Notices by Björn Brembs (brembs@mastodon.social)

"I didn't think there was anything left for publishers to monetize (after having authors acquire the funding, do the research, write the paper, do the peer review, and correct the page proofs for free while they take in all the profits), but here I stand corrected," he continued, adding that the "research brief" promised in the package "is essentially the abstract that you're writing anyway usually."

https://futurism.com/springer-nature-ai-media-kit

Only 12 signatures needed to reach 2k signatures urging univeristies to leave X:

https://openpetition.de/Unis4Mastodon

Only four days left to sign!

Help us reach this milestone by spreading the word!

#academicchatter #academis

By now, most decent people have left Musk's Nazi Chatroom and some have even written about it, e.g.:

https://www.publix.de/en/news/exit-is-our-only-hope

However, #academia appears to be a little slow on the uptake, despite the grandiose words in their mission statements:

https://bjoern.brembs.net/2024/12/by-their-actions-you-shall-know-them/

The petition we have started to spur universities into action is nearly at the end:

https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/open-letter-to-the-german-rectors-conference-hrk-on-the-use-of-social-media

Can you sign it and push it beyond 2k signatures?

#academicchatter

By their actions you shall know them

Universities worldwide currently face a pivotal choice: should they contribute to building a global infrastructure for exchange, science, and discourse, free from the control of oligarchs, to promote democracy, human rights, and digital participation? Or should they continue advertising on private networks, hoping for clicks and marginally increased student enrollment? The Fediverse serves as a litmus test for universities globally:…

https://bjoern.brembs.net/2024/12/by-their-actions-you-shall-know-them/

If you haven't checked out mastodon.academy yet, now is a good time.

Must-read on surveillance publishing:

"A few companies with dominance over academic publishing have been able to capture and use surplus value created through the publishing lifecycle. This extraction—of academic labour, of data, of information—is reinvested into their proprietary data analytics products."

https://cjal.ca/index.php/capal/article/view/43293

#openscience #libraries

"Es kann eben nicht ausgeschlossen werden, dass Elon Musk morgen #BlueSky kauft. Aber das Mastodon-Netzwerk kann niemand kaufen."

https://www.riffreporter.de/de/gesellschaft/aktionsbuendnis-mastodon-wissenschaft-hochschulen-x-twitter-abkehr

Link zur Petition:
https://www.openpetition.de/petition/blog/appell-an-die-hochschulrektorenkonferenz-zur-nutzung-sozialer-medien#petition-main

#unisinsfediverse

[The academic publishers now] "not only provide tools, they also collect user data. They log everything a researcher does, every keystroke."

https://ukrant.nl/magazine/elseviers-stranglehold-on-academia-how-publishers-get-rich-from-our-data/?lang=en

This is not emphasized nearly enough: when ideology clashes with science, "neutral" science means condoning the abuse of science.

"Science journalists can either challenge abuses of science or look the other way."

https://johnhorgan.org/cross-check/scientific-american-loses-its-bold-leader

@BorisBarbour @pluralistic

Precisely.
Why people with enough neurons to form a synapse who leave X go to BlueSky will forever remain a mystery to me.

@cian @BorisBarbour @pluralistic

Really? That's it? To me, this sounds a lot like:

"sure, there is no water in the Namib either, but at least it's not the Sahara! Doesn't that count as an improvement? Oh and now I have a lot of thirsty people with me in the Namib, when I would have to drink water with so much fewer people outside of deserts."

Sorry, but I can't make heads nor tail of this. My interest to go over there and interact with people whose minds operate like this is quite low.

@cian @BorisBarbour @pluralistic

I study learning and memory (in invertebrate animals). I guess part of it is my bewilderment as to how many triels some people need to actually learn something 🤣

Then again, when email came, had there been only GMail initially, some people would probably still today struggle to understand what they would need a private and a work email for. 😆

For really no reason at all 😇 here's why I find the user experience on #Mastodon better than in that Nazi Chatroom when it was still called "Twitter":

- 500+ characters
- post editing
- follow hashtags
- better s/n ratio
- no ads

Plus, https://quintsns.pianeta.uno/ does a pretty good job at replacing paper.li

So I wouldn't go back, even if someone resurrected Twitter. Now, FriendFeed on the other hand... 😆

@pluralistic says it best, why #BlueSky is no alternative:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

@mloxton @pluralistic

Pretty much how I feel and why I think scholarship is the best place to adopt the Fediverse, see e.g.:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.230207

We even started a petition to the German Rector's Conference to leave X and support Mastodon instead:

https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/open-letter-to-the-german-rectors-conference-hrk-on-the-use-of-social-media

The consequences of quantitative research assessment today:

- Impact factor: fake data, irreproducibility, et al.
- h-index: citation cartels, paper mills et al.

So sure, yes, let's think of yet another external motivation to incentivize researchers to cut corners: welcome the s-index!

https://www.thetransmitter.org/open-neuroscience-and-data-sharing/the-s-index-challenge-develop-a-metric-to-quantify-data-sharing-success/

🤦♀️

Scientific American saying it like it is:
"The Supreme Court’s Contempt for Facts Is a Betrayal of Justice"

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-supreme-courts-contempt-for-facts-is-a-betrayal-of-justice/

Now that's a long overdue initiative! Please help spread it!

Public Money? Public Code! - FSFE-Tube

https://media.fsfe.org/w/7cH6EATpmPwaMsEZN8vfyj

Trying out the #openscience group @open_science and seeing if we can get a significant share of the open science community to participate.

If you haven't already, please consider signing our petition to the German Rectors Conference, urging them to transition all university social media presence in Germany to #mastodon and the #fediverse. You can find the petition here:

https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/open-letter-to-the-german-rectors-conference-hrk-on-the-use-of-social-media

Boosts are greatly appreciated!

@pfefferle

Thanks, that's what I thought, I just wasn't sure I had understood it properly. I think I'll unistall the plug-in again and search for one that simply posts the links to Mastodon for me.
I'm also considering setting up my own instance as a subdomain and then migrate there from here, but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle.

Thanks again!