

A proposal for a new publishing model in Computer Science - hpenedones
http://yann.lecun.com/ex/pamphlets/publishing-models.html

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ajays
One would think that Computer Science, of all the fields, would have an open
publishing system (where all papers are accessible to all). One would be
mistaken....

Some authors do the right thing and post versions of their papers on their own
websites. But many don't; and it is a shame.

I cancelled my ACM and IEEE memberships because I see these organizations are
perpetuating this broken system. They already charge a lot for attending
conferences; why make people pay for the conference papers? And libraries,
etc. will pay for the journals anyways; why lock the papers behind paywalls?
This just doesn't make sense.

Unless more researchers speak up and protest, nothing will change,
unfortunately.

~~~
abhaga
Fortunately, the situation is much better in some specific areas of CS. For
example, computational linguistics: <http://www.aclweb.org/anthology/>

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abhaga
Very interesting. However what prevents this system from splitting out into
virtual cliques consisting of same groups that exist today? There is no doubt
that the proposed system is more accommodating of the non-US, non-European
authors. However since the RE entities are free to choose what they review,
what is the incentive to dig through piles of papers from unknown authors?

~~~
lazyjeff
According to the article, "However, authors may formally request that a
particular RE review their paper. They may make only one such formal request
at a time. The RE is given a short time to accept or refuse to review (e.g. 2
weeks) and a slightly longer time before the author is allowed to submit a
request to another RE (whether the requested RE has produced a review or not).
RE will have an incentive to review good papers, as their reputation will
increase with the quality of the papers which they are the first to rate
highly."

I think the way this system will "bootstrap" itself is by having a few initial
conferences use it as their main submission venue. Basically, this would
replace a conference management system like Easychair.

~~~
abhaga
Through one source or other, the system needs to have more bandwidth for
processing more papers in a better way then is possible with current system. I
am trying to think where does that extra bandwidth come from. As I see, there
are 2 sources.

One, as you pointed out from the article, is that existing reviewers put in
more time and energy in the system to gain reputation.

Another possibility is that since anyone can come in and start reviewing,
people actually on the periphery of the system or outside the system might be
able to add more bandwidth. For example, a student in India is no longer
limited to review mostly for Indian conferences. He can dig around, find good
papers from anywhere and give them more publicity. He can start as a feeder
for more established REs and in time gain enough reputation to branch off on
his own. I think this may be the major source of extra bandwidth that the
system is able to harness.

