Comment by SoftTalker
8 hours ago
Why isn't a citation just a citation. It's a pointer to a source, that's all. If it implies some standards have been applied or editorial or scientific review has been done, then that's going to have to be paid for by someone. TFA implies that doesn't happen: [and then] we stop doing all that stuff and then the cash just pours out. So a citation to an article in Nature isn't any better than one on arXiV.
> So a citation to an article in Nature isn't any better than one on arXiV.
The real problem is that nobody can grade and compare article in different topics, so there are proxies like number of articles in "serious" journals (whatever that means[1]) and number of citations in "serious" journals (whatever that means[1]).
Do we count also citations in X/Tweeter, FaceBook, WordPress [2], StackOverflow, ... ?
If links in HN also count as citations, there are 3 additional citations for my last paper:
http://www.example.com/gus_massa/very_good_paper_2026.pdf
http://www.example.com/gus_massa/very_good_paper_2026.pdf
http://www.example.com/gus_massa/very_good_paper_2026.pdf
[1] Which journals are serious and which are paper mills? In the extremes the difference is clear, but there in the middle there is a gray zone.
[2] A citation in Tao's blog in WordPress should be worth at least half official citation, or perhaps a whole point.