Academic Substack: Open, Free, and Subject to Review(jfmcdonald.substack.com)
jfmcdonald.substack.com
Academic Substack: Open, Free, and Subject to Review
https://jfmcdonald.substack.com/p/academic-substack-open-free-and-subject
44 comments
I don't see how they can avoid going down the same path as Quora, Medium, and others. At the end of the day, they are for-profit entities, and not only that, but they are startups which means they are after growth and need to eventually N-fold their profits year-after-year in some future. They need to grow faster than the S&P index plus a healthy premium for risk, in order for investments to make sense.
I don't think anyone at Medium thought their service was better for their users by putting up paywalls, requiring accounts, and broadening their SEO by soliciting contributions. But they need to grow either in users or in profits, and there's only a certain number of ways you can squeeze money from internet readers.
I don't think anyone at Medium thought their service was better for their users by putting up paywalls, requiring accounts, and broadening their SEO by soliciting contributions. But they need to grow either in users or in profits, and there's only a certain number of ways you can squeeze money from internet readers.
Substack has a different and fundamentally better business model. They make money when newsletter authors charge subscribers. This means they are aligned with helping newsletter authors create and host amazing newsletters. I think this gives them a much better chance of serving authors rather than serving advertisers.
Or just clickbait newsletters. Because let's face it, subscriptions correlate with traffic. Besides "awesome" content always had the Patreon alternative. Integrating the two together might be of value, but i dont think they 'll avoid the issues.
Is it though? I click a lot of clickbait because I am human. I don't think I give a lot of direct money to clickbaiters. It is a hell of a mountain to climb before I feel compelled to go grab the credit card and type all those numbers.
The basic premise of almost all internet firms - at enough N, 0.01% is profitable. The long tail guarantees that people mash that dopamine grabbing button.
Founders need to avoid the VC trap. Stop raising money from investors that demand hockey stick growth. Find investors that expect reasonable growth and returns. If an investor encourages every single one of their investments to be a 1000x return, expecting only 1 in 100 to be so, and kills any company the moment they realize they won’t fulfill the investment thesis, many companies do nothing but pivot until they run out of capital. Very few companies can accomplish such a high level of growth and most only do so through gray means (regulatory violations of UBER and Airbnb).
The model proposed in this post is similar to that of RePEc (Research Papers in Economics)[1] and arXiv[2].
I've only used arXiv via their search but the NEP service[3] within RePEc offers curated mailing lists of recent economics working papers by specialty area.
> NEP is an announcement service which filters information on new additions to RePEc into edited reports. The goal is to provide subscribers with up-to-date information about the research literature. Our success in achieving this goal has been substantial. Today, there are 80541 subscriptions from 34926 unique addresses distributed throughout the world. The reports are generated by subject-specific editors. They are available by email and RSS feeds.
[1] http://www.repec.org/
[2] https://arxiv.org
[3] http://nep.repec.org/
I've only used arXiv via their search but the NEP service[3] within RePEc offers curated mailing lists of recent economics working papers by specialty area.
> NEP is an announcement service which filters information on new additions to RePEc into edited reports. The goal is to provide subscribers with up-to-date information about the research literature. Our success in achieving this goal has been substantial. Today, there are 80541 subscriptions from 34926 unique addresses distributed throughout the world. The reports are generated by subject-specific editors. They are available by email and RSS feeds.
[1] http://www.repec.org/
[2] https://arxiv.org
[3] http://nep.repec.org/
Another example would be biorxiv:
https://biorxiv.org
What these platforms don’t offer is built-in peer review. Quality control can be an issue.
What these platforms don’t offer is built-in peer review. Quality control can be an issue.
Perhaps I’m missing something, but how does Substack have increased rigor over a personal blog or Twitter?
Not meant as a criticism, but asked in earnest.
I’m confused as well as to what the “Substack model” looks like.
Do you use newsletters for subscription? Is it paid? Free? How is better than an academic blog?
Do you use newsletters for subscription? Is it paid? Free? How is better than an academic blog?
The author of this post raises valid points about some avenues for publishing scientific results. Journals have high barriers, rigid formats, paywall, and sometimes exclusionary reviewers. Twitter and blogs are fringe because they are not formal, but increasingly where the conversation is happening. He advocates for a model like Substack for scientific publishing. Which I don't see how it is different from blogs.
However to me the real problem is that he completely ignores the existence of preprint servers. This started with the arXiv in the 1990s for physics, math and computer science, but finally the model has begun to catch up with other fields. In biology the bioRxiv is well established and I'd say more than half of the papers I see do have a preprint deposited there. For medicine, which has a notoriously protective culture, the medRxiv was launched last year and got a gigantic boost due to the pandemic.
Other fields also have their own preferred preprint repositories. To me preprints solve the gatekeeping and cost barriers very well. I only wish they were a little more tied to comments from the readers (in depth comments of the kind you get during peer review, not the knee jerk ones we're used to seeing on the internet).
I say this because there is almost and "adversarial" relationship between the readers, who just want the bottom line in two sentences, and the authors would like their work to be perceived as a big important and novel contribution. Because of this often papers are written with more flourish language than actually necessary to make a point, and so it is really a hard to parse articles and tell good from bad. Often the "summaries" that peer reviewers wrote before making the comments are better than the official abstract of an article, but readers don't get to see and benefit from them. Each person that reads an article has to redo all that work of judging it for themselves, and with the deluge of articles we have it is simply impossible to keep up.
Initiatives such as openreviews.net are already a big step in the right direction. I think in the next 10-20 years this is where the bulk of scientific publishing is headed. A mix of preprint server coupled with curated community reviews that makes papers much easier to gauge and also incentivizes authors to write better and not bullshit, or risk getting wrecked publicly with the public reviews.
However to me the real problem is that he completely ignores the existence of preprint servers. This started with the arXiv in the 1990s for physics, math and computer science, but finally the model has begun to catch up with other fields. In biology the bioRxiv is well established and I'd say more than half of the papers I see do have a preprint deposited there. For medicine, which has a notoriously protective culture, the medRxiv was launched last year and got a gigantic boost due to the pandemic.
Other fields also have their own preferred preprint repositories. To me preprints solve the gatekeeping and cost barriers very well. I only wish they were a little more tied to comments from the readers (in depth comments of the kind you get during peer review, not the knee jerk ones we're used to seeing on the internet).
I say this because there is almost and "adversarial" relationship between the readers, who just want the bottom line in two sentences, and the authors would like their work to be perceived as a big important and novel contribution. Because of this often papers are written with more flourish language than actually necessary to make a point, and so it is really a hard to parse articles and tell good from bad. Often the "summaries" that peer reviewers wrote before making the comments are better than the official abstract of an article, but readers don't get to see and benefit from them. Each person that reads an article has to redo all that work of judging it for themselves, and with the deluge of articles we have it is simply impossible to keep up.
Initiatives such as openreviews.net are already a big step in the right direction. I think in the next 10-20 years this is where the bulk of scientific publishing is headed. A mix of preprint server coupled with curated community reviews that makes papers much easier to gauge and also incentivizes authors to write better and not bullshit, or risk getting wrecked publicly with the public reviews.
100% here for stackademia
I'm building 42papers.com - Trending Papers in
AI / ML / CS
Arxiv.
> This medium is freely available - costing nothing and placing no barriers to access beyond basic Internet access
This is true for now, but many startups end up charging for stuff that was free in the beginning. I'd feel better on Posthaven, which promises not to pull the rug out and is financially sustainable.
This is true for now, but many startups end up charging for stuff that was free in the beginning. I'd feel better on Posthaven, which promises not to pull the rug out and is financially sustainable.
I’m not sure I understand the peer review aspect.
> If Academic Substack were used across scientific disciplines, the potential for innovative collaboration and robust review would strengthen academic publication in ways difficult to imagine under the present regime.
Does Substack have peer review built in somehow? Would the peer review be in the comments?
Either way, there’s currently a spam comment on this article - can the author moderate comments or is that stuck there until Substack remove it?
> If Academic Substack were used across scientific disciplines, the potential for innovative collaboration and robust review would strengthen academic publication in ways difficult to imagine under the present regime.
Does Substack have peer review built in somehow? Would the peer review be in the comments?
Either way, there’s currently a spam comment on this article - can the author moderate comments or is that stuck there until Substack remove it?
Does Substack censor spam?
I'm not sure, but if they don't remove spam comments and they don't allow authors to then their comment section isn't going to be very valuable. Especially if that is how peer review works in this proposal, though that's just me speculating because I don't know how Substack works.
How is substack different from blogs? I dont get it.
I usually dismiss this kind of articles as as paid promotions
It’s also worth noting that the Substack founder donates content to alt-right media outlets. It’s one of several reasons why I advise people to avoid their platform.
Can you provide a link? I did not know this.
No, because alt-right is just a slur from someone on the left for anything they don't like.
If you want hard evidence you'll have to wait for a real claim.
If you want hard evidence you'll have to wait for a real claim.
sneak must be referring to an interview Substack founder Chris Best gave in September to Quilette, an alt-right magazine, about Substack.
thats irrelevant
I disagree.
The choices we make, especially about those with whom we enrich via our business and custom and, increasingly, even attention, matter more than most people realize when it comes to shaping the future of our world. It’s one of the few actually-powerful options still retained by most of the general public, increasingly rare in our modern western world.
It’s quite important that we know who we’re dealing with and to whom we pay money. A good example of the result of ignoring this is the fact that the now-largest hosting provider in the world are also the CIA’s sysadmins.
Doing business blindly with vendors is to pass the steering wheel to someone else, and abdicates a critical individual responsibility.
If you find it irrelevant, you’re free to ignore it, but many people (in my estimation) do not, and I believe we all benefit from having better information about markets, whether it results in endorsement or avoidance. Informed decisions are good decisions.
The choices we make, especially about those with whom we enrich via our business and custom and, increasingly, even attention, matter more than most people realize when it comes to shaping the future of our world. It’s one of the few actually-powerful options still retained by most of the general public, increasingly rare in our modern western world.
It’s quite important that we know who we’re dealing with and to whom we pay money. A good example of the result of ignoring this is the fact that the now-largest hosting provider in the world are also the CIA’s sysadmins.
Doing business blindly with vendors is to pass the steering wheel to someone else, and abdicates a critical individual responsibility.
If you find it irrelevant, you’re free to ignore it, but many people (in my estimation) do not, and I believe we all benefit from having better information about markets, whether it results in endorsement or avoidance. Informed decisions are good decisions.
It's not very healthy to be so politically infatutated, that too with one ideology. You will change, either with age or circumstances and then find yourself having missed certain oppurtunities because you don't find someone politically aligned with you.
eh... There is a place for your argument, and of course I would agree with you in many cases. But that doesn't mean we should give up on checking our vendor backgrounds entirely. Although OP has not provided a source for these donations, I think we should consider this point. It does not have to be a binary, but it seems like people don't even want to have the spectrum any more. Make a judgement based on your personal morality but it seems like you are advocating not having a personal morality at all.
OK, so read your mainstream press, owned by the likes of Bezos, and enjoy your feeling of moral superiority or whatever. Pick your poison.
I'm thankful Substack allows a place for Greenwald and Matt Taibbi and others like them.
I believe homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, however, so I'm probably alt-right in your estimation.
I'm thankful Substack allows a place for Greenwald and Matt Taibbi and others like them.
I believe homo sapiens is a sexually dimorphic species, however, so I'm probably alt-right in your estimation.
I love how you assume that he's a Washington Post fan or something like that, if the mere idea of "take in account who's the owner of a media outlet" makes you seethe like this maybe you should rethink what content you're consuming.
I don't see how splitting society into factions that shun each other leads anywhere good.
I think that perhaps the idea that we should split society into shunning factions and the idea that we should care about where we shop (or browse) are entirely separate concepts that aren’t related.
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24566226
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24566226
Ahh, the vague smear. What is an alt right medium? Any medium posting any content you are politically not aligned with?
Comments like yours prove exactly the value of having something like substack for journalists like Greenwald.
Comments like yours prove exactly the value of having something like substack for journalists like Greenwald.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette
I did not intend to be vague, nor to smear anyone, I’m just trying to stay on-topic and not derail this comment thread into where it appears your reply has gone.
I encourage you to reach your own conclusions based on the facts; I am not interested in pushing any particular political alignment. The ongoing (and supremely noisy) American culture war is extremely disinteresting to me, I just want people to have the information to make their own decisions and reach their own conclusions.
Perhaps you like the alt-right and learning that information would make you more eager to use Substack, perhaps not. Either way, it’s better that people have more information than less.
I did not intend to be vague, nor to smear anyone, I’m just trying to stay on-topic and not derail this comment thread into where it appears your reply has gone.
I encourage you to reach your own conclusions based on the facts; I am not interested in pushing any particular political alignment. The ongoing (and supremely noisy) American culture war is extremely disinteresting to me, I just want people to have the information to make their own decisions and reach their own conclusions.
Perhaps you like the alt-right and learning that information would make you more eager to use Substack, perhaps not. Either way, it’s better that people have more information than less.
Thanks I'm glad someone told me this, I'm from Charlottesville so I'm shocked to hear people say "it's irrelevant."
Substack allows writers to create their own paid newsletters and blogs without the hassle of setting up payments or worrying about gmail's spam filters; it also gives writers more control over their relationships with subscribers, since they can export the mailing list. That's the gist.
> or worrying about gmail's spam filters
Oh, how? Do they have some special kind of agreement with Google?
Oh, how? Do they have some special kind of agreement with Google?
I'm not Substack but "email ops" is a thing that exists, where you have someone working on reputation, getting you off blackhole lists, keep up with the latest DKIM-like thing to ensure deliverability, etc.
For very large email senders it, yes, may include knowing whose phone number to call.
For very large email senders it, yes, may include knowing whose phone number to call.
smells like typical SV nepotism then (because substack is not yet a very large sender)
[deleted]
the author is rationalizing their choice. nonsense.
> Access to journals is prohibitively expensive and therefore practically unavailable to independent researchers ...
and
> Apart from the financial walls that academic publishers encourage, there are frequently de facto barriers to participation as a contributor, ...
the Cornell Arxiv approach to free publishing is already spreading into other fields like Bio Arxiv. The substack culture isn't actually free.
> Finally, the review process itself may be subject to intellectual protectionism and even unintentional gatekeeping that prevents research from reaching a broader audience that can help the ideas grow ...
Without review process the volume of papers that get produced and published freely online will be so much that people will feel the pain. This is already happening in ML community because everyone dumps a slightly different but not so diff paper on Arxiv.
> Access to journals is prohibitively expensive and therefore practically unavailable to independent researchers ...
and
> Apart from the financial walls that academic publishers encourage, there are frequently de facto barriers to participation as a contributor, ...
the Cornell Arxiv approach to free publishing is already spreading into other fields like Bio Arxiv. The substack culture isn't actually free.
> Finally, the review process itself may be subject to intellectual protectionism and even unintentional gatekeeping that prevents research from reaching a broader audience that can help the ideas grow ...
Without review process the volume of papers that get produced and published freely online will be so much that people will feel the pain. This is already happening in ML community because everyone dumps a slightly different but not so diff paper on Arxiv.
> Without review process the volume of papers that get produced and published freely online will be so much that people will feel the pain. This is already happening in ML community because everyone dumps a slightly different but not so diff paper on Arxiv.
I wish someone would make a technological solution to this. One way is an aggregator of scores which weights exponentially big for known subject experts. This is basically review but all experts are allowed to weigh in, not just the chosen reviewers which are either random or sometimes even biased.
Another far fetched dream solution would be to come up algorithm to review the paper, or at least find if its similar to some other paper. The way papers are currently written it would have to be some sort of natural language processing AI, something like GPT-3 maybe.
Of course what I describe is basically youtube for science and there can be a problem because of that. These days creators cater their videos to the algorithm rather than the audience. Since there isn't really a way that the algorithm can capture actual audience demand nuances, videos are being made predominantly for lowest common denominator of a genre. This can manifest very poorly in this papers system and then it would matter so much more.
I wish someone would make a technological solution to this. One way is an aggregator of scores which weights exponentially big for known subject experts. This is basically review but all experts are allowed to weigh in, not just the chosen reviewers which are either random or sometimes even biased.
Another far fetched dream solution would be to come up algorithm to review the paper, or at least find if its similar to some other paper. The way papers are currently written it would have to be some sort of natural language processing AI, something like GPT-3 maybe.
Of course what I describe is basically youtube for science and there can be a problem because of that. These days creators cater their videos to the algorithm rather than the audience. Since there isn't really a way that the algorithm can capture actual audience demand nuances, videos are being made predominantly for lowest common denominator of a genre. This can manifest very poorly in this papers system and then it would matter so much more.
I've noticed a significant increase in submissions here from Substack recently; it seems to be supplanting Medium as a preferred platform for independent long form articles.
Medium started off with seeming decent quality and goodwill but a lot of that has been jettisoned with walling off content and barrel-scraping in "expert" contributions.
I hope Substack will avoid some of those mistakes; it will need to if the sub-platform described in the article here (or others like it) is to succeed.