Editing Eurovision Wiki:Fringe theories/Noticeboard (section)

== Young Earth Creationism and Google Scholar ==

Not on any specific wiki-articles, but I recently saw [https://www.academia.edu/download/131918664/C14_Universal_Profile_Paper_1_.pdf this "article"] pop up in my email alerts for something entirely unrelated. If you want to see an odd exercise and stringing together odd jargon (so bad to the point I don't think it's AI even), it's an interesting read.

More to the point though, this is just a good reminder that Google Scholar is not always indexing reliable sources and sometimes gets very afar from that goal. This was an academia.edu upload, so really just self-published, but I'm seen a few cases in the last year of someone assuming because it was on Google Scholar it must be a good source, so this is maybe a good example of why that isn't the case if anyone ever needs it. [[User:KoA|KoA]] ([[User talk:KoA|talk]]) 02:36, 11 March 2026 (UTC)

:Yeah, creationism-linked articles are a nuisance in GScholar. Sometimes they also index Wikipedia mirrors but that's not so common. [[User:Jo-Jo Eumerus|Jo-Jo Eumerus]] ([[User talk:Jo-Jo Eumerus|talk]]) 12:14, 11 March 2026 (UTC)
:Heh, my academia.edu notifications have been dominated for the past 5 years by two guys, one of whom is a historian of the middle east and an acknowledged expert in ancient middle eastern languages who simply cannot let anything wrong go uncorrected, and one guy who's a plumber (I'm not even joking) who think he's figured out a new way to translate [[Ugaritic]], and simply cannot accept that he's wrong about anything.
:It's essentially an unmoderated science forum that draws cranks looking for respectability, but it's ''also'' an easy way for legitimate paper authors to share pdfs and thereby cut down on the number of "can I get a copy of your paper?" emails they get, so it's not just cranks. 
:Just as with any other search engine, discretion is required when using goggle scholar. Papers hosted at academia.edu as well as multiple other sites, such as a number of pre-print hosts, simply aren't good sources. [[User:MjolnirPants|<span style="color:#004400;">'''ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants'''</span>]] <small><small>[[User_talk:MjolnirPants|''Tell me all about it.'']]</small></small> 12:22, 11 March 2026 (UTC)
::Google Scholar tends to find many more reliable sources than a general Google search or Google News, but is not an indication in itself that a source is reliable. As MjolnirPants says, discetion is needed, just the same as with Google Books. [[User:Phil Bridger|Phil Bridger]] ([[User talk:Phil Bridger|talk]]) 13:01, 11 March 2026 (UTC)
:::Aye, the completeness is the big advantage of GScholar. [[User:JoJo Eumerus mobile|JoJo Eumerus mobile]] ([[User talk:Jo-Jo Eumerus|main talk]]) 19:30, 11 March 2026 (UTC)
:::I honestly wouldn't compare it to Google searches, but instead to other academic indexing services like Scopus (more selective than GS) and Web of Science (probably the most selective of journals). Not sure how much predatory open-access journals have drug all those down though. A lot of times if I see someone mentioning Google Scholar stats, I'll go to Web of Science for comparison that's often very different (but also me getting off the main subject here). Easier to find reviews citing a primary source too if that's the point of contention though on WoS. Both are good at filtering out the junk that GS includes though as well as much more minor journals that usually aren't carrying much weight (or IRL reliability for peer-review).
:::At the least, I've never seen anything this bad on Scopus or WoS, so if someone have access at least, it's often best to check those first before GS. [[User:KoA|KoA]] ([[User talk:KoA|talk]]) 00:44, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
::::Errr, i don't think scholar crawls some major academic presses? Or does it? Seems like there's always more to find by going to WPLibrary. I don't think it picks up all from Cambridge, Oxford, or JSTOR, but maybe crawls Taylor & Francis? Would have to check. It crawls WP tho, so anything already linked from here or other sites it should have indexed. [[User:Fiveby|fiveby]]([[User talk:Fiveby|zero]]) 01:24, 12 March 2026 (UTC)
:::::Google Scholar doesn't just crawl sites. Major academic presses maintain partnerships with, and direct feeds to, Google Scholar. I used to work for [[HighWire Press]] about 10 years ago, developing journal websites for several major academic publishers (mostly medical/bio journals, such as from SAGE, Royal Society, American Association for Cancer Research, and several others). Included in building a website for a new journal was to establish and maintain direct feeds to Google Scholar, PubMed, JSTOR, etc. I recall being in meetings with people from Google Scholar to discuss improvements. ~[[User:Anachronist|Anachronist]] (who / me) <small>([[User talk:Anachronist|talk]])</small> 06:09, 16 March 2026 (UTC)
::::::I don't seem to get the search results that would be generated if all or most of the academic presses were following that procedure? Will have to pay more attention. It would be wonderful to have a single search engine, comprehensive and flexible and free. I seem to get overall more failure from scholar than success in finding sources, and use it for just a quick look. [[User:Fiveby|fiveby]]([[User talk:Fiveby|zero]]) 10:27, 16 March 2026 (UTC)
:::::::Well, the academic presses hosted by HighWire do this. I cannot speak for other journal hosts like Elsevier, Springer, Macmillan, etc. but I wouldn't be surprised if the major competitors to HighWire do this too. There's a reason those services are expensive. The cheap services (of which there are many) likely don't do this. ~[[User:Anachronist|Anachronist]] (who / me) <small>([[User talk:Anachronist|talk]])</small> 02:43, 19 March 2026 (UTC)
:Google Scholar links all kinds of trash articles, tons of predatory articles come up with almost every search. [[User:GeogSage|<span style="font-family:Blackadder ITC; color:DimGray">GeogSage</span>]] <sup> ([[User talk:GeogSage|<span style="font-family:Blackadder ITC; color:DimGray">⚔Chat?⚔</span>]]) </sup> 08:24, 16 March 2026 (UTC)