[REVIEW]: SitCoM: Modular framework for the integration of (extreme) events and their impacts in Unity

[editorialbot]

Submitting author: @ruedi99ms (Niklas Suhre)
Repository: https://github.com/ruedi99ms/SitCoM
Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch):
Version: 1.0
Editor: @osorensen
Reviewers: @luxaritas, @ApocalyVec
Archive: Pending

Status

Status badge code:

HTML: <a href="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/afd7fb1d287fc1e36cd71cf4cae79e29"><img src="https://joss.theoj.org/papers/afd7fb1d287fc1e36cd71cf4cae79e29/status.svg"></a>
Markdown: [![status](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/afd7fb1d287fc1e36cd71cf4cae79e29/status.svg)](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/afd7fb1d287fc1e36cd71cf4cae79e29)

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

@luxaritas & @ApocalyVec, 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 @osorensen 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 @ApocalyVec

📝 Checklist for @luxaritas

[editorialbot]

Hello humans, I'm @editorialbot, a robot that can help you with some common editorial tasks.

For a list of things I can do to help you, just type:

@editorialbot commands

For example, to regenerate the paper pdf after making changes in the paper's md or bib files, type:

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

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

OK DOIs

- 10.1890/1540-9295(2007)5[365:ANGOCE]2.0.CO;2 is OK
- 10.1016/j.trd.2021.102770 is OK

MISSING DOIs

- 10.1093/wentk/9780190866112.003.0002 may be a valid DOI for title: Extreme Weather and Climate Change
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Extreme weather and climate change: Understanding ...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Spectra Whitepaper: Building a Sustainable, Livabl...

INVALID DOIs

- None

[editorialbot]

Software report:

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.90  T=4.22 s (857.9 files/s, 155609.7 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C#                            2832          68027          75167         327286
Unity-Prefab                    60              0              0          70407
JSON                           136             23              0          63471
Markdown                       459           7942             16          19409
C# Generated                     6            896            502          10611
HLSL                            21            702             98           2646
Objective-C                     12            287            115           1773
YAML                             7              3             18           1289
C/C++ Header                    62            334            725            961
PO File                          1            456            405            946
Objective-C++                    7            139             21            580
SVG                              5              2              2            499
XML                             10              0              0            461
C++                              1            103             30            344
TeX                              1             11              1             65
CMake                            1              1              0             13
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                          3621          78926          77100         500761
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commit count by author:

    15	ruedi99ms

[editorialbot]

Paper file info:

📄 Wordcount for paper.md is 697

✅ The paper includes a Statement of need section

[editorialbot]

License info:

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

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[ApocalyVec]

Review checklist for @ApocalyVec

Conflict of interest

• 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

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/ruedi99ms/SitCoM?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@ruedi99ms) 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.
• 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

• 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

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• 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?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• 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?

[luxaritas]

Review checklist for @luxaritas

Conflict of interest

• 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

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/ruedi99ms/SitCoM?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@ruedi99ms) 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.
• 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

• 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

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• 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?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• 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?

[osorensen]

@luxaritas and @ApocalyVec, I just wanted to give you a gentle reminder of this review. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. And if you have any suggested changes or improvements to the software, you're welcome to open issues in the source repository or comment here.

[luxaritas]

Thanks for the nudge - just took an initial look through this.

Before I go any further, I want to raise a concern around JOSS's "substantial scholarly effort" requirement.

From my understanding, the work presented here is principally in Assets/_SitCoM, which includes:

• An GUI that presents a list of available "scenarios" and "impacts" that can be selected in addition to timing
• Base classes/manager classes that are set up to call user-defined "scenario" and "impact" functions when they are selected at the GUI, and time falls within the specified interval
• A GUI for providing names and descriptions of scenarios and impacts (which also feels unnecessary, as opposed to using a text file or global variable/enum somewhere?)

I appreciate the value proposition here in being able to create "plug and play" simulations for visualizing extreme events and their impacts. However it doesn't seem to me that the scope as-implemented matches the size JOSS requires. Being mostly generating a UI of switches which conditionally enable objects/object behavior, this feels like it falls under "minor utility package" territory and does not appear to me to be something that would take >= 3 months of time in the context of spinning up a new unity project that needs some UI to do something similar.

[luxaritas]

NB: The "real" lines of code here appears to be <1000, which should be flagged according to JOSS guidelines. Most of the auto-identified code is library code

[osorensen]

Thanks a lot for your feedback @luxaritas.

@ruedi99ms, @luxaritas and @ApocalyVec, I pause the review for now, until the JOSS editorial team has evaluated whether the submission is within scope.

[osorensen]

@editorialbot commands

[editorialbot]

Hello @osorensen, here are the things you can ask me to do:

# List all available commands
@editorialbot commands

# Add to this issue's reviewers list
@editorialbot add @username as reviewer

# Remove from this issue's reviewers list
@editorialbot remove @username from reviewers

# Get a list of all editors's GitHub handles
@editorialbot list editors

# Assign a user as the editor of this submission
@editorialbot assign @username as editor

# Remove the editor assigned to this submission
@editorialbot remove editor

# Remind an author, a reviewer or the editor to return to a review after a 
# certain period of time (supported units days and weeks)
@editorialbot remind @reviewer in 2 weeks

# Adds a checklist for the reviewer using this command
@editorialbot generate my checklist

# Set a value for version
@editorialbot set v1.0.0 as version

# Set a value for branch
@editorialbot set joss-paper as branch

# Set a value for repository
@editorialbot set https://github.com/organization/repo as repository

# Set a value for the archive DOI
@editorialbot set set 10.5281/zenodo.6861996 as archive

# Mention the EiCs for the correct track
@editorialbot ping track-eic

# Run checks and provide information on the repository and the paper file
@editorialbot check repository

# Check the references of the paper for missing DOIs
@editorialbot check references

# Generates the pdf paper
@editorialbot generate pdf

# Recommends the submission for acceptance
@editorialbot recommend-accept

# Generates a LaTeX preprint file
@editorialbot generate preprint

# Flag submission with questionable scope
@editorialbot query scope

# Get a link to the complete list of reviewers
@editorialbot list reviewers

# Creates a post-review checklist with editor and authors tasks
@editorialbot create post-review checklist

# Open the review issue
@editorialbot start review

[osorensen]

@editorialbot query scope

[editorialbot]

Submission flagged for editorial review.

[oliviaguest]

@editorialbot reject

[editorialbot]

Paper rejected.

[oliviaguest]

Dear author(s), @ruedi99ms, I am sorry to say that JOSS requires certain conditions to be met for this to remain under review, such as the requiremnt to meet our idea for Substantial scholarly effort, which includes but is not limited to the following (see more at previous link):

As a rule of thumb, JOSS’ minimum allowable contribution should represent not less than three months of work for an individual. Some factors that may be considered by editors and reviewers when judging effort include:

• Total lines of code (LOC). Submissions under 1000 LOC will usually be flagged, those under 300 LOC will be desk rejected.

I am sorry and I hope this does not deter you from choosing JOSS in the future.

Best,
Olivia

[oliviaguest]

@luxaritas, @ApocalyVec, @osorensen thank you for the valuable contribution you have made even if in this case it did not result in a publication. Sorry again to @ruedi99ms for the less than idea news.