Write a doc with bullet points on how we're different from Mendeley

[raaswol]

This is important, especially for those new to outreach, and devs representing us in professional settings.

[mitar]

This is how I wrote to @michaelkonrad about Zotero (also one similar project):

We work in a browser without any extension, we are primarily a collaborative reader, not a reference manager. Zotero is mostly just a reference manager.

Zotero is also open source. They are nice. But their user interface is bad. We will probably integrate it sometime. We are a project integrating many other open source projects together.

So the main point is, that we are integrating multiple features:

• discover (search)
• cloud storage
• annotations/reading/discussions
• in the browser
• we are working on a collaborative content around papers
• and mostly, one can link to everything they create, share around and so on

So yes, we are building upon some ideas from Zotero, but we are going further. Next generation app, collaborative, real-time, etc.

Mendeley is not open source and owned by Elsevier.

Personally, I prefer to talk about project in the form we have on "related projects" wiki page:

• description what they are
• ways we can collaborate
• good ideas they do and we should maybe think of copying them

So instead of discourse about what is different, I would rather see discourse on how to work together. At the end, we should all work together and learn from each other. And share all the same data, just different variations of the user interface for difference in what people prefer and which workflows they prefer.

[raaswol]

Thank you! I had a short list, but not this well spoken, and Sylvan was asked about it without prior knowledge. I think we should put this into our events/promo space to be looked at by all presenters

[mitar]

Yes. @michaelkonrad was asked about Zotero.

I think we have few main projects to be compared with:

• Zotero (answer: cool, but we are more than just reference manager, will try to integrate it in the future)
• Mendeley (answer: closed source, mostly just a reference manager)
• ReadCube (answer: proprietary)
• DocumentCloud (answer: previous generation, just for newsrooms)
• Hypothes.is (answer: we work with them)
• Science social networks like ResearchGate, MyScienceWork, ScienceOpen, Academia.edu (answer: we are open, non-profit, and better)
• Various open access repositories (answer: we aggregate them)
• commenting on publisher's website (answer: nobody reads papers on publisher's website)
• Google Scholar (answer: we are more than just a search engine)

[mitar]

So short answer: if it is open source, we will integrate them (resistance is futile), if it is closed source, we will be better.

[raaswol]

That's been my answer! Lol. When anyone has mentioned something, I say thanks, we'll look it over, with attribution to those who came before us we will take what is useful, incorporate all of its features and build on that.

[mitar]

But is true. We are creating an unified user experience. This is the most important stuff in projects. Not that something exists, but how good it is, how well it works for users. We are an open source Apple of open science. :-)

[mitar]

That's what I even have on slides. We are integrating other projects into one unified user experience.

[gar-bear]

Okay, I took what we have so far and put it into a GoogleDoc called, "Us vs. Them" in Promo Material. I will close for now, but if y'all want to reopen it and make it more beautiful, I totally understand.