Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers

Re:Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers by dogruck on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @04:59AM (#15540191)

I'm surprised that this isn't old news for every HN reader. Did something change that I'm overlooking?

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Re:Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers by Confiks on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @06:32AM (#15540592)

It's not so rare for older but well-written articles to show up multiple times on the HN frontpage.

It's somewhat rarer for a 'product' such as Sci-hub to show up multiple times, but considering that the HN crowd is pretty proud about Sci-hub's existence and will readily strike up a conversation about the Evil Publisher Empire, it's not so strange to see it on top.

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Re:Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers by mino on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @05:23AM (#15540303)

Indeed. How can scihub be on #1 on the HN homepage?

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Re:Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers by wallflower on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @05:30AM (#15540341)

I think it is evidence that there a lot more new HN users than old HN users now. I'm not saying this is good or bad, just an observation.

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Re:Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers by dogruck on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @05:48AM (#15540422)

Interesting. Any way to get data on active new user numbers over time?

Regardless, Sci-Hub launched in 2011 and has been frequently discussed in the media since then.

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Re:Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers by stevemclaugh on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @03:08PM (#15544330)

The only data we have are the 2015-16 download logs posted by Elbakyan and a reporter for 'Science.' At the time they had 28 million+ downloads over 6 months. I truly hope no more logs are released (at least not with that level of detail).

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Re:Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers by FabHK on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @06:53AM (#15540659)

Pertinent xkcd ("Ten Thousand", first time)

https://www.xkcd.com/1053/

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Re:Sci-Hub: Public access to research papers by dogruck on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @07:09AM (#15540714)

Ah, yes, a classic (so tempted to say, "wow never saw that before today!").

Do you think the same calculation is applicable to the HN user base? Seems like the relevant inputs are:

* New active users per month (instead of 4M born per year)

* Frequency that a link hits the HN top, assuming a high percentage of active HN users will subsequently forever know about the link

* Total number of times the link hit the top as a proxy for longevity of popularity

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