• Rayspekt@lemmy.world
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    17 days ago

    When will scientists just self-publish? I mean seriously, nowadays there is nothing between a researcher and publishing their stuff on the web. Only thing would be peer-reviewing, if you want that, but then just organize it without Elsevier. Reviewers get paid jack shit so you can just do a peer-reviewing fediverse instance where only the mods know the people so it’s still double-blind.

    This system is just to dangle carrots in front of young researchers chasing their PhD

    • GingaNinga@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Because of “impact score” the journal your work gets placed in has a huge impact on future funding. Its a very frustrating process and trying to go around it is like suicide for your lab so it has to be more of a top-down fix because the bottom up is never going to happen.

      Thats why everyone uses sci hub. These publishers are terrible companies up there with EA in unpopularity.

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        It sounds like all it would take to destroy the predatory for-profit publication oligarchs is a majority of the top few hundred scientists, across major disciplines, rejecting it and switching to a completely decentralized peer-2-peer open-source system in protest… The publication companies seem to gate keep, and provide no value. It’s like Reddit. The site’s essentially worthless. All of the value is generated by the content creators.

      • Rayspekt@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        We should just self publish and then openly argue about it findings like the OG scientists. It didn’t stop them from discovering anything.

        • roguetrick@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          Bone wars electric bugaloo. In the end you really do need a way to discern who is having an appreciable impact in a field in order to know who to fund. I have yet to hear a meaningful metric for that though.

          Edit: I should clarify, the other option is strictly political through an academy of sciences and has historical awfulness associated with it as well.

        • VeganPizza69 Ⓥ@lemmy.world
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          16 days ago

          Editors can act as filters, which is required when dealing with an excess of information streaming in. Just like you follow celebrities on social media or you follow pseudo-forums like this one, you get a service of information filtration which increases the concentration of useful knowledge.

          In the early days of modern science, the rate of publications was small, make it easier to “digest” entire fields even if there’s self-publishing. The number of published papers grows exponentially, as does the number of journals. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333487946_Over-optimization_of_academic_publishing_metrics_Observing_Goodhart’s_Law_in_action/figures

          Just like with these forums, the need for moderators (editors, reviewers) grows with the number of users who add content.