Archive:New Draft of the Week

The New Draft of the Week is a chance to highlight a recently created Citizendium article that has just started down the road of becoming a Citizendium masterpiece.
It is chosen each week by vote in a manner similar to that of its sister project, the Article of the Week.

Add New Nominees Here

To add a new nominee or vote for an existing nominee, click edit for this section and follow the instructions

Table of Nominees

Nominated article	Vote Score	Supporters	Specialist supporters	Date created
Zionism	1		Howard C. Berkowitz	24 August 2009
Replace this with name of new nominee here

If you want to see how these nominees will look on the CZ home page (if selected as a winner), scroll down a little bit.

Recently created pages are listed on Special:NewPages.

Transclusion of the above nominees (to be done by an Administrator)

• Transclude each of the nominees in the above "Table of Nominee" as per the instructions at Template:Featured Article Candidate.
• Then add the transcluded article to the list in the next section below, using the {{Featured Article Candidate}} template.

View Current Transcluded Nominees (after they have been transcluded by an Administrator)

The next New Draft of the Week will be the article with the most votes at 1 AM UTC on Thursday, 4 September, 2009. I did the honors this time. Milton Beychok 04:30, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Nominated article	Supporters	Specialist supporters	Dates	Score
[[]]: Add brief definition or description {{:}} ([[|Read more...]])

Current Winner (to be selected and implemented by an Administrator)

To change, click edit and follow the instructions, or see documentation at {{Featured Article}}.

The metadata subpage is missing. You can start it via filling in this form or by following the instructions that come up after clicking on the [show] link to the right.

Do you see this on PREVIEW? then SAVE! before following a link. To find out more about the use of metadata for the management of Citizendium pages, see CZ:Metadata. You may see this box for one of two reasons. Either: A - New page has been created, or subpages template was added to an existing page B - Cluster move is in progress Click either the A or B link for further instructions. [Feel free to recommend improvements to the text or links in this template] A - For a New Cluster use the following directions Subpages format requires a metadata page. Using the following instructions will complete the process of creating this article's subpages. Click the blue "metadata template" link below to create the page. On the edit page that appears paste in the article's title across from "pagename =". You might also fill out the checklist part of the form. Ignore the rest. For background, see Using the Subpages template Don't worry--you'll get the hang of it right away. Remember to hit Save! the "metadata template". However, you can create articles without subpages. Just delete the {{subpages}} template from the top of this page and this prompt will disappear. :) Don't feel obligated to use subpages, it's more important that you write sentences, which you can always do without writing fancy code. [Feel free to recommend improvements to the text or links in this template] B - For a Cluster Move use the following directions The metadata template should be moved to the new name as the first step. Please revert this move and start by using the Move Cluster link at the top left of the talk page. The name prior to this move can be found at the following link. [Feel free to recommend improvements to the text or links in this template]

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This article is about Earth's atmosphere. For other uses of the term Atmosphere, please see Atmosphere (disambiguation).

This article is about Earth's Atmosphere. For other uses of the term Earth, please see Earth (disambiguation).

(PD) Photo: Courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center
Atmospheric gases scatter blue light more than other wavelengths, giving the Earth a blue halo when seen from space at an altitude of 181 nautical miles (335 kilometres) above the Earth.

The Earth's atmosphere is an envelope of gas that surrounds the Earth and extends from the Earth's surface out thousands of kilometres, becoming increasingly thinner (less dense) with distance but always held in place by Earth's gravitational pull. The atmosphere contains the air we breathe and it holds clouds of moisture (water vapor) that become the water we drink. It protects us from meteors and harmful solar radiation and warms the Earth's surface by heat retention. In effect, the atmosphere is an envelope that protects all life on Earth.

The atmosphere is a mixture of gases we call "air". On a dry volume basis, it consists of about 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen. The remainder of about 1% contains argon, carbon dioxide and very small amounts of other gases. The atmosphere is rarely, if ever, completely dry. Water vapor is almost always present up to about 4% of the total volume. In desert regions, when dry winds are blowing, water vapor in the air will be nearly zero. This climbs in other regions to about 3% on extremely hot and humid days. The upper limit, approaching 4%, is for tropical areas.

The atmosphere has a total mass of about 5 × 10¹⁵ metric tons and about 80% of that mass is within about 12 kilometres (7.5 miles) from the Earth's surface.

There is no definite boundary between the atmosphere and outer space. It slowly becomes less dense (i.e., more empty) and fades into the void of outer space.

Structure of the atmosphere

(PD) Drawing: NOAA and NWS
Structure of the atmosphere.

As shown in the adjacent diagram, Earth's atmosphere has five primary layers, referred to as spheres. From the lowest to the highest layer, they are the Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere and the Exosphere. The four boundaries between the primary layers, referred to as pauses, are the Tropopause, Stratopause, Mesopause and the Thermopause. In more detail:

Troposphere

From the Greek word "τρέπω" meaning to turn or change. The troposphere is the lowest layer of the atmosphere and extends from the Earth's surface to about 7 kilometres (4 miles) high at the north and south poles and 17 kilometres (11 miles) high at the equator. This is where we live. As the density of the air in this layer decrease with height, the air temperature in the troposphere also decreases with height. The temperature drops from about 14 to 15 °C at the surface to about -45 °C at the top of the troposphere. All of our weather occurs in the troposphere. The troposphere contains about 80% of the total mass of the atmosphere. In fact, 50% percent of the total mass of the atmosphere is located in the lowest 5 to 6 kilometres (3.1 to 3.7 miles) of the troposphere. The cruising altitude of commercial airliners is usually about 9 to 10 kilometres (5.6 to 6.2 miles) which is close to the top of the troposphere.

Atmospheric boundary layer

The lowest part of the troposphere is called the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) or the planetary boundary layer and extends from the Earth's surface to about 1.5 to 2.0 km in height. The air temperature of the atmospheric boundary layer decreases with increasing altitude unless an inversion layer, where the temperature increases with increasing altitude, is present. Above an inversion layer, the temperature decreases again. (See also Atmospheric lapse rate)

Tropopause

The boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. Together, the troposphere and the tropopause are known as the lower atmosphere.

Stratosphere

From the Latin word "stratus" meaning spreading out. The stratosphere extends from the tropopause's height of 7 to 17 kilometres (4 to 11 miles) to a height of about 50 kilometres (31 miles) and contains about 19% of the atmospheric gases. The stratosphere experiences increasing temperature and solar radiation with height. It contains the ozone layer because the solar radiation is increasingly absorbed by oxygen molecules in the stratosphere, leading to the formation of ozone. The ozone layer resides in the lower portion of the stratosphere, though the thickness of the layer varies seasonally and geographically. Weather balloons can rise to about 40 kilometres (25 miles) before the difference between the pressure inside the balloon and the outside atmospheric pressure causes the balloons to expand to the point at which they burst.

Stratopause

The boundary between the stratosphere and the mesosphere. The atmospheric pressure here is 1/1000th of the atmospheric pressure at sea level.

Mesosphere

From the Greek word "μέσος" meaning middle. The mesosphere extends from stratopause's height of about 50 kilometres (31 miles) to a height of about 80 to 85 kilometres (50 to 53 miles). The gases continue to become less and less dense with height. As such, the effect of the warming by ultraviolet radiation also becomes less and less, leading to a decrease in temperature with height. On average, temperature decreases to as low as -100 °C at the mesopause. However, the gases in the mesosphere are still dense enough to slow down meteors hurtling into the atmosphere, where they burn up and leave fiery trails in the night sky.

Mesopause

The boundary between the mesosphere and the thermosphere. It is the coldest place on Earth, with a temperature as low as -120 °C at times.

Thermosphere

The thermosphere extends from the mesopause's height of 80 to 85 kilometres (50 to 53 miles) to a height of between 500 and 1000 kilometres (310 and 620 miles) and is referred to as the upper atmosphere. The gases of the thermosphere are increasingly less dense than in the mesosphere. As such, incoming high energy ultraviolet and x-ray radiation from the sun, absorbed by the molecules in this layer, results in the temperature increasing to as high as 2000 °C near the top of this layer. However, despite the high temperature, this layer of the atmosphere would still feel very cold to our skin because of the extremely low density of the air. The total amount of energy from the very few molecules in this layer is not enough to heat our skin. The International Space Station orbits in this layer, between 320 and 380 kilometers (200 and 235 miles) from the Earth's surface. The Kármán line, named after the physicist Theodore von Kármán, is in the thermosphere at an altitude of 100 kilometres (62 miles) above the Earth and is often referred to as the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space.

(PD) Diagram: NOAA and NWS Temperature versus altitude within the Earth's atmosphere.

Thermopause

The boundary between the thermosphere and the exosphere.

Exosphere

Extends from the thermopause's height of 500 to 1000 kilometres (310 to 620 miles) up to a height of 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) above the Earth's surface. The exosphere is the outermost layer of the atmosphere and it is in this layer that our man-made satellites orbit the Earth. The density of the exosphere is so low that particles within it (atoms, molecules, or ions) do not collide. As a result, particles in the exosphere can escape altogether from Earth's atmosphere into the void of space.

There are two other regions of the atmosphere that deserve discussion, one is the Ionosphere and the other is the Ozone layer:

Ionosphere

Solar radiation causes ionization of the molecules in a region of the atmosphere that extends from about 50 kilometers up to about 1100 kilometers above the Earth. That region is called the ionosphere and most of it is in the thermosphere, although it overlaps into the exosphere above the thermosphere and the mesosphere below the thermosphere. It is of importance because certain regions of the ionosphere make long distance radio communication possible by reflecting the radio waves back to Earth. It is also home to auroras. The lower edge of auroras occur at an altitude of about 100 kilometres (about the same height as the Kármán line) and may extend up to an altitude of 480 kilometres.

Ozone Layer

Though part of the stratosphere, the physical and chemical composition of the ozone layer is far different from that of the stratosphere. Ozone (O₃) in the Earth's stratosphere is created by ultraviolet light striking oxygen molecules containing two oxygen atoms (O₂), splitting them into individual oxygen atoms (atomic oxygen). The atomic oxygen then combines with unbroken O₂ to create O₃, the ozone. Ozone is unstable (although long-lived in the stratosphere) and when ultraviolet light hits ozone, it splits into a molecule of O₂ and an atom of atomic oxygen thus creating a continuing process called the ozone-oxygen cycle. This occurs in the ozone layer, the region from about 10 to 50 kilometres (6 to 31 miles) above Earth's surface. About 90% of the ozone in the Earth's atmosphere is contained in the stratosphere. Ozone concentrations are greatest between the heights of about 20 and 40 kilometres above the Earth's surface, where they range from about 2 to 8 parts per million by volume.

Sometimes the Earth's atmosphere is defined as consisting of these two parts:

Homosphere

Defined as that part of the atmosphere where the chemical composition of the atmosphere is constant. The homosphere extends from the Earth's surface to about 80 kilometres (50 miles) and includes the troposphere, the mesosphere and the stratosphere.

Heterosphere

Defined as that part of the atmosphere above 80 kilometres in which the component gases are stratified, with concentrations of the heavier gases decreasing more rapidly with altitude than concentrations of the lighter gases. It includes the thermosphere and the exosphere.

Base Values Region Number Altitude Range (m) $P_{b}$ (Pa) $T_{b}$ (K) $L_{b}$ (K/m) $h_{b}$ (m) 1 0.00 to 10,999 101,325 288.15 -0.0065 0.00 2 11,000 to 19,999 22,632 216.65 0.00 11,000 3 20,000 to 31,999 5,474 216.65 0.001 20,000 4 32,000 to 46,999 868 228.65 0.0028 32,000 5 47,000 to 50,999 110 270.65 0.00 47,000 6 51,000 to 70,999 66 270.65 -0.0028 51,000 7 71,000 to 85,000 4 214.65 -0.002 71,000

Pressure profile of the atmosphere

Earth's atmospheric pressure at sea level is commonly taken to be 101,325 pascals and it decreases with increasing altitude. There are two equations for calculating the atmospheric pressure at any given altitude up to 86 kilometres (53 miles). Equation 1 is used when the lapse rate is not equal to zero and equation 2 is used when the lapse rate equals zero: The two equations are valid for seven different altitude regions of the Earth's atmosphere by using the designated base values (from the adjacent table) for $P_{b}$, $T_{b}$, $L_{b}$ and $h_{b}$ for each of the seven regions:

Equation 1:

$P=P_{b}\cdot \left[{\frac {T_{b}}{T_{b}+L_{b}\cdot (h-h_{b})}}\right]^{\textstyle {\frac {g\cdot M}{R\cdot L_{b}}}}$

Equation 2:

$P=P_{b}\cdot \exp \left[{\frac {-\,g\cdot M\cdot (h-h_{b})}{R\cdot T_{b}}}\right]$

where:
$P$	= Pressure at any given altitude $\scriptstyle h$, Pa
$P_{b}$	= Base pressure, Pa
$T_{b}$	= Base temperature, K
$L_{b}$	= Base lapse rate, K/m
$h_{b}$	= Base height (i.e., altitude), m
$h$	= Any given altitude, m
$g$	= Gravitational acceleration = 9.8067 m/s2
$M$	= Molecular weight of air = 0.028964 kg/mol
$R$	= Universal gas constant = 8.3144 J/(K $\cdot$ mol)

For example, the atmospheric pressure at an altitude of 10,000 metres is obtained as 26,437 pascals by using Equation 1 and the appropriate base values for the altitude region number 1.

Composition of Dry Air Gas Concentration Name Symbol Volume % ppmv Nitrogen N2 78.084 780,840 Oxygen O2 20.947 209,470 Argon Ar 0.934 9,340 Carbon dioxide CO2 0.033 330 Neon Ne 0.001820 18.20 Helium He 0.000520 5.20 Methane CH4 0.000200 2.00 Krypton Kr 0.000110 1.10 Sulfur dioxide SO2 0.000100 1.00 Hydrogen H2 0.000050 0.50 Nitrous oxide N2O 0.000050 0.50 Xenon Xe 0.000009 0.09 Ozone O3 0.000007 0.07 Nitrogen dioxide NO2 0.000002 0.02 Notes: -- ppmv = parts per million parts by volume -- The amount of water vapor varies up to a maximum of 4 volume percent. -- The total volume percent of the listed gases does not equal exactly 100 percent because of rounding of the numbers.

Composition of the atmospheric air

The adjacent table lists the concentration of 14 gases present in filtered dry air. Two of the gases, nitrogen and oxygen make up 99.03 percent of the clean, dry air. The other listed gases total to 0.97 percent.

Note the amounts of greenhouse gases that are present: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Additional gases (not listed in the table) are also present in very minute amounts.

The atmospheric air is rarely, if ever, dry. Water vapor is nearly always present up to about 4% of the total volume. In the deserts regions, when dry winds are blowing, the water vapor content will be near zero. This climbs to near 3% on extremely hot/humid days. The upper limit of 4% is for tropical climates.

Unfiltered air contains minute amounts of various types of particulate matter derived from sources such as from dust, pollen and spores, sea spray, volcanoes, meteoroids and industrial activities.

Brief history of Earth's atmosphere

Earth was formed 4.54 billion years ago (within an uncertainty of 1%) with a primordial gaseous atmosphere surrounding a very dense, molten core. About 4.4 billion year ago, as the Earth began to cool and form a crust, the primordial atmosphere was stripped away by a combination of heat from that molten crust, periods of intense solar activity, and the solar wind.

As the crust formed, volcanic activity became incessant. The outgassing from the volcanoes replaced the primordial atmosphere with what is referred to as the second atmosphere that most probably consisted of water vapor (steam), nitrogen, methane, ammonia, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide, and other gases — a mixture much like that emitted from volcanoes today. The dominant gases of the secondary atmosphere were water vapor, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. There was very little free oxygen (if any) in that secondary atmosphere and it would have been poisonous for almost all modern life forms.

At about 4.0 billion years ago, cooling of the Earth and its atmosphere caused precipitation of the atmospheric water vapor as rainfall and subsequently the development of the Earth's oceans. Most of the atmospheric carbon dioxide was dissolved in the oceans and then precipitated out as solid carbonates. By about 3.5 billion years ago, life emerged in the oceans in the form of single-celled microorganisms (referred to as archaea).

By about 2.7 billion year ago, the archaea were joined by microorganisms called cyanobacteria which were the first organisms to produce free gaseous oxygen. It took a long time for the cyanobacteria to get started but between 2.2 and 2.7 billion years ago, the Earth's atmosphere had been converted from an oxygen-lacking (anoxic) atmosphere to an oxygen-containing (oxic) atmosphere. This is often referred to as the Great Oxidation and it resulted in the mass extinction of any life forms that may have existed during the era of the anoxic atmosphere. Between then and now, the gaseous atmosphere was converted to its modern composition as presented and discussed in the previous section of this article.

The evolution of the Earth's modern oxygen-containing atmosphere (referred to as the third atmosphere) led to the formation of the ozone layer which protects life on earth by blocking the harmful incoming ultraviolet solar radiation.

References

(Read more...)

Previous Winners

•  Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: U.S. educator deeply bonded to Bowdoin College, from undergraduate to President; American Civil War general and recipient of the Medal of Honor; Governor of Maine ^[e]
•  The Sporting Life (album): A 1994 studio album recorded by Diamanda Galás and John Paul Jones. ^[e] (August 13}
•  The Rolling Stones: Famous and influential English blues rock group formed in 1962, known for their albums Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers, and songs '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' and 'Start Me Up'. ^[e] (August 5)
•  Euler angles: three rotation angles that describe any rotation of a 3-dimensional object. ^[e] (July 30)
•  Chester Nimitz: United States Navy admiral (1885-1966) who was Commander in Chief, Pacific and Pacific Ocean Areas in World War II ^[e] (July 23)
•  Heat: A form of energy that flows spontaneously from hotter to colder bodies that are in thermal contact. ^[e] (July 16)
•  Continuum hypothesis: A statement about the size of the continuum, i.e., the number of elements in the set of real numbers. ^[e] (July 9)
•  Hawaiian alphabet: The form of writing used in the Hawaiian Language ^[e] (July 2)
•  Now and Zen: A 1988 studio album recorded by Robert Plant, with guest contributions from Jimmy Page. ^[e] (June 25)
•  Wrench (tool): A fastening tool used to tighten or loosen threaded fasteners, with one end that makes firm contact with flat surfaces of the fastener, and the other end providing a means of applying force ^[e] (June 18)
•  Air preheater: A general term to describe any device designed to preheat the combustion air used in a fuel-burning furnace for the purpose of increasing the thermal efficiency of the furnace. ^[e] (June 11)
•  2009 H1N1 influenza virus: A contagious influenza A virus discovered in April 2009, commonly known as swine flu. ^[e] (June 4)
•  Gasoline: A fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines derived from petroleum crude oil. ^[e] (21 May)
•  John Brock: Fictional British secret agent who starred in three 1960s thrillers by Desmond Skirrow. ^[e] (8 May)
•  McGuffey Readers: A set of highly influential school textbooks used in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the elementary grades in the United States. ^[e] (14 Apr)
•  Vector rotation: Process of rotating one unit vector into a second unit vector. ^[e] (7 Apr)
•  Leptin: Hormone secreted by adipocytes that regulates appetite. ^[e] (31 Mar)
•  Kansas v. Crane: A 2002 decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, ruling that a person could not be adjudicated a sexual predator and put in indefinite medical confinement, purely on assessment of an emotional disorder, but such action required proof of a likelihood of uncontrollable impulse presenting a clear and present danger. ^[e] (24 Mar)
•  Punch card: A term for cards used for storing information. Herman Hollerith is credited with the invention of the media for storing information from the United States Census of 1890. ^[e] (17 Mar)
•  Jass–Belote card games: A group of trick-taking card games in which the Jack and Nine of trumps are the highest trumps. ^[e] (10 Mar)
•  Leptotes (orchid): A genus of orchids formed by nine small species that exist primarily in the dry jungles of South and Southeast Brazil. ^[e] (3 Mar)
•  Worm (computers): A form of malware that can spread, among networked computers, without human interaction. ^[e] (24 Feb)
•  Joseph Black: (1728 – 1799) Scottish physicist and chemist, known for his discoveries of latent heat, specific heat, and carbon dioxide ^[e] (11 Feb 2009)
•  Sympathetic magic: The cultural concept that a symbol, or small aspect, of a more powerful entity can, as desired by the user, invoke or compel that entity ^[e] (17 Jan 2009)
•  Dien Bien Phu: Site in northern Vietnam of a 1954 decisive battle that soon forced France to relinquish control of colonial Indochina. ^[e] (25 Dec)
•  Blade Runner: 1982 science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, set in an imagined Los Angeles of 2019. ^[e] (25 Nov)
•  Piquet: A two-handed card game played with 32 cards that originated in France around 1500. ^[e] (18 Nov)
•  Crash of 2008: the international banking crisis that followed the subprime mortgage crisis of 2007. ^[e] (23 Oct)
• Information Management: Add brief definition or description (31 Aug)
•  Battle of Gettysburg: A turning point in the American Civil War, July 1-3, 1863, on the outskirts of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. ^[e] (8 July)
•  Drugs banned from the Olympics: Substances prohibited for use by athletes prior to, and during competing in the Olympics. ^[e] (1 July)
•  Sea glass: Formed when broken pieces of glass from bottles, tableware, and other items that have been lost or discarded are worn down and rounded by tumbling in the waves along the shores of oceans and large lakes. ^[e] (24 June)
•  Dazed and Confused (Led Zeppelin song): Landmark 1969 song recorded by Led Zeppelin for their eponymous debut album, which became an early centrepiece for the group's live performances. ^[e] (17 June)
•  Hirohito: The 124th and longest-reigning Emperor of Japan, 1926-89. ^[e] (10 June)
•  Henry Kissinger: (1923—) American academic, diplomat, and simultaneously Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Secretary of State in the Nixon Administration; promoted realism (foreign policy) and détente with China and the Soviet Union; shared 1973 Nobel Peace Prize for ending the Vietnam War; Director, Atlantic Council ^[e] (3 June)
•  Palatalization: An umbrella term for several processes of assimilation in phonetics and phonology, by which the articulation of a consonant is changed under the influence of a preceding or following front vowel or a palatal or palatalized consonant. ^[e] (27 May)
•  Intelligence on the Korean War: The collection and analysis, primarily by the United States with South Korean help, of information that predicted the 1950 invasion of South Korea, and the plans and capabilities of the enemy once the war had started ^[e] (20 May)
•  Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago: A predominantly black church located in south Chicago with upwards of 10,000 members, established in 1961. ^[e] (13 May)
•  BIOS: Part of many modern computers responsible for basic functions such as controlling the keyboard or booting up an operating system. ^[e] (6 May)
•  Miniature Fox Terrier: A small Australian vermin-routing terrier, developed from 19th Century Fox Terriers and Fox Terrier types. ^[e] (23 April)
•  Joseph II: (1741–1790), Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Hapsburg (Austrian) territories who was the arch-embodiment of the Enlightenment spirit of the later 18th-century reforming monarchs. ^[e] (15 Apr)
•  British and American English: A comparison between these two language variants in terms of vocabulary, spelling and pronunciation. ^[e] (7 Apr)
•  Count Rumford: (1753–1814) An American born soldier, statesman, scientist, inventor and social reformer. ^[e] (1 April)
•  Whale meat: Add brief definition or description (25 March)
•  Naval guns: Add brief definition or description (18 March)
•  Sri Lanka: Add brief definition or description (11 March)
•  Led Zeppelin: Add brief definition or description (4 March)
•  Martin Luther: Add brief definition or description (20 February)
•  Cosmology: Add brief definition or description (4 February)
•  Ernest Rutherford: Add brief definition or description(28 January)
•  Edinburgh: Add brief definition or description (21 January)
•  Russian Revolution of 1905: Add brief definition or description (8 January 2008)
•  Phosphorus: Add brief definition or description (31 December)
•  John Tyler: Add brief definition or description (6 December)
•  Banana: Add brief definition or description (22 November)
•  Augustin-Louis Cauchy: Add brief definition or description (15 November)
• B-17 Flying Fortress (bomber): Add brief definition or description - 8 November 2007
•  Red Sea Urchin: Add brief definition or description - 1 November 2007
•  Symphony: Add brief definition or description - 25 October 2007
•  Oxygen: Add brief definition or description - 18 October 2007
•  Origins and architecture of the Taj Mahal: Add brief definition or description - 11 October 2007
•  Fossilization (palaeontology): Add brief definition or description - 4 October 2007
•  Cradle of Humankind: Add brief definition or description - 27 September 2007
•  John Adams: Add brief definition or description - 20 September 2007
•  Quakers: Add brief definition or description - 13 September 2007
•  Scarborough Castle: Add brief definition or description - 6 September 2007
•  Jane Addams: Add brief definition or description - 30 August 2007
•  Epidemiology: Add brief definition or description - 23 August 2007
•  Gay community: Add brief definition or description - 16 August 2007
•  Edward I: Add brief definition or description - 9 August 2007

Rules and Procedure

Rules

• The primary criterion of eligibility for a new draft is that it must have been ranked as a status 1 or 2 (developed or developing), as documented in the History of the article's Metadate template, no more than one month before the date of the next selection (currently every Thursday).
• Any Citizen may nominate a draft.
• No Citizen may have nominated more than one article listed under "current nominees" at a time.
• The article's nominator is indicated simply by the first name in the list of votes (see below).
• At least for now--while the project is still small--you may nominate and vote for drafts of which you are a main author.
• An article can be the New Draft of the Week only once. Nominated articles that have won this honor should be removed from the list and added to the list of previous winners.
• Comments on nominations should be made on the article's talk page.
• Any draft will be deleted when it is past its "last date eligible". Don't worry if this happens to your article; consider nominating it as the Article of the Week.
• If an editor believes that a nominee in his or her area of expertise is ineligible (perhaps due to obvious and embarrassing problems) he or she may remove the draft from consideration. The editor must indicate the reasons why he has done so on the nominated article's talk page.

Nomination

See above section "Add New Nominees Here".

Voting

• To vote, add your name and date in the Supporters column next to an article title, after other supporters for that article, by signing <br />~~~~. (The date is necessary so that we can determine when the last vote was added.) Your vote is alloted a score of 1.
• Add your name in the Specialist supporters column only if you are an editor who is an expert about the topic in question. Your vote is alloted a score of 1 for articles that you created and 2 for articles that you did not create.
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Ranking

• The list of articles is sorted by number of votes first, then alphabetically.
• Admins should make sure that the votes are correctly tallied, but anyone may do this. Note that "Specialist Votes" are worth 3 points.

Updating

• Each Thursday, one of the admins listed below should move the winning article to the Current Winner section of this page, announce the winner on Citizendium-L and update the "previous winning drafts" section accordingly.
• The winning article will be the article at the top of the list (ie the one with the most votes).
• In the event of two or more having the same number of votes :
  • The article with the most specialist supporters is used. Should this fail to produce a winner, the article appearing first by English alphabetical order is used.
    
  • The remaining winning articles are guaranteed this position in the following weeks, again in alphabetical order. No further voting should take place on these, which remain at the top of the table with notices to that effect. Further nominations and voting take place to determine future winning articles for the following weeks.
  • Winning articles may be named New Draft of the Week beyond their last eligible date if their circumstances are so described above.

Administrators

The Administrators of this program are the same as the admins for CZ:Article of the Week.

See Also

• CZ:Article of the Week
• CZ:Markup tags for partial transclusion of selected text in an article
• CZ:Monthly Write-a-Thon

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