Veli-Matti Karhulahti
LightNews LightNews
mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti
@mkarhulahti.bsky.social
330 followers 140 following 620 posts

science, gaming, art (senior researcher at university of jyväskylä)

Videos
Psychology 27%
Sociology 20%
Posts Replies Media Videos

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 19h
But who has the time for validity considerations when the deadlines are next month
cameronpat.bsky.social Cameron Patrick @cameronpat.bsky.social · 1d
this is one of my favourite observations about sample size calculations. (afaik first articulated by Miettinen in 1985)

Reposted by Maarten van Smeden, Veli‐Matti Karhulahti

cameronpat.bsky.social
Cameron Patrick @cameronpat.bsky.social · 1d
this is one of my favourite observations about sample size calculations. (afaik first articulated by Miettinen in 1985)
"On the first, and pivotal, level the decision is a binary one—the choice between zero and nonzero as the size. Validity considerations alone are often sufficient to imply that zero is the optimal size" - O. S. Miettinen "Theoretical Epidemiology" (1985)

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 2d
Reminds how back in the days Riot publicly insisted that only 2% of their users express verbal toxicity-- turned out that to be classified "toxic" one had to be flagged by peers literally *hundreds* of times within a couple of days
When a player is reported hundreds of times over dozens of matches, the reported player is brought to the Tribunal

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 2d
generally, based on many calculations i've seen over the years, a huge difference between publishers seems to come from ad & promotion costs-- which are surely important when competing in the prestige/visibility game under attention economy

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 2d
Yes but in this case preprint=article, running the journal round is optional (alas, most of us will keep doing it for a good while indeed -- then again, in-kind costs at PCI are difficult to compare to publishers who don't report donated time)

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 2d
At PCI the cost is 816€

peercommunityin.org/2025/01/08/2...
2024 PCI’s finances and article costs - Peer Community In
PCI Recommenders manage the evaluation of articles in the same way as associate editors do at journals.
peercommunityin.org

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 4d
Got fed up with that a few years ago and life has been so much better since-- today, there are so many good diamond options that the only thing potentially keeping one in the broken system is severe evaluation pressure

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 9d
Sometimes it feels science isn't that hard after all, all one needs to do is think hard for 5 seconds

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 12d
I'm aware of pilots/plans where applicants have an option to submit their plan as stage 1 draft, this makes sense imo (raise awareness etc) but nuance is so important in such changes

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 12d
This is such a key hermeneutic for older texts, there's always stuff going on behind the scenes, the thing that's being built on
jaakkostenros.bsky.social Jaakko Stenros @jaakkostenros.bsky.social · 13d
Often they are also shadow boxing with the previous paradigm, that can remain unnamed, since "everyone knows it", even if from today's point of view it is completely forgotten. Context matters.

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 12d
Do you know if there's an English version available or coming out?

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 12d
meanwhile, hoping the funders' own publication portals and diamond venues solve the ACP issue (as some already do to some degree)

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 12d
I don't know anyone who has worked deeply with RRs (authors/editors/reviewers) who'd support something like this for so many reasons-- a friendly reminder that RRs are a tool for certain scenarios, definitely underused, and like any other tool, to be used wisely
gershbrain.bsky.social Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 14d
If funders wanted to make a huge positive impact on scientific practice, they would mandate that all publications appear first as registered reports, that APCs are only paid for RRs, and that grant applications only require preliminary data for RR sample size determination / power analysis.

Reposted by Veli‐Matti Karhulahti

jaakkostenros.bsky.social
Jaakko Stenros @jaakkostenros.bsky.social · 13d
Often they are also shadow boxing with the previous paradigm, that can remain unnamed, since "everyone knows it", even if from today's point of view it is completely forgotten. Context matters.

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 13d
We likewise found a steep increase in failed controls (0.1>2.3>12.8>22.7) the more severely ppl replied to a single-item tech problems question-- this could be intentional bad responding too but nonetheless critical to be aware of
(0.1%>2.3%>12.8%>22.7%) failed first control, corresponding to having problems "never", "sometimes", "often", "almost always"

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 14d
Many EU/US ppl say they must keep submitting to these publishers bc it'd be unfair for co-author students not to-- fair enough sometimes, but if one is a student in a major uni and/or working for a known lab, they've already got a top 1% global advantage without prestige publishing, they'll be ok
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 15d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Veli‐Matti Karhulahti

gershbrain.bsky.social
Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · 14d
If funders wanted to make a huge positive impact on scientific practice, they would mandate that all publications appear first as registered reports, that APCs are only paid for RRs, and that grant applications only require preliminary data for RR sample size determination / power analysis.

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 14d
i understand it's difficult to run large data collections like this (especially in HBSC) but that's exactly what's wrong today: brute force large datasets with whatever measures & then think later if any of the investment was worth anything
doi.org

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 14d
funnily enough, the paper says the scale (IGDS) is one of the "better functioning measurements" and cites our paper-- in our paper we actually found only 1 of 9 symptoms measured in a content valid way 🫠 (also curious how translation across 12 languages took place)
IGDS has been considered one of the better-functioning measurements, with satisfactory reliability and validity when compared to other measures (Anthony, Mills, & Nower, 2023; Karhulahti, Martoncik, & Adamkovic, 2023 7 symptoms partial, 1 symptom missing, 1 symptom fully content valid

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 14d
it can be interesting to add multiple items even when they don't signal problems (especially if we take networks seriously) but the 2013 symptom list, sketched in dsm-5 appendix, is way outdated and never worked tbh

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 14d
New WHO-collaborated (HBSC) study, n=44k, finds that boys who never play games have the same amount of gaming disorder symptoms vs those who play daily-- it's 2025, what are we doing? measurement?
Average number of symptoms is 3 in boys both (almost) every day and (almost) never groups. In girls the (almost) never group has 1 symptom on average.

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 15d
a) avoid Finnish food
b) many nice museums, Villa Gyllenberg & Didrichsen worth a visit for the island space alone
c) best coffee: Päiväkahvibaari 1 (vallila)
d) library Oodi
e) saunas, Sompasauna 24/7 is classic (recently moved tho, not sure how good the new location is)

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Colin F. Camerer, Ben C. Sheldon , and 35 more

hansonmark.bsky.social
Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 15d
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 18d
Can they argue the ad is for single-player as long as multiplayer not mentioned? (assuming some purchases will be offered in single mode too tho)

Reposted by Tatsuya Amano, Veli‐Matti Karhulahti

jpolonen.bsky.social
Janne Pölönen @jpolonen.bsky.social · 23d
📢 Register for the 5th Helsinki Initiative webinar (8 December) on Multilingualism in Scholarly Communication with presentations by @tatsuya-amano.bsky.social, @karenstroobants.bsky.social and Andre Brasil!

More information and registration: www.helsinki-initiative.org/en/events/5t...

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 24d
One of my all-time fav rants on this topic-- especially love this figure demonstrating how expert clinicians fail to agree on major depression diagnosis most of the time (57%) based on DSM5 field trials
In more than 50% cases experts don't agree on correct diagnosis

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 25d
currently editors (handling tons of papers) must heavily trust reviewers as they cannot be experts in everything-- a move toward more distributed editorial labor (in exchange for less reviewing) expects more human scrutiny from topic-fit editors who'd then also manage less papers on average

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 25d
The reason why this is interesting & maybe even promising is: it isn't simply "less human scrutiny" but but a shift from reviewer trust to editor trust--
hansonmark.bsky.social Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 25d
In a future publishing system, qed + editor could certainly replace "reviewers+editor" somewhat. Editors could still call in expert reviewers when they feel it's needed.

But replacing "2 reviewers + 1 editor" with "1 reviewer + qed + 1 editor" would probably give similar results.

10/n

Reposted by Veli‐Matti Karhulahti

hansonmark.bsky.social
Mark A. Hanson @hansonmark.bsky.social · 25d
In a future publishing system, qed + editor could certainly replace "reviewers+editor" somewhat. Editors could still call in expert reviewers when they feel it's needed.

But replacing "2 reviewers + 1 editor" with "1 reviewer + qed + 1 editor" would probably give similar results.

10/n

mkarhulahti.bsky.social
Veli-Matti Karhulahti @mkarhulahti.bsky.social · 25d
attention to alternatives is good as it contributes to gradual, slow changes that over years (decades) can lead to system level changes too-- but it's those institutions that offer alternatives which need to become more sustainable, visible, and "prestige" for progress to keep happening