Forum Talk:Governance/Archive 1

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New governance proposal

I am currently drafting a new referendum proposal on future governance. Briefly, the intention is to dissolve the current governance structure, which clearly no longer works, and replace it with a community-driven version based on discussion and consensus. Furthermore, all current rules would be reduced to the status of guidance and the only binding policies would be those in the list below:

Citizendium [proposed] Policies

The Citizendium shall be run according to the policies set out in this document.

Usage and eligibility

1) The Citizendium shall be open to all who endorse this document.

2) The Citizendium is a knowledge resource which shall be owned and managed on a non-profit basis.

3) Citizendium articles shall be free to access on-line via a wiki and available under a licence that permits reuse with attribution.

4) Citizendium contributors shall participate publicly under their real, verified names and maintain public biographical details about themselves; minors - who must be at least 16 years old - shall provide only brief details, and otherwise personal information shall be kept private and destroyed when no longer needed.

5) The Citizendium shall sanction prohibit behaviours that restrict the activities of the project or its members, or damage its reputation, including but not limited to unauthorised advertising ('spam'), vandalism, harassment, copyright violations, libel, slander, use of the site for purposes other than providing a free knowledge resource, criminal activity, or use of material that is considered either illegal or inappropriate for minors.

Content

6) Citizendium articles shall be as neutral, comprehensive, accurate and comprehensible as possible while respecting the balance of scientific evidence.

7) While all article contributors shall be otherwise equal, there shall be special recognition for subject experts (who shall be individuals with any of: accredited research-level qualifications; three or more peer-reviewed publications; or equivalent practical experience as defined by existing expert contributors), who shall have the final say in any dispute over content, and shall have the right to close a version of a reasonably high quality article to further editing.

Governance

8) The Citizendium community or its representatives shall decide its own governance structure and who shall be responsible for administrative, financial, legal, content, behavioural and technical matters.

9) No Citizendium member shall be denied a fair, unbiased appeal process against a decision made against them on administrative, legal, or technical matters.

10) These policies supersede all previous articles, rules and decisions, which may be used as guidance, and this document shall be modified, abolished, added to or otherwise changed only via mandatory public discussion and when authorised by a two-thirds majority of participating Citizendium members; other rules and decisions may be made through voting, consensus or precedent, in as transparent a manner as possible.

Comments

Comments welcome. If there are no objections, this can form part of a petition to the Council for a referendum to take place under Article 37. John Stephenson (talk) 19:51, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Interesting, and needs thinking about. Trivial point: the word "sanction" has two meanings, impliedly contradictory. --Martin Wyatt (talk) 21:28, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

I was going to make just the same point myself!

Thanks; I've corrected this. John Stephenson (talk) 18:19, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

I think we might do with a bit of clarification here.

1. It seems to me reading it that this is intended as a new charter to replace the old one,
2. but that much detail currently covered in the Charter is demoted to non-entrenched status,
3. so that rules about elected or appointed offices would be decided by simple majority,
4. as would any policies not entrenched above.
5. Would this referendum, if passed, have the effect of abolishing the Council immediately, or only when its members' terms of office expire?
6. It would seem that any disputes for which no suitably qualified Editor is available would be dealt with by the community unless and until it delegates that job to someone else.

Peter Jackson (talk) 10:52, 6 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it replaces the Charter and becomes the only binding document on the project. All earlier rules become guidance, i.e. something that could be followed by default or changed following a public discussion. Rules and offices would be decided by mutual agreement, or by voting if people felt it necessary. As for the Council: I intend to include in the referendum proposal its abolition, as under (8) above, any offices or responsibilities would have to be agreed by the community or representatives that they would delegate such tasks to. The general idea is to give everyone who is active on the wiki the chance to be involved in administrative discussion and decision-making without asking them to stand for formal offices first. John Stephenson (talk) 18:19, 6 October 2016 (UTC)