Getting a paper accepted • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#11

Post by abetusk » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:55 AM UTC

jszymborski wrote: post #8

MPSFounder wrote: post #5

I have a problem with this. In the old days, people did research for the sake of research, and mostly out of Europe came the greatest scientific works we have seen. I did my PhD in the US, and it is very unfortunate that "gaming" publications and focusing on "grants" is the meat of research. Before I get criticized, I was part of this process at a top 10 university and I am a proud American. It is because of this pri…

I mean, at some point science is communication. Great for Einstein if he gets general relativity, but if he wants anyone else to care, he needs to communicate not only the complex idea in a clear manner, but also _why_ I should spend my cherished minutes here on earth trying to wrap my small brain around it. It's the difference between being a Cassandra or the Oracle at Delphi. Maybe the only difference between the t…

The argument is about pursuing research for discovery or pursuing research for career advancement. Both scenarios require communication but for different reasons. You're not really addressing main critique.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#12

Post by whatshisface » Thu, May 22, 2025, 4:56 AM UTC

abetusk wrote: post #7

I think the professional sciences has, for a long time, been a social game of building ones career but it does feel like it's metastasized into something that's swallowed academia. From the first article in the series [0]: > Insiders ... understand that a research paper serves ... in increasing importance ... Currency, An advertisement, Brand marketing ... in contrast to what outsiders .. believe, which is ... to sha…

This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific. Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?"

The most disturbing thing about it is the way advice to forget about science and optimize for the process is mixed with standard tips for good communication. It shows that the community is so far gone that they don't see the difference.

If anyone needs a point of reference, just look at an algorithms and data structures journal to see what life is like with a typical rather than extreme level of problems.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#13

Post by photochemsyn » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:16 AM UTC

Oh dear... a monkey has escaped from the circus and is telling us the truth about what's going on inside it.

> "The primary objects of modern science are research papers. Research papers are acts of communication. Few people will actually download and use our dataset. Nobody will download and use our model—they can’t, it’s locked inside Google’s proprietary stack."

The author is confusing the concept of 'science as a pursuit that will earn me enough money and prestige to live a nice life' - in which, I'd say, we can replace 'science' with 'religion' and go back to the 1300s or so - with science as the practice of observation, experiment and mathematical theory with the goal of gaining some understanding of the marvelously wonderful universe we exist in.

Yes, the academic system has been grotesquely corrupted by Bayh-Dole, yes, the academic system is internal blood sport politics for a limited number of posts, yes, it's all collapsing under the weight of corporate corruption and a degenerate ruling class - but so what, science doesn't care. It can all go dormant for 100 years, it has before, hasn't it? 125 years ago you had to learn to read German to be up on modern scientific developments.

Wake up - nature doesn't care about the academic system, and science isn't reliant on some decrepit corrupt priesthood.

P.S. Practically speaking, new graduate students should all be required to read Machiavelli as an intro to their new life.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#14

Post by rrr_oh_man » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:17 AM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #12

abetusk wrote: post #7

I think the professional sciences has, for a long time, been a social game of building ones career but it does feel like it's metastasized into something that's swallowed academia. From the first article in the series [0]: > Insiders ... understand that a research paper serves ... in increasing importance ... Currency, An advertisement, Brand marketing ... in contrast to what outsiders .. believe, which is ... to sha…

This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific. Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" The most disturbing thing about it is the way advice to forget about science and optimize for the process is mixed with standard tips for good c…

> This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific

The number of accepted papers is absolutely currency and measure of worth in academia.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#15

Post by keiferski » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:22 AM UTC

abetusk wrote: post #7

I think the professional sciences has, for a long time, been a social game of building ones career but it does feel like it's metastasized into something that's swallowed academia. From the first article in the series [0]: > Insiders ... understand that a research paper serves ... in increasing importance ... Currency, An advertisement, Brand marketing ... in contrast to what outsiders .. believe, which is ... to sha…

A secondary and less visible consequence of this is that many people don’t go into academia in the first place because they are put off by the publishing system. And so many people that would otherwise be contributing to human knowledge are working in an office somewhere helping a random company sell more widgets.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#16

Post by whatshisface » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:23 AM UTC

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #14

whatshisface wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific. Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" The most disturbing thing about it is the way advice to forget about science and optimize for the process is mixed with standard tips for good c…

> This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific The number of accepted papers is absolutely currency and measure of worth in academia.

That's true as a zeroth-order approximation, but even sticking to trivially quantified values your citation count is more important (that's maybe first-order), and on the level of your reputation the question you need to ask is, "will people feel like my work actually benefits them?"

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#17

Post by 0xfffafaCrash » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:24 AM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #12

abetusk wrote: post #7

I think the professional sciences has, for a long time, been a social game of building ones career but it does feel like it's metastasized into something that's swallowed academia. From the first article in the series [0]: > Insiders ... understand that a research paper serves ... in increasing importance ... Currency, An advertisement, Brand marketing ... in contrast to what outsiders .. believe, which is ... to sha…

This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific. Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" The most disturbing thing about it is the way advice to forget about science and optimize for the process is mixed with standard tips for good c…

Strongly disagree here. While I haven’t published e.g. particle physics work, I have authored/coauthored a number of peer-reviewed papers in other topics generally considered hard science (and published in ”high impact factor” scientific journals). This article and series is just as accurate about how ”Science 2” works outside of ML in my experiences. Branding and marketing is a very major factor in everything from grant funding to research publishing in academia.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#18

Post by Fomite » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:25 AM UTC

canjobear wrote: post #9

I think it’s equally likely that the second version just got a different set of reviewers who randomly liked it more, and the revisions didn’t make a big difference. Having submitted lots of papers to conferences like this I basically think of the reviewer ratings as noise.

For both grants and papers in my experience, there's a "Doomed"/"Not Doomed" threshold you have to get over, but if you clear that threshold things get fairly stochastic.

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#19

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:35 AM UTC

0xfffafaCrash wrote: post #17

whatshisface wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific. Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" The most disturbing thing about it is the way advice to forget about science and optimize for the process is mixed with standard tips for good c…

Strongly disagree here. While I haven’t published e.g. particle physics work, I have authored/coauthored a number of peer-reviewed papers in other topics generally considered hard science (and published in ”high impact factor” scientific journals). This article and series is just as accurate about how ”Science 2” works outside of ML in my experiences. Branding and marketing is a very major factor in everything from g…

[deleted]

Re: Getting a paper accepted

#20

Post by Fomite » Thu, May 22, 2025, 5:36 AM UTC

MPSFounder wrote: post #5

I have a problem with this. In the old days, people did research for the sake of research, and mostly out of Europe came the greatest scientific works we have seen. I did my PhD in the US, and it is very unfortunate that "gaming" publications and focusing on "grants" is the meat of research. Before I get criticized, I was part of this process at a top 10 university and I am a proud American. It is because of this pri…

"In the old days, people did research for the sake of research, and mostly out of Europe came the greatest scientific works we have seen."

In the old days, scientific careers were largely restricted to the independently wealthy or those who could secure patrons.

I also feel like there's a sort of tension with what Hacker News broadly wants out of science. There's often a lament that there aren't enough staff science positions, or positions where people can have a career beyond a postdoc that's just devoted to research.

Those things have to be paid for. Postdocs are expensive. Staff scientists are expensive - and terrifying, because they have careers and kids and mortgages. Postdocs are expensive.

That ends up eating a lot of a PIs time, because the success rate on proposals are low. Even worse now.

Would I love to be able to just sit in my office, think my thoughts, and occasionally write those thoughts up? Sure. But I'd also like to give people an opportunity to have careers in science where they can get paid.