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MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

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Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#171

Post by a1369209993 »

ComodoHacker wrote: post #106
hedora wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m also an academic. Hash each paper, then hash the hashes. Publish the result with the proceedings. After year one, include the hash of the prior year(s). Problem solved. Recently I downloaded one of my old peer-reviewed papers. The “archival” service added a spammy logo to the bottom left corner of each page. I’ve been meaning to find the original and put it on my web page. Honestly, I might just add a list of all…

>Problem solved Not at all. There are corrections and amendments. It isn't as complicated as in law, but still.

Corrections and amendments are separate (but related) documents. Preventing them from being retroactively applied to the original version of the source document is the specific thing that a archival-quality document storage is supposed to do (as opposed a non-archival-quality storage, which only needs to protect against data loss (as in turn opposed to a cache, which can rely on a backing storage)).

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#173

Post by arcturus17 »

enriquto wrote: post #20
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #11

Here is the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts: https://libraries.mit.edu/scholarly/publishing/framework/ It requires that: 1. No author will be required to waive any institutional or funder open access policy to publish in any of the publisher’s journals. 2. No author will be required to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with gener…

> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a…

Just like the humans that make them, then.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#174

Post by gwern »

MrGunn wrote: post #146
gwern wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, these do not maintain the "archival quality" document storage that is needed for academic scientific literature. In day-to-day, all researchers use these to stay informed on recent results. But how to guarantee that nobody hacks in and figures out how to change a few bytes in one paper that is 10years old? How to guarantee that these documents are available 75 years from now? I have never had a link to Arx…

Hey Gwern, big fan of your GPT2 work. I notice I'm surprised to hear you say you struggle daily to fix broken links to the Elsevier catalog at ScienceDirect, because the links are used by libraries all over the world & they don't have the same feedback. Would you have a few examples available for me to send to the folks responsible?

Nature does it all the time. Here's one I fixed just this morning when I noticed it by accident: http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp201522... (Note, by the way, how very helpfully Nature redirects it to the homepage without an error. That's what the reader wants, right? To go to the homepage and for Nature to deliberately conceal the error from the website maintainer? This is definitely what every 'archival quality' journal should do, IMO, just to show off their top-notch quality and helpful ways and why we pay them so much taxpayer money.) Oh, SpringerLink broke a whole bunch which I am still fixing, here's two from yesterday: http://www.springerlink.com/content/5mmg0gmtg69g6978/ http://www.springerlink.com/content/p26143p057591031/ And here's an amusing ScienceDirect example: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000632071... (I would have loads more specifically ScienceDirect examples except I learned many years ago to never link ScienceDirect PDFs because the links expire or otherwise break.)

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#175

Post by woofie11 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #150
obiefernandez wrote: post #5

Further indications that Aaron Swartz didn't die completely in vain...

Just came across his name yesterday when I was looking for python markdown parsers! Thinking about what happened to him, I'm a bit ambivalent. He was a great dude, for sure, but what he did with downloading the entire JSTOR database sneakily does sound a bit out there. It's definitely a Robinhood move, but Robinhood also had an arrest warrant on him. Expecting no less of a retaliation would have been naive at best. M…

There are two pieces here: How the legal system behaved, and how MIT behaved. What you're saying makes 100% sense for an aggressive prosecutor. On the other hand, MIT was behaving in a way which was pure evil.

To go back to the Robinhood analogy, I would expect the Sheriff of Nottingham to go after Robinhood with perfect dedication -- that's his job. On the other hand, if Friar Tuck made it his life's work to go after Robinhood, that'd be a different story.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#176

Post by jl6 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #32
enriquto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What was surprising was the number of institutions which had signed onto the framework - my alma mater included. I'm curious how many of these still have an Elsevier contract. If you ever tried to dig deep into the internals of a large organization, you will notice that they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules. It is actually an amazing power. At least, this was my experience. For a…

> they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules This is caused by managers' and middle-managers' performance metrics being tied to the wrong outcomes. The top layer of management's target is the desired outcome. The bottom layer's (the worker) target is also clear, it's to do whatever their manager says to do. In the middle is where it often breaks down; their objectives are short-sighted a…

I still have never seen a concrete example of a job which is clearly a bullshit job. Any suggestions?

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#177

Post by toshk »

ironmagma wrote: post #162
burtness wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think the parent comment's bullshit jobs are the same as your definition of nice-to-have jobs, at least assuming parent is talking about David Graeber's use of the term. Bullshit jobs are ones that could disappear and the impact would unnoticeable or minimal for an organisation's output. Nice-to-have (for society?) professions still have value, otherwise they wouldn't be nice - if all the musicians disappeared…

It’s roughly the same concept. Those people were hired for a reason, even if it wasn’t a fully rational one. Just as musicians are the quality of life improvers of society at large, so too are code janitors to an IT team.

The idea of bullshit jobs started a few years ago mostly based upon the idea that the people doing themselves felt like they were doing bullshit jobs, and therefore not feeling fullfilled.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#178

Post by fnord77 »

burtness wrote: post #158
WJW wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of nice-to-have professions that are not strictly necessary, like musicians and decorative fountain builders. That is a good thing ! It's clearly possible to live in a giant grey barrack and eat nothing but soylent but it's not what 99% of the population would prefer. If anything, it would be good for society to make the percentage of not-essential-but-nice-to-have as high as possible.

I dont think the parent comment's bullshit jobs are the same as your definition of nice-to-have jobs, at least assuming parent is talking about David Graeber's use of the term. Bullshit jobs are ones that could disappear and the impact would unnoticeable or minimal for an organisation's output. Nice-to-have (for society?) professions still have value, otherwise they wouldn't be nice - if all the musicians disappeared…

if anything, I'd wager the bullshit jobs make an organization less efficient.

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#179

Post by mihaaly »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #156
mihaaly wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe peer review should be supplemented or even replaced by social review methods where not only arbitrary reviewers but the whole scientific community might have chance judging, discussing and commenting any paper. Online. The logic and safeguards may not be that easy to create in the first place but in my opinion it would worth the effort eventually!

We will never be all experts on all subjects. Peer review is by peers, not laypersons. From the STEM perspective, a democratic solution would be a disaster. Two immediate reasons come to mind, the loss of peer expertise in the noise, and brigading.

I wrote "scientific community". What I meant is the "relevant scientific community", it wasn't evident apparently.

Also the selection of the reviewers is just partially depends on the expertness already, several other aspects affect it quite a lot. Not to mention that why a certain selection should be the one why not an other, why not the relevant community chooses the reviewers then? Just because not every details are fined carved the idea should not be dropped. (I was participating in certain peer review processes where I was an almost outsider and very far from being an expert, I have little conviction that the current one works well)

Re: MIT Ends Elsevier Negotiations

#180

Post by aspaceman »

jl6 wrote: post #176
Nextgrid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are perfectly capable of managing a set of self-contradictory rules This is caused by managers' and middle-managers' performance metrics being tied to the wrong outcomes. The top layer of management's target is the desired outcome. The bottom layer's (the worker) target is also clear, it's to do whatever their manager says to do. In the middle is where it often breaks down; their objectives are short-sighted a…

I still have never seen a concrete example of a job which is clearly a bullshit job. Any suggestions?

Has always seemed like a rhetorical device to me. In effect no job is actually bullshit since if it was it would be eliminated. The truest "bullshit" job is one where you are absolutely irreplacable for a single, trivial piece of knowledge. I.E. I'm the only one who can print the records at the end of the year, and otherwise I do (practically) nothing. That's how I've always thought of it, but others may disagree.

Often times it feels like a way for creatives and engineers who make the product to express some (rightful) resentment towards the folks who manage people and business.

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