4 ms·

I think the professional sciences has, for a long time, been a social game of building ones career but it does feel like it's metastasized into something that's

I think the professional sciences has, for a long time, been a social game of building ones career but it does feel like it's metastasized into something that's swallowed academia. From the first article in the series [0]: > Insiders ... understand that a research paper serves ... in increasing importance ... Currency, An advertisement, Brand marketing ... in contrast to what outsiders .. believe, which is ... to share a novel discovery with the world in a detailed report. I can believe it's absolutely true. And yikes. Other than the brutal contempt, TFA looks like pretty good advice. [0] https://maxwellforbes.com/posts/your-paper-is-an-ad/ https://maxwellforbes.com/posts/your-paper-is-an-ad/

whatshisface 1y ago
This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific. Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" The most disturbing thing about it is the way advice to forget about science and optimize for the process is mixed with standard tips for good communication. It shows that the community is so far gone that they don't see the difference. If anyone needs a point of reference, just look at an algorithms and data structures journal to see what life is like with a typical rather than extreme level of problems.
- rrr_oh_man 1y ago
  > This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific The number of accepted papers is absolutely currency and measure of worth in academia.
  - whatshisface 1y ago
    That's true as a zeroth-order approximation, but even sticking to trivially quantified values your citation count is more important (that's maybe first-order), and on the level of your reputation the question you need to ask is, "will people feel like my work actually benefits them?"
  - Fomite 1y ago
    Interestingly, one of the pieces of advice, about having a punchy title, is a double edged sword. There's some data suggesting papers with "clever" titles have an easier time getting published, but accumulate fewer lifetime citations. Both of which are currency.
    - karmakurtisaani 1y ago
      The reason could be that clever titles add "novelty", but not much substance. Publishable, but not citable.
      - Majromax 1y ago
        > The reason could be that clever titles add "novelty", but not much substance. Another reason might be that clever titles stand out as bold claims, working counter to the common practice of academic humility. If a paper seems to be downplaying its own significance, then why should a casual reader (or reviewer, at first impression) give it the benefit of the doubt? That's not to say that papers should over-claim, and I suspect that doing so might lead to a harsh counter-reaction from reviewers who feel like they've been set up to have their time wasted. Nonetheless, "project confidence" might be good practice in academia as well as one's social life.
    - eru 1y ago
      I suspect there's a selection bias here. Silly example: if I ever find out a prove saying that "P=NP", that will also be the title of my paper. No cleverness required to grab attention. If I have a more pedestrian result, I'll think up some clever title.
    - spookie 1y ago
      As someone doing a literature review I can safely concur with this. Fancy titles often do not include the most obvious terms of what you are searching for, leading to fewer results from your query.
- 0xfffafaCrash 1y ago
  Strongly disagree here. While I haven’t published e.g. particle physics work, I have authored/coauthored a number of peer-reviewed papers in other topics generally considered hard science (and published in ”high impact factor” scientific journals). This article and series is just as accurate about how ”Science 2” works outside of ML in my experiences. Branding and marketing is a very major factor in everything from grant funding to research publishing in academia.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - whatshisface 1y ago
    There's a used car sales line somewhere and you just have to be careful to not cross it. Yes, there are rewards to good communication but if it becomes the sole purpose (communicating "read me") that's too far.
- Fomite 1y ago
  I have definitely said that people can't resist a network diagram, and "people love a good map", and I'm not in ML research. There are things that appeal to people. This tends to not manifest as "We need one of these" but "If we have one of these, lets be sure to use it."
  - whatshisface 1y ago
    People like witty epigraphs underneath chapter titles too, and that's great. Now imagine saying, "the difference between this paper getting accepted or rejected is the presence or absence of a network diagram..."
    - Fomite 1y ago
      I mean, at one point I was presenting some research next to someone with a network diagram, a map, and a phylogenetic tree and my comment was "That's going to win best poster" and I was right.
    - intended 1y ago
      The difference between getting fatigued reading one paper vs one that makes it easier to see the point you are making. Evaluators are human.
      - auggierose 1y ago
        Yes. That is indeed the problem, and might be resolved sooner than later.
- chneu 1y ago
  my spouse works in academia and publishes regularly. This article is spot on. what are you talking about? have you ever published a research paper and gone through peer review?
  - whatshisface 1y ago
    I think a lot of people are reading the presentation advice and thinking "yeah, I work hard for good presentation too," without realizing that the reason content hasn't even been mentioned is that the author really is describing ML accurately. I think it's ultimately due to a lack of theory, which creates the expectation that the results from trying an idea will be a random draw. From that point, you get the behaviors of trying as much as possible and taking each attempt as a fixed object to then go try and get over the threshold.
- pazimzadeh 1y ago
  It would be great if he’d shared the actual reviewer comments. > Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" I doubt the reviewers asked for that, but yes that kind of thing happens all the time prior to publishing and there’s nothing wrong with it. If it reduces the amount of time it takes to understand the paper then do it..
- chairhairair 1y ago
  > Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" Chemists are extremely brand-aware regarding their figures. In synthetic chemistry many chemists could guess the author based just on the color scheme of the paper's figures. For instance, look at the consistency here: https://macmillan.princeton.edu/publications/ https://macmillan.princeton.edu/publications/ And it comes with rewards! The above lab is synonymous with several popular techniques (one, organocatalysis, which garnered a Nobel prize) - the association would be much less strong if the lab hadn't kept a consistent brand over so many years.
  - mbforbes 1y ago
    Oh my, those figures are gorgeous! Thank you for sharing.
keiferski 1y ago
A secondary and less visible consequence of this is that many people don’t go into academia in the first place because they are put off by the publishing system. And so many people that would otherwise be contributing to human knowledge are working in an office somewhere helping a random company sell more widgets.
- eru 1y ago
  Figuring out how to improve industrial processes also contributes to human knowledge.
  - tomsmeding 1y ago
    It does, but it would contribute more if said knowledge was published openly for others to learn from. Yes, I am aware of the irony of paywalled academic publications.
- ke88y 1y ago
  Contributing to humanity’s knowledge is MUCH easier in the private sector than in academia. In the private sector you can choose your patrons and your dissemination mechanism. Many, many scientists publish papers, publish code, give talks, write blogs, and otherwise distribute technical details about their work product. In academia the Federal Government is your only serious patron and you must disseminate in academic journals/conferences, which generally do a piss poor job of providing incentives for either doing good work or communicating well about that work. Any time I hire a junior PhD I have to UNDO a ton of academic writing/provlem-solving propaganda and reteach both common sense and normal writing style. The harsh truth is that private sector scientists tend to do better science and disseminate it in more useful and lasting ways. They are paid better for it. The academic scientists who are up to private sector standards tend to have diverse funding mechanisms and therefore rely far less heavily on prestige publication for their labs revenue stream. But most professors must publish papers because they are unable to do good work and/or communicate the value of that work to anyone other than their inner circle of friends (who sit on the grant review panels or take stints at federal agencies).

whatshisface 1y ago

This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific. Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" The most disturbing thing about it is the way advice to forget about science and optimize for the process is mixed with standard tips for good communication. It shows that the community is so far gone that they don't see the difference. If anyone needs a point of reference, just look at an algorithms and data structures journal to see what life is like with a typical rather than extreme level of problems.

rrr_oh_man 1y ago
> This is an article about ML research, and the emphasis on branding and marketing your paper wouldn't fly in any of the fields people think of as scientific The number of accepted papers is absolutely currency and measure of worth in academia.
- whatshisface 1y ago
  That's true as a zeroth-order approximation, but even sticking to trivially quantified values your citation count is more important (that's maybe first-order), and on the level of your reputation the question you need to ask is, "will people feel like my work actually benefits them?"
- Fomite 1y ago
  Interestingly, one of the pieces of advice, about having a punchy title, is a double edged sword. There's some data suggesting papers with "clever" titles have an easier time getting published, but accumulate fewer lifetime citations. Both of which are currency.
  - karmakurtisaani 1y ago
    The reason could be that clever titles add "novelty", but not much substance. Publishable, but not citable.
    - Majromax 1y ago
      > The reason could be that clever titles add "novelty", but not much substance. Another reason might be that clever titles stand out as bold claims, working counter to the common practice of academic humility. If a paper seems to be downplaying its own significance, then why should a casual reader (or reviewer, at first impression) give it the benefit of the doubt? That's not to say that papers should over-claim, and I suspect that doing so might lead to a harsh counter-reaction from reviewers who feel like they've been set up to have their time wasted. Nonetheless, "project confidence" might be good practice in academia as well as one's social life.
  - eru 1y ago
    I suspect there's a selection bias here. Silly example: if I ever find out a prove saying that "P=NP", that will also be the title of my paper. No cleverness required to grab attention. If I have a more pedestrian result, I'll think up some clever title.
  - spookie 1y ago
    As someone doing a literature review I can safely concur with this. Fancy titles often do not include the most obvious terms of what you are searching for, leading to fewer results from your query.
0xfffafaCrash 1y ago
Strongly disagree here. While I haven’t published e.g. particle physics work, I have authored/coauthored a number of peer-reviewed papers in other topics generally considered hard science (and published in ”high impact factor” scientific journals). This article and series is just as accurate about how ”Science 2” works outside of ML in my experiences. Branding and marketing is a very major factor in everything from grant funding to research publishing in academia.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- whatshisface 1y ago
  There's a used car sales line somewhere and you just have to be careful to not cross it. Yes, there are rewards to good communication but if it becomes the sole purpose (communicating "read me") that's too far.
Fomite 1y ago
I have definitely said that people can't resist a network diagram, and "people love a good map", and I'm not in ML research. There are things that appeal to people. This tends to not manifest as "We need one of these" but "If we have one of these, lets be sure to use it."
- whatshisface 1y ago
  People like witty epigraphs underneath chapter titles too, and that's great. Now imagine saying, "the difference between this paper getting accepted or rejected is the presence or absence of a network diagram..."
  - Fomite 1y ago
    I mean, at one point I was presenting some research next to someone with a network diagram, a map, and a phylogenetic tree and my comment was "That's going to win best poster" and I was right.
  - intended 1y ago
    The difference between getting fatigued reading one paper vs one that makes it easier to see the point you are making. Evaluators are human.
    - auggierose 1y ago
      Yes. That is indeed the problem, and might be resolved sooner than later.
chneu 1y ago
my spouse works in academia and publishes regularly. This article is spot on. what are you talking about? have you ever published a research paper and gone through peer review?
- whatshisface 1y ago
  I think a lot of people are reading the presentation advice and thinking "yeah, I work hard for good presentation too," without realizing that the reason content hasn't even been mentioned is that the author really is describing ML accurately. I think it's ultimately due to a lack of theory, which creates the expectation that the results from trying an idea will be a random draw. From that point, you get the behaviors of trying as much as possible and taking each attempt as a fixed object to then go try and get over the threshold.
pazimzadeh 1y ago
It would be great if he’d shared the actual reviewer comments. > Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" I doubt the reviewers asked for that, but yes that kind of thing happens all the time prior to publishing and there’s nothing wrong with it. If it reduces the amount of time it takes to understand the paper then do it..
chairhairair 1y ago
> Could you imagine someone saying, "be sure that the graphic for the molecule in figure 1 is 3D and has bright colors?" Chemists are extremely brand-aware regarding their figures. In synthetic chemistry many chemists could guess the author based just on the color scheme of the paper's figures. For instance, look at the consistency here: https://macmillan.princeton.edu/publications/ https://macmillan.princeton.edu/publications/ And it comes with rewards! The above lab is synonymous with several popular techniques (one, organocatalysis, which garnered a Nobel prize) - the association would be much less strong if the lab hadn't kept a consistent brand over so many years.
- mbforbes 1y ago
  Oh my, those figures are gorgeous! Thank you for sharing.

keiferski 1y ago

A secondary and less visible consequence of this is that many people don’t go into academia in the first place because they are put off by the publishing system. And so many people that would otherwise be contributing to human knowledge are working in an office somewhere helping a random company sell more widgets.

eru 1y ago
Figuring out how to improve industrial processes also contributes to human knowledge.
- tomsmeding 1y ago
  It does, but it would contribute more if said knowledge was published openly for others to learn from. Yes, I am aware of the irony of paywalled academic publications.
ke88y 1y ago
Contributing to humanity’s knowledge is MUCH easier in the private sector than in academia. In the private sector you can choose your patrons and your dissemination mechanism. Many, many scientists publish papers, publish code, give talks, write blogs, and otherwise distribute technical details about their work product. In academia the Federal Government is your only serious patron and you must disseminate in academic journals/conferences, which generally do a piss poor job of providing incentives for either doing good work or communicating well about that work. Any time I hire a junior PhD I have to UNDO a ton of academic writing/provlem-solving propaganda and reteach both common sense and normal writing style. The harsh truth is that private sector scientists tend to do better science and disseminate it in more useful and lasting ways. They are paid better for it. The academic scientists who are up to private sector standards tend to have diverse funding mechanisms and therefore rely far less heavily on prestige publication for their labs revenue stream. But most professors must publish papers because they are unable to do good work and/or communicate the value of that work to anyone other than their inner circle of friends (who sit on the grant review panels or take stints at federal agencies).