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Hi, I'm the founder of Academia.edu. The author of the article objects to the introduction of a freemium model on Academia.edu, and specifically to the idea of

Hi, I'm the founder of Academia.edu. The author of the article objects to the introduction of a freemium model on Academia.edu, and specifically to the idea of advanced search being in the premium set of features. Academia’s mission is to get every academic paper ever written on the internet, available for free, and to develop a more rigorous and efficient peer review system. Free access to academic research makes the world a more equitable place, and rigorous and efficient peer review accelerates the pace of scientific and scholarly research. Academia launched in 2008, and now around 35 million people use the site a month. Around 19 million papers have been uploaded, and are freely available on the platform. Forty percent of Academia’s users are from developing countries and would otherwise have limited access to academic research. In order to achieve Academia’s goals, Academia is working to become a sustainable operation. In order to do that, we introduced Academia Premium, which includes extra features such as Readers, Mentions, Expanded Analytics and Advanced Search. - Readers tells you who is reading your papers - Mentions alerts you when papers are uploaded mentioning your name - Expanded Analytics provides a more detailed look at what kinds of people visit your profile and how people find your papers - Advanced Search allows you to find exact keyword matches in the full text of every paper on Academia In considering what features to offer in the Premium account, we decided that features related to the mission of the company should be free. This means that features related to open access (free access to uploading and downloading papers), and features related to peer review (sessions, recommendations) are free. As we add new features to Premium, we will continue to ensure that features related to the mission (open access, sessions, recommendations) are free. We are grateful to all the academics who have contributed to Academia, and we will continue to serve academics from around the world.

danra 9y ago
> Academia’s mission is to get every academic paper ever written on the internet, available for free > In considering what features to offer in the Premium account, we decided that features related to the mission of the company should be free That's absurd. Open access to an ocean of articles without the ability to search through them is meaningless. While you do allow search in titles, thus providing some ability to locate relevant material, presenting content search as some premium feature in 2017 is ridiculous.
- ComodoHacker 9y ago
  It's like an ISP blocking all search engines and charging additional fee for access to them. While you can download and upload resources by URL, I don't think it counts as free access to the Web.
- DenisM 9y ago
  Is it really meaningless?
- impendia 9y ago
  > Open access to an ocean of articles without the ability to search through them is meaningless. As an academic mathematician, I disagree. The ability to search through articles' content is great, but being able to access an article given its authors and title would already be quite valuable. I hope that academic researchers eventually converge on a completely open-access model, involving commercial enterprises to the minimum extent possible. But researchers are too preoccupied with other things to make this a priority. For the moment, I am happy to see anyone taking on entrenched interests (e.g. Elsevier), from whatever angle. The status quo is bad enough that I welcome "creative disruption" of essentially any sort.
  - crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
    There are network effects this search limitation creates over time. We can probably even predict some of them. Here are a couple of superficial guesses: - less creative titles - longer titles to cram keywords in (ie. an academic form of clickbait) The point is artificial limitations will produce unknown effects on the system being limited. Offering premium search is an uninspired approach that will have an unpredictable impact should Academia.edu become the status quo. I'm neither condemning nor condoning premium search. Merely warning against accepting arbitrary limitations simply because it's better than what you've currently got.
    - __s 9y ago
      These are consequences, but the disagreement here seems to be whether a search feature is necessary at all. The user you responded to seems to find it useful enough if I can be directed to a paper by some contact, & then be free to look up the references of the paper
jccalhoun 9y ago
How did you get the .edu domain?
- clamprecht 9y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academia.edu#Domain_name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academia.edu#Domain_name "Academia.edu is not a university or institution for higher learning and so under current standards it would not qualify for the '.edu' top-level domain. However, the domain name 'Academia.edu' was registered in 1999, prior to the regulations requiring .edu domain names to be held solely by accredited post-secondary institutions. All .edu domain names registered prior to 2001 were grandfathered in, even if not an accredited post-secondary institution."
  - bnj 9y ago
    I work in a public high school and this restriction on .edu is a source of frustration for me- the US-based and post-secondary restrictions on .edu domains are terrible.
  - jccalhoun 9y ago
    Unfortunately, as far as I can tell neither of the links that wikipedia links to actually contains the 1999 date and if academia.edu was founded in 2008 then that was after the rules for transfer of a .edu domain were tightened. So there is some real detail missing from how they got the domain name.
    - dcow 9y ago
      There is no limit on the transfer of such grandfathered domains.
  - f_allwein 9y ago
    from a comment by count in different thread on this page: "They didn't buy it before the rules were put in place. They launched in 2008 as a company, and the the .edu was restricted to accredited institutions in 2001."
revmoo 9y ago
Then why are you using a .EDU top-level domain for what is clearly, even by your own exact words, is a for-profit venture. Who's authorization did you seek to do this?
DannyBee 9y ago
"In considering what features to offer in the Premium account, we decided that features related to the mission of the company should be free." And what happens when your decision/view changes because of the inability to make profit or enough profit? Somehow i doubt the bylaws of the company say you won't ever make that stuff for-pay as well.
nyolfen 9y ago
sci-hub can give me title search for free and you cant? come on man
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  Sci-hub title search has never actually worked for me. I generally have to look up the DOI for the article from its title at some other site, and then search on sci-hub with the DOI.
  - w1ntermute 9y ago
    There's no need for search at all - when you find the article on its regular site, just edit the domain to end with '.sci-hub.io' For example, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6121/819 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6121/819 becomes http://science.sciencemag.org.sci-hub.io/content/339/6121/819 http://science.sciencemag.org.sci-hub.io/content/339/6121/81...
anigbrowl 9y ago
That sounds great. Why don't you make the financials public so people can see what it costs to run a site like this and organize around that problem?

danra 9y ago

> Academia’s mission is to get every academic paper ever written on the internet, available for free > In considering what features to offer in the Premium account, we decided that features related to the mission of the company should be free That's absurd. Open access to an ocean of articles without the ability to search through them is meaningless. While you do allow search in titles, thus providing some ability to locate relevant material, presenting content search as some premium feature in 2017 is ridiculous.

ComodoHacker 9y ago
It's like an ISP blocking all search engines and charging additional fee for access to them. While you can download and upload resources by URL, I don't think it counts as free access to the Web.
DenisM 9y ago
Is it really meaningless?
impendia 9y ago
> Open access to an ocean of articles without the ability to search through them is meaningless. As an academic mathematician, I disagree. The ability to search through articles' content is great, but being able to access an article given its authors and title would already be quite valuable. I hope that academic researchers eventually converge on a completely open-access model, involving commercial enterprises to the minimum extent possible. But researchers are too preoccupied with other things to make this a priority. For the moment, I am happy to see anyone taking on entrenched interests (e.g. Elsevier), from whatever angle. The status quo is bad enough that I welcome "creative disruption" of essentially any sort.
- crawfordcomeaux 9y ago
  There are network effects this search limitation creates over time. We can probably even predict some of them. Here are a couple of superficial guesses: - less creative titles - longer titles to cram keywords in (ie. an academic form of clickbait) The point is artificial limitations will produce unknown effects on the system being limited. Offering premium search is an uninspired approach that will have an unpredictable impact should Academia.edu become the status quo. I'm neither condemning nor condoning premium search. Merely warning against accepting arbitrary limitations simply because it's better than what you've currently got.
  - __s 9y ago
    These are consequences, but the disagreement here seems to be whether a search feature is necessary at all. The user you responded to seems to find it useful enough if I can be directed to a paper by some contact, & then be free to look up the references of the paper

jccalhoun 9y ago

How did you get the .edu domain?

clamprecht 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academia.edu#Domain_name https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academia.edu#Domain_name "Academia.edu is not a university or institution for higher learning and so under current standards it would not qualify for the '.edu' top-level domain. However, the domain name 'Academia.edu' was registered in 1999, prior to the regulations requiring .edu domain names to be held solely by accredited post-secondary institutions. All .edu domain names registered prior to 2001 were grandfathered in, even if not an accredited post-secondary institution."
- bnj 9y ago
  I work in a public high school and this restriction on .edu is a source of frustration for me- the US-based and post-secondary restrictions on .edu domains are terrible.
- jccalhoun 9y ago
  Unfortunately, as far as I can tell neither of the links that wikipedia links to actually contains the 1999 date and if academia.edu was founded in 2008 then that was after the rules for transfer of a .edu domain were tightened. So there is some real detail missing from how they got the domain name.
  - dcow 9y ago
    There is no limit on the transfer of such grandfathered domains.
- f_allwein 9y ago
  from a comment by count in different thread on this page: "They didn't buy it before the rules were put in place. They launched in 2008 as a company, and the the .edu was restricted to accredited institutions in 2001."

revmoo 9y ago

Then why are you using a .EDU top-level domain for what is clearly, even by your own exact words, is a for-profit venture. Who's authorization did you seek to do this?

DannyBee 9y ago

"In considering what features to offer in the Premium account, we decided that features related to the mission of the company should be free." And what happens when your decision/view changes because of the inability to make profit or enough profit? Somehow i doubt the bylaws of the company say you won't ever make that stuff for-pay as well.

nyolfen 9y ago

sci-hub can give me title search for free and you cant? come on man

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
Sci-hub title search has never actually worked for me. I generally have to look up the DOI for the article from its title at some other site, and then search on sci-hub with the DOI.
- w1ntermute 9y ago
  There's no need for search at all - when you find the article on its regular site, just edit the domain to end with '.sci-hub.io' For example, http://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6121/819 http://science.sciencemag.org/content/339/6121/819 becomes http://science.sciencemag.org.sci-hub.io/content/339/6121/819 http://science.sciencemag.org.sci-hub.io/content/339/6121/81...

anigbrowl 9y ago

That sounds great. Why don't you make the financials public so people can see what it costs to run a site like this and organize around that problem?