Do I really have to cite an arXiv paper? • Hacker News Board

Re: Do I really have to cite an arXiv paper?

#111

Post by mikebenfield » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 1:01 AM UTC

jhbadger wrote: post #48

CogitoCogito wrote: post #13

I am astounded that people would question citing an arxiv paper. If you get an idea from somewhere else, you cite it. This doesn't even have to do with the archive. I have on multiple occasions read papers where the author wrote a proof and then cited "private communications" with another mathematician as the source. In a business where ideas are ideas, you should always cite the source. Anything else is extremely di…

At least in biology, a lot of journals have been cracking down on "personal/private communication" citations lately -- the point of a citation isn't just to give credit, but to tell the reader where to find the info, and chatting with your friend isn't a realistic option for that. If it is unpublished, and is important enough to be cited, then you should make the friend a co-author and include the info in your paper.…

This doesn't make any sense to me, at least coming from mathematics.

If I'm writing writing a paper about my ideas, it would be unethical to "make my friend a co-author" if my friend didn't contribute to those ideas.

Yes, it would be strongly preferable to tell readers where they can find the info you are citing. But if that info is unpublished, then that's life.

Re: Do I really have to cite an arXiv paper?

#112

Post by erik998 » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 2:11 AM UTC

You definitely should cite... What if they are wrong... You can always blame the citation...

Polywater is the perfect example of why you should citate. Just because someone publishes something does not mean its correct, scientific, or proven.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywater

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/167/3926/1715?sid=8b4e...

Science takes time.

Write a good paper and cite, cite, cite! If your citations are ever demonstrated to be incorrect or fraudulent other researchers can continue work to disprove the citations and work on correcting the errors.

Re: Do I really have to cite an arXiv paper?

#113

Post by lou1306 » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 10:10 AM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #90

lou1306 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Leibniz/Newton introduced the concept of calculus; shouldn't we credit them with this (amazing) concept just because it wasn't formalized very well until Weierstrass came along?

In my view, Leibniz / Newton did enough heavy lifting to deserve credit for developing the field. This is way different than just blurting out a "concept" without even knowing if it's workable. I'm in agreement that ideas are a dime a dozen. Sure, it's necessary to cite the first known mention of an idea, and there are situations where the first mention of an idea is important such as in the patent system. "Planting"…

> Somebody will blurt out an idea in a meeting, wait until someone else has developed it, and then rush in to take credit.

I see what you mean, but this is mostly office politics, which is not very related to the academic citation process. If an author makes a conjecture that stimulates further work (even if it's just on the ArXiv), he deserves to be cited.

> Lots of ideas are anticipated in science fiction, but do those authors really deserve credit?

Well, I guess it depends on how much the idea is fleshed out. Lucian was probably the first author to conceive space travel, but it was just "people land on the moon" (still pretty far out for his times, though). Meanwhile, Asimov's three laws of robotics depict a reasonable control scheme for e.g. an autonomous vehicle, so if they are somehow implemented their author should be credited.

Re: Do I really have to cite an arXiv paper?

#114

Post by analog31 » Thu, Aug 03, 2017, 2:39 PM UTC

lou1306 wrote: post #113

analog31 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my view, Leibniz / Newton did enough heavy lifting to deserve credit for developing the field. This is way different than just blurting out a "concept" without even knowing if it's workable. I'm in agreement that ideas are a dime a dozen. Sure, it's necessary to cite the first known mention of an idea, and there are situations where the first mention of an idea is important such as in the patent system. "Planting"…

> Somebody will blurt out an idea in a meeting, wait until someone else has developed it, and then rush in to take credit. I see what you mean, but this is mostly office politics, which is not very related to the academic citation process. If an author makes a conjecture that stimulates further work (even if it's just on the ArXiv), he deserves to be cited. > Lots of ideas are anticipated in science fiction, but do t…

Agreed, definitely cite the author.

In my view, using citations as a metric, and abusing that metric, is just an academic version of office politics, writ large.