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In undergrad, my professor explained to me in very candid terms (from the position of being a generous mentor) that the optimal path to success in the Arts and

In undergrad, my professor explained to me in very candid terms (from the position of being a generous mentor) that the optimal path to success in the Arts and Social Sciences is: 1. Find a niche only a couple of people operate in. 2. Make friends with them at all costs and work in their area. 3. Review each others work, amassing enormous citations in highly respected (albeit sometimes niche) journals.

a9h74j 5y ago
I saw something similar in an academic's blogged advice ten or fifteen ago: "At graduate level, you should cultivate [peers and a concentration] such that your intellectual correspondence is publishable." I took that as plausible enough at the time to mention the advice once to a graduate student in philosophy. I did not take it at the time as immediately translatable into a [simply translated?] phrase I have heard since: "friendship corruption." There are some video lectures from a writing consultant employed at UChicago. He accepts that concentrations within fields are to some extent self-defined in the academic game -- in only slightly more generous terms. IIRC his strategic advice for those failing to publish is: learn to frame your abstracts as respecting but advancing the discussion. Perhaps in small enough niches ingratiate yourself would need to be mentioned? Or show that you will play by being selectively generous with citations?? Citations. The academic version of SEO and currency more valuable than money? (Recall where page rank came from.) One kind of power behind institution-sanctioned monsters?
- galimaufry 5y ago
  > "At graduate level, you should cultivate [peers and a concentration] such that your intellectual correspondence is publishable." ... I did not take it at the time as immediately translatable into a [simply translated?] phrase I have heard since: "friendship corruption." This seems misguided, and I certainly hope that this 'friendship corruption' concept never catches on. There are great papers that started as letters and were later completed by the sender, recipient or both. No one should feel ashamed about that, and no one should feel ashamed of developing friendships with their colleagues.
  - a9h74j 5y ago
    Well said. My comment was phrased in response to its parent comment looking askance at "amassing enormous citations." There is love of truth and not all is corruption.
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  The problem here is that there is no bright-line distinction between "friendship corruption" and "doing high-quality collaborative research in a small field where colleagues are cordial." I'm not saying that one can't bleed into the other -- sometimes they do. I'm saying that any approach you take that disincentivizes the bad behavior is also likely to harm good scientific collaborations as well. It's one of the downsides of peer review.
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  > When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. - Goodhart's Law > The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor. - Campbell's Law This is just another proof that you can't trust metrics. Build up a network of people that you can hold personally responsible for, and if any of them ever recommends low quality work then let them go. Let that network know whenever you discover a network of individuals who put out low effort work so that you and your network can disregard the entire network. Bottom up, not top down. Do not rely on citation count. Do not rely on views. Do not rely on upvotes or reviews from people you do not know. Do not rely on if they went to a prestigious university. Do not rely on the ability to pass a standardized test.
splithalf 5y ago
This model has been applied to every field; all those “family run businesses” like the mafia, the American news industry, Harvard.
btilly 5y ago
A similar dynamic in mathematics is why I chose to leave academia a quarter century ago.
thomasahle 5y ago
I wonder if part of the current problem is not that the fields are too big. In a small field where people know each other, reputation becomes more important, and you can't just misrepresent your results, since everyone will read it and know you did it. Meanwhile, in a big field, it is easier to hide in the crowd. Write some papers that get accepted, but not read, and have some friends cite them.

a9h74j 5y ago

I saw something similar in an academic's blogged advice ten or fifteen ago: "At graduate level, you should cultivate [peers and a concentration] such that your intellectual correspondence is publishable." I took that as plausible enough at the time to mention the advice once to a graduate student in philosophy. I did not take it at the time as immediately translatable into a [simply translated?] phrase I have heard since: "friendship corruption." There are some video lectures from a writing consultant employed at UChicago. He accepts that concentrations within fields are to some extent self-defined in the academic game -- in only slightly more generous terms. IIRC his strategic advice for those failing to publish is: learn to frame your abstracts as respecting but advancing the discussion. Perhaps in small enough niches ingratiate yourself would need to be mentioned? Or show that you will play by being selectively generous with citations?? Citations. The academic version of SEO and currency more valuable than money? (Recall where page rank came from.) One kind of power behind institution-sanctioned monsters?

galimaufry 5y ago
> "At graduate level, you should cultivate [peers and a concentration] such that your intellectual correspondence is publishable." ... I did not take it at the time as immediately translatable into a [simply translated?] phrase I have heard since: "friendship corruption." This seems misguided, and I certainly hope that this 'friendship corruption' concept never catches on. There are great papers that started as letters and were later completed by the sender, recipient or both. No one should feel ashamed about that, and no one should feel ashamed of developing friendships with their colleagues.
- a9h74j 5y ago
  Well said. My comment was phrased in response to its parent comment looking askance at "amassing enormous citations." There is love of truth and not all is corruption.
matthewdgreen 5y ago
The problem here is that there is no bright-line distinction between "friendship corruption" and "doing high-quality collaborative research in a small field where colleagues are cordial." I'm not saying that one can't bleed into the other -- sometimes they do. I'm saying that any approach you take that disincentivizes the bad behavior is also likely to harm good scientific collaborations as well. It's one of the downsides of peer review.
ItsMonkk 5y ago
> When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. - Goodhart's Law > The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor. - Campbell's Law This is just another proof that you can't trust metrics. Build up a network of people that you can hold personally responsible for, and if any of them ever recommends low quality work then let them go. Let that network know whenever you discover a network of individuals who put out low effort work so that you and your network can disregard the entire network. Bottom up, not top down. Do not rely on citation count. Do not rely on views. Do not rely on upvotes or reviews from people you do not know. Do not rely on if they went to a prestigious university. Do not rely on the ability to pass a standardized test.

splithalf 5y ago

This model has been applied to every field; all those “family run businesses” like the mafia, the American news industry, Harvard.

btilly 5y ago

A similar dynamic in mathematics is why I chose to leave academia a quarter century ago.

thomasahle 5y ago

I wonder if part of the current problem is not that the fields are too big. In a small field where people know each other, reputation becomes more important, and you can't just misrepresent your results, since everyone will read it and know you did it. Meanwhile, in a big field, it is easier to hide in the crowd. Write some papers that get accepted, but not read, and have some friends cite them.