Ask Slashdot: Do Citizen Science Platforms Exist? (arstechnica.com)

Loren Chorley writes: After reading about a new surge in the trend for citizen science (also known as community science, civic science or networked science), I was intrigued by the idea and wondered if there are websites that do this in a crowd sourced and open sourced manner. I know sites like YouTube allow people to show off their scientific experiments, but they don't facilitate uploading all their data or linking studies together to draw more advanced conclusions, or making methodologies like you'd see in academia straight forward and available through a simple interface. What about rating of experiments for peer review, revisions and refinement, requirement lists, step-by-step instructions for repeatability, ease of access, and simple language for people who don't find academia accessible? Does something like this exist already? Do you, Slashdot, think this is something useful, or that people are interested in? Or would the potential for fraud and misinformation be too great?

Comments

Lots of them.

[HornWumpus]

Search for 'flat earth', 'vaccine autism', 'creation science', 'labor economics', 'sociology' etc etc.

The thing they have in common? The people involved wouldn't know science if it bit them on the ass. Instead they grind axes.