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Is it acceptable / legal for students to photograph their professors during class?
Recently, I noticed a student taking a photo of me from her seat during class. I asked her while the class was working on groups if she indeed did do this and she confirmed, but downplayed her rationale but offered no real reason. I feel very uncomfortable with this as I did not give my consent and feel strongly I should have a voice in this action. I would never take a photo of any student without their permission/consent.
Did she behave break the law or etiquette?

In the reverse at least, student privacy laws may give them a right to not be photographed in your class.

Where in the world did this happen?

While this apparently doesn’t apply here, something I have experienced often is students photographing the blackboard (after asking for permission).

I vtc'd pending the jurisdiction in question, although I'm surprised two mods edited the question - which was only about breaking the law - to add in etiquette after a legal answer had already been given.

This depends on your local jurisdiction, of course, but typically she did not break the law. Once you are in a public place, your consent to being photographed isn't legally required anymore.
Typical example (New Zealand):

It is generally lawful to take photographs of people in public places without their consent. However, you must not film or take photos of people if they are in a place where they can expect privacy (such as a public changing area or toilet) and that person:

is naked, in underclothes, showering, toileting etc
is unaware of being filmed or photographed
has not given consent to be filmed or photographed.

You should not take photos of people if:

they are in a place where they would expect reasonable privacy and publication would be highly offensive to an objective and reasonable person
it has potential to stop other people's use and enjoyment of the same place
you have no legitimate reason for taking the film or photos.

However, you can take and/or publish photos or film of people where there is no expectation of privacy, such as a beach, shopping mall, park or other public place.

You are in a classroom, where there is probably no expectation of privacy (example for the US), so your student did not break the law. If you feel strongly about it, consider if you ever took photos at a tourist attraction, you could easily have taken a photo of someone in the background. If this were illegal, you would need to approach them and get their consent - something that is highly impractical.
That said: your local jurisdiction might have prohibitions against sharing the photo, even if it doesn't prohibit taking the photo. Example for Germany.

I think "you consent to being photographed" is slightly inaccurate, rather "your consent isn't legally required."

Thank you for this input. I appreciate your thoughtfulness and delineation of public vs. private facilities. Your response states "you should not take photos of people for: you have no legitimate reason for taking the film or photos." There was absolutely no legitimate reason. She offered nothing when I asked. […]

[…] For me, I suppose I feel I should have a choice in this. Would you ever pull out your camera in the middle of a class and take a pic of a student without their knowledge or consent? For me, it's a matter of respect. I should think I should have a say if I appear on someone's social media

It also depends on what she was planning to do with the photo. Several countries (at least in the EU, probably in more places - which country are you in?) additionally have something called 'portrait right' - even if you're allowed to take photos in public space, if the person is clearly identifiable, that person would still have the right to object to publication (including on the internet). This does not prohibit making photos in public spaces that would not get published, though.

This really depends, as you say. In Germany, you have a "right to control pictures of you" (Recht am Bild), unless you are a public person. An instructor could probably demand to take down any pictures taken of them during class.

In addition, I suspect that jurisdictions also differ in whether they consider a classroom a public space or a private space. You can make valid arguments either way, so the legal answer depends on the local laws.

It's not clear whether a university classroom presents a public place. From the examples in the text, this term sounds limited to places where everybody is free to move anytime, e.g., a marketplace or a public sports field. In such places, there might be particular privacy-sensitive areas, such as toilets and changing areas.

@lighthousekeeper a university classroom is "private" if it's a private university, in which case taking photos can be illegal if you are trespassing and the landowner asks you to leave. But even for a private university the student is clearly not trespassing (and the professor is clearly not the landowner). So, still legal.

@Allure My concern also applies to public universities. Arguably, not every room in a public institution's facilties is a public place (my office is hopefully not).

@lighthousekeeper you could make an argument that your office is not a public place, but a classroom? I would like to see why you think it's not obvious a classroom is a public place.

@Allure I would define public as "open to the general public", which does not apply to a classroom - under normal circumstances, only staff members and currently-enrolled students have a business of being there.

@lighthousekeeper only staff members and currently-enrolled students have a business of being there Really? In many classes I've attended, anyone can "kibitz" if they want to; it's just a matter of walking in. You could say they have no business being there, but they are allowed to be there as long as they don't cause a disturbance - I imagine this is especially the case in countries where tertiary education is free.

@henning the student in the example isn't sharing the photo though, only taking them.

@user153249 "should not" is not the same as "must not" - it's silly for a student to take a photo of an instructor who's clearly said they don't want to be photographed, so the student "should not" do it - but they still can if they're foolhardy enough. As for appear on someone's social media, that's something else, there are different laws that apply to sharing photos (see comment by henning above). For that you'll have to add more details to the OP, I'm afraid.

@lighthousekeeper some Googling (search phrase "reasonable expectation of privacy classroom") landed on these two pages https://www.edlawyer.com/eblackboard/2015/6/26/courts-clarify-privacy-rights-in-the-classroom and https://news.schoolsdo.org/2017/09/no-reasonable-expectation-of-privacy-in-a-classroom/ clearly establishing that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy in a classroom. I can edit it into the answer if you like, although I am still quite surprised it's a contentious statement.

@Allure Alright, then in that particular jurisdiction in the US, a classroom counts as public place (and editing that into the answer would improve it). In the countries I'm more familiar with, which are in Europe, kibitzing might be tolerated, but that's a different question of whether it's formally OK. For the universities where I found information online, they generally allow it for some but not all course sessions, and sometimes only after a special registration. So it's still not clear if the lecture hall itself counts as a public place.

@Allure those links are US cases. The whole world is not like the US. I am no lawyer, but I suspect that question would have a very different answer in Germany. So that is why it is controversial.

A space can be 'public' in the sense of not expecting privacy, while still not being 'public' in the sense that just anyone can walk in there.

Are you sure the pictures were of you and not your lecture notes on the board behind them?


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How much does collaboration matter for theoretical research output in mathematics?
I'm particularly interested in the condition in mathematics. In this post, I find that the average number of authors for a mathematics paper is less than three. This suggests to me that, most of the time, new mathematics does not originate from a large group working hard on the topic.  Similar case for other theoretical subjects, with philosophy being 91% sole author.
At the same time, I notice there is a growing consensus of opinion that science is tending to the collaborative side nowadays; however, this data suggests the opposite. Maybe I am missing something, so I ask: are there any benefits from networking and getting contacts for researching in mathematics?

I would not expect there to be a lot of commonality between math, physics, and economics.  (And since when is economics considered a "hard science"?)

FYI, many-authored mathematics papers used to be extremely rare -- 5 or more authors virtually non-existent more than about 3 decades ago, and only in the last couple of decades or so did more than one author become fairly common. My guess is that the main driving force behind this in math is NOT the same as in other sciences (e.g. groups working in labs requiring significant funding and people with various expertise), but instead due to the rise in the easy and rapid means for communicating (e.g. email, perhaps better for math communication than telephone) and sharing of digital manuscripts.

If I understand you correctly, you are contrasting the value of a quantity (“the average number of authors for a mathematics paper is less than three”) with its temporal derivative (“there is a growing consensus of opinion that science is tending to the collaborative side nowadays“). I see no contradiction here.

It is also worth noting that authorship in pure mathematics is subject to stronger criteria than in other fields.

Bear in mind that you can get your name on a science/engineering paper and contribute relatively little to it (I published a paper with three co-authors even though two of them contributed almost nothing).

@Buzz Economics falls under "social sciences". ;)

At the extremes (which doesn't prove anything about averages) you have extremely-collaborative and extremely productive Erdős, AND people who work alone for significant yet prove deep results like Grigori Perelman.  (It's notable though that he rejected a huge prize because in his view Hamilton's contribution was equal, suggesting that "simultaneous co-authorship on same paper" is not that only kind of collaboration that matters.)

I am quite sure when people say sciences are collaborative they don't think about pure math. In fact, I've seen UK universities put math in the humanities departments.... They often mean applied science (not in the applied math sense, but in the engineering sense), which I find mostly true. Check the number of authors in IEEE or IOP (non math) journals, for example. Its rare to have less than 4

See also Terry Tao's speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elWIDVI6b18&ab_channel=Breakthrough --- mathematicians are increasingly interested in collaborations, sometimes even quite large ones, with the most extreme examples being the Polymath projects (spearheaded most notably by Timothy Gowers and Terry Tao)

There is nothing inconsistent between collaboration being (very) important and it happening only or primarily in very small groups.
Mathematics isn't like particle physics. You don't need billion dollar accelerators, with a huge support staff. Paper and pencil will do, though a good library also helps a lot.
The size of collaboration groups in math is increasing a bit, I surmise, because it is easier now to communicate. I grew up in a time when postal mail and travel/visiting were the only viable options. Now we have the internet. And before my time international mail was very slow and unreliable. I've collaborated with people from four continents, actually.
A lot (most?) of math collaboration is face to face around a table. Often it happens in a coffee lounge in a university department. A whiteboard to sketch out ideas, perhaps. But a lot is just a couple of people sitting down and one mentions an idea they have and the other makes some suggestion about how it might play out. This is much harder in a large group. Even at a conference, if someone brings up an idea to a large audience, the most likely thing is that one or two people will approach the speaker afterwards to share "thought". It doesn't become a large group "huddle". The coffee table might now be a zoom screen, of course, but still only a few people for the most part.
This is, I think, driven by the intensely internal nature of pure mathematics. I wouldn't predict that math would ever be done in a group of hundreds (thousands) as happens at CERN, for example.
Another factor is that it is harder, I think, in math to "divide up the work" with different members of a large group contributing different things. One may have a large overall goal, but no path to  carry it out other than very intense focus at a very small part until that gets resolved, giving some insight into what the next steps might be. That isn't quite as true in computer science, and collaborations tend to be somewhat larger there.
One reason for the importance of collaboration in math is that when you work strictly alone it can be difficult to know what the currently important questions are. What is worth pursuing. Those sorts of discussions can, and do, happen in larger groups. But the follow up is more likely to be only a few, especially interested, people who are willing and able to do the deep dive.
So, essential collaboration doesn't necessarily mean in large groups.

I also question, not that it is especially important here, the classification of math with the sciences. The methodology is completely different and the nature of proof (math) vs. evidence (science) is profound.

In thinking about this again overnight, I'm reminded that every mathematical (almost) collaborates widely, but with our, possibly, long dead mathematical ancestors. Nearly every paper is based on some things from earlier work that may have set a direction or provided some insight.
And, mathematicians with doctorates can know their "genealogy", which is a trace back through their advisor's advisor, etc. See: https://www.mathgenealogy.org/index.php

(+1) I didn't carefully read your answer before writing my comment above, but I see that you've essentially included the points I made -- not needing people with various expertise that labs tend to require (and also, a point I didn't think about, greater difficulty in dividing up the work), and snail mail (or travel, or telephone) vs. email.

At the same time, I notice there is a growing consensus of opinion that science is tending to the collaborative side nowadays; however, this data suggests the opposite.

No, it doesn't. All it shows is that mathematics tends to have fewer authors per paper than other subjects. However, within mathematics the proportion of collaborative papers, the number of authors per paper and the number of collaborators per person have all been increasing over time: see data for the 20th century here.
The number of authors on a mathematics paper tends to be limited because it is difficult for lots of different people to make a meaningful contribution to a single paper (and the criteria for authorship are perhaps stricter than in some other fields). However, there are fewer overheads to doing mathematics and research groups can be much more fluid.
Consequently, while in some subjects increased collaboration might take the form of each project having more authors, in mathematics it takes the form of each author being involved in more separate projects with different collaborators, often at the same time. For example I am currently actively working on three projects with a total of six other people involved, but no overlap.

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Is there any difference between an article and a paper?
Are papers and articles really different in academic context or they are same words for the published manuscripts in conferences or journals?
The only thing comes to my mind is that may be an article is un-academic synonym of a paper, and it is not often used in academic context. Articles may be the texts which are published in a magazine; a paper is more academic, it is published in academic journals.
Could you please tell me what is the difference and whether there is any special usage of each word in papers published in a branch of science or in a country?

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Can I ask for payment if my employer wants to use my dissertation?
I completed my PhD research as an industry based researcher. My employer was fully aware of my research. There was no support given by the employer other than encouragement. However, I used the company information which I had access to as part of my role. My employer had no objection and I was extremely careful of the disclosure I made.
I have now completed my PhD and graduated. My  dissertation is publicly available on my university website. A google search can bring it up too.
QUESTION: If my employer wants to use my dissertation, would it be ethical for me to ask for a payment?
EDIT: To clarify some comments below, my company wants to use my dissertation as part of an advocacy campaign.

hypothetically speaking; if you have made use of the company information and the company have not objected to it, I would take that alone as a support to your research. That said, I am not sure if that entitles them to take your research as their own. Otherwise I am not sure if the title accurately reflects the content of the question. BTW, congrats on the PhD :)

If they paid you while you did the work, they supported your work (via your stomach).

How would you even ask for a payment if you wanted to?  (Assuming there are no patent rights, but just the question of whether they can acquire knowledge from reading the dissertation.)  Would you not tell them it is publicly available for free on the web, and hope they wouldn't notice?  Or admit that it's publicly available but say that as your employer they really ought to pay you if they read it?  Either way would likely upset them.

In most universities, your dissertation is published.  I am guessing I could go to your university library and read it for free.  But you probably wrote it in language that would be considered cryptic to someone outside your field.  So if I really wanted to make use of your dissertation, I would probably end up hiring a subject matter expert.  Who better than you?

What do you mean by using it as part of an advocacy campaign?  If you mean citing it in support of their position, and using it with attribution to supply arguments or data, then you don't have any basis to object (assuming they don't misrepresent its contents) or ask for payment.  If they want to recycle parts of your dissertation into another form (e.g., taking chunks of text from it to reuse as part of a position paper), then that would require your permission, and you could negotiate with them about the terms.

For what it's worth, the title doesn't really match the question.  Benefiting from it should be inherent in wider distribution.

You can not make additional money out of the work you did already. But I guess you can make additional money of the situation you are in. Sure you've become a more valuable employee now. The work you did for the public, serves as your advertisement and adds to your reputation.

I think your question is best rephrased as follows:

If someone wants to use my dissertation, would it be ethical for me to ask for a payment?

Assuming you are asking about using the intellectual content of your dissertation, the answer is NO.  Whether or not that someone is your employer is irrelevant.
However, your actual presentation is protected by copyright, which for dissertations is normally completely held by the author.  So if someone wanted to use your specific words and/or figures beyond the limits of fair use, then you have the right to seek compensation.

Is this a blanket statement for all dissertations, or just in this case? And in either case, why? And if somebody wants to license the IP content of the thesis, what then?

@aeismail : that would depend on the country, etc. For ex., in Brazil you can't have a patent of an idea, just of a product. If in the PhD you explain an idea, anyone is able to use/reproduce it. And the same to process.

I don't think it would be unethical to ask, but you'd have no way to coerce them to agree, as they don't need your permission.  It would certainly be weird to ask, and probably wouldn't help your career.

@aeismail: Yes, it's a blanket statement for all dissertations, or more generally, all publications.  Now, if someone wants to use your patent, that's a different story.

I still think this is too much of a blanket statement, because it doesn't account for using the actual content of the publication (figures, explanations, diagrams, etc.) in a commercial work.

@aeismail: Fair point.  I updated my answer to distinguish between content (no) and presentation (yes, modulo fair use).

Wow, 20 people found this answer worthy of upvoting but not the question ...

Congratulations on your Ph.D.!  You have contributed to humanity's lasting store of knowledge.  To a first approximation, this knowledge is now freely available to everyone on the planet who is interested (and, perhaps, who can afford reproduction costs and/or to travel to your university), including your employer.
If they are still employing you, and they found your Ph.D. work valuable, your employer may find it in both your and their interests to increase your salary to retain you and encourage you to perform more similarly useful work for them.  But asking them to pay you for using something that is freely available strikes me as counter to the principle of the academic pursuit in the first place.

I would like to address the title itself - how to benefit from wider distribution/usage/awareness of your research.
First, congratulations on your PhD - and your job!
I think it is very reasonable to want to get more benefit - financial or otherwise - for your work, so I hope I can suggest some ways you can make that happen.
For your dissertation, I believe your full compensation will be considered already paid. You were on staff when you made it, and from the wording I assume your employer let you spend "company time" on your work without threatening your pay or position. They also allowed you access and data that would likely have been unavailable to other researchers, and the quality of the data was likely high enough that you would have had to pay a significant sum of money for access to it - unless they have an open-data initiative, which almost no one seems to have in private industry (or at least its very rare). So your employer will almost certainly consider you paid in full, and consider any extra request ungrateful at best.
However, you are in a very good position - not only has the company employed and supported your work for years, but they are now expressing their opinion of your research and the value of it in a very positive way. They are saying its worth additional investment of time and money not just from you, but from other people as well.
Therefore, your potential is in the future work - not your past products. That's the only reason companies employ people anyway - for work to be produced, not out of gratitude for past accomplishments.
Now you are already the subject matter expert, so what would you like? Would you like to do some travel, presentation work, advocacy? How about more ambitious research which could be of even higher value to the company? Can a reasonable case be made for more generous expense accounts, a (larger) research budget, more latitude/authority in data collection or process improvement/alteration?
If nothing else you are in a good position for salary negotiations in the coming year, as you are now officially a PhD, and if they want to embrace and use your research then presumably they have a high opinion of you with good performance evaluations. If you want an administrative role, assistant(s), etc, now would be a good time to start brainstorming and dialog with your employer to see what plans they have for you, or if you just want to do more research you should all be on the same page.
If you want to just focus on your research and go back to work, that's fine too! If you will be doing post-doc work and therefore aren't simply done with school entirely, that's fine, but if you are done and it is implied that you'll be focusing/working with the company more then that is more support for increased pay going forward.
So you can very well get an extra payoff for your accomplishments, but its not likely to be in the form of paying to use your dissertation. You might qualify for a bonus, but that is usually something discussed before the fact. Its also possible that their use of your dissertation is a minor issue to them, so don't think it's worth millions if they are just trying to make use of something they feel they already paid for in a minor campaign that's <1% of their ad/PR budget.
TL;DR Collect your data, have a bullet-proof case of your value now and increasing value in the future, and I really suggest you not focus on trying to get more pay for past performance but rather take your pay in future salary/bonuses/prestige/etc.

The short answer is that it isn't unethical to ask for anything. It's just a question of how comfortable you are, and your relationship with that company.  If you have some figure in mind which is can be justified somehow and you feel comfortable asking, then send them an invoice.
Oh, and can I have fifty bucks?
See, that wasn't so hard at all, and I don't feel dirty or anything.
I suspect the real question is "do I have a moral basis for asking for compensation"? Based on your description of the situation, I would say yes, especially if in their campaign they make it appear that the material from your thesis is associated with them, through you.
The information that you used in the research is worth something, and use of the research in the campaign is worth something. Dollar figures can be put on it, and a difference can be computed.

This kind of question is, incidentally, why it's very good to have a clear "Who gets to do what?" document before you set out - for example, I had  very frank discussion with some people providing data for my PhD as to what they expected to get out of it.
In terms of the content of your dissertation, my take is not really - the whole point of academic research is to put it out into the world, and its not exactly surprising that the folks who employ you might find it useful.
So no, I wouldn't be inclined to ask for money directly.
However, if the company does indeed end up using it, the fact that they did so, and your intellectual output is contributing to the bottom line should absolutely come up in your next promotion meeting/performance review, etc.

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Can an online degree through an accredited institution affect admissions into masters programs abroad?
I'm currently attending an accredited university which provides an online BSc CIS program.  Is an online degree considered lowly in compared to a traditional education, and can it affect admissions into masters programs offered abroad?

What kinda online degree program is it? It should not hurt any admissions.

Also look at that question:  academia.stackexchange.com/questions/14833/distance-learning-taken-seriously

The critical disconnect is letters of recommendation. Even if you do have considerable on-line contact with the instructors for the on-line courses, enough to generate a legitimate personalized reference letter, they themselves may not have the kind of credentials that would make their letters carry the necessary weight. That is, some schools hire adjuncts, perhaps lacking PhD's, thus, lacking substantive successfuly (!?!) graduate-school experience, thus, lacking the power to persuade others of your likely success in grad school.

You say that the program is at an "accredited university."  The US federal department of education recognizes five traditional "regional accrediting agencies" and several newer national agencies.  Most regionally accredited colleges and universities won't accept credits from other schools that are not also regionally accredited and would be unlikely to accept a student from an institution in the US unless that institution was regionally accredited.  Which accrediting agency has accredited your BS program?

@BrianBorchers I'm actually attending a Canadian University (I'm from Alberta, Canada), Athabasca University.  Details about their accreditation can be found at http://www.athabascau.ca/aboutau/accreditation.php

Firstly, let me clarify that i am a full-time B.IT (Hons) Majoring in Information Systems Engineering degree holder, currently trying for an admission for part-time MSc/MIT.
It definitely does make a difference when the degree is earned online. From the point of view of the faculty, especially if you're applying for a full-time course, is that you did not have face-to-face interaction within the learning process. Although, some online courses do include some physical classes in campus and video conferences via the web. At the end of the day, an online degree would not have included the same experiences a student has in campus running here and there to print and submit assignments etc.
But, on the other hand, it really does depend on the universities you are applying for and whether they would accept your BSc that as part of their requirements.
To me personally though, being from technical IT background, I know some people who are working hard to earn their degrees online and it definitely isn't easy juggling between studying and working as all of them work full-time. I think some universities would definitely take full credit from your BSc and allow you to enter to a related Masters program
Good luck in completing your program!

If you are seeking a BS degree from a United States accredited university through an online program, and wish to enter a Masters program with another U.S. accredited university, it should not be an issue on its own merits.
However, research universities may take a second look at your application if the online-achieved BS degree is not from another research institution.
To ensure your acceptance to such a Masters program, you will want to achieve a higher grade point average than expected. It would also help if you publish any articles during you progress towards the BS.
Other non-research institutions in this scenario should not have an issue accepting you with your online-achieved BS degree, so long as you clearly demonstrate in your application you meet all their requirements for admission.
Now, even with that said, non-research universities may even accept you even if you have defficiency in required undergrad coursework. In this case, a little real-world job experience as little as 1 year can help assure them you can do the work.
In all cases, don't underestimate the application letter you submit. I would make sure it communicates you have a goal in your education and career after the Masters. And it should demonstrate you are capable to meet their requirements, and to succeed in their program. That is ultimately what they are looking for.

I don't want to dispute your answer because I don't have a good one. However, I am wondering how would the OP get creditable recommendation letters if he gets the BS degree from online schools?–

It will be a lot harder with online-only programs, since the face-to-face association is not available. However, for any recommendation, it is necessary for the student to develop a professional and/or academic relationship with the professors they want recommendations from. They must give the recommender something to recommend. That just may require extra work or effort outside of the class session. Perhaps with a research or independent study project completed under the supervision of a professor.


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Is it possible to pursue PhD in different area than master's thesis?
I am doing masters in physics. I recently did internship in high energy physics for 2 months. But my institute allows me to do 6 months project only in condensed matter physics. I want to pursue PhD in high energy physics only. So, is it possible to pursue PhD in different area than master's thesis?

This is very common, as long as master and PhD are related. I see a lot of math students go for a computer science Ph.D. degree, chemistry students go to chemical engineering, etc. I even see a Biology student finally gets Education PhD degree

Yes, definitely
Of course you can! The specific subfield is mostly limited by (a) your interests; (b) availability of a suitable supervisor who knows that field, and possibly (c) availability of funding/equipment/etc for that research direction.  It may be that a particular university/department doesn't accept your chosen direction (e.g. they don't have the researchers or funding for in-depth high energy physics research) and you need to look for other universities to do the PhD, but your master thesis topic is not restricting in any way.
It can be slightly useful to do a PhD that aligns with your master thesis, as it gives you some head start and possibly some publishable research already, but it's not a race and you definitely can do it in a different direction, many people do.
Researchers work in multiple areas
To expand on this - there are few general restrictions. It may be that a particular organization (or funding source) or person at some particular time nudges you do do something specific; but in general, there are no universal restrictions and people can:

Pursue PhD in a different subfield than Master's thesis (your example)
Get PhD in a different subfield and topic than what you submitted at the start of your PhD
Pursue PhD in a different field than Masters (e.g. physics PhD after mathematics masters, computer science PhD after economics masters, etc)
Do research in a completely different area than your PhD (e.g. linguistics PhD publishing CompSci papers)
Do publishable research without being connected to a PhD process in any way.

I am not sure about the interest of the faculty to accept a PhD student whose MS degree is in another subfield. Most of the faculty members I talked about were almost interested in the students whose MS field and subfield were so near the PhD major they were trying to apply.

@EnthusiasticStudent: well, it depends on the field at a given time; a few years back a dept of biology I know was very keen on getting PhD students who graduated in physics. The physics department was interested in someone with an evolutionary background (biology graduate). I do no believe that the dept of ancient Greek will be looking for a biologist, but a CS graduate, who knows?

I was offered by a couple of institutions to enter a Ph.D. program in Labor Studies or Sociology, even though my existing degrees are in Computer Science. Now, true, I have a PhD, but - this is all possible if you make a reasonable case why you should be admitted.
(That's not to say that university bureaucracies will easily accept such a situation; but you have your PhD advisor to help with that.)

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How important is the thesis document for judges on the day of the thesis defense?
I want to defend my thesis in the computer networking field on master degree . all things are done. And now I want to write my thesis document. Is this document important for judges in the defend day or not to evaluate my thesis.
I ask this question because I think they just pay attention to your suggested method and result and presentation.
Is the document are so important for them? because if they do not pay a lot attention to that I do not like take a lot of effort on that maybe you say that I can put that on the internet for any citation By our language is not English.
If the answer is yes. I mean they pay attention to the document in case of evaluating my thesis. What parameter are important for them. Or better to say, I should bold which part or how to write my thesis in order to the judges pay attention to that? and they say themselves this student try hard and I should give him good score ( D: )

I suspect the answer to this relies entirely on your university's rules. For example, I know a university where the oral presentation/defense has at most a marginal effect on the mark, while the thesis document is the main or only result that gets graded. Other universities certainly have different rules.

The answer to this question is probably country-dependent. Let's say that your thesis should be at least good enough to be approved by your supervisor.

Why not to write it seriously? It is one your permanent records!

"All things are done. And now I want to write my thesis document." Um. If you've not written your thesis, all things are not done.

Is this document important for judges?

You are really asking the wrong question. Any official document that bears your name eternally is important for you and your future. You are a MSc student with probably small number of publications (if any) and a MSc thesis is an important milestone on your transition from a student to a researcher. It is also a quite large document (much larger than the typical scientific publication), so writing an excellent document at this scale is a valuable lesson even if you want to work in industry, where technical reports / documentation and deliverables are quite common.
Conclusively, you must always strive for excellence and always do the best you can. You must change your student mindset from "Would doing A would get me a better grade" to the adult mindset "Is this really the best I can do within the time constraints I have or could I do better?". So you should focus on producing the best thesis document you can (within your time constraints)  regardless of how lenient the committee might be on judging it.

An excellent answer, though I have one very minor remark: "a MSc thesis is an important milestone on your transition from a student to a researcher" - the OP does not seem to give any indication that he or she wants to become a researcher. Your explanations are just as valid for any other further career path, of course.

"the adult mindset "Is this really the best I can do within the time constraints I have or could I do better?" -- and then later reach the expert mindset, "will this do, and if so what else could I more productively spend the remaining time on if I stopped now instead of using all available time on this?" ;-)

I have written three master's theses, out of which one turned out to be mostly for my own interest, one turned out to be pretty much useless, and the third was actually passed on to my later PhD supervisor. The latter scenario may happen when you decide to proceed in academia, or perhaps even in industry - future employers may show interest in it to assess your strengths and weaknesses.
In any case, for future employers theses, and for that matter your theses-supervisors (being potential referees), are far more important than any of the grades you made on any of your exams. So personally, I would say, yes MSc theses are important for your later career.
The answer by @Alexandros may be a more direct answer to your question, mine may be providing a more long-term drive to deliver a qualitatively good thesis!


text:
Is it plagiarism to reuse your own full-text material from a previous conference in a new conference?
I am a reviewer at a conference. An author submitted a paper, and I searched the   author's previous papers. I found they have one paper with a very similar title accepted  to a conference in 2012. I downloaded the paper, and about 1.5 pages of the 6 page document is exactly the same as the 2012 paper (all words and everything else.) So is that plagiarism?
There is no reference to their own 2012 work. Without paying attention to the rest of paper? Should I drop that or not?
Update:
Yes the paper was accepted and indexed on IEEE web site. and I download the paper from IEEE web site.

What kind of paper is the 2012 paper? Is it a working paper, or is it some kind of publication. In the last case it would be selfplagiarism (asuming she is the only author of both papers) which is a slippery slope. I would ask her what is going on

Was it accepted? Was it given? If it was submitted and rejected, it is definitely not self plagiarism. If it was accepted but never given, it is definitely not self-plagiarism. Because in those 2 cases, it was never published. Submission does not amount to publication, and without publication there is no self-plagiarism. [If it were somebody else's submission, that would be different, of course.]

It depends on the field, I suppose, but I can think of situations where 1.5 pages of repeated material is acceptable. If the results presented are genuinely new and the repeated parts are just explanations of existing concepts and definitions, and reviews of related work I don't see a problem. There's usually some boilerplate preliminaries that you have to repeat for every paper, and there's only so many different ways to write them.

@Peter I disagree. 1.5 pages of repeated materials of total 60 pages document would be acceptable. 1.5 pages repaeted materials of only 6 pages? Usually, there would be at least half to one page Reference. So, how much new materials are in the new paper? This is definitely self-plagiarism.

Yeah, copying 25% of a prior paper without attribution is definitely self-plagiarism.  Report it to the program chairs of the conference, and let them sort out how to manage the problem from there.
Additional information, for any coming from different publication cultures: electrical engineering / computer science conferences are serious publications that take originality very seriously, and IEEE policy on the matter is quite explicit.

While definitely self-plagiarism, it may still be acceptable behavior. The work may still count as unpublished or the conference may allow previously published material. Depending on the timescale of the review and how on top of things the program chair is, it might be best to conduct a formal review, and include the self plagiarism in that. That way if it is allowed, the authors and program chair still have a helpful review.

The question says it was submitted to a conference. Was it accepted? Was the paper actually given? If not, there is no question of self-plagiarism. Only if it was actually accepted and actually given at the conference is there a potential issue.

I think it much clearer to expand the IMHO rather misleading term "self-plagiarism" into the 2 questions whether there's a copyright infringement (if exclusive copyright was signed over to the old conference, the new conference would not make itself liable by accepting this paper) and whether the new conference has a novelty requirement. If neither of these is the case, the OP can go on and ask himself whether the paper is interesting for the conference.

@cbeleites Despite the semantic objections of many, self-plagiarism has a well-established meaning as a particular class of academic dishonesty, of which this case is a clear example.

@jakebeal: I'm aware of the meaning.  But see my (now rather long) answer: in my field, conference contributions are not expected to be novel, and there are few concerns about duplicate talks (at different conferences - as opposed to duplicate papers). The important point is "interest to the audience". (Nevertheless, as a conference reviewer I may be tempted to decide that a copy&paste submission is spam.)

@cbeleites As somebody who does a lot of cross-disciplinary work, I'm familiar with both forms of conference submission.  IEEE policy, however, is quite explicit on the responsibilities of authors with respect to reuse of materials.

As others have noted, this is a lot of copying, and it would be difficult to justify, but I would say that it is not by itself unacceptable. Ultimately, it boils down not to how much of the paper is replicated, but to how much of the result is replicated.
If it just happens that for this problem, describing the preliminaries takes up 1.5 pages, and they've copied that from an earlier paper on the same subject, it can still be justified, so long as the thing that is actually being presented is sufficiently new. A good proof, for instance, may only take up a page and a half itself, and still be well worth publishing.
This is why I said, in my earlier comment that it depends on the field. In some fields the text of the paper is itself the result (like a particularly well-researched line of reasoning). In that case self-plagiarizing is a big deal. In other fields the text serves only to present the results, like a proof, some emperical results or an algorithm, and copy-pasting the preliminaries is almost standard practice. It's kind of inadvisable, but it's not by devinition unacceptable.
Even the fact that they've not cited their previous paper can be justified if the previous result is not relevant for this result. Citing yourself when it's not relevant is a different kind of dishonesty all in itself, so you're caught between two fires.
Of course, the other side is that they could be trying to artificially inflate their publication record and they've not cited their previous work in an effort embellish that fact. At the very least, they've not gone through any effort to show that their intentions are honest.
You should mention to your co-reviewers and editor that this is the case. The important point is that there's no automatic rule saying that copying 20 percent is acceptable and 25% is crossing the line. You (and the other reviewers) should make the judgment on whether the self-plagiarism concerns just the text or also the actual results.

Even if you are repeating background material, you still need to explicitly credit the previous paper that it is repeated from.

Please note that the OP said "1.5 pages of the 6 page document is exactly the same as the 2012 paper (all words and everything else)". Can't the author(s) find some little bit different ways to write that 1.5 pages? This is why I think it is self plagiarism with no doubt. But, I appreciate your explanation. At least, this is your opinion. I do not want to downvote it.

@scaaahu: while this is lazy (and may even make the sumbission borderline spam), rephrasing would not resolve the lack of novelty (which is required by IEEE as jakebeals's edit now shows). It would just make it harder to detect.

@cbeleites I agree. I should have said "extensive rewriting" instead of "some little bit different ways to write " Thanks for pointing out.

Just to clarify, I would never write papers like this, and I think it's a lazy way to operate. I think you can always rewrite the peliminaries to tailor them to your current audience. So it's a lazy and dangerous approach to writing papers. But the question was whether it's unacceptable, which I don't think it is. That decision should always be about the results presented, not the text itself.

Answer to the question: no it is not plagiarism. Plagiarism is defined as passing off someone else's text, idea, representation as your own. As the author in question is actually the author of the old paper, it is not plagiarized.
If the author signed over the exclusive copyright, it is a copyright violation.
If your conference requires contributions to be novel (but see below), then it fails on that account - regardless whether the abstract is copy&paste or rephrased (and even in that case you may report that the citations are not appropriate, and previous work is missing).
In addition, as reviewer you may decide that it is not interesting enough (e.g. because it is known already) even if there is no formal novelty requirement.

Personally I find  self-plagiarism a misleading and unfortunate term (but yes I do know what it means, and I totally agree that we need to fight the underlying problems). But IMHO is not a straightforward extension of plagiarism, and in my experience, there are better terms to unambiguously name the problems.
In addition, the term has the clear connotation of an offense - but whether and how much one should cite oneself depends a lot on circumstances. In particular, not saying that this your idea is 5 years old is offensive (only) if there is a requirement or expectation of novelty. On the other hand, one would expect a lifetime-achievement award lecture to be full of widely known ideas.
But even in a paper I'd not cite all my previous papers that are somehow relevant but only the one (or maybe two) that is of most use to the reader. Excessive self-citation isn't better than not citing yourself - it is just a different problem.
I thus find it much more practical to require a contribution to be novel (no duplicate publication) and substantial (no salami publication - though for a conference presentation less is often more). There are further requirements (outside the self-plagiarism questions), e.g. the contribution must be the authors' own (no plagiarism).
With students if necessary for the purpose I clarify that novelty includes written from scratch. In addition, even if that is independent of self-plagiarism, I make people aware of the fact that they can violate the copyright of somehing they hold the (in my legislation inalienable) authorship rights to.
(I do think though, that academia would be better off if the novelty requirement would be somewhat dropped in favor of replication studies)

I'd like to throw in a slightly different view from a field with presumably very different conference culture, which I'd formulte as
When reviewing conference abstracts, I ask myself:

Overall quality (as far as one can tell from 200 words)?
How well does it fit with the interests of the audience?
I rather disregard "global" novelty compared to novelty to the audience at that conference.
Our conferences do not have novelty requirements and neither do they ask for an exclusive copyright transfer (unlike our journals). Ultimately, if the topic is too old and well-known, it will fail at the "interesting?" question.

Long story:
we submit 200 words or maybe 1 page abstracts - so 1.5 copied pages are plain impossible. More importantly, our conferences don't count as peer-reviewed publication, for that we publish in a proper journal (we often don't even have conference proceedings but instead have a special issue of one of the reputable peer-reviewed journals). In particular with my medical colleagues I see a trend that they are concerned someone could steal their idea - so they will present only results that have already been published in a peer-reviewed journal (pretty much the opposite of "novelty").
For me the important point of a conference presentation is to tell the audience something interesting for them. I freely admit that I hate presentations that don't convey any useful message to anyone in the audience beyond "I, the author, am a hero" or "This [totally useless crap] is sooo new".
If there is already an accepted paper, I include the reference into the conference abstract, for several reasons: the reference serves as "topic has passed peer-review" tag and of course it is an additional advertisement for the paper. The propriety* of citing oneself is only a minor point as we don't have strict novelty requirements; and the lower the number of allowed words, the less usual it is.
Due to our few 100 word limits, I'd also never look for much originality in a conference abstract: once you've found a formulation that saves 5 words, you're not gonna give it up easily ;-)
As I work at the interface between some disciplines doing statistical data analysis for chemical data and medical diagnostic problems, I attend conferences with rather disjunct attendees.
Consequently,

I've been presenting the same software (poster) at three conferences (within 2 months) with a total of probably close to 2000 attendees but an overlap that I estimate to be < 20 people. I submitted it to those conferences because I thought it interesting for their respective audiences and I did not expect many people to attend more than one of them.
I'm invited to speak in more detail about a topic that I first presented 3 years ago at a chemometrics conference. (The paper was published 2 years ago and of course I refer to it: after all I want people to read it - but not to the previous conference)  Again, I am the overlap in attendance between the statistics-heavy first conference and the application-centered conference now.

And, by the way, I was taught about scientific writing to avoid synonyms and always try to stick to the same terms (once good terms are found) - even if that is repetitive throughout the paper, and use easy language in order to be unambiguous and as understandable as possible to other non-native English readers. This is another source of not so very original formulations.

The expectations for 100 word conference abstracts is completely different than 6-page papers: a 6-page paper in IEEE format is the same amount of size and novelty expectation as a full journal papers in many areas.

@jakebeal: we totally agree that the submission is unacceptable.  Nevertheless this forum is about the whole of academia where other fields exist with other conventions exist as well.  The submission does have problems with novelty/no duplicate publication and citation requires, and yes also with self-plagiarism. But the OP asked about plagiarism and the actual author of the original work is about the one problem that the submission does not have. There may even be intercontintal cultural differences here: the speaker of the DFG ombudsmen for science ...

... as well as his successor (e.g. http://www.uni-regensburg.de/universitaet/ombudspersonen/medien/selbstplagiat-memo.pdf) point out that a whole bunch of totally different misconduct is grouped together and that there is not unified view in the literature (which they discuss piecewise). They tie the offense character to a deception (here: pretending novelty). Maybe it is a rather German view to discuss the underlying problems piecemeal.


text:
Are sub-reviewers of conferences paid?
My supervisor appoint me as a sub reviewer of one conference. Am I paid for this?  Should I tell him or negotiate about the cost of reviewing? I have finished my masters program and defended my thesis.

I am afraid reviewing submitted papers for a conference is not a paid job.

"Should I (...) negotiate about the cost of reviewing?" Let us know how it goes :)

You will not be paid in money.
You might be paid in reputation. This depends on how the conference handles its review process and you can ask your supervisor about it.

If the conference organizers learn about your reviewing (i.e. if "being appointed as a sub-reviewer" is more than your supervisor forwarding you the manuscript and asking you to write the review that he or she will then send back to the conference organizers), that may lead to a slight rise in your reputation among those organizers. Results could be that you will at first be asked to review more papers, but on the long run, this might lead to you being considered for e.g. co-organizing a workshop (if one of the organizers remembers you usually provided valid input in a particular field etc.).
Some conferences publish their list of reviewers. This has basically the same effect as above, however with a much wider scope, as the fact that you contributed will be publicly visible.

And of course, you will gain some experience in reviewing and more awareness of issues in authoring scientific texts. Also, you might get some insight into the work of researchers that you may not otherwise have found. Sometimes, this includes becoming aware of research that you can use for your own publications (either as related work or as an inspiration in the first place), as seems to have happened e.g. here.


text:
Should I send a "cease-and-desist" letter to ResearchGate?
ResearchGate is pretty well placed on Google. But it does not have a lot of contents or active users, despite their constant invitation spam.
So they spidered a lot of publications, and provide some metadata on publications and authors on their web page, even when you do not join.
Given the amount of spam I receive from them, I'm considering to file a cease-and-desist letter, disallowing them to use my name or work for advertising their service and for encouraging users to join their site, and instead display a clear statement that I am not a member and disable search indexing for these pages.
Currently, ResearchGate has a pretty bad reputation, see e.g.
ResearchGate: an asset or a waste of time?
as well as the Wikipedia article.
I'm really annoyed by them:

They have a fake profile page with my name, affiliation, co-authors, publications, and a big "sign up" button; that does not state that I am not a member, as if they could contact me this way.
They publish incomplete numbers of citations and impact, which one may consider to give me a bad reputation on their site. (I don't care, but this may be a legal point to make?)
They have information pages of many of my articles, with a big "request full-text" button, which will not work, as I am not a member and do not get contact information.
They use a proxy redirector to have their website show up first in Google search results, even when the actual contents are only available on a different website,

Do you think that it is detrimental for my career to have such contents removed (by sending a C&D letter to them), or do you think they will ultimately manage to become a useful platform, and then it would be better to not have my data removed? Even with a C&D, I could probably retract it at some point and join. After all, the real contents are available on my homepage and Google Scholar; and these are the locations I want to show up first (fortunately, most of the time, they do).

See current class-action law suit against LinkedIn for some ideas on legal action you and others might take against RG.

To clarify, your question is about the advisability of having yourself removed from ResearchGate (if possible), not about the advisability of any specific way of trying to achieve that?  Many of the answers appear to address the question of whether it is advisable to issue legal threats.

I'll also mention that people appeared to like my use of the word quixotic in another answer; I think it may apply here as well.

My question is mostly on whether this may be detrimental for my career. I don't want to invest a lot of effort or even money, but if I can send them a formal letter they can't just ignore, but have to reply somehow.

@AdamDavis: "To claim that they are infringing on your already public details isn't likely to win." - While maybe not applicable in this case, depending on where the portal in question is hosted/run, that depends entirely on the legislation. Some countries have laws about the protection of any data related to persons that generally outlaw any use of such data without explicit written consent, irrespective of whether the data is publicly accessible anywhere else. Things may be more complicated as this is info on authors of a published work, but being public itself does not automatically ...

... mean the data can be used by 3rd parties.

@AdamDavis: I did not claim this is necessarily related to this case. I just wanted to point out that the fact that the data is already publicly available somewhere is not always relevant. That said, a country that I can think of where personal data protection laws may prohibit the use of personal data without explicit written consent, even if that data is published somewhere - though a lawyer would be required to assess this particular case -, is Germany. One of the two addresses indicated on the contact page of ResearchGate is in Germany. Also, this is unrelated to intellectual property.

@AdamDavis: Your comment seemed to be based on a very general assumption, and I pointed out that, even though it may lead to the correct conclusion here, your assumption is not as generally applicable as it would appear from your comment. This is relevant to the question and readership here as it can mean that a part of the reasoning in your comment requires further clarification about the extent and limits of its applicability. Also, please keep in mind that future visitors will hardly be in exactly the same specific situation.

They created a fake profile with some of my works. I noted that they are also miss-attributing one of my works to two inexistent co-workers. I tried to join reclaiming the works as mine, but finally I received a email with them declining to give me an account. I accepted that but noted it is a bit strange that they create a fake profile with my works whereas reject me joining them. I requested them to delete the works archived in their site and to correct the miss-attribution issue. I received a email reply suggesting me to join them and then edit the page. LOL

I am a law professor, and I am equally pissed with research gate.
It would be unwise and inappropriate to give you specific advice about your own situation: this would likely constitute the unauthorized practice of law; for actual legal advice about the claims and defenses and legal strategies that apply to your situation, consult a competent lawyer admitted to the bar in your jurisdiction.  I will recount my own experiences below by way of generally informing the world what one person's approach is to one specific situation (i.e., mine).
That being said, here's how I've dealt with Research Gate.  They committed four serious affronts against me:

Fraudulently inducing me to sign up for the site by sending invitations claiming to be from my coauthors,
Forging my name on e-mails to other people claiming that I invited them to sign up to the site
Posting a draft of a paper of mine without permission, and
Maintaining a profile of me on the site without permission. (This one, as others have noted, may not be illegal---I am not sure---though it is certainly offensive in context, and to the extent it involved misleading attributions of endorsement may be illegal.)

In response, after learning about 1, 2, and 4, I sent their customer service people a nastygram over e-mail demanding the forged emails stop and be unsubscribed. They sent me some useless response claiming I could unsubscribe.  I thought nothing more of it, but continued to hear of forged emails.
I then discovered 3 via a google scholar alert and really blew my stack.  So I contacted their general counsel, also listed as their contact for DMCA takedown notices and send them a DMCA takedown combined with an incredibly nasty cease and desist letter.
Their general counsel promptly replied and informed me that he'd taken down the paper referenced in #3 above.  I haven't verified that this is true, or checked on any of the other ongoing acts of wrongdoing (the serial email forgery etc).  I have some hopes that this will work, however, I am prepared to file suit against them on my own behalf should it not.
What can others learn from my experience?  It's not clear yet.  I am of the opinion that this company operates by massive fraud and needs to be put down, but if my attempt to menace them into acting a little more law-abiding at least with respect to me succeeds, it may only be because I'm a law professor and they know that it would not be hard for me to drag them to account.
Of the various wrongs they inflict on the world, the posting of unauthorized copies of papers is the easiest to stop---the DMCA is a blunt instrument, and, moreover, the publishers also have an incentive to put a stop to this.  The next time I see a paper of mine on their site, I may not even going to bother with doing my own DMCA, instead just turning it over to the publisher.
The rest?  As I said, for myself personally, if the forged emails don't stop I may go looking for a class action plaintiff's lawyer, or just file seeking an injunction myself.
But otherwise, the best choice may be prevention.  Don't sign up for their site.  Tell your friends not to sign up for their site.  Let people know if emails inviting them to do things on that site show up under their name.  Publicize their practices so that others stay away from them.  Starve the beast.

Nice to see people from the law side here!

Very interesting information. Thanks for your answer.

Thank you. I agree, we should encourage our peers to boycott researchgate, and remove their content and profiles.

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228128513_The_Rule_of_Law_and_Equality is still accessible, and leads to a framed version of the paper... so researchgate lied to you when they said they took down the article!

oh that's interesting.  This calls for a response.  I shall have to consider what that might be.

That's a nice answer. I am wondering: how could they access to a draft of your paper?

Good answer! Also, for what it's worth, the above link to your paper still works and the first several pages are there (and it claims the remainder is viewable if you create an account, which I didn't.)

In the US a cease and desist letter does not do what you think it does. C&Ds are outside the usual legal process and serve as a warning to the recipient that you might sue them. Good ones describe in some level of detail the legal wrongs that the recipient has perpetrated against you and spell out the sender's plan to sue if the recipient does not cease and desist from the wrongful activity. They are a prelude to legal action and have no force of law in themselves.
I'm not sure that everything that ResearchGate is doing is legal. They may be contributing to copyright infringement by encouraging their users to post full-text copies of articles that neither ResearchGate nor the authors have license to post. However, I don't think making a stand-in profile page for a non-member is a crime or a tort. They seem to be trying to post true facts about you and your work to the best of their knowledge, which isn't illegal. It may turn out that their citation counts are wrong, but I bet that many such services (Google Scholar, Web of Science, etc) have errors in their databases. A factual error about you is typically not something you can sue over, especially when they've given you the opportunity to help fix their database by making an account.
Finally, getting litigious about their site is likely to lead to others discovering that you threatened ResearchGate. Due to the Streisand Effect, sending them a C&D letter or suing them is likely to do your career more harm than if ResearchGate had complied with your wishes.
I think that most people who care about your citation counts and published papers understand that ResearchGate is of low quality on these metrics so far. They will compare their results to other services and use the results that make the most sense to them. I think you're probably much better off either ignoring ResearchGate or joining up. Though, I wouldn't post any articles for which you lack either the copyright directly or the license to post freely from the current copyright holder.

The Streisand Effect can only strike when one is trying to keep something a secret (but achieves the opposite by one's actions). Taking action against what one perceives as being spammed by an organization is certainly not something that others should not discover, or that would throw a bad light on oneself.

The Streisand Effect does not make sense to me. It's not as if the information on me is incorrect. I dislike their attempt to lure others into their site, by using my name and research.

If you file suit against ResearchGate, that will be public information that people that search for your name may find. If people think that your lawsuit against them is silly, that may reflect negatively on your career. The Streisand Effect includes the attempt to use legal process to "hide, remove, or censor", it doesn't have to be a secret.

Filing a suit is much more than requesting a C&D. I'm not trying to "hide" or "censor" (or in any other way remove) information, as the information continues to exist on e.g. my own page, and other sites I consider fair use. I'm interested in stopping them from using my name in the way they do (it's about how they use the information, not the actual information). At the same time, I'm not of enough media interest to get a multiplication factor.

As I pointed out at the top, a C&D has no legal force that I know of in the US. It's just a letter from your lawyer to RG. It's a threat to sue them if they don't do what you demand.

"Due to the Streisand Effect, sending them a C&D letter or suing them is likely to do your career more harm than if ResearchGate had complied with your wishes." Sorry, I don't understand why this would be the case, as least if we are restricting ourselves to talking about a letter. Most people might think it was a waste of time, but I can think of no reason why it should hurt the posters career. I think that sueing them would be way overboard, but still can't think of a reason anyone would care. Maybe they'd think you were a bit oversensitive/eccentric.

People care about the strangest things. If nobody cares about this kind of thing, why is the orginal post anonymous?

@BillBarth: And if people find out about the OP's opposition against or inactivity toward a party suspected of shady behavior, they may consider the OP to be supportive of said behavior, which is certainly something to be avoided just as well.

@BillBarth: The danger of the Streisand effect is that when one is attempting to "hide, remove, or censor" a particular piece of information, that very piece of information is promoted to primary popularity and thus gets widely known while, or before, the actual legal effect kicks in and leads to the removal of the content. Evidently, that cannot be a problem here, as there is no information involved that the OP does not want to be publicly known.

point of clarification. ResearchGate knows that nearly all of their citation counts are wrong. Their citation counts are based solely on articles added to researchGate not citations from journals.

Do you think that it is detrimental for my career to have such contents removed (by sending a C&D letter to them), or do you think they will ultimately manage to become a useful platform, and then it would be better to not have my data removed?

Clearly, one can only speculate, but given their current track record I would not hold my breath. I think the danger of real career detriments due to not being on RG are currently so small that this factor can probably be ignored in your decision making. And, as you say, opting in later on will likely not be a problem.
That being said, for me personally just sending them a C&D letter and making sure it is enforced would probably not be worth the effort. They are operated out of Berlin, so I am not sure whether US law (I am assuming that you are US-based) applies. Trying to go through international law to make them remove your data seems like a lot of hassle to me. Most importantly, your point:

they publish incomplete numbers of citations and impact, which one may consider to give me a bad reputation on their site.

is maybe too paranoid. Many, many places maintain publication and citation indices of authors, and practically none of them actually have all your citations in place. I think nobody who has any impact on your career would stumble over your machine-generated RG profile and assume that it is necessarily the complete truth.

I don't care much about citation counts. My work is well cited, even in their count (which is Scopus or something, not their own). I added this as an extra point to demand in the letter (removal of "join now" buttons, removal of metrics). Also I doubt I would try to enforce the C&D; but I have sent one before to a company that wouldn't take me off their email list, and that worked fine and cost just a fax call.

@Anony-Mousse I know I'm late to this 'party', but... have you (or did you) simply try contacting RG and asking for them to remove your data willingly? Naive, I know, but there are too many questions asking "how do I talk to X" where the answer should be: talk to X....

In the terms and conditions, they state the following:

ARTICLE 4: NOTICE AND TAKE DOWN
If a user feels that any information provided within the Service
infringes his/her or any third party's rights, he or she shall notify
the Provider before taking any legal action.
Upon such notification,
the Provider will expeditiously check the objectionable information
and will, where necessary, remove or disable access to this
information ("notice and take down" process).
The Provider will
respond to any such notification within two business days.
Users shall
not take any legal action before the Provider has dismissed the
notification or two business days have elapsed without response.
The
Provider disclaims liability for expenditures, including court and
lawyer fees, if legal action is taken earlier, unless the Provider has
caused the infringement intentionally, recklessly or negligently.

There is a contact form with an option for "Legal and Data Protection". You could try that as a first step.

Ok, let's focus on the main question then: do you think this is detrimental for my career to do so?

That's interesting. Can a company dictate these terms even if you haven't signed up for their services?

@chipbuster No. Of course they can't.

-1: These terms are irrelevant because the OP is not a "user" of ResearchGate. Users refer to members who signed up.

@WetLabStudent These agreements are only sometimes binding even when their conditions apply, but that's not necessarily the point. The point is they have a process in place and it seems to be a reasonable one, so why not use it?

Yes, unless you have a clear and quantifiable rational for explaining a future PI or research associate why you were driven to use legal means rather than negotiate.
In your professional life you have to push your personal research agenda through myriads of (small) political hurdles, in the long run your reputation is a two-sided coin. It does you no good to be a stellar researcher if you cannot work smoothly with others (teamwork is the Hallmark of 21st century research) and just working with others without inventing new paradigms will not make you a stellar reputation.
ResearchGate is free and they by and large try to help people, so I think your question is a red-hearing. I would say go back to work and make a name for yourself.

A C&D letter is a kind of negotiation. You make some demands, and if they meet them well enough, you don't pursue legal action. It's just a formal way of negotiating without being a "user".
ResearchGate is IMHO largely trying to boost their startup value, until they can sell for big bucks to Facebook or Google and exit. It's not much about research, but about company value.