- From: Alexander Garcia Castro <alexgarciac@gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2017 12:19:11 +0200
- To: janowicz@ucsb.edu
- Cc: Sarven Capadisli <info@csarven.ca>, Harry Halpin <hhalpin@ibiblio.org>, Matthew Horridge <matthew.horridge@stanford.edu>, "semantic-web@w3.org" <semantic-web@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <CALAe=OJ5-+nNu8LA7sCaV=P1pM1HRbraB82soR6kNj-cWi2uAg@mail.gmail.com>
Krzysztof , why is this picture of the publishing industry inaccurate? there must be some truth there because it is not just Sarven the one with this perception -others are, however, less vociferous. Maybe we need less political correctness with businesses that provide a service to us (the message being we can remove/change them) and more rightfulness with the community of researchers as a whole. As a disclaimer: I dont receive any money from the publishing industry. I am not an editor for any journal and at this moment I dont have any business relation with the publishing industry other than paying APCs for something that I really dont understand what am I paying for. On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 11:57 AM, Krzysztof Janowicz <janowicz@ucsb.edu> wrote: > On 08/07/2017 11:34 AM, Sarven Capadisli wrote: > >> On 2017-08-05 12:59, Harry Halpin wrote: >> >>> While normally I consider the desire to publish scientific papers in >>> HTML as quite silly given the lack of support of MathML by major >>> browsers and the need to use LateX in computer science, >>> >> Grab coffee. >> >> I think that this is not a showstopper because the alternative is not: >> >> * resort to LaTeX/Word.. >> * resort to handing publicly funded work to a company >> > > This has nothing to do with LaTeX versus HTML. > > * resort to paying fees to get access back to the work >> > > Same here. > > * resort to numbing Web researchers from using the native Web stack >> >> Again, that's precisely what the Web Semantics journal is doing and >> encouraging. Shameful. >> > > This kind of strong wording is damaging your mission. It also paints an > inaccurate picture of the publishing industry. > > > Best, > Krzysztof > > > > > >> The fact of the matter is that, if researchers agree on the final goal >> of using the native Web stack, and controlling their own work, there are >> options however imperfect: MathML, MathJax ( https://www.mathjax.org/ ), >> Web fonts, SVG, bitmap images, Flash (not a real suggestion), a photo of >> whiteboard or handwritten equations, and more. We can nitpick the whole >> day on any given approach, but the bottom line is that it can be >> achieved and still reasonable - I'll get back to this in a moment. >> >> If those options are still inadequate, and if the goal still remains to >> open up and make the best of the Web, people can dedicate energy to >> improve the state of the art. It would be absurd to think that we are >> indefinitely stuck with LaTeX for mathematics on the Web. >> >> So, we don't just throw our hands up in the air and walk away - at the >> same time throwing the whole academic community under the bus - just >> because some Web tech is imperfect, and might as well resort to LaTeX. >> >> We improve the Web because we are idealists. We join standards >> organisations or create communities to address the shortcomings - just >> as we have in the past. >> >> Springer can't even manage to display code blocks in their HTML copies. >> Literally uses *gif* of a PDF (or something) rendering eg: >> >> https://static-content.springer.com/image/chp%3A10.1007% >> 2F978-3-319-58068-5_33/MediaObjects/449646_1_En_33_Figb_HTML.gif >> >> That is a major joke! >> >> If Springer, with all the funding at their disposal decides to create a >> gif of a script block from a LaTeX source, and deemed it to be >> "acceptable" (by their standards at least) in academic articles, we can >> apply the same line of reasoning and do it ourselves. Pure and simple. >> Compare what you get out of the box: >> >> * http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-58068-5_33 >> * http://csarven.ca/linked-data-notifications >> >> It makes zero sense to pay these companies from public funds to reduce >> the quality of the representations/semantics, interactive components.. >> regardless of if they get LaTeX or even HTML. >> >> What they generate is bare minimum junk in comparison to what the >> authors can express; multimodal, semantic, social, decentralised >> solutions with some commitment to interop on the Web. >> >> Hence, I reject the general line of argument: "x is not perfect, >> therefore let's instead p00p on the Web". >> >> I agree the >>> scientific community - especially the Semantic Web community, a >>> community in theory devoted to open data - should refuse to publish or >>> review in Elsevier journals given their particularly atrocious track >>> record, including support of SOPA/PIPA etc. in the past: >>> >>> For more, see the Elsevier boycott: >>> http://michaelnielsen.org/polymath1/index.php?title=Journal_ >>> publishing_reform >>> >> And something a bit more recent and concrete, "at the end of 2017, the >> following bodies announced that they would no longer extend their >> contract with Elsevier": >> >> https://www.projekt-deal.de/vertragskundigungen-elsevier-2017/ >> >> Note in response to the boycott, Elsevier now has open access journals. >>> Obviously the Web Semantics journal could become an Open Access journal: >>> >>> https://www.elsevier.com/about/open-science/open-access/ >>> open-access-journals >>> >>> Why is it not? >>> >> Possibly because APC model requires authors/public institutions to feed >> even more money (on top of what their libraries pay for instance) into >> the scholarly system, and so the editors of the journal may have figured >> that would not be feasible - or maybe it just didn't even occur to them. >> In any case, getting the money out of the system is a "goal", so just >> taking OA approach for the sake of it is not solving anything. >> >> Moreover, even if gold/green OA was in place, it still doesn't address >> the disclaimer point on crafting multimodal research objects, ie. the >> bar is still set to their content/data publishing pipeline - which is >> archaic as it gets. >> >> -Sarven >> http://csarven.ca/#i >> >> > -- > Krzysztof Janowicz > > Geography Department, University of California, Santa Barbara > 4830 Ellison Hall, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4060 > > Email: jano@geog.ucsb.edu > Webpage: http://geog.ucsb.edu/~jano/ > Semantic Web Journal: http://www.semantic-web-journal.net > > > -- Alexander Garcia https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alexander_Garcia http://www.usefilm.com/photographer/75943.html http://www.linkedin.com/in/alexgarciac
Received on Monday, 7 August 2017 10:19:56 UTC