Dear Ljubomir,

Anonymity means everywhere an opportunity for manipulating data, information briefly a way for swindling people. Unfortunately, we are living in the age of disinformation. Fake participants (anybody can create such an identity) can deform the real “public opinion” and so manipulate the belief of the participating RG members. In sum, anonymity destroys the trust among RG participants and creates the atmosphere of suspicion. It is also a kind of cowardice in a circle where everybody shows his face and personality.

I agrre with the matter of anonymous down-voting, but I have no explanation for "The researcher has chosen not to show their identity when they download a publication"!

People are entitled to send you RGmail messages if they do not want other people to take advantage of a public post. Perhaps RG scores more points for personal than public posts?

Fear, above all. I find it weird too. There are many people who love to observe, comment, laugh, mock, it is creepy. There is also the perception that forums are a waste of time, perhaps they want to stick to a certain professional reputation.

@Ian, if RG has access to the private correspondence, that would not be nice! :)

@Ljubomir: I am sure that privileged staff at RG can access RGmail, but it is not Googleable, like posts are.

An interesting paper on Anonymity in Science!

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364661313000661

All the things you mentioned are unusual to an honest forth right person. My QnA has been down voted by anonymous persons. My papers have been down loaded by anonymous persons too.

But concerning the 3rd point, sometimes, certain people got into trouble because of their post on FB. It depends where we live. YOU will ask if we have freedom of speech.

Sent from mobile.

My friend, Lijubomir, I've just experienced the matter of anonymous down-voting immediately following a question I posted that has to do with the real purpose of higher education! I tried my hand at another question that has been taken off instantly!

Anonymity does not matter to me. Getting down votes does not matter to me too. Getting up votes is important to me not because of RG score but to thank colleagues for appreciating and following my posts and to see how RG experts look at me in exchanging perspective.

@Raoof, thanks for the link. Seems that paper is a real one, regarding the abstract which is available. Please, send me a paper, there is no way for me to get it! Thanking You in advance!

@Kamal,

That was i guest.

The file is here.

Nice question! There are three examples you provided in you statement, lets go over them.

1) Anonymous down voting. This is simply the feature provided to us by RG administration. They have decided that this will, probably, be safer among RG users. However, there are some threads that talk about this issue, and I personally think that it should not only be non-anonymous, but also it should require from a person a short message explaining his down voting decision.

2) I can see who download my (at this point only one :)) publication. You can also probably find it the section STATS.

3) The third aspect is again related to a bit confusing way how RG has made it. Now notifications about the shared questions have started to come in the form of personal message. There is magic button "Reply" which will send your comment as a private message rather than post it as an answer in the thread. I have seen people being confused by this feature. Instead, everyone should first click on question, and then type their answer. :)

Dear C. Lewis Kausel,

Thank you very much for sharing your thought in relation to my views. As RG member I classify the posted question if contextual, opinionated, or universal knowledge. If question is contextual and opinionated I don't disagree. I exchange perspective without disagreeing. If question or topic is universal knowledge and global and with theoretical bases I give strong accent that my perspective is a universally accepted knowledge. It is up to the reader to draw the line of correctness. It's just I'm too careful in stating my views because of respect to cultural differences. RG members vary from novice to expert. This variation in RG members is taken into account. I will exercise academic freedom depending on the situation. I will weigh the gain and lose of exercising academic freedom.

Anonymity does not matter to me. It's up to the anonymous person how he/she creates his/her profile. Getting down votes is well respected. Up vote and down vote was done according to the voter's background.

Dear Ljubomir

Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refer to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown

Anonymity is incompatible with accountability in the legal sense, that is fact. But it is also true that the legal framework does not exist in a vacuum, it exists in a space of social values ​​that often conflict with each other.

I agree with Kamal: Researchers should deal with each other in transparent, respectful and clear environment

Clearly name the anonymous understand something of sacrilege and also necessarily violent, since the word proposal in any analytical way or discursive structure, involve, whenever a foreign act to being named. This violence is the same as that without great fanfare, the current use of the concept of excluded.

“Anonymity in Science”, appears silly, if you discover something extraordinary maintain secrecy till you publish your data that has a meaning to protect from encroachment.

I too wonder why the -ve vote person's name does not appear; probably we should ask this question RGate, why they do like this! When the person down vote could he/she not justify themselves why they did like that, amazing, I wonder always. Most of the people support this. Probably I need to say philosophy again "many head many minds". We should neither comment nor ask a question nor come to know about the person for their suggestions by chance if we do something wrong accidentally why you have done like that. So called Privacy Protecting Policy. Then it’s fun to say RGate is an open forum for discussion.

When I need any article if it is available I download otherwise I request the author to send the same. So far whatever I see or download the author aware of that and give response to that sometimes they take time to respond. By chance if somebody downloads my articles I get information from RG when they update my weekly statistics, I hardly bother about the scores. What I learnt is not to waste our valuable time for this kind of issues unnecessarily mood off for nothing.

When you see the identity of the voters, you will proceed with the establishment of micro-networks within a question discussing why someone voted up or voted down, or why somebody has been contradictory in voting across reply contents. Will this improve the discussion around an initial question?

Dear Ljubomir,

Anonymity means everywhere an opportunity for manipulating data, information briefly a way for swindling people. Unfortunately, we are living in the age of disinformation. Fake participants (anybody can create such an identity) can deform the real “public opinion” and so manipulate the belief of the participating RG members. In sum, anonymity destroys the trust among RG participants and creates the atmosphere of suspicion. It is also a kind of cowardice in a circle where everybody shows his face and personality.

@ Marcel, I believe that even discussion about why someone up/down votes your answer can be pretty productive. After all, it is nothing but an attempt to understand what a particular person thinks and why. However, I should point that it will work as long as participants do not offend or insult each other. Mutual respect should go first!

I would say: those that remain anonymous are probably not certain about their own judgement

Hello Pavel,

answers are judged by all the participants anyway. And participants are kind because there are few down-votes

@ Dear Vladimir

I asked this question a long time ago (similar with your comment).

But unfortunately we faced with QUESTION BLOCKING problem.

You can try the link. But it is not accessible.

Question:

Adding your photo to your RG profile might make it more familiar. Isn't it?

Explanation:

The profiles with photos are much more likely to get clicked on professional networks (e.g RG, LinkedIn,...) than those without. I think it more tangible to message/follow/vote people with a picture especially on RG.

Is it easier to remember researchers who had a picture?

Why some member profiles are without photos?

Posted in RG:

Jan 8, 2014

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Raoof_Mostafazadeh/questions/?ev=prf_que

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Adding_your_photo_to_your_RG_profile_might_make_it_more_familiar_Isnt_it

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Adding_your_photo_to_your_RG_profile_might_make_it_more_familiar_Isnt_it

@Ljubomir,

The FATE of this treat will be the same as the previous questions.

/#postUnaccessible

TERRIBLE CENSORSHIP

By this way, i BET the (Q/A) section will replace by (A) section, and the RG team will design their own questions in the near future.

@Thanks for your contributions!

@Raoof, thanks for paper, I am going to be back when I read it!

@Raoof, short and quick access into a two page paper have shown me another approach to the anonymity in science, an approach quite different of one that I have described in thread explanation! I was speaking on Anonymity here at Research Gate. This paper is good, anyway, for treating the other aspects such as peer review process etc. Thanks again!

Agree with all the above comments! It is wierd !!! Anonymity destroys belief and faith, if one is absolutely confident that they are right, then again why the anonymity ??

In my opinion, one should bravely own what is done by him and be bold enough to accept gracefully the mistakes if any and should not repeat the mistake. This is ethics in whatever one does.Unanimity is not good,probably it may be due to a little bit of Inferiority Complex also rather than Plagiarism.

As far as Down Voting is concerned it should be done, only if one is sure that the Answer is not really correct or irrelevant and not for the purpose of fun or intention to pull down the score of the other. That is Sadism.

Also,one should be able to appreciate the Good of the other.This develops

esteem.

P.S.

Hello All,

In a constructive community we have to accept that other people are more talented than you, and therefore should be grateful receiving constructive critics or advice. The worst is full ignorance, i. e. people that don't to care about what other people think!

Another example of anonymity, economically compensated, is industrial publication, which substitutes the name of the company for the individual researcher

I think that those who are anonymous, probably chose that option for specific reasons (and these are invisible). It does give them an invisible edge, e.g. they can respond with no urgency to preserve respectability or responsibility. Or maybe

they need to traverse RG in some clandestine and concealed manner to peek and poke and garner response for some non-transparent motive. That there is something a bit sinister about the 'incognitos' is obvious; who would walk into a gathering of people with a mask or cloaking device on....and then 'participate'...

And industries might exploit the information openly provided by governmental organisation, perhaps to develop patents.

Ljubomir, I agree that anonymous down-voting and paper downloading seem weird.

Maybe anonymous downloading, as restricting oneself to sending personal messages, may be more of a matter of personal choice, and I won't give them much thought.

The lack of alternatives to anonymity in what concerns down-voting, however, seems to encourage outright blind sanction, has no relation to outspoken professional criticism or to anonymity in peer review, and appears to counteract understanding of what might be ethical relationships among RG fellows, imho.

Thx for the question. I think we all are enthusiastic about seeing RG progress, and eager to understand in what kind of exercise we are engaged in here. I believe your thread helps in that.

Good question Ljubomir,

1- Downloading - In most cases there are ways to determine who downloaded though. Sometimes a vague suspicion may arise that some people wish to remain anonymous because they might use part of your research without fully attributing it, I've seen at least one such case .... I do not understand either why anonymous downloading should be authorized. It's an open door to this cardinal crime in academe - non attribution and cribbing (aka plagiarism.)

2- In downvotes - a solid argument, or plain ignoring a contribution when it's too silly, might always be a better option. Downvotes can however on rare occasions be justified, and if they're not anonymous might lead to bad blood and even a vendetta, so I can understand why , if they exist, they should be anonymous. Whether downvotes should exist at all however is moot.

Personally speaking I don't like to hide myself. But it doesn't mean that I reject others right to be anonymous. The rules of game are determined by site admin and his initial decision has been to allow for anonymous downvoting and downloading. We are not owner of the site and it is his right to keep or eliminate this technical possibility. Responding to the voice of customer (we as users) to keep or eliminate anonymity is another issue.

@Ljubomir, thank you for rising up problem witn anonimity here on RG. Sometimes I feel not comfort and would like to change things. The rules of downloading and downvoting on RG have to be discussed. But @Jalal pointed out that its "are determined by site admin". That's right.

Jalil: "Responding to the voice of customer (we as users) to keep or eliminate anonymity is another issue."

This is certainly true and clearly stated in what concerns RG's users.

It also instigates one to enquire about the nature of social networking in general, the role of its participants, and possible differences among non-scientific networks ('sheer-social', like Facebook, or professional like LinkedIn), specialized/disciplinary fora, and spaces like RG, which focuses on scientific themes and interests, but has pledged itself to be open to discussion of a broad array of questions without being confined to disciplinary or problem-oriented boundaries, or to 'traditional' mediating protocols of other scientific meeting places.

It is possible that the commitment to openess is one of the distinct traits of this space, but the way this commitment will evolve is still to be defined, presumably with some level of envolvement of the space's constituency.

@ Raoof Mostafazadeh

Why some member profiles are without photos?

This is same question I asked myself.

I fully agree with you C. Lewis Kausel · The down votes often kills the question and people feel inhibited to continue to participate in that thread. I'm glad you throw this idea on the table.

This is our similarity. Personally down vote impact the the flow of discussion negatively. I never give down vote. It decreases motivation. People share their thoughts to see themselves how their knowledge and skills are interpreted by experts in terms of relevance and quality. If we don't get up votes it sends a clear message that our ideas, knowledge, contribution failed to meet the standards of the RG research community. For me there is no need to give down vote.

RG Score is a metric that measures scientific reputation based on how all of our research, ideas, knowledge, contribution are received by our peers. What is the measure of reliability of down vote and up vote. Who measures reliability of down vote and up vote.

Who will referee the correctness, quality, depth, and significance of information posted. We RG members are hold responsible for the validity of information that we read in RG Q&A (question and answer platform).

I totally disagree with the concept of anonymous downvoting. Anonymity somehow induce irresponsibility.

Second thing, answering in a message instead of posting the response in the thread. The possible reason may be the new feature in RG. Now, a shared question goes into inbox and have many tabs like 'Answer' and 'Reply'. Hitting 'Reply' button instead of 'Answer' button may make the difference.

It is my request to RG, such a fantastic, interactive platform, to be more transparent and abolish anonymity !

@Florencia, Thanks (the same point of view).

(IN SOME CASES, I LIKE TO SEE THE GESTURE OF A PIONEER IN MY RESEARCH AREA).

@ Dear Ljubomir, with your permission (Since you are question owner).

@ Dear ALL, Would you please state your opinion about my question in the previous comment?

Question:

Adding your photo to your RG profile might make it more familiar. Isn't it?

Explanation:

The profiles with photos are much more likely to get clicked on professional networks (e.g RG, LinkedIn,...) than those without. I think it more tangible to message/follow/vote people with a picture especially on RG.

Is it easier to remember researchers who had a picture?

Why some member profiles are without photos?

Fear, my friend Ljubomir, fear, everybody feels fear:

*Fear to show that follows a question: why, isn't he an expert and want to learn more? Oh, he is not as good as he seems...

*Fear to go contrary to the main dogma: Hm, is really the special relativity valid? No, Oh I cannot accept publicly such a thing, but what if I could privately investigate it?

*Fear to be fired: I cannot publish such an opinion, it is against the main standard of my job, probably they will fire me, but let me see privately if something different happens...

Fear to write, fear to express an opinion, fear to be a jobless person in the swamp of the desperate job-hunting cloud...

Let them sleep well with their 'consuming silence'... when they will be fired they will remember some discussions they were silently watching...

Hi Demetris, I believe you have it :)

Besides, some questions are sensitive. Not all of us have the same degree of freedom of speech. If I am not mistaken, one of Ljubomir's attachments, on Serbia before 2000, has been removed. Not likely removed by Ljubomir. So it's probably by RG. Or are we always blaming RG?

They may be fearful to be identified and be open to criticism that was why n't sending you reply here. The other reason may be sociological that people feel more close and personal relation via sending you message on personal venues; not on public.

Miranda...then the question to be asked is "Who is RG?". Surely RG cannot remove an attachment with no interaction with the author unless it has assumed some controlling, unilateral and non-transparent viewpoint on certain things. Even then there should, after the removal, be some direct communication with the author.

Hi Miranda, fortunately for me, economic collapse of Greece has rid me from such a fear: I have nothing to lose! (Germany has taken all...)

When I encounter colleague who is straight forward in sharing his knowledge and expertise it does not matter to me because that is his/her individual uniqueness. What is important is professional and ethical manner of interaction. As I always say RG is global networking among novice and experts from different disciplines across the culture. Sometimes RG Q&A platform calls for cultural flexibility.

We are in RG to enrich our knowledge through research to promote quality life and progressive society. We are in RG to develop new knowledge by exchanging perspective. We are in RG to be evaluated by our peers who are experts. We are in RG to build academic, research, and non academic capacity with high quality standards. I look at RG similar to accreditation. Joining RG is voluntary. Therefore joining RG is self initiated evaluation based on standards of quality as an expert or researcher or as novice who wants to be a researcher or an expert. We react differently in the interaction or discussion in RG Q&A platform.

Anonymity and down voting issue? Is down voting necessary to build RG research community? Is anonymity acceptable in RG research community?

Perhaps anonymity is merely an expression of fear to say your opinion freely?

@Ludwig, I don't know how to answer that. Recently I asked community support a question, but got no answer. Then I asked Danielle, but she didn't reply as she used to. So we have to ask @Ljubomir. Prof Ljubomir, did you remove the attachment concerning Serbia or did not? Thanks.

And also about who has removed the question about the most educated nation...

@Miranda, what removed attachment about Serbia You are talking about?

Many a times I have seen that RG links shared by contributors disappears/do not work at all, and some times some question disappears of its own with all answers. So it could be either the RG view point/policy or could be some bug in the system. Who should be approached?

Many a times I have seen that my comments on a paper, becomes a question, and I receive a mail to "Be the first to comment on the new question" (my own comments become a new question).

About anonymity, it is partly due to the selective display policy of RG, or the design of the software process.

But RG is having for sure all the data in their database. May be in future they come out with a paid service where you could see all.

Prof. Sharma, fellows: I and some of you may have noticed glitches in the functioning of RG site. I believe most of them can be attributed to the management of inconsistent entries, lack of control in screen scrolling, past automatic association of the Up and Down voting buttons, and I have found that they've been corrected over the time.

This is not to be confused with manipulation of the content of the entries, of which I have no report.

Maybe @Ravi is right and anonimity on RG will be disclosed to the interested participants of the project for a fee? It sound like joke but who knows the future.

@Ljubomir, there was an attachment I saw with the colored letters 'THE'. After a while it seemed to have disappeared, but the post was still there. But perhaps I was wrong, don't worry.

I think anonymity wouldn't have to be allowed in ResearchGate. Similarly I think only critical or agreable comments would have to allowed while offensive comments would have to be removed.

Hello Daniele,

What are offensive comments and who will judge they are offensive? What is perceived as 'honest' or 'critical' by person A may be perceived as 'offensive' by person B, for instance because people differ in personality profiles or historical (education) backgrounds. Participants can judge comments by voting up or down. If they do not agree they can argue why they do not agree.

Dear friends, at one time, I was quite upset when my question was downvoted. Then after a while, I got more used to it. So I have questions where I got 1 downvote, or 2. Some people may not like my questions, perhaps they think it's complex. But most of the questions directly or indirectly are related to my teaching job, research, and interactions on RG.

Now, I think perhaps RG puts in the downvote feature for 'check and balance'. But I don't down vote, I just ignore some posts. It must be a very superior person to judge other people's posts as poor content. Irrational and irresponsible persons take advantage of the anonymity.

After @Marcel remark to @Daniele I think. Maybe some part of scientist's work includes boring duty to read "offensive comments"? Maybe it is any payment for freedom of expression ?

Of course, the criticism should not be anonymous.

To me, a true scientist must be able to accept that he/she can be wrong when arguments are convincing, otherwise individual prestige becomes more important than science advancements per se.

Distinction between critical comment and offensive comment is subtle but it exists. In general the critical comment is directed at contents of the subject while the offensive comment is directed against the person. Also use of words is important. I have marked some don't make use of this distinction.

@Daniele, @Marcel, @K.C. Low, @Valery , @Miranda and all of you my dear contributors, your answers are the key evidence that I was not wrong with the question? Thank you, just go ahead and keep the rhythm in following the thread active!

Dear Ljubomir,

Actually there should not be any anonymous comments or like that. If someone wants to share anything he/she should say/state clearly. If it is about downloading any paper the person must reveal identity.

I agree with the comment above. Every author and scientist should get critical friends who are known to them and others to help them and support them. I do not agree with peer review to be anonymous, as sometimes reviewers can be somehow very nasty to new scholars. Then, even if somebody is very young and ambitious, s/he should not be afraid of the so called established academics and reviewers; we have to be a strong community of authors and scientists and show our faces to all people out there, if we really care about humanity and our future.

Dear friends, I agree that we all should be honest and brave, open to criticism. So there should be Openness, not Anonymity. But what could be the reasons why RG wants to allow this? If a question is phrased so poorly, we can send a message to the member who stated it. And why should publications be down voted at all, when they have already been accepted for conferences or by journals?

I think that scientists are critics by nature. They need responses, clarity and exactness; since they are all time questioning their selves, their field, their job, their results and science in general, questioning, searching, analyzing is their natural purpose. So anonymity shouldn't be one of their character, a true scientist must have scientific, clear and strong arguments about his thoughts, a problem or a subject and must be able to explain what {s)he disagrees. Anonymous down voting without arguments is not scientific.