https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_on_RG_some_citations_are_not_recognized_as_citations - Please go through my answer specifically .

In my opinion, the overall assessment of the scientific significance should be based on the number of citations, taking into account the impact factor of the citing publication and the number of co-authors of the cited article. The number of publications speaks about the activity of the researcher, but not about the quality of his work.

I absolutely agree with the opinion dear Vadim S. Gorshkov

Concerning the number of authors of an article, the remark of Mr Vadim S. Gorshkov is relevant because for an article with 4 authors, each of the 4 authors for other publications will tend to quote the article (common to the 4 authors) of the articles which follow (for each author). This means that the number of citations of the article will increase with the number of authors and will become more "visible" with a possible chain reaction which is not negligible since the article with 4 authors will have more chance to be read in the following articles since it will appear more times in the articles which will follow (for each of the 4 authors).

It must be said that this kind of "injustice" does not bother those who do a lot of collaborative work and the current bibliometric evaluation is likely to last.

To bring the quality of the research on a common platform , the number of publications and citations of a researchers are considered.

In fact things are even more complicated, you can publish in a "big" journal and be quoted by another "big" journal or by a "small" journal.

You can publish in a "small" journal and be quoted by a "small" journal or another "big" journal. The probabilities are surely not equal for all these "configurations".

I think that the origin of the quotation ("big" journal or "small" journal) is as important as the quality of the journal in which you publish.

This shows that raw numbers (only number of publications and citations), despite their simplicity, are meaningless.

Logically, when 4 researchers join together to make a publication, each of them should be considered to have an individual contribution of 1/4 of the publication and 1/4 of the citations obtained in the publication and the individual contribution of each author should normally be credited with this "fraction of work" in the bibliometric indices. Publications with 4 or more authors abound and it often happens that by doing a minimum of work as a co-author cited in fifth position (for example), one benefits from a large number of publications and citations, which is for me quite aberrant.

Everyone agrees that a quote for a paper published in a major journal is more valuable than one in a predatory journal.

Everyone also agrees that a quote from a "great" review is more important than one from a "small" review.

I think everyone will agree that the quantity of citations and publications does not necessarily imply an assessment of the quality of a paper.

The problem is: how to set in equation the criteria evoked by Mr. Vadim S. Gorshkov or Mr Jaydip Datta to measure in a fairly objective way this quality.

Another remark:

Authors of books generally benefit from a greater number of citations because the book deals with several themes and has a wider "range of readers" when they deal with more or less general subjects whereas research articles deal with more specialized subjects only of interest to hyper-specialized researchers.

However, the "total count" of citations does not distinguish between these two types of publications.

In terms of research and scientific publications, things need to be put into perspective. A large number of citations does not necessarily mean that the publication contains something "revolutionary". For example, to justify their model, a number of researchers cite numerical results which agree with theirs or repeat the same arguments while deliberately ignoring those of publications which do not "suit them". Yes, even in science the arguments can be subjective and biased.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_there_any_differentiation_between_CITATION_and_RECOMMENDATION-how_they_affect_RI_RG_Score

The purpose of this question is to talk only about the relevance of citations in scientific publications. Personally, I consider the recommendations in Researchgate to be part of a different type of debate of the kind indicated by MrJaydip Datta.

B. Mohammed-Azizi - My dear friend you are partially correct . But since we are talking within RG platform ,recommendations and citations are numerically related w.r.t TRI Score ie one Citation = 2 * Recos .

Dear Mr Jaydip Datta,

In my opinion the discussion in Researchgate is free and the topics are also free. As far as I know there is no rule that obliges you to talk only about Researchgate or only about questions that are directly related to this platform.

Any member of Researchgate can ask any question he wants, making sure to specify the meaning of the question. No member of RG can restrict this freedom or redirect the question (or the debate) to other direction that the one given by the author of the question.

In the question I asked, I am talking about citations in general, at no point I refer to the recommendations of Researchgate in the question asked. If a member of RG feels the need to compare citations of publications and recommendations in RG, he/she is free to do so, I just want to make it clear that this is not the purpose of my question.

The stigma against journals is bad. All journals have their value. Except maybe the predatory journals.

Yes, the number of citations is not an absolute metrics per se.

To stigmatize journals is to criticize them by explicitly citing them. That is not the point of the question.

To what extent can a citation serve as a "quality factor" for a publication? That is really the question.

The number of citations is not only the consideration of the paper level. I guess the content of the paper gives the real level.

Happy New Year 2022 to all RG colleagues.