71–80 of 141 posts
Can I just make a general plea? You should upload your paper to arXiv. When you do, please upload your source (tex, or word I imagine), as well as a PDF. For the blind, PDF is the worst possible format, and tex and word are the best formats. Don't hide, or lose, the blind-accessible version of your paper.
I'm surprised. Nobody has created an accessibility solution for PDFs after all these years of ubiquity? What's the story?
This article misses one of the biggest value-adds of arXiv, at least in my field (Statistics): since almost everyone posts to arXiv, you can almost always find a free version of a published and potentially pay-walled paper. In the past, publishing in a peer-reviewed journal would (1) improve the paper through peer review, (2) signal the quality of the paper based on the prestige of the journal, and (3) distribute the…
This is an excellent point. It makes one wonder why academic journal publishers even need to exist anymore. The peer reviewers (who don't get paid anyway) could just as easily do the same job and issue a "stamp of approval".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same reason CAs exist for signing certificates: trust.
The academic system of universities, degrees and professorships already provides a pretty elaborate system for "authenticating" academic credentials, so I don't think trust is really that big an issue. The Journals don't really add any extra layer of effort to find "trustworthy" referees, they just find academics who are already employed in a given subfield who are willing to review papers. (and in anycase, most subf…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you think peer-reviewing is slow then it's probably because you don't get the PEER part of the reviewing process. The PEERS are simply colleagues who have their own lives, priorities, and research. They don't stop what they are doing to review your wife's papers. And please, I see what's happening here: I have been portrayed as the "traditional journal apologist" although it's definitely what I wanted here. I simp…
> If you think peer-reviewing is slow then it's probably because you don't get the PEER part of the reviewing process. I understand the process fully. It doesn't make it fast, nor does it make it a necessary cost to pay. Delaying access to content for several years does not solve a problem. A not-insignificant time was spent bouncing between people to sort out who was paying for the costs, then there is also a delay…
You don't understand a thing and that was the proof of it, at least for me. The process of peers evaluating a paper takes a lot of time because it cannot be automated and is serious, especially for the better journals. Of course bouncing people (referees) is part of the process, to find the better and/or most available one.
Of course you can cut corners and pre-print, especially not having your paper (peer) reviewed, potentially fraught with errors and other inaccuracies. Problem is, not all sciences are like computer science where the proof could be algorithmically verified quickly. Publishing bullshit in biology, for example, may mean others losing two-three years trying to replicate your bullshit pre-printed results.
"I am not arguing for pre-prints to replace traditional publishing, but the speed of spreading information is undeniably faster, and that's what started this whole chain of comments."
Hey, I was not arguing traditional publishing is inherently better than pre-prints, but still got downvoted.
"I don't get the phrase "keep a small basket", but no I've not seen this. The point is simply that PEERS (if we need to shout the word) can in many cases replicate the work and assess the results much more quickly than the traditional review & edit process. I picked the field because I see people re-implement work described in the papers very quickly, or the original authors share the trained models and code."
Pre-printing might be the case in fields like CS and its subfields where verification is a very quick thing, but totally unsuitable in fields such as biology or medicine. The PEERS in the latter need also more time, given the complexity of the experimental setups.
"I'd also caution against using "retracted" papers as a measure, some journals charge for a retraction."
Oh trust me, if you publish publish to a good journal such a Nature or Science they find out (say bogus experiments), they will happily retract your paper. Happened with certain Korean stem cell researchers in the past.
Can I just make a general plea? You should upload your paper to arXiv. When you do, please upload your source (tex, or word I imagine), as well as a PDF. For the blind, PDF is the worst possible format, and tex and word are the best formats. Don't hide, or lose, the blind-accessible version of your paper.
But this isn't something I've looked for in the past. So I wonder: in your experience, about what percentage of papers on the arXiv have included the source?
Can I just make a general plea? You should upload your paper to arXiv. When you do, please upload your source (tex, or word I imagine), as well as a PDF. For the blind, PDF is the worst possible format, and tex and word are the best formats. Don't hide, or lose, the blind-accessible version of your paper.
> For the blind, PDF is the worst possible format I'm surprised. Nobody has created an accessibility solution for PDFs after all these years of ubiquity? What's the story?
Can I just make a general plea? You should upload your paper to arXiv. When you do, please upload your source (tex, or word I imagine), as well as a PDF. For the blind, PDF is the worst possible format, and tex and word are the best formats. Don't hide, or lose, the blind-accessible version of your paper.
Can I just make a general plea? You should upload your paper to arXiv. When you do, please upload your source (tex, or word I imagine), as well as a PDF. For the blind, PDF is the worst possible format, and tex and word are the best formats. Don't hide, or lose, the blind-accessible version of your paper.
> For the blind, PDF is the worst possible format I'm surprised. Nobody has created an accessibility solution for PDFs after all these years of ubiquity? What's the story?
Can I just make a general plea? You should upload your paper to arXiv. When you do, please upload your source (tex, or word I imagine), as well as a PDF. For the blind, PDF is the worst possible format, and tex and word are the best formats. Don't hide, or lose, the blind-accessible version of your paper.
It would be great if arXiv upload screen said this. Not sure if it does or not.
I've had arXiv automatically block bare uploads of TeX-derived PDFs (presumably identified through PDF metadata). For these, it required that the source be uploaded and compiled on their server.
On balance, it's probably best to require source as arXiv does, but this can create interesting issues from time to time. Since the source is downloadable, researchers can inadvertently end up sharing partial results or snark that was commented out in the TeX source.
Can I just make a general plea? You should upload your paper to arXiv. When you do, please upload your source (tex, or word I imagine), as well as a PDF. For the blind, PDF is the worst possible format, and tex and word are the best formats. Don't hide, or lose, the blind-accessible version of your paper.