We are injecting a note of controversy by making available to all readers
detailed access statistics for not only the conference itself but for
individual papers. The pros of this are that authors could get
feedback, and if they wish, quote the results in support of any
cases they might wish to make (a sort of instant science citation
index). The cons are that it is not impossible to artificially crank
up the access to a paper by repeatedly requesting it locally. We
can stop that to some extent by counting the total number of
unique machines making that request.
I can see both sides of the argument, but on balance think that
we should try the experiment (will I have any friends left after
this?). If nothing but howls of protest are received, we will
only provide such individual statistics on personal request!
Anyone got strong views on this?
Dr Henry Rzepa, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College, LONDON SW7 2AY;
rzepa@ic.ac.uk via Eudora 2.1.2; Tel (44) 171 594 5774; Fax: (44) 171 594
5804.
World-Wide Web URL: http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa.html