User talk:Larry Sanger

Larry Sanger

Notice that main namespace articles are not currently being displayed. Jason broke something while fixing something else, but he's on top of it. --Larry Sanger 14:23, 29 October 2006 (CST)

Thank you for the opportunity to participate. I will be doing presentations and panels at numerous conferences in the next few weeks (ALN Online Learning conference in Orlando, ISSOTL Society for the Study of Teaching and Learning in DC, AMIA Medical Informatics Assn. in DC, and the annual Internet2 conference in Chicago) - I will share my enthusiasm for Citizendium at all of these venues... viral, indeed! -- ray 09:46, 31 October 2006 (CST)

Excellent! Sounds like great publicity and a source of good advisers for the project. --Larry Sanger 10:47, 31 October 2006 (CST)

Expertise and degrees

Responded on the forums as requested at [1]. - Connelly Barnes 00:33, 28 January 2007 (CST)

Infoboxes...

Hello Mr. Sanger,

If I may ask what is the situation with info boxes? They currently don’t show up so I am wondering if it’s a technical problem or if you want them removed. What course of action would you like to take?

Thanks,

Eric Pokorny 14:20, 31 October 2006 (CST)

I think many info boxes can stay, at least for now. There's a whole bunch of things we need to work through. I'd say more but I'm in a rush--should be more active on the wiki later on. --Larry Sanger 14:46, 31 October 2006 (CST)

A vague, but important suggestion

Hi Larry: You are a busy man, so I'll keep this as short as I can. Coming from Wikipedia, I've developed a social objection to the almost communistic level-playing field that has developed. Adminship is often downplayed to simply a set of tools for the trusted, not an actual position worthy of any special veneration. This website seems to be more of a hierarchy (forgive the pejoritive), but I consider this a benefit not to ensure my own place on the ladder, but because of what this social system can do for the encyclopedia.

In order to spur them on, the self-serving but well-meaning authors, they need recognition. From a psychological standpoint, most ambitious contributions to a site such as this are done with the expectation (conscious or unconscious) of congratulations or respect. Not to say that everyone contributes entirely to this end, but I can say in all sincerity that with recognition productivity will have explode.

Acknowledging that experts will ultimately have the highest posts, perhaps there could be more positions for those with fewer credentials based on contributions (maybe an RfA-type process)? You know how charity organizations have about a dozen levels of contributors? (supporter, patron, benefactor, Jesus, etc.) Even if the position names are meaningless and the increase in priveledge equally meaningless, it'll drive the cattle. If it works, it'll be a well-run federal system. If it doesn't, it'll be the Medieval Catholic church.

Or, if a hierarchal system is too cumbersome, perhaps a more regulated version of the barnstar? Adam Biswanger 23:10, 31 October 2006 (CST)

Adam, thanks for the note. Actually, I think that rewarding people for their amounts of participation in this way actually works against participation. Exactly as I feared back in 2001, the ways in which Wikipedia distinguishes "the old guard" tends to make those people an "in" group that excludes and makes it hard to collaborate with newer, but actually better-qualified, people. I propose something common-sensical: people should be recognized for their ability to contribute, not for the number of edits they've made.

Still, I don't feel terribly strongly about this, and I could change my mind with more argument. Moreover, other people will be in charge of the project in a few years, if it lasts that long! --Larry Sanger 23:17, 31 October 2006 (CST)

Having just received my first "Your article linked from the mainpage" template/award/rectangularbarnstar I know that it has certainly motivated me to write some more Wikipedia articles. I've also been known to (succesfully) use gold-star stickers to motivate middle-aged profesionals to sign-off on IT projects. There's a strong psychological response to recognition, with some tradeoff in the dynamic tension of competition. It's worth thinking about.
brenneman 21:16, 27 December 2006 (CST)

There are also some studies by guys like Stanford poster-child BJ Fogg that tie the sucess of sites like Flickr and MySpace to quasi-random positive feedback for actions that improve the site. - brenneman 20:52, 4 January 2007 (CST)

Welcome

Glad to be here Larry, thanks for doing this! --W Guy Finley 07:31, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Languages

What about non English Citizendiums? I would love to start a German one (beside contributing to the English) one. There seems to be a minor glich when to thumbnail jpegs, so are there any image rules, yet? Stefan Sels 07:36, 1 November 2006 (CST)

The current plan is to launch Citizendia in other languages after the English one is launched, and we have a better idea about how to organize this sort of project. You must remember that no one has ever done anything quite like this before. But I'm increasingly persuaded that there is enough demand for this sort of fork of Wikipedia in other languages.

As to images, there is a bug report re thumbnails in; they're working on all sorts of stuff, so it's hard to say when that one will be fixed. See http://forge.citizendium.org/ --Larry Sanger 11:42, 1 November 2006 (CST)

A question related to this. Shall we keep the interwiki links? I mean the links of an article to other languages. This is not working in Citizendium currently because there are no other languages, but if they are launched, it will mostly work, since then we copy also the other interwikies.

--Matthias Brendel 09:05, 5 December 2006 (CST)

Pronunciations at top of page?

Larry, I have a general editing question that is holding me up a bit. I put it here because it concerns format of article pages. In science and most technical articles, there is a challenge to put things in plain language and to write in a narrative way that explains things. It's easy to repel a reader who is making a good faith effort to learn about a new subject. I would like to propose a uniform format to pages that has a heading above the main body of the article that explains the derivation of the name rather than putting that information in the introductory sentence. I would also like to propose a preferred style of sticking to words that explain a subject in plain language that would be expected to be understood by any literate reader. If you are interested I can give you examples. I think we need to pull together in format and plain language style in order to be a better reference, more user -friendly. Nancy Sculerati MD 13:06, 1 November 2006 (CST)

I think we should discuss such relatively minor matters of policy on the CZ Forums...but I just realized that none of the boards as currently set up really are appropriate venues for this question. So I made a new one, called "Article Policy." Also, I uploaded your comment to that forum, here! Click there for my reply :-) --Larry Sanger 13:18, 1 November 2006 (CST)

Thanks for the heads up

Oh sure, I make my first edit and it's to my own user page and the boss comes and smacks me down! Go figure ;).

In all seriousness, this fills a much needed niche and it's great to be here. I doubt that I'll contribute much until my comprehensive exams are over. The fourth one, on philosophy of language, is next week. I'll be sure to think of you! Joshua Villines 21:16, 5 November 2006 (CST)

LOL! Thanks and good luck on the exam. Philosophy of language isn't easy. --Larry Sanger 21:16, 5 November 2006 (CST)

How often are articles updated from WP?

...and how much of a change is needed to make an article CZ Live? 1 paragraph? More? Thanks. --Nicholas Kaye-Smith 00:42, 15 November 2006 (CST)

One paragraph would do it, or several-to-many changes (e.g., copyediting) throughout. If you're going to make fewer changes than that, don't bother. --Larry Sanger 00:51, 15 November 2006 (CST)

Thanks. See my title as well (How often are articles updated from Wikipedia?) --Nicholas Kaye-Smith 01:15, 15 November 2006 (CST)

They haven't been yet. The refresh software, if it's available, hasn't been installed. --Larry Sanger 01:22, 15 November 2006 (CST)

Hi Larry. I was going to ask you the same thing about the updates actually. There is an article I want to work on that has been significantly improved on Wikipedia (partly by me actually) and I would like to work on it here rather than there, but the version on Citizendium is quite old. The article is Computational complexity theory. How should I proceed? Would it be ok to just copy in the newest Wikipedia version and paste in the edit history somehwere? Or is there some other way to do this?--Konstantin Tchernov 06:57, 20 November 2006 (CST)

Hi Konstantin, yes, of course it would be fine to paste the latest WP version over our relatively undeveloped older copy. --Larry Sanger 10:59, 20 November 2006 (CST)

If I can butt in - I'd recommend using your edit summary, and saying "This page copied from <then use the perma-link here>. --ZachPruckowski 11:59, 20 November 2006 (CST)

Project groups ?

Hello Larry. I can't figure out if project groups have been defined for people wanting to work on specific subjects. Can you help me on this or tell me where to find the information ? Thanks. Jérôme

Bonjour Jérôme, I haven't yet actually set them up. However, you--or, frankly, anyone--can assist in this by going to CZ:Discipline Workgroups and setting up some discipline workgroup homepages. In fact there are a few things on my to do list that you (or, again, nearly anyone) can take off my hands:

1. On CZ:Discipline Workgroups, we want several columns in a table: the article page (e.g., Philosophy); the workgroup homepage (e.g., CZ:Philosophy Workgroup; the article category page (e.g., Category:Philosophy Workgroup); the editor category page (e.g., CZ:Philosophy Editors; maybe an author category page (e.g., CZ:Philosophy authors).
2. By the way, I much prefer "Category:Philosophy Workgroup" to "Category:Philosophy," because what we are categorizing are not articles, but which workgroup has responsibility for which articles. This is an important difference! We don't want all and only articles that happened to be categorized "Philosophy" articles by Wikipedia necessarily to be managed by our own Philosophy workgroup. For this we make our own decisions.
3. Announce the existence of these pages on citizendium-editors!

Also, sorry for my failure to reply to your earlier e-mail message, which was extremely interesting to me. I'm behind on everything unfortunately. --Larry Sanger 14:32, 19 November 2006 (CST)

No problem. I'll move them, or someone else can move them to the right place. I was sort of confused as to why you hadn't used categories in the first place. --ZachPruckowski 21:48, 19 November 2006 (CST)

OK, apparently I can't move pages into the category namespace. So if you or another sysop could speedy delete those pages, I'd be much obliged. I'll wait until tomorrow to add the template to all the pages (because I have work to do tonight and to wait for it to settle out). The templates are {{Editor_list|Field=XXX}} and {{Author_list|Field=XXX}} where XXX is the field name. --ZachPruckowski 21:54, 19 November 2006 (CST)

OK thanks! --Larry Sanger 21:55, 19 November 2006 (CST)

Navigation bar at top of editor and author lists

Great job, this was exactly what i was trying to achieve yesterday. Not sure if you noticed me fiddling with the template or not. Navigation in the work group is very easy now. Thanks. Chris Day (Talk) 13:19, 21 November 2006 (CST)

One problem that still needs to be refined is that the colour needs to be defined similarly to the field or group. It is currently lightblue for all regardless of the whether it is humanities or natural science. I'll see if I can fix it when i have a spare moment. Chris Day (Talk) 13:29, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Sure, if that matters :-) --Larry Sanger 17:36, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Probably not but since you have gone to the bother of colour coding the natural sciences and humanities etc. On the other hand, it might be better to let these workgroups evolve independantly. Organisation is good but writing is more important at present. Actually, figuring out how to communicate with each other and getting real collaborations going should be the priority. Hopefullly the forums you set up will get things rolling. Chris Day (Talk) 20:44, 21 November 2006 (CST)

Protected page

The page of Anarchism is protected.--Versuri 05:25, 22 November 2006 (CST)

Not anymore! Smash authority!  ;-) I thought Greg Mullane had fixed this. We're unprotected all pages. I hope CZ will not need to protect any pages, ever... --Larry Sanger 22:16, 22 November 2006 (CST)

CZ Live Tag

Thanks for the clarification! I thought the CZ Live tag was for articles touched by the CZ pilot.... I'm off to remove some tags... =] --William Weaver 22:24, 22 November 2006 (CST)

Thanks again... I put them back (pant!). Happy Thanksgiving! Go Buckeyes! -Bill =] --William Weaver 00:01, 23 November 2006 (CST)

Userboxes

While most userboxes at Wikipedia are frivolous, and they won't be missed on CZ, surely Babel boxes would be a help to cooperation here? Christopher Culver 11:38, 28 November 2006 (CST)

I'll bite--how would they be a help to cooperation here? --Larry Sanger 17:26, 28 November 2006 (CST)

People with only a passive command of English can still contribute by pointing out errors in the editing of a given user. However, their English might not be good enough to make an eloquent case to that user, so if they can see on his User page that he understands their native language, they can comfortably write the comment in that idiom. Christopher Culver 17:44, 28 November 2006 (CST)

Why not simply encourage people to say what their native tongues are, if it's not obvious? --Larry Sanger 18:30, 28 November 2006 (CST)

Which is what I do. I think the babel boxes are a reasonable idea because they are more systematized. Chris is obviously quite a polyglot, and to have a long list of those languages would not look anywhere near as good (or easy to use) as the babel box. On another note, the categories might have a use, say you wanted to find a user who wanted to speak X, the categories would give a reasonable way to do that. Personally I don't use babel boxes, but I can appreciate that some people would want to. - Francis Tyers 02:35, 29 November 2006 (CST)

Well, what user boxes generally do--and this is why I oppose them, including in this case--is specifically to categorize and thus distinguish people based on largely irrelevant abilities, interests, background, etc. This creates competition which leads to jealousy and dissention. --Larry Sanger 12:48, 29 November 2006 (CST)

How is listing what languages one speaks any different than presenting one's other qualifications, which we were told would be the important purpose of CZ user pages? Christopher Culver 13:34, 29 November 2006 (CST)

I don't think the problem is with listing of languages (as I have done), i think it is specifically about "userboxes". But I'm unsure what the problem is there. Is it categorisation? (I think this is useful but it could be removed), is it a style thing? The style could be changed... Or is it just a gut feeling against userboxes because of the nonsense that goes on on Wikipedia? :) I mean it is understandable, but make it clear. - Francis Tyers 13:41, 29 November 2006 (CST)

How is what languages a person speaks irrelevant? I would have thought it is highly relevant if you have a source that you can't read and are searching for someone who can. - Francis Tyers 13:40, 29 November 2006 (CST)

What your line of reasoning seems to support is that we make and standardize all sorts of information about a person. Why not create a template form that includes degrees, interests, occupation, etc.--and languages? I would be opposed to such a thing. Why? Because it involves standardization and, as it were, quantification of identities. This makes it easier to compare people and that, in turn leads to the sort of competition, jealousy, and dissention that I'm warning against. In fact, it's something that I strongly warned against in Wikipedia days. To create colleagues and collegial behavior, it is extremely important that we treat each other as individuals in all of their idiosyncratic glory. Thus, if you think that your languages are important to note, then list them however you wish on your user page; just don't try to standardize the presentation. --Larry Sanger 13:57, 29 November 2006 (CST)

So... is it ok for Chris to have userboxes on his page in his "idiosyncratic glory" :) -- so long as no-one else copies him? It isn't really standardisation if just himself is doing it. - Francis Tyers 03:35, 30 November 2006 (CST)

The argument is about finding the right person to collaborate with. For degrees, interests, and occupation, insofar as they relate to collaborating, we have discipline workgroups, so templates are not needed, but we have nothing similar for languages. Unlike a university, we have a physics 'department' but no Russian department. So languages are a very specific problem and the arguments in favour of solving it do not support using templates or standardising more generally. Damien Storey 16:21, 29 November 2006 (CST)

Right. Moreover, we will no doubt have a Russian literature and language "department" once we start developing the literature (and/or linguistics) groups. Furthermore, presumably there will be CZs in other languages--the level of interest has made that pretty clear to me. --Larry Sanger 17:04, 29 November 2006 (CST)

Francis: userboxes are inherently not "idiosyncratic" because they are templates. They invite imitation of not just the content, but also the form. --Larry Sanger 13:14, 30 November 2006 (CST)

Politicians and leaders

Larry, I am not sure about the categories. Should Politicians and leaders be included in Politics Workgroup?--Versuri 17:08, 1 December 2006 (CST)

No, most of them belong in History. If still living and influential, then perhaps Politics. --Larry Sanger 17:09, 1 December 2006 (CST)

What about Technology? Would it be Engineering?--Versuri 15:40, 3 December 2006 (CST)

This will require some judgment. Ask a geek. For some it's engineering, others computers, still others we might want to use another category like biology or even "other applied arts." --Larry Sanger 15:45, 3 December 2006 (CST)

• See Category:Geography Editors. This user is not an editor. --Versuri 08:08, 5 December 2006 (CST)

Fixed. --Larry Sanger 11:12, 5 December 2006 (CST)

Let editors and responsibilities be visible

I find it hard to find out whi is an editor of what. Could we have a system to make this explicit and user friendly?

I have 3 solutions:

1)For example I have seen that you deleted every Portal from WIkipedia. I find that portals are somewhat redundant to cathegories, but we could use it in a way that an editor has the responsibility to create the portal of his topic and gather all the articles there, which are of his responsibilities. On the portal we copuld have a link: "the editor of this topic is: x.y."

2) We could use categories for this. On every cathegory page an editor can state that he is the responsible editor of that category.

3) We could use separate categories for responsible editors. So If x.y. is an editor then he has a category of "the articles x.y. is responsible for". Of course the name can be simple, like "Editor: x.y." this way it will be automatic that every article would contain the information, who is responsible fr that article.

I find it important that it should be seeable: "what is the work of this editor?" (it is of course not only his work), i.e. what is he responsible for, and also the other direction: "who is responsible for this?".

Clear and seeable responsibilities are the key for high quality. --Matthias Brendel 09:13, 5 December 2006 (CST)

Something like (2) is already the case; it is what we are using workgroup categories for. Explore the links on CZ:Discipline Workgroups. --Larry Sanger 11:14, 5 December 2006 (CST)

I have seen that, but this is not good enough. I can not claim to be an expert in Philosophy or Mathematics as a whole, but I would like to be an editor in Artificial Intelligence and Logical Positivism.

So can I simply go to these cathegories and claim there that I am an editor of them?

Using the categories it would be obvious for me and for any author, in which articles I have responsibilities.

--Matthias Brendel 04:48, 7 December 2006 (CST)

I created the category Artificial intelligence Editor I cannot link it sorry. Do you think this is a good solution? This category is a sub-category of the category Artificial Intelligence. This way it is reachable from there. It would be better if I could use a link in the decription of Artificial Intelligence, but that is not possible with categories. Do you think this solution is OK in general?

--Matthias Brendel 05:31, 7 December 2006 (CST)

It's no longer the case that you can simply claim to be an editor of a category; the editors themselves seem to have been quite opposed to that proposal.

Well, we need to create subcategories of existing categories. In the case of topics as narrow as logical positivism, we may want to create such things as specialty editors. We haven't actually started doing this yet, though. --Larry Sanger 12:06, 7 December 2006 (CST)

I am not pleased with you solution. I find it necessary that it is visible for every editor, what are his responsibilities, and it should be vesible for every category, who is responsible for it. It should also be easy to find this out starting from an article.

If somebody watches an article, he should be able to find out with 2 clicks, who is responsible for this article.

With your solution the editors have n livelly connections with their articles and vice versa. I ahavent seen any editor till yet doing anything.

--Matthias Brendel 06:32, 13 December 2006 (CST)

Village pump

Do we or can we have something like that?

--Matthias Brendel 09:32, 5 December 2006 (CST)

A "village pump" is simply not necessary since we have the forums. If the forums seem insufficiently integrated with this wiki, the trick would be to add links. Aha, I will add a sidebar link now. --Larry Sanger 11:05, 5 December 2006 (CST)

The biggest issue with the Village Pump on Wikipedia is that many, many times the page's archives were removed or lost. Please ensure the forums are properly archived. --Jason Scott 13:28, 1 February 2007 (CST)

I'm pretty sure we have backups, anyway. --Larry Sanger 13:31, 1 February 2007 (CST)

Please let us move/rename categories

I would like to correct a capital letter in a category, why can I not rename it?

--Matthias Brendel 04:33, 11 December 2006 (CST)

Hi Matthias--category names are case-sensitive. To rename a category, you would have to visit every single article that uses that category name. But please don't bother yourself too much about this; we may be deleting most article categories anyway. --Larry Sanger 12:26, 11 December 2006 (CST)

Talk page guidelines

In the absence of any decisions to the contrary, I have been following the guidelines set down in the wikipedia help files. My addition at the top of the Talk:Biology page was only restating what those guidelines say (though they actually say 'be sure to' rather than 'please'). There are just two points I'd like to raise.

1. My addition was to create Documentation at the talk page. It was not a comment for discussion. Therefor it does not need to be signed. The same as we don't sign edits to article pages.

2. Documentation at the top of talk pages is not set is stone. It's not part of the discussion and so is not privilege to the 'no edit' rule of comments. If you don't like my wording — change it! Derek Harkness 09:10, 13 December 2006 (CST)

In Derek's defense the reason for archiving was that Nancy had selectively deleted all her comments. We assumed a 'normal' archive would be the better route to go since context was lost with the removal of Nancy's contributions. Chris Day (Talk) 11:09, 13 December 2006 (CST)

I wasn't at all complaining about archiving. We can't not archive talk pages, because they get too long. Derek, no worries. I'm a bit amused by your claim, "Documentation at the top of talk pages is not set is stone." How do you know? You shouldn't make any assumptions based on WP, which frequently acts like an insane cargo cult, and therefore can't be taken as an example. We definitely will be revamping WP procedures where necessary. --Larry Sanger 15:33, 13 December 2006 (CST)

OK now I get you. It was the directive not the archiving. I think that is good to have an overview of main themes brought up in discussion. Chris Day (Talk) 17:06, 13 December 2006 (CST)

'"Documentation at the top of talk pages is not set is stone." How do you know?' Because nobody has said otherwise. I agree many WP procedures need revamped. However your argument fails either way round. If we are following the WP guides until told otherwise, then my statement is correct to normal WP practice. If we are not following the WP guides, then there's no rules, so my statement is still correct - there's nothing setting anything in stone. You may decide to introduce a new rule that says the documentation cannot be edited but such a rule does not yet exist. However, I don't see a reason why such a rule is needed. IMHO, the fewer rules the better. The Documentation space needs to be edited in order for it to function. E.g. next time the page is archived.

I feel your comments on the biology page are chastising me for breaking rules that did not exist. I feel you could have dealt with your complaint on my wording in different ways. for example, I think if you simply edited the line and removed the sentence you dislike that nobody would complain. Derek Harkness 11:19, 14 December 2006 (CST)

Chill, Derek. Nobody is chastizing you. Often, on a wiki, rules are made by encouraging people to behave differently--for the very first time. Moreover, this is necessary. "If we are following the WP guides until told otherwise, then my statement is correct to normal WP practice." We aren't following WP procedural guides until told otherwise. The point is that hardly anything is set in stone. I think we can agree on that! And if hardly anything is set in stone, nobody is chastizing you! --Larry Sanger 11:32, 14 December 2006 (CST)

CZ live category

Hi! This category is not for those articles, wich are good enough to be readable to anyone, not just CZ members? Maybe I misread/misunderstood something... --Blaise Viczian 04:33, 14 December 2006 (CST)

"CZ Live" means merely that we've been at work on an article, not that it's approved. It's a way to distinguish "our" articles from mere Wikipedia articles. --Larry Sanger 10:27, 14 December 2006 (CST)

Question #2: What to do with the interwiki and commons links? And the pictures, and the templates? (for ex: Under IE6 all the templates are ugly and/or fallen into parts) --[[User:Blaise Viczian|Blasius^{[[User talk:Blaise Viczian|talk to me]]}]] 04:43, 14 December 2006 (CST)

Interwiki: delete. Commons, pictures, and most templates: leave for now. The templates will look better after we've fiddled some more with settings. We'll be deleting some of those wholesale later. --Larry Sanger 10:27, 14 December 2006 (CST)

Ok, thanks. I'd like to start the Politics workgroup, but I've got no idea, (well hv some, but I don't know it they fit here) about how to start it. Can you give me please some tips? --BV^{talk to me} 04:30, 15 December 2006 (CST)

Let me put some ideas linked from the top of CZ:Discipline Workgroups. --Larry Sanger 11:55, 15 December 2006 (CST)

Managing multidisciplinary topics

I am quoting from the Engineering Workgroup Discussion page.-

I would like to make the entry Clinical_decision_support_system reach an approval stage. However, that would require active help from others interested in that area. How do we proceed? Supten 01:00, 14 December 2006 (CST)

Supten, if no one responds to you here, I recommend you post on the forums. I also wonder whether this is not better placed under the computers workgroup. I don't know, but it's just something that came to mind. One thing I want to do in the coming weeks is to form a committee that will work out the competencies of the various disciplines workgroups. --Larry Sanger 01:35, 14 December 2006 (CST)

There is neither any response here, nor in the forum [2]. Actually I am a bit confused regarding how to proceed. This was the first article that I had started work in CZ and have added substantially to the WP version. However, it is actually an interdisciplinary (superspecialized) topic and therefore even computers workgroup may not be able to address the problem adequately. Supten 23:40, 15 December 2006 (CST)

Sorry about that--well, I think that five or six is a quorum for purposes of approving articles. There are two ways to go about doing it. If you've written the article mostly yourself, which is my impression, then pretty much the only way you can have the article approved is if someone else does the approving, or you get two more people working on it, and then you can approve it yourself with their concurrence. The challenge therefore is, generally, to get others interested in the article. What I would encourage you to do is to ask other editors in the workgroup--see Category:Engineering Editors--to help you out. Another option would be to find a group of medical engineers online and ask them both to join CZ and to make their first task to work on the article with you. --Larry Sanger 01:14, 16 December 2006 (CST)

Chiropractic Article

Larry, copyediting should not preclude approval. After your comments on the talk page, Matt has made more changes and taken off the To Approve template. We certainly do not want an article approved that is not worthy, but worthy is not "perfect" which would imply perfectly copyedited. Do we want to have an approval standard that means CZ has a broad range of approved articles or not? If we require that articles be not only "greatly approved from their WP versions", approved by 3 editors, accurate, neutral point of view, coherent, and interesting BUT ALSO PERFECTLY COPYEDITED then you can bet there won't be approved articles, especially if and when we have thousands of users. I would not trouble you on the talk page, but I have already made this point in the biology article and it had substantial agreement in the forums. We need a clearer policy so that we can freeze an approved article and SUBSEQUENTLY copyedit it. Nancy Sculerati MD

Nancy, I'm sorry. Now, I don't require perfection and I don't think we should require perfection. But the problems I saw were pretty far below perfection. The article is, I agree, extremely good, and very close to approval stage. --Larry Sanger 12:32, 20 December 2006 (CST)

Larry, Thanks for your comments on the Chiropractic article. I think we editors spend so much time with our noses against the screen that we lose sight of the big picture. The copyedits you suggested were right on and made sense when I re-read the article. I rearranged some, cleaned up some, and added some. It does seem to flow better and makes more sense. Can you take another look and see if I have been able to address your copyediting concerns - and make more comments if you see anything else (feel free to make any changes you think are necessary as well). Then once we get everybody else together again, we can once again hammer out details. Thanks! --Matt Innis (Talk) 09:26, 21 December 2006 (CST)

Spam forum

Take a look at the forum. --Versuri 09:57, 21 January 2007 (CST)

"First recruit"

Hi Larry. I'd love to claim the distinction of being the first recruit under the new system, but I actually registered almost a week ago, but no one approved me (or maybe my "let me in" email got lost). But when I saw your message to Citizendium-L tonight I figured that the system might let me in without a manual switch of my status. Ian Ramjohn 19:48, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Oh, I see! Sorry about the delay. All the personnel admins have been extremely busy and we've been falling down on the job. --Larry Sanger 19:50, 22 January 2007 (CST)

No problem. I should have shut up and claimed the distinction anyway ;) Ian Ramjohn 20:03, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Is it possible for the Citizendium community to share the administrator work-load? --Christian Steinbach 03:54, 23 January 2007 (CST)

Required summaries

Warning people who haven't provided a summary is kind of a neat feature for the articles, but it gets annoying when you're using a talk page. Is there any way to turn this off for talk pages? Anthony 20:28, 22 January 2007 (CST)

I'm not sure what you mean--what warning? Let me try not using a summary... Well, I don't get a warning, I wonder why not and you do. Oh, it's a setting. See Special:Preferences and click on "Editing" and then uncheck "Prompt me when entering a blank edit summary". Probably we can set the default "off." Could you send a mail to bugs@citizendium.org to that effect? --Larry Sanger 20:34, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Indeed, it is a preference, and I guess the default was set to "on". Here I thought you went and had someone code that up especially for CZ.  :) Should I send an email to bugs saying that you want to set the default to "off"? Anthony 20:45, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Yes please. --Larry Sanger 20:53, 22 January 2007 (CST)

OK, done, now I'm off for the night. Anthony 20:57, 22 January 2007 (CST)

Thanks! --Larry Sanger 21:16, 22 January 2007 (CST)

re: your comment

Hi Larry, Yes I do understand that forking/unforking does not really affect whether Wikipedia will take our content or not. Don't take me wrong, I'm not completely giving up and leaving in protest like I have seen others do, I will see how everything goes for the next few weeks/months and I will come back if I'm convinced that there is a future here - I have a lot of other things that I could be spending my time on, so I would really like to see that my work will not just disappear into obscure parts of the internet. I mentioned the unforking busieness not because I think it is such a bad idea, but because it made me realise that CZ has a very long way to go until it becomes recognized and has a lot going against it. --Konstantin Tchernov 01:07, 23 January 2007 (CST)

Well, Konstantin, we aren't idiots.  :-) If we see that there is less activity, or not as much as we might expect, then we will refork. In either case, you should see substantial activity, and thus there is no reason to take a break at all!  :-)

Yes, we've always had a long way to go in either case. But do not underestimate our potential. I don't, because I saw the growth of Wikipedia first hand and I know how it happened. I am seeing the same things happen--and I will be very interested to watch the Google effect, when we launch publicly and begin more viral growth than we have now. It will take time, true, but as long as we are growing--as we are--then it is only a matter of time before we have a bulk of material comparable to Wikipedia. --Larry Sanger 08:12, 23 January 2007 (CST)

I am enjoying this,Larry

Larry, you will be please to know that I have started working on some British Commonwealth numismatic articles. So, please feel free to look through my contributions list. You may not be aware that I have decided to create some categories in relation to numismatics, as there will eventually be some coin and banknote collectors who will be joining us. I am hoping to be a much better Citizendian than I was as a Wikipedian. - (Aidan Work 00:51, 27 January 2007 (CST))

A comment here was deleted by The Constabulary on grounds of making complaints about fellow Citizens. If you have a complaint about the behavior of another Citizen, e-mail constables@citizendium.org. It is contrary to Citizendium policy to air your complaints on the wiki. See also CZ:Professionalism.

RE:Welcome

Thanks for the welcome, Dr. Sanger. This is an interesting concept shift from Wikipedia, and I look forward to contributing and seeing how the project develops! Richard Simões 18:54, 30 January 2007 (CST)

Welcome! I was travelling for a few days but am back now. --Larry Sanger 21:30, 31 January 2007 (CST)

how are the ties??

Larry One thing that struck me as odd, I mean where is Jekyll and where is Hyde. Beesly - Sanger :) Check your talk page and wipe the sh*t away that person left behind. I do have one serious request (rubbing my hands, grabbing additional salt): will you please put the welcoming message in the user TALK page and not in tehe USER page? (rub it in rub it in). Thanks, glad to be able to pull your legs for a change :)). Robert Tito 14:08, 31 January 2007 (CST)

(-: Reverted... --Larry Sanger 21:30, 31 January 2007 (CST)

crowded logo??

dont sit on top of it then please Robert Tito 21:51, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Roberto, we need to talko about how many can sito on the logo. --Larry Sanger 22:06, 31 January 2007 (CST)

trio musta beo to mucho :) Robert Tito 22:25, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Categories

Larry:

All I wanted to do was make 'Category:English queen consorts' go away. When I couldn't find out how to edit it away, I tried replacing it with 'Category:English queens consort' and redirecting it, but that didn't work, and that article is the stub I was using to try to redirect it to a non-empty place, since I couldn't make it go to an empty one, but it kept saying there was an editing conflict I don't understand. When I tried to ask a question, I kept being directed to a place it said I had to register and couldn't start a new subject, and I didn't know what that was all about, so I gave up and was getting ready to send you this message when I got yours. Where, please, is there a page I can ask questions by editing them onto a CZ page 24/7 without doing e-mails I have to go to mailboxes to open or postings to forums/fora I don't know how to do?

Also, how come some pages have such big type, like your talk page now, and some are formatted too wide for me to read on my screen, like the one about choosing a dog yesterday? k kay 23:07, 31 January 2007 (CST)

Er...I don't know? Please press that "Questions?" button on the left and ask away. --Larry Sanger 14:28, 1 February 2007 (CST)

recruitment letter

http://pilot.citizendium.org/wiki/Citizendium_Pilot:Recruitment_Letter#Version_2_for_Biological_.2F_Health_Sciences

Larry, could you help me on this? -Tom Kelly (Talk) 23:41, 31 January 2007 (CST)

I hope to make time soon! As usual, catching up is a big chore. --Larry Sanger 14:26, 1 February 2007 (CST)

protection of pages

Hi Larry, Protection of pages using a MAC does NOT work. You can put it in edit mode, but selecting/deleting of options is impossible. hence you remain with an unprotected page, I tried to protect Nancy's pages during the vandal attack as she was treated rather rude but I couldnt do it in the way I expected or wanted it to work. Robert Tito 13:23, 1 February 2007 (CST)

Hi Rob, to protect a page, you only need to press the "protect" button. Why do you need to select or delete options in order to do this? --Larry Sanger 14:21, 1 February 2007 (CST) OK, I tested it out. I see what you mean now, you do need to select "Sysops Only". What happens when you try to select it? You should be able to do that on any computer using any browser. --Larry Sanger 14:24, 1 February 2007 (CST) Hi Larry, I get NO feed abck WHAT is protected when I select ONE option. If I try to protect edit (sysops) AND move (sysops) that is impossible to do, strange the combo is possible then. see ya. Rob

searching for new users with the right interests and level /* CUT */

Larry, Due to the large amount of new users it starts to get errattic to find people you might be looking for to work on particular topics. Is there a script that enables us to look for users with qualification/field/topic knowledge A and B? It would be nice to get a list with possible candidates then to ask them if they are willing to contribute so a certain topic as either author or editor. Hope there is such a script. Robert Tito 23:10, 2 February 2007 (CST)

Go to search, then scroll to the bottom of the search results, and search the User namespace. That's the best I can do right now, I'm afraid. --Larry Sanger 00:46, 3 February 2007 (CST)

Citizendium's Village Pump?

Dr. Sanger,
Congratulations for your project, you're really making history!
I have a question: why don't we use a Citizendium page to support Citizens discussions in the same way of Wikipedia's Village Pump? I guess many Citizens don't like that Forum, because its no-”wikiform/structure” and the fact that it's out of Citizendium (needing one more password). --Roberto Cruz 17:53, 3 February 2007 (CST)

I hope you are right. I am optimistic, but you know that hubris leads to nemesis. And you know why? Because hubristic people get complacent and complacency opens one up to all sorts of weaknesses. Well, I ain't complacent, I can guarantee you that. When I say I am optimistic, I mean only that I am not worrying quite as much.  :-) Somebody really ought to write an article about hubris, not just about the meaning of the word, but about the ancient Greek concept. I'd be quite interested. Actually, I see that Wikipedia's article looks reasonably good--but what do I know, I'm just a philosopher.

Anyway, as to a Village Pump, I'm not sure that the extra complexity of the total discussion system would "pay for itself." Granted, it would be easier for people to jump straight to a wiki-based discussion system, but it really isn't that hard to click on the "Discussion forums" link, and besides, you can opt to always be logged in. So ultimately, what's the difference? Besides, wikis are woefully suboptimal as discussion software. I personally much prefer SMF Forums.

We will eventually--or, it's our plan to--have a single login for all CZ components. --Larry Sanger 19:03, 3 February 2007 (CST)

Propaganda

Dr. Sanger,

I'm making a lot of propaganda inside Wikipedia about Citizendium [3] (lol) and trying to get new Citizens/Citizendians among unsatisfied Wikipedians (like me) [4] (a good job, I guess! ;-) --Roberto Cruz 09:17, 6 February 2007 (CST)

• Thanks, Roberto--although this is not something I want to encourage or that I condone. I would of course like Wikipedians to know that there is an increasingly viable alternative to Wikipedia, but it is really not fair play to use Wikipedia's own resources to get the word out. We of course would not permit people to come to CZ and post many messages to the effect, "Don't contribute here--contribute to Wikipedia!" --Larry Sanger 11:28, 6 February 2007 (CST)

• Dr. Sanger, you're right: it isn't a fair play. I changed my coments to a neutral position, only inform my Wikipedian colleagues about CZ positive features. --Roberto Cruz 12:59, 6 February 2007 (CST)

Two points:

• I am editing at both WP and CZ, and encouraging others to do so. I don't think it should be presented as an either/or choice.
• The best way to get Wikipedians to edit at CZ is to promise that they can work in peace without being plagued by trolls, vandals and fanatics. This requires CZ to exercise some care in admitting editors who have bad records at WP (ie, have been banned for good reasons). Adam Carr 19:20, 6 February 2007 (CST)

Adam, while I am sure that WP has made most of its bans on sensible grounds, I've seen enough evidence that the WP arbitration/banning process is dysfunctional that we really must make our own calls. The nice thing, however, is that we can be quite a bit more efficient in our own bans, because we have made it quite clear that we do not tolerate much behavior that WP goes out of its way to tolerate. --Larry Sanger 12:02, 7 February 2007 (CST)

A quick question...

...TIA? --Jeff Raymond 13:19, 6 February 2007 (CST)

TIA = Thanks in Advance (I think) -- ZachPruckowski (Talk) 21:10, 6 February 2007 (CST)

Yes, thanks in advance. Nothing indecent, I assure you. You can consult the Great Oracle of Google about all such things y'know. --Larry Sanger 11:42, 7 February 2007 (CST)