CZ:Charter drafting committee/Position statements/Russell D. Jones

I joined Citizendium in 2008. I teach US history and have a wealth of knowledge about social organization in the RW. I also have researched Web 2.0 communities and community building, and social knowledge projects. I have big dreams for CZ. I believe that it can grow provided space is available for all socially-acceptable points of view. I believe in Larry Sanger's founding vision of this community that a social knowledge project built on transparency (real names) can grow as a civil online community.

I believe that the vision for CZ should be as it name implies. "Citizens'", where all people have a voice and are respected and "Compendium" a repository of all knowledge, encyclopedic, personal, original, or otherwise.

I have contributed mostly to articles on U.S. History. I have also been putting forward articles for approval when authors have requested. So I've seen how the approval process works. We need editors and authors. Defining roles and benefits will make CZ an attractive and rewarding place to conduct research.

I have a high degree of respect for this project as a project of area experts. Expert knowledge and the disciplinary practices of experts should be respected. As such, we need dispute resolution processes that are both respectful and democratic. We should have resolution not arbitration.

I have also been a member of the editorial council since 2008. I helped with Chris Day in getting the subgroup proposal through. Having gone through that process, I have knowledge about the proposals system and how that system could be improved

With this charter, I believe that we have a bold opportunity to define a system of governance for the web-connected world. A system predicated on collaboration, respect, knowledge: a digital republic of scholars.