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Why is it acceptable that publishers sell papers they didn’t pay for?
I am curious about the worldwide accepted ethics in publishing. I have never seen any other economic sector in which someone legally sold someone else's product for their own profit, apparently without paying for it in any way. I don’t intend to accuse any publisher, I just want to know how this works and why is this acceptable. Is it expected to be changed in the future? Do scientists want to change it, or is this accepted by more or less the whole community?
I admit, this question might seem to be off topic or opinion based but I don’t know where could I ask it.

Closely related, maybe duplicate: Why are academics not paid royalties on published research papers?

Obligatory related link: The cost of knowledge.

Possible explanation and obligatory XKCD.

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History.
In the dark ages (i.e., before the internet), publishers provided a valuable service. If an author has a great idea, they want the whole world to read about it and the best way to do that is to get someone to publish their work. The publisher arranges for reviews, copyedits your work, and, most importantly, prints thousands of copies and sends them to libraries and archives around the world. (Note that, legally, they need to have the rights to distribute the work, and they claim ownership of the copyediting work.) Doing all this printing, mailing, and copyediting costs a lot money and thus publishers have to charge for their services. They also make a small profit from all of this.
Fast forward to the 21st century and the picture has changed considerably. Since the arrival of personal computers and software like LaTeX and Microsoft Word, copyediting is now mostly done by authors. (Reviewers and editors are rarely paid.) And, due to the internet, it is very easy to distribute papers using websites like arXiv. Going to the library to find a print journal is now a thing of the past, as journals these days just have websites.
Of course, publishers are still doing something, but it's a fraction of what it used to be.
Publishers made a lot of sense 50 years ago, but these days their model doesn't make a lot of sense; they still collect a lot of money, even though the services could be provided much more cheaply. So why does this model persist? Firstly, publishers still own the copyrights to lots of old work that is still relevant. More importantly, publishers own the "prestige" of their journals, which means academics keep sending them their work.

I feel that this is the most honest, accurate and contemporary answer.  It really does seem to be the case that most of what publishers are providing nowadays is the prestigious venues that academics still want and need to publish in.

They never needed the copyright. They only needed licenses.

@chrylis Yes, there is no reason for them to hold exclusive rights. I just wanted to mention that there is a legitimate reason why you have to sign something when publishing.

TL;DR: its a legacy adapter code

"Of course, publishers are still doing something, but it's a fraction of what it used to be." If you believe this, then the number of employees publishers have must be shrinking. Let's take Elsevier, everyone's favourite-to-hate publisher. In 1999, they employed 3600 people (https://www.relx.com/~/media/Files/R/RELX-Group/documents/reports/annual-reports/2000-annual-report.pdf p.37). In 2017, that number is 7500 (https://www.relx.com/~/media/Files/R/RELX-Group/documents/reports/annual-reports/relx2017-annual-report.pdf, p. 126). What gives?

@Allure I think Thomas meant that publishers provide less of a service for a given paper now, though I'm not sure how to quantify that. Of course, since 1999 Elsevier has grown, publishing significantly more articles and journals, and also expanded into data analytics, so as a company they're certainly still doing things, but likely somewhat different things than they used to

What role do publishers play in the peer review process? I'm sure that it could continue without them, but do they facilitate it?

@ArcanistLupus: They sometimes provide the online system through which the review process works (but that is publisher and journal-dependent). But basically all the work is done by the editors and the referees (well, and the authors). The publishers' employees input only comes to play later, when they do things like adjusting punctuation, make some stylistic adjustments, make sure the references are correctly written etc. That is my experience, at least.

Saying that the authors and editors do all the work is a bit like saying that the farmers do all the work and the grocery store does not add anything.

@Allure the explanation for the higher number of employees of the RELX group is simple: merge and acquisition of other companies (which aren't connected to research publishing, btw): https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/RELX_Group

@user97945 please check the annual reports again. I quoted only the numbers from the science and medical segment. Also, mergers need not result in higher number of employees - if they're not necessary these extra employees can always be made redundant or simply not be replaced.

"they still collect a lot of money, even though the services could be provided much more cheaply"... not claiming you're wrong (or right), but you really need a citation here.

@Allure if you go digging around those annual reports, you will also see that they are publishing 3-4 times as many articles as they were in 1999. (though it is fiddly, since they only sometimes mention it in the report)

@Dirk The grocery store adds very little, which is reflected in their margins: A few percent at most.

@Anyon "...as a company they're certainly still doing things, but likely somewhat different things than they used to" - I'd take that to mean that the traditional view of what publishers do is outdated, and so it's inappropriate to continue to think of publishers in that way.

copyediting is now mostly done by authors citation needed. I don't think it's appropriate use of research funding to fiddle with margins for hours in Latex.

@Allure But that's the whole point, they still charge in the same way they used to (for the most part).

@Dirk Grocery store margins are low because prices are driven down by competition. Certainly my diet would be very different if I had to go to a farm every time I wanted food and I live on the edge of a fairly small town.

@Allure I am not too familiar with the business side of other major publishers, so I'm not prepared to make such a general claim yet. Elsevier, on the other hand, have gone from calling themselves "the world’s leading publisher of science and health information" to "a global information analytics business", which reflects a real shift in priorities. And fair play to them, if that's where they see a real opportunity for growth.

@Allure However, even looking at the publishing arm itself it's clear that some things have changed due to the internet and increased popularity of digital typesetting. This is also part of what I consider "different things". Now, I think most of us suspect that increased overhead costs for running databases and technical support is lower than past costs for physically printing and distributing journals, but I could be wrong.

"They also make a small profit from all of this." - Not always the case. I've worked as an editorial assistant for a non-profit publisher of scientific journals.

Economics is such a fun topic because everyone is an expert in how the world should work, and the one outcome that should certainly not happen is the one that has happened.

@CapeCode copyediting means editing the "copy", that is, the text. Margins, etc.,  (what the publisher does) is just formatting.

As an edit to this answer, I would suggest elaborating on what the "prestige" of a top journal publication really is: it is a project completion certificate towards tenure and promotion, or in layman's terms -- a necessity for keeping a job -- and so is not a meaningless intangible.   Often, in some fields, only publishing in a very specific list of journals will meet the academic department's requirements of quality research.  The academic associate editors of these particular journals  also thereby gain a gatekeeper power over specialties where submissions exceed journal publication slots.

@ToddWilcox Non-profit does not mean no one can make any money on it. They could still have people employed. It just means you are not allowed to take money out of the legal entity and hand it out to shareholders or other non-employed people freely as you want.

@Dirk Now replace that grocery store with an online store - and you have to pay for shipping either way (because downloading a document from the original author, or from a publisher page is no difference in shipping). So what does the grocery online store provide more compared to the free open-source farmers-market page where you can order your products directly from the farmers ?

Online store as a comparison makes a lot of sense - like Amazon makes a lot of money by selling stuff that people could sell in their own online stores commercial publishers manage to make a lot of money by selling things that people could distribute in other ways.

It is not acceptable, and people are taking steps to change things, but the system has enormous inertia and many perverse incentives that must be overcome to make progress.
I would like to draw an analogy to fiction publishing.  Authors in that field have a maxim called “Yog’s Law” which states: money is supposed to flow toward the author.  This is held as a guiding principle, even in contexts where nobody expects to make a living by publishing their fiction: short stories, for instance, pay a pittance (SFWA minimum rate is US$0.06 per word, times one to ten thousand words, so $60 to $600 for a story that probably took at least 40 hours of effort to write—this is beer money, not rent money).  This principled stand is because there is a long history of “vanity presses” scamming authors with grandiose promises of riches and fame if they’ll just underwrite the up-front costs, and then not doing any marketing whatsoever, so nobody buys the book and the riches and fame never materialize.  Contrast this with a legitimate traditional publisher, who pays you an advance, assumes the risk that the book never sells enough copies to “earn out” that advance, and does do marketing.  Also contrast a printer for hire catering to self-publishers, who will tell you up front what services they do and don’t provide and how much each costs, and will not make any grandiose promises.  This is who you should hire to print up your family history, not a vanity press—unfortunately there isn’t an accepted alternative term for honest printers-for-hire as a group..
Academic publication is different because not only do we not expect to receive riches from publication, we don’t expect to earn anything at all in the first place (for journal articles, anyway; I understand monograph and textbook publishers do pay royalties).  Yog’s Law does not directly apply.  However, we are looking for a particular kind of fame, the kind where other researchers read our papers and learn things and build on them, perhaps even centuries from now.  (Much as a writer of fiction hopes that people will read their stories and find entertainment or catharsis or inspiration in them.)  For this reason, we warn against publishing in “predatory journals” that charge hefty fees, don’t do adequate peer review, and exaggerate the likelihood of anyone reading the paper or taking it all that seriously.  Predatory journals are the direct analogue of vanity presses in academic publishing.  They don’t provide value for the money.
Traditional academic publishers are supposed to provide value for the money they charge: peer review, copyediting and typesetting, archiving, dissemination, and perhaps most important, reputation.  Any paper published in one of the top journals or conferences in my subfield has a good chance of being worth my time, and I rely on that.  However, over the past 40 years or so (I’m not old enough to know exactly when this trend started) the publishers have become less and less interested in actually providing value, and more and more interested in extracting rents.  This is really obvious in my particular subfield, computer security: as I write this, I’ve got a paper accepted for publication in an ACM conference with a top-notch reputation.  They facilitated the peer review, but they didn’t pay the reviewers a dime; they did none of the work of copyediting and typesetting, expecting me to hand them a PDF already fully formatted; they maintain both print and online archives, but they want to either charge every reader US$25 for the privilege, or charge me $700 up front.  I know that this is price-gouging, because if I had published the same paper at a USENIX conference with a similar reputation and providing an identical set of editorial services, they would charge either readers or me nothing for the privilege.
The usual market-based solution to rent-seeking is refusal to cooperate.  So why are we all still cooperating with them?  It’s a classic collective action problem.  As long as most of the researchers in a field continue to publish in traditional venues, any one person can’t refuse to do so without nasty consequences for their career.  If everyone threatens to stop all at once, on the other hand, they have a chance of at least extracting concessions—in my time in graduate school, many of the top computer security conferences have moved from paywalled to open access, because our community put its collective foot down.  (Not without incident, though, as anyone else who attended the business meeting at Oakland 2011 can attest.)

Can you explain what is unethical about either vanity presses or academic publishers? Just saying it’s a violation of X’s law where X is someone I never heard of is a classic appeal to authority fallacy. Vanity presses for one provide a service people are willing to pay for. Assuming they are not deceptive about their fee structure, I don’t see an ethical issue. With academic publishers the debate is more complicated, but if you claim they’re unethical I think the burden is on you to explain why that’s the case.

@DanRomik Especially when "Yog's Law" was coined by an author, so basically amounts to "I should get more money."

This is a good answer, but you've omitted the ray of hope! The 'open access' movement is a real thing; it even has a lengthy Wikipedia article. Unless I'm mistaken, it's still making slow but steady progress.

Now you've made me curious: What happened at the "business meeting at Oakland 2011"? Google delivers just "Occupy Oakland" results, which is probably not what you are referring to.

Money is supposed to flow toward the author This is a very bad "law" for academia. Do you want scientists to publish science or binge-worthy science fiction/entertainment?

Let's modify Yog's law to: pay should match added value. Where pay can also be: prestige, research resources, etc. This makes sense as an ideal, but practice proves that the implementation is hard. To the point: does the added value of the publisher match its pay?

@CL. I was referring to the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, 2011.This conference was held in the same hotel in Oakland, California for more than thirty years, so everyone in the field called it "Oakland" for short, and still do, even though it has now outgrown that hotel and moved to a larger venue that isn't in Oakland.  I don't know if you're going to find any writeups of the business meeting I'm thinking of. It was the first step in the process of making that conference's proceedings open-access and it got a little heated, is all.

@MaxBarraclough I read recently that that EU is considering mandating that all government subsidised work is published in exclusively open-access journals. Perhaps that'll be the kick it in the pants that pushes it to take over.

@zwol If there aren't accessible accounts that you can link to of what you mean by "a little heated", then maybe it's not the best example to include?

@mbrig that’s just going to mean massive increase in pay-for-publish revenue.

Under the right circumstances vanity presses can serve a legitimate purpose. My wife's family prepared a family history that would never have been published traditionally because of limited appeal. They new exactly what they were contracting for and were happy with the results.

Wouldn't the management and employees of the for-profit publishing companies also experience "nasty consequences for their careers" if they unilaterally refused to continue in their present course? Or maybe they all have tenure to protect them?

@TimothyAWiseman I am still waiting for an explanation of when a vanity press does not “serve a legitimate purpose”. I agree with your comment and upvoted it, but at the same time I think it’s a bit misleading of you to insinuate that vanity presses are only legitimate part of the time, unless you can name any circumstances when they are not legitimate (excluding when the vanity press is being dishonest about their fees - obviously such a practice would make any business illegitimate).

@DanRomik  It depends on how you define "legitimate". If you mean in the sense of acting legally, they almost always act legally. But I was discussing the context of this answer and the many people who turn to them hoping to actually turn a profit. Especially in fiction, this is very rarely wise. They serve a useful and valid function for certain niches (family histories, narrow academic niches where the author personally knows most of the target audience, and a couple of others...), but are almost never a smart move for an author trying to turn a profit.

@TimothyAWiseman people buy all sorts of products and services for all sorts of reasons, that are generally not the concern of the seller. I think it’s unfair to imply that vanity presses are ethically illegitimate or compromised because some of their customers pay for their services out of a misguided belief that they will make a profit. Unless the vanity press helped create that belief by false or misleading marketing, it is as ethical and legitimate as any other business.

@DanRomik While "false or misleading" may be going too far, the marketing for some vanity presses does target aspiring fiction writers. While perhaps "illegitimate" is too strong of a word, many of the vanity presses market to a group that would be better off without their product and thus have something of a bad reputation. I generally to defend them, but their proper and effective uses are in narrow niches. Also, we are getting way off topic, so this is the last I will say here. If you want to discuss more, feel free to message me directly or go to chat.

I have rewritten my answer to address many of the concerns brought up in this discussion.  I regret I do not have time right now to respond point by point.

It is acceptable because there is no convincing argument why it should be unacceptable.
More generally, there is a principle of the law that people are free to enter into contractual agreements with each other, and with other legal entities such as corporations. As long as those agreements are entered into voluntarily between people of legal age, and as long as they are not deemed to be unconscionable agreements, the agreements are legally binding, and in that sense “acceptable”. Other people who are not parties to the agreement may occasionally find them objectionable and be unhappy, but that’s their problem.
In the case of academic publishing, authors voluntarily agree to let publishers publish their papers and not pay them any royalties. I have done so myself many times. So, if I find it acceptable to not get paid royalties for my papers, and there isn’t some convincing legal argument for why my agreements with publishers should be declared unconscionable (as far as I know no one has tried to make such a case), then that’s the end of the story - it’s acceptable.
As for why I and other academics don’t have a problem with not getting royalties, I think the answer is a bit too complicated to discuss in detail here. The short answer is that writing papers is part of my job, for which I am paid a salary by my employer. Scientific papers are simply not the same as fiction or other forms of writing that people write to make money through a direct sale of their work to a body of readers. Your question assumes a premise that publishers should pay scientists for their papers because of the superficial similarity between academic publishing and other types of publishing, but that premise is simply false.
Edit - some additional thoughts related to the (very interesting and thought provoking - thanks!) comments:
I want to clarify that the main point of my answer is to emphasize that the answer to questions of the type “why is activity X acceptable?” is generally “it is acceptable by default” - that is, it’s up to opponents of X to convince everyone else that X is not acceptable if they believe that’s the case, and until they successfully do that, X is acceptable. I consider such questions to be loaded questions, since they subtly insinuate that there’s something wrong with X (without actually giving any explanation or evidence) and put people who engage in X on the defensive to “justify” their “bad” behavior. I think this loaded question effect is what makes the question “annoying” (as @Allure referred to it in a comment).
In my answer I was trying to make the point I elaborated on above. I focused on the legal aspect just because that’s what occurred to me at that moment, but the same principle applies if we were to debate the ethics of the issue (as some of the answers have done). I do acknowledge that there are some valid ethical criticisms of some of the practices of the academic publishing industry. But in my opinion those criticisms (while very interesting) are tangential to OP’s actual question. OP asked:

Why is it acceptable that publishers sell papers they didn’t pay for?

Note that this isn’t asking why it is acceptable for some publishers to make as much money as they do (I think there are some reasonable arguments to be made that that may very well be unacceptable). It’s asking why it’s acceptable for authors to not get paid by publishers for their work, which is a different question. Well, as an author who voluntarily publishes his work without asking for or expecting to be paid royalties by the publisher, I find this a bit offensive, as it’s effectively accusing me of being complicit in an activity insinuated to be shady or immoral, or alternatively suggesting that I’m some sort of victim of predatory practices. I’m neither of those things.
The most correct answer in my opinion is the one in David Richerby’s answer, which is to point out that this is a loaded question based on a false premise. I expanded on David’s idea a bit more. The bottom line is that it’s acceptable for authors to let others publish their work without asking to get paid, and it’s acceptable for publishers to publish works that authors allow them to. The larger debate about academic publishing is an important one and will go on, but this question is (in my very humble opinion) not framed in a way that makes it a helpful part of that debate.

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This is not a unique situation. Consider film festivals: you make a movie, submit it to the festival which then is free to earn money by selling tickets to the spectators. There's more: prestigious festivals sell tickets and have submission fees for the authors.
The intangible product being sold here is reputation. Other researchers will trust your paper more if they see it in a journal they know, compared to a paper you put on your homepage. And prospective employers will prefer someone with publications in a journal over someone who only submitted papers in arXiv.

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Your question is based on the false premise that it is only possible to sell something if you paid money for it yourself. A mining company can sell you coal without having to pay anyone for that coal. A farmer can sell you milk or eggs without paying anyone for them. A babysitter can charge you for looking after your child without paying anyone to acquire the ability to look after children.
I'm not claiming that any of these situations is an analogy for academic publishing but they do show that the idea that you can only sell something if you paid somebody for it first isn't at all true.

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It's generally called the tertiary sector of the economy or service sector. In developed nations it's increasingly becoming the largest part of the economy. In other words, there are many, many other examples of a company selling "something legally without paying for it in any way". For services the costs are generally associated with labor and other expenses such as rent, infrastructure, etc. rather than the wholesale price or raw material like in the situation you describe.
Publishers charge (either the authors or the readers) for the publishing service. They do not charge for content creation. Content is paid for by research grants, university salaries, etc. A possible analogy is a telephone provider. They send you a bill for the time you spend listening or reading content created by third parties without purchasing said content. Social media, Internet search engines, etc. are other examples of companies generating a profit out of content voluntarily submitted by third parties.
Personally I find it very convenient to have publishers do the publishing work for me so that I can concentrate on my research. I have to transfer my copyright? So what? I'm not in the business of publishing papers, it's only a mean to an end. I know it's field-dependent but in mine the anti-publishers argument is a fringe thing.

I certainly can't and won't try to justify all of the practices of publishers but it is useful to consider a couple of things.
First is that the "market" for any given math paper, say, is extremely small. If the publication is on paper, then the costs, if we consider everything are very high. Even if papers aren't reviewed, they often need to be edited by a professional as not every author is native in the language of the publication. There may be, even in this age, typesetting involved. Plus printing, shipping, etc. There isn't a business model there, so no one would agree to take on publishing of your paper if all costs had to be paid. If they did, the price would have to be extremely high, reducing the market further. As a result, publishers try to avoid a number of costs including payment to authors and reviewers.
In the olden days, authors published their own "tracts" by paying a printer to do the physical stuff and not using anything but (at most) informal reviewing. They would then sell the publications themselves, sometimes on street corners, or contract with other people who did. This was fine if you were in a university town, but not so fine if you wanted a publication created a few hundred miles away. But publishers need a business model, even if it is flawed.
But also, consider a world in which everyone was properly compensated. What would be the characteristics of that world? There are several options. One is that only the most popular writers could get published as that might increase sales to the journal. Competition might ensue, even extreme competition. There would be competition by journals to publish the most popular authors, but there would also be competition between authors to be the most popular authors. It would be hard for a new academic to break in to such a world, perhaps.
Another possible publishing option would be the advertising model. But who would want to advertise in a journal containing abstract, possibly obscure, mathematics. Actually we do have such journals in some fields. They come and go, but they seldom pay authors in any case. And they seldom last very long (a few years at most) making old material difficult to find.
But, the fundamental reason that publishers can use a flawed model in the first place is that, in academia, money isn't the coin of the realm. Recognition by peers is what makes you "rich" in academe. Publishers do provide that - even for new members of the profession. But without a business model they can't and won't.

Let me add a note about another kind of publishing. Popular music. Since it is popular it has a large market and generates a lot of revenue. The artists do get paid. But it is a sad fact of life that very few musical artists, even those with platinum albums, actually make enough from their published music to live on the proceeds. Most of them make a living by going on the road and giving concerts. It never ends. That is why you still see rockers in their 70's giving concerts. Lyle Lovett has gone on record that he has never gotten a statement from his music publisher on which the bottom line was positive. The costs eat up everything - but that includes payments to stockholders, of course, without whom there would be no publishing business at all.

Another publishing model with flaws is textbook publishing. Textbooks now cost around $100US or even more. Of this, the author normally gets around $5. But the costs are high and the market is small. In the case of books, I've always had a professional editor, even for my native language. Figures in the book may need to be remade by a professional for use, depending on the production process. Except for a few courses like Calculus 101 or Economics 101, the market is very small. Very few authors get rich writing textbooks - though many dream to do so.

Let me add that in my lifetime, but long ago, there was a viable not-for-profit publishing model in Mathematics. The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is a professional membership organization. It publishes a number of journals, including the Transactions of the AMS. It is intended for longer papers, not suitable for shorter papers. Anyone could submit a paper to the journal and it would get both editorial and review services, along with, if accepted, production services. This was before the internet and so paper publishing was the only option.
If a paper was accepted there were page charges charged to the paper. They were quite steep, actually. If the author was grant funded then the grant source, normally the government, paid the charges. If the author had no grant, then the charges were sent to the author's institution instead. If, for any reason, the institution refused to pay the charges, they were just absorbed by the AMS and not charged to the author. Thus, the membership as a whole, paid, or page charges were high enough to cover the cases in which they wouldn't be paid. This was a form of socialism, of course, and some people hate that now.
But, for some reason, that isn't the dominant publishing model anymore. I suspect, but don't have the data, that it was simply a case that the model didn't scale well as there was an increase in the number of mathematicians and hence papers.
Non-profit, low cost models do exist, but, as I've said here and in the comments, all of the forces need to be considered in the design of such a model. If you ignore any of them, the model simply won't work for long and its defects will overcome it. But even a failed model, such as the current one, which as failed because it hasn't kept up with electronic communication, has inertia behind it that also needs to be overcome if you want to replace it with a better model.

@NajibIdrissi, I don't think it should be any particular thing. But if there are costs, they need to be covered. Even if I only publish on my own web site, I need to pay for hosting and a domain. The one thing that I think publishers do provide is reviewing. That gives readers some confidence in a paper even before they start to absorb it. Another model of publishing would be that government covers all the cost from tax receipts, making everything free to read by anyone. That might have its own negatives, of course. Ideally, information should be free, but we don't know how to do that yet.

I feel like a lot of this answer is aimed at a period in time much before the present internet age.  It seems that one could deduce from your arguments the nonexistence of websites like the arXiv.  Since the arXiv does exist and does host papers essentially for free, your arguments seem fishy to me.  In fact you do not need even to pay the minimal price for your own website in order to publish your material on the internet.  Moreover, publishers don't pay for referees: editors do the work of finding and persuading referees, who provide that service free of charge.

@PeteL.Clark, please read it a bit more carefully. I was speaking of an alternate world in which all of the inputs were paid for, including reviewing. Note that the "review" if any, provided by arXiv isn't as comprehensive as that provided by print publishers. I don't think you can fairly argue that there are no costs. The question is about how to get them covered. The current model is clearly flawed. But editors, printers, etc. are paid. Someone pays for arXiv hosting, of course. If authors are also paid, that has consequences that must be considered, not ignored.

@PeteL.Clark, and of course I agree, much of current practice is obsolete in the internet age, but it hasn't yet disappeared, and won't until we can come up with some better model that covers the reduced costs that still linger in the system.

"I was speaking of an alternate world in which all of the inputs were paid for, including reviewing. Note that the "review" if any, provided by arXiv isn't as comprehensive as that provided by print publishers." I'm a bit confused about why you're speaking about the past and alternate realities but not about the actual present.  Also, as I said above, I don't know of any reasonable sense in which the publishers are providing the refereeing.  Refereeing is a process that academics do for each other, which is organized by (most often unpaid) editors....

....You are, aware, I trust, that there are reputable journals that are freely available online, and that the refereeing process for these journals is identical to that of the ones owned by the mainstream publishing companies?  If so: why do you keep saying that the publishers provide this service?

Just in case you are not aware: (i) editors, even of very prestigious journals, are not necessarily paid.  (ii) It is not clear why referees should be paid.  It is a service that professional academics (who are being paid for their research activities) provide to each other.

@PeteL.Clark, are you saying that these journals have no costs whatever associated with them? No one pays? No one is paid. No hosting charges are paid by anyone? No server maintenance is paid by anyone? No machines to be maintained, rented or bought? No cloud services required?  I don't think it is a realistic claim that there are no costs. There may be no costs to you but that is not the same thing.

@NajibIdrissi and others. Please don't confuse me with someone who supports the current system. I am not that person. All I am doing is pointing out that other alternatives, as positive as they may seem, also have negative consequences that must be considered. Is publishing only on arXiv, for example, a viable path for a young academic. I've heard no one make that claim. Obscene? Yes. Better spent? Yes. No argument. But put an entire system together. That is a harder task. The inertia in the current system is about all that carries it. But it does support scholarship - somehow.

@NajibIdrissi, in any system there are forces that must be balanced if it is to survive. The current system balances those forces imperfectly. But to design a system you must consider all the forces.

Of course I'm not saying that there are no costs whatsoever.  But there are alternatives currently in practice where the total costs are so small compared to the currently dominant system (Najib's comment explains that well) that emphasizing "there are always costs" seems weird and irrelevant to me.

@NajibIdrissi, please, sir, whom are you quoting ("it's too hard to do")? And as for my actual quote, please, take it as I said it, not as you would like it to be. I, sir, am not that person.

@PeteL.Clark Though there are certainly exceptions in other areas, besides preprint services that lack peer review, I can not name a single reputable journal in my field that does not charge either readers or authors for publication.

@BryanKrause That might be a field thing then. In math there are a few (I mainly know about Documenta Math.). But certainly these are still in the minority.

@Bryan: I believe you and also find that very unfortunate.  In my field (mathematics) there are such journals -- I could name about half a dozen off the top of my head.  They are very much still in the minority compared to all the other journals, which is a frustrating situation.  However, there are more than enough to function as a proof of concept, which is why it is especially frustrating to hear arguments about why such journals could not possibly exist.

@PeteL.Clark, no one here has argued that "such journals could not possibly exist." Please.

@PeteL.Clark I've really only ever heard of it in math. Publishing in math (and CS as well) is a whole lot different from other sciences, and I think those voices get overrepresented here a bit.

@najibIdrisse I get your point but now I wonder if it may be that Elsevier also publishes about a thousand times more papers than the arxiv (and handles probably more due to rejections).

@Dirk According to the report mentioned in Allure's comment, Elsevier received 1.6 million submissions in 2017, and published over 430 000 articles; according to this page the arxiv received 123 000 submissions in 2017 (but it also gives a higher number than the one mentioned by Najib for 2015).

It becomes more and more unacceptable to do this. Computer Science already freed itself to a large extent. Journals like the high impact jmlr and many others already proved that you don't need expensive publishers anymore for science. I published in both kinds of journals and the services are on the same level. Additionally, more and more funding sources prohibit publishing behind a paywall (one example).

It's acceptable because authors of scholarly papers accept it.
Consider a different kind of publishing: Is it acceptable that publishers print advertisements without paying the creators of the advertisement? Indeed, publishers demand that the creators of the advertisement pay THEM. How do they get away with this? Why don't advertisers refuse to supply magazines with ads unless they are paid for them?
The obvious reason is because the advertiser receives a benefit, or hopes to receive a benefit, from having the ad published. Namely, he hopes that it will generate sales that will more than cover the cost of publishing the ad.
So why don't authors of scholarly papers refuse to submit articles to journals unless they are paid for them? Because the authors of these papers believe that they receive a benefit from having their paper published. Namely, they get their discoveries and ideas "out there" and build a professional reputation.
To the author, the benefit of getting published is compensation itself. He doesn't need to also receive cash for him to consider it worth his while to submit his paper to a journal. There are plenty of authors who feel this way, so publishers have no incentive to offer cash. If publishers found that they had a hard time getting enough papers to fill their pages, one obvious option they'd consider would be paying for material. But as they apparently get plenty of articles without paying, they have no incentive to offer to pay.

The sentence is literally true. If authors accept the practice, then it is acceptable by definition.

I have never seen any other economic situation where someone sold something legally without paying for it in any way.

But they do. Maybe not adequately, but publishers pay for the papers that they sell by offering all their services to the researcher (editorial services, publishing services, marketing). It might be that a considerable part of the revenues of publishers is profit, but not everything. Even journals operated by scientific communities sometimes have to charge publication fees (example). In the case of open access publications, the publication fee has to cover all the costs, even those in the future.
The most important aspect for the premium that scientists pay in top journals is mentioned in the answer by Thomas which is the "prestige" owned by these high ranking journals. That would be very difficult to change. People are judged by the amount of high ranking publications they have. Funding agencies ask for these publications and, on the other side, are willing to pay the publication charges. Publishers charge the amount they think they can get away with. There does not seem to be a trivial way out of it (delivering the same results, but for a lesser amount of money).
Since boycotting top journals doesn't pay off for the individual, it's clear that a solution would probably require concerted actions of many.

Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

Is it expected to be changed in the future? Do scientists want to change it, or is this accepted by more or less the whole community?

At least one scientist (who stepped down from a full tenured professorship) wants to change it; he wrote a blog post "Why I stopped caring about peer review, and learned to love the work."
To excerpt this in part:

Today, thanks to the Internet, the sharing of ideas is a free and open process, and readers can form their own judgements about the value of ideas, whether flawed or polished. A good idea does not have to be stamped and labelled to be approved, and science is done in communities, without the central control of anonymous judges and juries. Preprint archives (originally distributed on paper by SLAC) have now become ArXive.org and ResearchGate provides indexed community based services, more efficiently than gross amalgamations of diverse fields by journals on a monthly schedule.
...
Science rarely waits for publications to appear anymore. The process is so painfully slow that when a publication appears, either everyone has already read it, or no one is going to. So much nonsense gets into print that it is scarcely a real accolade to be in print.
It takes months or years for a paper to reach print, and who can afford academic journals anyway? So, why would we not think: what if I just self-published my idea in a blog or a website? I could simply ask a smaller circle of people to comment honestly. And it would be searchable by anyone who might stumble across it with the help of modern search engines. Use the archives and the new social sharing sites. Technology can take prejudice out of the equation.

The blog is more focused on the brokenness of the peer review process, but his suggested solutions take advantage of the Internet age and thereby also address the broken finance arrangements of journal publications.


text:
Changing field from Computer Science to Philosophy
I am a Computer Science graduate and I have been realising that my true passion lies in Philosophy, as for the past 5 or 6 years (I am 26) I have been constantly asking questions about life, conciousness, the universe and the relationship between them. I am also in the process of writing a book which can be considered as Philosophical, although I am not yet quite sure whether it will be Philosophical Fiction or Non Fiction.
My question is, is it possible to continue as a graduate and start a Masters or Doctorate in Philosophy? Since I would like to become a professor so I can help others pursuing answers to such questions. As already mentioned, I would also like to start writing unfortunately, in our current era, it is very difficult to be taken seriously if you do not have academic background on that field.
From what I am reading, this might not be possible since Philosophy is an ancient field and hence there is the usual sequence of degree, masters and PhD. For instance, some new fields, such as neuroscience do not have any directly related degrees and hence you can transition to them from other fields.
If this is not possible, will I be taken seriously if I transform my book into a paper (assuming it is actually a good book) and be allowed to start a PhD without any previous academic philosophical background? My current targets are either Oxford University or UCL.
Looking forward for your response.

I am a little concerned that you might not have enough familiarity with the academic field of philosophy to even know what you're getting into.  By way of analogy, not everyone who is passionate about literature would make an ideal or even appropriate English graduate student: the modern discipline of English is about a lot more (and, at times, a bit less) than loving to read and discuss literature.  Thinking that your possibly fictional work could be transformed into a work of academic philosophy does not allay my concerns.

What is your background in philosophy itself?  Have you for instance read Plato, Hume, Kant, Husserl?  Have you written any academic papers in the area?  If not: you should certainly take at least a few undergraduate courses to even see what you're getting into.  I don't think you'll be at all competitive for a graduate program in philosophy without any undergraduate level coursework in the area.

why don't you make the question a bit more generic so it applies to more people, like switching from CS to humanities?

As a CS/Bio person, this is a pretty big jump from any science to humanities. I'd think machine learning and NLP would be a far more practical use of your skills, and much less jostling.

Have you tried talking to any philosophy professors?

For the love of God do not do it. Any decent CS person is going to tackle these things, because any decent human being is going to tackle these things. It doesn't mean that you want or should make a life study out of it professionally (if only because that is a pipe dream, making money out of a philosophy degree). Just continue eating mushrooms, and pour your thoughts into the parts of CS that intersect with philosophy, such as ML, as previously mentioned.

As someone wrestling with the same question, I am interested: Did you make the jump, and if yes, are you happy with it?

Since you're interested in life and consciousness, you might want to explore cognitive science (including artificial life), which draws from philosophy, artificial intelligence, neurology, and other fields. Your computer science background could help you enter a program like this, and once in, you could take philosophy courses to strengthen your background in that area. Perhaps you could do an MSc in cognitive science, and then you might have the background to enter a PhD program in philosophy.

This is a good suggestion.  Based upon what the OP writes, it seems to me that there is a non-negligible chance that his research interests lie in the realm of cognitive science rather than philosophy anyway.

@PeteL.Clark Cognitive science deeply interests me and I also researched on it while I was doing my dissertation, since it was related to cognitive science. However, it is still science, and like all science, it is based on the observed reality. The only reason why I prefer philosophy is because it is the only field which questions everything, including philosophy itself. I already thought about something similar to your train of thought (linking my academic background with something philosophical)

There are a number of concerns here, so I'll deal with them each in turn. I originally went to college for Philosophy, but dropped it in favor of computers and psychology! So you might say I'm heading the opposite direction of what you are thinking, so I hope I can provide you some things to consider.
The first concern is how familiar you are with the specific work of modern, living, publishing philosophers? While it is technically true that philosophy questions everything, that doesn't mean that everything is an open question today - countless lines of inquiry have been beaten to death over the last 2000+ years. This does not mean it's not still a line of study - in fact, one of two lines of specialty offered at Oxford is indeed Ancient Philosophy (Aristotle, Plato, etc). It seemed a lot more like history and classic literature to me, which I was not expecting and had already ruled out as interests myself - but if you love it, then great! But that's not at all what I thought I was signing up for, and thus the importance of fact-checking reality before making a decision.
The second concern is about writing something to get into a Masters/PhD. Actually, you aren't far off the mark here, but be aware that what most departments are interested in for admission isn't a book or a thesis - it's a writing sample! I've often heard that these are expected to range from 10-20 pages at most, but every department is different so you'll need to check.
The third concern is attempting to go directly into philosophy without significant undergraduate study, but you are targeting top-in-the-world programs. Check out Philosophy Graduate Admissions at Oxford statements:

BPhil in Philosophy
The BPhil is an intellectually demanding course, presupposing an
  undergraduate and/or graduate background in philosophy (or
  equivalent). It is not suitable as a conversion course for students
  changing to philosophy from another subject and it cannot be studied
  part-time or externally...
MSt in Ancient Philosophy
The MSt course in Ancient Philosophy aims to attract students of the
  highest calibre - with a background in philosophy or
  classics...Knowledge of ancient Greek language is not a prerequisite
  for admission to the course. However, students admitted will be
  expected to achieve Intermediate Level ancient Greek...
MSt in Philosophy of Physics
This course aims to attract students with a strong background in
  physics at undergraduate level or higher...

So if you don't want to question specifically ancient Greek or Physics, and if you aren't willing to start back again at undergraduate courses in philosophy, you are looking at the wrong department - they just don't seem interested.
How about UCL Philosophy (under Entry tab):

Entry requirements
  A minimum of an upper second-class Bachelor's
  degree in Philosophy from a UK university or an overseas qualification
  of an equivalent standard. Applicants with a strong degree in a
  non-philosophical subject are welcome.

Aha! So that last sentence isn't a no, at least!
I believe you'll find this general trend is true - if you check with the specific departments, you'll get a much better feel for who will even consider admitting you under normal circumstances. However, that leads into...
The fourth concern is being aware of the relative competitiveness you're looking into. As noted in various blogs and directly from some departments websites (Oxford lists some info on theirs linked previously), Philosophy is one of many fields where interested people outnumber positions available. 10:1 to 100:1 ratios of applicants to available positions are often reported - though be aware that this includes international students. If you are looking at UK institutions and you are already a UK citizen, or otherwise looking into places in your own home country, the odds are vastly better than quoted - but there are still usually many more applicants than positions available.
As such, especially if you want more in-demand departments, you'll be at a comparative disadvantage if your interests in philosophy aren't linked to your previous degree, or if you don't have a degree in philosophy or at least lots of coursework. Some programs will exclude you entirely, and many more will not accept you into a PhD directly and will require a Master first at least (with many PhD programs not really having much coursework, so if you don't have that at an undergraduate level they aren't prepared to provide that as part of the program).
This is not to say that you can't seek a career in philosophy if that's what you decide to do - but writing an interesting book or paper of a general philosophical nature won't get you right into a PhD anywhere of note. You might very well be able to get into a Masters program if you can show the program what they are looking for, but you'll need to locate a program that seems like a good fit and tailor your application to them specifically. So I'm by no means telling you it isn't possible! But I am saying it will take a lot of hard work to find the right fit, and make sure it's right for you to start with.
I hope this can be food for thought, and regardless of what you find out - good luck! As a parting piece of wisdom, I would advise this - keep your mind and eyes open. There's lots of fields and lots of really intersections of interests and passions - you never know what you'll find on the way to your dreams!

I was in a similar position of your a few years ago when I switched from CS to something completely different.
Initially I though I liked anthropology and archaeology, so I started reading some books and above all scientific articles. I soon realized that the archaeology I was portraying in my head was very different to what was actually happening in the field and especially away from the field. I then read more books and talked to people and narrowed it down to biology and then further narrowed it down to a discipline in which CS skills are highly requested, so I was able to place myself as the geek with a passion for the subject and offer skills very few other could offer. Keep in mind that your passion might or might not be better pursued in your free time than making it a job or a PhD. Talk to people in the field from students to professors and see what their work entitles.
You will most likely have to take a few undergraduate classes to get a more formal education in the new field.

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text:
Mention MOOCs in email to potential PHD supervisor?
I graduated from a top Russian university (computer science) with moderately high grades in 2013 and after 3 years of industry experience decided to pursue a PHD abroad (ideally, in Germany). I know exactly what topic I want to investigate, found a professor who had recently done research in this field and am now composing an email to him.
I got some useful pieces of advice here at SE:
How to write a Cover Letter for applying to a PhD programme
Optimal structure of cover letter for PhD application submitted directly to PI
How much detail to include in first email to potential PhD supervisor?
How brief I should be when contacting a professor for a PhD position for the first time?
But one question remains.
In fall 2014 I discovered Coursera and since then completed nearly 30 MOOCs, most of them being relevant to the topic I want to do research in. These courses, despite being undergraduate level, did expand my knowledge a lot and, honestly, gave me a taste of what a world-class higher education looks like. I consider completing these MOOCs a valuable achievement of mine, but do professors think so? I'm afraid that if I briefly mention "some courses on the Internet", it would seem unprofessional (there's a ton of crap on the web that calls itself "online courses"). But if I go into too much detail ("completed MOOC X from Princeton, MOOC Y from Stanford, ..."), it would be too long for the initial email. As I already know, the most important thing when making contact via email is to be brief.
Would you include such information in the first email at all? My concern is that both my undergradute research and my job are not directly (but, somehow) connected to the research topic I'm interested in (the topic is quite new, not much research exists there yet). MOOCs are exactly what gave me a broader perspective and inspired me to continue my education.
What is the proper way to write about it?

It is possible to be both brief and comprehensive.
Be brief in the main e-mail: completed X MOOCs from established institutes.
Refer to an appendix for a complete list.  In that case, if the potential supervisor cares at all, s/he can glance through the list to see if s/he is at all impressed.

I think that most of the courses on Coursera are excellent and would definitely mention them in email. As suggested write the number that you have finished, maybe also the total or average length and list the topics covered (specially if they are related to you future work). This should be enough to prove that you are eager to learn.

authors: Александр Громов

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text:
Translating academic CV - translate names of papers/thesis?
I have found links on academia-SE pertaining to translation of documents here and here, but those were not for a CV. Please tell me if my question is a duplicate.
I have just moved to France from an English-speaking country for a PhD. My French is not amazing currently; this is a work in progress and I'm going half-time on my research to take an intensive language course in May. However, in June I hope to attend a school which will be taught in French, and for this reason I need to translate my CV into French to apply.
Question:
When translating my CV from one language to another, should I:

translate the names of past works e.g. the name of my masters and bachelors dissertations? Or leave them in English, as they were submitted to my past university?
translate the names of publications (and leave the name of the journal as-is)?
leave the names of the university and the qualification as-is per link 1, or put in parentheses the French name equivalent of my prior qualification?

And mostly: Are the rules different between translating a CV and translating a publication/bibliography?

Possible duplicate of Translating/Transliterating foreign bibliography references

Perhaps not an exact duplicate but the answers are definitely relevant

@Luigi OK, the crux of my question besides what I've stated is whether the rules would be any different between a CV and a publication, but it makes sense that they'd be the same

Things can be different in the humanities, but English is the language of science and, in a STEM field, you can reasonably expect whoever will read your CV to be able to understand the titles of your works (if they are in English).
However, if, as a courtesy to the reader, you wish to translate the titles anyway, don't eliminate the original titles, but put the two versions side-by-side.
Your last point is more critical:

leave the names of the university and the qualification as-is per link 1, or put in parentheses the French name equivalent of my prior qualification?

The name of the university should be absolutely left as-is, unless
the university itself does not provide an official French
translation, which I doubt (on the other side, universities from non-English speaking countries sometimes issue statements about official English translations of their names or department names).
It's not always easy to find equivalences among qualifications in different countries, and it's almost impossible for grades. Thus, if you want to provide a translation, leave the original qualifications and grades too, so that the application committee can employ their equivalence rules, if they have any.

+1 for "don't eliminate the original titles". Imagine what a reader would think if he wants to search for your papers but only has a translated title (assuming you have not attached them to your application). You would just be making his job a little harder.

I personally would use the original names/titles, and provide translations when appropriate. That is, write the titles of publications as published, with between brackets a translation, to help out the reader which does not speak the original language. If the original language is English it might not matter that much in practice, but if it is in a smaller language such as Dutch, it at least gives the reader an idea what the content of the paper is. Keeping the original name makes it much easier to track the publication down, which is ultimately the goal of a publication list.
Qualifications I would translate only if it is not some internationally recognised degree (e.g. MSc or BSc), and would indicate roughly equivalent qualifications from France, if necessary.
I wouldn't translate journal names or other proper names, such as the name of the university.

I think this will be field dependent. If the common language of publication in your field is in English, I would say you are not obliged to translated, but it might look better. If English is not the main publication language, I would definitely advise to translate.
Personaly, I did and I would translate.
The goals of a CV is to show off what you can do. If the person reading it can't tell if you have or not the abilities they seek, you miss the goal. Thereby, if they don't read English, you need to give them something they can read.


text:
How common is a must-pass-final requirement?
For a course with a final exam, is it more common to: (a) require that the final exam be passed to pass the course, or (b) allow for a student to fail the final exam and still pass the course?
How could we estimate the relative proportion of the two policies? If someone argued that case (a) was "rare" in higher education, how could we respond?
Edit: Consider restricting to mathematics classes at American universities, with a comprehensive final exam, if that's clarifying.

Are you referring to courses where "passing of the course" counts towards the student's graduation of its own, or also to courses where "passing the course" is merely the prerequisite for being allowed to take the actual exam?

@O.R.Mapper: Typically, in the US system (which seems to be where the OP is coming from), the course is what counts toward graduation.  The final exam is one requirement within the course.  The grade for the course is computed, according to some system determined by the instructor, based on the student's performance on the assigned work in the course, including the final exam.  The grading system could include the requirement "if the final exam score is below X, the student gets a failing grade for the course, regardless of their scores on other assignments".

Nate has it. The final exam occurs before the course grade is given. Assume this question is in the context of American higher education, if that's clarifying.

Single data point: I adopted this (by which I mean option "a") into my syllabi, in part because I had seen the condition used by a very good lecturer (at a very good public university).  On the downside, I have actually had to fail a student who was otherwise a solid B+/A- student as a result of this clause.  But usually it only applies to those who were already in danger of failing the course.

I am not a fan of choice (a), if you are grading undergraduates and also offer to drop a lowest exam grade for your students, which is common.  Then the students who had a bad day on the final exam (for whatever reasons) -- but passed / did well on the previous three exams -- are effectively penalized unfairly, while the students who got off to a slow start -- maybe failing the first exam (for whatever reasons) -- and then caught up at the end and passed the final exam are rewarded for doing so.  So, if you drop the lowest grade, I feel you must also be willing to drop the final exam grade.

I see you are limiting it to American Universities. I just want to throw out there that 100% finals are extremely common outside of the U.S., sometimes even the standard practice.

Canada here, STEM, and all my undergraduate courses (at least as of ~15 years ago) had 70-100% finals.  This seems very common here.

If someone argued that case (a) was "rare" in higher education, respond by:

asking for the data they used to come to that conclusion
determine if sample size is large enough to make any reliable conclusions
determine what 'rare' means
measure if the number of pass/fail final exams is greater than or less than the rare threshold

If they don't have data, then respond by saying that their personal experiences probably do not represent a national average.

I'm a little confused by the question.  Are you asking the question in your first paragraph, or how to respond to a claim about that?
Anyway, most undergrad math classes in the US with a final exam I know about have the exam as one component of the course grade, as in Nate's comment.  The grading policies should be written clearly in syllabi and occasionally there are clauses like the final exam grade is a lower bound on the course grade, but I have not often seen the other way around.
If you want to respond with data, you would need some sort of survey, but you also need to clarify meanings as there need not be an inherent meaning of "passing a final exam."  The instructor may set a cut-off and call exams over certain scores passing (though this is sort of artificial if the instructor "curves"), but I never assign passing or failing grades specifically for the final exam, so for me "passing the final exam" means doing well enough on the final exam to make one's cumulative average high enough for me to assign a passing grade.

authors: สันติ กระแจะจันทร์


text:
Regarding abstract submission at international conference
I presented the paper at an international conference that took place in my country. The conference publishes a newsletter, and my abstract is published in that newsletter, but the conference gathering was very small, and not many people from the international scientific community would ever read it. However, I am not sure if I can present my findings again at an international conference outside my country. The title and content of the abstracts submitted to these two conferences are totally different, but they discuss the same findings. Please let me know if I can contact the organizers and share my concern. Also, it was mentioned on the conference webpage that the abstract submitted should be unpublished. Does it mean that these findings shouldn't be published in international peer-reviewed journals, or is it about the conference abstract booklet?

There are two concerns. First is whether another venue will "publish" your work if it has already be "published" in some form. It is unlikely that an abstract will be an issue here, but a full paper might be. That is a decision of each conference organization and you can contact them for guidance.
The other issue is self-plagiarism. If you have published something and want to then publish a more complete or different version, cite the original, just as you would the work of another author. This way the readers of your work don't get the impression that this is the first appearance and they also have access to the complete context of the ideas, including what you might have cited or referenced in the first version but not the second.
But in any case, publishing an abstract doesn't prevent you from later publishing the complete work or even a similar but derived work. Just maintain the thread of context through the various versions.

Thank you very much

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text:
2 minute poster talk at international conference in usa
Could anyone please tell me what a 2-minute video of presenting a poster is?I am presenting a poster at an international conference in the USA. Should I set up a Zoom call, share my poster screen, and present my findings in a concise manner? Can I start like this? Have you imagined? Or do you know? Then my methodology and the gist of my results. Please suggest.

The answer is, as usual, ask the conference organisers, not strangers on the internet who have no idea about the conference.

I had this same question from a local PhD student who was equally confused. They asked: "Why should I send a video of something I'm going to do on video live?", and "What do they want me to do, I cannot understand?" etc., and "Doing this once is stressful enough, without doing it twice for the same conference!"
The actual answer, which probably applies in your case, is that conference organisers have discovered that live online presentations which are as short as two minutes can be incredibly unreliable due to technical issues with the internet and with the equipment at either end, user difficulties not-withstanding! To ensure the conference goes smoothly it is sensible to have "backup" videos on file that were sent in advance by the presenter and used in the event of a malfunction on the day.
They are asking you to make such a backup video of the presentation you plan to make live using zoom. The back-up video would not be made using zoom. You can make it using facilities locally at your institution or on your own computer. I suggested to our student that they used the OBS Studio as it is a freeware, open source video application and quite simple to use, but your campus may have a licenced professional solution available to make teaching videos. You may want to check.
Of course you can ask the conference organisers what they mean, but in the case I cite, the conference organisers were equally confused by the multiple confused questions from our student and did not give coherent replies!


text:
Poster presentation at an International conference
I am preparing a poster for presenting in an international conference. Could anyone please suggest whether I can use merged confocal image or should I put single channel images and then merged, like we put while publishing papers.i am using 300dpi tiff images. Is this format ok?

It's your poster. Follow the instructions given my the conference. These differ between conferences. For the image, it really depends what your final goal is, it is to show different things in each color channel or you just want to show the final image. Thin about what the goal of the poster is.

The poster presentations that I visited in the past all had tripods with physical posters of a given maximum size, with the presenter hovering near-by. It was left to the presenters what to do with their space. This would include how to generate images.
If this is an electronic poster presentation, then you should have been given instructions, but again, I would expect that what you do with the space is up to you.


text:
How to reply to email from Professor
I have applied for a postdoc position in the US. I got a reply from PI asking for a Zoom call. How should i reply? I will be thankful for your response.

You asked for the position, so, presumably, you want it. Thus, you should reply with something like:

Thank you for your reply, I'd be delighted to meet with you. Can you
suggest some days and times?

If you are not in the same time zone as the university, then you might want to add your time zone.

Actually, I think asking for suggestions is annoyingly passive in this situation. Instead, offer them.

@Arno Actually, I think suggesting some times seems like you are not taking into account the potential busy schedule of the PI. It would be much better if you say something as,  "I am available for a Zoom call at your convenience. If you would be so kind as to suggest some times, I will be able to confirm quickly." If this is a position you are really interested in, you should receive a few options that work  for you, possibly by making changes to you existing schedule.

@Arno I disagree. I think asking for times is respectful and says that you are willing to adjust your schedule to match theirs.

You can do both: suggest a specific time and respectfully make clear you can accommodate their schedule. This moves the conversation along (and therefore makes more efficient use of the professor's time).

thank you all.. this was my first application for postdoc.. lets see.. what happens.. if i get selected, can i get recommendation letter from my current employer. it has been a year that i am working here in this lab.. my team lead is also phd. she can give me good reccomendation letters. but my supervisor has fluctuating emotions.. She gets provoked easily if her favourite student instigates her. also she has got multiple retractions.. and has tortured me a lot..I completed my phd work in Sept 2021 , submitted thesis in 2022, and viva in 2024.so it has been a long time since i left that place

PI are human beings, even professor that try to hide this fact are human beings (ok, with remote call you may have AI-doubts, but still the main feature of AI-impersonators is to mimic human-beings).
Are you interested in the position? then, yes, propose some time windows, good luck!


text:
J-1 Postdoc visa, sponsor change
I have two postdoctoral job offers (both under the J-1 category, different sponsors). My questions are:

If I apply for J-1 with the DS-160 issued by one of the sponsors, if my visa is eventually granted, can I eventually refuse this job offer and work for my other sponsor, even if I applied with the first sponsor? Or should I restart the process again with the DS-160 issued by the second sponsor? If so, what is the cancel procedure, etc? Both jobs are of the same nature, I obviously don't mean changing to a job/sponsor which is not covered by the J-1 program.

In an extreme case, can I work for the two employers? (J-1 sponsored by one of them only, obviously) I am asking this question from the visa perspective, not considering possible work hours incompatibilities, etc.

Concerning your first question, if you really have both offers on the table and can freely decide between them, what on Earth do you expect to gain by accepting one of them and then reneging on this at a later date? (What you potentially stand to lose by doing this should be clear.) Concerning your second question, see: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/165637/is-it-possible-to-run-two-postdocs-simultaneously-if-one-of-them-is-independent You really should be asking whether this is a good or even feasible idea in the first place, not about the technicalia of obtaining a J-1 visa.

In any case, a J-1 visa is tied to a particular program. A J-1 visa to work at the University of X does not allow you to work at the University of Y, or really (with very limited exceptions) to do any other work in the U.S. except for the specific position at the University of X.

@AdamPřenosil that looks like an answer to me! Why not post it?

@user2705196 It only answers one half of the question, and to write a proper answer I should first look up an official source supporting this. I am merely making an observation based on my personal experience with J-1, hence a comment instead of an answer.

@AdamPřenosil (This is not MY comment, but I removed it from the answer of Hans to their own question when editing it, as it is not part of the answer. If you answer to this comment, please direct @Hans) "Btw, Adam, I had also seen on other forums that J-1 is tied to a particular program. However, I interpret the opposite from the answer [that I got from the US embassy], what do you think?"

@Hans The DS-2019 is a piece of paper which literally states what your position in the U.S. is going to be, e.g. Assistant Professor at the University of X. If it says that you are going to be AP at U of X, you cannot work as Lecturer at U of Y and vice versa. For all I know, you could hypothetically have two DS-2019 forms. But that's not the main issue here. The main issue is that you would need to get both institutions on board with this, which realistically isn't going to happen.

The reason that I feel confident saying that it isn't going to happen is that if there was any chance at all of this happening, it would be based on transparent communication with the two institutions in advance, not on you finding some clever loophole in the J-1 visa program.

Actually the US embassy got back to me with info I hadn't found anywhere on the internet. Here it is:

Thank you for your email.
You may apply for a J-1 visa on the basis of the first exchange program you wish to undertake. However, you should be prepared to discuss both programs with the interviewing consular officer and, if available, you should bring the Form DS-2019 for the second exchange program with you to your visa interview.
The validity period of a visa relates to the time in which the visa holder may travel to a United States Port of Entry to apply for admission; it does not determine the length of stay. Admission to the United States, including the authorized length of stay, is a matter for the immigration officials at the U.S. Port of Entry.
If you are issued with a J-1 visa, you should be prepared to furnish to the immigration official at the Port of Entry the DS-2019 forms and SEVIS fee receipts for both programs so that they may take them into account when considering the authorized period of admission.


text:
Transfer to another PhD program in another state, but current PI is not willing and is suggesting a masters (do not want to do)
Long story short:

Applied for PhD program in 2019
Great 2 years
Covid happened, post-doc I work under left
Had to work under other post doc- didn't get along, work fell behind
Tried to switch to another dept PI didn't let me after hearing my issues with the post doc, blamed me for not communicating properly
Tried to go behind his back and find another professor to switch to in another dept and well he found out wasn't happy.
Now is offering me a masters to get out- don't want to do that I came here for a PhD
Trying to find other professor to work under but since my current PI is the dept head no one wants to touch me. Asked vice dean for help- doesn't want to help much either.
Thinking about transferring to another PhD program in another school altogether but worried current PI will not agree to this.
Do I need his blessings to switch? Will it be difficult to do it without his acceptance? I am also just not interested in the project anymore as well and wanted to go into sleep/pscy studies.
And no I do not want to do the masters program here.

In the US, nobody can make you stay. Your current institute may well give you the Masters now, particularly if you have passed qualifiers.

Why would a prof have the authority to block another program from accepting you as a student? (if he would write you a nice letter or help you in any way in the process is a different story)

There is no such thing as "transferring" from one PhD program to another.  What you can do is apply to another PhD program and start over again there, though of course what you have learned in your current program will help you make faster progress.

"Now is offering me a masters to get out- don't want to do that I came here for a PhD" - A masters degree is a normal "out" in the US for someone who has completed most of the PhD degree but has not finished a dissertation. As AlexanderWoo mentions, there isn't really a "transfer" process for PhD students outside very special cases; it's not like transferring as an undergrad. You can start a new PhD somewhere else, but why not leave your current one with a masters if that's offered? Otherwise you leave with nothing but an experience.

Presumably this is in the US. No one can block you from switching to a different university other than by writing a poor letter of recommendation. Going outside the system to sabotage a student applicant to another university is serious misconduct that few would engage in.
The only issue is whether you can write a good enough application for admission to another program. You probably need letters of recommendation from someone to do that and that may be an issue. But, as you already know, the judgement on admissions is broad based and if you have some research behind you it might be ok.
And the first postdoc might be a source of a LoR.
But getting out (quickly) with a masters as you apply elsewhere might not be a bad thing. It might even make a transfer more possible. If it takes more time to achieve then you might not want to bother, but you could do that and apply elsewhere in parallel.
And, in applying elsewhere, don't focus on (or even mention) the problems you've had. Focus on your skills and likelihood of success in a new program.

Thank you for you reply.

The thing is they want me to officially sign off on transferring to a master program within their dept and I don't want to do that as it will decrease my chances of transferring  (i think). Plus, there seems to be issues with the research because apparently i cant reproduce them??? but someone last year was able to? I just don't wont to get caught in an issue in the future where my data looked fishy. Thats also the reason I also want to leave.

I don't see how it could reduce your chances of transferring. Transferring isn't an admin process, but a new application to a different university.


text:
How to display your own name in publications list when you are a middle-author on a publication with a large number of authors?
My Name is among tens of authors of a paper on global health.
For the purpose of my CV update, I need to show my name without showing the names of all authors of the paper.
My preferred style is JAMA, which shows the names of the first 3 authors followed by 'et al'.
Would the following format be appropriate, at least for my CV, when My Name is published in the middle of a long authors' list ?
First Author, Co-Author, My Name, et al
If so, will this (customized) format ever cause any confusion for any group of audience?

I typically see people list all the authors and bold their own to make it easy to find in the list. I don't see a reason for hiding the other authors since page length for a CV shouldn't be a problem.

Thank you all for your comments.                  FYI, I have been lucky to have a last name which starts with A.  For now, in my updated CV, I have used this (customized) style:                                           First Author, Co-Authors, My Name, et al.

Just out of curiosity; Why do you need to show your name in the CV? If a paper is listed under publications, it should be clear that et al includes you.

The bolding trick suggested by others is fine up to a point, but eventually it will get to be silly.
I'm coming from a nuclear and particle physics background and have papers with hundreds of coauthors. So I didn't take care that my name showed up. I just built my publication list using bibtex in the standard format for my discipline and assumed that readers who wanted to check that I was on those papers know how to use InSpire (the go-to publication database for these disciplines).
That means that my name appears on my publication list only a few times, but it is also there in big letters at the top of the page.

This is a good point. If it is in your list of publications, well, you are an author, and the actual positions beyond second are usually not so relevant.

unless you are faculty ... then last is relevant as well. In some fields it signals the PI.

If I understand correctly you suggest adding your name as third regardless of where it occurs (later than third). I would not recommend such a solution since it may be thought of as inflating your own importance (assuming author order reflects that). Even if such a solution would be acceptable within a specific community, one has to consider how it can be construed by others. In my CV I have set my name in bold face and I list all author names in a reference. This way my "contribution" becomes reasonably clear even at a glance.

maybe im misunderstanding, but what happens with the papers that have over 100 author names, maybe in physics for example.  Would you list all of them?

Yes, consortia papers and papers with very large numbers of authors may be a specific problem. There are no patented solutions but one is perhaps, and only as a suggestion, to use a format like: "Smith and 41 others (My Name, author number 35)" or something along those lines. Where one draws the line is arbitrary and probably depends on the number of such papers in ones publication list.