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From: dsstodol@daimi.aau.dk (David S. Stodolsky)
Newsgroups: comp.groupware,news.misc
Subject: Guidelines for posting to comp.groupware needed
Summary: Guidelines needed if publication quality is to be ensured.
Keywords: quality publication peer review
Message-ID: <1990Nov4.154414.14509@daimi.aau.dk>
Date: 4 Nov 90 15:44:14 GMT
Sender: dsstodol@daimi.aau.dk (David S. Stodolsky)
Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark
Lines: 70

ittai@shemesh.GBA.NYU.EDU (Ittai Hershman) in  <6369@shemesh.GBA.NYU.EDU>
writes:
------------
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.
-----------

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 01