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>In fixing the academia publishing industry there currently exists 0 experts that can predict that so any random guy’s guess is as good as anyones I'm not sure

>In fixing the academia publishing industry there currently exists 0 experts that can predict that so any random guy’s guess is as good as anyones I'm not sure how you can look at political discourse in the United States today and say "yep, let's just blow up academic gatekeepers". Just one anti-vaccine paper from almost 30 years ago (that wasn't even accepted into any publications) and fueled an entire generation of luddites. The value of academic journals today is trust and the internet has not solved that. Pretend if GP had been searching Google, rather than SciHub. There are millions in the US who have used Google to deduce that placing rocks around your house can cure your migraines all because an enterprising individual had gamed SEO. "It’s too complicated to fix it" is not what the parent poster was implying. If you take a second to breakdown the actual value that journals provide then one clear way it can become much worse is a model similar to the open web where anyone can publish anything with very loose standards for reproducibility or rigor.

LadyCailin 5y ago
> Just one anti-vaccine paper from almost 30 years ago (that wasn't even accepted into any publications) and fueled an entire generation of luddites. Ok, so you admit that the journals aren’t even able to accomplish what they purport to. So if this is already a problem, yet good research is inaccessible, what again is the point of the paywalled journals?
- nemothekid 5y ago
  No? The journals did their job - the paper wasn't published. The broader internet (and largely a single celebrity) then became vector for a con-man to amplify his misinformation for profit. I'm using that as an example of something that could become commonplace if you blow up the journal system. Then every paper becomes "I feel this is right because blog-A which aligns to my beliefs says so". Institutional legitimacy is not something that is built overnight.

LadyCailin 5y ago

> Just one anti-vaccine paper from almost 30 years ago (that wasn't even accepted into any publications) and fueled an entire generation of luddites. Ok, so you admit that the journals aren’t even able to accomplish what they purport to. So if this is already a problem, yet good research is inaccessible, what again is the point of the paywalled journals?

nemothekid 5y ago
No? The journals did their job - the paper wasn't published. The broader internet (and largely a single celebrity) then became vector for a con-man to amplify his misinformation for profit. I'm using that as an example of something that could become commonplace if you blow up the journal system. Then every paper becomes "I feel this is right because blog-A which aligns to my beliefs says so". Institutional legitimacy is not something that is built overnight.