What's the point of journals these days, especially in computing with reproducible results (i.e. authors publish a paper on arxiv, code & dataset on github)?
Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
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Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I picked an article that's about a year old in case there was an embargo before the free one could be made available. Paywalled nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22040 Free version: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5712493/
"embargo" is a bit of a weasel word -- a few weeks embargo, maybe OK. 6-months embargo paralyzes progress.
Agreed. For the NIH it looks like the maximum is 12 months.
Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also many folks from Facebook AI Research (including Yann LeCun)
Not to say that they are wrong in boycotting, but I find it hard to take seriously a moral stance from somebody working for Facebook.
Kind of a hard stance to enforce. If you work for basically any major corporate entity you are probably sacrificing integrity to do so. So it seems you are calling the kettle black here.
Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you claiming that most research is already freely available and yet everyone is, for some unspecified reason, still paying publishers for an extraneous service? The NIH site links right to PubMed Central from which it seems like it'd be 'easy' to find a paper for which I know the title. None of the pages on the NSF site ever seemed to be intended for someone that's not contributing to the 'public access repositor…
The parent very clearly was not saying that most research is already freely available. You're incorrectly claiming that. The parent said in most cases regarding US taxpayer funded research, right here: > in most cases I know of (NSF and NIH funded research) US taxpayer funded research must be made freely available Besides that, you'd be surprised that people and organizations spend money on things they don't actually…
I didn't incorrectly claim anything about the parent. I was asking them if they were claiming what I thought they were claiming. Did you miss the question mark at the end of my first sentence?
And it's pretty aggravating for you to quote the comment to which I directly replied. It's not even that long!
I was surprised by the implied claim, or what I thought was being implied, because I'd suspect "US taxpayer funded research" would include almost all research done in the U.S. and yet I'm pretty sure that in fact lots of people struggle to find freely available papers and articles and that lots of academic organizations pay lots of money for journal access. The parent seemed to imply that 'everything' really was freely available.
Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nature as a journal also tends to reward hype and exaggeration over concrete results.
Yeah, but think about all the trash they must reject if they let the questionable things trough. I’m also more sceptic that the flagship journals actually have declined, at least in part I suspect the critsism is just complains in the spirit of those about ”the youth of today”.
Actually, some of the biggest problems with modern science are directly caused by journals.
One problem is that because they publish the most eye opening studies, they are inherently biasing the results they publish to extreme findings that are anomalous or don't represent reality. If 20 scientists are all conducting similar experiments, a typical experiment design would expect 1 of them to find a statistically significant result when there is none. But due to the way journals review and accept research, often the extreme result will be the one published. In fact, surveys have shown that many of those with the null result won't even bother submitting their findings because they likely won't be accepted. So published research is being biased towards false positive results, which is part of why reproducibility in science is in crisis these days.
So while there is certainly bad science being filtered out by journals today, there is actual important "boring" findings that are solid science that are being filtered out as well, and that is damaging science on the whole.
Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
#96What's the point of journals these days, especially in computing with reproducible results (i.e. authors publish a paper on arxiv, code & dataset on github)?
Reproducible results? lol. A fraction of researchers actually put out code and data freely, definitely not a majority.
Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, then you have to come up with a good idea how to change the nature of humans. We thrive on fame as social status currency Not just in science. The equivalent in startups might be a famous VC or whatever. It’s about attaching yourself to a brand.
this has nothing to do with some mystical 'nature of humans', we're just stuck in a bad nash equilibrium. Journals thrive on reputation and nobody can individually dissent because they lose out. This is the same mechanism that keeps overpriced tuition fees at ivy league colleges afloat. The answer is to collectively get out by legislating the practice or offering a free public alternative that everybody can immediate…
But Arxiv has been around for years and the Journals haven't died yet.
Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
#98Everytime something like this comes up I feel compelled to remind everyone that in most cases I know of (NSF and NIH funded research) US taxpayer funded research must be made freely available. See https://publicaccess.nih.gov/ and https://www.research.gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/des... . Don't get me wrong, I think the current publishing model is archiac, exploitative, and needs to change, but this whole "tax…
This is true, but with a couple huge caveats. NIH-funded papers published before April 7, 2008 are not applicable to the public access requirements. Research published using NSF grant proposals submitted before Jan 25, 2016 is also exempt. This encompasses the vast majority of all existing NIH and NSF-funded work, and includes many yet-to-be-published NSF papers. In addition, NSF-funded research does not need to be made public access until a full 12 months after initial journal publication.
Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you claiming that most research is already freely available and yet everyone is, for some unspecified reason, still paying publishers for an extraneous service? The NIH site links right to PubMed Central from which it seems like it'd be 'easy' to find a paper for which I know the title. None of the pages on the NSF site ever seemed to be intended for someone that's not contributing to the 'public access repositor…
I picked an article that's about a year old in case there was an embargo before the free one could be made available. Paywalled nature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22040 Free version: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5712493/
Thanks for the demo!
That papers will eventually (and mostly) be freely available is good and I am surprised that that seems to be the case. Thanks for sharing this info!
But an embargo or delay in publishing to the free access sites is probably sufficient for the existing closed-access journals to maintain their value. I can't imagine researchers, and thus universities, forgoing access to current research.
Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal
#100Legality aside, has there ever been an instance of a researcher getting a DMCA notice for posting a paper they wrote on their own website? Even if you got a DMCA, couldn't you just direct link to a scihub search result that contains your paper? Edit: I love it when I find my work on scihub. It means it was good enough to 'steal'.
Most journals are OK with authors posting a paper on their own website, especially the 'pre-print' (pre-review, pre-layout). See: http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php
(even Nature is OK for all the pre-prints, arxiv and your own website).