CZ:New Workgroup Requests

The Citizendium Council (or a working group thereof) is responsible for settling on new workgroups. Nonetheless, we need a place where the community can suggest new workgroups. Please do so below.

Brand new groups

• Yoga
• Martial arts

These content areas are HUGE, and high-level. So, far, the articles are trying to cram everything into one place, and its something beyond cumbersome.

I'm also with Frank Sudia (below) on the Cognitive Science workgroup, and am contemplating the need to break the Psychology workgroup down into smaller bits.

Going out on a limb here, I'd be willing to drive a bit on any or all of the above. Yea, like I've got time for that...but, I'd entertain it. --Michael J. Formica 13:27, 8 November 2007 (CST)

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• Financial Services
• Artificial Intelligence
• Cognitive Science

I'm not stepping up to be the driver of these, yet, but I have a hard time seeing how CZ can get more mature without these Frank Sudia 19:50, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

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• Telecommunications Workgroup to document about subjects like:
  • Next Generation Networks (NGN), IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS),
  • Standardization in telecommunications:
    • European Telecommunications Standards Instititue (ETSI)
    • 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).
  • PSTN networks.

--Wim Huyghe 16:02, 23 August 2007 (CDT)

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• Dance

• Biography

• Space Exploration
  • This is a really good idea. I actually came to this page to suggest a workgroup with this exact title, but was pleasantly surprised to see it here. The Astronomy workgroup seems oriented (as its name would suggest) to cataloging the natural phenomena in outer space. Human endeavors in this area is another area entirely, and one that I would love to contribute to. Carl Jantzen 11:26, 10 July 2007 (CDT)
    • I started a thread on the forum about this topic: [1] Carl Jantzen 14:27, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

• Transportation (automobile, trucks, motorcycles, marine, aircraft, airports, flyways, roadways, highways, traffic engineering and planning, and more) — Jeff Dean 22:55, 15 April 2007 (CDT)
  • I concur, only for the sake of brevity I would call it 'Transport'. I wish to create a "Sailing" article. I relate to it as a form of transport, but found it is an article under sports. Can an article be included under more than one Workgroup?Andrew Fleisher 22:33, 25 April 2007 (CDT)
    • Yes, it can Andrew. --Larry Sanger 11:58, 24 May 2007 (CDT)

• Information Security -- this is a discrete discipline from Workgroup:Computers, but does have some overlap with the 'Security' subgroup. I am new to the fold and plan to add many, many articles on the subject

• Social Groups (or something similar), where organisations such as Scouting and NGOs (non-government organisations, e.g. the Red Cross/Crescent) can be documented. - Andrew Fleisher 22:33, 25 April 2007 (CDT)
  • Maybe we should have separate categories/workgroups for 'Business Organisations', 'Government Organisations' (which includes international bodies such as the UN) and 'Other Organisations'. The idea requires development. - Andrew Fleisher 23:05, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

• Investment, which has some matter in common with business, but also has a lot which is not. - Andrew Fleisher 22:43, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

• Myths and Legends. Greek and Roman mythical and legendary topics fit into classics, but there are many more bodies of myths and legends that have nowhere specifically to go, and would probably end up being scattered randomly around the Literature, Religion and Anthropology workgroups, likely leading to duplication of effort. A Myths and Legends workgroup, or something similar, might be a more useful way of organising our efforts in that area. --Patrick Brown 19:30, 27 April 2007 (CDT)
  • Folklore. Generally categorized under anthropology but covers a number of things that many people wouldn't think to file under the anthropology workgroup. It will be a while before we have enough people or articles to make this one worth while, but I'm working on it. ;-) --Joe Quick (Talk) 15:40, 6 August 2007 (CDT)

• Country/state-specific workgroups. E.g., [CZ: United States], [CZ: New York State]. Articles relating to such entities will overlap with many categories - history, geography, politics, economy, etc. Anton Sweeney 10:36, 30 April 2007 (CDT)
  • I now agree with this. Experience both with editors and with the articles themselves has shown that such workgroups would be invaluable. But the top-level workgroup, or perhaps a new supercategory, would be Area Studies. --Larry Sanger 11:58, 24 May 2007 (CDT)
    • How does one go about setting them up? (I presume its an Editorial task?) Presumably with Area Studies first, then 'sub' workgroups per continent, then to country level, and so on down to a 'bottom' level? I'd suggest an arbitrary cutoff at some point - county or state/province, maybe - with an exception being cities. Anton Sweeney 15:12, 29 May 2007 (CDT)
      • Yes, we are going to want to make one big New Workgroups Resolution. --Larry Sanger 16:12, 29 May 2007 (CDT)

• Alcohol. Possibly a sub-group of the Food Science workgroup. Beer, whiskey and whisky, wine, cocktails... Anton Sweeney 18:44, 14 June 2007 (CDT)
  • That would be bartending. I see no reason why that is not adequately covered under Food Science. Stephen Ewen 18:58, 14 June 2007 (CDT)
    • So that would make Gary Rhodes, Julia Child, et al, waiters? ;-) But yeah, while I was talking more about the brewing/distilling process, Food Science does probably cover it. Anton Sweeney 11:09, 15 June 2007 (CDT)

• Film or Dramatic Arts - Film is a gigantic area that probably should have a workgroup to itself. An alternative would be to include film, dramatic TV, and possibly theater all under the umbrella of "dramatic arts" -- the idea being that there is a lot of overlap with actors, directors, etc. Right now film stuff is going into visual art or media or both. I don't think there will be as much overlap with qualified art (painting, sculpture, etc.) editors and the film and TV stuff. Maybe film could be under media, but so far no one has explained exactly what media is supposed to encompass. (Journalism is separate, so it's not that.) Should film and/or TV be lumped in with magazines and newspapers as "media"? I don't think so. The idea below for "Performance Arts" is similar, but maybe is too inclusive. How many opera singers and dancers are also in movies or TV shows? The few who are can be listed in more categories, of course.--Eric Winesett 14:34, 13 November 2007 (CST)

I'm with you, Eric. I think some of this has got to be decided at a higher structural level. Exactly how small(large) are workgroups supposed to be? If Yoga gets its own workgroup as suggested above (and no disrespect, but considering how huge some of the other workgroup areas are, I don't see that it should) then certainly, film and television belong, not together, but in separate workgroups--never mind being lumped in with "visual arts" or "media". Perhaps we could deal with print as "mass media"? Certainly, if we're talking divisions this small, "dance" would be its own workgroup, otherwise it should stay with "Performance Arts" below.

As to your other question: How many opera singers and dancers are also in movies or TV shows? TONS, if you're not looking through 21st Century lenses! Mario Lanza, Ezio Pinza, Wilhelmina Fernandez, Cecilia Bartoli, The Nicolas Brothers, Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly, Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and...Jennifer Lopez....:)

Aleta Curry 19:36, 13 November 2007 (CST)

• Philanthropy has been suggested by User:Harold C. Heard Jr.. Stephen Ewen 01:08, 5 December 2007 (CST)

• Horticulture and Landscaping - or separate them. Stephen Ewen 03:14, 5 December 2007 (CST)

We certainly need horticulture--we "have" it, actually, under Agriculture, and one or t'other of us keeps putting it in as if it's already a workgroup, only to get a red link. Aleta Curry 19:41, 5 December 2007 (CST)

• Neuroscience

Neuroscience is now commonly an academic department separate from Biology, Psychology, Engineering, and Computer Science, where neuroscientists have in the past been pigeonholed. It is a very interdisciplinary field, with research often involving Physics, Mathematics, Linguistics, and Philosophy. As an editor i would be willing to take charge of bringing the workgroup up to status 4. Simon Overduin 12:08, 11 January 2008 (CST)

My answer to this one is Yes. But we've got to organize an initiative to update the list of workgroups. If you are interested in helping with that, let me know, and let's get you started. The outcome will be (1) a new (longer) list and (2) an Editorial Council resolution. --Larry Sanger 12:11, 11 January 2008 (CST)

Changes

• Performance Arts, for Theater
  • But then where does one place articles about 'performing' for movies and sitcoms? - Andrew Fleisher 02:26, 26 April 2007 (CDT)
    • Well, if we created 'Performance Arts', it would include theatre, dance, opera...music would crossover, film and television performance would crossover as well. Film is still problematic under our present system; we're including film articles in both Visual Arts and Media at the mo. Aleta Curry 17:10, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

If this proposed workgroup is created, we should use the more common term Performing Arts rather than Performance Arts. First of all, the latter can be easily confused with the performance art genre of visual art. Second, and more important, a quick Google test gets 54.4 million hits for "performing arts", but less than a million for "performance arts". —Eric Winesett 19:42, 23 November 2007 (CST)

• I request a perverted sexual disorders workgroup. While that is technically covered under the psychology and health sciences workgroup, I think a dedicated team would be awesome. Plus then I could be like "Yea, I'm part of the perverted sexual disorders workgroup." :) Mike Mayors (Talk) 23:14, 14 June 2007 (CDT)

• I would like to see a workgroup dealing with pseudoscience and the supernatural, e.g. 'Pseudoscience and the Supernatural'. Candidate #1: Intelligent Design. John Stephenson 23:59, 14 June 2007 (CDT)

I would rather separate pseudoscience and supernatural. Because there are many things that are pseudoscience but not supernatural, like phrenology and eugenics, while not all supernatural are labeled as pseudoscience. Yi Zhe Wu 09:33, 18 June 2007 (CDT)

You can't decide what is pseudescience and what is not. Some people would argue that phrenology and eugenics are dated; others that the two disciplines might be wrong; but still contain useful ideas and knowledge. But the supernatural is different. Ghosts, alien abductions or ley lines could use specialist workgroups; but i would suggest we create a folklore and a metaphysics workgroups before we reach into the label of supernatural. Micha van den Berg 11:37, 28 November 2007 (CST)

• Fashion Workgroup, to cover articles about clothing. Yi Zhe Wu 09:34, 18 June 2007 (CDT)

• I'd just like to offer the suggestion that we shouldn't make a workgroup for every microcosm-of-microcosm that exists. That's like saying we need quark, electrons, and proton subgroups of the atom subgroup of the chemistry subgroup of the science workgroup.--Robert W King 09:42, 18 June 2007 (CDT)
  • Well said Robert. --Charles Sandberg 09:52, 18 June 2007 (CDT)
    • True, but fashion is in no way adequately covered under any of the current others. Well, anthropology studies it, but there ain't no way a fashion industry guru should be made an anthropology editor!  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 20:59, 9 July 2007 (CDT)

• Combine the current Hobbies and Games workgroups into a Hobbies and Games workgroup James F. Perry 11:44, 18 June 2007 (CDT)
  • No, I don't think so. The Hobbies workgroup is problematic enough; that would make it worse. Games seems much easier to define; leave it alone. Aleta Curry 18:32, 25 June 2007 (CDT)

• Eduzendium Workgroup to identify those articles that are attached to the Eduzendium project so others see that these are school projects. --Matt Innis (Talk) 20:37, 9 July 2007 (CDT)
  • Clearly needed, for simple practical reasons.  —Stephen Ewen (Talk) 14:36, 16 July 2007 (CDT)

Suggest change section title

• Moved this from main page at Larry's suggestion:

I don't know what we're calling the organizational sections that the workgroups fall into, but I'd like to address the one now called "Recreation".

Let's change this to "Avocations, Recreation and Related Professions". It will help us deal with hobbies that are paraprofessional and avocations that can be amateur or professional (gardening, sports, cooking are crossover occupations that spring to mind.)

Now we can keep the present workgroups and also add one for 'Service Organisations' (The Red Cross, The United Way, Rotary International and the like.) This will also solve the many issues that have been raised with regard to "hobbies" in the forums, and also, as someone pointed out elsewhere, that Service Orgs and charities aren't included anywhere at the moment. Aleta Curry 00:09, 25 July 2007 (CDT)

• I suggest an India workgroup. I am going to do a lot of work on India related topics, and I am also going to suggest a lot of my co-writers to join here and build up the India related articles in near future; and if my prediction goes correct, a lot of writers from India are going to join in the next couple of months. Thus we will need a workgroup for India, who will cover India related topics. I find that someone has already suggested to start country related workgroups.--Pinaki Ghosh 08:36, 9 September 2007 (CDT)

• I suggest a workgroup with (perhaps) the title of "Cybernetics" to cover the topics of information theory, decision theory, games theory. the prisoners dilemma experiments, systems analysis, complexity, chaos, error reporting etc. To many people these are important topics, and they are scarcely, if at all, dealt with by other workgroups. I should be willing to make some starting contributions.

Nick Gardner 01:06, 14 September 2007 (CDT)

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• Translation

This would be more to coordinate translation of necessary materials from other languages for inclusion. Geoffrey Plourde 17:06, 11 November 2007 (CST)

Clothes etc

There's a wide class of simple artifacts that aren't included in existing workgroups, such as clothes, tape, stapler, shampoo, soap, toilet, shaving, washing machine, and bed. One difficulty with finding a workgroup for these is: what is the competency of an editor? These topics can be studied from many different angles. An engineer knows how to make fabric and soap to clean it. The task of designing beautiful clothes perhaps belongs under art. Warren Schudy 22:44, 24 January 2008 (CST)

Transportation

Might I suggest a Transportation workgroup? I've noticed on WP that people are quite passionate and knowledgeable about aviation, trains, automobiles, ships, public transit and the like. Shawn Goldwater 16:42, 10 February 2008 (CST)

Chemical Engineering

Perhaps, I committed a no-no. I started a Category:Chemical Engineering Workgroup already ... almost. Click on the link and you will see that I have everything working except for "Status", "Forum", and all the "Checklist-generated categories". There are already 10 articles listed (and I can add another 10 or more within minutes), 2 authors, 1 editor, 1 Draft article (i.e., approved).

How do I go about getting "Status", "Forum", and all the "Checklist-generated categories" working? I am at a loss on those items.

In my opinion, it is extremely urgent that Category:Chemical Engineering Workgroup get approved as soon as possible ... if we are ever to get more than just a few chemical engineers to join us. So far I have found only two chemical engineers in Citizendium and that is sad indeed. PLEASE make this a priority item. - Milton Beychok 02:06, 21 February 2008 (CST)

It is kinda weird that all the sundry sorts of engineering (chemical, mechanical, electrical, etc) are lumped into one workgroup (engineering). However, is that really a problem? Warren Schudy 09:26, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Hi, Warren and thanks for your response. As I said above, in "my opinion" it is quite important. Universities give degrees in Mechanical engineering, Chemical engineering, Civil engineering, etc., etc. As far as I know, most universities do not offer a degree in Engineering. Also, each engineering discipline has its own professional organization: American Institute of Mechanical Engineeris (ASME), American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), etc.

I think engineering newcomers to CZ like myself wanting to see what articles it has in their discipline would expect to find a category devoted to their discipline. And they would be disappointed by not finding such a category, as I was.

Also, as CZ grows, a single category for all disciplines will get outlandishly large. - Milton Beychok 11:05, 21 February 2008 (CST)

The question we have to come to grips with is: how many workgroups do we want to have, in the long run? And then: how do we legitimize the decision to add new workgroups?

Milton, I won't undo your work and I sympathize with your situation...but I don't generally like people adding new workgroups themselves...it's very complicated, probably over 10 different separate tasks to do to make it correct. In the meantime, the various workgroup pages are broken. Besides...the decision how to "divide up content authority" on CZ is one that individuals shouldn't make by themselves (unlike, for example, writing articles!). --Larry Sanger 11:23, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Larry, thanks for your response. In my opening comment here, I said "Perhaps I committed a no-no". It appears that I have done so and I apologise for that. Thanks for straightening me out. However, I still believe that we need categories such as Category:Chemical Engineering Workgroup to help attract more engineers to CZ. Milton Beychok 13:48, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Milton, I would have to disagree. To me it is just one of many chemistry subfields. We don't really need separate groups for theoretical (quantum), organic, inorganic, physical, biochemical, etc. chemistry. While degrees are offered in chemical engineering, biochemistry, organic synthesis and so on, in effect CE is just dealing with very large chemical reactions and optimizing them, considering hydrodynamics (physics or math?) and a bunch of other things. If we ever move to sub-catagories, it should be one. What we need to avoid is having 500 workgroups, as everyone seems to think their specialty needs one; that reminds me I need to retract my Electronic Workgroup recommendation I made earlier!

David, I see that I did not make myself clear. I did'nt intend for Category:Chemical Engineering Workgroup to be at the same hierarchal level as Category:Engineering Workgroup. I would be very pleased to have it as subcategory or a child category. To me the important thing is to have a place to cluster or group all chemical engineering articles. Just as information only, it is ChE for chemical engineering not CE (which is Civil Engineering). I would love to have you read the Chemical engineering article. Milton Beychok 15:37, 21 February 2008 (CST)

El biggo question is whether we can usefully start up subgroups without in effect doing all the extra business of setting up a workgroup. I leave that to your creativity, as I must fetch the pizza. --Larry Sanger 16:14, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Send me a slice, will ya? Pizza for breakfast works for me! Aleta Curry 16:36, 21 February 2008 (CST)

We seem to have left my request for a Category:Chemical Engineering Workgroup as a sub-group of Category:Engineering Workgroup hanging in limbo. Could someone please re-consider and start this dialogue again? There are now 40 articles awaiting a decision on the Chemical Engineering category. Milton Beychok 15:24, 13 March 2008 (CDT)

I whole-heartedly and unreservedly support this suggestion. Engineering covers an incredible range of skills (says Noel, who once attended a school with about a dozen different 'engineering' departments :-). Even as someone who trained as an electrical engineer, and audited courses in aeronautical engineering (chalk and cheese right there), I have basically zero understanding of chemical engineering as a discipline - and, moreover, a little reading isn't going to rectify that, once can't cross over and pick these disciplines up easily. What little I do know is enough to assure me that 'chemical engineering' and 'chemistry' are totally different beasts - just as 'electrical engineering' and the E&M part of physics are totally different (although related, and once needs to know something of the latter to practise the former, in both cases). All these 'engineering' fields (chemical, mechanical, electrical, biomedical, materials, environmental, nuclear, aero/astro, naval, civil, etc) are almost entirely wholly separate fields, which need to be separate subgroups of engineering. J. Noel Chiappa 20:32, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

I started a forum thread on sub-workgroups relating to this example of Chemical engineering. See here http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1646.0.html Chris Day 00:15, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Milton's Justdoit makes a point

It was a faux pas, but Milton has made a point.

Remember that we-need-a-workgroup-committee-we're-going-to-do-it-it's-a-priority?

We've got tons else to do, of course, but the state of the workgroups really needs attending to.

Aleta Curry 15:58, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Pizza with Curry ... do they go together? :>) Sorry, sometimes I just can't help myself. Milton Beychok 17:27, 21 February 2008 (CST)

hahahahaha--are you related to Baldwin-Edwards?  :) Aleta Curry 18:59, 21 February 2008 (CST)

Workgroup coordination does seem to be in a bit of a limbo at the moment--maybe creative sorts can get their thinking caps on and try to think of ways to coordinate subject subgroups? I am not sure if any such initiative will fall under being 'bold' or require whole new proposals--but even if it did, at least renewed discussion could all get those interested in new workgroups and subworkgroups on the same page. Willing to help out with ideas, would like to see how many others will get on board. Louise Valmoria 21:21, 22 March 2008 (CDT)

As you can see from my comments just above, I do firmly believe that the Engineering Workgroup needs to have subgroups dedicated to the main engineering discipline. By that I mean Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Electrical engineering at the very least. There are others of course, but those four would at least start the ball rolling. If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. I am not a computer guru, so I could not help with any coding that may be required. However, as a working engineer for the last 50 + years, I feel I could help with any organizational planning and subgroup selections. - Milton Beychok 01:19, 23 March 2008 (CDT)

Chris Day has worked up a method for creating subgroups and it seems to be what I have been asking for. See the discussion on the Forum at http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1646.0.html - Milton Beychok 11:44, 24 March 2008 (CDT)

Meta-level workgroup

Not sure whether a workgroup would be appropriate for this, but a 'meta'-level grouping would be useful. Humanities might be an example - it is at a higher 'level' than any subgroup. I've currently added it to CZ:Philosophy Workgroup, but this feels silly, since philosophy is a humanities subject. Also, this page probably needs refactoring. --Tom Morris 14:14, 28 June 2008 (CDT)

Citizendium organization workgroup

This is a workgroup that would be in charge of organization of the data. The Meta-level workgroup mentioned above would fit into this category. But here are some other areas that need addressing that don't fit into subject categories:

• templates - creating them, porting from Wikipedia, organizing them, etc.
• images - there is a lot of maintenance in obtaining images that is outside of articles. Obviously there will be overlap, but this workspace does not fit into any one other workgroup. There would subworkgroups for each of the other major workgroups under this.
• topic related tabs - lists of countries, states, presidents, etc. are going to have to be shared among numerous articles. There needs to be a central way to organize this.
• articles related specifically to Citizendium, so users can quickly find what they are looking for.
• page layout design ideas, writing the CSS, documenting it, etc.
• anything that is not directly related to the text content of the articles.

I wanted to create an article/notes containing lists of images: country flags, country maps, presidents of the US, US state coins ... just to get started. There is no workgroup that is appropriate. I don't want to just put them into the topic workgroups alone, and they don't belong in the media workgroup. That workgroup seems to be about newspapers, radio, etc. -- the publishing of media, not the physical media. Melissa Newman 19:23, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

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Biography Workgroup?

Should we have a Biography Workgroup for articles about people? Caesar Schinas 16:56, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

We already do, Caesar, though under a less than obvious name: CZ:Topic Informant Workgroup. Regards, Anton Sweeney 22:34, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Does this include all articles about people? I thought it was just for articles about people or companies where the the person or company provides information or comments on the article.

Tim Berners-Lee, for example, isn't in it.

And do dead people count? They can't really be topic informants...

Caesar Schinas 06:16, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Statistics Workgroup

Statistics has a mathematical core (and in some parts of the world most academic mathematical statisticians live in mathematics departments) but applied statisticians, biostatisticians, and the like have huge professional and scientific expertise which cannot really be called "mathematics". Moreover, they live in many different university faculties. In particular, many of them won't consider their field part of the "natural sciences", though they will consider statistics a Science (statistical science, in fact) as well as an art. Sometimes we talk about mathematical sciences, and statistics and theoretical computer science might be considered to be two particular mathematical sciences, alongside of mathematics pur sang. The hierarchical classification of science seems to me to be more about administration and politics then anything else, but it is also about identity and belonging.

So: can we have a statistics workgroup? And where should it be? Richard D. Gill 10:22, 11 February 2011 (UTC)