Difference between revisions of "2085: arXiv"

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{{w|ArXiv}} is a [https://arxiv.org free online repository of electronic preprints of scientific papers] in various fields. In this comic [[Megan]] argues that academic journals must have a hard time getting by in the fields popular on ArXiv, as they charge high fees for both researchers trying to publish in them, and readers paying for subscriptions, whereas ArXiv is completely free to publish to and read. [[Ponytail]] informs her, that the ArXiv project has been going on since the 1990s (1991 to be exact), but the journals still seem to be in a good shape. [[Megan]] is visibly confused about this fact, but [[Ponytail]] tries to stop her from freaking out too much, in order to stop her outrage from informing others about the current arrangement, thus ruining it.
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{{w|ArXiv}} is a [https://arxiv.org free online repository of electronic preprints of scientific papers] in various fields, particularly in physics, math, and computer science. Scientists typically publish "preprint" versions of journal articles to arXiv, which are free to publish to and read. In this comic [[Megan]] remarks that academic journals must have a hard time getting by, since their primary revenue is from researchers who pay to publish articles and readers who pay for subscriptions. Her remark seems to assume that arXiv must be a recent development, perhaps similar to the [[sci-hub project|https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub]] which began in 2011. However, [[Ponytail]] informs her that the arXiv project has been around since the 1990s (1991 to be exact).
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After a panel of [[Megan]] looking contemplative, she remarks that that does not make sense at all. After all, why would publishing companies be able to make money from something that is free online? [[Ponytail]] tries to stop her from freaking out, so that her outrage does not inform others about the current arrangement and thus ruin the system.  
  
 
Confusion about the continued existence of scientific journals has also been expressed in [[2025]].
 
Confusion about the continued existence of scientific journals has also been expressed in [[2025]].

Revision as of 21:39, 14 December 2018

arXiv
Both arXiv and archive.org are invaluable projects which, if they didn't exist, we would dismiss as obviously ridiculous and unworkable.
Title text: Both arXiv and archive.org are invaluable projects which, if they didn't exist, we would dismiss as obviously ridiculous and unworkable.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a BOT. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.
ArXiv is a free online repository of electronic preprints of scientific papers in various fields, particularly in physics, math, and computer science. Scientists typically publish "preprint" versions of journal articles to arXiv, which are free to publish to and read. In this comic Megan remarks that academic journals must have a hard time getting by, since their primary revenue is from researchers who pay to publish articles and readers who pay for subscriptions. Her remark seems to assume that arXiv must be a recent development, perhaps similar to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub which began in 2011. However, Ponytail informs her that the arXiv project has been around since the 1990s (1991 to be exact).

After a panel of Megan looking contemplative, she remarks that that does not make sense at all. After all, why would publishing companies be able to make money from something that is free online? Ponytail tries to stop her from freaking out, so that her outrage does not inform others about the current arrangement and thus ruin the system.

Confusion about the continued existence of scientific journals has also been expressed in 2025.

The title text refers to another project that is invaluable for internet research, archive.org (link). It argues that these two projects are so useful, yet make so little economic sense, that, if they did not exist, we would dismiss them as ideas that would never be viable.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.
Megan: Wait, all the papers in your field are posted as free PDFs on ArXiv? That must be killing big science journals, since they charge such huge subscription/publication fees.
Ponytail: Nah, we've been doing it since the 90s and nobody seems to care.
Megan: That makes no sense at all!!
Ponytail: Shhh, you'll jinx it!


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Discussion

To be fair, the UI is so bad that that alone is barrier enough for downloading the pdf. :D Also, people might now fight me, because it's really easy if you know what to do. Fabian42 (talk) 19:03, 14 December 2018 (UTC)


It appears this comic may be referencing current events where academics are pushing for more open access publishing and publishers are balking. In particular, see this article in the December 13th issue of Inside Higher Ed. Some key quotes from the article:

The California system wants to fundamentally alter how it pays for journal content from publishers like Elsevier and to accelerate open-access publishing in the process. The UC system wants to do more to make publicly funded research freely accessible to the public.
If an agreement is not reached before the deadline, then as soon as Jan. 1, 2019, the 69,000 faculty members and 238,000 students in the UC system may no longer have access to new articles published in over a thousand Elsevier journals, including Lancet and biology journals published through Cell Press.
It’s certainly the case that major publishers have not embraced these types of agreements,” said MacKie-Mason. “Springer Nature has been more agreeable to contracts of this sort, but many are moving slowly, or actively opposing.”

162.158.106.96 20:43, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

A group of publishing companies are currently taking legal action against websites that share published papers unofficially [1]. I don't know if this applies to the ones mentioned in the comic, but it partly comes down to whether the article is in it's final 'published' format which is copyright of the journal, or an earlier pre-print version not using the publisher's template where the copyright may still be owned by the authors. On the other hand, some publishers have embraced the pre-print model and created their own servers [2]. 162.158.34.178 21:13, 14 December 2018 (UTC)
Propably also interesting https://www.projekt-deal.de/about-deal 162.158.202.52 04:54, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Here is information on how preprints are different than peer-reviewed publications http://holly.witteman.ca/index.php/2017/12/11/getting-access-to-paywalled-papers/

Link rot detected, corrected link found https://holly.witteman.ca/getting-access-to-paywalled-papers/

Can someone deduce the field Ponytail is working on?

What fields are they taking about? Which have been most open to sites like arXiv and which have been most reluctant? 108.162.246.161 19:46, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I know that pretty much every astronomy paper is on arXiv.
arXiv is definitely an astronomer's haven. I don't think even physicists use it as much. And actually, quite hilariously, apparently arXiv recently stopped accepting research notes, and that made AAS Journal that publish these research notes most disappointed [3].
Everything in atomic physics is there too. I can't remember any recent paper I searched that was not on arXiv.
Everything math related is there as well.
Just a bit late, but four years later Nature Podcast answers: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01985-5
It's biology and medicine that were largely not using the preprint servers until the COVID-19 pandemic. Nitpicking (talk)