Perhaps at some point I'll write a thread on my deep concerns about our reliance on Google Scholar.

For now, though, why on earth does Google Scholar not let you sort your search results?

You have basically one choice: to see them in "relevance" order—and we're not even told the secret formula used to determine relevance.

You can also sort by date—for papers from the past year only.

It's really crazy that a mature tool supposedly designed to serve the community would be severely limited.

I would really love to hear an official explanation from the people at Google Scholar for why the product is kneecapped thusly.

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@ct_bergstrom I’ve been trying for over three years to get accountability from Google Scholar for the way they block trans academics’ name changes. They simply do not communicate.

scholar.hasfailed.us

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@arborelia @ct_bergstrom

That LBNL effort to facilitate name updates is really cool! I remember asking a trans fiction author on occasion of releasing their first book after their legal name change, what they could do about the prior books in the same universe. I don’t think they’d really worked out an answer. A reader might only know their deadname or lived name and not find the rest of the series!

Every time I look at Google Scholar, I feel like I’m looking at something out of the dark ages. I compare it to PubMed…

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