iMechanica - J-club Editor: Election versus Appointment? - Comments

The "Giel-mobiel"

Patrick Onck — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 08:49:19 -0400

I have read the above discussion today. Given the history of comments the format that has been proposed by Zhigang (suggestion on Jclub ...) and supported by many active iMechanicians really makes sense. Voting turned out to be controversial (not only from a fraude point-of-view).

Something for background thinking of the jClub-editors. At the Dutch radio there is an item that is called "De Giel-mobiel" (the mobile phone of Giel). The phone has been given by Giel to a Dutch celebrity a time ago, with the request to pass it through to another interesting person/celebrity (after being interviewed on air by Giel, of course). It is interesting to see how the phone travels through media land. Something similar could be done in the J-club: ask every discussion leader to suggest a future discussion leader of their interest. This will expand the horizon of iMechanica considerably through local networking and will undoubtedly lead to surprising J-Club items.

jClub archives

MichelleLOyen — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:16:28 -0400

You raise a very interesting point and one that is worth mentioning. One of the key advantages of the way that iMechanica is run is that the material is all archived on the internet. When a jClub posting disappears from the front page, it does not completely disappear! You are free to add your thoughts many weeks after it appears even if it no longer appears on the front page.

Your comments will likely be read even if they are posted on an older topic. Many readers of iMechanica follow the recent comments through a feed or on the right-hand side of the page. Although the majority of the "recent comments" on iMech refer to recent posts, sometimes the recent comments are related to older posts. I know for topics of my own original posting, at times the discussion has waxed and waned such that a new burst of comment activities comes up many weeks later. This is a great strength of iMechanica's format.

From a practical perspective, we can arrange to make jClub topical table of contents pages to help organize the historical jClub posts. For example, a biomechanics table of contents would include the links back to each biomechanics topic. Each jClub post can have several different topics (for example, biomechanics and computational) and thus can appear on multiple table of contents entries.

I know that it is my intention for my own new students in the future, to give them the link to the jClub topic that I led in January, since this was in my research field and thus unlikely to become uninteresting any time soon!

What determines the length of a jClub?

Nanshu Lu — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 11:28:40 -0400

Zhigang's arguments are very persuasive. I just simply think about what determines the length of a jClub. Once this is clear, to fix the frequency will be much easier.

First, the length of a jClub should really depend on the range of the topic and the horizon of the discussion leader. For example, if Zhigang is leading a jClub named "Mechanics in Electronics", I believe three months may not be too long. However, if we have a post doc or young researcher as the discussion leader of a very novel but specific issue, maybe two weeks is a proper length.

Second, it depends on the activity of the discussion leader. For many people it is the first time to arrange a discussion of such style. They are getting more sophisticated and creative on this. Naively, I just have a simple example here. The leader can arrange a 3-step discussion if he really wants to extend the active discussion throughout one month. First ten days, basic literature review, to provide readers with the necessary background, raise the challenges and grab people's attention; second ten days, what is going on in this field, what has been solved and what remains as the bottleneck; last ten days, future study, potential solutions or ask for new ideas and suggestions. People will have much better and feasible ideas than mine if they really have enthusiasm and would like to devote here. This returns to the issue "Why Should You Volunteer to Be a Discussion Leader?", say how to stimulate people's potential.

Third, from readers aspects, the length of a jClub also depends on the time period that readers take to learn the issue. Experienced mechanicians may feel the present frequency is a little bit low. However, for beginning graduate students or even some new comers to mechanics it may take them much longer to read the suggested literature and ask for help or raise questions here.

These are just what I can think of. It is such a complicated issue and varies from person to person. I cannot suggest any solutions at present. But as a personal preference, I think one topic one time is better. We place jClub at the top of imechanica so as to draw people's attention and hope our readers can focus on one specific subject and have active discussions and contributions. If two jClubs appear at the same time, our main purpose is weakened.

jClub Committee, topics and incentive

Hanqing Jiang — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 10:36:41 -0400

I think Zhigang’s suggestions work. We can elect a jClub Committee who is responsible for the appointment of jClub Editors. The Editors will do their jobs on selecting topics, inviting comments, and making sure that the discussion is on the right track of the topic. In terms of topics, the first round is most likely “broader” area and they can be chopped into pieces for “fine” topic later on. Like the history of internet, in the early 90’s, all internet companies were focusing on searching engine. Now, we have really diversified internet services. Some are expanding their strength on search engine and some changed their gears to more focused area. So I don’t worry about the topics if the jClub runs well. The most important thing in my mind is how to increase the frequency of the jClub. I am wondering if we need to introduce some incentive mechanism, like other forums use. I don’t have a good idea on how to run incentive mechanism on iMechanica, but I think it is a means to increase the frequency of the jClub.

Nominating Discussion Leaders by Members of the Council

Zhigang Suo — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 07:48:37 -0400

This suggestion by Teng might work. If every member of the jClub Council nominates several Discussion Leaders a year, we will have some immediate benefits:

Ensure more diversity of the Themes.
Reduce the work load for the Editors.
Engage more people to actively participate in each Theme.

The nomination process is straightforward:

Before nomination, a nominator contacts a potential nominee (or the other way around) to gauge the level of interest.
Once the level of interest is ascertained, the nominator writes a comment in the call for nomination, briefly introducing the Nominee and the Theme.
If the Editors like the nomination, they will contact the nominee, and reserve a time slot in the jClub archive.

Of course, every registered user can nominate a Discussion Leader. You can also nominate yourself. You can also nominate someone by contacting the Editors privately.

iMechanica is a magic place for fun

Henry Tan — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 06:26:44 -0400

I view iMechanica as a toy for a mechanician.

The good thing about iMechanica is that you can write as many as you want, till satisfied enough. There is no limit. And you can organize things as if you are the editor.

It is fun, mechanics and science become so fun to enjoy.

For me, I hope can be selected as a J-Club Discussion Leader once a year. Once registered, I got the feeling of being an Editor and a Discussion Leader already. No election needed, really. iMechanica is a magic place for fun.

Let's try it first

H Jerry Qi — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 00:00:55 -0400

Since we never know what will happen before we try it, and since both Pradeep and Michelle nicely agreed to serve as editors, why not try to run a biweekly frequency? We will see the positive and negative aspects of this method very soon, then we can adjust to make it better. This is the beauty of having iMechanica: We don't need to limit ourselves by any existing rules and we are open to any new methods.

Jerry

If I had to vote...

Rui Huang — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 22:40:03 -0400

Apparently, debating continues one after another, for all good purposes. As for the newest issue, the frequency of jClub, I again don't think this is a complicated or critical issue for the success of jClub or iMechanica in large. I have no clear preference to either one or two Themes a month. If I had to vote, however, I may vote for one Theme per month for the following reasons:

First, I view jClub as a nice feature of iMechanica, but perhaps not as prominent as Zhigang thinks. So far, I have enjoyed many discussions outside jClub. With 2 themes a month, jClub may grow into a dominating voice of iMechanica, which may not necessarily benefit our community in the long run.

Second, the lack of volunteers to run jClub (as editors or discussion leaders) reflects an implicit issue with the current iMechanica community. As mentioned in some previous comments, the numbers of frequent readers and writers are much less than the total number of registered users. As we see in essentially all the discussions of iMechanica (including jClub), a relatively small community (<100 members) is forming. On one hand, it may be difficult to sustain the more frequent jClub at a reasonable level. On the other hand, the jClub by itself may not help much to grow this community of frequent users. Someone may come for a particular issue, and then disappear thereafter.

Third, probably as a suggestion to really gear up the reputation and impact of iMechanica, the jClub editors or council may want to work to recruit more senior discussion leaders. With an established reputation of a discussion leader, it will attract more attention. Searching for discussion leaders outside of the formed community would also bring in more users from different areas of mechanics.

a penny per month, in perpetuity

Rod Ruoff — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 21:17:16 -0400

Zhigang asked me to comment, and so just to be a bit playful:

I advocate taxing gasoline at the pump at one penny per month, in perpetuity.

At about 160B gallons per year current consumption in the USA and averaged over a full year, this would provide close to $10B for R&D of new, and more rapid implementation of already well tested and "well performing", renewable energies, in the first year.

A fraction would go to mechanics R&D, no doubt!

On a more serious note about the issue at hand--the vetting is good, but I am a new enough newcomer to iMechanica that I don't have strong opinions on the issues on the table--yet, that is. I do enjoy iMechanica, so keep up the good work, all. It takes a community to make a community...kind of an interesting chicken and egg issue. I'd say we have a real community, in that regard, even if "virtual".

Best, Rod

will we be able to get 24 editors without much difficulty?

Harold S. Park — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:14:20 -0400

While it is true that most of the discussions on each J-club topic appear to occur within the first week or two of the initial posting, I would first want to plan a bit ahead to see if there are indeed (1) 24 people willing to act as bi-weekly J-club editors, and (2) whether the subjects are sufficiently varied such that there are enough new/different topics to discuss.

Of course, like communism, life and religion, we could discuss things theoretically all day and all year. Why not move forward with the bi-weekly concept, solicit editors, and see whether we can fill 24 slots with folks besides the 12 that are already doing it this year and whether the topics are sufficiently new. If yes, then let's see where it leads. If it takes a LONG time to get 24 editors in place, why not stick with what's already there?

I agree comletely. Once in

Konstantin Volokh — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 15:28:03 -0400

I agree comletely. Once in two weeks will be more vivid for the journal club.

Maybe appointment firstly, then election

Ying Li — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 12:20:24 -0400

In my opinion, at the first stage of the imechanica, appointment may be more proper for us. We need invite some famous persons like Hutchison, Suo et al. to do such job to give some classical issues or some young but very positive persons like Xi Chen, Teng Li et al. to give some new research areas they studied. This is the first stage. It may attract more and more people to join the topics in imechanica. Then we can run an election for finding a proper person to take this job. This is the second stage.

Lets experiment and find out

Pradeep Sharma — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 11:41:06 -0400

Dear Zhigang, thanks for proposing this framework for the j-club. I agree with your suggestions. I will be happy to help in any way I can.

Regarding the increased frequency; your have made persuasive arguments but I am not fully sure whether we are ready for that yet. However, there is only one way to find out...lets try it!! The one advantage of the e-medium of iMechanica is that we can experiment and try out notions such as these.

RE: frequency of JClub

Kilho Eom — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 11:14:23 -0400

When I read the comment by Prof. Suo about the frequency of jClub, I agree with some of his comments. At the beginning of Month (for start-up of new theme of jClub), it seems that most people engage the jClub, while in the last 1 or 2 weeks, it looks that hits on jClub reaches the stationary. Bi-weekly jClub might be good, as long as there are sufficient volunteers to serve the discussion leaders as well as sufficient participants. Since the number of registered users are over 2000, hopefully we might have sufficient volunteers and/or participants to jClub.

Obviously, as Prof. Suo mentioned, the bi-weekly jClub might help to introduce the various topics related to mechanics. In recent days, since I am busy with my works, I could not post the interesting topics related to mechanics. In recent days, I could see very interesting topics in nanomechanics, biomechanics, etc., which are updated very quickly. So that bi-weekly jClub may help us to catch up the current interesting topics related to mechanics.

Anyway, bi-weekly jClub is agreeable to me. Also, jClub is very helpful to students, I think, I strongly recommend my students to read the articles on jClub.

Let's check the supply side for frequency

John E. Dolbow — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 10:09:04 -0400

I would suggest we simply place the call for future jClub themes on the front page of iMechanica, to better gauge both supply and demand interest. If we happen to obtain 24 high-quality suggestions/volunteers, then that would suggest that we're in great shape.

I think it's important to keep in mind that jClub is only one part of iMechanica. There's lots to be seen here. If someone comes and isn't interested in the current jClub theme, I would hope they would readily find something else of interest in one of the forums or recent posts.

It seems we're locked in on monthly themes until December 2007. Since the current idea is that we would keep two themes up at once anyway, wouldn't a compromise be to just promote a fairly active, non-jClub discussion to the front of iMechanica once a month, just below jClub?

J-club Editor: Election versus Appointment?

Pradeep Sharma — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 08:52:14 -0400

As many of you know, last year we had a lively debate prior to the launch of the j-club regarding the rules and regulations governing the functioning of the j-club. This continued in a more low-key fashion this year. One of the more important topics under discussion has been the selection of the future editors (which is to be done each year). I, and perhaps a few other people, had reasoned that the editor should be elected by popular vote. It was proposed that candidates will either self-nominate themselves or be nominated by other mechanicians.

In discussions with a few active and prominent members of iMechanica (who are potential candidates for next year) a number of issues came to light which have prompted me to reconsider my initial thoughts. This post is intended to open a debate on whether the J-club editor should be elected or appointed. Let us defer, for the moment, how this "appointment" will be made.

Here are a few of the concerns with the election process that have been raised (---and I concur). It would be interesting to hear feedback on these and other issues related to this topic:

(1) Several mechanicians who would make excellent candidates for this job are reluctant to run in a public election (for various reasons). On a more personal note I realized, somewhat belatedly, that I myself would not have participated had this job required me to go through an election process. This is a serious issue since the j-club has now emerged as the public face of the iMechanica and in the words of a fellow mechanician, j-club, the first thing seen by new incoming visitor.

(2) This job should not be left to the vagaries of popular vote especially since iMechanica is a web-based medium where there is little oversight into voting modalities. Do we want an editor who is "popular" and known in the community or someone with strong technical depth, breadth and a vision to match? Popular voting process may be but is not always congruous with the latter. A good analogy is Journal of Applied Mechanics. The editor is not elected by popular vote. He or she is appointed based on technical merit and overall vision for the journal. Most journals follow this model to more or lesser degree.

What would be a suitable procedure to "appoint" the editor? There are several ways, I suppose. We could very well follow the example of Journal of Applied Mechanics and have an "executive committee" which makes these appointments or simply have one person in charge of it (e.g. Zhigang).