Scholarpedia talk:Invitation to Scholarpedia

I don't like the "living legends" section. The age of the author is not pertinent. There are several practical problems. The ages of the authors need to be changed every year. The section will become like a death-watch. Certainly the 90+ year-olds will be passing away within a few years.

Similarly, Rather than listing the year that Paul Lauterbur died, simply refer to him as "the late Paul Lauterbur" and then have a link to his contributor page that includes information about him. I edited Lauterbur's contributor page to indicate his death and pointed it to his Wikipedia biography.

I think that the most important aspect of the authors is that they are widely acknowledged experts in a field. I have no problem asking a young investigator to write an article on a subject that he/she is the expert on. It is also a mistake to highlight only the Nobel prize winners and the elder researchers because it makes it hard to recruit good young talent, who might be intimidated to write if the authors are characterized as Nobel Prize winners. Certainly, we would love to get Nobel Prize winners to write, but in general, the older researchers will be less likely to do it. It's more important to fill out the pages and have Scholarpedia be the first place people go for information.

Later in the invitation, it says that the "articles should outlive their authors via the process of curatorship". Once again, it seems focussed on our lifespan. The most important aspect is that unlike books or conventional reviews, the articles will be perpetually updated as people take over curatorships. Curators will not only do it until they die, they can also retire or be replaced.

--Pkatz 08:55, 16 January 2008 (EST)