Over the past several years, Tyler and I have been talking about starting a metapatterns journal. If I took notes, I have no idea where they are, but I will try to list some of the ideas I can recall as well as others I've been thinking about. I hope members (present and future) will join in discussing the possibilities. The following items are in no particular order.
- Such a journal should be widely available and free as an e-journal.
- Where should the journal be situated? We can of course start one (a) as separate section on this site, (b) as a separate site on wikidot, or (c) as a separate site on a journal-hosting site (this option costs money). We could start with either "a" or "b", but we may need to have a new master administrator for option "b", if I don't move one of my wikidot sites to someone else (I'm maxed out at 5 wikidot sites).
- What sort of editorial structure do we want? Do we want co-editors and an editorial board, along with potential reviewers, which could be open to the community. I know of one journal that just sends out review requests to everyone of the email list. However, we would need someone to keep track of reviewers and the quality of reviews. We'd also need to have thank you letters sent out every summer (to help with annual reviews).
- Do we want blind reviews or not? Over the past year or two, considerable disagreements have arisen about the efficacy of blind reviews. Maybe, it could be an option for submitters.
- What kinds of style(s) do we want for manuscripts and actual articles? Do we want consistent font, size, etc? Do we use APA, Chicago, etc?
- How do we want articles to appear? Do we want an index page with each issue, then separate pages with abstracts and a link to a PDF? Should the PDFs follow the traditional style of a journal with volume, issue, and sequential page numbers? Or, should articles appear as they arrive with a more free-form approach?
- Do we want to include multimedia, as well as traditional articles, or some fusion? As an "educational" site on wikidot, we get a considerable amount of storage space (I think something like 20 GBs). If artwork and video files are kept reasonably small, the site can accommodate a lot of files. However, do we want to use separate sites (even YouTube) for video files in particular?
- Do we want thematic sections? … with separate editors?
- What criteria do we want to use for publishability? These criteria can be used as guidelines for the review process.
- Should we leave copyright (register the copyrights) with the authors of articles? Should we use the Creative Commons? Where do we get the money to do this?
- Do we want "comments" areas after each article where members can discuss articles?
- What should we name the journal?
- How do we divvy up work loads?
- What other features and issues do we need to think about?