User talk:Christine Bush

Please note: the user of this page prefers inverse chronological sorting of threads, thank you. New sections may be placed conveniently at the TOP of this page and the world will not end as a result of doing so. I promise.

Council Communications

I am unaware of any pending votes at this time. Christine Bush 17:48, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Your forum account

Christine, please consider reinstating your account on the forums. The reason you should do that is because you are a member of the Citizendium Council, whose business will be conducted there, with few exceptions, for purposes of transparency and obtaining community feedback. Without the ability to post on the Council Boards, the Council will not have your vote on motions, or your always thoughtful comments.

Please reconsider. Anthony.Sebastian 18:45, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Please advise how discussions dominated by a disproportionately few persons, in a different sub-domain (with planned obsolescence), behind closed doors, is transparent. Thank you. Christine Bush 18:58, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

I was invited to contribute boldly. (Be careful what you wish for.) Christine Bush 19:06, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Some background for visitors

I suspect the decision to conduct Council business in the Forum, instead of in the wiki, was based entirely on a precedent set at some point rather than on an explicit policy. (I have not rummaged through the archives, yet, to confirm this claim. But I am confident that if this is not the case that it will be pointed out in short order.) The Constabulary made it quite clear when I was elected that the role of Author Representative entailed no compulsory activities. I interpret this proviso to include within its scope not being compelled to participate in Forum discussions. And for the first two months of my term, I did participate in Forum.

The Constabulary did indicate that I would be asked to vote on things once in awhile, which I will gladly do if made aware of them. This is the crux of the matter. If discussion is essentially taken "offshore" (to use a contemporary economic practice which I find more appropriate here than "offline"), it easily distracts (and I would argue, diminishes) the main project: our wiki. The result is that the CZ wiki has become essentially a content management system (CMS). A CMS is very useful, but there are some things with which a CMS should not be confused, like a community.

No doubt, the CZ Forum was adopted with the belief that it would address a problem well-demonstrated elsewhere, i.e. users have great difficulty confining their comments on Talk pages to the content and substance of the article with which it is associated in the wiki database. I do not dispute either this tendency, or the effectiveness of using a Forum to address it. However, we should also note that Forum participation is not only not compulsory for Council members, it is not compulsory for anyone. The result? A disconnect between new (or wiki-only) users and Forum users. Almost all self-criticism, meta-discussion of the CZ project, and governance itself is absent from the wiki (except for a good bit of old stuff that was either never migrated to the Forum, or never removed from the wiki---Past managerial decisions, Past editorial decisions, Past Elections). This is why you, like I did, may experience some part of CZ as a ghost town. In a way, it is.

Trigger warning: I think other wiki-based encyclopedia projects get this part right. It all stays in the wiki. And as Author Representative (if only for a year) I feel like I belong here, where the Authors are.

Fortunately, a wiki-based Forum is being tested even as I write this and the current Forum's days are numbered. I hope the Council will consider that it might be prudent for our deliberations and votes to be among the first uses of this new wiki.

Thanks and congratulations

Christine, thanks for taking part in the election, and congratulations on winning a seat on the Citizendium Council. I look forward to working with you and the other members of the Council, and in particular, discussing the thoughts you put forward in your election statement.

The issue of making Citizendium a nonprofit tax-exempt organization has been discussed many times in the past few years, without resolution. Please look at the messages on this topic in the forum: here.

If you have any thoughts on how we can proceed, or any resources that could help, please bring them up. If you wanted you could start a new forum topic for discussion.

Anthony.Sebastian 23:14, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

>> Hi Anthony, thank you for this welcome message and for all that you do for CZ. I want to be an active member of the Council. I look forward to working with you. Christine Bush 18:16, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2014 election

You've been nominated as a candidate in the June 2014 election. Please visit this page to accept or decline the position. No action will also be treated as declining. If you accept, you may choose to write a statement - see the election page for further details. Alternatively, contact me via my Talk page or privately via e-mail. Regards, John Stephenson 15:24, 8 June 2014 (UTC)

I have accepted and appreciate your vote. I did not post a statement to the "official" statement page in time, but I have written one that you can read here.

Welcome Template

Tasks: start a new article • add basic, wanted or requested articles • add definitions • add metadata • edit new pages

Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start, and see Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, our help system and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forum is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any user or the editors for help, too. Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! John Stephenson 19:18, 24 July 2013 (UTC)