Draft of statement that might be this committee's output.
Howard Berkowitz joined on 29 April 2008 and was immediately granted editorships by David E. Volk in:
- Computers
- Engineering
- Military
On 26 May 2010 (after two years), he was granted editorships by Roger A. Lohmann in:
The charter was to determine whether Howard has the actual expertise, qualifications, experience, and credentials in his five fields of Editorship to actually merit having those responsibilities.
Howard's info links:
- Editorial Council page: http://ec.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Howard_C._Berkowitz
- CZ user page: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Howard_C._Berkowitz
- CZ /Editor subpage: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/User:Howard_C._Berkowitz/Editor
- LinkedIn page: http://www.linkedin.com/in/hcberkowitz
- Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/people/Howard-C-Berkowitz/100001940620991
- this page displays "Citizendium" as if it were Howard's employer
- IETF RFC editor search page: http://www.rfc-editor.org/cgi-bin/rfcsearch.pl
- (enter "Berkowitz" as search term), yields 4 RFC's which he at least partially edited
- RFC4098, "Terminology for Benchmarking BGP Device Convergence in the Control Plane", editors H. Berkowitz, E. Davies, Ed., S. Hares, P. Krishnaswamy, M. Lepp, June 2005
- RFC2071, "Network Renumbering Overview: Why would I want it and what is it anyway?, editors P. Ferguson, H. Berkowitz, January 1997
- RFC2072, "Router Renumbering Guide", editor H. Berkowitz, January 1997 (Updated by RFC4192)
- RFC1916, "Enterprise Renumbering: Experience and Information Solicitation" by H. Berkowitz, P. Ferguson, W. Leland, P. Nesser, February 1996
- IN PRINT books by H. Berkowitz
- Building Service Provider Networks, Wiley; 1st edition (May 15, 2002), 592 pp
- OUT OF PRINT books by H. Berkowitz
- CertificationZone.com OSI Reference Model Pocket Guide, Genium Pub Corp (January 19, 2000), 64 pp
- Designing Routing and Switching Architectures, Pearson Education; 1st edition (November 15, 1999), 964 pp
- Designing Addressing Architectures for Routing and Switching, Sams (November 25, 1998), 500pp
The books and RFC editorships (none recent and all very specicialized) point to probably high expertise in internet routing technology, though not necessarily in computer science in general, and not necessarily "up to date". I.e., since he appears to have no degrees (not even undergraduate), it would be reasonable to question whether he is an expert in, say, cloud computing or cryptography, CZ articles on which he has authored heavily. (NOTE: Pat needs to document that Howard "ran her off" from these articles and that, rather that do battle with Howard, she simply gave up and went away--this can likely be seen from the history of Cryptography. It can be seen in Pat's Eduzendium discussions with Howard from last summer).
Links to the original policies concerning editors:
Links to Editorial Council motions concerning editors
- http://ec.citizendium.org/wiki/EC:PR-2010-011
- If reasonably well-founded doubts, the EC may choose to review the previously awarded status of any Editor
- http://ec.citizendium.org/wiki/EC:PR-2010-024
- qualifications shall be part of the text of the User page of editors
- http://ec.citizendium.org/wiki/Editor_information
- editors shall link an /Editor subpage prominently from the user page, showing:
- credentials on which the Editorship status is based.
- concise listing of his areas of competence
- list of all Approved articles in which the Editor was involved
- http://ec.citizendium.org/wiki/Editor_qualifications
- additional qualifications for editors :
- the ability to recognize good exposition
- to judge if an article is suitable for the intended audience
- the ability to evaluate articles with respect to their structure and organization and a consistent and balanced selection of their content
- the ability to determine if an article is well-researched and to judge its sources with respect to their relevance and reliability
- editors must know the limits of their competence and be willing to respect them
From ORIGINAL MOTION THAT WAS GREATLY SHORTENED:
- qualifications for History and Politics?
- his user page and contributions on the wiki demonstrate a very strong interest in history and politics, but they do not demonstrate expertise beyond that of an avid amateur.
- he writes on his userpage about experience with putting history to use in certain military and intelligence contexts, but this gives no indication that he understands the methodology or theory used by historians.
- no academic degrees or credentials listed for these two Editorships, nor the mention of attendance at a specific high school or undergraduate college
- expertise in Engineering
- he writes on his user page, "There are enough similarity among engineering disciplines, at least where I have been an approving Editor, that makes it possible to look for good engineering-oriented explanation even if I'm not an expert in the subdiscipline." This appears to be a justification for his over-assertion of authority in general engineering. As far as can be discerned from his contributions or user page, Mr. Berkowitz only has engineering experience in the field of network engineering, yet he asserts it very broadly in apparently all fields of engineering.
- As in the case of History and Politics, Mr. Berkowitz lists no academic degrees or credentials at all for these three additional Editorships, with not even the mention of attendance at a specific high school or undergraduate college.
- Given the current Workgroup structure, therefore, I propose that it would be sufficient for Mr. Berkowitz to retain Editor status solely in the Computers Workgroup, so that he is not tempted to over-assert his engineering expertise. I further propose that his Editorships in History and Politics be revoked.
Examples of Howard being confrontational as an editor:
Examples of Howard running a long feud as an author (and sometimes perhaps acting like an editor):
Recent examples of Howard "feuding" in the forums with various folks:
Recent examples of others being unnecessarily confrontational in forums:
