yayday

I'd be lying if I said the journal didn't matter strictly speaking, but in general as long as it's a "real" journal (as opposed to one of those obviously fake journals I keep getting spammed by) then I don't really care.

Don't get me wrong though, just because the paper has a heavy hitter as the PI or even as first author, doesn't mean I treat the content with less scrutiny. It's more that I know my time is extremely limited so I'm more willing to spend more time dissecting a paper from an established first author or PI than an unknown person (unknown also meaning that it's not a paper someone recommended to me or a paper someone cited in another work).

It's more like, I'll _make_ time to read papers with certain authors on it because I know that they do good work. I'll also _make_ time to read something if it's published in Nature et al for example. But a random paper from a random author in a random group? It's not that I don't trust this person's work, it's more that I'm unfamiliar with that person's work and there's other things I could spend my time doing as well. I'll download the paper, throw it on my iPad, etc, and I'll get around to it eventually.

You just described LinkedIn. A website people only update every few months/years when they're looking for a new job.

I wasn't saying the current system is great, there's a lot wrong with it yes I agree. The impact factor thing is also a pretty silly metric to me as well, I agree with you there. The point I was trying to make, albeit sarcastically, was that the system the guy proposed is what we have today just without the extra hoops to jump through. Like I have absolutely no interest in maintaining a Bitcoin wallet or whatever nor do I want anything to do with them. I'll take my funding in dollars or euros or something real and tangible please.

It was sarcasm yes but my point was that what you proposed already exists, just without the crypto currency bullsht and extra hoops to jump through.

I didn't say the current system was flawless. I'm just saying your proposal is the current reality already.

> For example, giving authors / organizations a Bitcoin address where they can receive funds from individuals / organizations who want to support their research.

That's a fantastic idea. Maybe we could call this "depository" of money to conduct research something like, hmmm, what's a good word… a grant?

> Also, awarding reputation to authors based on the level of peer review their research has successfully undergone (number of peers, level of rigor, etc.), and conversely awarding reputation and funding to those who perform peer reviews.

Sounds fantastic as well! Maybe these authors could create like, a website or curriculum vitae where they could list their accomplishment to establish their reputation. You know, they could have a section in their medium of choice that could be titled something like selected peer reviewed articles where they'll list their publications along with their coauthors and the journal it appeared in. Maybe these journals could devise some kind of ranking to measure reputation. Maybe they could call it something like… amount of impact or maybe just impact factor for short. I think this could work really well.

> Allowing users to contribute to a peer review fund for individual articles or in general.

Maybe a general fund should be created to support science! Maybe a national science fund or something, governed by a so-called national science foundation who can vote scientists, engineers, and the like onto their board to steer the allocation of funding.

I really think you're onto something very good here!

You're already moving your goalposts. Your first post said replicates the finding. If I simply post my results and someone else looks at the data and agrees with me then are they really replicating my finding or did they, oh what's the word… peer review my work and agreed?

There's already a "trustability" factor: it's called a name. When I search for a new paper and find something interesting, I look at the first author, the name of the PI, and the name of the university or laboratory associated with this paper.

If I'm familiar with the work of the first author then I already have an idea of how much I can trust his/her work. If I don't know this person then I look at the coauthors and especially the PI. If the PI is a heavy hitter in my field then there's my trustability factor right there. If I don't know the PI but I know the laboratory or university it's affiliated with then there's my third line of a trustability metric.

What's wrong with PDFs? PDFs are great because it's a downloadable format and when I create one I know that what I see is what other people will see. The same can not be said for a website format where people use different browsers, different devices, and different versions of different software.

I just don't see what's wrong with using PDFs. If I want to read one of the papers on your website on my phone when I don't have Internet, how do I do it? If I just keep the page open on my phone's browser it's just going to go away at some point as my phone's OS clears the browser's cache to make room for other apps that I'm actively using. With PDFs I can just open the pdf I've downloaded.