Sub-workgroups

[Chris Day]

As an update, prompted by another discussion, I'm starting to think about the proposal for subworkgroups and what to include in that proposal. 

Things that need to be considered are:

1) Name 'subgroup' or 'subworkgroup' seem the most obvious.

2) Define the role of the group: Despite the prefix there should be an understanding that these groups can be interdisciplinary.

3) The role of specialist editors as part of subgroups. For example, A chess grandmaster would presumably be an editor with restricted expertise within the Games workgroup. Would it make sense to have these such authors as editors 'only' in the subgroup chess? I have not thought this one through. I guess my main thought is that we might have authors that do not qualify as editors for a workgroup, yet, could well have enough experience to be editors within a subgroup (chess grandmaster might be a bad example here)? Or would such authors always qualify to be workgroup editors? Is there a page in CZ where the role of specialist editors is discussed?

4) Each subgroup needs a home. Clearly 'Category NAME subgroup' and also 'CZ:NAME subgroup'. There needs to be a formal way to network the subgroups with their appropriate workgroups.  I suggest a subgroup portal for each workgroups page as a way to officially recognise the subgroups (see point 6 below)

5) Need a subgroup specific header for each subgroup page.  This header can have links to subgroup ediotrs and authors as well as subgroup specific recent changes links (I need to make this header so we can refine it).

6) How will subgroups be formerly recognised? I suggest editors can decide which subgroups are required and add them to their workgroups subgroup portal.  If editors from other workgroups feel there is an interdisciplinary connection they too might consider adding the subgroup to their portal. We need a mechanism to try and prevent redundancy.  i.e. we may not want two subgroups such as protein structure subgroup and macromolecule structure subgroup.

These are a random bunch of ideas to get some feed back and get the ball rolling towards a proposal for the editorial council.

[Aleta Curry]

Let me say this:  we need to get moving on this and implement a trial AT ONCE (which we have done de facto). 
I understand and appreciate Larry's concerns re proper procedure, but if you're like me and your work is inherently in a subgroup (and in my case absolutely inter-disciplinary) AND if the body of work is getting LARGE and if you are working alone or with only one or two others, things are fast becoming unmanageable.

With time constraints pressing on all of us, it is unreasonable to expect us to waste time double-handling the same material when we have the tools to deal with it once and have it done (in this case, having to go search for all articles relating to the subgroup, then manually change the metadata, when they can be tagged at creation and a list auto-generated).  I'm not saying that to be super-critical, but if we're being honest, we spend a lot of time discussing things and going over the same territory.

I won't speak for Milton, but I suspect he will be in my corner on this one.

So, let's move quickly and get a draft policy, on the understanding that it must be refined as we go.  None of this discussing and arguing for a year and meanwhile nothing is done.  (By that I mean, go ahead and argue for a year if you need to, but let those of us who need to get on with it.

Now to Chris's points.

1.  Don't care that much.  'Subgroup' works for me, but I wonder if 'project' is more suggestive of the interdisciplinary nature?  Can we just go with one, e.g. 'subgroup' for the experimental phase?

2. Yes, agree completely.

3. More complicated, because in some subgroups the specialist editor will be highly credentialed and clearly have credentials which encompass more than simply the specialty.  OR one might have a highly-credentialed editor who does not feel comfortable as a general editor in the larger workgroup because her specialty is too specific and esoteric.  OR, in the case of "life experience" (for lack of a better term) as opposed to "formal education" type expertise, the same thing goes, one might have expertise in several aspects of the workgroup, in one subgroup, or one very limited specialty in the subgroup.

Hobbies is a good one to illustrate this.  If one sews, is it as a trade or a hobby?  If a person make kilts, is one a seamstress, a tailor, and is kilting the only thing one does?  One may be qualified to talk only about making kilts, one may know the history of kiltmaking, another may be able to speak to a wide range of tailoring subjects?  Some people sew and knit, some only knit.

How about the hobbyists who have more expertise than the academics?

How about the academic specialists--the aeronautic/astronautic engineer as opposed to the chemical engineer?

Again, I think this discussions will be involved and I don't think they should be allowed to hold up the pilot.

4.Yes, absolutely.

5.Again, yes, absolutely.

6. a) Yes, I think having the editor set up the subgroup and allowing others to add it to their workgroup portals seems to be the way to go.

6. b) The redundancy avoidance bit is very important.  Could we simply require any editor considering a subgroup to 1) review his workgroup's page and make sure a like subgroup does not already exist 2) post to the workgroup's talk page and stretch his brain to think of any interdisciplinary links and post to the relevant alternate workgroup as well and 3) there should be a subgroup notice board or list of all subgroups that can be referred to and that page posted to as well.  That doesn't seem like too much of an ask.

If we leave loopholes and by some happenstance (or laziness or ignorance or difference of opinion) a duplicate subgroup *does* appear, it should be merged at once, the editors confer and come to a solution.

[Milton Beychok]

Chris, as you know, I agree completely with Aleta that we need to get moving as soon as possible with implementing subworkgroups! You have already implemented a test case with the Chemical Engineering subworkgroup which has been in place for a few months and is, in my opinion, working well.

To be specific, here are my views on your points:

(1) Either "subgroup" or "subworkgroup" would be okay with me.

(2) I agree that the subgroups would be interdisciplinary. As I have said earlier in this forum, many engineering articles have physics, math and chemistry content and that would be also be true of articles in subgroups such as "Mechanical Engineering", "Chemical Engineering", "Environmental Engineering", etc. That means that some articles with a primary home in the physics, chemistry or math workgroups could and should be listed in the subgroups such as "Mechanical Engineering", "Chemical Engineering", "Environmental Engineering", etc. and vice versa.

(3) No comment one way or the other on this point other than to state that many authors and editors who may have excellent expertise in a subgroup would probably also have expertise in some of the main workgroups.

(4) I agree with you.

(5) I agree with you. I also agree that having a test header is needed to look at and help you refine it.

(6) I think that we must somehow instruct or urge authors that, before they list a new subgroup in the Metadata page of an article, they make a thorough search to see that such a subgroup (or a very similar one) does not already exist. The Metadata page already includes instructions on status scale and how to fill out other items. Could it not also include instructions about avoiding redundancy  before creating a new subworkgroup?

As I have said earlier in this forum, I think having subgroups will help to recruit new authors and editors ... because prospective joinees will be able to see that a specific home exists in CZ for their particular expertise.

Milt Beychok

[Chris Day]

I have finally had time to try and sort this out.  For a trial run on chemical engineering see the following home page for the subgroup.  The navigation bar at the top will lead one to other relevant pages.  Each subgroup will have a grey coloured navigation bar by default.  See the genetics example here.  However, it is possible to have a jazzy workgroup specific banner at the top IF there is an image at the location "subgroup banner.jpg" where subgroup refers to the subgroup name. I have made one for Chemical engineering as a trial run. In this way each subgroup can be personalized.

Now on to writing the proposal.  Any further comments would be welcome.

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

I have finally had time to try and sort this out.  For a trial run on chemical engineering see the following home page for the subgroup.  The navigation bar at the top will lead one to other relevant pages.  Each subgroup will have a grey coloured navigation bar by default.  See the genetics example here.  However, it is possible to have a jazzy workgroup specific banner at the top IF there is an image at the location "subgroup banner.jpg" where subgroup refers to the subgroup name. I have made one for Chemical engineering as a trial run. In this way each subgroup can be personalized.

Now on to writing the proposal.  Any further comments would be welcome.

Maybe I missed it, but subworkgroups seem to be of benefit in two areas: specialized disciplines of one area, and interdisciplinary fields. As an example, I can easily see a "computer networking" subgroup in "computers", but where does more general communications fit? I just assigned an article on [[search and rescue transponder]] to "engineering", as the computer aspects are minimal although present. Radar is directly relevant, and I've put radar under engineering, physics, and computers -- similarly for radio. None feels right.

[Chris Day]

As an example, I can easily see a "computer networking" subgroup in "computers", but where does more general communications fit?

Possibly the name subgroup is a misnomer for interdisciplinary groups. I definitely envisage cross workgroup subgroups as well as well as true subgroups (within the scope of one workgroup).  We could always call them minigroups (or maxigroups) to avoid the confusion?

[Aleta Curry]

Howard, the question actually is:  when are we going to get our acts together and review and refine the CZ workgroups, and who is going to spearhead this effort?

Chris, why don't we call truly interdisciplinary groups "CZ:Wonkology Interdiciplinary Group"?

I think subgroup contributors should be encouraged to explain the subgroup and why it stands alone, i.e. it is a division of Engineering that deals with making widgets.  I suggest also putting a link to the parent group somewhere...maybe...?

[Howard C. Berkowitz]

Howard, the question actually is:  when are we going to get our acts together and review and refine the CZ workgroups, and who is going to spearhead this effort?

Chris, why don't we call truly interdisciplinary groups "CZ:Wonkology Interdiciplinary Group"?

I think subgroup contributors should be encouraged to explain the subgroup and why it stands alone, i.e. it is a division of Engineering that deals with making widgets.  I suggest also putting a link to the parent group somewhere...maybe...?

While I have not been trained in Wonkology, I have, in fact, been mentored by he who defined the Donk, or the unit of frustration.  I'll explain that at the appropriate time; suffice it to say that on that day of defininig standards, the milliHelen was defined as the unit of face that causes the launching of one standard Greek ship.

May I ask, now that there is an experience base, what is the purpose of a group?  It doesn't seem to have much to do with collaboration; the people that know enough about a topic to collaborate on it seem to find one another. In practice, it appears more associated with assigning editors for approving articles than anything else. It may also be a way to categorize people for approval as editors, because the groups, by and large, seem to correspond to academic departments in a large university.

Much of the time, an article may well fall into more than one group. Sometimes, it's pretty arbitrary -- I wrote an article on radar. My purpose was to have some backup material for some military history, but where the radar was important. Is radar physics, engineering, computers, or military? Or, given I live in a fishing village where everyone pays very close attention to the weather radar, is it agriculture?

[Chris Day]

I suggest also putting a link to the parent group somewhere...maybe...?

See current update

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Chemical_Engineering_Subgroup

[Milton Beychok]

Howard:

Much of the time, an article may well fall into more than one group

Very true. When that is the case, simply list it in multiple workgroups (and/or subworkgroups) on the Metadata page. Many of the articles I have authored are listed in the Chemistry, Physics, Engineering and Chemical Engineering groups.

What is the purpose of a group?

The primary purpose of an encyclopedia is not particularly to be of benefit to the authors and editors. The primary purpose of an encyclopedia is to furnish information and knowledge to the readers. Anything that makes it easier for a reader to find what he/she seeks is a good thing. To me, the primary purpose of the workgroups (or categories as Wikipedia calls them) is to make it easier for the readers (our "customers") to find what they looking for.

The subgroups will also help new authors and editors (a) select where they can best contribute their expertise and (b) avoid writing an article on a subject which has already been covered by an existing article.

Not every newcomer to Citizendium (either readers  or authors/editors) has spent a lot of time on Wikipedia and is familiar with how to navigate a wiki. We should make it as easy as possible for those who are completely unfamiliar with wikis.

Milt Beychok

[Chris Day]

May I ask, now that there is an experience base, what is the purpose of a group? 

For what it is worth, I do think of them as a collaborative tool. I see their function as primarily to break down the workgroups into smaller, more manageable units, where authors with a common interest can plan and discuss details that are not of general interest in the overall picture.  For example, Biology covers a large number of topics.  I am an editor in biology but barely competent to comment in some areas. So if I can have a more narrow focus, that is a good thing in my opinion.⁽¹⁾ Even better it allows contacts to develop between workgroups.  Clearly there is significant overlap between the Health Sciences Workgroup and Biology Workgroup.  A Genetics Subgroup would be a perfect solution to unite these common interests, likewise an Anatomy Subgroup. A Metabolic Pathway Subgroup would probably draw participants from Chemistry, Biology and Health Sciences Workgroups. Many other overlaps between workgroups are obvious, and others might be less obvious but ripe for development.

Should we establish all these subgroups ahead of time?  I think not.  Only when there is a critical mass, or an organisational need, as in the Chemical Engineering Subgroup should we establish these groups.  They should be user driven, bottom up, rather than a top down directive from CZ. In this way authors will feel it is their patch in CZ.  Chess or Cricket lovers will have their own cozy domain within the Sports Workgroup, but only if they wish to form it. This is the key difference between my view and Milts. While I see the advantages of subgroups from a navigational perspective, I still see a well developed network of "Related Articles Subpages" as more important to the readers for finding articles.  Clearly the well developed part is critical if they are to be reach their potential as a navigational tool, so we do have a long way to go in that regard.



1) Consider this opinion in the context of a CZ where there are so many editors and authors that playing a jack-of-all-trades role is no longer necessary.  At present with few contributors it is clear that subgroups are far less important. Also consider that most experts want to have a small role here, so breaking topics into bite size chunks should be good for editor and author retention.

[Chris Day]

I think I have finalized how we will set up a Subgroup (or what ever we decide to call it).

1) Make a template titled Template:NAME Subgroup

• Where NAME is the desired subgroup name.

2) Add the following to the template:  {{Subgroup|A|B|C|D|E}}

• Where A is the name of the new subgroup (should be the same as NAME in the template title.
• B-E = are four optional associated workgroups
• Thus Template:Chemical Engineering Subgroup has {{Subgroup|Chemical Engineering|Engineering|Chemistry}} in the body of the template.

3) The template {{Chemical Engineering Subgroup}} should be placed at the top of the CZ home page for the subgroup and its talk page as well as each category in the subgroup. For example, our model subgroup currently has the following pages:

• CZ:Chemical Engineering Subgroup
• CZ Talk:Chemical Engineering Subgroup
• Category:Chemical Engineering Subgroup
• Category:Chemical Engineering Subgroup Draft
• Category:Chemical Engineering Editors
• Category:Chemical Engineering Authors
• Category:Chemical Engineering tag

Any categories at the foot of a page and/or descriptive text will be placed automatically based on the variables B-E.

4) Clusters can be added to a subgroup by adding the NAME to the clusters metadata using either the sub1, sub2 or sub3 fields.

5) Invite your colleagues to join. Authors and Editors can be added to the subgroup by adding the appropriate category tags to their user page (either {{Category:NAME Editor}} or {{Category:NAME Author}}, where NAME refers to the subgroup name). Anyone can add themselves as an author, of course. It should be noted that the editor label does not give special editorial rights outside their designated workgroup! It is merely to identify members of the subgroup that are editors in one or more workgroups. Note: there may well be clusters in the subgroup that a "subgroup editor" cannot approve.

6) Finally, to customise the groups "look", a banner can be added by uploading an image to "Image:NAME banner.jpg".  If no image is present it will default to a grey header with the subgroups title.

[Chris Day]

5) Invite your colleagues to join. Authors and Editors can be added to the subgroup by adding the appropriate category tags to their user page (either {{Category:NAME Editor}} or {{Category:NAME Author}}, where NAME refers to the subgroup name). Anyone can add themselves as an author, of course. It should be noted that the editor label does not give special editorial rights outside their designated workgroup! It is merely to identify members of the subgroup that are editors in one or more workgroups. Note: there may well be clusters in the subgroup that a "subgroup editor" cannot approve.

We may want to rethink this and only have subgroup members rather than authors and editors. In this way roles within the workgroup context will never be confused with roles in a subgroup.

[Joe Quick]

Should we establish all these subgroups ahead of time?  I think not.  Only when there is a critical mass, or an organisational need, as in the Chemical Engineering Subgroup should we establish these groups.  They should be user driven, bottom up, rather than a top down directive from CZ. In this way authors will feel it is their patch in CZ.  Chess or Cricket lovers will have their own cozy domain within the Sports Workgroup, but only if they wish to form it. This is the key difference between my view and Milts. While I see the advantages of subgroups from a navigational perspective, I still see a well developed network of "Related Articles Subpages" as more important to the readers for finding articles.  Clearly the well developed part is critical if they are to be reach their potential as a navigational tool, so we do have a long way to go in that regard.

I agree.  We don't want to dictate to people how they will approach their CZ contributions and we don't want to have a hundred unused workgroups cluttering things up.  We do want to allow people to create groups when they need them.  The one danger that I see is that we'll end up with a ton of overlapping and forgotten groups - we need to be careful about not letting things get out of hand.

suffice it to say that on that day of defininig standards, the milliHelen was defined as the unit of face that causes the launching of one standard Greek ship.

Helen was the face that launched a thousand ships, then the unit of face that causes the launch of one ship should be a milliHelen, no?

[Chris Day]

The one danger that I see is that we'll end up with a ton of overlapping and forgotten groups - we need to be careful about not letting things get out of hand.

I thought of this but have no real solution. In the end I just resolved that we'll have to go with the natural selection model and live with the concomitant extinctions and fossils. The pay-off is that we will have some great subgroups at the other end of the spectrum.

Having said that, I agree with Milt when he wrote the following (see above):

(6) I think that we must somehow instruct or urge authors that, before they list a new subgroup in the Metadata page of an article, they make a thorough search to see that such a subgroup (or a very similar one) does not already exist. The Metadata page already includes instructions on status scale and how to fill out other items. Could it not also include instructions about avoiding redundancy  before creating a new subworkgroup?