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In my opinion, the whole idea of "papers" isn't going to stay. Papers was a way to share information when internet didn't exist. In a future, researching agents
by antpls 8y ago
In my opinion, the whole idea of "papers" isn't going to stay. Papers was a way to share information when internet didn't exist. In a future, researching agents (most probably AI or robots) will "chat" and "argue" to each others, building fact and fact-checking each other sentences.
It would basically be the classical reviewing process in real time on every sentences.
In my opinion, "salami" papers go in that direction. Facts, premises and results are decoupled to more units, which can be independently claimed and proved.
- jononor 8y agoI agree we need to move to a more continuous approach. We should constantly update a (digital) model of our understanding of a topic, and each (attempted) update should reevaluate against all existing cases. Current papers are too fragmented, and primarily accumulate knowledge in those humans that actively participate in the field. By them reading the papers, evaluating and combining them. To transfer that knowledge to someone new is a process measuring in multiple years (ie a PhD). And when a person then ultimately exits their field, a lot of the accumulated understanding is lost.
- btrettel 8y agoGreat points. I agree that a more granular approach would be better. But I think "salami" papers are too poorly implemented at present. As a compromise in the meantime, it might be better to encourage more short papers which avoid the boilerplate parts. This would make salami slicing your papers more acceptable as you wouldn't be expected to write a full length paper, which encourages salami slicers to pad their papers. The French "Comptes Rendus" journal works like this, and I consistently find the papers I've encountered in it to be an efficient use of my time.