Talk:Open-notebook science

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When this article was first created I was ready to put it up for speedy deletion on the grounds of insufficiency of context, but I decided to wait. Now I've been waiting several days, and not one of the contributors has seen fit to perform the simple act of explaining in the introduction what this article is about. I still have no idea from the article what Open Notebook Science is. I'm on the verge of putting the article up for deletion.—Largo Plazo (talk) 11:45, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

Wikipedia guidelines are, so far as I'm aware, that an early-stage article should not be considered for deletion until 7-10 days have gone by without a significant edit. It's been 3 days since this article was created, so speedy deletion is certainly premature. Michael Nielsen (talk) 16:05, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

There is no such absolute guideline, and I don't think it's imposing a hardship to expect that someone who has had a few spare moments in his schedule to create an article might in the course of those few spare moments find it within him to indicate up front what the heck the topic is. I mean, why wouldn't he? What is the point of creating the article if the author doesn't have the wherewithal to provide just that small but crucial piece of information? Is it intended to be a big surprise waiting to be unveiled? I don't think my request is an imposition. For example, if the article on spherical trigonometry didn't already exist and I wanted to create one, it wouldn't occur to me to write "Spherical trigonometry is ..." and leave it there as though I didn't have 20 more seconds to write "Spherical trigonometry is the branch of mathematics dealing with measurement of and relationships between distance and angles on the surface of a sphere," even if I planned to wait till later to expand the article beyond that. —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

I didn't say it was an absolute guideline. Quoting from [1] - "Wikipedia is a volunteer service, and editors have made and will always continue to make their contributions around their busy schedules that may include long work hours, academic studies, family obligations, travel, and more. Amounts of free time to edit vary for each individual, and such time constraints shall be respected.... Generally, when an article is labeled "under construction," it shall be considered to be under construction as long as not more than one week (seven days) passes without a significant addition being made to the page." Michael Nielsen (talk) 16:28, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

None of which addresses the legitimacy of my objection, and your preference for arguing a legal point with me instead of doing the obvious thing, which is to make the article say what it's about (as though that would take more time than you've spent on subsidiary fine details in the article and on writing to me), increases my suspicion that the article isn't about anything genuine and is deserving of burial. —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

We have experts in our group who could write an introduction but we have been worried that that may appear self serving and wanted the article to be created exclusively in a crowd-sorcing type manner. Would you mind if the intro was written by an expert in the field rather than someone who is let's say more objective? Romney (talk • contribs) 17:23, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

I understand what you mean. This isn't the same thing as someone who founded a company or other organization posting information about his own operation. There is no reason why experts can't write an article, and in fact I think that's ideal. There's no policy preventing you from writing what you already know. The important thing is that it all be verifiable from neutral third-party sources. I do understand that it can be tedious to identify arms-length resources to cite for material you're able to write out of your own head. But that's the nature of the beast. You don't need to get too detailed about that. Just have general citations ("External links") that will vouch for the general existence of the topic, and specific inline references for details, especially anything that may be subject to doubt. All that aside, any expert should be able to write an unbiased lead sentence that says what the topic is, in the manner I used for my spherical trig example, above. Just don't say, "... is the great new way to ..." or anything like that.—Largo Plazo (talk) 17:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

I added a section for Partial/Pseudo Open Notebooks and moved Vinod's entry there because it requires password access. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcbradley (talk • contribs) 14:32, 26 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

I don't think the " Journal of Visualized Experiments" is peer-reviewed as stated in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.61.148.57 (talk) 21:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

I've reworked the introduction somewhat to focus the article up. Will need more work on the history - particularly the role of the OSS movement in inspiring the idea and also pinning down the details of who did what when. If the point of the article is to make sure the definition of the term is defended then it will be worth explaining in detail why the term was thought necessary in the first place. It will also need referencing up and I don't have those to hand at the moment. But obvious references are the Wired article, RSC article, recent piece in Nature, and some of the other general media pieces, plus online various pieces, the MSNBC one being the most recent.

I would also suggest changing the section headings to 'Arguments in favour of ONS' and 'Arguments against' - probably dividing up the latter into social and technical issues. 'Benefits of' and 'Arguments against' strikes me as looking biased. We should make sure that the arguments against are presented in a balanced way. Should aim to get some of the critics into help with that bit. Cameronneylon (talk) 21:19, 7 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

While the examples are very useful, this list is very far from comprehensive, nor is it particularly current. I am not sure what language should be added to indicate such a disclaimer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.120.117.21 (talk) 03:16, 29 September 2012 (UTC)Reply

Added three major headings that I think capture most objections. Need some references. Obvious places to go are Jenny Rohn's Mind the Gap, Chad Orzel's recent post on electronic notebooks, possibly PhysioProf if it is possible to find something PG rated. Also there are some criticisms and issues raised in PMR's Nature piece from earlier in the year and concerns raised certainly in the SciAm and Wired articles. Cameronneylon (talk) 20:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

Ok - based on Michael's information which matches what I though Garrett said I think we start to construct a timeline based on documentary evidence.

• July 29 2005 First pages on UsefulChem Blog J-C, not sure I've found the first clear articulation of the project yet
• December 8 2005 UsefulChem Wiki started - http://usefulchem.blogspot.com/2005/12/usefulchem-wiki.html
• Feb 27 2006 First scientific content in Garrett's notebook
• September 26 2006 Coining of term Open Notebook Science - http://drexel-coas-elearning.blogspot.com/2006/09/open-notebook-science.html

Dates to find: Jeremiah Faith's first lab book and blog entries Cameron Neylon 08:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have a date for when Garret started his notebook? Its not immediately obvious from the site itself, I am guessing early 2007? Cameronneylon (talk) 11:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

February 27, 2006, is the date of the earliest entries. Michael Nielsen (talk) 16:43, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

Michael - can you give us a link to that page? Actually is there a link to the page in a tiddlywiki? I guess there isn't? Title of the relevant page if not? Cameronneylon (talk) 20:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

Just click on the "Latest" tab in the left-hand pane. It just gives you a reverse chronological listing of pages, with dates attached. A bundle of housekeeping pages were created in early February 2006, but the first scientific content dates from Feb 27 2006. I recall Garrett mentioning this at some point, and if I recall correctly he pegged the starting at February 2006, as well.

Concerning the listing of participants it is a little confusing the way it is set up now. The article explains how ONS gives access to work in progress but I think Michael Barton is no longer keeping an active notebook. Should we have a section for Current and another for Inactive or Archived Open Notebooks? I am open to suggestions about listing Partially Open Notebooks: unless we define things carefully, every paper with a Supplementary section is a kind of PONS. Maybe show a few examples on OWW of people recording things they don't normally make open (general protocols, inventories, meeting minutes, etc.) but still not having ONS where you can tell exactly what they did in the lab yesterday.

Besides that, I think we have the main pieces in place - what else is missing to remove the warning of major update? Jcbradley (talk) 16:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC) After it goes a few days without being updated, we can go ahead and remove the tag. Preceding comment added by Romney (talk • contribs) 18:30, 10 October 2008 (UTC) Time to remove it then? Seems to me that while there still needs some additional references we have the beginning of a reasonable article here. Will need more work as we go but its a good start? Cameron Neylon (talk) 07:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

I've removed the 'under construction' template Cameron Neylon (talk) 09:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC)Reply

I've started to fill out the PONS section. The examples of OWW that I've seen fit into this category. If I've missed something let me know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jcbradley (talk • contribs) 15:40, 26 November 2008 (UTC)Reply

Skoch3 (talk) 05:49, 6 February 2009 (UTC): I just posted a comment in a friendfeed thread, where I question the use of the phrase "logical extreme of transparent.." I think that should be revised / not sure how.Reply

I was unable to track down the source blog for Mike Lawrence's open notebook science. The ref referenced thinkingaboutthinking dot org, but I can't find anywhere in archive.org that that was an active notebook science blog. There is a blog of the same name at http://gureckislab.org/blog/ but I don't see Mike Lawrence as a poster and I don't see many notebook science postings there either. Rakerman (talk) 12:44, 14 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

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http://usefulchem.wikispaces.com says that wikispaces is going off line: As stated in our communication in January 2018 and subsequent site banners; as of July 31st, 2018 all Free and Classroom Wikis were disabled and are no longer accessible. Somebody might go through all the wikispaces links in this article to see if the material might have been rehosted on some other site. If not, some of these might be marked as dead links or removed. More background can be seen in our article on Wikispaces. EdJohnston (talk) 03:29, 28 September 2018 (UTC)Reply