[{"id":301,"title":"Is the rise of hedging language in scientific papers correlated in time with the rise in peer review?","sha":"2ddde9c0ef80c211115d18420f4a06f3","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"In a talk at FORCE2016 (https://www.force11.org/meetings/force2016), Steven Pinker discussed bad writing in science, and mentioned how it had changed over time.  One of his statements was that scientists hedge (for example, using hedge words such as \"generally\" rather than making stronger points; see http://www.uefap.com/writing/feature/hedge.htm) more than they used to.  Some of this may just be style, due to the changing preference and practice of the scientific community, but it also would be interesting to see if this change is related to the rise of peer review (which has become standard relatively recently; see, for example, http://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-einstein-did-too-27405). Perhaps authors now try to be less definitive to avoid giving reviewers grounds to reject their work.\r\n\r\nThis hypothesis could be examined by measuring the use of hedging language (for example, through natural language processing) in articles in a particular domain (physics, for example) and seeing if it is correlated in time with the rise in peer review (which could be obtained through research into the history of science writing, or which may have already been collected.)  If this were true for multiple domains where peer review became standard at different times, it would be a strong argument for the hypothesis to be true.  This also could be done for specific journals, rather than domains.","created_at":"2016-04-19T13:24:23.440Z","updated_at":"2019-10-31T03:20:11.981Z","zenodo_id":108577,"doi":"http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.50079","subject":null,"tags":["nlp","history of science","science of science","peer review"],"vote_count":6,"view_count":1,"score":6.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":368,"title":"Venture reproducibility","sha":"e8f2b294551972f79ee9fce0b1cfe0c3","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Venture capitalists work under the concept of investing small amounts in lots of startup companies, some of which will fail, some of which will make a little money, and a few of which will make a lot of money.\r\n\r\nThis is similar to [the \"Miracle Machine\" argument Eric Lander makes for funding basic science research](https://danielskatzblog.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/eric-landers-argument-for-public-funding-of-basic-research/).\r\n\r\nIn [venture film production](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/09/11/439632877/episode-650-the-scariest-thing-in-hollywood) ([transcript](http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=439632877)), the producer spends small amounts of money making large numbers of movies, some of which will lose money, some of which will make a little money, and a few of which will make a lot of money. There are a set of rules, which basically boil down to: 1) keep costs down by not doing expensive things; 2) if you need to do expensive things, pay for them through profit share rather than up front costs; and 3) don't spend more than you plan.  \r\n\r\nIs there a venture reproducibility equivalent for reproducibility? Can we use the idea that reproducibility will often either fail or succeed to a small extent, and a few times will succeed to a large extent? How do we make reproducibility as low cost (low effort) as possible for the researcher? And, how do we build \"profit share\" for the researcher so that if their research is reproduced (or perhaps even reused), they gain?","created_at":"2017-02-24T13:52:36.550Z","updated_at":"2017-03-14T11:34:51.939Z","zenodo_id":322653,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.322653","subject":null,"tags":["reproducibility","risk","payoff","capitalism","economics"],"vote_count":1,"view_count":1,"score":1.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":449,"title":"A service to assess the quality of documentation of open source software","sha":"4baaee8f0f211a3c98c3d2be18156fee","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"Could one build a service that checks the completeness and quality of documentation of an open source repository?\r\n\r\nPotentially a group could build up a set of repositories with documentation ratings, which could then be used to train a ML/DL model, which could then be used to provide the service?\r\n\r\nThe service could be used by a developer to iterative improve documentation, then check the quality of the changes.\r\n\r\nIt could also be used by a potential user of the software as a factor in deciding whether to use the software or not.\r\n","created_at":"2018-03-27T11:18:15.933Z","updated_at":"2021-01-28T15:47:00.031Z","zenodo_id":1208715,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1208715","subject":null,"tags":["open source","machine learning","documentation"],"vote_count":3,"view_count":1,"score":3.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":true,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null},{"id":600,"title":"name preferences: general vs specific, causation vs correlation","sha":"f8152c7e0ac80d7b8663ee46a67d2c51","user_id":null,"state":"published","body":"I suspect that there is a correlation between areas of the US where carbonated beverages are called soda vs pop and areas where Coke is preferred over Pepsi.  Is this correct?  If so, what might cause it? Beverage companies using their preferred general term as they expand out from their HQ?\r\n\r\nAnd can this be generalized to other examples of specific names vs general names?  For example, does the use of lightning bug vs firefly correlate with terms used for insects, or for interesting things (cool, rad, ...)?","created_at":"2019-03-02T17:55:38.026Z","updated_at":"2019-06-02T06:01:15.457Z","zenodo_id":3236950,"doi":"https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3236950","subject":null,"tags":["naming","data science","sociology","economics"],"vote_count":0,"view_count":1,"score":0.1,"deleted":false,"muted":false,"tweeted":false,"attachment_file_name":null,"attachment_content_type":null,"attachment_file_size":null,"attachment_updated_at":null}]