I wonder if it would be considered bad to block ieee/acm using the google chrome blocker plugin (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2218382). I geniunely don't want to see them in my results, but they're not quite a content farm.
Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
11–20 of 66 posts
Re: Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
#12Matt Blaze is right on point, as usual; in fact, he probably does not go far enough in his critique of scientific publishing. Commercial publishers from Nature to those on the long tail are as bad or worse. The "in your face" commercial paywall in front of most technical journals is a frequent user experience here on Hacker News. And counterproductive to doing good science and engineering. If the free exchange of inf…
On the other hand, a well run, professionally edited journal costs money to produce. Does it cost more money to produce than Wikipedia? As I understand it, editors generally work for free. Reviewers generally work for free. Authors either work for free or pay for the privilege of publishing. Heck, authors generally supply their work already typeset. So what exactly is the cost here? I mean, I'm sure that IEEE/ACM hav…
Authors either work for free or pay for the privilege of publishing.
I don't know where you get this. IEEE/ACM may not be paying them, but they are sure as hell getting paid to write the papers that go in those journals.
Does it cost more money to produce than Wikipedia?
The difference being that there are only 4 or 5 people in the world capable of producing or verifying the articles that appear in scientific journal.
Re: Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
#13Don't these commercial publishers hire editors who actively contribute/edit to papers which they choose to publish? Also, don't many of these publishers pay authors for work? Decrying that they are "socially irresponsible" and that everything should be available for free seems to be looking at this in a very simplistic way.
I've had several peer-reviewed papers published. The reviewers (who are unpaid) often have excellent suggestions and often do the work of an editor.
However, I have NEVER had an editor or other paid staff of a journal offer ANY assistance on the manuscript whatsoever, to include stuff I'd ordinarily think an editor would do as part of the job: edit. In talking with my colleagues, their experience is the same.
I'm not personally aware of ANY scientific journals where authors or reviewers are paid by journals.
I'm not interested in getting paid for publishing. However, like most other scientists, I'm tired of having to jump through hoops to get access to research data and findings that we citizens collectively paid to produce.
This is all anecdotal of course. I'm not aware of any broader literature or even editorials describing what value, if any, is added by the current system.
Re: Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
#14Matt Blaze is right on point, as usual; in fact, he probably does not go far enough in his critique of scientific publishing. Commercial publishers from Nature to those on the long tail are as bad or worse. The "in your face" commercial paywall in front of most technical journals is a frequent user experience here on Hacker News. And counterproductive to doing good science and engineering. If the free exchange of inf…
On the other hand, a well run, professionally edited journal costs money to produce. Does it cost more money to produce than Wikipedia? As I understand it, editors generally work for free. Reviewers generally work for free. Authors either work for free or pay for the privilege of publishing. Heck, authors generally supply their work already typeset. So what exactly is the cost here? I mean, I'm sure that IEEE/ACM hav…
There are different kinds of journals and so the costs and benefits can differ widely. Academic archival journals typically have volunteer editors whose salary is paid for by their employer rather than the publisher (usually a non-profit society such as ACM). These editors manage the peer-review and acceptance process. Once the papers have been accepted, they go into production and, depending upon the journal and its goals, they may be subject to simple editing for mark-up and obvious spelling/grammatical errors or they may be carefully edited to improve presentation, style, and content. Professional editing greatly enhances the quality and readability of every author's work. This is the traditional publications model used by professional societies. I have no idea what the relative costs are relative to a Wikipedia-style journal with a totally volunteer staff. What I do know is that the amount of human effort that goes into such a quality journal is significant and that no matter what the infrastructure is, someone has to put in that time, and their efforts should be compensated in some fashion.
Re: Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, a well run, professionally edited journal costs money to produce. Does it cost more money to produce than Wikipedia? As I understand it, editors generally work for free. Reviewers generally work for free. Authors either work for free or pay for the privilege of publishing. Heck, authors generally supply their work already typeset. So what exactly is the cost here? I mean, I'm sure that IEEE/ACM hav…
Authors either work for free or pay for the privilege of publishing. I don't know where you get this. IEEE/ACM may not be paying them, but they are sure as hell getting paid to write the papers that go in those journals. Does it cost more money to produce than Wikipedia? The difference being that there are only 4 or 5 people in the world capable of producing or verifying the articles that appear in scientific journal…
I don't know where you get this.
From publishing an article in an IEEE journal? I mean, I did DARPA funded work in grad school and got it published in a journal. I understand very well that authors are generally paid. My point remains: they are not paid BY THE JOURNAL. From the journal's perspective, authors do not cost them anything.
The difference being that there are only 4 or 5 people in the world capable of producing or verifying the articles that appear in scientific journal.
And academic journals generally don't pay them a damn thing.
Re: Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, a well run, professionally edited journal costs money to produce. Does it cost more money to produce than Wikipedia? As I understand it, editors generally work for free. Reviewers generally work for free. Authors either work for free or pay for the privilege of publishing. Heck, authors generally supply their work already typeset. So what exactly is the cost here? I mean, I'm sure that IEEE/ACM hav…
There are different kinds of journals and so the costs and benefits can differ widely. Academic archival journals typically have volunteer editors whose salary is paid for by their employer rather than the publisher (usually a non-profit society such as ACM). These editors manage the peer-review and acceptance process. Once the papers have been accepted, they go into production and, depending upon the journal and its…
I think it helps to distinguish different types of costs. If we're talking about general technical writing editing or assistance getting something latex-ified, that seems like the kind of thing that can be readily pushed back onto authors themselves. For example, the volunteer editor could easily tell an author: "the reviewers loved your work, but you need a technical editor to make this acceptable for publication: hire one, get it fixed up, and submit it in 2 weeks if you want it published". The same thing could be done for Latex help.
From an author's perspective, paying for a tech writer to help them edit would only need to be done if they're actually bad at writing, in which case it seems perfectly fair to have them spend a few hundred dollars paying a local editor to help get their work publishable. The net financial benefit to having another published paper on their CV is certainly worth far more than whatever a good tech writer would charge.
Re: Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
#17What's even worse is that the IEEE charges to read their standards. The ITU charges as well but the IETF thankfully does not.
All 3 organizations are effectively doing the same thing. Granted their standards focus on different areas. But why can the IETF manage this completely without charging while the others have to charge extortionate fees?
Re: Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Authors either work for free or pay for the privilege of publishing. I don't know where you get this. IEEE/ACM may not be paying them, but they are sure as hell getting paid to write the papers that go in those journals. Does it cost more money to produce than Wikipedia? The difference being that there are only 4 or 5 people in the world capable of producing or verifying the articles that appear in scientific journal…
I don't know where you get this. From publishing an article in an IEEE journal? I mean, I did DARPA funded work in grad school and got it published in a journal. I understand very well that authors are generally paid. My point remains: they are not paid BY THE JOURNAL. From the journal's perspective, authors do not cost them anything. The difference being that there are only 4 or 5 people in the world capable of prod…
It's expensive to run a journal. PLoS isn't evil, but they still spend millions of dollars every year http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7096/full/441914a...
Re: Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, a well run, professionally edited journal costs money to produce. Does it cost more money to produce than Wikipedia? As I understand it, editors generally work for free. Reviewers generally work for free. Authors either work for free or pay for the privilege of publishing. Heck, authors generally supply their work already typeset. So what exactly is the cost here? I mean, I'm sure that IEEE/ACM hav…
Authors either work for free or pay for the privilege of publishing. I don't know where you get this. IEEE/ACM may not be paying them, but they are sure as hell getting paid to write the papers that go in those journals. Does it cost more money to produce than Wikipedia? The difference being that there are only 4 or 5 people in the world capable of producing or verifying the articles that appear in scientific journal…
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Re: Matt Blaze: How ACM and IEEE Shake Down Science
#20Most white papers are written by professors and students who are supported by grants. These grants generally come from DARPA, the NSF, or other federal programs. All that money comes from the taxpayers.
Yet as a taxpayer, I still have to buy the papers from a journal. A journal that hasn't funded the research, but profits from it.
A) What a cushy gig, I wish I had invented a professional society
B) This is an issue worth far more of the easily drummed up internet outrage than most of the silly things we all get worked up about, yet it seems to fly under the radar most of the time