tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890764972166411105.post5589980630393640899..comments2024-03-13T20:44:25.984+01:00Comments on Nick Brown's blog: Should researchers make money from books?Nick Brownhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00172030184497186082noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890764972166411105.post-19410835463809721302017-03-20T23:07:35.622+01:002017-03-20T23:07:35.622+01:00@Kristine: I think that Daniël's alternative m...@Kristine: I think that Daniël's alternative might not have involved publishing a book with a publisher but waiving the author's royalties. I presume he meant that people should disseminate their knowledge in some free form (PDF, slideshow, video, long blog posts, etc).<br /><br />I'm quite surprised that the Internet doesn't seem to have trashed book publishing as fast as it trashed dead-tree news media. Maybe there is still a market for people who are prepared to pay for knowledge.Nick Brownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18266307287741345798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890764972166411105.post-54658530136336360092017-03-20T21:51:36.670+01:002017-03-20T21:51:36.670+01:00It is a bit of a conundrum and I can also see both...It is a bit of a conundrum and I can also see both sides, because I personally do not like opportunism, but I do not think Daniel's analogy is at all valid. Roads are maintained by the government - by citizens' tax dollars. As a matter of fact, in my opinion, the big industries that send their semi-trucks down our public highways and who do the most damage to them should be paying for their maintenance ... but that's neither here nor there. The scholar being paid for a book from a for-profit publishing house is akin to the student-athlete being paid for his/her services toward the huge athletic profits made by universities, sponsors, television networks, and other entities involved in college sports. When it comes down to it, I believe that the student-athletes as well as the scholars are being exploited by huge industries who make enormous profits from the work of the aforementioned, so I do think remuneration is warranted. I think that is part of the equation: Are large, profitable industries/corporations making financial gains from your service? That is where the question of being paid or not being paid comes in. Would we ask popular actors or musicians to take a simple, flat stipend for their work because they should be creating it merely for the sake of art, while the film and music executives make all of the profits? (Well, that kind of exploitation has occurred in the past ...)Kristinehttps://twitter.com/kristinemattis?lang=ennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7890764972166411105.post-11378907333327977422017-03-18T21:28:11.582+01:002017-03-18T21:28:11.582+01:00You mention that people who have heard of your wor...You mention that people who have heard of your work pointing out errors in published research "are sometimes surprised to find how ambivalent I am on many issues". I think part of that is unfortunately how you are framed when a journalist writes an article that reports some of the errors you have found. For example, Bartlett describes you as a "a crusading troublemaker of sorts". But really in that article, and in many others, they are only talking about numerical discrepancies you have found. So you could just as easily be presented as a plodding accountant, a meticulous detail lover, or a guy who probably enjoys things like the puzzles in the Sunday paper. I think this is a product of a certain attitude, that certain kinds of criticism are still frowned on in, of all places, science! It seems to me that people wouldn't linguistically frame a critic the way they do you if it was someone pointing out inconsistencies in the annual report of a corporation.Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03302812592407176747noreply@blogger.com