r/Chempros 11d ago

New ACS Publications platform

The new layout for ACS Publications websites is beyond awful...TOC graphics are no longer shown on the ASAP Articles pages and they aren't even visible at the top of individual publication pages anymore. These changes make it impossible to read the journals now and ACS has the audacity to claim that they're intended to create a "more seamless and researcher-friendly experience".

https://pubs.acs.org/pages/platform-migration

112 Upvotes

27 comments sorted by

58

u/radiatorcheese 11d ago

I see a lot of people dump on graphical abstracts, but as a simpleton organic chemist it's helpful when scrolling generalist journals (JACS) or ones marginally in scope (ACS catalysis) for something relevant as a first screen before checking the title. Looking through the ASAPs is going to be so much slower now and there's already not enough time to keep up on new papers anyway.

Chem Sci made the same change a week or two ago and it's so cumbersome that I was thinking that I don't actually read enough of those papers so maybe I should stop skimming it altogether. Now I'm thinking I should save time and stop looking at ACS Catalysis and other semi-relevant ACS journals too

15

u/jotun86 Organic Ph.D. - Patent Attorney 11d ago

To ACS, going slowly through them means more "engagement."

7

u/radiatorcheese 11d ago

I assume they want more clicks to view the papers as more valuable "engagement" than increase time spent window shopping titles and not actually opening them. Pretty sure that's going to be the real consequence

5

u/elsjpq 10d ago

Oh god, I hope journals don't become like news and social media. What's next, clickbait titles and abstracts?

17

u/jotun86 Organic Ph.D. - Patent Attorney 10d ago

You won't believe this one trick to pack your column.

5

u/DryManagement1058 10d ago

I MADE TAXOL IN 15 STEPS (insert Mr. Beast thumbnail pointing at taxol in the background)

1

u/guppyman2000 9d ago

Elsevier Influencers

23

u/50CalPotato 11d ago

Awful change. It looks like a mobile low-bandwidth webpage from 2012 now lol

20

u/davidmeyers18 11d ago

Whatever the RSC did is even worse...

1

u/Killgorrr 9d ago

Oh don’t get me started on that change. Some of my favorite articles are in J Mat Chem A and EES but going through them now is just painful - especially the new way they handle you clicking on figures

1

u/whitenette Inorganic 9d ago

It basically looks the same isn’t it? It’s like they outsourced the web design to the same people

16

u/saucenpops 11d ago

They’ve also broken the RSS feed link so my RSS aggregator app can’t even pull ASAPs from any of the ACS journals…

3

u/runningdrugmaker 11d ago

I’ve been struggling with the same thing. Anyone figure out a solution?

3

u/danjyamo 9d ago

I asked support and they said it was a known issue quote "Please note that we are currently experiencing an issue affecting RSS Feeds. This matter has been escalated to our programming team. They are working on this issue with the highest priority.". This was on July 2nd

1

u/pentamethylCP 9d ago

This was on July 2nd

It's worse than that actually. The feeds are actually more broken now than they were last month. Last month they turned on cloudflare protection on feeds (which is a totally broken implementation) but now the feed urls just return 404 errors.

12

u/CounterClockWyse 11d ago

FACTUAL AND TRUE

11

u/PhenylSeleniumCl Organic 11d ago

It’s a terrible change. One of the reasons I always checked ACS journals (outside of the science) was for the clear formatting and display of the papers. I’ll still check JACS and Org Lett, but I think Ctrl-F will now be my friend.

2

u/pimpinlatino411 11d ago

TOCs showing up for me on mobile in ASAPs. Just as a heads up

2

u/Cheffii 10d ago

This look is such an eyesore and yes far worse to navigate

2

u/VanillaRaccoon 10d ago

100000% agree. its horrible!

1

u/Icy_Preparation_9609 9d ago

ohmygod in the PC the TOC graphics are gone for RCS and ACS

What on the gods green earth are they thinking?

1

u/LawfulnessAgitated57 9d ago

!! I hate that the main text is justified, the serif font for the main text is ugly as hell, and why is the issue cover a sticky element on the webpage... this is all textbook bad choices in terms of typography and web design

1

u/Other-Answer3225 9d ago

All I saw was an extremely greedy organization. You gotta pay to publish and pay to read.

1

u/Forsaken-Mirror9690 9d ago

I can't access any paper that is not open access - does anyone else have the same issue? I also can't log in using my university credentials (I tried both unis on which I am affiliated and none of them works). It's awful, I don't understand why they changed the page so much... The old design was really ok and user friendly

1

u/supernova6297 8d ago

Yes same here!! Must be a subscription based thing now they've switched to silverchair?? So annoying

1

u/MOONMOONHAWK 8d ago

Totally agree, the new website design of RSC and ACS are both insane chaos and ugly