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

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

> One problem with allowing HTML submission is ensuring that reviewers can
> correctly view the submission as the authors intended it to be viewed.  How
> would you feel if your paper was rejected because one of the reviewers could
> not view portions of it?  At least with PDF there is a reasonably good chance
> that every paper can be correctly viewed by all its reviewers, even if they
> have to print it out.  I don't think that the same claim can be made for
> HTML-based systems.


I don't think this is a valid point. It is certainly possible to write
HTML that will not be look good on every machine, but these days, it is
easier to write HTML that does.

The same is true with PDF. Font problems used to be routine. And, as
other people have said, it's very hard to write a PDF that looks good on
anything other than paper.


> Further, why should there be any technical preference for HTML at all?  (Yes,
> HTML is an open standard and PDF is a closed one, but is there anything else
> besides that?)  Web conference vitally use the web in their reviewing and
> publishing processes.  Doesn't that show their allegiance to the web?  Would
> the use of HTML make a conference more webby?

PDF is, I think, open these days. But, yes, I do think that conferences
should dog food. I mean, what would you think if W3C produced all of
their documents in PDF? Would that make sense?

Phil

Received on Monday, 6 October 2014 11:15:45 UTC