Archive:Notice Board

This page is for notices and reminders--memo-type stuff--to everyone working on this wiki. It's for administrative notices concerning day-to-day operations, important policy clarifications, requests, technical announcements, etc.

For news, use the Citizendium Blog.

Have questions? Ask here.

For discussion, use the Citizendium Forums.

For community-wide announcements, use Citizendium-L.

For announcements just to editors, use Citizendium-Editors.

March 29, 2007

It's great to see new articles starting. We are still developing the nuances of how to go about things in making our compendium of knowledge, but there are a couple of points to always include: The categories we have to include when writing articles on the wiki are: Categrory: CZ Live, and the workgroup that the article falls under. If you are an author and you start or add to an article, you might also add that to your user page. Well, what if started an article and you didn't add a workgroup? You can alsways add it ow- or somebody else can.

For example: United_States_of_America has no workgroup.

Who can add the proper workgroup first?

March 27, 2007

Now that they can see our violations, some Wikipedians have been rather grumpy about the articles we have here that are not marked as being sourced from Wikipedia. So please do check those "Content is from Wikipedia?" boxes as appropriate. This is one of a dozen things you should know about. Also, The Big Cleanup is systematically checking for violations--which is just one of many good reasons to pitch in there.

An experimental list of most popular violations (i.e. most viewed articles with incorrect status) can be found on the talk page. Happy editing! --AlekStos

4AM CDT: Load balancing is here! Reid, after a nasty reboot glitch, has been added to the server pool to balance the massive traffic we have been experiencing. We now have 1 dedicated web server, 1 near-dedicated web server (reid also runs blog and forums) and a dedicated Database server. Since my brain is completely taxed, Puddy is in control. Fear Doxen System Administration. [[1]] Electrawn 04:04, 27 March 2007 (CDT)

March 26, 2007

We were down longer than expected, but running on the right server. Up as of 8:15CDT Electrawn 20:16, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

We will be doing some work moving the database in about 30 minutes (7 PM CST). Some downtime (20 minutes or so) is likely. Apologies, but it's very needed. -- ZachPruckowski (Speak to me) 18:31, 26 March 2007 (CDT)

Our applications have risen, and - with them, new questions have come. Some cases have raised issues, in the details, of what is and is not acceptable in an application. What's the proper interpretation of our policies for creating new user accounts? Please see [2] and participate in the discussion!

A dozen things you should know about!

March 25, 2007

We are now live! The Pilot Project is over! A big AP feature story is about to appear online--let's have fun!

The AP story is up--two related stories, in fact, reprinted over 100 times.

March 22, 2007

Comments desired on a new essay, before I link to it from the blog: Why the Citizendium Will (Probably) Succeed. Please e-mail me comments at sanger [at] citizendium.org. Thanks in advance! --Larry Sanger 18:58, 22 March 2007 (CDT)

March 21, 2007

We are now no longer at pilot.citizendium.org! As of this evening, Jason (in consultation with others) has moved us to en.citizendium.org. Yahoo! We aren't yet open to read access by the public--but we will be soon.

Another minor task for someone: search for all our CZ pages with "pilot project", and edit them all so that they speak about the Citizendium, not a pilot project. Anyone game?

March 20, 2007

Minor task for someone: please go through Category:External Articles, compare it to Category:CZ Live; none of the articles in the former category should be in the latter. Please remove the tags as necessary.

This one is finished.

March 19, 2007

SysAdmin Notice: New Servers to be installed on Mar. 20; Wiki may be unavailable for undeterminable lengths of time. Expect disruption, be patient. UPDATE: This downtime will also encompass the forums and the blog.

As a result, our public launch will, finally, be happening quite soon--certainly before the end of the month. Major press coverage has already been lined up and you can probably expect a lot of new activity here.

March 15, 2007

Please sign up to help with The Big Cleanup! This will be extremely useful, and we need all the help we can get. Do have a look, and consider doing at least one set of articles.

March 12, 2007

We have created a new "CZ:" namespace that will replace the old "Citizendium Pilot:" namespace. Please do not use "Citizendium Pilot:" anymore--because we are soon no longer to be a pilot project, but a Beta project!

The "Content is from Wikipedia?" checkbox now, finally, actually works. If you check it, it will stay checked. Therefore, if you're working on an article, or notice an article, that has content from Wikipedia, but which doesn't credit Wikipedia, will you please edit the article and check that box? Notice that it is still the case that you must make some other change (just adding a space " " will do it) in order for the checkbox change to register.

March 10, 2007

We're now testing for The Big Cleanup and The Article Checklist. We need a few more people to go through a cleanup "to do list" for a dozen articles, for each making sure the title is bolded, unused categories are deleted, etc. You also place the Article Checklist template on the article talk pages. If you want an idea of some categories that the Article Checklist automatically generate, start at Checklisted Articles.

March 8, 2007

Larry Sanger is leaning toward using GFDL exclusively for Wikipedia-sourced articles, and is impressed by the arguments people have made for CC-by-nc for the other articles. Please contribute to the discussion of this absolutely essential question on this forum page.

Sanger says he would like to make a final decision, perhaps, tomorrow or this weekend.

March 7, 2007

We've got a launch plan.

Note, we're caught up with our application backlog.

February 23, 2007

To editor applicants, our apologies--we have a long backlog again and it will take us some time to catch up. This is not a reflection on you but only on the fact that we need to get some more staff to review those applications.

Please do your part in the new Big Write, a project to write a bunch of articles on high-priority topics. It's a community initiative in which editors offer to "bless" credible starts on new articles.

February 17, 2007

Let's get started with Citizendium Pilot:The Big Speedydelete!

February 16, 2007

We apologize for the ongoing vandalism. We have, however, installed some software that should cut down on the spambot problems. We'll be making some further changes that will make it hard for vandals to do their dirty tricks.

UPDATE: we have decided to give our constables a break in their vandal-fighting by, at least temporarily, turning off account auto-creation. It will still be possible to apply to constables@citizendium.org and join the project.

February 14, 2007

Want to grab an article from Wikipedia?

Then please first read about how to convert Wikipedia articles to Citizendium articles.

Slashdotted again

Slashdotted again. Consequently, the time is ripe to announce that we'll be launching as soon we get a few more servers (which we can now afford) and make some technical changes.

February 12, 2007

As you might have noticed, the constables have been working hard learning how to use our various vandal-fighting tools. Please excuse our cruft on the recent changes page. Please be patient--we'll learn better how to deal with vandals instantly or nearly so. We are also carefully crafting rules that, as we'll explain, we will be applying aggressively to troublemakers both here and on the Forums; and we will sometime in the next week or two begin to require the use of real names on the Forums.

February 10, 2007

The article: Vertebral subluxation is up for approval. All interested authors and editors are invited to read it and comment. Nancy Sculerati MD 12:18, 10 February 2007 (CST)

Calling for editor applications from among current authors

Note: we would like to get more editors on board, particularly so that they can begin the process of approving articles. The new self-registration makes it easy to join as an author--and then remain as an author. That's a good first step. But if you are qualified, then please do join our pool of editors (see instructions at bottom of page), so that you can move our articles toward approval. The allure of approved articles are, after all, what attracts many people here in the first place. So let's make it a reality.

February 9, 2007

I have just posted an call for participation to PHILOSOP and PHILOS-L, the two biggest philosophy mailing lists. Let's hope we get some new philosophers this way. See Citizendium Pilot:Recruitment Letter for the letter used. Please, let's get this recruitment process started. If you would like help, e.g., another set of eyes to look at a recruitment message sent out, then please send me a copy at sanger [at] citizendium.org. Thanks for your help and all your excellent work on CZ! --Larry Sanger 13:43, 9 February 2007 (CST)

February 8, 2007

Editor testimonials available for recruitment

Please see this page, which may be linked from recruitment letters as part of our outreach efforts.

Call for discussion regarding article introductory section

Call for format change. Having a top section of each article that would allow placement of the derivation of the word, a short dictionary definition, or other basic information that is something a user may well want to find immediately, but is a muddle when placed in the introduction of the article would be a great help-in my opinion (see Talk page of Pseudocience). Can we have some suggestions on how to incorporate such a change? Is there a format style that might be generally agreeable? Nancy Sculerati MD 10:14, 8 February 2007 (CST)

Please discuss any suggestions, and codify rules, on these pages:

These pages may be reached via Citizendium Pilot:Project Home, which should have direct links to all policy pages.

February 5, 2007

Keep saving those orphans!

Looks like someone (or some people) have been finding homes for all the orphans listed here (and to find this page again, look to the left, toolbox > Special pages > Orphaned pages). But we still have over 300 orphans. Can you, please, either delete/mark for deletion the orphaned articles that are not live (please check the page history before deleting!) or else actually create appropriate links to the orphaned articles? Let's find these kids some good homes.

Giving Wikipedia proper credit

UPDATE: there is now a checkbox with a prompt, "Content is from Wikipedia?", found below the text boxes used to edit wiki pages. This checkbox now generates a brief, linked note at the bottom of an article: "This article uses content that originally appeared on Wikipedia." Templates are no longer necessary to generate such a notice. Please, to avoid redundancy, remove all instances of {{wikipedia}} and any other templates that might have been created for purposes of giving credit to Wikipedia. It is important that the database keep track of this directly, which the checkbox achieves more efficiently.

Question - how do we remove the linked note if we hit the save button before noticing the new checkbox? Here is where. Stephen Ewen 01:54, 7 February 2007 (CST)
Hit Edit again, uncheck the box, explain yourself in the edit summary, and hit "save" -- ZachPruckowski (Talk) 02:09, 7 February 2007 (CST)

February 4, 2007

This is a request to Jason to put additional pages under the toolbox: fiirst one- How to make a footnote Nancy Sculerati MD 10:42, 4 February 2007 (CST)

Febuary 3, 2007

Note to editor applicants: if you have applied for editorship in the last few weeks, and we haven't replied, we're very sorry--it's because we're understaffed. We've just called for some new Editorial Personnel Administrators. We hope to clear the backlog by next week. In the meantime we do hope you will get to work, as of course you can do!

January 31, 2007

I have created a template for requesting a quick deletion of an article. It is Template:Speedydelete. You can use it like this: {{Speedydelete|REASON|~~~}} where REASON is why the article needs to be deleted now. Good reasons include accidental page creations, test pages, and vandalism. Constables can track quick deletion requests at Category:Speedy Deletion Requests. -- ZachPruckowski 23:48, 30 January 2007 (CST)

Please place any such template on the Talk page associated with an article, not on the article itself! Also, just to be clear, no process has yet been discussed or decided for "speedy deletion"; right now it is all ad hoc. This will change. --Larry Sanger 13:16, 1 February 2007 (CST)

January 30, 2007

This is a request for ORIGINAL photographs without any copyrights of domestic animals. "Snapshots" are fine! Please upload using the Upload file link over in the toolbox of the bottom of the sidebar on the left. Place in the new page, Image Bank- The Gallery of Domestic Animals. There are some specific requests on the talk page there. Thanks, Nancy Nancy Sculerati MD 05:58, 1 February 2007 (CST)

January 28, 2007

We are told that an article about CZ is underway for Slashdot. This always leads to huge amounts of traffic for the profiled website, called a Slashdotting, and so it is quite likely that we will be flooded with huge numbers of new accounts created by techies. Brace yourselves and please be on hand when this happens (no indication when it will be).

January 27, 2007

Address to "call a constable"

You can now "call a constable" at constables@citizendium.org. One of our friendly neighborhood peace officers will respond.

It is contrary to Citizendium policy to air complaints about the behavior of other users here on the wiki, even if your complaint is perfectly legitimate. Please don't "take the law into your own hands." One of the positive differences between the Citizendium and Wikipedia, we hope, will be a more civil atmosphere.

It was decided today by the Constables that if you do air a complaint about the behavior of another Citizen on the wiki, it will be summarily removed by a Constable and replaced with this template:

A comment here was deleted by The Constabulary on grounds of making complaints about fellow Citizens. If you have a complaint about the behavior of another Citizen, e-mail constables@citizendium.org. It is contrary to Citizendium policy to air your complaints on the wiki. See also CZ:Professionalism.

Please, think of the orphans!

When you create a new article, make sure that it is linked-to from another article, appropriately. If you must create a stub (very short) article to have something that appropriately links to your new article--or even a string of two or three stubs--then please do so.

Also, a yeomanly bit of work would be to find homes for all the orphans listed here (and to find this page again, look to the left, toolbox > Special pages > Orphaned pages).

January 24, 2007

Please make sure that if your article borrows from Wikipedia, you make a note of that down by the bottom if the little Wikipedia notice isn't there. We don't want to get caught accidentally breaking the GFDL. --ZachPruckowski 11:47, 24 January 2007 (CST)

January 23, 2007

Our first downtime/slowtime

We experienced our first server problems since the launch of the pilot project today. This appears to be related to this heise.de article, but the cause is still unknown. The website was very slow for about six hours and as of 8 PM Eastern Time seems to useable, but still slow.

Press release

Press release postponed until tomorrow.

only german native speakers will be able to read and understand the article, but it is pretty positive about citizendium. Since german is one of my languages - if there is a "need" to have a translated version - I can concoct a translation there Robert Tito 19:32, 23 January 2007 (CST)

New self-registration!

We have just started allowing people to self-register. See [3]. This means that (1) we'll be likely to see more vandalism (our very first vandal visited us this morning) and (2) we'll be likely to see a lot more activity.

Find homes for orphans

NOTE to people creating new articles: please do not create "orphans," i.e., make sure that all new articles are linked from at least one existing article. Some enterprising soul would do the project a great deal of good by going through the orphaned pages and giving them homes, i.e., linking to them from some existing article. By the way, you can find the list of orphaned pages via the "Special pages" to the left.

January 21, 2007

We're going to be doing a press release in two days (Jan. 23). This will announce a newer, much easier method for joining the wiki. We expect lots of new contributors. Please be on hand in the next few days to help direct the new traffic!

January 20, 2007

UPDATE 2: "the big delete" happened the evening of Jan. 20.

UPDATE: it might not be until tomorrow that we do "the big delete." --Larry Sanger 15:45, 20 January 2007 (CST)

As you might have noticed, we've been working on the main page, the sidebar, there's a funding drive notice atop every page, etc. Today and possibly tomorrow the server might go down unexpectedly (sorry if so) as we do "the big delete." Don't worry--we're making backups! Also, if you really dislike the Main Page, that's what you get for leaving it in the hands of a philosopher instead of a graphic designer. Unlike Wikipedia, the main page is open to editing by participants! --Larry Sanger 13:08, 20 January 2007 (CST)

January 18, 2007

Important Announcement

We have decided to delete all inactive articles, i.e., we have decided not to fork Wikipedia! See the Citizendium-L post for more info.

The deletion will take place at or soon after this Saturday, noon Eastern time, about 48 hours after I write this.

NOTE TO ACTIVE CONTRIBUTORS: if you have been working on an article, MAKE SURE that it has been marked Category:CZ Live. Otherwise, it will be deleted! [This actually turned out not to be the case. We simply deleted articles that had not been edited at all. This left us with 3000 pages.]

NOTE ALSO: if you compiled a list of "top priority" articles by tagging all such articles (see, for example, http://tinyurl.com/372fto), and those articles aren't also marked "CZ Live" (as many of them *shouldn't* be because no one has in fact worked on them), then you might want to save that list, which will disappear when the inactive articles are deleted. This should not be hard. Simply go to the "Category:_______ Workgroup (Top)" page, copy the list, place and around the items in the list and delete the index letters (or keep them if you want); finally, paste the result onto the "Citizendium Pilot:______ Workgroup" page. I won't do this myself, so hop to it if you care!!!

January 17, 2007

This isn't an administrative notice, but it's a very important question and I want to make sure everyone in the CZ community thinks about it:

Would you contribute more if the wiki were blank?

That is a question I am posing on the CZ forum. I think it is a very interesting question, because if the answers come back, "Yes, I would, because repairing mediocre Wikipedia content isn't nearly as much fun as starting over from scratch would be," then by golly I'm going to suggest that we jettison the idea of forking Wikipedia, delete all the unchanged Wikipedia articles, and have people start from scratch. If you want to reply, do it there on the forum rather than here. Thanks! Larry Sanger 01:09, 17 January 2007 (CST)

December 21, 2006

From Larry Sanger: I figured there would be some surprises to come out of our experiment. I thought that participation would be very much author-heavy, with editors weighing in only from time to time. In fact, it's exactly the reverse. While we do have a number of quite active authors, I've noticed in recent weeks that the edits have been quite editor-heavy. This isn't a bad thing in itself, obviously--I mean, we want editors to be active--but it has always been my conception that CZ would have at least as much author activity as editor activity. After all, CZ is not for experts only.

December 12, 2006

We're going to have some server downtime in about an hour (6 PM Eastern), for about 15 minutes. Hopefully, after that, the wiki will be faster!

December 7, 2006

We're announcing a contest to design the Citizendium logo.

December 6, 2006

(1) Is this the right place to ask the following question?

(2) Which workgroup is "Law" in, please? I expected to find it in "Social Sciences" but looked for it elsewhere, too. (I didn't entertain the possibility of not having "Law" as a separate category.) -- k. kay shearin

Wow--what an amazing and horrible oversight! Well, I'll fix that immediately. --Larry Sanger 22:42, 7 December 2006 (CST)

See Citizendium Pilot:Law Workgroup. Nothing there now, but hopefully that will change.

November 30, 2006

Anybody able to add the mentioned layer in the Computer pages?, I think it needs Larry to do that. Thanks, Rob

I'm not needed to do this. If you think that an extra layer of articles is necessary to maintain a sensible amount of granularity, great--and then you can make the change yourself. You simply need to add links to as-yet uncreated articles. Note, however, that articles similar to the topics you're interested in may already exist. Poke around. You may want to discuss the matter in advance either on Talk:Computer or else the Computers Workgroup Forum. --Larry Sanger 21:26, 30 November 2006 (CST)

I just wanted to remind you please to place

[[Category:CZ Live]]

(typed just like that) at the bottom of articles you've worked on. Please do check that this "tag" is there. It should be added to all and only those articles on which someone has made a substantial change (say, the addition or subtraction of a sentence's worth of content; most have been changed much more than that, in my observation).

November 29, 2006

If you add yourself to a workgroup (and you really should), please make sure that you use a pipelink. This way, you're sorted properly on the page. If you just use [[Category:XXX Authors]], then you wind up on the page as a "U" (since you're adding your "User:FirstLast" page). The right way to do it is [[Category:XXX Authors|Last Name, First Name]], so that you show up alphabetized properly. Ditto for editors. --ZachPruckowski 17:25, 29 November 2006 (CST)

November 24, 2006

Is there any objection to put a deepening layer in the Computers pages? I would suggest the following layer between computers and the final detail pages: Computer Science Science of Computers and Computer Linguistics and Semantics (Generally the first two are distinguished as follows: deployment of science, pure science (theoretical) and logics, linguistics and semantics oriented. Thanks. Rob

Could those who know how please look at "Healing Arts" on the list of workgroups on the main page and fix it so that it clicks to its own "Healing Arts" section rather than the generic "other arts". This way we can start the workgroup and tag articles? Thanks. Nancy Sculerati MD 11:33, 24 November 2006 (CST) Thanks to Chris Day for fixing the category. Could someone who know how kindly add a Healing Arts Forum that links to Healing Arts? Nancy Sculerati MD 14:27, 24 November 2006 (CST)

The Forum administrators (who can create boards) are Larry Sanger, Jason P, and Phil W. Also, you need a Healing Arts article. That's pretty important in terms of defining your focus (and how it differs from Health Science and Biology)--ZachPruckowski 16:01, 24 November 2006 (CST)

November 19, 2006

We're just now launching discipline workgroups! Your help is needed!

The wiki has a weird bug. Sometimes you edit a page, and, for no apparent reason, your changes aren't displayed--"hard refreshing" won't even work. But if you edit the page, you can see that your changes have been saved. If that happens to you, here's a handy work-around (until a bug fix comes in): simply add a space to the end of a paragraph (obviously such a space will not be displayed), or make any other edit, and then your previous changes will be displayed.

November 16, 2006

Please report any unusual bugs at bugs@citizendium.org. That address has been set up to send mail to people who are maintaining our canonical bugs list.

November 14, 2006

We've just revised our application procedure and rules. You should see some more authors arriving.

November 12, 2006

Help with CZ recruitment! We have some project recruitment pages that need your help. Add information about mailing lists, blogs, and professional organizations in your area that we should (eventually, and carefully) approach.

November 10, 2006

CZ is not for experts only!

Answer to Rob's question put on Talk:Database. Notice that "Talk" pages (click on the "discussion" tab!) are the best places to discuss articles.

November 8, 2006

Is your User page filled out? Please put something there if you are active on the pilot wiki. We are not anonymous here, but members of a real community (a welcoming one!).

November 6, 2006

The personnel administrators have just finished going through several hundred applications to join this pilot project, and we've also sent out a mail to our many members, asking them to get to work. As a result, there's a lot more activity going on today. Let's keep it going!

If you check "Watch this page" at the bottom of a page, you add it to your "watchlist." That's what the "my watchlist" link in the upper right is for.

November 5, 2006

I'm off-duty for a few days. I'm answering the occasional email etc. but that's it. Thanks, Peter Hitchmough.
Is anyone getting extremely poor rendering of pilot pages? See Bug #54 reported by User:Ruth Ifcher --Peter Hitchmough 08:16, 5 November 2006 (CST)
- I've seen a few, but it seems to come and go. --Larry Sanger 12:22, 5 November 2006 (CST)

November 4, 2006

A tip for people new to wikis: for many, the recent changes page (link on the left, not to be confused with "Random page" and "Related changes") is a source of endless fascination. It allows you to explore what other people are up to, help them, and "keep them honest." More generally, if you've never used a wiki before, there are all sorts of tricks you will discover mostly by regular use and exploration of available links. We'll have to write our own instructions, but for now you can consult Wikipedia's help pages.

November 2, 2006

Please make sure you add [[Category:CZ Live]] to the bottom of the text box of whatever article you're editing. That will make sure your work gets counted, and that it is listed (very conveniently!) on Category:CZ Live. If we're good about labelling our articles this way, we'll have an accurate count of the number of articles we've worked on. Also, don't be shy about slapping labelling articles that others have worked on with the [[Category:CZ Live]] tag. It's properly bold!

Again, see http://blog.citizendium.org/ for the latest project news. This notice board is just for administrative notices, not for news.

November 1, 2006

Please add yourself to your contributor category: [[Category:CZ Editors]] to the bottom of your user page if we invited you to be an editor. Please add [[Category:CZ Authors]] if you're an author (editors can feel free to add themselves to this list, too). Constables should be able to figure out what to do. :-)

October 30, 2006

Two personal requests from Larry: how about a new article, and a complete revision of an old article?

October 29, 2006

If you're new, please read how to get started with the Citizendium pilot! It tells you to use [[Category:CZ Live]] on articles you've edited, and other essential tips.