dsstodol@daimi.aau.dk (David S. Stodolsky) (11/04/90)
ittai@shemesh.GBA.NYU.EDU (Ittai Hershman) in <6369@shemesh.GBA.NYU.EDU>
writes:
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It is a shame that most of the contributors to this new journal don't
participate in this forum. It seems rather odd that such an
inter-disciplinary field which has such a broad domain appears to have
so little discussion in an open forum. I am not advocating doing away
with peer-review journals, but there is much work that occurs prior
to having a paper which is publishable in such a journal, and we would
all gain from open discussion at that stage.
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Unfortunately, intellectual goals play a lesser role in scientific communication
then one would hope. Until comp.groupware is considered a publication medium, we
will not see most researchers who are trying to establish themselves posting
here. First, some fear their ideas will be stolen if posted on the Net. Second,
posts do not have the same status as journal publications and will not help them
get jobs, tenure, etc. This will certainly change, since the net is a better
medium for scientific communication.
Someone can start by listing guidelines for posting in a monthly informational
post that would appear here and be included in the list of "Periodic
informational posts". The following could be covered:
1. There have been several discussions about how to define groupware. We have
not agreed on a concise statement. The one I originally sent to be included in
the "List of active newsgroups" was developed when I thought the group would be
named "sci.groupware", and it is limited to one line (does anyone know how many
characters are permitted?) This must be resolved. Any journal must clearly
define its subject matter.
2. One of the key features of scientific communication is that authors develop
their reputations by publication and readers know the source of information.
Recently, I have seen people posting without signatures at all or two people
using the same signature. This is not acceptable if comp.groupware is to be a
quality controlled news group. Minimum requirements for a signature include
complete name, address, and telephone number (this allows quick verifications in
case forgery is suspected). Email addresses ought to be included in case headers
get munged. Another nice feature would be geographical coordinates, so the time
zone can be determined (useful in telephoning). The signature should be limited
to four lines as is suggested practice on the Net.
3. An FTPable archive site (with a mail server, ideally) is needed so old
articles are available.
4. A newsgroup to mailing list gateway should be maintained, so people not on
Usenet can be included. I received over a dozen requests for this service when I
started the group.
5. Posters should be referred to "Guidelines for posting on Usenet" to make sure
they know to spell check their posts, etc. Any exceptions should be noted.
Alternatively, the key points could just be included in the comp.groupware
monthly post.
6. A standard style for references to other posts and paper documents should be
selected.
For other ideas see my paper, "Consensus Journals:.." (posting soon).
Implementation of the suggestions therein would make comp.groupware *the* place
to publish. (This will require some funding or help from people across the net.)
I created comp.groupware with the idea it would be a model of how a newsgroup
should be run and a place to experiment with new approaches, unfortunately, my
site is not stable enough to do much right now. So far, however, it has been a
newsgroup with consistently high quality, and this is a good basis on which to
proceed.
--
David S. Stodolsky Office: + 45 46 75 77 11 x 21 38
Department of Computer Science Home: + 45 31 55 53 50
Bldg. 20.2, Roskilde University Center Internet: david@ruc.dk
Post Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark Fax: + 45 46 75 74 01ittai@shemesh.GBA.NYU.EDU (Ittai Hershman) (11/05/90)
Perhaps I did not communicate my thinking well enough. I recognize
the need and desireability of peer-review publication, and well
understand why researchers pursue publication in those forums. My
point is that there is much thinking, referencing, and informal
communication which is part of the process of creating a manuscript of
sufficient quality for publication in such journals, and that this
forum, comp.groupware, may be valuable in that process.
Rather than try to change the informality of the newsgroup, let us use
it to our advantage. An excellent model would be the TCP-IP mailing
list (also known as comp.protocols.tcp-ip) where the theoreticians,
the implementors (originally applied-researchers and now vendors as
well), and the users/customers have all been involved in the evolution
of the TCP-IP protocol suite over the course of the past ten years.
-Ittai
PS: If you were at CSCW '90, you would have been informed by Esther
Dyson, that the word "groupware" is now passe :-).
PPS: Is anyone going to post a trip report of CSCW '90? Why aren't
the organizers participating in this forum, by the way? At the
very least one would think they'd want to promote CSCW '91 in
Toronto...chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) (11/06/90)
According to dsstodol@daimi.aau.dk (David S. Stodolsky): >Minimum requirements for a signature include complete name, address, >and telephone number (this allows quick verifications in case forgery >is suspected). Under no circumstances will I ever put my phone number in my signature. To do so would be asking for crank calls.
peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) (11/08/90)
In article <2736D7D0.5090@tct.uucp> chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes: > Under no circumstances will I ever put my phone number in my > signature. To do so would be asking for crank calls. Funny, it's never been a problem with me. The only thing I ever got that was anything like a crank call was from Richard Sexton. That was when he told me he agreed that sci.aquaria was a bogus name and he was only pushing it for political reasons. I wish I'd taped it. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' +1 713 274 5180. 'U` peter@ferranti.com
tr@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Reingold) (11/09/90)
In article <2736D7D0.5090@tct.uucp> chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes: $ Under no circumstances will I ever put my phone number in my $ signature. To do so would be asking for crank calls. I did it for a long time and never had a problem. Maybe one or two people called me. No crank calls, only helpful stuff. I got a few advertisements to my US Mail address. They were amusing and not annoying. They had the potential of being helpful, in fact. -- Tom Reingold tr@samadams.princeton.edu OR ...!princeton!samadams!tr "Warning: Do not drive with Auto-Shade in place. Remove from windshield before starting ignition."
dean@truevision.com (Dean Riddlebarger) (11/10/90)
In article <=7Z6EY2@xds13.ferranti.com> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <2736D7D0.5090@tct.uucp> chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >> Under no circumstances will I ever put my phone number in my >> signature. To do so would be asking for crank calls. > >Funny, it's never been a problem with me. The only thing I ever got that >was anything like a crank call was from Richard Sexton. Same here. [Uh, the lack of problems, that is. Not crank calls from Mr. Sexton...:-)] I suspect that a lack of calls has something to do with the overall psychology of net participation. For most of us it is [a] easier, [b] preferred, [c] less emotionally trying, or [d] some combination of the above, to remain fully electronic in our communication. It may also be that conversing via the keyboard does not, in a subjective sense, seem to take as much time as the physical act of dialing the phone and holding a voice discussion. Not that I wouldn't like to hear more voices. Especially from those motos who lack serious morals, or anyone with extremely lucrative job offers. :-):-):-) [Firesuit on. I just couldn't resist.] -- <:> Dean Riddlebarger "The bus came by <:> <:> Truevision, Inc. and I got on, <:> <:> [317] 841-0332 That's when it <:> <:> dean@truevision.com uunet!epicb!dean all began." <:>
JAMES@poly-east-london.ac.uk (Countzero) (11/12/90)
David S. Stodolsky (david@ruc.dk) writes: Unfortunately, intellectual goals play a lesser role in scientific communication then one would hope. Until comp.groupware is considered a publication medium, we will not see most researchers who are trying to establish themselves posting here. First, some fear their ideas will be stolen if posted on the Net. Surely ideas could be stolen if printed in a widely available journal? posts do not have the same status as journal publications and will not help them get jobs, tenure, etc. This will certainly change, since the net is a better medium for scientific communication. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Yes it is in the ideal sense of a quicker, perhaps more convient way of sharing research. But how many researchers, as you point out, want this? Surely the one side of journals is to encourage elitism, a inner circle, call it what you will. The Polytechnic I go to is skint and HCI journals are very thin on the ground- thats one way this elitism works- the scientist is someone who ( in the popular perception ) has access to and knowledge of obscure things. Certainly, using this newsgroup like a journal COULD change this state of affairs but I feel the problem is more general than you imply. >2. One of the key features of scientific communication is that authors develop >their reputations by publication and readers know the source of information. >Recently, I have seen people posting without signatures at all or two people >using the same signature. This is not acceptable if comp.groupware is to be a >quality controlled news group. Mark Poster in "The mode of information" (Polity,1990) p.116 some features of electronic communication which he feels make it special a I feel apply in this case: "1 they introduce new possiblities for playing with identities; 2 they degender communications by removing gender cues; 3 they destabilize existing hierarchies in realationships and rehiearchize communications according to criteria that were previously irrelevant; and above all 4 they disperse the subject, dislocating it temporally and spatially" It looks to me as if one of your key features isnt going to be mutated by rn. I dont believe better "quality control" ( in this case read "identity control") is possible in this context. The only way I can see this working is if Comp.groupware becomes moderated and publications from unknown authors (like me ) get turned down. >For other ideas see my paper, "Consensus Journals:.." (posting soon). But how will I know it's you [ snigger ] >So far, however, it has been a newsgroup with consistently high quality, and >this is a good basis on which to proceed. why mess with a winning combination then? ;-) =============================================================================== James Andrews, User Support, Computer Centre, PEL, Livingstone House Livingstone Rd, London, E15 Tel:081-590 7722 x5130 ===============================================================================
bro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk) (11/15/90)
In article <4335@rossignol.Princeton.EDU> tr@samadams.princeton.edu (Tom Reingold) writes: #In article <2736D7D0.5090@tct.uucp> chip@tct.uucp (Chip Salzenberg) #writes: #$ Under no circumstances will I ever put my phone number in my #$ signature. To do so would be asking for crank calls. # #I did it for a long time and never had a problem. That is probably a function of the newsgroups in which you post and with whom you have disagreed. There have been many examples unlike your personal experience. Even suggesting that people post their phone number in some newsgroups and not in others will not work: the more seriously psychotic posters have been known to cruise all newsgroups to post flames to every posting by their target, and will go at least that far to find your phone number. Email letter bomb campaigns are bad enough. Do we *really* want to make others risk auto-dialing modem attacks? Doug Monk (bro@rice.edu) Disclaimer: These views are mine, not necessarily my organization's.