[Cz-editcouncil] Resignation

[Larry Sanger]

All,
 
If Martin insists, then for my part, I must accept his resignation with
sadness and regret, directed both to him and to all of you, that the
exchange did not proceed differently.  Since his pointed remarks to this
list might have the tendency to undermine trust in my own leadership,
however, I feel I must clarify a few points.
 
First, I must strongly protest as not just incorrect, but as deeply unfair,
any notion that at any point I made an "abuse of power."  I stated several
times that I was not acting in my capacity as Editor-in-Chief, and the one
time in which I did--albeit only temporarily--state that I was resting on my
authority as EIC, Martin in fact agreed with me, and the other involved
editor duly revised the article asked.  I then asked that it be expanded
even further, but this suggestion was rejected by the editors, with my
agreement.  I must also reject any suggestion that there is anything
whatsoever improper with the Editor-in-Chief seeking out a third expert
opinion, particularly from within the CZ editorship.  I should have wished
that all editors would, far from condemning the addition of further expert
editors and different viewpoints, actually welcome them.  Moreover, I submit
that if the Editor-in-Chief believes, in good faith and with what he regards
as good evidence, that there is an opinion common among some experts that is
not adequately represented in an article, then he is well within his rights
to attempt to have the situation rectified--short of actually overruling the
editors, which I very rarely do and which I did not do in this case.  I
believed I had excellent evidence that there is another equally expert view
of the matter in dispute, and a CZ editor who did reply--who has actually
published articles explaining (what we are calling) the Crash of
2008--definitely and strongly confirmed my suspicion.  This, far from being
in any way untoward, in fact supported my original line of questioning.
This third editor opted not to participate in the dispute, however, citing
heavy time burdens, and I did not quote his remarks on the talk page.
Finally, I merely observe that there is another dimension of this whole
dispute, which involves Martin's own behavior, but I have no wish to bring
that up or discuss it here.
 
You might be interested to know that, as for the content matter that was
under dispute, the other, still-active editor, who is mostly responsible for
the "Crash of 2008" article, has very reasonably stated that the burden is
on me and others to establish that there is a significant expert view that
needs to be included in the article.  I haven't had time to follow up on
this, and I have decided to leave the matter to others and to the judgment
of the editor who is still working on the article.
 
Best wishes to all,
Larry
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