Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem • Hacker News Board

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#171

Post by incompatible » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #155

rspeer wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that nobody knows how to cite it, it's that nobody wants to cite things from outside of academia, perhaps because it lowers their own perceived prestige. I have seen this in computational linguistics where people frequently don't cite their data sources, which often come from outside of the field or outside academia altogether. Instead they put a link to a webpage in a footnote, which does nothing for assign…

"It's not that nobody knows how to cite it, it's that nobody wants to cite things from outside of academia, perhaps because it lowers their own perceived prestige." Unlikely. I can't speak for everybody, but I can speak for myself, and I would be extremely hesitant to cite a random webpage in a journal article for several reasons: 1) It can change . ArXiv has versioning, but even so, this is still a problem. You cite…

For a paper in mathematics, perhaps it would be best to quote the entire proof of interest, if it doesn't appear anywhere else in a peer-reviewed publication. That would avoid the link rot problem. Also make sure archive.org has a copy, if possible.

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#172

Post by Certhas » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

neuromantik8086 wrote: post #116

Certhas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peer review is a base level quality check, not a correctness check in most disciplines. It provides value, indeed most of my papers have been improved by going through peer review. But it's good to be conscious of what it can and can not do. One thing that it does do is signal intent. It signals that you are willing to engage with the expert community, and specifically their feedback and criticism. Finally, there is…

> Peer review is a base level quality check Ideally this is true. At the worst though, you'll end up with a peer reviewer that gets pedantic or one who's a member of a citation cartel [0] that demands that you cite his/her friends papers unnecessarily as a quid-pro-quo leading to publication. It's difficult to say how common this is in practice since academia is generally terrible about self-reflection, but I observe…

It's good to keep in mind that reviewers do not make the decision. They recommend the decision. The Editor, who knows the identity of the reviewer, can see if a reviewer is asking for unreasonable citations.

So while this definitely does happen (and to different degrees in different fields) there are some checks and balances, too.

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#173

Post by CPLX » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:06 PM UTC

ortusdux wrote: post #46

The Haruhi problem reminds me of De Bruijn sequences, aka why I don't trust 5 button keyless car entry systems. Fords keypads do not have return keys, delays, or attempt limits. A 3125 button sequence can guarantee you will unlock the door. It would take about 10-20 minutes for someone who has practiced to break in. Someone this year made a bot that did it in about 5 minutes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_s…

Two problems with this plan though:

1) Even when you succeed you can't start the car.

2) Even given the best case scenario you end up with a Ford.

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#174

Post by dickinson99 » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

krustyburger wrote: post #60

mohammedbin wrote: post #59

Something I somehow doubt too many of you would know but 4chan, despite being considered an unsavoury place because of certain subsections of it (which I'm not proud to admit I visit to learn what "the other side" is talking about), has a lot of great communities as well and I usually find the discussion quality there better than reddit. Also, in the context of this thread, 4chan is an ephemeral site so there is no s…

What are some of the worthwhile communities?

diy is great, out is okay, sci is horrible

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#175

Post by noobermin » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:24 PM UTC

rspeer wrote: post #86

tokai wrote: post #73

It is a fun little event that something posted on 4chan is used in a research paper. But that nobody knows how it should be cited is just plain wrong. They should maybe contact their research library and get a introduction to citing. All citation styles I know of can handle web citations. Anonymous authors is nothing new either. And you have things like the internet archive or Webcite[0] to make sure the web document…

It's not that nobody knows how to cite it, it's that nobody wants to cite things from outside of academia, perhaps because it lowers their own perceived prestige. I have seen this in computational linguistics where people frequently don't cite their data sources, which often come from outside of the field or outside academia altogether. Instead they put a link to a webpage in a footnote, which does nothing for assign…

Unless I'm ignorant, no one does that in science. We cite where data or even a quote comes from. Seems perverse not to do so.

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#176

Post by krackers » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

latchkey wrote: post #87

ortusdux wrote: post #46

The Haruhi problem reminds me of De Bruijn sequences, aka why I don't trust 5 button keyless car entry systems. Fords keypads do not have return keys, delays, or attempt limits. A 3125 button sequence can guarantee you will unlock the door. It would take about 10-20 minutes for someone who has practiced to break in. Someone this year made a bot that did it in about 5 minutes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_s…

"de Bruijin sequence is a similar problem, but this problem has the additional constraint of being non-cyclical." [1] [1] http://mathsci.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:The_Haruhi_Problem/@comme...

Additionally de bruijin sequences are about generating all possible n-length strings from a fixed k-character set (where you can repeat characters). In this problem we only want to generate k-length permutations of a k-character set.

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#177

Post by rspeer » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:28 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #142

rspeer wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crediting a web page in a footnote is almost no credit at all. The web page didn't compile the data. A person did. Sometimes the person is inconveniently pseudonymous, but other times they should be credited by name. I added the Google Books Ngrams example slightly later, but: People _do_ publish papers about their data, and their citation counts are often extremely low, because research users continue to use footnot…

Are you talking about someone crediting a webpage without attempting to attach the name of the author? I have never seen this in academic research, ever. Can you link to an example? In the OP case, the 4chan author was anonymous. EDIT: > People _do_ publish papers about their data, and their citation counts are often extremely low, because research users continue to use footnotes instead. Are you talking about resear…

> Are you talking about someone crediting a webpage without attempting to attach the name of the author? I have never seen this in academic research, ever. Can you link to an example?

Let's continue with the Google Ngrams example. All I had to do was search Google Scholar for "Google Ngrams" to find easy examples on the first page of results, like this one: http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W14-1611

The paper is written by famous Stanford researchers, and they do not cite a single author of their data. Just URLs in footnotes.

This also happens to my research (ConceptNet) all the time. The fact that you haven't noticed it doesn't mean I'm making it up.

I don't see why you think researchers not giving credit for data is a different topic from what I brought up. What I said was, researchers in my field are in the habit of not giving credit for data, and instead they have adopted the convention of using half-assed footnotes with URLs in them, which is not appropriate credit. I speculate that one reason for this habit is that data often comes from inconveniently non-academic sources and would look bad in the bibliography. The habit is so pervasive that authors remain in the habit even when a paper exists.

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#178

Post by dickinson99 » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:34 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #169

swebs wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/diy/ is really great. Generally post quality is inversely proportional to board popularity. Also avoid any board related to entertainment if you want rational discussion.

To provide a concrete example of why /diy/ is great, most "diy-ish" discussion boards I participate in devolve into "look how awesome I am" "look how much money/debt I can spend" "I am more of an authority than you" "my favorite authority could kick the butt of your favorite authority" and similar self-aggrandizement-posting. People on /diy/ actually talk about /diy/ topics, which is a refreshing change from most non…

a shot of black imitation crab meat xDDDD

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#179

Post by throwaway4678 » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:39 PM UTC

Notorious_BLT wrote: post #99

CPLX wrote: post #6

Also lending strong support for the infinite number of monkeys theorem.

I think you misunderstand the population of 4chan. Across its diverse boards, there's all kind of people, and they don't fit into a single mold. For example, all kind of skilled laborers and handy homeowners, many with families, frequent the /diy/ board. The technology board /g/ is host to a lot of talented, high-earning programmers mixed in with tinkerer types. /toy/ is full of all kinds of folks, from teenagers wit…

>A post doesn't come with the baggage of a username that people can hunt through, so it can really only be judged by its content, not by the reputation (good or bad) of its author.

That's a goddman myth. There are many ways to break anonymity (usernames, tripcodes, country flags, user ids) and the very moment people have any ability to track your posts they will dogpile on them. /int/ is (used to? don't go there anymore) the worst example, in that posters that aren't from North America or Northern Europe will get trashed quickly with stupid memes no matter what they say.

Even when it comes to truly anonymous content, this is just not true. If, for instance, you reply to multiple posts and in one of the replies you express the wrong political opinion (on 4chan that means 'not being alt-right') every single person you replied to will trash you and call you a n* or whatever. People don't magically change their way of thinking just because they're on an anonymous platform, they're still full of biases and idiocy. And poison.

Re: Nobody knows how to cite 4chan mathematicians who solved an interesting problem

#180

Post by timr » Wed, Oct 24, 2018, 9:43 PM UTC

incompatible wrote: post #171

timr wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not that nobody knows how to cite it, it's that nobody wants to cite things from outside of academia, perhaps because it lowers their own perceived prestige." Unlikely. I can't speak for everybody, but I can speak for myself, and I would be extremely hesitant to cite a random webpage in a journal article for several reasons: 1) It can change . ArXiv has versioning, but even so, this is still a problem. You cite…

For a paper in mathematics, perhaps it would be best to quote the entire proof of interest, if it doesn't appear anywhere else in a peer-reviewed publication. That would avoid the link rot problem. Also make sure archive.org has a copy, if possible.

Sure, you can quote a short proof. But again, that's a niche solution to a niche problem, and it defeats the purpose of having citations. It also doesn't convince anyone else that they should believe the proof you've cited.

Archive.org is not a solution to this problem. Nobody is going to go fishing in archive.org for a citation that has disappeared. Even if you have the URL, what is the correct date to use?

There are just practical problems with link citations, and you don't need to invent malevolent intent to understand why researchers are reluctant to use them.