ResearchGate restrict the number of research topic groups that we can ask a question of to five tags. ResearchGate do this for the eminently sound reason that this ensures that any question is received only by researchers that are specific to that field.
Do you think this restriction does indeed focus a question or does it restrict others, from outside of the subject area being able to contribute their knowledge to the question?
The sad side-effect is that the measure helps to build even bigger silos.
Thanks Ian, this is my worry too. What's the answer as I see RG's point too?
I think the answer is for RG to put up their list of their approved disciplines, linked from the home page. This has undergone some moderating, so it would be a valuable contribution in itself. Weird disciplines like "sience" (stet) have not been allowed.
Currently I think the only way of discovering legitimate disciplines is to look at the disciplines that someone else is following, and then to follow them yourself. Then there are synonyms, which you can only discover by chance. E.g., concept maps and concept mapping.
The restriction to 5 tags helps stop spamming. But what about my questions, which I wish to expose to all ResearchGaters irrespective of discipline?
I totally agree with all you say Ian and I am extremely concerned that I am not able to ask to a broad range of disciplines. I recently asked a broad question that had no academic disciplinary focus: I could imagine anyone on RG having a valid answer. I therefore posted the same question 3 times to 3 different sets of 5 disciplines. Even this did not in any way cover 'the academy'. I was starting to receive some interesting responses and exchanges when RG moderators deleted 2 of the questions (as it happens, the 2 questions with the largest number of responses) and also deleted the responses. Besides disobeying some rule that RG has arbitrarily imposed of 5 tags , a rule I was unaware of, what wrong was this act committing? RG is not important in the course of life but I think that we have to guard against non-representative bodies imposing their wills upon us in all spheres of life.
Your 'sin' was that you probably phrased all the questions identically. The hot bot spotted you!
Perhaps we should ask RG to increase the limit according to people's RG score. Thirty RG points allows you to post to thirty topics.
I would agree with that as I have 30 points and you have considerably more! But because one has a larger number of points does this mean you ask better or more valid questions? I think not. This may lead to a classist RG society. Perhaps, we could all have unlimited numbers of tags but there should be a facility to report questions as spam or irrelevant to the tag groups. If one is reported repeatedly then restrictions are placed on the number of tags you are able to use?
My sin was that I was being open and honest: I did not try to hide my actions.
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