Hundreds of extreme self-citing scientists revealed in new database • Hacker News Board

Re: Hundreds of extreme self-citing scientists revealed in new database

#211

Post by carusooneliner » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 1:51 AM UTC

Vinnl wrote: post #178

carusooneliner wrote: post #101

Regrettable that the article begins by outing a prof from an unheard of university in India, who probably publishes in low repute journals and conference. Ideally the citing malfeasance score should be weighted based on journal and conference reputation.

And how do you measure journal and conference reputation? Conventional measures there also lean on citations, and journals have been known to do quite a bit of manipulation to get those scores up.

Start with Google Scholar's list of top publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues, and detect self-citing and citing rings within the universe of these publications. Almost certainly the guy with the record for self-citing doesn't have a paper in any of the top publications.

Re: Hundreds of extreme self-citing scientists revealed in new database

#212

Post by antpol » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 3:51 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #202

ajuc wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is with the binary attribution. Either you're an author of everything in the paper or you're not an author at all. Software world solved this issue with version control systems like git. And if scientists write papers in latex or other text-based formats it's trivial to use version control system for that too. Then when you quote a fragment you do "git blame" on it, and you see who created and edited this…

Except that's not how science is done. Some people are bad writers and just don't touch the paper at all. Sometimes you have a grad student do all the work for a paper and someone else writes it, or the majority (common in the first year or two, or with undergrads). Just because they had no or little commits should they not be the main author? They did the work after all. Another example, my advisor doesn't like git.…

Not to mention the politics of adding prominent names from your University/Institute to the list of authors to improve the chances of paper acceptance to competitive journals and conferences

Re: Hundreds of extreme self-citing scientists revealed in new database

#213

Post by wpietri » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:53 AM UTC

WhitneyLand wrote: post #209

wpietri wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why it seems that nominally objective measures would be better. But I don't think cross-field, non-gameable objective measures of research quality are practically possible I also don't think it's a problem that different groups have different interests, etc. As I say elsewhere, I think that diversity is the solution.

You could be right, but I don't see how it can be known with any confidence until a few approaches are given extended good faith trials. There are anecdotal examples supporting both scenarios and the problem simply seems too unknowable and important not to test drive whatever the top 2 or 3 approaches end up being. > I also don't think it's a problem that different groups have different interests, etc. I don't see ho…

I doubt there's a single solution, so I think trying to get people in many, many fields to coordinate will just slow down improvement. If anything, I think the drive to centralize and homogenize, which is part of managerialism, is a big part of some of the prominent problems in academia.

Re: Hundreds of extreme self-citing scientists revealed in new database

#214

Post by mschuster91 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:18 AM UTC

cr0sh wrote: post #198

mschuster91 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Science gets done but the rewards seem to filter preferentially to those who are able to game the system, and the system exists out of a need to make one's self look as productive as possible This is largely due to the current model of science funding, and not just in the US. Here in Germany, many involved in public (i.e. at an university, not inhouse r&d at a company) science only get 1-year-limited chain contract…

> This would also solve the problem that e.g. NASA has with each President reversing course. No wonder that the last Moon visit was decades ago when the priorities get completely turned over every 4-8 years. This is also one of the arguments against promoters of so-called "term limits" for congressmen and others; imagine this kind of churn in priorities occurring with major and minor public works projects! We don't h…

I'd prefer a 12-year term limit (for a 4-year period). That's 2 years to get up to speed, 8 years of working, and 2 years to pass knowledge on to the next generation. For long term projects the funds could be allocated at project start (e.g. via special-purpose bonds, just as in the early days of railway construction), so the project will be independent from political issues.

Re: Hundreds of extreme self-citing scientists revealed in new database

#215

Post by godelski » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 7:30 PM UTC

antpol wrote: post #212

godelski wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that's not how science is done. Some people are bad writers and just don't touch the paper at all. Sometimes you have a grad student do all the work for a paper and someone else writes it, or the majority (common in the first year or two, or with undergrads). Just because they had no or little commits should they not be the main author? They did the work after all. Another example, my advisor doesn't like git.…

Not to mention the politics of adding prominent names from your University/Institute to the list of authors to improve the chances of paper acceptance to competitive journals and conferences

A lot of publications now want you to do anonymous authors because of this. Though it's always pretty easy to tell what University something came out of, so the prestige of a university still plays a role.