Mr. Gunn › Comments

Just to expand briefly on Graham's intro: I think the RW room is covered by Fair Use (nota bene, ianal). Nonetheless, the likely result of any legal challenge by publishers would be that FF would shut the room down as a precaution, and we'd have to fight to re-open it. I doubt we have the resources for that fight, so as a matter of realpolitik I'm voting to continue to fly under the... more... - Bill Hooker

^^What Bill said. Yes, the world absolutely needs access to the scientific literature, but we need to work to reform the publishing process and the laws. All things considered, this is a very small room, which is why it hasn't attracted the ire of the publishers. If we advertise and it gets large, the industry will start playing the same whack-a-mole lawsuit game that they do with music or movie sites. - Chris Miller

I voted "No" - Pierre Lindenbaum

Please keep voting folks. A dozen in so far, thanks. - Graham Steel

The referenced thread is about a letter to the journal Cell in which we promote FriendFeed. The RW room will be the single most attractive feature for people who have never used social media. I also think it helps to show a large readership what kinds of hoops we will jump through to get access - and the RW has a great record of people not having access. So in the end, all publicity... more... - Björn Brembs

I'd love to read that Cell paper if possible! http://is.gd/5fQ0D I voted 'unsure' on the poll, perhaps not very helpful, but I thought that my 'yes' might not be as strong as the poll's yes might be demanding. I would like more people to be aware of this helpful service, but to hear of it as word of mouth rather than a 'one to many' broadcast in a journal article. I suppose I'm voting for the status quo (of this room), but with gradual increases in numbers. #fencesitting ;) - Jo Brodie

I would be more concerned about publishers cutting off access to individuals known to be supplying papers in the room for breech of TOS. It has happened to one of our researchers but for other reasons. - suelibrarian from iPhone

Here is the draft of the letter: http://etherpad.com/Microbl... Note that we do not need to spell out the name of the room in the letter, as we do now, just the functionality. I can only re-word my argument from above: cowering before the possible reprisals of 'big publishers' is definitely not the best way to change the current publishing model. In fact, anybody who... more... - Björn Brembs

I voted no. As I see it, the role of RW is to provide a service, not to instigate a revolution or provide a soapbox for change in the publishing industry. I don't think it's fair to create the potential for unpleasant repercussions through wider publicity for a "cause", certainly not without the full knowledge and agreement of everyone who has ever used the room. - Neil Saunders

@Bjoern, it's not "no big deal" to open another room -- that simply won't work, corporate copyright lawyers are quite good at whack-a-mole and we cannot expect FriendFeed to fight our Death To Toll Access battle with us. As I said above, the fight you are spoiling for is worth having, but I don't want to pick it and then get my ass kicked. If you really want people to fight, you'll need... more... - Bill Hooker

The purpose of the room is explicitly "to document the harm caused by closed/toll-access publication". What's the purpose of collecting this data if we're not going to publish it? Voted yes, apparently against the consensus, whose arguments I'm sympathetic to, but it seems to me like even if we did mention the RW room in a letter it would still only have visibility to a quite small audience. Perhaps the poll choices should have been "yes, publish the RW room/No, don't publish yet"? - Mr. Gunn

28 votes so far, with "no" currently in the lead. - Bill Hooker

What about mentioning the functionality but not the room? If we include a link to the etherpad in which the letter has been prepared, interested people would find the information. - Daniel Mietchen

A few thoughts. 1) It is possible to vote multiple times, I noticed. 2) @Neil: as Mr. Gunn pointed out, the explicit purpose of the room is to document, not to provide a service. What's the point to document, when the document remains secret? 3) @Bill: point taken. However, the mere fact of multi-billion dollar corporations (who, unlike the RIAA, make their money from tax-dollars!!)... more... - Björn Brembs

Also unlike the music industry, the three major publishers have had increasing profits for at least the last five years, with 2008 (of all years!) being a record year with double-digit growth rates for some and a total of almost 5 billion dollars in profits for the three largest corporations alone - and that when other large publishing businesses seem not to have such a great time... more... - Björn Brembs

Couple things. 1) researchers are not the only people here; publishers have shown no compunction in going after librarians. 2) in the library literature, it's fairly well-established that researchers are asking other researchers for copies of articles, rather than (sometimes in addition to) going through ILL and document-delivery services. - D0r0th34

I don't know if this has been studied, but the reasons for that, D0r0th34, have to do with the overhead. To ask a colleague, all you have to do is send them an email. ILL requires forms and accounts and waiting periods and follow-up and so on. - Mr. Gunn

yes, that's the usual reason given :) - D0r0th34

Procedural suggestion - I don't use the RW room for reasons I can go into elsewhere but I voted I don't know because I didn't. I actually take Bjorn's point though - what is the point if it doesn't change things? Anyway the suggestion - rather than people posting that they've sent stuff I suggest people post when they receive a copy. It would even be possible to set up a dead letter... more... - Cameron Neylon

I am behind Bjørn on this, I voted yes and at the time the yes -side was winning. In my opinion, this is a fight worth taking and if that happens, worth loosing. - Nils Reinton

+1 Neil and +1 Cameron. A simple change in the etiquette of the room would protect those sending papers from liability. To fully protect them, though, you'd also have to scrub the archives, something that isn't easy to do on the internet. - Chris Miller

Changing the etiquette in that way is a tacit admission that we are doing something wrong, OR that we are doing something we don't believe is either wrong or illegal but that we fully expect we could be punished for anyway (because the system is unjust). If we are going to fight the good fight as above, we would be better off not handing our opponents the opportunity to argue for the... more... - Bill Hooker

I'll admit to not following the 'fair use' argument very closely, but I'm under the impression that sharing such articles is a clear violation of an institution's TOS with the publisher. I'll readily agree that something can be just but illegal, but that doesn't change the fact that there could be repercussions against those providing articles. Every movement needs its zealots, but I'm more of a casual supporter, and certainly am not willing to go down for the cause. I suspect there are many others like me. - Chris Miller

Psst, Read This: Pass It On - Aaron the Librarian

How to Talk About Books You Have Not Read - s t e v e

What the Hell is Mitford? - josh neff, geek at large

On Beyond Zebra - josh neff, geek at large

Don't Judge - josh neff, geek at large

Better Off Read - Laura Lou Who

Better Read Than Dead - josh neff, geek at large

Books not Crooks - tab thinks you're awesome

Jorge. - Chris Z.

Pride and Prejudice and RA - Kirsten

What You Always Wanted to Know About Genre Fiction But Were Afraid to Ask - Kirsten

Awesome! Keep 'em coming! This will be for both fiction and nonfiction, if that helps spark anything. :) - holly from iPhone

Shelf Reading - josh neff, geek at large

wait? this blog is for staff to read? - DJF

Yes. It will be an additional RA resource for staff - holly from iPhone

Caveat Lecteur has already been taken -) - Mr. Gunn

"Twilight is Not the Only Book in Existence" - Miriella

PUT THAT BOOK *DOWN* !NOW! (how does one shout above ALL CAPS when one is ALL CAPPING?) - Aaron the Librarian

awesome shit i think you would enjoy reading. - tara

yeah, but I'm not using it any more -- you're welcome to it if you want it - D0r0th34

oh tara, if ONLY. :) - holly

yeah, i didn't think it would fly... - tara

"Oh No You Di'in't": books I saw you reading in the staff lounge that you should feel totally ashamed about. - cecily

right person, right book - Katie

Every Book Its Reader - s t e v e

"Hey You! Don't Read That, Read This!" - cecily

Cecily wins. - Chris Z.

Book Sex - Aaron the Librarian

to update you all, since I know you were dying to know what we chose, the big winner was s t e v e with "Every Book Its Reader" big thanks, Mr. Lawson! :) - holly

I can't think of one offhand - which tells me that this is a great question. - Neil Saunders

PLoS ONE article level metrics is in the running. Anything that improves the way we measure and manage science is a step forward for testing the hypothesis that open methodologies are more efficient than the current hypercompetitive model. Also, any move towards community-centric ideas is a boost to open science. - Bill Hooker

Right. I was trying to think of something concrete and useful, as opposed to the interesting, but ultimately idle chatter :-) Article level metrics is a good suggestion - gets my vote. - Neil Saunders

To stimulate further suggestions, here is a saved search for anything in the Science 2.0 or Life Scientist or Toronto Science 2.0 groups that received more than 25 comments and contains the word "open": http://friendfeed.com/search... . Of course, playing around with these parameters is encouraged. - Daniel Mietchen

The timeline in the OAD wiki is looking a little sparse for 2009. http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki... - Mr. Gunn

Coverage in Wired http://www.wired.com/wiredsc... and Springer hiring Jan Velterop are two fairly large piece of 2009 news. - Mr. Gunn

I'd go with Springer buying BMC - not sure yet whether its a positive or negative. cc0 is a close second I think. - Cameron Neylon

cc0 is 2009? Thought it was 08. Springer definitely made some OA news this year. - Mr. Gunn

Nature Communications might be a candidate. Not literally as "big" as Springer buying BMC, but still a very ineresting development. - Shirley Wu from twhirl

I had also thought CC0 was already around in 2008 and upon checking, I found this press release from Dec 2007: http://creativecommons.org/press-r... . Anyway, the official 1.0 release was on March 11 this year: http://creativecommons.org/weblog... . - Daniel Mietchen

My votes would go for (1) The Polymath Projects because it successfully demonstrated the principle that open science collaborations can be extremely effective in delivering solutions to research-style problems, and (2) the storm of comments played out in the mainstream media about the CRU incident (as opposed to the actual incident itself, which I'll leave others to comment about) since there is now a much larger audience who appreciate, in a way they maybe didn't before, why openness in science matters. - Dan Hagon

If you really want people to assign points and so forth, you will probably need to set up a form or use SurveyMonkey or something. - Bill Hooker

Bill - this is my first venture ever in such a compilation, so I already was not sure when I posted whether using points would be a good thing, and I am even less convinced now. But I am not in a rush with this, so I will take some time to let comments and suggestions come in. In the meantime, suggestions how to turn this into something actually useful (rather than merely entertaining) are welcome. - Daniel Mietchen

I think the only way to make it more useful is to find a way to entice more people to speak up! It's interesting to see what things others consider significant, and I found thinking about the question to be a useful exercise. A handy list of "2009 developments" might also prove useful as a list of "things to keep an eye on in 2010". - Bill Hooker

That last sentence makes me think that Open Science could use an Open Science News blog, like Peter Suber's Open Access News. Given that even Peter couldn't keep up eventually, and has created the OA Tracking Project to do most of the info gathering, perhaps we could think about an Open Science Tracking Project (just, for the love of Dog, don't use Connotea!). - Bill Hooker

Shirley had started such a thing last year - http://shirleywho.wordpress.com/2008... . Perhaps time for round two? - Daniel Mietchen

Started to comment, but realised a technical detail was incorrect. Anyway - Readtwit (http://www.readtwit.com/home) could be the basis for an OSTP, once it does hashtag whitelists - they are in the works. Basically: (1) tweet an OS URL with the tag "ostp", (2) create a readtwit feed, filtered on that tag and (3) make feed available, e.g. as GReader public page. Voila, tracking. - Neil Saunders

Neil, I like it. Why would a hashtag whitelist be needed? Are you suggesting that we use one to create a controlled vocab for the tracking project? I was thinking of following the OATP model of tagging #os.new for anything <6 mo old and #oa.foo where foo is a space for folksonomy creation. E.g. this thread might get tagged "#os.new #os.trackingproject #os.news" or something like that. - Bill Hooker

Currently, readtwit filters by hashtag, but only to ignore items by tag. They say they're going to introduce the reverse (a "whitelist") - i.e. include only items with the tag. I like readtwit a lot; here's my (unfiltered) public feed page of tweets + associated URLs - http://www.google.com/reader.... - Neil Saunders

I see that you can't use a . to branch hashtags. That's a dealbreaker for me. I think the tagging needs to be easy and unrestrictive. - Bill Hooker

I'd say CC0 too. - Egon Willighagen

+1 for CC0, PLoS ALM, and Polymath Project - Mike Chelen

I have now set up a poll: http://www.demochoice.org/dcgridh... . - Daniel Mietchen

Might be good to have a link to FF discussions or blog posts about each topic on the poll in case some people aren't aware of them. Of course, maybe this just means those topics should rank lower or not at all for those people ;) But doesn't mean they won't still be interested in learning about them after voting! Or make it more clear that more info about each topic can be found in this thread? - Shirley Wu

I thought about that but opted to let people vote on what they are familiar with, and provide details in the wrap-up. Anyway, I can't edit the poll now that it is set up (they stated I could, but I never received that mail with further instructions, not even in the spam folder). - Daniel Mietchen

Don't have much time to help draft but will try -- and will certainly sign. - Bill Hooker

ditto Bill - Jean-Claude Bradley

ditto Bill, too - Graham Steel

Will be happy to contribute and carry work load. Would it be worthwhile to write an 'international' letter that could be forwarded to individual govts (a letter that would be put forward globally, and simultaneously, with signatures from around the world). - Kubke

Can look over drafts and do tinkering if it is useful...or just sign if it isn't - Cameron Neylon

"forms of communication involving replication of data" - pretty much invalidates the entire conference? - Neil Saunders

I wonder if people are allowed to talk - Deepak Singh from IM

Natural selection in action. Either another set of organizers, or another conference, will take over as this one dies off. - Bill Hooker

What is the point of scientific conferences again? - 'Mummi' Thorisson

What was the point in science again? - Cameron Neylon

What was the point of life again? [descending into pessimism...and trip to the pub] - 'Mummi' Thorisson

Bill, another source reports that attendance seems way off this year from what it has been in the past. - Mr. Gunn

As I see it, the problem is one of copyright. All the biologists I know (and to a degree, myself included) are alright with presenting pre-publication data at a conference as long as it isn't digitally recorded or disseminated. If there were a way to enforce "first presentation rights", less people would worry about getting scooped and be more willing to share unpublished data. - Walter Jessen

It'd be nice if the talk were publicly available, either during or very soon after the talk. Then, this public record, combined with the tweets, blogs, etc. would provide pretty good evidence of who did the work and presented it first. At least for me it would. Even as it stands now, though, if scooping is a worry, it seems to me that allowing the audience to tweet & blog will make it... more... - Steve Koch

Walter, you might be right, but surely it has been disseminated in the form of conference abstract prior to someone tweeting about it. If they have copyright concerns, they're simply not understanding things. - Mr. Gunn

I disagree - abstracts are much different than data. I like Steve's idea .. let's get the status quo to swing in the opposite direction and make everything publicly available following conferences and meetings. - Walter Jessen

Cyndy Parr tweets ( http://twitter.com/cydparr... ) "This is kind of what PLOS One envisions -- it goes up there, and then it could get chosen to be part of a hub". Iz true? - Karen James

Thanks, Graham. Having just had a paper rejected by two journals in a row, I'm fed up to here *points to own eyebrows* with spending hours if not days re-formatting to meet the ridiculously precise but in no way substantive guidelines of different journals. It's not even rewriting, it's just pointless fiddling and a silly waste of time. If the taxpayers only knew... - Karen James

There are two issues at hand here. One, a universal format for submission, Two, a bidding process on papers. The Neuroscience Peer Review Consortium points to how the second part of this kind of deal is working right now in some disciplines (http://nprc.incf.org/), the really really sad part about the first issue here is that the big publishers don't care what format you submit in (let... more... - Ian Mulvany

+1 for more standards for paper submissions, starting with reference styles. And for allowing submissions in the NLM DTD format. - Martin Fenner

Ian, you may say they don't care, but when one is submitting a manuscript, one is trying to do everything one can not to give the publisher any possible little excuse to reject your paper without review. - Karen James

Second time in a week that someone stated "publishers don't care about format of submissions". Again I ask: if that's the case, why do all journals make a huge deal about it in their instructions to authors? - Neil Saunders

As for universal format: easily solved by writing our papers on the web. Imagine a simple forms-based interface with fields for title, authors, abstract, introduction... Imagine a button in Google Docs that says "submit this document to <insert journal here>" !! But currently, we all like to use our own word-processing software on our own machines, then upload a document in a multitude of formats. It's going to take a big shift in thinking and work practices. - Neil Saunders

What Neil said: if journals don't care, why do they make such a damn song and dance about it? Why not explicitly say you can *submit* in any basic AIMRAD format? Worry about format after acceptance: either the journal can send it to India per Ian above, or if they make the authors do it at least they only have to do it once. My next paper (quit laughing) is going out in basic AIMRAD... more... - Bill Hooker

Note: this is easier for me to do than many, because I've basically given up on an academic career as currently constructed. - Bill Hooker

"it's just pointless fiddling and a silly waste of time. If the taxpayers only knew" I think they should / deserve to know! - Björn Brembs

+1 Neil "why do all journals make a huge deal about it in their instructions to authors?" and +1 Björn "I think [the taxpayers] should / deserve to know!" - Karen James

Neil & Bill: maybe "don't care" is to strong a phrase. A manuscript does need to be structured correctly to fit into the journal's content management system (an application note looks different to a letter looks different to a research paper), have images properly resized and references in the right format so that they can be processed by systems that convert to them links etc. - Euan

Also: what happened to that Wolfram word processor for papers that was supposed to do what Neil mentioned above with Google Docs? - Euan

Ah, http://www.wolfram.com/product... but doesn't look like there's a great deal of support for life sci journals (BMC aside) - Euan

the publishers i know would be delighted to standardise to NLM DTD for submissions -- would save lots of editorial time and production costs -- the publisher i know best sends accepted papers to be manually turned into xml which can then be used for PMC deposition and the semi-automatic generation of the HTML and PDF versions. But things like the Publicon app have taught publishers that implementing the technology to do something doesn't mean that it will happen in significant quantities! :) - Joe Dunckley

I used Publicon when it was released a few years ago. Essentially a dead product now. Lemon8-XML does what Neil describes as "Imagine a simple forms-based interface with fields for title, authors, abstract, introduction... ": http://network.nature.com/people.... - Martin Fenner

These interviews (about eXtyles and Editorial Manager) might be interesting to those that care about submitting papers in the NLM DTD format, as I specifically asked that question: http://network.nature.com/people... and http://network.nature.com/people... - Martin Fenner

There is a nascent version of that working in neuroscience http://nprc.incf.org/. Journals have formed a consortium where if an author submits to one journal and it gets rejected, the author can specify that the reviews follow the paper to another journal so that it doesn't need to be re-reviewed. This was viewed as a way for papers that have nothing wrong with them but which don't fit the scope of the journal can be published more quickly and easily. - Maryann Martone

What about replacing "papers" and "journals" in the subject line with "proposals" and funders? - Daniel Mietchen

What if journals said here's our LaTeX template. Put the right text in the indicated field, lotion in the basket, and anything else won't be accepted. - Mr. Gunn

@Daniel Mietchen: Yes, that too! @Mr. Gunn: What I'm advocating is that there's a single LaTeX (or whatever) template - not that you'd re-paste for each journal. - Karen James

karen, yes. The idea being you give them the text and they do whatever they like with the formatting. - Mr. Gunn

Aside from making life easier for authors, it would allow sane computational use of papers. With PDF, you don't even know which image a figure legend refers to, except by guess work. The difficulty is that the journals don't see it as their problem. The solution is for the authors to make it the journals problem - Phil Lord

I like the idea, Karen. Publishing an exciting paper should not a be a torture (for us!) - Betül

Getting access to research papers is already too expensive. Wouldn't it just be more so if we invited a bidding war on each paper? Write good papers, and submit them to PLoS. - Ted Slater

Ian York rocks, as do the scientists who did this. - Mr. Gunn

Gels still speak, even without lasers... - Mark A Jensen

Well, let's see... the Apple 30" is 27 inches wide, and standard ergo recommendations says you want a viewing distance of 20-40"... 6 would give you a polygon with a 23" viewing distance... 7 would give you you 28"... I'd say 7. Actually 14. Two "rows" of 7. - Ken Sheppardson

It's really the 360 degree chair/desk rig that's the hard part, btw. - Ken Sheppardson

Doesn't that leave you stuck inside, Ken? - Tim Tyler

I too thought it was Al Gore & a post about his many computers' effects on global warming! - beersage

I think the right number ignoring cost is the same as the right number including cost -- the massive energy consumption exerts downward pressure, just like the cost. But now the ideal number of 30" monitors if you ignore both cost and the effect on the environment...well I still think it's 1. Doing what Al Gore's doing here, to me, is like sitting in the very front row of the movie theatre. - j1m

30" monitors are very effective internal wall insulation. - Bernie Goldbach

I think maybe a 10' high by 30' wide wall of them would be about ideal. I can't decide if I would want the wall to be linear or circular, though, or what kind of seating choices I would like. - ⓞnor

He should convert all those books and papers in his office into electronic format. Use his bookcase as a monitor wall with nine 30" monitors. A setup like this would rock: http://friendfeed.com/imabone... - imabonehead

Put some of them on a hinged or sliding wall and the trapped problem goes away. - Andrew C

I just hope his computer desktop isn't as messy as his actual desktop. - j1m

I am only staring at two at the moment... (actually 2x30"+23"+20") - Paulo Gaspar

I was thinking of some sort of turret-like setup where you climb up into the ring of monitors... or better yet: hydraulics - Ken Sheppardson

Yes, ideally you'd want something that would make Professor X jealous. Maybe they could fold down from a petal-like ring arrangement from the ceiling. - Andrew C

Aha... or think Darth Vader meditation chamber. - Ken Sheppardson

Ken, now I'm picturing Al Vader surrounded by monitors, hilarious!! - Thursday Lo :)

I'd say 3. Anymore and you'll start neglecting one of them. - Mr. Gunn

Whoa—check out the flip chart! - Glen Mistletoe

Empirically speaking, zero. I've stopped plugging my laptop into my 30" monitor at work. All the windows get messed up. Plus, I have this theory that sticking to a single laptop screen helps me focus better. - Jim Norris

Fighting climate change one flat screen at a time. Just think how much power he is saving when he turns it all off to go out. Does he have eyes in the back of his head or is the TV on just because he hates polar bears? - John Cooper

Jim, I agree with you. When I had two monitors, I used one for actual work and the other for mail, friendfeed and other distractions. I do prefer using a 24" screen to my laptop screen. - Gary Burd

@Jim, personally, I find that my laptop screen is too confining. I plug into a 23" LCD at work. I use the LCD for TextMate and a couple of Terminals, then I keep a browser open on the laptop for testing and search. That works really well for me. If all I have is my laptop screen, I spend a lot of time Alt-TABing between apps. - Jason Huebel

Why get 30" monitors when you could just get a couple CRVD monitors (since we're ignoring cost, and all)? http://www.ostendotech.com/crvd... - Curtiss Grymala

I've settled in on a 3-screen setup: Center (24") has 2-4 terminal windows, either half of 1/4 of the screen each; Right (22") has a Chrome window, IM, and often a couple more terminal windows monitoring processes or logs; Left (20") has either media player software or live.twit.tv in a Chrome window :-) - Ken Sheppardson

Ken - Are you using any special software to organize the windows on your screen? I'm using a 30" monitor at work as my main screen and my 17" laptop screen as my secondary. On the 30" screen, I use a proggie called WinSplit Revolution to split my screen into sections. It's a lifesaver. Keyboard shortcuts automatically move and size the focused window to any portion of the screen you choose. - Curtiss Grymala

No, Curtiss. I've tried different apps over the years, but nothing ever really clicked. However, I just discovered that the Windows key plus arrow keys in Windows 7 will now resize windows, e.g. Win+Left expands the window to the left half of the screen, Win+Left again moves it to the next monitor, etc. - Ken Sheppardson

Nice. That's kind of the way winsplit works, except it uses ctrl+alt. Ctrl+alt+left moves window to left monitor, ca+rt moves to right screen. It also uses ctrl+alt plus any key on the number pad to move the window to any quadrant/half of the screen. - Curtiss Grymala from iPhone

OMG. His secretary must hate him. - Kate Schmidt

"If you are a user of the Free Edition or Professional Edition, you can continue to use and edit your existing pads until March 31, 2010. No new free public pads may be created. Your pads will no longer be accessible after March 31, 2010, at which time your pads and any associated personally identifiable information will be deleted." - Daniel Mietchen

OK, now I have to start using Wave? - Peter Miller

Etherpad was immensely more functional for realtime collaboration than google docs . This development was predictable..considering that wave is still so hard to grock - Hari

I think the key for casual users of wave is that robot that email you when there is an update - Cameron gave me that trick. It was broken for a few days last week but seems fine now. Otherwise it is hard to keep checking wave for updates as part of your workflow. BTW - is there a way to get email alerts when wikipedia pages change? - Jean-Claude Bradley

What is the address of that robot? Strange, though, that the supposed replacement of email doesn't work without it - let's hope this is just transitional. - Daniel Mietchen

Daniel the robot can be added to any wave as wave-email-notifications@appspot.com - Jean-Claude Bradley

There's also an XMPP jabber bot that sends you an IM when a wave is updated, that's what I use. - Mr. Gunn

Thanks, Jean-Claude; put it on some waves and will see what this gives. - Daniel Mietchen

Noticed that the bot was already on most of the waves I have been on for weeks, but not a single notification reached me so far. Back on topic: Etherpad will remain operative until at least when they release their source code. http://etherpad.com/ep... . - Daniel Mietchen

Daniel - if the bot is working it shows up at the very top of the Wave - it might be set to OFF and it will give you a link to activate it. If you see a broken image it is not working at all - Jean-Claude Bradley

Thanks - got the activation links in some waves, though not in others. No broken image. - Daniel Mietchen

What I don't get is why there are so many different ones for the same disciplines. Is it really superior to have a semicolon here instead of over there? Really? There should be two styles: numbered and alpha. That's it. We really don't need more than two. OK, maybe law gets their own. - Jenny Reiswig

Lots of things that have DOIs still have citation styles, though. Just wondering why we can't just pick one format and stick to it. - Mr. Gunn

I understand that different fields have various types of things they need to reference (like law referencing case numbers and such or art history referencing folios or repository pieces, but here's what I was thinking - Have a format that contains fields for all the information that might be needed for anything, then let the tool that generates the bib output what's needed (for the... more... - Mr. Gunn

On paper I find alpha style much easier to follow than numeric. But online doesn't matter as all info should be available by just hovering over ref in body of text. Good question! Part of scoialisation to being an academic? - Anne Marie Cunningham

I have wondered this for a long time. This is a constant source of stress, vexation, and wasted time (especially for undergraduates). I especially dislike it when faculty ask their students to use the citation style of a particularly esoteric journal in their sub specialty. I also dislike citation styles that call for abbreviated journal titles (like ACS style, a classic holdover from the print world). - Bonnie Swoger

EndNote lists over 3,000 citation styles, would be interesting to see how this number has risen over the years! - aarontay

The world would be a better place. I'm holding onto http://friendfeed.com/karenja... in the hopes that it might someday come about. - Peter Murray

Theoretically, if some of the big journal editors and publishers could agree on some kind of streamlined style (or two styles maybe - one for footnotes and one for in-text citation) this would save everyone a lot of time. How much time (and therefore money) is wasted making sure that the date goes after the authors name or at the end of the citation? - Bonnie Swoger

Wonders are reference management software like EndNote actually benefiting from the proliferation of styles? But on second thought no, I go crazy trying to see if it's possible to duplicate some obscure feature in a obscure citation style that reference management software don't quite do yet. If there are say only a dozen styles, it would be possible for reference manager software to perfectly duplicate all of them. - aarontay

aarontay - I'm thinking that there probably are parallels between the obscure holdings many academic libraries have and the proliferation of citation styles Endnote has developed. In other words, it's a user-driven accumulation of things over the years, badly in need of a pruning. - Mr. Gunn

There's http://citationstyles.org that Zotero and Mendeley are working with which should at least reduce the effort required to support the variety of styles available, (and for someone technically inclined, you can submit your own format) but we really don't need them all. My question is: What would be the first item on a todo list written today if the goal was eliminating all but a few styles? - Mr. Gunn

I think the first item on your list would be what was mentioned first in this thread: a unique identifier for anything potentially citable. - Daniel Mietchen

I agree that having DOIs for things is the next thing that needs to happen for citation infrastructure, but I'm thinking more near term. Is there any reason that cell, nature, science, and the antarctic journal of snow biology need different citation formats? Couldn't this change almost overnight if the will to change existed? - Mr. Gunn

I don't think the unique identifier would be enough on its own (though I agree it's needed). If I'm reading through the reference list, I want the titles not a list of DOI's -- so we still need some way to turn the unique ID into a human-readable citation, and then we're back to citation styles and how do we kill off most of them? Bottom-up approaches seem likely to fail since everyone is going to want their own favourite style or element. - Bill Hooker

To do list: 1. design Universal Citation Style that will satisfy most requirements for most people; 2. start campaign to have all journals accept submissions in their own style, or in UCS. Once authors had a single style that they could use for most submissions, they'd want it for all submissions -- and journals could either just use it or reformat the ref lists if they really wanted their own style. - Bill Hooker

They will "go away" when the document is configurable by the end user, to whatever style they want, for whatever purpose they're using it for, in whatever medium is convenient. - Cameron Neylon

Print probably has to become near-marginalized before this happens, right? But seriously, couldn't they just agree to accept one of the formats in use today and it would work for pretty much all life science papers? I guess, Bill, that leaves Step 2, but why should it be necessary to even campaign. Do academic publishers NOT want to save on manuscript preparation costs? - Mr. Gunn

Bill - I do not think of a reference list, rather some direct linking from the article to a page hosting the metadata (and possibly more for OA stuff) of the reference, as at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki... . Ideally, these metadata pages (example:... more... - Daniel Mietchen

I'm guessing that change is resisted by the old guys with a million hard-coded references in their chosen style. If you use EndNote, Zotero etc then changing from one style to another is pretty much trivial, isn't it? - Chris Rusbridge

The bibo group are working on an ontology of bibliographic information. The depressing thing is to see it get more & more rococo as it tries to take in more and more attributes from different groups, especially Law. - Chris Rusbridge

I guess I ought also to mention David Shotton's cito ontology, which (in part) looks at the "flavour" of the citation, eg supportive, background, refute etc. But perhaps I'm straying off the point here! - Chris Rusbridge

Well, Chris, it isn't trivial, even with a citation manager. "Why doesn't my reference manager support my favorite citation style?" is a question I hear with some frequency. Now, because they work with http://citationstyles.org, Mendeley and Zotero support more styles than any other product, but the whole thing just strikes me as, well, just damn silly. It's one of those things that hasn't been given much thought and over the years has evolved into a monster. It's time for that to change. - Mr. Gunn

Changing the reference style is often trivial if you use BibTeX. However, even then adaptation to the post-rejection journal's style still often requires changes in the format of the abstract, figures, figure legends and so on, and these have usually stolen more of my time than the references. - Daniel Mietchen

My understanding is that even "supported" styles in citation managers aren't 100% supported if you look closely at the obscure rules, causing a lot of hair pulling. I've being at the end of this, where people come and tell me.. they want EndNote to do this thing that is actually supposed to be in, but the default style can't duplicate. Multiple that 3000x and you go crazy - aarontay

well, yeah, so that could easily be handled by journals giving authors a BibTeX template and telling them submissions will only be accepted using the template. - Mr. Gunn

Except we, ahem, can't currently accept LaTeX and hence presumably BibTeX for our journal... (#shame!) - Chris Rusbridge

The "Uniform Requirements" style is pretty good and I don't understand why more journals don't sign on to it. It's got a lot of use in clinical medical journals, less in basic science. I agree with dumping journal abbreviations - useless holdover. - Jenny Reiswig

Citation styles are ridiculous. We should all just use Chicago. Or Harvard. No wait, Chicago. Then again... - Neil Saunders

But seriously, +1 Cameron. - Neil Saunders

@Cameron way up there: I like that idea: user decides on reference format. - Steve Koch

@Peter way up there: Thanks for that link! Very interesting, I'll relink it again here: http://friendfeed.com/karenja... - Steve Koch

I just had this conversation with my 8th graders - we use NoodleBib and they wanted to know the difference between MLA, APA and Chicago. I did my best and they asked "why are there three different styles". For the life of me, I couldn't tell them why we're still at that stage. - Lazygal

There really shouldn't be any need for this discussion... - Björn Brembs

No access for me, sorry :-( - Mr. Gunn

Not for me either :-( - Björn Brembs

Neither :( - Kubke

Sorry, can't access anything from Karger... - Graham Steel