CZ:Technical/Clone

CZ Technical Information

This page comprises information about the technical underpinnings of Citizendium. This information provides those interested in contributing to CZ technical development with guidance on how to do so. It also provides non-technical citizens with instructions how to file bugs or enhancement requests.

How to file a bug or enhancement request

There are two ways to report a bug or make an enhancement request at Citizendium. The first uses the cz-bugs mailing list. Instructions how to use this list are found at CZ Buglist. The second way is to create a ticket on CZ Bugzilla. Instructions how to do that are found at How to use CZ Bugzilla.

How to create a CZ clone

It is sometimes convenient to create a personal copy of the CZ wiki. For example, some citizens may wish to work on their articles when they do not have internet access. Additionally, those interested in working on the code that implements the CZ wiki need to create a local development environment, which requires them to create a personal CZ clone. Instructions for creating a CZ clone on Ubuntu are found at How to set up a CZ clone on Ubuntu. Instructions for creating a CZ clone on CentOS 5.4 are found at How to set up a CZ clone on CentOS 5. CentOS is a Linux variant that is expert friendly. Those without significant experience using it should chose to implement their clone on Ubuntu.

How to check a current setting on the live wiki

A (slightly modified) copy of LocalSettings.php is provided at CZ:Technical/LocalSettings.php, and you can check most settings there. You can also check which extensions are installed at Special:Version.

To contact staff off-site, please use the email below.

Please send email to manager A T citizendium.org . .

Memberships, and Editor-in-Chief

• Pat Palmer

Assistant Editor-in-Chief

• John Stephenson
• George Swan
• E. J. Diamond

Featured Article

• E. J. Diamond

Members

Contributors

• We have several dozen Contributors
• Number of past contributors: (4,654)

<onlyinclude>== Technical Staff ==

• Pat Palmer (since June 23rd, 2020)
• Anthony Messana (currently writing a bot to populate topics on the Related Articles tab)
• John Stephenson (fills all the empty spaces that no one else is filling)
• Sergei Chekanov (did the server migration and major software upgrades in 2022)
• Russell John (software update in Nov 2022)
• Greg Sabino Mullane (emergency backup; reappointed March 27th, 2015)

Former tech staff:

• Joshua Sadule (in 2020 if not earlier; on the server side of things; exited Mar. 2022)
• Francisco Reyes (since March 27th, 2015; exited Mar. 2022; still advises some)

Other positions

• Treasurer: Mark Widmer

About our staff

The Citizendium is run by a collection of volunteers. Pat Palmer is working with an Advisory Team on policy, goals and membership and is handling new account requests, and User:Sergei Chekanov upgraded the software in March 2022; at the same time as the software upgrade, hardware was also upgraded to include SSD drives and a faster processor.

Until 2021, Francisco Reyes and Joshua Sadule worked (along with occasional assistance from others) towards upgrading the server and outdated wiki software, and generously handled many repairs and backups.

In 2020, domain ownership was transferred to Pat Palmer, who expects to continue operating the wiki with a high degree of transparency, with gratitude to all the volunteers helping keep things going. Also since 2020, Citizendium has occasionally paid for professional tech support in upgrading the software behind the wiki.

New volunteers are welcome! Let us know if you'd like to become involved.

Payments

Contributors are not paid for writing articles and we have no plans to allow that. The wiki is also free to use and all our articles are available under a free license. We rely entirely on donations from our volunteers and supporters.

In terms of work on the project itself, this is a volunteer project. Occasionally, management has had to pay a contractor briefly for technical work, but mostly we do it ourselves. No one helping manage the wiki receives any salary or benefits.