[open-science] Building an Open Science Q&A site
Ted Strauss
ted at trudat.co
Mon Feb 24 17:47:08 UTC 2014
As a longtime SE user, I'm very glad to see this discussion here.
I think openscience.SE is a worthy idea, but I completely agree with the
concerns being raised by Piotr. It takes a large committed community to
build an active SE site.
I have another concern I'd like to raise, and a suggestion.
SE's policy for accepting only questions with defined answers is helpful,
but is it applicable for the topic of Open Science? I think that many
questions about open science deserve vigorous discussion, and don't have
clear answers.
One of StackExchange's founders Jeff Atwood started a new discussion forum
software called
Discourse<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.discourse.org%2F&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgIDmnK4KDA&k=dc2408c5-674d-4930-a176-630e1f89dc9b>that
is a major improvement over other forum softwares. Here is an
example<https://app.getsignals.com/link?url=http%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.howtogeek.com%2F&ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgIDmnK4KDA&k=cd2f1e8f-01cd-43a8-a7fb-66edfe03a51f>of
a Discourse forum. I think Discourse is a big improvement over
listservs
and even a SE site (which is better suited to topics that have a large
community already). Discourse is open source, and must be self-hosted (not
so difficult). I hope you'll check it out.
Cheers
Ted Strauss
On Mon, Feb 24, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Piotr Migdal <pmigdal at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Łukasz,
>
> I don't object that open science is a hot topic.
> (Though, OpenData is far from having a sustainable activity of users, at
> least as of now.)
>
> And for SE site the practice shows, that creating new site works only in
> two cases:
> - there is totally no SE site where you can ask the questions,
> - there is already very strong community on an existing SE site, willing
> to split.
>
> Just the practice shows, that if there is a single site where you can ask
> question - just do so!
> (Also beware: setting a new site takes months - a year, given everything
> goes well.)
>
> Furthermore, more overlap is coming soon:
> - http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/58715/open-source-licensing
>
> So just try asking two or three questions on
> http://academia.stackexchange.com/
> and see how it goes!
> I would be happy to see you in the Academia.SE community!
>
> Regards,
> Piotr
>
> On 24 Feb 2014, at 17:38, Lukasz Bolikowski <l.bolikowski at icm.edu.pl>
> wrote:
>
> > Dear Piotr, Matthew,
> >
> > thanks for your comments. Let me briefly address here the points you
> have raised, a bit longer version can be found there:
> >
> > http://discuss.area51.stackexchange.com/a/13484/16092
> >
> > First of all, thank you, Piotr, for a pointer to the "Why did
> Theoretical Physics fail?" discussion. It is very insightful! Let me
> point one difference between Theoretical Physics and the proposed Open
> Science that gives the latter some hope: OS is a "hot topic", with
> increasing demand for information from the general public, especially in
> the light of changing policies of funding agencies, governments, libraries
> and publishers. TP, on the other hand, registers rather stable interest.
> >
> > Mat, regarding #1, I greatly appreciate all the fantastic initiatives
> like the Google+ community and the hard work that is associated with it. I
> do believe, however, that there is still room for a Q&A site (be it
> OpenScience.SE or Academia.SE), as this particular format of presenting
> information is 1) very friendly to search engines and 2) encourages
> participation/involvement of casual visitors.
> >
> > Regarding Mat's #2, let me start with a disclaimer: it is up to the
> community, not to me, to define the scope of the new site. My personal
> opinion follows. I believe that, ultimately, OpenScience.SE will get a lot
> (majority) of traffic from search engines like Google, and that a Q&A site
> is even more suited to store the general knowledge (e.g. "What's the
> difference between Green OA and Gold OA?") than a *regular* wiki (after
> all, SE has the "community wiki" feature, which should be used for a
> collaborative answer to the above question).
> >
> > I, too, would like to avoid open-ended questions like "What do people
> think about [broad philosophical issue]". I, too, prefer the "How do I do
> [technical thing in my open project]" type. I hope this kind of scope will
> prevail.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > Lukasz
> >
> >
> > On 02/23/2014 12:35 PM, Piotr Migdal wrote:
> >> Hi Łukasz,
> >> Hi Mat,
> >>
> >> It is very tricky to start a StackExchange site, when there already SE
> >> sites with some overlap (speaking as some-one who tried it an failed -
> >>
> http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/130361/why-did-theoretical-physics-fail
> ).
> >>
> >> But the good thing is that they are already SE sites related to open
> >> science:
> >> http://academia.stackexchange.com/ (actually, there are already many
> >> open science questions there)
> >> and
> >> http://opendata.stackexchange.com/
> >>
> >> I would suggest asking questions open science questions on the above
> sites.
> >>
> >> As I see from the OpenScience.SE proposal, all suggested questions
> >> either fit in at least one of the above, or in general are not good
> >> SE-questions (too subjective or open-ended).
> >>
> >> Also note, that OpenData.SE is somewhere on the verge of (not) having
> >> critical mass of users, so splitting the topic even further is unlikely
> >> to be successful.
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Piotr
> >> http://migdal.wikidot.com/
> >>
> >> On 23 Feb 2014, at 05:51, Matthew Todd <matthew.todd at sydney.edu.au
> >> <mailto:matthew.todd at sydney.edu.au>> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi Lukasz,
> >>>
> >>> I'm not against this idea, and have long thought StackExchange could
> >>> be a powerful way to work together (not least because of the
> >>> remarkable metrics it employs to track contributions) but I think a
> >>> couple of things ought to be established first:
> >>>
> >>> 1) How would this be superior from what is quite a useful Google+
> >>> community on open science, where obviously inputs are quite
> >>> discoverable. On the one hand there are no metrics applied to
> >>> participants, but on the other hand it's quite active and would be
> >>> suitable for many of the sorts of discussions suggested on the trial
> >>> page you have up.
> >>>
> >>> 2) "Open Science" has become a very broad term. To many it refers to
> >>> issues around open access, or open data. To me it means (mostly) a
> >>> different kind of collaborative process that arises from open access
> >>> and open data. Diversity of opinions is good, but you should probably
> >>> be prepared for the Q&A site to become dominated by one of those
> >>> flavours of "open science" unless you are specific about coverage
> >>> right from the start.
> >>>
> >>> To my mind one of the strengths of StackExchange (for e.g. code) is
> >>> that people are asking how to do things, and other people share
> >>> solutions for how to do those things. So some of the sample questions
> >>> you have up there are of this type (How do I get a DOI for a dataset)
> >>> whereas others are the kinds of questions that just need a bit of
> >>> Googling around or where the solutions may be better served by a wiki
> >>> article (e.g. what's the difference between Green and Gold OA).
> >>> Perhaps it would be useful if there were a tight relationship between
> >>> a Q&A site, for the frontier how-to questions, and the Wikipedia page
> >>> on open science where established information would be better placed,
> >>> or where a discussion with a clear answer could trigger someone to
> >>> install the answer on the Wikipedia page.
> >>>
> >>> So I'm not saying don't do this, but I for one would love for the
> >>> focus to be more "How do I do [technical thing in my open project]"
> >>> rather than "What do people think about [broad philosophical issue]".
> >>> The former would create something different and valuable.
> >>>
> >>> Cheers,
> >>>
> >>> Mat
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 22 February 2014 23:00, open-science-request at lists.okfn.org
> >>> <mailto:open-science-request at lists.okfn.org>
> >>> <open-science-request at lists.okfn.org
> >>> <mailto:open-science-request at lists.okfn.org>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Send open-science mailing list submissions to
> >>> open-science at lists.okfn.org <mailto:open-science at lists.okfn.org>
> >>>
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> >>>
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> >>>
> >>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> >>> than "Re: Contents of open-science digest..."
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Today's Topics:
> >>>
> >>> 1. Building an Open Science Q&A site (Lukasz Bolikowski)
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Message: 1
> >>> Date: Fri, 21 Feb 2014 15:24:33 +0100
> >>> From: Lukasz Bolikowski <l.bolikowski at icm.edu.pl
> >>> <mailto:l.bolikowski at icm.edu.pl>>
> >>> To: "open-science at lists.okfn.org
> >>> <mailto:open-science at lists.okfn.org>" <open-science at lists.okfn.org
> >>> <mailto:open-science at lists.okfn.org>>
> >>> Subject: [open-science] Building an Open Science Q&A site
> >>> Message-ID: <530761A1.9000901 at icm.edu.pl
> >>> <mailto:530761A1.9000901 at icm.edu.pl>>
> >>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
> >>>
> >>> Dear list,
> >>>
> >>> *Background*. Some of you may know StackExchange.com
> >>> <http://StackExchange.com>, a popular network
> >>> of community-driven Q&A sites (5 million users, 8 million
> >>> questions, 15
> >>> million answers). The individual sites focus on different topics,
> >>> such
> >>> as: programming, mathematics, English language, computer games,
> >>> photography, science fiction, religions, etc. Each Q&A site has a
> >>> well-designed, inviting interface through which users may ask
> >>> questions,
> >>> provide answers, upvote and downvote both Qs and As. Lots of badges
> >>> stimulate users for better contributions and more intensive
> activity.
> >>>
> >>> For example, StackOverflow.com <http://StackOverflow.com> (Q&A
> >>> site for programmers) has become
> >>> both a large compendium of knowledge about programming (structured
> in
> >>> the form of Q&As), and a popular social site for answering
> questions.
> >>> Many (most?) of my programming-related Google searches lead me to
> >>> answers on StackOverflow.
> >>>
> >>> Last but not least, the network has worked out a mature set of
> >>> policies
> >>> and mechanisms for community-driven development of new sites.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> *Call for action*. I have just created a proposal for a new Q&A
> >>> site in
> >>> the StackExchange network, devoted to Open Science:
> >>>
> >>> http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/65426/open-science
> >>>
> >>> and I would like to encourage you to participate in its development.
> >>> Please follow the link above, and sign up or log in using your
> >>> Google/Facebook credentials. Next, "follow" the proposal, vote on
> the
> >>> questions (upvote the questions you consider on-topic, downvote the
> >>> off-topic ones, discuss) and propose your own questions.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> *Technicalities*. In the first phase (called "Definition") we need
> to
> >>> gather 60 people interested in creating the site. We also need to
> >>> write
> >>> and select a total of 40 on-topic and off-topic questions (examples
> of
> >>> both types are needed). This way we will define what the site
> >>> will and
> >>> will not be about, and we will move to the next phases
> >>> (Commitment, then
> >>> Private Beta, then Public Beta). Ultimately, we will all be
> >>> collaboratively building a knowledge base on Open Science and
> >>> providing
> >>> support for the general public.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> *Why*? To create a one stop shop for all the people having
> questions
> >>> about Open Science. I have seen a great deal of energy and
> enthusiasm
> >>> in the Open Science community, and a lot of interest in the Open
> >>> Science
> >>> issues among researchers and other stakeholders. This is an
> >>> attempt to
> >>> channel the energy of the community and to leverage a popular
> platform
> >>> in order to advance the cause.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I'm confident that we will create a useful and vibrant site!
> >>>
> >>> Best regards,
> >>>
> >>> Lukasz
> >>>
> >>> PS. All user contributions on StackExchange are licensed under
> >>> CC-BY-SA 3.0.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Dr. ?ukasz Bolikowski, Assistant Professor
> >>> Centre for Open Science, ICM, University of Warsaw
> >>> Contact details: http://www.icm.edu.pl/~bolo/
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> Subject: Digest Footer
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> End of open-science Digest, Vol 440, Issue 1
> >>> ********************************************
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> MATTHEW TODD | Associate Professor
> >>> School of Chemistry | Faculty of Science
> >>>
> >>> THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
> >>> Rm 519, F11 | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006
> >>> T +61 2 9351 2180 | F +61 2 9351 3329 | M +61 415 274104
> >>> E matthew.todd at sydney.edu.au <mailto:matthew.todd at sydney.edu.au> | W
> >>> http://sydney.edu.au/science/chemistry/research/todd.html
> >>>
> >>> CRICOS 00026A
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> >>> error, please delete it and any attachments.
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> >
> >
> > --
> > Dr. Łukasz Bolikowski, Assistant Professor
> > Centre for Open Science, ICM, University of Warsaw
> > Contact details: http://www.icm.edu.pl/~bolo/
>
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--
Ted Strauss
Co-founder of Trudat.co <http://trudat.co/>
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