[Cz-editcouncil] Set up new inactive editor categories?

[Volk, David E.]

In general I agree, but perhaps there should be a contribution benchmark and once an editor has reached that level, the editor would not be
put on the "Inactive" list.  For example, say someone wrote 400 articles and 10,000 edits, and goes on a six month African safari, or has an illness, or some such
thing, it seems unfair to mark him/her as Inactive.  Writing that many articles ought to be good a year or more.  The problem may be more of dividing them into very active, somewhat active and never been active.  I think the last category is what you are really describing.


________________________________________
From: cz-editcouncil-bounces at mail.citizendium.org [cz-editcouncil-bounces at mail.citizendium.org] On Behalf Of Larry Sanger [sanger at citizendium.org]
Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 12:44 PM
To: cz-editcouncil at citizendium.org
Subject: [Cz-editcouncil] Set up new inactive editor categories?

All,

It has always bothered me that we list as "editors" people who might not
ever have touched the wiki.  This is not "truth in advertising."  It also
makes the honor of CZ editorship, which ought to count for something, rather
too easy.  On the one hand, we want the *rights* to editorship to be as easy
as possible, for qualified people.  On the other hand, we want the *honor*
of editorship something that has to be earned.  Well, we can make good on
this distinction: we simply make a new category of editor: Inactive XYZ
Editors, like Inactive Philosophy Editors.  Then we add the word "Inactive"
to the editor tags of people who have (according to some measure) been
inactive.  We can also add a link from the XYZ Editors category page to the
Inactive XYZ Editors category page.

I suspect that, because academics and professionals generally are motivated
by honors, to a great extent, actually requiring some activity of editors in
order to be prominently listed would help *somewhat* to motivate editors to
get involved.  To this end, I propose not only that we create the above
"Inactive" categories, but that we tell editors that we are going to do so,
and that we specifically request that they not list CZ editorship on their
CVs unless they are active.  Simply saying that should impress two important
facts on editors: first, CZ editorship is an honor (that is appropriate to
put on a CV); second, you are going to have to contribute your labor to the
project if you want the honor of editorship.

Therefore, I propose the following language:

============

You may count yourself an active Citizendium Editor if you have edited CZ in
the previous three months.  If you have not edited the wiki in that time,
then any Citizen may change your various "CZ Editor" categories to "Inactive
CZ Editor" categories.  For instance, the category on your user page might
be changed from [[Category:Chemistry Editors]] to [[Category:Inactive
Chemistry Editors]].

You may delete the word "Inactive" yourself, once you have edited the wiki.
(For simplicity, editing the wiki once will suffice.)

============

I've run this by the Executive Committee and they are all agreed that this
is a good idea.  So I am thinking that we could pass it "by acclamation."
In other words--are there any objections to this policy?  If there are, let
me know, and I'll make a proper resolution out of it.

--Larry

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