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In the crazy world of British academia we need to give evidence that work in our departments is having “impact” on the world, outside our subject and preferably outside academia. As you may imagine, it’s not always so easy to show rapid and significant impact in philosophy, since we tend to work on the time scale of centuries. I was wondering then if I could make a case that the nLab has made a difference. I know Urs was looking out for endorsements, and even has one pinned on his Twitter account.
What kind of evidence do we have for its impact? Could we gather it some place? We could put out a request on Twitter.
I’ve seen quite a number of papers with references to ncatlab pages. Isn’t this a form of endorsement?
Do publishers or individual journals have official policies about allowing nLab links? I presume they would be more lenient than allowing links to Wikipedia.
What kind of evidence do we have for its impact?
Remember that a while back, Richard had installed and announced here a tool that monitors Lab traffic? It also provided funky graphics with it, maybe you could have it produce diagrams showing annual page requests or the like.
The nLab has entered the level of internet appreciation that manifests itself in jokey memes on Facebook.
There’s also recognition that the nLab can be cited on Wikipedia and has its own citation template, and is called a standard reference by MathOverflow help.
And here’s a random citation I found: C Lange, Enabling Collaboration on Semiformal Mathematical Knowledge by Semantic Web Integration, giving the nLab as an examplar of open notebook science.
I think I’ve seen people also refer to the nLab in their teaching pages as a resource. And there’s this listing it among “resources everybody working on mathematical physics related to string theory should know.”
Thanks everyone.
Here’s Finn Lawler in Fibrations of predicates and bicategories of relation:
…I would not have come to understand category theory at anywhere near the level this thesis required without the n-Lab (ncatlab.org). Of course, I can’t possibly thank by name everyone involved, but I do want to make clear just how much I owe to all of them. My understanding of category theory, and of mathematics in general, has been immeasurably deepened and broadened by the material on the Lab, as well as by discussions on the associated n-Forum. I must thank Mike Shulman and Todd Trimble in particular for the latter.
(5) nLab(https://ncatlab.org) collective and open the online wiki laboratory which contains a lot of useful information on the theory of categories. Quivers, Algebras and Adjoint functors
Good company:
exposés I and II of [SGA3] and the nLab on ncatlab.org are highly recommended for some more in-depth coverage of certain topics. Twisting and Mixing
exposés I and II of [SGA3] and the nLab
wow! That’s pretty good.
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