[jox] Pot-pourri
- From: "Mathieu O'Neil" <mathieu.oneil anu.edu.au>
- Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:33:07 +0100
[Converted from multipart/alternative]
[1 text/plain]
Hi all
OK, here a is a long list of stuff to deal with, in no particular order. Feel free to extract whichever point you want to respond to and start a new thread.
* Timeline
I will be travelling from December 11 until December 31. I will be able to check emails occasionally but probably not much more. Thanks for your understanding. Since we are just starting discussions with the Scientific Committee (SC) there is some doubt in my mind about whether wc can finalise a CFP with SC member input before the end of November. I think it would be counter-productive to release an official CFP in December as people tend to focus on their end of year activities. See how we go, might be possible.
* Extra reviewers
I contacted a couple of legal scholars who have published on “open source” and peer production: no answer. Same goes for people on the management / business side of things. I suppose they thought the project was too critical, or too grassroots, or whatever. Still and all, I think some legal talent would be useful in the SC. If any of the SC know someone who might be able to help, please contact me and let me know.
* Private List
Stefan Merten suggested he could set up some kind of password-protected list where we could discuss “sensitive” issues such as potential SC members. So far I have driven the SC member recruitment idiosyncratically but if people do want to discuss this publicly (rather than just emailing me their ideas) then I guess it would be useful. Maybe just email me. But in any case we will def. need such a facility for when we discuss reviews.
* Constitution
We want the governance and decision-making to be democratic. The reason we set up a Governance Board (GB) was to guarantee the integrity of the project (to prevent it from being misdirected away from core functions such as “advancing peer production”). However there is some vagueness about practical details: how does one become a GB member? How does one leave? Are there terms of office? What about inactive members? Etc. These will have to be sorted out over the next few months. Input welcome.
* Role of SC
I think since we are connecting through this list the SC (or some parts of it) might become interested in discussing ideas and coming up with ideas to develop the journal. This would be a great bonus for everyone in my view. Two other things come to mind:
-SC members are invited to submit to the journal. Yes, we need content.
-SC members are invited to think about contributors. A natural target would be masters / doctoral students. Potential benefits to highlight to such folk would be the quality and depth of the feedback they will get as well as the innovative quality of the review process (more on that later). And, the general rightness and goodness of the project, of course - provided they are the idealistic type ;-).
* Themed issues
I would like to prepare some themed CFPs (with deadlines). Two that come to mind are:
1- Wikipedia
Rationale: A famous example of peer production, there is a heap of research going on about it but - to my knowledge - not that many special issues. There was some discussion on the wiki-research list recently about whether it would be a good idea to set up a WP journal so people are interested. And finally we are lucky to have on board a great wiki-scholar, Amy Bruckman.
Personally I am interested in practical issues: governance, criticisms, problems with elite, how to research / role of research, etc. Suggestions?
2- Open hardware
Rationale: Suggested by Michel Bauwens a while back. How to have successful peer & open production of analog / concrete stuff? Possibilities, limitations, proposals? Suggestions?
If SC members would like to propose a themed issue and be guest editors please do so.
* Questions raised by people in the last few days, in chronological order (greetings and farewells removed):
=Brian Whitworth=
This is good news, and I am happy to assist in any way I can. Our main idea is to go from a static KES to a dynamic one, e.g. authors can update versions of what they write based on reader feedback, so things evolve rather than being fixed in stone, plus with attribution. When the changes stabilize, one can still do fixed print. So most current publishing manager software design's wont cut it, like manuscript central, as a secret reviewer feedback system is behind the publication "shop window". You can still have that right at the beginning, by author choice, but the main idea is a system tht is transparent and open. If you can make a move in that direction that works, or implement the design the second part of our paper outlined in any way, I encourage you.
(Mathieu:)
Thanks for your message, and for your offer to help. I will put you down as part of our scientific committee. Regarding the updating of content, we discussed this, and came to the conclusion that while we are all for readers leaving comments to papers, and authors responding to readers in comments, the notion of a permanently mutable text (as is the case for example on WP) did not really suit us in the context of a journal. I can see the attraction in what you suggest below but it does raise a number of issues:
- at what point is an article "stable", if the possibility always exists that some new argument, for or against, comes along and must be dealt with/integrated?
- another possible problem with continuously changing the main part of a paper is that it would create uncertainty as to which version was being referred to in subsequent publications.
So we decided that we would rather have people write a new paper based on all the comments and responses, if necessary. At the same time this is something that we can talk about more. I will subscribe you to our list and raise this alongside other issues that come up.
= Felix Stalder=
As for the mission statement, there is the following sentence:
We understand peer production as a mode of commons-based and oriented> production in which participation is voluntary and predicated on the self-selection of tasks.
It took me very long to understand this sentence. at the
very least, you would need to include an '-' before oriented. Otherwise, it gets totally confusing.
(Mathieu:) OK
As for the review process, I think having people to be able to
comment is
great. I'm not so sure, if we should adopt a rating of published
papers
from +2 to +5. This would mean that the reviewers tell the
audience which
papers they think are every good, and which are merely good
enough. I think
this is a bit unfair to the published authors and creates biases
in the
audience. After all, wouldn't you start reading papers that are
ranked
high, rather than those ranked poorly?
(Mathieu:) Well, it also allows to rate and publish more papers... but I see your point, will bring it to the attention of the group.
=Stefan Merten=
As an idea for further improvement: At the moment thanks to Mathieu
the members of the Scientific Committee are listed on the `current web
page`_ just with name and affiliation. Later I'd find it useful if for
each member there is an own page or one page listing all members with
a bit more detail. In particular I - but probably others as well - am
interested in the background of people. At the very least I think this
serves the new members as well as the founders of this project.
(Mathieu:)
At this stage I would suggest simply putting a link to the academic / professional homepage of the various people, rather than collating and setting up a lot of pages on the journal site; what do others think?
That’s all I can think of for now,
Cheers
Mathieu
[2 text/html]
______________________________
http://www.oekonux.org/journal