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  Unoriginal review papers vote-cut queue

+ 0 like - 2 dislike
1263 views

Review papers are on-topic in the reviews section, but the originality score marker is not appropriate for most of them.

Unfortunately, there seem to be a few review papers with originality votes, such as Fuchs (1997) and Callaway (1988).

It's better not go around cutting originality scores for all review papers, though, because a few do have (at least a little) original content in them, such as Nakayama (2013).

Please propose similiar submissions in the answers to remove originality votes. Instead of having a threshold score, we could give a 7-day period for anyone to point out any original content in the post (the originality voters will also be asked to explain). If there is nothing, votes are cut.

Closed by author request
asked Apr 26, 2015 in Discussion by dimension10 (1,985 points) [ no revision ]
recategorized Apr 26, 2015 by dimension10

I dont see the need for this specific vote cut queue right now. Occasional spurious votes can not be avoided neither in Q&A nor in Reviews. Of course spurious votes should occur more rarely on PO than in other non-academic less professional physics communities...

Also, we should think very carefully about cutting votes that have been cast natively by the PO community. Cutting imported votes as we do since a longer time is much less controversial. 

In addition, I disagree with the proposed mechanism of deciding if the votes should be cut. If anything it should only be cut if the corresponding answer has an net score > 0.

But again, at present the evidence for the need of such a thread seems to be too weak to me, counter-voting and commenting if needed should be good enough for now.

And honestly, I am not sure if it can always be determined in a unique clear cut objective way, if a paper is original or not. Exposing the distributed in different sources (with different notations etc)knowledge about a topic in a completely new more clear and enlightening way, could be considered to be original too, depending on how exactly it is done and on the perception of the reader.

@Dilaton We can just list the relevant submissions now, and decide on the exact procedure (inviting to counter-vote? cutting the votes in the database?) later.

If there is any originality in the paper at all, the voter can explain what's original about the paper. If not, the voter is voting frivolously.

"It isn't important" is a pretty silly logical fallacy - there's nothing stopping us from being more accurate with the reviews section.

Besides, this is actually very important, because if users are voting frivolously in the reviews section, the reviews section becomes a joke.

The problem with countervoting is that it creates a false impression of controversiality, when there is none, and also that you might probably not get enough countervoters at times, or the first voter could revert the originality vote, and the countervote remains, underrepresenting the actual originality of the paper.

Exposing the distributed in different sources (with different notations etc)knowledge about a topic in a completely new more clear and enlightening way, could be considered to be original too

You need to get a dictionary. If this were the point of originality, we should probably scrap binary voting altogether.

@Dimension10 what I most strongly disagree with is the procedure to decide indeed ...

And if we really want to do it as you suggest (leaving the decision method open for now), the voters should alway be pinged below the submission and explicitely invited to comment in this thread below the corresponding answer (if @Upvoters for example works there ...) in a similar way as we announce closevotes in a comment below the corresponding question.

@Dilaton I said that in the question.

A 7 day limit is inappropriate as experts will show up at random times, surely not within 7 days of someone having made a vote, or of submission.

@Dilaton Oh, ok I see your point - you mean describing well-known material in a new way can be considered original. OK, that's a good point, I just hope people do really vote that way.

@ArnoldNeumaier You're right - although the existing voters will still have voted frivolously, but fine, it's not possible to expect people to respond within a stipulated amount of time.

2 Answers

+ 0 like - 1 dislike
answered Apr 26, 2015 by dimension10 (1,985 points) [ revision history ]
edited Apr 26, 2015 by Dilaton
+ 0 like - 1 dislike
answered Apr 26, 2015 by dimension10 (1,985 points) [ no revision ]




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