4 ms·

At the LHC the number is closer to 3500. I "cruise" on around a hundred papers each year: I haven't read them and in all likelihood never will. At the same time

by dguest 7y ago

At the LHC the number is closer to 3500. I "cruise" on around a hundred papers each year: I haven't read them and in all likelihood never will. At the same time I worked really hard on one or two of them. I have tried to figure out what would be required to remove myself from 98% of the papers we publish, but it turns out to be a lot of work (essentially you have to argue with the head of the experiment, who has other things to worry about).

dekhn 7y ago
this would be tough for me; I will not allow my name on a paper unless I read it before publication (and had some sort of useful, direct contribution). I guess large physics collaborations are very different from small bio projects, but still, I wouldn't want my name associated with a paper that later got retracted for something I would have caught.
- dguest 7y ago
  Well when you do your PhD in particle physics it's just sort of accepted. And I think it's tough on a lot of people: many people in the experiment feel that they should read every paper, because they feel personally accountable to it. They feel they should insist on changes because otherwise it will reflect badly on them. To me that's an enormous amount of work and gets in the way of the really interesting science. Within the field everyone knows that I'm not directly accountable for a paper just because my name is on it. Most work is done by small teams of less than 20 people (sometimes just one or two) so it would be absurd to ask me to fully understand, much less feel accountable for, 95% of what comes out. Personally I'd love an opt-out option. I don't think my colleagues should feel burdened by any weight that my name adds. Beyond that it's a convenience thing: I was updating my CV and thinking "if only there was some automated system to keep track of the papers I contributed to...". Incidentally, we have such a system, but it's only visible within the collaboration.

by dguest 7y ago

dekhn 7y ago

this would be tough for me; I will not allow my name on a paper unless I read it before publication (and had some sort of useful, direct contribution). I guess large physics collaborations are very different from small bio projects, but still, I wouldn't want my name associated with a paper that later got retracted for something I would have caught.

dguest 7y ago
Well when you do your PhD in particle physics it's just sort of accepted. And I think it's tough on a lot of people: many people in the experiment feel that they should read every paper, because they feel personally accountable to it. They feel they should insist on changes because otherwise it will reflect badly on them. To me that's an enormous amount of work and gets in the way of the really interesting science. Within the field everyone knows that I'm not directly accountable for a paper just because my name is on it. Most work is done by small teams of less than 20 people (sometimes just one or two) so it would be absurd to ask me to fully understand, much less feel accountable for, 95% of what comes out. Personally I'd love an opt-out option. I don't think my colleagues should feel burdened by any weight that my name adds. Beyond that it's a convenience thing: I was updating my CV and thinking "if only there was some automated system to keep track of the papers I contributed to...". Incidentally, we have such a system, but it's only visible within the collaboration.