4 ms·

Where can I file for my damages as a reviewer? I have lost more than 2000 hours reviewing papers for for-profit publishers and they never gave me a single penny

Where can I file for my damages as a reviewer? I have lost more than 2000 hours reviewing papers for for-profit publishers and they never gave me a single penny. edit: Heck many of them they did not even give me free access to their journal to check references from the papers I was reviewing for them. I had to rely on SciHub to do so.

michaf 6y ago
Your comment brings focus to the question of why reviewers agree to do these unpaid reviews in the first place. I assume your comment is in jest, and you were fully aware of the unpaid nature of the work. But what was your motivation to do it anyway and spend 2000 hours on it?
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
  This is like asking an open source maintainer what their motive was to contribute to an important piece of software, since it’s going to be hosted on a for-profit entity like GitHub. The motive is that reviewing is necessary to make science work (and secondarily it’s required for promotions etc.) The problem in this setting is that Elsevier is part of the equation and demands copyright ownership, which makes it much worse than hosting on something GitHub. Unfortunately “just stop contributing” isn’t a good answer, because that would throw out the baby with the bath water, and scientists care very deeply about the baby.
  - whatever1 6y ago
    Which was kinda ok, until the moment they started going after the people who are creating the Journals' IP and value / reputation.
- jhrmnn 6y ago
  When I do peer review, I don’t think of it as providing free service to the publisher, but as providing free service to the scientific community. I’m indirectly paid to do so by my employer. IMO employers of scientists should strike deals with publishers to get compensation for peer review from them.
- betterunix2 6y ago
  I personally do peer review because I am part of a research community that requires it -- 9 of every 10 articles I review are absolute crap, and the community is better off if only 3-5 reviewers waste time reading those articles. The only way to avoid a free rider problem is if everyone agrees to participate, so I participate. It is also a good way to build a career in research -- reliable peer reviewers will eventually be asked to do more visible things like chair conference sessions. Would it be nice to be paid? Maybe, although to be honest I would rather keep money out of the process entirely -- I would like to continue having peer review be voluntary, and go further by also scrapping the publishing companies (who add nothing of value to any article I have written or seen in my entire career). In my field (cryptography) we run a preprint archive on a volunteer basis and it would not be a huge step to introduce a formal peer review process (there is already a minimal review process where the eprint vounteers reject papers that are obviously crap). We only bother with Springer because the European professors demand it (more precisely, their universities demand one of a handful of publishers, and Springer is least bad of the bunch).
libeclipse 6y ago
I just learned that Sci-Hub has currently "temporarily" paused uploading new papers to the site. https://www.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/lofj0r/announcement_scihub_has_been_paused_no_new/ https://www.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/lofj0r/announcement...
refurb 6y ago
Why did you volunteer you time for these for-profit entities? Couldn’t you refuse?
- periheli0n 6y ago
  Reviews are being done for peers and the (mostly unpaid) editors, not for the publisher. It's academic service for the scientific community. Although it's the publisher who ultimately creates profit from the work. However, would reviewers be paid, then the publisher would certainly charge the authors for this. No gain.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Then refuse to do it. People complain about the journals, then do free work for a for-profit.
    - periheli0n 6y ago
      Refuse the service to the community that one is embedded in? I see how one can justify reviewing for certain publishers, e.g. because they publish predatory journals or their shady business practices, but refusing to review any papers would be pretty much freeloading on the scientific community. Sure that's not an option.
      - refurb 6y ago
        No, I mean refuse to review for any journal that isn’t open source? You said not reviewing for predatory journals, so apply that to journals that Elsevier owns?

michaf 6y ago

Your comment brings focus to the question of why reviewers agree to do these unpaid reviews in the first place. I assume your comment is in jest, and you were fully aware of the unpaid nature of the work. But what was your motivation to do it anyway and spend 2000 hours on it?

matthewdgreen 6y ago
This is like asking an open source maintainer what their motive was to contribute to an important piece of software, since it’s going to be hosted on a for-profit entity like GitHub. The motive is that reviewing is necessary to make science work (and secondarily it’s required for promotions etc.) The problem in this setting is that Elsevier is part of the equation and demands copyright ownership, which makes it much worse than hosting on something GitHub. Unfortunately “just stop contributing” isn’t a good answer, because that would throw out the baby with the bath water, and scientists care very deeply about the baby.
- whatever1 6y ago
  Which was kinda ok, until the moment they started going after the people who are creating the Journals' IP and value / reputation.
jhrmnn 6y ago
When I do peer review, I don’t think of it as providing free service to the publisher, but as providing free service to the scientific community. I’m indirectly paid to do so by my employer. IMO employers of scientists should strike deals with publishers to get compensation for peer review from them.
betterunix2 6y ago
I personally do peer review because I am part of a research community that requires it -- 9 of every 10 articles I review are absolute crap, and the community is better off if only 3-5 reviewers waste time reading those articles. The only way to avoid a free rider problem is if everyone agrees to participate, so I participate. It is also a good way to build a career in research -- reliable peer reviewers will eventually be asked to do more visible things like chair conference sessions. Would it be nice to be paid? Maybe, although to be honest I would rather keep money out of the process entirely -- I would like to continue having peer review be voluntary, and go further by also scrapping the publishing companies (who add nothing of value to any article I have written or seen in my entire career). In my field (cryptography) we run a preprint archive on a volunteer basis and it would not be a huge step to introduce a formal peer review process (there is already a minimal review process where the eprint vounteers reject papers that are obviously crap). We only bother with Springer because the European professors demand it (more precisely, their universities demand one of a handful of publishers, and Springer is least bad of the bunch).

libeclipse 6y ago

I just learned that Sci-Hub has currently "temporarily" paused uploading new papers to the site. https://www.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/lofj0r/announcement_scihub_has_been_paused_no_new/ https://www.reddit.com/r/scihub/comments/lofj0r/announcement...

refurb 6y ago

Why did you volunteer you time for these for-profit entities? Couldn’t you refuse?

periheli0n 6y ago
Reviews are being done for peers and the (mostly unpaid) editors, not for the publisher. It's academic service for the scientific community. Although it's the publisher who ultimately creates profit from the work. However, would reviewers be paid, then the publisher would certainly charge the authors for this. No gain.
- refurb 6y ago
  Then refuse to do it. People complain about the journals, then do free work for a for-profit.
  - periheli0n 6y ago
    Refuse the service to the community that one is embedded in? I see how one can justify reviewing for certain publishers, e.g. because they publish predatory journals or their shady business practices, but refusing to review any papers would be pretty much freeloading on the scientific community. Sure that's not an option.
    - refurb 6y ago
      No, I mean refuse to review for any journal that isn’t open source? You said not reviewing for predatory journals, so apply that to journals that Elsevier owns?