Workflow - Publishing Modification Comments

Should the discussions concerning a suggested modification be published? If so, when and how should they be published?

In some academic workflows, discussions generated by publications are published as commentary articles, co authored by the participants. This can be done for a variety of reasons, such as incentivizing commenting, increasing communal participation and inclusivity, etc. In other workflows, ensuing discussions are left unpublished. It is important for the scientonomic workflow to clearly articulate how and when, if at all, the discussions on suggested modifications should be published.

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Hakob Barseghyan and Jamie Shaw in 2019. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is:

• The discussions concerning a suggested modification are to be published once a communal verdict is available. The discussions are to be published in the journal as special commentary articles co-authored by all participants of the discussion or in special edited collections.

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record of the Question

Here is the complete acceptance record of this question (it includes all the instances when the question was accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by a community):

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	22 December 2019	The publication of Shaw and Barseghyan (2019) is and indication of the acceptance of the question.	Yes

All Direct Answers

The following direct answers to the question have been suggested:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
Publishing Modification Comments (Shaw-Barseghyan-Yan-2019)	The discussions concerning a suggested modification are to be published once a communal verdict is available. The discussions are to be published in the journal as special commentary articles co-authored by all participants of the discussion or in special edited collections.	2019

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Accepted Direct Answers

The following theories have been accepted as direct answers to this question:

Community	Theory	Formulation	Accepted From	Accepted Until
Scientonomy	Publishing Modification Comments (Shaw-Barseghyan-Yan-2019)	The discussions concerning a suggested modification are to be published once a communal verdict is available. The discussions are to be published in the journal as special commentary articles co-authored by all participants of the discussion or in special edited collections.	25 February 2023

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning direct answers to this question:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Date Assessed	Verdict	Verdict Rationale
Sciento-2019-0002	Scientonomy	22 December 2019	Accept that the discussions concerning a suggested modification are to be published once a communal verdict is available. The discussions are to be published in the journal as special commentary articles co-authored by all participants of the discussion or in special edited collections.	25 February 2023	Accepted	The decision was made during the 2023 scientonomy workshop. Much of the discussions on this modification concerned the actual format of the “special commentary articles” and “special edited collections” suggested as options for publications would be. Paul Patton suggested micro-papers that could accompany each modification (one discussion paper per modification), whereas Izzy Friesen, Rebecca Muscant, and G. G. Shan were supportive of unified papers in a “compilation” format (one discussion paper per workshop). The possibility of doing both concurrently was floated by Spenser Borrie. Concerns about the commentary articles/edited collections waned once it was clarified that subheadings would be present in any compilation paper, ensuring that modifications and their authors would receive adequate attention. Establishing a clear schedule and framework for such a compilation was of great importance to all attendees at the meeting, and additionally, Hakob Barseghyan suggested a special numbering system for these publications to separate them from peer-reviewed articles. It was also agreed that the first author of such a paper would be whoever was in charge of taking notes, with all other commentators listed as co-authors. The modification was accepted almost unanimously.

Current View

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is Publishing Modification Comments (Shaw-Barseghyan-Yan-2019).

Publishing Modification Comments (Shaw-Barseghyan-Yan-2019) states: "The discussions concerning a suggested modification are to be published once a communal verdict is available. The discussions are to be published in the journal as special commentary articles co-authored by all participants of the discussion or in special edited collections."

In the scientonomic workflow, the discussions concerning suggested modifications should be published once a communal consensus is reached and the respective verdict is recorded in the encyclopedia. The discussions are to be published in the journal as special commentary articles co-authored by all participants of the discussion or in special edited collections. While it might be tempting to only publish those discussions that caused significant disagreement in the community, such an approach alternative solution may inadvertently incentivize dissent and disagreement for the sake of getting published. In contrast, by publishing all discussions, we incentivize all commenting without skewing the incentive towards disagreement.

Related Topics

This question is a subquestion of Scientonomic Workflow.