User:Howard C. Berkowitz/Charter Draft

This draft document is Matt's condensation of previous work and input from Citizens across the globe.

=Mission statement= The Citizendium is a collaborative effort to create a convenient structure to collect, organize and develop the world's knowledgebase and make it accessible to the public for free. It is created by volunteers &mdash; henceforth Citizens &mdash; who contribute under their real names and agree to a social covenant centered around trust.

Membership

 * 1) Citizendium membership is open to anyone.
 * 2) All members register and contribute to the project under their real names.
 * 3) The Citizendium community encourages subject matter experts to play a special role in assuring that the site’s contents meet the highest quality standards.
 * 4) Contributors must act responsibly and in a civil manner.

Style

 * 1) All entries at Citizendium should engage their subjects comprehensively, neutrally and objectively to the greatest degree possible.
 * 2) Unnecessarily complicated presentation should be avoided.
 * 3) As far as possible, special needs of visually or otherwise impaired users and of responsibly exercized automated access will be taken into account.

Content development

 * 1) Citizendium is open to constructive contributions by any Citizen to any of its content at any time.
 * 2) Citizendium encourages all members to submit constructive criticism on all of its material.
 * 3) Experts guide the development of Citizendium entries in a transparent manner.
 * 4) Integration of the Citizendium with teaching and research is encouraged as long as it adheres to the principles of this charter.
 * 5) Once written, content within articles becomes the property of Citizendium.

Organizational structure

 * 1) The Citizendium is devoted to transparent and fair governance at a minimum of bureaucracy. Special roles will not be created without excellent reason.

Citizen particpation

 * 1) All Citizens of Citizendium shall be Authors and some shall be also designated as Editors

Authors

 * 1) All Citizens are considered Authors.
 * 2) Authors are given the right to contribute or modify content to any article at any time.
 * 3) Authors may have their right removed to modify content or participate on discussion pages on a particular article, subject articles or all articles as a result of misconduct as determined by the specific rules of behavior developed by the community.
 * 4) Authors in good standing have the right to vote in community wide elections.

Editors

 * 1) Editors are Authors that have a demonstrated field of expertise, either by education or experience, as determined and granted by the Editorial Council.
 * 2) Editors have the right to:
 * 3) make decisions about the scope and quality of the content in articles within their workgroup.
 * 4) to make decisions about specific questions or disputes concerning that content.
 * 5) to recommend approval of high quality articles that meet their expectations for the article's subject.
 * 6) Editors may exercise their editorial rights only on articles within their workgroup.
 * 7) Editors may abdicate their editorial rights at any time.
 * 8) Editors may have their editorial rights removed only by the Editorial Council.
 * 9) Editors in good standing have the right to vote in community wide elections.

Editorial Council

 * 1) An Editorial Council will be responsible for guiding content and establishing content policy.
 * 2) The Editorial Council shall consist of nine active Citizens, with five seats reserved for Editors. The remaining four seats are reserved for Authors that are not Editors.
 * 3) For voting purposes, a quorum shall consist of five members.
 * 4) Members of the Editorial Council may not simultaneously serve on the Management Committee or be Constables.
 * 5) Members of the Editorial Council will be elected by secret ballot vote of eligible Citizens, with two-year terms renewable once consecutively.

Management Committee

 * 1) A Management Committee shall be responsible for matters concerned with the non-content policies of Citizendium.
 * 2) The Management Committee shall consist of seven Citizens, who may not simultaneously serve on the Editorial Council. A quorum shall consist of four members.
 * 3) The members of the Management Committee shall be elected by secret ballot vote of active Citizens and Authors, with two-year renewable terms.
 * 4) The Management Committee may appoint Administrators and Task Managers whose activities it will oversee.
 * 5) The Management Committee will appoint Constables and confer with the constabulary on matters of constable activity.
 * 6) The Management Committee is responsible for developing behavior guidelines and will publish and monitor the appropriate enforcement of those guidelines.

Constabulary

 * 1) The Constabulary shall be charged with enforcing the Citizendium's rules of behavior as determined by community policy.
 * 2) Constables shall not act on matters of content.

Operations

 * 1) The Editorial and Management Councils are responsible both for long-term planning, and for facilitating day to day operations of Citizendium. Members of those councils will rotate, with assistants as defined by the Councils, in an initial decisionmaking role for situations where Workgroup Editors and the Ombudsman cannot resolve a dispute.
 * 2) All initial decisions must be confirmed by the relevant body, and, if necessary, can be escalated to Final Dispute Resolution.
 * 3) The Editorial Council shall publish a roster of members through whom the interim decision authority will rotate.
 * Interim guidance: general goal is to have a decision within 24 hours. Should a situation become especially disruptive, the Constabulary is empowered to block articles or participants until the interim decision is made. Given the realities of worldwide time zones and personal lives, the Editorial Council may, for example, designate several members to cover a day or longer period, but will indicate the primary working hours of such individuals.

Ombudsman

 * 1) An Ombudsman will be charged with the task of assisting in dispute resolution, as laid down in this Charter.
 * 2) The Ombudsman shall act only as a fascilitator of dispute resolution and cannot make decisions based on content or behavior.
 * 3) The Ombudsman will be elected by simple majority vote of each of the Editorial Council and Management Council, for a term of one year, renewable 4 times.
 * 4) The Ombudsman may appoint Task Managers.

Vacating office

 * 1) An elected office shall be considered vacant if:
 * the Citizen has not made and edit in three months.
 * has not responded to three consecutive email requests over a two week period, unless that individual has given prior notice of travel, etc., with an expected return date. Reasonable accomodations can be made for personal emergencies.
 * has not participated in three consecutive votes in their appointed role.


 * 1) Vacancies can be filled with interim candidates using the same procedure normally used to fill that position.
 * 2) Interim official's only fill that role for the remainder of the original candidate's tenure.
 * 3) Any official may be recalled by a supermajority (75%) of each of the Editorial and Management Councils.

Task Managers

 * 1) Task Managers are Citizens who have been given specific duties by a specific committee, council, or other official personnel that has that particular duty under its purview.
 * 2) A Task Manager is answerable to the committee, council, or official that appointed them.
 * 3) A Task Manager cannot work outside the purview of the official or body that appointed them.
 * 4) The committee or office that appointed a specific Task Manager is responsible for the actions of that Task Manger.

Consultants

 * 1) The Management Committee may, within the financial rules, consult with professionals such as attorneys and accountants.

Administration

 * 1) The Citizendium's administration handles the legal, financial and technical operations necessary for the project to fulfill its mission. It may include contractors or employees, under the policy direction of the Management Committee, who eventually may be directed, on a routine basis, by an employee such as an Executive Director.

External partners

 * 1) The Citizendium invites collaboration with non-Citizen partners on any matters relevant to the project's mission, provided that such collaboration does not conflict with this Charter. The Management Council shall elaborate a strategy and policy on 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 the Citizendium.

Content resolution

 * 1) The Editorial Council shall be responsible for content development and determining the process of decision for developing such content. In cases of disagreement, the workgroup editors or the Editor in Chief are charged with making an initial decision.  If disagreement persists, the Ombudsman will coordinate the gathering of content and bring the matter to the Editorial Council where final decision can be deliberated.
 * 2) Editorial Council decisions concerning content can be appealed only if the Ombudsman considers that a threshold of new evidence has been met.

Behavior resolution

 * 1) The Management Committee will develop and maintain guidelines of acceptable behavior for its Citizens.
 * 2) The Constabulary shall apply the rules of behavior fairly and equally to all Citizens, including those with official positions.
 * 3) Constabulary tools include:
 * advice and instruction on wiki or through Citizen email.
 * removal of offensive text, and warning and banning of users according to written guidelines.


 * 1) Decisions of constables may be appealed through the Ombudsman to the Management Committee.

Electorate

 * 1) All Authors are entitled to vote on the adoption or modification of this charter.

License

 * 1) The content of the Citizendium will always be free to use, reuse, and redistribute. Content originating at the Citizendium is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Content that originated elsewhere may also be incorporated into the Citizendium if such reuse is permitted by the copyright owners or copyright status.

Legal status

 * 1) The Citizendium will be owned and controlled by the Citizendium Foundation, a non-profit organization.

Languages

 * 1) The official language of the Citizendium shall be English. Branches in other languages require approval by the Management Committee and shall have the same legal status as the English language Citizendium (see Legal status above).  Non-English Citizendiums shall construct their governance in accordance with this charter or a translation approved by the Management Committee.
 * 2) Branch language Editorial Councils, including the English language Citizendium Editorial Council, shall be empowered to develop policy regarding non-native language content on their native language Citizendiums.
 * 3) Consistent with the Citizendium's respect for expertise, the Editorial Council of any branch language version may request the Editorial Councils of other language versions to revise, add, or remove content in the former branch's native language.
 * 4) All user pages shall be in the native language for that version of Citizendium.
 * 5) No branch or non-English version of Citizendium shall be permitted at later times to adopt policy that contravenes this charter

Ratification

 * 1) If this Charter has been ratified by two thirds or more of the votes validly cast in a referendum for this purpose, it shall be certified by the Editor-in-Chief within a week after the closing of the referendum. For future amendments, a certifying official or officials shall be agreed upon by the joint Management Committee and Editorial Council.

Entry into force

 * 1) This Charter shall enter into force on the day following ratification.

Future amendments

 * 1) This Charter shall be open to amendment at any time subsequent to its ratification. The Management Council is hereby vested with the power to act upon proposals for amendment originating from any Citizen or Citizendium institution. The process of Amendment requires the Management Council initially to consult with Citizens (including via the Forum) and subsequently to draft an appropriate amended text. The decision to accept the amended text will be taken by popular vote of the Citizenry, and requires a two-thirds majority of votes validly cast.