There will never be a decline, which authors may enjoy, but they will also need to do visual subtraction to see the differences between monthly usage.

Shouldn’t this be treated more like an analytic package?

Is it useful to authors to see results of news/blog posts/etc on their article rather than a running total put to a graph?

You seem to be missing the point that PLoS is not creating anything here (unlike ETS) Rather they are just exposing factual data that traditional publishers have been unable or unwilling to share.

Of course the facts can be misused and misinterpreted, as PLoS openly acknowledges.

As persons involved in science publishing, we should not argue for the suppression of factual information. The opposite of the flawed ‘wisdom of the crowd’ is not wisdom.

Interesting too that this type of schema could reward notoriety over integrity: I would bet the next “cloned cow” paper will get lots of traffic/links etc…but may not be an example of sterling science.

[Editor's note: ETS = "Educational Testing Service"]

We completely agree that usage statistics need to be treated with caution and have been at pains to point this out in our various informational pages (as well as listing various caveats in their use) – see for example tab 2 of http://article-level-metrics.plos.org/ and also http://www.plosone.org/static/usageData.action

We also make the point in several places that usage statistics need to be treated as indicators of trends, rather than absolute measures to be applied to a single article.

It is also worth noting, of course, that article-level metrics at PLoS are far more than just usage – they include citations, blog coverage, comments, notes, ratings, social bookmarks etc – all of which can provide readers with extra information and context as related to a particular article. Of course, though, usage data are a very visible addition to this suite of metrics.

At the end of the day, in our opinion openly providing the usage data (data which could be routinely provided by any publisher) is preferable to keeping it hidden. By making these data available, we are adding one more measure into the mix and allowing the community to make its own decisions as to how to use it. And now that we have started to provide usage data, it will be possible for the community to engage in meaningful debate (and research) into its significance.

Trusting the wisdom of the crowd is inherently flawed because there is no crowd. As the linked article points out, most online participation is done by small groups of dedicated users. Often these groups have biases and agendas. If the quality of science is judged by readers giving a paper a ranking, then what’s to stop, as one example, a group of rabid creationists from marking down good evolution papers and repeatedly giving high rankings to creationist claptrap? This would result in good science being underfunded and religion receiving lots fo grants. The example cited in your blog entry here is telling as well–PLoS draws heavily on a readership that is very interested in science publishing and new models for information sharing. Those interests may not be shared by the majority of scientists who spend less time reading PLoS journals, but you wouldn’t know that from looking at these metrics.

The other issue is the ease with which such rankings are gamed. Everyone knows that online reviews are heavily infested with fake comments from authors on their own books and business owners touting their own products. If a scientist’s grant funding is going to be influenced by the rankings and download numbers of his papers, you can bet that he will make it his job to spend all available time downloading his own papers and giving them stellar reviews.

Many academics lament the fact that search teams and administrators often don’t take the trouble to read articles when assessing (potential) faculty. Instead they simply look up the impact factors of the journals in which they publish. Deposing the Impact Factor tyrant and replacing it with another metric won’t necessarily make things any fairer.

Moreover, since ‘article usage’ is arguably even less comparable across academic disciplines, it could make the situation worse. If an oceanography paper and a molecular biology paper are both published in Science, one can at least make the reasonable assumption that they are both high-quality articles – on the basis of the company they keep in that particular journal. If both are published in PLoS ONE, and the molecular biology paper is downloaded ten times more frequently than the oceanography paper, does that mean it has more academic merit – or just that it’s a molecular biology paper?