"Highly rated" is an interesting property. One of the ways that a publication venue becomes highly rated is by being highly restrictive. In fact, the primary measurement of the quality of a publication venue is the acceptance rate of that conference. WikiSym is not considered highly rated because a high proportion of the submitted papers are accepted. Would a wiki journal be more restrictive in order to gain a "highly rated" status? I think it's interesting to ask why WikiSym needs improvement and why attendance has been falling. If a WikiSym is a wiki conference that is struggling to maintain participation, how might a wiki journal surmount such trouble? Assuming that the answer to my question above is "yes, the wiki-journal would be more restrictive", how would such a journal gather more submissions than an established conference like WikiSym -- enough to both produce regular issues and maintain a high rejection rate? -Aaron On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Joe Corneli <holtzermann17(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Dariusz, you make a good point about the criterion for ranking journals, but my point still stands that you wnn't have a high quality set of papers without strict criteria for rejection. I've reviewed enough papers to know what tends to get rejected. I don't see how a such a specialized focus as beneficial or "our community" as a particularly strong force for driving citations. Surely WikiSym has an equally specialized focus and the same community behind it. As for disciplines that do not count conference papers, I cannot comment because my discipline (Computer Science) looks at top tier conference publications in a similar way to journal publications. However, I'd argue that anyone who does not value a publication purely because the venue is called a "conference" regardless of the impact/restrictiveness is making a mistake. I've seen people include the acceptance rates on their CV to avoid this situation. -Aaron On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 10:04 AM, Dariusz Jemielniak <darekj(a)alk.edu.pl>wrote;wrote:

2012/11/8 <koltzenburg(a)w4w.net> Nice comment, koltzenburg. A journal about research done by using wikis would have a very large scope. In fact, reviewers with knowledge on wikis/wikipedia/etc would probably had little to the review process. For example, if I use a wiki for education, the journal would need reviewers with expertise on education process. And an editor able to deal with it. It applies to every field of science. The question is, is it feasible? It's not usual for traditional journals Answer 2: -- Prof. Manuel Palomo Duarte, PhD Software Process Improvement and Formal Methods group (SPI&FM). Degree Coordinator for Computer Science. Department of Computer Science. Escuela Superior de Ingenieria. C/ Chile, 1 11002 - Cadiz (Spain) University of Cadiz http://neptuno.uca.es/~mpalomo Tlf: (+34) 956 015483 Mobile phone: (+34) 649 280080 Mobile phone from University network: 45483 Fax: (+34) 956 015139 Aviso legal: Este mensaje (incluyendo los ficheros adjuntos) puede contener información confidencial, dirigida a un destinatario y objetivo específico. Si usted no es el destinatario del mismo le pido disculpas, y le pido que elimine este correo, evitando cualquier divulgación, copia o distribución de su contenido, así como desarrollar o ejecutar cualquier acción basada en el mismo. -- Legal Notice: This message (including the attached files) contains confidential information, directed to a specific addressee and objective. In case you are not the addressee of the same, I apologize. And I ask you to delete this mail, and not to resend, copy or distribute its content, as well as develop or execute any action based on the same.

I don't have much time at the moment for a proper response, but I wanted to point you to the Research Index on meta: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research I've personally cataloged ongoing experiments in this space and reviewed the work of others. See also http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Projects_reviewed_by_RCom and check the talk pages for discussions. -Aaron On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 2:10 PM, Joe Corneli <holtzermann17(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Colleagues, As the discussion on [[Wiki Research Ideas/Research Hub]] has been rather successful, I have begun a general summary on the matter : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Research_Ideas/Summary It appears that three structures are needed : a Laboratory (cf. Ward Cunningham's suggestions), a Journal of Wiki Studies (focusing on sociology and media studies) and a Journal of Wiki techniques (focusing on computer science publications and giving public exposure to the laboratory's experiments). Such a configuration would solve the disciplinary problem. Concerning the Journal of Wiki studies it appears we are getting quite near the following step — that is, creating the editorial committee and launching some kind of a recruitement campaign for the scientific committee. If you are interested in any of these initiative feel free to join the volunteers list : http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Research_Ideas/Volunteers Pierre-Carl Langlais

Here's a quick point: attending a conference requires a greater committment than sending a paper. I would not send submissions to WikiSym unless I am really sure to have both time and money to invest on the trip. By contrast, a journal only expects authors to deliver an article. It does not matter where they are, and how they manage to get their work done.

Based on my past experiences with WP:ACST, whenever I thought it reached a plateau it was simply because the databases I was checking did not have all the latest papers. -- Piotr Konieczny "To be defeated and not submit, is victory; to be victorious and rest on one's laurels, is defeat." --Józef Pilsudski On 11/8/2012 11:13 AM, emijrp wrote:

Nice post, Kerry. Let me add that the citation rates are calculated using the cites in reputated journals already indexed ... 2012/11/8 Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com> -- Prof. Manuel Palomo Duarte, PhD Software Process Improvement and Formal Methods group (SPI&FM). Degree Coordinator for Computer Science. Department of Computer Science. Escuela Superior de Ingenieria. C/ Chile, 1 11002 - Cadiz (Spain) University of Cadiz http://neptuno.uca.es/~mpalomo Tlf: (+34) 956 015483 Mobile phone: (+34) 649 280080 Mobile phone from University network: 45483 Fax: (+34) 956 015139 Aviso legal: Este mensaje (incluyendo los ficheros adjuntos) puede contener información confidencial, dirigida a un destinatario y objetivo específico. Si usted no es el destinatario del mismo le pido disculpas, y le pido que elimine este correo, evitando cualquier divulgación, copia o distribución de su contenido, así como desarrollar o ejecutar cualquier acción basada en el mismo. -- Legal Notice: This message (including the attached files) contains confidential information, directed to a specific addressee and objective. In case you are not the addressee of the same, I apologize. And I ask you to delete this mail, and not to resend, copy or distribute its content, as well as develop or execute any action based on the same.

MHO: only if they don't review wiki studies properly ... 2012/11/8 Aaron Halfaker <aaron.halfaker(a)gmail.com> -- Prof. Manuel Palomo Duarte, PhD Software Process Improvement and Formal Methods group (SPI&FM). Degree Coordinator for Computer Science. Department of Computer Science. Escuela Superior de Ingenieria. C/ Chile, 1 11002 - Cadiz (Spain) University of Cadiz http://neptuno.uca.es/~mpalomo Tlf: (+34) 956 015483 Mobile phone: (+34) 649 280080 Mobile phone from University network: 45483 Fax: (+34) 956 015139 Aviso legal: Este mensaje (incluyendo los ficheros adjuntos) puede contener información confidencial, dirigida a un destinatario y objetivo específico. Si usted no es el destinatario del mismo le pido disculpas, y le pido que elimine este correo, evitando cualquier divulgación, copia o distribución de su contenido, así como desarrollar o ejecutar cualquier acción basada en el mismo. -- Legal Notice: This message (including the attached files) contains confidential information, directed to a specific addressee and objective. In case you are not the addressee of the same, I apologize. And I ask you to delete this mail, and not to resend, copy or distribute its content, as well as develop or execute any action based on the same.

Some serious deliberation on identity and boundaries is also necessary. WikiSym in recent years has been criticized (fairly in my eyes as an author an PC member) as having significantly shifted from wiki-development and professional implementation to academic (English) Wikipedia studies. Is this just about Wikipedia, or MediaWiki, or any wiki? Will studies using non-wiki open collaboration and peer-production systems like crowdsourcing, citizen science, remixing, FLOSS development, etc. be allowed? There's a thousand slippery slopes absent a clear identity, mission, and goal. And to crucially re-iterate again, what is the competitive advantage of having a journal of wiki-studies when every field from legal studies to complex systems is clamoring to incorporate wiki research to serve their agendas shifting towards "social", "participatory", "open", "big" approaches? I remain convinced that organizing wiki-scholars to edit special issues, perhaps even incorporating wiki-like processes into the review processes themselves to the extent editorial boards are open to it, will be far more fruitful use of scarce academic time and interest. On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 5:34 PM, Brian Keegan <bkeegan(a)northwestern.edu>wrote;wrote:

My answer is the fact that many of us are reading this mailing list, reading papers in various draft and final forms that people are writing, discussing the topic, etc. I see a community forming here. A journal would seem a natural evolution of that. I don’t think the editorial team has to be expert in everything in itself; it might need to be able to find reviewers in “everything” though. Kerry _____ From: wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Brian Keegan Sent: Friday, 9 November 2012 8:35 AM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Wiki Research Journal? - Why? I keep coming back to this same question Aaron's raised as well. Wiki is obviously the glue holding everything thematically as well as logistically together in the proposals I've seen here-to-for, but it seems nigh-impossible to assemble an editorial board that is simultaneously open and qualified to reviewing submissions that almost certainly cover the gamut from journalism and media studies, computer and information sciences, complex and network sciences, sociology and organizational behavior, business and economics, legal and policy studies, education and outreach. Any single issue risks incoherence including articles across all these fields and the possibility of having rotating special issues dedicated to any single domain for this Wiki-journal to ensure some coherence would seem to suggest simply organizing a special issue in pre-existing journals. It comes down to this: someone needs to clearly articulate why active wiki-researchers like myself should take the risk of publishing our research in a new journal when we potentially have higher-impact journals and better-tailored special issues as alternative and ready outlets. On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 5:19 PM, Aaron Halfaker &lt;aaron.halfaker(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: So, if I can re-ignite and re-frame the original question I posed, * Why do we need a "wiki journal" if there are already high impact journals that are receptive to high quality "wiki studies"? -Aaron On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 4:11 PM, Manuel Palomo Duarte &lt;manuel.palomo(a)uca.es&gt; wrote: Nice post, Kerry. Let me add that the citation rates are calculated using the cites in reputated journals already indexed ... 2012/11/8 Kerry Raymond &lt;kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com&gt; Actually the reputation of journals is usually derived from its impact factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor which is all about citation rates rather than acceptance/rejection rates. Acceptance rates are sometimes used for newer journals as citation rates aren’t available. But it doesn’t follow that a new journal must reject reasonable papers in order to achieve some desired acceptance rate. A new journal (properly advertised) will probably attract a lot of papers that have been rejected elsewhere so you probably end up with plenty of worthy-of-rejection material. There is no way to get an immediate “great reputation” for a new journal. But I think a clear focus on topic, a hard-working international editorial team, and a firm but fair reviewing process and reviewers will yield good-quality papers and will attract more good quality papers in response Kerry _____ From: wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Aaron Halfaker Sent: Friday, 9 November 2012 1:51 AM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] Wiki Research Journal? - Why? "Highly rated" is an interesting property. One of the ways that a publication venue becomes highly rated is by being highly restrictive. In fact, the primary measurement of the quality of a publication venue is the acceptance rate of that conference. WikiSym is not considered highly rated because a high proportion of the submitted papers are accepted. Would a wiki journal be more restrictive in order to gain a "highly rated" status? I think it's interesting to ask why WikiSym needs improvement and why attendance has been falling. If a WikiSym is a wiki conference that is struggling to maintain participation, how might a wiki journal surmount such trouble? Assuming that the answer to my question above is "yes, the wiki-journal would be more restrictive", how would such a journal gather more submissions than an established conference like WikiSym -- enough to both produce regular issues and maintain a high rejection rate? -Aaron On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 9:12 AM, Joe Corneli &lt;holtzermann17(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 3:02 PM, Aaron Halfaker &lt;aaron.halfaker(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: to wiki software? I think people want a "highly rated" publication venue. Also, «The reason why WikiSym is changing is for the same reason. People are not going to the conference! I think the attendance has been below 100 for some time now. That's not a sustainable number for the amount of work that goes into organizing a conference.» But what you're saying suggests that maybe work should be done to improve existing venues rather than creating a new one. _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l -- Prof. Manuel Palomo Duarte, PhD Software Process Improvement and Formal Methods group (SPI&FM). Degree Coordinator for Computer Science. Department of Computer Science. Escuela Superior de Ingenieria. C/ Chile, 1 11002 - Cadiz (Spain) University of Cadiz http://neptuno.uca.es/~mpalomo Tlf: (+34) 956 015483 <tel:%28%2B34%29%20956%20015483> Mobile phone: (+34) 649 280080 <tel:%28%2B34%29%20649%20280080> Mobile phone from University network: 45483 Fax: (+34) 956 015139 <tel:%28%2B34%29%20956%20015139> Aviso legal: Este mensaje (incluyendo los ficheros adjuntos) puede contener información confidencial, dirigida a un destinatario y objetivo específico. Si usted no es el destinatario del mismo le pido disculpas, y le pido que elimine este correo, evitando cualquier divulgación, copia o distribución de su contenido, así como desarrollar o ejecutar cualquier acción basada en el mismo. -- Legal Notice: This message (including the attached files) contains confidential information, directed to a specific addressee and objective. In case you are not the addressee of the same, I apologize. And I ask you to delete this mail, and not to resend, copy or distribute its content, as well as develop or execute any action based on the same. _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l