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Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

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221–230 of 237 posts

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#221
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be only NIH-funded medical research. While it's nice to see, that's far from the only federally funded research.

It was expanded back in 2013 to all federal organizations that spend more than $100M in research. That was just an example link.

>>It was expanded back in 2013 to all federal organizations that spend more than $100M in research.

Why some arbitrary figure like $100M? why not $1M or $1K or for that matter even $1?

It should be other way round, if any research gets any funding (even $1 or 1 cent) then also the papers coming out of that research should be immediately released to public else they should not accept that grant/funding. The journals should not get a free ride for 1 year or so.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#222
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody know a linux script/software that would 'lock' a domain down to am IP regardless what the registrar does. Maybe have even a out of band way of updating it without the registrars involvement. I guess what I'm looking for would be P2P DNS server although making sure the data is not fake would be difficult without some kind of signing. Wonder if it could use the bitcoin ledger as a kind of key server? Edit: I kn…

echo "google.com 127.0.0.1" >> /etc/hosts

There's a couple of comments showing hostname followed by IP address. Are commenters really putting entries in this format into their HOSTS file? And it works? The correct format, at least on BSD UNIX and Windows, is IP address followed by hostname.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money. Research grants are given mostly by amount of publications in well known journals. If they just start a blog then they won't get further grants and have to change careers. The effect of Impact Factor ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_factor ) in academic grants is ridiculously high. So in the end it's not the scientists who can make the switch. It's the people who pay the scientists.

Who are these people and how can people contact them?

These are mainly the administrators (read clerks) who are in the charge of the funding purse(s). You can contact them via your senators and other elected members.

Tell your representatives the following: The clerks that you have put in charge of funding our tax-money-filled purses for scientific research are just a bunch of uneducated or worse yet ill-educated fellows who do not understand even an iota of academics especially in the STEM areas. So they just rely on a bunch of very coarse proxy numbers (e.g. shitty impact factors) to decide funding. So please remove these clerks from these positions. We can and must install a better and more open system for reviewing where well known scientists/academicians can be invited to participate in the decision making process. Open access journals is one such great way to start. See what is being done by great academicians like Prof. Sir Timothy Gowers and Prof. Donald Knuth are doing for this cause [1], [2]. You may contact these people and get their advice in this matter.

Signed.

Your fellow citizen, a concerned taxpayer and a voter of USA.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Gowers#Elsevier_boycot...

[2] http://thecostofknowledge.com/#list

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SciHub is costing around $50k a year to host 50 million papers for free. Elselvier makes a 37% profit margin on 2.07 billion pounds a year. Funny enough, SciHub shows Elselvier could host all scientific knowledge for under 1% of 1% of its revenue while making an operating profit. I'm sure we can find a better trade between widespread access and profitable management of that access than Elselvier. ;)

But no publisher is arguing that the hosting of PDFs is the expensive part of their business. If it was then you're right and researchers should just send their finished PDFs straight to sci-hub for hosting. But hosting a PDF is only a tiny, and as you've identified, an inconsequential part of the equation.

The other critical parts still don't result in a 37% net margin as it's basically labor. Most of it is low-skilled labor that should have plenty competition. The peer reviews of specific fields is high-skilled labor with decent to uncommon competition depending on size of field.

My claim still applies even if those costs are factored in. A yearly fee should be enough to cover everything. Charging $10-30 per article and such is just profiteering.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#225
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be only NIH-funded medical research. While it's nice to see, that's far from the only federally funded research.

It was expanded back in 2013 to all federal organizations that spend more than $100M in research. That was just an example link.

It was not expanded. i think you're referring to the FASTR bill that has not yet (but hopefully will soon be) passed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Access_to_Science_and_T...

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#226
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are these people and how can people contact them?

These are mainly the administrators ( read clerks ) who are in the charge of the funding purse(s). You can contact them via your senators and other elected members. Tell your representatives the following: The clerks that you have put in charge of funding our tax-money-filled purses for scientific research are just a bunch of uneducated or worse yet ill-educated fellows who do not understand even an iota of academics…

Your "clerks" are usually academics, actually.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the primary reason is accessibility. Onion addresses are not easily memorized. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooko%27s_triangle I believe this inconvenience is minor, however.

Incidentally, is there any fundamental reason why onion addresses are always so cryptic?

The answer to that is in the Zooko's Triangle link, give it a read.

But, in short: for a name to be useful in a global context, it has to be unambiguous or unique. If there isn't a centralized naming authority / registry, then that means that you can't be able to pick an arbitrary name. (If you could, you could just decide to use the same name as someone else, and now there's no way to figure out which one of you the name indicates.)

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#228
post #46
post #4

"As a result of the legal battle the site (sci-hub.io) just lost one of its latest domain names. However, the site has no intentions of backing down, and will continue its fight to keep access to scientific knowledge free and open." Does this not enrage people? Elsevier and closed-access journals like them, are doing all they can to impede human progress while leaching off of tax-payer dollars to do so. Something sho…

The onus is on the scientists. Elsevier does its job. If you were given a golden ring as a gift every day, I bet you would end up opening a jewelry shop as well. Even if scientists want to use alternative open access publishers, it's a game of who blinks first. They won't do it because their colleagues don't.

> The onus is on the scientists. Elsevier does its job. If you were given a golden ring as a gift every day, I bet you would end up opening a jewelry shop as well.

The idea that Elsevier is somehow not responsible for their actions because they're just doing their job is abhorrent, and I entirely reject it. If what you do is actively harmful to society, the onus is on you to fix it. Yes, the onus is also on scientists, too, to not enable Elsevier's bad behavior, but they're not the ones choosing Elsevier's access policies; they only have indirect control.

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#229

> Meanwhile, academic pirates continue to flood to Sci-Hub, domain seizure or not. I realize readers of torrentfreak.com have a different relationship with the word "pirate" but-- This is not piracy. You are entitled to read work from Sci-Hub, as your taxes funded the researchers who created the work. We academics want you to read our work, we do not benefit in any way from publisher paywalls. We continue to publish…

> You are entitled to read work from Sci-Hub, as your taxes funded the researchers who created the work.

Am I entitled to a joy ride in an F-15, as my taxes funded its purchase?

Re: Elsevier Complaint Shuts Down Sci-Hub Domain Name

#230
post #226
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are mainly the administrators ( read clerks ) who are in the charge of the funding purse(s). You can contact them via your senators and other elected members. Tell your representatives the following: The clerks that you have put in charge of funding our tax-money-filled purses for scientific research are just a bunch of uneducated or worse yet ill-educated fellows who do not understand even an iota of academics…

Your "clerks" are usually academics, actually.

I understand, but as academics become "administrators" and their goals shift, there is a non-zero chance of the academics metamorphosing (or gradually transforming) into "clerks".
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