Scenario I: Collaborative Problem Solving

Bob is eager to tackle research challenges and recently discovered a significant answer worth sharing. However, he recognizes some limitations in his approach and is uncertain about how to address them. In this ideal research community, Bob can easily document his findings and post them on arXiv, along with highlighting the unresolved issues as open problems. Alice, who specializes in the same area, receives a notification about Bob's post and finds it intriguing. She then contributes her solution to one of the open issues on arXivOP. Bob, appreciating Alice's insights, incorporates her solution into his work and credits her as a co-author.

arXivOP serves as a dynamic platform connecting researchers through open problems. Authors can submit unresolved issues either to seek collaboration or to critique others' research. Mimicking the user experience of platforms like StackOverflow, anyone can propose solutions for open problems, which the community can evaluate based on accuracy. Subsequent protocols allow for the merging of original articles with accepted solutions.

Scenario II: Building Reputation Through Engagement

Alice reviews Bob's work and identifies an open problem, which she submits on arXivOP, thereby gaining recognition. Upon being notified, Bob can express his eagerness for a solution by marking the issue as "committed," indicating that he will include the contributors' names in the list of authors if he decides to enhance his article with one of their solutions. This approach encourages greater community involvement. Later, Carol discovers a solution and earns her own reputation. Bob can then either add Carol as a co-author, if the problem was committed, or acknowledge her contribution without co-authorship.

Holacratic Contribution Recognition

Now that we've established a system for fostering researcher connections, we must address another significant challenge: quantifying contributions and determining author order. The difficulty lies in comparing the significance of various types of contributions. arXivOP resolves this by defining specific roles for contributions.

In this system, both papers and solutions are categorized by contribution roles, with authors' names listed alphabetically under each role. This resembles the holacratic model of organization—neither hierarchical nor flat—where different roles such as Hypothesis, Proof, Experiment, and Support exist, allowing individuals to contribute in diverse ways.

Understanding Problems and Solutions

Conceptually, we can distinguish between two domains: problems and solutions. Papers and solutions to open problems fall within the solution domain, while open problems or reviews belong to the problem domain. Each problem originates from a paper or solution, and each solution is a response to an open problem. This relationship can be illustrated through a bipartite graph:

Designing the Framework

To visualize these concepts, I've sketched out rough representations of problems and solutions. In the first figure, a problem raised by user D appears on the left, with corresponding solutions on the right. Bob, the corresponding author of the source paper (or solution), can commit to this problem by clicking S on the left.

The second illustration depicts a solution contributed by users A, B, and C, each assigned specific roles. Three open problems stemming from this solution are also represented, and by clicking P on the left, the parent problem can be accessed.

Closing Thoughts

I acknowledge that many challenges still lie ahead on the path to this envisioned reality. For instance, we might consider implementing handshake protocols to account for the long-term nature of research, and each problem could feature a list of potential solutions. Additionally, university resources could be made available through faculty members who take on support roles in research papers. While this vision may seem distant, I believe that with collective effort, we can move closer to achieving it.