WOS4: Quality management in free content [LWN.net]

WOS4: Quality management in free content

Posted Sep 20, 2006 8:06 UTC (Wed) by ortalo (guest, #4654)
Parent article: WOS4: Quality management in free content

NB: A high level of citations may not necessarily mean a high level of scientific quality (at least for the initial years or for a wide public); it may also simply mean a higher level of diffusion of the paper with respect to other publications. Especially when comparing a web-based scientific journal with a conventional one, I am not sure citations are decisive.

More generally, it is always very difficult to assess the scientific "level" of a publication or a person. Everyone tries to use quantitative indicators to do this but, in fact, there are only two means: factual evidence (like measuring star light distortion near Mercury to prove some theory - initially highly controversial) or scientists qualitative opinions (the latter technique being frequently a source of infinite recusion and the associated bugs).

to post comments

OT: GR

Posted Sep 21, 2006 5:35 UTC (Thu) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link] (2 responses)

... factual evidence (like measuring star light distortion near Mercury to prove some theory - initially highly controversial)

Minor quibble: the theory to which you refer, if I'm not mistaken, is General Relativity, in which case I believe you've conflated two separate tests/predictions: the bending of starlight near the sun (first measured during the total solar eclipse of 1919, IIRC), and the anomalous precession of Mercury's orbit (by an extra 43 arc-seconds per century, again assuming my memory isn't playing tricks on me). Mercury itself has far too little mass to cause lensing measurable even with today's instruments, I believe.

Greg

OT: GR

Posted Sep 21, 2006 9:19 UTC (Thu) by ortalo (guest, #4654) [Link] (1 responses)

Thanks for correcting (and enlightening) me.
Furthermore, it sounds like a very practical illustration on why, nearly all the time, such writings needs quality review(ers).

OT: GR

Posted Sep 22, 2006 19:53 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link]

Good point, but don't forget that "quality" != "expert".

Case in point: I could have written the same correction, but my knowledge of relativity stops roughly at the point where things get interesting (i.e. mathematical).

The "expert bias" problem shouldn't be neglected either. As a somewhat extreme example, if you only allow astrologers to edit the article on astrology, then Wikipedia's much-vaunted neutral PoV is lost -- none of these people will admit that the stuff doesn't work in the first place.