Joe -- I like all three scenarios because they seem to have been "plucked from reality". However, I worry that there might be a fatal flaw.
Wikipedia has shown that such massive collaboration is possible. But Wikipedia also operates under some norms that may not extend gracefully to the scenarios you suggest. And, if they don't, new norms will have to evolve to keep the community healthy. I'm thinking specifically of "no original research". This norm maintains a crucial separation between communities. It also means that wikipedians are "free-loading" in some sense upon academia, though I hate that word. The relationship is healthy, and the wikipedians are better described as selfless givers than free-loaders. But still, there needs to be a recognition of the different roles before any experience from wikipedia is assumed to transfer to academic research. I was especially taken by the comments in your paper that expressed a desire for leadership. Although both wikipedians and academics need leadership in various forms, the academics have one less card to play when it comes to resolving leadership issues: the "no original research" card. My suspicion is that to be successful, a massively collaborating academia will have to revise traditional assumptions of leadership. I look to emerging practices in the best open-source communities for my inspiration. I think SJ does too. Its hard to imagine how stogy, how old-fashion, Source Forge seems today. The rate of innovation spins one's head. My own baby, Agile Software Development suffers the same fate. Look elsewhere for inspiration. I mentioned my grant-less friend. Of all his colleagues only one found funding and he was the young one. I don't think that reflects on the science as much as it does on the funding agencies desire to not extinguish a generation. We're at the end of business as usual. Its a good time to think big, especially if big doesn't cost too much. Thanks and best regards. -- Ward On Sep 16, 2012, at 2:33 PM, Joe Corneli wrote: > On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 9:40 PM, Ward Cunningham <[email protected]> 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-Academic-Papers/rev.21493) > 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. > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
