[jox-tech] Re: Unclear how the journal works
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:15:42 +0100
Hi Mathieu!
Last month (40 days ago) Mathieu ONeil wrote:
From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
Date: Tuesday, December 14, 2010 9:20 pm
I put it there a year ago. See my post from 21 Dec 2009 23:58:59 on
[jox]:
http://www.oekonux.org/journal/list/archive/msg00214.html
I reviewed the use cases I wrote down then. Frankly I can't see where
they are really different from your latest proposal - although it uses
the site more than your process - though for good reasons.
So far you ignored this :-( .
In other cases it would be more constructive to outline your
precise questions rather than asking me to compare the long text
you wrote to what has been decided collectively.
Just one question: Where did "the collective" decide to put
submissions to? Really a simple question I can't remember you ever
gave an answer to.
I don't know if that particular point has been decided after collective negotiation or if it just emerged through common sense: for example you posted your submission to the site as you have access. Other people without such access can use public access: email the editor or through the list.
At least you got my point that there is at least one point we don't
have a solution for. Good.
From your reply I conclude that things like
* transparency
* management of publicity of a submission
* the option to get an overview over all submissions
really doesn't matter to you. IMO you prefer plain chaos. I'll get
back to this on the main list because this is a topic IMHO the whole
project needs to care about.
Another precise question: Please describe the whole process of a paper
going through the stages including all actors and all facilities
needed.
how about:
Ah answers :-) . Then here are more precise questions - if that is the
way we can go on.
-idea of paper proposed to list (it should perhaps be explained on the cspp site how to do this)
Well, anything which is done by the main journal list is published on
the web. That way you publish each idea immediately. That rejects the
fine-grained management of publicity I remember we decided to have.
This problem is not solved by sending it through the editor instead.
The option "through the editor" also rejects transparency. Nobody
knows what you silently reject and what not. It is also a problem with
workload management of single people.
Besides this the mailing list isn't open for anyone to post - so the
whole proposal won't work at all. If it would we would have a spam
problem.
Instead it is only open for postings of subscribers. Therefore to make
sure that a proposal is recognized one has to subscribe to the mailing
list. Subscribing to the mailing list, however, is usually a major
decision because at least I for one don't want to be flooded by mails
From a mailing list I'm not really interested in.
This brings me to my next point. The mailing list is announced as
provides a common discussion forum for the organizational aspects of
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
the peer production journal.
Caring about submissions clearly is not an organizational aspect of
the journal. Therefore my understanding so far was that it should be
limited to those peopls who are interested in the organizational
aspects.
Your process silently changes the topic of the mailing list. This
requires that more people need to subscribe - at least reviewers and
authors - and that all groups get mail they are not interested in. Are
you *really* sure you want that? From my general experience and the
main list in general I think this will destroy the mailing list and
therefore the whole project.
Also this doesn't allow for an overview. There is no single point
where someone can check what are pending proposals currently, what
happened to them and what their state is.
If you ask me I'd consider your process as broken by design. Thus IMHO
it is not possible to correct the process by small measures. Instead a
new design is necessary. I made a suggestion you ignored for unknown
reasons.
But on the other hand you probably thought of all these things and
have answers ready. I'm really interested in them.
b-list gives feedback
Even if we consider all the points above solved somehow: For the
"through the editor" solution it will be hard to manage replies - I
mean the feedback needs to go to the original author. From my
experience people nowadays are not careful enough to manage `To:` and
`Cc:` for such a setup.
c-full paper formally submitted to editor or posted directly to restricted part of site (if the author has access rights)
Again no transparency here if posted to the editor.
d-editor posts paper to site if necessary, approaches three reviewers
Has been published already at this point through the mailing list
archive. No point in posting paper to the site.
e-reviewers hand in reports
By which facility?
f-editor provides this feedback to author
By which facility? Remember that we discussed that we want to make the
feedback transparent as well.
g-author (accepts or rejects feedback and) re-submits full paper
How and to whom? By what facility?
h-reviewers rate this re-submission
The only point you see a problem:
> [still undecided -> we need a way to present the rating system?]
i-author decides whether he/she is happy to publish with these ratings
How?
j-article is published/not published
That seems clear - although it is published already long ago.
k-reviewer reports are published/not published (pending author/reviewers agreement)
How?
l-if published: audience can comment; author can respond in comments
At least I have an idea how this could work.
[still undecided -> we also have to determine if we publish only as a webpage and/or as pdf?]
Given all the problems named above this is really a minor problem.
Grüße
Stefan