From: Jessica Polka <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2018 16:50:43 -0500

My guess: once a paper is published, there are few practical outcomes
that can result from a public comment, one of them being a correction
or retraction after some kind of criticism. This type of comment is
obviously more comfortable to make anonymously. Compare PubMed
Commons's 6,000 papers to the 69,000 on PubPeer (which permits
anonymity).

In the case of preprints, public comments have another purpose:
offering constructive feedback that helps the authors improve their
manuscript. On bioRxiv, about 10% of the papers have comments - a much
higher percentage than either of these platforms.

Jessica Polka, PhD
Director, ASAPbio
Visiting scholar, Whitehead Institute
445 Main Street, room 661F
Cambridge, MA 02142
office: (617) 258 5087
cell: (267) 614 1411
https://appear.in/jessicapolka


On Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 3:45 PM, LIBLICENSE <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> From: Anthony Watkinson <[log in to unmask]
> Date: Sat, 10 Feb 2018 09:50:48 +0000
>
> A post to a different list has explained some of the background for
> those who are interested.  See:
>
> https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nih.gov/2018/02/01/pubmed-commons-to-be
> discontinued/
>
> and in particular look at the long tail
>
> Anthony
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Anthony Watkinson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 05 February 2018 09:36
> To: 'LibLicense-L Discussion Forum'
> Subject: RE: PubMed Commons discontinued
>
> Do we know why this service has not been used much? I assume that
> PubMed did a survey of potential users before they started this
> service and would hope that they would do a different survey to find
> out why it has not worked. I cannot see how it can be a valuable
> experiment if they do not find out why it did not work. I know (Ann)
> are just the messenger but maybe someone on this list is associated
> with PubMed.
>
> My memory is that Nature did some work in this area some time ago and
> that they discontinued their services because of lack of use but I do
> not know what they learnt from the experiments.  Maybe they told us. I
> have not searched with any great perseverance because it is so
> difficult to find projects like this unless they are fairly recent.
>
> Anthony
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ann Shumelda Okerson <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2018 23:56:42 -0500
>
> PubMed Commons has been a valuable experiment in supporting discussion
> of published scientific literature. The service was first introduced
> as a pilot project in the fall of 2013 and was reviewed in 2015.
> Despite low levels of use at that time, NIH decided to extend the
> effort for another year or two in hopes that participation would
> increase. Unfortunately, usage has remained minimal, with comments
> submitted on only 6,000 of the 28 million articles indexed in PubMed.
>
> While many worthwhile comments were made through the service during
> its 4 years of operation, NIH has decided that the low level of
> participation does not warrant continued investment in the project,
> particularly given the availability of other commenting venues.
>
> https://ncbiinsights.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2018/02/01/pubmed-commons-to-be-discontinued/