[dijksterhuis]

torrents work fine for immutable artefacts. linux distro ISOs etc are not getting modified after release. that's a new version. same with films (piracy). once a film is released, that's it released. any later versions are just that, a new version.

torrents are a problem for mutable artefacts because you are reliant on your peers having the latest up to date copy, which is not guaranteed. the peers you download from might have just switched their machine on after 5 months, so their copy of the mutable artefact is 5 months out of date. as ever with distributed systems, requiring consistency introduces complexity.

"open gateways" (term used by a sibling comment) provide much simpler mutability. which makes sense when there's like a simple typo in a PDF document that requires the document's replacement. just replace the document on the web server. bam! everyone now has access to the latest corrected version immediately.

also, most of the general population doesn't know how to use torrents. just because there's a part-way technical solution, doesn't mean it makes sense to switch everything over to some fancy new proposal (not the underlying tech, which is old now).

if users would struggle to use the implementation, why do it? what benefits are there except for a seemingly more technically perfect solution?

[kragen]

Published papers, just like accounting records, are immutable artifacts. People need to be able to say, "In Arneson & Dijksterhuis 2014, the figure given for the solanine concentration in eggplants is an order of magnitude too high because of a typographical error," or, "In Arneson & Dijksterhuis 2014, the figure given for the solanine concentration in eggplants is correct to within 25% and does not contain a typographical error," and for other people to be able to verify that. "Just replac[ing] the document on the web server" is considered serious academic misconduct, among other things because you might be introducing errors into previously correct published work that others had referenced. For this case, torrents' immutability is a feature, not a bug.

In 01994 the general population didn't know how to use the internet, but it was already very useful for researchers. Software improved over time to simplify using it.

What benefit would there be? The benefit would be that it prevents AI bots from destroying Open Access.

[dijksterhuis]

okay, let’s run with your specific example.

how do you deal with retractions? how do you deal with academic/research conduct so egregious that all previous versions of a retracted paper need to be edited with “RETRACTED” in big red letters over all the text on every page of the paper? just to make sure no-one ever accidentally reads one page and thinks it is a legitimate source of information.

like the one written by disgraced ex-doctor andrew wakefield: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

immutability doesn’t stop academic misconduct. in this specific egregious example it would enable serious harm to continue until every peer updates to the new versions. and there is no guarantee that happens.

the lancet, with their mutable web server hosted versions, were able to edit it and stick RETRACTED in big red letters all over the thing immediately [0]. the ability to edit due to misconduct is guaranteed.

like, i’m all for anything that stops OpenAI spamming web servers, or more generally anything that gets in their way. but there isn’t a perfect technical solution. torrents don’t solve the problem perfectly, they bring new trade offs.

that’s what i’m trying to help you see here. it’s mostly shades of grey.

[0]: by immediate, i mean “once they finally made the decision to retract it waaaaaaaaaay later than they should have”. like, the update was immediate. not the paper was immediately retracted on publication.

[kragen]

By publishing a retraction notice, as academic journals have been doing for centuries on paper.