[MetaMan]

Taking things on face value I congratulate him. There's been a few times when I've tried to access an interesting academic paper only to find that it's only available behind some pay- wall.

Why should we have to pay for a scientific paper if it was produced by a public funded institution?

What's the long term effect on the spread and advancement of knowledge if access is restricted and "gamed" for profit?

If he's sued (against assuming I properly understand the issues here) I'll probably contribute to his defence because he's acting in everyone's interest.

[bborud]

once you start taking a closer look at academic publishing practices quite a lot of it ranges from "silly" to "morally questionable".

and not just in publishing.

there's particularly one practice that I find particularly distasteful, and that is the practice of putting the names of people who had nothing to do with the publicaion on papers. either to market the paper itself ("ooh, look, I have a famous professor's name next to mine!") or to boost the publication list of some tenured has-been.

a few years ago there was a scandal here in Norway. a doctor got caught fabricating research results. as the shitstorm hit the media his "co-authors" (none of which seemed to have done any of the work or the writing, and some of which denied even knowing about the paper) ran for cover. oh and how they ran.

I must say that I found it somewhat questionable that they didn't get thrown out of academia for having put their name on a piece of fraudulent bullshit. if the paper was good enough to put their name on it should be good enough to stand by.

it ought to be a mandatory practice to mark these frauds in publication lists and databases as such: frauds.

most I have talked to who are still in academia defend the practice. and when they run out of sensible arguments in its favor, which they inevitably do, they go with the old "well, it is how it is done. so we shouldn't rock the boat".

quite a few of these people have a change of heart after leaving academia. or after having a re-think about ethics and honesty and why it really, really matters if you are to call what you are doing "science".

[w1ntermute]

> most I have talked to who are still in academia defend the practice. and when they run out of sensible arguments in its favor, which they inevitably do, they go with the old "well, it is how it is done. so we shouldn't rock the boat".

Well scientists are no less irrational than the rest of us, and why would anyone in a position of power ever be interested in changing the status quo?

[loup-vaillant]

[…] I find particularly distasteful […] the practice of putting the names of people who had nothing to do with the publication on papers.

I heard an argument that I find difficult to take down: even though you may write a paper alone, the research it is based on probably wasn't done alone. Even if you did your research alone, it likely stands on the research done by your lab mates. Even if it doesn't, you don't really work alone. You talk to people, most notably your advisor, or your research director (depending on your position). Whether you know it or not, those conversations gives your insights that shouldn't go un-thanked.

The bottom line is, it's a team, and the signature should reflect that (non-)reality.

[CWuestefeld]

I don't buy that argument. A person who is responsible for nothing more than the research research ought not to be an "author" of the paper. Research is nothing but data; the choice of what research to use, and the conclusions drawn from that data, are what make the paper.

The argument you cite does not support listing all those folks as authors. For example, one could have papers "Authored by X, featuring original research by J, K, and L".

[loup-vaillant]

Oh, I don't buy that argument either. But I have heard it in more subtle forms. I just didn't know how to convince the very people that use it of its invalidity.

For that matter, your suggestion to classify the various authors by the nature of their contribution should shatter my argument to pieces. Adding something like "supervised by C" should blow those pieces to smithereens.

[niekmaas]

For most journals I have experience with as a (co-)author a signed form is required for every (co-)author on the paper. This way it's pretty hard to deny you have knowledge of the paper.

I agree with you that people that have not contributed should not be on a paper. For most high impact journals thesedays explanation is required of who did what. Of course this is far from 100% secure but it's an interesting step. Lying about the contribution of a certain co-author is something else than just adding a name to the list. Lying is fraud whereas adding a name might not actually be fraud I think.