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> Mendeley went full on Evil Could you explain what happened with mendeley? I've been using it for a while, and didn't notice anything different really.

carbocation 5y ago
They locked down the SQLite database so that you couldn't use it with 3rd party tools (such as your own commands, or to export). I am not sure if this got reversed, but at the time it was what triggered me to switch to Zotero. (Still using Zotero, which does everything I need it to.) One thing I like a lot about Zotero is that they charge a subscription once you get over a certain amount of cloud storage, which gives me more confidence that they'll continue to exist in the future.
- kelsolaar 5y ago
  Yes, the DB was encrypted for no good reason except that locking users. Funnily enough at that point Mendeley could import from Zorero but Zotero could not import anymore. Thanks to Greydon Gilmore and GDB, I was able to get out: https://blog-academic.greydongilmore.com/phd_related/mendeley_decrypt.html https://blog-academic.greydongilmore.com/phd_related/mendele...
  - tonyg 5y ago
    Greydon's page is based on my original article: https://eighty-twenty.org/2018/06/13/mendeley-encrypted-db https://eighty-twenty.org/2018/06/13/mendeley-encrypted-db.
medimikka 5y ago
Mendeley joined the Elsevier "Family." Elsevier is one of the big three making massive amounts of money by selling content they receive for free, paid for by the tax payer or non-profits. I strongly believe, that this has greatly contributed to the "Joe Roganization" of the pandemic, hiding true science and research, often created under the auspices of governmental research trusts, behind a paywall. Anyone not in academia (where Elsevier charges hundreds of thousands to institutions to give their researchers access to their own papers) is more or less SOL and gets their data from Joe Rogan. In that vain, Elsevier has a tight control on the app now. Zotero has the ability to find the open access version of a paper, Elsevier will always link to the paywalled version on its own servers. Zotero has (and Mendeley had) the ability to export libraries, and with that data, Elsevier removed that when they took over Mendeley development. And, worst of all, Zotero can run standalone, Mendeley now requires an Elsevier ID login. The company actively analyzes your reading data and advertises other Elsevier properties based on your interests and reading habits. This is academia. It should be open and accessible. Elsevier is doing everything they can to change that. And Mendeley is one weapon in their arsenal.
- bonoboTP 5y ago
  The Joe Rogan part makes no sense to me. Only a fraction of the listeners of the podcast would otherwise go out of their way to read primary science journal articles. Reading those is a skill and requires background knowledge to be able to read between the lines, shared context between experts etc. Scientific articles aren't written for a lay audience. Also, sci-hub exists.
  - medimikka 5y ago
    > Also, sci-hub exists. Try adding one of those papers to Mendeley. Or, for that matter, get it by request from the author. Legal and often fast. Add that. See what Mendeley does with the CiteRef.DOI and CiteRef.URI fields...
    - bonoboTP 5y ago
      Are we talking about Mendeley or the general Elsevier paywalls? Seems like you are complaining about several issues at once: Mendeley's restricted features, Elsevier's paywall (that can be relevant even for non Mendeley users) and JoeRoganization, by which I guess you mean that his guests don't always confirm mainstream expert consensus (The Science).
      - medimikka 5y ago
        Mendeley changes certain fields on import to always download its abstract PDF as the reference paper with a link to its paywall. In essence, those things are PDF archivers and citation managers rolled into one. If I were to send you my latest research and you'd import it into Zotero, you'd get a managed citation and my paper. In Mendeley you'd get a managed citation and a downloaded abstract version with CrossRef to their paywall. The reason this happens is Elsevier's business model. And this business model both really wrecked Mendeley and, I believe, contributes to medical misinformation being more dominant in the world.
        bonoboTP 5y ago
bonoboTP 5y ago
They got bought by Elsevier who I don't trust for a moment and they are pushing some weird social media angles and the whole thing smells of proprietary vendor lock in, walled-garden etc. Zotero is much more hacker-friendly.
jjoonathan 5y ago
Hypothetically speaking: going to scihub, pirating an Elsevier paper, and then uploading proof that you had done so to an Elsevier cloud account doesn't strike me as the brightest of moves. Not in the sense that I think you are guaranteed to see consequences, or in the sense that I've actually heard about it actually going sideways, but to my intuition it does seem like the kind of thing that might attract one of those "pay us $10k or we sue you for $10M" letters down the line.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  Especially from that company.
dwiel 5y ago
In addition to the other responses to this question, they also got rid of their browser plugins that let you quickly add arxiv pages/pdfs/etc in one click with automatic metadata detection. Worked from any browser on Android and desktop. I've yet to find anything like it.
hank_z 5y ago
Mendeley for iOS system was discontinued and taken off from App Store for “no reason”. Users are forced to use their web version in iOS system.

carbocation 5y ago

They locked down the SQLite database so that you couldn't use it with 3rd party tools (such as your own commands, or to export). I am not sure if this got reversed, but at the time it was what triggered me to switch to Zotero. (Still using Zotero, which does everything I need it to.) One thing I like a lot about Zotero is that they charge a subscription once you get over a certain amount of cloud storage, which gives me more confidence that they'll continue to exist in the future.

kelsolaar 5y ago
Yes, the DB was encrypted for no good reason except that locking users. Funnily enough at that point Mendeley could import from Zorero but Zotero could not import anymore. Thanks to Greydon Gilmore and GDB, I was able to get out: https://blog-academic.greydongilmore.com/phd_related/mendeley_decrypt.html https://blog-academic.greydongilmore.com/phd_related/mendele...
- tonyg 5y ago
  Greydon's page is based on my original article: https://eighty-twenty.org/2018/06/13/mendeley-encrypted-db https://eighty-twenty.org/2018/06/13/mendeley-encrypted-db.

medimikka 5y ago

Mendeley joined the Elsevier "Family." Elsevier is one of the big three making massive amounts of money by selling content they receive for free, paid for by the tax payer or non-profits. I strongly believe, that this has greatly contributed to the "Joe Roganization" of the pandemic, hiding true science and research, often created under the auspices of governmental research trusts, behind a paywall. Anyone not in academia (where Elsevier charges hundreds of thousands to institutions to give their researchers access to their own papers) is more or less SOL and gets their data from Joe Rogan. In that vain, Elsevier has a tight control on the app now. Zotero has the ability to find the open access version of a paper, Elsevier will always link to the paywalled version on its own servers. Zotero has (and Mendeley had) the ability to export libraries, and with that data, Elsevier removed that when they took over Mendeley development. And, worst of all, Zotero can run standalone, Mendeley now requires an Elsevier ID login. The company actively analyzes your reading data and advertises other Elsevier properties based on your interests and reading habits. This is academia. It should be open and accessible. Elsevier is doing everything they can to change that. And Mendeley is one weapon in their arsenal.

bonoboTP 5y ago
The Joe Rogan part makes no sense to me. Only a fraction of the listeners of the podcast would otherwise go out of their way to read primary science journal articles. Reading those is a skill and requires background knowledge to be able to read between the lines, shared context between experts etc. Scientific articles aren't written for a lay audience. Also, sci-hub exists.
- medimikka 5y ago
  > Also, sci-hub exists. Try adding one of those papers to Mendeley. Or, for that matter, get it by request from the author. Legal and often fast. Add that. See what Mendeley does with the CiteRef.DOI and CiteRef.URI fields...
  - bonoboTP 5y ago
    Are we talking about Mendeley or the general Elsevier paywalls? Seems like you are complaining about several issues at once: Mendeley's restricted features, Elsevier's paywall (that can be relevant even for non Mendeley users) and JoeRoganization, by which I guess you mean that his guests don't always confirm mainstream expert consensus (The Science).
    - medimikka 5y ago
      Mendeley changes certain fields on import to always download its abstract PDF as the reference paper with a link to its paywall. In essence, those things are PDF archivers and citation managers rolled into one. If I were to send you my latest research and you'd import it into Zotero, you'd get a managed citation and my paper. In Mendeley you'd get a managed citation and a downloaded abstract version with CrossRef to their paywall. The reason this happens is Elsevier's business model. And this business model both really wrecked Mendeley and, I believe, contributes to medical misinformation being more dominant in the world.
      - bonoboTP 5y ago

bonoboTP 5y ago

They got bought by Elsevier who I don't trust for a moment and they are pushing some weird social media angles and the whole thing smells of proprietary vendor lock in, walled-garden etc. Zotero is much more hacker-friendly.

jjoonathan 5y ago

Hypothetically speaking: going to scihub, pirating an Elsevier paper, and then uploading proof that you had done so to an Elsevier cloud account doesn't strike me as the brightest of moves. Not in the sense that I think you are guaranteed to see consequences, or in the sense that I've actually heard about it actually going sideways, but to my intuition it does seem like the kind of thing that might attract one of those "pay us $10k or we sue you for $10M" letters down the line.

solarkraft 5y ago
Especially from that company.

dwiel 5y ago

In addition to the other responses to this question, they also got rid of their browser plugins that let you quickly add arxiv pages/pdfs/etc in one click with automatic metadata detection. Worked from any browser on Android and desktop. I've yet to find anything like it.

hank_z 5y ago

Mendeley for iOS system was discontinued and taken off from App Store for “no reason”. Users are forced to use their web version in iOS system.