{"id":404,"date":"2016-03-09T13:09:20","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T13:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/?p=404"},"modified":"2016-03-09T13:14:45","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T13:14:45","slug":"orcid-is-turning-into-the-yellow-pages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/2016\/03\/09\/orcid-is-turning-into-the-yellow-pages\/","title":{"rendered":"ORCID is turning into the Yellow Pages"},"content":{"rendered":"

As pointed out to me a number of times the use of ORCID.org IDs is rapidly growing:<\/p>\n

Oct 16, 2012: 0
\nNov 21, 2014: 1,011,557
\nMarch 4, 2016: 2,014,645<\/p>\n

(stats via Martin Fenner @mfenner)<\/p>\n

Which I don’t need to point out is a good thing. But…..<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/a><\/p>\n

After a tip off by @generalising (Andrew Gray) on Twitter – I don’t believe all this growth reflects actual bona fide researchers. Want some proof? Try searching for ‘laywers’ and you’ll see that there are a LOT of spam accounts:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/orcid.org\/orcid-search\/quick-search\/?searchQuery=lawyers<\/p>\n

\"Screenshot<\/p>\n

Each of the spam accounts looks to be a real business with URLs – something strange\u00a0\u00a0is definitely going on. It’s not just lawyers, but Taxi firms, Pizza restaurants, Plumbers. Try it for yourself. Dry cleaning? Sure ORCID has it covered:\"Screenshot<\/a>ORCID is turning into the Yellow Pages.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

If I didn’t know any better then I’d say that ORCID is being used as a link farm for Search Engine Optimisation. Which is not really a good reflection on ORCID.org at all.\u00a0I’ve pointed out a dozen spam accounts to support@orcid.org, but other than remove these specific accounts they don’t seem to be tackling the underlying problem. I’ve not looked at how prolific the problem is, but just a visual inspection shows that it is very widespread. So how many of those 2 million IDs are genuine? I really don’t know, and unless ORCID care to comment we’ll never find out.<\/p>\n

If I was ORCID.org I’d be a bit more bothered about being used like this and made to look unprofessional, but to borrow a brilliant Polish phrase – ‘Not my Circus, Not my Monkeys’.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As pointed out to me a number of times the use of ORCID.org IDs is rapidly growing: Oct 16, 2012: 0 Nov 21, 2014: 1,011,557 March 4, 2016: 2,014,645 (stats via Martin Fenner @mfenner) Which I don’t need to point … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[35,1],"tags":[38,37],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcqGb1-6w","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":414,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404\/revisions\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/openscholarship\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}