CZ:Proposals/Citing CZ article by authors

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Complete explanation

As those of you have been hanging around here for a while know, there has been some considerable discussion around whether or not to allow authors to take “credit” in some form for their contributions to CZ. The discussion arose largely from academics such as myself who feel that if an academic or graduate student were able to cite their contributions on CZ as an authored, refereed encyclopaedia article, then it would boost the number of contributors to CZ as they would be able to take some credit for this contribution and add it to their CV – probably under “additional contributions to the field” or “other academic contributions” or some such heading. Without going through the long discussions that occurred on the forums, the “camps” of opinions seem to fall into three broad categories:

1) Those that feel citation or recognition is completely unnecessary or they simply don’t care. 2) Those that strongly feel that a method of citation is necessary but may not know how to do it effectively and fairly. 3) Those that are worried that citation or recognition of authorship would create a sense of “ownership” over articles and thus reduce the effectiveness of the “wiki” experience in reducing collaboration. (This last group was largely led by Larry).

After much discussion, it was clear that no one in any of these three groups were really against the concept of “taking credit”, the concerns were largely around how to do this in a wiki environment, how should authorship be awarded, how should citations occur and how do we prevent a negative sense of “ownership” and corresponding negative wiki behaviour.

Reasoning

In discussions with Larry over the past month, I would like to put forward a possible proposal for a solution that might solve this issue. In order to do this, I would like to briefly discuss the way in which normal citation occurs in the academic world.

Basically, when a paper is authored, authors will typically appear in the order of the significance of their contribution (with some exceptions to this rule). Thus, if Larry wrote an article on CZ that was intended to appear in an academic journal the citation in his CV might appear as:

Sanger, L. (2008) Citizendium – the way forward. Modern Encyclopedias 5, 12-21.

If there happened to be co-authors on this article then they would logically follow in the order of the significance of their contribution to the research. Thus if there were four authors the citation would appear as:

Sanger, L., Berger, L.R., Quick, J. and Smith, B.D. (2008) Citizendium – the way forward. Modern Encyclopedias 5, 12-21.

When such an article is cited, it is very often cited as:

Sanger et al. (2008) Citizendium – the way forward. Modern Encyclopedias 5, 12-21.

“et al.” is simply an abbreviation of “et alii”, Latin for “and others”.

So, here is the proposal. With CZ being a driving force in creating a new way of looking at information exchange and with us introducing new concepts and ideas into the now established wiki model, what if we turn the way in which citations are done on their head? Quite simply, what if we put the collaborative process first (as it is the most important aspect of a wiki) and the author second?

Implementation

How do we do this? I propose that simply by turning the way in which we cite articles on the wiki around.

Here is an example. Lets take a large multi authored article like “Life” and lets say I had contributed to it significantly as an author and wanted to put it in my CV or cite it in a journal article I was writing because I wanted to quote content from this article. Here is how I would do it under this proposal:

Authors and Berger, L.R. (2008) Life. In Citizendium the Online Encyclopedia. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Life 05.03.08

The last numbers reflect the date of citation of the article. Now, following convention, we could translate “Authors and Berger, L.R.” into Latin and it would appear as:

“Scriptor et Berger, L.R.” or “Auctor et Berger, L.R.” or even “Civitas et Berger, L.R.” - (if we wanted to express the concept of Citizens contributing to CZ).

In this way of citing, we put the collaborative efforts first, followed by the contribution of the author wishing to cite the work.

Now, how to solve the problem of what level of contribution is required to use such a citation in ones CV? I would propose two concepts:

1) We don’t monitor it and leave it up to the ethics of the individual. If you feel that you have contributed substantively to an article then you are free to cite it in your CV as above – remember – anyone can simply check the history of an article on a specific date to see if its true and if an individual is “taking a chance” by adding their name to something that they in fact have not contributed significantly too. In other words, we let the academic world self-regulate this. 2) We come up with a automated scheme that list people who have contributed above a certain level and this appears somewhere in the history page and is simply there to be checked on any specific date to verify the level of contribution.

Now, if you broadly accept the above, how does someone else who is not an author cite an article on a given date? Simply as the following: Scriptor et Civitas (2008) Life. In Citizendium the Online Encyclopedia. http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Life 05.03.08 or just "Scri.ptor" or "Civitas"

How would we implement such a scheme? I think quite simply by putting a small link on the front page that says “How to cite a CZ article” which simply links to a page that explains our convention for citation.

Discussion

A discussion section, to which anyone may contribute.

Nah. There has to be an authoritative depiction about an article's history - a synopsis of the facts that are otherwise deliberately obscured by design in the history tab via the MediaWiki software with pseudonyms in mind - for it to have authority and thus meaning.

I've listened to all of Larry's arguments against this and appreciate them and also have some concern about it going against collaboration. But the hard fact is that we just won't know if there will really be ownership issues unless the idea of writing a synopsis of the facts of an approved article's history is tested (citing the E of E, more or less a Univ of Boston clique, is a weak argument and poor analogy to CZ). We should not be afraid to run a liberal pilot, I think.

In the long run, I suspect that Knol will push CZ into a pilot of synopsizing the facts of an approved article's history as a service to readers - particularly as authoring students (and others for whom resume-building is important) are given choice of where they write.

In any regards, given the real names policy and the practical need to credibly publish to advance careers (coupled with the limited time people have to write), I personally don't see this issue as going away, for better or worse. This issue may ultimately boil down to a choice between having contributions chiefly from those for whom traditionally attributed publishing is important and those for whom it is not.

Me, I worry that being cited as "an entry [ Stravenue ] on a user-generated online encyclopedia, Citizendium",[1] just will not lend the project to the sort of trustworthiness that will come from, say with that article's case, naming a geography editor from the Univ of Arizona first and then, again say in this case (as is the actual fact), Hayford Peirce. Of course, that information is already independently discernible if one is inclined to mine the history tab, but that is just not a reasonable (lest even a fair) expectation.

If an "attribution line" were simply viewed as a synopsis of the facts of an approved article's history as a service to readers, it may serve as attribution and at the same time assuage the, I think, over-concern about "ownership". All an attribution line does is reveal the facts of authorship that are otherwise technically obscured!

The only approved article I have in this race is Butler - and yes, writing things I can cite on my CV is supremely important to me at this point in my life. A few comments about this.

I realize Butler could be improved - who besides a crank lacks this realization concerning their own work, pray tell? For example, to mention just a minor thing, the lede could certainly be tightened. But I am not inclined at this time to make changes. I'd be very appreciative, in fact, if someone took up improvements.

Moreover - and this is supremely important - a second edition of an approved article says nothing about the first edition of the approved article - an approved article is a matter of history, not the future. If someone comes along and writes a better version of Butler, I am very happy - in fact, my future collaboration will certainly consist of encouragement. Like with Encyclopedia Britannica articles that go through "editions", a later version of an approved CZ article says absolutely nothing about an earlier edition of an approved CZ article, except that time has passed and that another perspective, a later perspective, has been brought to bear upon the article.

Do I feel ownership over that subsequent version? Not at all!

No, I am instead happy I played my part to provide what I did when I did - a foundation for others to build upon. And I can still cite and link to Version 1.0 of Butler, since my work was important for its own time and in its own way and served its purpose for its time. My response to later improvements and revisions on the "gut" level is "So what? What else did I, or could I, have expected?" On a higher level, my response is nothing short of joy over the fact that knowledge marches on.

Stephen Ewen 04:08, 5 March 2008 (CST)

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