science is principled on the concept of reproducibility.
If the information is behind a paywall, it's inaccessible and therefore beyond critique, making it unscientific.
Stealing publications and releasing them open source brings rigor to science
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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I was looking for a paper from fucking 2010 that was cited in a Wikipedia article and it was still behind a goddamn paywall.
Sci-Hub is the GOAT.
Looks like a CROW to me but I ain’t no zoologist
It's a jackdaw
Legitimate question here. What’s stopping researchers from creating their own federated publishing system for academic journals?
It's not federated, but arXiv is free and volunteer supported:
Not peer reviewed though. Those are called preprints and not papers. Both would be research articles but the difference matters (to scientists at least).
There's JOSS which is reviewed. I love it!
Thank you for the clarification!
Nice! I’ll check it out!
Big grants and research money connections are typically only accessible because your paper got published in a "reputable" journal, which of course you only have a chance of getting if you publish with a "reputable" system.
spoiler
Reputable my ass
Short Answer - Universities
Long Answer:
To get and hold a job as an academic, you must continually produce "high quality research". To get the job, in the first place, you must also be seen to do this.
"High quality" is often metriced by universities to mean "published in high impact journals" and "well cited". This metric is known to be faulty, but universities really dislike change.
So, to get a job, you have to give up your rights to your research, and to keep your job, you have to do likewise.
Worse, in the current financial climate, academia is seeing unprecedented cuts, which further entrenches this issue.
Publishing is a racket. This should have been done decades ago.
You can also email the author of the paper and they'll usually be happy to send you their work.
I was in the "et al" section of a paper during my undergraduate, and this was highly encouraged by my professor, who was lead author.
and/or if the researchers are still alive email them and ask for a copy they will likely be happy to share it
There is a added bonus here as well - some researchers will not only send the paper, but also offer to answer questions AND send other related papers.
Some academics out there are just really friendly people.
annas-archive.org
You might have to switch your DNS to one that doesn't block based on copyright
(e.g. Cloudflare: 1.1.1.1)
Actually i think the effort they are making is cool. It goes well beyond piracy and I think is a good idea esp in face of the world rn.
Copy is not theft.
based and informationfreedom-pilled
I was not expecting a Polynerdeia meme in here, nice