Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!ucbvax!poly-east-london.ac.uk!JAMES From: JAMES@poly-east-london.ac.uk (Countzero) Newsgroups: comp.groupware Subject: re:Guidelines for posting to comp.groupware needed Message-ID: <9011121616.AA00251@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 12 Nov 90 11:42:23 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Lines: 51 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 ===============================================================================