Author order is such an arcane nonsense, and needs to be dismantled. The "roles" indicated by position are peculiar to the discipline and a mystery outside it.

Author order is such an arcane nonsense, and needs to be dismantled. The "roles" indicated by position are peculiar to the discipline and a mystery outside it. The customary position of senior academics e.g. as the "anchor" can confer significant prestige on that academic, while their contribution might be minimal (and even zero, in exploitative situations). It really is bewildering. Online academic communities and publishers such as ResearchGate and EndNote could come up with potential solutions here. ResearchGate already asks us to effectively vote about other users' authorship and expertise. Adding a voting system (or similar) whereby users declare the roles played by each author might help dismantle author position hegemony. Voting might be imperfect, and perhaps there are other options. The current system, though, is ridiculous and contributes towards the exploitation of junior academics, and poor inter-discipline communication. Clearer computational representation of roles could also improve search.