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Sci-hub has been a total game changer. Plug in a DOI, get a paper. No accounts/tracking, no payment, no looking up the journal and their access model. Just r

by jly 9y ago

Sci-hub has been a total game changer. Plug in a DOI, get a paper. No accounts/tracking, no payment, no looking up the journal and their access model. Just research. The simplicity of use and ease of access is unparalleled. I'm not a working scientist - I have no paid-for University access to a variety of journals or other such connections, nor do I know the intricate details of how research is published. What I do know is that I'm a citizen helping to fund much of this work, and access to primary literature is critically important to make informed decisions about our future. The academics are paid a salary to produce findings, not to sell individual copies (unlike the music industry comparisons). While I'm willing to pay something, I can't be expected to pay the huge costs to access individual papers that are demanded today. Open access journals like PLOS are fantastic, but it's an unfortunate reality that much of the quality research is published on platforms that charge $30 for a paper. Until this changes, sci-hub is my answer.

pishpash 9y ago
It costs some money to get a DOI. Publishers can still be content aggregators and indexers, or curators. Sci-hub is merely an archive.
- jly 9y ago
  I agree there is value added by curation. But today, academic publishing is an industry worth over $10b, and they don't actually pay for the original access or license of the content or the editing and peer-review. Publishers do add value but not to the extent of the cost that's passed on to the public today.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  Paying $30 to merely look at a paper that may or may not be valuable is ridiculous no matter how you slice it.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    You aren't meant to pay the $30, you're meant to be inside the firewall at an institution.
    - joelthelion 9y ago
      And that excludes 99% of taxpayers.
      - closeparen 9y ago
        Correct, but I think people are getting hung up on the price and rent-seeking aspect. The price is a farce. Really, what's happening is the restriction of knowledge to the ivory towers (and their VPNs).
        CamelCaseName 9y ago
        But why is the price a farce? Why not make it some nominal amount? Universities will still buy subscriptions.
- contravariant 9y ago
  I'm not entirely sure about that. But luckily there is an easy way to find out. All we need to do is give Sci-hub free reign to publish scientific articles, and see what happens.
- semi-extrinsic 9y ago
  > It costs some money to get a DOI Can't be too much, seeing as I can put a semi-unlimited number of PDFs up on Figshare and get DOIs for them for free.
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    IIRC it's about a dollar a piece.
    - sitkack 9y ago
      A number that points to a URL costs a dollar. At 4k per DOI, you can store 1/4 million of them per GB. They are basically MAC addresses for documents.
- screye 9y ago
  > content aggregators and indexers, or curators This is an active Machine Learning task in a lab at my university. Given the kind of progress they are making, I don't see publishers finding much monetary value in this task in the future.
MicroBerto 9y ago
> I'm a citizen helping to fund much of this work This is where my issue is. I have personally seen government-funded studies whose authors did not publish the full datasets of their findings (they were 'inconvenient' to the conclusion they were attempting to come to), and it was only discovered in emails unearthed in discovery when a company spent over a million dollars suing the government over the decisions made based upon the study. Long story short, if my taxes pay for a study, I want full access to everything, supplementary data included. But sadly, that may not heaven even been enough for this particular cover-up.
- arximboldi 9y ago
  Wow, now you got me curious about that case... Dare elaborate?
  - matt4077 9y ago
    This a climate change conspiracy conspiracy.
  - MicroBerto 9y ago
    https://blog.priceplow.com/dmaa-supplements/geranium/ikhlas-khan-elsohly-methylhexanamine-not-detectable-pelargonium-geranium-species-essential-oils-multi-centre-investigation https://blog.priceplow.com/dmaa-supplements/geranium/ikhlas-... As a disclaimer, this is my site
dredmorbius 9y ago
You and me both. I could have written that. Kind of did my own: What the academic publishing industry calls "theft" the world calls "research": Why Sci-Hub is so popular https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_the_academic_publishing_industry_calls_theft/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_th...
TeMPOraL 9y ago
> Sci-hub has been a total game changer. Plug in a DOI, get a paper. No accounts/tracking, no payment, no looking up the journal and their access model. Just research. The simplicity of use and ease of access is unparalleled. Here's the funny thing: this is exactly what the Web was invented for. This is how this was supposed to work! You get an URI (DOI is a form of URI), and you use that URI to get to the content. Just linking, no bullshit. It's no surprise SciHub is popular. It makes things work the way they always should have.

by jly 9y ago

pishpash 9y ago

It costs some money to get a DOI. Publishers can still be content aggregators and indexers, or curators. Sci-hub is merely an archive.

jly 9y ago
I agree there is value added by curation. But today, academic publishing is an industry worth over $10b, and they don't actually pay for the original access or license of the content or the editing and peer-review. Publishers do add value but not to the extent of the cost that's passed on to the public today.
sillysaurus3 9y ago
Paying $30 to merely look at a paper that may or may not be valuable is ridiculous no matter how you slice it.
- closeparen 9y ago
  You aren't meant to pay the $30, you're meant to be inside the firewall at an institution.
  - joelthelion 9y ago
    And that excludes 99% of taxpayers.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      Correct, but I think people are getting hung up on the price and rent-seeking aspect. The price is a farce. Really, what's happening is the restriction of knowledge to the ivory towers (and their VPNs).
      - CamelCaseName 9y ago
        But why is the price a farce? Why not make it some nominal amount? Universities will still buy subscriptions.
contravariant 9y ago
I'm not entirely sure about that. But luckily there is an easy way to find out. All we need to do is give Sci-hub free reign to publish scientific articles, and see what happens.
semi-extrinsic 9y ago
> It costs some money to get a DOI Can't be too much, seeing as I can put a semi-unlimited number of PDFs up on Figshare and get DOIs for them for free.
- Vinnl 9y ago
  IIRC it's about a dollar a piece.
  - sitkack 9y ago
    A number that points to a URL costs a dollar. At 4k per DOI, you can store 1/4 million of them per GB. They are basically MAC addresses for documents.
screye 9y ago
> content aggregators and indexers, or curators This is an active Machine Learning task in a lab at my university. Given the kind of progress they are making, I don't see publishers finding much monetary value in this task in the future.

MicroBerto 9y ago

> I'm a citizen helping to fund much of this work This is where my issue is. I have personally seen government-funded studies whose authors did not publish the full datasets of their findings (they were 'inconvenient' to the conclusion they were attempting to come to), and it was only discovered in emails unearthed in discovery when a company spent over a million dollars suing the government over the decisions made based upon the study. Long story short, if my taxes pay for a study, I want full access to everything, supplementary data included. But sadly, that may not heaven even been enough for this particular cover-up.

arximboldi 9y ago
Wow, now you got me curious about that case... Dare elaborate?
- matt4077 9y ago
  This a climate change conspiracy conspiracy.
- MicroBerto 9y ago
  https://blog.priceplow.com/dmaa-supplements/geranium/ikhlas-khan-elsohly-methylhexanamine-not-detectable-pelargonium-geranium-species-essential-oils-multi-centre-investigation https://blog.priceplow.com/dmaa-supplements/geranium/ikhlas-... As a disclaimer, this is my site

dredmorbius 9y ago

You and me both. I could have written that. Kind of did my own: What the academic publishing industry calls "theft" the world calls "research": Why Sci-Hub is so popular https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_the_academic_publishing_industry_calls_theft/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/4p2rwk/what_th...

TeMPOraL 9y ago

> Sci-hub has been a total game changer. Plug in a DOI, get a paper. No accounts/tracking, no payment, no looking up the journal and their access model. Just research. The simplicity of use and ease of access is unparalleled. Here's the funny thing: this is exactly what the Web was invented for. This is how this was supposed to work! You get an URI (DOI is a form of URI), and you use that URI to get to the content. Just linking, no bullshit. It's no surprise SciHub is popular. It makes things work the way they always should have.