6 ms·

Nice idea, +1 for LaTeX titles! But the registration system should be way more open, you're discriminating against many math PhD's who are no longer in academia

by xamuel 8y ago

Nice idea, +1 for LaTeX titles! But the registration system should be way more open, you're discriminating against many math PhD's who are no longer in academia. I would have posted my paper there but I guess "@math.ohio-state.edu" isn't elite enough so I'll post it here and probably get more traction than all the papers on OP's entire site combined. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2869.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2869.pdf "Infinite graphs in systematic biology, with an application to the species problem" (printed in Acta Biotheoretica). This paper is as fun as a barrel of monkeys. Its results are mind-blowing even though the math is approachable. By the time you finish the first section, you'll be thinking to yourself, "Charles Darwin should have been a computer scientist!"

jtanderson 8y ago
Wow, yeah. Came here to say the same. I could understand somewhat making a distinction between emails that end in .edu and those who don't -- at least during the early days -- but this system does seem excessive. I do think the ideas in the paper are pretty cool! One question: have you considered or attempted some sort of generative models based on this system? You'd have to do some clever symbolic manipulations to deal with the "infinities" that crop up, but it seems like it could be interesting.
- xamuel 8y ago
  Not sure what you mean exactly by "generative models" but it reminds me of Rohde et al 2004 (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02842 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02842) which is all about modelling this sort of thing. In fact, some of the results of Rohde's paper are quantitative things which Rohde et al discovered by simulation and which my paper provides theoretical explanation for (see my paper's Proposition 6 and the last sentence of the abstract of Rohde et al).
- sampo 8y ago
  > emails that end in .edu Only universities in the United States have emails that end in .edu. Most of the universities in the world have domain names that end with their respective country code.
  - gpm 8y ago
    > Only universities in the United States Not strictly speaking true. Univeristy of Toronto (Canada) will give you a toronto.edu email if you're a CS student (even undergrads) or faculty.
ssivark 8y ago
Math has a culture where author affiliations are often mentioned only as a footnote, at the end of the paper, and not at the front of the paper. For a field with such culture, where it has repeatedly been shown that quality work can come from many places, this kind of coarse gatekeeping creates a very unpleasant environment. I'm trying to imagine the motivation of the platform creators, but drawing a blank. Maybe it's a ham-handed attempt at spam filtering.
- gh02t 8y ago
  Their about page says that they use an algorithm to verify if you are a PhD candidate in math/stat. I don't really think that is a good requirement for the exact reasons you say, but I would guess it's set up like that to make this automatic verification more practical.
daveFNbuck 8y ago
Their guidelines [1] state that they need your e-mail because "an algorithm uses it to determine if you are a genuine PhD candidate in math/stat." It seems that the site is meant for PhD students rather than PhD recipients. [1] https://www.hessix.com/guide https://www.hessix.com/guide
- omaranto 8y ago
  If the algorithm figured out from my email address alone that I'm not a student anymore, I'm pretty impressed. But I doubt that's what happened. :)
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    It might not be too hard to cross-reference that email address against published papers to get an estimate of how long since you started the program, or even potentially find online records of your degree and/or thesis.
  - daveFNbuck 8y ago
    I was responding more to the idea that they're discriminating against PhDs who've left academia. If it's not meant for anyone who's graduated, then it's discriminating equally against those who've stayed.
    - omaranto 8y ago
      I was sort of kidding earlier. I tried registering with my current, academic, address and was rejected. I'm not surprised because it ends in "mx". The "joke" was that a PhD student at my university would have a similar looking email and I don't think they would have been accepted either. (I did have an "edu" when I was a student in the US and that address would probably have been accepted.)
      - daveFNbuck 8y ago
        You should ask a PhD student at your university to try. It'll be interesting if they get accepted.
matthewwiese 8y ago
I've only just skimmed the first section, and already I feel like I'm in for a trip. The math is indeed as approachable as you suggest. I'm only a philosophy major (though our logic department is seriously the bees knees, shout-out to Tennant!) yet I'm still able to pick up what you're putting down. Very fascinating paper, thank you for sharing. Also, one of the many nerds across the street in University Hall says hello :)
- xamuel 8y ago
  Hi, hope you'll enjoy the paper! I'm not at OSU any more unfortunately (miss it a lot). Agreed the philosophy dept is great there, I even had Stewart Shapiro cross departments to be on my thesis committee :) How far along are you in your program and is Tennant your advisor?
  - matthewwiese 8y ago
    Shapiro! I'm actually in Advanced Symbolic Logic (PHILOS 5500) this semester and he happens to be teaching it. Talk about Hacker News serendipity. Tennant isn't my advisor, but I've taken a handful of classes with him, and his "holistic" (that's the best descriptor I can come up with atm) approach to teaching logic and philosophy of science makes everything fall into place in my head. His pleasant, informal teaching style combined with a skill for connecting big ideas across disciplines is seriously pedagogical magic. And I'm currently a senior, hoping to wrap everything up by this summer. :)
AlexCoventry 8y ago
> you're discriminating against many math PhD's who are no longer in academia FWIW, they gave me an account when I emailed them and told them I'm in that situation.
godelski 8y ago
> PhD's who are no longer in academia. And what about those that never were in academia? Mathematics has a long history of participants that were never formally educated (ironically Ram is even mentioned in the username section). Plus, being such a niche topic (especially one that a lot of people were taught to fear), I doubt that there'd be much abuse. Evidence of this belief is that Wikipedia has great math pages. Ones that many times are better than Wolfram's MathWorld, which can be too concise.

by xamuel 8y ago

jtanderson 8y ago

Wow, yeah. Came here to say the same. I could understand somewhat making a distinction between emails that end in .edu and those who don't -- at least during the early days -- but this system does seem excessive. I do think the ideas in the paper are pretty cool! One question: have you considered or attempted some sort of generative models based on this system? You'd have to do some clever symbolic manipulations to deal with the "infinities" that crop up, but it seems like it could be interesting.

xamuel 8y ago
Not sure what you mean exactly by "generative models" but it reminds me of Rohde et al 2004 (https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02842 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02842) which is all about modelling this sort of thing. In fact, some of the results of Rohde's paper are quantitative things which Rohde et al discovered by simulation and which my paper provides theoretical explanation for (see my paper's Proposition 6 and the last sentence of the abstract of Rohde et al).
sampo 8y ago
> emails that end in .edu Only universities in the United States have emails that end in .edu. Most of the universities in the world have domain names that end with their respective country code.
- gpm 8y ago
  > Only universities in the United States Not strictly speaking true. Univeristy of Toronto (Canada) will give you a toronto.edu email if you're a CS student (even undergrads) or faculty.

ssivark 8y ago

Math has a culture where author affiliations are often mentioned only as a footnote, at the end of the paper, and not at the front of the paper. For a field with such culture, where it has repeatedly been shown that quality work can come from many places, this kind of coarse gatekeeping creates a very unpleasant environment. I'm trying to imagine the motivation of the platform creators, but drawing a blank. Maybe it's a ham-handed attempt at spam filtering.

gh02t 8y ago
Their about page says that they use an algorithm to verify if you are a PhD candidate in math/stat. I don't really think that is a good requirement for the exact reasons you say, but I would guess it's set up like that to make this automatic verification more practical.

daveFNbuck 8y ago

Their guidelines [1] state that they need your e-mail because "an algorithm uses it to determine if you are a genuine PhD candidate in math/stat." It seems that the site is meant for PhD students rather than PhD recipients. [1] https://www.hessix.com/guide https://www.hessix.com/guide

omaranto 8y ago
If the algorithm figured out from my email address alone that I'm not a student anymore, I'm pretty impressed. But I doubt that's what happened. :)
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  It might not be too hard to cross-reference that email address against published papers to get an estimate of how long since you started the program, or even potentially find online records of your degree and/or thesis.
- daveFNbuck 8y ago
  I was responding more to the idea that they're discriminating against PhDs who've left academia. If it's not meant for anyone who's graduated, then it's discriminating equally against those who've stayed.
  - omaranto 8y ago
    I was sort of kidding earlier. I tried registering with my current, academic, address and was rejected. I'm not surprised because it ends in "mx". The "joke" was that a PhD student at my university would have a similar looking email and I don't think they would have been accepted either. (I did have an "edu" when I was a student in the US and that address would probably have been accepted.)
    - daveFNbuck 8y ago
      You should ask a PhD student at your university to try. It'll be interesting if they get accepted.

matthewwiese 8y ago

I've only just skimmed the first section, and already I feel like I'm in for a trip. The math is indeed as approachable as you suggest. I'm only a philosophy major (though our logic department is seriously the bees knees, shout-out to Tennant!) yet I'm still able to pick up what you're putting down. Very fascinating paper, thank you for sharing. Also, one of the many nerds across the street in University Hall says hello :)

xamuel 8y ago
Hi, hope you'll enjoy the paper! I'm not at OSU any more unfortunately (miss it a lot). Agreed the philosophy dept is great there, I even had Stewart Shapiro cross departments to be on my thesis committee :) How far along are you in your program and is Tennant your advisor?
- matthewwiese 8y ago
  Shapiro! I'm actually in Advanced Symbolic Logic (PHILOS 5500) this semester and he happens to be teaching it. Talk about Hacker News serendipity. Tennant isn't my advisor, but I've taken a handful of classes with him, and his "holistic" (that's the best descriptor I can come up with atm) approach to teaching logic and philosophy of science makes everything fall into place in my head. His pleasant, informal teaching style combined with a skill for connecting big ideas across disciplines is seriously pedagogical magic. And I'm currently a senior, hoping to wrap everything up by this summer. :)

AlexCoventry 8y ago

> you're discriminating against many math PhD's who are no longer in academia FWIW, they gave me an account when I emailed them and told them I'm in that situation.

godelski 8y ago

> PhD's who are no longer in academia. And what about those that never were in academia? Mathematics has a long history of participants that were never formally educated (ironically Ram is even mentioned in the username section). Plus, being such a niche topic (especially one that a lot of people were taught to fear), I doubt that there'd be much abuse. Evidence of this belief is that Wikipedia has great math pages. Ones that many times are better than Wolfram's MathWorld, which can be too concise.