What is this thing?

This prototype web app makes it easy to find, browse and easily follow academic researchers on Mastodon.

Where does the data come from?

The wonderful Academics of Mastodon site contains links to a variety of lists of academics in different disciplines. Because many of the lists are based on the List of Sociologists maintained by David Adler et al. this app can read the csv files. This application does not rely on a centralized database at this time.

How do I add myself, or update my info?

You can't do that here, yet. For now, if you want to be on these lists, use the list of data sources below or head on over to Academics of Mastodon for the full list of disciplines. I'm reaching out to the folks who own those lists to see if we can work out a way to manage them cooperatively.

Are you planning to add more academic disciplines?

Yes, assuming people approve. Contact me if you have an existing list to add, or if you want to add a new discipline.

Who built this?

Mark Igra, the founder of sciences.social built this over winter break 2022. I welcome comments and suggestions. The code (such as it is) is on github.

Shouldn't he have been working on his PhD instead?

Yes, that is a frequently asked question.

Building the project

This project was bootstrapped with Create React App.

Since a couple of the lists cannot be retrieved directly from the browser, I copy them at build time with permission from the owners. You must run

node pre-build/get_data.js

to copy those files before running npm start as described below. The pre-build script is run as part of npm run build so no need to do it then.

Available Scripts

In the project directory, you can run:

npm start

Runs the app in the development mode.
Open http://localhost:3000 to view it in your browser.

The page will reload when you make changes.
You may also see any lint errors in the console.

npm test

Launches the test runner in the interactive watch mode.
See the section about running tests for more information.

npm run build

Builds the app for production to the build folder.
It correctly bundles React in production mode and optimizes the build for the best performance.

The build is minified and the filenames include the hashes.
Your app is ready to be deployed!

See the section about deployment for more information.

Learn More

You can learn more in the Create React App documentation.

To learn React, check out the React documentation.

Deployment

This section has moved here: https://facebook.github.io/create-react-app/docs/deployment

npm run build fails to minify

This section has moved here: https://facebook.github.io/create-react-app/docs/troubleshooting#npm-run-build-fails-to-minify