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nLab > nLab General Discussions: correcting errors

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    • CommentRowNumber1.
    • CommentAuthorMike Shulman
    • CommentTimeJul 12th 2010

    A discussion has begin at MO about how to (get an author to) correct an error in a published paper. This seems to me like a good use-case of a wiki; what do other nLabizens think?

    • CommentRowNumber2.
    • CommentAuthorHarry Gindi
    • CommentTimeJul 12th 2010

    I don’t know… I mean, I still think you should try to contact the author first.

  3. I strikes me as rude to publicly post errors in someone else's work without first contacting them about it. To do so in a wiki is doubly bad, due to the semi-anonymous nature of it.
    • CommentRowNumber4.
    • CommentAuthorMike Shulman
    • CommentTimeJul 12th 2010

    Observe that the original question specifically said that the author had already been notified and acknowledged the error. I was assuming that as a given in what I wrote.

    • CommentRowNumber5.
    • CommentAuthorAndrew Stacey
    • CommentTimeJul 19th 2010

    Incidentally, a wiki site for errata was one of the components of the proposal discussed on the (now pretty much defunct) rForum.

    • CommentRowNumber6.
    • CommentAuthorUrs
    • CommentTimeJul 19th 2010
    • (edited Jul 19th 2010)

    I haven’t looked at the MO discussion where this comes from, so I don’t know the context.

    But generally, I quite agree, of course, that Wiki’s – if used well – could eventually provide a means to communicate technical mathematical content in a way that does not suffer from some of the deficiencies of the familiar system of paper publication.

    The flexibility they provide in creating and modifying content, and hence in particular the flexibility to incrementally improve content, fixing errors or other deficiencies, is one of the advantages.

    All one needs to eventually carry over is the single advantage of the classical system: a means to reflect peer review. But this is most easily accomplished. It is straightforward to add some markers to a Wiki page which declare things like: “This content has been reviewed and found to be correct by (name or whatever identification) on (date). “

    I mentioned in the blog discussion a few times an electronic peer-reviewed successful journal in Atmospheric Chemistry and Bilology which seems to run very well with a model of this sort: referees may, if desired, post their reports with their full name to a discussion web-page corresponding to the journal article. The author may react to that, and the referee may re-react.

    I talked with the initiator of this journal a bit, and he said that this works wonders: referees write fantastic reports when signing with their full name, make constructive improvements and every now and then the referee report even leads to a joint paper with the original author.

    In other words: the publication process is regained here from a mere nonsensical burden on everyone to an actual constructive part of the research process. And the overall quality does increase in the process.

    I think eventually Wiki’s – run sensibly – are the natural home for such activity.

    • CommentRowNumber7.
    • CommentAuthorAndrew Stacey
    • CommentTimeJul 19th 2010

    I agree. It’s worth noting that the manifold atlas is attempting to do something like “stamps of authority”.

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