Philica. Serious publishing venue or just a fancy web forum, if eventhat?

An experiment may help test.

According to this http://philica.com/status.php to publish there one
must be an employed researcher at some recognised research institute
and will only receive the confirmation tick mark for being said if you
write to them and give proof of the fact.

Yet these two articles carry the confirmed as a professional
reseracher tickmark :-

http://philica.com/display_observati...ervation_id=35

http://philica.com/display_observati...ervation_id=51

Martin Piers Nicholson usually declares himself to be a retired
teacher, and not an employee of any institute or academic research
group. It says in the rules PROFESSIONAL researcher. Yet he is even
tagged as an "independent researcher".

As these two Philica observations of his can be interpreted to be
veiled criticisms of two groups he is unhappy with, the first being
the United States Naval Observatory who have never included his
thousands of "double star" "discoveries" in the Washington Double Star
Catalog because they have no meaning, and as he seems to be currently
unhappy with Global RentAScope for some reason as he appears to be
creating blogs and webpages and publishing Philica observations about
GRAS that are not complimentary despite years of insisting it was the
thing to use for science, and as the only two observations he has ever
done are to make a complaint about his work not being worshipped by
some group or other, irrespective of his work's quality, then the
conclusion is that Philica Observations at least is no more than an
unmoderated web forum.

Granted you have to be a professional researcher to join and comment
upon matters, except this seems not to be the case here, so it is like
a web forum only allowing registered users to comment, but as long as
they follow the general terms of service they can make negative
comments about any group or organisation and the group or organisation
is only allowed to defend itself if it too registers. The protection
is supposed to be that only professionals can join, and professionals
are expected to behave themselves. Not necessarily supported in this
case. And also that like in a forum people can defend themselves with
replies.

However, who has ever heard of an unmoderated web forum that requires
full and strick registration procedures? Philica brags that it is
unmoderated. Philica.com. The readers are supposed to be the
moderators.

So it is possibly less than even a web forum. Yet it suggests it is
academic.

People can make their own minds up about astro.philica.com by seeing
what they think to the science in these four short papers, as an
example.

http://philica.com/advancedsearch.php?author=162

Some other entries in astro.philica.com will be of interest too, and
some paper titles might even remind some sci.astro users of some
sci.astro topics, such as the one about stellar rotation being driven
by the galactic disc magnetic field.

http://philica.com/index.php?discipline=27

It must be difficult to register with Philica after all, as it hasn't
got anywhere near as much half baked cosmology as even the moderated
sci.astro.research group. Pity. Such theories deserve a wider
audience.

Yet it seems you can get into it just by calling yourself an
independent researcher.

The owners of Philica brook no argument. In their new and enlightened
free academic publishing venue it appears that registered users are
allowed to say whatever they wish in Observations, as long as nothing
illegal is said, so groups and the research of others can be
criticised, but the attacked are only allowed to defend themselves or
even simply respond by registering with Philica and using the comments
system to engage in a potential flame war. Open and free? Closed
shop?

That's probably why it is more ignored than protested against by the
astronomical community.


------From Philica.com-------

"We strongly encourage all members of Philica to prove to us that they
are bona fide professional researchers as this helps build trust. For
users, there are a couple of other big incentives to get confirmed
status:

* Confirmed members’ reviews carry considerably more weight than
the reviews of unconfirmed members.
* Confirmed members get a nifty little icon () that appears every
time their name is seen, and on their reviews. This means people are
much more likely to trust what they say.

As soon as you are confirmed, all the benefits of confirmation appear
immediately and are retrospective — this means that your confirmed
status icon will appear on all the entries you have submitted, even if
you submitted them before becoming confirmed. Similarly, any reviews
you wrote before becoming confirmed will immediately gain extra
weight.

To get confirmed status
Philica membership is available to all professional researchers, both
academic faculty (lecturers, professors) and research staff (research
fellows, postdoctoral researchers, governmental and industrial
researchers). To confirm your status, please send us a signed letter,
on your institution’s letterhead paper, stating:

* Your name
* Your address
* Your Philica username
* The email address you used to register with Philica
* The name of the organization you work for, and the date you
began your employment
* Your job title

As soon as we receive this letter we will upgrade your membership if
everything is in order. Send your letter to:"

Philica owner name and address not included from the webpage for their
privacy.