OK. I can take your point. However, my objection is not to _recommendation_. My objection is to the "error free" part ... or even just the "error" part.
I recommend papers that contain errors all the time. Hell, since I'm a programmer, and since no code is bug free, I actually _sell_ buggy code! Can you believe that? What a hit to my reputation! ;-) Even more pointedly, you guys just finished a math seminar where one of the primary topics was that what gets published doesn't reflect the actual thought processes that led up to the published part! Why? Because we don't get to see the "errors". Hiding the errors is effectively the same as hiding the core idea. It's at least equivalent to hiding the process by which smart people actually think. The point isn't about recommendations, it's about the presumption and arrogance that "our journal has fewer errors than yours". Now, I'm all for curation. But I'm also a big believer in _dissent_. I'm OK with everyone calling me a wacko or idiot; but I'm not OK with shutting up us wackos and idiots by restricting the media to words spoken only by the wise. So, I like your ideas for recommendation and would participate or help set it up if there's any traction to it. But I dislike the idea of "defending an archive from errors". That's well described by "throwing the baby out with the bath water." Oh, since you plugged your papers, I'll plug our most recent one: Cloud Computing and Validation of Expandable In Silico Livers http://www.biomedcentral.com/1752-0509/4/168/abstract It's not rocket science and I'm sure it contains "errors" (the first few we submitted were obliterated by the reviewers, bless their hearts); but at least it's available for criticism. ;-) Oh, and you can comment on the journal's website, too! -glen Nicholas Thompson wrote circa 10-12-07 10:58 AM: > Well, not quite so fast, Glen! > > Look. How many papers do you read a day? How do you decide which papers to > read? > > You can form an organization of like-minded folks that puts before you only > the papers that that organization thinks are good. (i.e., an archival > Journal) > > You can set up some "wisdom-of-the-crowd" scheme that votes on which papers > are good. > > Not clear to me whether I fear the authoritarian way any more than I fear > mob psychology. > > For most authors, the disagreeable fact is that a lot of people are reading > a few papers, and most papers are not read by anybody > > Perhaps it's the J-distribution of hits on papers we should be worrying > about. > > Perhaps we need a paper evaluation system that's more like Pandora: You get > what you ask for, except that every once in a while the system throws you a > song by an obscure composer, just to keep you honest. I have often > wondered if FRIAM (or the sfcomplex) could set itself up as a "Journal". > An author has a new paper, and sends it to the list. It goes up on an > internal website and people start assigning stars and making comments. When > it reaches a threshold of "stardom" it goes up on a public website. The > author can set the star-threshhold. (In otherwords, if the author wants to > "publish" a paper that his fellow FRIAM members think is shitty, he sets > the threshold real low.) Readers of the public website can set a star > threshold, below which the data base will not display a paper for them. > However, by common agreement, the data base is rigged so that it slips > readers a non conforming paper randomly about ten percent of the time. > > For a sampling of some lovely papers that have not been read by > anybody (}:-[), please visit: > > http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
