Pseudonymity in Academic Publishing

drpixie · 2024-12-28T02:33:52 1735353232

Re the need for anonymous papers, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_Controversial_Ideas and https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/ (the JCI tends to the arts and philosophy).

LordGronk · 2024-12-28T08:55:20 1735376120

As I recall, JCRI does know the identity of each author.

blfr · 2024-12-27T22:17:41 1735337861

> the AMS were unwilling to publish a paper by an author whose real-world identity they did not know

Frankly, shameful. Editors, especially in mathematics, should be able to judge the work on its merits.

thaumasiotes · 2024-12-27T22:39:52 1735339192

> Editors, especially in mathematics, should be able to judge the work on its merits.

It's not a mathematical paper.

The AMS version is headed:

> This essay incorporates with permission material from our pseudonymous colleague XOR'easter, who also contributed many suggestions during the writing process. By the extent of XOR’easter’s contributions, they would normally be credited as an author. However it was not possible in time to find a way to strictly preserve anonymity and assign legal copyright. All four contributors disagree with this exclusion. I regret its necessity — Ed.

kurikuri · 2024-12-28T01:50:22 1735350622

It is less about the quality of work, but that the source itself should have some form of ‘blame.’ Plagiarism is still a risk, and the main deterrence against it is the reputation of the authors.

slavik81 · 2024-12-28T06:27:40 1735367260

There are some rather important papers that were written under pseudonyms, e.g. Student (1908). "The Probable Error of a Mean"

otoburb · 2024-12-28T17:31:57 1735407117

And Nicolas Bourbaki's "Éléments de mathématique".[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki

cafard · 2024-12-31T16:54:45 1735664085

Well, that was the policy of his employer (Guinness).

knappa · 2024-12-28T02:35:15 1735353315

Not a question of merits, but of how to make sure the journal really had acquired the rights to publish the article.

thaumasiotes · 2024-12-28T18:00:08 1735408808

It's not that either. If the journal couldn't make sure it had the right to publish, it wouldn't publish. Whether or not one of the coauthors is formally listed as coauthor doesn't affect the disposition of the copyright.

It's a question of compliance with the journal's formal publication process.

staunton · 2024-12-28T00:18:54 1735345134

> Frankly, shameful. Editors, especially in mathematics, should be able to judge the work on its merits.

You might end up receiving hundreds of (perhaps AI-generated) submissions every day and reviewers would just refuse to read any of it.

superwmit · 2024-12-28T03:32:25 1735356745

Sorry but I disagree with the biased perspectives of PRofessor David Eppstein. He absolutely doesn't know what is actually happening on Wikipedia with certain clowns taking monopoly over the edits. I've seen good papers not being cited because they were never published! What does published mean? They are not getting into detail ... but place biased burden on the reader. The bitcoin paper by Satoshi Nakamoto was NEVER PUBLISHED! IT would not have been citable as source on wikipedia as a result of clowns editing the sources.

Other good papers on ArXiv or even cited papers never published on specific venues other than crypto ArXiv are held back by very biased crank editors on wikipdia. One of them is a clown called ... MrOllie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:MrOllie

Who has been doing his fair share of introducing paid bias by certain third parties. I wonder if this is not one of the puppet accounts of David Eppstein.

Wikipedia as it has converged is nothing close to what the David Eppstein has outlined in the article he advertised. Sorry. Far cry.