Recently I joined to Research Gate. I find its concept great and especially I like the Q&A section. Q&A is a great place to resolve technical and profound scientific questions. Also, it is ideal for a scientist not expert in a field to get orientation in a different field. However I noticed certain degrees of misuse of it. At least in my area I noticed that 20% of the cases members post poor quality questions. With poor quality I mean: (1) questions where the member is too lazy to do a basic literature review and wants other to give them digested knowledge (i.e. What is fluorescence? – Clearly, this can be searched using google or wiki); (2) Scientists that request other people to analyze their data (i.e. Interpret my data? Where the member uploaded some kinetic data with no information about the treatments, no legends or symbols); (3) Senior scientists asking questions of how to interpret the data of their students (i.e. a scientist uploading a new question every two or three days!)
Does anybody else has notice this things in other areas? What is your opinion?
Please do not get me wrong, I am not being too picky. I truly believe there is not such thing as a silly question, however the idea of Q&A section is to solve technical question, and not to do the job of someone else. Also, in regular forums there is a moderator that filter this things through. Do we have a moderator here?
At least, I have a hypothesis to explain case type (1), I believe many users are undergrad students that are just looking an easy way to do homework. Meanwhile cases (2) and (3) are just simply poor work ethics.
PS. Examples of questions are fictional but based on real cases.
100% agree. A good system as you say is to receive feedback why a question is bad. Second, there should be a way to block in Q&A authors that I do not want to read anymore, as it is annoying to get type 3 questionss
Hopefully, RG will read this comment and do something about it.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Philosophy
- Ethics