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Comment by im3w1l | Hacker News Reader

I used to think that Elsevier et al were just rentiers, and that bringing them down would be a pure win. But I'm not so sure anymore. When money left journalism we saw a big big quality drop. We now have lots of problems with fake news. It makes me think: what if the same thing will happen in science?

I guess the affiliation of the researchers will still be there, but it still leaves me a bit uneasy.

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A salient point. However, NPR shares an interview with a person (Justin Coler) who was responsible for generating a lot of fake news during the US election campaign last year [1]: "Coler says his writers have tried to write fake news for liberals — but they just never take the bait."

Academics tend to be left-leaning and overall they operate on a principle of self-regulation (with a few rogue fabricators that make it into the spotlight periodically), so this may not be as a big of a concern as you fear.

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503...

Elsevier doesn't pay for review nor to the authors.

But they pick trustworthy reviewers though?

No, the editor and their associate editors do that, and they don't get paid by Elsevier either. https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/43574/how-much-...

Authors can typically "suggest" reviewers for their papers. There have been a few scandals in the past where papers were published after being reviewed by family members, or even the original author using a maiden name. Elsevier, and many of the related companies under the Reed Elsevier family, make their money by facilitating the process, or making data searchable. Once upon a time this was huge as doing either of those things was a significantly costly and time intensive exercise. Today, they continue on pure momentum. If a few major research universities were to band together and form a cooperative non-profit journal, things would start to unravel for Elsevier.

Yes, but if Elsiver disappeared tomorrow, those reviewers could just go to other journals.

Researchers are not paid for the research, just the publishers. I can only see quality going up without them moderating and filtering with their misaligned incentives.

The money for the research does not come from Elsevier nor the journals, at least not in Germany. If they could get rid of Elsevier and go open access, they would have more money for the science.

Fake news have been in newspapers for a very long time. Most newspapers have a political bias and have been heavily digesting the news-feed.

Scientists publishing original research in academic journals are not paid by the publishers, and neither are the quality control measures such as reviewers.

We now have lots of problems with fake news. It makes me think: what if the same thing will happen in science?

Well, already two-thirds of published scientific research cannot be reproduced http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39054778

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