Talk:2894: Research Account

wasn't there a whatif that caused Randal to temporally loose the access to Wolfram Alpha? 172.70.175.26 19:40, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

It was the what if about balloons Anonymouscript (talk) 02:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Although Cueball is often considered to be Randall's alter ego in the comics, when writing explanations we refer to the character. Barmar (talk) 20:16, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I wanted to add something to the explanation saying that he's overthinking, and it probably doesn't matter what you write in the justification, since it's unlikely that anyone actually reads them. But I don't actually know this. If anyone knows what goes on behind the scenes at research institutions, add something. Barmar (talk) 20:23, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

That's my impression (it's very like an account-creation process, supplying free-text to be reviewed at leisure only after attaching the user to a UID with no more verification other than "click on this emailed link to confirm this is your contact details", rather than an application which can be denied or blackballed). But I don't delve into (or control) particularly privileged data-sources where it could be far more strict (yet not so much that it can't be handled by an easy to access web-form), so would also be interested in hearing the facts-of-life from beyond the more open-data side of things. 172.69.194.60 22:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I suspect the "Institution" dropdown might be used for some marketing statistics. No one has time to go through all the free-form inputs, although AI may change that. Barmar (talk) 22:58, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

If the database is being funded by a grant (governmental or philanthropic), the "institution" data are likely reported back to the funder, as a means of assessing whether the database is reaching the targeted audience, as may be specified on the proposal. Not too far from "marketing statistics", I reckon. A larger-than-expected number of non-institutional users, especially if the database is targeted to a small number of highly specialized users, could trigger more scrutiny of "reasons for" comments. Such scrutiny could have more direct impact on the grantee (imposition of more restricted access, or grant termination) than on the individual user. 172.71.142.21 05:53, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I would say there's also some similarity to the classic 386: Duty Calls. --108.162.245.248 03:35, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Reading this comic, I feel attacked ProphetZarquon (talk) 18:30, 15 February 2024 (UTC)