Comments on: Reputation Matters

By: Kent Anderson

Kent Anderson — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:28:10 +0000

John has hit on a classic usability issue we’ve all experienced, when something exists but users don’t notice. We’ve had a Comments widget on this blog since the beginning, but it blends in and isn’t noticed.

The challenge remains. Having a growing list of comments is a good problem to have, and we get great comments on this blog.

By: Carol Anne Meyer

Carol Anne Meyer — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:42:32 +0000

As usual, Kent was more thorough than I. I was “the friend”, and glanced at the article and thought it was interesting, though small.

I’m also in a weird position, because as the chair of SSP’s Publications & Research committee I want to support this blog by bringing stuff to the writers’ attention, but I don’t want to appear to be interfering in editorial matters by shoving stuff down our editor’s throats.

I don’t think it’s unusual in our field to see papers published based on case studies (or anecdotal data). We present this kind of material at our conferences as well.

It isn’t the same type of research we expect from academic journals. But we can still learn from it if we read critically, which Kent is forcing us to do.

By: John Sack

John Sack — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:38:59 +0000

I would say that once you have a responsive community of commentators on your posts, you need an “editorial page”: i.e., a page that highlights letters as the focus, rather than the stories the letters comment on (of course each hyperlinks to the other).

When we implemented “e-letters” in the BMJ — back in 1998, as I recall! — we knew there would be lots of letters. More letters than articles, we designers were told!

So we tried to implement something like a “letters to the editor” page, with an index for quick scanning:
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters?lookup=by_date&days=2
(Of course, many things could be done with css and layers now…)

I’ve seen some blog software with sidebars — on the individual article pages — that show recent comments. Perhaps WordPress has that in some style that you can try out. The reason it is important on the article pages (it is already on the blog’s home page) is that some people (myself included) go to individual blog posts on email referrals and so never see the home page. Just like in journals…

Glad that there are lots of comments, and I hope to read more of them!

By: Kent Anderson

Kent Anderson — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:31:52 +0000

Phil brings up a good point, and guesses correctly that part of my debate covering this study was that it would draw attention to it. However, unlike academic communication of old with citations at the core, blogging allows for more discursive writing. So, part of what led me to write about that study was that it hit on a topic that I was seeing elsewhere in various ways. It provided an excuse to tackle the broader topic.

Also, it let me highlight a comment Phil left on another post, a comment that I thought deserved a bit more prominence. We’re still trying to figure out how to make comments more prominent on this blog. So far, we have more comments than posts, probably a good barometer that the blog is fulfilling its purpose to some degree. We just need to make the comments more prominent.

By: Philip Davis

Philip Davis — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 18:49:25 +0000

Is Kent Anderson a big meanie!

Yes, but not for panning a weak paper published in Learned Publishing.

As someone who reviews for several journals in library science, the Regazzi and Aytac paper is quite typical; in fact, it is probably better than your average paper.

What is unusual about Kent blogging about the Regazzi and Aytac paper is that negative (or critical) citations are unusual in the sciences. Papers that are considered unimportant will simply go uncited. [1,2]

A. J. Meadows writes that “the scientific community does not normally go out of its way to refute incorrect results [...] If incorrect results stand in the way of the future development of a subject, or if they contradict work in which someone else has a vested interest, then it may become necessary to launch a frontal attack [...] Otherwise, it generally takes less time and energy to bypass erroneous material, and simply allow it to fade into obscurity”[3]

As the old saying goes, “there is no such thing as bad publicity.” By drawing attention to this article, you did what all academics (and media stars) crave — attention.

References
[1] Cole, Jonathan R., and Stephen Cole. “Measuring the Quality of Sociological Research.” American Sociologist 6, no. 1 (1971): 23-29.
[2] Cole, Jonathan R., and Stephen Cole. Social Stratification in Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.
[3]Meadows, A.J. Communication in Science. London: Butterworths, 1974.