Which academic social networks would you recommend?
by david von tamar from LinuxQuestions.org on (#4YTKY)
I just found Academia.edu since I'm looking for an academic social network that would be the equivalent of GitHub in its spirit of openness and freedom. Academia.edu seemed to me like the go-to choice at first because of its supposed stance on open access for academic research.
I realized there's a strong "for-profit" sentiment to Academia.edu. It's kinda appalling for someone who comes with background of free and open source software from Debian and Wikipedia. I can hardly trust a platform that is purely driven by profit. Aside from Academia.edu's proprietary approach, all the bloat on their platform sometimes feels like WordPress, or just another typical sluggish web app with loads of JavaScript.
I wouldn't blame Academia.edu for selling a premium subscription, since both GitHub and GitLab have theirs too, but GitHub's subscription is not a must-have necessity for developers to contribute and maintain effectively projects, and attract as much attention and popularity as you could possibly imagine. GitHub wants its users to succeed and grow with the platform, so they provide maximum freedom and empowerment to do almost whatever we desire, the platform doesn't hold us hostages or extorts us.
Academia.edu's interpretation of "your own website" seemed to me like a complete surfeit when I first saw it today. I'd rather go and launch my own custom-made, auto-generated, static front-page on GitHub for free instead. But even if I were too lazy to generate a trivial static webpage with Lua or another scripting language, I'd rather point people at my LinkedIn profile. Them using it as a selling point seemed to me as if they're trying to sell me something I don't need while totally underestimating me.
Edit. I just deleted my account on Academia.edu. Apparently people around the web (especially on Quora) have complained quite harshly criticizing the platform on lack of credibility (such as claiming having 100m "Academics" registered), and on charging users fees on false pretense by promising them information on citations that then turn out to be unrelated due to confusion of similar names/abbreviations. This is exactly why I said I can't trust such platforms.
I realized there's a strong "for-profit" sentiment to Academia.edu. It's kinda appalling for someone who comes with background of free and open source software from Debian and Wikipedia. I can hardly trust a platform that is purely driven by profit. Aside from Academia.edu's proprietary approach, all the bloat on their platform sometimes feels like WordPress, or just another typical sluggish web app with loads of JavaScript.
I wouldn't blame Academia.edu for selling a premium subscription, since both GitHub and GitLab have theirs too, but GitHub's subscription is not a must-have necessity for developers to contribute and maintain effectively projects, and attract as much attention and popularity as you could possibly imagine. GitHub wants its users to succeed and grow with the platform, so they provide maximum freedom and empowerment to do almost whatever we desire, the platform doesn't hold us hostages or extorts us.
Academia.edu's interpretation of "your own website" seemed to me like a complete surfeit when I first saw it today. I'd rather go and launch my own custom-made, auto-generated, static front-page on GitHub for free instead. But even if I were too lazy to generate a trivial static webpage with Lua or another scripting language, I'd rather point people at my LinkedIn profile. Them using it as a selling point seemed to me as if they're trying to sell me something I don't need while totally underestimating me.
Edit. I just deleted my account on Academia.edu. Apparently people around the web (especially on Quora) have complained quite harshly criticizing the platform on lack of credibility (such as claiming having 100m "Academics" registered), and on charging users fees on false pretense by promising them information on citations that then turn out to be unrelated due to confusion of similar names/abbreviations. This is exactly why I said I can't trust such platforms.