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I think the notion that negative outcomes are capital is a good one. And if the research has public money involved then we have a right to see them so we are n

by uptime 10y ago

I think the notion that negative outcomes are capital is a good one. And if the research has public money involved then we have a right to see them so we are not spending dwindling public money on unnecessary redundancy (as opposed to productive or confirmatory kinds.) The second point about open sourcing tech that do not achieve its goal is also a good point. People who do that with great docs etc get a lot of respect. People who dump badly done work do not. Businesses that fail but care about their customers often "donate" them to a competitor. I think these ideas are quite valid and can and should be realized more often.

mattkrause 10y ago
> People who do that with great docs etc get a lot of respect. That's the issue. Publishing run-of-the-mill negative results right now doesn't get you much of anything. I would love to live in a world where hiring committees and funding agencies say "Well, 3/5 of his experiments flopped, but we looked at the papers and they were all carefully thought out and well-run. Hire him/give him some cash!" Alas, I don't. The article even says, "We trust that reviewers and tenure committees will find appropriate ways to credit papers that include confirmation." The issue is that needs to come first for anything to happen.