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Hero
(mander.xyz)
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Do you not write the publishing fees into your grant proposals? And the paywall is just to access through the journal, you can generally just email the author and they will send you a PDF of the work - because the whole point is for the work to be known about and referenced in more work, which can only be done if it's read. The work being in the journal means that it's been peer-reviewed and is scientifically rigorous (which is part of what the fee covers)
The reviewers are not compensated, but the editorial staff that maintain the journal are (part of which is recruiting and maintaining a reviewing board, soliciting comments, sending articles for review/rewrite, etc), as well as the staff that organize and put together the conferences that each journal hosts, and all other aspects of maintaining a journal such as partnerships with libraries and schools, memberships lists, etc. Did you think the fee only covered the Internet hosting?
Except those are for pre-print and post-print and don't offer peer review
The resources you mentioned are hosted through Cornell by volunteers (who have other full time jobs), presumably Cornell has a rigorous in-house hosting system. And this is only for receiving the articles submitted to them that are pre- and post-print, they do not solicit articles or comments, nor do they have management of any journal publications or events.
I truly do not think you are grasping the enormity of the tasks required to run a journal. It is not simply forwarding the article to peer reviewers and then hosting it. There are legal aspects that go along with managing a journal, recruiting a review board for each article (making sure they are experts in the field, not just random reviewers), getting comments on each article, maintaining a job board for a student chapter, hosting events, hosting annual or biannual conferences, and so many more things. Each article doesn't just get put up online, it literally needs to be PUBLISHED which comes with it's own aspects, isbn numbers, doi number, fees, etc.
The paywall includes paying for the specific article, or becoming a member of the journal. Being member of the journal unlocks ALL articles in the journal (which didn't used to be the case prior to digital editions. I still have my physical journals editions of many journals I'm a member of because it used to be you only had access to the articles from the years you were actually a member and were sent the physical copies). Many people that publish will be members of the journal which lowers the cost to submit articles significantly, while also giving them access to the articles published. Additionally, instead of looking solely at the journal for the article, most people know to look at the source of the research for the PDF (ie, look for the author's university site or personal page to look for a link to a PDF) because generally whoever paid for the research wants the research to be available to be read, especially if it was paid for by taxpayers. And STILL if you find an article that you don't have access to, and your university is not a member to the journal or local library is not a member and neither can do an interlibrary loan for it, you can STILL simply email the author and ask if they can send it to you and chances are they will be more than willing.
So I'm still not entirely sure what the issue is, except an incredibly immature and naive desire to complain about information not being open access because grr I've been told all capitalism is bad, so I must apply it to everything because I don't know how to actually look for information and don't know how to think for myself grrr.
Do you even understand WHY he refused the prize? It was because correct work shouldn't have to be rewarded (and because Hamilton's work was equal to his). That doesn't negate the fact that the work still needs to be reviewed and be reproducible (ie, peer reviewed), it just means let's not waste time and money standing around and applauding ourselves.
That still doesn't have anything to do with any of the previous comments.
I really don't think you have a grasp on what his view actually were - and people tend to try to twist what little is out there from him into what they want it to mean. Being disillusioned by the infighting for credit amongst his peers is not the same as having an issue with publishing. There's nothing in that argument that says publishing or the industry is the issue - just the arguing for credit. The only information he gave about why he stopped publishing was that he didn't want to be in the public eye like he was on display like he was in a zoo by being offered rewards.
Woah, no one I know has ever paid a publishing fee. Where are you publishing? Anywhere that asks for money is a scam journal. Also, a PhD is fully funded by nature, so all fees for anything should come from your program.
Most well regarded journals in STEM require a publishing fee. That is not the case for the humanities and I believe social sciences, which are always free.
Oh I didn’t know, thanks. For some reason I assumed they were waived
In the off chance that I get to writing a paper, I'm just going to publish it in one of the free ones and add a license to it that prevents the money grabbing ones from using it.
If noone looks at it, it's their loss.
You can only win one battle.
And you have to choose what you push for.
This problem wouldn't have existed, had enough people migrated to open journals during the internet boom.
And if reviewers are not being paid anyway, they might as well start working with someone that's not a money sink.
Of course I can't say much in this regard, as I have never been a reviewer (probably not even qualifying), but I'd rather be associated with an organisation that focusses on giving a better service than on wringing funds and work out of all that deal with them.
Anti Commercial-AI license
If your field is computer science or eng, publishing in one of the A ranking conferences for your field is as good as top journal publishing
I would use accepted papers as an example, I find that usually helps
Not exactly, you should do what interests you. I meant as in look at accepted papers for tips on organization, flow, how to explain your methodology and present figures etc. Really great research can suffer sometimes if no one can understand your methodology or your motivation for your experiments. But of course besides that it’s helpful if the presented work is meaningful and impactful for your field (your project advisor can help scope this)