Christian Lawson-Perfect

My bot @esoterica largely only posts entries with open access contents, because the commercial publishers tend to block my request to check that the link still exists.

That means that some really interesting closed-access stuff is never posted. For example, today it would have picked "Theory and applications of the double-base number system" (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/805158) but ieeexplore blocked it.

Should I change it to toot entries even when the request is blocked, at the expense of people without institutional access being unable to read the content, or should I leave things as they are?

(I do try to find legitimate open copies of papers where possible)

Theory and applications of the double-base number system - IEEE Journals & Magazine

Jan 11 at 8:14amWeb
Show threadChristian Lawson-PerfectJan 11

I just looked at @esoterica's profile and noticed it's made 3.5K posts. I thought that can't be right, because it'd be getting close to 10 years old.

Now I feel old.

Show threadKatie StecklesJan 11
If the difference is clearly marked in the toot, it'll save people without access clicking through, and it'd be good to share more stuff for those who can access it?
Show threadMartin KimberJan 11
@christianp @esoterica I’m not familiar with your bot, but can it indicate the closed access ones with some tag relating to $ or [paywall]? That would seem a good compromise
Show threadHendrik WeimerJan 11

@christianp

Do you have the DOIs of the articles? These are supposed to be stable references. If there's a DOI, you can assume that the article still exists and if there isn't one, you're probably not dealing with a publisher blocking your requests.

Show threadChristian Lawson-PerfectJan 11
@hweimer I haven't filled them in, but that's a nice idea
Show threadrobinhoustonJan 11
@christianp @esoterica It may be this would cause more controversy or legal risk than you are willing to take on, but you could always post a sci-hub link in those cases where you can't find a legitimate open copy of a paper…
Show threadBen CurthoysJan 11
@christianp @esoterica two separate feeds. One as it is now, one with the current content plus paid stuff.
Show threadlukesciJan 11
@christianp I'd vote for having it as a different account, since people who follow the open access one but don't have institutional access may not want the other posts. But if that's a technical problem, marking the posts differently so they can be filtered is a good alternative.
Show threadsoaprootJan 11
@christianp @esoterica I'd, I guess, be less interested in this if it showed (more) articles I can't read, but <shrug> I'm not sure my interest in this sort of article of the day feed is super high to start with, so I'm not sure you should choose based on what I say.