[REVIEW]: PYLIWC: Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count in Python

editorialbot commented 2 months ago

Submitting author: !--author-handle-->@camille1@logological<!--end-editor-- Reviewers: @HLasse, @seyyaw Archive: Pending

Status

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Reviewers and authors:

Please avoid lengthy details of difficulties in the review thread. Instead, please create a new issue in the target repository and link to those issues (especially acceptance-blockers) by leaving comments in the review thread below. (For completists: if the target issue tracker is also on GitHub, linking the review thread in the issue or vice versa will create corresponding breadcrumb trails in the link target.)

Reviewer instructions & questions

@HLasse & @seyyaw, your review will be checklist based. Each of you will have a separate checklist that you should update when carrying out your review. First of all you need to run this command in a separate comment to create the checklist:

@editorialbot generate my checklist

The reviewer guidelines are available here: https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reviewer_guidelines.html. Any questions/concerns please let @logological know.

✨ Please start on your review when you are able, and be sure to complete your review in the next six weeks, at the very latest ✨

Checklists

📝 Checklist for @HLasse

editorialbot commented 2 months ago

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editorialbot commented 2 months ago

Software report:

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.90  T=0.03 s (1134.9 files/s, 290494.4 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
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SVG                              1              0             39           1324
Jupyter Notebook                11              0           3474            853
Python                           4            117            218            425
Markdown                         2            110              0            280
CSV                              2            128              0            141
TeX                              1             16              0            100
YAML                             6              9              6            100
INI                              1              5              0             41
CSS                              1              6              0             31
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SUM:                            29            391           3737           3295
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commit count by author:

    35  Camille Lacan

editorialbot commented 2 months ago

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

OK DOIs

- 10.1177/00222429221100750 is OK
- 10.1007/s11002-022-09635-6 is OK
- 10.1177/0022242919873106 is OK
- 10.1093/jcr/ucx104 is OK
- 10.1126/sciadv.aba2196 is OK

MISSING DOIs

- No DOI given, and none found for title: Linguistic inquiry and word count: LIWC 2015
- No DOI given, and none found for title: spaCy 2: Natural language understanding with Bloom...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: The development and psychometric properties of LIW...

INVALID DOIs

- None

editorialbot commented 2 months ago

Paper file info:

📄 Wordcount for paper.md is 1217

✅ The paper includes a Statement of need section

editorialbot commented 2 months ago

License info:

✅ License found: Apache License 2.0 (Valid open source OSI approved license)

editorialbot commented 2 months ago

:point_right::page_facing_up: Download article proof :page_facing_up: View article proof on GitHub :page_facing_up: :point_left:

HLasse commented 2 months ago

Review checklist for @HLasse

Conflict of interest

[x] I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

[x] I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

[x] Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/camille1/pyliwc?
[x] License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
[x] Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@camille1) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
[ ] Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines
[ ] Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.
[ ] Reproducibility: If the paper contains original results, results are entirely reproducible by reviewers. If the paper contains no original results, please check this item.
[x] Human and animal research: If the paper contains original data research on humans subjects or animals, does it comply with JOSS's human participants research policy and/or animal research policy? If the paper contains no such data, please check this item.

Functionality

[ ] Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
[ ] Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
[ ] Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

[x] A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
[ ] Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
[ ] Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
[ ] Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
[ ] Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
[ ] Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

[x] Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
[x] A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
[x] State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
[x] Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
[x] References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

HLasse commented 2 months ago

@logological I have started my review, but am unsure how to continue/whether this is suitable for JOSS.

The software is mainly a wrapper around the CLI from a proprietary application (LIWC) with some additional features. While I definitely see the use and merit of such a package, it cannot be used without an active license for LIWC. So, although this package is open source, it is deeply dependent on closed-source software which requires payment to access.

I am unable to perform a proper review of the functionality of the package as I do not have a license for LIWC. @logological If you think the package is still suited for JOSS you might need to find a different reviewer with a LIWC license. My apologies for not noticing before accepting!

logological commented 2 months ago

@HLasse My apologies; my initial reading of the paper also did not lead me to understand that a LIWC licence was required to test the software. My interpretation of the article summary is that the only thing proprietary about LIWC is the software, for which PYLIWC provides a free replacement. The paper does not seem to state one way or another whether the data (dictionaries) used by the LIWC software are also under a proprietary licence. But even if the LIWC dictionaries are proprietary, the article indicates that PYLIWC can be used with "custom dictionaries", which I assume might include freely available ones.

@camille1, could you please clarify these points, both here and in the paper itself? Could you please also indicate how the reviewers of this paper can test the functionality of PYLIWC if they do not already hold a LIWC licence? For example, is there an LIWC instance to which you can provide temporary, confidential access without violating the terms of the licence? Or is there a free custom dictionary you can provide for testing purposes?

logological commented 2 months ago

@camille1: While I'm at it, I've noticed a couple inconsistencies that I'd ask you to resolve:

The paper states that PYLIWC is distributed under the MIT licence, but the LICENSE file in the code repository contains the text of the Apache Software License.
The software's name is variously spelled "PYLIWC", "PyLIWC", and "pyliwc" in the paper and in various files in the code repository.

camille1 commented 2 months ago

@logological I have clarified these points in the paper, specifying that the use of pyliwc requires the proprietary software LIWC in order to respect the copyright. pyliwc is open source (MIT license), but the software is not. (see section licensing requirements in the paper).

I have fixed the two issues mentioned (MIT license, and correct spelling of “pyliwc” consistently in the documentation and the paper.)

I can share temporary and privately my LIWC license with reviewers @HLasse

logological commented 2 months ago

@HLasse @seyyaw Would the author's offer to use his LIWC licence for the purpose of reviewing this submission work for you?

seyyaw commented 2 months ago

@logological Sharing the license sounds like a good idea, but I'm not sure about the ethical implications of sharing the LIWC license. Do they permit sharing with third parties @camille1 ? I'll look into whether there's a free license available for academic use, but I won't be able to do this until after mid-September because I'm traveling next week.

camille1 commented 2 months ago

@logological @HLasse @seyyaw There is no free LIWC license, and the version I have is a paid academic version.

as explained, I can share my license, the disadvantage is that it's a license for one user at a time (so we have to agree on the day each reviewer needs it).

HLasse commented 2 months ago

Sharing the license works for me, as long as it's permitted.

samhforbes commented 2 months ago

Hi all, this is normally done in pre-review, but I must have missed it. Submissions of this size routinely go through a scope check so I'll pause things and instigate that now.

samhforbes commented 2 months ago

@editorialbot query scope

editorialbot commented 2 months ago

Submission flagged for editorial review.

logological commented 2 months ago

@camille1 @HLasse @seyyaw Thanks for your patience while the paper has been diverted for editorial review. We're still soliciting comments from the other editors and will get back to you all once a decision has been made as to whether the paper meets the scope and other eligibility criteria.

samhforbes commented 1 month ago

Hi @camille1 thanks for your patience. Looking at the fact that LIWC is not open source, as well as the relatively small size of this package, we were unable to agree that PYLIWC is in scope. I want to stress that this does not mean the software is not useful, simply that it does not meet our requirements for JOSS.

Thanks @HLasse, @seyyaw and @logological for reviewing and editing

samhforbes commented 1 month ago

@editorialbot reject

editorialbot commented 1 month ago

Paper rejected.

openjournals / joss-reviews