4 ms·

Why not just use arxiv.org?

by batbomb 11y ago

cossatot 11y ago
Probably because bioRxiv.org, where these folks submitted their work, will be more widely read by biologists than arxiv.org.
- batbomb 11y ago
  biorxiv reeks of NIH (No pun intended)
  - knowaveragejoe 11y ago
    And that means?
    - TallGuyShort 11y ago
      NIH means "not invented here", referring to the tendency of some engineers to build their own tools from scratch rather than learn or adapt an off-the-shelf tool. Can't comment on the context as I'm not experienced with these different *xives.
      - tosseraccount 11y ago
        National Institutes of Health provides a lot of the funding for biology and medical research.
        jessriedel 11y ago
        Hence "(no pun intended)".
Analemma_ 11y ago
Does arXiv accept biology papers? I think they are exclusively math/physics/CS.
- batbomb 11y ago
  It used to be only particle physics, then only physics, but my impression is they expand to fit whatever. I'm sure they wouldn't mind expanding, but probably some of it is they don't have experts/money to help out with some of the organizational things they typically do for a field.
- plg 11y ago
  computational biology, sure
jonchang 11y ago
arxiv only accepts computational biology papers. Compare the subject areas of biorxiv http://biorxiv.org/ http://biorxiv.org/ and arxiv http://arxiv.org/archive/q-bio http://arxiv.org/archive/q-bio
- batbomb 11y ago
  That's not necessarily an immutable fact of arxiv.org though, otherwise there wouldn't even be computational biology on there. It's probably more likely due to a lack of demand. There's only about 4k articles on all of biorxiv in any case.
jessriedel 11y ago
I heard from Paul Ginsparg that bioArxiv's original raison d'etre was to give biologists more assistance in producing professionally typeset documents since far fewer of them know LaTeX then physicists. This was going to be funded by a submission fee of ~$50. That idea was apparently nixed, so that the difference with the arXiv are now mostly cosmetic (with the notable exception that bioArxiv has commentary). Fractionalization is generally undesirable, but it's plausible that bioArxiv can make tweaks that accelerate adoption among biologists compared to arXiv.
- cossatot 11y ago
  Discoverability is a big part of it as well, at least at the user end. I find out about new papers from email alerts of subject matter and tables of contents of the new issue of the journals I keep up with. (Obviously when I need to look into a particular issue I use google scholar). I have never once found a paper of particular relevance to my research (geology/geophysics) on arXiv. I haven't looked very many times, but after striking out several times, why keep trying? If there was a geoRxiv then I would probably browse it more regularly because the chances of me finding something relevant would be much higher. For that reason, and another, I kind of disagree that fragmentation (or fractionalization) is undesirable. The second reason, which is not unrelated, is that–at least with peer-reviewed journals–the quality of the work in field- or subfield-specific venues is often far higher than in the sort of pan-scientific journals like Science or Nature. I think a lot of it has to do with the quality of the reviewing/editing, but a lot of it is that the papers have to be written for and justified to a wider audience that wants to be wowed and doesn't know the background well enough to evaluate the science for its own sake. If I write a paper and send it to Tectonophysics, I know that the readership will understand what I'm doing and why, and I will write the paper accordingly. If I write the paper for Nature, then I have describe and justify the how and why to a wide range of people from my peers to journalists for phys.org and the NYT. Sometimes that's fine: If I find out that the Seattle fault is loaded and ready to pop, the press, policy makers and citizens need to know. But if I find out that the stress field on the Seattle fault is largely determined by the topography near the fault and that has some persistent influence on how an earthquake rupture propagates on the fault (but doesn't necessarily change the seismic hazard) then I don't need to go through the rigmarole of explaining and justifying any of that to anyone who isn't intrinsically interested, and maybe more importantly, I don't have to explain (i.e. gloss over) the subtleties, ambiguities and caveats of the work to an audience that lacks the relevant background. This simply allows me to write a more clear and more honest paper. This brings up a tangent that is relevant to the broader topic of self-publication: You always need to write to a specific audience, and with a journal you know who that audience is. With a blog or a website, you don't necessarily. That may be fine but it can trip a lot of people up, and make the writing much worse.

Why not just use arxiv.org?

by batbomb 11y ago

Why not just use arxiv.org?

Probably because bioRxiv.org, where these folks submitted their work, will be more widely read by biologists than arxiv.org.

batbomb 11y ago
biorxiv reeks of NIH (No pun intended)
- knowaveragejoe 11y ago
  And that means?
  - TallGuyShort 11y ago
    NIH means "not invented here", referring to the tendency of some engineers to build their own tools from scratch rather than learn or adapt an off-the-shelf tool. Can't comment on the context as I'm not experienced with these different *xives.
    - tosseraccount 11y ago
      National Institutes of Health provides a lot of the funding for biology and medical research.
      - jessriedel 11y ago
        Hence "(no pun intended)".

Analemma_ 11y ago

Does arXiv accept biology papers? I think they are exclusively math/physics/CS.

batbomb 11y ago
It used to be only particle physics, then only physics, but my impression is they expand to fit whatever. I'm sure they wouldn't mind expanding, but probably some of it is they don't have experts/money to help out with some of the organizational things they typically do for a field.
plg 11y ago
computational biology, sure

jonchang 11y ago

arxiv only accepts computational biology papers. Compare the subject areas of biorxiv http://biorxiv.org/ http://biorxiv.org/ and arxiv http://arxiv.org/archive/q-bio http://arxiv.org/archive/q-bio

batbomb 11y ago
That's not necessarily an immutable fact of arxiv.org though, otherwise there wouldn't even be computational biology on there. It's probably more likely due to a lack of demand. There's only about 4k articles on all of biorxiv in any case.

jessriedel 11y ago

I heard from Paul Ginsparg that bioArxiv's original raison d'etre was to give biologists more assistance in producing professionally typeset documents since far fewer of them know LaTeX then physicists. This was going to be funded by a submission fee of ~$50. That idea was apparently nixed, so that the difference with the arXiv are now mostly cosmetic (with the notable exception that bioArxiv has commentary). Fractionalization is generally undesirable, but it's plausible that bioArxiv can make tweaks that accelerate adoption among biologists compared to arXiv.

cossatot 11y ago
Discoverability is a big part of it as well, at least at the user end. I find out about new papers from email alerts of subject matter and tables of contents of the new issue of the journals I keep up with. (Obviously when I need to look into a particular issue I use google scholar). I have never once found a paper of particular relevance to my research (geology/geophysics) on arXiv. I haven't looked very many times, but after striking out several times, why keep trying? If there was a geoRxiv then I would probably browse it more regularly because the chances of me finding something relevant would be much higher. For that reason, and another, I kind of disagree that fragmentation (or fractionalization) is undesirable. The second reason, which is not unrelated, is that–at least with peer-reviewed journals–the quality of the work in field- or subfield-specific venues is often far higher than in the sort of pan-scientific journals like Science or Nature. I think a lot of it has to do with the quality of the reviewing/editing, but a lot of it is that the papers have to be written for and justified to a wider audience that wants to be wowed and doesn't know the background well enough to evaluate the science for its own sake. If I write a paper and send it to Tectonophysics, I know that the readership will understand what I'm doing and why, and I will write the paper accordingly. If I write the paper for Nature, then I have describe and justify the how and why to a wide range of people from my peers to journalists for phys.org and the NYT. Sometimes that's fine: If I find out that the Seattle fault is loaded and ready to pop, the press, policy makers and citizens need to know. But if I find out that the stress field on the Seattle fault is largely determined by the topography near the fault and that has some persistent influence on how an earthquake rupture propagates on the fault (but doesn't necessarily change the seismic hazard) then I don't need to go through the rigmarole of explaining and justifying any of that to anyone who isn't intrinsically interested, and maybe more importantly, I don't have to explain (i.e. gloss over) the subtleties, ambiguities and caveats of the work to an audience that lacks the relevant background. This simply allows me to write a more clear and more honest paper. This brings up a tangent that is relevant to the broader topic of self-publication: You always need to write to a specific audience, and with a journal you know who that audience is. With a blog or a website, you don't necessarily. That may be fine but it can trip a lot of people up, and make the writing much worse.