andrew@calvin.doc.ca (Andrew Patrick) (01/24/91)
This is a formal Call For Discussion for a proposed newsgroup
"comp.sources.reviewed". The Discussion Period will last to February
23, 1991, at which time a Call For Votes will be issued (pending the
results of the discussion).
The newsgroup "comp.sources.reviewed" is being proposed now for three
reasons:
(1) to improve the timely distribution of high-quality software.
(2) to give software authors a more responsive "proving ground" for
their work.
(3) to distribute software with informative review information
attached such that readers can decide if it will be useful.
I have recently completed a Call for Peer Reviewers and received replies
from enough interested people (31) to suggest that a Peer Reviewed
newsgroup may be feasible and worth pursuing.
The charter of the proposed group "comp.sources.reviewed" would be as
follows:
"Comp.sources.reviewed" is a moderated newsgroup for the distribution of
program sources that have been subjected to a Peer Reviewed process.
Similar to the process used for academic journals, submissions are sent
to a moderator (unless a better option is discussed, I will act as the
moderator) who then sends the sources to Peer Review volunteers for
evaluation. The Reviewers are asked to provided a timely evaluation of
the software by compiling and running it on their machine. If time does
not permit them to complete a review, they are responsible for asking
the moderator to select another reviewer.
The duties of the Moderator are to accept submissions and assign them to
reviewers, collect the reviews and make publication decisions, and post
the accepted sources. He is also be responsible for maintaining a list
of volunteers interested in acting as peer reviewers. (Volunteers can
send a note to "reviewed@calvin.doc.ca" to be placed on the list.) The
Moderator may seek the assistance of one or more Associate Moderators,
especially for the maintenance of an archive site (if one can be
arranged), and the rapid posting of patches to already-published
sources. (Many volunteers suggested that having Associate Moderators
assign the submission to reviewers and compiling the evaluations was
adding too much bureaucracy.)
If the Moderator and Peer Reviewers judge a submission to be acceptable,
the sources will be posted along with the written comments provided
by the Reviewers. If a submission is not found to be acceptable, the
submitter will be provided with the Reviewers' comments, and they will
have the option of addressing those comments and submitting the sources
again.
--
Andrew Patrick, Ph.D. Department of Communications, Ottawa, CANADA
andrew@calvin.doc.CA andrew@doccrc.BITNET
Bill Watterson for President!