***By which I mean, it’s even in Wikipedia

Actually, I didn’t need Holmesian deductions to conclude that Aad et al. aren’t using a conventional definition of authorship. It’s widely known*** that at least two groups in experimental particle physics operate under the policy that every scientist or engineer working on a particular detector is an author on every paper arising from that detector’s data. (Two such detectors at the Large Hadron Collider were used in the Aad et al paper, so the author list is the union of the “ATLAS collaboration” and the “CMS collaboration”.) The result of this authorship policy, of course, is lots of “authorships” for everyone: for the easily searchable George Aad, for instance, over 400 since 2008.

Does mega-authorship threaten our concept of authorship in science? It would be easy, and fun, to write with a scandalized tone about how mega-authorship corrupts all that is good and decent about scientific publishing. But does it really matter? I think both yes and (mostly) no.

Does mega-authorship matter?