Talk:ResearchGate

Wikipedia page name

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was NO CONSENSUS to move page, per discussion below. -GTBacchus^(talk) 01:34, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

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ResearchGate should be spelled ResearchGATE, since that is the official name of the social networking platform[1]. Are there any concerns to rename the page?

16:44, 03 February 2009

• Oppose I can't seem to find indication that "GATE" is an abbreviation for anything, so MOS:TM would apply here. TJ Spyke 19:33, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per MOS:TM. Station1 (talk) 07:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

• Solved ResearchGATE has officially been renamed to ResearchGate, so spelling matches MOS:TM anyways. esy 11:07, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

This article has been accused of COI, but there is no discussion on this page as to why or based on what evidence. I would suggest discussing the issue on this page (as one is supposed to), and provide evidence -- otherwise I would suggest taking down the COI tag. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.185.183.237 (talk) 09:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Is this page just an ad for a spam site?

I'm currently being spammed with emails from ResearchGate. The article reads like an ad, and is framed in mostly positive terms. Almost all content is put in by IPs and users with no other edits, and no user page. I think this page should be deleted. Ketil (talk) 10:22, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

As a scientist, and user of ResearchGate (among other tools), I would not consider the ResearchGate site "just a spam site". This is far too excessive. It appears to me like a genuine academic platform. One interesting aspect is that it gathers scientist from many parts of the world and not only the american/european area. Yet it sounds rather unpleasant to read that Ketil is being spammed by this company. But can you (Ketil) be more precise ? What do you mean by "spammed" ? Do you received a few mails of justification from ResearchGate ? Or did you actually received lots of them or some mails with unappropriate content ? On the substance of the page, I agree that it lacks of neutrality and has to be improved but not removed (Ltdm (talk) 11:39, 8 April 2012 (UTC))

I mean that I am receiving emails claiming that N.N. added me as a co-author of X applications. This is a lie, and RG just harvested this information, and pretends this was a conscious action on the part of my co-authors. I also contacted some of the cited sources for information in the article to see if any of the claims can be substantiated, but didn't receive any reply. Ketil (talk) 20:55, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

As a scientist who does NOT use ResearchGate, I consider the spam I get from ResearchGate to be "just spam", and it's irksome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.215.115.31 (talk) 18:38, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I can confirm ResearchGate is a spam site. I've just received an invitation that was claimed to come from a friend. I asked him, and he said it is not the first time, they spam all his other collegues as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.224.226.113 (talk) 06:33, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

ResearchGate indeed is one of the most annoying science spammers. Second only to GESTS. --138.246.2.177 (talk) 11:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Please help us to improve our page

Hi everyone – The ResearchGate article has been marked as “advertisement”. I’d like to change it; however, I’m facing a conflict of interest, as I’m an employee of ResearchGate. It would be great if you could take a look at this proposal in my sandbox User:Danbe13/sandbox and edit as you deem appropriate. Please get in touch if you have any questions: danielle.bengsch at researchgate dot net. Thank you! Danbe13 (talk) 16:47, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to say, but I think it should remain marked as advertisement until there is clear mention of problems such as criticism about spam. Since you are an employee, you should relaize that there is also another way .... stop spamming and clean up terms of use ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.224.226.113 (talk) 06:38, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Please stop spamming first, and apologize to the scientific community. Your reputation is by now comparable to GESTS. --138.246.2.177 (talk) 11:15, 17 July 2012 (UTC)

Come on, you are not only spamming, you are *forging* it to look like it is from legitimate users. In other words, fraud and identity theft - so don't expect a lot of sympathy. Personally, Danielle, I think you deserve to go to jail. And: "our" page? This is Wikipedia, you know, it's not "your" page. Ketil (talk) 06:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Contested deletion

This page should not be speedy deleted as an unambiguous copyright infringement, because the correct reference was added --Preisen81 (talk) 09:13, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that this page should be restored. I cannot see (from an archived copy) that it contains copyrighted material. It does however contain a warning about ResearchGate's spamming activity that would be useful to Wikipedia users. I suspect that challenging non-existant copyright infringement was just a ploy by ResearchGate to prevent dissemination of warnings about their acitivity and justifyably negative puvlicity for them. Roy Hoffman (talk) 13:00, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

What appears to have happened is that the main article was deleted per WP:COPYVIO on 23 July, but was restored by someone else on 24 July. However, when the main article was restored the Talk page was not restored. I have contacted the restoring admin to request that the Talk page be restored as well, so that the conversation that has occurred here can be used to improve the article. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 13:57, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Done. Sorry for not getting it right first time :) SmartSE (talk) 19:25, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Need help resolving editing dispute

I removed from this article criticisms that ResearchGate is a spam site. The reason I removed it is that the criticism had no credible online source to back it up. The citation to support the criticism was an anonymous Quora comment, which could have been posted by a competitor or anyone else hostile to the company. An anonymous Quora comment is hardly a credible, objective, third-party source.

As soon as I removed that criticism on the grounds that it isn't properly sourced, an anonymous Wiki editor, 71.246.200.43, added it back--this time, with no source at all for a citation. This editor also removed content I added that I believe gave more balance to the article, such as the company's research breakthroughs as well as their legitimate challenges (though this last part wasn't removed).

In short: I suspect this user is making malicious edits. I'm a long-time Wiki editor with many valid contributions. Please consider the revisions I made and compare them to the most recent edits made by 71.246.200.43--whose only contributions to Wikipedia have been to this page on August 9th. If you agree with me, please reinstate my edits, or at least remove the unfounded spam accusations. Thank you very much for your help. --JNorman704 (talk) 17:18, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the edits are simply malicious. Not that my word counts on Wikipedia, but I can attest that the accusations are true. On the other hand, the sourcing is pretty iffy. The best I can find is the the Quora site in question, where Madisch himself acknowledges that the "co-author invite feature" is "opt-out". My inference from this is that an "opt-out" feature is likely to be used inadvertently, leading to ResearchGate emails that ostensibly were intentionally sent by a respected user, but of which the ostensible sender knows nothing, which could easily be interpreted as spam.

So my interpretation is that the folks who have been adding this stuff to the article are inexperienced users who are upset about having received what they interpret as spam. The problem with this kind of (arguably) shady behavior is that it doesn't make great copy, so you don't see it appearing in RSs, so it's hard to verify to WP standards. But on the other hand, for those who know about it, it feels wrong to leave it out. I'm not proposing a solution, just suggesting a way to understand what people are doing.

While we're talking about verifiability, I wonder how RG counts its members. Are nearly 2 million people actually active on the site? Is that just the number of people who looked at the site once? Or (worse), is that just the number of people who have received one of these questionable emails? The article sources are either RG itself or other authors who don't seem to question RG's numbers. Just saying. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 20:40, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

We need to keep the eyes open for other sources to cite with respect to this spam. I personally can also tell a lot of stories here. For example, ResearchGate keeps on resending the spam every other week. So it is not triggered by user action only, but it also sends out reminders to join. Then I've heard from colleagues that ResearchGate claims to have as members that they a) (believe to) have never joined or b) only joined "to make the emails stop" (although they should know better). Given the numbers from ResearchGates reply on Quora - 20% of users active within the last month once and the growth rate (1.9 now, 1.4 m a month ago?) I have the strong impression that the 20% of "active" users are exactly those that just joined within the last month... Their top computer science topic ("Science, Engineering and Technology") has around 48000 followers. There just *can't* be that many truly active users on their platform. But given this rate of spam success they have, they will run out of new users to join anytime soon, and then it will become obvious what a dead duck their spam site is. --136.159.198.204 (talk) 15:53, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses. However, they don't address the continuing problem with this article--that unsubstantiated allegations are being made against this company. I have looked for and not found one credible, third-party source for the allegations of spam that are persistently added to this article without proper (or any) citation, and often by anonymous IP accounts. An anonymous Quora quote, which was the original citation for this allegation, does not meet Wikipedia verifiability guidelines, which state: "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." By removing these unsourced allegations (which were quickly restored), I have attempted to follow Wiki guidelines about dealing with unsourced material, which state: "If a claim is doubtful and harmful, remove it from the article." Are there any Wiki editors willing to back me up on this? I'm simply trying to follow Wiki guidelines here and protect this page against allegations that have not been verified by reliable, third-party, published sources. JNorman704 (talk) 21:46, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

There still aren't any citations given for the section on spamming and in my personal opinion this criticism is not valid. Why don't you remove it and freeze wiki-article for a while. 92.206.191.235 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:35, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. I just removed the spam criticism, but I'm not an administrator, so if you are or someone who reads this is, please take the necessary steps to protect this page from repeated, unsourced criticisms, often from anonymous users. Thank you. JNorman704 (talk) 18:39, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Yet again, an anonymous user with no Wiki editing history has posted unfounded claims of spam against this company. The user cited an anonymous blog post for its source. This has been going on for months on this page. I have removed the criticism but I could use the Wiki community's help preventing this from continually being added, usually by anonymous users with no Wiki track record and citing dubious sources. Thank you. JNorman704 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:13, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a regular Wikipedia editor but I feel to see a mention of the annoying marketing campaigne run by this company, based on deceitful claims as I learned through personal experience, similar to the ones discussed above). The reason I looked up the company on wikipedia is I wanted to have unbiased information about _who_ on earth are these people that keep trying me to trick me into their system? A couple more of those and I'll try to make an 'official' edit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.249.149.100 (talk) 22:33, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia's policy on WP:No original research. I'm sure you are a trustworthy person, but because we cannot verify that in this kind of an online community, we cannot take your word (or mine) for anything. Only information that is verifiable from reliable sources can be used as a basis for text on Wikipedia.

Like you, I have received a questionable email from ResearchGate. However, unless we can find a reliable source that discusses their activities in this regard, we cannot have the information on Wikipedia. --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 02:57, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Of course a source is needed, but Researchgate is actually an heavy spammer, anyone who has received their "invitations" can confirm it. I hope that sooner or later someone somewhere makes some reliable statistics. Anyway, also the "1.9 Million members" should have some reliable source! If you are a researcher, please look at your "profile" and at the profiles of your colleagues. What I mean is that I never signed to Researchgate, but I do have a "profile"... not exactly... I have at least 4 profiles, one for each paper of mine that researchgate knows of. I checked the "profiles" of some colleagues of mine, and it is the same, they appear multiple times. Hence I do not believe to the "1.9 Million members", and I also guess that many of them are unsigned and appear multiple times. You can reach 1.9 Million much more easily, that way!--Popopp (talk) 18:05, 18 November 2012 (UTC)