I am sure that everyone here has several dozen papers which they would like to have as electronic copies. If we all posted questions asking for them, MO would be flooded and nobody would bother visiting it.

Perhaps there is a niche for a "paper exchange" website (though, for legal reasons, perhaps not), but IMHO MO should not be it.

and Matthew Emerton more recently:

Having spent many hours in my youth copying papers from journals, I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who don't seem to want to walk to the library to look up a paper. (If they were to explicitly explain in the question that they had looked in the library, and that their library didn't have said journal/book/etc., I would be more sympathetic.)

If they were to explicitly explain in the question that they had looked in the library, and that their library didn't have said journal/book/etc., I would be more sympathetic.

That's totally reasonable, and completely in line with my position.

I saw a discussion on another forum about this quote. I'll have to ask the person whose argument I'm paraphrasing.

Here's the relevant post from the nForum:

clicky

Please ignore the bickering on the rest of the page (bickering that I did not cause!).

I don't know the original french quote, but I have always seen it translated as "we write them", which has a much more radical connotation then the one you are suggesting.

Best wishes,

Matthew

I think it was something like: "We do not read books; we wrote them", which is to say that those at the IHES did not need copies of the books about Algebraic Geometry, since they were the foremost experts in the field and either they or one of their colleagues who wrote the book (and would have also been at IHES) could answer their questions with original manuscripts or just intuitive knowledge.

I'm just asking why you would say that this question is off-topic. Certainly the paper is of interest to research mathematicians, and having a scan of it somewhere is of value to the mathematical community.

Seriously, though, I have never dared bother a colleague for a scan of something they have in their library but I lack in mine.

Just because you don't doesn't mean there's anything wrong with doing it, no?

Seriously, though, I have never dared bother a colleague for a scan of something they have in their library but I lack in mine.

I was going to write something about slippery slopes and opening the floodgates to off-topic posts on MO, but I am late for a meeting so you will be spared my rambling thoughts on the issue.

Also, that joke went over my head =(.

REAL PROFESSORS never use ILL, since they'd rather just spend the five seconds re-deriving the result.

REAL PROFESSORS never use ILL, when they so much as cough the library will put in a rush order for another (or new) copy of the book.

Visit realprofessorfacts.com for more REAL PROFESSOR facts. :)

But seriously, what's the point of re-opening this question when Thanos already did what you want someone to do?

Further, MO has provided a place for graduate students who have not yet built up a network of colleagues at different universities to get the information they need. I get the feeling that most of the professors here are rarely forced to go through ILL (even the acryonym is sickening =p!) when in need of a paper, since they can e-mail a colleague and ask for a scan. Am I presuming too much?

I hate seeing so much effort expended to prevent people from violating Springer's (or whoever's) copyright. These publishing firms are large enough to defend themselves.

I wonder, is it too harsh to actually flag it as spam?

I think you should flag a post as spam/offensive if you agree with the statement, "This post is sufficiently harmful/misguided that it should be deleted and penalized." A spam flag comes with a downvote from the community user, and if a post accumulates 6 flags, it's deleted and the owner is penalized 100 reputation.

I am sure that everyone here has several dozen papers which they would like to have as electronic copies. If we all posted questions asking for them, MO would be flooded and nobody would bother visiting it.

Perhaps there is a niche for a "paper exchange" website (though, for legal reasons, perhaps not), but IMHO MO should not be it.

I downvoted and would vote to close if I had 168 more rep.

(I guess I am also having a bit of a curmudgeonly streak of "these whippersnappers, back in my day I had to digitize the papers I want with my own two hands!".)