CZ:Charter drafting committee/Position statements/Meg Ireland

I am an Author in Music, Media, Theater, and Visual Arts since August 2007, although I have also been contributing in many other topics to help build content. My academic background is a university degree in arts history and theory, and a diploma in music business management. In May 2008 I was appointed as an ordinary author member of the first Editorial Council (EC), and continuing thereafter. I have a 100% voting record on all council resolutions. I have also participated in most (when time would allow) Write-A-Thon's since joining the project, and voted in many Article and Draft's of the Week.

I see the Charter for Citizendium marks a turning point for the project. We should value and support the community’s efforts to create a new model for a premier encyclopaedia. As committee member nominees we have a responsibility to help guide the future of this site. Dialogue between the delegates during the drafting process in the next few weeks should help us anticipate some of the consequences of the proposed goals and policies defining the projects status and powers. To that end, I wish to bring focus to some primary areas of concern calling for our joint deliberation and action.

The charter should be there to define in writing what rights editors, as well as authors and constables, have and by what powers they are granted, and by what appeals processes they are allowed. Above all it should be clear, fair and neutral. I believe its imperative we get this right first time. I am open to re-writing the CZ Neutrality policy.

The registration process should remain in place, particularly the use of real names and verifiable accounts. I believe we shouldn't deviate from this as it has served our purposes well. Vandalism is almost non-existent here, whereas it is a bugbear on other open encyclopaedia projects and drives many worthwhile contributors away.

Many of the workgroups I have contributed to do not have an active editor. I believe that in workgroups that have less than two active editors, authors who have an edit history greater than 1000 edits, contribute unique articles in the specific workgroup, and are in good standing with the community, should be allowed to be promoted as a 'specialist editor' within that workgroup for a period of 12 months, subject to an open approval process. At the end of the 12 months they can reapply for the editorship, if that workgroup is still short of qualified editors. I am also against editors approving their own articles as this undermines the peer-review system and neutrality of the article writing process. We can attract experienced editors to the project - we need however to be more proactive at targeting various groups such as science students, retired teachers, for example.