CZ:Essentials

Some hints, policies, and processes are more important than others. If we had to pick a dozen of the most important, what would they be?

1. Be bold, but behave professionally. Before making substantial deletions or substitutions to existing articles, give reasoning on the talk page.
2. Lower-case article titles for all words after the first word, unless it is typically written uppercase when used in a regular sentence. So: Computational complexity theory; but American Chemical Society. (And there is no need to retain upper-case for the first word when it is used in the middle of a sentence: computational complexity theory will still link.) Unless there is a compelling reason not to, articles about people should begin with the person's first name first, e.g., Albert Einstein.
3. Check the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box, just above "Save page", if you are copying something from Wikipedia. Wikipedians should know that we aren't Wikipedia. We have many different policies.
4. The first use of the title word, phrase, or name should be bold. For example: "Biology is the science of life."
5. Start the article with a definition, if it concerns a concept or general category, or else an explanation of what the person, place, event, etc., is best known for. For example: "Achillea is a genus of flowering plants, commonly referred to as yarrow, that are frequently used in garden borders and beds in ornamental horticulture."
6. Link words and phrases (by surrounding the phrases with left and right double brackets: [[ ]]) where, and only where, the links are relevant to the point being made in a sentence, and where following a link will shed important light on the subject of the article.
7. Remember that we employ a Neutrality Policy. The policy requires that we include all significant viewpoints on a subject, stated as objectively as possible. It does not mean that we take a mainstream, scientific, skeptical, or "intermediate/compromise" point of view; it means we write neutrally, from the beginning -- articles should never advocate. So we "take a step back" if necessary, and describe any controversies fairly, rather than trying to settle them in any way at all. We do, however, identify the positions generally accepted as mainstream rather than letting the reader assume all views are equally accepted.
8. When you feel ready, start your article with subpages. Until then, copy and paste the following text onto the bottom of any new articles: [[Category:CZ Live]]. This adds the article to the "live articles" category (which you can view by clicking "Live articles" on the left). This helps mark articles we've actively worked on.
9. Subscribe to Citizendium-L (everyone), and Citizendium-Editors (editors). These are announcement lists.
10. Project discussion happens on the Citizendium Forums.; article discussion on the article's talk page, and on the appropriate mailing list.
11. Know some key policy and organization pages: The Statement of Fundamental Policies | Project Home (help and policies) | Workgroups | How to get started as an author | How to edit an article | How to convert Wikipedia articles to Citizendium articles | Mailing List Outreach | Article Mechanics | Neutrality Policy
12. Monitor some important changing pages: recent changes | CZ:Home | your own "user talk" page (see "my talk" at the top of the page) | recent changes in your field (see your workgroup's page)