Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub • Hacker News Board

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#51

Post by fwgwgwgch » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 7:35 AM UTC

lalaland1125 wrote: post #32

fwgwgwgch wrote: post #23

Can someone help dispel my ethical concerns over using papers like this? Eg sci-hub. Any and all arguments, on both sides are very welcome.

One interesting thing about sci-hub is that it's actually in a researcher's best interests to have their articles uploaded to sci-hub and widely distributed. The more people that have access to an article, the more people can build off the ideas contained within, resulting in potentially more citations and advances that the original author can take advantage of. So, you reading articles off of scihub and expanding on…

I like your point. It's something I've heard the first time

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#52

Post by fwgwgwgch » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 7:38 AM UTC

theptip wrote: post #25

fwgwgwgch wrote: post #23

Can someone help dispel my ethical concerns over using papers like this? Eg sci-hub. Any and all arguments, on both sides are very welcome.

A timely request: http://slatestarcodex.com/2018/03/19/the-dark-rule-utilitari... "So this is my argument that Sci-Hub can be ethical. Universalized it would destroy the system – but the system is bad and needs to be destroyed. And although this would break the law, a very slight amount of law-breaking might be a beneficial solution to inadequate equilibria that could be endorsed even when universalized."

Are you the author? "We have no idea how to create Original movies anymore ". This is funny. It should be a sequel to tropic thunder. Aptly named.

Well written article btw.

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#53

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 8:01 AM UTC

lsh wrote: post #40

If sci-hub is going to scrape OA publishers, they could put in a bit more effort. For example this (which sucks): https://sci-bay.org/article?link=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... Versus the actual article: https://elifesciences.org/articles/24234

[deleted]

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#54

Post by pmyteh » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 8:32 AM UTC

fwgwgwgch wrote: post #23

Can someone help dispel my ethical concerns over using papers like this? Eg sci-hub. Any and all arguments, on both sides are very welcome.

I'm an academic. I've never met one who has objected to Sci-hub. Many of us use it, even to get papers we do have legit access to: journal publishers' access control systems are a pain in the arse.

Leaving aside the societal merits, our incentives are to get published, then get read. Sci-hub helps with the latter, and doesn't harm anyone except the publishers (who most academics cordially dislike anyway).

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#55

Post by Vinnl » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 9:00 AM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #12

reminder that this went up not long ago https://whereisscihub.herokuapp.com

Thanks for sharing; note that I've moved that to a somewhat simpler URL: https://whereisscihub.now.sh/

I should also add that I am also working on a project to incentivising authors to make their work freely available: https://flockademic.com/

(More info here: https://medium.com/p/the-holy-grail-in-open-access-sharing-t... )

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#56

Post by gkya » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 9:03 AM UTC

fwgwgwgch wrote: post #23

Can someone help dispel my ethical concerns over using papers like this? Eg sci-hub. Any and all arguments, on both sides are very welcome.

I'm preparing for a master's thesis (and then a research career), my university's library is rather scarce. Local uni's with superb libraries like Bogazici and Koc only allow graduate students from other unis. W/o sci-hub, I'd not have been able to read a single paper I've read in the past couple of years. Would have had to wait until I graduate, and had to expect that I made my way into a uni with a nice library, or at least be in a city where I can access to another uni with a rich library.

Information is produced mostly on tax money, and even when it's not, it's based on tech and info developed on tax money, and all of that is based on millennia of science one way or another the global society produced. I believe it's fair to think I and every other person "own" all of the scientific information already anyways. Even if you don't believe in that, I can't see how the other option is to pour mostly taxpayer money into cancerous organisations that sell what they have not even helped produce.

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#57

Post by Vinnl » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 9:06 AM UTC

fwgwgwgch wrote: post #23

Can someone help dispel my ethical concerns over using papers like this? Eg sci-hub. Any and all arguments, on both sides are very welcome.

In favour: the fact that costs of access to research haven't plummeted with the rise of the internet as they have for other media, and that the traditional publishers are making profit margins of 30-40% (typically associated with luxury brands) indicates that the academic publishing market is not working as it should, and that the traditional publishers are making more profit off publicly funded work than you'd expect them to "deserve" based on the value they add.

Against, from a societal point of view: Sci-Hub is no longe-term solution, as it still depends on articles being published elsewhere. Furthermore, there is not yet a proper alternative to the traditional publisher's main contribution: credentialing of academics.

Against, from a point of view of the shareholders of the traditional publishers: if this leads to cancelled subscriptions, they lose money. A case could be made that Sci-Hub has contributed to e.g. most German university libraries cancelling their Elsevier subscriptions this year.

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#58

Post by gkya » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 9:07 AM UTC

hrasyid wrote: post #46

matheusmoreira wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The page's HTML is the API. It's pretty easy to download a web page, parse the HTML and then extract specific bits of information from it. The browser does the same thing on the user's behalf, which is why it is called the user agent.

An API is a contract. HTML can be tweaked and become incompatible with your parser at the developer's whim.

Oh luckily major APIs never change. /s

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#59

Post by Vinnl » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 9:09 AM UTC

lalaland1125 wrote: post #32

fwgwgwgch wrote: post #23

Can someone help dispel my ethical concerns over using papers like this? Eg sci-hub. Any and all arguments, on both sides are very welcome.

One interesting thing about sci-hub is that it's actually in a researcher's best interests to have their articles uploaded to sci-hub and widely distributed. The more people that have access to an article, the more people can build off the ideas contained within, resulting in potentially more citations and advances that the original author can take advantage of. So, you reading articles off of scihub and expanding on…

Authors are often allowed to share at least their preprints (i.e. submitted manuscripts that have not been peer reviewed yet) elsewhere, but this rarely happens in many academic disciplines. In fact, they are often required to do so by their institution, to deposit their work in its Institutional Repository, yet even that requirement is often flaunted.

(In my view, this is because the personal benefit is not that clear yet, especially if the work is just hidden in some long list of other research. Which is why I'm working on helping them use their research to raise their academic profile: https://medium.com/flockademic/the-holy-grail-in-open-access... )

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#60

Post by gkya » Wed, Mar 21, 2018, 9:11 AM UTC

Myrmornis wrote: post #31

I'm 100% in favour of sci-hub. However, note that they are very anarchic when it comes to commercial books, not just journal articles! E.g. from the Sci-Bay search results, this is $131 on amazon.com, and quite possibly the authors do want the royalties. [BOOK] Intelligent optimisation techniques: genetic algorithms, tabu search, simulated annealing and neural networks D Pham, D Karaboga - 2012 - books.google.com ...…

I believe people in academia are paid to write these books anyways, so they might as well not receive the royalties. As a prospective academic myself, I find it unethical.