Bathtub Thoughts

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This community is inspired by this post on !showerthoughts@lemmy.world:

We really need a community where you can just post about anything that you’re really passionate about, which you’re currently researching/thinking about, sothat others can learn something about it as well and maybe discuss about it.

This showerthoughts community is a bit like it because you can just post whatever comes to your mind, but i’d like it to be more in-depth and with higher quality. Something like showerthoughts, but bathtubthoughts, i.e. when you’re soaking in a hot bathtub and thinking about stuff for 20 minutes or sth, and then post that. You know what i mean?

Related communities:

!showerthoughts@lemmy.world

!todayilearned@lemmy.ml

!youshouldknow@lemmy.world

!infodump@lemmy.autism.place

founded 6 days ago

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gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de

user-centric and content-centric platforms reflect different citation styles used in scientific literature (discuss.tchncs.de)

submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) by gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de to c/bathtubthoughts@discuss.tchncs.de

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In scientific literature there's generally two ways to cite someone:

If you're writing a technical paper about something related to technology, you typically cite the paper in square brackets.[The Art of Citation; Johnson et al.; doi: 10.4208/jcm.1512-m2015-0242]
If you're writing in sociology, you typically cite the author in round brackets. (Clarke 2013)

Nevermind the square/round brackets, my point is that in technology-related fields, typically the name of the paper is considered more important than the author. A paper can have many authors, and not always all are listed. Meanwhile in sociology, the author is considered more important than the name of the paper.

This reflects the main difference between Mastodon and Lemmy:

Lemmy is content-centric, where you have communities (focused on a topic) as the central element of organization, and they can have posts.
Mastodon is people-centric, where you have person/user as the central element of organization, and they can have posts.

This is why lemmy mostly appeals to people working in IT and tech, and that's why there's mostly nerds here.

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[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I think you're right that nerds are more interested in topics and non-nerds might be more interested in people. Maybe it's just an introvert/extrovert thing?

Also happy cake day!

[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 5 days ago

Thank you :D I can have my cake and eat it too!

[–] stelelor@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Oh this is interesting! And it would be really cool to see if there's a correlation between someone's level and field of education and their preferred social media platform. Interestingly, biological and medical articles also use the (Name, year) style of citations. This makes me think there could be some confounding factors:

If you're in school (presumably post-secondary), your college or faculty might mandate a specific citation style for all student papers submitted for grading.
Similarly, the scientific journals themselves might mandate a specific citation style within the articles they publish.
And there might be a root cause to points 1 and 2. The way in which you included a doi for the tech citation but not the socio one makes me think the age of the scientific field also matters. Older fields perpetuate the name-centric style because that's what was in use before the 70s(ish). When research was still seen as an "individual" (white male-centric) pursuit and contributors were purposefully left out (cf. Watson & Crick omitting Franklin). Whereas more recent fields incorporated the more modern content-centric approach from the start.

And beyond the link with citation styles, I wonder if your preferred type of social media reflects if you experienced the Internet prior to the rise of people-centric platforms. Back when interactions between people occurred through content-centric platforms like forums, mailing lists, comment sections, or social bookmarking.

Edit: Reorganized some paragraphs for clarity, because it's 4 AM and I'm sleep-deprived.

[–] Pistachio@lemmy.zip 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

So that's why I haven't found mastadon appealing, a idgaf what some guy has to say, but I do enjoy collective intelligence/conversation and debate on specific topics

[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yeah, the thing I enjoy mastodon for is mostly just art, since thats a place where I do wanna follow one specific person. I get some news there, and I follow some Foss projects, but mostly I use it for looking at are and telling people I like the stuff they make

[–] 5715@feddit.org 5 points 6 days ago

Interesting analogy, but I doubt citation style and field preference are portable to social network preference, because lemmings with sociological backgrounds and tooters with technical backgrounds exist. Nevertheless, it might be a useful thought to explain the difference, between a social content aggregator and a microblogging network.

[–] Cris_Color@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Honestly thats fascinating and cool as fuck, thanks for sharing!