Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

chronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 391 posts

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#261

Post by jacobolus »

wtmt wrote: post #252

No, she’s not in real trouble this time. What seems to be in trouble is getting new papers on to Sci-Hub and it becoming a little bit less relevant over time. The courts here in India are notoriously slow on many cases. Depending on luck, the hearings don’t even start for a long time after an initial notice is sent to defendants. If the publishers are able to push the court for an earlier hearing, we’ll know how soon…

> getting new papers on to Sci-Hub and it becoming a little bit less relevant over time

Sci-Hub is just as relevant as ever. What has happened is that paywalled papers published in 2021 are losing a substantial proportion of their readers and potential citations, and their future impact will be depressed compared to papers from previous years. Even when Sci-Hub starts adding papers again, there may be a significant permanent effect.

Unestablished researchers publishing important early-career papers in paywalled journals are getting harmed.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#262

Post by draven »

alpaca128 wrote: post #2

> The website is blocked in a dozen countries, including Austria, Britain, and France. In Austria the providers do block it, but it's still reachable via the *.st TLD. Not sure if that's an official sci-hub page or not, but it works.

It's blocked at the DNS level (at least here in France, it simply does not resolve.) I switched to DNS-over-HTTP in Firefox and it works.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#263

Post by [deleted] »

leephillips wrote: post #141
golergka wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, this seems to be a cultural thing. Having been exposed to both Russians and Americans, I would never dare use those words in a disagreement with American colleague, for example. But talking to a Russian one, I would use much harder ones for my point to be taken seriously, and would not have expected any bad blood over it.

Well, then I hope I’m wrong about the vehemence behind her remarks. But I’m still puzzled about the reason for her objections in the first place. What’s so wrong about mentioning that there are some ways to get reprints besides Sci-Hub?

[deleted]

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#264

Post by IshKebab »

jacobolus wrote: post #260
xtracto wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pessimistic. Long before sci-hub, library genesis and Alexandra there was ebook-club / library.nu and Smiley (its creator). When it closed it was described as the burning of the library of Alexandria. There were a lot of non-technical books on that site and it was amazing. Still, it lost the battle. Ultimately, sci-hub will unfortunately get the same end. Until the Scientific society stops maintaining the leeches…

If sci-hub goes down it will significantly disrupt nearly every scientific researcher, in every field, all over the world. After getting used to a world where every paper is obtainable, it would be very difficult for people to go back. I’m not really a scholar or academic per se, but the independent research I do (which involves skimming thousands of papers per year, 99% of which are irrelevant or useless) would be a…

For researchers in most universities almost every paper is obtainable without scihub.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#265

Post by jacobolus »

IshKebab wrote: post #264
jacobolus wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If sci-hub goes down it will significantly disrupt nearly every scientific researcher, in every field, all over the world. After getting used to a world where every paper is obtainable, it would be very difficult for people to go back. I’m not really a scholar or academic per se, but the independent research I do (which involves skimming thousands of papers per year, 99% of which are irrelevant or useless) would be a…

For researchers in most universities almost every paper is obtainable without scihub.

This is not true for most universities around the world. Only wealthy ones in first-world countries. All of my father’s academic colleagues in Mexico use Sci-Hub daily, and rely on it for access to literature.

But beyond that, there are paywalled journals which Harvard does not subscribe to. There are journals which the University of California does not subscribe to. (Or pick your favorite university, and there will be some paywalled journals it does not subscribe to.) Almost all are on Sci-Hub.

Moreover, even in the USA/Europe, there are many researchers who are not affiliated with any university, and many laypeople who look up scientific literature from time to time. For instance a great many paywalled papers are directly relevant to working computer programmers, but not worth $35/paper + bureaucratic hassle to evaluate.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#266

Post by jacobolus »

leephillips wrote: post #134
crumbshot wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let me reply to your last sentence by saying I do not think it is sexist to use the word “hysterical”, which has a well-understood meaning apart from its etymology, to someone who happens to be female. Then do you think maybe you misread Elbakyan's tone from her word choices, in a similar way to how I misread yours? She even stated in her last reply that she wasn't being hostile.

Of course that’s possible. Everyone can make their own judgments. I stand by my characterization. But no, I was interpreting her remarks based on the meanings of the words she used, not their etymologies. That’s usually more productive.

Calling women who politely contradict you “hysterical” is sexist, full stop. When you inadvertently use offensive prejudiced language out of ignorance, and people point that out, the appropriate action is to apologize and try not to do it again, not start making excuses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteria

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#267

Post by lmm »

jacobolus wrote: post #265
IshKebab wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For researchers in most universities almost every paper is obtainable without scihub.

This is not true for most universities around the world. Only wealthy ones in first-world countries. All of my father’s academic colleagues in Mexico use Sci-Hub daily, and rely on it for access to literature. But beyond that, there are paywalled journals which Harvard does not subscribe to. There are journals which the University of California does not subscribe to. (Or pick your favorite university, and there will…

Are the people whose work will be disrupted people who the top-tier scientific community care about?

As a working programmer I'd like to have access to scientific papers, but realistically no researcher is going to care whether I do. If the pain isn't being felt by top-tier researchers and top-tier universities, I doubt anyone will be able to change it.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#268

Post by wolverine876 »

andyxor wrote: post #234
cantrevealname wrote: post #161

Anyone remember Napster? There were extremely obscure musical recordings that were instantly found on Napster that are impossible to find even today. It took a long time for anyone to rebuild that data to the level of usefulness that Napster had. If Sci-Hub is forced to shut down due to legal pressure, technical problems, running out of money, or the founder losing interest, it would take a long time for anyone to du…

There are 850 scihub torrents, each containing 100,000 scientific articles, to a total of 85M articles (77TB) http://libgen.rs/scimag/repository_torrent/ index for all the papers in these torrents (SQL db): https://libgen.rs/dbdumps/scimag.sql.gz also see https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/nc27fv/rescue_...

But are they searchable, by users with little technical ability? Will they be updated with new papers if Sci-Hub shuts down?

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#269

Post by ahiknsr »

1cvmask wrote: post #258

Anyone here know Indian law and how it operates in real life? Why is she bullish on potentially winning the case? Is there a law in India that she is counting on? Or as I suspect she is counting on a sympathetic judge who might rule in her favor by finding some precedent from around the world. If say she does win how would the appeals process work?

> Why is she bullish on potentially winning the case? Is there a law in India that she is counting on? Or as I suspect she is counting on a sympathetic judge who might rule in her favor by finding some precedent from around the world.

Yes. Indian courts have ruled that photocopying books isn’t copyright violation, i assume we can expect a similar judgement for copying research papers.

from https://www.indialegallive.com/cover-story-articles/il-featu...

"Copyright, specially in literary works, is thus not an inevitable, divine, or natural right that confers on authors the absolute ownership of their creations. It is designed rather to stimulate activity and progress in the arts for the intellectual enrichment of the public. Copyright is intended to increase and not to impede the harvest of knowledge. It is intended to motivate the creative activity of authors and inventors in order to benefit the public."

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#270

Post by refurb »

krastanov wrote: post #251
refurb wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have boycotted Elsevier. The vast majority of scientists have not - they continue to get their papers published by Elsevier journals, donate their time as editors and donate their time for peer review. Let me be more direct - why? If Elsevier is clearly the "bad guy" here? And if. as your put it, "as decade later" scientists are still donating their time for free, why do you think it will change? How long…

The answer is trivial: because of inertia, they have much more important and interesting work to do, so the activism is left for the few. But again, in every single comment of yours you are neglecting the monumental progress that has already happened: open access is a fairly standard requirement for top institutions and becoming more common. The world you are imagining in your complaints does not exist.

Open access is not fairly standard. In my area (chemistry) there is no requirement and people stick to the paid journals. Why? Because of the prestige, which was my point all along.

Despite all the complaints of being "predatory", people still submit to those journals and volunteer their time. Why? Stockholm Syndrome? No. "Inertia"? No.

It's because they get something they can't get out of open source journals - a publication in a highly prestigious journal.

My point is everyone likes to say Elsevier offers "nothing" yet, what you call "inertia" (I call it "wanting what Elsevier has to offer") keeps them coming back to you point - maybe for decades?

Post reply on HN