system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
You know my h-index, not my story.

As a disclaimer, I don't know shit about fuck. I've done around a year of research and only starting post-grad this year. 

Today, I was reading a thread on this subreddit asking how bad it was to publish in a low-impact journal. 

One of the replies struck me, which was: 'I believe, it is not professional to try to measure a researcher with articles at the beginning of his/her academic life. I would personally consider citations, number of views, etc. more important rather than where the work was published.' 

To me there's a glaring omission which is the quality of the researcher's work. Assessing their work by reading it, seeing how well they write, etc. 

On one hand, I can see why this is important. High-quality publications act as proofs of the researchers' ability, production, etc. Maybe this is considered the most non-discriminatory and least subjective. And when deciding whether someone is worth admitting/hiring/sucking up to etc., who cbs to read someone's work when they can peep their h-index. 

For a noob like me, it isn't intuitive yet to assess a piece of work based on what journals they have published. But with some of my colleagues, it's the first point of reference. 

I get it's the game, and to win, you gotta play. But who would want to win a rigged game. 

Is this a common gripe amongst academics? And if so is the space moving away from that? Or am I being dramatic and exaggerating a non-issue?
gpt
> Assessing their work by reading it, seeing how well they write, etc.

You want hiring committees to carefully read all publications of the 200+ candidates that apply for each position? Especially when there might not even be an expert in your exact field on the committee?

> But who would want to win a rigged game.

It's hardly "rigged" if you know the rules from the start and everyone is being judged by the same exact standards.

Does it encourage salami slicing, overselling, and sometimes even outright data manipulation? Sure, these are all valid things to complain about in a "publish or perish" system. But the whole point of the system is to have metrics that are standardised and as fair as possible.

> Is this a common gripe amongst academics? And if so is the space moving away from that?

It is a common gripe. We don't have any alternative to move away to, so it doesn't look like things are going to change anytime soon. But at least, from what I've heard, several universities are de-emphasising the blind faith in impact factor as an indicator of the value of a journal, and instead compiling field-dependent lists of reputable and respected journals.