I've been thinking about this and I want to make it clear what I'm proposing:

* that we make a rule/standard/style that people writing substantive reviews (i.e. reviews beyond short summaries where the opinion of the review is clearly reflected) be accompanied by a byline underneath the headline i.e.

'New study shows Wikipedia as powerful new gatekeeper
Heather Ford

A new study by Anna Awesomepants has found that....'

The nature of the newsletter is such that the work is most often divided so that individual authors write reviews of individual articles, but if there are cases where more than one person has reviewed an article, then both names can be added. I think the reviews need to be attributed with real names, especially if people are critiquing the work of named individuals. 

It has been suggested in the past that anyone who wants to add their name to their review should just do so but that it doesn't have to be required. This is problematic because there will still be unattributed reviews - and often those reviews are the problematic ones. Another suggestion has been that I oversee this process when the newsletter is developed. I don't mind doing this once or twice but I want this to be a rule/standard/style agreed to by this community so that Tilman, when he sets up the etherpad for the month can simply write at the top of the pad: 

'Please write your name next to your review.' 

I'm not always going to be able to review for the newsletter. Tilman and Dario coordinate this every month, but they need to be given a clear mandate. I'd rather make this explicit. I know that we're often afraid of rules in this community, but there are always rules - the difference is whether they're hidden or explicit. At least with the explicit ones we know how to oppose, comply with or add to them.   

Then, a few responses to issues raised here:

Why looking at the edit history is not sufficient as attribution:

There are plenty of reasons why edit history does not serve as sufficient attribution. 

a) Many reviews are actually produced in the etherpad before Tilman ports them over onto the wiki in which case the reviewer's name will not be visible.

b) More importantly, there are good reasons why Wikipedia uses this method for attributing authors of articles which are not relevant to the newsletter. Not every product works like Wikipedia; nor should it. Wikipedia attributes opinions to reliable sources whereas what we're doing here is 'original research'. In Wikipedia, the source is always supposed to be named. The words: 'it is disappointing that the researcher didn't release their code' wouldn't legitimately appear in a Wikipedia article. Instead, it would look something like this: 'According to Rev Researcher <cite>, 'It is disappointing that...' Or even better, 'according to some researchers <cite researchers A, B, C>...' but then the requirement is for more than one individual with a reputation in their community of expertise to be cited by name (not username or IP address but real name). 

There are good reasons why we want to enable reviewers to assert their own opinion (preferably in a manner that is respectful and with the view to building relationships with researchers rather than alienating them). But then we need to have the academic integrity to attribute our opinions in order to invite dialogue with them. 

Best,
Heather.

Heather Ford
Oxford Internet Institute Doctoral Programme
EthnographyMatters | Oxford Digital Ethnography Group 
http://hblog.org | @hfordsa




On 3 July 2014 21:17, Taha Yasseri <taha.yaseri@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks Stuart, Max, and Heather, 
But let's keep things simple and efficient (as it is right now).
If we want to use bylines for all the contributions, then the next question would be whether we have to use the real names or Wikipedia user names or even IP addresses would be enough or not (IP address is enough in some of Stuart's examples).

Of course if someone wants to add their name to the review, it should be allowed (as it is now), but it also doesn't mean that others can not edit that review.

Also to address concerns about the sentiment and fairness of the reviews (which is a valid concern in general), again, everyone is welcome to have a look at the draft and the pre-release version to make sure that all the reviews are at a conventional quality.
Usually Dario and Tilman send a link to the draft few days before the release and that's the best time for action.

Best,
Taha




On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 8:50 PM, Heather Ford <hfordsa@gmail.com> wrote:
You're right, Stuart. Having a byline (and not worrying so much about what is said) is probably enough because it would be clear who is speaking. 

I have reviewed in the past and want to start again now that I have a bit more time. Dario, Tilman, you usually let us know when things need to be reviewed on this list, right? Perhaps we can do something similar when the newsletter is ready for a last proof as Joe suggests. And since I've been so opinionated, I will chat to others to try to help out streamline it a bit more because I know that everyone is really pressed for time when it comes to the newsletter. It's so great and important that I'm sure we can all help out a bit more :) 

On 3 July 2014 17:58, Joe Corneli <holtzermann17@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Taha Yasseri <taha.yaseri@gmail.com> wrote:
> Your contributions are always very welcome.. (well, please do it
> before the release of the issue, but in few cases we have changed even after
> the release, Tilman knows the best about this).

I've just subscribed to the newsletter as a mailing list - via
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/research-newsletter

... But perhaps it would be useful to have a pre-release version of
the mailing list, that would send it out a day or two in advance of
the "official" release to persons who might be interested to help edit
(or at least proofread)?

(I realize this might sound like crazy talk, but it's meant as a
serious suggestion.)

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