Ahrashs Blog

One of the growing challenges we face as researchers is managing the deluge of relevant information out there – never mind the irrelevant stuff that also obviously consumes huge quantities of time. So much of what I know about a topic comes from so many different places – conversations, blog postings, peer-reviewed articles, conference presentations… it’s totally overwhelming. And for those of us working outside of traditional academic settings, this problem is even worse since so many of the “authoritative” sites are (still) inaccessible, making less formal modes of communication even more important.

As someone trained in academic discourse, I feel it is important to ground my work in the existing knowledge base. But at the same time, especially given the wide range of my interests, I have little capacity to ensure that I am fully informed of the latest thinking in any one field, at any breadth or depth. This can engender a form of academic paralysis, where I think I might have something interesting to share, but I am afraid that someone else will have already said it and it might be perceived that I am unfairly claiming the idea as my own.

What to do?

Well, first of all, I added a note to the project blog (see to the right) that clarifies that any absence of referencing does not indicate any unique claim by me to the posted ideas. We all know that ideas build on each other, and existing referencing customs are designed to ensure that the generators of prior knowledge are given credit. I believe that credit will be given here as well, but perhaps as an after-the-fact acquisition from the broader community instead of as an a priori review by myself.

Second of all, I think we need to reconsider our idolization of the idea originators. It is my sense that people naturally find ways to distinguish themselves and their ideas from other people. The harder task is finding and building on the common ground. Besides, if someone generates a lot of new(ish) ideas, that person will acquire recognition regardless of what legal or community norms are in practice. In fact, I would submit that ideas are relatively cheap – it is their contextualization and implementation that is difficult and worthy of support. In the Internet age, we can imagine systems that reward “idea movers” more than “idea generators.” I suppose we have to be watchful for simply rewarding whomever shouts the loudest, but the archive that is the Internet will help us sort out who has done most to conceptualize or promote an idea, without getting too bogged down figuring all of that stuff out beforehand.

Finally, I am hoping that anyone and everyone interested in this project will contribute to a crowdsourced reference database, growing here. Ideally, references listed here should include links to the particular postings (or other media) where the reference seemed relevant. There might also be some cool way to accomplish similar aims using Zotero, semantic wikis, or the like. Feel free to make suggestions. In the meantime, instead of taking offense if you or your favorite reference is left out somewhere, just add it in!