CZ:Charter

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Mission statement
The Citizendium is an online environment in which reliable knowledge is hosted and structured collaboratively and made freely accessible to the interested public by polite contributors &mdash; henceforth Citizens &mdash; who use their real names, recognize expertise and adhere to the principles laid out in this charter. The Citizendium will be devoted to accessible presentation of content in its context, to easy navigation across content and to simple organization of the community.

Fundamental policies
See also CZ:Fundamentals.

Real names
All Citizens must register using their real names, which will define their account. When appointed for special functions in the community, Citizens or robots operated by Citizens may be required to use a separate, dedicated account when they act in this capacity. Limited possibilities may be provided for non-registered users to contribute to the project, in which cases the real name requirement may be dropped.

Objectivity
Information presented objectively is based on expert knowledge, which includes giving the context and justification for substantially supported views of the topic. When multiple responsible views exist, enough information must be given that the reader can understand the merits and weaknesses of the positions. There is no requirement to present every minority view in depth, although deprecated views may be identified. The Citizendium is not a place for advocacy.

Expertise
Expertise will be respected. It shall be recognized through publications (including contributions to the Citizendium), credentials or employment, or through any other means established by the Editorial Council.

Collaboration
See also CZ:How to Collaborate.

The Citizendium is a collaborative project, open to contributions by any Citizen on any of its content.

Authors
See also CZ:Author.

Citizens who made a contribution to the project's content or structure will be considered Authors.

Editors
See also CZ:Editors.

Editors are Authors who &mdash; because of their recognized expertise &mdash; are responsible for the scope and quality of the content presented by CZ. Specifically, in their areas of expertise, they are entitled (1) to make decisions about specific questions or disputes concerning particular articles, and (2) to approve high-quality articles.

Workgroups
See also CZ:Workgroups.

The Editorial Council may create and reorganize workgroups to organize areas of content, and to encourage collaboration among authors and editors in areas of expertise. Workgroup members will build top-level articles and knowledge structures for the articles in a discipline.

When there are disputes on content issues, assuming there are multiple Editors in a workgroup, they will attempt to resolve the dispute. Failing agreement, the matter will escalate to the Editorial Council.

External Partners
The Citizendium welcomes collaboration with external partners on any matters relevant to the project's mission, provided that the interaction does not lead participating Citizens to a conflict of interest with respect to this charter.

Accessibility
The content provided at the Citizendium is intended for an audience with completed high-school level of education. As far as possible, special needs of visually or otherwise impaired users and of machines will be taken into account.

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

Management Committee
A Management Committee shall be responsible for matters concerned with the non-editorial policies of Citizendium, such as finance, external alliances, communications, administration, and behavior. To this end, it may appoint Administrators and Task Managers whose activities it will oversee. It will also appoint Constables and oversee their activities.

Editorial Council
An Editorial Council will be responsible for guiding content. It will be made up of active Citizens, one half of whom shall be Editors, the other half not.

Administration
The Citizendium's administration handles the legal, financial and technical operations necessary for the project to fulfill its mission.

Professionalism
Citizens are required to behave professionally, i.e. to accept the guidance of experts and the wider Citizendium community and to remain polite and constructive even in cases of dispute. A set of persons of mature judgment &mdash; hereafter the Constables &mdash; shall be specially empowered to enforce rules laid out in this charter or its accompanying documents. The enforcement of these rules--up to and including the ejection of participants from the project--is to be carried out using common sense and leniency if the situation is not covered by the rules.

Being Bold
See also CZ:Be bold.

Whenever Citizens are unsure whether some contributions they plan are conform with this charter and its subordinate policies, they are advised to seek comments from the wider community. In the absence of negative feedback, they should feel encouraged to proceed.

License
The content of the Citizendium will always be freely accessible and reusable. 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.

Legal status
The Citizendium will be owned and ultimately controlled by a non-profit organization.

Languages
The official language of the Citizendium is English. Branches in other languages require approval by the Editorial Council and have to be based on this English-language charter or an approved translation.

Electorate
All Authors are entitled to vote on the adoption or modification of this charter.

Ratification of this charter
If this charter has been approved by more than two thirds of the votes validly cast in a referendum for this purpose, it shall be ratified by the Editor-in-Chief within a week after the closing of the closing of the referendum.

Entry into force of this charter
This charter shall enter into force on the day following ratification.

Transition period
As long as the administrative prerequisites for implementing the charter are not entirely fulfilled, the rules listed in this section shall provide interim guidance to the Editorial Council, Management Council, and other bodies. Such material may be modified by those bodies by their normal procedures, without a full Charter amendment.

Citizens with pseudonyms
Citizens currently registered with a pseudonym will be granted up to one year of time to re-register for a new account under their real name. One year after the entry into force of this charter, all pseudonym accounts shall be locked by the Constabulary.

Inactive Editors
CZ:Editorial Council Resolution 0012 will be extended such that newly registered Editors who have not yet contributed to the project shall be regarded as Inactive Editors.

External partners
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 providing the possibility for external experts to get involved in the review of content at the Citizendium.

Advertisements
The Citizendium will not sell advertisements. There may be unobtrusive non-profit sponsorship statements, but sponsors will have no editorial influence over the project, and enforceable, adequate oversight of this rule will be in place. Similarly, no grants that make specific editorial demands will be accepted.

Amending this charter
Any Citizen can suggest to the Management Council specific amendments to this charter. If the proposal is taken up by the Management Council, it shall prepare a set of up to three alternatives to the current phrasing in the charter, and present them to the electorate to express its opinion via a vote. To come into effect, an amendment requires more than two thirds of the votes validly cast.