The magazine RNA biologyhttp://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/rnabiologyannounced that they are requiring researchers publishing research on families of RNA molecules in the journal to write a Wikipediahttp://wikipedia.org/article summarising their findings. The notion is that the paper in the magazine is original research and the Wikipedia article that will also be peer reviewed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review, will be a summary.
There are several problems:
- Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia with different subject linked by hyperlinks. It is not a collection of summaries of scientific articles. This means that information that is relevant in one research paper is likely to find a home in many Wikipedia articles. This makes a traditional peer review, where the review takes place before publication, problematic if not impossible. - The proposed Wikipedia article is a summary of a scientific paper. Scientific papers do not provide a neutral point of viewhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPOVand they should not be neutral. For Wikipedia NPOV is essential and people get banned for pushing their point of view. - The subject matter is so specialised that a typical Wikipedia admin will not be able to judge it. This allows for a lot of misunderstandings and conflict. - Writing a scientific article and writing a Wikipedia article requires different skills. Wikipedia serves the general public and its articles should reflect this. A different vocabulary, a different style of writing is required.
I think there is a need for more discussion before this actually starts happening.
Thanks,
GerardM
NB the articlehttp://www.nature.com/news/2008/081216/full/news.2008.1312.htmlthat proposes this is a paid for article in Nature, there is also a press release http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Info/Press/2008/081217.shtml about this.
The magazine RNA biologyhttp://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/rnabiology announced that they are requiring researchers publishing research on families of RNA molecules in the journal to write a Wikipediahttp://wikipedia.org/article summarising their findings.
As a scientist, I find this move dubious. Even if we overlook the problem posed by the NPOV policy of wikipedia, it seems that the magazine wants to outsource peer reviewing to a generalist site. As if hordes of geeks that know nothing or little of RNA biology can bring something in the scientific discussion.
From my POV, there are only 2 things that could make sense
here: 1. RNA biology creats its own specialized wiki where self-assumed experts can contribute. 2. Once an article is published, Wikipedia gets a right to use excerpts in its articles.
Dpotop
Hoi, I am quite convinced that this is a good faith attempt to bring more science to the masses. I wanted to highlight the issues and learn from the people who proposed this how they want to deal with this. When you read a scientific paper, 90%+ in a paper is explaining what is already known any way. When the idea is to make sure that these basic facts are represented well in Wikipedia, we have a real winner on our hands.
Implied in the proposal is that these summaries will be published under the CC-by-sa because without it, the publication of these summaries in Wikipedia are impossible anyway.
When it becomes clear that Wikipedia is not the right place for the publication of these summaries, the WMF could create a new project for Wikipedia style summaries of scientific papers. These summaries would be published without anonymity and with a clear connection to the scientific paper. In this way, we have a resource that people can refer to in wikipedia both as a source and for further reading.
A project like this will imho do the status of the WMF a world of good and, give an extra push to the Open Access movement because these papers will bring science to our public and our public is the world. Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/22 Jacky PB dpotop1@yahoo.com
The magazine RNA biologyhttp://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/rnabiology announced that they are requiring researchers publishing research on families of RNA molecules in the journal to write a Wikipediahttp://wikipedia.org/article summarising their findings.
As a scientist, I find this move dubious. Even if we overlook the problem posed by the NPOV policy of wikipedia, it seems that the magazine wants to outsource peer reviewing to a generalist site. As if hordes of geeks that know nothing or little of RNA biology can bring something in the scientific discussion.
From my POV, there are only 2 things that could make sense here:
- RNA biology creats its own specialized wiki where self-assumed
experts can contribute. 2. Once an article is published, Wikipedia gets a right to use excerpts in its articles.
Dpotop
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 8:50 AM, Jacky PB dpotop1@yahoo.com wrote:
reviewing to a generalist site. As if hordes of geeks that know nothing or little of RNA biology can bring something in the scientific discussion.
I find this comment both revealing and insulting.
Maury
reviewing to a generalist site. As if hordes of geeks that know nothing or little of RNA biology can bring something in the scientific discussion.
I find this comment both revealing and insulting.
It was not intended as insulting, and you did not specify to whom it is insulting and why.
I may rephrase this as follows: I believe the job of Wikipedia is not to create results, but to put them into a social and historical perspective, and reveal to the general reader the relations between pieces of knowledge. To do this, not being a specialist is not a problem, on the contrary. This actually corresponds to the first job of a junior scientist: Bibliography search.
Cheers, Dpotop
2008/12/26 Jacky PB dpotop1@yahoo.com:
I may rephrase this as follows: I believe the job of Wikipedia is not to create results, but to put them into a social and historical perspective, and reveal to the general reader the relations between pieces of knowledge. To do this, not being a specialist is not a problem, on the contrary. This actually corresponds to the first job of a junior scientist: Bibliography search.
I view our job at Wikipedia as channelling our inner Isaac Asimov. At least a bit.
- d.
On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 8:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I may rephrase this as follows: I believe the job of Wikipedia is not to create results, but to put them into a social and historical perspective
You believe that the statement above is a reasonable re-phrasing of:
As if hordes of geeks that know nothing or little of RNA biology can bring something in the scientific discussion.
You really think those two statements are largely synonymous? I know I don't. Perhaps this isn't what you meant to say.
Maury
2008/12/27 Maury Markowitz maury.markowitz@gmail.com:
On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 8:54 AM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I may rephrase this as follows: I believe the job of Wikipedia is not to create results, but to put them into a social and historical perspective
You believe that the statement above is a reasonable re-phrasing of:
As if hordes of geeks that know nothing or little of RNA biology can bring something in the scientific discussion.
You really think those two statements are largely synonymous? I know I don't. Perhaps this isn't what you meant to say.
Well, I didn't say either of those things, so no, I didn't mean to say them ;-p You've missed an attribution level there.
- d.
Cher Maury,
Perhaps this isn't what you meant to say.
I wrote what I wrote, I know what I wrote, and I stand by it, as I understand it. And unless you explain what you think I wanted to write, or believe that I wrote, I can't be of much help.
Just saying "you said naughty things" isn't going to advance this discussion much. This is of course due to the inherent ambiguity involved in the process of communication through a language.
Cheers, Dpotop _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
The magazine RNA biologyhttp://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/rnabiologyannounced that they are requiring researchers publishing research on families of RNA molecules in the journal to write a Wikipediahttp://wikipedia.org/article summarising their findings. The notion is that the paper in the magazine is original research and the Wikipedia article that will also be peer reviewed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review, will be a summary.
This was discussed on wikien-l under the subject 'Scientists told "publish in Wikipedia or else"'.
-- Tim Starling
Hoi, I am not subscribed to the English language Wikipedia mailing list. I now had a look and think that this subject has a wider importance then only the en.wp. Now I am subscribed and am on "do not send". Thanks, GerardM
2008/12/23 Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
The magazine RNA biologyhttp://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/rnabiologyannounced that they are requiring researchers publishing research on families of RNA molecules in the journal to write a Wikipediahttp://wikipedia.org/article summarising their findings. The notion is that the paper in the magazine is original research and the Wikipedia article that will also be
peer
reviewed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_review, will be a summary.
This was discussed on wikien-l under the subject 'Scientists told "publish in Wikipedia or else"'.
-- Tim Starling
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org