CZ:Nomination page/Editorial Council/Russell D. Jones

I was recruited in 2007 to join CZ by Larry Sanger when he was visiting my university campus. I was most impressed by and am most encouraged by Larry's vision for an online republic of letters. As a member of the Charter Committee, this was the vision that I sought to bring about.

I believe that the charter, as constructed, gives us a framework to establish a fair and just, as well as civil, online self-governing community of knowledge. It also provides us with a platform for growth and change.

As a member of the Management Council, I think our main jobs should be to establish the financial stability of CZ through fund-raising and partnerships; and to guarantee the independence of CZ through the creation of a corporate non-profit.

I have published and given presentations on using open knowledge resources in higher education.

I have been an active editor in the History Workgroup and have had a hand in every history article approval for about eighteen months now. I have been an editor since 2008, I have also served on the Editorial Council for the last two years. I worked with Chris Day to push the Sub-Workgroup policy through the Editorial Council which has been the last editorial council resolution taken up (and this was over a year ago).

I believe that the Editorial Council should:
 * 1) Establish and enforce editorial standards for CZ articles.  Thus all current CZ policies should be reviewed.  This means policies for capitalization, article naming, citation, etc.
 * 2) Review editorial credentials and consider editor re-assignments.  Many editors have editorial bona fides who probably shouldn't.  Many have them in workgroup areas that they probably shouldn't either.  I think the Editorial Council should at least have this discussion about the current editorial assignments.
 * 3) Develop policies that allow authors to author and writers to write.  (Let's get on with it ...)  Too often article development is getting bogged down in squabbling over points of view.
 * 4) Develop a policy for giving authorial credit for CZ articles.
 * 5) More clearly define the roles and responsibilities of editors so that more articles can be written and approved.