Higgs Hunters Talk

What type of comments are useful to the scientists?

  • mwwm by mwwm

    I hope no one will take offence by me asking this, but I notice that some participants tag with (possibly) redundant comments (such as #ocv), or state something which is somewhat obvious in the diagram (such as missing muon(s), no tracks, etc.)

    Are such comments useful to the scientists?

    Will the absence of a comment reduce the likelihood of being cited in any possible discovery?

    Regards,
    Mitch

    Posted

  • mwwm by mwwm

    Nothing?

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    I too would be interested in hearing @andy.haas answer this question.

    For many projects, the hashtags are a useful way to quickly collect similar images, but each science team's needs are different.

    I hope @andy.haas (or another scientist) sees this and answers; if it's still unanswered after a few more days, I'll send a note. Thanks!!

    Posted

  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Also, some people just want to let other people see what they have classified. So, they use a # like ocv. Is this usefull for the scientists ? I don't think so, because these ocv's will turn up in the classifications.

    Or people use the # to build up collections for themselves.

    So, all in all, some # will be usefull for the scientists and others won't be. No harm done ! 😄

    Posted

  • davidbundy77 by davidbundy77

    It seems to me that the more obvious commments are unlikely to be all that useful to scientists, but there are many reasons why they are helpful for other volunteers:

    1. For beginners nothing is obvious, so they can look at other people's comments to find out what to classify.

    2. Users can mark things they are not sure about to ask what other people think. In particular with OCVs there are plenty of ambiguous cases.

    3. More experienced users can use tags and comments to search for features they are interested in.

    4. Hashtags can be used to create collections automatically.

    As far as credits for discoveries are concerned, I seriously doubt that a comment on a single image will lead to a significant discovery, at least not in this project. The number of possible interpretations of any given image are just too great. I'm guessing that the value of this project is more likely to be in statistical information. It required millions of events to show that the Higgs is statistically significantly likely to exist. So if a discovery is made, it is probably not going to be possible to credit individual volunteers.

    Posted

  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    Thanks davidbundy77 for this really great reply. Absolutely spot on !

    As for credits, I know that the Zooniverse goes to great lenghts to credit the people who were first to report something extraordinary (even if the numbers are really, really high! ;D )

    Happy hunting and happy #-ing 😄

    Posted

  • LHCByloved by LHCByloved

    Thanks!

    This is something I am also not sure about what is OK and what not.

    Especially meanwhile the #ocv tag built up a real big collection and I am also one who is tagging them if I am the first one to comment, but I'd say if 1-2 people already did so before, no 3rd identical comment is in need. 😃

    When I started up here without experience, the comments were really helpful to me to learn, for example in cases where I did not mark anything but saw that there were comments, they helped me to become more sensitive.

    Posted

  • alanbarr by alanbarr scientist

    Hi all,

    the #ocv tag is certainly helpful to those who are learning what's what. The #ocv collection therefore is doing a really good job of extending the tutorial of what to look for. The rarer tags are of real interest when looking for weird and wonderful things that even the scientists may not have thought of looking for...

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM admin

    Thanks, @alanbarr --!

    So, it sounds like even really common tags are useful. #ocv is at the heart of this project, after all, so I guess folks should keep using it. Thanks for letting us know!

    Posted