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I have never liked academia.edu. I always found it pointless. If I want to share my academic work I'll put it on my own web site. I also found it weird that th

I have never liked academia.edu. I always found it pointless. If I want to share my academic work I'll put it on my own web site. I also found it weird that they had a .edu address (apparently they bought it before the rules were put in place and so they are grandfathered in) Whenever I searched for a paper and google found an academia.edu link my process was, click on the link, oh crap it wants me to log in, what's my password again? fuck it, I'll just go to scihub.

jmiserez 10y ago
Also e.g. the ACM copyright agreement explicitly allows you to host your own papers on your own website, even though you've assigned copyright to ACM. I don't think this applies to places like academia.edu or Researchgate, but IANAL.
count 10y ago
They didn't buy it before the rules were put in place. They launched in 2008 as a company, and the the .edu was restricted to accredited institutions in 2001. In 2006, the rules were tightened to restrict even transfer by a previous owner to a non-accredited institution. I've complained to EDUCASE (the .edu TLD contract holder), and suggest others do the same. A for profit, non-accredited non-higher learning organization should NOT have a .EDU. What I sent EDUCAUSE: Hello, The owner of the ‘academia.edu’ domain name appears to be operating in violation of the EDU TLD requirements. The WHOIS record: Registrant: Academia 251 Kearny St suite 520 San Francisco, CA 94108 UNITED STATES Is not an accredited institution according the US Dept. of Education.
- bobbyi_settv 10y ago
  Where are you getting the info that they "bought" the domain name from the original owner? I was told that one of the founders was a professor or somesuch and he originally registered the name in the 90's but hadn't been using it, so he used it when he started the company. If so, I imagine that involved a "transfer" from his personal ownership to that of the company and that may fall under that 2006 rule, but it it still isn't the same situation as someone "squatting" on a edu name and then auctioning it off to startups looking for a cool name, which is what I think EDUCASE is concerned with.
  - count 10y ago
    Dept of Commerce is concerned with ANY non-accredited institution having a .edu. They've simply not leaned super hard on 'grandfathered' domains (there's a ton about specific instances on the wiki entry for .edu). If a professor or somebody bought in May 1999 when it was registered initially (10-May-1999 Create Date), then it existed prior to the restriction. But in 2006, 2 years before Academia the company existed, those rules were put into place prohibiting transfer to non-accredited institutions. So, they're in one of two situations that I can see: 1) The domain was transferred, against the ToS for the TLD, and is invalidly registered, or, 2) The professor still owns it, and the WHOIS information is invalid (it lists the Company as the registrant), which is a violation of ICANN rules for WHOIS information accuracy. Either way, I don't see how they can be legally using it.
Mediterraneo10 10y ago
> If I want to share my academic work I'll put it on my own web site. The academic world is suffering from the same tendency to keep within a walled garden as the rest of society. It's hard these days for anyone to get people to regularly visit their blog even if the quality of the posts is high, instead people only click on links shown to them on Facebook. Similarly, my colleagues in my field generally don't visit my own website even though they are aware it's there and has links to my papers and other relevant content, but if I post a new paper on Academia.edu, I immediately get a number of views from there. It’s sad.
- jccalhoun 10y ago
  That's really interesting. I never check academia.edu. Few of my peers have ever mentioned its existence. Whenever I find a paper to read it is either from google scholar or a works cited of something I've read.
- 80286 10y ago
  There are a lot of blogs out there, and they don't update frequently. Ideally RSS feed readers would come back into common use (which IM[completely unqualified]O won't happen until one comes out with the sorts of social features that can really drive uptake), but until then, have you considered putting together and promoting a blog/website aggregator for your field? I try to follow a certain academic field from the outside, but there are too many blogs, old online journal archives, websites, etc. out there for me to keep track of or even find, so I end up reading the few blogs that update somewhat regularly and academia.edu and that's it.

jmiserez 10y ago

Also e.g. the ACM copyright agreement explicitly allows you to host your own papers on your own website, even though you've assigned copyright to ACM. I don't think this applies to places like academia.edu or Researchgate, but IANAL.

count 10y ago

They didn't buy it before the rules were put in place. They launched in 2008 as a company, and the the .edu was restricted to accredited institutions in 2001. In 2006, the rules were tightened to restrict even transfer by a previous owner to a non-accredited institution. I've complained to EDUCASE (the .edu TLD contract holder), and suggest others do the same. A for profit, non-accredited non-higher learning organization should NOT have a .EDU. What I sent EDUCAUSE: Hello, The owner of the ‘academia.edu’ domain name appears to be operating in violation of the EDU TLD requirements. The WHOIS record: Registrant: Academia 251 Kearny St suite 520 San Francisco, CA 94108 UNITED STATES Is not an accredited institution according the US Dept. of Education.

bobbyi_settv 10y ago
Where are you getting the info that they "bought" the domain name from the original owner? I was told that one of the founders was a professor or somesuch and he originally registered the name in the 90's but hadn't been using it, so he used it when he started the company. If so, I imagine that involved a "transfer" from his personal ownership to that of the company and that may fall under that 2006 rule, but it it still isn't the same situation as someone "squatting" on a edu name and then auctioning it off to startups looking for a cool name, which is what I think EDUCASE is concerned with.
- count 10y ago
  Dept of Commerce is concerned with ANY non-accredited institution having a .edu. They've simply not leaned super hard on 'grandfathered' domains (there's a ton about specific instances on the wiki entry for .edu). If a professor or somebody bought in May 1999 when it was registered initially (10-May-1999 Create Date), then it existed prior to the restriction. But in 2006, 2 years before Academia the company existed, those rules were put into place prohibiting transfer to non-accredited institutions. So, they're in one of two situations that I can see: 1) The domain was transferred, against the ToS for the TLD, and is invalidly registered, or, 2) The professor still owns it, and the WHOIS information is invalid (it lists the Company as the registrant), which is a violation of ICANN rules for WHOIS information accuracy. Either way, I don't see how they can be legally using it.

Mediterraneo10 10y ago

> If I want to share my academic work I'll put it on my own web site. The academic world is suffering from the same tendency to keep within a walled garden as the rest of society. It's hard these days for anyone to get people to regularly visit their blog even if the quality of the posts is high, instead people only click on links shown to them on Facebook. Similarly, my colleagues in my field generally don't visit my own website even though they are aware it's there and has links to my papers and other relevant content, but if I post a new paper on Academia.edu, I immediately get a number of views from there. It’s sad.

jccalhoun 10y ago
That's really interesting. I never check academia.edu. Few of my peers have ever mentioned its existence. Whenever I find a paper to read it is either from google scholar or a works cited of something I've read.
80286 10y ago
There are a lot of blogs out there, and they don't update frequently. Ideally RSS feed readers would come back into common use (which IM[completely unqualified]O won't happen until one comes out with the sorts of social features that can really drive uptake), but until then, have you considered putting together and promoting a blog/website aggregator for your field? I try to follow a certain academic field from the outside, but there are too many blogs, old online journal archives, websites, etc. out there for me to keep track of or even find, so I end up reading the few blogs that update somewhat regularly and academia.edu and that's it.