CZ:Charter

This page is dedicated to drafting a charter for Citizendium and should only be edited by those eight Citizens elected to the drafting Committee. The talk page is also reserved for them to discuss the evolution of the document. Other Citizens, please comment on the dedicated thread at the Citizen Forum. Non-Citizens can comment in a separate thread at the non-Member Forum.

This is the final version of the document drafted by the Charter drafting Committee. It shall be subject to a public vote.

This draft document shall serve as the basis for public discussion. It represents a compromise amongst the drafters, who may have different individual opinions on some aspects of this Charter.

Mission

Citizendium is a collaborative effort to collect, structure, and update knowledge and to render it conveniently accessible to the public for free. It is created by volunteers — henceforth Citizens — who contribute under their real names and agree to a social covenant centered around trust.

Citizens

• Active participation at the Citizendium shall be restricted to registered users, henceforth referred to as Citizens.

• Citizenship shall be open to anyone who

• meets a few basic conditions as defined by the Management Council,
• registers and contributes under his or her real name, and
• agrees to the Citizendium's fundamental principles as defined by the Charter.

• All Citizens shall have equal rights except when acting on behalf of an official rôle or office.

• Citizens shall contribute freely within the limits of the project's mission. Restrictions may only be imposed in reaction to serious offenses against the principles and rules of the Citizendium.

• The Citizendium community shall recognize the special rôle that experts play

• in defining content standards in their relevant fields and
• in assuring that the site's content is reliable and meets high quality standards.

• Citizens shall meet each other with mutual respect and honor each other's rights.
• Citizens shall act responsibly and in a civil manner — derogatory or offensive language or behavior will not be tolerated.

Editors

• Editors are Citizens whose expertise in some field of knowledge is recognized and formally acknowledged by the community.

• The group of Editors shall have to assure the quality of the Citizendium's content. They shall review and evaluate articles and shall have the right
  • to approve high-quality articles that treat their topic adequately,
  • to resolve disputes over specific content matters, and
  • to remove incorrect or poorly presented content.

• Official recognition of expertise — obtained through education or experience — and its scope shall be based on guidelines established by the Editorial Council.
• Any change of Editor status shall require a formal decision by the Editorial Council.

Content and style

• The Citizendium shall welcome contributions to all fields of knowledge.

• All articles shall treat their subjects comprehensively, neutrally, and objectively to the greatest degree possible in a well-written narrative, complementing text with other suitable material and media.

• All basic material shall be intended for the general public. It shall be presented as clearly as possible, without unnecessary complications, and advanced topics shall be made as accessible as possible.

• Specialist material — including (within the limits set by the Editorial Council) original research — shall be welcome, too. It shall be put into context with background information and non-specialist material.

• High-quality articles shall be distinguished as approved articles and be kept available permanently as citable references.

• The Citizendium shall remain free of advocacy, advertisement and sensationalism.

Organization and offices

• The Citizendium shall be devoted to transparent and fair governance at a minimum of bureaucracy.

• It shall be governed by two Councils,
  • an Editorial Council and
  • a Management Council,

with assistance by

• • a Managing Editor,
  • a Constabulary, and
  • an Ombudsman.

• All decision processes shall take place in a way that allows every interested Citizen to follow it and support it with feedback.
• All officials shall be bound by the Charter, and no decision reached shall contravene it.

Official positions

• All Citizens in good standing and with sufficient experience — as defined by the Management Council — shall be elegible for all official positions.

• The term of all offices shall be two years, renewable. The term of any replacement shall end when the original term ends.

• No Citizen shall serve in two offices at the same time.
• All officials shall continue to contribute as Citizens throughout their terms.

• Each Council or official may appoint delegates to perform specific tasks for a specific period of time.

• The responsibility for the actions of a delegate shall always remain with the appointing Council or official.

Community policy

• The Editorial Council — responsible for content policy — and
• the Management Council — responsible for the community's environment and its technical and economic resources —

shall each develop guidelines on issues within its scope, as well as monitor and enforce their application.

• The two Councils shall closely cooperate whenever this is necessary or useful.

• The Editorial Council shall, in particular,
  • coordinate and supervise the activities of Editors, and
  • encourage and supervise cooperation of Citizens in their effort to create, develop and organize the Citizendium's content.

• The Management Council shall, in particular,
  • organize and supervise the activities of Constables,
  • take care of technical matters (software and hardware), and
  • administer all financial and legal obligations of the Citizendium.
  • It shall also establish and maintain public awareness, and
  • invite and establish collaboration with external partners on any matters relevant to the project's mission.

Each Council shall

• have a quorum corresponding to the simple majority of its members, and
• consider any issue brought in front of it by any of its members or by a number of Citizens that meets its quorum.
• In the Editorial Council, a number of members corresponding to the quorum shall be Editors while the rest of the members shall be Citizens who are not Editors.

Managing Editor

• The Managing Editor shall ensure — by means of executive decisions — that the principles and policies of the Citizendium are effectively and coherently observed.

• Such decisions shall only be made when formal decisions cannot be obtained in time and shall always be based on established policy unless required in the case of a policy deficit. They may be overruled by the appropriate Council.

• The Managing Editor shall represent the Citizendium in its relations with external bodies, such as, for instance, the mass media, and academic or non-academic institutions.

• The Managing Editor shall operate in close contact and in agreement with all institutions of the Citizendium and assist them in their work.

Behavior and dispute resolution

Constabulary

• The Constabulary shall enforce the Citizendium's rules of behavior as determined by community policy, covering equally all Citizens including those with official positions.
• Constables shall only intervene in matters of behavior but not in matters of content.
• Constables shall act with reasonable pragmatism and leniency, and only in those situations where this is clearly covered by existing rules.
• If all other means to settle a case fail, a destructively acting Citizen shall — as the ultimate resort — be banned from the project.

Ombudsman

• A Citizen with substantial experience and widely respected judgment shall be entrusted with the rôle of Ombudsman in order to assist in dispute resolution.

Dispute resolution

• Whenever possible, disputes shall be settled informally at the lowest possible level.
• Any party involved in a dispute may contact the Ombudsman for non-binding mediation.

• When a formal decision is necessary or demanded, the Ombudsman shall present the issue to the appropriate body.

• Appeals against formal decisions shall be possible, and any appeal supported as required by the Management Council shall have to be considered.

• In case of an appeal against a formal decision an Appeals Board shall be formed. It shall consist of previously not directly involved Citizens:
  • three members nominated by the Editorial Council,
  • three members nominated by the Management Council, and
  • a non-voting, but tie-breaking chair nominated by the Ombudsman.
• The decision of the Appeals Board shall be final.

• While the principle of public decision processes applies, in exceptional cases, part of a dispute resolution process may be restricted to a smaller audience. Such an exception shall require public justification by the Ombudsman.

Community decisions

• Elections and referenda shall be organized by the Managing Council and carried out by the Constabulary.
• Sufficient time shall be provided for nominations and for discussions of the issues brought about during the nomination period.
• All Citizens in good standing — as defined by the Management Council — shall be entitled to vote.

Referenda and amendments

• Citizens may demand that contested rules or guidelines are submitted to a referendum.
• A referendum may be initiated by a group of Citizens corresponding in size to the sum of the quorums of the two Councils.
• A referendum shall be decided by simple majority of the votes validly cast.
• Any amendment to and any change of this Charter shall require a referendum and shall be ratified if accepted by a qualified majority of two thirds of the votes validly cast.
• Creating any further office or special rôle shall require an excellent reason and a referendum.
• Any change of the license shall require a referendum.

Editorial Council and Managing Council

• Each year, half the members of the two Councils shall be elected.
• For newly elected members, the term of office shall begin on first of January for the Editorial Council, and on first of July for the Management Council.
• Any Citizen may nominate and support one or more candidates for a Council.
• A Citizen who is supported by another Citizen becomes a candidate by declaring the intention to serve for the whole term.
• Any Citizen accepting a nomination shall retreat immediately from any involvement in the election's organization.
• The candidates collecting the most votes shall be elected.
• One to three runners-up may serve as reserve members.
• A Council member who becomes inactive or unavailable, shall be replaced by a reserve member, if available; otherwise, an interim replacement shall be appointed by the Council concerned.
• Any Council may propose a change of its size by an even number of members; this proposal shall be subject to a referendum held together with the next election.

Managing Editor

• The Managing Editor shall be elected by simple majority.
• For this election, up to four candidates shall be selected by the Management Council, taken from a list of Editors nominated by the community.

Constables

• Constables shall be appointed by the Management Council

Ombudsman

• The Ombudsman shall be nominated by the Combined Councils and appointed by popular vote.

Removal from office

• An official who seriously neglects the office may be recalled by the Combined Councils, with exception of
  • the Managing Editor, who shall be recalled if both Councils demand it (separately), and
  • the Ombudsman, whose recall shall require a qualified majority of two thirds in a referendum.

Administrative matters

• Interested observers of the Citizendium shall have a convenient method to send in comments and provide feedback.
• As far as possible, special requirements of visually or otherwise impaired users and for responsibly exercised automated access shall be taken into account.
• The Managing Editor shall intervene against article content that is inappropriate, in particular, if content
  • violates criminal or civil law or
  • is discriminatory or slanderous against persons or groups of persons, on the basis of religion, religious belief, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender.
• Violations of the Charter shall only be tolerated when forced by external laws.

License

• All content at the Citizendium shall always be freely accessible.
• All main space content created at the Citizendium shall always be free to use and reuse.
• For selected content — e.g., such as imported material (in particular: pictures) — use and reuse may be subject to individual restrictions.
• Some forms of use and reuse — e.g., such as by competing projects or for advertising — may be subject to individual restrictions.

• The Citizendium shall — as a document of its development and the work of its Citizens — permanently preserve the edit history of all contributions, including those of talk and user pages.
• No individual credit for contributions shall be expected.

Legal status

• The Citizendium shall be owned and controlled by the Citizendium Foundation, a non-profit organization.

Languages

• The official language of the Citizendium shall be English.
• Branches of the Citizendium in other languages shall have the same mission and be based on the same principles as defined by this Charter. They shall require approval by the Management Council.
• All branches shall establish a close collaboration with each other on all issues, both of content and administration.

Appendix: Ratification and transition

This appendix defines the ratification process for this Charter and the transition to its implementation.
It does not belong to the Charter proper and shall be removed after the transition has been performed.

Transition Manager

• The community shall informally agree on a Citizen who is charged with organizing the ratification process and the initial elections until the Councils are installed.

Voting rights

• For the purpose of the ratification of this Charter and the initial elections to the Councils, all Citizens with an account that is not blocked shall have the right to vote.

Ratification

• This Charter shall be ratified if accepted by two thirds or more of the votes validly cast in a referendum for this purpose.

• The Charter shall enter into force on the day following its ratification.

• The Editor-in-Chief shall officially certify the ratified Charter within a week after the closing of the referendum. This act ends his term of office.

• The former Editor-in-Chief Larry Sanger shall be awarded with the title Founding Editor-in-Chief in acknowledgement of his achievements for the Citizendium. (suggested in [1])

Elections to the Councils

• The first elections shall take place as soon as possible after the Charter has been ratified.
• The initial size of the Editorial Council shall be 7 members, that of the Management Council 5 members.
• A number of members corresponding to the quorum shall be selected, by lot or personal agreement, to serve shortened terms until the next regular election that is at least half a year after the initial election.

License

• The Citizendium adopts CC-by-sa 3.0 Unported (original source) as the license for its own original collaborative content.

Pseudonyms

• Within a month after the entry into force of this Charter, all existing pseudonym accounts shall be closed by the Constabulary, and the respective user pages protected.
• The Citizens concerned may renew registration under their real name.

Addendum: Interim guidance for the transition period

• As long as the administrative prerequisites for implementing the Charter are not entirely fulfilled, the rules listed in this section shall provide interim guidance to the Editorial Council, Management Council, and other bodies.
• Such material may be modified by those bodies by their normal procedures, without a full Charter amendment.

Review of previous policies

• The Councils shall review all existing policies and vote on each of them which falls under their realm, in view of complementing the general guidelines in this Charter with an evolving set of specific policy guidelines.
• The Editorial Council shall review the current list of Editors.
• The Management Council shall review
  • privacy policies, including access by search engines, and
  • policy on licensing and republication of user and talk pages.

Constabulary

• Constabulary tools include: advice and instruction on wiki or through Citizen email, removal of offensive text, and warning and banning of users.

Languages

• The Management Council shall elaborate a strategy and policy on handling the establishment of branches in languages other than English.

Administration

• The Management Council shall elaborate a strategy and policy on handling the legal, financial, and technical operations necessary for the project to fulfill its mission.

External partnerships

The Management Council shall develop and implement at its earliest convenience a policy for

• interested external observers to provide feedback on Citizendium content in a manner convenient for them and the project.
• collaboration with external partners, paying particular attention to fostering the collaboration with instructors by way of Eduzendium, and with external experts or professional organizations for the purposes of providing or reviewing content at Citizendium.

Research and teaching

• The Editorial Council shall elaborate a strategy and policy on incorporation of teaching and research into Citizendium.
• Research results that have not been formally published should be clearly labeled as such. So should articles that have been part of student coursework.

Registration of new Editors

To streamline the CZ:Editor Application Review Procedure, applications for Editorship shall be processed in two consecutive steps:

• All verified Editor applicants shall initially be registered as Citizens, enabling them to start contributing while the application is being reviewed.
• The application for Editorship shall be reviewed by the Editorial Personnel Administrators (to be appointed by the Editorial Council) who shall strive to make a decision within one week.