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

On 10/07/2014 05:27 AM, Phillip Lord wrote:
> "Peter F. Patel-Schneider" <pfpschneider@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> So, you believe that there is an excellent set of tools for preparing,
>> reviewing, and reading scientific publishing.
>>
>> Package them up and make them widely available.  If they are good, people will
>> use them.
>>
>> Convince those who run conferences.  If these people are convinced, then they
>> will allow their use in conferences or maybe even require their use.
>
> Is that not the point of the discussion?

Not at all.  Where was the proposal to put together something that met the 
requirements of preparing, reviewing, and publishing scientific papers?

To me, the initial discussion was about how much better HTML was for carrying 
data.  Other aspects of paper preparation, review, and publishing were not 
being considered.  Now, maybe, aspects of presentation and review and ease of 
use are part of the discussion.   A change in the paper submission process 
needs to take into account what the paper submission process is about, not 
just some aspect of what might be included in submitted papers.

> Unfortuantely, we do not know why ISWC and ESWC insist on PDF.

As far as I am concerned, ISWC and ESWC insist on PDF for submissions because 
the reviewing process is so much better with PDF than with anything else.

>> I'm not convinced by what I'm seeing right now, however.
>
> Sure, but at least the discussion has meant that you have looked at some
> of the tools again. That's no bad thing.
>
> My question would be, are more convinced than you were last time you
> looked or less?

Well, I remain totally unconvinced that any current HTML solution is as good 
as the current PDF setup.  Certainly htlatex is not suitable.  There may be 
some way to get tex4ht to do better, but no one has provided a solution. 
Sarven Capadisli sent me some HTML that looks much better, but even on a 
math-light paper I could see a number of glitches.  I haven't seen anything 
better than that.

It's not as if the basics (MathML, CSS, etc.)  are unavailable to put together 
most, or maybe even all, of an HTML-based solution.  These basics have been 
around for some time now.  However, I haven't seen a setup that is as good as 
LaTeX and PDF for preparation, review, and publishing of scientific papers.

Yes, it took a lot of effort to get to the current state with respect to LaTeX 
and PDF.  In the past, I experienced quite a number of problems with using 
LaTeX and PDF for writing, reviewing, and publishing scientific papers, but 
most of these are in the past.  Yes, there are still some problems with using 
LaTeX and PDF.  Produce something better and people will use it, eventually.

> Phil

peter

Received on Tuesday, 7 October 2014 13:45:27 UTC