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Bernhard, did you know that Researchgate is a controversial organization?
They have been criticised for encouraging users to upload copyrighted
material, see below.  Their business model also seems to involve charging a
high fee to spam their users - we tried it once but decided we were just
annoying the scientists who happened to get our message.    (Although I
agree with you that 10-yr-old articles are less valuable than recent ones.)

An interesting model for scientific publishing is the journal* Biology
Direct*.  Reviewers' names and reports are published along with the
article, and it's up to the authors to amend their article if they agree
with any criticisms.  All you need is three reports for publication  I sent
the journal what I believed to be a ground-breaking review explaining why
we get more colds in winter than summer (later published in *Medical
Hypotheses*).  I was disappointed that I only got one reviewer to support
my article by writing a report.  But I felt that the format of the journal
would have been be very helpful for a controversial topic.  Link below.

Patrick

______________


*ResearchGate   *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ResearchGate#Criticisms

In September 2017, lawyers representing the International Association of
Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM) sent a letter to
ResearchGate threatening legal action against them for copyright
infringement and demanding them to alter their handling of uploaded
articles to include pre-release checking for copyright violations and
"Specifically, [for ResearchGate to] end its extraction of content from
hosted articles and the modification of any hosted content, including any
and all metadata. It would also mean an end to Researchgate's own copying
and downloading of published journal article content and the creation of
internal databases of articles."[40][41][42] This was followed by an
announcement that takedown requests are to be issued to ResearchGate for
copyright infringement relating to millions of articles.




*Biology DIrect*:

https://biologydirect.biomedcentral.com/about/how-it-works




*My Article : )   *

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030698771500417X    (or
ask me for PDF)




*Criticism of Elsevier pricing.   *
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Pricing


In the 21st century, the subscription rates charged by the company for its
journals have been criticized; some very large journals (with more than
5,000 articles) charge subscription prices as high as £9,634, far above
average,[23] and many British universities pay more than a million pounds
to Elsevier annually.[24] The company has been criticized not only by
advocates of a switch to the open-access publication model, but also by
universities whose library budgets make it difficult for them to afford
current journal prices.

For example, a resolution by Stanford University's senate singled out
Elsevier's journals as being "disproportionately expensive compared to
their educational and research value", which librarians should consider
dropping, and encouraged its faculty "not tocontribute articles or
editorial or review efforts to publishers and journals that engage in
exploitive or exorbitant pricing".[25] Similar guidelines and criticism of
Elsevier's pricing policies have been passed by the University of
California, Harvard University, and Duke University.[26]In July 2015, the
Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) announced a plan to
start boycotting Elsevier, which refused to negotiate on any Open Access
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Access> policy for Dutch universities.
[27] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#cite_note-27> In December 2016,
 Nature Publishing Group
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Publishing_Group>reported that
academics in Germany, Peru and Taiwan are to lose access to Elsevier
journals as negotiations had broken down with the publisher.[28]
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#cite_note-28>

A complaint about Elsevier/RELX was made to the Competition and Markets
Authority <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Competition_and_Markets_Authority>.
[29] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#cite_note-29>









On 2 July 2018 at 08:01, George Sheldrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Since neither I nor my university can afford Elsevier journals, I have no
> access to papers published in them. In view of their excessive profits, for
> some years I have not submitted papers to them and have declined all
> requests to referee for them. If everyone did that, they might reconsider
> their approach. I am not an Apple fan either - I use a more reasonably
> priced native Linux laptop - but have to give Apple credit for innovation.
>
> George
>
>
> On 07/01/2018 06:57 PM, Patrick Loll wrote:
>
>
> I think what we should do is not publish in journal families where the
> profit is above 10 per cent. Elsevier is the place to start as their profit
> margins are like those of Apple, and of competition there is none.
>
>
> Elsevier: Like Apple, but without the design sense.
>
>
> But seriously, Adrian makes an excellent point. And the large profit
> margins wouldn’t be quite so galling, if only the publishers were able to
> provide competent and helpful administrative support; but in my recent
> experience, not-for-profit scientific society journals are actually
> providing better experiences for reviewers and authors than the big
> commercial ones.
>
> Pat
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------------------
>
> Patrick J. Loll, Ph. D.
>
> Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
>
> Drexel University College of Medicine
>
> Room 10-102 New College Building
>
> 245 N. 15th St
> <https://maps.google.com/?q=245+N.+15th+St&entry=gmail&source=g>.,
> Mailstop 497
>
> Philadelphia, PA  19102-1192  USA
>
>
> (215) 762-7706
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
> [log in to unmask]
>
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>
>
>
> --
> Prof. George M. Sheldrick FRS
> Dept. Structural Chemistry,
> University of Goettingen,
> Tammannstr. 4,
> D37077 Goettingen, Germany
> Tel. +49-551-39-33021 or +49-5594-227312
>
>
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