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

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#341

Post by andi999 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:36 PM UTC

krastanov wrote: post #255

andi999 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One problem is that open access journals get paid by the author. So all so called predatory journals (not doing peer review, just taking the money and publishing the paper) are open access. Recently there was some hysteria about this, even if you publish by accident in one of those journals your career takes a very big dent.

It seems reasonable to me to pay a small one-time publication fee for an open access journal, to cover clerical and typesetting work (professional typesetting is important and expensive). Predatory journals exist and would exist independently of what the best practices of good journals are. I have received plenty of emails inviting me to submit work to predatory journals, but their low quality and lack of peer review…

That small fee is usually ard 2000$.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#342

Post by krastanov » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:47 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #297

krastanov wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems reasonable to me to pay a small one-time publication fee for an open access journal, to cover clerical and typesetting work (professional typesetting is important and expensive). Predatory journals exist and would exist independently of what the best practices of good journals are. I have received plenty of emails inviting me to submit work to predatory journals, but their low quality and lack of peer review…

> reasonable to me to pay a small one-time publication fee for an open access journal, to cover clerical and typesetting work In my experience, the author typesets themselves anyway - the journal doesn’t do this. And the clerical work is done by community volunteers - the journal doesn’t do that either.

In my experience with open access journals, if I am expected to typeset, I need to pay around 300$ for publication. If the journal does their typesetting, I pay on the order of thousands. Steep, but not unreasonable. And waivers exist.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#343

Post by krastanov » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

subroutine wrote: post #315

krastanov wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems reasonable to me to pay a small one-time publication fee for an open access journal, to cover clerical and typesetting work (professional typesetting is important and expensive). Predatory journals exist and would exist independently of what the best practices of good journals are. I have received plenty of emails inviting me to submit work to predatory journals, but their low quality and lack of peer review…

In your opinion what would constitute a small fee? $10? $100? $3000? https://www.frontiersin.org/about/publishing-fees

In a sibling comment I mentioned. If they do professional typsetting, around 3000 is not crazy. If I do the typesetting, then ≤500 is what I would expect.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#344

Post by xtracto » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:50 PM UTC

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…

Exactly! I had the opportunity to both work in the academic field in Mexico and study in the UK and the difference of resources is abysmal: Access to Scopus, access to Elsevier and other editorials is something most researchers in Mexico can only dream about.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#345

Post by krastanov » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #270

krastanov wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pu…

OK, so you are both negatively affected by the bad status quo and at the same time rant against the people that try to change it. What is the point of that behavior? Why are you yourself not trying to help these people change the status quo?

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#346

Post by amelius » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 1:56 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #80

kergonath wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right* (depending on jurisdiction, ymmv). Getting from it articles that you cannot have otherwise is (except for the vanishingly few articles in the public domain, which are not really likely to be found on Sci-Hub anyway. I tried). Saying that the work could not have been done without it is basically admitting that you got papers outside the subscriptions of your institution. It is also against the policy of all the…

> Saying that the work could not have been done without it is basically admitting that you got papers outside the subscriptions of your institution. Isn’t that exactly the point? How is it not hindering scientific progress if you do not have access to research that you don’t pay for. It’s not like the journals themselves fund the research, they’re just getting a free ride.

> if you do not have access to research that you don’t pay for.

The situation is worse as most of the research is already paid for by tax money.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#347

Post by fserb » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

I can't think of anyone who has done more for the scientific development of mankind in the last 10 years than Alexandra.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#348

Post by aabaker99 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:09 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #268

andyxor wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's not too hard to find the article's doi (programatically) for newer articles. Once you have the doi you have all the important article metadata like author, publish date, etc. I imagine this is all that's required to make the articles searchable.

However, this is certainly more challenging for older articles.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#349

Post by mb7733 » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:18 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #151

mb7733 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The metaphor backfires because if everyone runs red lights they will collide with one another, as well as with those going through green lights.

> if everyone runs red lights they will collide with one another In the same way that if everyone runs green lights, they'll collide with one another? How do you go through intersections?

Green lights... are synchronized to avoid collisions.

Re: Is Alexandra Elbakyan in real trouble this time?

#350

Post by stared » Mon, Jul 05, 2021, 2:52 PM UTC

toto444 wrote: post #296

musicale wrote: post #201

> “I thought Sci-Hub would become legal in a couple of years,” she said. “When the laws are obviously in the way of scientific development, they should be canceled.” Pretty much this. Elbakyan: builds library of Alexandria. Elsevier et al.: tries to burn it down.

When you think about it the legality of Uber or AirBnB was not so obvious from the start and still isn't. Maybe she thought Sci-Hub would have the same path.

Sadly, it has little to due with public good and a lot with funds and lawyers and PR.