RationalWiki:Nothing is going on at Citizendium/2012

December 2012
Is this the end for Citizendium? "I'd say the project as originally conceived is, if not quite dead, at least terminal. [...] A second question, one that we hope does not arise but we should be prepared for, is whether pieces of the corpse can usefully be recycled, and where." - Sandy Harris "There are only a few active editors left, and the EC hasn't made a decision in about a year, and only occasional comments are posted on its wiki (and of course there are no candidates in the current election). So Anthony is left to try to control content contributions." - Peter Jackson December donations coming up short too. There was supposed to be yet another election starting Wednesday, 12 December. But no one has stepped forward to be a candidate for any of the open offices. November donations $80 short of costs. With a grand total of eight (8!) donors: "Citizendium saves all excess funds for future needs and initiatives of all kinds."

November 2012
Alexander Liptak uploaded a number of images to Wikimedia Commons, then when he couldn't get his way there. Guess who Citizendium's newest image contributor is? The Citizendium Management Council roars back into life after an absence of five months, with an announcement that an "Election Committee" has been formed. (What's that rule about declaring seats vacant after 90 days of inactivity? Oh, never mind.)  And who are the people appointed behind the scenes to run the December ballot? An MC member and the Managing Editor. And another one's gone. Dan Nessett (the sysadmin) decides "to reduce the amount of time I spend on Citizendium." To save you looking it up in a "citizens' compendium", Hayford(is that a real name?), if you want to know about colouring text in tables, may I recommend this page and this one on a very inferior wiki near you.

October 2012
William Shakespeare is considered so foundational to the study of English literature that it would be a rare encyclopedia to give over writing about him to someone who clearly has no idea what they're talking about, and haven't read the plays. The list of "main characters" is particularly bad, often including characters who only appear in a single act, and ignoring main characters; for example, Iachimo, one of only two characters listed, only appears briefly in Cymbeline, Claudius isn't listed as a main character of Hamlet, Oberon and Titania are not at all the first characters to spring to mind when talking about A Midsummer Night's Dream, none of the characters from the title plot of Much Ado About Nothing are listed (and said plot isn't even mentioned), and quite a lot of the others seem rather arbitrary. Edited to Add: Guess who made most of the lists of main characters? Spiritual Leader Larry Sanger, once again thinking he understands fields he really, really doesn't.  Hayford Pierce writes: "Right now there are only a small number of truly dedicated souls who continue to contribute new material on a regular basis, along with a scattering of others who jump in from time to time. What is lacking, and holding back our growth, I think, is the total lack of the collaboration that we originally had. Even though we might have argued with some authors, at least they were present — and actively participating!"

Could Citizendium's extensive block log, driving many active contributors out of the project be why?

September 2012
Hope the've not run out of money: "Sorry! This site is experiencing technical difficulties.Try waiting a few minutes and reloading.(Can't contact the database server: No database connection)" - nope, it was a failed upgrade. With treasurer Peirce writing "thank you" letters like this, no wonder contributors have left the project. Baggage much? Ugh. Citizendium not only needs to reduce costs, it needs people with PR skills.

August 2012
RW drivels, unlike CZ. "In regards to the perpetual drivel that oozes out of RW, I very much doubt their wiki is so large as to require approximately 3.5 GB of database storage and around 3.5 GB of image storage (as does CZ). I suggest people ignore the "wise men" of RW, since their general approach to life appears to be putting their noses in the air and sniffing at any other project that doesn't strike their fancy." Citizendium is out of cash again, with two to three months to live if the Citizens don't cough up. Update: Successful so far.

July 2012
After nine days without any account creations, there are five in the span of six minutes. Hmmm... could such tardiness in account creation have anything to do with CZ's inability to retain new users? The blog! It's alive! <vote poll=cz122 closed="yes">"Family friendly" Larry Sanger once again demonstrates his people management skills. <vote poll=cz121 closed="yes">New Managing Editor: Anthony Sebastian.

June 2012
<vote poll=cz120 closed="yes"> The results are in : Citizendium takes baby steps towards reducing bureaucracy, by voting to reduce the Management Council to three seats, and the Editorial Council to five seats. Is this a sign that they'll be able to keep the number of management positions smaller than the number of active editors? <vote poll=cz119 closed="yes"> Elections are on for the Managing Editor and two Management Council seats. Since the nomination process only managed to scare up one candidate for ME and zero candidates for MC, there's also a referendum to reduce the size of the MC to three seats.

May 2012
<vote poll=cz118 closed="yes">A startling admission from one-time chief Larry Sanger that he " never found the time to read " the discussion on reducing server costs, from the project's paid technical adviser. <vote poll=cz117 closed="yes">The masks start to drop, as Matt Innis shows his irritation at the anti-democratic abuse of power of the MC ever since the Charter was implemented: "Here is the way I see it. If Citizendium had a chat section from the beginning and it was removed without a referendum after the charter was created at the whim of a few MC members, then theoretically, it should be returned, and if there is someone that is having difficulty with it, then they can create a referendum to get rid of it."

April 2012
<vote poll=cz116 closed="yes">How hard is it to advertise someone on Citizendium? Well, here's a sample article, in full: "Artemis: From Greek mythology, (Roman name: Diana) the goddess of hunting, wild animals, girls before their marriages, who brings sudden death to women in the same way that Apollo brings sudden death to men. She is the twin sister of Apollo, daughter of Zeus and Leto; after Homer, she began to be identified with the moon. Source: Elizabeth Vandiver, Classics scholar, authority on Greek mythology and Greek tragedy, including the Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid, Homer, and Virgil. This definition is based on her course Classical Mythology for The Teaching Company." The advert for Vandiver is part of the article text... and there were 84 others., but since this post they have all been removed. <vote poll=cz115 closed="yes">David Finn's explanations somewhat fall on deaf ears: he gets a permanent ban for "multiple simultaneous offences", probably including this post responding to cross-posting on the forums. Meanwhile, a Mediawiki page that provides information when blocking an account has been edited only twice in the last five years ... on both occasions, to add new offences committed by David Finn just before banning him. Mysteriously, neither of these appear on the official list of reasons to block, which might lead naive observers to think that Citizendium's ban policy is... unfair? Arbitrary? Fascistic? <vote poll=cz114 closed="yes">Want some space to rant about a topic, but Wikipedians keep editing your work? Try the new Citizendium blog platform, and easily self-publish whatever you want! As David Finn explains: "...the community is incapable of expanding those articles[.] If we look at the recent changes for, oh I don't know, say the last couple years, we will see that there is no amount of content considered worthy enough for the community to help work on..." <vote poll=cz113 closed="yes"> PLoS Computational Biology published an article about coverage of that subject on Wikipedia! Anthony Sebastian asks the important question: "Why cannot PLoS Computational Biology meet Citizendium?" In other news, Google is reoptimizing its search algorithm. Chunbum Park asks "Does that mean CZ's entries might come out on top as well?" Answer: No. Conclusion: It's all about Citizendium! We're important! PAY ATTENTION TO US! <vote poll=cz112 closed="yes">The Editorial Council is annoyed that they tried to get someone blocked, but they were refused because the charter doesn't give them that power. [http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,4258.0.html But they want to be able to ban people. Poor, poor Editorial Council!] <vote poll=cz111 closed="yes">"So, the only thing about Citizendium that is not demonstrably inactive is the Featured Article, thanks to Chunbum. However the MC chair thinks that bad because he isn't getting the recognition he thinks he deserves for having worked on a subpage once in the past, and the EC thinks it equally bad because someone took some initiative without their permission. Do none of them actually ever stop to wonder why this site has become the laughing stock of the wiki-world?" - David Finn <vote poll=cz110 closed="yes">Back in February, there was a lot of bureaucratic activity on one subject. It started with a motion by one council, then a motion by another council , then a formal acceptance. But now, thanks to all this work, the formerly-disused blog, after all this work... can remain disused, but by someone else! Sound and fury, signifying nothing. <vote poll=cz109 closed="yes">According to Citizendium, "A lemma article is an article created for a subject where there is a presumption that it is unlikely a significant amount will be written about that subject in the near future, and thus the article consists simply of a definition that is transcluded on the main page for the article." Examples of lemma articles on Citizendium: Aeschylus, who is not one of the most important playwrights of Ancient Greece. Tennyson, who is not amongst the most famous English poets. Romeo and Juliet, a play noone reads. Skeleton and Bone, insignificant parts of the body you've probably never heard of. And many other bits of obscure knowledge. <vote poll=cz108 closed="yes">Astoundingly, well over a year since the lead image of the Biology article was tagged with "as it stands, this image is a copyvio because the owners of the separate images need to be credited here"... the and the article remains one of Citizendium's rare "approved" articles. Apparently, dealing with the site breaking the law is less important than organising endless elections and engaging in petty bureaucracy.

March 2012
<vote poll=cz107 closed="yes">Citizendium continues its history of jobs for the boys with the appointment of Aleta Curry to the created position of "Editorial Personnel Administrator", for two years. Because the project is bursting with editorial activity that needs to be administrated...

February 2012
<vote poll=cz106 closed="yes">For the first time in over a year, an article approval takes place. (Not a new article, just a new approved version of an old approved article.) <vote poll=cz105 closed="yes">Giving the guy at the top of the project the keys to the organization's disused blog requires a motion by one council, then a motion by another council , then a formal acceptance. (To be fair, some members of the Editorial Council apparently didn't really believe it was their job to walk this through, but went ahead with it anyway to keep the Management Council happy.) When efficiency threatens to prevail, always introduce more arbitrary hurdles. <vote poll=cz104 closed="yes">Larry Sanger in Aug 2011: Donations are handled by a private individual (Larry Sanger) in accounts separate from his own personal accounts. Larry Sanger in Jan 2012: I deposited the $630.12 check into my personal checking account, and I used that same account to pay $319.90 monthly to Steadfast for five months, from Sept. 26 through Jan. 20.

January 2012
<vote poll=cz103 closed="yes">The Editorial Council, after a split vote, opted to keep the Homeopathy draft article locked for the second year running rather than risk anyone editing it at all. <vote poll=cz102 closed="yes"> Facepalm. Facepalm squared. <vote poll=cz101 closed="yes">David Finn is very mad that the Management Council might ignore the electorate. All twenty six of them. Reference is made, of course, to the U.S. constitution. Because twenty six people voting about something on an obscure wiki is so comparable to running a world superpower.