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How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

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Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#51

Post by detaro »

kleiba wrote: post #42
kwyjibo12345 wrote: post #7

Having worked as a researcher all my life in academia and the industry, I can only support Sci-Hub. Publishing as it works currently is an incredibly time consuming and expensive process funneling tremendous amounts of tax money into the pocḱets of publishers. To some extent the whole situation reminds me of the video and music content piracy era in the early 2000s. I hope there will be an equivalent of Apple Music/S…

Having worked as a researcher all my life in academia (but not in the industry), I can not support Sci-Hub. I know it's an unpopular opinion but I think it's the wrong approach. As scientists, I think we should be held to especially high moral standards. And there are two questions one should be allowed to ask: 1. Is is right to publish research results funded by tax money behind a paywall? 2. Is it right to circumve…

There is also quite a split between "should be compensated for their work" and "asking 30-50€ for a single paper download is a reasonable compensation".

Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#52

Post by ebiester »

BelenusMordred wrote: post #46
rjmunro wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear they generally are "freely" available, just email the authors and ask.

You're not wrong but that system only works on a very small scale. Do you really think the authors would be amenable to answering 10000 emails with the exact same request?

In general, an averagely successful paper in most disciplines will get 200-250 readers. It’s only when there is outsized media attention that there is any issue.

And luckily, for those cases today, sci-hub is available.

Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#53

Post by Someone »

Tepix wrote: post #19
kwyjibo12345 wrote: post #7

Having worked as a researcher all my life in academia and the industry, I can only support Sci-Hub. Publishing as it works currently is an incredibly time consuming and expensive process funneling tremendous amounts of tax money into the pocḱets of publishers. To some extent the whole situation reminds me of the video and music content piracy era in the early 2000s. I hope there will be an equivalent of Apple Music/S…

These papers that have been paid for by tax payers and peer reviewed for free should be made freely available legally.

Authors are to blame, too. They can put their publications on arXiv. https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/sharing:

“Authors can share their preprint anywhere at any time.

If accepted for publication, we encourage authors to link from the preprint to their formal publication via its Digital Object Identifier (DOI). Millions of researchers have access to the formal publications on ScienceDirect, and so links will help your users to find, access, cite, and use the best available version.

Authors can update their preprints on arXiv or RePEc with their accepted manuscript.”

there still is an issue with older articles that authors don’t have PDFs of, or whose authors aren’t in the field anymore (or even died). That problem will stay, but _if_ authors start putting their publications on arXiv, their university server, etc. en masse, also will get smaller over time.

Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#54

Post by Someone »

subroutine wrote: post #45
rjmunro wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear they generally are "freely" available, just email the authors and ask.

Having to wait for an author to email you a copy isn't a viable solution. Even getting authors to post a free copy, which is NIH mandate is often overlooked... https://publicaccess.nih.gov/policy.htm

That’s not something you can blame the publishers for.

Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#55

Post by worik »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #47
kleiba wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked as a researcher all my life in academia (but not in the industry), I can not support Sci-Hub. I know it's an unpopular opinion but I think it's the wrong approach. As scientists, I think we should be held to especially high moral standards. And there are two questions one should be allowed to ask: 1. Is is right to publish research results funded by tax money behind a paywall? 2. Is it right to circumve…

> So then in a follow-up question, we can ask whether a publisher should be compensated for their work. And to me, it is pretty clear that they should be. But… what does a publisher actually do?

They are a filter. They have a reputation to uphold of publishing worth while stuff (hard to believe sometimes...)

Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#56

Post by rauhallinen »

So no new articles have been uploaded this year.

While I have relatively good access options through my university, roughly half of the publications appearing in my Google Scholar alerts are unaccessible. As they are also in fields were use of preprint services isn't common, it really interferes with me being up to date with ongoing research.

As the use of sci-hub is so common, I wonder about the wider implications of the newest articles being inaccessible. Could bibliometric methods be used to quantify this? Missed citations? Less citations for articles published in more obscure journals?

Interesting that no new solutions have come out yet. I'm seeing people getting back to use #ICanHazPDF - not the best way to conduct research when an article is often just a gateway to more finding more relevant articles to read.

Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#57

Post by worik »

ebiester wrote: post #52
BelenusMordred wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong but that system only works on a very small scale. Do you really think the authors would be amenable to answering 10000 emails with the exact same request?

In general, an averagely successful paper in most disciplines will get 200-250 readers. It’s only when there is outsized media attention that there is any issue. And luckily, for those cases today, sci-hub is available.

A lot more readers than that, surely? In most disciplines there are a lot of, er, disciples. What is the definition of "moderately successful?"

Perhaps you mean citations?

Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#58

Post by worik »

phire wrote: post #10
kzrdude wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it sounds like she is misunderstanding it in this case. "One-woman show" doesn't imply that it's just a facade, fake project (which she seems to take from "show"), it's just an idiom to say it's something that one person does (not a team).

And usually has positive connotations. Most of the time you use the "one-woman show" idiom is when you are impressed that one person does this by themselves.

And there is the sexist assumption that there must be a bloke some place doing the actual work.

Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#59

Post by inciampati »

rauhallinen wrote: post #56

So no new articles have been uploaded this year. While I have relatively good access options through my university, roughly half of the publications appearing in my Google Scholar alerts are unaccessible. As they are also in fields were use of preprint services isn't common, it really interferes with me being up to date with ongoing research. As the use of sci-hub is so common, I wonder about the wider implications o…

This is purportedly related to a lawsuit in India. The thought is that Alexandra is intentionally being as cooperative as possible because there is a possibility of a legal victory in that jurisdiction. The court had asked her to cease adding new material.

She has shown us the way. We can always recreate sci-hub, should the current system cease to function. We even know what kind of budget it takes to set up and operate for a decade: $100k!

Re: How The Chronicle is trying to malign Sci-Hub

#60

Post by lovasoa »

littlestymaar wrote: post #49
lovasoa wrote: post #15

The original article presents her in a very bright light, as a smart and brave woman who is engaged in a legal battle against large greedy corporations. And I find the photo quite cool. I think she is just overly susceptible, and maybe a little bit paranoid (which is understandable for a person with enemies as powerful as hers). This reminds me of the time when a russian entomologist named a new wasp species he disco…

> blocked sci-hub in Russia for several months in retaliation ! It's been blocked for four days. (5th to 9th of September 2017). This is indeed an overreaction, no need to inflate the figures.

Ooops, you are right, I should have checked ! I updated my comment.
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