CZ:Nomination page/Editorial Council 2011/Aleta Curry

I thank everyone who supported my nomination to a second term on the EC. I have agreed to stand again because after these months of effort I think we’re on the right track and I am even more determined to help the Citizendium project continue and ultimately be successful.

For those who don’t know me, I have been at Citizendium since 2007 and have written and collaborated on very many articles. (I don’t maintain a ‘brag page’ with how many articles I’ve begun, worked on or gotten approved, but it’s rather a large number and anyone can check via ‘User Contributions’. My articles range from serious to unapologetically light hearted, and you can check out Butler, Miniature Fox Terrier, and Rottweiler for examples of what I do. ) Although my contribution rate slowed down about 18 months ago due to increased business responsibilities and later the demands of being on the EC, it has picked up again: I still enjoy creating and editing whenever time permits; writing is what I’m best at.

On the EC, I believe my strength has been that my mind is flexible and my ethics unshakable. I also think I have a knack for listening to opposing views and finding middle ground. I have been fortunate to work with a group who were like-minded in terms of cooperation and in listening to what everyone had to say in order to come with best possible result. We do not always agree, and that’s good, because it means that we’re thinking and acting independently. We now have a solid structural basis on which to build.

Regarding the past, I am torn here because I really don’t want to discuss people’s names and personalities or waste time going back over old territory on which too much time has already been wasted. All I will say is that those of you were here should please cast your minds back to the arguing on the forums, and the downright nastiness on talk pages, and just imagine what it was like trying to work with one person who would argue way past the point of diminished returns, and working in a group of seven with two constantly at each other’s throats. If you add to the mix that we all have outside lives and jobs and we work in different international time zones, it’s amazing we got anything done at all. We did not have any systems in place for handling this or stopping the disruptive behaviour, we do now, and thanks to our headaches, no other Council will have to go through this unaided.

One of the things that categorised Citizendium (besides our respect for professionalism and expertise) was that this was a fun, enthusiastic and very ‘can do’, optimistic wiki. Now, we can bemoan and argue the reasons for the changes in attitude, or we can take a sober look at our situation and determine to do something about it. Those of you who monitor trends and statistics (and this is not something I enjoy, so I rely on those of you who do) have reported some hopeful trends. The attrition has stabilised and the wiki is growing slowly. You can see for yourselves that the forums have become much more pleasant, even if too much time is still spent in analysis and defense.

We do still need to attract and maintain a broader base of qualified experts to return the wiki to good health. Recruitment is not strictly speaking the purview of the EC, but quality control is, and certainly it will do not good for the EC to continue to set sound editorial policy if there’s no one around to carry it out. We have long recognised that an overhaul of the workgroup setup was necessary. We knew that it would not be an easy task, and by default we have had to work on small chunks at a time because the task is massive, there was not enough agreement which is the best ‘big picture’, and we were continually – and I do mean continually – putting out fires. The EC will have to continue this work and I mean to bring my ideas for systematic action to the table. In a similar vein, how to define and recognise non-academic expertise is something we have sort of been arriving at through a series of smaller decisions, and I suggest we now have at least some basic ideas that can form the framework of official written policy.

We have a great many formal and informal policies that are in bits and pieces all over the wiki, and I think we should try and/to concentrate on systematically synthesising these into official policy and have it available in one place to which we can all turn if we need to access it.

These are my plans if elected to a second term on the EC. I’m looking forward to giving it a go with much more optimism than I have in the recent past, and I hope you’ll give me the chance.