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The ACM is a parasite of an organization. If you want to be in one of the clubs that badly, support the IEEE instead. Friendlier, cheaper, and not controlled
by kick 7y ago
The ACM is a parasite of an organization.
If you want to be in one of the clubs that badly, support the IEEE instead. Friendlier, cheaper, and not controlled by lawyers.
The ACM has a lot of cool people, and a few nice resources, but it's not worth supporting the profiteering it does.
- acd 7y agoI totally disagree if you get a membership which is affordable at $99 per year you get access to lots of good learning material. That includes computer books from O'reilly and courses from Skillsoft. Portal https://learning.acm.org/ https://learning.acm.org/
- kick 7y agoThat doesn't give you access to the Digital Library, which is the part of this that's relevant to the article, and it doesn't change the other arguments given.
- shinryuu 7y agoStill, if you compare getting O'Reilly membership by itself it would be cheaper to get the ACM membership
- pfranz 7y agoMy public library offers O'Reilly digital access. Unfortunately, it was some limited subset of what O'Reilly's own subscription service offers. How does ACM compare?
- HillRat 7y agoEven as an ACM member with multiple subgroup memberships and subscriptions I can’t figure out what I have access to and what I don’t. Far too complex an access model for what they are.
- metaphor 7y agoWho are you kidding? For the same annual cost of IEEE membership which doesn't provide shit for access to papers, ACM opens up its entire Digital Library!
- qpiox 7y agoStudent membership allows access to nearly all DL resources. Professional membership does not, and you have to pay extra for all the other costs. This year I paid around $250 for the membership to all the group I was interested into. This is 1/2 of my monthly salary that I get from my government. My government or university does not pay for this, they do not even pay for library access, I do it myself. Plus I write peer reviews, for free.
- a3_nm 7y agoIEEE still does not allow open access to the articles they publish, and requires its authors to sign exclusive copyright transfer agreements, so it's no better than ACM in terms of open access.
- saagarjha 7y agoEver tried to read an article on IEEE's website? It's an awful experience that's filled with ads.
- kick 7y agoWhy would you use a browser without an ad blocker? Even iOS has them.
- saagarjha 7y agoI do of course. I see still need to click through their (now blank) ad interstitial.
- kick 7y agoIt doesn't come up for me using uBO. Strange.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoublock origin blocks almost all of those. I think they're not using the one true adblock plugin :)
- wbl 7y agoIEEE also charges way to much. Meanwhile Usenix puts everything online for everyone.
- kick 7y agoIEEE regularly does promotions that make the cost significantly lower, but I agree that the charge is too high. It fills the same niche as the ACM without harming everyone else, though.
- pgeorgi 7y ago> support the IEEE instead First time I had to do with the IEEE, I was introduced to it being the "Institute of Engineers Exploiting Engineers". I guess that could be considered an improvement over lawyers exploiting engineers, but I'd rather have none of that exploiting going on.
- Merrill 7y agoACM and IEEE are organizations run by academics for academics. I've belonged to both. At this point, with all the resources available on the net, there's little point in a practicing engineer or computer scientist to belong to either.
- qpiox 7y agoI am not an electrical engineer, so I don't feel like joining IEEE. If you have other and better suggestions, please say so.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoIEEE-CS is a subgroup of IEEE and is focused on computer scientists. Can't say it is better or worse than ACM. I long ago let my membership in both organizations lapse and haven't missed either much. If I were in academia or research, I might feel differently.
- yborg 7y agoTo this point, the ACM is headquartered in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, ironically in the same building as the AMA Executive Conference Center. Their 2017 revenue was $70M, of which $57M was from "Program Services". Their total annual payroll was around $8.5M [1]. This is what the ACM is interested in defending, not the interests of computer science academics or practitioners. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131921358 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131...
- xenocyon 7y agoFormer IEEE member here. I don't understand the distinction you are making. IEEE is also a closed-access publisher, and furthermore is essentially a monopoly if you are an EE researcher (unlike CS where there are well-regarded open-access conferences and journals). In short: if you're an EE researcher, paying for IEEE isn't a choice; if not, there's no reason to join.
- metaphor 7y ago> If you want to be in one of the clubs that badly, support the IEEE instead. Friendlier, cheaper, and not controlled by lawyers. As a dues-paying member of both organizations, you've seriously got to be smoking crack. Comparing apples to apples of what annual dues buys you as a member, IEEE charges ~$200/yr (increases every year for the past 10+ years I've ponied up) for a glorified Gmail account that's internally spammed by the organization (and almost certainly mined) while papers still has to be purchased on the side for a ridiculous minimum subscription[1] of $19.95/mo to read 3 papers. ACM provides full access to their Digital Library[2] at the same cost and even offers lifetime membership for perpetual access! [1] https://www.ieee.org/publications/subscriptions/products/mdl/overview.html https://www.ieee.org/publications/subscriptions/products/mdl... [2] https://dl.acm.org/ https://dl.acm.org/