Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Prepublication section, why not make a amateur-scientific journal ?

I have some experience with peer review.

One difference between Prepublication and a scientific journal is that scientists usually describe in words what SMers prefer to do with pictures, eg:

https://www.sciencemadness.org/whisper/viewthread.php?tid=82...

This would obviously never meet the publication standards at any journal, even Organic Syntheses. But it is fine for us.

Also, the documentation (particularly documenting unsuccessful trials) and product testing in Prepub is usually not as extensive as it could be. To the extent that it is, that's because threads usually don't make it into Prepub without being evaluated informally by members on the forum. Plus peer reviewers usually expect complete work, not "I got this to work kinda, maybe someone should try it with a proper mag stirbar". It's not peer reviewed if you don't reject anything.

The biggest thing lacking from a scientific point of view though is the culture of citing and comparing to previous work. This is extremely important in academia but in Prepub there are often no citations.

I notice that in the image posted above, people are mostly excited about typesetting. This is something SM could certainly do. Typesetting articles is cool but it doesn't make it a scientific journal IMO.

[Edited on 5-6-2018 by clearly_not_atara]

Well some members post some extremely professional stuff there, such as Atx, with dozen references.

I've made striaght up posts with dozen references, Im sure SM members can add a few references. The standard could be raised of course, maybe the journal could also have a section (letters) dedicated to synthesis articles like these.

Eg.

A hierarchy can be set, such as for example:

"Article" - major/minor discoveries, demonstrations of complex/alternate/multi-step synthesis, demonstration of using computational modeling and theoretical calculations, demonstration of the potential of an uncommon compound, discovery of a significant alternative/cheaper synthesis route, etc.

"Reivews" - reviews can be published as reviews, maybe there could be a reference limit/suggestion, eg, best above 20.

"Short communication" or "letter" a synthesis of a common compound demonstration or with a minor tweak (using an easier to find or cheaper to find solvent or starting material).

If it goes well, maybe it'd even attract out-siders, such as college/grad level chemistry students. I know many professors I can suggest their students publish their minor works to here.

[Edited on 5-6-2018 by DubaiAmateurRocketry]

12thealchemist - 5-6-2018 at 02:25

I had this idea a few weeks ago, but felt my presence on this forum was too small to suggest something as big as this. I've hung around on this forum for many years, and I consider this community and forum utterly invaluable. I would absolutely love to get involved in this, and have a couple of ideas of my own. I'd be up for doing any electronic checking, but as a uni student trialling reactions could prove challenging away from my lab

On the anonymity front, how about having two or three people repeat the experiment, then publish with their names as the authors alongside the anonymous author? This would mean there was a Real Person attached to the paper, as well as the "discoverer" of the experiment/reaction.
On the front of scientific language and the like, I can't see it being difficult to create a pdf giving all the requirements for an article to be published. Sort of a "Please ensure your article meets these criteria before submitting. It just makes the editors' lives easier!"
Regarding reviews, it might be worthwhile publishing a regular review of a particular reaction, like the Grignard, covering all potential aspects as well as a "comprehensive" or as best as is reasonable, coverage of such reactions as conducted by SM members. It would then serve as a "font of all SM knowledge" on the matter.
The short communications sound like an excellent idea to circumvent the need to publish small discoveries that don't warrant a big article.
Categorisation could simply be done as different sections of the paper, or even not at all. From what I've seen of whole journals, there appears not to be any categorisation within a journal. However, journals tend to have a "theme" for want of a better description, which the SM Journal of Chemistry has as "amateur chemistry".
I understand that peer review tends to be blind in "real" journals, so why not copy that?
Just my thoughts on the matter

Texium - 5-6-2018 at 08:58

I thought of doing something similar a few months ago, the Sciencemadness Synthbook, which would be an annual publication of the collected synthetic procedures written by SM members along with the "classics" that nobody necessarily owns, but have become mainstays in amateur chemistry. It didn't really get off the ground, but after the first year, the job would become a lot easier with each successive edition.

I like the journal idea though, and might I suggest for the title:

JOURNAL OF INDEPENDENT CHEMISTRY

Presented by sciencemadness.org

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 5-6-2018 at 09:46

Quote: Originally posted by 12thealchemist

how about having two or three people repeat the experiment

I understand that peer review tends to be blind in "real" journals, so why not copy that?

We do not need to repeat the experiment. Many reasons:

first, actually no journals do that, the only places that have repeated any experiments are patent offices(even then probably not).

second, there are people that might own obscure compounds a very very limited number of other people here that own them, and if they do, they somehow have to also be on the peer review board and can afford to repeat the experiment.

As for confirmation of results, just take your sample to nearest university and beg for a HPLC result. So someone here with an access to HPLC could stand out to take samples and produce HPLC results of other SM members + a small fee.

the blind review is fine, it could be done or not done. It is a good idea.

Tsjerk - 5-6-2018 at 09:57

I never heard of blind reviews, the peer reviewer is anonymous. The publishing party can request exclusion of a certain reviewer beforehand though, it is up too the editor to honor this request or not, but it is good custom to honor. It is also up too the editor to determine whether requests made by the reviewer are reasonable or not to ask from the publisher to comply too.

At least that is how it is done in regular scientific journals.

[Edited on 5-6-2018 by Tsjerk]

Open source Journal's

symboom - 5-6-2018 at 10:02

A sciencemadness journal or we could publish in one of these Journals

Arkivoc

Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry

Chemical Science

Journal of the American Chemical Society

Molecules

Organic Syntheses

Open Chemistry

Or add a new one
Sciencemadness journal

[Edited on 6-6-2018 by symboom]

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 5-6-2018 at 20:43

Quote: Originally posted by symboom

A sciencemadness journal to publish in one of these Journals...

What do you mean

BaFuxa - 6-6-2018 at 00:31

Most research papers I read appear specialized in a way ( Journal of Catalysis, Journal of Electrochemistry etc). It can also remain in the style of the forum, like a medley with a focus on interesting synthesis/ topics. I find myself browsing the site for stuff that dates back years and that is absent from the current pages so a journal could be a good way of archiving the gems as well as publishing them.

Fulmen - 6-6-2018 at 01:33

I really don't see the point. The value of peer review depends on the credibility of the journal (and peers), a SM journal would have none.

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 6-6-2018 at 02:09

I really don't see the point. The value of peer review depends on the credibility of the journal (and peers), a SM journal would have none.

Hey, at least it'd have credibility to other SM members

Honestly, some decent articles that exists on prepub would be easily picked up and cited by actual researchers if the writing was done a little better and was on a journal.

Ubya - 6-6-2018 at 02:10

I really don't see the point. The value of peer review depends on the credibility of the journal (and peers), a SM journal would have none.

i know what you mean, we are all amateurs, a few of us are professionals sure but the majority are normal people with this hobby, we don't have any real power or recognition in any academic or professional society, BUT, every time i search anything chemistry related on the web SM is in the results. many people read this forum even if they are not active as a registered member. so we gained "power and recognition" from every random guy who read this forum in the last 15 years, INTERNET POWER C:

VSEPR_VOID - 6-6-2018 at 02:31

I like this idea. What about advertisements? Included in a few pages could be bits about SM members YouTube channels or Ebay stores.

Hegi - 6-6-2018 at 02:45

I really love this idea. If somebody is going to do it for real I am totally in, just contact me through U2U. As I am a master of inorganic chemistry I can do peer reviewing of articles from this field.

Also the title ZTS16 suggested sounds good to me.

P.S.: It is not typical to repeat synthesis so there is no need to for us as well.

12thealchemist - 6-6-2018 at 05:16

Quote: Originally posted by DubaiAmateurRocketry

Honestly, some decent articles that exists on prepub would be easily picked up and cited by actual researchers if the writing was done a little better and was on a journal.

I can confirm this; when I was discussing this forum with a post-doc friend of mine who is a "post doctoral research associate" mentioned that he has used procedures posted on here from time to time. It's unlikely he'll be the only one, and if a journal was created, that could enable citation of the work done here and raise the forum's profile still further.

Texium - 6-6-2018 at 06:49

If there aren't any objections, I would be happy to volunteer myself as chief editor for the journal, which I would intend to call the Journal of Independent Chemistry. Although I am only a student, I have read many academic journal articles, and I am very particular about styling and formatting. I would ensure that any article or letter accepted for publication meet criteria as rigorous as any legitimate journal, as far as the technical details go.

Fulmen - 6-6-2018 at 09:45

In many ways a forum works like an interactive peer review, although some threads can kick up a lot of noise. A simple system for weeding out stray comments, OT chitchat and stupid questions would suffice IMHO. Perhaps a moderated forum where posts must be approved before they become visible?

Texium - 6-6-2018 at 10:29

In many ways a forum works like an interactive peer review, although some threads can kick up a lot of noise. A simple system for weeding out stray comments, OT chitchat and stupid questions would suffice IMHO. Perhaps a moderated forum where posts must be approved before they become visible?

From a moderator's perspective that sounds like even more work for us, and it puts the onus of deciding what is useful feedback on the moderators rather than having a few knowledgeable, trustworthy members volunteer to review articles in particular areas. Besides, having our procedures typed up in the style of an academic journal rather than remaining in forum threads will look a lot more professional, and may encourage people to bring their threads out of Prepublication and the other subfora.

clearly_not_atara - 6-6-2018 at 11:24

After some reconsideration, while I'm not sure that we're going to achieve the typical academic standard, I'm interested in supporting this project. I think that at the very least we could:

* standardize typesetting of the papers to make them more readable

* organize them somehow so that they can be cited

* (hopefully) include some proper abstracts, bibliographies and comparisons to other work (boring, but useful)

If Texium is okay with it, I would be happy to serve on the editorial board. Nonetheless, I prefer to remain pseudonymous at this time.

Nah, it's better to request comments from reviewers, because it makes it much easier to have the short back-and-forth that usually leads to revisions and improvements in the manuscript before it's published. Most submissions to the journals of the company that my employer contracts with will be sent to one or two rounds of revision based on reviewer comments, which the reviewers then re-evaluate, etc.

[Edited on 6-6-2018 by clearly_not_atara]

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 6-6-2018 at 11:37

While your journal example is nice and flashy looking, it doesn't really do anything except reformat the thread into something journal-shaped. The language used, the imperative tone, the lack of properly cited references (a URL alone does not cut it), and the use of pictures delegitimize it.

oh of course, I think for our jounral, the use of pictures would be fine, publishing them as supplementary data might be a solution for "pictures that would have make the article less legit". But even as supplementary data we dont want it to look too amateur, we could ask submissions to take pictures in a clean background, as in not a home as the background.

Also, the article which I made an example typeset of, was a straight copy-paste of one of the articles currently in pre-publication. When members/others submit, the journal will for sure ask them to provide a better quality writing/references/etc.

If there aren't any objections, I would be happy to volunteer myself as chief editor for the journal, which I would intend to call the Journal of Independent Chemistry. Although I am only a student, I have read many academic journal articles, and I am very particular about styling and formatting. I would ensure that any article or letter accepted for publication meet criteria as rigorous as any legitimate journal, as far as the technical details go.

I could volunteer as one of the reviewers as I have read many and published a few in the past. I can review topics that include materials that are hazardous, combustible, rocketry-related, propulsion-related, and energetic materials. While I am also a expert in GABA receptors-related neuroscience, I dont think thats relevant here.

Some of my past publications:

2014 Dissolving Lithium Perchlorate in Prepolymers for Easier and Cheaper Propellant Manufacture; 3(1): 1-5
doi:10.5923/j.aerospace.20140301.01

2018 Valium without dependence? Individual GABAA receptor subtype contribution toward benzodiazepine addiction, tolerance, and therapeutic effects Volume 2018:14 Pages 1351—1361
doi:10.2147/NDT.S164307 (PubMed Index In progress)

More currently in pre-press.

[Edited on 6-6-2018 by DubaiAmateurRocketry]

clearly_not_atara - 6-6-2018 at 11:54

I don't think I like the Journal of Independent Chemistry title, because while the adjective "independent" is a sonorous euphemism for "amateur", it is still obviously a euphemism for "amateur". Instead, I think the title should elide any description of the researchers and focus on the research. Some ideas:

Journal of Parsimonious Chemical Procedures
Acta Chemica Parca (Latin, means "Journal of Cheap Chemistry")
Quotidian Methods in Chemistry
Tetrahedron Letters

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by clearly_not_atara]

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 6-6-2018 at 12:09

I dont think everyone will agree on a "journal name" The better ones I have heard are

- J Indep Chem
- Acta Chem Parce

from zts, atara respectively, again I think something simple with ScienceMadness in the title will also sound good,since its a journal of the forum itself.

eg:
J SM Chem.

j_sum1 - 6-6-2018 at 15:26

I like Texium's tagline below the title: "Presented by sciencemadness.org". I think that works well.

Of the suggestions made so far, I like Acta Chemica Parce. I think that is a nifty way pf pitching to high standards, low cost, amateur but not inferior.

If this goes ahead, I will definitely read it. I don't spend enough time in prepub -- I sometimes forget that it is there. I think that taking the best of prepub and presenting it properly in a periodical will be a great step forward. I'm not going to be much of a contributor though.

clearly_not_atara - 6-6-2018 at 16:34

Haha, I hadn't thought people would prefer the Latin name.
I got the attention of someone who knows more Latin than I do, and I need to correct a vowel: it should be Acta Chemica Parca, not Parce, because parcus is using an adjective declension rather than an adverb. See:

https://www.reddit.com/r/latin/comments/8p5luy/another_trans...

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by clearly_not_atara]

Texium - 6-6-2018 at 19:16

Haha, I hadn't thought people would prefer the Latin name.
I got the attention of someone who knows more Latin than I do, and I need to correct a vowel: it should be Acta Chemica Parca, not Parce, because parcus is using an adjective declension rather than an adverb. See:

https://www.reddit.com/r/latin/comments/8p5luy/another_trans...

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by clearly_not_atara]

Ita vero! I actually took four years of Latin in high school.

Not sure how I feel about that title. I like the tongue-in-cheek nature of it, but I think I'd prefer Acta Chemica Libera, which is equally catchy and would be a more literal translation of Journal of Independent Chemistry.

Also LOL at your mention of Tetrahedron Letters

[Edited on 6-7-2018 by Texium (zts16)]

Tsjerk - 6-6-2018 at 22:22

I like "Journal of Chemical Procedures", as that is what it would be, and I wouldn't be ashamed to cite a Journal named like that (as long as the procedures are qualitative, which I'm sure they will be).

A bit like this, people use this website to cite in their papers al the time; Bio-protocols

I don't like the Latin name, just because I don't know any Latin... The language of the journal will be English, so I think an English name would fit.

A citation to Bio-protocols would look like this;
Bach, J. N. and Bramkamp, M. (2014). Isolation of the Secretome from Bacillus subtilis. Bio-protocol 4(2): e1026. DOI: 10.21769/BioProtoc.1026.

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by Tsjerk]

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by Tsjerk]

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 6-6-2018 at 23:37

Hmm.. what if we start getting actual researchers to submit? hehe. I know entire departments of students who want to publish things (their college thesis on chemistry, etc.) thats somewhere that just lies under the quality of journals. so yah, I am really not afraid of not enough submissions.

Secondl, they sounds like a good name too, again, there's many good names that has been proposed.

Acta Chemi Libera
J Chem Procedures
J Indep Chem

I do agree that the name of the journal should not be something anyone would be ashamed to cite.

Hegi - 6-6-2018 at 23:45

It seems that the choice of the title will be hard one. I suggest to make a list and then vote.

j_sum1 - 7-6-2018 at 00:25

Quote: Originally posted by Hegi

It seems that the choice of the title will be hard one. I suggest to make a list and then vote.

Great idea. Let's see if there are a couple more suggestions before doing that.

Are we growing a consensus of how this thing will work?. Then we can organise the W's - who will do what by when.

nitro-genes - 7-6-2018 at 01:19

Great idea, though how many sciencemadness publications would be truly undescribed, unpublished and novel syntheses?

(Ducks for cover...)

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by nitro-genes]

HeYBrO - 7-6-2018 at 02:49

Quote: Originally posted by nitro-genes

Great idea, though how many sciencemadness publications would be truly undescribed, unpublished and novel syntheses?

(Ducks for cover...)

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by nitro-genes]

Thanks for saying that.- I am not sure the point of a journal that "publishes" stuff that is essentially just someone else's work.

And I use the quotation marks because what is the difference really between having it published as it is on the SM board and putting the work in a nice format and into a PDF that is still on the sciencemadness board- surely it is just a superficial difference? its the same information just in a document? what is the point?

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by HeYBrO]

12thealchemist - 7-6-2018 at 03:12

Quote: Originally posted by HeYBrO

Quote: Originally posted by nitro-genes

Great idea, though how many sciencemadness publications would be truly undescribed, unpublished and novel syntheses?

(Ducks for cover...)

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by nitro-genes]

The point is condensation of the information into a consistent format that can be cited or referred to with greater ease than the threads on this forum. Certainly in prepublications the material is fairly well organised, but there is a lot of "publishable" material scattered throughout the forum which would be worth pulling together. (For example the potassium sticky thread. Loads of material and information, but scattered throughout and difficult to quickly learn more than just what to do). Very occasionally, yes, there will be brand-new stuff discovered by SM members, and yes, most of it will be published before. I feel it is very worthwhile concentrating the information.
The other thing is that it may well encourage more of the Practical Chemistry that aga and co. are so keen to see more of on here, as well as potential collaborations.

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by 12thealchemist]

VSEPR_VOID - 7-6-2018 at 03:19

It would be best if we used a google document to edit and format everything. Then multiple users could work on it as the same time. I did something similar with my List of Chemical Substances Prepared by SM Users

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AoI2VA5L4bmFw2HwXS2OVYTV...

HeYBrO - 7-6-2018 at 03:26

Quote: Originally posted by 12thealchemist

Quote: Originally posted by HeYBrO

Quote: Originally posted by nitro-genes

Great idea, though how many sciencemadness publications would be truly undescribed, unpublished and novel syntheses?

(Ducks for cover...)

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by nitro-genes]

The point is condensation of the information into a consistent format that can be cited or referred to with greater ease than the threads on this forum. Certainly in prepublications the material is fairly well organised, but there is a lot of "publishable" material scattered throughout the forum which would be worth pulling together. Very occasionally, yes, there will be brand-new stuff discovered by SM members, and yes, most of it will be published before. I feel it is very worthwhile concentrating the information.
The other thing is that it may well encourage more of the Practical Chemistry that aga and co. are so keen to see more of on here, as well as potential collaborations.

People have been citing other threads for 15 years on this forum though and it works perfectly fine IMO... As for potential collaborations what are you referring to? Academics from institutions with us?? they wouldn't want it published here, they would want it published in a reputable journal. If you want to condense informations you should look at the Topical Compendium, Mk. II thread (there are a few attempts at these sort of things IIRC)

EDIT: texium made one in the wiki http://www.sciencemadness.org/smwiki/index.php/Topical_Compe...

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by HeYBrO]

j_sum1 - 7-6-2018 at 04:14

Is this an attempt to solve a problem that does not actually exist?

Tsjerk - 7-6-2018 at 04:19

I wouldn't publish my PhD work in this journal, but I have done a lot of work during master/bachelor thesis that will never be published anywhere. This journal would be nice to give people the chance to publish otherwise unpublishable work. Also this journal would be free, compared to normal journals which range from 1500 too 5000 euro to publish.

My personal bachelor/master work wouldn't be interesting for this journal as it was cellular biology stuff.

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by Tsjerk]

Texium - 7-6-2018 at 08:33

Quote: Originally posted by VSEPR_VOID

It would be best if we used a google document to edit and format everything. Then multiple users could work on it as the same time. I did something similar with my List of Chemical Substances Prepared by SM Users

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AoI2VA5L4bmFw2HwXS2OVYTV...

No, it wouldn't be: GoogleDocs has terrible formatting and nowhere near as many options as MS word. It does not handle anything more complex than a simple essay very well at all. The collaborative aspect is about the only thing it has going for it.

Also, please don't jump into the discussion just to plug your own project, I see what you're doing here...

clearly_not_atara - 7-6-2018 at 08:42

^strongly agree. I recommend people check out TexStudio or another LaTeX editor. LaTeX is a bit daunting, but it makes the best-looking papers.

I can get behind Acta Chemica Libera. I don't like a title that implies "amateur chemistry" for two reasons: first, it makes the journal look subpar in a citation list, and second, it discourages submissions from people who work in a lab, and we already have some people in this thread saying they would submit otherwise-unpublishable work from their master's program and such.

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by clearly_not_atara]

Tsjerk - 7-6-2018 at 10:08

Until now I think this whole thing is a great idea. I think the only thing that could backfire on us would be any reason not to cite/submit to this journal, for any type of submitter/citer. Of course people with money and resources to publish in renowned journals wont't publish here, but that is not our target audience (publishing wise that is). If people start to publish, people citing will follow.

I think there is quite a group of chemists working in actual labs who know us by heart, but who will never cite us because there is no way to do so, and no reason to.

It takes years and years to become renowned, but for now I think we should aim for ''not being looked away from''. I think we are popular, we should just make it easier for them; that is how you sell stuff.

Hegi - 7-6-2018 at 10:44

Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk

Until now I think this whole thing is a great idea. I think the only thing that could backfire on us would be any reason not to cite/submit to this journal, for any type of submitter/citer. Of course people with money and resources to publish in renowned journals wont't publish here, but that is not our target audience (publishing wise that is). If people start to publish, people citing will follow.

I think there is quite a group of chemists working in actual labs who know us by heart, but who will never cite us because there is no way to do so, and no reason to.

It takes years and years to become renowned, but for now I think we should aim for ''not being looked away from''. I think we are popular, we should just make it easier for them; that is how you sell stuff.

Definitely agree with this opinion. Our target audience and authors are amateur chemists mostly. It will be great for amateur chemists to get free articles about syntheses that can be easily performed at home. And of course, if published periodically... the articles and syntheses will be categorized by volumes of articles... NO MESS.

Texium - 7-6-2018 at 10:55

Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk

Yes, this is exactly why I think we should start it. And while it takes years to become renowned, you'll never become renowned if you never start. It's like the saying about planting a tree- the best time to do it is 20 years ago, but the second best time is today.

I have also met quite a few people who work in labs at my university who know of this forum and have used it before without creating an account. Putting our research in a format that allows it to be cited academically would be an excellent way to improve our status and reputation.

There are still other things that need to be discussed. How will we make the journal available? I envision that issues could be posted in the References subforum, so that it is free for trusted forum members to download, but hosted on another site on a pay-per-article basis like other journals, so that the authors and reviewers could have the opportunity to be rewarded for their work. I doubt that people would create accounts just to try and get into the References section, and even if they do, well, I wouldn't say that snagging some new members who might decide to contribute would be a bad thing. I realize that this may seem ironic considering how many of us use SciHub to avoid paying for articles...

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 7-6-2018 at 11:15

Quote: Originally posted by HeYBrO

they wouldn't want it published here, they would want it published in a reputable journal.
[Edited on 7-6-2018 by HeYBrO]

Hmmm, I stopped my submission to Frontiers in Chem | Inorg Chem for this

Although, im not completely institution affiliated currently.

Vosoryx - 7-6-2018 at 11:17

Love this idea, and "Acta Chemica Libera" certainly has my vote.

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 7-6-2018 at 11:33

I envision that issues could be posted in the References subforum, so that it is free for trusted forum members to download, but hosted on another site on a pay-per-article basis like other journals, so that the authors and reviewers could have the opportunity to be rewarded for their work.

Hmm.. Pay per article.. How many of them are really going to buy our articles~ I could pay for the maintenance cost if thats what we're trying to cover.

[Edited on 7-6-2018 by DubaiAmateurRocketry]

Texium - 7-6-2018 at 12:40

Maintenance costs would only possibly be an issue if we DID decide to have pay-per-article for outsiders. If we make it available for free for everyone on sciencemadness.org, maintenance costs would be $0.

The question is, would it be considered a journal if it was just another part of this site, like a more professionally formatted and peer-reviewed version of the Member Publications section, or should we actually work to set it up as a "real" journal?

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 7-6-2018 at 12:50

It would work bothways, however If its a section of the forum, it'd be best if its find-able on scholar search engines.

clearly_not_atara - 7-6-2018 at 13:36

Here's what I propose:

* Reading articles is free for non-members, but we use the elementary OS model. Anyone who downloads a paper is asked to name their own price, but they can enter zero dollars if they want. We should suggest $1, or $2 if payment fees make $1 impractical.

* Submitting articles is free with no requirements to Sciencemadness members who either
*- were a member on or before 2018-June-6
*- have been a member for 2 years and contributed at least 100 posts in each year, or otherwise have contributed 100 posts in each of two years, not necessarily consecutively

* For other submissions, authors must agree to complete (by filling in blanks) and sign a "review commitment letter" declaring that they will help peer-review a future submission to the journal, if their submission is accepted. For submissions with multiple authors, we ask for two authors to agree to review a future submission. Usually each submission will have two reviewers, so we should break even.
This makes it easier for us to maintain, preventing us from becoming overwhelmed with review work. Peer review requires someone to actually do it after all. If people don't keep their promises, we can blacklist them I guess.

DubaiAmateurRocketry - 7-6-2018 at 14:23

replying to above:

2 reviewers seems okay but it should be an odd number, of 1 says yes, and another says no, the publishing a paper, is it yes or no? this question can be answered if we had 3 reviewers. (eg: 2yes 1no=publish green light)

Secondly, optional payment seems like a great idea.

third, i don't think people who submit should be committed to review in the future, i can almost promise you that there will be non SM members who will submit.

Texium - 7-6-2018 at 14:35

* Submitting articles is free with no requirements to Sciencemadness members who either
*- were a member on or before 2018-June-6
*- have been a member for 2 years and contributed at least 100 posts in each year, or otherwise have contributed 100 posts in each of two years, not necessarily consecutively

I think any Sciencemadness member should be able to submit articles/letters for free, regardless of how many posts they have. If a submitted article is utter crap, the reviewers can deny it without wasting much time on it. Post count doesn't mean a whole lot, and we always try to avoid things that might encourage post-whoring.

* For other submissions, authors must agree to complete (by filling in blanks) and sign a "review commitment letter" declaring that they will help peer-review a future submission to the journal, if their submission is accepted. For submissions with multiple authors, we ask for two authors to agree to review a future submission. Usually each submission will have two reviewers, so we should break even.
This makes it easier for us to maintain, preventing us from becoming overwhelmed with review work. Peer review requires someone to actually do it after all. If people don't keep their promises, we can blacklist them I guess.

I'm not sure about requiring authors to review other works. I was picturing that some members would volunteer to regularly review submissions in their particular area of expertise (eg: organic, inorganic, EM). You can't guarantee that the reviewers available at any given time are knowledgable about the subject of the article needing review. For instance, I would not be of much help in reviewing an EM article (wtf is "brisance" anyway?). I agree with DAR that 3 reviewers is better than 2 for breaking ties, as well as just being more thorough. My suggestion would be somewhat of a hybrid system, though, where each new article is reviewed by two regular volunteers and one previous author who doesn't review regularly.

Another requirement that I think we should have is that the articles are published under real names. I understand that some people want to avoid revealing their real identities, and that's all well and good. Feel free to use a pen name, but if you want to publish, you should declare a first and last name that you will publish under, because if anyone is going to cite your article, a username will not cut it.

[Edited on 6-7-2018 by Texium (zts16)]

Tsjerk - 8-6-2018 at 09:15

I'm totally in favor of the voluntary payments, but I think Texium has a point on the post-whoring thing when you require a certain number of posts. I think submitting and reading should be free for anyone, the editor has a first look on it and decides whether to send it to peer-reviewers or not, and to which peer-reviewers. When there is 1 go and 1 no-go from the reviewers it is up to the editor whether to publish the article or not. I don't think it will happen often though that one reviewer says absolutely not, and the other says yes without further tests/experiments to be done, but still, if so it is up to the editor(yes, editors have a lot of power! more than reviewers have. It is not a democracy, and it shouldn't be one).

I think a separate URL for the journal would be appropriate. I guess a second website could be run on the same server SM is running on now? It could be a simple website based on a free template pulled from the web somewhere (it is not too hard to make a nice looking site from a free template). I think there should be two parts; one part for reading/downloading articles, and one with a form for submitters. Here submitters can fill out details about why it should be published and if they e.g. prefer certain reviewers, or if they want to exclude reviewers (this list would be aiming on getting information which would make the editors' life easier).

i'm starting to think now; if the word gets out that there is a decent, free, peer-reviewed, citable journal where anyone can publish..... multiple editors wouldn't be a luxury.

Edit: I don't think forcing people to review by including it in the requirements to publish is going to benefit the quality of the journal, better to have some people doing multiple reviews. I think that if the point comes that the number of articles to review exceeds the free hours of the people here, there are a lot of PhD students out there that would love to review some stuff, just for the sake of experience and/or to write on their CV. Edit2: I think a sort of a "bond" between editor and reviewer is beneficial for the quality and stability of the journal, as their would be a mutual understanding of the criteria for the journal, I think having a lot of 1/2/3 time reviewing people would make communication between editor and reviewers difficult, and reviewing inconsistent.

Edit3: if there is really a big dispute on whether or not to publish between two reviewers the editor can choose to have a third person review it. (only the editor knows who is reviewing, the reviewers never have contact with each other, it is sort of an unspoken rule that whatever you are reviewing stays secret, and you are not allowed to tell anyone what you reviewed or what you opinion is, until the article is published. If the article is never published you are not to talk about what you know from reviewing).

off topic but for shit and giggles; https://www.improbable.com/
These guys actually gave a Ig Nobel prize to a future Nobel prize winner. Something with a levitating frog and graphene. I know some guys with a fully written article on coffee taste compared against optical density with the nationality of the coffee maker as a parameter for the standard deviation (yes, the Germans score best on smallest SD). Improbable asks 1500 euro to publish though, making it too expensive for shit and giggles.

Quote:

Another requirement that I think we should have is that the articles are published under real names. I understand that some people want to avoid revealing their real identities, and that's all well and good. Feel free to use a pen name, but if you want to publish, you should declare a first and last name that you will publish under, because if anyone is going to cite your article, a username will not cut it.

Yes

[Edited on 8-6-2018 by Tsjerk]

[Edited on 8-6-2018 by Tsjerk]

Vosoryx - 8-6-2018 at 10:19

I'm actually not in favour of the using real names... I know that it will take away our legitimacy, but I wouldn't be comfortable posting under my real name. I'm not exactly hard to find (My username is based on my full name FFS. My YouTube channel contains my first name.) but I don't really want to make it THAT easy. One of the really nice things about this forum is that everyone remains under the cover of pseudo-anonymity. I'm not super comfortable with the idea of publishing experiments that are directly connected to my name, and I doubt i'm the only one.
On the subject of a pen name, what's the difference between "John Smith" and "Vosoryx", really? They're both fakes, but one of them has a discernible connection to my own online personality that can be easily traced back to me, and the other might as well be nothing because it's meaningless, and poses no actual connection to myself.
All this being said, I'm not really sure this applies to me, being that I don't have the knowledge to ever publish in anything other than YouTube.

clearly_not_atara - 8-6-2018 at 10:31

Pen names mean that you've at least put forth the effort to sound real. It's a style thing, really not much different from typesetting, except it's a name. You could still be "John Vosoryx" if you want, which would be cited as "J Vosoryx". I won't be using my legal name, but I'll find a convincing enough pseudonym.

Quote:

I don't think forcing people to review by including it in the requirements to publish is going to benefit the quality of the journal, better to have some people doing multiple reviews. I think that if the point comes that the number of articles to review exceeds the free hours of the people here, there are a lot of PhD students out there that would love to review some stuff, just for the sake of experience and/or to write on their CV.

I understand the sentiment, but I have actually invited people to peer review articles, and you have not. We have a roughly 85% decline rate on review requests and that's for a journal which has an impact factor, offers (nominal) compensation, and credits reviewers. In any case, it won't be necessary for probably a few years after the journal starts, so I'm fine to shelve the discussion for now and revisit it when it matters.

Tsjerk - 8-6-2018 at 10:44

Quote: Originally posted by Vosoryx

I'm actually not in favour of the using real names... I know that it will take away our legitimacy, but I wouldn't be comfortable posting under my real name.

This SM journal stands or falls with the use of real names. The journal stands or falls with it being cited or not; I cannot cite a pen-name. period

Edit; something went wrong with my browser, sorry.

I don't think it is reasonable to allow people to be able to publish anonymously, that is not how science works; what you publish will have an impact on the world, not completely predictable at the moment of publication. You should be accountable for your publications at all times.

[Edited on 8-6-2018 by Tsjerk]

Hegi - 8-6-2018 at 11:11

Quote: Originally posted by Vosoryx

I'm actually not in favour of the using real names...

Disagree. IT is a must have to provide real names. Why would you hide yorself? What is the problem?

3 reviewers is a good number. At least two must be for publishing of the article.

Pay for articles NO. Voluntary contributions YES

Format - PDF file available online on a webpage of journal (cheap shit today), texts formatted in LaTex. What do you think? Cover page, table of contents followed by articles.

Eddygp - 8-6-2018 at 15:21

Quote: Originally posted by Tsjerk

Fully agree. If someone is against using real names, post it more casually in prepub or elsewhere. The journal should work properly.

1) No vote count for submission. Not necessary. Just check the science with (PROPER) peer reviewing.
2) Choosing people to peer review should not be done at random. People with sufficient knowledge should be contacted and it should not be taken lightly as it is one of the main points we have to get right for this idea to work.
3) It should be created and/or published as a "proper" journal, as "properly" as possible. Obviously only a couple issues a year at most (unless there is particularly good science going on!). However, it should remain free of charge to publish and access.
4) Any kickstarting developments required, or similar stuff, could be funded through a joint Patreon campaign? I can't imagine there being zero costs if we are to do this properly. It should not be expensive either, though.

VSEPR_VOID - 8-6-2018 at 15:34