CZ:Council

The following information is not current. Older practices became guidance only after 15th November 2016, when the Citizendium project's last set of voted-on policies came into effect. Now that participation in the wiki is low, our current rules are finalized by the managing editor after listening carefully to participants and advisors. Changes may be suggested and discussed through in the forums.

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The Citizendium Council was the elected body of Citizens that was responsible for the content, technical and economic resources of the Citizendium and its related websites until November 2016. (See here for more on current governance.) It was authorized to:

• make all the administrative, financial and legal decisions for the Citizendium;
• take decisions over the content, format and organization of Citizendium articles;
• develop the rules of civility and behavior for Citizens participating on CZ and its related websites;
• adjudicate alleged violations of the rules;
• impose sanctions for violations of the rules;
• administer the "User Rights" of the software;
• develop operational procedures to implement the powers and institutions of the Charter when needed;
• appoint and supervise the activities of Moderators;
• conduct elections and certify the results of elections;
• set its own rules and by-laws for its meetings;
• manage technical matters of the software and hardware;
• establish and maintain public awareness of the Citizendium; and
• invite and establish collaboration with external partners on any matters relevant to the Citizendium's mission.

Previous governance

See also: CZ:Governance

The Council was created in August 2013 after Citizens voted to merge the Management and Editorial Councils. All rules and decisions passed by previous Councils remain in effect except where they contradict those of the Citizendium Council.

Decisions reached and motions passed by the Citizendium Council

• Proposed motions

2013

CC_2013_001	The Council requests Constable Matt Innis to grant sysop privileges for the test wiki to John Stephenson.
CC-2013-002	The Council requests Constable Matt Innis to grant sysop privileges for both the main and test wiki to Pat Palmer.
CC-2013-003	The Council requests Bureaucrat Matt Innis to add to sysop rights the rights of the Editorial Personnel Administrators, consisting of two rights: View requester’s and IP addresses while processing requested accounts (requestips), and View the queue with requested accounts (confirmaccount).
CC-2013-004	The Council authorizes the technical staff to implement Darren Duncan's hosting proposal as described here.
CC-2013-005	Whereas the duties of the constables are many, including daily checks, and whereas at the present time (September-October 2013) Citizendium has only one Constable on active duty, namely Chief Constable, Matt Innis, and whereas sysop John Stephenson has been active and performing some of the duties of the Constabulary and has indicated his willingness to serve as a Constable, the Citizendium Council hereby appoints John Stephenson to the Constabulary and requests the Chief Constable to invest John Stephenson with the rights of a Constable and the means to exercise those rights.
CC-2013-006	Motion Regarding Verification of Real Names Citizens responsible for creating accounts for applicants to Citizendium will verify that the applicant is requesting an account using his or her real name. An effective methodology or methodologies for verification of applicants names will be established by the Citizendium Council as mandated by referendum #8 (Reform and Simplification of the Account Creation Process) passed in the July-August 2013 election. The page entitled CZ: Real names policy (Real names policy) will be amended to add the following paragraph: “To ensure that contributors, whether to Citizendium’s knowledge base or to administrative functions, have registered under their real names, the Citizendium will employ a real names verification methodology appropriate to the applicant and as foolproof as is practically possible.” In the section of CZ:Why Citizendium headered Real names are better, which currently reads: “By requiring real names, we give both our articles and our community credibility: if you look at our recent changes page, you will see nothing but real names. Real names make it possible to enforce some modest, sensible rules, while Wikipedia's anonymity policy allows anyone who is slapped on the wrist to come back immediately under a new pseudonym. Citizendium has virtually no vandalism and little abuse of any kind. A community that asks its members to use their real names should be more pleasant and productive than one that allows abusive people to disrupt the community under the cloak of anonymity. We believe that in time, more and more people will come to see the merits of the Citizendium policy.” A paragraph will be added as follows: “To ensure that contributors, whether to Citizendium’s knowledge base or to administrative functions, have registered under their real names, the Citizendium will employ a real names verification methodology appropriate to the applicant and as foolproof as is practically possible.”

2014

CC-2014-001

The Council appoints Christine Bush Editorial Personnel Administrator, and requests the Constabulary to assign her the appropriate User Rights and give her guidance as needed. NB: Christine resigned the position subsequently.

CC-2014-002

The Citizendium Council moves to authorize Constable John Stephenson to develop on the main wiki forum boards to replace those of the current non-wiki Citizendium forums. The old archives of the existing forums should be kept as a read-only archive until an alternative is found.. The Council directs John to comply with the existing rules regarding the structure of the forums as delineated by the ruling of the previous Management Council. Also the Council directs John to mimic the current non-wiki Citizendium forums as closely as possible. Notices should be placed at the top of Council boards to prohibit non-members posting, on pain of Constabulary sanction. (Two strikes = ban) Regarding the issue of providing for input from non-users, Council requests John to set up a venue for that using Google Groups. The Council also moves that the Constabulary monitor the new forums on the wiki for abuses that they currently monitor on the main wiki. The Council directs the technical staff to create a Space on the wiki for the forum so no forum functionality will be lost (advisory by John Stephenson). When John has completed the development of the forums on the wiki, the Citizendium Council will evaluate and approve or make suggestions for improvement..

Community decisions

Decisions, or requests, made about or to the Council via passed community referenda.

June 2016

• Prioritising technical maintenance and upgrades (July 2016-)

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