Re: [Citizendium-l] CZ is not for experts only!

[Dave Truncellito]

Larry: I can't speak for others, but here's why I'm not yet writing or editing.  My invitation to be an editor was extended just 8 days ago.  The end of the semester is nearing, and I'm buried in student papers that need grading and other aspects of my full-time job.  So, while your enthusiasm is appreciated, I'm pretty busy, and regular urgings (every few days or so!) to "get to work" won't change that. And, even if I had scads of free time to devote to CZ, it remains unclear what it entails.  I, for one, am reluctant to devote much work to a project that I don't understand, and it seems clear that CZ is not well understood by anyone at this time.  (How will it be different from Wikipedia?  Should it use a classification system?  If so, which one?  And is that system for classifying editors or articles?  Should we use BCE/CE or BC/AD?  Should we conduct these discussions via the list, or in Google Groups, or somewhere else? Is it for experts only or for everyone?) This last question is especially important to me.  The reason I joined the project is that the Fundamental Policies (http://www.citizendium.org/fundamentals.html) indicate CZ will be "based on...expert opinion" and that editors will be "subject area experts".  But it sounds as though you're now suggesting that those of us who think that CZ is for experts only are mistaken.  So, can you reconcile this aspect of the policy with what you said in this email? Thanks, Dave David A. Truncellito, Ph.D.    If you have an apple and I have an apple   and we exchange these apples,  then you and I will still each have one apple.  But if you have an idea and I have an idea  and we exchange these ideas,  then each of us will have two ideas.                      --George Bernard Shaw                                   Assistant Professor of Writing, The George Washington University 2100 Foxhall Road NW, Washington, DC  20007 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://home.gwu.edu/~truncell   Larry Sanger wrote: All, Here's a message I want you to understand and to go forth and propagate to the world, because for some reason a lot of people don't seem to get it. It is that CZ is not for experts only. People who are not experts about a topic in fact *are* free to write about that topic. Not only do they have permission, they are very strongly encouraged to do so. There is a category of Authors and by golly, Authors should get to work. Bear in mind that this applies to editors as well, when they're writing outside their areas of expertise. For example, I am not an expert about much of anything, frankly. If I weren't so busy with e-mail and a thousand other things, I would be quite busy on the wiki writing about, well, all sorts of stuff, because despite my lack of expertise, I do actually know quite a bit about quite a bit. (In a loose and popular sense of "know," mind you, philosophers.) In short, I want to encourage Authors to BE BOLD. Faerie Queene. Book iii. Canto xi. St. 54. And as she lookt about, she did behold, How over that same dore was likewise writ, Be bold, be bold, and every where be bold, That much she muz'd, yet could not construe it By any ridling skill, or commune wit. At last she spyde at that roomes upper end, Another yron dore, on which was writ, Be not too bold; whereto though she did bend Her earnest mind, yet wist not what it might intend. Yes, there is also that puzzling business about being not *too* bold, and that surely applies here, but I think that for a while here in the beginning we can err on the side of overboldness. BTW, this list has 453 members. That means that probably over 200 people on this list aren't in the pilot project. Why not? --Larry _______________________________________________ Citizendium-l mailing list Citizendium-l@lists.purdue.edu https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/citizendium-l

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