CZ:Moderator Group

Welcome to the Constabulary!

Our constables are Citizendium's "community managers" or "moderators." They oversee adherence to basic policies, resolve behavioral — not editorial — disputes, and rein in troublemakers. Constables also review applications and create new accounts, and can place the "approved" template into articles at the request of an editor. They operate within a "separation of powers" and are held to a strict conflict of interest policy. For further information, see Constabulary Policy.

To "call a constable," please email constables@citizendium.org.

The Constabulary Charter Purview

Article 5

Citizens shall act responsibly and in a civil manner: derogatory or offensive language or behavior will not be tolerated. Citizens who interfere with another Citizen's rights as delineated by this Charter or who violate rules established by the Citizendium Council shall be subject to administrative action upon complaint of the aggrieved Citizen, the punishment of which may include, but is not limited to, suspension from the Citizendium for a period of time, or permanent expulsion. Other administrative actions may be established by the Citizendium Council.

Article 7

All Citizens shall be equal and no special privileges shall be granted except those granted in this charter to Editors and Officers.

Article 38

The Constabulary shall enforce the Citizendium's rules of behavior as determined by the Citizendium Council, which shall apply equally to all Citizens regardless of status or position, including Editors and those with official positions. In particular, Constables

1. shall not intervene in matters of content, and
2. shall act with reasonable pragmatism and leniency, and only in those situations where a behavioral dispute is clearly covered by existing rules.
3. Constables shall have power to block citizens' access to the Citizendium.
4. Any act of the Constables may be appealed to the Citizendium Council.

Some guiding conversations

• Do Citizens need to complain before a constable can act?

• When to sanction on the fora

• How to handle unprofessional behavior on the forum

• How do we deal with alleged Email abuse?

• Dispute resolution

• Rules apply equally to everyone

• Advertising and self promotion vs personal links

From the Management Council (superseded by Citizendium Council)

• How constable interpretation of the rules is applied

• How to appeal a constable action

• Disturbing the peace and taunting

When to call a constable

Authors should understand the relative domains of authority of editors and constables: editors handle disputes about content, while constables handle disputes about behavior. Constables should not be asked to settle disputes that can be settled by a definitive answer to a content question; in that case, an editor should be consulted. Constables should be called when the dispute does not turn on a content question. For example:

• An author is straightforwardly ignoring decisions made by an editor.
• A contributor is acting abusively in the discussion page.
• A contributor refuses to engage in any discussion about a disputed edit.
• A contributor is very obviously ignoring project rules, for example, someone simply deletes without explanation all information about a view with which he disagrees.
• Someone claiming to be an editor is very obviously not entitled to do so, for example, because the user page has no, nonsensical, or irrelevant links to evidence of qualification.

To "call a constable," please email constables@citizendium.org.

Entry points

List of Constables All current Constables Daily Procedures Check Constables@Citizendium.org Check Czinternal@mail.citizendium.org All Logs for Citizendium Special:Log/newusers List of new members who have been approved Monitor Recent Citizendium Changes Monitor Recent Constabulary Changes Monitor your unread Forums Check Confirm Accounts Requests Check Speedy Deletes Check your Citizendium Watchlist Check your Constable Watchlist Check ToApprove Articles Solutions to Citizen Problems "I used The easy way to email in an article -- where is it?" "My password doesn't work." "Where are the Cold Storage articles?" User pages and Leaving the Project How to: Approve an article - the complete process Check a user's IP address Responses to behavior issues Behavior Templates {{nocomplaints}} {{civil}} {{inflammatory}} {{Freshstart}} {{acronym}} Other useful templates {{unsigned|User Name}} {{UnsignedShort|User Name}} {{NoRants}} Remove a forum post Logs of all CZ users Protected pages Renamed Citizens log Special pages -- useful info and functions Citizendium Home CZ Home Governing Policy Charter Content Policy Neutrality Policy Neutrality Policy summation Constabulary and Council decisions Constabulary policy pages Anti-Vandalism procedures Approval Process Article Deletion Policy Behavior Templates and when to use them Blocking Policy Rapid Response Rules Copyright Issues Media Assets Workgroup Image Copyrights Fair Use working policy CZ Home links Leaving the Project - User pages Maintainability: What does it mean, as opposed to Notability? Self-promotion: Policy Professionalism offenses Topic Informants: Policy User Group Rights Info: Which Citizens and Officials can do what Miscellaneous When not to use Constable powers Archives of the Constabulary How to report a bug in the system

A guide to constable procedures

Constables, the following is the beginnings of a guide on how to do your job. Please help clarify and expand it as needed.

The constables mailbox and list

Constables require access to the constables@citizendium.org mailbox to perform their duties. To access it, request instructions from another constable.

We would like to keep its "Inbox" emptied — have a short turnaround time for all messages, as far as possible. Most of the sub-folders should be self-explanatory. Do look in and read the contents of "For our reference".

Constables also need to to be subscribed to an internal-only list for constables only. As soon as you became a constable, Stephen Ewen (at present) should have subscribed you. Contact him if not.

Responding to rude remarks, complaints, and flamebait placed on the wiki

Rude remarks shouldn't be tolerated; see Professionalism. If a paragraph of text contains personal attacks or other abusive language, constables should replace the whole paragraph (or a series of thus problematic paragraphs) with the {{civil}} template, which generates this message:

Text here was removed by the Constabulary on grounds of civility. (The author may replace this template with an edited version of the original remarks.)

Complaints by contributors about other contributors — authors, editors, and constables — should be made to constables@citizendium.org. Accordingly, such complaints are not permitted on the wiki. If a paragraph of text contains any such complaint, constables should replace the whole paragraph with the {{nocomplaints}} template, which generates this message:

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.

Making repeated complaints about other users on the wiki can, after [how many?] warnings, lead to a user's at least temporary removal from the project. Abuse is dealt with much more strictly; see Constabulary Blocking Procedures and We aren't Wikipedia.

Needlessly inflammatory remarks are to be deleted as well. The Constabulary considers remarks needlessly inflammatory if any reasonable person should know that the remarks might provoke an acrimonious and unhelpful (e.g., off-topic) controversy--in other words, a pointless "flame war." Again, if a paragraph of text contains any such remarks, constables should replace the whole paragraph with the {{inflammatory}} template, which reads:

Text here was removed by the Constabulary on grounds that it is needlessly inflammatory. (The author may replace this template with an edited version of the original remarks.)

In general, but especially for minor issues, constables should engage people privately (aka off-wiki) when possible. If urgency is an issue, consider leaving a note on the user's talk page to inform them of your arriving email. To email any user, regardless of whether they have enabled "E-mail this user", go to that user's user page, then go to "Block user" (actually blocking requires a second step). Their email address will appear next to their name.

But which template to use?

1. If a comment contains personal abuse, use {{civil}}.
2. If a comment does not contain personal abuse, but contains complaints about another person, then use {{nocomplaints}}.
3. If a comment contains neither abuse nor complaints, but is needlessly inflammatory, then use {{inflammatory}}.

In short, use exactly one of these templates as applicable in exactly this order: {{civil}}, {{nocomplaints}}, {{inflammatory}}.

Page deletion

To draft

For now, see Category:Speedy Deletion Requests and CZ:Article Deletion Policy.

Anti-vandalism procedures

See Anti-vandalism procedures.

The {{Approved}} template

See Approval Process with particular attention to this section.

All other Constabulary templates

Constables, you can discuss creating new templates as the need arises.

Professionalism Policy

• {{civil}}
• {{nocomplaints}}
• {{inflammatory}}

Neologisms/Acronyms

• {{Acronym}}
  • Can be used with these switches:
    • |NPOV = "unbiased" or "neutral"
    • |OP = original poster
    • |OR = original research
    • |POV = "biased"
    • |BTW = by the way

Account creation

• {{awelcome}}
• {{ewelcome}}

• {{workgroup introduction}}

Where's my account password?

Passwords are generated and sent automatically, and then can 
be reset by you.  You should be able to go to

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Special:Userlogin&type=login

Enter your username and press "E-mail password."  In fact, 
I've just done that for you.  If you *didn't* receive this 
new password, check your spam/automatically deleted e-mail folder(s).

Once you get your new password, you should be able to log in. 
 Try editing your user page.  If you can't do that, it is 
probably because you need to confirm your e-mail address 
first.  (We have to have a working e-mail address on record.) 
 To do that, go to "my preferences" (at the top of every 
window on the wiki) and you should find a button that allows 
you to generate a mail that sends a new confirmation mail to 
your e-mail account.  Again, check any spam/automatically 
deleted e-mail folder(s) if you don't receive this.

Welcome aboard!

Other sysops on-wiki

People involved with development at Citizendium may have sysop powers but are not constables. Any sysop may use their powers to counter vandalism, however.