[cabirum]

50 authors in a paper about flipping coins?

[bunderbunder]

Make me sit around flipping coins 10,000 times and recording the results, and you damn well better at least put my name on the paper.

[slingnow]

Then I guess we should include every study participant as an author across all disciplines. 200 participant study in psychology? 200 authors on the paper.

[bunderbunder]

Not necessarily? The difference is that the people flipping the coins are not just experimental subjects, they're actually implementing the experimental protocol.

The kinds of participants you're talking about are not just left off the paper out of lack of interest. It's often the ethically preferable option. They often have a vested interest in remaining unnamed for privacy reasons, and derive no tangible benefit from being listed as authors.

A big author list isn't totally unheard of. The paper where they announced the discovery of the Higgs boson had an author list that spanned 8 densely-packaged pages.

[jb1991]

Sounds fair to me. Better than if it was only 49, or 51.

[netrus]

By flipping thousands of coins for this paper, I am sure their participation exceeds that of many 5-author-papers.

[boomboomsubban]

Blind guess, it's cheaper and easier to recruit volunteers to flip a coin 7000 times if you promise them credit on the paper.

[fbartos]

You are absolutely right :)

[shusaku]

I guess that’s one way to prevent p-hacking: you can’t exclude/include someone’s flips without them getting mad!