yet written about in the CZ policy doc (it's taking >a long time because I keep getting distracted by other stuff!), and the >reason I haven't is that I'm not sure what to say yet. It's not that I have >no ideas, either (since when did I ever lack for ideas?). It's because we >absolutely must get this right; it's really deeply important. I'm asking >for your help. > >The problem is this. Unlike, say, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy >or the Encyclopedia of Earth, which both have lead editors assigned to >particular articles or subject areas, which editors make the decisions with >regard to those articles/areas, *we* are proposing to approach editorial >responsibilities in "the wiki way." That is, for any given article or set >of articles, there is no particular editor who is *assigned* to make >decisions about that/those article(s). Rather, experts--who meet some >objectively verifiable qualifications, arrive on the scene, and choose to >become editors--must work together collaboratively. So naturally they'll >have disagreements, some of which can't be resolved by discussion and >compromise. *Decisions*, binding decisions about content, will need to be >made--particularly considering that we will be publishing particular >versions of articles as "approved." > >Before actually forwarding any proposals for a process to make these >editorial content decisions, I think it's a good idea to consider some >constraints, or conditions, that a good proposal should satisfy. What >should a well-designed decision process look like? > >(?) The process should elicit the truth. This seems like an obvious >constraint. The outcome of these decisions will be to make a CZ article >read one way rather than another. Presumably, whether it reads one way or >another, if it comes down to a formal process, is going to seem important to >some very well-informed people. It is crucial, then, that the process >outputs something satisfactory. Now we'd like to say that the satisfactory >outcome is precisely expressible as the truth. The trouble, however, is >that if we're using this process to settle a question, then clearly, >well-informed people have different ideas about what the correct answer to >the question is. In that case, do we declare what is, in fact, the truth? >No, because that will put off the losing party and bias the resource. The >better requirement is this: > >(1) The process should be neutral. It should elicit expert knowledge (or >opinion) faithfully and neutrally--or, when an issue is primarily >socio-political, then according to the preponderance of opinion in the >English-speaking world. But it should *accurately* describe the full range >of such knowledge, or opinion. On Wikipedia, there are many people who make >all sorts of claims about what is or isn't "neutral" or "biased" and clearly >haven't got the first clue about what the requirements of the neutrality >policy (never, ever to be referred to as "NPOV" on the Citizendium please >:-) ) is. > >(2) The process should not put off editors; in particular, it should be >regarded as fair. This has a raft of subrequirements: > > (a) People should get a fair hearing. They should have an >opportunity to express themselves fully and to be heard. There should be a >full examination of the relevant facts, i.e., a dialectic. > > (b) The process itself should not be biased in favor of any >particular party to the dispute. > > (c) The person(s) making the decision should be as unbiased as >possible, and should be publicly committed and responsible to the ideal of >unprejudiced judgment. > > (d) The process should not depend on reading ancillary judgments or >debates, or on the outcome of such judgments or debates, that happen apart >from the process; in other words, it must be an *independent* process. >(Otherwise, the process can easily be corrupted and rendered unfair by that >ancillary debate.) > > (e) An exception to the latter is that the decision should be >broadly consistent with "precedent." > > (f) Matters of bad behavior should be strictly separated from the >merits of content questions. A credible position should not be saddled with >the poor behavior of a rogue editor. Therefore, probably, the "history" of >the question (on the wiki) might be ruled as "inadmissible" in the >proceedings. > >(3) The process should not drag out endlessly. It should have an end-point >and an established way to reach it. A spectacularly dynamic content >creation system depends on the smooth and rapid operation of this process. >Therefore, it should not have multiple bottlenecks and steps a la the old >Nupedia system. > >(4) The process must be a "last resort." Since it is apt to be >time-consuming, most controversies over decisions should be made more >informally, in keeping with the "wikiwiki" (i.e., quick) way. > >(5) On the one hand, decisions, once made, should not be able to be unmade >quickly, and should be unmade only if there is some new fact or >consideration of which the decisionmakers were previously unaware. > >(6) On the other hand, a decision made "long ago" (however long that might >be) should be able to be revisited when the relevant personnel have changed >sufficiently (whatever that might be). > >(7) In the interests of efficiency, it is best not to create new roles, but >to employ people from a pre-existing group (e.g., editors in a given >workgroup), unless absolutely necessary. > >(8) Note that the plan of record is to employ, **somehow**, groups of >editors to make these decisions, in the form of "editorial workgroups." >This is only a weak constraint. The basic and stronger constraint is that >*editors* are the ones who make these decisions. > >(9) What else? > >I am tempted to go on and offer some proposals for decisionmaking processes >that satisfy these conditions. But I'd rather let you do that, because this >is already long (but not as long as some other of my posts!). > >--Larry > > >_______________________________________________ >Citizendium-l mailing list >[email protected] >https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/citizendium-l _______________________________________________ Citizendium-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/citizendium-l
