At the risk of turning this into a flame war, I believe Jon does raise a valid point, if not in an appropriate manner:
The fundamental policies at http://www.citizendium.org/fundamentals.html are extremely detailed in places, but ultimately they give Larry full control (some of it indirectly, but still) over the "community charter" that will serve as both Citizendium's "legal" foundation (in the sense of being used for rule enforcement) and, probably, as Citizendium's real-world legal base: the non-profit will probably have to enforce a trademark on Citizendium, at least, and potentially take further action against others. In other words, Citizendium could go wrong, and right now, Larry, by himself, can make it go wrong. For now, Larry does make the decisions, and, at least as far as I am concerned, there are quite important issues he hasn't said anything about. In particular, there are two promises that I would like Citizendium (i.e. Larry, right now) to make (but don't really expect to): 1. Democracy. While I think it is important that there is an initial period in which Larry gets, essentially, free reign over what happens to Citizendium, I would consider Citizendium a failure if it didn't ultimately result in a community that can rule itself. Furthermore, I think it's ultimately very important that that initial period is of limited duration (I'd consider anything up to about four years acceptable, though I doubt it will be needed). Let me be more specific about this: Wikipedia, in particular, has an approach to democracy that can best be described as containment: various officials are, after a fashion, "elected", usually in a way that guarantees the committees thus formed will be fairly uniform. I consider that, frankly, unacceptable. Committing to actual democracy isn't very difficult: all we need to do is make very clear that if a proposal is supported by a majority of those community members who vote on it, for a sufficiently long period, it is implemented; I think it's fairly clear that the actual votes should, by default, be secret, too. I consider it quite probable, judging by similar projects, that Citizendium will fall short of that standard: either by electing representatives, as Wikipedia does, in a way that guarantees the largest minority faction has control even if it does not represent the majority; by making referenda a theoretical possibility that would require a majority of contributors' votes, which just isn't going to happen on a project with many contributors who are there for the encyclopedia, not for the politics. It's a clearly testable standard: if, four years from now, I want Citizendium to do something, and I can convince 30% of CZ contributors to support that something, and only 20% say they're against it, will it or will it not get done? (And yes, a way will have to be found to prevent referenda from passing with 3 votes against 2, or for so many referenda to be available to vote on that no one gets around to it. However, both of those are very doable without violating the democratic spirit, and ultimately are mere details). 2. Non-Harassment A lot has been said about "linking back" from Wikipedia to content copied from Citizendium, and vice versa. Quite a few people have expressed the opinion that Citizendium has the legal right to make requirements for how content put on it can be used by others, and I got the impression that those people wanted "Citizendium", in some fashion, to get involved in an endless campaign to make sure that whereever CZ content is used, there be a link, and "proper" attribution (it is about here that I get the mental image of people arguing about the font sized used for that attribution, and whether the choice of colour makes it clearly visible). In short, I get the impression that following those people, Citizendium would end up harassing quite a few people, some of them unfairly. I don't think that should happen. If you look at this from a legal perspective, things get even more muddled: Citizendium will not own the copyright on contributions, the actual creators will. Citizendium probably could send letters along the lines of "you are in breach of GFDL, and unless the actual copyright holders have given you a different license, they might sue you", but I really think it shouldn't. Similarly, I think Citizendium needs to adopt a policy of non-harassment against its community: accidents happen, and the way CZ appears likely to work, any interested journalist could find out the real name of anyone who, by accident or maliciously, made Citizendium look stupid (or worse). In that situation, it might be quite tempting for the Citizendium leadership to pass on the blame, rather than stepping forward and erring on the side of the contributor. Real names raise the stakes quite a bit: suddenly, there's no more one-way valve preventing your actions on Citizendium to have an effect on your real life, when things start going the wrong way. In fact, unlike Wikipedia, whatever verification mechanism Citizendium will have will probably make even the last-ditch "someone else must have been using my name" excuse unlikely to work. In exchange for that, I think it would be fair to make a promise to contributors that, where there is a choice, Citizendium is not going to act against them. When a newspaper is calling you not as a private citizen but as a contact listed for Citizendium, attacking contributors is just right out, at least as long as there can be any doubt that their actions were indeed malicious. My second wish is quite a bit less specific than my first. However, it is something that's quite important to me: Citizendium is a new project and it could go wrong: let's make our intentions about where not to go as clear as possible. Philipp Rumpf On 11/10/06, Phil Wardle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It seems to me Jon from what you have written that your time would be > better spent helping out over on Wikipedia, rather than making snide > remarks here. > > I didn't spot this until it was drawn to my attention.... play nice or > play elsewhere. > > Phil Wardle > List Moderator. > > Jon Awbrey wrote: > > o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o > > > > Re: > > https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2006-November/000765.html > > > > ST = Sarah Tuttle > > > > ST: How are we going to build this resource? WE HAVE TO DECIDE. > > We have to decide what's really important to us. And we have > > to give this the chance to succeed. When conflicts come up? > > We need to work together. Are you struggling with something? > > Talk to other members of the community. Call a constable > > (seriously, we're a pretty fun bunch). We have to go into > > this like grownups and keep our eyes focused on why we're > > all here. > > > > Sarah & All, > > > > I think that you may have failed to read the fine print > > of the policies that you endorsed to join the pilot. > > Those of us who did spend time in Wikipedia know > > that all of the fundamentals have been cast in > > stone, and we know from discussions on the > > forums and lists that not a single thing > > we decide is going to get implemented > > if "The Decider" has not already > > predecided it. > > > > Jon Awbrey > > > > o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o > > inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ > > citizendium development forums: http://smf.citizendium.org > > http://www.textop.org/wiki/index.php?title=User:Jon_Awbrey > > wikinfo: http://wikinfo.org/wiki.php?title=User:Jon_Awbrey > > wp review: http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showuser=398 > > o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 > _______________________________________________ Citizendium-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/citizendium-l
