yes I think so

Mohanad Ahmed Thank you for your reply.

Good morning

We should have our picture

And I do not respond to anonymous questions

Ingrid García

Ingrid Del Valle García Carreño Thank you for your assertion.

I have seen thus far 2 fake profiles with fake names and fake pictures or without pictures (also both without any research items). Both of them were aggressive and insulted a lot. I think ResearchGate should make sure that people who join are with their real names, with ORCiD ID, with addresses or academic affiliations. This way, ResearchGate can be sure that these persons will be responsible for the material they post. Otherwise, fake IDs can register in ResearchGate and then do abusive and trolling activity.

@Vahid Rakhshan Thank you for useful suggestions.

Agree with the concern...Such malpractices deteriorate both the user's and RG's credibility... Memon, A. R. (2016). ResearchGate is no longer reliable: leniency towards ghost journals may decrease its impact on the scientific community. J Pak Med Assoc, 66(12), 1643-1647.

D A Gayan Nayanajith I agree with your concern. Thank you for participating in the discussion.

Считаю, что даже если и повысит авторитет, но легче будет находить исследователей в твоей области науки!

Yes ive noticed many who dont have a picture. Maybe they are self-conscious.

I'm not sure the photo is necessary, but an institutional affiliation is good. However, as someone who does a good deal of independent evaluations, I don't think profiles should be excluded if they do not provide an institutional affiliation.

Dear Zagir Ataev , Trevor John Hawkeswood , and Eemer Eivers Many thanks for your reply, please.

I have not included my "degree", my "affiliation" &c. simply because I cannot imagine why they could be important to anybody? If somebody wishes to evaluate my scientific qualifications, please look at my publications (their content, not the journal in which they have appeared or similar irrelevant formalities!), eventually please read my comments in RG - are these publications more valuable or comments more wise if I am a professor, a director of the Academy of Sciences than if I am a student? If not, what of interest is in the information "I am a PhD" or "I'm not 'affiliated' anywhere"?

Arbind K. Choudhary this is an interesting question, but is it really important enough to use two question marks ("How such members should be treated??") and three exclamation marks ("RG members, I solicit your comments!!!") ? You should not forget that RG is a scientific social media platform. Nobody should be "treated" due to misbehavior on a social media platform. I too think it is useful to list at least the affiliation, but this should be voluntary. For detailed information you can check out the publications of the respective RG member. In this respect I fully agree with the answer given by Roman Bohdan Hołyński. Don't take RG too seriously!

Thank you Dear Roman Bohdan Holynski for your comments; I appreciate it.

Adding these information is optional. Some RG members prefer not to post such information on RG

Thank you Dear Frank T. Edelmann for your keen observation. I really appreciate it.

Some of my colleagues at work have not updated their RG profile picture; no description

Not everyone is so much into researchgate, I believe adding these could enhance collaboration among researchers as it's one of the aims of researchgate. But as I have seen repeatedly, most people are reluctant to put their real pictures and names. This is not very cool though

good note

Some people prefer to use pictures of their pets as profile picture

Definitely yes.

Thank you Chinaza Godswill Awuchi , Laura Bulgariu , Ali A. Al-Homaidan , Ghassan Sulaiman , and Timothy Omara for providing your individual opinion.

No it does not plus it is not compulsory

Thus far, majority of opinions have emerged in favor of adding profile pictures, institutional affiliations, and a brief account of work to the RG. However, a few showed exceptional reservations, which I really value as sometimes exceptions have proved important sources of new discovery.

If these 10 to 15% did not give their affiliation or did not publish anything but participate in discussions with very good questions or answers I would not mind having them in RG

Thank you Joan Nyika , Vadim S. Gorshkov

Neda Ravankhah

yes

Yes sure

I think it is important to share the details and it always helps to know who you are talking to when you see the picture.

Stay safe.

Colleen

Dear Colleen Cozett , Wisam Thamer Al-Mayah , and Ahmed Alaa Hussein , thank you all for participating, and providing valued suggestions.

Arbind K. Choudhary who cares really if 10-15% of all RG members don't provide full informations on the platform. Just ignore them and dont answer their questions!

Frank T. Edelmann Thank you for your valued suggestion.

Adel Rabee Hayder Dawood Saleem Rasha Majid Abd Ulameer Alhumairi Emad Abdulrhman Mohammed Salih Al-Heety

Yes , of course.

La plena identificación de los que nos involucramos en este tipo de grupo, y realmente deseamos compartir experiencias y aprender unos de otros, hace posible la confiabilidad. Considero que para lograr realmente ser un grupo confiable y respetado debemos todos identificarnos y ello no significa que solo pueden estar los que tengan muchos títulos y pertenezcan a exclusivos círculos científicos. Se aprende de todos, pero identificados plenamente. Gracias.

Frank: "Just ignore them and dont answer their questions!" - why do you wish to "ignore" and "not answer" somebody who does not see a sense im "publishing" irrelevant personal details???

Roman Bohdan Hołyński sorry, I agree with you that this was not a good statement. I was thinking of the RG member who asked the question and gave the impression that providing full details on the platform. I really don't care much about the entire problem, and you know very well that I like your thoughtful answers. I also fully agree with you that publishing all those personal detail isn't relevant.

Thank you Frank T. Edelmann , Roman Bohdan Hołyński , Yolanda Ramírez Villacorta

Thank you Thaer Dawood Salman , Wisam Thamer Al-Mayah and Charles D Anderson

I strongly feel one must give a introduction of oneself in the RG profile to get access to peers with similar interests and experiences.

I think all research gate members should reveal their identity. Profile picture, affiliation and personal contact details must be provided.

Arbind K. Choudhary I think a more important problem is : Should questions by Anonymous Researchers be allowed on RG?

In my view, as far as professionalism is concerned, you need to introduce yourself with a brief background, attaching your profile picture and affiliations so that the viewer may know you exactly who you are. That's unethical and I think that is part of the RG Ethics Policy that each of us, Researchers, should follow and to build the so called "reputation".

Thanks to your interesting question and kind regards to all.

Cheers

Samarakoon &c.: Please all those who insist on the "necessity" to publish personal details, be so kind to say: will my opinions become wiser if you know that I am, say, the Director of the Smithsonian Institution? or, will they become more stupid if I reveal that I am a street-sweeper? If not, what is the sense to publish such irrelevant data?

Arbind K. Choudhary Thanks for posting a very relevant question. I agree with the RG members who indicated the importance of adding some personal information to make sure that the RG account is real, and not fake. This is important so that everyone who posts is responsible for its content. I also agree with Ronald Gomeseria And in answer to the good question by Professor Frank T. Edelmann I think questions from anonymous RG members should not be allowed.

Obviously Yes...!

I think adding a profile picture, affiliation to the organization and a brief description about work to anyone's RG account will enhance their credibility at RG

I think RG should be more strict on the affialiation and position of the account holder otherwise this problem is not going to be solved. We can’t do anything about these fake profiles in our own.

Roman Bohdan Hołyński Dear Dr. Holynski, thank you for your reaction to my previous answer. I respect your opinion that personal details are not relevant information at RG. I agree with you that it will not really matter who asks the question be he a scientific director or a schoolboy. In fact, in my experience, some youngsters sometimes ask more sensible questions than some seasoned researchers. But with all due respect to you Sir, I believe it will really matter who answers a technical question. For example, if a question is about taxonomy or biodiversity of insects, I as a reader would be excited about what a renowned entomologist like you would say than what a taxi driver would.

Best regards,

Victor

Dear Victor B. Asio I appreciate your opinion.

Dear Sumanta Chakraborty Samarakoon Mudiyanselage Samantha Samarakoon Frank T. Edelmann Ronald Gomeseria Md. Shiblur Rahaman Roman Bohdan Hołyński Gourab Das I thank you each for sharing your views.

Dear prof Roman Bohdan, my idea doesnt mean to reveal the qualifications or the position and social status. I wanted to share my views to the way to prevent comments given or posted by anonymous members. If any member has givin his or her identity details, then it will prevent posting "unethical" comments. Thats all.

Thank you for the compliment, Sir Victor B. Asio

You are welcome and kind regards.

Stay safe.

You are most welcome, Sir Arbind K. Choudhary

Thank you for an interesting question and at least, we know their point of views.

Anyway, Kind regards and stay safe to all colleagues.

Cheers

Dear Victor B. Asio and Roman Bohdan Hołyński instead of asking questions on RG as "Anonymous Researchers", these people should better ask their supervisors or senior colleagues personally. For my part, I never answer questions of Anonymous Researchers. Quite often when I read highly specialized questions on RG I'm asking myself if the supervisors don't do their job.

Roman Bohdan Hołyński even without any information about your degree, affiliation or position you are not an "Anonymous researcher". Your "existence" has been proven by your research papers.

Roman Bohdan Hołyński "I ask again and again: why??? ": Because "Anonymous Researchers" don't even provide their names so that I'm unable to provide a personal answer. Details like degree, affiliation or position are unimportant, but a name is a must!

It seems we differently understand the very sense, purpose of discussion... When I answer to, say, your question (whoever are you) posed in RG (or, for that matter, anywhere!), I usually quote your name if I know it, but only to make it easy for any reader to know what question I am replying, what argument I am questioning, what suggestion I am challenging. This is important mainly in RG, where usually between somebody's question and my answer several other comments have been "intercalated". But even then I answer, in fact, not "personally" to you but to anybody who may hear or read my answer and be interested in the topic. So, I prefer non-anonymous comments, but for me a "signature" like "reader A" or similar would also be perfectly acceptable, and anyway anonymous "voices", even if somewhat less preferable, are by far not sufficient to me for not answering!

Roman Bohdan Hołyński yes, perhaps we just just agree to disagree in certain questions. In any case it's polite to personally answer questions of other RG members and include their names in the answer, and I will certainly not answer any questions by "Anonymous Researchers" in the future.

Dear Frank T. Edelmann Roman Bohdan Hołyński thank you for making the discussion highly interesting. I really value the difference of opinion. To me, it appears that profile picture, a brief description of the nature of work, one's affiliation (if any), etc may be used as the prima facie indicators of credibility of a RG member. Of course, all that glitters is not gold.

Dera Roman Bohdan Hołyński and Arbind K. Choudhary please check out the thread cited below. In this case I DID give an answer!

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

P.S. Roman Bohdan Hołyński please keep in mind that you are NOT anonymous because everyone can read your papers.

Frank: "I will certainly not answer any questions by "Anonymous Researchers"" - OK, of course you have right to answer them or not! But this is anyway somewhat marginal question: comments not signed by name are rather rare, and Arbind's initial question in this discussion what about "profile picture, affiliation to organization" &c., on which, it seems, we agree!?

Roman Bohdan Hołyński it's my pleasure to agree with you in this point (and certainly others as well).

A section has recently been added to reflect the experience. We have a huge amount of information for this section. I don't fill it out because it will take me too much time, i.e. I just don't have time to do it and frankly I'm just too lazy. It will take a lot of effort, and for what? If someone is interested in this, they can go to my site and see more information there. And everything else I filled out, almost

I think people who don't put their names on are rare.

You know there are two types of questions: 1 technical question and 2 question to start a discussion). For technical questions, the profile of the person asking the question is being looked at. But for the second type of question, neither the name nor the affiliation is paid attention.

another point that I forgot,

I didn't add a photo to my profile because I'm always looking for a good photographer :)

Dear Ouaïl Ouchetto Hassan Izzeddin Sarsak

Ouaïl Ouchetto " looking for a good photographer" 😂😂😂

It is think not important or essential thing, I think, but it is the testimonies for some one.

My observation is: fortunately or unfortunately, Those matters a lot!

Dear Md Rabiul Alam Chaw Su thank you so much for participating in the discussion, and sharing your valued opinion.

Md Rabiul Alam matter for what?

@ Frank T. Edelmann: Discrimination in various ways...like the continent, country, institution, position, language, subject, journal, coauthors, guide, labs, incorporation, university; I'm very sorry to mention here even gender, looks, race, color, etc. Even the renowned researchers have their own inclinations; a very few persons are successful to show their unbiasedness. Of course, it is quite difficult too...

Nature of work and affiliation may be important. However, putting a profile picture is entirely optional. Perhaps the member is not photogenic or has some disfigurement caused by illness or accident that they don't want to display their picture for good reason. They should not be criticized.

Srini Vasan personally I think that a profile is noce, but not necessary. What I find useful is some information about the area of research of the respective RG member in order tp give more specific answers.

Dear Frank T. Edelmann Srini Vasan Md Rabiul Alam thank you all for pushing the discussion towards its logical and acceptable end.

Md Rabiul Alam: "Even the renowned researchers have their own inclinations; a very few persons are successful to show their unbiasedness" - could you tell me, in which way my comment (that, e.g., species are real, peer-rvewing system it harmful, citations have no relation with the quality of publication, or anything) is true (original, important or otherwise valuable) or not dependent upon my "continent, country, institution, position, language, subject, journal, coauthors, guide, labs, incorporation, university; I'm very sorry to mention here even gender, looks, race, color, etc."? In my opinion, just the searching for "bias" on similar grounds is itself the most dangerous bias! (the attempt - not quite successful, to be sure... - to eliminate this real bias was the purpose of introducing "double blind" version of "peer"-reviewing!).

If they participate constructively on RG great. Even if they don't have a good profile picture or description of their work if you don't like them or disagree with their views for some reason you don't have to read their posts.

Be aware that there are many "Researchers" who are not allowed to discuss their research in much detail for various reasons.

Rick Manner , I agree with you. Everyone has their reasons for not putting this or that information.

The hardest part is not judging others. If you are really interested in a person, you just need to look at their published papers to find all the information (affiliation, theme, adress, email, ...). For example, I didn't put my photo that it will change if I put my photo. For me nothing because here is not a dating site.

Ouaïl Ouchetto and Roman Bohdan Hołyński I absolutely respect every researchers's wish to show / reveal only those personal details he / she wants. I also agree that the published research works provides sufficient information about the author. Personally, I have no problem with including my profile picture because various pictures of me are around on the internet anyway.

Dear Frank T. Edelmann Rick Manner Roman Bohdan Hołyński Omar H. Abdalla

Frank: "I have no problem with including my profile picture". As to me, I have not included either my degree, position or affiliation because I am in principle against taking such details in consideration when one wishes to develop an opinion about the quality of others' publications, "credibility" or achievements! Of course I am always happy if somebody considers my paper[-s] interesting, my comment[-s] wise and convincing, &c., but I would be greatly disappointed if such positive opinion is based on my having PhD degree in zoology, on the paper having been published in "renowned" journal, or on the information that I occupied this or that position in this or that institution: I would feel "appreciation" - however positive - based on such formal "criteria" rather offensive and humiliating! Unfortunately, as seen also from some comments in this discussion, many participants would like to evaluate each other just according to these and similar grounds...

Dear Roman Bohdan Hołyński I fully agree with you. What counts is the quality of the published research, nothing else.

The RG Score is the measure here, and its value is determined by the software. What is the algorithm? - I do not think any member knows. It is just fun for me.

Mirosław Grzesik for some unknown reasons this is THE question on RG. For numerous answers please refer e.g. to the following threads:

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

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

and many others.

Also ask yourself if and why the RG score is important for you!

Mirosław Grzesik , I agree with you no one knows how the RG score is to calculate.

There is another question, why questions and answers have more points than good papers. To have RG = 40 only with the publication, you need more than 100 good papers with impact factor, on the other hand to have RG = 40 with the questions and answers, you need approximatively 2000 responses = 2000*15 (word per response)=~30000 words which is less than 6 bad papers in terms of words

@Quail Ouchetto I agree with you in the sense that simply publication in good journals along with good no. of citations can hardly push your RG score to 50. However, a university professor without any publication can have RG score even more than 100. I think this is somehow beauty of RG. There are numerous factors that account for such a discrepancy.

Regards,

Arbind

Arbind K. Choudhary you are perfectly right. With great research alone you can't have higher RG scores than ca. 50-60.

Arbind K. Choudhary , I don't know if it's RG beauty.

Frank T. Edelmann , I agree with you. For example, Didier Raoult has 1473 papers with RG= 55.43.

Ouaïl Ouchetto in the same context I frequently cited the example of Roald Hoffmann. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1981 and his h-index on Sopus is 125! However, his RG score is 50.92 because he never cared about the social media aspect of RG.

Frank T. Edelmann , believe me RG = 50 (publication only) is a lot . Someone can do this if they are very good and if they are also a team leader or a laboratory. For a researcher who works in his corner it is impossible. Alain Bossavit is a great scientist, works alone and he is the sole author of 95% of these papers. It RG = 33.3

Dear Ouaïl Ouchetto Frank T. Edelmann we all are on the same page so far as RG score is concerned!!!