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I am a non-academic. "We need these to manage the complicated management of prestige in the academic fields, e.g. senior members, fellows, etc and arrange conf

I am a non-academic. "We need these to manage the complicated management of prestige in the academic fields, e.g. senior members, fellows, etc and arrange conferences and similar gatherings." Can I ask why? There are lots of well-organized conferences and gatherings in the non-academic software world -- is there something peculiar to academia that makes organizing harder? Ditto prestige management -- what would go wrong if there weren't a body handing out status awards?

mentat 16y ago
The "management" of prestige is a problem not a solution. It leads academics to non-optimal and even immoral decisions.
Jun8 16y ago
I think there are several differences between academic and non-academic world and bodies like are current solutions: 1) In the non-academic world, prestige (or whatever you want to call it) is measured by the projects, you've done, your blog, your HN, SO, etc. karma points. There are no good analogs of these in academia. 2) Academia is much more international. When I meet a professor who is an IEEE Fellow from, say, China, that gives me a certain understanding of their accomplishments (I know, flawed, but sometimes the only way, if s/he's from a university you don't know). If, on the other, you meet a hacker from Japan, he might tell you the open source projects he contributed, companies he started, etc. 3) Then there's the question of paper review. Based on the huge number of papers to be reviewed, there's a need for a body to organize the process and find qualified people to review them. I'm not saying the system is ideal, but the same type of academic organizations have sprouted in many different disciplines. Maybe Internet tools will change the situation. Note that academic people are usually old, so we need to wait for the next generation to become professors to see the full effect.

mentat 16y ago

The "management" of prestige is a problem not a solution. It leads academics to non-optimal and even immoral decisions.

Jun8 16y ago

I think there are several differences between academic and non-academic world and bodies like are current solutions: 1) In the non-academic world, prestige (or whatever you want to call it) is measured by the projects, you've done, your blog, your HN, SO, etc. karma points. There are no good analogs of these in academia. 2) Academia is much more international. When I meet a professor who is an IEEE Fellow from, say, China, that gives me a certain understanding of their accomplishments (I know, flawed, but sometimes the only way, if s/he's from a university you don't know). If, on the other, you meet a hacker from Japan, he might tell you the open source projects he contributed, companies he started, etc. 3) Then there's the question of paper review. Based on the huge number of papers to be reviewed, there's a need for a body to organize the process and find qualified people to review them. I'm not saying the system is ideal, but the same type of academic organizations have sprouted in many different disciplines. Maybe Internet tools will change the situation. Note that academic people are usually old, so we need to wait for the next generation to become professors to see the full effect.