Submitted by Rear-gunner t3_112tz0i in history
DastardlyDM t1_j8n8z5o wrote
Reply to comment by fabulousrice in New study examines Leonardo da Vinci's experiments on gravity by Rear-gunner
It's "free" in that those things are free for hosting but only up until the donations dry up. A funding line supported by law would ensure it. Also hosting it is the last step in costs. You still have the work retrieving and preserving the original, translating it (no small feat), then finally digitizing and formating that translation for readability. All that is labor people have to do.
It's a lot of work and awesome people do it out of the goodness of their heart and personal passion but we should, as a society, be funding and ensuring it for the future.
fabulousrice t1_j8n9tai wrote
I think you used the wrong word at some point but I find a lot of this mindset to prevent people from accessing information - while the internet was invented to share information with as little boundaries as possible. If it wasn’t for all the costs you mentioned, medical research could make giant leaps and lots of medical conditions would find cures faster - but somehow information paywalling gets in the way for such idealism… DaVinci lived 500 years ago - if we translate his work now the translator, although they deserve retribution (could it be crowd sourced? Helped by AI ?…) could also register it in his name and sell it instead of putting it back in the public domain. Maybe selling physical copies of things was a better answer than the impossible “everything should be free” internet dream. I’m all for physical copies personally.
DastardlyDM t1_j8nib70 wrote
It depends. Is the item in question being translated for fun or for academic, scientific, or historical value? If it's for more than just fun then it can't be "crowd source" or helped with AI (though that one may shift as time goes on) because it needs pedigree, credibility, and someone to claim it is accurate to the source. You set 100 people loose on translating old language and you will get 150 different interpretations. We need consensus to preserve, and that takes organization, and that takes manpower, oversight, and regulation.
fabulousrice t1_j8oplks wrote
My suggestion to crowd source was regarding the financing of the translation and hosting.
That could be a type of Kickstarter project that would say “we are $… away from being able to make this document fully translated and accessible for free and on the public domain for the next hundred years”.
I know it sounds counterintuitive to say that in order for something to be free to access on the Internet people have to pay, but those things would get financed very quickly and benefit a great number of people for many years.
Again, that is how Wikipedia works… and centralizing information on a famous website like Wikipedia would be a much better solution than everybody who owns important documents creating their own type of website and their own type of subscription plan and their own type of paywall…
DastardlyDM t1_j8or2yx wrote
Except my recommendation was not everyone own their own website. It was governments creating and preserving things as a social works. Why do you want the responsibility to fall on individuals instead of the bodies that represent everyone?
fabulousrice t1_j8osq6f wrote
I agree with your idea but not all government have:
-desires or duty to allow their people to access information (education and science funding is usually a left wing value);
-budgets or dedicated political bodies for research, science, education that can afford it;
-a long lasting policy of open and accessible information, even accessible to foreign internet users (bandwidth costs money and why use tax money from your country to allow people abroad who don’t pay taxes to use the information?)
-consistent political views on the same topics, depending on the succession of different rulers (a new ruler in place could decide to shut down servers dedicated to science if that doesn’t fit their politics);
Etc. Ideally, it would be possible. But the fickle nature of digital information makes me wonder if publishing important papers on physical supports (no-DRM, I mean paper…) is still the most reliable and persistent way of preserving and sharing it.
DastardlyDM t1_j8oxima wrote
Why do you believe a centralized, privately run, non-profit is any less at risk of the same short comings you just listed? At least with a government program it would take an act of law to drop instead of just a private entity pulling the plugs
fabulousrice t1_j8oxyef wrote
Because there is more consistency in how Wikipedia has operated since it started existing than in most governments across different parties and mandates?
DastardlyDM t1_j8ozmml wrote
As they threaten to shutter their doors or sell out every year?
Also shows you know nothing about the library of Congress or other such government groups.
Blakut t1_j8yyc0f wrote
yeah, no, giving the average joe access to medical research journals won't mean faster cures. How would that work?
fabulousrice t1_j8yyxpz wrote
Some “average joe” can try different things to help their medical condition and get results and no one would hear about it. Condition X is treated with medication Y in country Z but 90% of people get nasty side effects but hey it’s good for business. In county W, people treat it with medication V which has less side effects and is cheaper or even free. How would people in country Z hear about it?
Blakut t1_j90rtj7 wrote
That's why you publish the results. Average joe can access them too if he pays whatever 15 bucks to the journal or via scihub for free, but he can't understand what's inthe paper and has no equipment so he can't do anything. Most journals are free access now yet no average joe reads them anyway.
fabulousrice t1_j9234ui wrote
Your comment is exactly what I’m trying to point out. If data collection was easy and free, a lot of times science would prove itself wrong. Long term effects of medication for example, is massively under studied (even short term to be honest), so pharmaceutical companies just write insane list of possible side effects even if they don’t apply to you. One example of many
wait-a-minut t1_j8ohlup wrote
This is where fediverse apps come in and could play a key role in how distributed information on the web works in the future. Look into a few of these. There are communities for scientific research specifically as well
DastardlyDM t1_j8onf41 wrote
Again, if it's not law and backed by the world's governments it could vanish from support at any moment. But I agree those such efforts are worth while in the current here and now of our reality.
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