Re: scientific publishing process (was Re: Cost and access)

In my opinion, the opposite is true. PDF I almost always end up printing
out. This isn't the point though. 

Necessity is the mother of invention. In the ideal world, a web
conference would allow only HTML submission. Failing that, at least HTML
submission. But, currently, we cannot submit HTML at all. What is the
point of creating a better method, if we can't use it?

The only argument that seems at all plausible to me is, well, we've
always done it like this, and it's too much effort to change. I could
appreciate that.

Anyway, the argument is going round in circles.

"Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfpschneider@gmail.com> writes:

> In my opinion PDF is currently the clear winner over HTML in both the ability
> to produce readable documents and the ability to display readable documents in
> the way that the author wants them to display.  In the past I have tried
> various means to produce good-looking HTML and I've always gone back to a
> setup that produces PDF.  If a document is available in both HTML and PDF I
> almost always choose to view it in PDF.  This is the case even though I have
> particular preferences in how I view documents.
>
> If someone wants to change the format of conference submissions, then they are
> going to have to cater to the preferences of authors, like me, and reviewers,
> like me.  If someone wants to change the format of conference papers, then
> they are going to have to cater to the preferences of authors, like me,
> attendees, like me, and readers, like me.
>
> I'm all for *better* methods for preparing, submitting, reviewing, and
> publishing conference (and journal) papers.  So go ahead, create one.  But
> just saying that HTML is better than PDF in some dimension, even if it were
> true, doesn't mean that HTML is better than PDF for this purpose.
>
> So I would say that the semantic web community is saying that there are better
> formats and tools for creating, reviewing, and publishing scientific papers
> than HTML and tools that create and view HTML.  If there weren't these better
> ways then an HTML-based solution might be tenable, but why use a worse
> solution when a better one is available?
>
> peter
>
>
>
>
>
> On 10/03/2014 08:02 AM, Phillip Lord wrote:
> [...]
>>
>> As it stands, the only statement that the semantic web community are
>> making is that web formats are too poor for scientific usage.
> [...]
>>
>> Phil
>>
>
>

-- 
Phillip Lord,                           Phone: +44 (0) 191 222 7827
Lecturer in Bioinformatics,             Email: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk
School of Computing Science,            http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/phillip.lord
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Received on Friday, 3 October 2014 16:11:34 UTC