CZ:The Author Role

Welcome to the Citizendium beta!

Introduce yourself: short biographies on user pages

All Citizens are required to maintain biographies on their userpages. Why? Because we are taking real-world responsibility for our contributions and making real-world relationships with each other. A name by itself conveys little information to others. To edit your bio, simply click on your name at the very top of the screen. Authors are required to provide a statement about their personal interests and education, preferably a few hundred words. Rough clues as to your age and location might be helpful to other users but are optional. Minors are asked not to include any personal information about themselves, including information about where they live, but they should still give some nonspecific information about their interests and education (no school names, please). If a constable hasn't done so, be sure to add yourself to the list of CZ authors (which you see on the left--under "Our authors") by putting this on your userpage:

[[Category:CZ Authors]]

You should also add yourself to a workgroup or several (here's the current list), with a tag; for example:

[[Category:Games Authors]]

(Editors are designated as such by CZ staff after you apply.)

Here's an example of a biography of an editor; here's one of an author. For more info see this section of the Policy Outline.

Get plugged in to the community

It's not hard to get plugged in to the community. This will make your work here more fun. But you'll probably need a few pointers about where "the action" is going on.

All of the following links are to the left.

The serious fun of wiki-watching consists largely of following developments on the recent changes page, linked on the left under "project pages". Virtually everything that goes on on this wiki can be observed from a God's-eye perspective there. You can see what articles other people are working on. You can see if articles you have been working on have been changed. (Changes to an article will appear bolded if you "watch" the article: see the "watch" tab above every article.) You can see who has been active (and when!). And as a result of all this, you can join in with others! If an article on a topic you're interested in is under development, you can add your wisdom.

Talk about policy and community issues on the CZ forums. This is the big community discussion area. There are hundreds of categories of topics; you're bound to find both something of interest to you and someone who will discuss it with you (there are many hundreds of members). If you want to see the latest posts, scroll to the bottom of the front page and look for the little link titled View the most recent posts on the forum.

To have all the latest project-wide announcements, make sure you're subscribed to Citizendium-L and, if you're an editor, Citizendium-editors. For outward-facing announcements, as opposed to more internal sorts of announcements, there's a project blog. There's also a place for administrative notices for people working here on the wiki (e.g., "The wiki will be going down at midnight tonight"): the notice board.

If you have general questions, you can ask in many places, but one place we've set aside is a certain board on the forums. Just click here and (after you've registered) type in your question.

Authors, Editors, Constables, and Workgroups

If you're a participant, and you haven't been asked to be an editor, then you're an author. (Editors are authors too.) So, what can authors do? Almost everything. Authors can start new articles, edit existing articles, talk things over on the talk page, and much else. Editors can do all that, too. Editors aren't distant overseers looking down from the Olympian heights. To edit, editors must work shoulder-to-shoulder with authors and other editors. So editors are authors too. For more on author functions, please see Authors and Authoring Citizendium Articles.

Editors, who are experts in their fields, do have two special functions that authors do not have, however. First, they may make decisions, where decisions need to be made, about how an article should read. (This does not mean that editors must approve every change an author makes, which they certainly don't do.) Second, they may approve specific versions of articles. If you're an editor, and you want to know how to get started as an editor, please see The Editor Role. Some editors are members of one of the governing bodies known as the Editorial Council.

Where do "constables" fit in? Well, like their namesakes, constables are friendly, hard-working folks who make sure the community runs smoothly. If you break a rule, a constable might gently tap you on the shoulder and explain what's wrong. Constables are expected to be mature and kind and to make decisions solely about behavior, not about content, which is the domain of editors. See Constabulary Home and Constabulary Policy for more. If you need to "call a constable," send an e-mail to constables@citizendium.org

Finally, workgroups are collections of editors and authors who are interested in a particular discipline, or in some function of the project, such as copyediting or recruitment. We know that our list of disciplines needs work, by the way; the Editorial Council will be expanding the list soon. In the coming months, we're going to be expanding our governance apparatus, setting up many more workgroups as well as a general project representative council. You, as a project member, may be asked to serve.

Want to get to work, but don't know quite what to do?

Tasks on CZ are like children's games: there are endless numbers of them, you just need to know what they are. Here is a list of general tasks that "worker bees" can help with.

A dozen things you should know about

Template:Dozen essentials     13. Be absolutely sure to check the "Content is from Wikipedia?" box if it is so.

It's a "baker's dozen"!

Why work on the Citizendium?

We conclude with some motivational points.

• CZ is fun! Creating articles together and watching them grow to maturity is fulfilling and just plain fun.
• CZ is educational. How can you not learn if you're collaborating with experts on encyclopedia articles? It's an unusual opportunity to learn that is hard to find anywhere else.
• CZ is free. People will be able to read this high-quality information free of charge. That's tremendously valuable to the world.
• CZ is gently guided by experts. In time, we will have an enormous body of expert approved articles. Again, that's tremendously valuable to the world. Frankly, the world desperately needs more reliable information from the Internet.
• CZ is nonprofit and participant-governed--and thus independent and neutral. The information you find here will not be influenced by corporate or governmental interests. We are totally committed to acting as a "neutral playing field" for the world's information resources.
• CZ is growing and making progress on all fronts. If we succeed well with the encyclopedia, we will start other expert-guided, collaborative, free information projects. This is exciting and worthwhile.
• CZ could change the world in at least two ways:
  • First, by pioneering a new way to use wikis, we are giving the world a new model of what can be done with this versatile system of content creation. What will happen if the world has more expert-guided collaborative projects?
  • Second, and more importantly, a full-fledged Citizendium encyclopedia with millions of expert-approved articles would bring reliable knowledge to the world, and, in a small way, would help "enlighten" the world. Imagine what education and research would be like with a really successful CZ.

These are all great reasons to get involved. So let's roll up our sleeves and get to work!