Why does everyone talk about sci-hub and no one about library genesis? The latter is a way more comprehensive repository.
It's kind of complementary. I use sci-hub for everything with a DOI, and for books I use genesis.
The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
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Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
#32Why does everyone talk about sci-hub and no one about library genesis? The latter is a way more comprehensive repository.
Is it really more comprehensive? SciHub lets you get literally every paper that is available even if they haven't already obtained it. That's why it's so popular - you can put in some super-obscure paper from your niche field that only 1000 people in the world care about and it will still spit out a PDF.
Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
#33Anyone who unironically thinks that the obviously positive effects of free and open science are even comparable to piracy is a lunatic.
> positive effects of free and open science are even comparable to piracy
Could you elaborate on that one?
Also, this phrase suggests that you are of the opinion that piracy is unequivocally bad. Why not think about it as a two-sided coin, with a positive and a negative side?
Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
#34There is only one reason for me to use it: as a historical reenactor, I strive to make my equipment as accurately as possible, and I read various articles regarding roman military food, how widespread were certain metal alloys, how they used to do soldered joints, and so on. I wouldn't make an account to JSTOR just for a hobby - I use their search to find DOI's, and get them via Sci-Hub. I do buy books and stuff as part of my documentation, but there are really specific articles, usually a few pages long, that I can't find in both a convenient and legal way.
Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
#35I have a PhD in physics. I have zero problem with anyone downloading any of my papers from scihub. My publishers paid me nothing, and also paid the academics who peer reviewed my paper nothing. If I had stayed in academia (I didn't partially because of the toxic nature of publishing) I would also have been expected to peer review other journals for free. Information should be free access information general, but publ…
> I have a PhD in physics. I have zero problem with anyone downloading any of my papers from scihub.
Out of curiosity: why don't you just host your papers on your website then - or, if you do, why don't you think it's enough?
Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
#36One of the big problems with disrupting journal publishing has been that there is no way to get access to the massive archive of papers that have already been published. Sci-Hub took care of that before the publishers even really understood what was happening. It is now much easier to just bid adieu to Elsevier and the rest.
I predict that the preprint servers will take over, killing most of the journals which are barely read anyway, and a few top tier journals will survive because academics need to signal status. I personally find https://www.biorxiv.org/ the most useful place to browse for papers at the moment, and stopped browsing actual journals some time ago. If something important gets published in an actual journal, I'll hear about it on twitter.
Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
#37Why does everyone talk about sci-hub and no one about library genesis? The latter is a way more comprehensive repository.
Do you have a tor link? Also for scihub for that matter?
Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
#38I have a PhD in physics. I have zero problem with anyone downloading any of my papers from scihub. My publishers paid me nothing, and also paid the academics who peer reviewed my paper nothing. If I had stayed in academia (I didn't partially because of the toxic nature of publishing) I would also have been expected to peer review other journals for free. Information should be free access information general, but publ…
Personally I don’t see the quid pro quo nature of peer review (you review in return for your stuff being reviewed) as a problem. But I dislike the fact that the publishers limit access to something that others provided without compensation. Seriously their subscription models are outrageous, nothing they provide alongside the actual content makes it worth it.
Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
#39I have a PhD in physics. I have zero problem with anyone downloading any of my papers from scihub. My publishers paid me nothing, and also paid the academics who peer reviewed my paper nothing. If I had stayed in academia (I didn't partially because of the toxic nature of publishing) I would also have been expected to peer review other journals for free. Information should be free access information general, but publ…
> I have a PhD in physics. I have zero problem with anyone downloading any of my papers from scihub. Out of curiosity: why don't you just host your papers on your website then - or, if you do, why don't you think it's enough?
Many (most?) do, that's where Google Scholar took its PDFs from pre-scihub.
Re: The Unstoppable Rise of Sci-Hub (2019)
#40Sci-hub has been critical to me as I developed the idea for my current startup. If it didn't exist, I could have gotten most of the papers from friends in academia, but it would have been dramatically harder and slower. I use it, I support the concept. I'll make a slight counterpoint however. It costs between $1-$5k (very rough numbers) to publish in open access journals usually. That's not nothing, but it defrays th…
Academics write the paper for free, academics review the paper for free. I've published quite a bit and never had worthwhile input from a non-academic editor. A journal's only real cost would be in hosting costs, which I'm sure would be minimal for static content.
While the big-ticket journals have a value from being so picky, often this is at the expense of some things. For instance, it is hard to get replication studies published, as journals like Nature want every article to be "front-page news" if they can. I'd like to see some weighted reputation system used instead, where academics can give their "vote" to papers they like, giving it a total weight, however such systems have been proposed in the past and haven't got much traction.
I don't think there is an answer in the above, but I'm not sure that the substantial costs are justified.