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#alex-danco
Homesteading the Twittersphere
Homesteading the Twittersphere
So the optimal thing for you to do, whether you’re an open source software developer or a Twitter armchair analyst, is to figure out your specialty zone that’s simultaneously useful, but unique – and then homestead it. Establish and cultivate it, like a garden or a plot of land, that you’re tending for the communal benefit of everyone. People come to associate that little plot of land with you specifically, and think of you whenever they go near it.
·alexdanco.com·
Homesteading the Twittersphere
Let’s just get rid of peer review
Let’s just get rid of peer review
All that goes to say, if you just one day got rid of pre-publication peer review entirely – just got rid of it, full stop – there’s no reason to believe that the overall quality of published research would go down, at all. You’re still incentivized to publish your best work; arguably more so because you no longer have the cover of “being peer reviewed” as legitimacy. There will still be good research, and bad research. And post-publication peer review will still be able to pass judgement on anything it wants.
·alexdanco.com·
Let’s just get rid of peer review
Can Twitter Save Science?
Can Twitter Save Science?
The academic journal business model is a funny one, because the journals themselves don’t actually do much work. The content is produced by PIs, for free, who apply for publication in hope of getting selected. Other PIs who review and curate submissions also work for free: it’s considered a part of academic duty, and prestigious to accept but disastrous to decline. In short, aside from the cost of ink and postage, academic journals deal in one thing only: positional scarcity. The real shame in academic publishing, if you ask me, isn’t Elsevier’s 35% profit margin on journal subscriptions. It’s the much larger amount of money, time and influence that is regressively taxed from the young scientists, to the old ones, in exchange for nothing but brand access.
·alexdanco.com·
Can Twitter Save Science?
Positional Scarcity and the Virus
Positional Scarcity and the Virus
You can’t help but wonder: if we’re forced for an entire year to forego the in-person benefits of these practices, what happens when life returns to normal? ​ It’s basic human nature to pursue positional scarcity, and to do whatever it takes to compete for it. The virus won’t change that.
·alexdanco.com·
Positional Scarcity and the Virus