6 ms·

Can anyone steelman the Elsevier side? I don't want to be caught in the headlights of I have to debate this.

jhbadger 7y ago
I would imagine that Elsevier would argue that they (and their fellow for-profit journal publishers) are providing a valuable service of being the gatekeepers of scientific knowledge and without them science would collapse in a chaos of confusion and misinformation. (Not that I really believe that's the case; things like ArXiv show that science can work without the involvement of journals open or closed at all, but that's not how the publishers see it).
- dbmueller 7y ago
  I'm not sure arXiv is an example of doing without journals. arXiv doesn't involve peer review, so that any result published there are to be taken with a big grain of salt. On the other hand, there are open access journals that essentially act as a layer above arXiv, so that the main added value is review.
  - riku_iki 7y ago
    In AI field such layer is recognizable conferences, researchers compete to get their papers accepted, and conference committees are doing peer review.
  - patrick5415 7y ago
    I don’t think science would suffer too much if we just abandoned peer review and committed to the arXiv route. Peer review does little to ensure research is actually rigorous. Rather, it mostly ensures the authors know how to play game: use the right language, cite the right people, and don’t stray too far from the current fad while simultaneously selling what they’ve done like it’s the hottest thing since relativity. Once you’ve read enough papers, you don’t even have to invoke the replication crisis to see that most papers should be taken with a grain of salt.
xamuel 7y ago
Not exactly steelman, but something you'll want to be aware of if you're going to be debating in this area: The publishers have attempted (and mostly succeeded) to poison the well by equating true open access (free to read, free to publish) with their garbage version of open access (free to read, $3000+ to publish). Once again demonstrating the power of controlling the language. It's going to be a tough battle as long as it's good-hearted activists fighting in their free time vs. full-time Elsevier PR professionals getting a salary to fight.
- titanomachy 7y ago
  So you're not a fan of PLoS? I always thought their model seemed fair.
  - xamuel 7y ago
    PLoS is less egregious since they "only" charge $1600 and waive it for authors who can't afford it. With Elsevier/Springer on the other hand, the author has to opt-in and pay about twice that amount or more, no waiver in sight. Of course, even $1600 is fantastic highway robbery for what you're paying for, which is essentially to store a static document on their website. (These days, most authors already prepare camera-ready copies of their submissions, and the additional edits journals make are often a net harm.)
    - titanomachy 7y ago
      They do charge $3000 for some of their journals (although the flagship is $1600 as you say). The waiver is probably the more important bit here. It's not hard for me to imagine that a professional high-quality academic hosting service costs something like what PLoS charges. Their budget is probably publicly auditable. I work in enterprise software, though, so I've become kind of inured to seemingly absurd costs for technical solutions. I used to work in academia, where I became inured to PIs spending crazy amounts (millions per year) on equipment and lab services, which makes me think $1600 for a publication really isn't that big a deal for most developed-world STEM labs. Although I'd rather they spend it on making post-doc salaries livable.
hyperpape 7y ago
My best attempt: without journals charging fees for access, there is a free rider problem where only a few institutions will support journals. By allowing Elsevier to charge, you force everyone to share in the costs. In a weird sort of way, the fact that universities haven’t yet put Elsevier out of business is evidence for the collective action problem. I don’t really think it works, and the publication fees model might already be a good enough counter-argument, but it’s my best try.
apo 7y ago
Elsevier owns copyrighted material, which it licenses to individuals and institutions for a fee. The fee is negotiated on a case-by-case basis, which is no different than any other intellectual property such as movies, music, books, or software. If a customer is unable or unwilling to pay the prevailing rate, then no access will be granted. The argument that Elsevier uses unpaid academic labor and therefore should fall under some other system is a red herring. Authors signed over their copyright to Elsevier, and like any other copyright holder Elsevier can license its property toward any legal purpose that advances its business interests.
- TehCorwiz 7y ago
  It's not unpaid academic labor, it's actually exploitative labor. They charge the academics ~$3000 - 5000 to publish via any of their journals.
  - rsfern 7y ago
    The other unpaid labor is peer review — keep in mind that reviewers don’t get paid!
- mirimir 7y ago
  > If a customer is unable or unwilling to pay the prevailing rate, then no access will be granted. Sure, but access can still be obtained. For free. So they can sod off. Edit: Elsevier and the like are predatory scum. They bought top academic journals, and have increased prices dramatically in recent decades. They're bleeding out the industry, as they ride it down to irrelevance. Just as some have done with the newspaper industry.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Elsevier attempted - successfully, for quite some time - to create a gate-keeping oligopoly by inserting it as a choke point into academic publishing while providing no real added value. This isn't about copyright, because original authors are forced to pay-to-play. In a genuine copyright market, creators are paid in exchange for exploitation of copyright. If they have to pay up to sign over their rights, that's not a copyright issue - that's extortion.
lacker 7y ago
The steel man for the Elsevier side is that nobody is forcing scientists to submit content to Elsevier journals or to read Elsevier journals. It’s a product that they create, so they have the right to price it as they see fit. If Elsevier was really providing no value, why don’t scientists simply submit their work elsewhere? Clearly scientists and universities don’t really care about open access. If it was that important to them, they would just stop submitting content to non-open-access journals. The truth is that scientists care more about prestige than about open access. Elsevier puts a lot of work into making their journals prestigious, and scientists want that.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  It's not "prestige." Framing it that way makes it sound like Elsevier is in the vanity business, and academics are vain. In actual fact, Elsevier is a gatekeeper to obtaining funding and making a living in research. Elsevier is rent-collecting, not selling an intangible feeling.
  - hutzlibu 7y ago
    Because prestige mostly equals funding in research ...
    - warnick 7y ago
      And makes a difference in tenure decisions
  - cybert00th 7y ago
    >Elsevier is rent-collecting, not selling an intangible feeling Got it in one! And until that changes, the status quo remains - regardless of sites like schihub
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    So let's go to the root of this. What is it that the funding agencies value in Elsevier publications? That if it's published there it's a mark of high quality research. Assuming Elsevier is killed off, someone else will have to put in the work of sifting good from bad. And that's not an easy problem, especially when many try to pervert the process for ideological gain.
ghostpepper 7y ago
I can't believe I've never heard of this expression.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  It's somewhat recent: https://themerelyreal.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/steelmanning/ https://themerelyreal.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/steelmanning/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-highest-form-of-disagreement/531597/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-hig... https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man
brighter2morrow 7y ago
My Steelman for Elsevier: they coordinate the peer review (giving your work more legitimacy), the marketing, and the distribution of your work. We all take Dropbox/Google Drive/iCloud for granted but actually keeping a searchable and relevant archive of your work on place forever is also a fairly involved process.

I would imagine that Elsevier would argue that they (and their fellow for-profit journal publishers) are providing a valuable service of being the gatekeepers of scientific knowledge and without them science would collapse in a chaos of confusion and misinformation. (Not that I really believe that's the case; things like ArXiv show that science can work without the involvement of journals open or closed at all, but that's not how the publishers see it).

dbmueller 7y ago
I'm not sure arXiv is an example of doing without journals. arXiv doesn't involve peer review, so that any result published there are to be taken with a big grain of salt. On the other hand, there are open access journals that essentially act as a layer above arXiv, so that the main added value is review.
- riku_iki 7y ago
  In AI field such layer is recognizable conferences, researchers compete to get their papers accepted, and conference committees are doing peer review.
- patrick5415 7y ago
  I don’t think science would suffer too much if we just abandoned peer review and committed to the arXiv route. Peer review does little to ensure research is actually rigorous. Rather, it mostly ensures the authors know how to play game: use the right language, cite the right people, and don’t stray too far from the current fad while simultaneously selling what they’ve done like it’s the hottest thing since relativity. Once you’ve read enough papers, you don’t even have to invoke the replication crisis to see that most papers should be taken with a grain of salt.

xamuel 7y ago

Not exactly steelman, but something you'll want to be aware of if you're going to be debating in this area: The publishers have attempted (and mostly succeeded) to poison the well by equating true open access (free to read, free to publish) with their garbage version of open access (free to read, $3000+ to publish). Once again demonstrating the power of controlling the language. It's going to be a tough battle as long as it's good-hearted activists fighting in their free time vs. full-time Elsevier PR professionals getting a salary to fight.

titanomachy 7y ago
So you're not a fan of PLoS? I always thought their model seemed fair.
- xamuel 7y ago
  PLoS is less egregious since they "only" charge $1600 and waive it for authors who can't afford it. With Elsevier/Springer on the other hand, the author has to opt-in and pay about twice that amount or more, no waiver in sight. Of course, even $1600 is fantastic highway robbery for what you're paying for, which is essentially to store a static document on their website. (These days, most authors already prepare camera-ready copies of their submissions, and the additional edits journals make are often a net harm.)
  - titanomachy 7y ago
    They do charge $3000 for some of their journals (although the flagship is $1600 as you say). The waiver is probably the more important bit here. It's not hard for me to imagine that a professional high-quality academic hosting service costs something like what PLoS charges. Their budget is probably publicly auditable. I work in enterprise software, though, so I've become kind of inured to seemingly absurd costs for technical solutions. I used to work in academia, where I became inured to PIs spending crazy amounts (millions per year) on equipment and lab services, which makes me think $1600 for a publication really isn't that big a deal for most developed-world STEM labs. Although I'd rather they spend it on making post-doc salaries livable.

hyperpape 7y ago

My best attempt: without journals charging fees for access, there is a free rider problem where only a few institutions will support journals. By allowing Elsevier to charge, you force everyone to share in the costs. In a weird sort of way, the fact that universities haven’t yet put Elsevier out of business is evidence for the collective action problem. I don’t really think it works, and the publication fees model might already be a good enough counter-argument, but it’s my best try.

apo 7y ago

Elsevier owns copyrighted material, which it licenses to individuals and institutions for a fee. The fee is negotiated on a case-by-case basis, which is no different than any other intellectual property such as movies, music, books, or software. If a customer is unable or unwilling to pay the prevailing rate, then no access will be granted. The argument that Elsevier uses unpaid academic labor and therefore should fall under some other system is a red herring. Authors signed over their copyright to Elsevier, and like any other copyright holder Elsevier can license its property toward any legal purpose that advances its business interests.

TehCorwiz 7y ago
It's not unpaid academic labor, it's actually exploitative labor. They charge the academics ~$3000 - 5000 to publish via any of their journals.
- rsfern 7y ago
  The other unpaid labor is peer review — keep in mind that reviewers don’t get paid!
mirimir 7y ago
> If a customer is unable or unwilling to pay the prevailing rate, then no access will be granted. Sure, but access can still be obtained. For free. So they can sod off. Edit: Elsevier and the like are predatory scum. They bought top academic journals, and have increased prices dramatically in recent decades. They're bleeding out the industry, as they ride it down to irrelevance. Just as some have done with the newspaper industry.
TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
Elsevier attempted - successfully, for quite some time - to create a gate-keeping oligopoly by inserting it as a choke point into academic publishing while providing no real added value. This isn't about copyright, because original authors are forced to pay-to-play. In a genuine copyright market, creators are paid in exchange for exploitation of copyright. If they have to pay up to sign over their rights, that's not a copyright issue - that's extortion.

lacker 7y ago

The steel man for the Elsevier side is that nobody is forcing scientists to submit content to Elsevier journals or to read Elsevier journals. It’s a product that they create, so they have the right to price it as they see fit. If Elsevier was really providing no value, why don’t scientists simply submit their work elsewhere? Clearly scientists and universities don’t really care about open access. If it was that important to them, they would just stop submitting content to non-open-access journals. The truth is that scientists care more about prestige than about open access. Elsevier puts a lot of work into making their journals prestigious, and scientists want that.

braythwayt 7y ago
It's not "prestige." Framing it that way makes it sound like Elsevier is in the vanity business, and academics are vain. In actual fact, Elsevier is a gatekeeper to obtaining funding and making a living in research. Elsevier is rent-collecting, not selling an intangible feeling.
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  Because prestige mostly equals funding in research ...
  - warnick 7y ago
    And makes a difference in tenure decisions
- cybert00th 7y ago
  >Elsevier is rent-collecting, not selling an intangible feeling Got it in one! And until that changes, the status quo remains - regardless of sites like schihub
- im3w1l 7y ago
  So let's go to the root of this. What is it that the funding agencies value in Elsevier publications? That if it's published there it's a mark of high quality research. Assuming Elsevier is killed off, someone else will have to put in the work of sifting good from bad. And that's not an easy problem, especially when many try to pervert the process for ideological gain.

ghostpepper 7y ago

I can't believe I've never heard of this expression.

dredmorbius 7y ago
It's somewhat recent: https://themerelyreal.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/steelmanning/ https://themerelyreal.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/steelmanning/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-highest-form-of-disagreement/531597/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-hig... https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man

brighter2morrow 7y ago

My Steelman for Elsevier: they coordinate the peer review (giving your work more legitimacy), the marketing, and the distribution of your work. We all take Dropbox/Google Drive/iCloud for granted but actually keeping a searchable and relevant archive of your work on place forever is also a fairly involved process.