7 ms·
SSRN sold to Elsevier
- PaulHoule 10y agoAin't no power like the power of money because the power of money don't stop. It is really the fault of you, the reader, because somehow your library finds $2M a year to pay to Elsevier and can't find a dime to pay for open access. It is a little known story, but in the mid 0's, arXiv came within a hair of being sold to IoP by the Cornell University Library.
- jessriedel 10y ago> It is a little known story, but in the mid 0's, arXiv came within a hair of being sold to IoP by the Cornell University Library. ¶ Source?
- PaulHoule 10y agoMe. I stopped it from happening and got fired.
- nileshtrivedi 10y agoThis deserves a blog post.
- PaulHoule 10y agoMaybe. Everybody involved got fired, all the way to the then head of the CUL. I haven't talked about it much because whistleblowers just get nailed to the wall. The only kind of settlement that is worth it is enough money you never have to work again and can live high on the hog.
- PaulHoule 10y agoMaybe. Everybody involved got fired, all the way to the then head of the CUL. I haven't talked about it much because whistleblowers just get nailed to the wall. The only kind of settlement that is worth it is enough money you never have to work again and can live high on the hog.
- jessriedel 10y agoWould Paul Ginsparg vouch for your story?
- PaulHoule 10y agoTry it.
- jessriedel 10y agoI don't understand. I don't know Paul that well, but I'd consider him a friend. Are you critical of him? Would he roughly agree with your take?
- Aelinsaar 10y agoTruly, the only solution to these pricks will be a LOT more people like Alexandra Elbakyan.
- nathancahill 10y agoAnd Aaron Swartz.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoHopefully like him, but not with that ending.
- nathancahill 10y ago"They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.". That was not even close to the ending of Aaron Swartz.
- Aelinsaar 10y agoA good point, I chose my words poorly.
- dredmorbius 10y agoYou did fine. I hugely appreciate what Aaron did. I wouldn't want to see what happened to him occur again in the name of Open Access, and I'm hoping it doesn't. But yes, keeping his name and cause alive would be a Very Good Thing.
- nxzero 10y agoIt will happened again, nothing has changed; if anything, things are getting worse, not better.
- Mtinie 10y ago
- apricot 10y ago$$RN.
- dredmorbius 10y agoWhy is this not subject to anti-trust review? Oh, interesting. Among the trustees is Hal Varian, professor emeritus of economics, UC Berkeley. And currently Google's Chief Economist: http://info.berkeley.edu/~hal/ http://info.berkeley.edu/~hal/ http://www.ssrn.com/en/ http://www.ssrn.com/en/ Brian Leiter's take: http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2016/05/elsevier-acquires-ssrn.html http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2016/05/elsevier-a... He points to Matt Bodie who has this comment: "In 2006, I asked Gregg Gordon if SSRN would ever sell itself to a larger corporation. His answer: "'As for a future sale, other than myself, the shareholders are academics. They have invested their own money and time into SSRN with the goal of changing how research is distributed, value their reputations and relationships within the scholarly community, and would not risk them by selling in a manner that would jeopardize our central goal. Our intention is to never sell, but it is hard to guarantee that.'" http://www.theconglomerate.org/2016/05/ssrn-acquired-by-elsevier.html http://www.theconglomerate.org/2016/05/ssrn-acquired-by-else... Paul Gowder, professor of law & political science, why you should be concerned: https://medium.com/@PaulGowder/ssrn-has-been-captured-by-the-enemy-of-open-knowledge-b3e5bca6751d#.3kwndo5zf https://medium.com/@PaulGowder/ssrn-has-been-captured-by-the...
- zer00eyz 10y ago>with the goal of changing how research is distributed Services like Arxiv, and now scihub have changed things up more than a bit. I have to wonder if they saw the writing on the wall and cashed out while they could (and I would not fault them if they said they did)
- Bartweiss 10y agoThis seems quite plausible. SSRN has been a good thing, but over many years it hasn't managed anywhere near the change and furor produced by Scihub. If open access brands are going to be devalued by universal access, then it's a great time to sell.
- dredmorbius 10y agoSSRN has worked within the system. Sci-Hub (and Aaron) said "fuck the system".
- dandandan 10y agoWhy was the title of this changed? It may have been editorialized but it wasn't misleading or clickbait by any means.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- cortesoft 10y ago'worst legacy publisher' is not exactly a neutral fact.
- mindcrime 10y agoBut the HN guidelines say "No editorializing". We aren't allowed to "fix" blatantly bad headlines, so it's pretty hypocritical of the powers that be to "sanitize" this one (if that's what happened).
- Cogito 10y agoI think the sanitisation of the headline is in keeping with the spirit of the following guidelines: If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids." Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait. Furthermore, the full title as displayed on the article "SSRN sold to Elsevier: From open access to the worst legacy publisher" is actually a main title and subtitle, as noted by the colon separating them. It's quite common on HN for the subtitle to not be included in the submission's title, or for it to be used instead of the main title.
- mindcrime 10y agoI think the sanitisation of the headline is in keeping with the spirit of the following guidelines: Yep, it's just not consistent with the actual observed practices here. In reality, if a submitter "fixes" a bad headline, it almost always gets reverted to the exact title of the original post, no more, no less. But on this occasion, somebody submitted the exact original headline, and it got "sanitized" for no apparent reason. The frustrating part isn't the guideline, it's the inconsistent application of the guideline.
- jshaqaw 10y agoI have images of those tales told about how GM purchased the LA streetcars only to destroy them running through my head. What terrible news.
- MaysonL 10y agoTitle on the site: "SSRN sold to Elsevier: From open access to the worst legacy publisher"
- genop 10y agoDo authors assign copyright to SSRN? (If SSRN is not trying to turn a profit why would they need an assignment?) Will Elsevier require copyright assignment?
- mtrn 10y agoFunny, people seemed to have used the site because it was owned by academics, e.g. http://kennethcwilbur.com/whyssrn.html http://kennethcwilbur.com/whyssrn.html > Since SSRN is owned by academics, I expect it will continue offering similar services for the foreseeable future. BTW: Did SSRN had a official method of downloading their metadata?
- 1hackaday 10y agoThis would be the right time for arXiv to start accepting quantitative social science papers. Most papers at SSRN fall under that label. My guess is that most authors would happily move their papers from SSRN to arXiv in the blink of an eye.
- marketforlemmas 10y agoDoes SSRN come with any guarantee of peer review or minimum quality threshold? The only downside with arXiv is that anything can be posted. It works fine as a paper-hosting service but is terrible as a "social proof that my paper is OK". If SSRN comes along with such a reputation, then it might be a hard transition. However if SSRN is just a paper-hosting service, then everyone should move to the arXiv immediately.
- 1hackaday 10y agoSSRN posts anything (no peer review). It has the same function as arXiv. The only issue I see with moving to arXiv right now is that currently arXiv only accepts papers on topics such as physics, math, and CS. For arXiv to be helpful to the SSRN crowd, it would need to have a few new categories (e.g., "quantitative social science", which could be split into subtopics mirroring the main topics in economics and management science journals).