----- Original Message -----
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2000 9:30 AM
Subject: Re: Self-Archiving vs. Self-Publishing FAQ
> <snip>
> I think unrefereed papers and discussion on the Internet fall in
> exactly the same category as the above: Good for establishing priority
> and intellectual ownership, for publicizing and eliciting feedback, but
> no PoP CV value eo ipso (except if the ideas and findings themselves
> prove to be new, correct and important, which is of course a greater
> value than mere PoP value).
It depends on whether the discussion is archived and can be used as evidence
of priority. If we are in a group having a chat at a conference, and I
co-opt your ideas from that discussion, it can be harder for you to
demonstrate priority than if the idea was in the printed abstract of a talk.
People forget where they heard something, so co-opting an idea doesn't have
to be malicious. A reviewer of one of my early publications objected that
"everyone knows" what was in the paper. My co-authors and I agreed that it
is well known ever since we talked about it at a major meeting six months
earlier, and challenged the reviewer to show where it had been said or
published earlier. That ended the matter, but it helped that we could point
to a printed abstract.
Received on Mon Jan 24 2000 - 19:17:43 GMT