I am getting "invitations" to join ResearchGate. I am not a member of any other social network, as I consider it a waste of time. Are there good reasons for a mathematician to join ResearchGate? Can anybody provide experiences that speak for or against joining?
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6$\begingroup$ I wonder the same. I am quite annoyed by them, since they "poison" the google search results and adds more clicks before reaching the actual article. So, based on this, I do not support them. They make my work harder, not easier. I wonder if they provide say bibtex info to articles, since this is something I would find useful. $\endgroup$– Per AlexanderssonCommented Nov 3, 2014 at 9:38
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4$\begingroup$ There is extensive discussion of ResearchGate on academia.se, for example here. The general impression is strongly negative. $\endgroup$– Ben BarberCommented Nov 3, 2014 at 9:47
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4$\begingroup$ @KetilTveiten, MathSciNet is good, but not everyone has access to it, especially from home. Google Scholar is free and provides BibTeX info, but the quality is not always that good. $\endgroup$– Joonas IlmavirtaCommented Nov 3, 2014 at 9:56
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5$\begingroup$ @JoonasIlmavirta Another source for BibTeX info is zbMATH. I find it far more preferable than MathSciNet, since it's open-access, and also more than Google, due to style. Concerning ResearchGate, I was annoyed that I was tricked into signing up by being led to believe that I could download some paper I couldn't find anywhere else; after having signed up, there was no downloadable paper at all. It somehow, stupidly, didn't occur to me that such cheap marketing could be targeted at academia... ResearchGate is mostly about spam in my experience. $\endgroup$– BasilCommented Nov 3, 2014 at 10:31
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7$\begingroup$ I voted to close since this is better asked on acdemia.SE (where indeed it already got discussed at length) as it is not only not about mathematics but not even specifically for mathematics or mathematicians. $\endgroup$– user9072Commented Nov 3, 2014 at 11:12
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1 Answer
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On Academia.SE there is a question ResearchGate: an asset or a waste of time?.
Opinions there are mostly negative (not only not too beneficial, but also can annoy others [e.g. distinguished professors with whom you are collaborating] with emails). E.g.:
As is, I have yet to hear any positive success story from my peers. All I've heard of ResearchGate are complaints about their invitation spam.
or
My experience with ResearchGate has been negative. I was searching for a paper online, and a ResearchGate page came up. I signed up as a member because they promised to send me a pdf of the paper. They never sent it and instead sent unrelated spam.
That said, as with any social network, it can change over time.
Personally, I would love to have a good profile/networking site for scientists, but it seems that we need to wait.
Or as put by one comment on A.SE:
My personal stance is that RG is a wonderful idea (especially the Q&A parts) which are terribly executed.
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$\begingroup$ I ran into some programming bug from them and similar from LinkedIn. I was getting copies of the invitations to anyone in the building; part of that was a local IT problem, but in the end I just filtered everything to trash without appearing in my mail queue. Later, I realized I joined both because of invitations I thought were personal but were probably not. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 3, 2014 at 17:48
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$\begingroup$ Perspective check: companies that everyone complains about the rude (and/or illegal!) invite spam tend to be big and growing and well-used. See LinkedIn, unroll.me tc. $\endgroup$– djechlinCommented Nov 4, 2014 at 2:41
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1$\begingroup$ @djechlin It's called growth hacking. Sometimes efficient, but once overdone in can backfire. Indeed, RG got a lot of users. But "I have yet to hear any positive success story from my peers". For LinkedIn I know a lot of success stories. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 4, 2014 at 9:03