Papers: A Platform for Real Research Sharing

I'll begin by acknowledging that I could be wrong, and perhaps even highly likely to be, but this is simply how I perceive things.

Research, at its core, represents one of the greatest forms of human expression and collaboration. I respect it deeply, but to be honest, it no longer feels as exhilarating as it once did.

The Dilemma

I'll have to make a decision, or perhaps I'll simply let things unfold, but I don't want to rush into working on this idea with my fresh knowledge. Before I inevitably burn out from work, I'd prefer to spend a few years delving into a subject I'm truly passionate about. Yet, with the current possibilities available, it seems that, in all likelihood, I'll find no more excitement than grinding LeetCode to land a high-paying job and then simply stop there.

I'm speaking from the perspective of a typical, motivated student — curious, eager to learn, but unsure. I don't believe I'll easily come up with anything groundbreaking. For genuine innovation, not just incremental 0.1% improvements on some narrow task like "Chinese monkey left-foot recognition in uncertain rainy conditions."

The Reality Check

Of course, I'm joking. I understand that, regardless of what you do, if you surpass the state-of-the-art, at the very least, you've acquired valuable knowledge, out-of-the-box thinking, and perhaps something better than I've produced. But I worry that, at some point, we lose sight of what constitutes a true breakthrough. I fear that if I pursue a PhD, I might become like that parent who endlessly proclaims their child is the best in class, just to find some sense of purpose in what they're doing.

If I were to start a PhD, I want to witness the truth with my own eyes. I want to know who is genuinely interested in my work, to receive feedback from peers, and not to be caught up in the cycle of telling my advisor that I've read 123 papers simply because they're considered important. I want to be immersed in my research, allowing others to critique and contribute to it, collaborating to improve it. I don't need to be part of a Google team or a lab at MIT to have my name appear in a prestigious paper.

What I Actually Want

What I truly want is to collaborate, plain and simple.

Are you telling me that if I want to collaborate on something interesting, I have to rely on open-source projects on GitHub or potentially GSOC 2028? It's not for me :/. What I really want is to see what other students are working on, offer suggestions, or simply share ideas.

Okay, maybe I'm just dealing with FOMO. But if you're reading this, you'll likely understand. Every time I hear someone say they're involved in research, I've always asked more questions than their advisor or collaborators ever have. But I don't want to attend every academic event in Europe just for collaboration and idea-sharing. We have the internet, after all.

I don't want to comment on LinkedIn posts with questions. Honestly, I can't offer more than a cursory "Congrats." Maybe that's just me, but it's frustrating.

The Vision

I don't know if I'm alone in this, but I see the potential for a platform dedicated to genuine research collaboration — not just for personal recognition or ego. If that's what others want, fine, but I don't want to hide behind the name of a prestigious institution and pretend I've done something extraordinary. I don't need to be cited by the likes of Hinton to validate my work. I want feedback, for others to comment on my papers, highlight problems, run my experiments, examine the data I've used, reproduce my results, and help improve the work.

Next Steps

I'll take this on slowly, and I hope someone will join me along the way. I'm doing this to learn. My first goal is to apply the PageRank algorithm to academic papers fairly and effectively. We need a "Google for papers" — but not Google Scholar, damn, I don't see any like or comment buttons there.