Scientific publishing has been gamed to advance scientists’ careers

https://iai.tv/articles/science-publishing-is-a-multimillion...

@dang: Could you edit this, please?

What other industry must pay an application fee to give an exclusive to a government-granted Open Access research study?

You should tell them that they must pay you.

(And that they must host [linked] data, and reproducible containers, and code.)

I hear it all the time, from cranks who have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. They first spew gibberish, then vitriol that people won't devote time to translating the gibberish. And they certainly won't listen, with the insuperable defense that any explanation from the scientific orthodoxy means you're part of the cabal.

Yeah, there is a hell of a lot wrong with publishing. But it's not a "Ponzi scheme" because ultimately progress does get made. There is an underlying value that a Ponzi scheme lacks by definition.

And we can't fix the real problems without a serious statement of the problem. Science is fundamentally hard. There are a lot of people doing a lot of work and nobody has time for more than a miniscule fraction. Keeping up is impossible, even when everyone is working in good faith, which not everyone is.

Don't trivialize the problem by saying "the real solution is to listen to me and ignore everyone else".

It is like the theory about evolution to Crab like creatures over the eons, but for businesses :)

the design of disincentives (or punishments) is harder - coz you cannot jail a scientist for poor me-too publications, or papers that self-claim "an innovative approach to this or that"

Just as in corporate orgs, or societies, the culture that is fostered plays a critical role. Once rot takes over, it is hard to eradicate.

Never ever blame the monied interests. That would be anti-capitalist.