We used to have an on-campus computer lab for Computer Science students to do homework on here. There were student computer monitors hired to administrate it every year.

Then the budget got cut.

I have often been contacted via email by correspondents under the misguided impression that I am an Italian author and/or an Israeli public intellectual. I am not sure if these two are the same man, but I know from childhood that someone with my name once won some kind of prestigious prize for his fiction writing (was it a Pulitzer? I don't remember).

For the record, I'm the computer programmer by this name from Northeastern America.

They'll annihilate each other, leaving you with nothing but a piece of bread.

Kids these days... I blame parents! Damn feminism, dad isn't being manly enough. D:{ /sarcasm

"There's too much making your own entertainment now. When I was a lass we didn't make our own entertainment. We didn't have the time." -- Granny Weatherwax

Disney pushed the lemmings off a cliff. They don't do that naturally.

Guilty as charged, except for the fact that I'd rather have a nice, difficult interview rather than some retarded piece of "gamification". Keep adulthood in its damned place! "Gamification" doesn't just mean childish stupidity pollutes adult endeavors, it means adult exploitation pollutes childish fun.

You're missing my point. The incentive structure is lacking for Chinese scientists to adopt the values and methods of Western science. They simply aren't paid for high-quality studies with replicable results and high impact. They're paid to pump out papers and get cited, as much as possible. Instead of Chinese scientists adopting the Western way, both Chinese and Western scientists have been adapting the ultra-capitalist way: quantity over quality in a competition to the death.

You'll have to resocialize science, on both sides of the ocean, to fix that.

Well then, congratulations, you've just found something interesting to investigate!

Normally I would agree with you (I certainly do on manufacturing). However, scientific honesty is a matter of culture and values. The impact factor on Chinese publications won't go up until they start to deemphasize quantity of publications in favor of fewer, better publications.

American science has actually been suffering the same problem and, presto change-o, has suddenly acquired a reputation for being fraudulent or unreliable on "certain subjects".