box-5-being-scooped.tex

\section*{Box 5: Being Scooped}

One concern scientists frequently have about putting work in progress online is that they will be scooped, e.g., that someone will analyze their data and publish a result that they themselves would have, but hadn't yet.  In practice, though, this happens rarely if at all: in fact, the authors are not aware of a single case in which this has actually happened, and would welcome pointers to specific instances.  In practice, it seems more likely that making work public early in something like a version control repository, which automatically adds timestamps to content, will help researchers establish their priority.