Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#211

Post by eldaisfish » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:34 AM UTC

thrdbndndn wrote: post #103

amelius wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scientists should put Scihub in the acknowledgements section of their papers. As in "this research would not have been possible without Scihub".

Interestingly, when I was still in university, I never used Sci-hub at all. I can download almost any paper using school's network (or VPN) since the library have subscriptions for basically all the major publishers. I only started to use it occasionally once I've graduated (but I didn't really do any formal research any more.)

perhaps you're aware of this but sci-hub solves a second problem in addition to simply access - ease of use. Using a library's system requires a proxy or VPN or a credential verification of some sort.

Sci-hub requires the title of the paper. that's it.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#212

Post by ipaddr » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

exikyut wrote: post #154

danuker wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know how to best support her. Any suggestions? My guess would be to donate to her. Near the bottom of the page is a BTC address (please check it yourself): https://sci-hub.do/ https://sci-hub.st/ https://sci-hub.se/ All the domains have the same address for me: 12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2mdSns Money (and Bitcoin is among the freest money) can be used on whatever she needs.

I was idly curious about the account state, so went digging for visualization tools. Most of them have nice designs and not very much info :) but - https://mempool.space/address/12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2m... shows a presumably-USD$ amount next to each transaction - https://explorer.bitquery.io/bitcoin/address/12PCbUDS4ho7vgS... (select "Sankey", slide "Detail level" all the way to the right) shows how the money's…

All together she made 250,000 over the lifetime of that address.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#213

Post by sillysaurusx » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

exikyut wrote: post #154

danuker wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know how to best support her. Any suggestions? My guess would be to donate to her. Near the bottom of the page is a BTC address (please check it yourself): https://sci-hub.do/ https://sci-hub.st/ https://sci-hub.se/ All the domains have the same address for me: 12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2mdSns Money (and Bitcoin is among the freest money) can be used on whatever she needs.

I was idly curious about the account state, so went digging for visualization tools. Most of them have nice designs and not very much info :) but - https://mempool.space/address/12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2m... shows a presumably-USD$ amount next to each transaction - https://explorer.bitquery.io/bitcoin/address/12PCbUDS4ho7vgS... (select "Sankey", slide "Detail level" all the way to the right) shows how the money's…

She only has $40k of BTC in her account :(

I know it’s a lot, but legal fees eat up so much. Hopefully she can win the case without sacrificing her entire savings too.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#214

Post by ramraj07 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

Did no one read the article? The answer to the question in the title is the same answer for all questions in article titled: No. Looks like she's doing just fine and trying to see if she can actually win the case in India, and if not she'll still be fine. Of course she probably can't leave Russia ever, but it looks like she knew that a long time back and nothing about that has changed.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#215

Post by smt88 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:43 AM UTC

enriquto wrote: post #89

smt88 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be wonderfully altruistic, but it would be career suicide as well.

This is simply not true. The world has changed a lot the last 10 years. In many scientific fields, you are actually expected to publish your "preprint" in the open and also your source code.

That's not at all the same as the proposal I was replying to.

They seemed to be saying that people should only publish in Sci-Hub, making it a prestigious publication (that would appear in press releases, one assumes) instead of just a mirror.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#216

Post by Anunayj » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:44 AM UTC

pizza wrote: post #152

unixhero wrote: post #11

How might we help her?

Is there some way to replicate sci-hub thousands of times in a distributed fashion, Hydra-style?

yes and no, Scihub relies on logins for retrieving new research papers, which would be hard to get more of. Though you can contribute by making a copy of part of libgen archives and seed it, if someday libgen goes down.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21692222

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#217

Post by a_bonobo » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:47 AM UTC

stavros wrote: post #135

jeroenhd wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe you can publish on Sci-Hub, but you can join the open access movement by publishing your work on sites such as Arxiv where anyone can read your work. If every scientist published their work on open access platforms, Sci-Hub wouldn't need to exist in the first place.

Why do people not do that? As far as I know, publishing in Arxiv is as simple as uploading the PDF, so I'm wondering why scientists don't do that themselves by default. Does anyone know?

Speaking as a biologist working in Australia:

1) Older collaborators with more power are being 'scared' of getting scooped when they post preprints. They're slowly coming around as the argument makes no real sense, preprint = published to the younger generation.

2) Funding bodies, i.e. the people who pay our bills and have all the power. The Australian Research Council, the biggest non-medical funding body here, does not allow mentions of preprints in grant applications. They give no reason for that rule.

3) Again, money. You want your research to go into the journal with the highest impact factor since that mostly decides whether you get to keep your job, get that new position, or get that grant. Some journals still don't allow preprints. You also get no feedback when a top journal rejects your paper, could the rejection be because others have seen your preprint, published papers built on top of the preprint, and now your paper submitted to the journal is not so novel any more? You have no way of telling.

4) Fear. Sometimes, after your paper has undergone peer review it's a little bit better. A few select people see the embarrassing errors in your paper and help you fix them before the paper is widely accessible. If you post a preprint the world sees your glaring errors.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#218

Post by Anunayj » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:48 AM UTC

ricardobeat wrote: post #149

How ironic that the news site where this is published does not allow me to read it unless I subscribe.

Haha well yup.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#219

Post by xkcd-sucks » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

maroonblazer wrote: post #169

enriquto wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool! Never used bitcoin, but that may be the first time if I figure out how to do it.

Me either. I took this opportunity to take the plunge. I had a Coinbase account already from years ago but never linked it to any payment source. At the time the only options were my bank account, which didn't sit well with me. Now PayPal is an option, which is also linked to my bank account, but the one level of indirection made me a bit less hesitant. Also, the combination of Coinbase and PayPal seems low(er) risk…

Just FYI coinbase will ban you for "illegal" transactions which may include "copyright infringement"

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#220

Post by henearkr » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:55 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #29

unixhero wrote: post #11

How might we help her?

Send money to the bitcoin donation address on the site. Verify it for yourself as well, but I believe the address is 12PCbUDS4ho7vgSccmixKTHmq9qL2mdSns

One concern that I have is: what if her wallet has already been confiscated by the authorities? Then all the donations would directly go to the government, which is why it matters.