8 ms·

Sci-Hub: Researchers File Intervention Application to Fight ISP Blocking

167 points by gengear 5y ago

TaXaZ 5y ago
The current scientific publication model is only benefits the gatekeepers in publishing industry. It directly goes to the packet of publishing industry by ripping off the tax-payers twice with a steep price. Nowadays research institution pay high fees both for paywall and open-access. No matter you access or publish you some how give tax-payers money to these publishing industries. It has been shown the steep price is also un-justified as peer-review are done freely (for credit, not money) by science worker themselves and there are plenty of open-review and open-science projects which prove the price is not justified. It might worth it to repeat part of my comment in [1]: > The current business model as a whole is a legacy institution based on earlier monopoly by a charlatan named Maxwell [2]. He basically lured scientist by shiny hotels+extra packages to build the initial reputation and then monopolize the entire industry for decades. You can find a good review of this scheme from below YouTube video[3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29218202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29218202 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PriwCi6SzLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PriwCi6SzLo
- nivenkos 5y ago
  Father of Ghislaine Maxwell, no less.
  - smegsicle 5y ago
    Wonder what she's up to?
2Gkashmiri 5y ago
Why can't we have a wiki style libgen "alternative" if the only "copyright" arises from "editing" and miscellaneous efforts they put into it. Would libgen be "low quality" if it somehow had access to all research irrespective of quality?
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  The main issue is review of material, outside of being a domain expert how would an end user determine which content to trust as rigorous?
  - 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
    how do i know from a DOI/name/title that the research is good? just "being" on the journal is more important than the details of peer reviewers and their own research? i am saying, how do you evaluate the "goodness" of a paper if you weren't told it came from Elsevier or some other publication? i am genuinely curious
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      For me personally, I'm involved in academia and research so I live and breathe it. It's difficult for me to evaluate papers outside of my domain, and takes a huge amount of background research to do so. A good first filter is usually (not always) seeing the journal its published in. The primary thing here though, is not looking for good journals but rather avoiding the known predatory ones. My concern is for the people who don't live and breathe research. There is a massive amount of depth and detail that is easily overlooked when you're unfamiliar with the subject. Things like poor method can invalidate results, and people unfamiliar with the particular methodology can miss that. Even the statistical analysis could be flawed, or they use a statistical method which is not appropriate for their data or study design.
      - tux3 5y ago
        The studies published by people who are really into ESP and paranormal ideas are annoying like this. It's an exercise in making papers that look like they have vaguely decent protocol and statistical methodology, but arrive at insane, obviously wrong results through cleverly non-obvious, intricate flaws. Like the Underhanded Code Contests, but for research.
        5y ago
WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
Alexandra Elbakyan is a living example of a better human being.
- xvilka 5y ago
  Yes, she is exactly the opposite of the people who own and work for publishing industry.
- andrei_says_ 5y ago
  Creators and sharers vs fence-makers. A friend calls the latter bridge trolls. They find a useful resource that someone created and many need, and aim to extract a toll for it - without having created it. Let’s be more like the creators and less like the bridge trolls.
  - vcxy 5y ago
    Also the term "rent seeking" fits here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
cblconfederate 5y ago
You would expect that at least during the covid remote-work thing they would not go after sci-hub, the remote work tool that makes science faster and more productive (TM) .
- bostonsre 5y ago
  There are selfish individuals in this world who just want to tax society and not contribute much in return. They are in most industries, but this one is particularly detrimental to everyone. You would think that there would be some activist hackers out there fighting on the side of sci hub beyond just extracting documents.

167 points by gengear 5y ago

The current scientific publication model is only benefits the gatekeepers in publishing industry. It directly goes to the packet of publishing industry by ripping off the tax-payers twice with a steep price. Nowadays research institution pay high fees both for paywall and open-access. No matter you access or publish you some how give tax-payers money to these publishing industries. It has been shown the steep price is also un-justified as peer-review are done freely (for credit, not money) by science worker themselves and there are plenty of open-review and open-science projects which prove the price is not justified. It might worth it to repeat part of my comment in [1]: > The current business model as a whole is a legacy institution based on earlier monopoly by a charlatan named Maxwell [2]. He basically lured scientist by shiny hotels+extra packages to build the initial reputation and then monopolize the entire industry for decades. You can find a good review of this scheme from below YouTube video[3]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29218202 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29218202 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PriwCi6SzLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PriwCi6SzLo

nivenkos 5y ago
Father of Ghislaine Maxwell, no less.
- smegsicle 5y ago
  Wonder what she's up to?

2Gkashmiri 5y ago

Why can't we have a wiki style libgen "alternative" if the only "copyright" arises from "editing" and miscellaneous efforts they put into it. Would libgen be "low quality" if it somehow had access to all research irrespective of quality?

netizen-936824 5y ago
The main issue is review of material, outside of being a domain expert how would an end user determine which content to trust as rigorous?
- 2Gkashmiri 5y ago
  how do i know from a DOI/name/title that the research is good? just "being" on the journal is more important than the details of peer reviewers and their own research? i am saying, how do you evaluate the "goodness" of a paper if you weren't told it came from Elsevier or some other publication? i am genuinely curious
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    For me personally, I'm involved in academia and research so I live and breathe it. It's difficult for me to evaluate papers outside of my domain, and takes a huge amount of background research to do so. A good first filter is usually (not always) seeing the journal its published in. The primary thing here though, is not looking for good journals but rather avoiding the known predatory ones. My concern is for the people who don't live and breathe research. There is a massive amount of depth and detail that is easily overlooked when you're unfamiliar with the subject. Things like poor method can invalidate results, and people unfamiliar with the particular methodology can miss that. Even the statistical analysis could be flawed, or they use a statistical method which is not appropriate for their data or study design.
    - tux3 5y ago
      The studies published by people who are really into ESP and paranormal ideas are annoying like this. It's an exercise in making papers that look like they have vaguely decent protocol and statistical methodology, but arrive at insane, obviously wrong results through cleverly non-obvious, intricate flaws. Like the Underhanded Code Contests, but for research.
      - 5y ago

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

Alexandra Elbakyan is a living example of a better human being.

xvilka 5y ago
Yes, she is exactly the opposite of the people who own and work for publishing industry.
andrei_says_ 5y ago
Creators and sharers vs fence-makers. A friend calls the latter bridge trolls. They find a useful resource that someone created and many need, and aim to extract a toll for it - without having created it. Let’s be more like the creators and less like the bridge trolls.
- vcxy 5y ago
  Also the term "rent seeking" fits here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking

cblconfederate 5y ago

You would expect that at least during the covid remote-work thing they would not go after sci-hub, the remote work tool that makes science faster and more productive (TM) .

bostonsre 5y ago
There are selfish individuals in this world who just want to tax society and not contribute much in return. They are in most industries, but this one is particularly detrimental to everyone. You would think that there would be some activist hackers out there fighting on the side of sci hub beyond just extracting documents.