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

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

> On 10/06/2014 09:32 AM, Phillip Lord wrote:
>> "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfpschneider@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> Who cares what the authors intend? I mean, they are not reading the
>>>> paper, are they?
>>>
>>> For reviewing, what the authors intend is extremely important.  Having
>>> different rendering of the paper interfere with the authors' message is
>>> something that should be avoided at all costs.
>>
>> Really? So, for example, you think that a reviewer with impared vision
>> should, for example, be forced to review a paper using the authors
>> rendering, regardless of whether they can read it or not?
>
> No, but this is not what I was talking about. I was talking about
> interfering with the authors' message via changes from the rendering
> that the authors' set up.

It *is* exactly what you are talking about. If I want to render your
document to speech, then why should I not? What I am saying is that,
you, the author, should not wish to constrain the rendering, only really
the content. Effectively, if you are using latex, you are already doing
this, since latex defines the layout and not you.

But, I think we are talking in too abstract a term here. Should you be
able to constrain indentation for code blocks? Yes, of course, you
should. But, a quick look at the web shows that people do this all the
time.


>>> Similarly for reading papers, if the rendering of the paper interferes
>>> with the authors' message, that is a failure of the process.
>>
>> Yes, I agree. Which is why, I believe, that the rendering of a paper
>> should be up to the reader
>
> As this is why I believe that the authors' should be able to specify the
> rendering of their paper to the extent that they feel is needed to convey the
> intent of the paper.

For scientific papers, I think this really is not very far. I mean, a
scientific paper is not a fashion store; it's a story designed to
persuade with data. 

I would like to see papers which are in the hands of the reader as much
as possible. Citation format should be for the reader. Math
presentation. Graphs should be interactive and zoomable, with the data
underneath as CSV. 

All of these are possible and routine with HTML now. I want to be free
to choose the organisation of my papers so that I can convey what I
want. At the moment, I cannot. The PDF is not reasonable for all, maybe
not even most of this. But some.

Phil

Received on Monday, 6 October 2014 18:01:21 UTC