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Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

theguardian.com

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Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#191

Post by pessimizer »

throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #34

Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing? First off, if the only publisher you have a problem with is Elsevier, you have already shown your hand. A half dozen other publishers are more expensive, but you can only name Elsevier. That means you're just repeating a meme that started on forums like this one. So take a moment and ask yourself why any of these publisher…

> Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing?

To rephrase the question and make it less interesting: Why is it that none of the people who think that academic publishing is a scam are academic publishers?

It's like asking why abolitionists never seem to own slaves, or to show any understanding of a slaveholder's overhead.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#192

Post by throwawaaarrgh »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #121
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They wound up with a contract that provided much more open access than ever before Elsevier wanted them to buy more open access. That's one of its main long term goals for its journal business: switch everyone to open access. That's guaranteed money, compared to if everyone just started using a preprint server. (I believe it's on some page of their website, they say they want to move their journals more towards ope…

And if "negative press about profits" can lead to a threat to their revenues in some way, then it would appear something other than "research no longer depending on prestige" can do so, right? I would guess US federal (and other) government mandates for open access when receiving publishing are part of it -- and the increasing general "public" discussion of the market ("negative press about profits" if you like) has…

I'm not so much sympathetic to publishers as I'm a reformed populist. I had formerly held the usual HN view, that Elsevier is the only journal publisher, that they act differently than anyone else, that somehow they have cornered a market or tricked people onto paying too much money.

Imagine my surprise when I found out, actually academia only uses them because prestigious journal publication is the only real metric it used to assign research positions. They literally don't need to use these publishers, but they won't stop because otherwise they'd have to find another way to decide who gets to do the research. Elsevier just puts its hand out and asks for whatever it wants and gets it because academia doesn't want the system to change, it just wants a bigger budget and this is a politically tenable way to pressure for a discount.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#193

Post by hgsgm »

lores wrote: post #175
JackFr wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your example of "I can tell when my food is burnt" is a poor one. Can you tell a quality scientific paper? Think of it in these terms: don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining. The science isn’t the issue. The money is. Academic publishing is much like the US healthcare system, bond rating companies and various other interests, industries and organizations in that through quirks of the path of history they fin…

Publishers make ~30% profit. High? Yes. Sit-on-your-pile-of-gold-cackling? No.

Units error.

Margin is not a measure of wealth.

Spending $700M to make $1B, each year, would be a pile of gold to cackle on, yes.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#194

Post by pessimizer »

refurb wrote: post #104
krisoft wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing? Because people can have opinions on industries they don’t work in? I don’t work in hospitality, and I have never cooked for a living. I can still confidently tell you when my food is burnt. A chef then can crawl out of the kitchen and explain the complicated process which resulted in me getting burnt food and I won’t car…

Nothing wrong with having an opinion, but having a strong opinion ("the solution is so obvious, i can solve this in 5 minutes") about an industry of which you known nothing of the inner workings come across as rather ignorant. Your example of "I can tell when my food is burnt" is a poor one. Can you tell a quality scientific paper? Do you know what's required to get tenure? To get scientific funding? All of those are…

> Can you tell a quality scientific paper? Do you know what's required to get tenure? To get scientific funding? All of those are relevant as to why the scientific publishing system works as it does today.

Knowing these things is also not required to be an academic publisher. All you need is cash. You've mistaken the boss for the expert.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#195

Post by hgsgm »

redox99 wrote: post #63
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #34

Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing? First off, if the only publisher you have a problem with is Elsevier, you have already shown your hand. A half dozen other publishers are more expensive, but you can only name Elsevier. That means you're just repeating a meme that started on forums like this one. So take a moment and ask yourself why any of these publisher…

> Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing? It's pretty simple. Most of us here are used to just downloading "preprints" pdfs from arxiv for basically any CS/AI paper. If all papers were available on arxiv or an equivalent website for free and without forms, probably nobody here would care or complain about Elsevier et. al. Want to in addition to publishing on arx…

It still stinks that Nature hijacked the academic prestige system for its own profit.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#196

Post by suddenclarity »

hgsgm wrote: post #189
suddenclarity wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funded by its members. So they basically pay to meet and promote their business to invited leaders and politicians. I guess you can make an argument that the more exclusive and mythical you can make it, the more likely are businesses to pay to participate.

Is Harvard or Supreme an "intentional conspiracy" or just exclusive? Words have meanings.

I'm not sure what your comment is referring to. It doesn't seem related to the discussion.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#197

Post by hakfoo »

krisoft wrote: post #67
throwawaaarrgh wrote: post #34

Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing? First off, if the only publisher you have a problem with is Elsevier, you have already shown your hand. A half dozen other publishers are more expensive, but you can only name Elsevier. That means you're just repeating a meme that started on forums like this one. So take a moment and ask yourself why any of these publisher…

> Why do so many commenters on HN always sound so confident, yet none of them work in publishing? Because people can have opinions on industries they don’t work in? I don’t work in hospitality, and I have never cooked for a living. I can still confidently tell you when my food is burnt. A chef then can crawl out of the kitchen and explain the complicated process which resulted in me getting burnt food and I won’t car…

Why can't we just move the journals themselves inside the taxpayer-funded sphere?

Set up a few journals like "Physics, presented by the Department of Energy" or "DHHS Intestinal Virus Fanbook", and hire on some editors and curators at a modest GS wage.

Either the editors do a great job and the journals eventually get same pride-of-placement as showing up in an esteemed private publication, or they do a middling job and they're still cheaper than pay-for-play open-access publications.

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#198

Post by [deleted] »

spamizbad wrote: post #126
refurb wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing wrong with having an opinion, but having a strong opinion ("the solution is so obvious, i can solve this in 5 minutes") about an industry of which you known nothing of the inner workings come across as rather ignorant. Your example of "I can tell when my food is burnt" is a poor one. Can you tell a quality scientific paper? Do you know what's required to get tenure? To get scientific funding? All of those are…

Your argument makes no sense. Journal publishers don’t weigh in on tenure or grant decisions. While they provide a conduit for materials that impact such things (the researchers papers), they have no say in anything (including, incidentally, sometimes what gets published) A publisher provided distribution. That’s it. They aren’t even the chef in this analogy: they’re FOH staff. Journal editors are faculty at academic…

[deleted]

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#199

Post by mjburgess »

refurb wrote: post #103
mjburgess wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "value" here is a racket though, right? The publishing companies do not create anything of value, they hold a resource (prestige) that they do nothing to improve, transform or grow. Academies do all that labour for free, and the publishers rent-seek on that free labour and run a racket ("publish here or else"). It's a feudal setup: a king controls the land but does nothing with it. The serfs do all the labour and…

they hold a resource (prestige) that they do nothing to improve, transform or grow That's absolutely untrue. A journals prestige is not a given. It has to be maintained and I know of at a couple journals that have fallen out of favor. The editorial board makes decisions on which papers to publish, and it's that track record that maintains the level of prestige. They also have to get peer reviewers (nobody will waste…

> willing to pay for it

Willing? Or required? eg. https://www.ref.ac.uk

Re: Walkout at global science journal over ‘unethical’ fees

#200

Post by robertlagrant »

eternalban wrote: post #180
tastyfreeze wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I read in this is that sci-hub is only a third of the solution of cutting out the middle man. The another third is a credible place for researchers to publish to. The current publishers are trying to retain a dead model. We don't really need a publisher anymore. What they do provide that I haven't seed a good solution for is visibility among peers. Sci-hub is great to grab a paper when you already know the DOI.…

> If researchers could easily browse papers relevant to them I think they would dump publishers all together. The expense of prestige can't hold up over time against a more efficient model that costs way less. arXiv is an emerging solution. The peer review bit is missing. https://arxiv.org/category_taxonomy ArXiv.org Reaches a Milestone and a Reckoning 2022: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/arxiv-org-reache…

It would be good if arxiv somehow standardised how to capture methodology. E.g. population size, sample size, sample selection method, computed values to demonstrate outcome, etc etc, to make review as easy as possible. And then if the computed values are successfully challenged, they can be updated and the trust in the paper's conclusions adjusted.
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