Kudos to Jane's. It's not only good that they asked for comments, and are taking note of what they received, but also that they're offering to reward those whose contributions are being published. Has anyone published an article in this way before? It's the first of its kind that I've encountered. I wonder what threshold Johan J Ingles-le Nobel had his preferences set to, or whether the comments were summarised for him.
Several points about the method come to mind. Firstly, how are they intending to honour payment to people who made particular points or comments, when their points may be rephrased (and hence made unrecognisable, even if the point is still understandable) for editorial reasons, or when several people may have made the same point?
Hmm, I remember articles a while back about how to properly distribute books, essays and monologues electronically, and still receive payment for them. It's a shame this method can't be used more frequently - it relies too much on simple honesty.
Can an article still have coherency, and a clear point, when the person collating all the points may not have as much expertise in the subject area as those that submitted the information? It's not easy to create a coherent article if the subject isn't your own, even if you have a series of excellent references. I'm not knocking the people at Jane's, I just see it as a difficult task to form the mass of/. comments into a single article that would fit in magazine format.
Group Authoring (Score:4)
Kudos to Jane's. It's not only good that they asked for comments, and are taking note of what they received, but also that they're offering to reward those whose contributions are being published. Has anyone published an article in this way before? It's the first of its kind that I've encountered. I wonder what threshold Johan J Ingles-le Nobel had his preferences set to, or whether the comments were summarised for him.
Several points about the method come to mind. Firstly, how are they intending to honour payment to people who made particular points or comments, when their points may be rephrased (and hence made unrecognisable, even if the point is still understandable) for editorial reasons, or when several people may have made the same point?
Hmm, I remember articles a while back about how to properly distribute books, essays and monologues electronically, and still receive payment for them. It's a shame this method can't be used more frequently - it relies too much on simple honesty.
Can an article still have coherency, and a clear point, when the person collating all the points may not have as much expertise in the subject area as those that submitted the information? It's not easy to create a coherent article if the subject isn't your own, even if you have a series of excellent references. I'm not knocking the people at Jane's, I just see it as a difficult task to form the mass of /. comments into a single article that would fit in magazine format.
Good effort.
S.