5 ms·

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 th

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
        But Joe Rogan listeners aren't using Mendeley. These issues are separate, but you're angry at both and are somehow mixing them. The paywall can be circumvented via sci-hub. And more and more papers are now on biorxiv and similar. And I don't think medical misinfo has much to do with Elsevier or academia. It's human nature, and the quality and degree of evidence-basedness of official communications doesn't really help. Also, the words "misinformation" and "fact check" make my skin crawl. If your conclusion is that the plebs is so dumb because they listen to Joe Rogan instead of The Science(TM), I think you're just digging in deeper. Also, during the pandemic, many blue check Twitter accounts said it's a pity that so many conspiracy theorists and fake news believers are reading papers and playing around with data. They should just receive The Science, spoon-fed, and accept it, and too much thinking and reading hurts them. In other words, think about what you wish for. When other people are given access to data, they may reach different conclusions than the approved respectable media expert consensus.
turboaspie 5y ago
Not defending Elsevier's practices, but people who get their information about the pandemic etc. from Joe Rogan are probably not going to read (or even understand) a research paper from an academic/medical journal. The problem with misinformation isn't lack of access - there are plenty of accessible, high quality articles that are written for the layperson - the problem is that people are reading (either through choice or The Algorithm) misleading and sensationalised tabloid clickbait.
- medimikka 5y ago
  I find myself being surprised by people more often than disappointed.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    The optimist is often disappointed and the pessimist often delighted.
tomcam 5y ago
> "Joe Roganization" of the pandemic Not sure what that means? Is he hiding true science and research?
- eesmith 5y ago
  My best guess is, the influence of non-specialists who do research on their own, without the training to understand which papers are meaningful, which are fluff, which are wrong, and which are fraudulent. The most informative papers are often behind a paywall, so the non-paywalled papers are biased towards these other less-informative and even wrong papers. If someone should point to paper X, in order to correct a mistaken belief discussed in a public form (like HN), and that paper X cost $50 to read, many fewer people will read it to examine the validity of the paper in the first place - even if were correct. While if someone points to paper Y, which supports that belief due to subtly wrong assumptions, but that paper is free to read, then many more people are likely to look at it. And without the training or experience to identify the wrong assumptions. None of this requires our "Joe Rogan" to hide true science and research - paywalls already do that.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > Is he hiding true science and research? For him it's probably sufficient to just use a heavily-biased selection of it and/or present a heavily-distorted version of its results. (As others in the thread have pointed out, the hiding is done efficiently enough by others, i.e. the heavily-paywalled scientific journals.)
kuhewa 5y ago
Honestly, I am starting to think the open source movement has done as much harm as the subscription model to the scientific information ecosystem. The incentives are so high now to get volume published in pay to publish journals, leading to rushed peer reviews. Also APCs skew who can publish 'well'. The APCs for some top Cell and SpringerNature journals are about ten thousand fucking dollars. Great that the public can access it but that's money that either doesn't go to research or has to come out of taxpayer funded grants and straight into the pockets of publishers with huge margins. OA has also spawned a massive predatory journal market.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > Honestly, I am starting to think the open source movement has done as much harm as the subscription model to the scientific information ecosystem. The incentives are so high now to get volume published in pay to publish journals, leading to rushed peer reviews. What does that have to do with Open Source? > Also APCs skew who can publish 'well'. The APCs for some top Cell and SpringerNature journals are about ten thousand fucking dollars. What are APCs? (Are they perhaps what relates to Open Source here?) > Great that the public can access it but that's money that either doesn't go to research or has to come out of taxpayer funded grants and straight into the pockets of publishers with huge margins. OA has also spawned a massive predatory journal market. But even ten thousand fucking dollars sounds a lot less than what those publishers are making now, so isn't it still much better?
  - kuhewa 5y ago
    oof -- that should have read 'open access' and was intended to pertain specifically to the scientific publishing ecosystem. my bad. APCs are article processing charges. They are the fees the author (or sometimes the institution, if they have negotiated a blanket deal for all of their researchers) pay the publisher in exchange for the article being made open access. > But even ten thousand fucking dollars sounds a lot less than what those publishers are making now, so isn't it still much better? Publishers wouldn't be transitioning so many journal to Open Access if it was hurting their bottom line, and the for-profit academic publishing industry is about as profitable as they come with margins approaching 50%. They can do it under the guise of a principled stand. But it can create some perverse incentives. Also, previously they made money from subscription fees, so the bargaining power of whole university systems would negotiate rates. Now it for the most part falls to individual researchers, who don't have that economy of scale type bargaining power, which removes that check on inflation. A few Uni systems have cut similar deals to cover APCs for their faculty as I mentioned earlier, but it isn't yet the norm. /rant
raxxorrax 5y ago
> the "Joe Roganization" of the pandemic I think that was much more caused by media trying to prime people with some ridiculous stories that at least some refused to believe. A simple but honest approach is preferred to what we read in media otherwise. We still have sci-hub at least...

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
      But Joe Rogan listeners aren't using Mendeley. These issues are separate, but you're angry at both and are somehow mixing them. The paywall can be circumvented via sci-hub. And more and more papers are now on biorxiv and similar. And I don't think medical misinfo has much to do with Elsevier or academia. It's human nature, and the quality and degree of evidence-basedness of official communications doesn't really help. Also, the words "misinformation" and "fact check" make my skin crawl. If your conclusion is that the plebs is so dumb because they listen to Joe Rogan instead of The Science(TM), I think you're just digging in deeper. Also, during the pandemic, many blue check Twitter accounts said it's a pity that so many conspiracy theorists and fake news believers are reading papers and playing around with data. They should just receive The Science, spoon-fed, and accept it, and too much thinking and reading hurts them. In other words, think about what you wish for. When other people are given access to data, they may reach different conclusions than the approved respectable media expert consensus.

turboaspie 5y ago

Not defending Elsevier's practices, but people who get their information about the pandemic etc. from Joe Rogan are probably not going to read (or even understand) a research paper from an academic/medical journal. The problem with misinformation isn't lack of access - there are plenty of accessible, high quality articles that are written for the layperson - the problem is that people are reading (either through choice or The Algorithm) misleading and sensationalised tabloid clickbait.

medimikka 5y ago
I find myself being surprised by people more often than disappointed.
- threatofrain 5y ago
  The optimist is often disappointed and the pessimist often delighted.

tomcam 5y ago

> "Joe Roganization" of the pandemic Not sure what that means? Is he hiding true science and research?

eesmith 5y ago
My best guess is, the influence of non-specialists who do research on their own, without the training to understand which papers are meaningful, which are fluff, which are wrong, and which are fraudulent. The most informative papers are often behind a paywall, so the non-paywalled papers are biased towards these other less-informative and even wrong papers. If someone should point to paper X, in order to correct a mistaken belief discussed in a public form (like HN), and that paper X cost $50 to read, many fewer people will read it to examine the validity of the paper in the first place - even if were correct. While if someone points to paper Y, which supports that belief due to subtly wrong assumptions, but that paper is free to read, then many more people are likely to look at it. And without the training or experience to identify the wrong assumptions. None of this requires our "Joe Rogan" to hide true science and research - paywalls already do that.
CRConrad 5y ago
> Is he hiding true science and research? For him it's probably sufficient to just use a heavily-biased selection of it and/or present a heavily-distorted version of its results. (As others in the thread have pointed out, the hiding is done efficiently enough by others, i.e. the heavily-paywalled scientific journals.)

kuhewa 5y ago

Honestly, I am starting to think the open source movement has done as much harm as the subscription model to the scientific information ecosystem. The incentives are so high now to get volume published in pay to publish journals, leading to rushed peer reviews. Also APCs skew who can publish 'well'. The APCs for some top Cell and SpringerNature journals are about ten thousand fucking dollars. Great that the public can access it but that's money that either doesn't go to research or has to come out of taxpayer funded grants and straight into the pockets of publishers with huge margins. OA has also spawned a massive predatory journal market.

CRConrad 5y ago
> Honestly, I am starting to think the open source movement has done as much harm as the subscription model to the scientific information ecosystem. The incentives are so high now to get volume published in pay to publish journals, leading to rushed peer reviews. What does that have to do with Open Source? > Also APCs skew who can publish 'well'. The APCs for some top Cell and SpringerNature journals are about ten thousand fucking dollars. What are APCs? (Are they perhaps what relates to Open Source here?) > Great that the public can access it but that's money that either doesn't go to research or has to come out of taxpayer funded grants and straight into the pockets of publishers with huge margins. OA has also spawned a massive predatory journal market. But even ten thousand fucking dollars sounds a lot less than what those publishers are making now, so isn't it still much better?
- kuhewa 5y ago
  oof -- that should have read 'open access' and was intended to pertain specifically to the scientific publishing ecosystem. my bad. APCs are article processing charges. They are the fees the author (or sometimes the institution, if they have negotiated a blanket deal for all of their researchers) pay the publisher in exchange for the article being made open access. > But even ten thousand fucking dollars sounds a lot less than what those publishers are making now, so isn't it still much better? Publishers wouldn't be transitioning so many journal to Open Access if it was hurting their bottom line, and the for-profit academic publishing industry is about as profitable as they come with margins approaching 50%. They can do it under the guise of a principled stand. But it can create some perverse incentives. Also, previously they made money from subscription fees, so the bargaining power of whole university systems would negotiate rates. Now it for the most part falls to individual researchers, who don't have that economy of scale type bargaining power, which removes that check on inflation. A few Uni systems have cut similar deals to cover APCs for their faculty as I mentioned earlier, but it isn't yet the norm. /rant

raxxorrax 5y ago

> the "Joe Roganization" of the pandemic I think that was much more caused by media trying to prime people with some ridiculous stories that at least some refused to believe. A simple but honest approach is preferred to what we read in media otherwise. We still have sci-hub at least...