CZ:Charter drafting committee

A community-elected delegation of citizens will be tasked with drafting the initial draft of the Citizendium charter. Following the release of the initial draft, the committee's work will be done and all other citizens will be encouraged to propose modifications, additions, deletions. This will allow for a more expeditious drafting process and still allow input from all Citizendium members.

Delegates

Delegates will be chosen by popular election. Throughout, the process will be highly publicized so as to involve as many members as possible.

Nomination

Candidates will be nominated by the community. Any member of Citizendium may nominate up to 5 other citizens to be candidates for election to the committee by adding a new row to the table transcluded below (Click here and scroll to the bottom of the edit window for instructions on how to make a nomination). No member may nominate himself/herself. The nomination will not be signed, but, of course, the history can be checked. Members who have been nominated may accept or decline by signing in the appropriate column with four tildes (~~~~) and deleting the text in the other box. The nomination period will open September 16, 2009 and will close 2 weeks later at midnight on September 29, 2009 or whenever a minimum of 20 nominations have been submitted and accepted, whichever comes last.

Table of Nominees

Nominee	Accept	Decline
Anthony Argyriou	(accept)	(decline)
Raymond Arritt	Raymond Arritt 00:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC)
Robert Badgett	Robert Badgett 01:24, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Martin Baldwin-Edwards	Martin Baldwin-Edwards 17:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Howard C. Berkowitz	Howard C. Berkowitz 17:36, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Milton Beychok		Milton Beychok 02:41, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
J. Noel Chiappa	(accept)	(decline)
Aleta Curry	(accept)	(decline)
Chris Day	(accept)	(decline)
Stephen Ewen	Stephen Ewen 05:54, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Shamira Gelbman	Shamira Gelbman 15:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Derek Harkness	(accept)	(decline)
Derek Hodges	(accept)	(decline)
D. Matt Innis	D. Matt Innis 02:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Meg Ireland	Meg Ireland 23:14, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
Peter Jackson	(accept)	(decline)
Russell D. Jones	Russell D. Jones 00:02, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Gareth Leng		Gareth Leng 10:10, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Roger Lohmann		Roger Lohmann 17 September 2009
Brian P. Long	Brian P. Long 04:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Daniel Mietchen	Daniel Mietchen 15:04, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Tom Morris	Tom Morris 21:15, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Dan Nessett		Dan Nessett 04:09, 20 September 2009 (UTC)
Chunbum Park		Chunbum Park 23:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Hayford Peirce		Hayford Peirce 00:17, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
James F. Perry		James F. Perry 15:52, 24 September 2009 (UTC)
Richard Pinch	(accept)	(decline)
Joe Quick	Joe Quick 16:23, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
Supten Sarbadhikari	Supten Sarbadhikari 03:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Caesar Schinas	(accept)	(decline)
Peter Schmitt	Peter Schmitt 22:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)
Anthony Sebastian	Anthony.Sebastian 02:46, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
Drew R. Smith	Drew R. Smith 08:01, 8 September 2009 (UTC)
John Stephenson		John Stephenson 03:49, 30 September 2009 (UTC)
Anton Sweeney	(accept)	(decline)
Ro Thorpe	Ro Thorpe 22:19, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
David E. Volk	David E. Volk 09:07, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Alexander Wiebel	Alexander Wiebel 20:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)
Jaap Winius	(accept)	(decline)
Paul Wormer		Paul Wormer 15:54, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Election and candidates' statements of purpose

Elections will follow the period allowed for nominations. This period will also last 2 weeks from the official start date.

While the process should remain highly publicized, campaigning itself must be rather limited. While candidates will be allowed to post a 500-word statement of purpose in a dedicated subpage of this page to outline their beliefs, political competition is not meant to be the focus of the selection process. Rather, a spirit of cooperation should prevail. Under no circumstances should candidates directly seek the votes of other contributors.

Each citizen will be allowed to cast five votes but may not cast more than one for a single candidate and is not required to use all five possible votes. These votes will be collected and tallied by the constabulary. At the end of the voting period, the 8 candidates who receive the most votes will be officially installed on the drafting committee. In the case of a tie, up to ten delegates will be admitted to the committee. If a tie would result in more than ten delegates, a runoff election will be held for all nominees who received enough votes to be seated as delegates.

Drafting period

The drafting committee will be allowed 4 weeks to complete an initial draft before it is opened up for public proposals. Committee members will be given broad latitude to define which specific issues the draft engages and how it does so but they are expected to create a document that develops the ideas encoded in the current statement of fundamental policies and those that are implicit in the day-to-day operation of the wiki. The committee will also be allowed to determine the way it divides its work among its members and other logistical matters.

Drafting will take place on the wiki but only delegates to the drafting committee will be allowed to make edits. The talk page will be reserved for delegates while other discussion should be directed to a special section of the forums dedicated to the charter. During the 4-week drafting period, committee members will be allowed to consult other members or even non-citizens. Other citizens may also make suggestions and engage in discussion in the forums or contact members of the committee directly to voice their concerns. Delegates may choose whether they engage that discussion directly and will not be required to address every comment individually but they are expected to make every effort to consider all perspectives and write a balanced document that addresses the needs of all Citizendium members. A spirit of compromise must be embraced if a thorough and balanced draft is to be produced in 4 weeks; thoughtfulness and open-mindedness are much desired virtues in committee members.

The role of the Editor-in-Chief

The Editor-in-Chief will occupy a unique position in the drafting of the Charter. He will not be a member of the drafting committee per se but will be directly engaged in the process. He will be the only person not on the drafting committee allowed to write on the discussion page of the drafting committee. Because the Charter is the expression of the ideals and goals of our community and because Citizendium is a resolutely community-based project, the Editor-in-Chief will abstain from editing the text of the Charter itself while it is being drafted. What is more, the Editor-in-Chief will be responsible for making the final, community-ratified draft official, so his abstention from contributing directly to the draft will eliminate any potential conflicts of interest. (This gesture should by no means suggest that the Editor-in-Chief is not allowed or welcome to propose language for the Charter on the discussion page.)

Next step

After the initial draft has been completed, the drafting committee's job will be limited to responding to questions and concerns that come from other Citizendium members. This includes explaining their vision for the charter and the reasoning behind their decisions. It also includes modifying the draft if it should become evident that the charter draft does not address some pressing issue raised during the course of public discussion. It will be left to the discretion of the committee to decide which issues must be addressed and which will not. Following 4 weeks of open discussion, if the committee feels that all major points of discussion have been addressed, the text of the draft will be locked and the draft will be put to a popular vote for confirmation.

Since the general Citizendium public will not be allowed to directly edit the charter draft, it is extremely important that as many voices as possible will be heard during the ratification process. Therefore, a referendum will be held in which all Citizendium members in good standing will be invited to vote. They will be asked to vote on whether the draft should be ratified and will be allowed one of three responses:

• YES, meaning that it should be ratified immediately.
• NO, indicating that it should be discarded and a new version should be drafted.
• REVISE, indicating that it should not be discarded but modifications are required before ratification.

Votes will be collected and tallied by the constabulary. They will be archived and will be accessible to the constables in case of future need. Individual votes will not be released but the results will be announced publicly. It will fall to the Editor-in-Chief to act on the results of the referendum and officially declare the charter ratified, rejected, or in need of revision.