All Researchers To Be Allocated Unique IDs

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All Researchers To Be Allocated Unique IDs

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday May 30, 2012 @04:22AM from the you-are-number-six dept.

ananyo writes with information on a new scheme to help uniquely identify authors in the face of ambiguous names. From the article: "In 2011, Y. Wang was the world's most prolific author of scientific publications, with 3,926 to their name — a rate of more than 10 per day. Never heard of them? That's because they are a mixture of many different Y. Wangs, each indistinguishable in the scholarly record. The launch later this year of the Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID), an identifier system that will distinguish between authors who share the same name, could soon solve the problem, allowing research papers to be associated correctly with their true author. Instead of filling out personal details on countless electronic forms associated with submitting papers or applying for grants, a researcher could also simply type in his or her ORCID number. Various fields would be completed automatically by pulling in data from other authorized sources, such as databases of papers, citations, grants and contact details. ORCID does not intend to offer such services itself; the idea is that other organizations will use the open-access ORCID database to build their own services."

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Unique IDs eh? by girlintraining · 2012-05-30 04:24 · Score: 5, Funny

Hmm. A new program to uniquely track and identify scientists springs up in the middle of an all out war between science and the idiocracy. Totally coincidental. *adjusts tin foil hat*

--
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
1. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:26 · Score: 0
  
  Scientists are at war with a movie?
2. Re:Unique IDs eh? by nemui-chan · 2012-05-30 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  I hear they also get these spiffy armbands they can^H^H^H are required to wear.
3. Re:Unique IDs eh? by dyingtolive · 2012-05-30 04:27 · Score: 1
  
  There has always been a war between science and the idiocracy. It's just usually previously we attached a different prefix to "-cracy".
  
  --
  Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
4. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:28 · Score: 0
  
  first they came for the scientists...
5. Re:Unique IDs eh? by cpu6502 · 2012-05-30 04:34 · Score: 1
  
  Alex Jones, is that you?
  Is Y. Wang the inventor of Wang computers? I hear women in offices love their Wangs.
  Why not solve this problem by just using the full name?
  Oh well. (shrug)
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
6. Re:Unique IDs eh? by jakimfett · 2012-05-30 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  And if they won't wear the armbands, they get to attend mandatory voluntary retraining sessions until they learn the errors of their ways...
  
  Wait...where have I heard this one before?
  
  My only question...why not simply tie research submissions to a researcher's OpenID? Google has all that information anyway...
  
  --
  Bits of code, random ramblings: jakimfett.com
7. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-05-30 04:46 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Assigning UIDs to researchers, to resolve ambiguity in publications and attribution?
  This sounds like a new twist on the old "Your papers, please" .
  
  --
  "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
  Never been known to fail..."
8. Re:Unique IDs eh? by OldeTimeGeek · 2012-05-30 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  Nope, that was An Wang
9. Re:Unique IDs eh? by LostOne · 2012-05-30 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  Full names are not necessarily unique either.
  
  --
  
  If it works in theory, try something else in practice.
10. Re:Unique IDs eh? by fibonacci8 · 2012-05-30 04:52 · Score: 1
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Wang China has been dealing with the trouble of only having 100ish surnames and 1 or 2 character given names for years now, it's not limited to researchers.
  
  --
  Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
11. Re:Unique IDs eh? by jdgeorge · 2012-05-30 04:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Why not solve this problem by just using the full name?
  Because it wouldn't solve the problem at all. There are many researchers with the exact same full name. One reason we have Social Security numbers in the US is because full names have a strong tendency to be similar.
  That said, I'm sure the Wangs can come up with a solution. huh-huh...
12. Re:Unique IDs eh? by SteveFoerster · 2012-05-30 05:03 · Score: 2
  
  They should ask Hollywood celebrities for advice on broadening their pool of names for babies. They come up with all sorts of fascinating name.
  
  --
  Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
13. Re:Unique IDs eh? by mcmonkey · 2012-05-30 05:04 · Score: 1
  
  No armbands. They'll just be identified by their pieces of flair.
14. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Slippery_Hank · 2012-05-30 05:19 · Score: 1
  
  There has always been a war between science and the idiocracy. It's just usually previously we attached a different prefix to "-cracy".
  I thought it was a different suffix to Idio
15. Re:Unique IDs eh? by mikael · 2012-05-30 05:23 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Is it any different from an Email address or a bank account number?
  If you have gone to the effort to research, write and publish a paper the last thing you want is for people not to know who or where you are.
  To make it really useful, you should be able to register as an independent researcher and take it with you wherever you go.
  The only downside is thst it might become like the Chinese record of achievement.
  
  --
  Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
16. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-05-30 05:25 · Score: 1
  
  Scientists are at war with a movie?
  This post is one of the most brilliant illustrations of Poe's Law that I've ever seen. What scares me is that I can't tell if the brilliance is intentional or not.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
17. Re:Unique IDs eh? by jc42 · 2012-05-30 05:34 · Score: 1
  
  Full names are not necessarily unique either.
  Indeed. A few years ago, I ran across a US Census Bureau web page that gave the number of people with specific first or last names, and an estimate (likely from multiplying the fractions) of the number of people in the US with a given first+last name. It said that there are about 1800 people in the US with the same name as me, and my family name isn't even Smith or Jones or any of the other top 100.
  Through the years, I've seen a number of bibliographies that list things that I've written, intermixed with things written by various of those others with my name. So far, I haven't complained, since this makes us all look better than we really are. ;-)
  Still, it could be useful if we had a reasonable way to separate out such things and give individuals the proper acknowledgement for their contributions to our knowledge. But I'd be surprised if we could actually do this job right, within the lifetimes of people now living.
  Among those of us familiar with the old music of the British Isles, one ongoing frustration is the misattribution of music written by Niel Gow or Neil Gow. One of those was the grandfather of the other; do you know which was which? The intermediate in the male line was Nathaniel Gow, who also wrote a lot of good tunes, and collectors also confuse him with his father and his son despite the different name. Somehow, I suspect that this Unique ID system won't be extended to them, any more than I expect it to be implemented accurately for living authors.
  (And none of this will stop current publishers from claiming copyright for their works. ;-)
  
  --
  Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
18. Re:Unique IDs eh? by LoverOfJoy · 2012-05-30 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  Weird. I did a search for Poe's law on bing and it came up with zero results. I can't remember the last time I did a search and got zero results.
19. Re:Unique IDs eh? by rgmoore · 2012-05-30 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  Full names are not necessarily unique either.
  Or constant, for that matter. Even in academia, some people (mostly women) still change their names when they marry, which can add to the confusion. Imagine tracking all the papers by Mary Jane Smith nee Jones. Having a unique personal ID would solve the changing name problem as well as the non-unique name problem.
  
  --
  There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
20. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Minwee · 2012-05-30 05:48 · Score: 1
  
  Sounds like a conspiracy to me.
21. Re:Unique IDs eh? by plover · 2012-05-30 05:50 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  "GUID, bitte."
  
  --
  John
22. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:51 · Score: 1
  
  Completely correct, but this would do even less to solve the problem in China. China has had a problem with a lack of unique full names for quite some time. According to this, there's 100,000 people named Wang Tao. I imagine that at least a few of them are in similar fields. There's a pretty simple explanation. Basically, the 100 most common surnames are used by 85% of the population. There's only between 3000-4000 surnames currently being used at all. Compare that to the United States, which has well over 100,000 surnames in common use.
23. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:53 · Score: 0
  
  I don't know how you searched, but I immediately get about 1.2 million hits.
  I'll just give the first: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe%27s_Law
  Oh, and the second because it's a Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
24. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:57 · Score: 0
  
  He misspelled it. It's poe slaw, which is that kind of word salad that you read and then think, nevermore, nevermore...
25. Re:Unique IDs eh? by jdgeorge · 2012-05-30 06:08 · Score: 1
  
  Completely correct, but this would do even less to solve the problem in China. China has had a problem with a lack of unique full names for quite some time. According to this, there's 100,000 people named Wang Tao. I imagine that at least a few of them are in similar fields. There's a pretty simple explanation. Basically, the 100 most common surnames are used by 85% of the population. There's only between 3000-4000 surnames currently being used at all. Compare that to the United States, which has well over 100,000 surnames in common use.
  True- thank you for the informative links. To complete the picture in the US, here's the US Census data about surnames from the 2000 census.
26. Re:Unique IDs eh? by nospam007 · 2012-05-30 06:22 · Score: 2
  
  "They should ask Hollywood celebrities for advice ..."
  Don't, they take perfectly unique names like 'Thomas Cruise Mapother IV' and change it to Tom Cruise.
27. Re:Unique IDs eh? by registrations_suck · 2012-05-30 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  If you have gone to the effort to research, write and publish a paper the last thing you want is for people not to know who or where you are.
  That significantly depends on the nature of the research and the potential for it to "displease" others, and who those other parties are.
28. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Eponymous+Hero · 2012-05-30 06:51 · Score: 1
  
  even better, it's a way for anti-science government reps to plant themselves (vis a vis some worthy nerd host) within the science community by assigning themselves IDs and then publish all kinds of distorted statistics to benefit whatever bill they're trying to sign themselves into legend with. global warming is bad for the profits of those paying for my campaigns? look at the pretty birdie while i get myself a researcher ID....
  
  --
  insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
29. Re:Unique IDs eh? by icebraining · 2012-05-30 06:55 · Score: 1
  
  Except before they didn't even need an ID.
  
  --
  Dilbert RSS feed
30. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 06:57 · Score: 0
  
  Cool! From the census information, I dropped it into a spreadsheet and found out that in the United States (12 years ago, of course) the top 100 names added up to just over 46 million people out of a total of slightly over 281 million (around 16% using the top 100 surnames). Still makes those names pretty common, but nothing compared to the 85% figure China has to deal with. Also, it looks like with the US having a history of immigration, the number of surnames in the US has probably been increasing. Garcia and Rodriguez both cracked the top 10, and Nguyen came in at number 57.
31. Re:Unique IDs eh? by dtmos · 2012-05-30 07:00 · Score: 3
  
  . . .some people (mostly women) still change their names. . .
  . . .not to mention the difficulties faced by, e.g., Lynn Conway. Being able to generate a new identity for oneself can have advantages.
  Lynn was fired, and forced to leave the field of computer science/engineering after telling her bosses at IBM that she was to undergo sex reassignment surgery in 1968. She could re-enter the field only because she could create a new identity (this time as a woman), starting a new career all over again at the bottom of the ladder.
  Who is this person, you may ask? As a man, in the 1960s, she invented processor multiple-issue out-of-order dynamic instruction scheduling. After her transition? Oh, nothing . . . only co-authoring (with Carver Mead) Introduction to VLSI Systems which, by promoting the use of standard cells, automated design tools, and silicon foundry services (e.g., MOSIS), revolutionized the field of digital integrated circuits. Virtually every digital chip today is designed in this way; and there are many in the field who cannot conceive of any other way to do design ("Wasn't it always done this way?").
  If Lynn could not have generated a new identity and re-entered the field as she did, these critical advances may have been delayed for years.
32. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Magic5Ball · 2012-05-30 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  Then they came for the Alans Cox...
  
  --
  There are 1.1... kinds of people.
33. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Jeremiah+Cornelius · 2012-05-30 08:15 · Score: 2
  
  Do I REALLY need to stick "smileys" in every damn comment? :-) :-) :-)
  Get it? twist on "Papers".
  Subtle wordplay dies, when subjected to explanation.
  
  --
  "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
  Never been known to fail..."
34. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 08:36 · Score: 0
  
  ...
  To make it really useful, you should be able to register as an independent researcher and take it with you wherever you go.
  The only downside is thst it might become like the Chinese record of achievement.
  Supporting independent researchers is in fact a major plus of the scheme: anyone will be able to register for an ORCID identifier and use it. No publisher or institution "sponsor" required.
35. Re:Unique IDs eh? by interkin3tic · 2012-05-30 12:13 · Score: 1
  
  Middle of an all out war? I don't really think it's the middle of anything. Science is always going to be opposed to ignorance and superstition. The proponents of ignorance and "My religion says your facts are wrong!" aren't burning scientists at the stake or arresting them too much anymore, so I'd say the battle has gotten more civil anyway.
36. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 13:13 · Score: 0
  
  If you have gone to the effort to research, write and publish a paper the last thing you want is for people not to know who or where you are.
  Then maybe attach your WHOLE name to it, and not just your initial (Y. Wang)??
37. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 13:17 · Score: 0
  
  So use Full Name, plus where they work.
  or Full Name and DOB.
  Sheesh.
38. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 13:21 · Score: 0
  
  HowManyOfMe.com
  There is
  1
  person with my name in the U.S.A.
  Woo-hoo!!
39. Re:Unique IDs eh? by jc42 · 2012-05-30 14:44 · Score: 1
  
  There is 1 person with my name in the U.S.A.
  So how many people are there with your name in China? ;-)
  Actually, my wife also has a name that's unique in the US, and probably the world. But more fun is that right now it gets over a million hits on google. This is in part because her name is an English sentence. But the top hits are because her name was also a widespread news headline in 1822 in most of the English-speaking world. That should be enough of a clue to figure it out.
  There are lots of fun obscure facts about names.
  
  --
  Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
40. Re:Unique IDs eh? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 22:44 · Score: 0
  
  Date, time and coordinate of birth. With enough resolution, this should be unique. :-)
  And before someone claims this would fail with twins: Even twins come out one after the other, making their birth time slightly different.
41. Re:Unique IDs eh? by AmiMoJo · 2012-05-31 05:23 · Score: 1
  
  I share my store cards with my girlfriend. God knows what Tesco's data mining algorithms think of me.
  Could be tricky collecting the Nobel prize though.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
42. Re:Unique IDs eh? by kurzweilfreak · 2012-05-31 10:42 · Score: 2
  
  This sounds like a new twist on the old "Your peer-reviewed papers, please" .
  FTFY.
  
  --
  kurzweil_freak
  5th Kyu Genbukan Ninpo/KJJR student
  Be the darkness that allows the light to shine.
There are many similar systems... by bakuun · 2012-05-30 04:26 · Score: 5, Interesting

... - one of them, for example, is ResearcherID at http://www.researcherid.com/ . None of them have really taken off so far, and there is nothing to say that this one will. I am skeptical.
1. Re:There are many similar systems... by Kam+Solusar · 2012-05-30 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  Isn't that what authority records and VIAF are for?
  
  --
  The Angels have the Phone Box
2. Re:There are many similar systems... by stephanruby · 2012-05-30 06:16 · Score: 2
  
  Individual researchers will be able to get an ORCID number for free as of later this year, whereas universities, companies and other organizations will pay tiered-subscription charges. So far, the scheme has been sustained by members working in kind, as well as by donations of US$574,000 and loans of $1.2 million. Once membership fees begin flowing, they are expected to raise $2.5 million each year.
  With $1.2 million dollars of debt already, and with the expectation that ORCID will become a tiered paid subscription service, I don't see any reason why anyone would want to use ORCID instead of researcherID. What will happen to your ID if ORCID goes bankrupt?
  Also, what happens when you're a prolific researcher into two different field of studies that usually do not mix very well? Can the new system assign you two different IDs?
16-digit ID by Alomex · 2012-05-30 04:28 · Score: 3, Insightful

I'm so glad they made the ID a fixed length 16-digit number. Experience shows that we are very good at predicting the total number of IDs ever to be needed.
Plus 54 bits should be more than enough, so no need to make the number extensible, thus wasting one precious bit as a field extension identifier.
1. Re:16-digit ID by Bill_the_Engineer · 2012-05-30 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  How big of a population explosion are you expecting?
  
  --
  These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
2. Re:16-digit ID by Kenja · 2012-05-30 04:33 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Dont worry. The number of researchers, scientists and engineers is going down, not up.
  
  --
  
  "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
3. Re:16-digit ID by Jeng · 2012-05-30 04:34 · Score: 1
  
  If this program runs long enough for this to be an issue then it would have to be very very successful for many hundreds of years.
  
  --
  Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
4. Re:16-digit ID by SJHillman · 2012-05-30 04:38 · Score: 2
  
  If the Machines take over and use researchers as power cells with their unique 16-digit number to identify them, each researcher could take up 1.5 square feet and they would still run out of land area on Earth before than ran out of IDs.
5. Re:16-digit ID by simonbp · 2012-05-30 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  Are you predicting that there are going to be 10^16 scientists anytime soon? If they are all on Earth, that would be just less than 20 scientists per square meter (or about 65 scientist per square meter if you just count land area).
6. Re:16-digit ID by cpu6502 · 2012-05-30 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  9 999 999 999 999 999
  I have no idea what number that is. What comes after trillions? Anyway that's 10,000 trillion people that can be identified with this system..... more than the total number of humans that have ever lived on earth. More than the 40 billion that lived on Asimov's metal world/capital planet called Trantor. (Or when Lucas ripped it off: Coruscant.)
  
  --
  My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
7. Re:16-digit ID by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:59 · Score: 0
  
  You're neglecting the third and forth dimensions.
8. Re:16-digit ID by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:01 · Score: 0
  
  Bloggers on the other hand... .
9. Re:16-digit ID by twistedcubic · 2012-05-30 05:04 · Score: 2
  
  Organizations and their sub-organizations, as well as devices themselves (e.g. Watson) may have research IDs. Imagine a Beowulf cluster of machine researchers!
10. Re:16-digit ID by tlhIngan · 2012-05-30 05:06 · Score: 1
  
  I'm so glad they made the ID a fixed length 16-digit number. Experience shows that we are very good at predicting the total number of IDs ever to be needed.
  You know, a financial payment card (credit card, debit card, etc) are 16 digits in length, The first 6 are special as is the last, which mean there are 9 unique ID digits in it. Yet we don't seem to be running out of numbers even though when a bunch get "liberated" from a payment processor, most financial institutions simply re-issue a new number to you. (And it's not like they dare re-issue an old number either - otherwise they could've saved all the effort and stayed with 14-digit numbers). There seems to be little concern about running out of card numbers.
  And if they did the number coding right, they could make it a 17 digit number so when we're all spacers and such, you can prepend "0" to all existing numberholders and it'll still work out.
11. Re:16-digit ID by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-05-30 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  The number of researchers, scientists and engineers is going down, not up.
  In terms of proportion of population, that may be true; in terms of absolute numbers, I'm pretty sure it's not. The number of papers published continues to grow at a more-or-less exponential rate, and while it's true that the "publish or perish" mentality forces researchers to have their names on more papers now than ever before (which is easier than it used to be, because author lists are also getting longer; it's not unusual for papers in biology to have ten or more authors listed) I have a hard time believing that the number of people writing the papers isn't also growing steadily.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
12. Re:16-digit ID by kbg · 2012-05-30 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  Well, scientists have a tendency to die after 100 years or less, so it is possible to to cram 20 or more on a square meter when they are under ground and made of ash :)
13. Re:16-digit ID by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:18 · Score: 0
  
  It's called Quintillions... and the only book that I've read that would even approach that would be Niven's Ringworld... and I'm sure that even that would fall short. Perhaps a large star cluster full of Ringworlds?
14. Re:16-digit ID by Lumpy · 2012-05-30 05:19 · Score: 1
  
  "How big of a population explosion are you expecting?"
  It depends if T Wang's Cloning project is a success.
  It could be a massive explosion.
  
  --
  Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
15. Re:16-digit ID by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:19 · Score: 0
  
  Y R U racist against the Fifth Dimension?
16. Re:16-digit ID by Missing.Matter · 2012-05-30 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  which is easier than it used to be, because author lists are also getting longer; it's not unusual for papers in biology to have ten or more authors listed
  So true. Here's a paper with 27 authors listed.... here's another one with a whopping 80 authors!
17. Re:16-digit ID by plover · 2012-05-30 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  No, we're constantly running out of account numbers. It's such a common problem that several stop-gap solutions have become commonplace, which is why you never noticed.
  
  --
  John
18. Re:16-digit ID by Bill_the_Engineer · 2012-05-30 06:05 · Score: 1
  
  The article said the number is assigned to the researcher ( a person ) and not the institutions or its sub-organizations. I did see a tiered subscription rate being mentioned to pay for its employees to be a member. I didn't see any references to artificial intelligence machines.
  
  --
  These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
19. Re:16-digit ID by CrimsonAvenger · 2012-05-30 06:46 · Score: 1
  
  If this program runs long enough for this to be an issue then it would have to be very very successful for many hundreds of years.
  With a 16 digit number, it would be successful for at least 100,000,000 years, assuming EVERYONE was a researcher....
  With a more realistic estimate of the number of researchers, the 16 digit number ought to be good for well beyond the lifetime of the Universe....
  
  --
  
  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
20. Re:16-digit ID by crypticedge · 2012-05-30 07:41 · Score: 1
  
  Quadrillion, Quintillion is 1000 quadrillion. Either way it's still a fuckton of people.
  For reference in case people forget their scales - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_large_numbers
21. Re:16-digit ID by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 08:00 · Score: 0
  
  An ID system has to be cumulative- someone's authorships don't disappear when they die.
22. Re:16-digit ID by adavies42 · 2012-05-30 08:00 · Score: 1
  
  9 999 999 999 999 999
  I have no idea what number that is. What comes after trillions?
  It's called Quintillions
  actually (in short/american count) it's quadrillions. (10e15 is ten quadrillion.)
  
  and the only book that I've read that would even approach that would be Niven's Ringworld... and I'm sure that even that would fall short.
  a ringworld as wide as the earth and at our orbit would have roughly 5 trillion square miles (~8000 miles * ~100e6 miles * 2 * pi) (inside) surface area.
  10e15/5e12 is 2000 people per square mile, slightly less than bangladesh, and about 24x america -- feasible, if not terribly probably.
  Ringworld itself is unlikely to have anything close to this "now", given what the Puppeteers did to it, but i suppose it might have back when the Pak were running things.
  
  Perhaps a large star cluster full of Ringworlds?
  a (solid) dyson sphere at our orbit would have about 125 quadrillion (4 * pi * ~100e6 miles^2) square miles (inside) surface area, and could thus accommodate 10e15 people at 1 per ~12.5 square miles (~0.08 per square mile), just slightly more than greenland, and 15x less than alaska.
  
  --
  Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
  -kfg
23. Re:16-digit ID by Immerman · 2012-05-30 10:10 · Score: 1
  
  hmm, 10^16 = 10,000,000,000 * 1,000,000
  So enough researcher IDs for everyone on earth to get a new one every year for the next million years.... Somehow I suspect the system will be replaced by something else for completely unrelated reasons long before they start running out of available IDs.
  
  --
  --- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
24. Re:16-digit ID by aintnostranger · 2012-05-30 13:47 · Score: 1
  
  how in earth was such "failed at reading comprehension" junk get up-modded?
25. Re:16-digit ID by StripedCow · 2012-05-30 22:02 · Score: 1
  
  A sum of numbers that are decreasing may still be infinite.
  
  --
  If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
26. Re:16-digit ID by Alomex · 2012-05-31 00:43 · Score: 1
  
  There were equally convincing arguments when we chose seven digit phone numbers, 16 digit account numbers, and 32 bit IP numbers.
  Yet we ended up running of each one of those. The reason why is that once an identifier succeeds, its use gets extended beyond its original purpose. For example, phone numbers were supposed to be one per household, yet my household with only two adults has seven phone numbers attached to it.
27. Re:16-digit ID by allo · 2012-05-31 23:02 · Score: 1
  
  only if you allow fractional scientists
Great News for Virginia! by eldavojohn · 2012-05-30 04:28 · Score: 4, Interesting

Hmm. A new program to uniquely track and identify scientists springs up in the middle of an all out war between science and the idiocracy. Totally coincidental. *adjusts tin foil hat*
No need to adjust your tinfoil hat. I read this article and thought "Oh, great, now Virginia's Attorney General can conduct more accurate witch hunts." (he was unable to properly identify over 30 scientists and researchers)

--
My work here is dung.
1. Re:Great News for Virginia! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:48 · Score: 0
  
  right, a politician criticizing what he sees as wasteful spending (while criticizing the grant process and not the scientists themselves) is a "witch hunt".
Slightly lesser known by nutgirdle · 2012-05-30 04:29 · Score: 5, Funny

is researcher M.Y. Wang. He does mostly the same experiment once or twice a day.
1. Re:Slightly lesser known by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:35 · Score: 0
  
  Would that be the guy who is working on human endurance and experimenting with ways to prolong it?
  Godspeed to that fellow.
2. Re:Slightly lesser known by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:52 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  He is working on the new handshaking protocol, right?
3. Re:Slightly lesser known by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:04 · Score: 0
  
  Apparently, a micro-biologist.
  Yes, you saw what I did there.
4. Re:Slightly lesser known by benjamindees · 2012-05-30 07:56 · Score: 1
  
  I'm just glad someone is working on keeping all the Wangs straight.
  
  --
  "I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
public key by ags1 · 2012-05-30 04:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Can't we just sign docs with a private key? The public key's finger print can be your unique id. Or are we still attached to paper?
1. Re:public key by rokstar · 2012-05-30 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  Less an attachment to paper and more scientifically literacy does not automatically translate to computer literacy. Granted, I'd bet a random sample of researchers would do better than a sample of the general public in terms of being able to pick up the basics of public/private key management; however, you are still going to find people at all levels where it would be easier to teach a dog rocket surgery.
2. Re:public key by plover · 2012-05-30 06:00 · Score: 1
  
  The problem isn't attribution as much as it is cross referencing. Say I want to refer to Y. Wang's paper on network theory. I wouldn't use his signature in my paper (signatures are not searchable.)
  
  --
  John
3. Re:public key by ags1 · 2012-05-30 07:10 · Score: 2
  
  Cross referencing would be done on name and the public key's finger print, not the key itself.
  
  Anyone can generate a public/private key, so we don't need an organization to manage (collect fees) the handing out of numbers. Or deciding who is a scientist and who deserves to get a number.
  
  Attribution would be a nice bonus.
4. Re:public key by petermgreen · 2012-05-30 22:20 · Score: 1
  
  You could use his key fingerprint to reference him.
  The problem with doing that kind of thing though is that over time people move to new keys. Either because they want a stronger key or because the old one is lost or compromised and of course some people may deliberately create multiple persona's for themselves (whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is a matter of opinion).
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
Problem? by betterunixthanunix · 2012-05-30 04:32 · Score: 1

Is there a serious problem with authors sharing names? I am sure it happens, but (a) it seems unlikely that they would be in the same field and (b) it seems even less likely that they would be at the same institution and (c) even less likely that their contact information would be the same so are there really cases where there is confusion over who wrote a paper?

--
Palm trees and 8
1. Re:Problem? by JaredOfEuropa · 2012-05-30 04:42 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I have a last name that is very uncommon in the Netherlands, even more so because it is capitalized differently than usual, and it is "misspelled" to boot. Even so, there's a guy (not family) who shares my first and last name, went to the same university, same department, and graduated on a topic similar to mine. We've published on overlapping topics. So yes, confusion does happen, and I've often been contacted by someone looking for the other guy. Sounds nice since I have just four publications to my name whereas he went into research and has many more, but of course I can't take credit...
  
  --
  If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
2. Re:Problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:43 · Score: 2
  
  Actually, there is. My wife is a PhD who studies stroke and epilepsy. There is another scientist in Germany who has the same first initial and last name who also studies stroke. He's been writing papers ~20 years longer than my wife has, but when you search for her papers, you get craploads(SAE standard measure) of his, as well.
3. Re:Problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:50 · Score: 0
  
  Is there a serious problem with authors sharing names?
  Yes.
  (a) it seems unlikely that they would be in the same field.
  It's not.
  (b) it seems even less likely that they would be at the same institution
  It is not uncommon at all for a researcher to work for more than 1 institution during their research career. Sometimes several different institutions.
  (c) even less likely that their contact information would be the same
  see A and B above. Plus your contact information may change if you move labs/buildings within an institution.
  so are there really cases where there is confusion over who wrote a paper?>
  Yes. That's why several different ID systems beyond the one in this article have been proposed/used by different groups. None have yet taken off.
4. Re:Problem? by ceoyoyo · 2012-05-30 04:55 · Score: 2
  
  Yes. And people switch institutions, and fields. At the moment, if someone has a common name, looking up their papers is an exercise in AI. With a unique identifier you'd be able to tell Google Scholar "get me all the other papers by this author in the last ten years."
5. Re:Problem? by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-05-30 04:55 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I am sure it happens, but (a) it seems unlikely that they would be in the same field
  I have a few name collisions just in my own reference database (i.e., list of papers to which I've referred in my own work.) I can pretty much guarantee that if you look at the author lists for any major single-subject journal, you'll find a whole bunch of identical $FIRST_INITIAL $LAST_NAME entries which are not, in fact, the same people.
  Hell, I have a pretty rare (in the US, at least) last name -- and occasionally I still get e-mails from people who think I'm the Daniel Dvorkin who wrote a paper on psoriasis in 1989. It's not entirely unreasonable, since my name appears on a couple of papers related to inflammatory disease, but I'm a grad student in Colorado, not a dermatologist in Pennsylvania ...
  
  and (b) it seems even less likely that they would be at the same institution and (c) even less likely that their contact information would be the same so are there really cases where there is confusion over who wrote a paper
  True enough, but people who are looking at author names are not necessarily looking at the entire paper (where contact information is usually given.) A related problem is that journal publications are increasingly subject to various kinds of text data mining, and rightly or wrongly, the format for fields like author institution and contact information isn't standardized from journal to journal -- and in academia, both institutions and e-mail addresses are subject to frequent change. If you published a paper five years ago while at the University of East Dakota and your e-mail in the corresponding author field was given as betterunixthanunix@eastdak.edu, and you're now at South Virginia State with the address butu@svs.edu, good luck getting any database to make that connection without human assistance.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
6. Re:Problem? by godrik · 2012-05-30 05:05 · Score: 2
  
  We developed recently a web service for recommending papers, reviewers and journals out of the citations of a paper ( http://theadvisor.osu.edu/ ). Having conflict in the names can be problematic. Many paper recommendation algorithms use the property that two papers share the same authors, they must be somewhat related. Having name conflict lower the quality of that assumption. Though, some database are already disambiguated. For instance DBLP adds an ID to the name in case there is more than one. (but it is a manual process)
7. Re:Problem? by Hatta · 2012-05-30 05:05 · Score: 2
  
  Think of the birthday paradox. It's quite unlikely that any given researcher has the same name as any other given researcher. But there are n!/(2(n-2)!) pairs to consider, which gets big really fast, so you have to adjust your expectations for multiple comparisons.
  
  --
  Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
8. Re:Problem? by garbut · 2012-05-30 05:07 · Score: 1
  
  Do the two of you share the same email address too?
  
  --
  Oh, should I have sugar-coated that?
9. Re:Problem? by petermgreen · 2012-05-30 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  People move between institutions and their contact information changes. So if you insist on a match on all those fields you will reduce the chances of incorrectly indicating papers as being by the same author but you will increase the chance of incorrectly indicating papers as being by different authors.
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
10. Re:Problem? by gotfork · 2012-05-30 05:24 · Score: 1
  
  There goes my slight advantage in academia due to a unique last name (a fairly common one in the Ukraine but spelled in an unusual way in English). I always hoped that it would make up for being trivial to cyber-stalk but oh well.
11. Re:Problem? by mikael · 2012-05-30 05:27 · Score: 1
  
  The funny thing is, similarnames seem to have similar levels of achievement. Perhaps parents were in similar social circles.
  
  --
  Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
12. Re:Problem? by Missing.Matter · 2012-05-30 05:57 · Score: 1
  
  For some reason growing up, everyone I knew named "Ryan" was a trouble maker, even though they were completely unrelated and came from different families/backgrounds. I always thought the name was cursed.
13. Re:Problem? by rgmoore · 2012-05-30 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  Is there a serious problem with authors sharing names?
  Yes, there is. I work in a fairly small field, but there's still another researcher in my area who has the same first and last name; it causes great confusion when I get sales calls that were intended for the other guy. And that's the same first and last; usually people are listed only by their last name and initial(s). Within a narrow field, there are generally only a few institutions where a lot of the work gets done.
  And counting on institution or contact institution is a bad way of tracking researchers because it changes. People change institutions regularly, especially early in their careers. It's standard practice to move when getting a postdoc because it offers a chance to broaden your experience and share your skills. Of course that increases the chance that potentially confusable people will wind up with publications at the same institution as well as making institution less helpful for tracking an individual researcher. And that leaves out things like people changing their names when they get married, taking a new name when they immigrate, etc. that can make tracking by name problematic.
  
  --
  There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
14. Re:Problem? by UnknownSoldier · 2012-05-30 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  > Is there a serious problem with authors sharing names?
  For the FIRST and LAST time, names are NOT unique; they are a just a convenient label as history clearly shows: Henry I, Henry II, Henry III, ... Henry VIII, etc.
  Unique numbers are the only proper way to solve this problem once and for all.
15. Re:Problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 06:39 · Score: 0
  
  This could also help with the problem of name changes after marriage/divorce.
16. Re:Problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 06:44 · Score: 0
  
  Postdocs move institution regularly. I'll bet that there are multiple Y. Wangs at IHEP in Beijing.
17. Re:Problem? by Eli+Gottlieb · 2012-05-30 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  I have often been contacted via email by correspondents under the misguided impression that I am an Italian author and/or an Israeli public intellectual. I am not sure if these two are the same man, but I know from childhood that someone with my name once won some kind of prestigious prize for his fiction writing (was it a Pulitzer? I don't remember).
  For the record, I'm the computer programmer by this name from Northeastern America.
18. Re:Problem? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 10:04 · Score: 0
  
  Two people in this room have the same birthday? What are the odds?
19. Re:Problem? by martas · 2012-05-30 12:28 · Score: 1
  
  Maybe you two should just give up and pretend to be the same person? Twice the productivity, for free!
  
  --
  weinersmith
20. Re:Problem? by Ornedan · 2012-05-31 02:06 · Score: 1
  
  A person's email address is fairly unlikely to be static over the span of their career. Especially in case of researchers who may very well move to other universities (in other countries).
What??!?!? by ibsteve2u · 2012-05-30 04:33 · Score: 1

I changed my name to Steve Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious for nothing?!?!?

--
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
1. Re:What??!?!? by SJHillman · 2012-05-30 04:42 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Oh great, another guy with the same name as me. No wonder no one knew I was the one that published on Creating Cold Fusion Using Two Matchsticks, A Fake Mustache, and a Left-Handed Monkey Wrench.
2. Re:What??!?!? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:49 · Score: 0
  
  His name is my name too...
3. Re:What??!?!? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:57 · Score: 0
  
  John Jacob .... is that you?
I'm not gonna help them ! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:34 · Score: 0

Why would I want to help them in making all kind of dumb statistics anyway ?
I just don't care who is the "world's most prolific"/most read/most cited/etc. author in my day to day research.
1. Re:I'm not gonna help them ! by Jeng · 2012-05-30 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  If you read a paper that you found interesting wouldn't you want a way to find more papers from that individual?
  This isn't about statistics, it's about use and the confusion of names. It's about making your job easier if you are a researcher.
  
  --
  Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
2. Re:I'm not gonna help them ! by betterunixthanunix · 2012-05-30 04:41 · Score: 1
  
  If you read a paper that you found interesting wouldn't you want a way to find more papers from that individual?
  Papers generally have the authors' contact information; if you are really having problems just using a person's name and the field they are in, you can send them an email or visit their website.
  
  --
  Palm trees and 8
3. Re:I'm not gonna help them ! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:52 · Score: 0
  
  Except for at my university, where two people in the same department have the same name. I'm sure that it is a real problem, especially when you get to people named John Smith or Mary Williams. Heck, sometimes being at the same university is bad enough.
  Additionally, when doing a search, you can't search for John Smith, who teaches at ISU. All you get is, John Smith, and then searching through the thousands of papers for the ones written by the guy you want at ISU. Wait, but he moved to MSU now, so I have to search through all the papers for both.
4. Re:I'm not gonna help them ! by nedlohs · 2012-05-30 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  People move insitutions, that "John Smith" published with "Princeton University" as his affiliation 25 years ago will probably be enough to find out who it is, but it won't be trivial.
  I suspect this is more useful for people trying to find well published people. You know a pharma company saying: "We want to find an oncologist who publishes a lot and gets cited a lot so we can convince them to do some trial work on our new drug and hence publish on it a lot. Find me the top 25 publishers on X in the last 10 years, and some of those brown paper bags filled with cash."
5. Re:I'm not gonna help them ! by ceoyoyo · 2012-05-30 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  Contact information changes, and frequently the paper only carries contact info for one author.
6. Re:I'm not gonna help them ! by petermgreen · 2012-05-30 22:29 · Score: 1
  
  heh,
  My name "Peter M Green" is on a paper that also has "Peter R Green" and "Peter N Green" in the authors list.
  http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5488046&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fxpls%2Fabs_all.jsp%3Farnumber%3D5488046
  
  --
  note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
DBLP / Google scholar by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:35 · Score: 0

Doesn't DBLP adequately address this?
Make them all adopt unique names! by acidradio · 2012-05-30 04:39 · Score: 5, Interesting

The Writers Guild of America requires that all members have unique names. There cannot be two of the same person as to prevent confusion. This is evident with David X. Cohen, well known as a writer for The Simpsons and Futurama. His real name is David S. Cohen but the Writers Guild of America already had a David S., so he took David X. Cohen.
1. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:56 · Score: 0
  
  That's... kinda cool. Gives everyone a chance to have a cool/unique name. Unfortunately, in a couple centuries, we'll have run out of Xs, Zs, and such cool letters, and everybody'll be stuck with crap like First H. Last.
2. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by SteveFoerster · 2012-05-30 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  David H. Lawrence XVII, the guy who played the Puppetmaster on Heroes, had a similar problem. His Wikipedia entry explains: "The 'XVII' in his name was a way for Lawrence to distinguish himself from previous David Lawrences already registered with SAG. At the time, he was the 17th David Lawrence listed on IMDB, and appended the number to his name upon his own registry."
  
  --
  Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
3. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by SteveFoerster · 2012-05-30 05:10 · Score: 1
  
  Well, fuck you very much!
  Sincerely,
  Stephen H. Foerster
  
  --
  Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
4. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by Daniel+Dvorkin · 2012-05-30 05:13 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  There are many, many more scientists than there are members of WGA.
  
  --
  The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
5. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by ZeroSumHappiness · 2012-05-30 05:29 · Score: 2
  
  Jesus H. Christ, do you have to be so belligerent?
6. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by CastrTroy · 2012-05-30 05:32 · Score: 1
  
  People really should stop naming their kids after D.H. Lawrence
  
  --
  
  Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
7. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by Magic5Ball · 2012-05-30 07:22 · Score: 1
  
  There are many, many more students than there are scientists. This matters because many jurisdictions in Europe and Asia require undergraduate students to produce published or publishable work as part of their degree requirements.
  
  --
  There are 1.1... kinds of people.
8. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 09:17 · Score: 0
  
  I think you're assuming that just because someone is a student they aren't a scientist. That's not true, so the post you replied to didn't need your "correction".
9. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 23:36 · Score: 0
  
  Because science can only happen in America anyway...
10. Re:Make them all adopt unique names! by scarboni888 · 2012-05-30 23:42 · Score: 1
  
  I've always wondered why people name their kids names that already exist anyway. It's a nightmare for database administration to say the least and then on top of that I think the human race has just given up when I see this. I mean - at one point all the names that exist were new names that never existed before. People made them up. So when exactly did the creation of new names stop and why? Have we evolved imagination right out of our brains or just become lazy?
Moot problem? by DeeEff · 2012-05-30 04:42 · Score: 3, Funny

Overall, I thought having multiple researchers with the same name was a good thing.
Then we could each take credit for one another's work, and we'd all collectively be the biggest badass in science. It'd sure make research funding easier, in any case.
Just a reminder for ORCIDs by FilmedInNoir · 2012-05-30 04:42 · Score: 1

This has nothing, repeat nothing, to do with World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings.

--
Sig. Sig. Sputnik
1. Re:Just a reminder for ORCIDs by The+Mister+Purple · 2012-05-30 04:47 · Score: 1
  
  I was kind of hoping that a TROLLID system would be developed for Internet forum posters.
  
  --
  "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." Feynman
2. Re:Just a reminder for ORCIDs by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:30 · Score: 0
  
  No, it's about the Sixth World. Apparently UGE is happening early... throws the whole timeline off.
  Anyway, in a few years, ORCIDs and other metahuman registration schemes will be consolidated and applied to humans as well, in the new SIN system. I am not happy...
Y Wang? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:44 · Score: 0

Because it's there.
Saruman's permission? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 04:50 · Score: 0

Sorry, but ORCID is the intellectual property of Saruman.
Google Scholar by golden+age+villain · 2012-05-30 04:52 · Score: 1

There is already a profusion of similar ID systems operated by the big players in the field. For instance, Web of Knowledge http://apps.webofknowledge.com/ and Scopus http://www.scopus.com/ already have some kind of an automated author sorting system behind their paywall. I think that Thomson is also behind ResearcherID. Plus there is ResearchGate which creates a profile for you without asking you anything and computes a totally non-transparent metric of your impact as a scientist. In the end, I think that free and transparent will prevail, that is Google Scholar. It is simple, accessible by anyone and already provides your h-index (yes I know how poor of a metric it is). Only you can create a profile for yourself and there is a minimal but meaningful level of control to check that the person creating the profile is indeed who he claims he is. Admittedly, it does not solve the Wang problem but there can be only so many Y. Wang in your tiny field of interest so searching for " Y. Wang + insert favorite keyword here " should do the trick.
1. Re:Google Scholar by Elendil · 2012-05-30 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  > I think that free and transparent will prevail, that is Google Scholar.
  I agree about the free part, but "transparent"? Not really. How do you know what's in GS or not? How do you correct inaccurate data when you notice it? There are so many questions about the under-the-hood working of GS that I'd like to ask...
2. Re:Google Scholar by golden+age+villain · 2012-05-30 08:31 · Score: 1
  
  Well, you can create your own profile and curate your own publications. And it does a decent work at doing it automatically in the first place. They also index way more publications than WOK or Scopus, yielding a more accurate citation count in certain fields where, for instance, people publish in books, proceedings and journals.
Taking an interesting postion by Bork · 2012-05-30 04:57 · Score: 2

It is interesting on their position on this, we will create the method but someone else will have to create the database and maintain it. What I see here is that they see a bag of worms when it comes to privacy issues and do not what to touch that part of it. If an issue results in some aspect of the collection of such information, ORCID’s only involvement will be the DB structure. They had better include some temple or recommended best know practices on how a collection of this data should be handled.
Creating it is one thing, operating such a creation should also be addressed before untended consequences happen.
1. Re:Taking an interesting postion by Bork · 2012-05-30 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  Should have used unintended, not untended.
2. Re:Taking an interesting postion by slew · 2012-05-30 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  It is interesting on their position on this, we will create the method but someone else will have to create the database and maintain it. What I see here is that they see a bag of worms when it comes to privacy issues and do not what to touch that part of it. If an issue results in some aspect of the collection of such information, ORCID’s only involvement will be the DB structure. They had better include some temple or recommended best know practices on how a collection of this data should be handled.
  Creating it is one thing, operating such a creation should also be addressed before untended consequences happen.
  FWIW, I think privacy and it's evil twin identity theft are probably issues that they shouldn't be solving since they are proposing some sort of cheezy author validated "password" system. They don't seem to have any way to address anything about keeping people from taking credit for publications of others with the same "name" (CV fraud), or publishing crap papers under someone's name to ruin their reputation, or other types of identity theft, so hopefully they aren't trying to do this. Although they are mostly looking at attribution disambiguation, and centralizing the disclosures, conflicts of interest, duplicate works, and author fees and other thing to reduce the cost of administration of journals, but they seem to be very naiive about credential security (sorta how DNS was naiive about resource record security back in the old days when everyone was playing nice)...
Mistaken Identity is a Common Problem in China by rolfwind · 2012-05-30 05:03 · Score: 1

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Not_enough_names_to_go_around_in_China,_ministry_says
France used to do that, to some extent by Animats · 2012-05-30 05:03 · Score: 2

France used to require government approval for children's names when registering births. This was a francophone thing, not a uniqueness thing. But it could have been expanded to use a uniqueness check. Corporation and D/B/A names have to be unique within their jurisdiction.
Names in China used to be disambiguated by asking "What is your village?" This is no longer very helpful.
wu's on first? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:06 · Score: 0

Y Wang?
Why Wang?
no, Yu Wang.
Don't make this about me, why Wang? Y Gnot Dong?
Too many Wangs.
Now is the time by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:06 · Score: 0

To change my name to Y. Wang
Ausweis for all EU citizens by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:22 · Score: 0

It's not just scientists, all EU citizens will soon have an official Internet ID. And then there will be the draconian anti-circumvention laws to be introduced later... and why not put this same ID on a RFID chip inside your body?
Why? by Lumpy · 2012-05-30 05:24 · Score: 1

Why cant they just do "Researchername,DOB"?
If you have 20 researchers all named I.P. Freely and are all born on 12/13/1992 then I think there is a bigger problem here.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
1. Re:Why? by Cro+Magnon · 2012-05-30 05:45 · Score: 1
  
  If you have 20 researchers all named I.P. Freely and are all born on 12/13/1992 then I think there is a bigger problem here.
  Yeah, definitely a potential overflow problem.
  
  --
  Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
2. Re:Why? by jc42 · 2012-05-30 07:44 · Score: 1
  
  Why cant they just do "Researchername,DOB"?
  There have been numerous reports from many countries about duplicate government ID numbers due to schemes like this. There was a recent story about a similar case in Canada, with two people born the same day in the same hospital that were given identical names.
  Yes, the probabilities are low, but they aren't zero. If the money has any legal or financial impact, duplicates inevitably lead to lawsuits, lost time, etc, etc.
  If the ID number is important, you need to guarantee that two people don't get assigned the same number. If you let this happen, you might be surprised at how quickly it happens -- and it's your fault.
  I wonder if it'd be useful to collect a list of as many such ID collisions as we can find. It could serve as a warning to anyone thinking of making the same mistake in yet another "unique ID" scheme. I did a bit of googling, but didn't find any such list anywhere.
  
  --
  Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
huge for some students by Jarwulf · 2012-05-30 05:48 · Score: 2

This would actually be a huge boon for students looking for a research mentor or PI. I spent months trawling through google and WoS looking through faculty and it was a gigantic mess trying to separate out who was who. The professors of Asian origin were by far the worst to get through as they had 200 other guys with the same name boosting their publication counts to absurd levels. Its made worse by the habit of moving around the country and name abbreviations. Algorithms and narrowing the search criteria could only get you so far since you still have thousands of Chens working in biochemistry at the same time. This could make an hour long search instantaneous.
why the need for a "system"? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:50 · Score: 0

just use a UUID. In case of collisions, hold a giant worldwide party.
That's right! Wangs rule! NO Johns or PeeWees! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 05:54 · Score: 0

Let this me lesson to you all Johns and PeeWees, Wangs rule!
Don't need a database by sugarmotor · 2012-05-30 05:59 · Score: 1

Authors can generate their own unique id: keyword UUID (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier)
So no central database is needed. Just some conventions.
S

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http://stephan.sugarmotor.org
1. Re:Don't need a database by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-31 13:11 · Score: 0
  
  Authors can generate their own unique id: keyword UUID (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universally_unique_identifier)
  So no central database is needed. Just some conventions.
  And you are going to convince millions of non-techie scientists of adopting an uber-nerdy UUID based scheme...*how* exactly?
Transliteration and transcription by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 06:22 · Score: 0

A related problem are names with non-ascii alphabets.
It's the year 2012 and still many publishers and literature databases can't handle more than 7 bit ASCII. Which forces you to transfer the spelling using rules which are inconsistent on one side and software implementations are horribly buggy.
two examples:
- ü is very common in german names. The correct transliteration to the 26 letter latin alphabet is ue, but most software just drops the dots and makes it a u. Suddenly you have three different spellings.
- transliteration and transcription often get different results as transcription is also dependand on the target language
Registration fees, longevity ? by complex_pi · 2012-05-30 06:23 · Score: 1

So we're supposed to vouch for a system that will enable unknown yet registration fees and on which we have no control ? There may be solution to the "unique ID" problem but not this one... Also, should we expect them to be around forever ? We could cope with names until now, we might keep that system for a while.
1. Re:Registration fees, longevity ? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 08:31 · Score: 0
  
  So we're supposed to vouch for a system that will enable unknown yet registration fees and on which we have no control ? There may be solution to the "unique ID" problem but not this one...
  Also, should we expect them to be around forever ? We could cope with names until now, we might keep that system for a while.
  Don't see how we are "coping with names until now", when there are millions of academic authors listed in the scientific literature, and sizable chunk of those names are ambiguous.
Oh what a Great Idea. Exaclty what we need. by bickerdyke · 2012-05-30 06:27 · Score: 1

ANOTHER Unique number!
Besides:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_International_Authority_File , NDL Authorities, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress_Control_Number , or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Authority_File
And these are only the ones I found assigned to a single author in Wikipedia.
Why not just use one of these?

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bickerdyke
1. Re:Oh what a Great Idea. Exaclty what we need. by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-31 13:08 · Score: 0
  
  ANOTHER Unique number!
  Besides:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_International_Authority_File , NDL Authorities, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Congress_Control_Number , or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Authority_File
  And these are only the ones I found assigned to a single author in Wikipedia.
  Why not just use one of these?
  One big, BIG reason why not: there's lots of identifier schemes, this is true, but by and large the author/contributor has NO control over these at all. Enabling users to claim & start managing their own scholarly identity in the digital realm is one of the more important aspect of ORCID.
Plural confusion by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 09:43 · Score: 0

In 2011, Y. Wang was the world's most prolific author of scientific publications []. Never heard of them? That's because they are a mixture of many different Y. Wangs
Oh, so "they are" more than one person? Maybe then we should use a plural pronoun. I propose "theys".
what's wrong with e-mail addresses? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-05-30 10:20 · Score: 0

nt
Sounds familiar... by GrantRobertson · 2012-05-31 16:04 · Score: 1

This sounds similar to my idea for establishing a special top-level domain for scientists to register a permanent domain name, which I posted back in February. Except, with my system the ID incorporates the scientists name and birth date, identifying information that is already commonly used when referring to historical figures. (OK, all the Wangs may need to include the exact time of their birth, down to the second in order to get a unique ID.) With my system the ID is itself an IRI so it can be used in RDF and RDFa information. And it allows for the creation of actual web sites that sit under that IRI, with additional information about the scientist. All using standard, common web technologies. Finally, I am not going to be trying to make money off of this system by selling registrations. Once a law is in place creating the .sci TLD and specifying that the domain names will be sold for perpetuity (rather than requiring renewal each year), then the regular, existing domain registration system can be used. No need for massive non-profit organizations with signatories and memberships. No worries that said non-profit organization - and thus their system - will cease to exist in the future.
I was considering something similar myself... by bacon.frankfurter · 2012-06-01 02:37 · Score: 1

I just never had enough collaborators, to build up the enough steam for my projects.

Anyway, I had a couple of ideas I was toying with:

Global Open Bibliometric Living Investigator Network ID was supposed to help organize bibliographic data, for published research papers, and Library of Investigational Contributors and Helpers ID was supposed to be a repository of CVs and related papers ascribable to individual researchers and their non-scientific collaborators.

Neither of these ideas seemed to catch on, and I had a tough time garnering interest. This sounds like a really cool project! I hope it takes off!