On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 9:40 PM, Ward Cunningham ward@c2.com wrote:
The comment you quote of mine is in response to Samuel Klein's lists of more things that should be published. If we combine his list with your experience then we have a clear view of the collision that would motivate a new kind of journal, not just a new journal.
Yes, SJ's comments were what reminded me: but I thought the paper was a good response to your question, "how would work be different".
In an older version, before we had to cut it down to submit (http://piratepad.net/ep/pad/view/Massively-Distributed-Authorship-of-Academi...) we imagined 3 scenarios; SJ's ideas are a superset of the ideas we had there as a narrative.
In particular, we imagined something called "massively-multiauthor.net", which, if it existed, might help bring an "economy of scale" to academic writing.
I think we're getting closer on the technology side every day.
[the scenarios I mentioned:]
§§ Scenario 1: A paper develops via live curation
A new interface technology has been created. Jeanette posts a draft of an abstract on a public web site. A large group of scholar-contributors are alerted to the emergence of the abstract in their discipline. A subset of the scholars, interested in advancing the specific topic and building a network, opt-in and edit the emerging paper. The group writes the paper collaboratively online, occasionally bringing in specific experts to write portions of the paper that need specialized insights. At a predetermined time, Jeanette calls for edits to stop and the team finalizes the author list which now numbers in the hundreds. A few authors unhappy with the result of the collaboration remove their name from the author list. As per the initial posting, Jeanette submits the paper to CHI via the normal review channels.
§§ Scenario 2: Dozens of contributors from around the world make small informal contributions
A few graduate students are chatting about a potential paper based on a publicly available collection of Wikipedia articles. Together they write a thousand-word summary of the core concept. They post it online, and send a link out to Facebook and Google+. Dozens of contributors from around the world make small contributions, fleshing out the body of the paper and adding their names to the author list. The initial authors check on the paper from time to time, and make a number of additional contributions. As the paper gradually comes together, the community of authors submit it to CHI.
§§ Scenario 3: Contributing to an online paper farm
Ralph, an HCI researcher, is having writer’s block, and hasn’t made progress on any of his own papers for several weeks. He goes to a public site massively-multiauthor.net linked to from WikiCFP, and browses the abstracts that have been posted for his home research conference. He finds two that are in his area of expertise and look interesting to him, and he begins to write bits of the related work sections for each of the papers. He is happy to be the 12th author on one paper, and the 29th author on the second - at least he’s making a research contribution, however small. Through the process, he meets several other researchers, and begins to talk with them about his own stalled papers. He ends up posting two of his papers on the site, and the researchers whom he met while working on the other papers help him reorganize their structure. A number of other researchers join the effort; within several weeks, Ralph is first author on two completed papers.