I've just returned from several days in Assam, and have a backlog of work to do here in Osaka... so, I won't be able to attend much to the Research Cooperative. Welcome to all our newest members. Please look around and make good use of our forums. Enjoy!

Best regards, Peter (Admin.)

I seem to do a lot of writing without actually publishing. Maybe it's because I'm a proactive editor and have a lot other people's writing to look at, as part of my research job.

For the last couple of weeks, its been a race to prepare a grant application, distilling the essence from work over the last four years into a couple of pages. The results have been intoxicating for me, but for others it may look like nothing special.... just more data? It's hard to look objectively at our own writing.

I'm hoping the internal review by my employer will pick up problems before they reach the outside agency reviewers who have to assess the application. For the first time this year, in Japan, it has been possible to submit a research application entirely in English.

I'm a slow writer too. I like to accumulate enough new information to make rich paper, but often it is a mix of different kinds of information that have to be integrated. I tend to write first and then think about where to publish according to the nature of the work and the paper. I don't stick to one journal or publisher, or one format or style, and I like to reach diverse audiences.

What are my top ten favourite journals? That's hard to say, given the range of my interests. I'd like to ask other members of the Research Cooperative the same question. It would probably be hard for all of us. Maybe I should make it just the top three...

My favourite journal - top of the list - is probably the next one that publishes a paper I write... but only until the next paper is published in another journal.

I'm loyal to the idea of doing original research and writing, but not to any particular publisher. Which means I have to learn how to talk to different publishers and editors, and have to learn about different ways of writing. Not sticking to one publishing home is also a good way to keep learning new things about writing and publishing. I hope this helps to make my writing fresh for readers, each time.

I do eventually publish some of what I write. The many half-done, or almost-finished-but-not-published papers lurk in my office, and in my mind. Parts of them may later reappear in published work. Writing is thinking, not just a mechanical process of replicating and rearranging words and using up paper - or screen space.

My office is an incubator, and I can't really say what will be hatching soon. How could I? I'm inside the egg, and its all dark here. At least I do enjoy all the poking around, here and there, in my little world.

NOTE: Members of the Research Cooperative are encouraged to reply to this post with feedback that I can transmit to our hosting company, Ning.com. Thank you in advance! Peter.

Ning is the company that hosts our network. I occasionally join the Ning Network Creators Group in order to participate in discussions about problems, fixes, and wished-for features. Over the years, the lack of Search functionality inside our network has been a major concern for me. Today, I posted the following message in reply to another Ning Network Creator's observation that: "UNACCEPTABLE NING SEARCH STILL BROKEN!!!"

Peter wrote:

1. Overall site search (top right) on my Ning 2 network works well.

2. Member search works well.

3. Forum search works not at all. Zilch, which-ever way I try it.

Indexing problems appear and disappear over the years. Indexing seems to be an inherently unstable system that is nevertheless treatable. It should be more stable, but it is not entirely disfunctional.

The problem with search for forums (like the limitations on search inside groups) may be something that is hard-wired into the system.

I suspect that different groups of engineers have been working on different components of the whole Ning system without co-ordinating their efforts to maximise the functionality of search.

Search needs to be raised to a top level domain of Ning development. If Ning management do not have the resources to do this, they should ask Glam to give it special support.

Search development needs to be coordinated across all areas of the platform:

- from the level of how to find Ning networks from outside of Ning,

- to the level of how to find specific kinds of information in specific kinds of content inside each network, and

- to the level of how search and find all advertisments on a site (some users and visitors might be into that, if it could be made possible). It would be good if there was any industry standard for setting different levels of advertising intensity, so that users could set a preference (on their browser for example) and take in more or take in less. My impression is that there is still a lot of room for invention in how advertising can be used to positively enhance the user experience of social networks.

- to the level of the user test-panels and in-site direct feedback.

It would be great if Network Creators could get hosting discounts in return for allowing Ning to (temporarily) install instant-feedback popup windows that are seen by all the various kinds of visitors that come to our networks.

Ning has an original and unique platform, and should be able to generate some valuable patents for itself if it can truly challenge the issue of social search. People have been talking about this problem in the world of social networks generally.

I want Ning to succeed, and for that Ning needs a search system that beats out the rivals.

Incidentally, the very low usage of my network over the years (despite thousands of people joining, with some kind of hope or anticipation) is probably to a large extent due to the crippling effects of disfunctional search inside the forums.

I don't know any better system, so that's why I have stayed with Ning, despite dissatisfaction with the search functions from the very start.

Today fly to Seoul from Osaka. This is similar to flying from Auckland to Sydney, or Sydney to Brisbane. From Seoul we will take a train and then probably a bus to the National Arboretum of Korea, located in a forest that has had protected status for hundreds of years.

I look forward to leaving behind the heat island of urban Osaka. I have two chapters by two different students to look at while I am travelling. Perhaps I will have some useful thoughts while sitting in a cool place, away from the distractions of the office.

The newly-emergent PeerJ publishing platform is currently seeking qualified editors for editorial boards, in all possible subject areas.

Many subjects are already covered, but not those concerned with ethnobiology, ethnobotany and other ethnosciences.

See: https://peerj.com/academic-boards/subjects/

Today I offered to be a founding editor for an "Ethnosciences" editorial board.

Does anyone here think that it might be good to establish such a Board at PeerJ?

Here is the main text of the note I sent:

Currently in the world there are a small number of journals that specialise in ethnobiology and ethnobotany, but few that deal with how humans interact with other aspects of the natural world.

It might be good, at this stage in PeerJ development, to build an editorial board for any contributions in the 'ethnosciences' (ethnozoology, ethnobotany, ethnomycology, ethnomedicine, ethnogeology, etc.). These are all areas that overlap.

[They] have in common a focus on people in particular places or cultures, and their interactions with the natural world.

....

Peter

I'm back in the land of gabi - the plant I love to study.

I won't have much chance this time to see the plants though. I'm heading away to Baguio City for a three-day conference. I'll try to hand out some brochures about the Research Cooperative, but the main focus of the conference will be systematics and ethnobiology.

Gabi (taro) in a terraced pondfield, Ifugao, 2012.

Last year, for $179, I joined the Council of Science Editors (headquarters in the USA). The cost was a bit of shock, but I have been looking forward to seeing their journal. I like having a good read for the train.

Today I received the first issue for 2013: Science Editor , Vol. 36 (1, January-March), with 36 pages.

As well as being supported by membership dues, the journal has one inside-front and two back-cover pages carrying full page advertisements.

The present issue shows advertisements for online publishers and publishing systems. The issue theme is related:

Perspectives on Open Access .

It's a slim volume, but the writing is all to a high standard, and is clearly guided by an understanding that less can be more.

Reading what editors say about writing, editing, and publishing might sound like self-inflicted punishment to many people.

Rest assured, the pain is short-lived, and you may enjoy relief afterwards. The editors believe in Brevity.

Personally, I am glad to see the work of authors who are caring and knowledgeable about how science is communicated.

See: Science Editor

A free white paper can be downloaded: Open Access: Five Considerations for Publishers

Joining our network is not an automatic process. The profile of each new member has to be checked by a living person (me) and then manually approved (by pressing the 'approve' button). Without this, our membership would be quickly dominated by spam robots posing as humans, or humans working as spam robots.

Today I found an application and profile that was clearly composed without any evidence of a human mind at work: although all parts of the form were filled with academic looking details, the details in different parts of the form were inconsistent and nonsensical in combination. They appear to have been composed by combining details from the profiles of various recently joined members.

Here is what I saw, with the name deleted in case the name actually belongs to a real person.

If anyone believes this member was wrongly rejected, please let me know!

Thanks, Peter