From Eureka

This page is for drafting the Eureka charter --- our "statement of purpose".

On top we can create and edit drafts of the charter. But, instead of just making changes, we may prefer to discuss changes, which we can do down below.

Contents 1 Draft Charter 1.1 Goals 1.2 Rules 1.3 Discussion

Draft Charter

EUREKA Science Journal Watch is a freely editable source of information on scientific journals, starting with mathematics. It aims to be a central resource for understanding the journal system, and a catalyst for positive change. At present, our activity is focused on mathematics and physics journals.

Goals

Our main goal is to provide easily accessible information on scholarly publishing venues so that the competition among groups and strategies may be a fair one.

As part of this, we seek to:

1. Provide information about math and physics journals and their publishers, including information about their content, prices, quality, editorial boards, policies, and relevant current events.
2. Provide information about new tools and strategies for disseminating scientific research, and the response of academics, librarians, publishers, and politicians to these new developments.
3. Provide forums for discussing journals and the dissemination of scholarly research.

Unlike Wikipedia, we allow original research in Eureka articles, such as personal reports of events witnessed first-hand. This research should strive to meet standards of good journalism; it should always be marked as such, and the identity of the author specified. In some of our forums, we also encourage expression of personal opinions. However, this should be done courteously.

Rules

1. Webpages on individual journals may not be made into advertisements for these journals. For example, valid negative comments about journals may not be deleted.
2. Wherever possible, sources should be provided for information, using hyperlinks, footnotes and other such devices. Opinions should be attributed to an unambiguously identified source.
3. Contributors should use their real names, and whenever possible their user pages should link to their "real-world" webpages (such as those hosted officially at universities), to help establish credibility.
4. Discussion should be courteous. Contributors should avoid insults and ad hominem arguments.

Those found violating these rules may be barred from editing Eureka.

Discussion

I propose the following metaprinciples for drafting the charter:

• Just good enough for now.

We need a charter before we can massively advertise the existence of Eureka, because new people may show up then who don't share all the values of the founders. But, we can expect that if Eureka "takes off", the charter will need constant revision and improvement. So, we shouldn't make our current job difficult by aiming for perfection. It just needs to be good enough for now.

• Keep it simple.

This is a corollary of the first metaprinciple. The charter should briefly and eloquently convey our values, and it should forbid the most obvious abuses (or more precisely, say what we'll do to people who commit them). But, we shouldn't attempt to foresee every eventuality, or state our principles in great detail.

John Baez 21:35, 12 November 2007 (EST)

We could link to and endorse some of Wikipedia's guidelines and principles. Such a thing would have three advantages:

• It would save some reinventing the wheel.
• Wiki etiquette is reasonably complicated, but it seems uncontroversial that it should be followed: we may as well be explicit and honest about this.
• Wikipedia has some currency in the popular imagination. Saying "this website is like that one" may suggest some ideology which would otherwise be hard to communicate.

James Cranch 16:47, 16 November 2007 (EST)

As a long-time Wikipedia contributor (under a pseudonym), I agree that their community has something to offer, though I think we'll have to adapt whatever we take. Wikipedia has a rather tangled heap of policy and guideline pages, which we should boil down to the bare essentials. Furthermore, in one particular respect, I think we differ in a glaring way: we allow, to an extent, what Wikipedians call Original Research.

I also think that we should operate with a much stronger adherence to real names than Wikipedia does. Why should we put less of ourselves on Eureka than we would on a journal article? Blake Stacey 12:18, 18 November 2007 (EST)

We will allow 'original research', I think maybe we should demand that people submit information under their real names, and I'm really not sure that 'neutral point of view' is crucial here. Let's face it, this ain't an encyclopedia. So, I don't think we can simply say "this website is like that other one".

But, if anyone can grab a bunch of principles from over there that do apply here, that would be great. John Baez 21:41, 26 November 2007 (EST)

At some point, I mentioned the UK National Union of Journalists' code of conduct as a model to follow, regarding the "original research" bit. Blake Stacey 23:29, 27 November 2007 (EST)

I added something like that to the goals above (not the "rules"). John Baez 19:51, 1 December 2007 (EST)

I expanded the remark a little. Blake Stacey 00:08, 2 December 2007 (EST)

Thanks.

I feel like advertising EUREKA soon. Do you --- or does anyone --- think the charter needs major improvements before we do this? It's probably far from what it could be, but it might be good enough for starters.

Btw, I think a good warmup for the advertisement process will be to do an interview with a well-known person in the open access movement. Or maybe several people. Then we can announce the availability of these interviews on EUREKA. It'll be a good way to make people visit.

Any other ideas? John Baez 00:28, 5 December 2007 (EST)

I think we need a statement of "who's in charge": who makes the decisions, who has the authority and ability to ban users, and so forth. Blake Stacey 23:26, 5 December 2007 (EST)