Timeline for Outsourcing trivial authorless work
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
58 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Dec 11, 2018 at 18:03 | comment | added | StephenG - Help Ukraine | You seem to think you won't get published without the computer work, yet you also seem to not translate this into respecting how important the computer work is to your paper. If it's that critical then you have a co-author. Remember the co-author has to stand over the validity of their work and if you didn't do that work you cannot be sure it's valid. If you want all the credit do all the work. Even the best undergrad programmers know a lot less about programming than they think they do, so that's a very risky route for critical coding. | |
| Dec 11, 2018 at 12:42 | answer | added | Paul1932 | timeline score: 1 | |
| Dec 11, 2018 at 7:00 | answer | added | sean | timeline score: 0 | |
| Dec 10, 2018 at 22:38 | comment | added | TimothyAWiseman | @DaveInCaz I doubt it would change the answers much if at all. Comparable work like skilled lab work or help with statistical analysis probably would get essentially the same answers which with some variation seem to all say this merits more than an acknowledgement. Something like grammatical editing would probably not be comparable and not merit more than acknowledgement, but also would not take "a few days". | |
| Dec 10, 2018 at 21:13 | comment | added | StayOnTarget | A lot of people here are probably from Stack Overflow, and therefore are professional programmers who feel they have a sort of stake in this (including myself). It would be interesting if this question could have been written in a more hypothetical / notional way. For instance, if the work to be done wasn't programming but some other skilled labor the OP did not have direct experience in, and then to ask the same question amounting to what value someone's contribution in that area would be worth. I don't know if that would change the mix of answers (or not). | |
| Dec 10, 2018 at 17:05 | history | protected | eykanal | ||
| Dec 10, 2018 at 16:49 | answer | added | RAZ_Muh_Taz | timeline score: 6 | |
| Dec 10, 2018 at 14:25 | comment | added | Turbo | @YemonChoi There is a reason users make communities they join hidden. By abusing and revealing other communities you belittle the value of trust in this site. | |
| Dec 10, 2018 at 14:19 | comment | added | Turbo | @YemonChoi What a shame trying to throw mud on me. Look it is not as if MO is solving RH for me. It just basically solves some useful problems where I lack knowledge (plus only 33% of questions were ever answered and some in hindsight are just reference point queries). Hope that helps and if there is a recommendation that you 'can' make positively let me know. | |
| Dec 10, 2018 at 4:20 | comment | added | Turbo | Hi I am coding this myself. | |
| Dec 10, 2018 at 1:51 | comment | added | eykanal | @Freeman. – Please do not engage in edit wars. | |
| S Dec 10, 2018 at 1:50 | history | notice removed | eykanal | ||
| S Dec 10, 2018 at 1:50 | history | unlocked | eykanal | ||
| S Dec 10, 2018 at 1:50 | history | notice added | eykanal | Content dispute | |
| S Dec 10, 2018 at 1:50 | history | locked | eykanal | ||
| Dec 10, 2018 at 1:49 | history | edited | eykanal | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
deleted 48 characters in body
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| Dec 9, 2018 at 20:46 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| Dec 9, 2018 at 20:51 | |||||
| Dec 9, 2018 at 20:25 | answer | added | einpoklum | timeline score: 13 | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 20:12 | comment | added | Azor Ahai -him- | @The_Sympathizer Did I mention pay? | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 15:58 | comment | added | The_Sympathizer | @Azor Ahai : I might do something like this without necessarily having pay. Assuming everyone will only do things for pay is too reductive. And keep in mind the OP is suggesting to ask , which means that the person can refuse the no-pay terms if sie so pleases. However, I agree with the others here that credit should definitely be given. | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 13:26 | comment | added | Mayou36 | Can you may tell us your own experience in coding? I cannot get rid of the impression that you have no clue at all, is that true? Therefore, you may make a completely wrong estimation of the amount of work involved in coding and, most importantly, to what can go wrong! My personal experience with this: either you know enough about coding and just implement it yourself or you don't know enough to even make the slightest estimate to what it takes. Did you get a second opinion (probably from a colleague that is better at coding) on how hard the implementation truly is? | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 12:34 | comment | added | Walter Mitty | One aspect that has not been brought up is this: who would own the resulting software? Would the student be able to sell licenses to this software to other researchers, possibly after making some modifications? Would that constitute theft of your initial cookbook instructions? Do you own the software? Does the institution that funded your research own the software? This might be trivial. It might not be. | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 10:43 | answer | added | Wrzlprmft♦ | timeline score: 9 | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 9:54 | comment | added | Wrzlprmft♦ | @Freeman: If you wish your own conclusion to be heard, write your own answer (summarizing what arguments lead to it). It clearly doesn’t belong in the question and is irritating to the reader. I know that in some cases, post-mortem information (e.g., “the plagiarising paper was retracted”) can be interesting to some readers, but this is not the case here and even then, it should be clearly identifiable as such. | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 9:45 | history | rollback | Turbo |
Rollback to Revision 5
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| Dec 9, 2018 at 9:43 | history | edited | Wrzlprmft♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Your own conclusion doesn’t belong into the question.
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| Dec 9, 2018 at 9:31 | history | edited | Wrzlprmft♦ |
edited tags
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| Dec 9, 2018 at 7:43 | vote | accept | Turbo | ||
| Dec 9, 2018 at 7:42 | vote | accept | Turbo | ||
| Dec 9, 2018 at 7:42 | |||||
| Dec 9, 2018 at 7:42 | history | edited | Turbo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 72 characters in body
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| Dec 9, 2018 at 5:01 | comment | added | marshal craft | Well now we know that you don't do your own software. | |
| Dec 9, 2018 at 1:02 | answer | added | Walter Mitty | timeline score: 7 | |
| Dec 8, 2018 at 22:55 | comment | added | zero298 | If by “cook book” you mean design doc, you are plainly undervaluing the developer work involved. | |
| Dec 8, 2018 at 7:44 | history | edited | Turbo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
edited body
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| Dec 8, 2018 at 5:48 | answer | added | Dan Romik | timeline score: 24 | |
| Dec 8, 2018 at 5:16 | comment | added | eckes | It is typical in academia to abuse undergrads for that. professors seems to get by with this - albeit most often with minimum wage. But that does not make it more ethical ... | |
| Dec 8, 2018 at 3:08 | comment | added | BrianH | Not to pile on - but "a few days work" in practice means it will take somewhere from a few days to a few weeks of continual work. When its someone else's time, more than 5 minutes would be pushing the meaning of "trivial". I'd say unless you could get someone to provide the code on stack exchange for unicorn points, its probably more work than could possibly worth an acknowledgement - which has the approximately same street value as 1 up vote here :) | |
| Dec 8, 2018 at 0:00 | answer | added | J. Chris Compton | timeline score: 34 | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 23:55 | history | edited | Turbo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 7, 2018 at 23:45 | vote | accept | Turbo | ||
| Dec 7, 2018 at 23:45 | |||||
| Dec 7, 2018 at 23:30 | comment | added | cag51♦ | It might be helpful if you specify your level. If you are a professor, this could be a good opportunity for a student to earn a letter of recommendation and get something for their resume. If you are a grad student, I can't see why they would even agree to do this, much less why it would be ethical to allow them to. | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 22:48 | comment | added | xuq01 | How seasoned? If a good undergrad CS major would do, then it's probably OK, but you need to pay them. I won't do it without being paid. | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 20:56 | comment | added | Liang | Given that this website started from a user base of programmers/software engineers, I suspect asking a question that devalues their work to have some bias involved :p | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 19:54 | answer | added | MatthewRock | timeline score: 43 | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 19:45 | comment | added | Salvador Dali | In the area where I live, the seasoned programmer earns ~ 100$ per hour. In addition to this I have noticed that people do not become seasoned programmers out of a sudden, it takes years of work to become a seasoned programmer. | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 19:18 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | Why not add them as an author? What's your reason for not wanting to do so in the first place? | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 19:06 | comment | added | Azor Ahai -him- | Why would an undergrad volunteer to do something for you for literally no benefit for themself? And second, are you really sure that they'd turn out good enough work that you could trust it without spending an equally long chunk of time verifying it yourself? | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 19:01 | comment | added | Bakuriu | Why don't you want to credit them? Given that you need this and they provided a significant contribution they deserve to be coauthors. | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 18:16 | comment | added | Bryan Krause♦ | How do you know it's only a few days work? What are the limits on you implementing this yourself? | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 18:00 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/StackAcademia/status/1071102161772314625 | ||
| Dec 7, 2018 at 15:51 | answer | added | iayork | timeline score: 238 | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 15:35 | answer | added | Buffy | timeline score: 18 | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 15:29 | answer | added | Koenig Lear | timeline score: 7 | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 15:29 | answer | added | Nuclear Hoagie | timeline score: 27 | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 15:27 | comment | added | Fábio Dias | Be clear about the credits from the proposal. As long as it is mutually agreed upon beforehand, preferably in writing, and it can't be construed as an abuse of power, it shouldn't be ethically problematic. The undergrad would still be working for free, which is far from ideal tho. | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 15:15 | review | First posts | |||
| Dec 7, 2018 at 15:19 | |||||
| Dec 7, 2018 at 15:14 | comment | added | Jon Custer | Clearly, the answer is yes. You feel you need the result to support your work. Do it right. | |
| Dec 7, 2018 at 15:11 | history | asked | Turbo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |