I am watching folks argue over h-indexes in tenure & promotion on my timeline as if citational practices are devoid of misogynoir ( #CiteASista), as if BIPOC scholars don't play a delicate placating game in everything they write ( #BlackInTheIvory), and as if folks 1/

(sub)consciously know about the bias *even* finding research by scholars of color when the algorithms are racist ( #DistributedBlackness & #algorithmsofoppression). Do you think #GoogleScholar, #Ebsco, #JStor, etc. are devoid of such? 2/

If the algorithms censor/ lower/ push down BIPOC work and people start there (e.g. Google Scholar) as often as they do in the in house lib search functions how do people get their H-Indexes up?

Moreover, if you're qual and not quant, it takes longer to push stuff out.

STEM is great. I mean that. But I see STEM journal articles that are 3-4 pages. GIRL PLEASE. Many people's h-Indexes would be higher (esp. in education and the social sciences) if they were churning out 3-page articles.

Context so matters.

Also-- quantitatively measuring impact is a slippery slope. If the journal "isn't good enough" but the article has 30 citations within 2 years what does that tell you about the work itself more than where it's published?

The publication process is fraught.

/5?

Reviewer bias is real and as long there's no checks and balances in the reviewership we will continue to see people relegated to the margins of "tier 1" journals.

We do a REALLY BAD JOB of explaining all of this to folks in grad school. Learning this on the job is yikes! 6/

When people say something as innocuous as "I'm not making a website I don't care" I usually counter with some variation of "are you sure?" mostly because I know how to play the algorithm game. I have to, I'm a Black woman.

Google me & see. :-)

Fin.