I don't have the discussion at hand, and as much as I hate to say it, it was between #scholars who joined #fediverse on the recent #ElonExodus saying that fedi is nice for casual friends networks but they can't do without #Birdsite for their professional scholarly activities and reaching colleagues.

But @VictorVenema may be best able to answer your question. Together we maintain #delightful #OpenScience curated list.

delightful.club/delightful-ope…

delightful open science

Delightful curated lists of free software, open science and information sources.

^{delightful.club}

Maybe it is my field of study, but my impression is that there are more scientists on ResearchGate than on Twitter.

Mastodon can do anything Twitter can. The difference is the number of people there, which is really important for science as it is so highly specialized. So you need a large group to at least have some people to talk to.

Climate scientists probably prefer Twitter because that is were the journalists and misinformation is.

@mpjgregoire @gerald_leppert @socrates

In the responses, there seem to be 2 approaches to a social network for researchers:

• Use a big network (you mentioned ResearchGate but not GoogleScholar, AcademiaEdu... ?)
The idea of ResearchGate is compelling. Its focus is on publications (with infos, fulltext, citations, & cited by), the link to the researcher's profile and possibility to follow.

• AND/OR use federated services to get similar features (see 2nd post).

@tio @futureisfoss @humanetech @VictorVenema @mpjgregoire @socrates

(2nd post) ...AND/OR use federated services to get similar features:
• Networking via research-focused instance Mastodon/Friendica fediscience.org/server-list.ht…

PLUS:
A Bio page
B List of publications
C Coauthors
D Citations (your work cited in...)
E Recommend new articles

Scholia (A,B,C,D, etc.): scholia.toolforge.org/author/Q…
Zotero (B): zotero.org/groups/2343740/gera…
OpenCitations (D) opencitations.net/
ORCID (B) orcid.org/

@tio @futureisfoss @humanetech @VictorVenema @mpjgregoire @socrates

FediScience.org

Fediscience is the social network for scientists.

^{Mastodon hosted on fediscience.org}

Yes, citations would also be good. My preference would be a federated system. I did not know whether your question was about the future or present.

I do not know Friendica well, but I would prefer @bonfire over Mastodon. Mastodon is nearly impossible to extend, while Bonfire is more like a library.

Is GoogleScholar more than a search engine and Scholia? I had not seen it as a social network. 1/2

@tio @futureisfoss @humanetech @mpjgregoire @socrates

My impression is that AcademiaEdu is focused on collaborative research. Another set of functions that could be interesting for such a social network. delightful.club/delightful-ope…

Then it can become a large job; although, also here, there is already a lot there. 2/2

@tio @futureisfoss @humanetech @mpjgregoire @socrates

delightful open science

Delightful curated lists of free software, open science and information sources.

^{delightful.club}

I use the big ones: RG, Google Scholar, Twitter and Academia.edu. Although I find them useful, I don't feel at ease using them. Especially Academia.edu can be really annoying.

Academic mastodon instances are really great, I think. I've met great people here. Some time ago, I had the idea to set up an academic focus Lemmy instance. I might consider working on this in the near future.

Nice that you mentioned Scholia. I think it's a project with high potential.

If you ever get to it, I would be interested in moving the OpenScienceFeed to such a Lemmy instance.

@gerald_leppert