User talk:Raymond Arritt

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Welcome, new editor! We're very glad you've joined us. Here are pointers for a quick start. Also, when you get a chance, please read The Editor Role. You can look at Getting Started and our help system for other introductory pages. It is also important, for project-wide matters, to join the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list. Announcements are also available via Twitter. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any administrator for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and thank you! We appreciate your willingness to share your expertise, and we hope to see your edits on Recent changes soon. Stephen Ewen 03:20, 15 June 2007 (CDT)

Welcome!

Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start, and see Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any user or the editors for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! See CZ:Discipline Workgroups to add yourself to whichever author workgroups you choose. -- David Tribe 18:20, 13 May 2007 (CDT)

A few words about workgroups

We are indeed happy to have you in the community. We would also like to introduce you to Citizendium's Workgroups and encourage you to--

1. Join a workgroup if you haven't already
2. Help us add workgroup category tags to articles, especially any articles you create
3. Help us spread the word about workgroups within the CZ community

What are workgroups? To answer that question, I'd like to give you a quick tour.

• Start by checking the various workgroups we have at CZ: List of Workgroups. This link can also be found in the left navigation-bar in the 2nd box (Project Pages), 3rd link in that box (Workgroups). The Workgroup Home(s) can be found in the 2nd column in the List of Workgroups.

• For the purposes of this tour, please take a look at the Biology Workgroup Home: CZ:Biology_Workgroup.
• Now let's take a look at the first table on the Biology Workgroup Home (below).

Workgroups are no longer used for group communications, but they still are used to group articles into fields of interest. Each article is assigned to 1-3 Workgroups via the article's Metadata.

Biology article	All articles (1,623)	To Approve (0)	Editors: active (1) / inactive (46) and Authors: active (441) / inactive (0)	Workgroup Discussion
	Recent changes	Citable Articles (25)
		Subgroups (12.5)

Checklist-generated categories: Underlinked (753) Cat Check (506) Cleanup (0) Subpage categories: Definitions (1,562) Related Articles (1,441 to check 710) Bibliography (400) External Links (446) Gallery (30) Video (33)

Missing subpage categories: Definitions (34) Related Articles (15) Bibliography (32) External Links (33) Article statuses: 104 Developed (status=1) 673 Developing (status=2) 699 Stub (status=3) 105 External (status=4) 128 Advanced (status 0-1) 801 Nonstub (status 0-2) 1,500 Internal (status 0-3)

• In the 2nd column, find the link that says, "all articles," which lists all articles that users have placed [[Category:Biology Workgroup]] at the bottom of their articles.
• Now click on the "recent changes" link underneath the "all articles" in the 2nd column in the top table. This lists all recent changes in articles that have been tagged [[Category:Biology Workgroup]]. In one glance, you can view all the changes that happened while you were away! Feel free to click on all the links to get an idea how the information for your workgroup is organized. All these lists are populated by articles that have the categories properly placed at the bottom of their pages.

This completes your virtual-tour of CZ workgroups. I hope you can see the usefulness of having all articles in Citizendium tagged properly with your Workgroup categories. Make sure to add the Workgroup category labels to your new articles. This is an important part of the Approval process.

Be sure to join a workgroup and take part in this opportunity to collaborate with others who have similar interests as you. You can see what others are working on in the Workgroup recent changes and join in! Remember, we want you to be bold in your contributions at Citizendium.

To add yourself to a workgroup, use the form [[Category:Education Authors|Smith, Bob]], etc., and add it to your user page. Substitute the proper work group for "Education" in the example, and your name-Last, First for the names in the example.

Do not add yourself to the Editors list, only CZ staff add "Editors" to user pages after proper review of applications is completed. To apply to become an editor, please see Editor Application Review Procedure.

To add a workgroup category tag to an article, use the form [[Category:Education Workgroup]] at the bottom of the article. Substitute in the proper workgroup for "Education" in the example.

If you are from Wikipedia originally, you may want to check out this article:

• Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians

Images for Global warming

Dear Raymond, thanks for your terrific job in Global warming! We were desperately looking for a real climatologist, and here you are! I received a message from Stephen Ewen which I copy-and-paste from my talk page:

If you wish to use images from IPCC reports, you can point me to the links for the images and I will see if they can be used of if they of such quality that we should seek permission, which I'd do.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 01:05, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

I suppose you might find this useful, if you are still working on the article.

Cheers, --Nereo Preto 01:58, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Oh, my. I was away for a while and this thing got away from me. Raymond Arritt 08:35, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Global warming & "dispute watch"

Dr. Arritt, we haven't "e-met" yet, but let me just add that I'm very glad that a real expert is on hand to guide global warming.

I should explain what I did on the talk page, however. We are very motivated to find a way to keep talk pages on controversial topics from descending into the usual sort of Internet "flame fests." Toward this end, we've studied how to prevent this "edit warring"--see [1]--and out of that, I've produced a tentative solution, involving something I'm calling a "Dispute Watch." If an article seems particularly controversial, and people are constantly engaging themselves in the controversy, instead of looking precisely at how the article should read, we will be able to say that the article is under dispute watch. This means that, after an article enters dispute watch, all argumentative comments have to be addressed directly to some issue about the wording of the article. For details, see: CZ:Dispute Watch.

Well, it just so happens that the very first person who acted contrary to the dispute watch in any case was...you! Please don't take this the wrong way--and please help us to evaluate the success of the "dispute watch" initiative.

What I think I'll do is simply move all of the pre-dispute watch comments to the archive, so people aren't tempted to reply to them. --Larry Sanger 09:11, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Hi Larry, I guess it's always a distinction to be first at something! I've been away from CZ for a while and was unaware of the "dispute watch" initiative. Looking at the "dispute watch" page I find it rather confusing, and in all honesty believe it will be unworkable. I'll stay away for a while until things cool down. Raymond Arritt 10:07, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Please don't--your input particularly at this stage is essential. Initiating a dispute watch is intended to immediately cool things down. I'm disappointed that the dispute watch page is confusing, but I accept it--I'll have to do something about that. Also, I admit that the concept may indeed be unworkable; but maybe not. The intention, in any case, is to ensure that you aren't having to battle with ideologues and people who simply want to argue, not work on the article. Again, the hope is that this will instantly cool things down; let's see!

Further, when do know when it is unnecessary to have the so-called "dispute watch" and how should content disputes be handled whilst not under "dispute watch"? Benjamin Seghers 10:39, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Only articles that have Category:Dispute Watch attached to them are under dispute watch. Otherwise, content disputes are handled the way polite adults handle disputes; there is no formal process, beyond the Constabulary stepping in, as necessary, to rein in incivility. --Larry Sanger 10:53, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

All right, I have worked some more on CZ:Dispute Watch. I think it should be a bit clearer now. Reviewing it, I do have to apologize--it really was unclear. Probably still is, but it's perhaps a bit better. --Larry Sanger 11:39, 3 August 2007 (CDT)

Just wanted to let you know, Dr. Arritt, that you were right, and I was wrong; the Dispute Watch experiment was a failure. Global warming is officially no longer under dispute watch. --Larry Sanger 10:25, 10 August 2007 (CDT)

This is a case where I'm not pleased to have been right. I think that something in the spirit of dispute watch could be useful, so let's keep thinking. Maybe "special oversight" or the like, where editors/stewards put the article high on their radar. Raymond Arritt 10:12, 11 August 2007 (CDT)

I think that if people adhere to the professionalism ideals that Citizendium strives for, there'd be little need for excessive oversight. If there is a genuine behavioral issue, I believe the constabulary will be able to dictate the necessary actions. If there is a genuine content issue, the editor(s) should be able to resolve the issue. Benjamin Seghers 12:56, 11 August 2007 (CDT)

Yes, one might well think that, but it hasn't been our experience that problems can be uniformly avoided. The central problem here is that, sometimes, pests can be perfectly polite and hence not "covered" by Constabulary-enforced rules. It's definitely a problem. --Larry Sanger 13:04, 11 August 2007 (CDT)

Any approvals?

Hi Raymond, do you believe is there any Earth Sciences article worth our attention, i.e., close to be ready for approval? My guess is, no, we don't have such articles. Global warming actually looks quite good, but not nearly as good as that on Wikipedia.

If you got the same idea on our article's average status -that is, far from approval-, may I ask you why, in your opinion? Should we do something to make things going better?

Cheers, --Nereo Preto 06:31, 16 September 2007 (CDT)

I agree, there aren't any articles that are close to approval. The main problem is that there simply aren't enough people working on them. I've been tweaking the Global warming article from time to time but don't want it to be "my" article; I'd rather be a resource for others. By all appearances Citizendium does not yet have a critical mass of contributors for this topic area. I could give my personal opinions as to why this is so, but this probably isn't the best venue for that. Raymond Arritt 11:08, 19 September 2007 (CDT)

Core Articles

Hi Raymond,

I started filling up a list of the 100 most important (and missing) articles in Earth Sciences. However, the list is getting unbalanced in favor of paleontology, stratigraphy, and geology overall. Could you add to the list, expecially in the fields of atmospheric and oceanographic sciences? The list is at CZ:Core Articles. Thanks, --Nereo Preto 14:02, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

I added a few obvious ones; possibly more to come. Raymond Arritt 15:47, 27 September 2007 (CDT)

Atmosphere...

Hi Raymond,

I saw your articles about the different layers of the atmosphere and wondered if you would want to write one for the atmosphere itself, too, as this is still missing. Links to your articles (Stratosphere, Troposphere, Homosphere, Mesosphere, Heterosphere, Thermosphere ) could be included there, you know.

Start it here directly!.

Thanks, Jochen Wendebaum 02:28, 20 November 2007 (CST)

Well? ;-) Jochen Wendebaum 02:45, 4 December 2007 (CST)

Maybe later. For the moment -- final exams, two conferences next week, college promotion and tenure committee, proposal deadline coming up soon... Raymond Arritt 10:05, 4 December 2007 (CST)