
User-generated science: Web tools are beginning to change the shape of scientific debate - robg
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12253189
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wheels
Awesome. I'd love to see one of these guys pull through. I'm in one of my
heavy research phases right now and there's always this cat-and-mouse
information tracking problem of trying to trace an idea back to its source and
track its derivations through the clunky interfaces that online journals use
now. (Especially, say, if you're not members of all or any of them.)

Similarly, I asked exactly the question The Economist nails of a friend of
mine in academia last week (who does a lot of peer review) -- how do ideas
spread at a reasonable pace through academic circles given that it often takes
a year or more for a paper to be published? The answer was, "Everybody knows
everybody. They talk." Which naturally is frustrating looking from the outside
in and working on theoretically intensive problems from a non-academic
setting.

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streety
I don't think that's entirely true. People might talk (brag?) about their
latest results but if you want to compare notes on methods it can get
extremely frustrating.

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yters
Cool, especially if access to the blogs remains open to anyone.

