Web of Trust For Scientific Publications

An anonymous reader writes "PGP and GnuPG have been utilizing webs of trust to establish authenticity without a centralized certificate authority for a while. Now, a new tool seeks to extend the concept to include scientific publications. The idea is that researchers can review and sign each others' works with varying levels of endorsement, and display the signed reviews with their vitas. This creates a decentralized social network linking researchers, papers, and reviews that, in theory, represents the scientific community. It meshes seamlessly with traditional publication venues. One can publish a paper with an established journal, and still try to get more out of the paper by asking colleagues to review the work. The hope is that this will eventually provide an alternative method for researchers to establish credibility."

A new tool appears!

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming this fall. Jean Claude Van Damme in...Web of Trust.

Two certificates enter, one leaves.

But what about the new tool? Does Google have the favor?

Rated R for violence and sexual situations.

Re:Still needs a root

[martin-boundary]

You must have gone to a top university. In my experience, grad students have no idea what their thesis is about or who's who in their chosen field until about 3/4 of the way through (but luckily there's always panic to smooth over the last 1/4 :)

Now, postdocs, that's another story.

Re:Wikipedia

[linhares]

Great place to start looking for information though.

[citation needed]