Incentives in Academic Research(www.msoos.org)
7 pointsby zero_k3 hours ago1 comment
  • jruohonen3 hours ago
    While I agree with the points raised about incentives, the logic is once again in the antagonistic camp and even plain wrong (cf. if they only would be "afraid of having their careers damaged"). No.

    That is: the problems are in the system.

    Better: if not plain fraud, the "faulty" papers should stay where they are, and editors (or conference chairs, etc.) should encourage follow-ups (incl. replications, commentaries, and whatever), which, with "modern" technology, could be linked to the papers.

    • zero_kan hour ago
      It's a fine line. Fraud? No, they are just sloppy, and so one questions whether they ought to be amended, retracted, or a note by the editor attached. The solution you propose, about a follow-up paper is that who will accept a paper that simply demonstrates that the original work was so full of bugs/issues/misconceptions, that many/most of the claims of the paper don't hold? Would you accept that paper into a top-rated conference? And if it's in a 2nd or 3rd rate conference, wouldn't most people question it authenticity (remember, 2nd and 3rd rate conferences have less rigor in reviews) or simply not hear about it? I think these are legitimate concerns.

      A slightly sad side-effect of the follow-up-paper idea, is that it sometimes means that the authors get one more citation, and furthermore, since some of the authors may themselves write part of it, it would mean even more papers by the authors, potentially further cited. So we may be unfortunately incentivizing sloppy research -- the authors can now make two papers: one sloppy, and one fixed. Not sure that's great.

      I am not saying what you are proposing is wrong. But it has side-effects that are not great.