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Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

theguardian.com

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Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#201

Post by Vinnl »

stilley2 wrote: post #38

Everytime 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…

Unfortunately, the issue is really complicated, yet almost everyone who learns more about it will come to the conclusion that the current publishing model is ridiculous. Simplification is an effective way to introduce the issue, and in this case doesn't even lead people to conclusions they wouldn't otherwise arrive at.

Ideally, of course, we'd never have to simplify, but that's life.

Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#202

Post by Vinnl »

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #64
stilley2 wrote: post #38

Everytime 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…

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…

> 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?

I'm not sure about the NSF, however: this is what is happening in some disciplines. ArXiv is the default method of sharing research in some fields, and also the default method of actually reading and reviewing those articles, yet people still submit their research to the traditional publishers, and people still either pay publishing or subscription charges to those publishers.

That's because the service those publishers provide is not the publishing or making accessible of research, but the academic credentials one needs to advance their academic career. That's the "unspecified reason", and it's an incredible waste of money.

Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#203

Post by Vinnl »

stilley2 wrote: post #60
freeone3000 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly papers are thrown up on arxiv. I don't see why we should have to pay to host our own papers when we could just host our own papers. Seriously, three grand? How many months of AWS S3 does that pay for?

In my experience those high fees usually only apply when publishing open access. In our lab we publish using the free closed access method, and then a free version goes on PubMed (potentially after an embargo). So the research is available for free, the lab still gets the journal prestige, and it doesn't cost the lab anything. This is by no means a perfect system, but it's not as dire as a lot of these articles want…

Unfortunately, it does cost your institution a lot, in terms of the subscription to that journal.

Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#204

Post by Vinnl »

freeone3000 wrote: post #48
stilley2 wrote: post #38

Everytime 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…

Mostly papers are thrown up on arxiv. I don't see why we should have to pay to host our own papers when we could just host our own papers. Seriously, three grand? How many months of AWS S3 does that pay for?

Because as a researcher, you're not paying to have your papers hosted or even to have the feedback process facilitated, but you're paying so you can say your articles have been published in , which helps you when applying for grants or tenure.

Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#205

Post by Vinnl »

blauditore wrote: post #142

One thing I really wonder is wheather those costs are actually necessary for simple online publications: - Peer review is basically "free", meaning it's done by volunteers without compensation. - Hosting cost is magnitudes lower than publication/reading fees. A few dollars per paper should be enough by far. - Organisation of peer reviewing, editing and so on imposes some costs, but a lot of it could be automated and…

The challenges are really not in the publishing infrastructure. Your assumption that some (where "some" really should be "pretty many" in absolute numbers) high-profile researchers would join does not seem likely, unfortunately. For some examples by some people who are spending a lot of effort trying to convince editors to do so: https://gitlab.com/publishing-reform/discussion/blob/master/...

Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#206

Post by Vinnl »

tokipin wrote: post #33

Journal reviewing is oversold in my opinion. Just like Wikipedia became a better encyclopedia than traditional encyclopedias, I don't see why open-access approaches can't be at least as efficient at truth-seeking and consesus-building than traditional journals.

They often are at least as efficient and truth-seeking. Unfortunately, researchers do not pick journals on the basis of who efficient and truth-seeking they are, but on how much they can help their career. (I mean "unfortunately" here in the sense that the circumstances are unfortunate - I can't blame the researchers.)

Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#207

Post by Vinnl »

billfruit wrote: post #181

May be these journals should move away from publishing and rather be in the business of curation from a source such as arxiv; Arxiv has a wealth of content, may be journals could sift through them and produce periodic curated lists of work that is the most significant.

Those journals do not really have an incentive to do that, do they?

Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#208

Post by Vinnl »

bitL wrote: post #91

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)?

As a researcher, you can get a stamp of having had an article published in a certain journal, which helps your career.

Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#209

Post by Vinnl »

outlace wrote: post #7

If people can post a pre-print to Arxiv then why is it a big deal if it also gets published in Nature Machine Intelligence? Sure a better formatted and edited version may be behind a paywall but anyone can find the original arxiv paper and get the important points. edit: To make it clear, I'm talking about submitting to BOTH Arxiv, where it's freely available, AND a paywalled journal like Nature. edit 2: I get that w…

> Whether that's through a Nature publication or something else is immaterial.

But it's not really immaterial, is it? It's a ridiculously expensive way to sift through research, as there is hardly any downwards price pressure at all.

Re: Thousands of AI researchers are boycotting the new Nature journal

#210

Post by MaxBarraclough »

xtracto wrote: post #101
alexbeloi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What am I missing about the benefits of the status quo keep it so entrenched? The entrenchment is due to perceived (and cultivated) prestige, less so about tangible benefits. Prestigious journals have good brand value, they spend money cultivating it and they extract earnings from it. Researchers and administrators trade on journal brand value for career advancements. They benefit from a highly prestige-stratified j…

This is good for blockchain... In all seriousness, I have always thought that Blockchain could pose a good solution for the issue of peer-reviewing scientific papers. It provides a descentralized infrastructure with "tokens" that can be transferred to provide "prestige" to papers and authors.

I don't follow. What problem would blockchain be solving here that couldn't be solved without it?
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