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Comment by sradman | Hacker News Reader

I think the fundamental problem is that academics historically gave away their copyright [1]:

> Traditionally, the author of an article was required to transfer the copyright to the journal publisher. Publishers claimed this was necessary in order to protect author's rights, and to coordinate permissions for reprints or other use. However, many authors, especially those active in the open access movement, found this unsatisfactory, and have used their influence to effect a gradual move towards a license to publish instead.

I'd love to learn more about how this system evolved.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_policies_of_academic...

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Because those academics were (and are) a bunch of egotistical, money-grubbing fools who would rather sell up their scientific integrity in exchange for some imaginary 'reputation' points.

Science is science, it shouldn't matter where it's published.

it shouldn't matter where it's published

But it does, there's a limited amount of hours in the day and an infinite amount of papers. You need someone to pre-screen the torrent of crap that has an occasional jewel floating in it, and traditionally journal editors have served that role.

That's the purpose of peer review.

You don't need some pompous journal for that.

How many Open Source projects are managed by an individual, or a small dedicated group? If they can do it - by self organising! - it's baffling that some of the 'smartest' minds in the world are unable to comprehend what's going on in their field on a meta-level.

We are all very aware of it, but it's not easy to get out of it if the people that pay you measure you based on those metrics. Open access is partially solving the problem though and imposing open access to all publicly funded research seems to me a good compromise.

This is analogous to "use up all your budget, or you'll get less next year!"

A stupid, stupid idea from people who should not be allowed to make decisions.

'Blue collar' workers figured out a way to get the message across - they formed unions, and went on strike to effect changes.

Peer review is supposed to filter out the crassest nonsense (it usually does). What a journal does is grading. When you are reading stuff where you don't know the relevant names personally a good heuristic is the journal. You don't bother with Hindawi and MDPI and just read stuff from the better-known publishers.

Science is not science. There is a lot of garbage being produced, you need a way to sort through it. Hierarchies of journals or conferences will naturally emerge regardless of the payment model. Just check the field of machine learning where most papers are open access and yet prestige depends on where it's published. This is orthogonal to the matter at hand.

Being published by prestigious journals isn't just about ego, it's about future career opportunities, getting grants, getting to work on things you want to work on possibly with some of the most brilliant people in your field.

I think people at the top could make things change with a massive concerted effort, and I think things will change naturally as younger people who've had a taste of open acess get access to top positions but it's too reductive to put things down to researchers' greed and ego.

"Publish or perish" is the most idiotic, damaging idea ever produced by modern academia. It's symptomatic of a degenerate system.

If those academics had any guts, they would boycott their precious journals and strike out in a different, better direction.

They're the ones perpetuating the system, just as much as the journals themselves. It's not parasitic, it's symbiotic.

Nobody benefits from this system except publishers.

Academics hate it, but publications is the way they are measured by public institutions for, e.g., grants, or when being hired. There's no symbiosis, it has evolved in this way mostly because of decisions taken by non-academics (ministries, governments, administrative staff etc.) and nobody knows how to get out of it.

To avoid redundancy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25650788

In my former life as a research engineer I learned to avoid no-name publishers, institutions, and conference proceedings because they are filled with lies. Not poor caliber material - outright fabrications.

That's not to say prestigious journals are immune from bad science, just that the consequences for fraud are a bit worse and bar to clear for publishing it much higher.

The vast majority of academics are underpaid workers in precarious jobs who need those publications because securing one of the few stable positions is explicitly tied to having enough imaginary points.

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