4 ms·
Its amazing that our phones say it's 2016, we have a database about literally every episode of every popular TV series, yet we can not have a database of scien
by return0 10y ago
Its amazing that our phones say it's 2016, we have a database about literally every episode of every popular TV series, yet we can not have a database of scientific findings, measurements and methods that everyone can search, download, analyze, use it to train models, even though taxpayers paid for it. We have in part sacrificed the disemmination of knowledge to the egos of scientists. I think it's shameful.
- johncolanduoni 10y ago> the structure of the job market for academic scientists Fixed that for you. Few scientists are anti-open access, especially for reasons of ego. In physics and mathematics, for example, virtually all papers are published on arxiv unless a particular journal forces them not to. It instead has to do with publishing in high impact journals as well being required for (a) people to read your paper, as their peer review processes are a first filter to separate the wheat from the chaff and (b) because they generally keep their jobs by virtue of such publications. Unless you're a rockstar in your field, nobody is going to read your paper if all you did was put it on arxiv, and as a result it won't be taken as evidence you should keep your job. This isn't the scientists fault, it's just a relic of a time when the publishers of journals did provide a worthwhile service. There are some fields where people tend to be greedy about hiding their research before its done lest anybody steal it, but this seems to me to be an acceptable level of "ego". Would you object to an open source developer wanting his authorship to remain clear in any derivative works of his code?