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Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

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Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#71

Post by pmyteh »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #63
pmyteh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an academic. I've never met one who has objected to Sci-hub. Many of us use it, even to get papers we do have legit access to: journal publishers' access control systems are a pain in the arse. Leaving aside the societal merits, our incentives are to get published, then get read. Sci-hub helps with the latter, and doesn't harm anyone except the publishers (who most academics cordially dislike anyway).

I imagine even the most socialist/communist/whatever is at least partly incentivised by earning a living too. In fact, isn't that the problem, that quantity of publications (and citations) is used as a metric for continued employment? Those awarding research grants, etc., don't provide a free open-access publication as the place publication is required. It seems governments could fix this in favour of the public quit…

We're very much incentivised by earning a living, but given that journals either pay us nothing or charge us for publication it's not particularly relevant to this discussion. You're right that volume of pubs and cites is the important metric, and piracy helps the latter without really affecting the former.

Governments and other major research funders are indeed beginning to do what you recommend and mandate various kinds of open access terms on publications. There are multiple options, some of which are reasonably favourable to the incumbent publishers (e.g. delayed OA release with an embargo) and some of which are not (e.g. it goes straight into our public database of funded research on day one). What the end game looks like isn't exactly certain at the moment.

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#72

Post by skrebbel »

SXX wrote: post #50
folli wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the Scientific Publication Mafia is your definition of the "West", then, yes, let's stick it to the "West". Anyway, is there any proof that Sci-Hub is part of the Kremlbots, besides Alexandra Elbakyan being from Kazakhstan?

She have strong pro-Putin view and tend to ban anyone who dont agree with her, even banned all Russian IPs from Sci-Hub last year because of some political discussions on social networks. Though this doesn't change the fact project itself is very useful and obviously it's her own personality problems rather than some conspiracy.

She obviously doesn't share the NYTimes Western Standard World View, but to say that blocking all Russian IPs is pro-putin is a bit of a shortcut, no? The world isn't just "pro west" vs "pro Putin" and from what I can tell, Elbakyan has a nuanced standpoint.

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#73

Post by amelius »

hrasyid wrote: post #46
matheusmoreira wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The page's HTML is the API. It's pretty easy to download a web page, parse the HTML and then extract specific bits of information from it. The browser does the same thing on the user's behalf, which is why it is called the user agent.

An API is a contract. HTML can be tweaked and become incompatible with your parser at the developer's whim.

Use Deep Learning to circumvent that.

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#75

Post by wbhart »

pmyteh wrote: post #71
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine even the most socialist/communist/whatever is at least partly incentivised by earning a living too. In fact, isn't that the problem, that quantity of publications (and citations) is used as a metric for continued employment? Those awarding research grants, etc., don't provide a free open-access publication as the place publication is required. It seems governments could fix this in favour of the public quit…

We're very much incentivised by earning a living, but given that journals either pay us nothing or charge us for publication it's not particularly relevant to this discussion. You're right that volume of pubs and cites is the important metric, and piracy helps the latter without really affecting the former. Governments and other major research funders are indeed beginning to do what you recommend and mandate various…

Whereas a lot of OA options exist, they are quite scattered. Some universities have preprint servers that are more or less maintained, with varying up times. There are multiple open access options you have to pay for, if your grant or institution has funding for it.

You usually have to apply, and spend countless hours getting permission to spend the money, fill in forms, etc. It's all just too complicated.

Academics don't have time, either to find where the OA content is, or how to access it, and nor do they have time to organise their content to end up open access. It's much better for academics if everything is in one place, and trivially accessible.

Journals should be paying sci-hub to maintain a single repository where all articles are accessible for everyone, trivially, then switch to a model where universities pay only for the services journals are actually providing (in some cases, from what I can tell, none).

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#76

Post by Aelius »

Vinnl wrote: post #55
agumonkey wrote: post #12

reminder that this went up not long ago https://whereisscihub.herokuapp.com

Thanks for sharing; note that I've moved that to a somewhat simpler URL: https://whereisscihub.now.sh/ I should also add that I am also working on a project to incentivising authors to make their work freely available: https://flockademic.com/ (More info here: https://medium.com/p/the-holy-grail-in-open-access-sharing-t... )

Sci hub seems like the perfect candidate for ipfs, I'm astounded the mirrors haven't implementated that yet.

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#77

Post by oytis »

skrebbel wrote: post #72
SXX wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She have strong pro-Putin view and tend to ban anyone who dont agree with her, even banned all Russian IPs from Sci-Hub last year because of some political discussions on social networks. Though this doesn't change the fact project itself is very useful and obviously it's her own personality problems rather than some conspiracy.

She obviously doesn't share the NYTimes Western Standard World View, but to say that blocking all Russian IPs is pro-putin is a bit of a shortcut, no? The world isn't just "pro west" vs "pro Putin" and from what I can tell, Elbakyan has a nuanced standpoint.

Reducing "the West" to NYTimes seems to me as a much more severe oversimplification. Alexandra's viewpoint does not only contradict NYTimes, it contradicts basically the whole political spectrum of liberal democratic countries, except maybe radical left and radical right (die AfD and die Linke and the respective media in German context for example). Of course her standpoint is not without nuances, and so is everyone's. But it is still not incorrect to call her anti West and pro Putin, and I believe she herself would not object this definition. And of course that's not to diminish her positive role in protecting the freedom of humanity by maintaining SciHub. It is really thouht-provoking that otherwise non-free countries still contribute to common freedom by being less involved into copyright-protection system.

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#79

Post by JustFinishedBSG »

Aelius wrote: post #76
Vinnl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing; note that I've moved that to a somewhat simpler URL: https://whereisscihub.now.sh/ I should also add that I am also working on a project to incentivising authors to make their work freely available: https://flockademic.com/ (More info here: https://medium.com/p/the-holy-grail-in-open-access-sharing-t... )

Sci hub seems like the perfect candidate for ipfs, I'm astounded the mirrors haven't implementated that yet.

We just need decentralized DNS for sci-hub, storage isn't needed (right now).

Plus sci-hub storage requirements are pretty big, >75 Tb...

Re: Sci-Bay: Google Scholar plus Sci-Hub

#80

Post by SXX »

skrebbel wrote: post #72
SXX wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She have strong pro-Putin view and tend to ban anyone who dont agree with her, even banned all Russian IPs from Sci-Hub last year because of some political discussions on social networks. Though this doesn't change the fact project itself is very useful and obviously it's her own personality problems rather than some conspiracy.

She obviously doesn't share the NYTimes Western Standard World View, but to say that blocking all Russian IPs is pro-putin is a bit of a shortcut, no? The world isn't just "pro west" vs "pro Putin" and from what I can tell, Elbakyan has a nuanced standpoint.

I didn't wanted to explain here why exactly she banned it since I believe no one on HN will truly interested in authoritarian state internal politics, but it's important in this case. Few years ago Kremlin marked non-profit Dynasty Foundation [1] that was for years funding science and educational institutions as "foreign agent" and stated that that reason for that is foreign funding. Of course it's was complete bullshit because organization was funded by single person: Dmitry Zimin (founder of one of three largest Russian telecoms).

Real reason for that Kremlin action was funding of some politics-related book publishing and lectures. For non-profit "foreign agent" mark in practice bring regulation that almost impossible or too expensive to comply with. So Dmitry Zimin just decide to close non-profit.

Then most of people in Russian science community who still live and work in Russia have strong liberal views. Obviously they wasn't too happy about that since it's one one of few non profits in Russia that was actually funding science and education for real. Very few rich people in Russia ever donated anything to science or education so it's a big loss.

Elbakyan "nuanced standpoint" was such that Kremlin doing good job and since Sci-Hub users from Russia didn't agree she just decide to ban whole country.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynasty_Foundation

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