‘Crackpots’ and ‘active researchers’: The controversy over links between arXiv and the scientific blogosphere
| Autor: | Sophie Ritson |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2016 |
| Předmět: |
History
Computer science media_common.quotation_subject Blogosphere 05 social sciences String (computer science) Media studies General Social Sciences Trackback 050905 science studies 01 natural sciences Scholarly communication World Wide Web History and Philosophy of Science Categorization 0103 physical sciences Scientific controversy Preprint 0509 other social sciences 010306 general physics Function (engineering) media_common |
| Zdroj: | Social Studies of Science. 46:607-628 |
| ISSN: | 1460-3659 0306-3127 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/0306312716647508 |
| Popis: | Controversies over string theory (collectively termed the ‘string wars’) intensified in 2005. Also in that year, the open-access preprint publisher arXiv instituted a new feature called a ‘trackback’. This new feature enabled authors of blog posts discussing a paper on arXiv to leave a trackback (a link) to the post on the paper’s abstract page on arXiv. The determination of which specific bloggers would have access to the feature generated a public controversy that was played out in the blogosphere. Although the community was in almost unanimous agreement that so-called ‘crackpots’ should not have access to the trackback feature, it was unable to reach a consensus as to how to define a ‘crackpot’ or an ‘active researcher’. Blogs may provide a window into science in the making, yet this study shows that blogs confound categorization as permanent or ephemeral scholarly communication. The trackback feature was originally conceived to develop certain blog discourse as an alternative or complementary form of peer review. However, the high-energy physics community as a whole questions the ongoing function of the blog. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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