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Can a college drop-out successfully re-enter academia?
Obviously, the college drop-out in question is me, so allow me to supply as much detail as needed for you to answer this question as it pertains to my situation.
I come from a "disadvantaged" background; bad schools, bad home-life, the works. The high school I attended was one of those under-performing schools that undergraduate admissions romanticize as containing token diamonds in the rough. Entirely ignorant of the concept of financial aid and misinformed about college admissions, I didn't work hard enough to become one of those angels. Regardless, I did well enough to barely graduate with honors and earned a near-perfect ACT score, and I earned a scholarship to a private college.
My mental well-being imploded during that freshman year. I transferred out with a GPA of 2.9 to a local state school for my sophomore year. Unfortunately, this wound up being the worst mistake of my life.
My sights have always been set on higher education. On top of my personal issues, however, that developed into a paralyzing fear of failure and perfectionism. I spent the next five years barely keeping my head afloat, being dismissed once, re-admitted once again, and then finally leaving out of my own volition to seek out the healthcare I desperately needed from day 1. It's been about three years, but for whatever reason, The bureaucratic nightmare that is my former school still lists me as a student with a GPA below 1. Complications regarding financial aid and my change in majors make returning to finish that degree an impossibility, as I cannot pay for the rest of my degree out of pocket or through private loans.
I've worked odd jobs to save up to move out-of-state to work for a year to gain in-state tuition at a community college, and to begin a bachelor's degree that's actually relevant to my field of choice.
The choices that I would make regarding my futures studies are predicated on contingencies that I'm not familiar with. The biggest looming question in my mind is, assuming that one day I complete a bachelor's sufficiently well enough to entitle me to the prospect of graduate study, would my first attempt at a bachelor's be too big of an obstacle to overcome? What general advice would you have for me in my situation?
EDIT: My question presumes that I start and finish a bachelor's degree now with a decent-to-strong GPA and then apply for graduate admission. That's a different scenario than compensating for a low GPA earned with a completed bachelor's degree.

I had a little trouble finding your actual question, but it sounds like you want to know: if you successfully complete a bachelor's degree after a previous unsuccessful attempt, how will the previous attempt affect your chances of admission for graduate study?

@NateEldredge Correct. This is distinct from generally asking about the chances of admission for weak applicants, since the presumption is that my hypothetical bachelor's would have nothing to do with my previous coursework.

I think I was confused by your use of the term "higher education".  In my experience, this term is usually used to refer to any education beyond high school (including study toward a bachelor's or associates degree) but it sounds like you are using it to mean "graduate study" (i.e. toward a masters or doctorate).  Maybe rephrasing would be helpful.

I think it's conceivable, but you just need to take it one step at a time. Admission to the community college is the first step. Good luck.

Besides for the other question about the bachelor's dropout (which I marked as duplicate of), also see How to get a bad transcript past PhD admissions for some useful advice on de-emphasizing your past poor performance (it may be for a slightly different scenario, but a lot of the suggestions there apply to you as well). Good luck!

The biggest looming question in my mind is, assuming that one day I complete a bachelor's sufficiently well enough to entitle me to the prospect of graduate study, would my first attempt at a bachelor's be too big of an obstacle to overcome?

My experience is of course anecdotal, but for me the answer was 'yes, it is possible to overcome a poor academic record in your first bachelors program'. I will outline my story briefly and then summarize a few takeaways.

My story
I was a solid B student in high school, always doing well on exams but never taking homework very seriously. I overreached in my college applications and was rejected by five out of six schools. The one school to which I was accepted was the one I couldn't see myself attending, so I decided to enroll at the local community college instead.
I earned an associates degree with a ~3.5GPA and applied to three four-year schools, two for the linguistics major and one for the major in international agriculture. My associates degree was in social science, and I had been interested in linguistics since high school, but after working in coffee shops for a few years I was interested in the possibility of a career in the international coffee trade. I was accepted to all three programs, and chose to go to school for agriculture. My reasons for choosing that program over the linguistics programs still aren't very clear to me; in hindsight it was probably due largely to the fact that the agriculture program let me stay in my hometown while either linguistics program would have entailed a cross-country move. Regardless, I began at my new school and quickly got into academic trouble.
I didn't have the background for the courses I was enrolled in, I was still working full-time, I had an unhelpful advisor, I wasn't actually as interested in the subject as I had thought—any difficulty you name, it felt like I had to deal with it. I 'earned' a 1.0 GPA the first semester and a perfect 0.00 GPA the second semester, and withdrew voluntarily after that first year before the university could ask me to leave.
I got a full-time job and worked for two and a half years, but remained interested in linguistics and started to regret very strongly never entering a linguistics program. Finally fed up with myself, I applied to two schools: one of the two that had accepted me into the linguistics program three years prior, and one other. In spite of my poor showing in the agriculture program, I was accepted to both. I moved across the country to enroll in the program I should have enrolled in the first time they accepted me, and did very well there. I double-majored, earned my bachelors, applied to grad schools, and was accepted. I finished my masters degree this past May and am now in a PhD program.
So yes, it is possible. But...

Takeaways
I've learned a few things from my own experience. Take all of the following with a big grain of salt; they feel true to me, and they fit my experience, but they may not be generalizable:

Graduate schools are less concerned than you might think with your overall academic record and GPA. Rather, they are concerned with your ability to do graduate-level work in the program you've applied to. I had some terrible grades on my record, but they weren't in the subjects I hoped to study in graduate school. Over the entire graduate admissions process (I applied to five programs), no one asked about my poor grades from that year spent studying agriculture. It didn't come up once. That was very surprising.
I was honest about my academic record, but I didn't try to make excuses for it. I provided all of my transcripts, even the one with that perfect zero on it, to graduate admissions committees. However, beyond that, I didn't acknowledge those poor grades. There are people who will say that you should explain any poor grades in the statement of purpose you submit with your graduate application materials. I disagree. The statement of purpose provides you a maximum of two pages (in my field, at least; yours may vary) to sell yourself as a researcher. Any space you devote to an explanation of a poor academic record: 1) explicitly brings the reader's attention to a negative, and 2) leaves less space for other positives. The statement of purpose should give the impression that it's difficult to distill your research experience and potential down to two pages. If you don't even need two full pages, though, I think that's a negative.
The school in which I enrolled following that terrible year (academically speaking), from which I earned my bachelors, was one of the schools to which I had been accepted three years prior, before I had earned those low grades. I can't know for sure, but I can't help feeling like that fact worked in my favor.

What general advice would you have for me in my situation?

Are you in school again now? If so, you've already cleared one big hurdle. Regardless, my advice is pretty simple: do everything you can to demonstrate that you can perform at the graduate level.

Take challenging courses—I was able to take a graduate course during my last semester (which took special permission from the professor and the college) and it was hugely helpful to have an idea of the expected workload.
Make sure your writing sample is the best it can be. A strong writing sample can go a long way in the admissions process.
Don't make excuses for yourself, but demonstrate through your recent work that any past poor performance doesn't reflect your real potential. In my own experience this was not as difficult as it might have been: I earned decent grades in social science, poor grades in agriculture, and then good grades in linguistics. I expect that poor grades and then good grades in the same subject might cause more concern.
Recognize that in many ways your extra lived experience (compared to your academic peers) is a strength. Many people go straight from high school to college and then straight from college to graduate school. Your experience working odd jobs and saving money for an out-of-state move might not be academic work, but it might give you a maturity and perspective lacking in other students. Compared to someone who's never taken time off from school, you might have a better idea what you want to do with your life.

Going straight to a well-funded, highly ranked PhD program would be difficult as we can't ascertain if you have the smarts, the drive, and the perseverance to last 5-8 years. I'd recommend looking into MA programs where you can build up more of a track record.
See also: How does the admissions process work for Ph.D. programs in the US, particularly for weak or borderline students?

Thank you for your answer, but I must not be clear on what my intentions are. I don't have a bachelor's degree at all. I plan to enroll as a freshman in a four-year transfer program at a community college to obtain one,

("The biggest looming question in my mind is, assuming that one day I complete a bachelor's sufficiently well enough to entitle me to the prospect of graduate study, would my first attempt at a bachelor's be too big of an obstacle to overcome?")

From my own personal perspective, in addressing the above portion of what you have written in your explanation, is where I interpret your question to be. From this, what I hear you saying is that you did not complete a degree the first time you entered college due to other events and decisions in your life and now you want to complete a bachelors degree successfully in a different area of study. Assuming that this is what you are meaning, I relate to the anxiety you appear to have about possible obstacles and if it would be worth it.  I want to be clear, I cannot give you the answer you are looking for. What I can do is share with you my experience. My background is as follows; raised with a father that was mentally and physically abusive, divorced my mother when I was fifteen. By then I had already begun making poor decisions thinking the world owed me something for my pain and suffering. Was pulled out of high school and placed into a "rehabilitation" hospital, sent to live with a relative so on and so on. I received my GED  three months before my actual class had even graduated. At seventeen, I got an apartment and enrolled in college. I made it half a quarter before I quit due to other priorities I had in my life then. I spent the next three years making poor decisions, marrying an abusive husband, and having two children ten months apart. The next seven years were spent realizing my children needed better from me, divorcing, multiple trips to court and so on. I think you get the gist of where I'm coming from. Throughout a large portion of those latter years I managed to keep a job that I loved doing. I worked my way up literally from the bottom. During my annual vacation leave time I paid to take two classes to show that I was dedicated to my goal of applying to a specialized department within the same facility. It was enough to get me an interview and attain the job. From there the facility paid me to finish the rest of my classes and become state certified which took me another five years. I realize this is a long post however, my intention is to relay to you the work I put into getting where I have gotten both emotionally and productively.  After being in that facility for thirteen years, five of which were in that department I felt forced to resign the position that I was so proud of.  Due to a combination of political changes, a new supervisor with his own unethical agenda, and his initiation of hostile and retaliatory behaviors emotionally I was unable to handle it. I quickly found out that even though I am state certified with letters behind my name, I am unable to qualify for jobs in my area of study because the state passed a new requirement a year and a half ago that you must also have a bachelors degree. Upon inquiring at the only community college I would be able to afford, ironically the same one I attended at seventeen, I found out all the classes I had taken, even psychology, were unaccredited. They could not give me credit towards even an associates degree let alone a bachelors. And here is where I see myself relating to your perceived obstacle of, "is it worth it, or would I be wasting my time, effort, and resources". I looked at it this way, if I chose to give up on what I wanted for myself again, just because life threw me another unfair situation, then there would cease to be any purpose for the struggles I have fought to overcome in life. I did enroll and made the dean's list my first quarter in! But such is my life, the day after receiving my dean's list recognition I received a letter from the school notifying me that I was being placed on financial aid award warning status. After inquiring what this meant it was explained to me that because I dropped out of my college classes after the allowed drop time, while on grant and financial aid almost twenty years ago it counts against my overall completion percentage. Basically, I have sixteen credit hours of unapproved dropped classes. So, I am now in my second quarter working myself out of a negative balance in order to keep aid. I know this aspect differs somewhat from your situation. However, to sum it up, I found for myself that I love what I'm learning and may not even follow the same path I was previously set on. I can't change past decisions or consequences. My plan now is to let things, whatever they may be, happen on their own accord and view them as a guide towards finding the path I'm meant to be on. No obstacle is too big to overcome unless you allow it to overcome you. There are several grants and awards for non-traditional students such as ourselves. Even within our community college I know several students who were able to make use of alternative programs because of their background and previous failed attempts. There are several peer reviewed research studies showing that non traditional students excel when returning to academia. The research substantiates the movement towards colleges understanding that non traditional students come from a different psychological perspective than in previous attempts. If you are interested in any of these studies I will gladly post them.

This is a perfect example of an unreadable wall of text. Make this more readable please.

I made it through, without carriage returns.  Thanks for sharing your story, keep up the good work.  If you read the question once more, quite carefully, hopefully you'll see that your answer doesn't specifically connect to the question that was asked.  That, and the long paragraph, make people vote your answer down.  But you can divide your text into paragraphs -- just hit the "edit" link at the bottom left of your post.


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Confusion of self assessment for math PhD schools
I am slightly confused as to whether or not it's worth my time to apply to top tier math PhD schools. I don't know whether I have a viable chance at what are considered "top tier" schools, or if I should "stay in my place" where I am now. The reason why I ask is because professors have told me that I have a glimmering shot at good schools, but my academic past has been a slow start. I haven't talked too much to advisers, and have recently considered getting a PhD. I am interested in discrete structures.
My academic past involves starting off at a smaller community college and taking remedial courses in mathematics after a bad high school start. My math SAT is on my CC transcript, and it's pretty poor. However, I worked my rear off and got a CC GPA of 4.0/4.0 and after summer classes, I worked my way up to the Cal I-III series before I transferred to a university. I also took CS courses at the CC, and tutored calculus mathematics as an employee there.
At my University, I earned a transfer scholarship as well as a scholarship from the DoD, in exchange for going to the DoD lab in the summer for research in constructing algorithms.
I have 2 REUs in discrete structures, one with applications in physics from a top 20 school. The dean of admissions there told me when I went there over the summer that I was the only CC student there in the history of the school's REU program. He said my statement of interest was well written.
I will graduate 3 semesters from now due to taking interdisciplinary coursework. I have finished most of my math requirements, including netting A's in linear algebra, the real analysis sequence, and a graduate discrete course. My GPA is ~ 3.85 as of now (slightly higher).
My question is, do I have a shot at a top tier school, or should I just stay in my place and stick around at my uni? Does my CC past and my remedial courses poison my application? My thinking is, I've already made it this far as an aspiring mathematician, and I believe I could have more in store.
How do schools view students who have turned over a new leaf? My current uni isn't prestigious, it's an average school, probably only the 3rd most notable state school in my state.

Your question will almost certainly be closed as the answer depends too much on your particular circumstances.  If this information came to me as in a cover letter on an application, I'd be interested enough to look further at the application.  There's nothing you've said that would kill your chances of admission, but someone evaluating your application would also want to see strong letters of recommendation, know the undergraduate program you've been in and see GRE general and subject test scores.

I am a mathematician on the faculty at a state research university, and I'm not exactly sure what you mean when you say you want to study "discrete structures".  A quick google shows that this term is used in computer science departments much more commonly than in math departments.  Relatively few of the top tier math PhD programs have substantial offerings in discrete mathematics: the one which first comes to mind is Princeton, which has top graph theorists.  At many top places applied math / engineering is a different department entirely.  Could you say more about your interests?

This is not an answer to your question, just a remark. If a professor says "I think you have a shot at School X", you should take it significantly more seriously if that professor is writing a letter for you -- not because they have more insight into the admissions process, but because the biggest determiner of whether you'll get into School X is whether you have letters that say you'll do well at a school like X. From the other side: if 10 professors think you should get into School X, but the 3 who write letters for you don't, then you won't get into School X.

I would need to know more information about your file -- more than is appropriate for a question on a site like this perhaps -- to speak with any confidence about your admissions chances.  But here are some broad strokes:
Applying to a top tier school isn't any harder or any different than applying anywhere else.  It just involves some more mouse clicks and paying some application fees.  If your local academic advisors think you have any chance at getting into a top place, why not apply?  In general you should apply to 5-10 places and include "several tiers".  If the top places show no interest, there's no harm done.  They're not going to give you any negative feedback.

At my University, I earned a transfer scholarship as well as a scholarship from the DoD, in exchange for going to the DoD lab in the summer for research in constructing algorithms.

That sounds very impressive...for some graduate program.  A top program centered in pure mathematics may not give you that many points for working at the DoD or constructing algorithms.  But other departments would.

I have 2 REUs in discrete structures, one with applications in physics from a top 20 school. The dean of admissions there told me when I went there over the summer that I was the only CC student there in the history of the school's REU program. He said my statement of interest was well written.

I am puzzled that the dean of admissions was involved in an REU.  In my experience these are sponsored by the NSF and all the admissions work is done by the faculty PI and/or her hand-picked co-PIs / assistants.  Was this in a math department?

I will graduate 3 semesters from now due to taking interdisciplinary coursework. I have finished most of my math requirements, including netting A's in linear algebra, the real analysis sequence, and a graduate discrete course. My GPA is ~ 3.85 as of now (slightly higher).

FYI, except for the graduate discrete course -- what topics did you cover there? -- this is all coursework that candidates admitted to top math PhD programs have done in the first year or two of their undergraduate career, or in some cases in high school.  (I for instance did my PhD in a top three math department.  I took linear algebra in high school.  In my freshman year I took a real analysis sequence which included metric spaces, Lebesgue integration, some Fourier analysis and calculus on manifolds.  I was admitted in 1998...before there were treasure troves of mathematics available on the internet.  Nowadays a small but non-negligible percentage of people arrive at university knowing most of what I did when I graduated.)
This is not meant to discourage you, but only to tell you that you have just begun to take the appropriate coursework.  You should load up in the coming semesters to have a reasonable shot.

Does my CC past and my remedial courses poison my application?

While it would be hard to argue against a strong pedigree, the answer to this is a clear no.  Even the brightest admits to a PhD program still have much to learn...as in long years ahead of them.  Most admissions faculty are interested in your trajectory as well as your position.  From that perspective, if you are doing rather well now then the knowledge that you came from very humble beginnings makes your trajectory look better.  Nobody cares about what you did in high school because you need to have moved far beyond it anyway.  Graduate admissions packages almost never include information about SAT scores, so even if the admissions personnel saw them they would almost certainly ignore them.  They can do that because they will have your GRE scores to look at.
To be honest, I suspect that perhaps you do not know what it takes to get into a "top tier math department".  Maybe some faculty around you do; if so, they can be a great help to you.  It is not even clear to me that you really want to pursue a PhD program in mathematics: maybe also CS or engineering / applied sciences?  That's worth serious consideration.  Anyway, even a third tier PhD program is a serious place and could launch you into a promising academic career.  You should apply relatively widely, get into the best program that admitted you and is a good fit for your interests, and take it from there.

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Will my experience in the industry work against me at this point?
I am interested in a Ph.D. in Robotics (possibly in the UK). But I have been working as a run-of-the-mill software engineer in the industry for the last 5 years. Browsing this forum, I am seeing people express widely varying opinions on how industry experience is viewed in academia.
As a part of my job, I wasn't required to read or implement any research papers. But I did gain substantial software engineering experience. I have been literally writing c++ code for the last 5 years more or less. Right now I am actually in a firmware development role. Robotics is all C++ development if I am not wrong.
But I haven't taken any classes in the 5 years nor did I have to take any exams. I am 30 years old exactly. Did I age out for a Ph.D. program?
Also on the flipside, will I be viewed more favorably than a similar applicant as myself but without the industry experience?

There are several answers here now; before writing your answer in a comment, consider reading those and upvoting the ones that are useful. If you don't find your answer written yet, write it there instead of here!

Perhaps avoid describing yourself as "run-of-the-mill" to a prospective PhD supervisor ;-)

It is a mistake to try to second-guess things which you do not know about and over which you have no control ("How will they regard me? Will they think that? Will they think this? Am I too old? Am I too young? Will I be competing against a dozen other people who may not even exist?"). None of this speculation will help you to a decision.
If you want to do a PhD, try for it and present your experience as an asset. The best way to find out is to just go for it. If you have specific questions (for example, funding, support programmes, mentoring arrangements, supervision details, assessment criteria, and so forth) then raise them as opportunity arises during the application process.

If you are motivated and passionate about the topic of your PhD you should go for it! You are never too old for a PhD. I finished my MSc in 2007, worked in industry for 14 years and decided to go back to school to do a PhD. I am now about to graduate and I am 39 yo. I found that my experience in industry made a big difference on how I approached my research during my PhD.
Similar to you, I had not taken classes/exams in a long time, and I was a bit rusty. So it certainly took a bit of time and effort to get back to it. But since the topic was something I was passionate about, it didn't seem too painful. And I certainly learned a lot!
If you have already a supervisor in mind for your PhD, I would recommend to meet with her/him before you apply. She/he will very likely provide precious advice and gauge how your background fits in the PhD program. I've met with 3 potential supervisors (in 3 different departments) before I applied for my PhD. It helped me find out which department was the best fit for me.

Go for it! Industry experience greatly helped me during my biology/physics PhD (which I started at age 27). My peers were spending time during their PhD learning how to code, and I already had lots of experience. This allowed me to focus more on the science story I was trying to research, rather than on overcoming hurtles necessary for starting to tell that science story.

A couple of examples regarding age:
Pierre Bézier (of Bézier curves fame) got his Ph.D. when he was in his sixties.
I myself am 71, and I'm thinking of getting a Ph.D. People often assume that I have one, and I'm tired of explaining that I don't. Plus, it might be fun. My memory and learning ability have declined with age, but 40 years of industrial experience have given me a lot of breadth and perspective. If I find that some institutions don't value my industrial experience, or think I'm too old, I'll just go elsewhere. I'm confident that I can succeed, and you should be even more confident.
Lots of other stories about old folks getting doctorates here.
At many US universities, age discrimination would be illegal (though it might be pretty hard to prove).

You're right that there's widely diverging opinions on this.  I take the view that ex-industry people are valuable in academia, and I see the industry experience as a big positive, depending on what you compare it to.  Your industry experience will probably give you some ideas for research directions and it also means that you have some strong existing skills.  Obviously if you want to go into academia you are going to have to upskill on research skills like literature review, writing papers, etc., but that is not an insurmountable obstacle.  Your age is not especially advanced to start a PhD program, so that is not an issue.

You will likely be viewed as more mature by admissions committees.  This is a plus.  You understand why you want the degree.
I'm not sure it would be viewed this way if you had, say, 20 years of industry experience.

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Is there a better way than a second PhD to make my extensive knowledge of history official?
Suppose I already have a PhD in computer science. I want to do a PhD in history, not to pursue a career but to make my extensive background knowledge official.
Is there any better way to make my extensive knowledge of history official?

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/55905/is-it-possible-and-also-meaningful-to-do-two-phds

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14276/after-phd-in-aerospace-engineering-could-i-be-admitted-into-a-top-university-fo

Related / duplicate: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17232/is-doing-two-phds-a-good-path

Related: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/1836/when-does-one-go-for-a-double-doctorate

What are the main reasons you want to "make [your] extensive knowledge of history official"?

Well, I doubt that doing a PhD in a subject will make others acknowledge you as an "authority" in this subject (maybe with the exception of people who are very easily impressed by titles).

Worth mentioning: Doctorates in history generally require around eight years to complete and often include teaching work and international research in addition to coursework. (U.S. universities).

Knowledge of history and making a new contribution to the field are two different things. One requires the other, the other doesn't.

"Suppose I already have a PhD in computer science." Given what you say in https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/186597/how-to-cope-with-low-rate-of-publication-in-the-research-group and https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/186387/how-can-i-recover-the-lost-time-in-my-career I would advise you to complete the PhD you are about to start, before wondering whether one should do a hypothetical history PhD after a hypothetical CS PhD.

@user366312 The help center instructs that "You should only ask practical, answerable questions based on actual problems that you face". It's quite reasonable for commenters to be bothered by askers making up scenarios that do not apply to the person asking. The imagined scenarios that people come up with tend to be distracting as peoples' imaginations stretch outside realities.

The purpose of a PhD is not to certify extensive background knowledge, but to certify research skills. Background knowledge gets outdated really soon, even in history. Skill last longer (not forever, but longer). Many people focus on a PhD as "the highest level of education". A more realistic characterization of a PhD is "vocational training for researchers".

Is there any better way to make my extensive knowledge of history official?

I assume you mean that you are looking for evidence that you are considered an expert in history.  Present papers in reputable conferences, publish articles in peer-reviewed journals.

History is still somewhat of a "book field" so I would recommend publishing a book.

There are no officials that sign a piece of paper that says "Person X is authoritative source on the topics of the american revolution, invention of computers, and dinosaurs". Your signed & certified PhD diploma or a "Dr" in front of your name are corollary of being part of the academic community. Plenty of people have PhD and carry no authority, as well as some people have a lot of influence in academia without a PhD.
As someone mentioned, history is very much "book" field. So you should consider writing a book:

using self-publishing method without collaboration with academics
finding academic co-author, while trying really hard to not look like a crank

The only reason for you to pursue PhD is that it will make (2) easier in theory.

I hate to say it, but there are some cranks from academia. As in "I was a decent physicist, now I am retired, and the world gotta know the horrible truth: all of the history all-together was falsified and only I know how things really were!" crank. In other words academic credibility from one area might not be helpful in another one, especially if the ideas are... err... unorthodox.

In a comment you cited your motivation as

I want to become an authority on a certain topic

What you’ll need to do to become an authority on a topic is to write and publish extensively about it. One full-length PhD thesis or book would be de rigueur, and even then I doubt you’d be considered much of an authority by most actual historians (as opposed to lay people) until you’ve published several books, or a book and multiple articles — in academia a PhD is basically table stakes.
Moreover,  the publications need to carry the official stamp of legitimacy of an established bestower of academic authority: either a university (in the case of a PhD thesis), or a reputable academic press in the case of books, or reputable peer reviewed journals in the case of journal articles. Self-published work won’t count, since it won’t set you apart from the many people who think they are an authority on something but can’t get anyone to vouch that their knowledge is correct, let alone interesting.
The thing to keep in mind is that these authorities who are in a position to give you “official” credit by publishing your book or awarding you a PhD are setting the bar much higher than just you having knowledge on the topic you are writing about. For example, you may know the dates of all the battles of the Russo-Japanese war, precise numbers of casualties, and have an extensive knowledge of the political and diplomatic machinations that led to this war, etc. Still, it’s almost certain that no one would want to publish your book about this war unless you find something new to say about it, or about its connection to other historical events of the period or of other periods. In other words, having knowledge is not really sufficient, in the academic context at least, to be considered an authority. Creating knowledge is the way you gain authority.
To summarize: neither getting a PhD nor publishing offer anything other than an extremely arduous and lengthy path towards becoming an authority on a historical topic, no matter how extensive your knowledge on the topic already is. As an alternative and more feasible plan, maybe consider becoming a regular poster on history.stackexchange and acquiring a high reputation there. Perhaps it won’t be “official”, but you can still have fun and collect some concrete evidence of your knowledge and understanding in history. Good luck!

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Finding a career as a researcher without any PhD, work experience, and/or relevant academic degree
I call myself an "independent researcher", however, I have no relevant academic degree in the field in which I do research (physics, especially  relativity, and electromagnetism). I just have some articles published in peer-reviewed journals and some self-published scholarly books. I do have a BSc in Civil Engineering. Is it possible for me to find a job as a researcher? If so, where can I find it?

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It's not appropriate to promote your work here. If you want to summarize your views for this site that may be okay, but it's not appropriate to send people to read part of your books to interpret your SE question.

@BryanKrause Yes, understood. Thanks.

"Is it possible for me to find a job as a researcher? If positive, where can I find it?"

It's certainly possible for you to find a job as a researcher, so let's focus on the second question, which is where you can find such a job.
Universities
Your StackExchange profile provides links to five  published papers and two books, all single-author. One of them was published in 2021 and has 9 citations on Google Scholar by two mutually exclusive groups of co-authors apart from yourself. Based on those details alone, your application for a job as a PhD student researcher could be very well received provided that the other parts of your application don't have bad red flags. What you have done on your own demonstrates a strong work-ethic, nearly unparalleled motivation to do research, and an immense passion for your subject, which are all things that are exactly what a potential PhD supervisor wants to see. A PhD can be a very big commitment though: It typically takes many years, the pay is usually not as high as in other places, and you might be required to do a lot of course work, comprehensive exams, assistance with teaching, etc. An alternative would be to try to find a job in a university as what is sometimes called (among other names for it) a "research technician", but such jobs are extremely rare, and it is even more rare for them to be advertised. In both of these cases (PhD student or "research technician") you would almost always be working under a supervisor, meaning that ideally your research interests would align. Apart from these two positions, the likelihood of you getting a research position (such as a professorship) without a PhD is close to 0.
Other academic institutions
Various other academic institutions (especially ones in which the primary function is to publish papers in academic journals) also hire full-time researchers. Probably the largest employers of academic researchers outside of universities are government labs (e.g. NRC in Canada, NIST/LANL/etc. in USA) but just like in universities, you would very likely have to work under a research supervisor and your research topics would almost certainly need to align with theirs. Independent researchers or research leaders at such institutions, are much like professors at universities in that you would almost always need a PhD to get such a position. What I have said about universities and government labs also applies to most other research institutes (e.g. Perimeter Institute or MILA in Canada). A different type of academic institution in which you're more likely to find a job as a researcher (especially in your field, which is physics), is at academic start-up companies (99% of what they do seems to be research that gets published in academic journals), such as Zapata, Xanadu, 1Qbit, etc. This is where you are most likely to find a job as a researcher in an academic setting, but once hired your research topics would usually have to align with the institution employing you, even more-so than in the above cases.

Unfortunately, I think to most researchers those papers and citations would themselves be a red flag. If I'm reading correctly all the citations to the paper you link to share one co-author (Google sometimes reverses their name order), who appears to explicitly deny both special and general relativity, and advocate a universal reference frame interpretation of physics. This is not mainstream, to say the least. I suspect many academics would hesitate to hire someone even for a PhD in this area if they were clearly strongly attached to such theories.

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It is unlikely you will find an academic research position.  There is already an oversupply of PhDs with postdoc experience doing mainstream physics, and by your own admission you will have a very hard time competing with those.  Unfortunately for you, relativity and electromagnetism are both well understood: most of the recently published papers in those areas deal with teaching or some pedagogical aspects of the topics, and any independent theory is extremely likely to be ignored.  There are some independent researchers in physics, but they all have PhD degrees and publish in mainstream journals.
You may be able to find a teaching position which will allow you enough spare time to continue your independent work, but it’s unlikely to be in a university, again because universities can afford to hire people with PhDs.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

I removed the comments since a chat has been created. Please continue the discussion there.

I'm sorry for writing this but I think your chances are close to zero. That's because of the content of your papers. For example in the link given by user1271772:

The mechanical motion of a system consisting of simple springs is investigated from the viewpoint of two inertial observers with a relativistic relative velocity. It is shown that the final displacement of the springs is not measured the same by the observers. Indeed, it is demonstrated that there is an incompatibility between kinematics and dynamics in Einstein’s relativity regarding the force transformation.

This is the kind of thing which will ring immediate warning bells, because:

It challenges Relativity, which has met and passed all sorts of experimental verifications since Einstein conceived it;
It seems to demonstrate that you don't actually know relativity well. For example, that different observers measure different displacements is obvious, that is just length contraction. You also refer to "force transformation" although it is also unclear what that is (relativity is a theory of space & time, so force is not something people associate with the theory in the first place).

Then add the fact that the only citing authors citing your work appear to be other people with similarly off-the-mainstream paper titles like "The existence of a universal frame of reference, in which it propagates light, is still an unresolved problem of physics", and I suspect you have no chance of getting a career as a researcher.

What do you mean by all sorts of experimental verifications? If you really want to verify a theory by performing experiments, you need to perform an infinite number of them, which is impossible. Moreover, considering your statement It seems to demonstrate that you don't actually know relativity well. For example, that different observers measure different displacements is obvious, that is just length contraction, it is evident that you do not know relativity well since transverse lengths remain unchanged. Only the lengths parallel to the direction of motion are Lorentz contracted.

@MohammadJavanshiry "verification" has a different meaning to "confirmation". A theory cannot be proved right, but it can be verified. As for me not knowing relativity well, I'd be the first to say there are a lot of people who know it better than me - but I know enough to be extremely skeptical of the abstract, and the fact that nobody else has cited it is confirmation.

When you say his chances are close to "zero", chances of what? Chances of getting a tenure-track research professorship, or chances of getting a research job as a PhD student? The fact that the paper is only getting cited by one group of people so far, and the fact that the research is not "mainstream" or maybe not even the highest in quality, is going to make the chances of him getting a tenure-stream research professorship close to "zero" in most countries, but will not on their own block him from all research jobs in the world period.

@MohammadJavanshiry Do not attempt to use this site to promote your work.

@user1271772 , probably both if he doesn't renounce the papers and books. Based on the title/abstract of the paper, most likely the entire paper comes about from a misunderstanding of transformations between reference frames in special relativity. Something that was a problem between half a century and a century ago, but is now just homework exercises in say a 2nd year physics course. Its kind of like him saying Shor's algorithm will never work and we are wasting our money because he doesn't understand the Chinese remainder theorem

Put yourself in the shoes of the hiring committee people.

The lack of a PhD degree is a strong (usually, fatal) point against you at good universities or labs, a weakly negative point at low-profile ones.

Having self-published scholarly books is a very strong point against you at any school or lab worth its salt. The people will suspect that publishers refused to accept your books. Even if your books were not self-published, it would matter a lot whether they appeared at an established mainstream academic publisher or at some trashy company that accepts anything. Just as self-publishing, so publishing with such omnivorous companies looks suspicious.

As for your journal papers -- it depends, again, where exactly they appeared. If in Phys. Rev. or other top-notch journals, people take you seriously. There exist, however, journals that are scientific or peer-reviewed only in name. A paper published in such a journal is a resume-killer.

There are plenty of PhD`s on the market.

In the light of this, even at a low-end institution your CV will not be likely to get shortlisted.
This said, I know some people without PhD, who are working successfully at government labs. However, these people were hired either after they received their BS degree in a relevant area, or after they combined their BS degree with a subsequent experience in industry -- which experience was of interest to the goventment lab that eventually hired them.

Knowing where to publish and how journals and conferences are perceived in your field is very important. That is probably not that clear if you start or work quite isolated. At least it was something that I just learned as I started doing research as part of my PhD. It wasn't even clear to me (nor did I have an idea of it) as I was a student.

From a legal perspective, I can tell you that you must have a PhD to get a position at a German university related to research (apart from graduation positions of course).
And generally, for the many postdoc position, you obviously need a PhD.
But having said that, if you have some solid publications under your belt, and if you are probably known in the community, why not approach some potential supervisors and do a PhD? Doing a PhD is research, so it is a job as a researcher. That you already have produced results and your experience with the publication process might help you to finish it faster.

Who said that the OP wants the job to be at a university, let alone a German one? Anyway I gave you +1 because it's a better answer than the other one (I was just about to recommend the same thing: doing a PhD).

Yes, sure. Thank you for mentioning that. I am from Germany, finishing my PhD right now and looking for a job at a university. So I have experience with the situation here (and my answer is probably skewed by that). Yes, there are also companies who hire researchers or some places like the Max-Planck Society (here in Germany).

Do you think it would be possible to do a PhD without any relevant academic degree (even a BSc.)?

@FerventHippo it is possible (I know a couple of people who have done exactly this) but it’s highly non traditional and not for everyone. An example would be Prof. John Moffat.

For German public research positions, a PhD is almost never a strict or legal requirement: the typical requirement would be e.g. for a postdoc position "PhD or equivalent qualification". But a PhD is the easiest way to show one does have the relevant qualification.

@cbeleites unhappy with SX In my field (computer science) and according to my experience you have to have a PhD for university positions. There are regulations on how long you are allowed to get employed without one (basically the time limit for doing a PhD, which is six years). But maybe there are positions where you can get employed without a PhD over a longer time frame. But as far as I know, such positions are called unbefristet here and are extremely rare in Germany. But after all, it is only my personal experience I am sharing here on this & I guess best for OP is to do a PhD.

@StefanH: the legislation you refer to is the WissZeitVG. German labor law restricts fixed term contracts to positions where there is a factual reason for the fixed term (e.g. ) and to a maximum total duration (with the same employer) of 2 years. Public research employers do have exceptions from this: they are allowed them to employ scientific (and artistic) staff on fixed term contracts without the usually required factual reason (Sachgrund) and for longer total duration. The maximum allowed duration for this is 6 years, but that counter is reset by a PhD. There are few things that scare...

... university administration as much as violating these rules, because the contract will autmatically convert into an unlimited one (which practically speaking cannot be ended by the university). However, for this it doesn't matter whether someone on a postdoc position does have a PhD or not, the resulting remaining years for these fixed term contracts are the same.

Note: someone with a doctorate from abroad that is not listed as equivalent with the domestic one (https://anabin.kmk.org) can thus be considered as qualified for the postdoc position by the hiring committee without first going through the burocracy of getting that particular degree recognized in general. Likely nobody knows how often this happens. In contrast, an experienced industrial scientist who never handed in a PhD thesis applying for a public research postdoc position may very well be rare in university CS. But maybe less rare at universities of applied science or Fraunhofer institutes

Is it possible for me to find a job as a researcher?

Simple answer. Yes, it's possible (as academic researcher). Would it be a walk in the park. Most likely not.
You have about 10 publications on your GS: 10 if we count those in parts - I, II, III
NB: in some parts of the world

It is impossible due to regulations/law
it is difficult due to 'tradition'
it is possible but depends on discipline

If so, where can I find it?

Your obvious choices would be universities, research centers, R&D units/organisations, ... policy research organisations
Before, you proceed, you might want to give thoughts to

the quality of the research outlets/journals (you published in). PS: I've not checked. In any case, apart from outright predatory journals, quality is subjective.
formalising your 'research' by pursuing your doctorate through the PhD by Publication (retrospective) route. Though the prospective route is common (or integrated into traditional PhD), the retrospective isn't in certain parts of the world. From my (ongoing) research (of 90 UK universities), there are more than 16 universities offering PhD by Publication to all. A large number offer to their staff only or to their staff and alumni, and rest extends to those having close research association with them.
NB: for PhD by Publication, you'll need to show rigour, theme (golden thread) and coherence through a commentary/critical analysis ...
seeking research assistant post (as a 'leg in')


text:
Conversation between freshman from senior high school and retired professor who suffers from Alzheimer's disease
I live at a university town where I am freshman at a
senior high school.
Some years ago a car steered by an inebriated driver
smashed me off my bicycle and run over me.
Nowadays I am a paraplegic sitting in a wheelchair.
I can keep my head upright and move my left arm and
hand. Any other limb of mine currently is still -eh-
out of order.
Due to my physical deficiencies I don't do much
sporting activities. I get along with little sleep
(about 4 hours/day).
I have permission to go to the library of the faculty
of mathematics and natural sciences of the university.
I am interested in number theory and therefore I use
to spend large parts of the evenings and nights at the
library.
Two weeks ago at the cafeteria of the library building
I got into conversation with an elderly gentleman who
started small talk. After about half an hour I realized
that the small talk had turned into a private lecture
that I was recieving about the topic which I learn about
in the library (quadratic diophantine equations with
2 unknowns). The gentleman didn't seem to perceive
the surroundings any more and he was engrossed in
monologues at dissertation level.
I was deeply impressed.
At some point of our conversation I learned that he
is 86 years of age and a professor emeritus.
The next evening I met him in the cafeteria again
where he seemed to have been awaiting whether I
would drop in too. He had brought along some books and
papers which he thought I might be interested in.
Again the conversation turned into a lecture after
a while and again he seemed to enjoy teaching maths and
being in his element.
We met every evening since in this constellation
and I enjoyed these meetings.
But today a woman who introduced herself as his daughter
cut our conversation short. She told me that her father
in fact is a retired professor of the faculty of
mathematics and that he suffers from Alzheimer's disease
and that she wished to apologize for any inconvenience
her father might have caused.
To me the point is: Subject of our conversation was
number theory. I did not realize myself that he suffers
from that disease. Thus to me it seems that the disease
did not affect our conversation in a negative way.
I enjoyed our meetings and to me it seems that he also
enjoyed talking to me about maths.
At the moment I have the feeling that currently he still
is capable of talking about number theory and
that currently he still enjoys talking about that subject.
I fear that discouraging him in doing so by now would mean
anticipating some aspects of the disease having reached
levels that probably aren't reached yet.
How would you deal with the situation?

"her father in fact is a retired professor" -- in case you didn't realise, that's what "professor emeritus" means. Some professors emeritus continue to work full time despite being "officially" retired, and not all retired professors receive the title. But those holding the title can basically do what they want, from no work at all on upwards.

This question is definitely off topic, but I don't have the heart to vote it as such.

The tortuous way that one could argue that it is on topic is this: Academia is about the only profession where retired individuals can still remain in the same environment that they had spent their working years in -- and still contribute to the community. Any other profession and this poor old man would have been stuck in a nursing home regaling the spotted fern with stories of how he filed his TPS reports.

@RoboKaren He could be a member of the House of Lords? ;)

One of the things that helps Alzheimer's patients the most is routines - especially routines from earlier parts of their lives (such as when he was a full-time faculty member). Keeping the brain active by thinking through number theory is also very helpful in staving off further progression of his dementia.
So if it was part of his routine when he was active faculty to go to lunch everyday in the dining hall and then to lecture, then you have now become a living part of his past and current world and helping him (and his family) stay functional.  As long as you are both enjoying it, there is no reason not to continue.
As gnometorule says, I think his daughter would be heartened to hear that 1) you enjoy this and 2) you would not have known he had Alzheimers had she not told you.  As gnome says, though, I would keep her apprised if you notice any changes.

I would add, get the daughter's number and assure her that if there are any problems, you'll call her and you are happy to hear from her if she has anything to say.

In addition to RoboKaren's answer I fully agree with, 2 thoughts: (1) if you haven't yet, tell the daughter that not only did her father not inconvenience you, from your interactions you never even guessed his affliction - it will put the daughter at ease, and possibly even cheer her up a little about something surely hard on her; and (2) if the man can talk number theory at 86, his Alzheimer's is very early stage; and this could go on for a while (it tends to degrade discretely though, so be ready to step back as needed when you notice a sudden change).
(Per @jakebeal's suggestion, made into an answer)

Why step back?  Why not let the relationship morph naturally as the professor's condition changes?

@aparente001: Note that I wrote "...as needed." I agree with what you point out (as I understand you), that a mere noticeable change doesn't necessarily mean to stop talking with the professor. But from my (limited) personal experience with Alzheimer's, there will (not might) be a day where drastic changes will make interacting painful for OP, at which point I - in his shoes - would talk to the daughter, if only to make sure that whatever happens after respects the wishes of her family...and they might prefer to have OP step back then.

Oh, I see.  To protect oneself from the pain of seeing the person losing basic functionality, if and when that should happen.  Fair enough -- and thanks for explaining.

Also the needs of the sufferer of Alzheimers might suddenly change, for example he might not be able to hang about the university any longer. It may or may not be necessary for the questioner to fairly abruptly stop seeing him when that happens. You'd hope some kind of visits would be beneficial for both of them, but questioner should be prepared for the possibility that won't be the case.

So... let him be a person until he can't? Surely anything else would be inappropriate.

Please read
The Housekeeper and the Professor  is a novel by Yoko Ogawa set in modern-day Japan. It was published in August, 2003, by Shinchosha and was the first recipient of the Hon'ya Taisho award (Japan Booksellers Award).[1][2]
The story centers around a mathematician, "the Professor," who suffered brain damage in a traffic accident in 1975 and since then can produce only 80 minutes' worth of memories, and his interactions with a housekeeper (the narrator) and her son "Root" as the Professor shares the beauty of equations with them.
The novel received the Hon'ya Taisho award, was adapted into a film version in January 2006, and after being published in paperback in December 2005, sold one million copies in two months, faster than any other Shinchosha paperback.[3]
These paragraphs are from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Housekeeper_and_the_Professor

I read that book and enjoyed it, but I wonder whether a fictional story of a professor with a (different) mental affliction is really so relevant to the OP's situation.

@PeteL.Clark Yes, it's a bit of a stretch. But I think anything that can shed light on the nature of a similar affliction (even in fiction) may help one think and feel about how to respond to it. I know that book would come to mind if I met the professor in the OP's question.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Is it weird to display ads on an academic website?
I have never seen (or realized) an example of an academic website which displays ads.
I am thinking of a website not hosted by the institute, but as a personal website, paid by the faculty member.
Does it look weird/unethical/unacceptable if a person uses a service similar to AdSense for their website?

Why the question? Have you seen such or are you contemplating doing this?

@Buffy Just out of curiosity. I have seen many websites relevant or irrelevant which take ads, but none of the academic websites. I wouldn't do it, but I also wouldn't see it as "weird" per se if I see someone do it.

I thought that many in that situation would instead host their web-pages/blog/videos on a service that takes out ads automatically, similarly as this site, researchgate, linkedin etc. Having your own website seems to take too much work. That also shifts the question from getting paid for ads to avoiding paying by having ads; which many may feel is more "ok"

For a simple static website (which is typically sufficient for a personal web page), there are good quality free solutions like GitHub pages available now that quite popular for faculty pages from what I have seen. So the question of covering costs may not even arise.

In some legislations, e.g. Germany, having ads on your website makes the website commercial and that leads to certain legal duties. The money generated by the ads may not be worth while considering the added trouble to keep up with your legal duties.

If it's not hosted by the institute, why would it be considered an "academic" website? It sounds like it's just a personal website of someone who just happens to be an academic. Why would your profession have any impact on what you do in your personal life?

@Barmar Lots of academics have personal academic sites that are for their profile as an academic, not for them as a person.

This is actually quite common! - but only when the web-hosting platform is displaying the ads, not the academic. For example, in Australia, many academics use Wordpress for their academic website. If they don't pay for the premium version you can occasionally see adds on their site. The ads are usually hard to notice though.

Such a website is itself an ad: for the lab, the lab's research, and for the personnel running/working at the lab.
In many ways, a lab website is like a resume. While it's not unusual for newsletters published by some local org (say, a school, church, youth group, etc) to have local ads to cover publishing costs from the neighborhood dental clinic, grocer, etc, but you wouldn't expect to find these on a resume.
Probably most people are conditioned enough to online ads that they wouldn't even notice them, but if they did it might seem a bit weird, and if they were at all intrusive it would be downright ugly looking and reflect badly on the lab. If I were working in a lab where the PI had a website with ads, I'd be embarrassed by it even though it wasn't my own responsibility. If I was visiting such a site, I might wonder if I've stumbled on some illegitimate content farm site by mistake.
I doubt a typical academic's website gets anywhere near enough traffic to make ads make much sense financially. The cost of potentially putting off a precious visitor doesn't seem worth it to me to pocket a few pennies.
If the site is hosted by the university or with any grant funds for research it is likely illegal or against some terms to make any personal profit off such a site; even if the funds are just used to pay back the site costs it's a gray area that is still probably not allowed. A university could certainly even have a policy on this even if their funds are not directly involved if anything about the website affiliates it with the university, including being an official or pseudo-official website for a lab operating out of that institution.
It's just not worth the potential conflicts from any angle I can see.

"I doubt a typical academic's website gets anywhere near enough traffic to make ads make much sense financially."  That's the real answer.

This is a great answer with perfect explanation. For the record, I was not considering displaying ads on my personal (academic) website. But this answer gives me a very good arguing point :)

Ad-like links to related/side projects, or even sponsoring companies (in a similar way to conference websites) are reasonably common on such pages, unlike commercial ads.  These links imply a level of endorsement you wouldn't want to give to the product of an ad network that you don't control

He's edited the question to say that the site isn't hosted for by the institute. So it's not a "lab website" and not paid for with grant funds (unless you include the academic's stipend).

@Barmar that doesn't necessarily follow - collaborations in particular can end up setting up externally hosted websites because of intransigent university IT departments (e.g. not allowing anyone from the partner institution to upload, or refusing to host filetypes not on a short list, so research data can't be published).  Paying for such things is problematic

@ChrisH Maybe not in general, but the question specifically says a personal website, paid by the faculty member.

@Barmar fair enough, I forgot the exact quote so was responding only to the "isn't hosted...not paid for by grant funds" in your comment

@Barmar I intended my answer to cover more than just the particular situation OP asks about to be useful to more readers, and their circumstance is a made up example anyways. It also says an academic website. Even if it's a personally maintained site, if it is principally about their role as an employee of a particular institution then there is some blurring of the relationship between personal and professional.

@BryanKrause True enough. I've probably seen personal website like that, which have separate areas for the person's academic material vs personal life. It might be OK to have ads on the latter pages (although as you also say, unlikely to get enough traffic to make the ads worthwhile).

I'm not quite as negative as the other current answers here. I don't think it is unethical, for example, provided that the domain is your own. Weird, perhaps.
But, a warning. Don't sign up with some ad "service" that has the ability to place ads on your site according to their judgement, not yours. You will regret it pretty quickly, I'd guess.
However, there is unlikely to be any financial advantage to you unless you have a blog with millions of readers. And most of the folks I read (blogs) have periodic campaigns to solicit contributions. But they are also "in the business" of writing daily on subjects of interest to a wide audience.
Of course, academic authors often have "ads" on their web sites to enable potential readers to find their books. I doubt that anyone would object to that.

"Don't sign up with some ad "service" that has the ability to place ads on your site according to their judgement, not yours" - StackExchange is a good example of this. I mean, StackOverflow is really one of the most recognizable brands on the professional programming internet, and they've had more than a few issues with inappropriate and scammy ads. Basically the word has been that since the ad market is all driven by third parties there isn't much they can do except be reactive. And that's someone with infinitely more clout than some private little website.

@BryanKrause StackExchange has ads?

@AzorAhai-him- Yep. They have chosen to hide them from regular users, and the ads displayed depend on site, so you probably don't see them much if you are a regular user. And that's where what I know ends. I can send you to https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/advertising but I don't know of any better one-stop reference, I hope someone can point you in the right direction if you want to know more (you could ask a question on meta or if that is too intimidating ask in The Tavern)

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/329763/were-testing-advertisements-across-the-network and https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/reduced-ads may be relevant

I don't think I would call it "unethical," but certainly weird and borderline unacceptable.
While I'm sure the idea is to just recoup server costs; it would strike me as very weird to try and profit off visits to your personal website and I would probably avoid visiting it again.
If you were being interviewed, I can't see it being a positive.
Also keep in mind the ads may be targeted. I don't think someone seeing a male enhancement pill on your website would be very impressed, even if it was their own search history that suggested it.

Or political ads.

Come to think of it, the concept seems really weird.

Why do you not think that "unethical" is roughly the same as "unacceptable" ?

@MikeBrockington What do you mean? They are different. Are you asking me to explain to you the difference between ethics and social acceptability?

I am indeed asking you to explain what definitions YOU are using here. What you consider 'ethical' and what you consider 'acceptable' probably differ from everyone else's definition. For example, I couldn't possibly say that anything 'unacceptable' could also possibly be 'ethical'.

@MikeBrockington I didn't claim anything was. Here's an example: in a neighborhood, it might be unacceptable to park in front of your neighbor's house, but no one would call it unethical. It certainly seems borderline unacceptable to try and make money off of someone visiting your professional site, since that's just not how thinks work (you don't charge people to look at your poster event thought it cost you money to print), but I wouldn't call it unethical, because no one is really being harmed.

Your very first sentence effectively stated that in your book, 'ethical' and 'acceptable' are very different things. In my book they are roughly 99% the same thing, so your answer currently starts off extremely confusing, at least to me. In the example in your last comment, I would say that parking in front of my neighbour's house was BOTH unethical and possibly also unacceptable, (if it caused a nuisance to him.)

@MikeBrockington How can parking anywhere on a public street be unethical? And now you've just given an example of something you consider unethical, but maybe not unacceptable. So now I'm confused by your definition.

If it causes a nuisance, particularly if they are disabled, then that would be unethical. Seriously, there is something like 99% overlap between acts that would be considered unethical in the UK, and acts that would be considered socially unacceptable, I really don't understand why you think otherwise. Certain professions have specific codes of ethics, but that doesn't really detract from general principles of 'public' ethics which is really just another name for the nebulous concept of social responsibility.

@MikeBrockington I never claimed there wasn't major overlap. You seem to be arguing against points I'm not making. If you can focus on things I actually said, happy to continue the discussion. "Being a nuisance" doesn't make something unethical.

It likely depends on what you consider to be "ads".
Some might argue that the entire website is an advertisement for the university.  If you've ever sat in meetings with the alumni association, student recruitment, and the university's "development" department (the people who try to get you to donate money) to redesign the university's website, you'd know how obsessed they are over 'branding' and the like.
But even if you consider them to be a business (even if it's a real estate business that's obligated to teach classes), you'd understand their focus on branding and such.  You wouldn't expect to go to ford.com and see advertisements for other vehicles show up ... you might see ads for Ford vehicles, but they want to control their brand.  Looking at my alma matter's website just now, I found a few pages with ads for 'online giving'.
It's possible that a school might have a "Code of Conduct" or similar that specifically forbids monetization of web pages, especially if they're a non-profit.  There may also be concerns about third-parties harvesting information about their staff and students.  If a third party knew who was viewing which websites, they might be able to infer who were students and what courses they were enrolled in ... which may be a FERPA violation.  (I'm not aware of any lawsuits / decisions on the matter, this is just speculation).
But we still get into the question of what qualify as "ads".  You used to see a lot of groups that participated in "rings" where there would be some topic of unifying interest, and then sites would join the ring, giving links to the other participating sites while getting links back in return.  So you had "ads" to link to other thematically linked web pages, but it wasn't like today's ad networks where you had absolutely no idea what might show up on your page.
As has already been alluded to by others, this is bad for the university.  If their servers get used for a "watering hole" attack, it could lead to the site being blocked at firewalls for the federal government, which is really bad for research institutions.
You also get the occasional link to a sponsor's page.  Usually it's just a text link or maybe a logo and link.  You might see this on departmental webpages or various student organizations.  There were a number of engineering competitions at my university that I believe all had corporate sponsors (solar car, concrete canoe, baja SAE, etc.)
There will be increasingly higher levels of flexibility and autonomy as you move from the "main" university's web pages to departmental pages & sites to organizations and personal (staff, faculty & student) sites.
These days, if staff or student wanted to monetize a website, it's easy to get external hosting.  You wouldn't get shut down when academic computing decided to look into why the webserver was bogged down and found that a staff member had set up a porn site.  And you can more easily move your content elsewhere if you control the domain name.
In general, it's just bad form -- does your page exist to give out authoritative information, or to trick people into visiting so that you can try make money off them and try to get them to go elsewhere?  Webrings or other link exchanges might make sense in some specific cases, but things like AdSense and such make your website look unprofessional as you lose control over your page.  The university provides the hosting, so it's not like you're trying to make your cost back for hosting the pages.
(note: I was the webmaster for a large private non-profit university in the 1990s.  I have no idea how many people these days bother w/ university hosting vs. just having a facebook page.  And yes, we really did have a staff member put up a porn site.  He even worked for our department (night shifts on the helpdesk), and lots of our co-workers had complained about him, but management kept ignoring them)

I think this is a fair answer presenting a different point of view which does not deserve a downvote.

@padawan I downvoted for excessive length and lack of focus.

@AnonymousPhysicist : It's a complex issue with multiple facets.  I could simply say "it's unprofessional", or "there can be rules against it" but that's missing out on the whole issue that any academic website is basically advertising something be it a person, the department, or the school as a whole.

Ads would loose money.  There's nothing complex or faceted about that.

Yes, it is so weird to show ads on academic websites. But it wouldn't be enough frustrating if your ads are not inappropriate or other than interest-based but honestly, sometimes interest-based ads flow my mind to that ad's content rather than what and why I could open that website! So, this is also an awkwardness of ads.

A major cause why conspiracy theories, fake news, and bad science is so prolific today, is because it's profitable. The recipe is simple: create a website which pretends to be a newspaper or an academic site. Monitor the current news, and then write an article which states the exact opposite. People will share the "shocking discovery" on social media, their followers will click on it, and then the creator of the site earns money from the ads, especially if they get lucky enough and their article becomes viral.
You really don't want to create the image in your readers that you are operating such a site.

I think you misunderstood the question. I was asking about an academic website, not a science news website.

@padawan : I've seen dodgy and fake-looking academic websites too. Filled not with fake news articles, but with fake publications.


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Poor Phd and future
I had a poor phd work and my boss was also not interested which means I publish in low quality journals.  Can I do better research and join better labs after phd? How to do it?  I regret my phd period I lost,  can I now undo that period?
My research areas are molecular biology or life sciences.

Whether you can do better research is up to you provided that you can find a better environment (and supervisor) with which to work. I assume that you need to be associated with a lab to do your work. The lab in which you did the PhD probably isn't the right place.
You need to find a lab in which to get hired for future work. In applying, try not to be quite so negative as you are here, but when asked, you can suggest that you got some bad advice and are working to get beyond that. Present yourself in the most positive way that you honestly can to a new employer.
In some ways, you may be a bit behind, but a PhD is still a PhD and hopefully you have learned the skills you need to contribute to a lab and to the scientific community.
But the past is the past and you can't undo it. You can only move forward. Put your efforts there.


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How many PhD students are too many?
I'm a new assistant professor in the UK in Electrical engineering. I'm in the process of setting up my lab and I work in a "hot" area. Thus, I have the chance of getting good students funded by industry or funding bodies.
I know of professors with 10+ PhDs and others with 2-3. The group I did my PhD in was in the second category while my postdoc in the first.
However, I am wondering, what should be my target? Any studies have been made? Any personal experience?
I currently have three PhD students.

Surely this is heavily dependent on field.

My advice here is to start small if you haven't had a chance to graduate a few students.  Partner with someone senior.   Finding out what works for you take time.  If you have a post-doc then maybe you can delegate the technical details to him/her whilst you focus on general supervision.  I reckon you have to pay close attention if you want quality, so a small number of good students is worth many poor students.

This is more of a qualifying remark: What your eventual target might be should probably be different from your current target. Advising students is a skill you have to learn and learning this skill will take time. So I'd recommend starting small until significant parts become routine. Also, more senior students might be able to show new students the ropes, so staggering might be useful too.
There are of course a lot of other constraints, so don't take this as your only criterium.

This depends on many things, such as whether you have tenure, whether you have postdocs or other “in-house” faculty to help you advise and mentor grads, how demanding the students themselves are, how many people you have space/equipment for, how many students you can expect to support financially, and how much time/effort you want to put into advising — both as opposed to your other work and as opposed to your personal life.
In my experience, having observed this for some time, a lone advisor typically accepts no more than two grads. If they have a postdoc or equivalent, they will sometimes accept another grad or two and share the advising with their postdoc.
If you’re going for tenure, obviously focus on that, with guidance from more senior faculty in your department. Expect to successfully mentor a grad or two by the time your tenure review cones up. This shows you are valuable to your institution.
Some grads and research projects are naturally more or less demanding on your time. You’ll need to evaluate how demanding potential grads and/or research projects would be before recruiting any. Allocate slightly more time than you expect, to be safe.
Some groups are constrained by lab equipment and/or space. Competing for time to use special equipment is difficult for grads. You want to make sure you don’t recruit more grads than you have room for.
It’s also difficult for grads to have to look for funding elsewhere, as this takes significant time away from their research. Of course, seeking funding on their own is good experience for them on many levels, but being able to provide funding makes everyone happier. Not being funded can cause grads to take way longer than they should to graduate, which is stressful foe them and you. Consider how much you will be able to help support them financially (e.g. as a Research Assistant) and how likely it is they will be able to secure funding on their own (with your guidance) for their research.
You also need to consider your own plans. Do you have a sabbatical coming up? Will you be working off-site or traveling a significant amount of time over the next few years? Are you going through some demanding personal challenges, such as divorce, mental illness, physical illness, having kids, and so on? If so, you might avoid recruiting new grads unless you or others will be able to support them during these times.
One word of caution: don’t recruit a large group all at once, as doing so has the potential for you to become dangerously overcommitted. Start small and add as you learn what you can handle.

There’s no right answer here. It really depends on what level of supervision you want to provide. The more direct interaction you want with your group members, the smaller your group must be. The more grant money and support you have, the larger your group must be. If you need your students to assist with teaching duties (e.g., if TA’s are assigned to faculty rather than courses), you may need a larger group than a smaller one. For promotion, you may need to have a certain number of graduates or currently supervised students.
So this leads to groups with just a few students all the way up to groups with scores of graduate students and everything in between.

Less than you want...
If you desire or require more subordinates (students, postdocs, teaching assistants, etc.) and you don't have them, you're going to let yourself down, personally and/or professionally.
... and more than you need
Every additional student means that much more time and effort you must give to your supervision duties, or that much less of the same time and effort each student can fairly expect.
If the additional students are not adequately supporting the achievement of your (individual, research group or faculty) goals and meeting obligations for the "costs" they add, they are a net loss to you (as an individual, group, faculty).
There may be a range where any number is acceptable and manageable and satisfies your (individual, group, faculty) needs and desires. There may be an anti-range where growth or loss will both push you further from achieving one of the aims above, even as it pushes you towards achieving the other.
Generally, if you present an attractive opportunity (for whatever definition prospective new people might have) it will be easier to gain than to lose, so unless you have specific targets to recruit i.e. headhunting, start low and build rather than start high and cull. This is doubly so if removing students would be a heavily bureaucratic or legal process compared to that of onboarding them.

Unfortunately, some universities do see themselves as a business (and some actually are businesses with an explicit profit motive). The purely economic aside, if taking student X will drop your output, lower your reputation, decrease your standard of teaching, and reduce the quality of your subordinates' theses, are you really going to invite them onboard just because they really want to join? Sure, maybe their attitude and perspective and that midrange prize is worth needing another couple of revisions or a 2% drop in average GPAs or a few months added to everybody's thesis time, ...

... or maybe it's not. That's the kind of decision a manager has to make, and balancing needs/wants of everybody is part of the job. No, it isn't nice, but we don't live in a utopia either. @NajibIdrissi I certainly don't judge my students on whether they'll bring down whatever performance indicators I'm checked on, but neither can I ignore the impact of taking on that next responsibility against those I already have.


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Assistant professor does not collaborate with or cite fellow department members, despite them being experts on the topic
I serve on a Promotion and Tenure committee for an assistant professor who has (in my opinion) a lack of professional courtesy and collaborative attitude. This professor will collaborate and publish with graduate students or faculty at other institutions.
However, has conducted at least 5 small research projects, that have been published in regional or national research conferences, where faculty in our own department who are experts in the field were not included and even their previous published research not referenced (I think there's a clear issue with reviewers, but).
Only after it is clearly and sometimes loudly pointed out "you did this whole project and didn't even reference any of XXX's work or ask them to be part of the study in his/her area" will this faculty member ask people to review the article for journal submission.
Further, there are a few faculty across the country, who could be external reviewers for this individual. They have also witnessed this lack of collaboration and professionalism.
While collaboration is not a measure of success in the P&T process, the quality of the research conducted and published should be.
My questions are:
How do I guide, mentor this young faculty member through the promotion and tenure process, so that they understand the importance of collaborating with the experts within the department?
How do I address this issue during the P&T meeting with the rest of the committee?

Everything about what you seem to want to do seems improper to me. Why would you want to impose your own standards of "collaboration" on someone else. It sounds un-collegial in the extreme.

Maybe I was not clear. It's not imposing collaboration, it's the general lack of respect and teamwork from this individual. Essentially, this individual starts a research project on a topic where there are others in the department who have done research in the same exact area...and they do it in a vacuum.

No, they collaborate with others. Perhaps they have a reason. Perhaps "pointed out loudly" is one of those reasons. Why should you impose "in house" collaboration? It sounds like you have a dysfunctional department, sorry.

I guess in our field, which is quite small. A collaborative attitude is really important. I want this faculty member to be successful and be valued as a contributing researcher. But these red flags make me worried, especially when other faculty are mad about the lack of inclusion. e.g. did research in an area that has 20+ years of research, the national expert is in our building, did not reference a single study or ask them to be included on the already published research.

Actually, it sounds like a domination game, not a collaborative one. You want to impose your will and your view. I think you are the one with the issue. Collaboration requires trust. Trust is earned, not demanded.

Perhaps a different approach and discussion with this individual would be beneficial? Maybe asking "If there is anyone in the department they want to collaborate with?" would be good? Maybe they don't, and that's ok. Thank you for pointing out some critical errors in the current approach and offering a different perspective.

Is this assistant professor aware that others in the department are experts in his/her research area(s)? Has (s)he been asked whether there are reasons for not collaborating with them?  Are they likely (or even certain) to be on the tenure review committee? If so, does (s)he know this?

Yes, aware and yes, on the committee. Not sure if we've asked why not collaborating. I'm not trying to dominate or force collaboration, just a little concerned, as we are a small profession where collaboration can improve the profession and competition does little good.

I'm also wondering whether these local "experts" will also demand and get co-authorship on any collaborations - will they demand primary authorship?

No, the faculty in the department are actually quite collegial and work very well together. I don't think anyone would demand anything. It's just a sense of exclusion, which is maybe childish or a lack of communication? or no one told the asst. prof. the expectations. I guess as a dept. we just need to be mindful of the work others are doing and know the choices we make have consequences, good or bad and move on.

Do the more senior faculty members in the assistant professor's field regularly reach out to the assistant professor with collaboration opportunities?  Do they have regular mentoring meetings, where the more senior mentors ask the assistant prof what they're working on, and suggest similar projects/directions of mutual interest, or at least point out other relevant work to reference (including their own)? Do you have regular seminars, where faculty present their ongoing work? Or do you only find out what the assistant professor is doing by reading the journals?

I agree with @Buffy: It sounds like the assistant prof has no trouble collaborating, and is indeed focusing on their existing and clearly successful collaborations to optimize their publication output, as assistant profs everywhere are urged to do.

I agree with those who correctly got onto you for your "failure to collaborate" internally.  This has all the hallmarks of an insular department with exploitation of the untenured juniors by seniors. Outrageous.  You say they won't demand anything (but never specifically address co-authorship).  And in fact, you're expecting CITATIONS as well as some sort of deference to show the papers internally first.  Bad, bad news.

You seem to think that an assistant professor should collaborate within your department.  However, a more common view is that an assistant professor should be an independent researcher.  An assistant professor should clearly distinguish their research from that of other faculty at the same institution.  Assistant professors do not want to be asked, "Why should we grant you tenure when we already have a tenured professor who can do the same research?"
Without more detail added to the question, it sounds like the assistant professor's collaboration strategy is okay.

I agree with this answer. Adding a senior colleague to a project usually leads to others thinking you luck independence and implicitly assume they are leading the project.

While collaboration is not a measure of success in the P&T process, the quality of the research conducted and published should be.
How do I guide, mentor this young faculty member through the promotion and tenure process, so that they understand the importance of collaborating with the experts within the department?

You seem to be contradicting yourself here. If collaboration is “not a measure of success in the P&T process”, then you can’t expect the faculty member to “understand the importance of collaborating with the experts within the department”. Either collaboration is an official criterion or not: if it is, explain this to the tenure candidate. If it isn’t, you have no business viewing it as a weakness of their tenure case, and neither do the other faculty members you mention who are “mad about the lack of inclusion”. Quite simply, there is nothing to “understand”.

How do I address this issue during the P&T meeting with the rest of the committee?

You say you are concerned about the tenure candidate’s “lack of collaboration and professionalism”. Perhaps a way to address it is to give some thought to your own professionalism in advance of the meeting. Part of professionalism is following the policies and procedures of your institution without allowing your judgment to be clouded by irrelevant factors. Since you said that collaboration is not an official criterion, I suggest that you focus only on the factors that are official criteria, and be prepared to remind your committee colleagues of what those factors are and steer the discussion back to them in case any of them attempt to bring up other, irrelevant factors.
Another aspect of professionalism is not tolerating your department functioning as a kind of mafia in which senior faculty members exploit more junior ones by pressuring them into entering collaborations and into citing the senior members’ works, and trying to make the junior members “understand” that such collaborations are “for their own good”. I understand that I may be reading a bit too much into your description and maybe that’s not what’s really happening here, but it does sound like such a coercive/exploitative environment is a possible interpretation of what you wrote.
Since you say that the quality of the candidate’s research is important in the P&T evaluation, what would be a good idea is for you to counsel the junior faculty member about ways in which they could improve the quality (and quantity) of their published research. If you truly believe in good faith that collaborating with senior faculty members in your department would be a good way to achieve that goal, it would certainly be reasonable of you to explain that to your mentee. It would also be reasonable to discuss with them academic standards involving citation of relevant literature. If there is a real issue of them not including citations to clearly relevant earlier work in their publications, definitely this can be an important issue that you can and should discuss with them. However, it should not matter whether the literature they are not citing is by someone from your department or outside of it. The only relevant issue is whether your colleague is living up to the high standards of conduct and scholarship expected from a tenured professor at your university.

Thanks all. I appreciate the feedback. Counseling the jr. faculty member on ways to improve the quality of research would be beneficial. Encouraging the jr. faculty member to independently research another positive and is encouraged. It's not an exploitative environment...what it boils down to is jr. member wants to crank out as much as possible, without really doing a thorough job reviewing literature. I guess, I framed it as a lack of collaboration, when it really boils down to taking short cuts to get published.

This was a great exercise for me to see all sides and perspectives. I'm not and our department is not as dysfunctional as some of you seem to think - just another faculty member trying to learn.