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Life after graduation; should I update my academic reference on my career progression?
In my undergraduate years, I have forged a rather close relationship with some of my professors including the head of school – they were supportive as I did struggled with mental-health issues and were also open to interesting academic discussion as equals.
Before I returned to my home country, they have offered to be my reference for both academic and industry prospects – including for reasons related to graduate admissions.
After seven weeks of searching, I have now found a research role in the area of air-traffic modelling for UAVs at a new research institute within a globally ranked top-fifteen university while working alongside with another professor at another university.
While I am unsure whether they were rang up, I would, however, like to continue keeping in touch with them as I do visit the country of my alma mater every few weeks while also being aware of my plans to pursue postgraduate studies at my alma mater.
Do professors empirically appreciate their former students keeping them in the loop of their career progress? Or would I only come across as being “just another student” unless I have produced stellar research work?

Anecdotal but I've kept in touch with a few academics from my undergrad and Master's and they always seem happy to hear from me. If you send a short, friendly email every now and again I don't think anyone could object to that.

At the university that I am a student of professors are interested in the success of their students. If their students are being successful in their careers by applying techniques and principles which the students learn from their classes.
Personally, I notified my statistics professor that I recently became second author of a scientific biophysics article published in a journal, and I mentioned how I used and perfected the exploratory data analysis techniques that he taught me in applied bioinformatics. Excitedly, He presented my publication to his class the next hour!!

Your accomplishment is amazing. There are more ways to be successful than in academia.

@xyz123 Thank you. While I still do feel strongly about underachieving due to factors outside of my control (most of my friends are Rhodes, Fulbright or even knight hennessy scholars), I consider myself extremely fortunate still and believe I can mitigate previous "sins" by moving forward and making best use of the opportunities now.

I still feel like you do. One of my friends told me that everybody has their own path in life, as I have not succeeded in the same way that my friends have and did not make any accomplishments for quite some time. I still need to remind myself of what he told me. It kind of stings that I'm giving a research presentation at a university that rejected me for a PhD after interviewing me. I'm just a sojourner. There's people like you.

Do professors empirically appreciate their former students keeping them in the loop of their career progress?

You know your professor's personalities better than anyone here on SE. If they seemed cold and remote to you while you worked with them, then you probably won't gain much by keeping in touch. But it seems you have 'a rather a close relationship' with them. If that is the case, then I would say: Yes, get in contact with them.
Understand, you aren't just 'keeping in touch'. What you are actually doing is professional networking. If these professors work in your field, or have any similarities, then it is to your advantage to stay in touch with people in your field. At some point, you may find that they can help you with future employment. Or perhaps as your own career advances, they will come to you for help in something. This is part of the 'game' of being successful in the professional world.
Tip: If you haven't seen these professors in a while, ask if you can stop by. Just try to have lunch together. Tell them about your new role. If you learn that someone did help you by being a reference, see to it to send that person a Thank You card. It's all part of the networking game.
Lastly, Now you haven't tagged what country your are in. If it is the case that in your particular country, in your particular culture/society, people don't network like this, then ignore my answer.

Actually, even some "remote" professors are just reserved. My advisor was Czech and very proper. Were he still alive, I'd actually like to go back and thank him as I've done for others. I'm pretty sure he would like to know of my successes.


text:
Documentation control to prevent plagarism
I am current working on a research paper with a few other members. Are there good online documentation control tools where work contribution of different members can be tracked?

How would document control prevent plagiarism?

The question title and body don't match, please consider editing to resolve that.

Check out my answer here. Not a duplicate of the (unclear) question, but probably related. In short: it is hard to get multiple authors to use the same version control system. Probably not worth trying. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/98306/how-to-effectively-write-a-paper-of-n2-co-authors/98311#98311

You could host the paper in a git repository and get a transactional log of who contributed what at what time. Google docs also stores a revision history, and allows concurrent collaboration.

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Is it fair for a professor to grade us on the possession of past papers?
My English professor recently asked us to bring in all of our graded essays from the whole semester in order to fill out a 'rubric' of sorts which tallied the various types of mistakes we had made. She will be grading the rubric, and previously stated that if we did not have all the essays from the past semester in class that day, our grade would be comparably lower than otherwise. She made no mention of 'keeping all graded work' at any point during the course, and in my current institution, I have never been expected to keep past work for any specified duration. There are a multitude of reasons why a student may not have been able to keep particular (or any) essays, which my professor did not take into consideration.
Is it fair for my English professor to expect us to keep all of our past graded work, and then grade us on our possession? If unfair, how can I bring this issue up with her and dispute her expectation?
Note that I doubt that this is because she lost the essays; they’ve already been averaged into our final grades.

Have you scoured the syllabus for any mention of this policy?

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If this was not mentioned in the syllabus (or at least announced prior to the papers being returned), this is totally inappropriate.  While it may be foolish for students not to keep their graded work (at least until the end of the term), if it was not established as a requirement before the students got their papers back, it cannot reasonably be made a retroactive requirement.
You should bring this problem to the attention of the instructor.  You do not need to reveal whether you actually have all your past papers when you bring this up, lest the instructor try to wave your concerns away if you say that you actually do have all the papers and are just complaining as a matter of principle.  I would also suggest having multiple students come to her together to make the same objection; that may make it more likely that she will relent.  However, if the instructor does not agree to make a change, you should take this up with someone higher up.  That could mean the department chair (or another departmental official, such as the director of undergraduate or graduate studies) or a student ombudsman, if one is available.

"If it's not mentioned, it's inappropriate": +1 - however, if it has been mentioned, I still would expect this to be prominently featured, ie. both in syllabus, and in class, and ideally somewhere else (e.g. on the task sheet of at least the first or first two essays). It is absolutely not standard to being expected to keep past homework (and the rationale is also obscure to me, to be honest).

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I'll first say that if the Professor needed a copy of the graded assignments, she could have and should have just made the copy when grading, and kept it. This sounds like an arbitrary "trap" for people who are a little absent-minded, or mere arbitrariness.
First order of business IMHO is talking to the Professor, preferably out-of-class. Explain that you have not kept copies of all your work, and that you were not aware (regardless of who is to blame for it) that you had to do so - and you would like to ask for an alternative w.r.t. grading.
Considering what you've said, this is likely to fail. While waiting for the above meeting to occur, also talk to: 1. Your fellow students in this class. 2. Your student union representative (assuming you have one; otherwise - higher-ups in the student union). If they are willing, consider planning for some sort of collective action or intervention which would force the Professor's hand in case she doesn't agree to flex her positions. It's much easier to avert inappropriate grading before rather than after the fact. What could such an action be:

Most or all students simply fail to bring any graded assignments as requested. They collectively agree to say they haven't kept copies of them. The Professor would not be able to just fail the whole class (or rather - is unlikely to do so and would be unable to defend the action) and would likely cave either at that point or earlier.
Student union starts some sort of publicity campaign against this Professor's policy.
Student union petitions for disciplinary procedures against the Professor (in some universities there's a legal right to start such formal procedures; in some you have to beg).

It's not that I think that these things should be done, but they are not impossible nor inconceivable and should be made possible as fallback in case things turn sour. Regardless of whether such action is agreed upon and readied for execution, either a student union rep or a group of students, and even better - both, approach the Professor collectively to try to change her mind.
But let's parallelize some more. Next step up after the personal meeting with the Professor is the Professor-in-charge for the course (in case it's a different person); then, next up - the person in charge of (undergraduate?) studies in your department. Again, student union rep + many students is the best combination from your side to meet with people further up the chain of authority.
Good luck!
PS - @Buzz's answer also makes some good points - especially about not saying which assignments you have or don't have.

Recommend the instructor use BlackBoard, Canvas, or some other LMS (Learning Management System) -- the "papers" are all online, so both students and instructors can access them again. (Most US colleges have an Instructional Technology division that can assist with setting this up, if it's not already being used.)
It would be then fair to ask the student to do a final paper that reflects on their patterns and improvements over the semester, which would make specific reference to certain past papers.
And to make it easier for the instructor to only grab the parts that are in mentioned in the "portfolio," the instructor can request the students re-upload the relevant files (with screengrabs of comments, perhaps, if they're on the LMS Rubric, instead of embedded like Word's TrackChanges comments).
A final word for the instructor -- in professional life, a portfolio is curated -- not everything is included - only the best or most relevant works.  If there's portfolio grading, not only should it be mentioned early, students should be allowed to make (some) selections.  Since it is educational, however, to have a gradeable standard, she can require some things be the same for all: Maybe students can choose 1 of 3 short essays, and 1 medium essay, but everyone has to include the research paper and the very first essay of the semester.

Source - I was a perma-adjunct for about 12 years, mostly teaching ENGL100.  I did use reflections on students' first papers (with specific questions) at the end of the semester, but rarely portfolios.  I also heavily used BlackBoard to coordinate everything and not lose physical papers.

Same here, current LMS is Canvas, it actually added a feature back in 2016 to allow you to download/view any submitted paper for any class regardless of the status of the class (closed, etc) or your enrollment (deleted due to being dropped, etc)

To make a somewhat contrarian answer with a somewhat obvious point: is the teacher's request actually causing problems to someone in the class?
If it does, then I believe it is completely reasonable to complain, and also to side with the people affected even if you do not have the problem yourself (e.g., you have your past assignments).
However, this isn't obvious to me because the question doesn't say there is evidence for it. So, if it so happens that everyone has all their assignments at hand (or that people who didn't were not actually penalized for it, e.g., because the teacher realized on her own that it was a bad idea), then I wouldn't think it's a good idea to complain just out of principle because it could have put someone at a disadvantage or because the policy was bad. This could be given as feedback to the teacher once the class is over (e.g., when evaluating the class if this is done) but I wouldn't appeal to challenge a rule if it didn't actually affect someone.
In summary I'm just saying that it's OK to complain about an actual injustice but I wouldn't complain as vocally about the fact that an injustice could have occurred if there is no evidence that it did.

I was victimized by this exact thing many years ago. I didn't keep a graded paper, and then the instructor wanted it back. It made no sense to me, or anyone else, but what can you do? This was a long time ago, when I couldn't just print another copy from a computer. I had to recreate the paper from memory as best I could. To top it all off, the instructor graded the recreation and gave me a lower mark than the original.

One unmentioned possibility is to file a petition with the dean for credit/no credit grading on this course, citing this retroactive requirement as the reason. While this doesn't help the rest of the students, it does get the point across and protects you.
Late filing of credit/no credit (and this would be very late if you're on the quarter system) doesn't have to get approved, but this puts the thing on record in case you decide to appeal the grade later. Effectively retroactively changing the grading metric is a good case for credit/no credit.

Diasgree....if the student wans a letter grade, they shouldn't have to accept credit/no credit because of this professor's arbitrary actions.

@cag51: Perhaps, but fighting for a fair letter grade is a lot more effort.

It might be more effort, but it's potentially career-determining, so...

@Equinox: Are you a native English speaker?

Yes, indeed I am.

@Equinox: I am having a really hard time projecting any scenario at all where the English writing grade of "credit" is career limiting for a native English speaker.

Are you familiar with the GPA system? Even one B can significantly reduce ones GPA, making a student less competitive for their plans regarding professional school.

@Equinox: That's the beauty of "credit". The units aren't used for GPA.

The school and the professor have the right to determine fairness in their institution. Outside opinions are mostly just opinions. If you dispute the professor, follow the school’s guidelines for academic appeals. Don’t be surprised if they support her side.

Sure, but I think this is a fair question -- OP is asking whether this policy would generally be considered fair, and what to do about it if not. It goes without saying that it's the school's opinion, not that of SE, that matters.

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Deciding on which equations to number
I’m writing a master’s thesis in theoretical and mathematical physics, specifically in general relativity.
To better organize the thesis, I’m using the well-known division in works in mathematics to organize important results in lemmas, propositions, theorems and corollaries.
Outside those blocks there are also equations relating to the overall discussion connecting the results.
I’m quite unsure about the equation numbering. I see several options:

I number all equations.
I number only the important ones which I’ll need later.
I number just the equations on the discussions and not those inside the proofs of the lemmas, propositions, theorems, corollaries, etc.

What are the pros and cons of these approaches?

Refer to Math StackExchange numbered question (2362196).

There is a nice functionality in TeX where you number all equations, but only those that you call back in a label are displayed. In this way, you don't have to worry about choosing which ones are important and need to be tagged: this is decided when you refer to them, which tautologically makes them relevant.

My two cents on the matter: only number the equations to which you refer later on (either by using the \equation environment or by using \tag on a normal equation). Don't refer to equations by writing (...) equation (n), but give your equations a \label and refer to that instead. Also, use the package hyperref (even better, cleverref), so that when you refer to equations you get clickable links in the compiled pdf.

(Maths/Engineering Copy Editor speaking.) Well, first, I advocate against these two solutions (see below for some reasoning):

Number all displayed equations.
Number only referenced equations.

So, the solution lies somewhere in between. The basic idea is that you do number:

All referenced equations (obviously).
All important equations. To measure this, I would say that an equation is important if the reason why you made it a displayed equation is to emphasize it.
Unreferenced equations "parallel" to a referenced ones. Imagine you have two similar equations in similar contexts in your work; then you should either number both or none.
Equations you "feel" (whatever it means) someone else might want to reference.

What you in general do not number:

Equations put on display for that they are too large.
Intermediate steps of computations.
Equations in abstracts.
You number a multiline equation only with one number.

Hope this helps. Almost-final words: Use your common sense. Final words: Be self-consistent.

Why I don't like all displays numbered:

It clutters the page if there are many equations. You also might number things that are basically one equation (think LaTeX's \intertext).
The numbering ceases to function as an emphasis.
If the equations are long or the columns narrow, it can eat up precious space.

Why I don't like only referenced equations numbered:

You don't allow anything else referenced than what you yourself decided to reference.

May I know why do you think the first two options are bad?

@JohnMa Neither of them makes sense. The first one for that if you put long computation on display for it's long, why does it deserve a number, whereas a similar computation elsewhere in the works does not. The second one for that you may number some and not number some of very similar equations, which is IMO inconsistent.

Abstract equations are rarely if ever "displayed," except possibly in mathematics.

@aeismail Yes, that's true.

I don't understand your reasons for thinking that numbering everything is bad. What does it mean for an equation to "deserve" a number? Are equations intrinsically "better" if they have one? You could argue that numbering everything removes the numbering as a signal for emphasis (I'm unclear whether that's what you're really saying), but frankly, it's not great at that job (and there's plenty of other, better, tools for that) and the loss of future referenceability can be more than enough to make up for that if you cared about the emphasis to begin with.

@E.P. Yes, equations (in my experience) tend to get more attention when numbered; the idea is that you think "ok this is probably important if it gets a number". In some sense, it's similar to changing a paragraph of comments into an official Remark or Note in a mathematical text. And yes, I'm trying to say that numbering put emphasis on the equations. Finally, note that I mention that if you believe an equation could be referenced in the future, it should get a number.

Also, note that you draw the line between numbering and not numbering somewhere too as you decide ("somehow", "who knows how") which equations to put on display, and the ones that are left inline are obviously not numbered.

Generally speaking, a reviewer can have to refer to any equation in a thesis or a paper, to point out mistakes or make comments. So, I really don't understand the point of numbering only certain equations. I would surely consider this option for, e.g., a book, but not for a thesis.

@MassimoOrtolano But a reviewer can have to refer to anything in a paper, not just displayed equations. This is normally done using line numbers - many journals helpfully send out review versions with line numbers down the side.

@EspeciallyLime Yes, but in a thesis you usually don't put line numbers. And even when you can refer to equations with line numbers, as a reviewer, I really prefer to have the possibility to refer to equation numbers.

@MassimoOrtolano it's a little easier, true, but even as a reviewer I think equation numbers in papers should be for the benefit of the readers rather than the reviewers. In the case of a thesis, where often the readers are the reviewers, it makes sense to do things differently.

@MassimoOrtolano: If there were such a dire need for regular points of reference in theses, all those fields without many equations would have invented one long ago.

@Wrzlprmft It's not that there is a dire need for it, but it's useful and it has little to no drawbacks. Many journals, in fact, require it. Furthermore, it's done automatically by the typesetting system and this ensures consistency. Also numbering only referenced equations can be done automatically and consistently, but this answer proposes something that could easily lead to inconsistencies, especially from inexperienced writers, like the average master's student. So, yes, I'm all in favour of numbering all the equations.

@MassimoOrtolano Whenever I reviewed a degree project myself, I asked for a PDF, and if needed, I added the line numbers myself and sent the numbered PDF back for the student to have a reference. I mean, you as the reviewer are just a part of the writing process, in a sense, not the consumer of the final product. (And I know, you might say that the reviewer is likely the only person to ever read the thesis, but that's not the point, is it?)

For a master's thesis, and particularly if it's a field that you will continue to work in at PhD level or elsewhere, I would make the case that you should number all the equations.
For my MRes dissertation, I attempted to take the middle road described in yo's answer, and I only numbered the equations that I thought at the time were more important. (It's available here if you want to see the balance for yourself.) As I moved into my PhD in the same field, though, and as I used that dissertation as a reference work for both journal publications and my later PhD thesis, but most often in my personal notes as I developed those ideas further, I very often found that I wanted to reference equations that I hadn't thought important enough to number at the time, so my notes are full of references to "the second equation between 3.18 and 3.19" in the dissertation.
Frankly, I just don't see any reason to think that numbering too many equations is a bad thing. What are the actual downsides?

That the page looks cluttered? Then it's most likely a problem with intrusive typesetting.
That it looks like you're emphasizing equations that are unimportant? That just stems from the misconception that numbering must always convey emphasis; it can do that if you so choose, but it doesn't need to.
That the numbers get too big? That's not actually a problem.
That it's slightly inconsistent in which equations get numbers (as opposed to shorter calculations that can be done inline)? It is indeed inconsistent, which comes from the fact that some equations are shorter and some are longer, and if you remove the association between numbering and emphasis by being consistent with the former, the claimed "inconsistency" ceases to be a problem.
That you still don't have ways to reference the inline calculations? You don't, but your chances of being able to pinpoint a paragraph as the one above eq. N.nn still increase.

Now, I do see the case that if you're encapsulating material inside theorems or, particularly, their proofs, they do become isolated to a higher degree, and it need not make a lot of sense to number everything in the proof of a minor lemma if it's never going to be referenced in print from outside that proof. However, depending on the ways you're going to use your thesis, you might e.g. want to improve that lemma, in which case your notes will thank you for the ability to reference the proof they're improving on.
This is obviously a matter of taste, though, and it's all subjective, but do give a thought to your future self when taking that decision.

That the page looks cluttered? Then it's most likely a problem with intrusive typesetting. – You cannot really blame this on typesetting. As the entire point of equation numbers is being referenced, you have to be able to quickly browse through them. This is only possible if are somewhat optically prominent. Being optically prominent on the other hand means that they are disturbing when you do not care about them right now (e.g., for normal reading).

@Wrzlprmft Sure, and there's some give-and-take there. Numbering everything can look (a bit) cluttered and that can be something that ought to be avoided. My core point is that a blanket ban on "clutter" as brought on by numbering everything isn't really warranted.

As you can see by the other answers, this is one of those topics, where opinions differ (and do so sometimes quite loudly). As you mention that you are writing your master thesis, you should also ask your advisor about personal preferences or which style is the norm in the sub-field. This might save you from having to redo everything in the end.
However instead of adding another personal opinion (which naturally differs from the others posted), a general remark:
In general, referencing formulas by number is distracting. These references tend to break the flow, as I need to stop reading and find the right formula, somewhere far away, probably even on a different page. (If it is directly above, do not reference it by number, write something like "the preceding formula". Even a short look back, just to see that it is right there can be annoying.)
I agree that those references are sometimes a necessary evil. Still, whenever you use one, try to think about if it is really needed. Sometimes it is just a symptom of a structural problem. If you need a lot of single references, your arguments might simply be badly ordered, as you seem to be not proving things at the point where they are needed. If you are referencing a single formula a lot, why is it just a formula and not a lemma or a definition?
If you still need to reference something, try to help the reader by making it easier to grasp. Some examples that come to mind:

Naming formulas: Often formulas are not only arrangements of symbols but have some underlying meaning or idea, which you can use as a short colloquial name. It does not have to be a global name that is established in literature, just something that helps to understand, remember and identify it. This does not replace the equation number but makes it more bearable. An example would be something like:

[...] From this we have now shown monotony:
(1.23)  a < b
[...]
Using the monotony (1.23) we have...

Warning the reader: If you are going to use a formula later on, tell the reader about it. If you tell me that you will need this estimate again in step five of the proof, I can be prepared and will be far more likely to remember it.
Referencing with location: If you really need a formula from three proofs ago, then don't just tell me its number, but that its from the proof of theorem so and so and ideally even from which part of the proof.
Repeating things: It is rarely done, however there is no law against repeating a formula. If you need to re-discus a formula from three chapters ago in detail, write it down again completely. Keep the number from before and tell me, where it is from, but if the complete next paragraph is about it, it really helps to have it written down in front of me.

Of course all of those can and sometimes should be combined as necessary.

While I agree that "referencing formulas by number is distracting", I think that kind of misses the point of the question. It's a good piece of advice for how to write text that may have to reference equations, but the question is more about how to write the equations themselves. And if you want to make the connection by arguing that one should leave equations unnumbered to block others from referencing them by number, I don't agree with that.

You might disagree, but as mentioned opinions differ widely on this. However if others need to reference one of my equations in another work (I'm excluding editing/refereeing work which needs to reference arbitrary lines of text anyway), the problems are exactly those I already mentioned. Either my work is structured badly, or their work is not really up to par. The former case indeed is my fault, but at least the latter case I can try to prevent by not giving them a point of attack. A parallel concept might be the idea of encapsulation in software, which has similar motivations.

Although this post does not really provide a clear answer to the question (and I agree with the first paragraph that this is field-dependent and should be agreed upon with the supervisor/advisor), it contains some really good advice on writing texts with formulas!

Number all the equations, important intermediate steps and final step.
That way it is easier for anyone to refer to exactly the one they want to discuss, including you.
So eq 1, then equ 1.1 as intermediate step etc.

Numbering all equations just in case it may happen that someone wants to discuss that equation is tantamount to people that prepare for the apocalypse or something of the sort.

@PedroTamaroff What's the actual downside here? Does the consistent numbering harm the text in some way? Or is the effort in using \begin{equation}\end{equation} consistently really that monumental?

(My experience is in pure mathematics.)
I'm going to take a different view to most: number only the equations you refer to.
The rationale for numbering anything else (other people, or you yourself in subsequent work, might want to refer to other equations) doesn't make sense to me. In the (IMO highly unlikely) case that you want to refer to a specific equation in another work, it is a terrible idea to make the reader go away and look up what it says; you should always write out the equation in addition to giving the reference. Now it doesn't really matter whether the equation has a number; you can just write "we will use the equation [whatever it says], from [theorem, page or section reference] of [citation]" and readers will be able to find it easily if they want to check it.

I've written something like the following: "This lemma has almost been proven in [1]. Looking at page 13, the third equation, we can already see that $w < \infty$. Since the problem only appears when $w = \infty$, ...". Taking an formula in the middle of a technical proof and inserting it into another paper does not make much sense, either, and repeating the entire proof would be even more pointless.

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text:
Predatory publisher
I work on political ecology and I currently writing up my thesis. Inadvertently I sent around 3000 words to a conference on "tribals" in Kerala organised by a TISS professor with no address or landline. I withdrew the paper but fear misuse. How can I work on it for publication now?

I wouldn't worry about a predatory publisher until you encounter a predatory publisher. Assume good faith!

Do you suspect that the conference is fraudulent, or is it genuine and only the organising professor's contact details missing?
Reason being, TISS is a reputed institute and you shouldn't have difficulty in finding a faculty member's contact details. If you suspect the professor's name is being used fraudulently, you should bring that to his/her notice. If you do find an instance of misuse and want to fight it, having a respected witness will be helpful.
You should also keep a copy of the conference brochure, all communication with them, especially acknowledgement of abstract/paper receipt, withdrawal acceptance and so on. If you are in an academic institute, do consult your supervisor or a senior faculty member for more specific action.

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text:
Citing an URL using the Waybackmachine (web.archive.org)
I would like to quote the following quotation correctly:

Information is the oil of the 21st century and analytics is the internal combustion engine.

In other papers I found out that this quote was said by Peter Sondergaard in 2011 and as source a weblink to a Gartner press release is given: http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1824919. This link is no longer available. So I cannot use it to cite the quote.
But there is the web service "waybackmachine". It's an internet archive, so I can see here the state of the website from 2017, where this article is still available: https://web.archive.org/web/20170612085034/http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1824919
Is it okay then to use the archive link as the source for the quote? I would use it in bibtex in the following way:
@misc{gartner,
  title = {Gartner Says Worldwide Enterprise IT Spending to Reach \$2.7 Trillion in 2012},
  author = {Pettey, Christy},
  howpublished = {\url{https://web.archive.org/web/20170612085034/http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1824919}},
  note = {Accessed: 2020-04-29},
  year = {2011}
}

This should be fine, though editors get the final say. But since the web is volatile, it is pretty hard to cite a current page and hope that it will be there in a few years. The wayback machine was created for just this purpose.
Referencing potentially volatile information is always dangerous, and any such citation should be accompanied by the date the information was accessed, as you have done here. But the wayback machine (internet archive) is a series of snapshots that shouldn't change.
Even worse than online information disappearing, is that it can be changed outside your control, making information you relied on say quite different things.

And, for what it's worth, it is a good idea to donate a bit of money to such resources occasionally to help assure that they don't disappear for lack of support.

For donating to archive.org in particular: https://archive.org/donate/

One more comment: It's worth saving a snapshot of every site you're citing in the Internet Archive. The quickest way to do so is by prefixing the URL with "https://web.archive.org/save/" -- for example, https://web.archive.org/save/https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/148422/citing-an-url-using-the-waybackmachine-web-archive-org .

I think I have seen something like " Accessed: 2020-04-29. Available at: https://web.archive.org/..." which perhaps makes it easier for the reader to spot where the information originally was distributed.

It seems fine to cite a document from archive.org.
Additionally, a 'best practice'-approach would generate PDFs (or another kind of snapshot that "freezes" the "liquid" content of the web) and to store them into an accessible dataset (like Dataverse) so that potential readers could access them in case they are interested.
[This is an idea mentioned in Karlsson/Sjøvaag (2015) "Content Analysis and Online News: Epistemologies of Analysing the Ephemeral Web", Digital Journalism 4(1), 177-192.]


text:
What are alternatives to Journal of Theoretical Biology?
I am considering joining the recent boycott of Elsevier, however I work with biologists on theoretical/mathematical biology (in particular, evolutionary game theory and population biology). However, It seems like Journal of Theoretical Biology  is the premier journal for technical work in this field, and my co-authors often suggest it.
What are some (preferably, open-access) alternatives to JTB?

+1 for introducing me to the concept, I must have been completely buried in my own work to have missed the severity of the situation and boycott.

You should consider posting your manuscript to arXiv's quantitative biology section regardless of where you publish.  This will ensure timely dissemination and perpetual open-access for the preprint. You can (and should!) update the document with any changes you make during peer review, but before the journal begins its editing process.

@MikeMcCoy you could even go one step further and post to bioRxiv.

Looking for a variety of journals is great, but be careful not to compromise on journal quality and reputation to follow a political trend.

Since your work is in game theory and population biology, do not forget Springer's
Journal of Theoretical Ecology. It's a newer journal (started in 2008) but already has an impact factor close to JTB, and has an open access option. Alan Hastings is the Editor in Chief of this journal (you'd have a hard time finding a more prominent figure in Theoretical Biology than him).
Unfortunately most journals in the subject don't have open access options (e.g. Mathematical Biosciences, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, Ecological Modeling, Journal of Theoretical Population Biology, Journal of Theoretical Biology)
Also don't forget Bio Journals, you can stick the more advanced math and proofs in an appendix, and often your work will get more exposure in these journals. I know Proceedings of the Royal Society Part B, the American Naturalist, Journal of Applied Ecology and PLoS BIO all have open access options and take modeling papers as long as the results are interesting from a biological perspective and aren't just a cool model that was fun to explore (a good intro and discussion is key for these journals as they all have very high impact factors).
If you prove things in your work also consider applied math journals like Nonlinear Dynamics (Springer) which has an open access option.

Ecosphere is a recent online only, open access Journal put out by the Ecological Society of America. It was started in 2010, so it doesn't even have an impact factor yet, but most ESA journals have impact factors above 4. This seems like another potential option for the future http://esapubs.org/esapubs/journals/ecosphere.htm.

There are quite a few journals where you can publish theoretical work in this area. Here are a few suggestions (the distinction is based on my perception and knowledge of what they've published, I'll let others chip in if they disagree):
For more theoretical work:

The IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics (TCBB).
The Journal of Computational Biology.
The Journal of Mathematical Biology.
The Bulletin of Mathematical Biology

For more applied work:

Bioinformatics.
BMC Bioinformatics. (open access)
Algorithms for Molecular Biology. (open access)
PLoS Computational Biology. (open access)

This is not exhaustive of course, and I suggest you discuss these "candidates" with your collaborators.
EDIT: I marked some of them "open access" because they advertise(d) so. This does not mean that the others do not offer that option, you'll have to check.

these sound great for algorithms work, do you have any suggestions evolutionary game theory and population biology? (I think JMB is fine for that, but it would not be in scope for the rest).

Not off the top of my head unfortunately. I'll edit the above if suggestions come to my mind.

okay, I will +1 but won't mark as accepted for now. Thank you for the feedback!

You can consider BMC Evolutionary Biology and PLoS ONE for game theoretical studies. Unfortunately both are open access, which means there is a hefty fee involved.

If you reread the question you'll see that Open Access is not an unfortunate problem instead a rather desired feature.

Another good option is "Theoretical Biology and Medical Modeling", here.


text:
University rank/stature - How much does it affect one's career post-Ph.D?
What I'm trying to understand is, to what degree does the status/rank of the University (where one completes his/her Ph.D) matter while shaping his/her career after graduation? I would like to know the weight given to one's school in both the following cases:

While applying for post-docs/faculty positions in academia
While applying to industrial research labs

For instance, I've read on some forums (I can't locate the link now) that while considering prospective applications for tenure-track faculty positions, very few Universities accept a candidate who has completed his/her Ph.D from a lower ranked school having a lesser "brand" value, irrespective of the fact whether he/she has published equally original work as his/her counterpart from an Ivy league college. How much truth is in this statement? It would be really great if someone already in academia, either as a newly-accepted faculty or someone on the Faculty Hiring committee could share their experiences/statistics on this regard. I'm simply interested to know the answer, without commenting at all on whether such a practice is justifiable.
Similarly, what about recruitment to internationally acclaimed research labs (like IBM T.J.Watson lab or Microsoft research lab) - what importance do they place on the pedigree of a candidate's college, before taking into consideration what they published ?
I'm personally interested in answers related to the field of Computer Science (theory), but the question is applicable to any prospective grad student in any discipline in my opinion. Feel free to share your personal experiences post-Ph.D in detail, as that would give me (and future viewers of this question) about what its like to carve a career once you are out of school!

Let me answer as a theoretical computer scientist with former PhD students in tenure-track academic positions and many years of experience on faculty hiring committees.  (However, my understanding is that the selection process at industrial research labs like IBM T.J. Watson, Microsoft Research, Google Research, AT&T Research, etc., is really not that different from academic recruiting.)  As always, take my advice with a grain of salt; I'm as guilty of confirmation bias as any other human being.
Nobody in theoretical computer science cares where you got your degree.  Really.  We.  Do.  Not.  Care.  We only care about the quality and visibility of your results.  Publish strong papers and give brilliant talks at top conferences.  Convince well-known active researchers to write letters raving about your work.  Make a good product and get superstars to sell it for you.  Do all that, and we'll definitely want to hire you, no matter where you got your degree.  On the other hand, without a strong and visible research record, independent from your advisor, you are much less likely to get a good academic job, no matter where you got your degree.
(This is less true in more applied areas of CS, in my experience, mostly because it's significantly harder for PhD students in those areas to work independently from their advisors.)
But.  Faculty candidates are necessarily judged by people who are not experts in their field.  Without the expertise to judge whether your work is really good, those people must look at secondary data that correlate strongly with successful researchers.  One of those secondary characteristics is "pedigree".  Did you get your degree at MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, CMU, another top-10 department, or somewhere else?  (What's an "Ivy League"?)  How good/famous is your advisor?  If they're really paying attention: Where did your advisor's other PhD students get jobs, and how well are they doing now?
Fortunately, most good departments do make a serious effort to understand the quality and impact of applicants' results, instead of relying only on secondary data.  Also, secondary data matters considerably less once you actually have an interview.
And. In my experience, where you get your degree is strongly correlated with successful research.  I got my Master's degree at UC Irvine in 1992 and my PhD at UC Berkeley in 1996.  The biggest difference I saw between the two departments was the graduate-student research culture.  Every theory student at Berkeley regularly produced good results and published them at top conferences.  When the FOCS deadline rolled around each year, the question I heard in the hallways from other students was not "You know the deadline is coming up?" or "Are you submitting anything?" but "What are you submitting?", because "nothing" was the least likely answer.  Everyone simply assumed that if you were there, you were ready and able to do publishable research.  Publishing a paper wasn't exceptional, it was just what you did.  That cloud of free-floating confidence/arrogance had a huge impact on my own development as a researcher.  I've seen similar research cultures at a few other top CS departments, especially MIT, Stanford, and CMU.  (Caveat: This is an incomplete list, and there are many departments that I've never visited.)
tl;dr: Yes, getting a PhD from a top department definitely helps, but more by helping you become a better researcher than by making you look better on paper.

Btw, I need to ask for a clarification - what did you mean about having a good research track record "independent from your adviser", when you've just completed your Ph.D and are looking for post-doc/faculty/industry jobs ? I don't think anyone publishes without his/her adviser as a co-author before completing Ph.D, do they?

Actually, lots of theory PhD students do publish without their advisors; I consider it an iron-clad graduation requirement for my own PhD students.  Without at least one independent publication, people will generally think of joint work with your advisor as your advisor's results.  With even one independent publication, people are suddenly much more willing to give you credit for your work, including joint work with your advisor.  (I've seen this effect up close and personal, both as a student and as an advisor.)

Well, is such a liberal attitude common amongst academics in US - since the adviser is investing effort in such a work either directly or indirectly, but not getting the credit due for it?

This gets into standards of co-authorship, which vary significantly across fields.  The standard assumption in theoretical computer science is that every co-author must make a substantial intellectual contribution to the paper; merely funding the research is not enough.  This is not the standard assumption in other research communities.

(I quite happily report the results of my students' independent research in my reports to grant agencies, even when my name isn't on the paper.)

That makes sense - it ensures both the adviser and student benefit in the areas that would help them the most from their viewpoint!

+1 for the culture observations. The sincere belief in your own potential to be a rockstar, shored up by peers and faculty, is a powerful thing.

@JeffE - Do you feel like you have achieved that same cloud of confidence/arrogance among the theory students at UIUC?  If so, what are a few of the key factors that contributed to it?  If not, can you hypothesize why not?

@DanC: We're getting closer, but we're not there yet.

@JeffE What does it take to get there? I mean how those places achieved that cloud in the 1st place?

@user1547 I don't know, but here are my guesses.  (1) A relentless commitment (backed by physical, human, and monetary resources) to finding, cultivating,  rewarding, and promoting excellence, at every level of the institution (research group, department, college, and campus).  (2) Decades of cultural inertia.

maybe because of the "arrogance" number of crap papers is increasing exponentially every year...

My advisor 's pedigree was good but his ideas just don't sell, pedigree is really not a good selecting factor then.

@JeffE I know that it's a rather late comment to your answer, but do you suggest/believe that it is as hard/easy to get "good papers" (what that means is a whole different question) out is independent of your affiliations?

@posdef Not quite.  I think it is easier to publish "good" papers when one is surrounded by other people who are regularly publishing "good" papers, even without any direct collaboration.  Intellectual atmosphere is important.  Researchers are apes; we do apey things.

+1 Great answer i really feel motivated after reading this answer

@JeffE I upvoted your answer, but unfortunately, it's not true in the majority of Asian countries. For example, in Korea/China/Japan they really care about the rank of the university. Rather I will say it is the highest priority criteria.

The short answer is that it can matter fairly significantly in where you get your post-doctoral fellowship and eventual professorship, and it will matter very significantly if you choose to follow a career outside of academia.
When looking for a job in academia, potential employers will look at many factors, including publication record, research success, research track, who your advisor was, etc. The school is important but other factors are involved.
When looking for a job outside of academia, they will look at your GPA and the name of the university from which you graduated. In this case, your university could easily be a "make it or break it" part of the deal.

eykanal, your answer sounds sensible. However, (by any chance) could you back it with any references?

@PiotrMigdal - I'm not certain what type of references you'd like. While it's possible someone has done research on this topic, it's likely to vary from region to region (e.g., Asians place more weight on the University ranking than do Americans) and from subfield to subfield (e.g., publications may weight more heavily when applying to be an Intel researcher as opposed to a financial analyst). There's no definitive source I'm aware of.

I suspect that this sort of answer will represent a problem for this SE.  This isn't a factual answer, it's an opinion, and more to the point, the opinion may vary wildly from region to region and specialty to specialty.  I think that we'll need some way to flag answers and questions as being more opinion based and less fact based than what might otherwise be acceptable.  On other SE sites you can flag a question because it's not actually a question, but here the problem is reversed, there is a question, but the answer isn't the answer, it's an answer.

@OldTroll - I completely agree with you, and I think that for this SE this will be a real problem. I'm bringing this discussion to Meta... please chime in there!

@eykanal The answer in the for 'as it is' is IMHO fine and it is very good that you provided it. Just if there is any supporting data (even soft, e.g. a journal article or a blog post by a company owner) it may reinforce it.

I realize this has been around a long time, but I have a few references to back up at least where a degree was obtained appears to effect long-term career placement within academia: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/1/e1400005.short And as it relates to funding, institution appears to matter as well: http://www.pnas.org/content/112/48/14760.abstract

The larger the workplace, and the more applicants they're responsible for screening, the more important a role the academic pedigree will end up playing. A small business with a handful of applicants—or a professor hiring a single postdoc—probably doesn't need to screen out candidates as efficiently or as ruthlessly as someone that gets dozens or hundreds of applications for an opening.
To point out specific data points, my previous employer had a "preferred" list of schools for its technical hires; if you went to a school that wasn't on the list, it was a lot harder to get hired, and some hiring managers wouldn't even try to go through the work needed to get around this ruling. In some cases, this even applied to people who had been out of school for decades!
So, your pedigree is almost never a disadvantage; and as I have been told by many an academic, it can be of enormous benefit to you, particularly if you make the most of your opportunities at a big-name school.

In my experience, when looking for a job outside of Academia it's only that first job where your school really matters. Even in that case, it's just the most recent school, or post-doc position, or fellowship, or... that makes the difference. As your career progresses after your first job your more recent activities and experience outweigh earlier schooling.

That makes sense, though I wasn't sure whether that would apply in academia as well!

this is especially true because sometimes people did their PhD in something unrelated.

Sadly, it appears to matter a lot. Because academics are very prestige- and status-oriented, they will ask themselves, "Why should I pick someone from a lower-ranked school when we can get someone from an 'elite' university where the letter writers are all famous?"


text:
As a computational chemist, which online resources are available for Ph.D. level jobs?
Which online resources are available for job search at the Ph.D. level in the computational chemistry field?

Do you mean in private industry or in an instructional capacity?  I suspect that these answers will vary wildly based on geographic region(s) your interested in, so it'd be nice to have that information.

One of the best resources for jobs in computational chemistry (not limited to PhD level positions) is the job section of the Computational Chemistry List.
Another place where I've regularly seen relevant postings is the "Computational Chemists" group on LinkedIn.

If you are based in Europe, or would consider a position in Europe, I strongly recommend the CCP5 mailing-lists for this purpose. I also second the advice about the Computational Chemistry List, these are the two places I post job openings for my own group.
In the UK, all academic positions open are posted to jobs.ac.uk, making it really invaluable for job search.
Finally, some journals have a job listings section as well, such as Nature jobs, Science Careers. The learned society of your field might also have job listing, as e.g. the Royal Society of Chemistry or the ACS’s Chemistry jobs listing.


text:
English certifications: which ones are recognized overseas?
In the European Union we have a "Common European Framework of Reference for Languages". In practice all language certification programmes have one of those levels associated to them (ranging from A1, the most basic, to C2, the most advanced), so that it is possible to establish equivalences between common tests. This allows me to, say, determine if my A in the (life-time valid) FCE exam is worth more or less than a 8.0 in the (short-lived) IELTS exam.
This however doesn't help the student that wants to have an exchange program outside the European Union. I heave heard rumours that, e.g., the Cambridge exams in English aren't accepted in the states, but that could very well be FUD.
What are the most universally accepted certifications in English?

AFAIK, the IELTS is accepted mostly in australia and new-zealand.

I was accepted for a PhD in Ireland based on the level of English I displayed in a phone interview being deemed acceptable by my then to-be supervisor. The message is that in many places a working knowledge of English will be sufficient, with no need for certificates.

As always, it helps to be specific:
- what kind of exchange program?
- what is oversea? USA? Canada? Japan?
In the US for a PhD program generally TOEFL and GRE is required, and most cases cannot exchanged to other certificates. I don't know Master programs, but I would assume similar or same certificates are required. Since exchange programs are much more limited, and I saw a really wide range of people doing them, I am pretty sure that there are programs that do not require any certificates or very flexible.
In Far-East the universities are generally more flexible. Beside TOEFL, TOEIC is also a popular English test, but many have heard about IELTS, too.


text:
Is there a web service that receives a reference and returns the impact factor?
Is there a web service that I can send a bibtex entry and receive an impact factor?
e.g.
http://magicalsite.com/query.php?json={MY_BIBTEX}

returns:
{
'IF':37.65
}

So I figured it out...
I use http://www.impactfactorsearch.com which is proposed in this answer.
Here's a quick and easy PHP script to get the impact factor of any journal:
<?php
$name        = "Applied Ocean Research"; //change to suit your needs
$journalName = urlencode($name);

$cmd      = "curl -s 'http://www.impactfactorsearch.com/test.php?json=true&input=$journalName'";
$result   = `$cmd`;
$ifObject = json_decode($result);

$levDistances = array();
if (isset($ifObject->results)) {
    if (is_array($ifObject->results) && (sizeof($ifObject->results) > 0)) {
        foreach ($ifObject->results as $journal) {
            $levDistances[$journal->value] = array(
                'score' => similar_text($journal->value, $journalName),
                'if' => $journal->id
            );
        }
        arsort($levDistances);
        $keys         = array_keys($levDistances);
        $impactFactor = doubleval($levDistances[$keys[0]]['if']);
        echo "journal: " . $name . "\n";
        echo "if: " . $impactFactor . "\n";
    }
}
?>

Papers do not have impact factors. Do you mean for a journal?

Yes, a journal. I'm keeping track of all the academics in my department. I have list of publications for each academic and we can see who is publishing and who isn't. Now I want to get the impact of each academic. It would be great if there was a web service.

The impact factor of the journals an individual publishes in does not in any way give you their individual "impact"

If you are looking at the impact of individuals, you should look into getting the h-index of the academic instead of the impact factor of his journals. Google Scholar is your friend here. (not saying this is a great idea, just answering the question)

@xLeitix Unfortunately google scholar doesn't have an API.

It's possible to get altmetrics.
You can use the crossref API to turn citations into DOIs.  You can then throw these DOIs at the impact story API to get back altmetrics (but not impact factor)

Usually, the best equipped and qualified people to do this kind of work are the university's librarians. Specifically, they typically subscribed to receive the latest impact factors in the form of a spreadsheet. You could obtain this data from your library and use it in the script you want.

If you have solved your question, you should add it as an answer rather than editing it in as an update to the question, so that it's easier for future readers to identify as an answer. (And note that you can accept your own answer)

Note that the database of the site you mention is 'reverse generated' from information gathered on the web. It is also incomplete (several of the good journals in my field are not listed).

So what good journal isn't listed then?

I recommend you to search the publisher of the impact factor's website which indexes the journals or even the journal's websites themselves in which their IF is written. However, if I want to answer your question; I found one website which may help you the way you want to search for impact factors.
I searched over the net and only found Impact Factor Search website in which you have to enter the journal's full title (seems simpler than uploading the bibtex information) and by clicking on the provided link, a search list will appear to you. You then have to choose the name of the journal you want to get information about and in the output's window you will have the following information:
JOURNAL NAME:

ABBREVIATION:

IMPACT FACTOR 2013:

The website currently prints the most up-to-date IF, for the year 2013, and is ready to support IF for the year 2014 too as the latest data become available .

ImpactFactorSeach.com is now squatted, no use at all unfortunately

@DuncanMcGregor So bad... I remember that at the time I was writing this answer, the website was working perfectly with a very nice graphical design and good functionality.


text:
Splitting conference expenses between authors
Suppose I submit a paper with a co-author to an expensive computer science conference, and we agree to split the expenses between us. How can it be done, from a bureaucratic perspective?
Suppose it is agreed that author A will fly to present the paper in the conference, while author B will remain at home.
One way to split the fees is that author A pays his lodging and flight fees, while author B pays the registration fees. The problem is, most research funds do not let a person pay for another person - author B will not be able to get reimbursement for the registration of author A.
Another option is that author B will register to the conference and get reimbursement, and then ask the conference staff to rename the registration ticket to the name of author A. However, the conference staff might refuse, and additionally, the research fund might view this as cheating (IMHO it is not cheating - it is just a fair way to split the fees - but the fund might think otherwise).
Are there other options?

Are authors A and B at the same institute? If so, then the institute will perhaps allow this.

No, they are indifferent institutes. In some cases, even different countries.

I know that in some conferences it was possible to get an invoice (next to registration ticket) without person name, but with an institution name who pays it or who will reimburse. So it may be worth to ask to get invoice with name of institution B and without name of author A (or with name of author B). Then institution B can reimburse the invoice.

@ErelSegal-Halevi Perhaps author A can award author B an honorary title (e.g., visiting researcher) and then pay for author B as a colleague at the same institute.

@user2768 I do not think it can be done by a simple faculty member...

@ErelSegal-Halevi A simple faculty member can propose the idea and it can be actioned elsewhere. Visiting researchers are very common, so the process should be straightforward.

Creativity and asking the financially responsible person at both author A's and B's institutions about what is possible (maybe suggesting a few ideas) is key here. In fact there are a lot of options, and if the funding budgets at the two institutions have different regulations it may add flexibility for you to exploit. Some ideas are:

Author A travels to the conference, but in a (partial) mission for author B's institution, so the latter agrees to cover travel cost (lodging and flights). They might be able to buy tickets / reserve a hotel directly, or pay a reimbursement.
Author B's institution handles (and pays) the registration of Author A to the conference - with A's name of course! Or A gets a reimbursement for the registration fee from B's institution.
Author A gets a honorary into his own pocket from author B's institution for preparing and giving the presentation of author B's contribution to the paper, and pays part of the travel cost out of this own pocket (be careful with taxes etc., but if the honorary is not more than the personally covered cost I would hope it's not a problem in author A's legislation).
Author A's institution initially covers all cost, but since it's also partially done for Author B's institution, they issue a bill with the previously agreed contribution.

Universities as well as research institutes should generally have a process for reimbursing someone not employed at the place - it's needed for all sorts of things from academic guest speakers to people participating as test subjects in research projects.


text:
What are the advantages and disadvantages of making the review content public?
In websites such as publons, reviewers can declare that they reviewed papers for some journals. In addition, they are encouraged to upload the full text of their review.
On one hand, the review content might be useful for readers of the paper: it contains ideas and perspectivese that are often not visible in the final manuscript.
On the other hand, if the review content is made public, the author will know exactly who the reviewer is, which apparently harms the blind-review process.
Are there any other advantages/disadvantages to publishing review contents publicly?

I am not sure what your question is. Your title says that you are interested in whether it breaches, but in the question body you already accept that it breaches and ask for problems beyond that.

@Wrzlprmft I edited the title

"harms the blind-review process": if the review process is blind, then probably the reviews should not be published, but what if the review process is open by design? There are a few journals and some conferences that adopt an open review process where all reviews are published, and reviewers explicitly agree to this process. Reviewers can sign their reviews (provide their names) or not as they want, though.

I believe that there are many sides to this, but overall I think that the "sanctity" of blind review should be maintained. In either case, I think that at most, one can allow access to the review content, but not reveal the identities of the reviewers, nor the review scores.
While it is true that one can sometimes guess a reviewer's identity from the content of the reviews, I think that this is not an issue because

It's still a guess, and more importantly
If your review potentially reveals your identity (say by you unnecessarily suggesting all of your papers as ones that should be cited), then it's a bad review, and the practice should be discouraged.

Review scores are often useful to weed out clear accepts and clear rejects, but become really hazy when talking about borderline cases (see further comments below).
Having gotten that out of the way -
Pros of publishing reviews:

It encourages more careful reviews: if I know that my reviews will be public I'm encouraged to make sure that they're more careful.
It discourages abusive and unprofessional language in reviews. Ad hominem attacks in reviews do happen, and are a bad practice.
It encourages editors/program chairs to select reviewers who do a good job. I've seen reviewers submitting a single paragraph; this is not ok.

Cons of publishing reviews:

It encourages reviewers hold back and not write scathing/overly gushing reviews even if they truly feel strongly about the paper.
It may render papers less readable, as authors would rely on the reviews to clarify what they should have (as Buffy mentions)
Reviewers will worry about their identity being compromised, and thus early career researchers may not want to review at all/write very positive reviews.
It may cause community dissent: interdisciplinary communities host several small sub-communities, each with its own publication norms and acceptance thresholds. This is already a major issue, that will be further exacerbated by revealing reviews (this may be a pro, not entirely decided!).

I think that one of the main reasons I'm against revealing reviews is because the review process, unfortunately, involves a lot of random luck. As the NIPS experiment shows, PCs can widely disagree on a lot of papers. It is important to note that there is general agreement on what are very bad papers and very good papers, but a significant chunk of them are borderline cases that could swing either way. I think that showing the reviews for borderline cases might be a bad idea, as it would cause a lot of dissent in the community ("why did my paper, with one weak reject, one weak accept and one accept, got rejected but my paper with better scores got accepted?"). I think that the "clear accept" papers can be easily listed with their reviews; the others? Not so sure...
Overall, I think that presenting reviews might be good in some cases and should involve the informed consent of both the authors and all reviewers. However, I worry about it becoming a norm. Paraphrasing a bit, review decisions are like sausages: it's better not to see how they're made.

the author will know exactly who the reviewer is, which apparently harms the blind-review process.

To consider the advantages and disadvantages, I think it helps to understand the motivations behind the blinding. In the case of the author not knowing the reviewer's identity, the reason is to allow the reviewer to be frank. For example, if you're an Early-Career Researcher, you might not want a more senior researcher to know you criticised their work. By hiding your identity, some of the pressure to withhold criticism is removed.
Thus, to consider whether you'd want to make your review contents public, you should consider whether you would mind the author knowing your identity, and whether that would affect how well you can do your job as a reviewer.

I don't have a good solution/answer, but think the following should be considered.
If you ask different publishers whether publishing blind reviews is appropriate you will likely get different answers.
The timing of publishing such reviews surely matters. If you publish reviews after final resolution of the paper's fate, compromising the blind nature is probably moot. Neither the author(s) nor the reviewer can influence the other improperly.
Longer term, if the blind review process is undermined by (too early) publishing of reviews, something will be lost and games will be played that undermine the whole process. There are valid reasons for blind reviewing. Among other things, saying something bad about a paper's methodology or results will often, I think, be misinterpreted as saying something bad about the author(s). This could have very bad long-term consequences when people start to argue in public about things that should have been settled.
My personal view is that a paper should stand on its own, without the commentary of others. If it doesn't, then it isn't a very good paper, and those issues should have been settled during review and rewrite phases.
I wouldn't publish any review, but that is just a personal choice that I'm not yet willing to recommend to others. But if it is done, I'd suggest that it be with the knowledge and permission of all parties: reviewer, author(s), publisher.
On the other hand, I don't think there is any issue about someone who previously reviewed a paper commenting in public on the final version of the paper. You would certainly be permitted to do that had you not been a reviewer.

For what it is worth, there is an alternate process for improving papers that is used in the patterns community to improve patterns papers. It is called the Shepherding Process (warning: PDF). The paper at the link explains the process, expressed as a pattern language. The key element is that it is not blind reviewing, but a cooperative, iterative, process to improve the paper.

"If you publish reviews after final resolution of the paper's fate, compromising the blind nature is probably moot" - why is it moot? Suppose all reviews were made public after the paper is finally published. Wouldn't it create an atmosphere where reviewers are pushed towards writing too-positively in order to not alienate the authors?

Yes, that is true, but your question doesn't seem to ask that. I thought you are asking about whether an individual can publish his/her reviews, not whether all reviews should be published as a matter of course. Note my comments on undermining.

Since the new title of the question still leaves it a bit ambiguous, perhaps you should edit the body for clarity. I can update as needed.

Actually I asked about an individual. However, reading your answer, I was thinking that such individual decisions can create an unhealthy norm. If all my colleagues are publishing their reviews, then I might feel pressured to do the same. But I agree it is a separate question.

That's an interesting pdf,.very helpful to provide constructive criticism on papers. Makes me curious: what is the 'patterns community'?

As argued in Vincent's answer, anonymity of the reviewer is a good thing, at least in some cases.
It could be argued that making some reviews public already reveals information that harms the anonymity of all other peer reviewers: I know that prof. X would probably make his review public if he reviewed my paper, he did not, hence he is not the reviewer, and it's more likely that it's dr. Y instead. Bayes theorem and all the like. So, if we follow this argument, making any review public is harmful for the blind review process and should be avoided.


text:
How do I start a priority dispute?
I'm hoping to get advice on this issue. Here's a rough chronology:
A few years ago, I published a method on arXiv and presented it at a few conferences. I tried publishing the work in a journal, but it got stuck in the review process for over a year and eventually rejected. A couple years later, I published follow-up work in another journal. Shortly thereafter, a few well known authors published essentially the same method with some minor adjustments. They cited my journal article, but provided almost no context and listed it as one entry among other much less related work. Their previous work had cited my preprint, again without much context, so I suspect they were already familiar with my work and had not developed the method independently.
My advisor had suggested I move on, but this issue is driving me crazy. The other paper has received tons of citations and accelerating attention while my preprint and journal article are mostly ignored. The authors now have all this opportunity for collaboration and funding on the basis of the method, while I'm trying to get my foot in the door. How do I get credit?

I suggest you this challenge: why are these other authors well known? because they publish interesting things. Why are they are cited? because of the cumulation/inertia of previous works. It is not a one-shot thing: they provided interesting papersover the years. How this reflect on you? Simply: you can be one of them, your work is on par with their work (some disclaimers apply).
You have the proof that your ideas can be interesting. You are an unknown author, you published a pre-print and the big guns noticed it and cited it (or they were suggested at review to cite your work)? be happy!

I just want to add that just because they cited your earlier preprint doesn't mean for sure that they are fully aware of the extent of similarity between yall's articles, and are willfully sidelining you. It's also possible, and even likely, that they simply skimmed your article and weren't fully able to grasp the extent of the connection, as they were trying to quickly fill out the related work without expending too much effort. This doesn't make it right, but there's a saying about not imputing malice where incompetence suffices which has brought me much comfort.

I suspect they were already familiar with my work and had not developed the method independently. - At least in math, it's is quite common to figure something out, and only at the end discover that other people have already done (essentially) the same thing.  This is not a reason to not give proper attribution---I'm just saying independent discoveries are very common.

@EarlGrey The most important factor is pedigree. They went to fancy schools, had important mentors, and now have prestigious professorships. That's how academia works. That they produced good work in the meantime is incidental. Lots of people could have if given the opportunity. No, I won't be happy. I don't care what the "big guns" think. I want the spoils for my work.

@John Madden and Kimball I agree that this is possible, I only have the suspicion. To add a bit more context, my preprint was very short.

@EarlGrey It's fine they used the method in another paper and that it got traction because they published it and are well known. What's not fine is that they took credit for inventing the method. They should have cited me appropriately, i.e. something like, "we use the method develop in [my paper]."

There are several good responses, but I'd like to give you another perspective.
Such a situation is very upsetting, indeed. And it happens surprisingly often.
It may be that:

they have been independently working on this and were fired up by the appearance of your paper
they side-read your paper, forgot about it, then developed the idea again, and then found your paper again, as a "related work".
they intentionally subsumed your work and cited it (to avoid proper disputes, they cleanly cited it - as a form of plausible deniability)

We do not know which of these cases are true. You may have a hunch, but this is not a proof. There are places which have a preponderance to supersede existing work with their own - they do cite it, to be sure, but then inundate the market with their work to overwhelm the literature. Or, see point 2 above - this is something that - here, I borrow a term from Einstein - one could call "nostrification".
However, as described, they were at least careful to cite you - both your preprint and your main journal paper. It does not really sound like a proper case 2 or 3, or they would have tried to avoid citing you in the repeat publication and tried to refer to their old one. True, they did not exactly draw the attention to your work, and that's more than questionable. But, in my opinion, at this level it is not really actionable.
You were unlucky in that they got much more visibility; this does not only have to do with the better schools etc. It may have been the case with their better visibility throughout. Their prior work may have been so well known, that the readers preferred riding a new wave with them rather than with a unknown author (yes, you do not need to convince me that this is not how science should be done - hence, double-blind reviews; but once published, the name is there).
This is certainly not fair - but people are lazy; often, too lazy to try and find out where a piece of wisdom actually came from in the first place.
At the stage where you are, the question is: do you really want this dispute? Most of the time, priority disputes do not end well, often for both sides, sometimes from the side of the one raising it (who basically is a form of "whistleblower", even if on their own account). All people will remember will not be your paper, but your priority dispute.
That being said, there are exceptions; there are people who battle to be recognized, and end up being recognized. Still people will remember the battle and it may overshadow the scientific achievement.
At this stage, it becomes a meta-consideration.
If this result is so career-defining that you want to go all in and stake your whole reputation on it, then you could go for it.
Is this not the case, you can go for the indirect approach and just propagate your method intensely, present it and create awareness of it.
Finally, "if you can't beat them, join them". Maybe you could write to them in a friendly, or at least collegiate way. Sometimes, this is a way to make friends and find a collaboration with better known scientists.
And ultimately, if this research is behind you, however, and no longer a defining part of your career, you might be better served to altogether focus on the hot topics of your present and future activity and forget about it instead of wasting further time (and possibly reputation) on it. And this time round you will invest in promoting your upcoming strong results widely, so that that many people will know that these ideas come from you, before others pick them up and begin running with them.
All in all, and here I agree with the other responders, the case is far less clear-cut than many I have seen, and while you could pick a priority dispute, I think you should elevate yourself to the meta-level and decide on that meta-level what is the most important goal for you and balance it with the most likely positive outcome.
In the end, if you are a productive scientist, you can as well take the attitude "If they are happy with some crumbs of bread from my full-sized baguette, I can as well be generous." and many of the productive scientists I know have this attitude. And yes, that's even true if they are far more famous than you. After all, it shows that you are on the right track if they copy you.
TL;DR: In the end, it boils down to one thing: is this your only result of consequence and worth staking your career on it? Is it crucial to advance your career? Or is it one of many results and you expect to have a continuous series of results? Considered from this meta-perspective, this will inform your decision.
If, however, you take action purely as a matter of principle, this will dominate everything else in this matter, even your possibly important scientific result.

I left out some more recent context. They have written several additional papers since, all of which ignore my work, including one whose preprint cited my work, but whose published article does not. This is why I'm leaning towards your case 3. Thanks for the advice. I'm tempted to burn the whole thing down and switch fields over this, but I have some thinking to do.

@user1561984 That is indeed upsetting, my condolences. That being said, sleep over it and decide with cool head. Remember, the world does not thank its heroes. So, if you do it, you do it only for yourself. Nobody but you, and your true friends, and a few upright souls who hear of this, will care.

"Finally, 'if you can't beat them, join them'."  This is good advice.  The main result in my masters thesis appeared in another paper (using very different techniques) about a month before I defended.  I ended up not publishing a paper out of that work, because it seemed too similar to the other author's work.  However, I was able to collaborate with that author at a later date, which resulted in a pretty solid paper.  It's generally better (for everyone) to be a team player.  You might lose a priority dispute today, but you gain collaborators for the future.

@user1561984: That's why I hate academia. It is common to find reviewers who reject papers that are achieving something earlier than them, so that they can publish first and claim the credit.

@user21820 That depends on the field. I know that there are fields like that. In my field it is more along the line, I don't understand or this is not in fashion, therefore not interesting. A few years later, this is obvious. Annoying, but manageable, not all reviewers are like that.

It sounds like your work was cited and a work based on it has been more influential in part because the people involved are known.
That's kind of where it ends. I'd go with your advisor on this one. It's not entirely fair, but there's no court to win this battle in. You can present your role in places you communicate with people directly: in your own talks, in your resume and interviews, in submissions for funding (I disagree that the other authors have a monopoly on funding related to use of this method somehow).

Is there really nothing I can do? Even though they cited me, they took total credit for the method. That doesn't seem like an appropriate citation. I do understand that I can still use the method in proposals, but they have much more clout because the community believes them to be the original inventors and I will be competing against them.

@user1561984 I gave some mention of things you can do.

Your arXiv submission establishes priority for whatever you put in the submission before they published it.  There is nothing to dispute relating to priority.  You already have it.
Getting citations and attention is a poor indicator of quality.  There is nothing you can do about their citations and the attention they are getting.
Work to increase the visibility of your research.  Stop worrying about other peoples' citations.

This sounds like "sit down and take it." I agree that citations shouldn't be important, but in the real world, they make and break careers. Pretending otherwise isn't going to change anything.

@user1561984 Nobody is pretending citations aren't important. But getting further worked up over this won't help you -- on the contrary it will likely harm your career. And you should be aware that you are not blameless in this whole matter! It's likely that your competitors weren't aware of your work until late in their project. Had you seen to it that your work was published instead of only being on arxiv, the risk of that happening would have been lower. Hence this answers suggestion: Work on making your own research more visible, and stop obsession about their citations.

"Had you seen to it that your work was published instead of only being on arxiv, the risk of that happening would have been lower."  I do not believe any action the asker could have taken would have made a difference.

@fgp It's standard practice in my field to post on arXiv to establish priority while giving talks and pointing people to the preprint. Might not be true for yours. Quite a few responses are pretending like citations aren't important. Even yours implies that protecting my career is more important than trying to rectify this. Maybe my and the other authors' careers aren't important.

@Anonymous Physicist If I had someone famous enough in my author list, this wouldn't have happened.

@fgp OP responded in one of the comments to me that there are indications that the authors in question deliberately worked to obfuscate the source without formally violating the hard criteria of plagiarism. If that's true, the case is not as innocent as it appears. I have seen such attempts with a number of colleagues before, so I do not consider this scenario far-fetched. I agree, however, that it is very much a judgement call whether to go nuclear over that.

@user1561984 It's standard to use arXiv to establish precedence in my field, but it's not standard for multiple years to pass between posting a pre-print and publishing a paper. It still happens, or course -- has happened to me, inf act, but it's not standard, and it does risk your situation occuring. My friendly suggestion to you remains: Get over what has happened, and try to find ways to avoid it in the future. This will almost certainly benefit you more in the long term than going nuclear.

@AnonymousPhysicist We don't know that, do we? I'd say the risk of someone feeling that it's OK not to cite competing work that was discovered late in a project is much higher for a preprint than it is for a published paper. Whether that's what happened, or whether it was something more nefarious is anybody's guess.

You write:

They have written several additional papers since, all of which ignore
my work, including one whose preprint cited my work, but whose
published article does not.

If you insist on pursuing the matter further (I will not comment on whether this is a good idea or not), you can use that as your in.
You can contact them saying politely that you have noticed they do not cite your work and you feel that they should because blah blah. You can then use this as an opportunity / excuse to explain to them why you feel that the two methods are essentially the same and leave them to draw the appropriate conclusion without actually having to say it yourself.
Not being cited at all is a perfectly legitimate opportunity to contact other authors and it avoids the unpleasantness of having to explicitly say "yes, you did cite me, but I feel you are substantially downplaying my contribution here and overstating your own". Even if you believe that they did not act in good faith, communicate as if you believed that they did. If they did act in good faith, they deserve to be treated that way. If they didn't, this is a blunder that you can exploit to your advantage as it gives you a legitimate excuse (as long as you engage them in good faith rather than in an aggressive manner) to strongly imply that they should have given you more credit in the first place.
If you manage to do this without sounding entitled or aggrieved (even though you might justifiably feel that way), then there is some chance that this might work. That is, you either get what you want or you get better evidence that they are not acting in good faith (or, possibly, you can get an explanation of why their work is more novel than you give them credit for).
Edit: you may have your suspicions, but as far as I am concerned you are not entitled to say that they are acting in bad faith unless you have actually tried engaging with them reasonably and they refused to do so. Even if you are 99% certain, you owe them this, and it makes your case more credible.
Finally, you can take some solace in the fact that often these kinds of things do come to light eventually, i.e. people often do realize at some point that X.Y.'s result should really have been attributed to P.Q. instead.