CZ:Wishlist/Establish Relationship with External Organization/Editorial council proposal

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Proposal to establish a new internet workgroup

This request proposes the establishment of a new internet workgroup. The arguments supporting this request are:

• Currently, internet articles are handled within the computers workgroup. However, the subject matter addressed by these articles is more clearly categorized as communications, not computing. The internet uses computers to deliver service, but so does almost every other human enterprise. For example, computers are used in politics, commerce, the arts, education, etc. But, most would agree it would be unwise to classify articles in these subjects as computer topics.
• Some authors involved in writing about internet topics also have expertise in computing. However, many do not. For example, the theory, design and engineering of physical layer mechanisms requires little or no understanding of computing (other than how to use computers to run applications supporting this activity). Topics in this area are more closely related to mathematics, electronics and physics.
• Many contributors who write about the internet have no interest at all in computing. They focus on internet specific issues, such as internet performance, internet stability, internet security, and internet architecture.
• The separation of computing and internet design/engineering is recognized by the separation of the organizations that focus on these issues from those that focus on computing. The IEEE Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) sponsor conferences and journals in computing. However, the internet is not a main area of interest for these organizations. While some work on the internet occurs within them, it is generally focused on how the internet relates to computations. On the other hand, the Internet Society and its subsidiary organizations such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), the Internet Advisory Board (IAB) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) concentrate solely on the internet. Other organizations, such as the North American Network Operators Group (NANOG), also concentrate solely on the internet. This separation of effort within the technical community argues for two different workgroups, one for computers and the other for the internet.
• It could be argued that internet articles should be managed by the engineering workgroup. However, there is precedent for establishing workgroups in narrowly focused areas. For example, there is a robotics workgroup, even though robotics is also an engineering discipline. There is a law workgroup, even though law is an aspect of politics, which has its own workgroup. There are both Health Sciences and Healing Arts workgroups, which address a similar concern, if not using the same techniques. So, the establishment of an internet workgroup would follow existing Citizendium practice of supporting workgroups in important sub-areas of more general topics.

Consequently, the establishment of an internet workgroup follows common practice in the technical community. It would allow authors and editors who focus on the internet to work within a community of interest that matches their own interest.

For these reasons, we request approval by the editorial council for the establishment of an internet workgroup.

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