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> The emphasis on novelty has deep roots in academic publishing. It used to be that publishing was expensive, and any repetition came at the expense of other th
by ballenf 4y ago
> The emphasis on novelty has deep roots in academic publishing. It used to be that publishing was expensive, and any repetition came at the expense of other things that could have been published. Today, however, publishing is essentially free.
Requiring novelty shows respect for the readers' time. Paper and ink costs were never the primary limiting factors (even if the publishers' claimed otherwise to save face).
"repetition came at the expense of other things" -- no, repetition comes at the expense equal to Number of Readers * Time Wasted on Each non-novel paper.
If the author just stuck to "novelty is hard to really know" then it's a much stronger argument.
- hiptobecubic 4y agoBut without reproducibility the paper is basically worthless. There's already a crisis of unreproducible work and the strong novelty bias is basically why.
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoI don't think requiring novelty is respect for a reader's time. I think requiring high quality is respect, even if it is adding to existing bodies of evidence. Novel drivel is just drivel regardless of its novelty; it requires high quality analysis and research for anyone to get any benefit from that newness.
- theaeolist 4y agoA clear exposition of an obscure and hard to understand result is lack of 'respect for readers' time'? How so?