H. Herald and people of Agora, On January 28, I submitted my thesis, "The Very Worst Thing That Could Possibly Happen" [1]. I reminded the Herald to process the thesis by means of a petition on February 23 [2]. The Herald initiated peer review on March 16 [3].
During peer review, the reviewers indicated their concern that an artistic work, which lacked research or analysis, might not qualify as a thesis (see for instance [4]). It was my impression that the thesis committee would not likely grant a thesis, and I accordingly decided not to proceed with the process. At this juncture, I found myself somewhat peeved. On January 19, I had requested comment about what works might be appropriate for a thesis [5]. I received two responses. One was this [6], which led me to believe that my work might qualify as a thesis, given the lack of any historical requirement of scholarship and G.'s comment that "brief thought pieces" were ordinarily enough for an Associate's degree. The other one was extremely brief, saying only "The best way is to look at past examples" [7]. This last piece of advice is interesting. On January 20, twg submitted eir thesis, "Letter to an Anti-Scamster: On the Importance of Loopholes in Agoran Culture" [8]. Like my thesis, it was a creative work, although it was a work of oratory rather than a short story. In February, it received a degree [9]. I hope the public will not consider me ungrateful or unseemly when I note that I was frustrated by the fact that Agora appeared, at least to me, to be employing an undocumented, arbitrary, ever-shifting set of requirements for theses. It cannot even be claimed that this was due to the rotation of university staff over time because one of the players who brought up concerns with my thesis had also supported giving twg a thesis the previous month. Inspired by my own travails as well as a comment by Alexis during peer review [10], I initiated legislation to fix the ambiguities in the Agoran degree process. My proposal, "College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences", provided for a separate track of theses for creative works, as well as documenting the requirements for theses [11]. In light of the foregoing circumstances and the legislative changes that have transpired since my thesis was first peer-reviewed, I humbly request the Herald to take whatever steps are appropriate in the degree process. I am aware that it is quite unusual to make such a request so long after a thesis first underwent peer review. However, I believe that the circumstances are sufficiently unusual to justify my request. My suggestion would be to redo the peer review process, given the time that has passed since it was first processed. However, such matters are of course entirely up to your wise discretion. [1] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2020-January/042024.html [2] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2020-February/042290.html [3] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-official/2020-March/013534.html [4] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2020-March/057138.html [5] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2020-January/056292.html [6] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2020-January/056301.html [7] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2020-January/056294.html [8] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2020-January/041931.html [9] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-official/2020-February/013403.html [10] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-discussion/2020-March/057145.html [11] https://mailman.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-business/2020-June/042996.html Respectfully yours, Aris
