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Actually, I'd like to see what happens when you apply Google's antispam measures to research papers. There are some researchers who constantly reference one ano
by teyc 13y ago
Actually, I'd like to see what happens when you apply Google's antispam measures to research papers. There are some researchers who constantly reference one another, like a link farm, in order to boost their credentials.
- svenkatesh 13y agoMaybe it would help reduce the incidence of citation cartels, but the other issue is that some fields are very small -- especially in highly technical fields like math and in some sub-fields of biology. In those cases, papers that are cited have to be cited because they're the only ones relevant to the research area.
- shiven 13y agoIf only it were that simple. PageRank is no panacea and not all cross-citations are incestuous, as you seem to be implying.
- teyc 13y agoNo they do not imply wrong doing. There are a lot of good reasons why cross citation occurs. Having an alternate score gives you another sense of what kind of work this person is doing. You have to remember - using cross citation to inflate rankings have a social cost as well. It prevents other more promising research from gaining the right attention.