CZ:Elections June 2012/Nominations/Managing Editor/User:Anthony.Sebastian

CZ Election Managing Editor: Anthony.Sebastian’s Statement


 * About Me

I have been a member of Citizendium since its pilot phase in 2006, holding Editorships in Biology and Health Sciences, currently member of the Editorial Council, and currently CZ’s article Approval Manager. I have a wide range of topic interests with long histories of self-study, as my list of article contributions will show.

I am a Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, with a part-time recall appointment at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). I have a 30+ year history of teaching in human physiology and pathophysiology, administration (notably Co-Director of a General Clinical Research Center serving UCSF's campus-wide large and diverse congeries of clinical investigators), and a biomedical researcher, directing my own laboratory, approaching 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including two this academic year.

See my User Page.


 * What I Believe and Propose

I believe strongly in the mission and basic principles of Citizendium. I also believe, strongly, in exploring innovative new initiatives that have the potential to improve the wiki functionality of Citizendium, as well as the potential to amplify Citizendium beyond that of a traditional wiki and wiki encyclopedia, but not beyond our mission "to provide free knowledge with the highest standards of writing, reliability, and comprehensiveness".


 * Add Open-Access Journal Functionality to CZ

To that end I would like to explore the possibility of amplifying Citizendium by enabling it to function also as a peer-reviewed open-access journal, with accepted articles locked and dated, and free-of-charge, or minimal charge, to author(s), (at the same time explicitly welcoming donations). Such an open-access-journal functionality could only impact positively on our wiki encyclopedia project, through interfacing in ways to be worked out, and through encouragement to authors to join CZ as authors or Editors.

I would select a group of advisers to help explore the open-access-journal possibility, and if a seemingly feasible and productive way to do it emerged, open it for discussion on the forum, ultimately requesting approval from the Management and Editorial Councils.

It might interest some journal authors to join Citizendium, a great environment for learning, and many learners write to learn. I do, the opportunity to do so one reason I joined Citizendium, and it has kept me actively writing in it since I joined.


 * Short- and Long-Term Interim Decision-Making in Relation to the Councils

I plan to exercise my responsibility “to make interim decisions on behalf of the Editorial and Management Councils when established policy does not provide guidance; these decisions shall be overridden by the establishment of relevant policy.”

Lack of established policy can interfere with the development of progressive initiatives creatively generated by the Councils.


 * Importation of External Material

I support Anton Sweeny’s referendum regarding the importing of external material from appropriate sources, to see if they pass the 30-day probation improvement criteria for inclusion as a CZ article.

In conjunction with Anton’s referendum, I see a lot of decisions the Councils will have to make, and not just establishing inclusion criteria for importation and improvement criteria for passing probation once imported.

Needed improvements to imports might consist mostly in making it more comprehensive through amplification/elaboration/addition, also more comprehensive and comprehensible, in addition transforming to CZ style/format standards. Importation from two or more sources into one article might sometime lead to an approved and high quality article, an original synthesis hence contribution to knowledge generation. The possibilities seem endless for enhancing the quality of Citizendium as an encyclopedia+.

Sounds a little idealistic, though not incompatible with pragmatic. More idealistic is thinking of surviving/thriving as an encyclopedia exclusively of de novo written articles by Citizens.


 * Lessons and Ideas from Google’s Knol Experience and New Plan

I would like to get collaborative help studying Google’s knowledge project, Knol’s, move to WordPress. What do we think their future will look like, what lessons can we learn from their beginning, what novel ideas will they inspire?

Google seems committed to a “platform designed for scholarly authoring and publishing”. We need to meet and exceed other knowledge sites in order to do CZ’s teaching duty.

See: Google Knols Move to WordPress: The Annotum Platform.


 * Not to Mention

We need progressive and progressing innovation, consideration of programs to establish partnerships, and find funders who support knowledge -organizing and –generating Internet projects. Anybody got ideas?


 * Qualifications

I do not consider myself qualified for the position of Managing Editor of Citizendium when I consider the opportunities it offers for exploitation in the interests of Citizendium’s development. I hope the person we elect has the passion and time to move us along.

If me, I would definitely want a "Managing-Editor Advisory Group".