RationalWiki:Nothing is going on at Citizendium/2017

December 2017
They're going forwards with the approval committee idea! ...After two weeks of nothing happening, because why try to be timely? And on which subject, they plan to do an article every two weeks. Will Citizendium see a burst of activity, breathing new life into it? [Spoiler: No.] While perhaps understandable, there were no edits for the three days from 24 to 26 December. Please notice me, Sanger-senpai! Seven years since the last edit, the remnants of Citizendium change the introduction to "Fire". What did the expert-guided, real-named Citizendians of old have as their introduction, holy writ written by the God-King Larry Sanger himself?
 * Fire is very hot and bright, and it consumes what it burns. This much we learn in childhood.  Flames seem to be weird, mysterious things, constantly moving, and so, like water (which, interestingly, can put out a fire),  or  flames are fascinating to watch.  But the flames of a fire are simply a hot, glowing gas, and not, contrary to a common belief, .

Looks like Citizendium might be getting its first new editor in years as John Stephenson nominates Hayford Peirce. Looks like they might be able to get two editors for Anthony's 3-member Approval Committee Proposal. Larry is employed again! On an online wiki encyclopedia, no less! What could possibly go wrong! Citizendium has a new user for the first time since July! Abigail Wilcox was approved on 6 December but hasn't made any contributions yet. For the first time since 2013, funds at hand top $2,000. But where is it coming from? Not found From the "Competitors and Press", a.k.a., "Attack Wikipedia" page: "WP ArbCom election: 12 candidates for 8 places. Not massively better than us." Sure, Peter. Sure. They have six active users, only one of which is an editor, but... they're moving forwards with Anthony's proposal! Even though they have no idea how to pass a proposal. Even though citable articles are "supposed to be unchangeable (and immovable) for ever" and they have no real idea what to do if an error's found. Even though no-one in their right minds would cite fucking Citizendium. By the way, you know how Wikipedia handles citations? You're encouraged to link to the current version you're looking at. The wiki software is designed to make this easy.

November 2017
Can YOU solve the mystery of why they can't see changes before 21 August? If you do, they'll be able to implement Anthony's stupidly bureaucratic proposal for changing the charter, er... not-charter.

By the way. that proposal has been sitting undiscussed since January, until Anthony remembered it existed this week. So expect any further discussion of it to be in mid-2018, or the heat death of the universe. There were no edits on 19-20 November, or 24 November. And they were doing so well for a while there. (Though much worse than this before that.) Anthony modifies his previous proposal, as he really wants articles to be "Citable". Peter finds his "Approved by the Editors of Citizendium" wording misleading. Because it is. The rest of the world finds out Citizendium still exists, is surprised.

ETA: If Peter was correct, the last editor besides Anthony left back in March. So how will it be "Editors"?  Citizendium's active users is back down to five. They are: Martin Wyatt, Hayford Peirce, Phil Hermanns, Peter Jackson and Anthony Sebastian.

This comes just over a week after Anthony's brilliant suggestion about setting up a committee of five members. They can barely find five people to edit at all. In the first notable thing to happen on Citizendium in weeks months, Anthony proposes "What would you think about setting up a committee of five members (three Editors, two non-Editors) to review potentially approvable articles, edit as needed, and vote for approval or non-approval (majority vote)?"

They're bringing bureaucracy back! (And also: Anthony doesn't know how talk pages work, putting his section at the top, instead of at the bottom where all convention calls for it to go.)

UPDATE: Peter basically says "We don't have three editors anymore, and that isn't really review by subject matter experts, is it?" <vote poll=cz396 closed="yes"> Is it even worth mentioning anymore that there were no edits on October 25 and 26? In addition, the only edits on the 24th and 27th, as well as all but one edit on the 28th, were related to Pali Canon. There was also only one edit on the 31st, and it was to a talk page. Is it time to put Citizendium out of its mystery?

October 2017
<vote poll=cz395 closed="yes"> Activity seems to have picked up again this month, with an average of about six edits per day! However, over the last seven days, all edits but one (courtesy of Martin Wyatt) have been by just three users: Phil Hermanns, Peter Jackson, and Hayford Peirce (the latter with just two edits), with Jackson being the only editor on October 22 and 24. Will the time come when we'll have a week with only a single editor?

Also, it must be hard to have a running site when all of your Moderators/Constables are inactive.

<vote poll=cz394 closed="yes"> A new record for Citizentium as their active users drops down to five!

They are: Martin Wyatt, Hayford Peirce, Phil Hermanns, Peter Jackson and Tin V. Nguyen, who is back after seven years to write about Long Reach Operation. Who will be CZ's last man standing?

<vote poll=cz393 closed="yes"> Citizendium site has been unreachable for the last 24 hours (4-5 October 2017).

ETA: It's back online. <vote poll=cz392 closed="yes">The last few days have seen a flurry of activity, averaging about 5 edits per day!

September 2017
<vote poll=cz391 closed="yes"> Citizendium’s active users drops back to six again for the second time this year. We have the usual suspects: Martin Wyatt, Hayford Peirce, Peter Jackson and Ro Thorpe. Newcomer Phil Hermanns is still there, adding football scores for Rio Rancho High School. And Stéphane Dohet, who came back after nearly ten years to edit for a few days. Ro Thorpe is interesting. He used to be Citizendium’s most active contributor, but he’s only made two edits in the past 30 days. Wondering if he’s OK… <vote poll=cz390 closed="yes">No edits 20, 21, or 22 September, for another three-and-a-half day editing hiatus. We're waiting on four, CZ! You can do it! In fact... just never edit again. <vote poll=cz389 closed="yes"> The Citizendium article on editing was... um... edited recently, which revealed the rather awful list of "Notable Editors", one of which they claim is notable for being fired, one of which is a one-episode Doctor Who villain, and another of which is Larry Fucking Sanger. Who makes this crap? <vote poll=cz388 closed="yes">The citizendium.org domain name is renewed for another year.

August 2017
<vote poll=cz387 closed="yes">The last edit, at time of writing, was 17 August. It's currently 21 August. That's three days with no edits, and counting. ETA: ‎Martin Wyatt breaks the dry spell. Really, 2-3 days without any edits to CZ have become common and aren't really noteworthy anymore. Just waiting for the inevitable 4+ day no edit stretch. <vote poll=cz386 closed="yes">August edits thus far: 33 edits in 8 days. Edits per day: 4.125. Users: 6 (Martin Wyatt, Peter Jackson, Ro Thorpe, Hayford Peirce, Maynard S. Clark, and Neil Babbage.) Edits per user: 5.5. Edits per user per day: 0.6875. Exciting stuff! <vote poll=cz385 closed="yes">July 2017 was the second month this year to bring in less donations than the cost of hosting. However, net income for 2017 has been positive.

July 2017
<vote poll=cz384 closed="yes">There were no edits on July 22, and 23, and the rest of the past 10 days were mainly devoted to editing articles on English history and the English language. Whatever happened to being a new "compendium of knowledge"? Might as well turn Citizendium into a Wiki about the United Kingdom. <vote poll=cz383 closed="yes">The number of active users drops back to six for the first time since September 2015. Those left are Martin Wyatt, Peter Jackson, Ro Thorpe, John Stephenson, Hayford Peirce, and newcomer Phil Hermanns. The list is nearly unchanged from two years ago, with just Phil Hermanns replacing Meg Ireland! <vote poll=cz382 closed="yes">Somehow, despite the lack of activity, they've managed to acquire an extra thousand dollars in donations this year. <vote poll=cz381 closed="yes">No edits on July 3, 4, 8, 9, and 11, and only one edit each for July 1, 2, 6, 7, and 10. The only edit to an actual article so far this month, rather fittingly, was to their article on Death. I've seen Wikipedia WikiProjects more active than the whole site.

June 2017
<vote poll=cz380 closed="yes">Editing seems to have restarted to some extent, but... some of it is kind of creepy. What's up with http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/File:Omanhene.jpg? <vote poll=cz379 closed="yes">Maybe we should just post about the days they do edit now? No edits on the 19th or 20th again. Apparently, this is how Citizendium dies. <vote poll=cz378 closed="yes">...And they do it again. No edits on June 11 or 12, nor 15 or 16. We shall see if there's an edit on the 17th. ETA: No edits on the 17th either, making this the first three-day stretch. ETA 2: Two words (sort of...) and a bracket were added on the 18th, which is... slightly better than the nothing of previous days. <vote poll=cz377 closed="yes"> They seem to have been making some effort to cover the recent British election - indeed, it's one of the very few articles that aren't dictionary-based that have been edited at all in the last year or so. Given the disorganised mess they ended up with, that's rather sad. Thank goodness for gentle expert guidance, eh? <vote poll=cz376 closed="yes"> Only three total edits in the five days from June 4th-8th, with none on the 6th or 7th. For whatever reason, the website is loading at a glacial pace, probably further discouraging any editing (or reading) from taking place at all. <vote poll=cz375 closed="yes"> It used to be that we mentioned when there was only one edit in a day. Later, there started to be occasional days with no edits. However, in the last week, there were no edits whatsoever on 27 May, 29 May, or 2 June. And the remaining days only have two editors that do anything. Pity they finally got their finances together just in time to die from lack of interest..

May 2017
<vote poll=cz374 closed="yes">Is it even worth mentioning that 27 May had no edits whatsoever? It's not like the edits being made on other days are particularly significant or interesting or anything. About the only article of any significance getting any sort of updates is 2017 United Kingdom general election, which doesn't even rise to the level of a school essay. <vote poll=cz373 closed="yes">Citizendium has just created a special workgroup for articles on France! With five articles, zero members, and no apparent interest, one might join Peter in asking: What the fuck is the point of this? Much like France, it may be time to surrender. <vote poll=cz372 closed="yes">New discussion over there: "Oh Oh - I'm back, but now this place is half dead? OR: Why NOT close CZ". Highlights include "Yes, but only half", and everyone praising the conspiracy-mongering article on Assassination of President John F. Kennedy as being hugely better than the Wikipedia article, because Wikipedia's lead doesn't cater to the conspiracy theories. <vote poll=cz371 closed="yes">What's up with Citizendium's finances? There's only nine active users, but have gotten $1,282.24 in donations since December. Even if all of the users are donating equally, that's still about $142 each for a website that no-one is using as an encyclopedia. Probably not even using it as a dictionary either, which seems the main focus of its work nowadays. <vote poll=cz370 closed="yes">A dying wiki, Citizendium still can't help to look at its successful rival and snipe. Does Wikipedia banning the Daily Mail show a left-wing bias or, as sane, non-Citizendium people think, is it just sensible? And, of course, let's not forget claims that Wikitribune is stealing Citizendium's ideas of expert oversight - and sniping that they hope it can come up with "something better than WP's inadequate procedures for ensuring neutrality" for it. Because Citizendium knows all bout neutrality.

March 2017
<vote poll=cz369 closed="yes">The talk page for Citizendium's article on Holocaust denial is currently dedicated to desperate attempts to claim Holocaust denier David Irving wasn't really a Holocaust denier, because he admits some small number of Jews may have been killed. But it's alright, there's "no such thing as a reliable source" so no evidence could possibly prove he is.

Meanwhile, the article is more focused on criticising people for calling him a Holocaust denier than discussing his horrible racist views.

January 2017
<vote poll=cz369 closed="yes">Did you know ... that Citizendium's article on Donald Trump, President of the United States, consists of three sentences? <vote poll=cz368 closed="yes">Citizendium raked in $587.56 in December! However, according to their statistics page, at time of writing they have 10 "active" users, a.k.a. those who have edited anything in the last month. Someone has deep pockets for their hobby.