[Cz-editcouncil] Resignation

Tue Nov 4 06:25:04 CST 2008

Dear Supten,

As previously noted by you, I have made a unilateral decision to resign as an Editor, as a member of the Editorial Council and as Secretary of the Council. This was a decision that I made reluctantly after failing to reach agreement with Larry Sanger about his prominent role on the Talk page of an article due for Approval in line with CZ policy (I subsequently removed the Approval notice). In particular, the dispute centred on my allegation of his abuse of power in trying to instruct authors to include in the article certain incorrect "facts" and analyses that appear to be in line with popular news reporting in the USA. Furthermore, in the unshakeable belief of the correctness of his own views, Larry sought alternative expert advice from inactive editors in order to counter the "problematic attitudes" of the two economics editors (one acting as author, the other as Approving editor). This, I found highly insulting to my professional competence since an awareness of various alternative analyses constitutes a fundamental tool for economists.Furthermore, it is not correct (as he claims) that he merely acted as any other Citizen: the instructions were peremptory (implying authority) and the subsequent approach to inactive editors was made in his capacity as Editor in Chief.

Given that expert decisions on CZ should be made initially by the subject editors, and ultimately by the Editorial Council, this matter should lie within the purview of the Editorial Council. Having resigned, I do not feel able to propose a motion; nor would I think it appropriate, as my personal conduct is also challenged by Larry Sanger. It is therefore up to the members of the Editorial Committee to decide how to react to this situation.

Although various expressions of support have been communicated to me privately by some members of the Council, I believe that no policy changes are under consideration. Therefore, I assume that the position taken by the Editor-in-Chief is acceptable to its members and my departure from the Council is inevitable. Since the workload of the Council recently has been zero, I do not think that there will be a problem in accommodating my resignation. The deficits of CZ policy are many, including the lack of procedure for resignations. In the recent past, I attempted to fill the lacunae of policy, either in practice or through policy proposals: I regret that I no longer feel an obligation to so do.

Thus, I confirm that I stand down (with retroactive effect from 1 November) as Secretary of the Council.

With best wishes

Martin

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Dr.Supten Sarbadhikari 
  To: The Citizendium Editorial Council ; M. BALDWIN-EDWARDS ; M. BALDWIN-EDWARDS 
  Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 6:53 AM
  Subject: Re: [Cz-editcouncil] Resignation

  Dear All,
  As of now, there is no formal procedure for resignation in the http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Editorial_Council_Rules_of_Procedure and http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Editorial_Council_Resolution_0007#I._Composition_of_the_Council.
  Martin is the duly elected Secretary of the Editorial Council and Chairman of the Rules Committee, as per the above rules.
  Martin, please inform the EC members whether you want to continue as the Secretary of the EC or not. If you are not willing to continue, please propose a Resolution that takes care of the situations due to resignations in the future too.
  Further, I'd personally request you to continue as the Secretary until your successor is found and you can handover the job to him/her sharing your experience and expertise in carrying out the designated responsibilities.
  Looking forward to the opinion of the other esteemed members of the CZ EC.
  With warmest regards
  Supten
  The Chair, Editorial Council, Citizendium: [http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Category:CZ_Editorial_Council_Members ]

  On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 7:32 PM, Larry Sanger <sanger at citizendium.org> wrote:

    Fascinating suggestion, Christian; I kind of like it.  We should talk about it on the Forums (http://forum.citizendium.org), however, not on this list.

    --Larry
      -----Original Message-----
      From: cz-editcouncil-bounces at mail.citizendium.org [mailto:cz-editcouncil-bounces at mail.citizendium.org] On Behalf Of Christian Kleineidam
      Sent: Monday, November 03, 2008 5:20 AM
      To: The Citizendium Editorial Council

      Subject: Re: [Cz-editcouncil] Resignation

      Dear Martin,

      I would hope that you would withdraw your resignation and let us as the Editorial Council find a way to deal with this problem.
      Citizendium is at it's nature supposed to be democratic and the question about who has the authority to evaluate specialist articles should be discussed here on the Editorial Council.
      Afterwards we should decide as Editorial Council about the issue by voting about it, if there are disagreements. 
      It's not Larry's job to decide about how far his own power goes in a case like this.

      To me the problem lies in roles not being clearly defined. 
      In this case it's about whether Larry's role as Editor in Chief gives him the authority to demand that the article about the financial crash contains a mention about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

      I think that Larry clearly has the right to voice his opinion about the topic from the perspective of contributing in citizendium like every other user.

      One solution to clearly mark roles:
      When Larry writes with the authority of being Editor in Chief on a talk page, he uses a different font or color than otherwise.

      One idea:
      Normal user: black text
      Editor in that field: pale blue
      Editor in that field who specializes into the subject of the article: deep blue 
      Constable: red
      Editor in Chief: green

      Afterwards Larry can use black text like every other user in cases like this without somebody thinking that Larry tries to overrule the Editor.

      Thanks
      Christian Kleineidam

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