About the Authors

Yuri Niyazov

Affiliation Academia.edu, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Carl Vogel

Affiliation Polynumeral, New York, New York, United States of America

Richard Price

richard@academia.edu

Affiliation Academia.edu, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Ben Lund

Affiliation Academia.edu, San Francisco, California, United States of America

David Judd

Affiliation Academia.edu, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Adnan Akil

Affiliation Academia.edu, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Michael Mortonson

Affiliation Academia.edu, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Josh Schwartzman

Affiliation Academia.edu, San Francisco, California, United States of America

Max Shron

Affiliation Polynumeral, New York, New York, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors of this manuscript have read the journal’s policy and have the following competing interests: Academia.edu paid its employees, contractors and an external consultancy (Polynumeral) to perform this study. Authors Yuri Niyazov, Richard Price, Ben Lund, David Judd, Adnan Akil, Michael Mortonson and Josh Schwartzman are employed by Academia.edu. Authors Carl Vogel and Max Shron are employed by Polynumeral. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: YN CV RP. Performed the experiments: YN CV DJ MS. Analyzed the data: YN CV. Wrote the paper: CV BL RP YN. Performed first version of experiment: AA JS. Wrote software for analysis: DJ YN CV. Performed Internal Audit of Final Experiment: MM.