Hacker News Reader

Comment by noobermin | Hacker News Reader

If you want to blame anyone, blame publishers, not scientists. Open Access fees assessed by publishers are astronomical, and fall to the scientists seeking to publish them.

I haven't published in Nature yet, but my group has to fork over thousands per open access article above the usual cost. There is a disincentive to publish open access given that.

View on HN

>If you want to blame anyone, blame publishers, not scientists.

The editorial boards are usually scientists.

And the folks on the grant committee (at least the government ones) are usually scientists.

As a collective, scientists do have the power to require all publicly funded research be available through open access means.

The difference is that those scientists are usually senior ones, who also benefit from the status quo, whereas the ones aching for changes are often the early career researchers, who are hardly to blame.

Even when collectives have power, it is always difficult to exercise it. See for example the limited effect of the Elsevier "boycott": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cost_of_Knowledge

Blaming the publishers is not very useful, they are just acting according to their self interest. Their interests are not well aligned with those of the public or scientific community, but they won't care about that until they have to. Have to focus on building up the alternatives, so that the publishers lose the power to dictate the terms. It's happening though, slowly...

As a publishing scientist, let me tell you, science publishing is not a free market. We can't just "build up the alternatives" because that is not conducive to anyone's scientific career. If it's some no name journal where you will publish along side free energy and cold fusion articles, no one will do it.

The mistake is giving journals a profit incentive in the first place in a system that inherently doesn't work well in a market system. You can't have "competition" between journals, it just doesn't work that way. A handful of journals have high impact factors and so get most of the submissions, that's how it is, and they then can crank up their publishing fees because they can.

Perhaps you shouldn't "blame the publishers" given they are "acting according to their self interest." I did say "If you want to blame anyone[...]," implying I don't really care to blame anyone. I admit I am more inclined to blame the publishers, but the whole system is fundamentally broken.

Blame the taxpayer. We as a nation should demand we get access to what we pay for. At this point we are funding publishers to make free money off of what was already paid for.

That's effectively what this article does.

As a software developer, I do have the opportunity to build up alternatives - in fact, I'm hoping for that to be my career.

So that's what I'm doing now [1], and anyone interested can subscribe at [2].

[1] https://medium.com/flockademic/dear-scientists-help-me-help-... [2] https://tinyletter.com/Flockademic

>Blaming the publishers is not very useful, they are just acting according to their self interest.

Blaming the person who mugged you at gunpoint is not very useful, he is just acting according to his self interest.

Alternatives are great, but it's ridiculous to reject blaming the people who are responsible for and perpetuate the very bad status quo. They could end it, they just choose not to. We can and should simultaneously advocate to strip them of their power while holding them to account for abusing it.

At some point, it’s ok to blame the system (e.g. lack of laws) rather than the mugger. You live in a country in civil war, cross the town at night, get mugged, who’s to blame? You, the mugger, the war?

Always the mugger

Not sure why this is being debated. Other people (including yourself) could bear part of the blame, but ultimately the mugger decided to do the mugging.

Is this valid too if the mugger's family hasn't eaten in 3 days? Because it's easy to talk from a cushy home, with a full belly and a trouble-free upbringing.

One can feel sympathy for someone without absolving them. If they're so desperate, then why deny them their moral agency as well?

They are still to blame for the mugging, even if the reasons are understandable.

Yes, huge swaths of ultra desperate people struggling to survive who rob and mug others is definitely analogous to a tiny cabal of ultra powerful, ultra wealthy publishers that could do any number of things but choose to leech millions off the public good.

You are introducing desperation to the scenario, which is totally inappropriate. Unless you know of some publishing house executives who are struggling to put food on the table or homeless?

Also, are you saying you wouldn't blame the mugger?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com