Re: Validation of posted archives

From: Albert Henderson <chessNIC_at_COMPUSERVE.COM>
Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2001 18:18:42 -0500

on Wed, 21 Mar 2001 Tim Brody <tdb198_at_ECS.SOTON.AC.UK> wrote:
 
> On Wed, 21 Mar 2001, Guillermo Julio Padron Gonzalez wrote:
>
> > The "name" of a journal is part of the validation of a published paper.
> > We all use the rigorousness of the peer review and the editorial
> > crite-ria of the journals to judge about the validity of a published
> > paper. I agree that there can be exceptions, but they are just that:
> > exceptions.
> >
> > It is clear that nobody has the time or the willingness to dive into
> > each paper to find out whether it is the final version of a validated
> > paper or it is just electronic garbage. The fact is that a
> > non-administered archiving system may cause a proliferation of
> > non-validated, duplicated, misleading and even fraudulent information in
> > the web and there will be no way to identify the valid information, so
> > the readers will go to "validating sites", v. g. the publisher site.
> >
> > Unless OAI included some kind of validation...
>
> I hope you do not mind me adding to this discussion.
>
> If I may clear up perhaps a confusion about the protocol OAI:
>
> OAI is a protocol for the distribution of Metadata, much the same as
> TCP/IP is a protocol used by the Internet to distribute information. I
> would no more expect OAI to provide me with guarantees about the content
> than I would TCP/IP about this email.
>
> (As an aside, OAI does not provide any facility for the distribution of
> full-text papers (it can merely distribute 'pointers' to papers).)
>
> Therefore the validation, or otherwise, of papers and their heritage rests
> with the application(s) that use OAI.
>
> As an example of an "Open Archive" that has had ample opportunity to be
> filled with rubbish; (correct me if I am quoting wrong), arXiv has, in its
> ten years, only had to delete 2 papers out of 160,000. This would suggest
> that either arXiv has a very efficient staff or this is not really a
> problem (or, as I suspect, both).

The LANL server is undoubtedly efficient, but probably not effective
in screening out useless material. Mathematical proofs validate much
of its content but contribute little to usefulness. Moreover, the
peer-reviewed journals in physics have a much higher acceptance rate
than journals in other fields. In short, I would not be so sure that
LANL's service is not "filled with rubbish."

More important, physics and mathematics are far removed from topics
useful to quacks who promise to treat everything from aching backs to
zodiacal destiny. LANL's most effective feature perhaps is its use of
XXX -- an insignia that keeps out children who are protected by
parental controls from Internet peril.

Best wishes,

Albert Henderson
<70244.1532_at_compuserve.com>

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Received on Wed Jan 03 2001 - 19:17:43 GMT