Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

We are not compensated for reviewing on behalf of journals. We even pay to publish, and then pay to read our own paper.

edit: Nothing wrong with volunteering to review research, but if the whole process is for-profit, I don't understand why the reviewers cannot be compensated for their effort.



This sounds like a valid viewpoint, but it could lead to significant downsides. Like pay per review scams on Amazon. I don't know how this policy will play out in reality.


Nothing would change (except that Elsevier etc would have to reach their pockets for the first time).

The editor invites domain experts to review manuscripts. By compensating the reviewers it does not mean that you suddenly get more domain experts. Same people will be invited. But they will be compensated by taking a cut of the publisher's profits.

Or we can cut the middle men and publish in community maintained non-profit open-access journals.


Then stop publishing in those journals and only publish in ones that are open access?

Why is this not a solution?


Open access are not always free. I think one of the biggest materials science journal is asking from the authors to pay something in the order of $4,000 to make it open access [1].

The trick is to kick out out the for-profit middlemen who are taking advantage of the prestige and impact that various journals built over time, and now they just receive paychecks and free labor.

[1] https://authorservices.wiley.com/author-resources/Journal-Au...


Open Access journals carry significant fees in many fields.

Beyond that, the best journals in your field may not be open access. In my sub-specialty, none of them are.


That's inaccurate. When you publish to a journal, the journal will give you a pdf of your paper which you can put up on a personal site. You always have access to distribute your research.

Another point - journals never charge to publish (conferences do).


That's inaccurate. Plenty of journals don't allow you to put up a copy on your personal website. For example these fine folks that run many journals:

https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/publishing-your-...


Your link states you retain the right to do this, but that it may be subject to an embargo period. If it's referring to the allowed embargo period according to US law (which requires all federally funded papers be shared publicly) then it would be 12 months. They further allow you to share preprints which are not their professionally-formatted versions (i.e. you can put your pre-review version on arxiv), as does generally everyone else.

Also Taylor & Francis may have decent journals in some niches but generally aren't a great publisher.


So called "green OA" practices are:

a. far from ubiquitous

b. often include provisions created by the publisher designed to make discoverability outside of the journal difficult


Journals charge to publish. They even charge more if you want color pages.

I have the proofs of my papers, but I cannot access them online anymore.


This is false, it is merely a CSE viewpoint. In science, several prestigious journals are difficult to get into, and afterwards, charge you for the paper, per column or per page, being published. Figures and color may cost extra (significantly).




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: