[p4bl0]

First, I would like to point out that Nature is indeed considered "THE journal" by those who give importance to bibliometrics criteria (which imho is foolish), but it's really not clear that its quality is that good. For instance take this study which finds that Nature has one of the most important retractation rate: http://iai.asm.org/content/79/10/3855.full.pdf+html.

> (…) will largely not matter to scientists.

Please speak only for yourself. It matters to me and I'm not the only one.

> This is a monster announcement for institutions that may not have the money for a Nature sub.

No it's not. In his answer to your comment, silencio already explained that, but let me just present it in another way:

Before the announcement: when you want a Nature paper, you have to know someone with access to a subscription who can download the PDF for you and then send it to you.

After the announcement: when you want a Nature paper, you have to know someone with access to a subscription who can download the PDF for you and then send it to you, or who can also send you a link to some shitty read-only version of the paper on the condition that you register an account with Nature and that you use DRM-bloated proprietary software.

This is pure marketing, it's only PR, it has nothing to do with open access and it changes nothing in a good way, and it introduces DRMs where they were not.

[Retric]

While this sounds bad it's probably a sign of the amount of scrutiny Nature articles are under not the Quality of what's published. Basically, the rate of detection is higher in Nature so even if the underlying problem is the same or even less it’s going to look worse.

[p4bl0]

Indeed. I don't think anyone is saying that the high retractation rate implies that Nature paper are worse than other papers. However it is a sign that they may not be that much better either.

[dchichkov]

I would expect that the resulting quality of not-retracted and proven-by-time papers in Nature is a lot higher than in any other journal. Simply because of higher exposure, more attempts to reproduce or use studies and more scrutiny.

[kyberias]

But... isn't that really the same thing? Not worse but not much better. Sounds like about the same.

[collyw]

Like it or not, publishing in Nature will give you an advantage over almost any other journal. Maybe it isn't the best way to judge a scientist, but it is a shortcut for many who will be employing them.

[p4bl0]

I'm not denying that. It's a fact. My point is that it is a very sad truth. I wanted to recall that bibliometrics is something that, as researchers, we have to fight against. For this reason I prefer to explain that although it is a fact that publishing in Nature gives you a big career advantage in academia, it's nonetheless important to be critical about this fact.