comment posted on “Crowdsourcing Best Practices for Experimental Journals: Transparency” by Adeline Koh, August 31, 2013, regarding controversy with Journal of Digital Humanities.

Addendum: followup discussion on Twitter, and blocked by Koh.

PDF version: Experimental-versus-transparent_2013-09-10.pdf

excellent ideas & topic, thanks for writing this. I like the Slashdot/Reddit angle.. you may know there’ve been several interesting Reddit+scholarly projects already, like r/scholar for requesting papers, and the Arxaliv Reddit front-end to arXiv repository (now defunct I think).

There’s an good study, or series of, to be done examining such new moderation structures across popular & academic peer-review systems, especially as new ones keep emerging all the time (like the just-announced Libre platform, new features in 3rd-party commenting networks, etc).

But more specifically about the experimental / transparency point, and without intending any judgment about any part of the JDH case, I was thinking about what general patterns may be seen here — or in the projects/orgs I’ve worked on, which have been all over the map in their processes.

It seems to me, and seems to be observed by others here, that ‘experimental’ and ‘transparent’ are really separate axes, and it’s helpful not to assume they will coincide or one lead to the other.

For example, well-established & stable processes can be highly transparent (legislative process in Denmark or Finland, say) or highly opaque (how to get a city contract in Naples?).

Experimental (or relatedly, in engineering, ‘agile‘) processes can be transparent — open participation, all docs public, etc. — or they might be opaque, or opaque to some points of view — such as an agile team or experimental/skunkworks lab that deliberately operates under less supervision, doesn’t work to pre-approved specifications, etc. In the latter type of case, experimentalism may well be opposed to transparency.

There are valid reasons various combinations of experimental or not, transparent or not might be chosen; but better they be chosen deliberately, and that one knows the arrangement.

Perhaps among the best ways to combine experimental & transparent is by iterative process. So a journal issue, or a software development cycle, or a year, might be set up with well-understood procedures and goals (as suggested by Scott, et al) but be very revisable for the next iteration. So this is, in a sense, transparent within the cycle, possibly opaque/negotiable across cycles.

Another idea one hears in software/project land is that a mixture of formal and informal guidances is needed, the latter being based more on factors like shared values, social behaviors, joint experience, & shared environment. These latter can’t be all spelled out, but evolve organically, and are in a sense non-transparent.

That’s a reminder of perhaps the first rule of process: do not talk too much about process.

—
Tim McCormick
@tmccormick  tjm.org  Palo Alto

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Addendum: followup discussion on Twitter, and I’m blocked by Koh.

Crowdsourcing Best Practices For Experimental Journals: Transparency w s/o to @roopikarisam @scott_bot #JDH http://t.co/JkerLar2fa

— Adeline Koh (@adelinekoh) August 31, 2013

@adelinekoh @roopikarisam @scott_bot good post on journal transparency. Added comment Tues http://t.co/R6PMLXJrus think it's awaiting mod

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 5, 2013

@adelinekoh curious why my reply http://t.co/IWJSFdmlRb to yr @JournalofDH post not posted, or reply. @roopikarisam @scott_bot @foundhistory

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 6, 2013

@tmccormick @adelinekoh @JournalofDH @scott_bot @foundhistory experimental & transparent are not mutually inclusive but they should be.

— Roopika Risam (@roopikarisam) September 6, 2013

@roopikarisam @adelinekoh @scott_bot I think some experimental patterns arent transparent: eg stealth projs, skunkworks, agile, culturehacks

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 6, 2013

@roopikarisam @scott_bot my reply to your post on JDH never appeared, and @adelinekoh is now blocking me, any idea why? It's rather opaque.

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 10, 2013

@tmccormick @roopikarisam @adelinekoh I imagine you mean her post, not mine? I'm very sorry if I accidentally stuck your comment in spam.

— Scott Weingart (@scott_bot) September 10, 2013

@scott_bot @tmccormick @adelinekoh I am not sure, Tim. I don't have any access to Adeline's personal site.

— Roopika Risam (@roopikarisam) September 10, 2013

@roopikarisam doesn't approve comment, then doesn't reply to my or your tweets, then blocks me.. just silencing an alternate view, I'd say.

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 10, 2013

https://twitter.com/roopikarisam/status/377409865280655360

@roopikarisam phaps partly that I discussed precedent Slashdot/Reddit scholarly projs, like the DHthis proj she's about to announce. +

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 10, 2013

+@tmccormick Tim, as I mentioned, I have no control over what Adeline does. If this were #dhpoco, it would be my business. But it's not.

— Roopika Risam (@roopikarisam) September 10, 2013

@roopikarisam yes, I understand.

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 10, 2013

https://twitter.com/adelinekoh/status/377414431824543744

.@tmccormick your comment is in. i hadn't checked my blog/moderated comments for a week. semester started, & i'm busy. @roopikarisam

— Adeline Koh (@adelinekoh) September 10, 2013

@adelinekoh ah, right, now you do.. I've seen you plenty active on this topic all week. But, what's with unexplained blocking & accusations?

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 10, 2013

.@tmccormick i would appreciate no more interaction with you. thank you. @roopikarisam

— Adeline Koh (@adelinekoh) September 10, 2013

@adelinekoh thanks Adeline, for the example of silencing and marginalizing others without explanation.

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 10, 2013

@adelinekoh also, if you make public accusations, you don't necessarily get to end the conversation. It goes beyond you.

— Tim McCormick (@tmccormick) September 10, 2013