[jraph]

The lack of null result publication is a real issue for research and scientific knowledge in general, including for accurate positive results (what if once you see a positive result by statistical chance but the experiment was actually conducted before you by 10 other people but that wasn't published because the results were null?)

> Papers are written to invite replication

They are written to share knowledge, new discoveries. We hope that they are replicated.

> It's easy to call it shameful when it isn't you who has to do the work.

We are not judging anyone, we are qualifying the situation. And we are speaking of publishing results for experiments that have already conducted, not voluntarily making up null cases and doing the related experiments. It wouldn't make sense and would be harmful. But if you did an experiment that produced a null result, not publishing is a loss of knowledge. Again, we are not judging anybody, it's a failure of the publishing system. But this cannot change if nobody points it out.

I'd have troubles understanding a researcher not acknowledging today that the lack of null result publication is an issue. It would show a lack of perspective IMHO. And for someone acknowledging that there's an issue, pushing back is not the right stance.

[9rx]

> They are written to share knowledge, new discoveries. We hope that they are replicated.

If they aren't replicated, no new knowledge is gained. Not really.

> it's a failure of the publishing system.

What failure? Again, the "publishing system" is to submit the "best of the best" research to the world in order to invite replication. While nothing is perfect, we don't want people to have to sift through papers that have effectively no reason to be replicated in a quest to find something that is. That would make things infinitely worse.

The internet was created for the minor-leagues. If you are willing to put in the effect to document your "less than the best" research, put it up on a website for all to see already. There is nothing stopping you. But who wants to put in the effort?

> We are not judging anyone

How do you define "shameful" if it isn't related to judgement of someone?

[jraph]

You assume that null results are not worth it and are not the best of science. You seem to be ignoring the issue where researchers collectively waste time redoing "failing" studies again and again because the null results are not published, and other issues not publishing them causes.

We fundamentally disagree here and I'm not willing to put in the effort needed to try to convince you otherwise, many other comments are here are better than what I could write.

I do hope you take the time to take a step back (and you seem to be in defensive mode, if so, you need to go out of this) and reconsider.

> How do you define "shameful" if it isn't related to judgement of someone?

Do you know the expression "it's a shame"?

> used when you wish a situation was different, and you feel sad or disappointed

https://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/it-s-a-shame-what-a-s...

[9rx]

> You assume that null results are not worth it and are not the best of science.

No. I make no such assumption. That may often be true, but there is nothing to stop a useful null result from being published. We also get things wrong from time to time. It is very possible that the best baseball player in the world has been overlooked by Major League Baseball. We're pretty good at scoping out the best, but nothing in life is perfect.

If the best baseball player in the world ends up in the minor leagues instead, oh well? Does it really matter? You can still watch them there. Same goes for research. If something great doesn't make it into the formal publication system, you can still read it on the studier's website (if they put in the effort to publish it).

> You seem to be ignoring the issue where researchers collectively waste time redoing "failing" studies again and again because the null results are not published

I may be ignoring it, but if that's the case that's because it is irrelevant. There is no reason to not publish your "failing" studies. That's literally why the public internet was created (the original private internet was created for military, but next in line was university adoption — to be used for exactly that purpose!).

> We fundamentally disagree here and I'm not willing to put in the effort needed to try to convince you otherwise

Makes sense. There is nothing to convince me of. I was never not convinced. But it remains: Who wants to put in the effort? Unless you are going to start putting guns to people's backs, what are you expecting?

[jraph]

> I was never not convinced

Ok.

> There is no reason to not publish your "failing" studies. That's literally why the public internet was created

You are suggesting researchers should blog about their null results? It seems to me the null results deserve the same route as any other paper, with peer reviews, etc.

It matters, because this route is what other researchers trust. They wouldn't base their work on some non reviewed blog article that can barely be cited. You don't even base good science on some random article on Arxiv that was not published in some recognized avenue. If you are using some existing work to skip an experiment because it tells you "we've already tried this, it didn't show any effect", you want to be able to trust it like any other work. Hell, as a random citizen in a random discussion, especially one with a PhD, I don't want to be citing a blog article as established scientific knowledge.

And yes, getting published in a proper, peer reviewed avenue is work, but we all need to deeply internalize that it's not lesser work if the result is null.

> Unless you are going to start putting guns to people's backs, what are you expecting?

If researchers collectively decide it's worth pursuing, it's all about creating the incentives at the right place. Like any other research, you could be rewarded, recognized and all. High impact journals and conferences could encourage researchers to publish / present their null results.

Of course, we are not speaking about such things like "what two unrelated things could I try to measure to find some absence of correlation", we are speaking about "I think those two things are linked, let's make an experiment. Oh, no, they are not correlated in the end!" -> the experiment is done either way, just that the results also deserve to be published either way. And the experiment should only be published if it doesn't exhibit a fatal flaw or something, we are not talking about flawed experiment either.

[9rx]

> You are suggesting researchers should blog about their null results?

If they want to. Especially if it doesn't meet the standard for the publication system, why not?

> It seems to me the null results deserve the same route as any other paper, with peer reviews, etc.

If it ranks with the best of them, it is deserving. There isn't room for everything, though, just as there isn't room for everyone who has ever played baseball to join the MLB. That would defeat the entire purpose of what these venues offer.

But that doesn't mean you can't play. Anyone who wants to play baseball can do so, just as anyone who wants to publish research can do so.

> If researchers collectively decide it's worth pursuing

It only takes an individual. Unlike baseball, you can actually play publishing research all by yourself!

1. Where do we read your failed research? Given your stance, it would look very foolish to find out that you haven't published it.

2. Do you draw a line? Like, if you add a pinch more salt to your dinner and found that it doesn't taste any better, do you publish that research?

[jraph]

> There isn't room for everything

I get your point, but this is not specific to null results.

> It only takes an individual

No no no. The desirability of null results need to be recognized and somewhat consensual, and high impact journals and conferences needs to accept them. Otherwise, there's no reason researchers will work to publish them.

1. I don't publish anymore: I'm not a researcher anymore. I didn't encounter the case during the short time I was one (I could have, though. Now I know, years later. I suspect it would have been difficult to convince my advisors to do it). I hope this doesn't matter for my points to stand on their own. Note that I think null results ARE NOT failed research. This is key.

2. Ideally, null or positive result alike, the experiments and the studies need to be solid and convincing enough. Like, there needs to be enough salt and not too much, the dinner needs to be tasty in both cases. If the dinner doesn't taste good, of course you don't publish it. There is something wrong with what you've done (the protocol was not well followed, there's statistical bias, not enough data points, I don't know)

It feels like we are talking past each others, you are thinking I'm talking about failed research, but I'm talking about a hypothesis you believed could be true, you built an experiment to test it, and found no correlation in the end. This result is interesting and should be published, it's not failed research.

As it happens, I attended a PhD defense less than a month ago where the thesis lead to null results… The student was able to publish, these null results felt somewhat surprising and counter intuitive, so it's not like it's impossible, it just needs to be widely seen as not failed research.