[lambdaelite]

So why not email the corresponding author? I have yet to not get (or give) a manuscript that way. From my own perspective, each time I respond I'm possibly getting another citation. It's also a great form of networking.

[Riesling]

When I do research I go through a lot of papers, many of them are discarded after the first couple of sentences. It would slow me down a lot, when I had to contact all of the authors in the first place.

How useful would google really be, if you had to contact every author before reading the actual website?

[germanier]

What's the practical difference between getting any paper you need from the authors and getting any paper you need from such a website? Except much more work for anyone in the former case without any benefit.

[lambdaelite]

Practically speaking, none I can think of. But I completely disagree that the networking aspect has no benefit.

[kasbah]

Because it currently wouldn't be possible to make a site of this scale with that method.