Re: computer-go: Proposal for an electronic journal of computer go

[Don Dailey <drd@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Perhaps the only reason why I suspect "continous publication" is the
> following one: in order to achieve some kind of status as a respectable
> publication you need to have universities and other insitutions
> subscribing for it, which means that because many libraries are quite
> "old-fashioned", you need to have the option of paper copies. Basically
> this means publishing periodically. 
> 
> I mean, even though the main distribution media can be electronic, it must
> be *possible* to produce something that looks like a conventional journal
> on paper so that it can stand in someone's bookshelf. 
> 
> Perhaps the two ideas could be merged by having biannual/triannual
> publication schedule, but having the articles as electronic preprints
> available as soon as they are accepted for publication. So they are
> electronically immediately available, and will appear in some subsequent
> paper copy as well. The official reference to such a paper would be of
> course to the (theoretical) paper copy version so that you can have a
> volume and a page number.
> 
> Observe that if no-one subscribes for a paper copy version then printing
> them consts nothing :) Of course, the paper copy subscription rate must be
> high enough to support the assumedly small distribution (high production
> costs). 

Perhaps  we  can  accomodate both.  I   would  propose that we  have a
"continuous  publication"  on  the web and   that  we additionally put
together a "hard  copy" quarterly (or  whatever is decided) issue.  It
may even be   possible to automate this.    I like the idea  of  being
liberal about which articles are accepted for the web version (let the
readers  be the judge) but  having  a standard of  excellence for  the
official   version   and only those     version   make the  "official"
publication.

So basically,   the  offical quarterly issues would   be  a "best  of"
version  of the continuous  publication with regularized features like
the  editorial.  

In  this  way perhaps  the  readership  could  be more  involved  with
selecting worthy material using  an approval voting process.  It still
might makes  sense to  have a final  approval board and  certainly any
articles,  whether  making  official  publication  or  not  should  be
subjected to some qualitative requirements.  The readership could even
be involved with  improving the articles by making  suggestions to the
author.

I think this is a good idea because even "unpolished" work can contain
great  ideas,  and  I would  want  to  view  such  a "magazine"  as  a
repository for good  computer go ideas.  In this way,  we can have the
best of both worlds.

These are just some ideas.  It doesn't matter to me what actually gets
done, I  am just happy that  someone recognizes the need.   I hope the
idea continues to get persued.

- Don