[Inquiry] [Citizendium] Re: Citizendium is not for experts only!

[Jon Awbrey]

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[resend 2]

Re: https://lists.purdue.edu/pipermail/citizendium-l/2006-November/000772.html

JA = Jon Awbrey
PR = Philipp Rumpf

Philipp & All,

JA: If I seem to be saying some things a little more insistently
    than seems appropriate, part of the reason may be that there
    is a rather long history of saying them.  From the beginning
    of my participation in this discussion, I've been concerned
    to make recommendations that would help us to avoid some of
    the worst mistakes of Wikipedia.  Using real world names and
    welcoming the knowledge of more experienced comtributors is
    a very good start, but those are only the first steps on the
    road that will have to be traveled if we want to move beyond
    the impasses that Wikipedia has gotten itself stuck in.

JA: From my very first messages to the Citizendium lists and forums,
    I have tried to say in several different ways that a major review
    of guidelines on content and conduct will need to be carried out,
    not necessarily because of wide disagreement in the spirit of the
    norms that most of us have always followed, but in order to figure
    out where the letters of the WP Acronym Zoo have failed to maintain
    that spirit, in practice.

JA: My feeling is that we have yet to begin the necessary dialogue on that score.

Jon Awbrey

PR: At the risk of turning this into a flame war, I believe Jon
    does raise a valid point, if not in an appropriate manner:

PR: 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.

PR: 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.

PR: In particular, there are two promises that I would like Citizendium
    (i.e. Larry, right now) to make (but don't really expect to):

PR: 1. Democracy.

PR: 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).

PR: 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.

PR: 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.

PR: 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.

PR: 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?

PR: (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).

PR: 2. Non-Harassment

PR: 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).

PR: 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.

PR: 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.

PR: 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.

PR: 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.

PR: 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.

PR: 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.

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