Author Archives: Brock Tice

Follow-up on PLoS ONE Ratings, from PLoS

I mentioned yesterday the new rating system/software launched by PLoS one. This was precipitated by an announcement on the software/technical side. Today they have an article on the PLoS blog about the new rating system, encouraging people to rate articles.

Here’s the intro from the post:

I’ve been waiting to write this Blog posting for a while and now I can. As from today PLoS ONE has a user rating system for its articles. All users can now rate articles in three subjective categories: Insight, Reliability and Style. We have made the tool, now we need you to come and use it.

User rating is a very common feature of websites these days, be it for movies, books, blog posts, pretty much anything. What user rating allows is a quick and easy survey of a communities opinion. Despite the obvious advantages to hard pressed scientists trying to get to grips with a vast literature this simple system hasn’t been much applied to scientific papers up to this point.

The major exception to this is probably Faculty of 1000, which has been providing ratings for papers for many years, but that is not based on the opinion of a whole community but only the thoughts of a select few.

So what will this new rating system look like? Well, if you go to any of the six hundred or so papers that PLoS ONE has so far published and look in the right had column you will see a little box containing five small stars. Those indicate the overall aggregate rating of the paper based on individual ‘votes’ from individual users.

What’s interesting about this is that it’s a little different from a citation index, the main way that articles are scored. You see, normally scientific articles are given a ranking or score based on how much they are cited in other articles. This is a pretty good idea, but it neglects sort of “terminal” articles — that is, articles that mark the end of most investigation into a particular niche. These articles may nonetheless be extremely interesting or useful, but never garner a large citation index. Furthermore, articles of interest to people in other fields, or even the general public, will never garner any indication of said interest or popularity under the conventional system. The occasional exception might be popular science articles inspired by new publications in Nature or Science.

With the emergence of an article rating system, that may change. People can read and rate articles without having to write an entire manuscript. People can leave comments on articles without drafting (and having accepted) an “official” editorial or response in a major academic journal. Things are getting a lot more interesting, and quickly.

As the title of the article suggests, Rate Early, Rate Often.

More open academics: Manuscriptorium

Historians have a bit of an advantage when it comes to open access to research material — so much of what they’re interested in is well out of copyright. To that end, Manuscriptorium is assembling digitized manuscripts and other research materials in a convenient and open-access library.

Their about page is very informative, describing the origins of the project. It seems to be run by the Czech government, and includes not only digital resources but metadata on meatspace records and artifacts as well.

I saw a sign on a reference librarian’s door the other day about spending hours of aimless internet searching versus 10 minutes with a reference librarian. It’s a decent point, and I was in the library that day to look at reference materials better than anything I could find online, but more and more of the resources and catalogs (real-world pointers) that we need to do research are becoming available online, and to everyone.

More on open science: PLoS ONE

I wrote last month about my desire for more open access in science, and how PLoS was leading the way. I also said I had some ideas about what more could be done.

It looks like PLoS ONE stole them.

Of course, I jest.

Obviously they’ve been working on this for a while, and I missed it. I only know about it because I’m now subscribed to their RSS feed. This is the framework upon which the future of science publishing will be built. There are many PLoS (Public Library of Science, by the way) journals — PLoS ONE seems to aim to be the open-access equivalent of Science or Nature.

Anyone is allowed to register and comment on or rate articles (with some caveats). They even have guidelines for rating articles. The initial review they mention by an editor and perhaps a few reviewers keeps out the quacks, but anyone is allowed to point out weaknesses in the article or make suggestions on it. It reverses my original idea a bit, in which the article would not be “published” until it had passed a vote by public reviewers, but it is perhaps a more functional model.

I am planning to register and see about reviewing and commenting on some articles. Are you?

Ads are (often) mental poison.

Most of us really need very little to get by on. I am not talking about the minimal to survive. I mean to live a pleasant and fulfilling life. We need healthy food, things for preparing food, a place to live, furniture, toiletries, cleaning supplies, clothes, maybe a computer. We need exercise, but at the very least that costs little more than a pair of running shoes and a piece of floor on which to do calisthenics. It certainly does not require expensive machines that you’ll use twice and forget about.

How is it, then, that people end up with so much stuff? Is it because more stuff makes us happy? Well, beyond basic needs, not really, although people seem to think so. Some people like to collect things. Others keep stuff around in case they might need it later. However, I think a lot of things that people buy, they neither need, nor really want.

Why do we think we need so many things? Advertising. Aggressive, manipulative advertising. Ads that make you think that you’ll be happier, or stronger, or better liked, or sexier, or you’ll be more powerful, or your life will be easy and carefree if only you buy this thing! The odd thing is that even though we brush this off consciously, somewhere in our minds, it sticks.

I quit watching TV when I was about 12. I’ll still catch the occasional show via DVDs from Netflix, but the commercials are just nauseating (and an annoying interruption) when I happen to see them at a bar, passing by someone watching, or whatever. The same goes for Internet ads. I’m astonished when I see them at a cybercafe or on a friend’s computer. I use Adblock, so I pretty much never see them any more. My desire to buy things has decreased enormously because of it. However, outright ads aren’t all of it.

As part of my Zen practice of trying to be more mindful of my, uh, state of mind, I’ve gained a sensitivity to the impulse to buy. When I feel it, it now sets off warning bells in my head. I stop, and think about why I want to buy whatever, and whether that’s really what my rational brain wants. Often, it is not. So, what besides ads triggers this impulse to buy? Blogs that review items. These include (and I won’t actually name or link them) blogs related to my smartphone, those related to useful gadgets to have around the house, etc. Browsing my Amazon.com recommendations is also dangerous. Catalogs and circulars of any kind are a bad idea. I don’t surf certain geek-related tech sites and I don’t browse brick-and-mortar stores to kill time (i.e. while waiting for someone). Basically, I’ve sworn off “tech porn” and “consumer porn” as I call them. It’s amazing how much stuff I don’t know I need until I see it.

There are ways to go a step further than avoiding ads. I use Freecycle periodically. It’s also possible to find things you really need for free or cheap on Craigslist. (Disclosure: I found my apartment, my car, and my wife on Craigslist.) The reverse is also true — it’s easy to get rid of stuff you don’t need on these sites. It’s tempting to sell those things, but ask yourself: is it worth your time to post, sell, and maybe ship those items, or is it worth more just to have them out of your space and your mind? Some things will be worth selling, but most will not. A couple of good sites on living simply and avoiding ads include the unfortunately-named Live Simple and Fravia’s reality cracking section. The latter can be a bit… off at times but it’s still chock full of goodness.