[port-peer-review] Deadline past, now what?
Dear All, (01)
For reference, I have included Eugene's original proposal for the
reviewing process (see below). I will be the first to apologize to all
for not participating, and letting everyone down. I have been completely
overwhelmed by difficulties in taking care of my aged mother, and simply
have not had any time to spare for much of anything else. From the
apologies and other notes I have been receiving from some of you, I gather
that we all have such reasons. But I am also sure that there are many
inefficiencies in the expected review process that have prevented us from
taking up the work. (02)
Some of these inefficiencies are technological, but some--more fundamental
ones--we must learn to improve, ourselves. During the next few weeks
before the workshop, let's see what we can do to understand the difference
and improve at least some of what we do and how we do it? (03)
One of the many things in my life, recently, that has gotten out of
control are the weeds in my garden. While making the desperate attempt to
recover from that, while weeding yesterday, it occurred to me that we
primarily should think of what we create (in the form of representations)
as gardens that invariably need to be weeded (they can _always be
improved)! Tiny textual errors can be serious "stumbling blocks" in
interpretation, especially when the reader is not familiar with the work
being reported, just as weeds keep a garden from looking cared for enough
to _be_ really a garden, except to the eye of its creator--who knows what
it is _intended_ to be. (04)
The first step I think we must take in the next few weeks is for _each_ of
us to "weed our own gardens." John Sowa is a fine example, if you think
about it, of someone who _rarely_ makes a textual error in his emails.
We all easily forgive such errors (thank heavens), but there are sometimes
when they should not be so forgivable. As PORT members, we must train
ourselves to keep to errors (weeds) at the lowest possible minimum in our
_reporting_, because they keep the _real work_ of interpretation and
critique from proceeding efficiently. So I suggest that each of you
please look at your submitted papers, and pretend that you have never seen
that report before--take the most self-critical view of it that you
possibly can? I have read all the papers and made my usual editorial
corrections, but it would take me a good deal of time (using the tools we
now have available) to comment on improving that most basic level of
representation (which we all tend to take for granted and are not easily
able to examine critically). (05)
Ask yourself if what you say in each sentence really makes sense, have you
used extra words that only fill space, consider more efficient
constructions, and please use a spell-checker? Missing tiny words, like
articles and prepositions (and also disagreements between subjects and
verbs) are not easy to catch, when you _think_ you know what your are
saying (as we all do, without careful, critical reflection). We all need
good editors, but few of us can find them, so we need to train ourselves
to improve that aspect of our work, as much as possible, at least in these
_reports_. Then we can proceed to the more obvious levels of our work. (06)
Actually, Eugene is another fine example of someone who is extremely
careful in his email notes, if you have noticed their clarity and textual
correctness. I will keep referring to his reviewing process proposal in
my further attempts to get as much out of this work as we possibly can.
You have all offered potentially fine contributions, and we must not lose
the chance we have for progress, in spite of our limitations. --MK (07)
Eugene's proposal: (08)
http://lab.bootstrap.org/port/peerreviewprocess.html (09)
1. Create an access-controlled Web site for the Workshop reviewers. (010)
2. Post the submitted papers on the Web with purple numbers for
granular addressability. (011)
3. Create a mailing list for discussing submitted papers. (012)
4. Archive the mailing list on the access-controlled Web site, using
purple numbers for granular addressability. (013)
5. Discuss the papers over the mailing list, following standards for
addressing the papers. (014)
6. Have a facilitator create a Dialog Map of the discussion, with
links to the original discourse, updating and posting the Dialog Map
daily. (015)
This methodology would enable: (016)
* Focused, civil, and constructive discussion.
* An up-to-date snapshot of the state of discussion.
* A well-organized archive of the discussion.
* A comprehensive, easy-to-follow summary of the discourse. (017)