User:D. Matt Innis/Charter Draft

This draft document is Matt's condensation of previous work and input from Citizens across the globe.

Mission statement

The Citizendium is a collaborative effort to create a convenient structure to collect and continually update the world's knowledgebase and make it accessible to the public for free. It is created by volunteers — henceforth Citizens — who contribute under their real names and agree to a social covenant centered around trust.

Membership

• Citizendium membership is open to anyone.

• All members register and contribute to the project under their real names.

• The Citizendium community allows subject matter experts to play a special role in assuring that the site’s contents meet the highest quality standards.

• Contributors must act responsibly and in a civil manner.

Style

• All entries at Citizendium should engage their subjects comprehensively, neutrally and objectively to the greatest degree possible.

• Unnecessarily complicated presentation should be avoided.

• As far as possible, special needs of visually or otherwise impaired users and of responsibly exercized automated access will be taken into account.

Content development

• Citizendium is open to constructive contributions by any Citizen to any of its content at any time.

• Citizendium encourages all members to submit constructive criticism on all of its material.

• Experts guide the development of Citizendium entries in a transparent manner.

• Integration of the Citizendium with teaching and research is encouraged as long as it adheres to the principles of this charter.

• Once written, content within articles becomes the property of Citizendium.

Personnel and governance

The Citizendium is devoted to transparent and fair governance at a minimum of bureaucracy. Special roles will not be created without excellent reason.

Content

Authors

All Citizens are considered Authors.

Authors are given the right to contribute or modify content to any article at any time.

Authors may have their right removed to modify content or participate on discussion pages on a particular article, subject articles or all articles as a result of misconduct as determined by the specific rules of behavior developed by the community.

Authors in good standing have the right to vote in community wide elections.

Editors

Editors are Authors that have a demonstrated field of expertise, either by education or experience, as determined and granted by the Editorial Council.

Editors are responsible for the scope and quality of the content in their areas of expertise. They have the right:

• to make decisions about specific questions or disputes concerning content
• to recommend approval of high quality articles that meet their expectations for the article's subject.

Editors may exercise their editorial rights only on articles within their workgroup.

Editors may act as Authors anywhere else at any time.

Editors may abdicate their editorial rights at any time.

Editors may have their rights removed only by the Editorial Council.

Editors in good standing have the right to vote in community wide elections.

Editorial Council

An Editorial Council will be responsible for guiding content and establishing policy.

The Editorial Council shall consist of nine active Citizens, with five seats reserved for Editors. The remaining four seats are reserved for Authors that are not Editors.

For voting purposes, a quorum shall consist of five members.

Members of the Editorial Council may not simultaneously serve on the Management Committee or be Constables.

Members of the Editorial Council will be elected by secret ballot vote of eligible Citizens, with two-year terms renewable once consecutively.

Workgroups

Workgroups will be created to arrange areas of content, and to encourage collaboration among Authors and Editors in areas of expertise.

The Editorial Council shall oversee workgroup

Task Managers

The Editorial Council, by majority vote, may appoint or remove any Citizen to or from any task-specific roles.

Editor-in-Chief

An Editor-in-Chief shall be elected, with a term of office of one year renewable four times, by simple majority of each of the Editorial Council and Management Committee.

The functions of this office shall be:

• to ensure day-to-day smooth functioning of the Citizendium;
• to facilitate the practical implementation of the Citizendium editorial policy as defined by its governing institutions;
• to make interim editorial decisions (in consultation with other editors); and
• to carry out any other tasks as required by this Charter or decisions of the governing bodies.

The Editor in Chief may appoint Task Managers to fulfill duties that are under his purview.

The Editor in Chief may request from the Constabulary, but cannot perform, a block or a ban of a Citizen or restrict a Citizen's activity.

Non-content operations

Management Committee

A Management Committee shall be responsible for matters concerned with the non-content policies of Citizendium.

The Management Committee shall consist of seven Citizens, who may not simultaneously serve on the Editorial Council. A quorum shall consist of four members.

The members of the Management Committee shall be elected by secret ballot vote of active Citizens and Authors, with two-year renewable terms.

The Management Committee may appoint Administrators and Task Managers whose activities it will oversee.

The Management Committee will appoint Constables and confer with the Chief Constable on matters of constable activity.

The Management Committee is responsible for developing behavior guidelines and will publish and monitor the appropriate enforcement of those guidelines.

External partners

The Citizendium invites collaboration with non-Citizen partners on any matters relevant to the project's mission, provided that such collaboration does not conflict with this Charter. The Management Council shall elaborate a strategy and policy on collaboration with external partners, paying particular attention to fostering the collaboration with instructors by way of Eduzendium, and with external experts or professional organizations for the purposes of providing or reviewing content at the Citizendium.

Task Managers

Task Managers are Citizens who have been given specific duties as determined by the Management Committee, Editorial Committee, Editor in Chief, or Constabulary.

Task Managers are responsible to the committee or office that appointed them.

The committee or office that appointed a specific Task Manager is responsible for the actions of that Task Manger.

Consultants

The Management Committee may, within the financial rules, consult with professionals such as attorneys and accountants.

Administration

The Citizendium's administration handles the legal, financial and technical operations necessary for the project to fulfill its mission. It may include contractors or employees, under the policy direction of the Management Committee, who eventually may be directed, on a routine basis, by an employee such as an Executive Director.

Behavior and dispute resolution

Constabulary

The Constabulary shall be charged with enforcing the Citizendium's rules of behavior as determined by community policy.

Rules of behavior are applied fairly and equally to all Citizens including those with official positions.

The Constabulary's authority is restricted to matters of behavior and they shall not intervene in matters of content.

Constabulary tools include:

• advice and instruction on wiki or through Citizen email.
• removal of offensive text, and warning and banning of users according to written guidelines.

Decisions of constables may be appealed through the appropriate adjudication process as determined by the Management Council.

Ombudsman

An Ombudsman shall be appointed, charged with the task of assisting in dispute resolution, as laid down in this Charter. The role of Ombudsman shall be vested in a Citizen with substantial Citizendium experience and widely respected judgement, who may appoint up to two other Citizens (Assistant Ombudsmen) to support his/her work; their appointment and termination of duties is at the personal discretion of the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman will be elected by simple majority vote of each of the Editorial Council and Management Council, for a term of 4 years. An Ombudsman may be recalled by a supermajority (75%) of each of the Editorial and Management Councils.

Dispute resolution

Disputes will be settled at the lowest possible level, such as by bringing in peer Editors or Constables. Next, the Ombudsman will be contacted for non-binding mediation. Should that fail, the matter will go to the appropriate body — the Editorial Board/Council for content matters and the Management Council for behavioral and administrative matters. As a last resort, both Councils may appoint members to an arbitration panel, for final arbitration as defined below.

In the event of a dispute that cannot be resolved at a level below that of the Editorial Council or the Management Committee, appeals boards may be constituted on an ad hoc basis. They will consist of three members nominated by the Editorial Council and three members nominated by the Management Committee, who shall not have been involved in the specific dispute. An Ombudsman will preside; that official shall direct the Board and will be non-voting other than to possess a tie-breaking vote. Should no Ombudsman be available who is not a party to the matter, the Councils shall appoint a special presider from the Citizenry.

Electorate

All Authors are entitled to vote on the adoption or modification of this charter.

License

The content of the Citizendium will always be free to use, reuse, and redistribute. Content originating at the Citizendium is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Content that originated elsewhere may also be incorporated into the Citizendium if such reuse is permitted by the copyright owners or copyright status.

Legal status

The Citizendium will be owned and controlled by the Citizendium Foundation, a non-profit organization.

Languages

The official language of the Citizendium shall be English. Branches in other languages require approval by the Management Committee and shall have the same legal status as the English language Citizendium (see Legal status above). Non-English Citizendiums shall construct their governance in accordance with this charter or a translation approved by the Management Committee.

Branch language Editorial Councils, including the English language Citizendium Editorial Council, shall be empowered to develop policy regarding non-native language content on their native language Citizendiums.

Consistent with the Citizendium's respect for expertise, the Editorial Council of any branch language version may request the Editorial Councils of other language versions to revise, add, or remove content in the former branch's native language.

All user pages shall be in the native language for that version of Citizendium.

No branch or non-English version of Citizendium shall be permitted at later times to adopt policy that contravenes this charter

Final clause

Ratification

If this Charter has been ratified by two thirds or more of the votes validly cast in a referendum for this purpose, it shall be certified by the Editor-in-Chief within a week after the closing of the referendum. For future amendments, a certifying official or officials shall be agreed upon by the joint Management Committee and Editorial Council.

Entry into force

This Charter shall enter into force on the day following ratification.

Interim guidance for the transition period

As long as the administrative prerequisites for implementing the charter are not entirely fulfilled, the rules listed in this section shall provide interim guidance to the Editorial Council, Management Council, and other bodies. Such material may be modified by those bodies by their normal procedures, without a full Charter amendment.

Editorial Council and Management Committee

For both bodies, the intention is to elect half of the members each year, so of the first group, a number corresponding to the quorum will be selected, by lot or personal agreement, to serve one-year terms.

The Editorial Council shall vote on each of the resolutions of the previous Editorial Council whether they should continue to be in force or not.

Future amendments

This Charter shall be open to amendment at any time subsequent to its ratification. The Management Council is hereby vested with the power to act upon proposals for amendment originating from any Citizen or Citizendium institution. The process of Amendment requires the Management Council initially to consult with Citizens (including via the Forum) and subsequently to draft an appropriate amended text. The decision to accept the amended text will be taken by popular vote of the Citizenry, and requires a two-thirds majority of votes validly cast.