>They only help you trace political connections on academia. Assuming that's actually true (and it's not, in my experience), that alone is a valuable thing. D

>They only help you trace political connections on academia. Assuming that's actually true (and it's not, in my experience), that alone is a valuable thing. Do you prefer doing research in a place where political connections cannot be traced? I don't. It's bad enough as it is. Here's the other -- really obvious -- thing it achieves: it helps you find more information about a given subject. It helps you understand precisely what a given publication is referring to. Just because a system is abused doesn't make it a bad system. And if you want to dismantle a system, you must at least replace it with something that isn't worse.